Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sign Prediction and Volatility Dynamics With Hybrid Neurofuzzy Approaches

Reliable forecasting techniques for financial applications are important for investors either to make profit by trading or hedge against potential market risks. In this paper the efficiency of a trading strategy based on the utilization of a neurofuzzy model is investigated, in order to predict the direction of the market in case of FTSE100 and New York stock exchange returns. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the incorporation of the estimates of the conditional volatility changes, according to the theory of Bekaert and Wu (2000), strongly enhances the predictability of the neurofuzzy model, as it provides valid information for a potential turning point on the next trading day. The total return of the proposed volatility-based neurofuzzy model including transaction costs is consistently superior to that of a Markov-switching model, a feedforward neural network as well as of a buy & hold strategy. The findings can be justified by invoking either the “volatility feedback” theory or the existence of portfolio insurance schemes in the equity markets and are also consistent with the view that volatility dependence produces sign dependence. Thus, a trading strategy based on the proposed neurofuzzy model might allow investors to earn higher returns than the passive portfolio management strategy.
Improving IEEE 802.15.4e LLDN performance by relaying and extension of combinatorial testing

Many applications in factory and process automation require robust wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for collecting sensor data with sampling and transmission rates up to 100 Hz from battery powered sensor nodes. To establish real-time communication in a star network topology, the LLDN mode of IEEE 802.15. 4e amendment was released. We present a demonstration system which applies a recently introduced relaying method compatible to the LLDN mode, which uses dedicated relay nodes, thus increasing the reliability of the network while reducing the energy consumption of the sensor nodes. Furthermore, packet combining schemes on packets received erroneously from both, sensor node and relay node, are proposed, applied, and analyzed. Measurements with the demonstration system have shown that 96.4% of these erroneous transmissions could be recovered correctly.
A Four-Channel Beamforming Down-Converter in 90-nm CMOS Utilizing Phase-Oversampling

In this paper, a 4-GHz, four-channel, analog-beamforming direct-conversion down-converter in 90-nm CMOS is presented. Down-converting vector modulators (VMs) in each channel multiply the inputs with complex beamforming weights before summation between the different channels. The VMs are based on a phase-oversampling technique that allows the synthesis of inherently linear, high-resolution complex gains without complex variable gain amplifiers. A bank of simple passive mixers driven by a multiphase local oscillator (LO) in each VM performs accurate phase shifting with minimal signal distortion, and a pair of transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) combines the mixer outputs to perform beamforming weighting and combining. Each individual channel achieves 360° phase shift and gain-setting programmability with 8-bit digital control, a complex gain constellation with a mean error-vector magnitude (EVM) of <;2%, and a measured phase error of <; 5.5° at a back-off of 4 dB from the maximum gain setting. The beamformer demonstrates >24-dB blocker rejection for blockers impinging from different directions and 17-dB signal EVM improvement in the presence of an in-channel blocker.
Measuring Self-Control Problems

We develop a survey instrument to measure self-control problems in a sample of highly educated adults. This measure relates in the manner that theory predicts to liquid wealth accumulation and personality measures. Yet while self-control problems are typically seen as resulting in overconsumption and low wealth, we identify a significant group who underconsume and thereby accumulate high levels of wealth. In addition, self-control problems are smaller in scale for older than for younger respondents. Those who put money aside in retirement accounts may be delaying access to a point at which self-control problems are no longer important. (JEL D12, D14)
Corporate community involvement disclosure : an evaluation of the motivation & reality

This study focused on Corporate Community Involvement Disclosures (CCID), a theme usually disclosed under Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures (CSRD) in annual reports. The primary aim of the research is to investigate the genuineness and raison d'être of CCID in annual reports. To do this the researcher adopted a holistic approach employing an extensive theoretical framework, which integrates Legitimacy, Stakeholder, Agency, Signalling and Semiotics theories and asking three main research questions. Firstly, what are the motivations for CCID in annual reports? Secondly, what is the information content of CCID in annual reports? And lastly, how real is CCID in annual reports? That is can CCID be read and construed as a real measure of corporate community development (CCD)? Using content analysis and a quality score index the study examined a panel dataset covering the period from 1999 to 2009. The data was collected from a sample of 803 annual reports of 73 UK companies taken from the FTSE 350 companies and cutting across all ten industries of the Industrial Classification Benchmark (ICB) Index. Generally the study is more of a quantitative study with hypotheses developed and tested with panel data regression models in order to provide answers to the three research questions. However, due to the sensitivity of the third research question, in addition to panel regression, the researcher performed a qualitative analysis of question three using semiotics. The study provided evidence to show that CCID as disclosed in annual reports have an undertone of reputation/impression management like other CSR disclosures (CSRD). The community activities reported do not seem to address the expectations of the local communities per se; rather the disclosures seemed to be targeted at a wider stakeholder group that is likely to offer immediate reward for such disclosures. Similarly result from semiotic analysis revealed that signification of reality is either doubtful or unreal for most companies sampled. The study is unique as it is the first to explore the reality of CCID as it appears in annual reports using a combination of a panel study approach and semiotics. In addition a major contribution of the study is that it explored the ways in which multiple theoretical underpinnings can inform research by developing a CCID Meta-theory model and thus provided a robust and enriched analysis and unique insights into the CCID phenomenon.
JAK2V617F somatic mutation in the general population: myeloproliferative neoplasm development and progression rate

Clinical significance of the JAK2V617F mutation in patients with a myeloproliferative neoplasm has been the target of intensive research in recent years. However, there is considerably uncertainty about prognosis in JAK2V617F positive individuals without overt signs of myeloproliferative disease. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that increased JAK2V617F somatic mutation burden is associated with myeloproliferative neoplasm progression rate in the general population. Among 49,488 individuals from the Copenhagen General Population Study, 63 (0.1%) tested positive for the JAK2V617F mutation in the time period 2003–2008. Of these, 48 were available for re-examination in 2012. Level of JAK2V617F mutation burden was associated with myeloproliferative neoplasm progression rate, consistent with a biological continuum of increasing JAK2V617F mutation burden across increasing severity of myeloproliferative neoplasm from no disease (n=8 at re-examination) through essential thrombocythemia (n=20) and polycythemia vera (n=13) to primary myelofibrosis (n=7). Among those diagnosed with a myeloproliferative neoplasm only at re-examination in 2012, in the preceding years JAK2V617F mutation burden increased by 0.55% per year, erythrocyte volume fraction increased by 1.19% per year, and erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume increased by 1.25% per year, while there was no change in platelet count or erythropoietin levels. Furthermore, we established a JAK2V617F mutation burden cut-off point of 2% indicative of disease versus no disease; however, individuals with a mutation burden below 2% may suffer from a latent form of myeloproliferative disease revealed by a slightly larger spleen and/or slightly higher lactic acid dehydrogenase concentration compared to controls. Of all 63 JAK2V617F positive individuals, 48 were eventually diagnosed with a myeloproliferative neoplasm.
Marxan with Zones - software for optimal conservation-based land-and sea-use zoning.

In this paper we present a substantial extension of Marxan, Marxan with Zones, a decision support tool that provides land-use zoning options in geographical regions for conservation. We describe novel functionalities designed to enhance the original Marxan software, the most widely used conservation planning software in the world, and expand on its utility as a decision support tool for complex conservation planning problems in landscapes and seascapes. The primary new element of the decision problem is allowing any parcel of land or sea to be allocated to a specific zone, not just reserved or unreserved. Each zone then has the option of its own actions, objectives and constraints, with the flexibility to define the contribution of each zone to achieve targets for pre-specified features. The cost of implementing each zone in any location is then minimized while achieving a variety of conservation and land-use objectives. We outline the capabilities, limitations and additional data requirements of this new software and perform a comparison with the original version of Marxan. We feature a number of case studies to demonstrate the functionality of the software and highlight its flexibility to address a range of complex spatial planning problems. These studies range from the design of multiple-use marine parks in Western Australia to a terrestrial multiple use forestry application from East Kalimantan.
A mining method of communities keeping tacit knowledge

The research community plays a very important role in holding valuable scientific knowledge. The authors propose a community mining system which helps to find communities of researchers by using bibliography data. The key features of our method are a network model of papers and a word assignment technique for the communities obtained. We implemented the proposed method in a graphical computer system. In this paper, we show how research communities are found using our system. Also, we evaluate the performance of the proposed method using experiments with real world data. The results demonstrate that our system can find appropriately sized research communities for a particular scientific field
Hydrodynamic Performance of Aquatic Flapping: Efficiency of Underwater Flight in the Manta

The manta is the largest marine organism to swim by dorsoventral oscillation (flapping) of the pectoral fins. The manta has been considered to swim with a high efficiency stroke, but this assertion has not been previously examined. The oscillatory swimming strokes of the manta were examined by detailing the kinematics of the pectoral fin movements swimming over a range of speeds and by analyzing simulations based on computational fluid dynamic potential flow and viscous models. These analyses showed that the fin movements are asymmetrical up- and downstrokes with both spanwise and chordwise waves interposed into the flapping motions. These motions produce complex three-dimensional flow patterns. The net thrust for propulsion was produced from the distal half of the fins. The vortex flow pattern and high propulsive efficiency of 89% were associated with Strouhal numbers within the optimal range (0.2–0.4) for rays swimming at routine and high speeds. Analysis of the swimming pattern of the manta provided a baseline for creation of a bio-inspired underwater vehicle, MantaBot.
Delta Neutrophil Index as a Prognostic Marker of Early Mortality in Gram Negative Bacteremia

Background Sepsis is a syndrome that results in high morbidity and mortality. We investigated the delta neutrophil index (DN) as a predictive marker of early mortality in patients with gram-negative bacteremia. Materials and Methods We conducted a retrospective study at a tertiary referral hospital in South Korea from November 2010 to March 2011. The DN was measured at onset of bacteremia and 24 hours and 72 hours later. The DN was calculated using an automatic hematology analyzer. Factors associated with 10-day mortality were assessed using logistic regression. Results A total of 172 patients with gram-negative bacteremia were included in the analysis; of these, 17 patients died within 10 days of bacteremia onset. In multivariate analysis, Sequental organ failure assessment scores (odds ratio [OR]: 2.24, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.31 to 3.84; P = 0.003), DN-day 1 ≥ 7.6% (OR: 305.18, 95% CI: 1.73 to 53983.52; P = 0.030) and DN-day 3 ≥ DN-day 1 (OR: 77.77, 95% CI: 1.90 to 3188.05; P = 0.022) were independent factors associated with early mortality in gram-negative bacteremia. Of four multivariate models developed and tested using various factors, the model using both DN-day 1 ≥ 7.6% and DN-day 3 ≥ DN-day 1 was most predictive early mortality. Conclusions DN may be a useful marker of early mortality in patients with gram-negative bacteremia. We found both DN-day 1 and DN trend to be significantly associated with early mortality.
Extending Gem5-Garnet for Efficient and Accurate Trace-driven NoC Simulation

Cycle-accurate full-system simulators, such as Gem5, are indispensable for advanced architecture designs. However, as the complexity of the system architectures rises, exploiting the design space with such simulators is becoming very time-consuming. A viable alternative is to separate the system component of interest, e.g. the network-on-chip (NoC), from the simulator and use a trace-driven approach to the component simulator. Although trace-driven simulation allows fast evaluation of design alternatives, the performance accuracy will often be sacrificed. To overcome the problem, techniques based on dependence-aware traces have been proposed. However, a considerable time and storage space is required to accurately identify and capture the dependence information between simulated events. A possible solution is to generate approximate dependences on-the-fly during simulation. In this paper, we study the effectiveness of a trace-based simulation technique based on the NoC simulator of Gem5, Garnet, that exploits and approximates trace dependencies during simulation to produce accurate performance results. We modify Garnet to be dependency-aware and use Gem5 as the ground truth for comparison. Based on our evaluations, the dependency-aware Garnet can keep the performance differences within 3.22%, while a trace-based Garnet may result in errors as high as 14.97%.
Improved practical differential fault analysis of Grain-128

Differential Fault Attacks (DFA) on stream ciphers have been an active field of research. However, their practical realizations have not been reported in the public literature. Hence, the assumptions on the fault models made in the context of DFA for stream ciphers have not been studied. Furthermore, there have been few efforts reported on the popular stream cipher candidate, Grain-128. We consider a simple low-cost fault injection set-up, using clock glitches and show that in stream ciphers the critical path of the circuit affects few bit positions (the feedback bit for the Shift Registers in the stream ciphers). Thus the fault is often localized to single bit position, and because of the absence of required faulty ciphers makes existing theoretical DFAs invalid. In order to create multiple instance of faults, we use clock glitches to induce the fault, and then use the shifting property of the internal registers of Grain to create multiple instances of contiguously located faults. In parallel, we also develop a more relaxed DFA for Grain-128, to show that when the fault is k neighbourhood bits, k ϵ {1,. ,5}, the attack is successful to retrieve the key without knowing the locations or exact number of bits flipped by the internal fault. We also devise a technique for rejecting the bad faults with high probabilities, i.e., when the faults are not in the contiguous location as required in the attack. Combining the above attacks we demonstrate using a simple set-up via clock glitches that such faults can be practically obtained and analysed using the proposed attack algorithm to retrieve the key.
Hypoglycemic Neuronal Death and Cognitive Impairment Are Prevented by Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase Inhibitors Administered after Hypoglycemia

Severe hypoglycemia causes neuronal death and cognitive impairment. Evidence suggests that hypoglycemic neuronal death involves excitotoxicity and DNA damage. Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) normally functions in DNA repair, but promotes cell death when extensively activated by DNA damage. Cortical neuron cultures were subjected to glucose deprivation to assess the role of PARP-1 in hypoglycemic neuronal death. PARP-1-/- neurons and wild-type, PARP-1+/+ neurons treated with the PARP inhibitor 3,4-dihydro-5-[4-(1-piperidinyl)butoxy]-1(2H)-isoquinolinone both showed increased resistance to glucose deprivation. A rat model of insulin-induced hypoglycemia was used to assess the therapeutic potential of PARP inhibitors after hypoglycemia. Rats subjected to severe hypoglycemia (30 min EEG isoelectricity) accumulated both nitrotyrosine and the PARP-1 product, poly(ADP-ribose), in vulnerable neurons. Treatment with PARP inhibitors immediately after hypoglycemia blocked production of poly(ADP-ribose) and reduced neuronal death by >80% in most brain regions examined. Increased neuronal survival was also achieved when PARP inhibitors were administered up to 2 hr after blood glucose correction. Behavioral and histological assessments performed 6 weeks after hypoglycemia confirmed a sustained salutary effect of PARP inhibition. These results suggest that PARP-1 activation is a major factor mediating hypoglycemic neuronal death and that PARP-1 inhibitors can rescue neurons that would otherwise die after severe hypoglycemia.
PARAMETRIC AND NONPARAMETRIC TRAFFIC VOLUME FORECASTING

Short-term traffic condition forecasting using nonparametric regression and seasonal ARIMA models are compared from both a practical and theoretical perspective. An empirical study is presented that tests the forecasting performance of each approach. In the study, nonparametric regression based on a k-nearest neighbor specification with adjusted and weighted output elements produced forecasts comparable in accuracy to seasonal ARIMA forecasts. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations given for forecast implementation and research
Performance of OFDM in Time Selective Multipath Fading Channel in 4G Systems

With the growing demand for higher data rate networks, OFDM has emerged as a key technology for 4G standards like 3GPP LTE, IEEE 802.16m WiMAX and IEEE 802.11n WLAN. With its robustness to frequency selective fading, high spectral efficiency and ease of implementation by means of Discrete Fourier Transform(DFT), OFDM is a cutting edge technology for Broadband mobile wireless. Along with its compatibility with MIMO, OFDM is an attractive air-interface solution to meet the demands of 4G networks. In mobile environment, channel is subject to both time and frequency selective fading. Although OFDM is resistant to ISI resulting from frequency selective fades, but it is quite sensitive to time selective multipath fading. This time selective fading causes ICI thus degrading system performance. For a satisfactory performance of OFDM, it is imperative that the sub-carriers remain orthogonal to each other. The orthogonal behaviour of sub-carriers can be jeopardised due to two effects namely Carrier frequency offset, and Doppler spread. In the case of high Doppler spread owing to high mobility, maintaining orthogonality between sub-carriers is a challenging task. To keep a SIR of 20 dB, OFDM symbol duration must not exceed 8% of the Coherence time of the channel. In the case of Carrier frequency offset, which is caused by the use of Local Oscillators, there is a frequency shift of the received signal spectrum. This frequency shift of the received signal spectrum compromises the orthogonality between the sub-carriers. This paper reviews the methods to mitigate the deleterious effect of time selective fading and compares the simulation result of high Doppler spread with that of small Doppler spread.
A Genome-wide Association Study of Early-Onset Breast Cancer Identifies PFKM as a Novel Breast Cancer Gene and Supports a Common Genetic Spectrum for Breast Cancer at Any Age

Early-onset breast cancer (EOBC) causes substantial loss of life and productivity, creating a major burden among women worldwide. We analyzed 1,265,548 Hapmap3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) among a discovery set of 3,523 EOBC incident cases and 2,702 population control women ages ≤ 51 years. The SNPs with smallest P values were examined in a replication set of 3,470 EOBC cases and 5,475 control women. We also tested EOBC association with 19,684 genes by annotating each gene with putative functional SNPs, and then combining their P values to obtain a gene-based P value. We examined the gene with smallest P value for replication in 1,145 breast cancer cases and 1,142 control women. The combined discovery and replication sets identified 72 new SNPs associated with EOBC (P < 4 × 10−8) located in six genomic regions previously reported to contain SNPs associated largely with later-onset breast cancer (LOBC). SNP rs2229882 and 10 other SNPs on chromosome 5q11.2 remained associated (P < 6 × 10−4) after adjustment for the strongest published SNPs in the region. Thirty-two of the 82 currently known LOBC SNPs were associated with EOBC (P < 0.05). Low power is likely responsible for the remaining 50 unassociated known LOBC SNPs. The gene-based analysis identified an association between breast cancer and the phosphofructokinase-muscle (PFKM) gene on chromosome 12q13.11 that met the genome-wide gene-based threshold of 2.5 × 10−6. In conclusion, EOBC and LOBC seem to have similar genetic etiologies; the 5q11.2 region may contain multiple distinct breast cancer loci; and the PFKM gene region is worthy of further investigation. These findings should enhance our understanding of the etiology of breast cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 23(4); 658–69. ©2014 AACR.
IT Governance in a Network Context: Literature Review and Agenda for Research

As a reaction to increased competition and higher customer expectations, organizations engage in collaborative networks; the key drivers for this ongoing trend are information and communication technologies. Today, collaborative networks are crucial for the entire network endeavor and rely heavily on IT resources. While the use and management of inter-organizational systems have already been widely studied from a firm’s perspective, there is little research that examines IT-related governance from a network point of view. In this paper, we present a systematic literature review in the field of IT governance in a network context. The review covers 28 publications. Building upon this, we identify four promising fields for future research: networks at the meta-level and linkages among levels, theories for IT governance in networks, the role of relational mechanisms, and (complex) contingency analysis. Finally, we suggest a more balanced use of methods.