Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Subsidiaries of Foreign Banks Contribute to the Stability of the Forex Market in Emerging Economies? A Look at Some Evidence from the Mexican..

Over the last decade, the ownership of the banking sector in Latin America has changed hands from local shareholders to large foreign banks from Spain and the United States. It is also a fact that the foreign exchange market in these countries has been segmented through various kinds of restrictions, because the central bank is unable to function as a lender of last resort in a currency other than its own. The standing issue is whether in practice, a parent bank effectively takes the role of such lender of last resort in supporting its subsidiaries overseas. If that were to be the case, the question is if having a significant participation of foreign subsidiaries is a necessary condition for lifting such restrictions. The data on the compliance of domestic and foreign banks with the dollar reserve requirements in Mexico is used to try to address this question. The answer is a qualified yes. When there are weak domestic banks, it seems that subsidiaries of foreign banks have a better access to funding in foreign exchange, specially in times of stress. However, when compared with strong domestic banks, the evidence suggests that these local entities can do as well or even better than the foreign subsidiaries.
Wavelet Neural Networks for Nonlinear Time Series Analysis

A wavelet network is an important tool for analyzing time series especially when it is nonlinear and non-stationary. It takes advantage of high resolution of wavelets and learning and feed forward nature of Neural Networks. Wavelets are a class of functions such that multiple resolution nature of wavelets provides a natural frame work for the analysis of time series. The power of this network to approximate functions from given input-output data is proved and it has utilized the localization property of a wavelet to focus on local properties. Guaranteed upper bounds on the accuracy of approximation is established. Here we are analyzing the time series of number of terrorist attacks in the world measured on monthly basis during the period February 1968 to January 2007 for establishing the superiority of this method over other existing methods. The simulation results show that the model is capable of producing a reasonable accuracy within several steps. Mathematics Subject Classication: 37M10, 65T60, 92B20
Online Recommender Systems based on Data Stream Management Systems

In this paper, I present a novel approach for implementing a stream-based Recommender System (RecSys). I propose to add RecSys operators to an application-independent Data Stream Management System (DSMS) to allow writing continuous queries over data streams that calculate personalized sets of recommendations. That empowers RecSys providers to create a custom RecSys by writing queries in a declarative query language. This approach ensures a flexible and extendable usage of RecSys functions in different settings and benefits from matured features of DSMSs.
OPTICAL AND ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF ZnTe AND ZnTe: O THIN FILMS DEPOSITED BY CSVT TECHNIQUE

Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) thin films were deposited onto glass and CdTe substrates by CSVT (Close Space Vapor Transport) technique. The analysis of the chemical compositions for the as-deposited as well as annealed ZnTe thin films was estimated by using the method of energy dispersive analysis of x-ray (EDAX). The morphological structural, optical and electrical properties were studied.
Requirements for activation of the herpes simplex virus glycoprotein C promoter in vitro by the viral regulatory protein ICP4

During infection with herpes simplex virus, infected-cell polypeptide 4 (ICP4) activates transcription of most herpes simplex virus genes. In the present study, the mechanism of activation of transcription by ICP4 was investigated by using a reconstituted in vitro system with fractionated and purified general transcription factors, coupled with DNA-binding assays. The templates used in the reactions included regions of the gC and thymidine kinase (tk) promoters in plasmids, and on isolated fragments, allowing for the evaluation of the potential function of naturally occurring and inserted ICP4-binding sites and elements of the core promoter. ICP4 efficiently activated transcription of the gC promoter by facilitating the formation of transcription initiation complexes. ICP4 could not substitute for any of the basal transcription factors. Moreover, TATA-binding protein (TBP) could not substitute for TFIID in activation, suggesting a requirement for TBP-associated factors. Interactions between ICP4 and DNA 3' to the start site was necessary for activation of the gC promoter. The requirement for DNA-protein contacts could be met either by the presence of an ICP4-binding site in the gC leader, by the presence of a site more than 150 nucleotides further downstream, by an inserted site that normally acts to repress transcription, or by the addition of sufficient non-site-containing DNA. The gC TATA box and start site, or initiator element (inr), were individually sufficient for activation by ICP4 and together contributed to optimal activation. In contrast to gC, the tk promoter was poorly activated in the reconstituted system. However, the tk TATA box was efficiently activated when the tk start site region was replaced with the gC inr, suggesting that activation was mediated through the inr and inr-binding proteins. In addition, mutation of the inr core resulted in a gC promoter that was very poorly activated by ICP4. The results of this and previous studies demonstrate that ICP4 activates transcription in a complex manner involving contacts with DNA 3' to the start site, TBP, TFIIB, TBP-associated factors, and possibly proteins functioning at the start site of transcription.
Towards a new generation of cochlear implants through coherent stimulation of neurons in different refractory phases

We propose an economic solution for a single electrode cochl ear implant guaranteeing not only speech discrimination but also tinnitus suppression. The device o p rates with a new mechanism for high-pitch perception, in which a system of multiple neurons can resolve fr equencies higher than the frequency associated with the mean refractory period up to a multiple thereof. PACS numbers: 87.19. Dd,43.64. +r,87.19. La,43.71. +m
Development Risk Assessment in Software Projects Using Dependability Models

Risk management is a prominent activity, which aims the mitigation of undesirable issues during a project lifetime. In this context, techniques have been proposed to evaluate the impact of risks, but probability estimates are usually neglected, affecting a proper evaluation of such issues. This work presents an approach based on dependability models (e.g., stochastic Petri nets) for probabilistic evaluation of risks regarding the turnover of team members and requirement implementation in software development projects. Two case studies are adopted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique.
Experimental Investigation on Electric Arc Cutting Process for Casing

Many cutting operations are necessary for tubular structures and the wellhead during platform decommission. Electric arc cutting technology for casing and wellhead inner cutting is presented in this study. The electric arc cutting system eliminates the plasma gas system and focuses only on high cutting efficiency given that this cutting operation has no requirements on dimensional accuracy. An arc ignition circuit that is different from traditional arc cutting power is introduced. This study aims to explore cutting performance, such as cutting efficiency and electrode wear. Several cutting parameters, including the working medium, electrode material, electrode diameter, cutting current, and workpiece thickness, are investigated by a series of experiments to analyze cutting performance. Cutting time and electrode wear rate are obtained to evaluate the cutting performance. The morphological features of the experimental results are also investigated. Results show that electric arc cutting technology can be employed to cut a workpiece effectively in sea water with a 4mm tungsten electrode. Cutting performance is affected significantly by cutting current and velocity. A 13 3/8inch casing is cut within 5min in the laboratory with optimal machining parameters, which allow for a good cutting effect.
Towards wearable capacitive sensing of physiological parameters

We describe an initial investigation of the suitability of body worn capacitive sensors for the measurement of physiological parameters. We describe the basic principle, our measurement setup, and initial signal examples obtained using a conductive textile electrode. The examples show that breathing, breathing depth, and even drinking a cup of water produce distinguishable signals.
Regulation of Pacing Strategy during Athletic Competition

Background Athletic competition has been a source of interest to the scientific community for many years, as a surrogate of the limits of human ambulatory ability. One of the remarkable things about athletic competition is the observation that some athletes suddenly reduce their pace in the mid-portion of the race and drop back from their competitors. Alternatively, other athletes will perform great accelerations in mid-race (surges) or during the closing stages of the race (the endspurt). This observation fits well with recent evidence that muscular power output is regulated in an anticipatory way, designed to prevent unreasonably large homeostatic disturbances. Principal Findings Here we demonstrate that a simple index, the product of the momentary Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and the fraction of race distance remaining, the Hazard Score, defines the likelihood that athletes will change their velocity during simulated competitions; and may effectively represent the language used to allow anticipatory regulation of muscle power output. Conclusions These data support the concept that the muscular power output during high intensity exercise performance is actively regulated in an anticipatory manner that accounts for both the momentary sensations the athlete is experiencing as well as the relative amount of a competition to be completed.
Entropy Message Passing Algorithm

Message passing over factor graph can be considered as generalization of many well known algorithms for efficient marginalization of multivariate function. A specific instance of the algorithm is obtained by choosing an appropriate commutative semiring for the range of the function to be marginalized. Some examples are Viterbi algorithm, obtained on max-product semiring and forward-backward algorithm obtained on sum-product semiring. In this paper, Entropy Message Passing algorithm (EMP) is developed. It operates over entropy semiring, previously introduced in automata theory. It is shown how EMP extends the use of message passing over factor graphs to probabilistic model algorithms such as Expectation Maximization algorithm, gradient methods and computation of model entropy, unifying the work of different authors.
Chloroquine/Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine for Gambian Children with Malaria: Transmission to Mosquitoes of Multidrug-Resistant Plasmodium falciparum

Objectives: In the Gambia, chloroquine (CQ) plus sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) is the first-line antimalarial treatment. Plasmodium falciparum parasites carrying mutations associated with resistance to each of these drugs were present in 2001 but did not cause a significant loss of therapeutic efficacy among children receiving the combination CQ/SP. We measured their effect on parasite transmission to Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. Design: We conducted a single-blind, randomised, controlled trial with follow-up over 28 d. Mosquito feeding experiments were carried out 7, 10, or 14 d after treatment. Setting: The study took place in the town of Farafenni and surrounding villages in the Gambia. Participants: Participants were 500 children aged 6 mo to 10 y with uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria. Interventions: Children were randomised to receive CQ, SP, or CQ/SP. Outcome Measures: Outcomes related to transmission were determined, including posttreatment gametocyte prevalence and density. Infectiousness was assessed by membrane-feeding A. gambiae mosquitoes with blood from 70 gametocyte-positive patients. Mutations at seven loci in four genes associated with drug resistance were measured pre- and posttreatment and in the midguts of infected mosquitoes. Results: After SP treatment, the infectiousness of gametocytes was delayed, compared to the other two treatment groups, despite comparable gametocyte densities. Among bloodmeal gametocytes and the midguts of infected mosquitoes, the presence of the four-locus multidrug-resistant haplotype TYRG (consisting of mutations pfcrt-76T, pfmdr1-86Y, pfdhfr-59R, and pfdhps-437G) was associated with significantly higher oocyst burdens after treatment with the combination CQ/SP. Conclusions: Parasites with a multidrug-resistant genotype had a substantial transmission advantage after CQ/SP treatment but did not have a significant impact on in vivo efficacy of this drug combination. Protocols that include measuring transmission endpoints as well as therapeutic outcomes may be a useful strategy when monitoring the evolution of drug resistance in malaria parasites in vivo.
Robotic clipless transperitoneal adrenalectomy.

Robotic adrenalectomy is a minimally invasive alternative to traditional laparoscopic adrenalectomy. In addition to the benefits of decreased postoperative pain and shortened recovery time represented by laparoscopic adrenalectomy, robotic technology adds to the advantages of laparoscopy the benefits of a 3-dimensional display that enhances depth perception. Robotic approach enables the surgeon to operate in a comfortable, seated position in which the eye, hand, and target are in line; and has instruments that contain a “wrist” joint to improve dexterity (1-3).
In vitro Tissue Culture, a Tool for the Study and Breeding of Plants Subjected to Abiotic Stress Conditions

© 2012 Perez-Clemente and Gomez-Cadenas, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In vitro Tissue Culture, a Tool for the Study and Breeding of Plants Subjected to Abiotic Stress Conditions
Privacy Aware Engineering: A Case Study

Privacy is a complex social process that will persist in one form or another as a fundamental feature of software engineering. For successful privacy aware engineering, it is critical to guarantee the alignment and compliance among privacy artifacts emerging during software development process. In this paper, we propose a privacy compliance engineering flow in which we investigate the involved necessary privacy artifacts and discuss their alignment, refinement, and compliance verification. Within an exemplary case study, we identify the privacy artifacts introduced in the refinement process and analyze their compliance verification.
Medical image retrieval using bag of meaningful visual words: unsupervised visual vocabulary pruning with PLSA

Content--based medical image retrieval has been proposed as a technique that allows not only for easy access to images from the relevant literature and electronic health records but also for training physicians, for research and clinical decision support. The bag-of-visual-words approach is a widely used technique that tries to shorten the semantic gap by learning meaningful features from the dataset and describing documents and images in terms of the histogram of these features. Visual vocabularies are often redundant, over--complete and noisy. Larger than required vocabularies lead to high--dimensional feature spaces, which present important disadvantages with the curse of dimensionality and computational cost being the most obvious ones. In this work a visual vocabulary pruning technique is presented. It enormously reduces the amount of required words to describe a medical image dataset with no significant effect on the accuracy. Results show that a reduction of up to 90% can be achieved without impact on the system performance. Obtaining a more compact representation of a document enables multimodal description as well as using classifiers requiring low--dimensional representations.
Creation and Staging of Android Theatre "Sayonara"towards Developing Highly Human-Like Robots

Even after long-term exposures, androids with a strikingly human-like appearance evoke unnatural feelings. The behavior that would induce human-like feelings after long exposures is difficult to determine, and it often depends on the cultural background of the observers. Therefore, in this study, we generate an acting performance system for the android, in which an android and a human interact in a stage play in the real world. We adopt the theatrical theory called Contemporary Colloquial Theatre Theory to give the android natural behaviors so that audiences can comfortably observe it even after long-minute exposure. A stage play is created and shown in various locations, and the audiences are requested to report their impressions of the stage and their cultural and psychological backgrounds in a self-evaluating questionnaire. Overall analysis indicates that the audience had positive feelings, in terms of attractiveness, towards the android on the stage even after 20 min of exposure. The singularly high acceptance of the android by Japanese audiences seems to be correlated with a high animism tendency, rather than to empathy. We also discuss how the stage play approach is limited and could be extended to contribute to realization of human–robot interaction in the real world.
Properties of niobium oxide films deposited by pulsed DC reactive magnetron sputtering

Nb2O5 thin films at various cathode power and substrate bias voltages were deposited by pulsed DC reactive magnetron sputtering of a metallic Nb target in a pure oxygen atmosphere. The characteristics of the films have been studied using spectrometer, atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Laser damage tests at 1064 nm wavelength with pulse duration of 12 ns were conducted on the single-layer systems. Results indicate that the cathode power may not be an important impact-factor of the LIDT of Nb2O5 thin films but substrate bias voltage has significant influence on the laser resistance of Niobium oxides films. The maximum laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) of 28.8 J/cm2 was obtained for the film deposited at substrate bias voltage of -60V.
Milliseconds matter: an introduction to microstrategies and to their use in describing and predicting interactive behavior.

Interactive behavior is constrained by the design of the artifacts available (e.g., a mouse and button) as well as by the ways in which elementary cognitive, perceptual, and motor operations can be combined. Any 2 basic activities, for example, (a) moving to and (b) clicking on a button, can be combined to yield a limited number of microstrategies. The results of an experimental study suggest that alternative microstrategies can be deployed that shave milliseconds from routine interactive behavior. Data from a usability study are used to explore the potential of microstrategies for (a) bracketing the range of individual performance, (b) profiling individual differences, and (c) diagnosing mismatches between expected and obtained performance. These 2 studies support the arguments that the microstrategies deployed can be sensitive to small features of an interface and that task analyses at the millisecond level can inform design.
Review Simulated Viewpoint Jitter Shakes Sensory Conflict Accounts of Vection *

Sensory conflict has been used to explain the way we perceive and control our self-motion, as well as the aetiology of motion sickness. However, recent research on simulated viewpoint jitter provides a strong challenge to one core prediction of these theories — that increasing sensory conflict should always impair visually induced illusions of self-motion (known as vection). These studies show that jittering self-motion displays (thought to generate significant and sustained visual–vestibular conflict) actually induce superior vection to comparable non-jittering displays (thought to generate only minimal/transient sensory conflict). Here we review viewpoint jitter effects on vection, postural sway, eye-movements and motion sickness, and relate them to recent behavioural and neurophysiological findings. It is shown that jitter research provides important insights into the role that sensory interaction plays in self-motion perception. 1. The Self-motion Senses As we travel through the world, either actively (e.g., walking or running) or passively (e.g., sitting on a moving bus or train), we are consciously aware of our own self-motion. This conscious experience involves perceptions of the speed and direction of self-motion, as well as the times-to-contact with objects in the immediate environment. Multiple senses contribute to this perception of self-motion, including vision, the vestibular system of the inner ear, kinesthesia, somatosensation and
Programming in logic without logic programming

Abstract In previous work, we proposed a logic-based framework in which computation is the execution of actions in an attempt to make reactive rules of the form if antecedent then consequent true in a canonical model of a logic program determined by an initial state, sequence of events, and the resulting sequence of subsequent states. In this model-theoretic semantics, reactive rules are the driving force, and logic programs play only a supporting role. In the canonical model, states, actions, and other events are represented with timestamps. But in the operational semantics (OS), for the sake of efficiency, timestamps are omitted and only the current state is maintained. State transitions are performed reactively by executing actions to make the consequents of rules true whenever the antecedents become true. This OS is sound, but incomplete. It cannot make reactive rules true by preventing their antecedents from becoming true, or by proactively making their consequents true before their antecedents become true. In this paper, we characterize the notion of reactive model, and prove that the OS can generate all and only such models. In order to focus on the main issues, we omit the logic programming component of the framework.
Outsourcing information services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the systematic redevelopment of a Corporate Information Center's strategy, with particular focus on the aspect of outsourcing services. This aspect is emphasised, because it is the only way to realise a new business model without an increase in resources.Design/methodology/approach – There is a description of which services have been outsourced, while it is also made clear which activities related to the creation of processes and their supervision have remained in the company's internal Information Center, and how they are changing as time goes on. The licensing of information sources from external aggregators is viewed in the context of outsourcing, as is the latest development in Vendor Portfolio Management.Findings – After the transformation of the classic spectrum of library services into the strategically created portfolio of an Online Information Center, the core tasks at the forefront are those which anchor the Information Center in the corporation .