Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Expected Interest Rate Path: Alignment of Expectations vs. Creative Opacity

We examine the effects of the release by a central bank of its expected future interest rate in a simple two-period model with heterogeneous information between the central bank and the private sector. The model is designed to rule out common-knowledge and time-inconsistency effects. Transparency—when the central bank publishes its interest rate path—fully aligns central bank and private-sector expectations about the future inflation rate. The private sector fully trusts the central bank to eliminate future inflation and sets the long-term interest rate accordingly, leaving only the unavoidable central bank forecast error as a source of inflation volatility. Under opacity—when the central bank does not publish its interest rate forecast—current-period inflation differs from its target not just because of the unavoidable central bank expectation error but also because central bank and privatesector expectations about future inflation and interest rates are no longer aligned. Opacity may be creative and raise welfare if the private sector’s interpretation of the current interest rate leads it to form a view of expected inflation and to set the long-term rate in a way that systematically offsets the effect of the central bank forecast error on inflation volatility. Conditions that favor the case for transparency are a high degree of precision of central bank information relative to private-sector information, a high precision of early information, and a high elasticity of current to expected inflation.
Beschwerdemanagement : unzufriedene Kunden als profitable Zielgruppe

Kundenzufriedenheit ist fur die meisten Unternehmen ein erstrangiges Ziel. Doch unzufriedene Kunden werden nur selten als profitable Zielgruppe wahrgenommen. Nur wenige Unternehmen ermutigen Kunden, sich mit einer Beschwerde zu melden. Damit lassen sie grose okonomische Potenziale ungenutzt. Denn Beschwerdemanagement ist der zentrale Ansatz, um Kundenbindung zu sichern und Kundenverluste zu minimieren. Daruber hinaus bietet es erhebliche Moglichkeiten fur Verbesserungen von Qualitat und Effizienz. Hier setzt dieses Standardwerk in der vollig uberarbeiteten Neuauflage an: Es zeigt, wie Unternehmen durch ein aktives Beschwerdemanagement ihre Kunden zufriedenstellen und zugleich die eigenen wirtschaftlichen Ziele erreichen konnen. Highlights: - Umfangreiche Darstellung aller Aufgaben des Beschwerdemanagements - Praxisnahe - wissenschaftlich fundiert - Zusatzliche Inhalte in der Neuauflage: Verantwortung der Unternehmensleitung, strategische Planung im Beschwerdemanagement, die Beschwerdemanagement Balanced Scorcard, Weblogs im Beschwerdemanagement
Lizard diversity in response to human-induced disturbance in Andean Ecuador

The cloud-forests of the Western Ecuadorean Andes are highly diverse and under threat from anthropogenic habitat disturbance. Reptiles are sensitive to habitat change and are therefore useful indicators of ecosystem state. Overall diversity has been shown to be highest in old-growth (primary) forest, although older secondary forests can recover to near pre-disturbance levels. We systematically surveyed leaf-litter lizard diversity along a gradient of disturbance in a montane cloud-forest fragment whilst controlling for the potentially confounding effect of elevation. We deployed 21 pitfall trap-lines equally between primary forest, secondary forest of mid-age (18–30 years), and agroforestry, between three altitudinal bands for ten days each over a period of three years. We investigated diversity patterns using Chao 1 and 2 indices (estimated richness), effective species number (ESN), relative abundance of individual species, relative abundance of pooled species, and observed species richness. We also conducted an opportunistic inventory of reptile species. We recorded 7 species of leaf-litter lizards and 15 other species of squamate, the majority of which are rare, recently described and/or of restricted distribution. Elevation was strongly negatively correlated with diversity. Richness and most indices of diversity were higher in primary forest but abundance was similar in primary forest and agroforestry. ESN followed a negative linear response to disturbance but for all other measures agroforestry supported diversity that was either higher than or equal to secondary forest. We conclude that, particularly at high elevations, mid-aged secondary forest is depauperate of leaf-litter lizards but agroforestry potentially supports relatively large populations of generalist species. Lizard diversity in response to human-induced disturbance in Andean Ecuador.
Climate change inspector with intentionally biased bootstrapping (CCIIBB ver. 1.0) – methodology development

Abstract. The outputs from general circulation models (GCMs) provide useful information about the rate and magnitude of future climate change. The temperature variable is more reliable than other variables in GCM outputs. However, hydrological variables (e.g., precipitation) from GCM outputs for future climate change possess an uncertainty that is too high for practical use. Therefore, a method called intentionally biased bootstrapping (IBB), which simulates the increase of the temperature variable by a certain level as ascertained from observed global warming data, is proposed. In addition, precipitation data were resampled by employing a block-wise sampling technique associated with the temperature simulation. In summary, a warming temperature scenario is simulated, along with the corresponding precipitation values whose time indices are the same as those of the simulated warming temperature scenario. The proposed method was validated with annual precipitation data by truncating the recent years of the record. The proposed model was also employed to assess the future changes in seasonal precipitation in South Korea within a global warming scenario as well as in weekly timescales. The results illustrate that the proposed method is a good alternative for assessing the variation of hydrological variables such as precipitation under the warming condition.
Contribution à la communication gestuelle dans les environnements virtuels collaboratifs

Le geste est l'un des moyens de la communication humaine. Il peut etre associe a d'autres canaux de communication, comme la parole, voire etre utilise comme expression privilegiee, par exemple, dans la langue de signes. Les gestes, de manipulation ou de communication, peuvent aussi apporter une tres grande valeur ajoutee dans le travail collaboratif autour d'applications a distance. La video est la technologie la plus repandue pour supporter cette communication, mais au prix d'une charge reseau importante et d'une interface complexe, difficilement integrable dans l'espace commun. Alternativement, les environnements virtuels synthetiques permettent cette integration de facon coherente de l'objet de partage ainsi que des collaborateurs physiquement eloignes. Dans ces environnements, la communication gestuelle peut etre etablie a distance et a bas debit par animation des humanoides virtuels. Notre contribution repose sur l'integration de la communication gestuelle dans le travail collaboratif a distance. Nous proposons un environnement de partage d'applications 2D dans un monde virtuel habite dans lequel cette communication est realisee par des avatars, soit par simulation des interactions d'un participant sur l'application partagee, soit par une bibliotheque de gestes communicatifs predefinis, dissocies des interactions sur l'application partagee. Nous avons aussi developpe un systeme d'acquisition 3D des gestes en temps reel par vision monoscopique et sans marqueurs. Ce systeme a ete integre a l'environnement de partage, en permettant la restitution a distance des gestes pendant l'acquisition. Un prototype de l'environnement virtuel collaboratif et du systeme d'acquisition des gestes a ete realise au moyen d'ordinateurs personnels de type grand public
Development and Optimization of Site Targeted Topical Delivery Of Norfloxacin

Topical drug administration is a localized drug delivery system anywhere in the body through ophthalmic, rectal, vaginal and skin as topical route. Skin is one of the most readily accessible organ of human body and is one of the main route for topical drug delivery system [1]. Potential advantages of topical drug delivery is delivering the drug directly at the site of action and delivering the drug for extended period of time. Topical delivery system increases the contact time and mean resident time of drug at the applied site leading to an increase in local drug concentration [2]. Widely used topical formulation includes ointment, cream and lotion which had numerous disadvantages. They are usually very sticky causing uneasiness to the patient when applied topically. They also have less spreading coefficient and need to apply with rubbing. They also face problem with stability of the formulation. Due to all these factors, use of transparent gels has been increased. Hydrophobic drugs are not able to be delivered through gels. To overcome this problem, emulsion based approach was used [3]. When the emulsions and gels are used in combined form, the dosage forms are referred as emulgel. Presence of gelling agent in water phase converts emulsion into emulgel [4]. Emulgel have several advantages as being thixotropic, easily spreadable, water soluble, transparent, greaseless, non-staining, having pleasing appearance etc [5].
Diurnal behaviour of Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca wintering at the El-Kala wetlands (Northeast Algeria)

The wetlands of Northeast Algeria host a wintering population of the Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca whose winter number fluctuates between 1,500 and 3,500 individuals, with a maximum of 3,642 birds recorded during January 2008. The spatial-temporal distribution study revealed that the Mekhada Marsh and Lac Tonga remain the preferential sites for this species. Results of the study of the diurnal time budget achieved in the four main wetlands (Mekhada Marsh, Lac des Oiseaux, Lac Oubeira and Lac Tonga), indicate that sleeping was the main activity (41.94% of time spent), followed by feeding (30.79%), whereas swimming, preening and flying were less frequent and occupy a secondary position. In addition, monitoring of the daily activities at Lac Tonga showed that feeding was always important at the beginning of the day rather than the end of the afternoon (50 % in the morning vs. 30 % in the afternoon). In the mid-day, time allocated to sleeping becomes frequently apparent for the majority of individuals. This result confirms the role of the lake as a feeding area and a roost.
Initiation of in vitro cultures of chosen endangered European species of orchids

The effect of the kind of explants and the composition of media on the initial stages of micropropagation of five orchid species (Cypripedium calceolus, Dactylorhiza maculata, Epipactis helleborine, Goodyera repens, and Gymnadenia conopsea) was investigated. The sections of green capsules, and young ovaries were found to be suitable for this purpose. Depending on the species explants produced protocorm-like bodies, protocorms with occasional rootand shoot-primordia, or callus – on the MS medium with additions of 0.3 mg l NAA, 1.0 mg l BA, and 1% AC.
Effect of Disodium Fumarate on In vitro Rumen Fermentation of Different Substrates and Rumen Bacterial Communities as Revealed by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis Analysis of 16S Ribosomal DNA

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of disodium fumarate on the in vitro rumen fermentation profiles of different substrates and microbial communities. In experiment 1, nine diets (high-forage diet (forage:concentrate, e.g. F:C = 7:3, DM basis), medium-forage diet (F:C = 5:5, DM basis), low-forage diet(F:C = 1:9, DM basis), cracked corn, cracked wheat, soluble starch, tall elata (Festuca elata), perennial ryegrass and rice straw) were fermented in vitro by rumen microorganisms from local goats. The results showed that during 24 h incubations, for all substrates, disodium fumarate increased (p<0.05) the gas production, and tended to increase (p<0.10) the acetate, propionate and total VFA concentration and decrease the ratio of acetate to propionate, whereas no treatment effect was observed for the lactate concentration. The apparent DM loss for tall elata, perennial ryegrass and rice straw increased (p<0.05) with the addition of disodium fumarate. With the exception of tall elata, perennial ryegrass and rice straw, disodium fumarate addition increased the final pH (p<0.05) for all substrates. In experiment 2, three substrates (a high-forage diet, a medium-forage diet and a high concentrate diet) were fermented by mixed rumen microbes in vitro. A polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) technique was applied to compare microbial DNA fingerprints between substrates at the end of 24 h incubation. The results showed that when Festuca elata was used as substrate, the control and disodium fumarate treatments had similar DGGE profiles, with their similarities higher than 96%. As the ratio of concentrate increased, however, the similarities in DGGE profiles decreased between the control and disodium fumarate treatment. Overall, these results suggest that disodium fumarate is effective in increasing the pH and gas production for the diets differing in forage: concentrate ratio, grain cereals and soluble starch, and in increasing dry matter loss for the forages (tall elata, perennial ryegrass and rice straw) in vitro, whereas its effect on changes of ruminal microbial community may largely depend on the general nature of the substrate.
Real-time implementation of JPEG encoder/decoder

With the immense size of images, compression has become a common way of minimizing the amount of storage necessary for images. This is also beneficial for transmission purposes. The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) standard is frequently used for still images. This standard is very flexible and many of the same algorithms can be used for video applications. Video applications require large amounts of data to be processed every second. Therefore, the following describes the hardware design of a chip allowing for high-speed compression. The design uses the JPEG algorithms and is targeted towards ASIC design. Further plans include use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The hardware design is based on grayscale images and only works with the raw image data.
A Study on Health Monitoring of Structural Damages for Two Stories Model by Using Vibration Test

Many structures in Japan were built after the war at a revival term or rapid economic growth. These structures have been reached a life in recent years and it is economically not affordable to conduct repair and reconstruct these structures only with a possibility of being damaged. This paper presents an approach to detect the structural damages for two degrees of freedom (2DOF) model. In this study, we conducted Microtremor measurement, free vibration test and vibration test. The 2DOF model was demonstrated the feasibility of using the proposed approach to damage detection of structural member.
Coastal plankton responses to turbulent mixing in experimental ecosystems

Turbulent mixing is increasingly implicated as a key factor regulating ecological dynamics in coastal planktonic systems. Although photosynthesis is directly fueled by light energy, it has been hypothesized that the 'auxiliary' energy provided by mixing can subsidize or control ecosystem function. Unrealistic mixing has also been cited as one explanation for difficulties in reproducing natural plankton dynamics in enclosed experimental ecosystems (mesocosms). To explore the importance of mixing in shallow planktonic ecosystems, we traced changes over a 4 wk period in population, community, and ecosystem level properties in replicate 1 m3 experimental ecosystems subjected to different mixing regimes. Mixing energy was delivered by slolvly rotating impellers on a cycle of 4 h on and 2 h off to match the sernidiurnal pattern of tidal mixing that characterizes many temperate estuaries. Three mixing levels were generated by altering impeller rotation rates. The intermediate level was scaled to match typical mixing intensities of waters in Chesapeake Bay, the low mixing level approximated calm oceanic surface waters, and the high mixing level approximated the environment withln a tidal front. High and low mixing levels encompassed a 6x range in turbulence intensity, a 9x range in the surface-bottom mixing time and eddy diffusivitv coefficients, and a 230x range in turbulent energy dissipation rates. Mixing had a significant negative effect on copepod and gelatinous zooplankton abundance and also altered the timing of peak copepod densit~es. Chlorophyll a dynamlcs and phytoplankton group composition, as assessed with accessory pigment concentrations, also exhibited modest differences among mixing treatments. Mixing had negligible effects on nutnent concentrations and on community and whole-system productivity and respiration. lmportant caveats in Interpreting the results of this experiment are that system size excluded observation of the effects of large-scale mixing processes, trophic complexity was limited (e.g. no fish), and in thls whole-ecosystem context it was difficult to distinguish direct from indirect effects of mixing. Nevertheless, our results imply that ecosystem-level processes in planktonic systenls may often be less sensitive to differences in small-scale turbulence than population and community dynamics, and also that mixing effects may be strongly dependent on the specific structure of particular ecosystems.
Deep low-frequency radio observations of the NOAO Boötes field - I. Data reduction and catalog construction

In this paper we present deep, high resolution 150 MHz radio interferometric observations to complement the exten- sively studied NOAO Bootes field. We provide a description of the observations, data reduction and source catalog construction. From our single pointing GMRT observation of � 12 hours we obtain a high resolution (26 '' × 22 '' ) image of � 11.3 square degrees, fully covering the Bootes field region and beyond, with a central noise level below 0.7 mJy beam −1 which rises to 1.5-2 mJy beam −1 at the field edge. The catalog of � 600 extracted sources is esti- mated to be > 95 percent complete at the 20 mJy level, while the estimated contamination is 400 sources down to the lowest 150 MHz flux levels, of which 16 have ultra-steep spectra with spectral indices below -1.3. The detection fraction of the radio sources in K-band is found to drop with radio spectral index, which is in agreement with the known correlation between spectral index and redshift.
Story stem responses of children with internalizing and externalizing problems

This paper aims to compare narratives of children with internalizing and externalizing problems and children without clinical problems. In this narratives, the adult representations as a source of emotional and instrumental support as well as the children ability to deal with adversity and emotional symptoms in the conflicts are explored. It participated in this study 10 children with internalizing problems, 10 with externalizing problems and 10 from a non-clinical control group. Narratives were coded with the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP; Hodges, et al., 2003). Results show that, in comparison with the control group, children with externalizing problems present more danger and avoidance, reflecting more emotional dysregulation. They also present more negative
Microstrip Magnetic Dipole Yagi Antenna with Enhanced Impedance Bandwidth and Reduced Size for Wideband Wireless Applications

A microstrip magnetic dipole Yagi antenna with the feasibility of obtaining a wider bandwidth and relatively smaller size is proposed and demonstrated. The proposed antenna, consisting of a reflector, a driver with backed soldered SMA connector, a coupling microstrip line with three rectangular slots and three modified directors, is designed and fabricated. Good agreement between simulated and measured results is observed. Simulated and measured results reveal that the proposed antenna can provide an impedance bandwidth of 19.2% (4.95–6 GHz). Meanwhile, within the impedance bandwidth, the radiation pattern of the proposed antenna has front-to-back (F/B) ratios ranging from 10.1 dB to 26.1 dB, cross-polarization levels in the endfire direction from 47.1 dB to 73.0 dB, peak gains from 6.4 dBi to 10.4 dBi with an average peak gain of 9.6 dBi and endfire gains from 2.2 dBi to 4.3 dBi with an average endfire gain of 3.1 dBi. Additionally, the measured bandwidth of 19.2% (4.95–6 GHz) not only meets the need for certain Wi-Fi (5.2/5.8 GHz) or WiMAX (5.5 GHz) band communication application, but also provides the potential to implement multiservice transmission.
Fast Fourier transforms for the evaluation of convolution products: CPU versus GPU implementation

In a large variety of research areas, convolution products that relate a physical quantity in some observation points with their sources are encountered. When the sources and the observation points coincide, the numerical evaluation of the physical quantity typically leads to order N2 numerical problems. Here, fast Fourier transforms are widely used to reduce the computations to order Nlog N complexity. When adopting Fourier transforms (FFT) for finite physical problems, zero padding is required. Hence, in 2D and 3D problems, an optimization of the evaluation of the convolution product includes a non‐execution of Fourier transforms on arrays containing only zeros in the forward 2D or 3D FFT scheme and their corresponding arrays in the inverse 2D or 3D FFT scheme. This paper describes the implementation of such an approach on graphical processing units (GPUs) and compares the time gains on GPU and on CPU. It is found that on CPU, the speedup corresponds with the theoretical limit, while in the GPU implementation, the memory bandwidth limits the speedup ratio. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Budget reform and legislative control in Sweden

ABSTRACT The literature on fiscal institutions argues that there is a pro-spending bias in legislative budgeting, which can be mitigated by institutional arrangements. In the mid-1990s Sweden carried out reforms to the budget process that fundamentally restructured parliamentary decision-making, including the voting process and the role of different committees. This paper assesses the impact of these reforms on legislative budgeting. It concludes that the new process helps to safeguard fiscal discipline, but also cautions against a simplistic interpretation of the fiscal institutionalist literature that treats institutional arrangements as exogenous. The constraints of the revised legislative process are essentially self-imposed, which in the final analysis makes it difficult to argue that the Swedish Parliament has lost budgetary control. Moreover, separate reforms of external audit and improvements in the provision of performance information provide an opportunity to strengthen accountability for results.