Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Quality of Volatility Traded on the Over-the-Counter Currency Market: A Multiple Horizons Study

Previous studies of the quality of market‐forecasted volatility have used the volatility that is implied by exchange‐traded option prices. The use of implied volatility in estimating the market view of future volatility has suffered from variable measurement errors, such as the non‐synchronization of option and underlying asset prices, the expiration‐day effect, and the volatility smile effect. This study circumvents these problems by using the quoted implied volatility from the over‐the‐counter (OTC) currency option market, in which traders quote prices in terms of volatility. Furthermore, the OTC currency options have daily quotes for standard maturities, which allows the study to look at the market's ability to forecast future volatility for different horizons. The study finds that quoted implied volatility subsumes the information content of historically based forecasts at shorter horizons, and the former is as good as the latter at longer horizons. These results are consistent with the argument that measurement errors have a substantial effect on the implied volatility estimator and the quality of the inferences that are based on it. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:261–285, 2003
Seasonal dynamics of Totten Ice Shelf controlled by sea ice buttressing

Abstract. Previous studies of Totten Ice Shelf have employed surface velocity measurements to estimate its mass balance and understand its sensitivities to interannual changes in climate forcing. However, displacement measurements acquired over timescales of days to weeks may not accurately characterize long-term flow rates wherein ice velocity fluctuates with the seasons. Quantifying annual mass budgets or analyzing interannual changes in ice velocity requires knowing when and where observations of glacier velocity could be aliased by subannual variability. Here, we analyze 16 years of velocity data for Totten Ice Shelf, which we generate at subannual resolution by applying feature-tracking algorithms to several hundred satellite image pairs. We identify a seasonal cycle characterized by a spring to autumn speedup of more than 100 m yr−1 close to the ice front. The amplitude of the seasonal cycle diminishes with distance from the open ocean, suggesting the presence of a resistive back stress at the ice front that is strongest in winter. Springtime acceleration precedes summer surface melt and is not attributable to thinning from basal melt. We attribute the onset of ice shelf acceleration each spring to the loss of buttressing from the breakup of seasonal landfast sea ice.
Planck 2013 results. XVIII. The gravitational lensing-infrared background correlation

The multi-frequency capability of the Planck satellite provides information both on the integrated history of star formation (via the cosmic infrared background, or CIB) and on the distribution of dark matter (via the lensing e ect on the cosmic microwave background, or CMB). The conjunction of these two unique probes allows us to measure directly the connection between dark and luminous matter in the high redshift (1 z 3) Universe. We use a three-point statistic optimized to detect the correlation between these two tracers. Following a thorough discussion of possible contaminants and a suite of consistency tests, using lens reconstructions at 100, 143 and 217 GHz and CIB measurements at 100‐857 GHz, we report the first detection of the correlation between the CIB and CMB lensing. The well matched redshift distribution of these two signals leads to a detection significance with a peak value of 42 at 545 GHz and a correlation as high as 80 % across these two tracers. Our full set of multifrequency measurements (both CIB auto- and CIB-lensing cross-spectra) are consistent with a simple halo-based model, with a characteristic mass scale for the halos hosting CIB sources of log10 (M=M ) = 10:5 0:6. Leveraging the frequency dependence of our signal, we isolate the high redshift contribution to the CIB, and constrain the star formation rate (SFR) density at z 1. We measure directly the SFR density with around 2 significance for three redshift bins between z = 1 and 7, thus opening a new window into the study of the formation of stars at early times.
Rapid Determination of Near‐Fault Earthquake Deformation Using Differential LiDAR

Improved near‐field measurements of earthquake slip and deformation patterns have the potential for expanding our understanding of fault behavior and the relationship of active faulting to topography. Current techniques for obtaining these measurements—including field observation, Global Navigation Satellite Systems displacement estimation, and optical or radar remote sensing—have limitations that can be mitigated by the inclusion of results from differential airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) analysis of the rupture zone. The 2005 airborne LiDAR survey of the southern San Andreas, San Jacinto, and Banning faults (the B4 survey) mapped 1100 km of the most seismically active fault systems in southern California for the purpose of providing a baseline for determining slip from a future earthquake. We used the B4 survey to develop a processing algorithm that yields rapid estimates of near‐fault ground deformation using simultaneous cross correlation of both topography and backscatter intensity from pre‐earthquake and simulated postearthquake LiDAR datasets. We show robust recovery of the direction and magnitude of an applied synthetic slip of 5 m in the horizontal and 0.5 m in the vertical within our area of study, with clear discrimination between areas with and without applied slip. We also successfully recovered more complex deformation from a modeled fault stepover in the same study area. Our results indicate that we should be able to recover slip to accuracies of better than 20 cm in the horizontal and 1 cm in the vertical, at a spatial resolution of ≤15 m for LiDAR datasets with sample densities as low as 0.5 points/m2.
Thermo-Acid pretreatment of starch based kitchen waste for ethanol production

Recently, research on the alcoholic fermentation of kitchen waste has been accelerating for both ecological and economical reasons, primarily for ethanol use as renewable biofuel. Present work deals with the fermentative production of ethanol from different starch based kitchen waste. Kitchen waste from local students restaurant was separated by basic component as: peas, green beans, beans, rice, potato, wheat bread and corn. Thermo-acidic pretreatment of these raw materials was conducted by the addition of HCl up to pH of 1, and by autoclaving at 120 o C for 30 min. From the experimental result, maximum ethanol yield was obtained from wheat bread (0.11 g/g). The highest ethanol yield per starch of 0.36 g/g, which equals to 64% of the theoretical value, was obtained for peas. From the overall analysis, the examined thermo-acid pretreatment was the most efficient for hydrolysis of wheat bread, while it was least efficient for green beans. In order to enhance the efficiency of conversion of starch from kitchen waste into ethanol, pH lower than 1 is highly recommended. The results demonstrated the potential of different food waste as a promising biomass resource for the production of ethanol.
MHD simulations of current systems in planetary magnetospheres: Mercury and saturn

The study of planetary magnetospheres can provide valuable insight into a wide range of phenomena and processes acting in the terrestrial magnetosphere. This paper uses global MHD simulations to investigate the large scale configuration and current systems in two very different planetary magnetospheres. Mercury has a weak intrinsic magnetic moment and it is exposed to a high density, very variable solar wind. It has no ionosphere or plasmasphere and its slow rotation is unimportant. Under typical conditions in the solar wind, Mercury's magnetosphere is very "open", the last closed field-line being at a latitude of 40 ◦ -50 ◦ . At the other end of the spectrum, the interplay between solar wind and planetary rotation driven processes, combined with strong plasma sources, generates new and interesting configurations and current systems in the magnetosphere of Saturn. In particular, our simulations predict two current systems connecting plasma sources in the rings/icy satellites region and in Titan's torus to the high-latitude regions of Saturn's ionosphere.
An Energy Efficiency Routing Protocol for Improving Lifetime of Wide Area Wireless Sensor Networks: A Review

— The key challenge in wireless sensor network protocol designs is to provide energy efficient communication, as most of the nodes in sensor networks have limited battery power and it is not feasible to recharge or replace the batteries. There are so many levels of power consumption in sensor networks like as: idle listening, retransmissions resulting from collisions, control packet overhead, unnecessarily high transmitting power and sub-optimal utilization of the available resources. By definition, sensor nodes are deployed in an ad hoc fashion, with individual nodes remaining largely inactive for long periods of time. In order to minimize power consumed during idle listening, some nodes, which can be considered redundant, can be put to sleep. Therefore, the energy of the nodes and the network needs to be conserved. The idea is sensor nodes dynamically create on-off schedules such that the nodes will be awake only when they are needed. This also limits the collisions; therefore, the energy consumed during retransmissions can be saved. Although, it seems best way to limit consumed energy and the main consideration should be energy efficiency, the other Quality of Service (QoS) issues have to be considered. The key design considerations for duty cycle control protocol design are scheduling and routing. The research through this paper will be focused on routing protocol for modern high speed integrated wireless sensor networks [3,4].
Sex Manipulation in Cucurbitaceous Vegetables

The cucurbit vegetables are the largest and diverse group comprised of 900 species classified under 130 genera (Jeffrey, 1964; 1980) belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. The members of Cucurbitaceae family exhibit a fascinating range of sex (Table 1) namely staminate, pistillate and hermaphrodite flowers resulted in evolution of several types of sex forms like monoecious (staminate and pistillate flowers produces in the same plant), gynoecious (pistillate flowers producing plants), andromonoecious (staminate and hermophrodite flowers in the same plant), gynomonoecious (pistillate and hermaphrodite flowers produces in the same plant), androecious (plant with staminate flowers only), trimonoecious (staminate, pistillate and hermophrodite flowers produces in the same plant), gynodioceous (pistillate and hermaphrodite plants segregate separately from base population), dioecious (staminate and pistillate flowers are produced in separate plant). A wide range of variation in sex forms owed to evolve from primitive sex form hermaphrodite could lead to evolution of predominant sex form i.e. monoecious and advanced sex form i.e. gynoecious (Robinson and Decker-Walters, 1999). Sex manipulation International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 9 (2017) pp. 1839-1851 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Is nonclassicality-breaking the same thing as entanglement-breaking?

Nonclassicality and entanglement are notions fundamental to quantum information processes involving continuous variable systems. That these two notions are intimately related has been intuitively appreciated for quite some time. An aspect of considerable interest is the behaviour of these attributes of a state under the action of a noisy channel. Inspired by the notion of entanglementbreaking channels, we define the concept of nonclassicality-breaking channels in a natural manner. We show that the notion of nonclassicality-breaking is essentially equivalent—in a clearly defined sense of the phrase ‘essentially’—to the notion of entanglement-breaking, as far as bosonic Gaussian channels are concerned. This is notwithstanding the fact that the very notion of entanglementbreaking requires reference to a bipartite system, whereas the definition of nonclassicality-breaking makes no such reference. Our analysis rests on our classification of channels into nonclassicalitybased, as against entanglement-based, types of canonical forms. Our result takes ones intuitive understanding of the close relationship between nonclassicality and entanglement a step closer.
Grain yield production of Sudan grass (Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf) as influenced by cutting numbers, potassium rates, and intrarow spacing in a semiarid environment

The seed scarcity of Sudan grass plagues the pasture industry in the livestock sector, especially in arid and semiarid regions. The current study was initiated to tackle this challenge. The study evaluates the response of the grain yield and yield components of Sudan grass to cutting numbers, potassium rates, and intrarow spacing over 2 years. A field experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block split-split design with 2 cutting numbers (no cutting and cut 1 time), 2 potassium rates (60 and 120 kg K2O ha-1), and 3 intrarow spacings (15, 20, and 25 cm between hills) as the main plot, split plot, and split-split plot, respectively. The results showed that the zero-cut treatment produced, as averaged over the 2 seasons, 52.3% and 74.5% higher grain yield and hay yield per hectare than the one-cut treatment, respectively. However, the latter treatment had harvest index and sum of hay and green forage yield values that were 17.0% and 19.9% higher than those of the zero-cut treatment, respectively. The application of potassium at a rate of 120 kg ha-1 resulted in the maximum grain yield and yield components as compared to the lower potassium rate (60 kg ha-1), with the exception of 1000-grain weight, hay yield, and sum of hay and green forage yield, which were not significantly different from each other. Averaged over 2 seasons, as the intrarow spacing between hills was increased from 15 cm to 20 and 25 cm, grain weight per panicle decreased by 11.3% and 25.7%, grain yield per hectare decreased by 6.6% and 15.7%, and harvest index decreased by 12.0% and 23.5%, respectively. The interaction among 3 factors had a significant effect on yield and yield components; the highest values for grain and hay yields per hectare were obtained by growing Sudan grass at 15 or 20 cm intrarow spacing under the zero-cut treatment with the application of potassium at rate of 120 kg ha-1. At 15 or 20 cm intrarow spacing, the values for grain yield per hectare under the one-cut treatment and high potassium rate were occasionally comparable to those for the zero-cut treatment and low potassium rate. Finally, when seed production is desired, Sudan grass should not be cut. If growers are interested in producing green forage and grain simultaneously, Sudan grass can be cut 1 time; however, it should be grown at 15 cm intrarow spacing with application of potassium at a rate of 120 kg ha-1.
A Bootstrap Test for Instrument Validity in the Heterogeneous Treatment E¤ect Model

This paper develops a test for the conditions of instrument validity in the heterogeneous treatment e¤ect model (Imbens and Angrist (1994)). We show that under the conditions of instrument validity, the point-identi ed compliers outcome densities must be nonnegative. This provides the testable implication for instrument validity. To infer this testable implication from data, we develop a speci cation test based on a Kolmogorov-Sminov type statistic to assess the nonnegativity of the densities. We provide a bootstrap algorithm to implement the proposed test and show its asymptotic validity. Keywords: Treatment E¤ects, Instrumental Variable, Speci cation Test, Bootstrap. JEL Classi cation: C12, C15, C21. Email: Toru_Kitagawa@brown.edu Webpage: http://www.econ.brown.edu/Students/Toru_Kitagawa/index.htm yI am deeply grateful to Frank Kleibergen and Guido Imbens for helpful comments. Financial support from the Merit Dissertation Fellowship is gretefully acknowledged.
Cannabinoid-Like Signaling and Other New Developmental Pathways in Plants

Plant growth and development depend on the interplay of a number of chemical regulators. Traditionally, six groups or classes of plant hormones have received the most attention: auxins, cytokinins, ethylene, abscicic acid, gibberellins and brassinosteroids. Recently, it has become clear that additional signaling molecules are used by plants. The alkamides and N-acylethanolamides (NAEs) – a class of small organic compounds related to animal endocannabinoids – appear to play a role in diverse morphogenetic processes including seed germination, alteration of plant architecture and response to pathogen attack. In vertebrates, the endocannabinoid signaling pathway has been found to control cellular and morphogenetic responses including embryo development, cell proliferation, immune responses and apoptosis. The notion that plants use alkamides and NAEs to regulate physiological processes is supported by their occurrence in a wide range of plant species, their selective accumulation and rapid metabolism in response to developmental transitions and by the recent identification of the enzymatic machinery for NAE degradation. Moreover, signal transduction cascades involving glutamate and nitric oxide, partners of NAEs and alkamides in regulating animal physiology, have been found to participate in important developmental processes in plants. This information suggests that endocannabinoid-like compounds and other ancestral signaling pathways might be integral to morphogenetic and adaptive processes in plants.
Balancing a book on the head affects postural control

An emergent line in postural rehabilitation of dizzy patients is the use of various technical devices, based on creating external feedback postural cues. In this paper we evaluated the effects on postural control of balancing a book on the head, a method available for almost everyone. We tested 12 healthy volunteers (7 males, 5 females), aged 20-45 years, with and without balancing a book on the head, standing on a force platform while being posturally perturbed by vibratory simulation to the calfmuscles of the leg. The test conditions balancing a book on the head or not, with eyes open or closed were randomized in order to account for simple order effects. Balancing a book stabilized postural sway when the eyes were open, predominantly by reducing the anteroposterior sway path and by decreasing the slow compensatory postural adjustments <0.1Hz (p=0.002). The stabilizing effect of balancing a book could possibly be attributed to either external sensory information or a diversion of attention from maintaining postural control towards external focus (i.e. balancing a book constitutes a cognitive task). The study shows that a simple task as balancing a book affects postural control and could be used in rehabilitation of patients with postural imbalance. Correspondence to: Dr. Fredrik Tjernström, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Clinical Sciences Lund University, Skåne University Hospital, S-221 85 Lund, Sweden; Tel: +4646175849; Fax: +46462110968; E-mail: Fredrik.Tjernstrom@med.lu. se
Distinguishing Agromyzidae (Diptera) Leaf Mines in the Fossil Record: New Taxa from the Paleogene of North America and Germany and their Evolutionary Implications

Abstract Fossilized leaf mines and other traces of phytophagous insects provide a unique window into ecological and evolutionary associations of the past. Leaf-mining flies (Diptera: Agromyzidae) are an important component of the recent leaf-mining fauna, but their fossil record is sparse compared to other mining insect lineages; many putative agromyzid body fossils and traces are dubiously assigned. Agromyzid leaf mines often can be distinguished from those of other insects by the presence of an intermittent, fluidized frass trail that may alternate between the sides of the mine. Here, we describe two new Paleogene leaf mine fossils, Phytomyzites biliapchaensis Winkler, Labandeira and Wilf n. sp. from the early Paleocene of southeastern Montana, USA, occurring in leaves of Platanus raynoldsii (Platanaceae); and Phytomyzites schaarschmidti Wappler n. sp. , from the middle Eocene of Messel, Germany, occurring in leaves of Toddalia ovata (Rutaceae). These fossils both exhibit frass trails indicative of an agromyzid origin, and P. biliapchaensis also exhibits associated stereotypical marks identical to damage caused by feeding punctures of extant adult female Agromyzidae prior to oviposition. Phytomyzites biliapchaensis represents the earliest confirmed record of Agromyzidae, and one of the earliest records for the large dipteran clade Schizophora. Plant hosts of both species belong to genera that are no longer hosts of leaf-mining Agromyzidae, suggesting a complex and dynamic history of early host-plant associations and, for the early Paleocene example, an evolutionary, possibly opportunistic colonization in the midst of the ecological chaos following the end-Cretaceous event in North America.
Magnetic response and negative refractive index of metamaterials

We study the scaling of negative magnetic response of the SRR from microwave to upper THz frequencies. We show, that the linear scaling breaks down for SRR sizes below the order of 1&mgr;m. This breakdown is due to the contribution of the finite electron mass to the inductance of the effective LC oscillator. While at microwave frequencies metals can be treated as near-perfect conductors, close to optical frequencies they rather constitute lossy negative dielectrics. We also study the scaling of the losses in SRR as well as the higher order excitations or plasmon modes and their magnetic response. We discuss the non-resonant diamagnetic response of the SRR and the corresponding corrections to the shape of the frequency dependent effective permeability of the metamaterial. We discuss the connection of recently suggested alternative negative index metamaterial designs in a unified picture.
Integrated Analysis of Dust Transport and Budget in a Severe Asian Dust Event

ABSTRACTAsian dust storms markedly affect the ecosystem, environment, ocean biogeochemical cycle, and regional climate. Numerous measurements and model simulations have been performed to investigate the sources and transport of Asian dust. However, until now, few studies have performed a comprehensive quantification of the dust budget, resulting in significant uncertainty about the characterization of dust transport, emission, and deposition. In this study, a severe dust event in East Asia that occurred from April 28 till May 3, 2011, was analyzed in terms of dust transport characteristics based on multi-satellite observations and the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. In particular, the dust budget of the event was quantitatively estimated using a new atmospheric reanalysis dataset, namely the second Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2). The multi-satellite observations and models indicated that dust events such as this are uncommon. A two-layered dust structure was found in southeast China, the lower ( 3 km) layers of which mainly originated from the Gobi and Taklimakan Deserts, respectively. The dust budget in East Asia, as estimated from MERRA-2, revealed a high dust mass loading (5.7–6.6 Tg) between 70°E and 140°E from April 29 till May 1, with the highest daily dust loading (approximately 6.6 Tg) reported on April 30. The total dust emission was 6.3 Tg over a 6-day period (April 28–May 3), and the maximum amount (nearly 5.9 Tg) of dust was deposited on the ground in the region. The dust flux amounts horizontally transported across the longitudinal boundary of 70°E and 140°E were 1.7 and 2.8 Tg, respectively.