Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistical Matching and the Likelihood Principle: Uncertainty and Logical Constraints

Statistical Matching is the art of combining information from different sources. In particular it tackles the problem of variables not jointly observed. This situation leads to handle the problem of drawing conclusions when just partial knowledge of the phenomenon is available. Thus, uncertainty on conclusions arises naturally, unless strong and non-testable hypotheses have been assumed. Hence the main goal of statistical matching can be reinterpreted as the study of the key aspects of uncertainty in this context, and what conclusions can be taken. In this paper we give a formalization of the concept of uncertainty in statistical matching when the variables are categorical, and formalize the key elements to be investigated. An estimator of the elements characterising uncertainty is suggested. This analysis leads to state some inferences also in this context. Furthermore, the introduction and the effect on uncertainty of logical constraints is studied. All the analyses have been performed according to the likelihood principle. An application on real data of the proposed tools and a comparison with other approaches already deﬁned has been carried out.
ON THE ADJOINT OF TENSORS AND SOME ASSOCIATED MUSINGS

Abstract. The notion of adjoint plays a fundamental role in many applications and across different fields. This note studies the notion of adjoint when a multi-dimensional array is regarded as the representation of a linear transformation between tensor spaces. A variety of associated concepts such as symmetry, orthogonality, best approximation of outer product factorization, and rank reduction formula are discussed.
Training characteristics of US Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers

ne day, while at the track with one of my athletes who was training to qualify for the 2004 USA Olympic Marathon Trials, I began to wonder how other runners who had already qualified train. Was their programme similar to what I was having my athlete do? How many kilometres per week were they running? How much of their training volume was run at specific intensities? Did they do strength training? Unfortunately, there is little research on the long-term training of distance runners, leaving much unknown about training for endurance performance. Most of the information on the training of runners is found in books and magazines. So with the Trials right around the corner, I decided to take a scientific approach in order to find answers to the above questions.
A Deep Learning Approach To Bank Direct Marketing

With the dramatically increasing amount of data available owing to fast growing ﬁnancial activities, data about customers has been fast accumulating and becoming one of the most valuable asset for ﬁnancial holding companies (FHC). These ﬁnancial activities have created a huge amount of customer behavioral data, which is regarded as important information for direct marketing. We utilized powerful deep learning algorithms combined with oversampling and feature extraction techniques, applied to behavioral ﬁnancial data, for direct marketing. This paper describes an implementation of prediction models combined with practical business and analytic goals. Real-world data used in model training and testing were collected from a Portuguese bank marketing campaign. Our model achieved a lift index of 91.76%, which is comparable to the random forest (92.03%) and better than na¨ıve Bayes (80.89%) and logistic regression (89.72%). We ﬁnd that increasing the amount of training data available improves performance of the deep learning algorithm. Therefore, we believe that our model will potentially outperform the random forest with suﬃciently large samples. With this close integration of business analytics and deep learning, our model can be thought of as a prototype for direct marketing and can be ﬁnally implemented in FHC systems to deal with large amounts of data.
Land Resources, Industrialization and the Feedback between Industry and Agriculture

By using a simple model of structural change and of interactions between the primary and the secondary sector, this paper gives a simple explanation to the ambiguity that natural resources in the agricultural sector play in industrialization. In a closed economy, a low resource endowment will hinder industrialization if the country’s population is close to a state of starvation. In a price-taking, open economy, a low resource endowment will accelerate industrialization, but this earlier take-off should not have welfare consequences. Additionnally, by postulating a simple feedback between industry and agriculture through an increased variety of agricultural inputs, we show that Engel’s law creates a situation of multiple equilibria which might account for the poverty trap of countries facing a low agricultural productivity.
Banach frames and atomic decompositions in the space of bounded operators on Hilbert spaces

The concept of frames is used extensively for the representation of signal or functions. Recently, this concept is applied more and more for the representation of operators, both in theory as well as in the application for the numerical solutions of operator equations. In this paper we first give a survey about the matrix representation of operators using frames. Then we prove that the tensor product of frames forms a Banach frame and an atomic decomposition for the space of bounded operators of Hilbert spaces.
Towards Affective Walkability for Healthy Ageing in the Future of the Cities

Social inclusion of elderly pedestrians in urban contexts by enhancing healthy mobility means increase the level of walkability, where the perception of safe walking and road crossing is a crucial factor. The measurement of stress during walking and dynamic collision avoidance through the acquisition and the analysis of physiological signals during experimental activity requires the design of proper experimental settings and protocols, in order to assess innovative approaches towards an affective walkability, and open novel investigation ﬁelds involving aﬀective computing, pedestrian dynamics and artiﬁcial intelligence. The main aim of the paper is to illustrate some preliminary studies conducted within an experimental activity to test the validity of the approach.
An Integrated Method to Solve the Healthcare Facility Layout Problem with Area Constraint

In this paper, the healthcare facility layout problem (HFLP) with an area constraint is considered, to get a proper departments arrangement in a healthcare facility such that the operating cost and system efficiency are guaranteed. We propose an integrated method to consider both quantitative and qualitative criteria to get a synthesize rank of the feasible alternatives. On qualitative aspects, each layout alternative has attributes to be evaluated, the evaluation values given by experts are in the form of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. We assume that the weights of attributes and experts are not known or partially known in advance, and each expert has different weights on different attributes. An illustrative example is shown to demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology.
Psychological well-being in students of Mexican universities

Tel. +52 7221589161 Psychological well-being must be included as one of the priorities of university institutions. It has been established that identifying the level of psychological well-being in university students is a descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study. The results showed the six dimensions of psychological well-being, and on three levels: low, medium and high. At the low level in the positive relations dimension, the following schools were found: Technological University of the South of the State of Mexico, Academic Unit Tejupilco, and the National Pedagogical University. Likewise, at the level under the Autonomy dimension, the Domain dimension and in the positive relations dimension, the Academic Unit Tejupilco staff were found.In the medium level of the Personal Growth dimension, the Academic Unit Tejupilco was found and at the high level in the autonomy dimension: the Technological University of the South of the State of Mexico, in the personal growth dimension the University of Higher Studies was found.It was concluded that in the Universities of the South of the State of Mexico, despite having activities focused on the prevention of health problems for students such as: sports, cultural activities and workshops aimed at the development of skills, they are not aimed at psychological well-being. The context in which the university is located must be taken into account to determine its level of psychological well-being, since it influences the behavior of the university.
Wage Differentials between Temporary and Permanent Workers in Developing Asian Countries∗

This paper is the first research work that systematically examines the temporarypermanent wage gap in selected Asian countries, based on their national Labor Force Survey data. Our estimates indicate the presence of a temporary employment’s wage penalty in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam, and contrarily, a wage premium in Cambodia. Moreover, Quantile Regression Estimates show that wage differentials could greatly vary across the wage distribution. The wage gap is wider at the bottom of the wage distribution suggesting a sticky floor effect in Vietnam and Pakistan whereas the glass ceiling effect in Indonesia prevents temporary workers from approaching high wages.
A contribution to the theory of economic development and the demographic transition: fertility reversal under the HIV epidemic

Abstract According to the conventional theory of the demographic transition, mortality decline has represented the major trigger of fertility decline and sustained economic development. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had a devastating impact on mortality, dramatically reversing the long-term positive trend in life expectancies in high HIV-prevalence countries. Moreover, SSA is experiencing a delayed and slower fertility transition compared to other world regions and there is growing empirical evidence highlighting the potential for a paralysis, or even a reversal, of the fertility transition in countries with severe HIV epidemics. This work builds on a unified growth theory-like general equilibrium model combined with HIV spread, where mortality endogenously feeds back into fertility and education decisions. The model supports the evidence of an HIV-triggered fertility reversal in SSA via the fall in education and human capital investments due to increased adult mortality, which eventually breaks the switch from quantity to quality of children. Fertility reversal is predicted to be more likely to occur in countries experiencing severe HIV epidemics, and its effects may persist even under successful scenarios of HIV control. These results suggest that the alarming possibility of a paralysis in the fertility transition, which so far has aroused little concern among international organizations, e.g., in the last round of UN population projections, should be seriously considered with a view to prioritizing policy interventions.
Numerical simulation and phantom experiment of X-ray luminescence computed tomography A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biological Engineering and Small Scale Technologies (BEST) Graduate Program by

X-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT) is an emerging hybrid modality in which X-ray excitable particles (phosphor particles) emit optical photons when stimulated with X-ray photons. Optical imaging has high measurement sensitivity but it has limited spatial resolution for deep targets due to high scattering of optical photons. X-ray imaging has high spatial resolution yet its sensitivity is limited. XLCT can potentially combine the high spatial resolution of x-ray imaging with the high sensitivity of optical imaging. In this project, a prototype XLCT imaging system is built, in which a collimated x-ray beam is used to excite x-ray excitable particles. Ultrafine xray beams with beam size of about 200 micrometers are used to improve the spatial resolution of XLCT. Numerical simulations and phantom experiments are used to validate the XLCT imaging system. This thesis is outlined as follows: Chapter 1 presents the overview of XLCT; Chapter 2 presents XLCT system buildup; Chapter 3 describes XLCT reconstruction algorithm and numerical simulation; Chapter 4 reports XLCT phantom experimental results; finally Chapter 5 summarizes the thesis with ideas for future research on XLCT.
The communities of microorganisms in the setae of invasive Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) in the southern Baltic catchment basin

Chinese mitten crabs are one of the largest species of invasive crustaceans in the Baltic Sea catchment basin. Due to their catadromous migration, they can serve as a vector for small organisms, transporting them over distances greater than 500 km. Research on various crab species has shown their notable role in the spread of microorganisms to new aquatic environments. The aim of this study was to determine the diversity and abundance of microorganisms migrating with the Chinese mitten crab on the densely-distributed setae found on their claws. Our analysis also considered the potential differences in the number and genera of microorganisms between male and female Chinese mitten crabs. The study consisted of forty-eight (48) crabs (sex ratio 1:1) fished with a fyke net during their intensive downstream migration in Lake Dąbie (which is the southern part of the Oder River estuary) between November 8 and 11 2017. In these Chinese mitten crabs, a rich microbiological flora was found, which can be divided into three basic groups: heterotrophic bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. Microorganism genus biodiversity on claw setae was greater in males than in females, although the total aerobic microbial count (TAMC), total halophile count (THC), and total combined yeasts and molds count (TYMC) showed no statistically significant differences between sexes. Phylogenetic analysis of PCR products and genetic taxonomic analysis of dominating strains in samples from crab claw setae showed the dominance of Bacillus tequilensis bacterium. The presence of these microbiologically antagonistic bacteria, capable of adapting perfectly to different environmental conditions, indicates that the crabs are capable of introducing potentially dangerous microorganisms into new ecosystems.
Virtual Surveyor based Segmentation and Hierarchical Decomposition of 3D Image Segments derived from LiDAR Data

- Traditional nonparametric segmentation method relies on segmentations at different scales to produce a hierarchy of semantically significant objects. Properly tuned scale parameters are, therefore, imperative in these methods for successful subsequent classification. Recently, some progress has been made in the development of methods for automatic segmentation scale parameter tuning. However, researchers found that it is very difficult to automatically refine the tuning with respect to each object class present in the scene. Therefore, the method fails to deliver correctly many of the new segment features. In this paper, a new 3d segmentation method is described in detail, which segments objects based on their distinct geometric concavity/convexity. This is achieved by strategically mapping the sloping surface which connects the object to its background. Further analysis produces hierarchical decomposition of objects to its sub-objects at a single scale level. Extensive qualitative results are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of this segmentation approach.
The thermal response of downhill skis S

The temperatures in downhill skies were measured with thermocouples to investigate the heat generation associated with the sliding of skis on snow. In these tests we investigated the effects on ski temperature of the ambient snow temperature, snow type, speed, load and thermal conductivity. A significant temperature rise at the base of the ski was found at the onset of motion in all runs. The temperature rise increased for heavier loads and at lower ambient temperatures. Some ski runs lasted long enough to observe a steady-state temperature at the ski base; it increased with ambient temperature. Longitudinal and transverse temperature variations occurred and were sensitive to snow hardness and skiing technique. We also investigated heat flow through the cross-section of the ski with a finiteelement model to determine the effects of ski structure on heat retention at the base. We found that the thermal characteristics as determined by the structure of the ski had a significant effect on the temperature at the ski base. At lower temperatures we expect that friction will be greater in skis which have a large aluminum plate across their base. Steel edges have a lesser effect.
Women’s Economic Rights and Children Education

This paper examines whether women’s legal rights affect the human capital of the next generation. While previous authors investigate this question at a micro level for specific reforms and specific countries, few evidence rely on a more globally. Using the World Bank database on ”50 Years of Women’s Legal Rights”, we investigate married women’s rights as a determinant of children education in 75 developing countries from 1970 to 2010. Using an instrumental variables strategy, we confirm the causal nature of these effects and find evidence that reforms improving the legal capacity of married women raise educational attainment among youth between 15-19 years old. However, legal reforms endowing women with property and inheritance rights equal with men do not seem to have a significant impact on children’s schooling. JEL Classification: I21; I25; K38; 011.
A novel silkworm pupae carboxymethyl chitosan inhibits mouse L929 fibroblast proliferation

Postoperative intestinal adhesions are common and serious complications after surgery that can cause pain and potential mortality. Our previous study confirmed that silkworm pupae carboxymethyl chitosan (SP-carboxymethyl chitosan) reduced postoperative adhesion in vivo. Here, we elucidated the inhibitory effects of SP-carboxymethyl chitosan on mouse L929 fibroblasts. Cells were exposed to SP-carboxymethyl chitosan for 72 h, then the inhibitory effects were assessed via transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/Smads, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), and tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) signaling. The results showed that SP-carboxymethyl chitosan suppressed cell hyperplasia and significantly attenuated the gene and protein expressions of the TGF-β1/Smads signaling pathways. We also confirmed that t-PA/PAI-1 greatly increased for all SP-carboxymethyl chitosan-treated groups compared to the control. These findings suggest that SP-carboxymethyl chitosan may affect L929 cell proliferation through the TGF-β1/Smads signaling pathway to prevent adhesion after an operation.
Relationships of Lead, Mercury and Cadmium Levels with the Timing of Menarche among Korean Girls

Purpose This study utilized data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) to explore differences in the timing of menarche in Korean girls according to blood heavy metal concentrations. Methods This study performed a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from the sixth KNHANES. Data from 179 female children and adolescents aged 10~18 were included in this study. The relationships of blood heavy metal concentrations (lead, mercury, and cadmium) with age of menarche were analyzed using complex sample multiple logistic regression. Results In the participants of this study, the geometric mean values of blood lead, mercury, and cadmium concentrations were 1.15±0.04 μg/dL, 1.80±0.08 μg/L, and 0.30±0.03 μg/L, respectively. Mercury poisoning (>5 μg/L) was found in 1.5% of participants. Furthermore, significant relationships were found between blood lead and mercury concentrations and age at menarche (p for trend: p<.001 and p=.015, respectively). Conclusion Through an analysis of national big data, this study found evidence that Korean girls showed a younger age at menarche in response to higher blood lead and mercury concentrations. To prevent and manage precocious puberty in Korean children and adolescents, a systematic policy that monitors both exposure to environmental hazards and blood heavy metal concentrations is needed.
Prices , markups and product portfolio

How do firms spread markups across products? Are there reduced markups on new products thanks to profit on core or established products? In this paper, we derive per-product markup and marginal cost following (De Loecker et al. 2016) on a large panel of French manufacturers over 2009-2016. We confront marginal costs’ estimates to out-of-sample cost shocks to assess their relevancy. We then describe within-firms markups along several dimensions of firms characteristics but also product dynamics and how do they interact. JEL: D2; D4; L1
Validation of a Physical Activity Monitor as an Estimation of Energy Expenditure During a Circuit-Style Workout with Females who are Overweight or Obese

While the total overall energy expenditure between devices was not significantly different (p = 0.882), both energy expenditure excluding rest periods (p < 0.001) and rest periods between exercises (p = 0.007) were significantly different when the SWA was compared to the portable metabolic analyzer. The SWA overestimated exercise energy expenditure, but underestimated rest period energy expenditure compared to the portable metabolic analyzer.
The Effect of Group Formation and Differentiated Instruction on Learning Outcomes. Evidence from Two Randomised Experiments

We study how group formation and differentiated instruction affect learning outcomes. In particular, the effect of within-class heterogeneous and homogeneous group formations and differentiated instruction are evaluated on the proficiency level of eighth and ninth grade students in a financial education programme. Our paper provides evidence on both effects using two experiments involving 69 schools and 2,407 students. The identification strategy relies on a random allocation of schools to experimental conditions. The results suggest that, overall, the programme increases student financial proficiency by almost a quarter of a standard deviation. Although no main effects of group formations and differentiated instruction are found, the effect is heterogeneous as low ability students significantly benefit from homogeneous group formation and differentiated instruction.
Corruption, Transaction Costs and Seigniorage in a Two-Sector Endogenous Growth Model

In this paper, we reassess the link between corruption, economic growth and inflation. To this end, we build an endogenous-growth model with transaction costs in which a corruption sector allows households evading from taxation. Two main results emerge. First, the relation between corruption and inflation is U-shaped, contrasting with the positive relation obtained in Al-Marhubi (2000) and Blackburn et al. (2011). This nonlinear relationship between corruption and inflation is confirmed by empirical evidence. Second, from monetary policy perspective, corruption increases the growth-maximizing seigniorage rate, and, unlike Paldam (2002) and Braun and Di Tella (2004), our model produces a negative association between seigniorage and corruption.