Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimating the total infrared luminosity of galaxies up to z ∼ 2 from mid- and far-infrared observations

Aims. We present the observed correlations between rest-frame 8, 24, 70 and 160 µm monochromatic luminosities and measured total infrared luminosities LIR of galaxies detected by Spitzer. Methods. Our sample consists of 372 star-forming galaxies with individual detections and flux measurements at 8, 24, 70 and 160 µm. We have spectroscopic redshifts for 93% of these sources, and accurate photometric redshifts for the remainder. We also used a stacking analysis to measure the IR fluxes of fainter sources at higher redshifts. Results. We show that the monochromatic mid and far-infrared luminosities are strongly correlated with the total infrared luminosity and our stacking analysis confirms that these correlations also hold at higher redshifts. We provide relations between monochromatic luminosities and total infrared luminosities LIR that should be reliable up to z ∼ 2( z ∼ 1.1) for ULIRGs (LIRGs). In particular, we can predict LIR with accuracies of 37% and 54% from the 8 and 24 µm fluxes, while the best tracer is the 70 µm flux. Combining bands leads to slightly more accurate estimates. For example, combining the 8 and 24 µm luminosities predicts LIR with an accuracy of 34%. Our results are generally compatible with previous studies, and the small changes are probably due to differences in the sample selection criteria. We can rule out strong evolution in dust properties with redshift up to z ∼ 1. Finally, we show that infrared and sub-millimeter observations are complementary means of building complete samples of star-forming galaxies, with the former being more sensitive for z 2.
XMM-Newton RGS spectroscopy of LMC X-3

We present soft X-ray spectroscopy of the black hole binary LMC X-3 from the XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer. The observations span the full range of spectral states seen in LMC X-3. The spectra are completelydominated by continuum emission, and the neutral absorbing column measured from the O I edge (NH = 3.8 + 0 . 8 -0.7 x 10 2 0 cm - 2 ) is consistent with the Galactic interstellar column density towards LMC X-3. We find no evidence for variability of the neutral absorbing column. We also constrain the ionized column density using the upper limits to the equivalent width of the O II-O VIII K-shell resonance lines: we find that the equivalent hydrogen column density of gas in which O is partially ionized is < 8× 10 2 0 cm - 2 . From this upper limit we can rule out a line-driven stellar wind as the power source for the X-ray emission of LMC X-3 except when it is faint. At wavelengths longward of the peak emission the spectral shape is well described by a multitemperature disc-blackbody spectrum; the power-law component, which dominates at shorter wavelengths, does not continue longward of the disc-blackbody peak. This implies that the multitemperature disc-blackbody component supplies the seed photons that are Compton upscattered in the hot corona, consistent with the standard paradigm for black hole X-ray binary spectral states.
Iterative multiuser interference reduction: turbo CDMA

We view the asynchronous random code division multiple-access (CDMA) channel as a time-varying convolutional code. We study the case where the users encode their data, and, therefore, the single user transmitters and the CDMA channel appear as the concatenation of two coding systems. At the receiver we employ serial turbo decoding strategies. Unlike conventional turbo codes where both the inner and outer code may be selected, in our case, the inner code is due to the CDMA channel which we assume to be random. Nevertheless, the decoding system resembles the decoder of a serial turbo code and single-user performance is obtained even for numbers of users approaching the spreading code length.
Error Approximation and Minimum Phone Error Acoustic Model Estimation

Minimum phone error (MPE) acoustic parameter estimation involves calculation of edit distances (errors) between correct and incorrect hypotheses. In the context of large-vocabulary continuous-speech recognition, this error calculation becomes prohibitively expensive and so errors are approximated. This paper introduces a novel error approximation technique. Analysis shows that this approximation yields a higher correlation to the Levenshtein error metric than a previously used approximation. Experimental evaluations on a large-vocabulary recognition task demonstrate that the novel approximation also delivers significant performance improvements over the previously used approximation when applied to MPE acoustic model estimation.
The Fundamental Plane for cluster E and S0 galaxies

We have analyzed the Fundamental Plane (FP) for a sample of 226 E and S0 galaxies in ten clusters of galaxies. For photometry in Gunn r the best fitting plane is log r_e=1.24 log sigma - 0.82 log _e + cst. The scatter is 0.084 in log r_e. The slope of the FP is not significantly different from cluster to cluster. The residuals of the FP correlate weakly with the velocity dispersion and the surface brightness. Thus, to avoid biases of derived distances the galaxies need to be selected in a homogeneous way. The FP has significant intrinsic scatter. No other structural parameters like ellipticity or isophotal shape can reduce the scatter significantly. The Mg_2-sigma relation differs slightly from cluster to cluster. Galaxies in clusters with lower velocity dispersions have systematically lower Mg_2. With the current stellar population models, it is in best agreement with our results regarding the FP if the offsets are mainly caused by differences in metallicity. Most of the distances that we derive from the FP imply small peculiar motions, <1000km/s. The zero point of the FP must therefore be quite stable. The residuals from the Mg_2-sigma relation may be used to flag galaxies with deviant populations, and possibly to correct the distance determinations for the deviations.
The Role of Employee Behaviour and Organizational Structure in the Relationship Between Strategic Planning and Competitive Advantage of Large Manufacturing Firms in Kenya

Several studies have been carried out in the past to find out how strategic planning and competitive advantage are connected and the causes of differences in competitive advantage among firms. Scholars have argued that competitive advantage can emanate from either internal or external sources and is usually in several forms which include; valuable resources, the position held within the industry, position within the marketplace, operating at lower costs than rival firms, differentiation, capabilities and dynamic capabilities. This study sought to advance knowledge and was based on the premise that strategic planning influences competitive advantage both directly and also indirectly by way of the mediating influence of employee behaviour and the moderating effect of organizational structure. The study was underpinned by the competitive advantage typology/theory, the resource-based theory, dynamic capabilities theory, goal-setting theory and contingency theory. The study used a positivist research paradigm and a cross-sectional survey design. Data collected from 122 large manufacturing firms was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Hypotheses were tested using both simple and multivariate regression analysis as well as hierarchical analysis for mediating and moderating effects. The findings indicate that overall strategic planning has a statistically significant influence on competitive advantage and that employee behaviour completely mediates the relationship between strategic planning and competitive advantage while organizational structure has a partial moderating effect between strategic planning and competitive advantage. In addition, the joint influence of employee behaviour and organizational structure is different from the influence of individual variables on the relationship between strategic planning and competitive advantage. The outcomes from this research lend support to previous enquiries and support all the theories used to underpin the study.
The Effect of Correlated Link Shadowing on the Performance of Multihop Cellular Networks

This paper examines and analyzes the impact of correlations that exist in shadow fading between links in multihop cellular networks. Statistical moments of the total interference are derived based on two correlated shadowing models, shadowing model as functions of the spatial loss field and correlated lognormal shadowing. We apply both methods in order to evaluate performance in uplink of multihop CDMA cellular systems. Outage probability is introduced as a QoS parameter. The results show that there is no significant difference between two correlated shadowing models. But, taking into consideration independent shadowing causes an optimistic and unreal performance evaluation which may not useful for deployment of multihop cellular networks in real environments.
Aiding programmers using lightweight integrated code visualization

We present a Lightweight Integrated Code Visualization (LICV) tool designed to aid programmers using Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). LICV is implemented as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE for Java Developers. LICV continuously tracks the active editor in the IDE and visualizes up to 24 code features in a designated non-intrusive view. LICV is designed to facilitate fast understanding of the structure of the code in order to help users carry out routine programming tasks. It enables users to zoom, filter, search, and go back and forth between the code and the visualization via direct manipulation. We evaluated LICV by carrying out two user studies which compared LICV against regular Eclipse in four tasks. We found that LICV significantly reduced participants’ completion times by nearly 50% for three out of four tasks. Further, participants significantly preferred using LICV to perform the tasks.
Unstructured information integration through data-driven similarity discovery

Information integration from multiple heterogeneous sources is one of the major challenges facing enterprises and service providers today, and one of the important problems in this domain is the integration of structured and unstructured (or text) data. In this paper we describe our work on a data-driven approach to integrating various sources of text data, without relying on the availability of schema information. To this end, we have used various existing tools from natural language processing, data mining and related areas in a novel manner. The tools are used at the ’preprocessing’ stage to (a) characterise each set of unstructured information (or collection of text data), (b) identify the related sets of unstructured information and (c) relate these sets to various reference data sets. All these steps are based solely on the instance values of the data sets. Subsequently the information compiled in the preprocessing stage may be used at query time to query the structured and text data. We also present our results on applying our techniques for data integration across multiple unstructured data sources, relating to customer comments of a service provider.
Designing Amplitude/Phase Response of the Frost Beamformer

In this correspondence, three methods are proposed to design the look-direction amplitude/phase response to optimize the Frost beamformer. With some constrained optimization criteria, the new constraint vector and thus the new weight vector are designed to improve the output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) relative to the beamformer with the distortionless constraint. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the improved interference and noise suppression performance of the optimized beamformer
Scale space matching and image retrieval

The retrieval of images from a large database of images is an important and emerging area of research. Here, a technique to retrieve images based on appearance that works eeectively across large changes of scale is proposed. The database is initially ltered with derivatives of a Gaussian at several scales. A user deened template is then created from an image of an object similar to those being sought. The template is also ltered using Gaussian derivatives. The template is then matched with the l-ter outputs of the database images and the matches ranked according to the match score. Experiments demonstrate the technique on a number of images in a database. No prior segmentation of the images is required and the technique works with viewpoint changes up to 20 degrees and illumination changes.
Fertility Transition: Is sub-Saharan Africa Different?

this high fertility combined with declining mortality has resulted in rapid population growth—2.5 percent per year—and the un projects the sub-Saharan population to grow from 0.86 billion in 2010 to 1.96 billion in 2050 and 3.36 billion in 2100. Such unprecedented expansion of human numbers creates a range of social, economic, and environmental challenges and makes it more difficult for the continent to raise living standards. Hence the growing interest in demographic trends in africa among policymakers. according to conventional demographic theory, high fertility in the early stages of the demographic transition is the consequence of high desired family size. Couples want many children to assist with family enterprises such as farming and for security in old age. in addition, high child mortality leads parents to have additional children to protect against loss or to replace losses. Fertility decline occurs once rising levels of urbanization and education, changes in the economy, and declining mortality lead parents to desire a smaller number of births. to implement these desires, parents rely on contraception or abortion, and family planning programs in many countries accelerate their adoption (notestein 1945;
Interface characteristics, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention to use UUM e-library

An e-library provides highly efficient and consistent methods for search, retrieval of information, and intention to use by the users. Previous literatures and current scenario emphasis the role of interface characteristics of e-library, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use on intention to use of e-library. Therefore, drawing upon TAM model, this study aims to investigate the influence of interface characteristics of e-library namely terminology, screen design and navigation on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use which lead to intention to use of elibrary. The sample consisted of 176 postgraduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia. All data are analyzed using software of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The results indicated that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use had significant influence on intention to use UUM e-library. Further, this study empirically supported the influence of interface characteristics (e.g. terminology, screen design and navigation) on perceived usefulness. However, navigation was found to have insignificant influence on perceived ease of use of UUM e-library. Finally, the implications are discussed, and limitations of the study and future directions are briefly outlined.
Australian water security and Asian food security: complexity and macroeconomics of sustainability

The thesis focuses on the macroeconomics of sustainable development and the extension to energy, water and food security, using a system dynamics approach, i.e. the methods of differential equations systems with initial values. The work is divided into three related parts that build a narrative concerning the interaction between economics, policy, natural resources and society. First, after reviewing the concepts of complexity in environmental security, a simple system comprising three coupled differential equations is used to explain the effects of macroeconomic business cycles on the exploitation of ecological resources, and from this is inferred an implied importance of averting business cycles. The concept of entropy production is used to represent the exploitation of ecological resources. The second part establishes a system methodology inspired by Post Keynesian economics to develop the Murray-Darling Basin Economy Simulation Model that links food production/water users and food consumers at the micro scale, to the macroeconomic system dynamics. The goal of this study is to integrate and analyze the ecological-economic system in the Murray-Darling basin. The concepts of entropy production, useful work and income distribution are used as a bridge between the micro and macro subsystems. The system parameters are estimated using an ecological-economic dataset for the Murray-Darling basin and for Australia (where data of the Basin are unavailable) from 1978-2005, and the model is validated using data from 2006-2012. The results reveal important structural linkages between the two subsystems and are used to predict the consequences of business cycles and government intervention for the coordination of growth and sustainability. The third, and final, part presents the development of an “Asian Food Security Risk Engine” that predicts the threat of civil unrest from food insecurity in Asian developing countries. A basal characteristics index for each developing country in Asia is defined and evaluated. Based on these measures, and introducing the concept of flow of anger, we use a differential equation system to integrate the threat of food security, the trigger for food riots, and food policy. The system parameters are estimated using a dataset tracking indexes for threat, trigger and
Modularity, outsourcing, and inter-firm learning

for the DRUID Summer Conference 2000 June 15-17, 2000 Rebild, Denmark Modularity refers to the scheme by which interfaces share among components in a given product architecture are specified and standardized to allow for greater reusability and commonality sharing of components among product families. One of the characteristics of modular products is the standard interfaces shared among components, sub-systems, and systems. When interfaces shared among the components or modules within a system become standardized, outsourcing decisions can be made accordingly with respect to a firm’s long-term strategic planning of its new product development, manufacturing, and supply chain management activities. Interface management of product architectures defines and selects suppliers with whom the components are outsourced from, and how a firm should organize its knowledge stock, investment, and resource allocation issues. However, delegating complete design and manufacturing responsibility to suppliers with first generation product architectures without well-defined system specifications leads to poor performance of the overall system. The case of a modular windshield wipers controller outsourced by Chrysler Jeeps shows that the extent to successful outsourcing is dependent upon the degree of supplier-buyer cooperation in solving technical problems, especially in designing first generation product architectures, leading to increased inter-firm learning. The case also shows that the failure of one technological solution was the catalyst for increased supplier-buyer interdependence, more interactive problem solving and mutual learning, and hence the subsequent financial benefits gained from the new technological approach.
Empirical evidence on the relationship between stock market volatility and macroeconomics volatility in Malaysia

The relationship between the volatility of stock market returns and macroeconomic volatilities has been a focus of many empirical studies. Many studies were conducted to examine this relationship based on the data from developed markets, and only few were carried out in the case of emerging market. Several methods have been used to measure volatility empirically. Recently, many studies have used conditional variance and GARCH models to estimate volatility. This paper examines the relationship between stock market returns volatility in Malaysia with five selected macroeconomic volatilities; GDP, inflation, exchange rate, interest rates, and money supply based on monthly data from January 2000 to June 2012. The volatility in this paper was estimated using GARCH(1,1) models, and the relationship between stock market volatility and macroeconomic volatilities has been examined using bi-variate and multivariate VAR Granger causality tests as well as through regression analysis. We found little support on the existence of the relationship between stock market volatility and macroeconomic volatilities. Only volatility in inflation was found to be Granger-caused stock market volatility, while out of five macroeconomic variables, only volatility in interest rates was found Granger-caused stock market volatility. The volatilities of macroeconomic variables as a group also does not Granger cause volatility in stock market returns. The result from regression analysis shows that only money supply volatility is significantly related to stock market volatility. The volatilities of macroeconomic variables as a group are also not significantly related to stock market volatility. The weak relationship between stock market volatility and macroeconomic volatilities is possible due to lack of institutional investors in the market, and may also indicate the existence of information asymmetry problem among investors.