Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unpacking firm effects: modeling political alliances in variance decomposition of firm performance in turbulent environments

In this paper, firm heterogeneity in turbulent environments is addressed. It is argued that previous studies have not taken into account effects of a turbulent environment, like the Brazilian context, in which firms must face a weak and erratic government. In such an environment, the large portion of variance usually attributed to firm effects may be explained, not by the usual assumptions of mainstream scholars, but by a more 'political' view of firm differences, namely, the ability to manage valuable political alliances. To account for these differences, a multivariate performance measure was construed and a new factor, 'politics effects', has been introduced to the usual model. Company donations for campaign funds in elections was used as a proxy for this factor. A sample of 607 observations, of 177 firms in 15 sectors was used. Results suggest that the presence of politics effects were found to be not significant (using COV and Hierarchical ANOVA). However, different from previous studies, transient industry effects appear to be more important than stable effects. Findings also indicate that a better model specification for turbulent environments is needed and highlight the importance of the cost of capital
Marker based attendance systems in education process

This paper describes a simply use case, to do students attendance using only classroom live video stream and a simply organized list of optical markers. Each student is wearing his own marker on visible part of his body. This marker exactly defines its own ID and cannot be interchanged with another one. As marker detection method / system we used Aruco markers. This selection is a result of the attached simply state of the art marker detection methods comparison. We have done a series of test to determine the best marker wearing place on human body for best detection rate. After evaluating all researched facts the attendance evaluation model was designed.
Flora and vegetation of the Banded Iron Formations of the Yilgarn Craton: the Booylgoo Range

A quadrat-based survey was undertaken of the vascular flora and plant communities on the Booylgoo Range, 65km east of Sandstone in the arid Murchison bioregion. The Range is an outcropping of the Booylgoo greenstone belt, which consists of diverse lithologies that includes Archaean banded iron formation (BIF), metabasalt, mafics, and Tertiary laterites. Quadrats were strategically placed to cover these broad geologies and the topographic profile of this range. This survey identified a total of 207 taxa (species, subspecies, varieties and forms) and nine putative hybrids from 47 families of vascular plants. This includes six species of conservation significance, five of these being new records for the area. Range extensions exceeding 100km are reported for nine species, but no endemic taxa were found. Classification analysis of presence/absence data on perennial taxa at 51 sites resolved six floristic community types, one of these with two subtypes. These are described in terms of structure, dominant taxa, indicator species and associated soil and environmental attributes. There is a strong association of community types with edaphic factors (topology, rock substrate and soil chemistry). The greatest floristic dissimilarity among communities is between those on banded iron formation and those on mafic substrates, which is associated with marked differences in soil chemical characteristics. Within BIF sites, the greatest floristic differences are between upland and lowland communities. This is associated with the extremes along a topo-edaphic gradient. The Booylgoo Range is an isolated, arid-zone landform whose different communities are tightly linked to landform element, topography and substrate. Mining and exploration tenements cover all of the survey area and the Booylgoo Range lies on two active pastoral leases. None of the range occurs within the secure conservation estate.
Global eradication of measles: a highly contagious and vaccine preventable disease - what went wrong in Africa?

This review study reports on global eradication of measles: a highly contagious and vaccine preventable disease-what went wrong in its eradication in Africa. Measles is one of the most contagious human diseases which have continued to cause large outbreaks all over the world even in countries that have achieved high vaccination coverage with a single dose strategy. The disease can also lead to lifelong disabilities including brain damage, blindness, and deafness. These serious complications are rare in developed countries where measles vaccine is widely available, the highest mortality is however found in poor nations. The disease has remained the fifth leading cause of deaths among children less than five years of age, worldwide. It accounts for 44% of total deaths due to vaccine preventable diseases (VPD), among children less than 15 years, the highest mortality occurring in poor communities with malnutrition, overcrowding and low vaccination coverage. Indeed, measles transmission has been interrupted in several countries, reinforcing the view that measles eradication is technically feasible using existing vaccines and intervention strategies. However, measles still accounts for 10% of global mortality from all causes among children aged <5 years (i.e., approximately 1 million deaths annually). Progress toward measles control varies substantially among countries and regions. In Nigeria where there is perennial, low routine vaccination coverage and where the quality of the mass immunization campaign is not high enough, large and persistent measles outbreaks continue to occur with high morbidity and mortality. Today, despite the availability of a safe, effective and relatively inexpensive vaccine for more than 40 years, measles still kills more than any other vaccines preventable disease among children. There is therefore, the urgent need to revisit the measles immunization and vaccination programme in Africa and in our country Nigeria with the sole aim of introducing a two-dose schedule to halt the endemic transmission. This is believed to bring about the successful eradication of measles in Africa. Intensified efforts will be necessary to implement appropriate control and elimination strategies, including supplementary vaccination campaigns, expansion of routine vaccination services, and surveillance. These strategies and estimates of the resources will also be required to implement them will require adjustment based on accumulating experience. Programmatic and financial obstacles must be overcome if the final goal of measles eradication is to be achieved. Key words: Epidemiology; highly contagious disease, immunization, immunosuppression public health; vaccination, vaccine preventable disease, measles, measles virus, measles vaccine
Effect of Ti, Al, and V ions on the relative growth rate of fibroblasts (L929) and osteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) cells.

The effect of Ti, V and Al ions on the relative growth rate of L929 cells and MC3T3-E1 cells was investigated by a cell culture method with metallic powders. These powders were sterilized under a U.V. lamp for 6 h, suspended in the medium and extracted for 48 h, 72 h and 96 h in the incubator. After filtering with a 0.2 microns filter, 3.0 x 10(4) L929 cells and 5 x 10(4) MC3T3-E1 cells were seeded in these filtrates of the medium with and without (control) the presence of the metallic powder. The number of cells was counted using a coulter counter from 1 to 7 days. The number of L929 cells after 4 days of incubation was almost similar for Ti and the control, whereas in the case of A1 and V extraction the number of cells was too low as compared to that of the control. The relative growth rate of L929 cells for Ti, A1 and V after 4 days of incubation was about 1, 0.2 and 0.02, respectively. A similar trend was also observed for MC3T3-E1 cells. The effect of the relative growth rate of L929 cells at different extraction times of 48 h, 72 h and 96 h was examined. It was found that the relative growth rate of L929 cells for Ti, A1 and V extraction was almost the same at all three extraction times. A number of 2.0-5.0 x 10(4) cells was seeded in the medium of A1 extraction. The effect of this initial number of cells on the relative growth rate of L929 cells was investigated. The relative growth rate of L929 cells decreased as the initial number of L929 cells increased. Moreover, dilutions from 1 to 10 times in the case of A1 and from 1 to 4000 times in the case of V were made. The relative growth rate became equal to 1 at 5 times dilution for A1 and at 4000 times dilution for V, for both L929 and MC3T3-E1 cells. From the measures of the concentration of the released A1 and V ions on the relative growth rate of L929 cells, it could be seen that there was a marked decrease in the concentrations of A1 and V ions from 0.3 ppm to 0.1 ppm.
Tweeting across hashtags: overlapping users and the importance of language, topics, and politics

In this paper we investigate the activity of 1 million users tweeting under 455 different hashtags related to a wide range of topics (political activism, health, technology, sports, Twitter-idioms). We find that 70% of users in the sample tweet across multiple information streams, frequently engaging in what could be described as serial activism. We furthermore determined the dominant language in each hashtag to trace which users overlap between the thematic and linguistic communities delineated by different information streams. Although social media is frequently assumed to bring together people of different nationalities and cultures to discuss a wide range of controversial issues, our results indicate that the underlying social network that connects hashtags through overlapping users is heavily limited to linguistic and content-oriented communities. Information streams are clustered around linguistic communities, and hashtags within the same language group are clustered around well-defined topics, such as health, entertainment and politics. The only information streams that transcend language barriers are activism-related hashtags, which cluster information streams in different languages. Contrasting with the assumption that social media acts as the enabler of a globalized public debate, our results indicate a linear relationship between users who are very active in political hashtags and users who tweet across multiple political hashtags. The results suggest that activist campaigns based on social media are driven by a relatively small number of highly-active, politically engaged users.
Hybrid plane fitting for depth estimation

In this paper, a novel plane fitting algorithm with low complexity and high accuracy is proposed to refine the depth maps generated by stereo matching. We first compute the confidence coefficient for each pixel in the depth map by cross checking and stable pixel calculation. According to the outlier pixel percentage for each segment, we choose one method, either proposed weighted least square error based or RANSAC based plane fitting algorithm, to estimate the plane parameters. Experimental results show that our method outperforms other existing plane fitting algorithms.
Simulation of infrared emissivity and reflectivity of oil films on sea surfaces

In this paper, an efficient sea surface generation is described for the fast and realistic simulation of the infrared emissivity and reflectivity of clean and contaminated seas. The clean sea surface is modelled by the Elfouhaily et al. spectrum model. For describing the surface damping due to the oil film at the sea surface, the model of local balance (MLB) is used. Thus, these surface models are used as the basis for calculating the emissivity and reflectivity. The numerical efficient computation is tested by comparison with the reference statistical computation for its validation.
Brazilian Journal of Microbiology (2012):

This study evaluated 26 pigeonpea rhizobial isolates according to their cultural characteristics, intrinsic antibiotic resistance, salt and temperature tolerance, carbon source utilization and amylolytic activity. The cultural characterization showed that the majority of them presented the ability to acidify the YMA. Among the 27 isolates evaluated, 25 were able to grow when incubated at 42° C and 11 showed tolerance to 3% (w/v) of NaCl in YMA medium. The patterns of carbon sources utilization was very diverse among the isolates. It was observed the capacity of three strains to metabolize all the carbon sources evaluated and a total of 42% of the bacterial isolates was able to grow in the culture medium supplemented with at least, six carbon sources. The carbon sources mannitol (control) and sucrose were metabilized by all isolates evaluated. The profile of intrinsic resistance to antibiotics showed that the isolates were mostly resistant to streptomycin and ampicillin, but susceptible to kanamycin and chloranphenicol. High amylolytic activity of, at least, four isolates was also demonstrated, especially for isolated 47.3b, which showed the highest enzymatic index. These results indicate the metabolic versatility of the pigeonpea rhizobia, and indicates the isolate 47.3b to further studies regarding the amylase production and characterization.
A barrier to vertical mixing at 14 km in the tropics: Evidence from ozonesondes and aircraft measurements

We use ozonesondes launched from Samoa (14°S) during the Pacific Exploratory Mission (PEM) Tropics A to show that O3 mixing ratios usually start increasing toward stratospheric values near 14 km. This is well below the tropical tropopause (as defined either in terms of lapse rate or cold point), which usually occurs between 16 and 17 km. We argue that the main reason for this discrepancy in height between the chemopause and tropopause is that there is very little convective detrainment of ozone-depleted marine boundary layer air above 14 km. We conjecture that the top of the Hadley circulation occurs at roughly 14 km, that convective penetration above this altitude is rare, and that air that is injected above this height subsequently participates in a slow vertical ascent into the stratosphere. The observed dependence of ozone on potential temperature in the transitional zone between the 14-km chemopause and the tropical tropopause is consistent with what would be expected from this hypothesis given calculated clear-sky heating rates and typical in situ ozone production rates in this region. An observed anticorrelation between ozone and equivalent potential temperature below 14 km is consistent with what would be expected from an overturning Hadley circulation, with some transport of high O3/low θe air from midlatitudes. We also argue that the positive correlations between O3 and N2O in the transitional zone obtained during the 1994 Airborne Southern Hemisphere Ozone Experiment/Measurements for Assessing the Effects of Stratospheric Aircraft) (ASHOE/MAESA) campaign support the notion that air in this region does have trace elements of stratospheric air (as conjectured previously), so that some of the ozone in the transitional zone does originate from the stratosphere rather than being entirely produced in situ.
CPW-Fed Wideband Printed Dipole Antenna for Digital TV Applications

A co-planar waveguide (CPW)-fed wideband printed dipole antenna is developed to fulfill digital TV applications. This antenna is designed with multiple loops to effectively extend the frequency range of operations. Additionally, the parameters associated with the proposed antenna structure are well investigated and adequately determined. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CPW-fed dipole antenna can operate at a frequency band from 430 MHz to 1180 MHz in which the return loss is better than 10 dB. The measured radiation patterns look like a dipole-type pattern. Particularly, the proposed antenna has a gain ranging from 1.78 to 2.83 dBi. Therefore, the antenna proposed herein is very suitable to various digital TV applications for high-performance receiving.
Predictive value of mucosal TNF‐&agr; transcripts in steroid‐refractory Crohn's disease patients receiving intensive immunosuppressive therapy

Background: Concentrations of proinflammatory cytokines are increased in the intestinal mucosa of patients with active Crohn's disease (CD). In a prospective study we investigated whether cytokines can predict long‐term remission (>6 months) in patients with steroid‐refractory CD receiving treatment with infliximab or cyclophosphamide, followed by azathioprine or methotrexate. Methods: Cytokine transcripts were quantified using real‐time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in mucosal biopsies from 19 patients with active, steroid‐refractory CD before and 8 weeks after initiation of therapy. Patients were treated with cyclophosphamide (monthly treatment of 750 mg cyclophosphamide intravenously) or infliximab (5 mg/kg body weight) and were followed until relapse of the disease. Statistical analysis was performed to identify predictive factors to discriminate between patients with or without long‐term remission. Results: Seventeen out of 19 patients achieved remission of the disease, two patients were nonresponders, while six out of 17 patients exhibited an early recurrence. Pretreatment TNF‐&agr;, IL‐18, MRP‐14, and IL‐8 transcripts were significantly correlated with long‐term remission. While several cytokines, most importantly MMP‐1, determined after 8 weeks were able to predict patients achieving long‐term remission, only a decrease of TNF‐&agr; levels after 8 weeks was predictive. Overall, statistical analysis identified lower pretreatment TNF‐&agr; levels as the strongest predictor of long‐term remission among baseline variables. Conclusions: Quantification of mucosal TNF‐&agr; transcripts prior to therapy allows identification of patients achieving long‐term remission upon immunosuppression with infliximab or cyclophosphamide. Real‐time PCR might have considerable potential in the analysis of disease activity and subsequent clinical management of patients with immunosuppressive therapies.
Filtering Models for the Filtering Problem

Stochastic filtering concerns the estimation of the state of a randomly evolving system that is only indirectly observed and the observations are, furthermore, affected by noise. The primary examples in finance concern factor models, where some factors are not directly observable. We review stochastic filtering in discrete and continuous time in linear and nonlinear models and describe some applications to pricing and portfolio management. The filtering problem Consider a randomly evolving system, the state of which is denoted by x t and this state may not be directly observable. Denote by y t the observation at time t ∈ [0, T ] (x t and y t may be vector-valued): y t is supposed to be probabilistically related with x t. For instance, y t may represent a noisy measurement of x t. The process x t is generally supposed to evolve in a Markovian way according to a given (a priori) distribution p(x t | x s), s ≤ t. The dynamics of y t are given in terms of the process x t ; a general assumption is that, given x t , the process y t is independent of its past and so one may consider as given the distribution p(y t | x t). The information on x t at a given t ∈ [0, T ] is thus represented by the past and present observations of y t , i.e. by y t 0 := {y s ; s ≤ t} or, equivalently, by the filtration F y t := σ{y s ; s ≤ t}. This information, combined with the a-priori dynamics of x given by p(x t | x s) can, via a Bayes'-type formula, be synthesized in the conditional or posterior distribution p(x t | y t 0) of x t , given y t 0 , and this distribution is called the filter distribution. The filtering problem consists now in determining, possibly in a recursive way, the filter distribution at each t ≤ T. It can also be seen as a dynamic extension of Bayes' statistics: for x t ≡ x an unknown parameter, the dynamic model for x given by p(x t | x s) reduces to a prior distribution for x and the filter p(x | y t 0) is then simply the posterior distribution of x, given the observations y s , s ≤ t. In many applications …
No evidence for solar absorption anomaly by marine water clouds through collocated aircraft radiation measurements

No observational evidence was found for the so-called anomalous solar absorption by maritime water clouds through collocated aircraft measurements taken during the Japanese Cloud-Climate Study (JACCS) program. The aircraft experiment has been carried out by using two aircraft equipped with various instruments for wintertime stratocumulus clouds over an area centered at (29°N, 129°E) in the East China Sea. Here we have carefully analyzed solar absorption by the water stratocumulus clouds observed on February 2, 1998. The visible-band net fluxes measured above and below the cloud layer were almost the same within measurement accuracy; this means no substantial absorption in the visible spectral region. On the other hand, there were significant differences as much as 50–80 W m−2 between the near-infrared-band net fluxes measured above and below the cloud layer; this difference corresponds to absorptance of 6–10% of the total-band solar irradiance above the cloud layer. Without cloud particles, water vapor absorption was estimated to be about 4% of the total-band irradiance for the layer. Distributions along the flight legs of the measured visible-band and near-infrared-band absorptance were in phase in their positions with zero mean visible-band absorptance. The measured radiation budget averaged over long distances along the flight legs for the inhomogeneous cloud layers agreed well with theoretical counterparts calculated for plane-parallel, homogeneous cloud models based on the observed microphysical parameters.
Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation and Gene Expression Changes in Two Arabidopsis Ecotypes and Their Reciprocal Hybrids[W]

This work analyzed DNA methylation and gene expression changes in two Arabidopsis ecotypes and their reciprocal hybrids and found that increased DNA methylation in both hybrid genomes, possibly directed by the RdDM pathway, may play a role in heterosis. Heterosis is a fundamental biological phenomenon characterized by the superior performance of a hybrid over its parents in many traits, but the underlying molecular basis remains elusive. To investigate whether DNA methylation plays a role in heterosis, we compared at single-base-pair resolution the DNA methylomes of Arabidopsis thaliana Landsberg erecta and C24 parental lines and their reciprocal F1 hybrids that exhibited heterosis. Both hybrids displayed increased DNA methylation across their entire genomes, especially in transposable elements. Interestingly, increased methylation of the hybrid genomes predominantly occurred in regions that were differentially methylated in the two parents and covered by small RNAs, implying that the RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway may direct DNA methylation in hybrids. In addition, we found that 77 genes sensitive to methylome remodeling were transcriptionally repressed in both reciprocal hybrids, including genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis and two circadian oscillator genes CIRCADIAN CLOCK ASSOCIATED1 and LATE ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL. Moreover, growth vigor of F1 hybrids was compromised by treatment with an agent that demethylates DNA and by abolishing production of functional small RNAs due to mutations in Arabidopsis RNA methyltransferase HUA ENHANCER1. Together, our data suggest that genome-wide remodeling of DNA methylation directed by the RdDM pathway may play a role in heterosis.