Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What are the determinants of non-performing loans in Botswana?

The maintenance of asset quality, efficiency and profitability is a vital requirement for the survival and development of banks. Loans are the main asset class from which banks generate their major portion of income and also signify the greatest risk to banks. There has been significant indication that the financial crises in the USA, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia were signalled by high levels of non-performing loans (NPLs). Due to the detrimental effect that these loans have on a bank’s revenue and the economic welfare of a country, it is essential to examine and investigate the determinants of NPLs in the banking industry of any country. This study examines Botswana, a developing country in Southern-Africa and is stimulated by the assumption that both the industry level variables and macroeconomic variables have an effect on NPLs. Secondary data of the banking sector was obtained from Botswana’s central bank, the Bank of Botswana. Correlation and regression analysis were carried out over a period of ten years (2005– 2014), using quarterly data. It was found that the following industry level variables (i.e. credit growth, industry size and profitability) and macroeconomic variables (i.e. real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, inflation, real interest rates and the unemployment rate) have a statistically significant impact on the NPL rate. On the other hand, capitalization and diversification had a statistically insignificant relationship with NPLs. The banking industry in Botswana should carefully monitor the household loan portfolio as well as their credit advancement policies with regard to the aforementioned variables to help lower their NPL ratios. This study is the first of its kind in the Botswana banking industry and therefore will provide scholars with the opportunity to enrich their knowledge and serve as a reference for other researchers in the related area while also providing a foundation for further studies.
An optimal projection test for zero multiple correlation coefficient in high-dimensional normal data

Abstract Testing the hypothesis of zero multiple correlation coefficient is of interest in wide variety of applications including multiple regression analysis. In high-dimensional data, traditional testing procedures to test this hypothesis become practically infeasible due to the singularity of the sample covariance matrix. To deal with this problem, an optimal projection test with a computationally simple and efficient algorithm for implementation is proposed, which can also be used in low-dimensional data. Some simulations are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed test in high-dimensional normal data as well as to compare the proposed test with the classical exact test in low-dimensional normal data. Lastly, the experimental validation of the proposed approach is carried out on mice tumor volumes data.
The logistic SDE Jean-Sébastien Giet

We consider the logistic S.D. E which is obtained by addition of a diffusion coefficient of the type β √ x to the usual and deterministic Verhust-Volterra differential equation. We show that this S.D. E is the limit of a sequence of birth and death Markov chains. This permits to interpret the solution Vt as the size at time t of a self-controlled tumor which is submitted to a radiotherapy treatment. We mainly focus on the family of stopping times Tε, where Tε is the first hitting of level ε > 0 by (Vt). We calculate their Laplace transforms and also the first moment of Tε. Finally we determine the asymptotic behavior of Tε, as ε→ 0.
Binaural Speech Separation Algorithm Based on Long and Short Time Memory Networks

: Speaker separation in complex acoustic environment is one of challenging tasks in speech separation. In practice, speakers are very often unmoving or moving slowly in normal communication. In this case, the spatial features among the consecutive speech frames become highly correlated such that it is helpful for speaker separation by providing additional spatial information. To fully exploit this information, we design a separation system on Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with long short-term memory (LSTM) which effectively learns the temporal dynamics of spatial features. In detail, a LSTM-based speaker separation algorithm is proposed to extract the spatial features in each time-frequency (TF) unit and form the corresponding feature vector. Then, we treat speaker separation as a supervised learning problem, where a modified ideal ratio mask (IRM) is defined as the training function during LSTM learning. Simulations show that the proposed system achieves attractive separation performance in noisy and reverberant environments. Specifically, during the untrained acoustic test with limited priors, e.g., unmatched signal to noise ratio (SNR) and reverberation, the proposed LSTM based algorithm can still outperforms the existing DNN based method in the measures of PESQ and STOI. It indicates our method is more robust in untrained conditions.
Cornea Important Role of Epiregulin in Inflammatory Responses during Corneal Epithelial Wound Healing

METHODS. A 2-mm diameter central epithelial wound was created in epiregulin-KO and wild-type (WT) mouse corneas. The size of the unhealed area and the epithelial cell proliferation and migration were examined. Myeloperoxidase assay was performed to determine the number of polymorphonuclear (PMN) cells infiltrating corneal stroma. Real-time PCR was used to determine expression of the mRNA of inflammatory cytokines in the corneal epithelial cells. Expression of chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 2 (CXCL2) response to IL-1b was examined in MCECs with or without recombinant mouse epiregulin. Repetitive injuries were created to determine the effect of inflammation in healing in epiregulin-KO mice.
Mediated Arabic Language Learning for Arabic Students of Higher Education in COVID-19 Situation

The COVID-19 emergency situation has affected all citizens of the world, including Indonesia and also all non-formal and formal educational institutions, such as higher educations. The Learning Process in various educational units, including tertiary institutions, experienced a total change to the use of internet or online media. The present article examines the media and the Arabic learning process at the university in the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The COVID-19 pandemic situation changed the way of learning Arabic students at UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang from conventional offline learning to learning using internet media online. This research is a qualitative descriptive study. The data are obtained through observation, questionnaires distributed through Google forms, online interviews through social media, and documentation. The result shows that the majority of students use the WhatsApp application, and most of them study autonomously through online platforms. Besides, it reveals that the most popular learning material is video. To improve their language skills, students are more likely to have peer-discussion activities. The study discovered a shift in Arabic learning by students of UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang from personal to instrumental as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic situation. In this case, there was a transformation in Arabic learning from a personal-cultural approach to an instrumental-functional approach. This research has implications regarding the ideal Arabic learning process in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift also took place in the degree of teachers' dependence towards dependence on technology during the pandemic situation.
Horticultural Therapy: An Effective Yet Underutilized Rehabilitation Therapy

The purpose of this paper is to analyze utilization rates and barriers of horticultural therapy while highlighting several of its efficacious applications. Horticultural therapy provides therapeutic opportunities to patients of varying diagnoses such as dementia, schizophrenia, depression, and other mental illnesses, yet is seemingly underutilized. Using telephone surveys, we analyzed the utilization of horticultural therapy in large medical institutions of the Northeast Ohio region, the remainder of Ohio, and portions of Western Pennsylvania. Nineteen out of twenty-four responding relevant medical institutions do not offer horticultural based therapeutic programs. These same institutions proclaim they are unable to provide the therapy due to inadequate financial remuneration and resources, inclement weather, and unfamiliarity towards horticultural therapy. Continued and more aggressive advocacy is imperative to achieve proper resourcing and remuneration of horticultural therapy as an essential health benefit through the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Isolation of Sesquiterpene from the Leaves Extract of Vernonia Amygdalina and Its Acute Toxicity to the Albino Mice

Vernonia amygdalina is a shrub or small tree which is widely used traditional medicinal plant for the treatment of schistomiasis, amoebic dysentery, malaria, veneral diseases, wounds, hepatitis and diabetes and gastrointestinal problems. The objective of this study was to extract, isolate and determine the structure of the constituents of biologically active crude extracts of the leaves of Vernonia amygdalina and its toxicity investigation on albino mice. Extraction was carried out by maceration; isolation and characterization were carried out by using chromatographic and spectroscopic technique respectively. The screening of secondary metabolites showed the presence of alkaloid, flavonoids, phenols, saponin, steroids and glycosides in methanol extract. Fractionation of crude extract was carried by using column chromatography. The isolation result afforded sesquiterpene which was elucidated by using spectroscopic methods (IR, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR and DEPT 135). The acetone extract showed toxicity at higher dosage with LD 50 =824.6 mg/Kg but methanol extract did not show any toxicity up to 2000 mg/Kg to the albino mice. Due to high applicability of the plant a number of isolated compounds and chronic toxicity should be carried out for further information. Keywords : Vernonia amygdalina; sesquiterpene; toxicity; albino mice
Field Mobile Robot Navigated by RTK-GPS and FOG (Part 4)

This paper reported about new steering control algorithm. The steering controller developed in previous paper was designed to guide along with a straight path, and it didn't confirm the accuracy of following a curved path. But the robot tractor has to have a function to travel along any curved path precisely to achieve farm management by the robot. The steering control algorithm applied a linear optimal regulator was developed and tested at a field with some curved paths. The developed system showed the outstanding guidance performance comparing to a conventional method which uses a PI controller on all types of the paths including a 90 degree turn, a sinusoidal, and a forward turning paths. In addition, the developed controller could perform high-speed guidance at 3.0 m/s more precisely than the conventional PI controller. [Keywords] Steering control, Linear optimal regulator, Following curved path, high-speed guidance
Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance in Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

Knowledge management and organizational performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria have been adequately investigated. Data was obtained through the use of questionnaire and personal interviews of the sampled population. The hypothesis for the study were tested using the spearman rank order correlation co-efficient designated as rho. The findings of this research study shows amongst others that: there exists a positive relationship between knowledge transfer, organizational memory and knowledge retrieval with improved organizational profit, organizational growth and market share. The findings further shows that inadequate funding, poorly trained personnel/manpower, as well as poor technology in operations affects the effective implementation of knowledge management. The study has recommended amongst others that, manufacturing firms should provide knowledge management systems for users in a structured way to retrieve data and information to increase corporate effectiveness. Manufacturing firms should ensure the effective management of their operations in order to achieve their goals/objectives. And that manufacturing firms should be both proactive and innovative and must be concerned about their product quality and services so as to sustain the patronage of its customers.
A Near-Optimal Axiomatisation of ZX-Calculus for Pure Qubit Quantum Mechanics.

Recent developments in the ZX-Calculus have resulted in complete axiomatisations first for an approximately universal restriction of the language, and then for the whole language. The main drawbacks were that the axioms that were added to achieve completeness were numerous, tedious to manipulate and lacked a physical interpretation. We present in this paper two complete axiomatisations for the general ZX-Calculus, that we believe are optimal, in that all their equations are necessary and moreover have a nice physical interpretation.
Choice between Negative Alternatives: Dissonance Reduction or Regret?

In 1962 an experiment investigated whether or not individuals commonly experience regret after making decisions. Results suggested Ss probably experienced more regret as time passed. There was no evidence that they ever succeeded in reducing dissonance. One of three current interpretations is that the more negative the choice alternatives, the more post-decisional regret a decision maker should experience. An experimental design to test alternative interpretations is proposed.
Inverse Elastic Cloth Design with Contact and Friction

Physically based cloth modeling is classically achieved through a trial and error process. The rest (undeformed) configuration of the cloth, often represented as a 2D pattern assembly, is edited geometrically and adjusted iteratively depending on the feedback provided by a static cloth simulator, which predicts the deformed 3D shape under gravity and contacts. Matching a reference 3D shape while keeping the time of the modeling process reasonable is thus difficult, unless the user possesses advanced skills in real cloth tailoring. In contrast, in this paper we investigate a new, inverse strategy for modeling realistic cloth intuitively. Our goal is to take as input a target (deformed) 3D shape, and to interpret this configuration automatically as a stable equilibrium of a cloth simulator, by retrieving the unknown rest shape. In the presence of gravity and frictional contact, such an inverse problem formulates as an illposed nonlinear system subject to nonsmooth constraints. To select and compute a plausible solution, we design an iterative two-step solving process. In a first step, contacts are reduced to frictionless bilateral constraints, and starting from an as-flat-as possible pose, a unique rest pose is retrieved using the adjoint method on a regularized energy. The second step modifies this rest pose so as to project bilateral forces onto the admissible Coulomb friction cone, for each contact. We show that our method converges well in most cases towards a plausible rest configuration, and demonstrate practical inversion results on various cloth geometries modeled by an artist. CR Categories: I.3. 5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling —Physically based modeling I.3. 7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism— Animation
Rationalizable Strategic Behavior

THE NOTION OF EQUILIBRIUM proposed by Nash [19] has come to play a dominant role in economic applications of noncooperative games. While analyses of Nash equilibria have unquestionably contributed to our understanding of economic behavior, it would be unreasonably optimistic to maintain that Nash "solved" the problem of noncooperative strategic choice. There is a small literature (beginning with Ellsberg [6]) and a much larger oral tradition which argues that Nash behavior is neither a necessary consequence of rationality, nor a reasonable empirical proposition. In this paper I take the view that although there may be various reasons why an agent might select a Nash strategy, the notion of an equilibrium has little intrinsic appeal within a strategic context. When an agent reaches a decision in ignorance of the strategies adopted by other players, rationality consists of making a choice which is justifiable by an internally consistent system of beliefs, rather than one which is optimal, post hoc. This point of view is not original; indeed, most serious justifications of the Nash hypothesis embrace such an approach, arguing that agents will expect the game to yield a Nash outcome, and consequently will choose their equilibrium strategies. Nevertheless, when we think in terms of maximizing utility subject to expectations rather than realizations, it becomes clear that the Nash hypothesis, far from being a consequence of rationality, arises from certain restrictions on agents' expectations which may or may not be plausible, depending upon the game being played. We are then quite naturally led to ask: are there any restrictions of individuals' expectations (and hence choices) which are required by rationality alone, rather than by (subjective) plausibility? This paper is concerned with defining, justifying, characterizing, and refining a criterion for rational strategic choice, which I label "rationalizability. "
CompositionALife: an artificial world as a musical representation for composition

Composing music is something a lot of people have wished they could be able to do. Unfortunately, to be able to compose music, people often need several years of training and study to acquire the necessary knowledge: first to learn how to use the traditional musical representation and then to learn the rules for composing different kinds of music. This thesis describes research to develop and evaluate a representation and system for musical composition. The system provides users with a simple and specific language to create and interact with the artificial world; and by creating animals and giving them behaviors, users are composing music. The user study conducted at the end of this project showed that this program ("CompositionALife") could make it easier for people without previous knowledge in music and/or composition to compose interesting music.
The comparative gait effects of select walking surfaces using kinetic and emg analyses

Purpose. This study investigated the EMG characteristics of muscles crossing the knee and the kinetics of the lower extremity during side-slope walking and other activities of daily living. We studied the difference in EMG data of the medial gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis muscles bilaterally and the relative rotation of the thigh to leg. Methods. Eleven outdoor workers (47.3 ± 13.9 years old) were recruited for this study. Participants walked on a 0° flat surface, 5° and 10° side-sloped surfaces, 10° inclined treadmill and ascended stairs. The EMG activity and rotation about a vertical axis during stance phase were analyzed. Results. Except for minor variations, ANOVA showed no significant difference in EMG activity between the walking surfaces, furthermore, the relative rotation of thigh-to-leg showed little or no differences between the variables. Multivariate ANOVA showed p-values between 0.1602 and 0.9943 when comparing the EMG data of all side-sloped surfaces. The relative rotation of the thigh to the leg showed p-values of 0.7837 and 0.9813 when comparing the left 0° to 10° and right 0° to 10°, respectively. Conclusions. The results of this study indirectly indicate that when considering rotation about a vertical axis and EMG activity, there is little difference in knee joint loading.
Sexual dimorphism using elliptical Fourier analysis: shape differences in the craniofacial complex

The assessment of sexual dimorphism plays an essential role in numerous disciplines such as: (1) forensics, with its concern with skeletal identification, including sexing; (2) archeology, where the sexing of skeletal materials is an essential aspect; (3) primatology, where sex differences are diverse; (4) paleoanthropology, where the identification of sex can influence taxonomic and phylogenetic decisions, and (5) growth and development, where one strives to identify differences before and after puberty. Other disciplines where sexual dimorphism plays an important function include orthodontics, gerontology, nutrition, and medicine. Quantitative studies of morphological forms in general, and sexual dimorphism in particular, is not a trivial endeavor in that at least two aspects are involved, namely size and shape. Focusing on the human skeletal system, sexual dimorphism affects all bones, including the cranium, pelvis, long bones, and vertebral column. However, the overwhelming numbers of studies of sexual dimorphism are based solely on size differences. These studies have repeatedly demonstrated that males are larger for most dimensions. The question of shape differences, if indeed present, cannot be readily inferred from these studies. Consequently, a number of studies were initiated, over some 20 years duration, that specifically focused on the presence of sexually dimorphic shape changes in the skeletal craniofacial complex. The following anatomical structures were examined: (1) the human nasal bones, (2) the primate cranial base, (3) the human cranial base, (4) the human dental arch, (5) the human mandibular arch, and (6) the human cranial vault. These six datasets involved 16 samples for a total of 1110 specimens. Every dataset generated statistically significant sexually dimorphic differences in shape. Thus, it is apparent that the craniofacial complex not only exhibits size differences but also specific shape differences.
The effects of guardrail placement at signalized railroad-highway at-grade crossings in Iowa

Railroad-highway at-grade crossings have historically been the subject of substantive research given the heightened risk of fatal and severe injury when traffic crashes occur at these locations. To improve safety, active warning devices, such as flashing lights and gates, have been installed to warn drivers of oncoming trains. Various studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of these devices, but research has been limited with respect to the occurrence of crashes involving these warning devices. The supports for such devices are generally rigid and non-breakaway, posing as a fixed-object obstacle for motorists. A few states, including Idaho, Iowa, and Washington, include guardrail designs to protect the signal. However, guidance is generally limited in this regard. To that end, this study involves an in-service evaluation on the safety performance of signalized railroad crossings within Iowa. The study leverages data from 2007 to 2016 to examine how the number and severity of crashes varies depending upon whether guardrail is installed at these locations. Over 1800 signalized crossings were analyzed and results show that crashes are more frequent in the presence of guardrail; however, such crashes tend to result in reduced severity compared to collisions directly involving the roadside hardware (i.e. without a barrier). Simulation analyses using the Roadside Safety Analysis Program suggest that moving the railroad signal further from the roadway provided the best alternative in both the presence and absence of guardrail. Improving the guardrail design and ensuring the proper construction could make this system more beneficial. Ultimately, few crossings include such a design in which only a limited crash sample is available to compare to a base-case scenario. Handbooks suggest