Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Export-Led Growth: Is Manufacturing Exports a New Engine of Growth for Bangladesh?

The study attempts to empirically verify the export-led growth hypothesis for Bangladesh. In this context, we examine whether manufacturing exports has become a new engine of export-led growth replacing total exports, as claimed by the so-called de novo hypothesis. The empirical analysis, based on the vector error correction modelling (VECM), suggests that both total exports and manufacturing exports have both long run and contemporaneous effects on the growth of GDP as well as manufacturing output. According to the non-nested tests, total exports emerges as the engine of export-led growth (i.e., GDP). For manufacturing output, however, both total exports and manufacturing exports emerge as engines of growth. Therefore, manufacturing exports is not the sole determinant of the export-led growth for Bangladesh.
Question Classification via Multiclass Kernel-based Vector Machines

Question classification is an important component of most modern question answering systems. At the same time, the question taxonomies designed for modern question answering systems are more and more complex and fine-grained. Moreover, the prediction of question type is required to be more specific to generate better answers, especially for some ambiguous questions. All of demands above bring a new challenge to current question classifiers. Learning strategy and features involved in learning are vital factors to quality of question classifier. However, few researches have made serious investigations on learning strategy itself but the exploration of new type features. In this paper we develop a question classifier based on multiclass vector machines to learn a direct multiclass mapping from questions to question categories, with only lexical feature that makes our question classifier be independent of some specific language. The experimental results showed the performance of our question classifier is comparable to question classifiers based on other popular learning algorithms.
A comparison between unidimensional and multidimensional approaches to the measurement of poverty

The paper presents a comparison between an unidimensional approach to the measurement of poverty, obtained as a function of observable income, and a multidimensional approach, defined on the basis of economic, social, demographic and cultural indicators. The comparison is carried out by means of rank correlation analysis, which stresses how the two approaches indicate the presence of two different sets of poor households. An analysis performed on 12 European countries shows that income based evaluation provides only partial insights on poverty condition.
Query expansion using information scent

Web has grown to a huge mass of information resource and is diverse in content. To search such rich source of information one has to be very precise in using keywords in queries to retrieve the relevant documents. Most of the queries issued to search engines are short and have ambiguous context. One way to produce effective queries is by automatic query expansion. Work has been done in this field to use the local and global techniques. The global techniques examine word occurrences and relationships in the corpus as a whole and use this information to expand a particular query. Local context analysis examines the concept occurrences and relationship in top ranked documents retrieved by the original input query to expand the same query. Query log of search engines is used by researchers to expand the input queries using the clicked documents related to any of the terms of input query in query session of query log. In this paper a new local analysis technique is proposed which make use of information need of query sessions modeled using Information Scent and content of clicked documents to select the clicked documents for query expansion. Information scent is the subjective sense of value and cost of accessing a page based on perceptual cues with respect to the information need of the user. The input query issued in a particular domain is used to select the set of documents associated with the information need of the query sessions in the same domain and used as local corpora to provide related set of terms to be added to the input query. The resulting expanded query is used to retrieve the relevant documents from the same retrieval system. This approach is unique as it is using those documents in local corpora which belong to the information need associated with the domain in which input query is issued using Information Scent and content of clicked pages in the query sessions and direct the search in a fruitful direction by expanding initial input query using set of related terms. Experimental study of the proposed approach is done on the data set extracted from Web history of ldquoGooglerdquo search engine and improvement in the information retrieval precision with low computation complexity during online processing of input queries confirms the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Microencapsulation of Flavors in Carnauba Wax

The subject of this study is the development of flavor wax formulations aimed for food and feed products. The melt dispersion technique was applied for the encapsulation of ethyl vanillin in wax microcapsules. The surface morphology of microparticles was investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM), while the loading content was determined by HPLC measurements. This study shows that the decomposition process under heating proceeds in several steps: vanilla evaporation occurs at around 200 °C, while matrix degradation starts at 250 °C and progresses with maxima at around 360, 440 and 520 °C. The results indicate that carnauba wax is an attractive material for use as a matrix for encapsulation of flavours in order to improve their functionality and stability in products.
Visually guided flow tracking in software-defined networking

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a novel configuration technique that has the potential to become the future backbone of computer networking. In contrast to conventional networking techniques, SDN utilizes controller elements to configure groups of networking nodes, resulting in a hierarchy. SDNs have to be simulated and analyzed to identify applicable configuration settings for real world applications. To determine the quality of a SDN configuration, its packet flow is an important indicator for the analysis. This work presents an interactive system for the analysis of SDN data. An intuitive overview of the SDN hierarchy and the underlying packet flow is provided. The ability to track packets through the SDN and to interlink multiple views of the SDN forms an interactive analysis tool that is successfully applied to a simulated SDN dataset.
Emerging applications of data mining for healthcare management - A critical review

In this paper, we present a critical review of the various research currently being undergoing in applications of data mining for healthcare management. The objective of this study is to explore new and emerging areas of data mining techniques used in healthcare management. The applications included in this paper are infection control surveillance, diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, healthcare resource management, customer relationship management, fraud and anomaly detection, healthcare administration, hospital management and public health. The data mining goals achieved, functions performed and algorithms used in these applications have been analyzed in this paper.
Extended properties of high-order spectral-null words

High-order spectral-null codes have found practical applications in systems with high-order partial response channels. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition on word length N of Mth-order spectral-null code words, denoted dc/sup M/ words. A new lower bound on the redundancy of dc/sup M/ words is also presented. Furthermore, we investigate truncations of the Morse sequence and prove that these truncations must represent two dc/sup M/ words with the shortest word length. We show that the power spectra of these short dc/sup M/ words (M/spl ges/2) have nulls at rational frequencies of the symbol frequency, and we derive the orders of these spectral nulls.
Activation of Molecular Signatures for Antimicrobial and Innate Defense Responses in Skin with Transglutaminase 1 Deficiency

Mutations of the transglutaminase 1 gene (TGM1) are a major cause of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyoses (ARCIs) that are associated with defects in skin barrier structure and function. However, the molecular processes induced by the transglutaminase 1 deficiency are not fully understood. The aim of the present study was to uncover those processes by analysis of cutaneous molecular signatures. Gene expression profiles of wild-type and Tgm1–/–epidermis were assessed using microarrays. Gene ontology analysis of the data showed that genes for innate defense responses were up-regulated in Tgm1–/–epidermis. Based on that result, the induction of Il1b and antimicrobial peptide genes, S100a8, S100a9, Defb14, Camp, Slpi, Lcn2, Ccl20 and Wfdc12, was confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. A protein array revealed that levels of IL-1β, G-CSF, GM-CSF, CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL9 and CCL2 were increased in Tgm1–/–skin. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ligand genes, Hbegf, Areg and Ereg, were activated in Tgm1–/–epidermis. Furthermore, the antimicrobial activity of an epidermal extract from Tgm1–/–mice was significantly increased against both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. In the epidermis of ichthyosiform skins from patients with TGM1 mutations, S100A8/9 was strongly positive. The expression of those antimicrobial and defense response genes was also increased in the lesional skin of an ARCI patient with TGM1 mutations. These results suggest that the up-regulation of molecular signatures for antimicrobial and innate defense responses is characteristic of skin with a transglutaminase 1 deficiency, and this autonomous process might be induced to reinforce the defective barrier function of the skin.
Hybrid Function-Based Shape Modeling and Web Visualization

We have proposed and implemented function-based extensions of X3D and its predecessor VRML which allow for defining time-dependent geometric shapes, their appearance and transformations with analytically defined parametric, implicit and explicit functions. The function-defined shapes can be used together with the standard X3D and VRML shapes. Besides defining shapes by analytical functions, we have developed interactive function-based shape modeling tools. We have also extended these interactive shape modeling tools to work on the grid. Function-defined models can be efficiently rendered at the media grid portal
Guided self-assembly of molecular dipoles on a substrate surface

Molecules adsorbed on a substrate surface can self-assemble into a monolayer. This article models the process of self-assembly guided by an external object. The molecules are electric dipoles, diffusing on the surface at an elevated temperature. Pre-pattern a flat mask with a submonolayer of immobile atoms, which gives rise to a patterned contact potential field. Bring the mask to a small distance above the substrate. The electrostatic interaction transfers the pattern on the mask to a molecular pattern on the substrate. Similarly, one can place above the molecules a charged conducting tip, or a mask that is pre-patterned with a topographic surface. Our model includes the mobile molecular dipoles on the substrate surface, the guiding object, and the electrostatic field in the intervening space. A nonlinear diffusion equation simulates the pattern transfer process. Numerical results are presented when the guiding object is a flat metal, patterned with a submonolayer of immobile atoms.
Binocular Vision-SLAM Using Improved SIFT Algorithm

SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm is used in mobile robot Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based on visual information. But this algorithm is complicated and computation time is long. Two improvements are introduced to optimize its performance. Firstly, the linear combination of cityblock distance and chessboard distance is comparability measurement; secondly, partial features are used to matching . SLAM is completed by fusing the information of SIFT features and robot information with EKF. The simulation experiment indicate that the proposed method reduce computational complexity, and with high localization precision in indoor environments.
Artificial boundary conditions of absolute transparency for two- and three-dimensional external time-dependent scattering problems

For an external problem in IRd (d=2, 3) such that the unknown function satisfies the wave equation outside a finite domain, we generate artificial boundary conditions transparent to outgoing waves. These conditions permit an equivalent replacement of the original external problem by the problem inside the artificial boundary which is a circle (d=2) or a sphere (d=3): The questions of numerical implementation of the artificial conditions (that are non-local in both space and time) are considered. Special attention is paid to the reduction of necessary computational resources; in particular, a way of incorporating these conditions into numerical methods which makes the computational formulae local in time is suggested. The aspects of treating artificial boundaries of a non-spherical shape are discussed. Numerical examples of two- and three-dimensional scattering problems demonstrate the accuracy of proposed artificial boundary conditions.
Pricing the Gamble for Resurrection and the Consequences of Renegotiation and Debt Design

This paper aims at measuring the loss in the value of a firm due to the gamble for resurrection, in a standard contingent claims model. Just before a debt repayment is due, the equityholders of a levered firm can decide to shut the firm down or to keep it as an ongoing concern. We study how leverage affects the operating decision and we provide a closed form formula for the associated agency costs. We show that yield spreads associated with defaultable bonds are higher than those obtained when ignoring the agency conflict.
Comprehensiveness of tree based models: attribute dependencies and split selection

The attributes’ interdependencies have strong effect on understandability of tree based models. If strong dependencies between the attributes are not recognized and these attributes are not used as splits near the root of the tree this causes node replications in lower levels of the tree, blurs the description of dependencies and also might cause drop of accuracy. If Relief family of algorithms which is capable of estimating the attributes’ dependencies is used for split selectors we can partly overcome the problem. We describe ReliefF and RReliefF algorithms and their use in connection with tree based models. Some theoretical properties of Relief’s estimate and a recent empirical study suggest that accuracy optimization near the fringe of the tree is not necessary with these algorithms.
Does money matter in Africa

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of monetary policy on economic activity using a plethora of hitherto unemployed financial dynamics in inflation-chaotic African countries for the period of 1987-2010.Although in developed economies, changes in monetary policy affect real economic activity in the short-run, but only prices in the long-run, the question of whether these tendencies apply to developing countries remains open to debate. Design/methodology/approach – Vector autoregresion (VARs) within the frameworks of Vector Error Correction Models and simple Granger causality models are used to estimate the long- and short-run effects, respectively. A battery of robustness checks are also used to ensure consistency in the specifications and results. Findings – The tested hypotheses are valid under monetary policy independence and dependence, except few exceptions. H1: Monetary policy variables affect prices in the long-run but not in the short-run. For the first-half (long-run dime.
Dynamix: An open plug-and-play context framework for android

Today's mobile devices represent exceptional foundations for wide-area Internet of Things (IoT) applications. However, the vast heterogeneity of real-world environments makes it challenging for applications to sense, understand and adapt to the user's continually evolving context. We're investigating a new community-based approach for context-aware computing, where advanced context sensing capabilities are dynamically deployed to mobile devices as plug-ins, and are made available to applications through only a few lines of code. Towards this end, we're developing Dynamix, an open plug-and-play context framework for Android. Dynamix runs as lightweight background service on the user's mobile device, modeling context information from the environment using the device itself as a sensing, processing and communications platform. Mobile applications request context support from Dynamix using simple application programming interfaces (APIs). Dynamix automatically discovers, downloads and installs the plug-ins needed for a given context sensing task. When the user changes environments, new or updated plug-ins can be deployed to the device at runtime, without the need to restart the application or framework. Dynamix comes with a growing collection of ready-made plug-ins, and provides open software developments kits (SDKs) and a scalable repository architecture, which enable 3rd party developers to quickly create and share new plug-ins types with the community. This paper presents the Dynamix approach, describes our prototype implementation and presents promising performance evaluation results.
Vaccination with Leishmania infantum Acidic Ribosomal P0 but Not with Nucleosomal Histones Proteins Controls Leishmania infantum Infection in Hamsters

Background Several intracellular Leishmania antigens have been identified in order to find a potential vaccine capable of conferring long lasting protection against Leishmania infection. Histones and Acid Ribosomal proteins are already known to induce an effective immune response and have successfully been tested in the cutaneous leishmaniasis mouse model. Here, we investigate the protective ability of L. infantum nucleosomal histones (HIS) and ribosomal acidic protein P0 (LiP0) against L. infantum infection in the hamster model of visceral leishmaniasis using two different strategies: homologous (plasmid DNA only) or heterologous immunization (plasmid DNA plus recombinant protein and adjuvant). Methodology/Principal Findings Immunization with both antigens using the heterologous strategy presented a high antibody production level while the homologous strategy immunized group showed predominantly a cellular immune response with parasite load reduction. The pcDNA-LiP0 immunized group showed increased expression ratio of IFN-γ/IL-10 and IFN-γ/TGF-β in the lymph nodes before challenge. Two months after infection hamsters immunized with the empty plasmid presented a pro-inflammatory immune response in the early stages of infection with increased expression ratio of IFN-γ/IL-10 and IFN-γ/TGF-β, whereas hamsters immunized with pcDNA-HIS presented an increase only in the ratio IFN-γ/ TGF-β. On the other hand, hamsters immunized with LiP0 did not present any increase in the IFN-γ/TGF-β and IFN-γ/IL-10 ratio independently of the immunization strategy used. Conversely, five months after infection, hamsters immunized with HIS maintained a pro-inflammatory immune response (ratio IFN-γ/ IL-10) while pcDNA-LiP0 immunized hamsters continued showing a balanced cytokine profile of pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Moreover we observed a significant reduction in parasite load in the spleen, liver and lymph node in this group compared with controls. Conclusions/Significance Our results suggest that vaccination with L. infantum LiP0 antigen administered in a DNA formulation could be considered a potential component in a vaccine formulation against visceral leishmaniasis.
Intelligent Control for Automation of Yam Storage System Using Fuzzy Logic Controller

This paper presents the development of intelligent control technique for yam storage system based on fuzzy logic controller (FLC). The expert control of yam storage system is formulated in the form of fuzzy rules. The inputs to the controller are the outside and inside temperature, wind speed and presences of rain. The output is the window opening angle. Simulations were performed for different typical levels of input parameters and also for extreme fictitious conditions. The results shown that, the controller is capable of responding to the changes in temperature conditions by adjusting the window opening angle to keep the internal temperature within acceptable range. The controller also satisfies security requirements due to sudden changes in wind velocity and presence of rain.
Cenozoic evolution of Neotethys and implications for the causes of plate motions

Africa‐North America‐Eurasia plate circuit rotations, combined with Red Sea rotations and new estimates of crustal shortening in Iran define the Cenozoic history of the Neotethyan ocean between Arabia and Eurasia. The new constraints indicate that Arabia‐Eurasia convergence has been fairly constant at 2 to 3 cm/yr since 56 Ma with slowing of Africa‐Eurasia motion to <1 cm/yr near 25 Ma, coeval with the opening of the Red Sea. Ocean closure occurred no later than 10 Ma, and could have occurred prior to this time only if a large amount of continental lithosphere was subducted, suggesting that slowing of Africa significantly predated the Arabia‐Eurasia collision. These kinematics imply that Africa's disconnection with the negative buoyancy of the downgoing slab of lithosphere beneath southern Eurasia slowed its motion. The slow, steady rate of northward subduction since 56 Ma contrasts with strongly variable rates of magma production in the Urumieh‐Dokhtar arc, implying magma production rate in continental arcs is not linked to subduction rate.
Flexibility and Amplification Measures in a Supply Chain Model

Flexibility in a supply chain is usually conceived as a consequence of the amplification of production, typically known as the bullwhip-effect. In this article we modeled pull, push and hybrid inventory management methods, considering an AR(1) stationary stochastic demand process. We show that for these cases, the production amplification results to be highly influenced by the flexibility policies implemented in the supply chain. In this context, we demonstrate that flexibility (measured by the adjustment capability between production and demand rates, and the ordering responsiveness) should be viewed as one of the main causes - and not a consequence - of the bullwhip effect. This is relevant for chain managers since controlling the flexibility of the chain will also let them control the amplification. We also found an analytical relation between amplification and adjustment degree, showing that the amplification acceptability constraint introduced by Muramatsu can be accomplished by controlling the flexibility dimension described before. Weak and strong flexibility conditions are proposed. We show that the weak condition ultimately does not depend on the demand autocorrelation coefficient, whilst in the strong condition the ordering responsiveness, measured by lead time, may be modulable by the adjustment degree, both in push and hybrid methods. Thus, the supply chain manager is enabled to increase or decrease the lead time just increasing or decreasing the adjustment, respectively, always satisfying the Muramatsu criteria.