Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The risks and rewards of selling volatility

The popular practice of selling market volatility through selling straddles exposes traders and investors to substantial risk, especially in equity markets. The returns can be very lucrative, but the probability of large negative returns far exceeds the probability of large positive returns. In fact, selling straddles has resulted in substantial losses at banks and hedge funds such as the former Barings PLC and Long Term Capital Management. ; This article outlines the risks and rewards associated with selling volatility by first examining the statistical properties of the returns generated by selling straddles on the Standard and Poor's 500 index. The authors demonstrate that the usual practice of selling volatility by comparing the observed implied volatility with the volatility expected to prevail could be flawed. This flaw could arise if the underlying asset has a positive risk premium and the returns of the underlying asset are negatively correlated with changes in volatility. Thus, basing the decision to sell a straddle on a comparison of seemingly irrational high implied volatilities with much lower expected volatility could itself be an irrational choice. ; Does it help to rebalance the straddle to maintain minimal exposure to market direction? While such rebalancing is theoretically feasible, the authors find that this process exposes the trader to model risk and does not eliminate the skewness of returns from selling volatility.
Validation of the Malay Version of Auditory Verbal Learning Test

Objective: Many studies have emphasized the significance of verbal memory for the functional outcome in schizophrenia. A preserved capability to encode and recall verbal information is essential for the long-term efficacy of psychoeducational programs and other psychological intervention to ensure the successful transfer of newly acquired skills or knowledge into everyday life. Aims of this study aimed to validate the MVALT among schizophrenia patients in HUSM. Methods: The subjects were 15 schizophrenia patients conveniently selected from the patients that attended follow up at the psychiatry clinic in HUSM or inpatients who have been admitted during the study period and 15 healthy control subjects as a comparison. Reliability and validity of the MVAVLT were analyzed. Results: The validation study showed that the Malay version Auditory Verbal Learning Test (MVAVLT) had a good validity (factor analysis 0.66 to 0.98) and test-retest reliability (pearson correlation ranged from 0.24 to 0.84) and has been shown to be sensitive in discriminating between normal and schizophrenia patients. In line with the previous research, the schizophrenia patients performed significantly worse than healthy control in all indexes measured in MVAVLT. Conclusion: The screening of deficits in verbal learning and memory among the schizophrenia patients is important, for early detection and treatment since it can be helpful for clinicians and psychologists in their counseling sessions. Subsequently, it helps patients to reduce such cognitive difficulties and their impact by using specific rehabilitation with the usage of newer antipsychotic agents. ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol., No.1, Jan – June 2009: XX XX
An interoperable framework for IPR using web ontologies

In order to improve the management of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Internet, there is the need for a common language for IPR representation. This language is aimed to help building a reliable Web where IPR can be managed in an open, global and adaptable form, so people can share, sell, buy, etc. content subject to IPR, depending on their needs. We are following a semantic approach to this problem, based on semantic web ontologies, that seems more appropriate than a syntactic one, e.g. based on XML. IPROnto, the IPR ontology we have developed, puts this approach into practice. IPROnto models the IPR core concepts for content, intellectual property rights and the basic kinds of actions that operate on intellectual property and allows developing licenses. IPROnto enables semantics-aware IPR applications that benefit from semantic queries, in contrast to the difficulties that emerge from the use of syntactic queries when the information space is as complicated as in the IPR field. Moreover, specialised reasoners can be used for license checking and retrieval. Finally, all these advantages have been propagated to the main syntactic approaches to IPR management (MPEG-21 and ODRL). We have applied XML Schema to OWL and XML to RDF tools in order to facilitate mapping these initiatives to IPROnto. Once mapped, syntactic initiatives can also benefit from the semantic approach provided by Web ontologies. For example, IPROnto integrates ODRL and MPEG-21 initiatives, which allows to change the Rights Data Dictionary when it is necessary, i.e. to make the rights expression language independent from the data dictionary.
Fast detection and DOA estimation of the unknown wideband signal sources

The direction of arrival (DOA) estimation analysis requires prior knowledge of frequency‐related information of the incident wideband signals, eg, center frequency and bandwidth, which are not available in many cases. This research is based on applications where DOA estimation of the wideband signal source is unknown, eg, in astronomy and unauthorized transmissions. Therefore, this paper has two major contributions. The first contribution is to identify the frequency spectrum of the wideband signals transmitted from an unknown source. The method use edge detection prestage to identify the frequency spectrum of the received signal. The second contribution is to estimate the DOA of the wideband signal at higher accuracy while keeping a minimum computational cost. The estimation of the DOAs was analyzed by measuring the orthogonal relationship between the signal and the noise subspaces of multiple frequency components of the sources. The introduced method utilizes subband as a reference frequency based on the extracted frequency‐related information rather than examining the complete incoming signal spectrum and exploits the spatial information of a few subbands. The introduced algorithm is implemented based on the well‐known method, test of orthogonality of projected subspaces (TOPS). Tests are conducted on a range of wideband signals with extreme values of signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). Considerable performance improvement is obtained.
Comprehensive Survey on Distance/Similarity Measures between Probability Density Functions

Distance or similarity measures are essential to solve many pattern recognition problems such as classification, clustering, and retrieval problems. Various distance/similarity measures that are applicable to compare two probability density functions, pdf in short, are reviewed and categorized in both syntactic and semantic relationships. A correlation coefficient and a hierarchical clustering technique are adopted to reveal similarities among numerous distance/similarity measures.
“My quality of life is worse compared to my earlier life”

Weight loss surgery is commonly regarded as improving individuals’ health and social life, and resulting in a happier and more active life for those defined as “morbidly obese. ” However, some researchers have started to doubt whether these positive outcomes apply to everyone and this article explores this doubt further. More specifically, we focus on the experiences of women whose life situation became worse after weight loss surgery. The material draws on qualitative interviews of five Norwegian women undergoing the irreversible gastric bypass procedure. Our findings illustrate that the women lived seemingly “normal” lives prior to the surgery with few signs of illness. Worries about future illness as well as social stigma because of their body shape motivated them to undergo weight loss surgery. After the surgery, however, their situation was profoundly changed and their lives were dramatically restricted. Chronic pain, loss of energy, as well as feelings of shame and failure for having these problems not only limited their social lives but it also made them less physically active. In addition, they had difficulties taking care of their children, and functioning satisfactorily at work. Accordingly, the women gradually felt more “disabled,” regarding themselves as “outsiders” whose problems needed to be kept private. The results highlight some “subtle” consequences of weight loss surgery, particularly the shame and stigma experienced by those whose lives became dramatically worse. Living in a society where negative impacts of weight loss surgery are more or less neglected in research as well as in the public debate the women seemed to suffer in silence. Their problems were clearly present and felt in the body but not talked about and shared with others.
The effect of ambiguous visual stimuli on creativity in design idea generation

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of visual stimuli on creativity for generating ideas among designers. A survey with design students was conducted in this investigation to extract visual stimuli from the sub-symbolic domain (vague stimuli), visual stimuli from the symbolic domain (definite stimuli), and visual stimuli between the two domains (ambiguous stimuli). Subsequently, a conceptual combination experiment was conducted using selected stimuli to examine the effects of ambiguous visual stimuli on creativity to generate ideas among designers. The results suggest that in individual working environments, dissimilar concept pairs fostered higher elaboration when ambiguous stimuli were present, whereas similar concept pairs fostered higher elaboration when vague stimuli were presented. It was further suggested that in group working environments, vague stimuli result in higher abstractness when dissimilar concept pairs are used, whereas ambiguous stimuli result in higher abstractness when similar concept pairs were used.
Accuracy of Eyewitness Identifications in a Field Setting

Florida State University Clerks working alone in convenience stores in a small city were asked by "law interns" to identify from photograph lineups (prepared by the local police department) two male customers, one black and one white, who had been in their store 2 hours earlier. The 73 clerks (64 white and 9 black) working in 63 stores were able to make correct identifications about one-third of the time. Even when no-guesses were omitted, identifications were correct less than half (46.8%) of the time. Contrary to most earlier research, there was a substantial relationship between accuracy and clerks' confidence that they were correct (r = .50). Only slight evidence of an own-race bias in accuracy was found among the white clerks. White clerks' ability to identify the black customer was significantly related to the amount of self-reported cross-racial experiences. The attractiveness and distinctiveness of the customers was related to the frequency of correct identifications, as was the effective size and functional size of the lineups used. Black clerks showed better overall recognition accuracy than did white clerks.
Aging and biological motion perception

Healthy aging is associated with a number of perceptual changes, but measures of biological motion perception have yielded conflicting results. Biological motion provides information about a walker, from gender and identity, to speed, direction, and distance. In our natural environment, as someone approaches us (closer distances), this walker spans larger areas of our field of view, the extent of which can be under-utilized with age. Yet, the effect of age on biological motion perception in such real-world scenarios remains unknown. We assessed the effect of age on discriminating walking direction in upright and inverted biological motion patterns, positioned at various distances in virtual space. Findings indicate that discrimination is worse at closer distances, an effect exacerbated by age. Older adults’ performance decreases at a distance as far away as 4 m, whereas younger adults maintain their performance as close as 1 m (worse at 0.5 m). This suggests that older observers are limited in their capacity to integrate information over larger areas of the visual field, and supports the notion that age-related effects are more apparent when larger neural networks are required to process simultaneous information. This has further implications for social contexts where information from biological motion is critical.
Impact-Insertion Applicator Improves Reliability of Skin Penetration by Solid Microneedle Arrays

Microneedles are needle-like structures shorter than 1 mm that have been advocated as devices for enabling potentially pain-free intradermal delivery of biomacromolecules (1–5). To permit a reproducible delivery of the drug, microneedles should be inserted into the skin in a controlled and reproducible manner (4,6). Obviously, one of the factors that influence the penetration ability of microneedles is the insertion process itself, e.g., microneedles can be inserted manually or by using insertion devices (3,4,6–9). Recently, the penetration ability of low-density arrays (42 microneedles/cm2) with 750-μm long microneedles, applied manually or by using a snap-based applicator, was investigated (10). However, no studies have been reported on the efficiency and reproducibility of the insertion of high-density microneedles into human skin. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the type of application on inter and intra individual variability of microneedle insertion into human skin by microneedle users. We show that participants using an impact-insertion applicator inserted high-density microneedles into ex vivo human skin with high efficiency and with a low inter and intra individual variation. However, when the same microneedle arrays were inserted by using a manual insertion device, the penetration efficiency was reduced by approximately 40% with a considerably lower reproducibility. Finally, the applicability of an impact-insertion applicator/microneedle array was confirmed in a vaccination study in mice.
Evaluating Mixed-Initiative Systems: An Experimental Approach

Mixed-Initiative approaches to Planning and Scheduling are being applied in different real world domains. While several recent successful examples of such tools encourage a wider use of this solving paradigm, research in mixed-initiative interaction is still at an early stage and many important issues need to be addressed. In particular, most of the work has been dedicated to designing working prototypes and identifying relevant features of the mixed-initiative interaction, while much less attention has been given to the problem of evaluating the approach as a whole. This article is aimed at addressing some of the many diverse aspects involved in Mixed-Initiative Planning and Scheduling system evaluation, highlighting the need for a methodology to provide effective evaluation studies for this class of tools. In this paper we consider an established research methodology in experimental psychology, and adopt it to investigate specific aspects of mixed-initiative interaction. Specifically, the experiments described in this article shed some light on three aspects: (a) understanding users' attitude when choosing between automated and mixed-initiative problem solving, (b) investigating recourse to explanation services as a means to foster the users' involvement in the solving process, and (c) investigating possible individual differences (e.g., experts vs. non-experts) in the choice of resolution strategy or access to explanation.
COMMUNICATION SYNCHRONIZATION IN CLUSTER-BASED WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK: A REVIEW

A wireless sensor network is acquiring more popularity in different sectors. A scalable, low latency and energy efficient are desire challenges that should meet by wireless sensor network. Clustering permits sensors to systematically communicate among clusters. Cluster based sensor network satisfies these challenges as it provides flexible, energy saving and QoS. The communication efficiency and network performance degrades if the interaction between inter-cluster and intra-cluster communication are not managed properly. The proposed work uses two approaches to solve this problem. At aiming low packet delay and high throughput first approach uses cycle- based synchronous scheduling. By completely removing necessity of communication synchronization second approach send packets with no synchronization delay. The combined scheme can take benefit of both approaches.
Vibrio cholerae Persisted in Microcosm for 700 Days Inhibits Motility but Promotes Biofilm Formation in Nutrient-Poor Lake Water Microcosms

Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae, ubiquitous in aquatic environments, is responsible for cholera; humans can become infected after consuming food and/or water contaminated with the bacterium. The underlying basis of persistence of V. cholerae in the aquatic environment remains poorly understood despite decades of research. We recently described a “persister” phenotype of V. cholerae that survived in nutrient-poor “filter sterilized” lake water (FSLW) in excess of 700-days. Previous reports suggest that microorganisms can assume a growth advantage in stationary phase (GASP) phenotype in response to long-term survival during stationary phase of growth. Here we report a V. cholerae GASP phenotype (GASP-700D) that appeared to result from 700 day-old persister cells stored in glycerol broth at −80°C. The GASP-700D, compared to its wild-type N16961, was defective in motility, produced increased biofilm that was independent of vps (p<0.005) and resistant to oxidative stress when grown specifically in FSLW (p<0.005). We propose that V. cholerae GASP-700D represents cell populations that may better fit and adapt to stressful survival conditions while serving as a critical link in the cycle of cholera transmission.
Important Parameter Groups in Thermal Protection of Polymers

The problem of thermal protection is explored for two idiosyncratic reactive systems, namely a sacrificial heat-sink material and an intumescent system where a dynamically evolving insulation layer is produced from an initially thin coating. Relatively simple mathematical models of both systems are proposed that encompass the important physical characteristics of each situation and these models are analysed using a mixture of numerical and analytical techniques. Important dimensionless parameter groups are identified and domains of parameter space where thermal performance is particularly good- or particularly bad- are identified.
An Ontological Perspective on Internet Radio Intellectual Property Rights

Today, music industry is facing dramatic decreases in revenues caused by illegal copying of content, facilitated by Internet peer-to-peer networks. Moreover, it is difficult to prevent this ‘free’ use of music, leading to unpaid creative performers and in the end to disappearing cultural heritage. To ensure that creative performers are still able to earn money, we propose a solution founded on payment for the professional use of music. ‘Professional’ means here that entities earning money with music should pay performers for doing so. Internet radio stations are such a large professional user segment. But what is an Internet radio station actually? We need to answer this question clearly, before we are able to develop a charging policy for the use of music by such stations. To this end, we have developed an ontology representing a shared understanding of Internet radio stations that can be used to base a charging scheme upon. For a practical case study, we show how this ontology can be used to devise such a charging policy.
The Passiflora tripartita (Banana Passion) Fruit: A Source of Bioactive Flavonoid C-Glycosides Isolated by HSCCC and Characterized by HPLC–DAD–ESI/MS/MS

The banana passion fruit (Passiflora tripartita Breiter, Passifloraceae) known as “tumbo” is very appreciated in tropical and subtropical countries of South America. Methanolic extracts from peel and the fruit juice of P. tripartita growing in Chile were analyzed for antioxidant capacity as well as for flavonoid and phenolic content. A chromatographic method was developed for the rapid identification of the main phenolics in the samples by HPLC-DAD and HPLC-MS. The fast fingerprint analysis allowed the detection of eighteen flavonoid C-glycosides and four flavonoid O-glycoside derivatives which were characterized by UV spectra and ESI-MS-MS analysis. Several of the C-glycosides detected are structurally related to the orientin derivative 4′-methoxy-luteolin-8-C-(6″acetyl)-β-D-glucopyranoside (31), fully elucidated by spectroscopic methods. The antioxidant derivative 31 along with schaftoside, vicenin II, orientin and vitexin were isolated from the fruit extract by high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC). A suitable method for the preparative isolation of flavonol C-glycosides from “tumbo” extracts by HSCCC is reported. The pulp of the fruits showed good antioxidant capacity (12.89 ± 0.02 μg/mL in the DPPH assay). The peel presented the highest content of flavonoids (56.03 ± 4.34 mg quercetin/100 g dry weight) which is related to the highest antioxidant power (10.41 ± 0.01 μg/mL in the DPPH assay).
Human–Robot Cooperative Control Based on Virtual Fixture in Robot-Assisted Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

In endoscopic sinus surgery, the robot assists the surgeon in holding the endoscope and acts as the surgeon’s third hand, which helps to reduce the surgeon’s operating burden and improve the quality of the operation. This paper proposes a human–robot cooperative control method based on virtual fixture to realize accurate and safe human–robot interaction in endoscopic sinus surgery. Firstly, through endoscopic trajectory analysis, the endoscopic motion constraint requirements of different surgical stages are obtained, and three typical virtual fixtures suitable for endoscopic sinus surgery are designed and implemented. Based on the typical virtual fixtures, a composite virtual fixture is constructed, and then the overall robot motion constraint model is obtained. Secondly, based on the obtained robot motion constraint model, a human–robot cooperative control method based on virtual fixture is proposed. The method adopts admittance control to realize efficient human–robot interaction between the surgeon and robot during the surgery; the virtual fixture is used to restrain and guide the motion of the robot, thereby ensuring motion safety of the robot. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated through a robot-assisted nasal endoscopy experiment, and the result shows that the proposed method can improve the accuracy and safety of operation during endoscopic sinus surgery.
Effect of region filtering on the performance of segmentation based CBIR system

The Color and texture information have been the primitive image descriptors in content based image retrieval systems. This work describes an image retrieval method which uses color and texture approach for feature extraction. An image is represented by a set of regions, roughly corresponding to objects, which are characterized by color and texture. For segmenting images, JSEG (J-Segmentation) algorithm is used. The default settings of the algorithm are used. Feature extraction of every region of an image is done using wavelet decomposed coefficients of an image and its complement. Image retrieval is done using Region based image retrieval (RBIR) technique. A measure for the overall similarity between images is performed using a region matching method that integrates properties of all the regions in the images. The JSEG algorithm suffers from over segmentation. Because of the undesirable results from JSEG algorithm, region filtering is applied to the segmented images. Experiments are carried out on Wang's dataset to study the performance of CBIR system after the application of region filtering.