Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extended Abstract : Quality Probe for Testing Multimedia Content in 5 G Networks

With the growth of Internet traffic and the deployment of 5G networks, the evaluation of technology for video streaming over the Internet needs to be assessed. Users demand more efficient algorithms that taking into account the state of the network assure the requirements in terms of quality and allow them to enjoy the contents, which have gradually more resolution and definition than years ago. For this purpose, it is important to create a “probe” for video quality analysis, which checks the correct video transmission through the network avoiding undesirable effects in the multimedia content. In absence of a reference to compare the video transmitted with the original video, an algorithm based on video quality metrics is able to assess the transmission and, consequently, to improve the Quality of Experience of the users, needs to be implemented. The metrics are based in the detection of freezing frames, artefacts, colour errors and packet losses through the analysis of the video sequence. 5G network architecture, based on novel virtualization architectures, such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) allows the nodes in the network to improve the distribution capabilities of the multimedia network in case of transmission errors. The algorithm of the Quality Probe is designed to assess the quality and, in case of finding a descent on it, trigger an alarm to the broadcaster. The probe has been tested with a database that considers this type of errors, with successful results. Index Terms 5G Networks, Video Quality Assessment, Multimedia, Virtualization, SDN, NFV, Artefacts, QoE, Streaming, Probes.
SCREENING OF METHANOLIC EXTRACT OF FOENICULUM VULGARE FOR HEPATOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY

Objective: The present study was carried out in various parts of the plant ‘ Foeniculum vulgare’ (Shoots, Stems & Leaves) to evaluate the hepatoprotective potency against paracetamol induced toxicity which includes biochemical assessment of liver marker enzymes in serum and biochemical assessment of hepatic marker enzymes. Methods: The methanolic extracts of Foeniculum vulgare (200mg/kg and 400mg/kg) were administered orally to the animals and hepatotoxicity induced by paracetamol (2mg/kg). The extracts were administered orally by suspending in 1 %w/v carboxy methyl cellulose solution. Silymarin (0.1mg/kg dose) was given as standard reference. Results: The methanolic extract showed a significant decrease in serum markers SGOT, SGPT, ALP and Bilirubin was estimated and found to be increased during paracetamol toxicity (400mg/kg dose). The hepatic marker enzymes such as AST and ALT was estimated and found to be decreased in paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity. It showed no significant activity at 200mg/kg dose. Conclusion: It was concluded form the result that methanolic extract of Foeniculum vulgare possess hepatoprotective activity against paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity in wistar albino rats.
Extremes in Benthic Ecosystem Services; Blue Carbon Natural Capital Shallower Than 1000 m in Isolated, Small, and Young Ascension Island’s EEZ

Biodiversity tends to decrease with increasing isolation and reduced habitat size, and increase with habitat age. Ascension Island and its seamounts are small, isolated and relatively young, yet, within its soon-to-be designated major Marine Protected Area, harbour patchily dense life in the shallows and cold water corals in deeper waters. With few local threats, global climate related stressors (e.g. temperature and acidification) and arguably plastic pollution are key issues for its survival and continued provision of ecosystem services. We evaluate the accumulated carbon in benthos around Ascension Island’s EEZ shallower than 1000 m using data from two research cruises in 2015 and 2017 through seabed mapping, seabed camera imagery and collections of benthos using a mini-Agassiz trawl. Benthos shallower than 1000 m essentially comprises the coastal waters around Ascension Island and three seamounts (Harris-Stewart, Grattan and Un-named). There is considerable societal benefit from benthic carbon storage and sequestration through its mitigation value buffering climate change. This service is often termed ‘blue carbon’. Overall we estimate that there is at least 43,000 tonnes of blue carbon, on the 3% of Ascension Island EEZ’s seabed which is <1000 m, mainly in the form of cold coral reefs. Two thirds of that occurs around the main island of Ascension, but it is very unevenly distributed on the seabed. Seabed roughness (e.g. rocky outcrops) seems most important for the development of blue carbon hotspots. About 21% of the total blue carbon is considered to be sequestered (removed from the carbon cycle for 100+ years) = 9060 tonnes Carbon. At the 2019 Shadow Price of Carbon the proportion of CO2 considered sequestered is £29-59. As 9060 t C this is equivalent to 33,250 t CO2, which in 2019 is valued at approximately £1-2 million. With time, this increases with rising value of carbon, but also annual increment of carbon deposition, to £2-4 million by 2030. Thus even when biogeographic values of isolation, size and age are least favourable to biodiversity, the natural capital stock and future services of benthic ecosystems can be considerable and generate a quantifiable economic return on their conservation.
Performance of high dividend yield investment strategy on the Polish Stock Market 1997-2007

The subject of this analysis is the profitability of an investment strategy focused on high dividend yield stocks from the Polish stock market. We follow the idea from Visscher and Filbeck (2003) and construct portfolios of top ten highest dividend yielding companies, which are rebalanced annually over the period of 10 years from 1997 to 2007. Due to a relatively small number of dividend paying stocks in the analyzed sample, we made a selection from the pool of all companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). The results demonstrate that portfolios composed of the high dividend yield stocks were capable of beating the market, although this did not happen consistently over the entire period under analysis. Nevertheless, the average annual rate of return of the Top10 portfolios (consisting of the 10 highest dividend yield stocks) has been over two times larger than the return of the market index. The analysis of the most important risk-adjusted measures (Sharpe and Treynor indices) indicates that the Top10 portfolios have produced abnormally large returns compared to the market return; even after accounting for risk. We present our findings also in a broader context of their economic significance, following McQueen, Shields and Thorley (1997) and Visscher and Filbeck (2003), by including transaction costs and taxes. The results presented in this study have an important implication for investors regarding their investment horizon choices. The high dividend yield portfolios proved to be profitable and generated abnormal returns in the entire sample of 10 years but their performance varied in shorter sub-periods. Hence, investors should view this type of a strategy as a longer-term rather than a short-term investment.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RISK AND EXPECTED RETURNS WITH

Asset pricing theory generally assumes perfect markets and, therefore, asset pricing models disregard the possibility of information deficiency in stock price formation. Our study analyses if the quantity of information about an asset determines its return. More precisely, we want to know if there is a systematic source of information related risk that makes assets which are highly sensitive to this risk factor present higher mean returns. Our results indicate that the market prices the disinformation risk. We find that models which incorporate our attention factor perform better than the traditional CAPM or the Fama and French model, both in time-series analyses and cross-sectionally.
Title Data-driven Visual Graph Query Interface Constructionand Maintenance : Challenges and Opportunities

Visual query interfaces make it easy for scientists and other nonexpert users to query a data collection. Heretofore, visual query interfaces have been statically-constructed, independent of the data. In this paper we outline a vision of a different kind of interface, one that is built (in part) from the data. In our data-driven approach, the visual interface is dynamically constructed and maintained. A data-driven approach has many benefits such as reducing the cost in constructing and maintaining an interface, superior support for query formulation, and increased portability of the interface. We focus on graph databases, but our approach is applicable to several other kinds of databases such as JSON and XML.
Polycentric Integrated Assessment

Transitions towards sustainability will require major changes in today’s socio-economic systems. Such changes cannot be brought about by conventional policy measures. We advocate a new approach of a polycentric understanding of policy making that invokes instances of social learning at different levels of societal organization. The notion of polycentric involves the integration of different levels of human choice and geographical domains. The spatial component involves the sequence local – regional – national – global. It involves the combination of different types of human choice at different levels of societal organization (e.g., legal regulations, taxes, subsidies, local initiatives). Trying to understand what is the impact of dealing with diverse ‘‘global change phenomena’’ at diverse levels of organization will require new approaches to deal with human agency. Agent based modeling and its application in participatory settings is a novel promising approach to deal with such choice problems [1]. The importance of such scaling issues are explored for the problem of climate change and water resource management. Whereas water issues have primarily been approached from a regional, even local perspective, the climate problem has been addressed in the first place at the global scale with a global scientific and policy process (IPCC, Kyoto protocol). Regarding climate change one has increasingly recognized the importance of addressing the topic at the regional scale. Most choices will be made at the regional scale and will invoke short-term decisions that are not directly related to climate change. Regarding water resource management, patterns of regional water scarcity may be compensated by complementary patterns of food trade leading to major transfers of virtual water at the global scale. In both cases the coupling of different scales in space, organization and time poses major challenges for integrated assessment.
Dynamic Resource Allocation and Adaptability in Teamwork

Abstract : Prior research in this program established that team performance is a consequence of how individuals allocate resources to accomplish multiple goals. This project extended that work around two primary research foci. The first focus built on our prior research on feedback as a means to influence dynamic resource allocation and adaptation. Resource allocation is a promising mechanism to explain performance adaptation to unexpected environmental perturbations. In general, the findings indicate that priming resource allocation and providing more rapid feedback updating on goal-performance discrepancies enhanced situation assessment, strategy selection, and performance adaptation. Both interventions have implications for training design and embedded decision aids. The second focus unpacked the resource allocation process by examining the dynamic interplay among the core elements of goals, effort, and performance over time. Although our prior research demonstrated that these elements were responsible for individual and team performance, the dynamic interplay was not addressed. Modeling these dynamics over time yielded important insights that will enable improved human performance in complex task domains. In particular, this extension of our research paradigm enables more precise modeling of the limits and wide variance of human performance for dynamic resource allocation. This serves as a basis for more accurate evaluation of experimental interventions designed to improve multiple goal regulation and performance adaptation, and to develop formal models of that process.
Communicating towards justice in ‘The Subaltern Voice’ (TSV)

We write with a voice of the marginalised in mind, as both marginalised women scholars writing from a critical perspective on human organisation and as privileged human beings with concern for those more dangerously excluded from The Master’s House. The voice we raise does not plead for assimilation into circumstances as they are. It calls for radical change. Our ideas originate in research with Māori women accountants employed in organisations expressing commitment to Māori involvement. From that research we learned that aspiring to bicultural ways of being in a context prematurely deemed post-colonial is fraught with risks of co-option and unintentional collusion. Accordingly we are committed to further exposing neo-colonialism and to experiment with The Subaltern Voice (TSV) as a heuristic for this work. Asking what might be said in TSV that is different from what can be said in more commonly heard voices calling for inclusion has brought us to new thoughts about our own engagement with ‘The Empire’. Not only as it continues to colonise Māori locally and indigenous peoples globally, but from the myriad of places we take our positions to speak, sometimes ‘from the margins’ and other times from within the relative comforts of The Master’s House.
Anti-TGEV Miller Strain Infection Effect of Lactobacillus plantarum Supernatant Based on the JAK-STAT1 Signaling Pathway

Transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE), caused by transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), is one many gastrointestinal inflections in piglets, characterized by diarrhea, and high mortality. Probiotics are ubiquitous bacteria in animal intestines, which have many functions, such as promoting intestinal peristalsis and maintaining the intestinal balance. We found that the supernatant of the Lp-1 strain of Lactobacillus plantarum, isolated in our laboratory, and named Lp-1s had marked anti-TGEV effect on IPEC-J2 cells. Lp-1s could induce large amounts of interferon-β in IPEC-J2 cells in the early stage (6 h) of infection with TGEV, and increased the level of phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription and its nuclear translocation in the late stage (24–48 h) of infection. This resulted in upregulated expression of interferon-stimulated genes, and increased the transcription and protein expression of antiviral proteins, resulting in an anti-TGEV effect.
Methods for measurement and manipulation of timbral physical correlates

Multidimensional scaling calculations based on the results of listening tests comparing musical sounds almost always identify one perceptual dimension which is strongly correlated with a measure of the spectral centroid, whereas other dimensions are less obviously correlated to particular physical parameters. Some parameters which have been suggested as good correlates are attack time, spectral flux, and spectral irregularity [J. Krimphoff et al., J. Phys. IV (C5), 625–628 (1994)]. Also, spectral rolloff, preattack noise, general noisiness, and inharmonicity have been proposed as important factors. Based on time‐variant spectral analysis with custom software [J. Beauchamp, Audio Eng. Soc. Preprint No. 3479], these parameters and others can be quantified and manipulated, leading to various applications. For example, synthesis using simplified parameter contours provides stimuli for discrimination testing to reveal listeners’ sensitivities to these parameters. Measurement of spectral differences can be corr.
Current-Voltage-Dual-Mode DC-DC Buck Converter with Adaptive Clock Control

This paper presents a novel high-efficiency and fast-transient current-voltage-dual-mode (CVDM) dc-dc buck converter using adaptive clock controller (ACC). The proposed CVDM control can stably switch the control method between current mode and voltage mode to improve the performance according to different situations. By using the ACC technique, the circuit can dynamically and smoothly adjust the switching frequency during the transient response to improve the undershoot, overshoot voltage, and recovery time. In this work, only an output inductor, capacitor, and feedback resistors are outside the system on chip (SoC). The transient recovery time and undershoot voltage are less than 5μs and 60mV, respectively, for the load current change from 50mA to 500mA. The maximum conversion efficiency is 95% at 100mA load current. Above 90% conversion efficiency can be achieved for load current from 30mA to 600mA. With the proposed techniques, the performance of the dc-dc converter is improved significantly.
Is Performance of Scholars Correlated to Their Research Collaboration Patterns?

This study aims to validate whether the research performance of scholars correlates with how the scholars work together. Although the most straightforward approaches are centrality measurements or community detection, scholars mostly participate in multiple research groups and have different roles in each group. Thus, we concentrate on the subgraphs of co-authorship networks rooted in each scholar that cover (i) overlapping of the research groups on the scholar and (ii) roles of the scholar in the groups. This study calls the subgraphs “collaboration patterns” and applies subgraph embedding methods to discover and represent the collaboration patterns. Based on embedding the collaboration patterns, we have clustered scholars according to their collaboration styles. Then, we have examined whether scholars in each cluster have similar research performance, using the quantitative indicators. The coherence of the indicators cannot be solid proofs for validating the correlation between collaboration and performance. Nevertheless, the examination for clusters has exhibited that the collaboration patterns can reflect research styles of scholars. This information will enable us to predict the research performance more accurately since the research styles are more consistent and sustainable features of scholars than a few high-impact publications.
Chemical Heterogeneity of Mg, Mn, Na, S, and Sr in Benthic Foraminiferal Calcite

The chemical composition of fossil foraminiferal shells (tests) is widely used as tracers for past ocean chemistry. It is, therefore, important to understand how different (trace) elements are transported and incorporated into these tests from adjacent seawater. The elemental distribution within the walls of foraminiferal tests might be used to differentiate between proposed transport mechanisms. Here, the microdistribution of Mg, Mn, Na, S, and Sr in tests of three species of foraminifera, known to have contrasting test chemistry, is investigated by a combination of electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (nanoSIMS), micro-X-ray fluorescence (μXRF), and micro-X-ray absorption near-edge structure (μXANES) analyses. The three investigated species are the symbiont-barren Ammonia sp. T6 and Bulimina marginata, which precipitate a low-Mg calcite test, and the symbiont-bearing species Amphistegina lessonii, which produces a test with intermediate Mg content. Because all analyzed tests were formed under controlled and identical laboratory conditions, the observed distributions of elements are not due to environmental variability but are a direct consequence of the processes involved in calcification or, in the case of A. lessonii, possibly symbiont activity. Despite some variability in elemental microdistribution between specimens from a given species, our combined dataset shows species-specific distributions of the elements (e.g., peak heights and/or band-widths) and also a systematic colocation of Mg, Na, S, and Sr for all three species, suggesting a coupled or simultaneous uptake, transport, and incorporation of these elements during chamber addition. The observed trace element patterns generally reflect a laminar calcification model, suggesting that heterogeneity of these elements is intrinsically linked to chamber addition. Although the incorporation of redox-sensitive Mn depends on the Mn concentration of the culture medium, the Mn distribution observed in Ammonia sp. suggests that Mn transport is similarly linked to laminar calcification dynamics. However, for B. marginata, Mn banding was sometimes anticorrelated with Mg banding, suggesting that (bio)availability, uptake, and transport of Mn differ from those for Ammonia sp. Our results from symbiont-bearing A. lessonii suggest that the activity of symbionts (i.e., photosynthesis/respiration) may influence the incorporation of Mn owing to alternation of the chemistry in the microenvironment of the foraminifera, an important consideration in the development of this potential proxy for past oxygenation of the oceans.
Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling: A Case Study in World Englishes

Inspired by work in comparative sociolinguistics and quantitative dialectometry, we sketch a corpus-based method (Variation-Based Distance & Similarity Modeling—VADIS for short) to rigorously quantify the similarity between varieties and dialects as a function of the correspondence of the ways in which language users choose between different ways of saying the same thing. To showcase the potential of the method, we present a case study that investigates three syntactic alternations in some nine international varieties of English. Key findings include that (a) probabilistic grammars are remarkably similar and stable across the varieties under study; (b) in many cases we see a cluster of “native” (a.k.a. Inner Circle) varieties, such as British English, whereas “non-native” (a.k.a. Outer Circle) varieties, such as Indian English, are a more heterogeneous group; and (c) coherence across alternations is less than perfect.
Inherited and Environmental Factors Influence Human Monocyte Heterogeneity

Blood monocytes develop in the bone marrow before being released into the peripheral circulation. The circulating monocyte pool is composed of multiple subsets, each with specialized functions. These cells are recruited to repopulate resident monocyte-derived cells in the periphery and also to sites of injury. Several extrinsic factors influence the function and quantity of monocytes in the blood. Here, we outline the impact of sex, ethnicity, age, sleep, diet, and exercise on monocyte subsets and their function, highlighting that steady state is not a single physiological condition. A clearer understanding of the relationship between these factors and the immune system may allow for improved therapeutic strategies.
A Trait-State Model of Trust Propensity: Evidence From Two Career Transitions

Trust propensity is typically conceptualized as a stable, trait-like, exogenous variable. Drawing on the social investment principle of personality change, we argue that trust propensity has situationally specific components and is likely to be less stable during periods of career transition. Using a latent curve-latent state-trait model, we present evidence that suggests that trust propensity has stable (trait) and unstable (state) components during career transition periods and that it has the potential to change over time. Our results are replicated across two, transitional workplace populations during a process of (re)socialization into an organization. In our second study, we also expand our focus to examine correlates of trust propensity and demonstrate the relationship between state and trait trust propensity and cognitive depletion. Our paper significantly extends knowledge of the nature of trust propensity and raises questions about the stability of this construct, one of the core tenets of trust theory.