Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Causes of Financial Instability

In recent years we have witnessed a marked increase in episodes of financial crisis in the U.S. economy, e.g., the problems associated with Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984 and the stock market crash in 1987. In addition, failures of commercial banks and thrift institutions have reached levels not seen since the Depression. The term "financial instability" will be used in this paper to refer to both the episodes of financial crisis and the troubles of the depository intermediaries (a more specific definition will be provided below). Our focus is on those developments that threaten widespread disruption to the normal functioning of the economic and financial systems. In this sense, the episodes of financial crisis are clearly examples of financial instability. In addition, though, the term as used here includes the increasing failures of the depository intermediaries. Unlike the problems of consumers or even nonfinancial businesses, widespread failures of depository intermediaries are more likely to threaten directly the entire financial system. These increasingly interconnected institutions have the unique role of extending credit and supplying liquidity on demand (see Dymski, 1988), and are central to the payments mechanism. Thus problems in the banking system can disrupt the overall economic and financial
The Psychology of Ritual: An Empirical Investigation of Ritual’s Regulatory Functions and Psychological Processes

Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal properties driving this puzzling yet universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, the aim of this dissertation was twofold: First, I propose an integrative theoretical framework of ritual that organIntroizes recent empirical work from psychology and the cognitive and neuroscience fields. In this framework I propose that all ritual serves three regulatory functions. Namely, rituals regulate (1) social behaviors, (2) goal states, and (3) emotions. I explain each function by drawing on bottom-up and top-down processes, and suggest that all forms of ritual are a result of some combination of these two levels of psychological processing. Second, I use the framework to generate testable predictions and outline seven experiments as part of this research program. In Studies 1 and 2, I found evidence that novel rituals strengthen ingroup ties but at the expense of outgroup distrust (Study 1), a bias response that is amplified as a ritual becomes more effortful (Study 2). In Study 3, I found that minor variations in the amount of (mis)matching in a ritual sequence predicts differences in group functioning. In Studies 4 and 5, I found evidence to suggest that how a ritual is created, in terms of its physical features, depends on the underlying motivational context (Study 4). As a built-in regulatory mechanism, the embodiment of ritual allows a group to anticipate future goal states, with physical styles of ritual either helping or hindering collective performance (Study 5). The last two studies examined the role that personal ritual plays in mitigating anxiety. In Study 6, I found that ritual is capable of muting the neuroaffective response to failure. Finally, the findings from Study 7 suggest that ritualized movements minimize anxiety by blocking out surrounding
Implicit Prices of Prawn and Shrimp Attributes in the Philippine Domestic Market

Improving quality is a major goal in the global seafood market due to increasing consciousness among buyers, who are becoming "quality consumers" rather than "quantity consumers. " This paper uses the hedonic approach to determine the marketable characteristics of prawn and shrimp in a domestic market that prioritizes export of quality products to a more lucrative market. Using price and attribute data for prawn and shrimp purchased from the Philippine domestic market, we estimate a log-linear hedonic price model with combined continuous and dummy explanatory variables. The estimation results show significant implicit prices of attributes, such as: tail length, freshness, product form, species, color, size, ease of preparation, discoloration, protein, and carbohydrate content. Longer tails and banana species are highly valued. Peeling and breading to ease preparation obtain a high premium. Freezing, although commonly practiced, receives the highest discount among forms of preservation. As the characteristics of local consumers and the market in the Philippines are similar to other competing Asian exporters such as Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, the results presented in this paper will be applicable to these exporting countries.
A framework for self-configuration on WMNs aware of performance and security issues

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged to support applications on various domains, such as military, financial and healthcare, that claim for high level of both security and performance. Since WMNs are susceptible to security issues, and their devices own limitations that can compromise network performance, this paper presents SECOM, a framework for self-configuration of WMNs to provide simultaneously security and performance. It comprises of different functional blocks to manage and adapt network services guaranteeing application requirements. We employ the framework on routing essential service, applying different security mechanisms and redundancies in network and link layers to assist route selection. Simulation results show that our framework enhances both security and performance, with low cost in terms of latency.
Low historical nitrogen deposition effect on carbon sequestration in the boreal zone

Nitrogen (N) cycle dynamics and N deposition play an important role in determining the terrestrial biosphere's carbon (C) balance. We assess global and biome‐specific N deposition effects on C sequestration rates with the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ‐GUESS. Modeled CN interactions are evaluated by comparing predictions of the C and CN version of the model with direct observations of C fluxes from 68 forest FLUXNET sites. N limitation on C uptake reduced overestimation of gross primary productivity for boreal evergreen needleleaf forests from 56% to 18%, presenting the greatest improvement among forest types. Relative N deposition effects on C sequestration (dC/dN) in boreal, temperate, and tropical sites ranged from 17 to 26 kg C kg N−1 when modeled at site scale and were reduced to 12–22 kg C kg N−1 at global scale. We find that 19% of the recent (1990–2007) and 24% of the historical global C sink (1900–2006) was driven by N deposition effects. While boreal forests exhibit highest dC/dN, their N deposition‐induced C sink was relatively low and is suspected to stay low in the future as no major changes in N deposition rates are expected in the boreal zone. N deposition induced a greater C sink in temperate and tropical forests, while predicted C fluxes and N‐induced C sink response in tropical forests were associated with greatest uncertainties. Future work should be directed at improving the ability of LPJ‐GUESS and other process‐based ecosystem models to reproduce C cycle dynamics in the tropics, facilitated by more benchmarking data sets. Furthermore, efforts should aim to improve understanding and model representations of N availability (e.g., N fixation and organic N uptake), N limitation, P cycle dynamics, and effects of anthropogenic land use and land cover changes.
Dynamic Threshold Modeling of Budget Changes

A family of models was given to explain how the public bud- geting process, as a multi-stage institutional decision making mechanism transforms the stimuli characterized by Gaussian distribution to skew, power law distributions. While the an- nual change is generally incremental, deviations from this incremental changes are more frequent, than the Gaussian distribution suggests. A set of threshold models, reﬂecting error-accumulation and friction, was suggested. The three- threshold model seems to be good to describe appropriately the basic statistical features of the data.
Parallel Grr Obner Bases Computattions by Elementary Methods

The main purpose of this paper is to present parallelized versions of Buchberger and FGLM algorithms which are the most powerful tool to compute Grr obner bases. In the case of integer coeecients, the basic idea is to use a probabilistic DAG of dependencies generated by an auxiliary fast modular computation in order to avoid vanishing syzygies in rst time and to exploit the parallelismwithout disturbing the sequential strategy in a second time; the result of this computationis only probabilistic but we show that proving it can be done quickly. A parallelized version of Buchbergeralgorithm is also presented in the case of modular computation. We achieved about 31 times speedup with 8 processors for a large robotic problem (integers), (=n= 2). For a big modulo p problem { cyclic 7 { we report a 5 (resp. 6:2) rate of acceleration for Buchberger algorithm (resp. FGLM algorithm)on a Alliant with 8 processors.The details of an eecient C++ implementation are given together with results of tests performed with signiicant examples.
Design and Analysis of Digital-Assisted Bandwidth-Enhanced Miller Divider in  $ {\hbox {0.18-}}\mu{\hbox {m}}$ CMOS Process

A bandwidth-enhanced technique for a Miller divider is presented in this paper. The proposed frequency divider consists of a band-switched Miller divider and digital-assisted circuit to switch the resonator automatically. The proposed frequency divider is implemented in 0.18-μm CMOS technology and has a measured 57.4% bandwidth from 8.2 to 14.8 GHz at an input power of 0 dBm. The dc consumption is 12 mW. Compared to the previously reported Miller dividers, the proposed circuit achieves the widest fractional bandwidth.
Assessment of the Body Composition and Parameters of the Cardiovascular Risk in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

The study was aimed to evaluate cardiovascular risk parameters, body mass index (BMI) centiles for sex and age, and body fat percentage using the electric bioimpedance method in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). 30 children with JIA participated in the study. A control group included 20 children. Patients were well matched for the age and sex. The body mass and body fat percentage were determined using the segmental body composition analyser; the BMI centiles were determined. All patients had the following parameters determined: lipid profile, hsCRP, homocysteine, and IL-6. The intima media thickness (IMT) was measured. Patients with JIA had significantly lower body weight, BMI, and the BMI centile compared to the control group. The IL-6 levels were significantly higher in patients with JIA compared to the control group. There were no differences between two groups with regard to the lipid profile, % content of the fat tissue, homocysteine levels, hsCRP, and IMT. Further studies are necessary to search for reasons for lower BMI and BMI centile in children with JIA and to attempt to answer the question of whether lower BMI increases the cardiovascular risk in these patients, similarly as in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
A Comparative Study of Predicting User Preference using Evolutionary Clustering Algorithm

Recommender systems are the tools that predict user preferences and thus help a naïve user in finding useful information on the world wide web. They have become a necessary agent in the information bombardment arena of World Wide Web. A number of algorithms are implemented to predict the preference of user and thereby give them recommendation. Majority of these algorithm use data mining techniques. In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of various classification algorithm and there integration with various clustering algorithm that could effectively and accurately predict temporal changes in user preferences. The paper also presents a newly developed evolutionary clustering approach and its comparative analysis. Several experiments were conducted using these algorithms based upon various parameters using WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis), a Data Mining tool. The results of the experiment show that integration of clustering and classification gives promising results with higher accuracy rate and lower error rates when compared over temporal parameters.
Correcting for lensing bias in the Hubble diagram

Physics Department, Stockholm University, SCFAB, S-106 91 Stockholm, SwedenReceived . ; accepted . Abstract. Gravitational lensing will cause a dispersion in the Hubble diagram for high redshift sources. This eﬀectwill introduce a bias in the cosmological parameter determination using the distance-redshift relation for Type Iasupernovae. In this note we show how one can diagnose and correct for this bias when doing precision cosmologywith supernovae.Key words. Gravitational lensing – cosmological parameters – Methods: statistical
Two Distinct Populations of H Chain-Edited B Cells Show Differential Surrogate L Chain Dependence1

Developing autoreactive B cells may edit (change) their specificity by secondary H or L chain gene rearrangement. Recently, using mice hemizygous for a site-directed VDJH and VJκ transgene (tg) encoding an autoreactive Ab, we reported ongoing L chain editing not only in bone marrow cells with a pre-B/immature B cell phenotype but also in immature/transitional splenic B cells. Using the same transgenic model, we report here that editing at the H chain locus appears to occur exclusively in bone marrow cells with a pro-B phenotype. H chain editing is shown to involve VH replacement at the tg allele or VH rearrangement at the wild-type (wt) allele when the tg is inactivated by nonproductive VH replacement. VH replacement/rearrangement at the tg/wt alleles was found to entail diverse usage of VH genes. Whereas the development of edited B cells expressing the wt allele was dependent on the λ5 component of the surrogate L chain, the development of B cells expressing the tg allele, including those with VH replacement, appeared to be λ5 independent. We suggest that the unique CDR3 region of the tg-encoded μH chain is responsible for the λ5 independence of tg-expressing B cells.
Identifiying Key Players in online Shopping Datasets using Centrality Measures

E commerce is growing rapidly in such a way that in future everything is in fingertips of each person. No need to go outside for purchasing in these days but still the retailers have huge competition among them for marketing products and they are now interested and targeting towards the most important customers as in order to improve their business. So identifying important customers in large dataset using different tools is a challenging task. And knowing how the customers are related each other in various aspects is challenging. These challenges are addressed in this paper. These may help to increase the revenue of the retailers. Rapidly identifies the important customers in community structure.
Hamiltonian formulation and IDA-PBC control of non isothermal continuous stirred tank reactors

Abstract This paper proposes a pseudo port Hamiltonian formulation of non isothermal Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor CSTR) model. This structured modeling shows how the opposite of the entropy can be used as Hamiltonian function and how the associated dissipation can be related to the irreversible entropy production due to chemical reaction. The IDA-PBC approach based control is then applied to stabilize the continuous system about an unstable equilibrium point. The chosen control variables are the jacket temperature and the inlet molar flow rate. The chosen hamiltonian storage function of the closed loop system is the thermodynamic availability function. Theoretical developments are illustrated on a first order chemical equilibrated reaction. Some stability properties and analysis of the admissibility of the control variables are given.
The Right Frontopolar Cortex Is Involved in Visual-Spatial Prospective Memory

The involvement of frontopolar cortex in mediating prospective memory processes has been evidenced by various studies, mainly by means of neuroimaging techniques. Recently, one transcranial magnetic stimulation study documented that transient inhibition of left Brodmann Area (BA) 10 impaired verbal prospective memory. This result raises the issue of whether the BA 10 involvement in prospective memory functioning may be modulated by the physical characteristics of the stimuli used. The present study aimed to investigate the role of the frontopolar cortex in visual-spatial PM by means of the application of inhibitory theta-burst stimulation. Twelve volunteers were evaluated after inhibitory theta-burst stimulation over left BA 10, right BA10 and CZ (control condition). In the prospective memory procedure, sequences of four spatial positions (black squares) each were presented. During the inter-sequence delay, subjects had to reproduce the sequence in the observed order (ongoing task forward) or the reverse order (backward). At the occurrence of a target position, subjects had to press a key on the keyboard (prospective memory score). Recall and recognition of the target positions were also tested. We found that prospective memory accuracy was lower after theta-burst stimulation over right BA10 than CZ (p<0.01), whereas it was comparable in left BA10 and CZ conditions. No significant difference was found among the three conditions on recall and recognition of target positions and on ongoing task performance. Our findings provide a novel strong evidence for a specific involvement of right frontopolar cortex in visual-spatial prospective memory. In the context of previous data providing evidence for left BA 10 involvement in verbal prospective memory, our results also suggest material-specific lateralization of prospective memory processes in BA 10.
The Cancer Stage of Capitalism

Description: In this bold look at the uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and-if not soon restrained-could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world's economy. He diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the delinked circuits of the global system's monetised growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, McMurtry cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system's problems. Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions.
Smart net metering models for smart grid in India

The advent of smart grid had revolutionized the power systems network. Demand side management and renewable energy integration requires new models and policies for implementing them. This paper explores seven different novel net metering models for renewable energy sources. The models have been discussed with a view of their suitability for different categories of customers in Indian market and suggestions for improvement in state-of-the-art technology and present policy & standards have been proposed.
Design of differential voltage mode transmitter for on-chip serial link based on method of logical effort

In the literature, voltage mode and current mode multiplexers are used for differential on-chip global interconnect transmitters. Conventionally, the Pseudo-NMOS multiplexer used in voltage mode transmitters consumes more power and has less bandwidth, whereas the current mode multiplexers operate at higher speeds at the cost of increase in power consumption. In this paper, a novel domino logic based multiplexer is proposed for differential voltage mode serial interconnect transmitter to minimize the power consumption and the speed comparable to that of current mode multiplexers. The proposed transmitter is designed using the method of logical effort and is implemented in UMC 180nm technology. The post layout simulations are carried out through Cadence Virtuso tool. From the post layout simulations, it is observed that the power consumed and the area of the proposed domino logic based multiplexer is 1.42 times and 3.77 times lower respectively and the speed comparable to that of CMOS multiplexer circuit.
InAs High-Electron Mobility Transistors on the Path to THz Operation

1. Introduction The invention of the High-Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) revolutionized the world of high-frequency electronics [1]. First on GaAs, then on InP and more recently on GaN, HEMTs have steadily achieved higher levels of performance in terms of high frequency gain, noise and power. Today, InAs HEMTs on InP exhibit the best balanced high-frequency response (high f T and high f max) of any transistor technology [2]. InAs HEMTs are uniquely poised to attain the first true THz transistor (both f T and f max >1 THz). This paper reviews the evolution of HEMTs along their path towards THz operation and discusses steps to be taken in order to attain this ultimate prize.
Recognition of Arabic handwritten words using contextual character models

In this paper we present a system for the off-line recognition of cursive Arabic handwritten words. This system in an enhanced version of our reference system presented in [El-Hajj et al., 05] which is based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and uses a sliding window approach. The enhanced version proposed here uses contextual character models. This approach is motivated by the fact that the set of Arabic characters includes a lot of ascending and descending strokes which overlap with one or two neighboring characters. Additional character models are constructed according to characters in their left or right neighborhood. Our experiments on images of the benchmark IFN/ENIT database of handwritten villages/towns names show that using contextual character models improves recognition. For a lexicon of 306 name classes, accuracy is increased by 0.6% in absolute value which corresponds to a 7.8% reduction in error rate.
A Leading Indicators Approach to the Predictability of Currency Crises: The Case of Turkey

In this paper, we present a leading economic indicators approach to the predictability of currency crises in Turkey. After summarizing main theoretical models of currency crises and discussing the possible origins of financial crises in the European ERM countries (1992-93), Turkey (1994) and Southeast Asian countries (1997-98), we survey the empirical literature on the predictability of currency crises. Our leading economic indicators approach based on Burns and Mitchell (1946) shows that terms-of-trade, market-determined exchange rate over official exchange rate and some specific survey data can be considered as major leading economic indicators of currency crises in Turkey.