Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Telephone Demand and Economic Growth in Africa 1

This paper uses panel data from African countries from 1992 to 2004 and a dynamic panel data (DPD) estimation method to investigate the demand for telephone services and the impact of telephone use on income growth in African countries. We find that telephone use has a positive and significant impact on income growth in African countries, all things equal. We also find that the demand for telephone is price and income inelastic in both the short and long runs. The demand for telephone services in Africa is strongly influenced by the size of the network. Finally, we find that mobile telephones are substitutes for fixed telephones. The results are robust to different specifications. Our results have telephone research as well as growth policy implications.
Data Mining for Loan Evaluation at ABN AMRO: A Case Study

We describe a case study in data mining for personal loan evaluation, performed at the ABN AMRO bank in the Netherlands. Historical data of clients and their pay-back behaviour are used to learn to predict whether a client will default or not. It is shown that, due to the pre-selection by a credit scoring system, the data base is a sample from a different population than the bank is actually interested in; this necessarily restricts inference as well. Furthermore we point out the importance of integrity and consistency checking when the data are entered into the system: noise is a serious problem. The actual experimental comparison involves a "classical" statistical method, linear discriminant analysis, and the classification tree algorithm C4.5. Both methods use one and the same training set, drawn from the historical database, to learn a classification function. The percentages of correct classifications on an independent test set are 71.4% and 73.6% respectively. McNemar's test shows that the null hypothesis of equal performance has a p-value of 0.1417. The classification tree constructed by C4.5 uses 10 out of 38 attributes to distinguish between defaulters and non-defaulters, and is consistent with the available theory on credit scoring. The linear discriminant function uses 17 variables to make the classification. Both from the viewpoint of predictive accuracy and comprehensibilty, the classification tree performs better in this study. To make furhter progress, the level of noise in the data has to be reduced, and data has to be collected on loans that are rejected by the credit scoring system.
Relationship between Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Plaque Components in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease: Virtual Histology Intravascular Ultrasound Analysis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relation between neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and plaque components assessed by virtual histology-intravascular ultrasound in 399 coronary artery disease (CAD) patients with 471 coronary lesions. We classified the lesions into two groups according to the NLR on admission {low NLR group (NLR≤2.73 [n=370]) vs. high NLR group (NLR>2.73 [n=101])}. By volumetric analysis, total atheroma and the absolute necrotic core (NC) volumes were significantly greater in high NLR group (249.9±149.7 µL vs. 192.5±127.7 µL, P=0.001, and 32.7±26.8 µL vs. 22.8±19.4 µL, P=0.001, respectively) and thin-cap fibroatheroma (TCFA) was observed more frequently in high NLR group (33% vs. 18%, P=0.001). ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (odds ratio [OR], 2.159; 95% CI, 1.000-4.660, P=0.050) and NLR>2.73 (OR, 1.848; 95% CI, 1.016-3.360, P=0.044) and total atheroma volume (OR, 1.003; 95% CI, 1.001-1.004, P=0.004) were the independent predictors of TCFA. CAD patients with high NLR had more vulnerable plaque components (greater NC-containing plaques) than those with low NLR.
Assembly of smooth muscle myosin minifilaments: effects of phosphorylation and nucleotide binding

Small bipolar filaments, or "minifilaments," are formed when smooth muscle myosin is dialyzed against low ionic strength pyrophosphate or citrate/Tris buffers. Unlike synthetic filaments formed at approximately physiological ionic conditions, minifilaments are homogeneous as indicated by their hypersharp boundary during sedimentation velocity. Electron microscopy and hydrodynamic techniques were used to show that 20-22S smooth muscle myosin minifilaments are 380 nm long and composed of 12-14 molecules. By varying solvents, a continuum of different size polymers in the range of 15-30S could be obtained. Skeletal muscle myosin, in contrast, preferentially forms a stable 32S minifilament (Reisler, E., P. Cheung, and N. Borochov. 1986. Biophys. J. 49:335-342), suggesting underlying differences in the assembly properties of the two myosins. Addition of salt to the smooth muscle myosin minifilaments caused unidirectional growth into a longer "side-polar" type of filament, whereas bipolar filaments were consistently formed by skeletal muscle myosin. As with synthetic filaments, addition of 1 mM MgATP caused dephosphorylated minifilaments to dissociate to a mixture of folded monomers and dimers. Phosphorylation of the regulatory light chain prevented disassembly by nucleotide, even though it had no detectable effect on the structure of the minifilament. These results suggest that differences in filament stability as a result of phosphorylation are due largely to conformational changes occurring in the myosin head, and are not due to differences in filament packing.
Cubosome nanoparticles potentiate immune properties of immunostimulants

Cubosomes have been explored as drug and antigen carriers in the past few years. A few reports have described that cubosomes can enhance the ability of immunostimulants to generate strong immune responses. Polysaccharide (PS), an immunostimulant, has been reported to be a promising adjuvant for vaccines. Herein, we incorporated PS into cubosomes to generate PS–cubosome (Cub-PS) nanoparticles, and Cub-PS was characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering scattering and cryo-field emission scanning electron microscopy. The immunological activity of Cub-PS was compared with that of Cub and PS. The results demonstrated that Cub-PS elicited more potent immune responses than Cub or PS alone. The enhanced immune responses might be attributed to the promotion of antigen transport into draining lymph nodes and efficient dendritic cell activation and memory T-helper cell differentiation in draining lymph nodes. Overall, these findings indicate that cubosomes have the potential to enhance the ability of immunostimulants to generate an immune response.
Dimension reduction for ultrametrics

We prove that an ultrametric on <i>n</i> points can be embedded in <i>l<sup>d</sup><inf>p</inf></i> with distortion at most 1 + ε, and <i>d</i> = <i>O</i>(ε<sup>-2</sup> log <i>n</i>). This bound matches the best known bound for the special case of an equilateral space.
Involvement of the Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Cascade for Cocaine-Rewarding Properties

A central feature of drugs of abuse is to induce gene expression in discrete brain structures that are critically involved in behavioral responses related to addictive processes. Although extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) has been implicated in several neurobiological processes, including neuronal plasticity, its role in drug addiction remains poorly understood. This study was designed to analyze the activation of ERK by cocaine, its involvement in cocaine-induced early and long-term behavioral effects, as well as in gene expression. We show, by immunocytochemistry, that acute cocaine administration activates ERK throughout the striatum, rapidly but transiently. This activation was blocked when SCH 23390 [a specific dopamine (DA)-D1 antagonist] but not raclopride (a DA-D2 antagonist) was injected before cocaine. Glutamate receptors of NMDA subtypes also participated in ERK activation, as shown after injection of the NMDA receptor antagonist MK 801. The systemic injection of SL327, a selective inhibitor of the ERK kinase MEK, before cocaine, abolished the cocaine-induced ERK activation and decreased cocaine-induced hyperlocomotion, indicating a role of this pathway in events underlying early behavioral responses. Moreover, the rewarding effects of cocaine were abolished by SL327 in the place-conditioning paradigm. Because SL327 antagonized cocaine-induced c-fos expression and Elk-1 hyperphosphorylation, we suggest that the ERK intracellular signaling cascade is also involved in the prime burst of gene expression underlying long-term behavioral changes induced by cocaine. Altogether, these results reveal a new mechanism to explain behavioral responses of cocaine related to its addictive properties.
Some modular adders and multipliers for field programmable gate arrays

This paper is devoted to the study of number representations and algorithms leading to efficient implementations of modular adders and multipliers on recent field programmable arrays. Our hardware operators take advantage of the building blocks available in such devices: carry-propagate adders, memory blocks, and sometimes embedded multipliers. The first part of the paper describes three basic methodologies to carry out a modulo m addition and presents in more details the design of modulo (2/sup n/ /spl plusmn/ 1) adders. The major result is a novel modulo (2/sup n/ + 1) addition algorithm leading to an area-time efficient implementation of this arithmetic operation on FPGAs. The second part describes a modulo m multiplication algorithm involving small multipliers and memory blocks, and modulo (2/sup n/ + 1) multipliers based on Ma's algorithm. We also suggest some improvements of this operator in order to perform a multiplication in the group (Z*/sub 2n+1/,.).
A graph and connected dominating set-based mathematical model for task mapping in cloud computing

Cloud Computing is the technology provisioning services from remote Cloud Data Centers (CDC) using the Internet technologies where services range from compute to storage. This technology has evolved from distributed computing and it incorporates other technologies namely virtualization, grid and utility computing. The rate of users getting facilitated by the CDC increases exponentially. In this scenario efficient provisioning of resources such as hosts and Virtual Machines(VM) present in the CDC becomes mandatory. In this paper, a technique for mapping the tasks submitted by the cloud users to the hosts and VMs in CDC is being discussed. The main objective of this paper is to propose a task mapping procedure using graph and Connected Dominating Set (CDS)-based mathematical model which efficiently provisions the resources present in the CDC and ensures continuous service availability to the users.
High Signal-to-Noise Ratio second-order Delta-Sigma modulator

This paper presents a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) second-order Delta-Sigma modulator in which the delay accumulator in traditional structure is replaced by Al-Alaoui integrator. The SNR expression of new structure is obtained through frequency domain analysis on noise transfer function. The experimental results reveal that its performance overcomes that of conventional one with lower quantization noise and 6.5% higher SNR.
Splitting the bill for mobile data with SIMlets

The scarcity of mobile broadband spectrum is a problem hurting all stakeholders in the mobile landscape -- mobile operators (MOs), content providers, and mobile users. Building additional capacity is expensive, and MOs are reluctant to make such investments without a clear way of recouping their costs. This paper presents the idea of split billing: allowing content providers to pay for the traffic generated by mobile users visiting their websites or using their services. This creates an additional revenue stream for MOs and builds more pressure for updating their networks' capacities. End users also benefit because they can afford more expensive data plans and enjoy new applications and scenarios that make use of faster mobile networks. To implement split billing securely on a mobile platform, we develop the SIMlet, a new trustworthy computing abstraction. A SIMlet can be bound to a network socket to monitor and account all the traffic exchanged over the network socket. SIMlets provide trustworthy proofs of a device's mobile traffic, and such proofs can be redeemed at a content provider involved in split billing.
Knowledge , openness , innovation and growth in UK business services

We explore the causal links between service firms’ knowledge investments, their innovation outputs and business growth based on a bespoke survey of around 1100 UK service businesses. We combine the activity based approach of the innovation value chain with firms’ external links at each stage of the innovation process. This introduces the notion of ‘encoding’ relationships through which learning improves the effectiveness of firms’ innovation processes. Our econometric results emphasise the importance of openness in the initial, exploratory phase of the innovation process and the significance of team-working in later stages of the process. In-house design capacity is strongly linked to innovation performance. Business growth is related directly to both the extent of firms’ service innovation as well as the diversity of innovation reflecting marketing, strategic and business process change. Links to customers are important in the exploratory stage of the innovation process, but encoding linkages with suppliers and public sector agencies are more important in developing innovation outputs. Acknowledgements The data on which this paper was based was collected as part of the UK Innovation Index project sponsored by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). We are grateful for their support. Professor John Bryson and Dr Chantal Hales (University of Birmingham) were also part of the original project team.
Target tracking based on multiple feature and particle swarm optimization

In this paper a new algorithm is proposed based on multiple feature and particle swarm optimization for target tracking. The multiple feature includes local binary pattern (LBP) ,phase congruent (PC) and gradient magnitude(GM). This method not only can make use of contrast invariance of phase congruent, but also can fully utilize the rotation invariance of local binary pattern. Compared with the traditional histograms, the proposed algorithm extracts effectively the edge and corner feature in the target region, which characterizes better and more robustly represents the target. The experiments show that the proposed method in this paper is more accurate and more efficient in tracking objective than the traditional algorithms.
Holonomy and parallel transport for Abelian gerbes

In this paper, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between U(1)-gerbes with connections, on the one hand, and their holonomies, for simply connected manifolds, or their parallel transports, in the general case, on the other hand. This result is a higher-order analogue of the familiar equivalence between bundles with connections and their holonomies for connected manifolds. The holonomy of a gerbe with group U(1) on a simply connected manifold M is a group morphism from the thin second homotopy group to U(1), satisfying a smoothness condition, where a homotopy between maps from [0,1]2 to M is thin when its derivative is of rank ⩽2. For the non-simply connected case, holonomy is replaced by a parallel transport functor between two special Lie groupoids, which we call Lie 2-groups. The reconstruction of the gerbe and connection from its holonomy is carried out in detail for the simply connected case.
Pengaruh mindfulness meditation terhadap tingkat stres pada pasien dengan kanker di RW 3 Kelurahan Pacarkembang Surabaya dan Yayasan Kanker Indonesia Cabang Jawa Timur

Kanker adalah pertumbuhan abnormal dari sel-sel yang disebabkan oleh beberapa perubahan dalam ekspresi gen yang menyebabkan ketidakseimbangan regulasi proliferasi sel dan kematian sel yang bisa bermetastasis hingga menyebabkan kematian. Kanker ini menimbulkan beberapa dampak yang dirasakan mengganggu oleh pasien, salah satunya adalah stres psikologis. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis tingkat stres pasien dengan kanker sebelum dan sesudah dilakukan mindfulness meditation dengan durasi 4 minggu, dilakukan 2x per minggu dengan waktu pertemuan ±60 menit. Desain penelitian ini menggunakan one-group pre test-post test design dengan populasi sebanyak 71 orang di RW 3 Kelurahan Pacarkembang Surabaya dan 32 orang di Yayasan Kanker Indonesia Cabang Jawa Timur dengan pengambilan sampel secara purposive sampling, yang kemudian didapatkan sebanyak 36 orang sampel yang sesuai dengan kriteria inklusi. Sebagai alat ukurnya digunakan kuesioner Perceived Stress Scale dengan jumlah 10 butir pertanyaan. Hasil uji wilcoxon signed rank test didapatkan P-value 0,001 (p < 0,05) yang menunjukkan bahwa terdapat pengaruh mindfulness meditation terhadap perubahan tingkat stres pada pasien dengan kanker. Hal ini bisa memengaruhi peningkatan aktivasi di beberapa area prefrontal cortex (PFC) seperti ventromedial PFC, medial PFC, dan ventrolateral PFC yang menyebabkan terjadinya perubahan tingkat stres seseorang setelah melakukan mindfulness meditation.
A Ku-band high-isolation SPDT switch in 0.35um SiGe BiCMOS technology

In this paper, a compact high isolation 14–18 GHz SPDT switch using triple-well transistors based on 0. 35µm SiGe BiCMOS process is proposed. Improved series-shunt-shunt topology is used in this design to increase the isolation and to reduce the insertion loss concurrently. In order to improve the power handling capability, body-floating technique is employed and analyzed. The simulation results shown that in the interested frequency band of 14–18 GHz, the insertion loss of the ON state path is better than 1.5 dB, and the isolation of the OFF state path is higher than 44dB. The P1dB of the ON state path at center frequency 15.5 GHz is 13dBm, and the chip size is 0.125 mm2.
Burnout versus personality: Predicting volunteer retention

BURNOUT VERSUS PERSONALITY: PREDICTORS OF VOLUNTEER RETENTION By Conor Tuohy Employee turnover is an important issue for any organization, but it is of critical importance for volunteer organizations. Research shows that a strong predictor of volunteer turnover is a volunteer’s intention to remain in that organization. This study measured volunteers’ intention to remain and compared the known predictor of burnout to the potential predictor of personality (through personality traits) in order to find a better predictor of a volunteer’s intention to remain in an organization. Using survey data obtained from 65 participants from a single volunteer organization, this study showed that burnout and personality traits failed to predict a volunteer’s intention to remain in an organization. Pearson correlations and a hierarchical regression of the personality traits found that the agreeableness personality trait was a weak predictor of a volunteer’s intention to remain in an organization. Future research into agreeableness and factors of lower burnout scores in an organization are discussed.
Java Virtual Machine: the key for accurated memory prefetching

The popularity of the Java language is easily understandable analyzing the specific features of the language and the execution environment. However, there are still aspects of the Java execution environment that are not exploited. One of the most distinctive features of this platform is the knowledge that the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) has about the runtime characteristics of the applications. In this paper we show an example of how the JVM could use the applications runtime information to help the operating system in some tasks related to resources management, improving significantly the performance of the Java applications. In particular, we focus on the memory management and on the memory prefetching strategy. We show that it is possible to improve the performace from traditional prefetch approaches. In order to prove this idea we have designed and implemented a prototype to add memory prefetching into de JVM. This prototype achieves to overlap the time required to read the memory from disk with the computing time of the application, improving the final performance of the applications.
P S ] 1 0 M ar 2 00 9 Thin film dynamics with surfactant phase transition

A thin liquid film covered with an insoluble surfactant in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition is discussed. Within the lubrication approximation we derive two coupled equations to describe the height profile of the film and the surfactant density. Thermodynamics of the surfactant is incorporated via a Cahn-Hilliard type free-energy functional which can be chosen to describe a transition between two stable phases of different surfactant density. Within this model, a linear stability analysis of stationary homogeneous solutions is performed, and drop formation in a film covered with surfactant in the lower density phase is investigated numerically in one and two spatial dimensions.
Improving Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners' Vocabulary Knowledge through Watching Video Clips with English Subtitles

The present study aimed at investigating the improvement of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ vocabulary knowledge through watching video clips with English Subtitles. To achieve this goal, 40 male and female intermediate learners who were studying English as a foreign language (EFL) in Pardis Memar Institiute in Bandar Abbas, Iran, were selected as the main participants of the study through administering an Oxford Placement Test to ensure the homogeneity of the learners. They were randomly assigned in to two groups, namely: the experimental group with English subtitle (N=20) and the control group with no subtitle (N=20). The experimental group watched 10 video clips with English subtitles and the control group watched 10 video clips with no subtitles during ten sessions. Both groups received the same pre-test containing 50 new words drawn from the clips. After 10 treatment sessions, the post-test, which was the parallel form of the pretest, was administered. The result showed that the participants in the bimodal subtitling group outperformed and learned more new vocabulary items. The performance of the participants in no subtitle group, revealed to be less effective than the group with subtitles. The findings showed that watching video clips with subtitles can improve the EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge.
The eukaryote-specific N-terminal extension of ribosomal protein S31 contributes to the assembly and function of 40S ribosomal subunits

The archaea-/eukaryote-specific 40S-ribosomal-subunit protein S31 is expressed as an ubiquitin fusion protein in eukaryotes and consists of a conserved body and a eukaryote-specific N-terminal extension. In yeast, S31 is a practically essential protein, which is required for cytoplasmic 20S pre-rRNA maturation. Here, we have studied the role of the N-terminal extension of the yeast S31 protein. We show that deletion of this extension partially impairs cell growth and 40S subunit biogenesis and confers hypersensitivity to aminoglycoside antibiotics. Moreover, the extension harbours a nuclear localization signal that promotes active nuclear import of S31, which associates with pre-ribosomal particles in the nucleus. In the absence of the extension, truncated S31 inefficiently assembles into pre-40S particles and two subpopulations of mature small subunits, one lacking and another one containing truncated S31, can be identified. Plasmid-driven overexpression of truncated S31 partially suppresses the growth and ribosome biogenesis defects but, conversely, slightly enhances the hypersensitivity to aminoglycosides. Altogether, these results indicate that the N-terminal extension facilitates the assembly of S31 into pre-40S particles and contributes to the optimal translational activity of mature 40S subunits but has only a minor role in cytoplasmic cleavage of 20S pre-rRNA at site D.