Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
REAL AND NOMINAL RIGIDITIES IN THE BRAZILIAN ECONOMY : AN ANALYSIS USING A DSGE MODEL

In the recent literature, there is growing interest in the development of economic models that deal with the role of nominal price rigidity, based on the optimizing behavior of rational agents in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework. However, contrary to evidence, monetary policy shocks generate weak persistence of real and nominal variables. In this paper, the DSGE model developed by Dib (2003) was estimated for Brazil using Bayesian methods, which combine nominal rigidity and real rigidity to check whether the inclusion of the latter may increase the former and, consequently, the persistence of monetary policy shocks. Results showed that the inclusion of real rigidity contributes to the increase of nominal rigidity, particularly when included as employment adjustment costs. Simulation exercises showed that, when the model includes real rigidity, money supply, money demand and technology shocks have more persistent effects on some macroeconomic variables.
Remote Sensing Image Superresolution Using Deep Residual Channel Attention

The current trend in remote sensing image superresolution (SR) is to use supervised deep learning models to effectively enhance the spatial resolution of airborne and satellite-based optical imagery. Nonetheless, the inherent complexity of these architectures/data often makes these methods very difficult to train. Despite these recent advances, the huge amount of network parameters that must be fine-tuned and the lack of suitable high-resolution remotely sensed imagery in actual operational scenarios still raise some important challenges that may become relevant limitations in the existent earth observation data production environments. To address these problems, we propose a new remote sensing SR approach that integrates a visual attention mechanism within a residual-based network design in order to allow the SR process to focus on those features extracted from land-cover components that require more computations to be superresolved. As a result, the network training process is significantly improved because it aims at learning the most relevant high-frequency information while the proposed architecture allows neglecting the low-frequency features extracted from spatially uninformative earth surface areas by means of several levels of skip connections. Our experimental assessment, conducted using the University of California at Merced and GaoFen-2 remote sensing image collections, three scaling factors, and eight different SR methods, demonstrates that our newly proposed approach exhibits competitive performance in the task of superresolving remotely sensed imagery.
Exploring the Scope of Adopting Multidimensional Performance Measurement Models in Banking Sector of Bangladesh

The purpose of this paper is to contribute in the evolution of banking sector of Bangladesh by investigating the scope of adoption of multidimensional performance measurement models. Because the performance measurement models from management accounting are theoretically sound and effective for different business sectors. The study is conducted on branches of 19 selected commercial banks at Dhaka city. Opinion survey is conducted to collect the data on usage of performance measures. Thirty performance measures from different performance areas are chosen by consultation with bank professionals. Collected data are analyzed by ‘Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient ’and ‘Factor analysis’. The results suggest that the measures used in banks are correlated and there are important nine factors to consider in formulating performance measurement system. That means the current performance measurement system of banks cover a set of integrating measures from different performance areas. Hench, there is a chance of adoption of a multidimensional performance measurement model in branch level of Bangladeshi banks
BIOCHEMISTRY RESULTS AND CORRELATIONS TO REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS IN NESTING LOGGERHEAD SEA TURTLES (CARETTA CARETTA)

Characterizing the health status and reproductive success of wild populations of sea turtles can be difficult; however, obtaining data to do this can provide important insight into the stability and long-term success of a population. This study examined the use of baseline corticosterone to assess reproductive success of a population of nesting loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) on Jekyll Island, Georgia and investigated hematological and biochemical trends in this population. A total of 37 nesting loggerhead sea turtles was sampled for this study. Eleven (29.7%) turtles were sampled in 2013 and 26 (70.3%) were sampled in 2014. Amajority of the turtles sampled successfully nested (29/37, 78.4%; false crawls: 8/37, 21.6%). There was no significant correlation between baseline corticosterone concentrations and reproductive success (hatch success or emergence success) in this population. There was a significant positive correlation (r 1⁄4 0.461, P 1⁄4 0.02) between corticosterone concentrations and absolute monocyte counts. There was a significant negative correlation between monocyte count and hatch success (r1⁄4 0.464, P1⁄40.05) and a positive correlation between phosphorus and hatch success (r 1⁄4 0.405, P 1⁄4 0.05). Calcium concentrations were significantly different (P 1⁄4 0.01) between animals that false crawled and those that nested, with nesting turtles having lower calcium concentrations than those that false crawled. Turtles that false crawled were significantly (P 1⁄4 0.008) more likely to have elevated potassium concentrations than turtles that nested. This study provides the first attempt at characterizing baseline corticosterone, hematology, and biochemistry data and correlations with reproductive success in nesting loggerhead sea turtles. Overall, loggerhead sea turtles capable of nesting were found to be in good health and have good reproductive success while maintaining low levels of corticosterone during reproductive activities.
Mouse cytomegalovirus inhibits beta interferon ( IFN-b ) gene expression and controls activation pathways of the IFN-b enhanceosome Vu

Received 24 October 2007 Accepted 27 January 2008 We have investigated beta interferon (IFN-b) and IFN-a4 gene expression and activation of related transcription factors in mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV)-infected fibroblasts. mRNA analysis demonstrated an initial phase of IFN gene induction upon MCMV infection, which was followed by a sustained MCMV-mediated simultaneous downregulation of IFN-b and IFN-a4 gene expression. The induction of IFN transcription resulted from the activation of the components of the IFN-b enhanceosome, i.e. IFN regulatory factor (IRF) 3, nuclear factor (NF)-kB, activating transcription factor (ATF)-2 and c-Jun. Activation of the transcription factors occurred rapidly and in a sequential order upon infection, but only lasted a while. As a consequence, IFN-a/b gene expression became undetectable 6 h post-infection and throughout the MCMV replication cycle. This effect is based on an active interference since restimulation of IFN gene induction by further external stimuli (e.g. Sendai virus infection) was completely abolished. This inhibition required MCMV gene expression and was not observed in cells infected with UV-inactivated MCMV virions. The efficiency of inhibition is achieved by a concerted blockade of IkBa degradation and a lack of nuclear accumulation of IRF3 and ATF-2/c-Jun. Using an MCMV mutant lacking pM27, a signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) 2-specific inhibitor of Jak/STAT signalling, we found that the initial phase of IFN induction and the subsequent inhibition does not depend on the positive-IFN feedback loop. Our findings indicate that the MCMV-mediated downregulation of IFN transcription in fibroblasts relies on a large arsenal of inhibitory mechanisms targeting each pathway that contributes to the multiprotein enhanceosome complex.
0 Do Industry Differences Matter – IFRS Versus US GAAP ?

We assess the informativeness of earnings as reflected in long-window earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of European Union (EU) firms relative to US firms; we do this overall and with regard to specific accounting standards that differ between IFRS and US GAAP. The generally greater managerial discretion over accounting policies under the more principles-based IFRS relative to the more rules-oriented US GAAP can be expected to result in reported earnings under IFRS that either better reflect underlying fundamentals and thus are more informative or yield less informative earnings due to the likely greater opportunities for earnings management. While both IFRS and US GAAP are viewed as high quality accounting regimes, an important difference between the two is that US GAAP tends to reflect industry differences in its standards and guidance whereas that is generally not the case under IFRS. We examine ERCs under IFRS vs. US GAAP cross-sectionally in the EU’s post-IFRS adoption period (2005-13), and using a difference-in differences approach and identifying industries ex ante that likely are most affected by given accounting policies, we gauge the informativeness of earnings for firms in such impacted industries; we also include as additional controls EU and US firms in industries that are likely not substantially impacted by the specific accounting policies we consider. We find (a) evidence that overall mean ERCs are lower for IFRS vis-à-vis US firms; (b) evidence that, except in the initial period of IFRS adoption, IFRS-based earnings generally are associated with higher ERCs for firms in R&D-intensive industries, which ironically is more reflective of industry differences than under US GAAP; (c) some evidence of lower ERCs for inventory costing under IFRS for firms in LIFO-intensive industries, except that during the financial crisis period US GAAP earnings are less informative likely due to LIFO inventory depletions; and some evidence of (d) more informative earnings for multiple-element software revenue recognition under IFRS and (e) less informative earnings for lease-intensive firms under IFRS. Moreover, the results generally suggest that country-level institutional factors and accounting standards both impact the informativeness of earnings.
The Relationship of Self-Efficacy with Stress in Completing the Students ’ Thesis of Psychology Faculty in Medan , Indonesia

Stress does not always have a negative effect, because sometimes it can have an effect on helping and stimulating the individual to behave positively. Stress in writing the thesis can also be positive and negative. Positive stress makes students become passionate in writing the thesis, to be motivated to write a better thesis. Negative stress makes the students become lazy in writing the thesis, loss of motivation, postpone the thesis writing and some even not to finish it. There is a very significant relationship between self-efficacy with the stress in completing the thesis. This result is proved by the correlation coefficient of rxy = 0,464; p < 0.050. This means that the higher the self-efficacy, then this will reduce the stress in completing the individual’s thesis. On the contrary, the lower the self-efficacy is then this will increase the stress in completing the individual’s thesis. Based on the research result conducted on the students of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Medan Area, the suggested hypothesis is accepted.
Parallel Notch and H Shape Slot Loaded Compact Antenna for X and Ku Band Applications

This paper represents parallel notch, H-shape slot loaded single layer patch antenna in X, and Ku bands for wideband applications. The design has made on low-cost material of Rogers R03003 substrate having dielectric constant of 3.0 with thickness of 1.6. 0 mm. The proposed scheme and probe feeding technique provide designed antenna to operate in two different frequencies range in X and Ku band (10.60 GHz to 15.91 GHz). The antenna resonates at 11.37 GHz for X band and another three resonates at 12.13 GHz, 13.14 GHz and 14.66 GHz for Ku band with maximum gain of 9.20 dBi respectively. The simulation results have been obtained 40.01% impedance bandwidth with return loss (-10 dB) or . The proposed antenna is simple in structure compared to the regular single layer patch antennas. It is highly suitable for satellite and RADAR communications system. Designing and simulation of this antenna have been done by IE3D software version 12.0, which is based on MOM method.
Agarwood wound locations provide insight into the association between fungal diversity and volatile compounds in Aquilaria sinensis

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of wound location on the fungal communities and volatile distribution of agarwood in Aquilaria sinensis. Two-dimensional gas chromatography with high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry revealed 60 compounds from the NIST library, including 25 sesquiterpenes, seven monoterpenes, two diterpenes, nine aromatics, nine alkanes and eight others. Of five agarwood types, Types IV and II contained the greatest number and concentration of sesquiterpenes, respectively. The fungal communities of the agarwood were dominated by the phylum Ascomycota and were significantly affected by the type of wound tissue. Community richness indices (observed species, Chao1, PD whole tree, ACE indices) indicated that Types I and IV harboured the most and least species-rich fungal communities, and the fungal communities of Types V, I, III and IV/II were dominated by Lasiodiplodia, Hydnellum, Phaeoisaria and Ophiocordyceps species, respectively. Correlations between fungal species and agarwood components revealed that the chemical properties of A. sinensis were associated with fungal diversity. More specifically, the dominant fungal genera of Types V, I and III (Lasiodiplodia, Hydnellum and Phaeoisaria, respectively) were strongly correlated with specific terpenoid compounds. The finding that wound location affects the fungal communities and volatile distribution of agarwood provides insight into the formation of distinct agarwood types.
Universal modesty in signal-burying games

Why would individuals hide positive information about themselves? Evolutionary game theorists have recently developed the signal-burying game as a simple model to shed light on this puzzle. They have shown that the game has an equilibrium where some agents are better off deliberately reducing the visibility of the signal by which they broadcast their positive traits. However, this equilibrium also features individuals who fully broadcast their positive traits. Here, we show that the signal-burying framework can also explain modesty norms that everyone adheres to: the game contains an equilibrium where all agents who send a signal voluntarily reduce its conspicuousness. Surprisingly, the stability of the two kinds of equilibria rely on very different principles. The equilibrium where some agents brag is stable because of costly signalling dynamics. By contrast, the universal modesty equilibrium exists because buried signals contain probabilistic information about a sender’s type, and receivers make optimal use of this information. In the latter equilibrium, burying a signal can be understood as a handicap which makes the signal more honest, but honesty is not achieved through standard costly signalling dynamics.
Enhanced Performance for Multi-Forearm Movement Decoding Using Hybrid IMU–sEMG Interface

Control of active prosthetic hands using surface electromyography (sEMG) signals is an active research area; despite the advances in sEMG pattern recognition and classification techniques, none of the commercially available prosthetic hands provide the user with an intuitive control. One of the major reasons for this disparity between academia and industry is the variation of sEMG signals in a dynamic environment as opposed to the controlled laboratory conditions. This research investigated the effects of sEMG signal variation on the performance of a hand motion classifier due to arm position variation and also explored the effect of static position and dynamic movement strategies for classifier training. A wearable system is used to measure the electrical activity of the muscles and the position of the forearm while performing six classes of hand motions. The system is made position aware (POS) using inertial measurement units (IMUs) for different arm movement gestures. The hand gestures are decoded under both static and dynamic forearm movements. Four time domain (TD) features are extracted from the sEMG signals along with IMU-based arm position information. The features are trained and tested using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) for both TD and TD-POS features. The results for the SVM show a significant difference between the static and dynamic approaches, while the TD-POS features show enhanced classification performance in comparison to the TD-based classification. Results have shown the effectiveness of the dynamic training approach and sensor fusion techniques to improve the performance of existing stand-alone sEMG-based prosthetic control systems.
Developing an Effective Community Oral Health Workers—“Promotoras” Model for Early Head Start

Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of a train-the-trainer program for Community Oral Health Workers (COHWs) with the goal of reducing Early Childhood Caries (ECC). Methods: Thirteen Latina caregivers from a local Early Head Start program participated in an 8 h bilingual oral health training program that provided information and hands-on experiences pertaining to prenatal and children's oral health. Once trained, the 13 COHWs conducted a series of bilingual interactive oral health promotion workshops at local community sites. Pre/post-tests were conducted after each workshop with a total of 157 caregivers of young children. Bivariate analyses were used to assess changes in knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the COHWs and caregivers regarding children's oral health. Results: Significant positive changes (p < 0.05) in COHWs' knowledge were observed for age a child can brush his/her teeth alone and what a pregnant woman with morning sickness can do to protect her teeth. Positive trends were observed for knowing that tap water with fluoride prevents cavities and that poor oral health of parents affects their children's dental health. While community caregivers in the workshops reported a high consumption of sweet snacks and beverages, there was a significant positive increase (p < 0.05) in knowledge and attitudes regarding oral health care. Significant increases in knowledge were obtained regarding: when a child can brush his/her teeth well alone, the age when fluoridated toothpaste can be used, ways tooth decay can be prevented, when a child's first dental visit should be, and what a pregnant woman with morning sickness can do to protect her teeth. Significant positive improvements were found regarding caregiver's favorable attitude that fluoridated water can help prevent cavities, disagreeing that tap water is dangerous, and agreeing that a parent's dental health affects their children's dental health. Conclusions: The study showed a targeted and culturally competent oral health program can significantly improve knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported practices of COHWs and the caregivers they trained. Although longitudinal studies are needed to determine if a COHW model can help reduce ECC in underserved communities, preliminary results support the utilization of this model as a viable option that should be expanded.
Update on Surgical Management of Pediatric Urolithiasis

Urolithiasis has always been a fascinating disease, even more so in children. There are many intriguing facets to this pathology. This article is a nonsystematic review to provide an update on the surgical management of pediatric urolithiasis. It highlights the pros and cons of various minimally invasive surgical options such as extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL), retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS), percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), laparoscopy, and robotics. This article also describes the various intracorporeal disintegration technologies available to fragment the stone, including the newer advancements in laser technology. It also emphasizes the cost considerations especially with reference to the emerging economies. Thus, this manuscript guides how to select the least-invasive option for an individual patient, considering age and gender; stone size, location, and composition; and facilities and expertise available.
Correlation Among Behavior, Personality, and Electroencephalography Revealed by a Simulated Driving Experiment

Drivers play the most important role in the human-vehicle-environment system and driving behaviors are significantly influenced by the cognitive state of the driver and his/her personality. In this paper, we aimed to explore the correlation among driving behaviors, personality and electroencephalography (EEG) using a simulated driving experiment. A total of 36 healthy subjects participated in the study. The 64-channel EEG data and the driving data, including the real-time position of the vehicle, the rotation angle of the steering wheel and the speed were acquired simultaneously during driving. The Cattell 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) was utilized to evaluate the personalities of subjects. Through hierarchical clustering of the 16PF personality traits, the subjects were divided into four groups, i.e., the Inapprehension group, Insensitivity group, Apprehension group and the Unreasoning group, named after their representative personality trait. Their driving performance and turning behaviors were compared and EEG preprocessing, source reconstruction and the comparisons among the four groups were performed using Statistical Parameter Mapping (SPM). The turning process of the subjects can be formulated into two steps, rotating the steering wheel toward the turning direction and entering the turn, and then rotating the steering wheel back and leaving the turn. The bilateral frontal gyrus was found to be activated when turning left and right, which might be associated with its function in attention, decision-making and executive control functions in visual-spatial and visual-motor processes. The Unreasoning group had the worst driving performance with highest rates of car collision and the most intensive driving action, which was related to a higher load of visual spatial attention and decision making, when the occipital and superior frontal areas played a very important role. Apprehension (O) and Tension (Q4) had a positive correlation, and Reasoning (B) had a negative correlation with dangerous driving behaviors. Our results demonstrated the close correlation among driving behaviors, personality and EEG and may be taken as a reference for the prediction and precaution of dangerous driving behaviors in people with specific personality traits.