2,561 research outputs found
Engineering a Ruled-Based Software Solution for Credit Rating and Worthiness Assessment in Financial Operations
In loan provision, the central worry is whether the borrower will default or payback. A good number of institutions world-wide have gone into distress owing to bad debt arising from inability to recover borrowed funds. Credit Rating is a technique that is widely used to evaluate applications tendered for credit, identify prospective borrowers, and manage existing credit accounts. This work is aimed at the development of a system capable of evaluating the credit worthiness of fund-seeking bank customers and other borrowers towards repayment capabilities of loan facility availed to them in due time. The method carefully examines who qualifies for a loan based on certain rules consisting of Payment History, Credit Owed, Credit Available, Age of Account, Crime Records, Medical Records, Amount to be borrowed. and other factors. Percentage weights for assessment of each of these factors were proposed including threshold percentage above which credit is predicted adequate to be given. This factor creates a sort of satisfaction and level-playing field for correct assessment of lending risk
Cocaine-induced inheritable epigenetic marks may be altered by changing early postnatal fostering
Pengaruh Psikologi Petani terhadap Penerapan Inovasi Teknologi Fermentasi Jagung Bose pada Gapoktan Setetes Madu Fatuleu Desa Camplong II, Kabupaten Kupang
Corn is one of the important food ingredients for Indonesian people, to maximize the important role of corn as a staple food for the community, it can be done by improving the psychology about their decision to manage and consume the corn. This research aims to find out the effect of farmers’ psychological factors on the application of fermentation bose corn technology in Setetes Madu Fatuleu farmer group association. This research was held in Camplong village II Fatuleu District Kupang Regency of East Nusa Tenggara using quantitative research as an explanation survey research method and the participants of all Setetes Madu Fatuleu Farmer Group Association that cultivate the corn is amount 55 participants. Data analysis in this research using multiple linear regression analysis. The result showed: (1) psychological factors consisting of knowledge, motivation and attitudes together had a significant effect of 53,8% on the application of fermented bose corn technology in Setetes Madu Fatuleu Farmers Group Association, (2) psychological factors consisting of knowledge and each motivation has a significant effect of 46,6% for knowledge and 27,2% for the motivation factor of participant Setetes Madu Fatuleu Farmers Group Association on the application of fermented bose corn technology, while the attitude factor of the Setetes Madu Fatuleu Farmers has no effect on the application of fermentation bose corn technology
Calibration of the maximum carboxylation velocity (Vcmax) using data mining techniques and ecophysiological data from the Brazilian Semiarid region, for use in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models.
The semiarid region of northeastern Brazil, the Caatinga, is extremely important due to its biodiversity and endemism. Measurements of plant physiology are crucial to the calibration of Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) that are currently used to simulate the responses of vegetation in face of global changes. In a field work realized in an area of preserved Caatinga forest located in Petrolina, Pernambuco, measurements of carbon assimilation (in response to light and CO2) were performed on 11 individuals of Poincianella microphylla, a native species that is abundant in this region. These data were used to calibrate the maximum carboxylation velocity (Vcmax) used in the INLAND model. The calibration techniques used were Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), and data mining techniques as the Classification And Regression Tree (CART) and K-MEANS. The results were compared to the UNCALIBRATED model. It was found that simulated Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) reached 72% of observed GPP when using the calibrated Vcmax values, whereas the UNCALIBRATED approach accounted for 42% of observed GPP. Thus, this work shows the benefits of calibrating DGVMs using field ecophysiological measurements, especially in areas where field data is scarce or non-existent, such as in the Caating
Magneto-transport study of intra- and intergrain transitions in the magnetic superconductors RuSr2GdCu2O8 and RuSr2(Gd1.5Ce0.5)Cu2O10
A characterization of the magnetic superconductors RuSr2GdCu2O8 [Ru-(1212)]
and RuSr2(Gd1.5Ce0.5)Cu2O10 [Ru-(1222)] through resistance measurements as a
function of temperature and magnetic field is presented. Two peaks in the
derivative of the resistive curves are identified as intra- and intergrain
superconducting transitions. Strong intragrain granularity effects are
observed, and explained by considering the antiphase boundaries between
structural domains of coherently rotated RuO6 octahedra as intragrain
Josephson-junctions. A different field dependence of the intragrain transition
temperature in these compounds was found. For Ru-(1212) it remains unchanged up
to 0.1 T, decreasing for higher fields. In Ru-(1222) it smoothly diminishes
with the increase in field even for a value as low as 100 Oe. These results are
interpreted as a consequence of a spin-flop transition of the Ru moments. The
large separation between the RuO2 layers in Ru-(1222) promotes a weak
interlayer coupling, leading the magnetic transition to occur at lower fields.
The suppression rate of the intragrain transition temperature is about five
times higher for Ru-(1222), a result we relate to an enhancement of the 2D
character of the vortex structure. A distinctive difference with conventional
cuprates is the sharp increase in amplitude of the intergrain peak in both
systems, as the field is raised, which is ascribed to percolation through a
fraction of high quality intergrain junctions.Comment: Submitted for Physical Review
Flow and non-flow event anisotropies at the SPS
A study of differential elliptic event anisotropies (v_2) of charged
particles and high-pt pions in 158 AGeV/c Pb+Au collisions is presented.
Results from correlations with respect to the event plane and from two-particle
azimuthal correlations are compared. The latter give systematically higher v_2
values at pt>1.2GeV/c providing possibly an evidence of a non-flow semihard
component.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Quark Matter 2002, Nantes, to appear in Nucl.
Phys.
Software environment for controlling and re-configuration of Xilinx Virtex FPGAs – TWEPP-07
The Time Projection Chamber is one of the detectors of the ALICE experiment, that is currently being commissioned at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The Detector Control System is used for control and monitoring of the system. For the TPC Front-End Electronics (FEE) the control node is a Readout Control Unit that communicates to higher layers via Ethernet, using the standard framework DIM. The Readout Control Unit is equipped with commercial SRAM based FPGAs that will experience errors due to the radiation environment they are operating in. This article will present the implemented hardware solution for error correction and will focus on the software environment for configuration and controlling of the system – TWEPP-07
Event-by-event fluctuations of the mean transverse momentum in 40, 80, and 158 A GeV/c Pb-Au collisions
Measurements of event-by-event fluctuations of the mean transverse momentum
in Pb-Au collisions at 40, 80, and 158 A GeV/c are presented. A significant
excess of mean p_T fluctuations at mid-rapidity is observed over the
expectation from statistically independent particle emission. The results are
somewhat smaller than recent measurements at RHIC. A possible non-monotonic
behaviour of the mean p_T fluctuations as function of collision energy, which
may have indicated that the system has passed the critical point of the QCD
phase diagram in the range of mu_B under investigation, has not been observed.
The centrality dependence of mean p_T fluctuations in Pb-Au is consistent with
an extrapolation from pp collisions assuming that the non-statistical
fluctuations scale with multiplicity. The results are compared to calculations
by the RQMD and UrQMD event generators.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figure
Freshwater mussel conservation: A global horizon scan of emerging threats and opportunities
We identified 14 emerging and poorly understood threats and opportunities for addressing the global conservation of freshwater mussels over the next decade. A panel of 17 researchers and stakeholders from six continents submitted a total of 56 topics that were ranked and prioritized using a consensus-building Delphi technique. Our 14 priority topics fell into five broad themes (autecology, population dynamics, global stressors, global diversity, and ecosystem services) and included understanding diets throughout mussel life history; identifying the drivers of population declines; defining metrics for quantifying mussel health; assessing the role of predators, parasites, and disease; informed guidance on the risks and opportunities for captive breeding and translocations; the loss of mussel-fish co-evolutionary relationships; assessing the effects of increasing surface water changes; understanding the effects of sand and aggregate mining; understanding the effects of drug pollution and other emerging contaminants such as nanomaterials; appreciating the threats and opportunities arising from river restoration; conserving understudied hotspots by building local capacity through the principles of decolonization; identifying appropriate taxonomic units for conservation; improved quantification of the ecosystem services provided by mussels; and understanding how many mussels are enough to provide these services. Solutions for addressing the topics ranged from ecological studies to technological advances and socio-political engagement. Prioritization of our topics can help to drive a proactive approach to the conservation of this declining group which provides a multitude of important ecosystem services.This publication is based upon work from COST Action CA18239, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). DCA was supported by Corpus Christi College and a Dawson Fellowship at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. MLL was supported by FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (2020.03608.CEECIND). ISO was supported by a Whitten Studentship. INB was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 21-17-00126). YVB was supported by RSF project no. 21-14-00092. KD was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (19-05510 S). TZ was supported by statutory funds of IOP PAN. MK was supported by funding through the Australian National Environmental Science Program. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission
The association between histamine 2 receptor antagonist use and Clostridium difficile infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Background
Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a major health problem. Epidemiological evidence suggests that there is an association between acid suppression therapy and development of CDI.
Purpose
We sought to systematically review the literature that examined the association between histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) and CDI.
Data source
We searched Medline, Current Contents, Embase, ISI Web of Science and Elsevier Scopus from 1990 to 2012 for all analytical studies that examined the association between H2RAs and CDI.
Study selection
Two authors independently reviewed the studies for eligibility.
Data extraction
Data about studies characteristics, adjusted effect estimates and quality were extracted.
Data synthesis
Thirty-five observations from 33 eligible studies that included 201834 participants were analyzed. Studies were performed in 6 countries and nine of them were multicenter. Most studies did not specify the type or duration of H2RAs therapy. The pooled effect estimate was 1.44, 95% CI (1.22–1.7), I2 = 70.5%. This association was consistent across different subgroups (by study design and country) and there was no evidence of publication bias. The pooled effect estimate for high quality studies was 1.39 (1.15–1.68), I2 = 72.3%. Meta-regression analysis of 10 study-level variables did not identify sources of heterogeneity. In a speculative analysis, the number needed to harm (NNH) with H2RAs at 14 days after hospital admission in patients receiving antibiotics or not was 58, 95% CI (37, 115) and 425, 95% CI (267, 848), respectively. For the general population, the NNH at 1 year was 4549, 95% CI (2860, 9097).
Conclusion
In this rigorous systematic review and meta-analysis, we observed an association between H2RAs and CDI. The absolute risk of CDI associated with H2RAs is highest in hospitalized patients receiving antibiotics
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