bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Financial determinants of corporate credit ratings: An Indian evidence
Authors: Gupta Rahul 
Published: February 2021

AbstractCredit rating is a vital tool in the hands of investors and other users. Standard mathematical formulas do not exist for determining credit ratings. Instead, rating agencies exercise their judgment and use their experience to determine what information is to be important in providing a rating. Thus, knowledge and understanding about factors influencing credit ratings is very crucial for companies being rated and other users. Most of the prior studies in related context have used developed countries' data, and the effect in emerging markets, especially in Indian context, is still unclear due to lack of such studies. So, this study attempts to identify the long‐term and short‐term financial determinants of credit ratings issued to Indian companies and examines their impact on credit ratings on the basis of panel data and cross‐sectional approaches. Ordered probit analysis is used with credit ratings as the dependent variable and six financial factors as the independent variables. Results indicate that size, profitability and leverage have a significant relationship with corporate credit ratings in both panel data and cross‐sectional approaches. Also, size has the highest impact on credit ratings followed by leverage and profitability in both the approaches. The major contribution of present study is that two different mathematical models are framed which have a reasonably well correct prediction percentage. These models can be used by the investors' academicians, practitioners and other users for predicting the rating categories of various companies and to get a fair idea about their creditworthiness and safety.
Gravity assessment of the impact of alliances on bilateral trade: A comparative analysis of ECOMOG and NATO
Authors: Azu Nnanna P. , Atta Mills Ebenezer Fiifi Emire , Akanegbu Benedict N. 
Published: February 2021

AbstractThe prevailing notion for this research is anchored on determining the magnitude of alliances as trade determinants. Alliances are segregated into defence pact, non‐aggressive alliance and entente, which additionally integrates as trade cost in a gravity model. The Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood technique is adopted for the analysis with country pair‐effects exploited. Even though literature acknowledged three different kinds of alliance formation, the homogenous effects as trade cost have not been previously examined. Authors found that alliances' response to bilateral trade is homogenous irrespective of conceptualization and operationalism. All categories of alliance positively influence bilateral trade but could be more effective as trade determinant when rooted in a regional trade agreement. The result is more convincing in the NATO sample than the ECOWAS sample, which could not be unconnected with the level of economic and technological development in both cases. Militarized inter‐state conflict should be discouraged irrespective of the cause due to its negative effect on bilateral trade, especially in the region of its occurrence.
An analysis of Conventional and Alternative financing—Customers' perspective
Authors: Gupta Megha , Verma Suhasini , Pachare Smita 
Published: February 2021

AbstractAlternative financing is a phenomenon that has been gaining momentum since the last decade. It is a way of dealing with financial requirements on an online platform with or without the intervention of a third party. In India, Banking and Financial Services are moving from the traditional “one size fits all” approach to a more personalized service approach, with the help of financial technology. However, it is important to understand that the growth of any sector, especially the service sector depends upon the user's experience and their perception of the service. A better understanding of customer's perceptions and their experience can help financial organizations to strategize better in order to increase their market share and profitability. In this connection, this study aims at understanding the customer's adaptability, awareness, and perceived ease of use of Alternative Financing with reference to conventional financing. Primary as well as secondary data are collected for this purpose. The primary data were obtained from self‐administered questionnaire. Factor analysis is conducted to explore the factors, which contribute to the better involvement of customers towards Alternative Finance. This study tries to make an original contribution by assessing significant factors that prompt a customer to use alternative financial services. Results indicate a significant positive relationship between the factors and the growth of alternative finance. The results may help financial institutions to design the products and increased the use of IT in their operations to achieve the objectives.
Transfer learning networks with skip connections for classification of brain tumors
Authors: Alaraimi Saleh , Okedu Kenneth E. , Tianfield Hugo , Holden Richard , Uthmani Omair 
Published: February 2021

AbstractThis article presents a transfer learning model via convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with skip connection topology, to avoid the vanishing gradient and time complexity, which are usually common in transfer learning networks. Three pretrained CNN architectures, namely AlexNet, VGG16 and GoogLeNet are employed to equip with skip connections. The transfer learning is implemented through fine‐tuning and freezing the CNN architectures with skip connections based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slices of brain tumor dataset. Furthermore, in the preprocessing, a frequency‐domain information enhancement technique is employed for better image clarity. Performance evaluation is conducted on the transfer learning networks with skip connections to obtain improved accuracy in brain MRI classifications.
A novel intuitionistic fuzzy soft set based colonogram enhancement for polyps localization
Authors: Ghosh Swarup Kr , Ghosh Anupam 
Published: February 2021

AbstractThis article represents a colonogram enhancement approach using intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) and fuzzy soft set (FSS) to improve the visual quality and highlight the local details in enhanced images without artifacts. The proposed method has the advantages of IFSs and fuzzy soft sets (FSSs) which can deal with gray‐level ambiguity in colonoscopy images. The combination of IFS and FSS works on intricate color variations with an adaptive parametric maps. First, the S‐membership function has been applied on the images to map into intuitionistic fuzzy space. We obtain intuitionistic fuzzy image from source image followed by decomposition of several blocks. Thereafter, the FSS is employed to get subsequent intuitionistic fuzzy soft matrix from individual image block. The FSS utilizes a class of parametric coefficients to obtain the hesitant score of individual pixels in each block through the soft‐score measure (SSM). Finally, the proposed method intensifies each membership degree in all blocks in the fuzzy plane using SSM and achieves an enhanced colonogram via defuzzification. Extensive experiment involving large data sets shows that the designed method exhibits better performance in contrast enhancement and visual quality improvement of colonograms for malformation detection (such as a polyps, malignant precancerous cells) in comparison with the state‐of‐art methods.
Anisotropic numerical potentials for coarse‐grained modeling from high‐speed multidimensional lookup table and interpolation algorithms
Authors: Gangopadhyay Ananya , Winberg Simon , Naidoo Kevin J. 
Published: February 2021

AbstractA high‐speed numerical potential delivering computational performance comparable with complex coarse‐grained analytic potentials makes available models that have greater degrees of physical and chemical accuracy. This opens the possibility of increased accuracy in classical molecular dynamics simulations of anisotropic systems. In this work, we report the development of a high‐speed lookup table (LUT) of four‐dimensional gridded data, that uses cubic B‐spline interpolations to derive off grid values and their associated partial derivatives that are located between the known grid data points. The accuracy of the coarse‐grained numerical potential using a LUT from uniaxial Gay–Berne (GB) potential produced array of values is within a 3% and a 5% margin of error respectively for the interpolation of the uniaxial GB potential and its partial derivatives. The numerical potential model and partial derivatives speedup is made competitive with the analytical potential by exploiting graphics processing units on board functionality. The capability of the numerical potential is demonstrated by comparing minimizations of a box of 500 naphthalene molecules. The minimizations using a full atomistic (NAMD/CHARMM force field), a biaxial GB and a numerical potential from a LUT using data from the CHARMM pair potential was done. The numerical potential model is significantly more accurate in its approximation of the atomistic local minimum configuration than is the biaxial GB analytical potential function. This demonstrates that using a numerical potential founded on a direct lookup of the atomistic potential landscape significantly improves coarse grain (CG) modeling of complex molecules, possibly paving the way for accurate anisotropic system CG modeling.
A renewed understanding of anti‐human globulin reagents: interference constraints using an optimization method in pretransfusion compatibility tests
Authors: Wang Si‐Si , Zhang Huayu , Qu Limei , Zhao Zhen , Li Lingbo 
Published: February 2021

AbstractAnti‐human globulin (AHG) reagents are widely applied in pretransfusion compatibility tests. The accuracy of detection with AHG reagents is mainly affected by irregular antibodies or cold agglutinins in blood samples, which are related to the human complement system. Although much has been written about various types and applications of AHG reagents, their characteristics, interference factors and optimal selection in pretransfusion compatibility tests still need to be further clarified. Here, we review clinical practice and basic studies that describe each AHG reagent, summarize the advantages and disadvantages of using different AHG reagents in the presence of cold agglutinins or complement‐fixing antibodies, explore the potential mechanisms by which the complement system influences detection with AHG reagents and address the question of how to optimally select AHG reagents for clinically significant antibody detection.
Commentary: Rupture repair as a transtheoretical corrective experience
Authors: Eubanks Catherine F. , Sergi Joey , Samstag Lisa Wallner , Muran J. Christopher 
Published: February 2021

AbstractThis commentary highlights common principles shared across the diverse clinical case examples featured in this In Session issue on Rupture Repair in Practice. We discuss the importance of therapists recognizing subtle signs of rupture and responding to ruptures with curiosity and compassion. We also consider how therapists can use repair strategies responsively to facilitate a corrective experience for the patient. We explore the ways in which the specific resolution strategy of linking a rupture to larger interpersonal patterns can benefit the therapeutic process, and the ways in which it can constitute a form of avoidance. We conclude by noting promising future directions and celebrating the generosity evidenced by these insightful authors' willingness to share and explore challenging moments in therapy.
Stair climbing and mortality: a prospective cohort study from the UK Biobank
Authors: Sanchez‐Lastra Miguel A. , Ding Ding , Dalene Knut‐Eirik , del Pozo Cruz Borja , Ekelund Ulf , Tarp Jakob 
Published: February 2021

AbstractBackgroundRegular stair climbing has the potential to lower the risk of premature death, but current evidence is scarce. We aimed to examine whether daily stair climbing is associated with lower risk of all‐cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.MethodsUsing the UK Biobank cohort, we extracted information of self‐reported daily flights of stairs climbed at home, categorized as none, 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, and ≥16 flights per day. Associations between flights of stair climbed per day and mortality were examined as hazard ratios (HRs) from Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for demographic, clinical, and behavioural covariates including time spent in other physical activities. We calculated the restricted mean survival time as an absolute measure of association. The risk of residual confounding was examined using propensity score matching and by using lung cancer as negative control outcome. Participants were followed from baseline (2006–2010) through 31 March 2020.ResultsA total of 280 423 participants (median follow‐up 11.1 years, during which 9445 deaths occurred) were included. Compared with not climbing any stairs, climbing more than five flights of stairs at home per day was associated with lower risk of premature mortality. The lowest risk was found for those climbing 6–10 flights per day: 0.91; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.85, 0.98, translated to approximately 44 to 55 days of additional survival. A similar pattern was found after applying propensity score matching and for cancer mortality (6–10 flights per day HR: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.80, 0.97), but not for CVD mortality (6–10 flights per day HR: 1.08; 95% CI: 0.91, 1.29). The association between stair climbing and lung cancer was similar to that of all‐cause mortality.ConclusionsClimbing more than five flights of stairs at home per day was associated with a lower risk of all‐cause and cancer mortality, but not CVD mortality, compared with those who did not take the stairs. The magnitude of the association was small and appeared susceptible to residual confounding. It is unlikely that at‐home stair climbing is sufficient physical activity stimuli to lower the risk of premature mortality.
Characterization of the mechanical and structural properties of PGA/TMC copolymer for cardiac tissue engineering
Authors: El‐Sayed Nayera M. , El‐Bakary Mohammed A. , Ibrahim Medhat A. , Elgamal Mohamed A. , Hamza Ahmed A. 
Published: February 2021

AbstractRecently, scientific research has confirmed that a single polymer material cannot meet the ambitions of all surgical requirements. Thus, combinations of different types of polymeric materials are used in order to manufacture different suture materials. A copolymer of Polyglycolide (PGA) and trimethylene carbonate (TMC) is one of the simplest bioabsorbable monofilament sutures. The optical properties of PGA/TMC copolymer surgical suture were investigated by using multiple‐beam interferometric of Fizeau type. The mechanical properties were measured by a suture‐drawing apparatus attached to the multiple‐beam interferometric system. The refractive indices, stress–strain curve, elastic shear modulus, Young's modulus and crosslink density were investigated for the PGA/TMC surgical suture at various draw ratios. The biological activities were conducted by Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR) descriptors. Molecular Electrostatic Potential (MESP) maps were used to describe the reactivity and functional active sites for the given molecule. The behavior of stress–strain curve confirms the compatibility of the suture with the sternum which proves that this suture is a good candidate for cardiac operations.Research highlightsFizeau fringes is accurate in characterizing properties of PGA/TMC surgical suture. The biological activities were conducted by (QSAR) descriptors. The compatibility measurements lead to it is a good candidate for cardiac operations.
Impact of the revision of the law on pancreatic transplants in Japan—An analysis of the Japanese Pancreas Transplants Registry
Authors: Ito Taihei , Kenmochi Takashi , Aida Naohiro , Kurihara Kei , Tomimaru Yoshito , Ito Toshinori 
Published: February 2021

AbstractBackgroundIn Japan, it has been about 10 years since the revision of the law on donating brain‐dead organs. The present study compared the outcomes of pancreatic transplant before and after the revision of the law.MethodsThe 437 patients who had received pancreas transplantation were divided into two groups according to the time when pancreas transplantation was performed between era 1 (before the revision) and 2 (after the revision), and compared in the patient and pancreas graft survival.ResultsWhile the annual number of brain‐dead donors was <10 in era 1, and this number significantly increased in era 2 to >50. This resulted in an increased number of pancreas transplantations: >30 cases per year. The comparison data after a propensity score‐matched analysis revealed that the death‐censored pancreatic graft survival at 1, 3, and 5 years after pancreas transplantation in era 2 was 94.9%, 92.0%, and 92.0%, which, while lacking significance, tended to be better than the values of 90.5%, 83.1%, and 78.2%, respectively, in era 1.ConclusionsThe revision of the law on donating brain‐dead organs increased the number of pancreas transplantations. Technical improvements in surgery due to increased experience with performing pancreas transplants may help improve pancreatic graft survival.
A systematic review of noninflammatory cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for clinical outcome in neonates with perinatal hypoxic brain injury that could be biologically significant
Authors: Shi Zhongjie , Luo Kehuan , Deol Saihaj , Tan Sidhartha 
Published: February 2021

AbstractNeonatal encephalopathy (NE) that purportedly arises from hypoxia‐ischemia is labeled hypoxic‐ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Perinatal asphyxia is a clinical syndrome involving acidosis, a low Apgar score and the need for resuscitation in the delivery room; asphyxia alerts one to the possibility of NE. In the present systematic review, we focused on the noninflammatory biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that are involved in the development of possible brain injury in asphyxia or HIE. A literature search in PubMed and EMBASE for case–control studies was conducted and 17 studies were found suitable by a priori criteria. Statistical analysis used the Mantel–Haenszel model for dichotomous data. The pooled mean difference and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were determined. We identified the best biomarkers, based on the estimation approach in evaluating the biological significance, out of hundreds in three categories: cell adhesion and proliferation, oxidants and antioxidants, and cell damage. The following subtotal‐population comparisons were made: perinatal asphyxia versus no asphyxia, asphyxia with HIE versus asphyxia without HIE, asphyxia with HIE versus no asphyxia, and term versus preterm HIE newborn with asphyxia. Biological significance of the biomarkers was determined by using a modification of the estimation approach, by ranking the biomarkers according to the difference in the bounds of the CIs. The most promising CSF biomarkers for prognostication especially for the severest HIE include creatine kinase, xanthine oxidase, vascular endothelial growth factor, neuron‐specific enolase, superoxide dismutase, and malondialdehyde. Future studies are recommended using such a combined test to prognosticate the most severely affected patients.
Convection over the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean and Iranian branch of Asian summer monsoon anticyclone modulates the wet and dry phases of summer monsoon rainfall over Kerala
Authors: A.V. Sreenath , S. Abhilash 
Published: February 2021

AbstractThis study examined factors affecting wet and dry phases of monsoon rainfall over Kerala, using modern‐era retrospective analysis for research and applications (MERRA 2) data set. Based on circulation pattern, our study shows that the wet and dry phases of monsoon over Kerala are related to modulation of convective activity over the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean (EEIO) and the Iranian branch (Western flank) of Asian Summer monsoon anticyclone (ASMA). Outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and cloud top pressure (CTP) show an anomalous dipole (quadrupole) pattern over the Equatorial Indian Ocean (EIO) during the wet (dry) phase of Kerala summer monsoon rainfall (KSMR). We found that KSMR is enhanced during intensification of the Iranian branch of ASMA and suppressed by anomalous deep convection over the EEIO. Further, anomalous lower level cyclonic circulation over the Western North Pacific (WNP) is pulling low‐level jet (LLJ) through Southern Peninsular India, hence playing a vital role in establishing the KSMR wet phase. Contrarily, the dry phase of KSMR is associated with weakening of the Iranian branch of ASMA in the upper level.
Metrological evaluation of the effect of the presence of a road on near‐surface air temperatures
Authors: Coppa Graziano , Quarello Annarosa , Steeneveld Gert‐Jan , Jandrić Nebojša , Merlone Andrea 
Published: February 2021

AbstractWith the purpose of revising World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (WMO/CIMO) Guide #8 on weather stations siting, an experiment to evaluate metrologically the maximum influence of a paved road on 2‐m air temperature measurements (“road siting effect”) has been designed, installed and run in Italy. It consists of a 100‐m long array of seven measurement stations, at increasing distances from a local road, equipped with shielded Pt100 thermometers and ancillary sensors. Data coming from 1 year of observations have been analysed for daily climatological metrics, finding that the road mostly effects minimum temperatures, with average values of ~0.30 ± 0.18 °C at a distance of 1 m; then, in order to quantify the instrumental effect on the measurement, data were filtered by applying a generalized additive model, selecting only times when the effect is more intense (during nights, in presence of low winds coming from the road), and the road siting effect has been calculated by modelling the maximum temperature differences by using extreme values analysis. The 1‐year return value on 10‐min measurements is 1.22 ± 0.30 °C at 1 m from the road, with a gradual decline (~0.1 °C·m−1), while an extrapolation to 100‐year return level gives a value of 1.71 ± 0.79 °C with a decline rate of about 0.17 °C·m−1. This is a first step towards a redefinition of the weather station classification scheme of WMO/CIMO Guide #8, together with building and tree effects experiments which have been run in parallel with the road siting experiment here presented and which will be presented elsewhere.