Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Flexible Non Linear Model to Test the Expectation Hypothesis of Interest Rates

Conventional approaches to examining the expectation hypothesis of interest rates assume a parametric linear specification among variables. In contrast, this paper tests the hypothesis using a flexible nonlinear inference approach proposed by Hamilton (2001). We examine the impact of the nonlinearity of interest rates to explain the variability of risk premia on market rates. It is assumed that the term structure of interest rates can be identified by two factors, the risk-free rate and its volatility. The results of the linearity test against nonlinear alternatives suggest that there is clear evidence of nonlinearity. Our empirical study shows that correctly accounting for the nonlinearity of the term structure of interest rates may explain the variability of risk premia and the specific characteristics of interest rate dynamics on the U.S. market.
The Rao-Robson Chi-Squared Test for Multivariate Structure

Huffer and Park (2002) proposed a chi-squared test for multivariate structure. Their test detects the deviation of data from mutual independence or multivariate normality. We will compute the Rao-Robson chi-squared version of the test, which is easy to apply in practice since it has a limiting chi-squared distribution. We will provide a self-contained argument that it has a limiting chi-squared distribution. We study the accuracy in finite samples of the limiting distribution. We finally compare the power of our test with those of other popular normality tests in an application to a real data.
Phytoremediation of Copper Pollution by EightAquatic Plants

This study investigated the uptake capacity and bioaccumulation of heavy metal (Cu) in water using eight different aquatic plant species: Juncus effusus, Acorus calamus, Eichhornia crassipes, Sagittaria sagittifolia, Arundina graminifolia, Echinodorus major, Nymphaea tetragona and Pistia stratiotes. The results showed that Eichhornia crassipes and Pistia stratiotes have the best ability for bioaccumulation, while Arundina graminifolia, Nymphaea tetragona, and Acorus calamus also showed good bioaccumulation. However, Juncus effusus, Sagittaria sagittifolia, and Echinodorus major displayed very weak bioaccumulation. The enrichment capacity for Cu2+ in roots and shoots differed among species. Most of the Cu2+ was located in the shoot tissues of Juncus effuses, while for Sagittaria sagittifolia and Acorus calamus it accumulates in their root tissues. However, in the case of Echinodorus major the accumulation of copper content in root and shoot tissues is the same. The adsorption rates of heavy metal Cu in different aquatic plants were different. The adsorption rates of Eichhornia crassipus, Pistia stratiotes, Echinodorus major, and Nymphaea tetragona were higher than for Juncus effusus, Sagittaria sagittifolia, and Acorus calamus. When different aquatic plants reached the adsorption equilibrium, pH values were different. The Cu enrichment amount in aquatic plants was related to the content of lignin in plants, and the higher the content of lignin, the greater the amount of copper.
Modulation of organotin-induced apoptosis by the water pollutant methyl mercury in a human lymphoblastoid tumor cell line and a marine sponge

Apoptosis IS a special form of cell death in which the cells act~vely participate in the process of dying. We found that the water pollutants tnbutylt~n (> 1 PM) and methyl mercury (MeHg; at concentrations of >3 FM) induce apoptosls In human T-lymphoblastoid CEM cells and in tlssue of the marlne sponge Geodia cydonium At concentrations of >5 yM. MeHg causes alkaline-labile sites in DNA of CEM cells. At the lower dose of 0.3 FM, MeHg abolishes the tr~butyltln-induced apoptosis in both CEM cells and sponge tissue. Incubation of sponge t~ssue w ~ t h 3 yM of tnbutyltin Induces not only apoptosis but also an increased expression of heat shock protein-70.
THE ORGANISATIONAL GOALS OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: HOW SOCIAL ARE THEY?

There is an increasing consensus among academics that the common denominator of ‘social entrepreneurs’ is their adherence to a ‘dominant social mission’. The extent to which social entrepreneurs actually adhere to socially oriented goals and values is largely taken for granted and treated as a black box. Building on established theoretical constructs, this paper develops a number of measures that can potentially contribute to our understanding of how ‘social’ social entrepreneurs really are. More specifically, we empirically test four potential measures of “social proclivity” in a well defined sample of social ventures, performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N~270). CFA points to high reliability and validity for the measures of each of the four constructs and supports the existence of a higher order construct “social proclivity”. Further, results show that social entrepreneurs display strong social as well as economic motives, providing an empirical base for actually capturing the dual-bottom line that characterises these enterprises.
AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF TIME REQUIRED TO COMPROMISE A COMPUTER SYSTEM

3 Abstract: A cyber intrusion is a frequent assumption in the domain of cyber security and it follows the properties of a Poisson process. By the Poisson distribution the intrusion is well modeled and this process requires a high rate of time. This was also used with Pareto distribution of intrusion so that the rate of time required is slightly decreases with a better performance. Now we are used the chaos algorithm to determine the Time Taken to Compromise (TTC) by using this algorithm the time used for the performing a task in highly decreases. It shows the assumption of the Poisson process model might be suboptimal. The algorithm suggests that time to compromise decreases along the number of instruction of a system regarding this property. This paper clearly explains about the TTC by chaos algorithm.
Cosmic Rays in Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources

We investigate the candidates of accelerator of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) using the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions, and discuss about the ability to accelerate UHECRs and constrain their physical conditions (acceleration site and size). The current experimental statistics of UHECRs is not sufficient for identification of the sources, although a spatial correlation between the arrival directions of UHECRs and nearby active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has been discussed using the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. Some authors have discussed about the acceleration of UHECRs using various methods. Among them, Pe’er & Loeb (2012) derived constraints on the ability of AGNs to produce UHECRs by using observational quantities which are synchrotron peak luminosity and the peak flux ratio of inverse Compton scattering to synchrotron emission. For adopting this method, we need data of gammaray observation to determine the peak flux for high-energy region due to inverse Compton scattering. Thus, we focused on the Fermi Large Area Telescope gamma-ray sources. We investigated a spatial correlation between AGNs and the arrival directions of UHECRs, and we selected six AGNs as candidates of accelerator of UHECRs. We analyzed their spectral energy distributions by using multi-wavelength archival observational data. By introducing the constraints of Pe’er & Loeb (2012), we evaluate the physical conditions in the acceleration regions of these six AGNs and discuss whether they can accelerate to UHECRs. From the analysis, we found that three AGNs have ability to accelerate UHE protons to UHECRs in the AGN cores. Furthermore, we constrained the minimum size of the acceleration region for each source when UHE particles are accelerated in the AGN lobes. If UHE protons are accelerated, a few kpc-100 kpc are required as the minimum acceleration size. In the case of acceleration of heavy nucleus, the heavy particles can be accelerated in the AGN lobes if the size is larger than a few kpc. In this paper, we show that we achieved to establish a test method for individual candidate sources of acceleration of UHECRs. The 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July6 August, 2015 The Hague, The Netherlands
The influence of decomposing logs on soil biology and nutrient cycling in an old-growth mixed coniferous forest in Oregon, U.S.A.

This study investigated the effect of coarse woody debris (CWD) on mineral soils at the H.J. Andrews Ex- perimental Forest in the central Cascade Range of Oregon, U.S.A. Nutrients in CWD leachates were compared with (i) forest floor (control) leachates, (ii) over a decay chronosequence, and (iii) among CWD of four species. There were few differences among CWD leachates and forest floor leachates. Soils under CWD were warmer but not wetter than control soils. Water-soluble organic carbon was higher in soils under CWD than in controls at 5-15 cm depth (p < 0.02), but soil C concentrations did not differ. Gross N mineralization was faster in control soils. We found no differ- ences in N, P, microbial biomass, Biolog plate assays, or enzyme activity in soils. Nutrient leachate differences among CWD species were small. Differences in solutions and in soils among CWD and controls were largest during the mid- dle decay classes. This study suggests that either (i) CWD has no long-term effect and does not contribute large amounts of organic matter to the soil profile or (ii) the effect of CWD is so prolonged that no spatial affect is notice- able because all soils have been affected by CWD at some time.
Compact planar microstripline branch-line and rat-race couplers

Both branch-line and rat-race couplers are easily realized using planar circuit technology as they employ only transmission lines without additional components. However, as the electrical lengths of the transmission line elements are either 90/spl deg/ or 270/spl deg/, such couplers consume a significant amount of circuit area. This paper shows the development of branch-line and rat-race couplers that use artificial transmission lines (ATLs) in place of conventional transmission lines resulting in significant size reduction. As the ATLs are constructed entirely from microstriplines, the couplers are easily fabricated using conventional printed-circuit processes. The design formulas developed for the ATLs are explicit. Full-wave simulation and experimental results were used to confirm the design approach for hybrids operating at 1.8 GHz. The frequency response of the proposed hybrids is similar to conventional hybrids.
Crystallization study of SrTiO3 thin films prepared by dip coating

In this study, the crystallization process of SrTiO3 thin films, prepared by a chemical method, was characterized by Fourier Transformed Infra Red (FT-IR), Grazing Incident X-ray Diffraction (GIXRD), Thermal Analysis (TG) and X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES). The results showed that an amorphous inorganic phase is formed, consisting of clusters of oxygen five-coordinate titanium. The amorphous phase begins crystallizing at temperatures above 450 °C. No intermediate crystalline phase and no preferential orientation was observed for films deposited on MgO (100). FT-IR results suggest the presence of the carbonate group. However, the low thermal stability of this group and the low crystallization temperature of the observed SrTiO3 phase indicate that this carbonate is adsorbed.
Back propagation networks for credit card fraud prediction using stratified personalized data

A personalized approach (PA) has been presented recently to prevent fraud in using credit cards. This new approach proposes to predict a user's new transactions by his/her personalized model instead of using multiple-user approaches (MUA) which are based on transaction data of many other users. This approach has shown its potential to deal with the credit card fraud problem. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of back propagation networks (BPN) on predicting credit card fraud using PA. The trained and tested data are stratified, i.e., each class has representative data. To facilitate the decision of the network architecture, Bubble charts are employed. Results from this study show that with stratified data, BPN can obtain good prediction performance. In addition, Bubble chart is a convenient tool to help decide the architecture of the network.
Customer Discovery for Developing Business Models within Established Companies

It has become increasingly important for companies to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment, where innovation and business opportunity identification are essential for company survival and profitability. As a result, current research has focused on developing business models by using more scientific approaches, where the Customer Development methodology has become particularly well established. However, this research has primarily focused on startups and has not been applied to established companies to a greater extent. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to explore and evaluate how the Customer Discovery process can be applied in established companies. This was achieved by performing a project at Company, which aimed at implementing Customer Discovery at the company in order to present suggestions on how Company can develop a more repeatable and scalable business model. Company is a talent network that helps companies to attract, recruit, develop and retain key people. Company is recommended to develop their business model into three solution concepts, where different customer segments serve different concepts. The concepts are: (1) Prescreened and customised network within the Company network, (2) Referral recruitment based on the personal networks of members, and (3) Exposure and access to the entire Company network. Further, Company is recommended to do a market segmentation of its customers based on their characteristics of being earlyvangelists as well as based on their different customer needs. Moreover, the project at Company provided conclusions regarding implications from applying the Customer Discovery process to an established company with respect to prior research. This thesis concludes that the most important implications concern a number of internal and external challenges with implementing Customer Discovery in an established company. Finally, it is concluded that these implications argue that Customer Discovery within established companies have a more narrow scope and is not as explorative compared to a startup, although the methodology is still a very relevant and efficient method for gaining customer insights.
Modelling covariance structures for multivariate longitudinal data ( An oral presentation )

The analysis of multivariate longitudinal data can be challenging because of the existence of correlations between multiple time-dependent responses repeated over time. Therefore, one major task in analyzing such data is to model efficiently the covariance matrices cov(yi) = Σi for i = 1, · · · , n subjects. In this paper, we develop a data-driven method to model the covariance structures. Thereby, constrained and hard-to-model parameters of Σi are traded-in for unconstrained and interpretable parameters. Estimates of these parameters, together with the parameters in the mean, are obtained by maximum likelihood approach, and the large-sample asymptotic properties are derived. A real-life example is given to illustrate the method introduced.
Evaluation of Service Quality in Two WheelerAutomobile Industries Using Servqual Model

In this study, the gap between customer expectations and perceptions in Hero, Bajaj and Honda two wheeler automobile service industries is evaluated using SERVQUAL model with the objective of determining how satisfied the customers are with the services being provided by these automobile industries. For this, the data was collected in the form of questionnaire from users of Hero, Bajaj and Honda two wheeler automobile service industries. The hypothesis of the study is analysed using Paired t test, Results of the study show that Bajaj with overall perceived service quality level 2.972 provides the best after sales service followed by Hero with 2.869 and Honda with 2.822. It is also found that there is significant gap between customer expectation and perception in case of Hero and Honda whereas there is no significant gap found in Bajaj service industry.
Influence of instantaneous variation on estimates of coral reef fish populations and communities

The magnitude of different sources of variation in coral reef fish abundance data needs to be known if temporal changes in population and community data are to be correctly estimated. A particularly important missing component of the variability is the 'instantaneous' change in fish, largely caused by the interaction between fish movement and observer recognition. This variation occurs at a time scale less than that influenced by the focus of previous studies, including time of day, tides, migration, or birth and death processes. Without this measure of variance, estimates of temporal change are confounded. To determine the magnitude of this instantaneous variance, belt-transect visual counts of damselfish, surgeonfish, and parrotfish were conducted during a short interval at midday during neap tides over consecutive days in the calm season and compared to similar samples in 1992 and 2003. Within-site, or our estimate of instantaneous variation, was the greatest source of variability for the whole assemblage and for the surgeonfish/parrotfish group but not for damselfish. Direct between-year comparisons produced estimates of population change over time that were twice as high as those derived by an indirect method where the instantaneous spatial component was subtracted from the total variation. Because the inherent spatial component of variability makes it difficult to detect site change over time, we recommend sampling designs that use random sampling and have greater statistical power to detect change. Furthermore, aggregate metrics, such as numbers of species or density at the family, community, or the functional group, will have greater potential to detect change for sample sizes typical of coral reef studies. Otherwise, when life history traits and species level change are important, high replication will be required.
Do BCIs Detect User's Engagement?: The Results of an Empirical Experiment with Emotional Artworks

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are interfaces that put the user in communication with an electronic device through the brain activity produced by the user herself. Non-invasive BCI are mainly based on electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. While using these systems, users become able to manipulate their brain activity to produce signals that will then be used to control computers or Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. UMAP '19, June 9-12, 2019, Larnaca, Cyprus © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6021-0/19/06. $15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3320435.3320472 other devices without the aid of motor movements. Besides active BCI systems, in which the user directly control the system by a conscious and voluntary mental activity, there are passive BCI that can be used to recognize mental states, like the user's emotional state (in particular the level of engagement) during the interaction or according to a received stimulus. In this paper we describe a passive BCI experiment and its results, wherein users are exposed to a set of emotional artworks and the engagement measured through a BCI headset is compared to their explicit engagement, in order to test the reliability of BCI-based engagement detection
Are All Independent Directors the Same? Evidence from Italian Listed Companies

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of independent directors on the performance of Italian listed firms on the Milan Stock Exchange during the period 2006-2015. After applying a Fixed Effect Model, the empirical findings suggest that the composition of the board may affect corporate performances and, more specifically, a significant relationship emerges between the presence of independent directors within the Board and company results. Specifically, independent directors and independent female directors positively affect firm performance. Diversely, independent busy directors, those with hold more than three directorship in other boards, do not affect performance.
Predictors of Turkish Elementary Teacher Candidates' Energy Conservation Behaviors: An Approach on Value-Belief-Norm Theory.

The present study aimed to explain elementary teacher candidates' energy conservation behaviors by using Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) Theory. Participants in this study were 512 students at Faculty of Education from two public universities in Turkey. Of the 512 students, 35.5% were enrolled in the early childhood education program, 30.9% were in the elementary science education program, and 27.7% were in the elementary mathematics education program. The rest of the participants were pursuing a graduate program under the department of elementary education. The results of multiple linear regression analysis reflected that VBN Theory could successfully explain the participants' energy conservation behaviors. The teacher candidates' reduction in energy consumption could be accounted by personal norms, egoistic and biospheric value orientations. However, rather than personal norms, egoistic and biospheric value orientations made greater unique contribution to explain the criterion variable. Furthermore, each predictor variable in the causal model of VBN Theory was found to be significantly associated with the next variable, but value orientations deserved more attention than VBN Theory places on them within the study context.
A New Lichenicolous Fungus Record From The Turkey, Tremella macrobasidiata (Basidiomycota, Tremellales)

Despite the recent increase in studies on lichenicolous fungi in Turkey, there is still no checklist. A key to lichenicolous fungus prepared by Halici (2008) were published 118 taxa from the Turkey. So far, the numbers of lichenicol fungi known in Turkey is 193. Generally, lichenicol Ascomycota and mitosporic fungi records are reported, whereas lichenicol Basidiomycota recording is rare. Tremella macrobasidiata is reported on Lecanora chlarotera from Turkey for the first time. The morphological, anatomical and ecological characteristics of the species are given. In addition, a phylogenetic tree was constructed by comparing the sequence data of the ITS region of closely related species.
Analyzing Collinear Data by Principal Component Regression Approach — An Example from Developing Countries

The aim of this paper is to identify the effects of socioeconomic factors and family planning program effort on total fertility rate with na- tional level data from forty-three developing countries. The data used have mainly been taken from the secondary source "Family Planning and Child Survival: 100 Developing Countries" compiled by the Center for Population and Family Health, Columbia University. Because the independent variables were found to be highly correlated among themselves, component regression technique has been used to analyze the data. The analysis shows that the family planning program effort has the largest contribution in lowering the total fertility rate, followed by percent of urban population, female literacy rate, and infant mortality rate in that order. Policy implications are discussed.