Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ASIAS: Aviation Safety Information Analysis and sharing

In the past decade the concept of establishing a nationwide safety information sharing initiative has grown from a dream into reality. From roots dating back to the TWA 514 NTSB report in 1974, it has become increasingly clear that safety data sharing is a necessary component of the overall plan to manage safety at the national level. Building from these roots, in 2007 the FAA created the aviation safety information analysis system, which has quickly achieved the acceptance and support of every segment of the aviation community. In the short period since its inception, ASIAS has incorporated scores of safety-related databases, and is developing expertise in connecting the disparate parts of this collection to enable the generation of coherent and meaningful analyses of the "safety state" of the entire national airspace system. These data sources include maintenance safety reports, radar data from enroute facilities, ASDE-X radar data, enforcement investigations, runway incursion data, wildlife incursion and strike data . the list of sources is extensive, and growing. Also included are the critically important and very sensitive safety reports generated by operators' ASAP and FOQA programs. ASAP reports contain safety information disclosed in voluntary self- reporting by front-line employees such as pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and dispatchers. FOQA contains objective flight data collected by the participant airlines' flight data systems aboard the aircraft they operate. In addition, ASIAS expects to soon incorporate employee self reports from air traffic controllers submitted under their own new ASAP program. This presentation is intended to provide the information necessary for the attendees to understand the background, history and challenges of safety data sharing. In addition, plans for the evolution of ASIAS will be presented.
The Volatility Machine: Emerging Economies and the Threat of Financial Collapse

This book presents a radically different argument for what has caused, and likely will continue to cause, the collapse of emerging market economies. Pettis combines the insights of economic history, economic theory, and finance theory into a comprehensive model for understanding sovereign liability management and the causes of financial crises. He examines recent financial crises in emerging market countries along with the history of international lending since the 1820s to argue that the process of international lending is driven primarily by external events and not by local politics and/or economic policies. He draws out the corporate finance implications of this approach to argue that most of the current analyses of the recent financial crises suffered by Latin America, Asia, and Russia have largely missed the point. He then develops a sovereign finance model, analogous to corporate finance, to understand the capital structure needs of emerging market countries. Using this model, he finally puts into perspective the recent crises, a new sovereign liability management theory, the implications of the model for sovereign debt restructurings, and the new financial architecture. Bridging the gap between finance specialists and traders, on the one hand, and economists and policy-makers on the other, The Volatility Machine is critical reading for anyone interested in where the international economy is going over the next several years.
Motion Makes Sense: An Adaptive Motor-Sensory Strategy Underlies the Perception of Object Location in Rats

Tactile perception is obtained by coordinated motor-sensory processes. We studied the processes underlying the perception of object location in freely moving rats. We trained rats to identify the relative location of two vertical poles placed in front of them and measured at high resolution the motor and sensory variables (19 and 2 variables, respectively) associated with this whiskers-based perceptual process. We found that the rats developed stereotypic head and whisker movements to solve this task, in a manner that can be described by several distinct behavioral phases. During two of these phases, the rats' whiskers coded object position by first temporal and then angular coding schemes. We then introduced wind (in two opposite directions) and remeasured their perceptual performance and motor-sensory variables. Our rats continued to perceive object location in a consistent manner under wind perturbations while maintaining all behavioral phases and relatively constant sensory coding. Constant sensory coding was achieved by keeping one group of motor variables (the “controlled variables”) constant, despite the perturbing wind, at the cost of strongly modulating another group of motor variables (the “modulated variables”). The controlled variables included coding-relevant variables, such as head azimuth and whisker velocity. These results indicate that consistent perception of location in the rat is obtained actively, via a selective control of perception-relevant motor variables.
Online Learning, Offline Outcomes: Online Course Taking and High School Student Performance

This article uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face—both for initial attempts and for credit recovery. We find that while contemporaneous outcomes are positive for virtual students in both settings, downstream outcomes vary by attempt type. For first-time course takers, virtual course taking is associated with decreases in the likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and in graduation readiness (based on a proxy measure). For credit recovery students, virtual course taking is associated with an increased likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and being in line for graduation. Supplemental analyses suggest that selection on unobservables would have to be substantial to render these results null.
THE MARKET VALUE OF HUMAN CAPITAL: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

There is a general consensus that human capital is a major determinant of economic growth. Reflections on how human capital is related to growth can be extended by viewing on the market value of the human capital. The concept of the market value of human capital reflects the efficiency of allocation and utilisation of the human capital in the economy. To measure this efficiency the concept of the market value of human capital is explained and developed in the present paper. The aim of the paper is to introduce the concept of market value of human capital and the specific objectives are targeted to define his content, to propose a method for estimating it and to provide calculations of it for OECD countries.The concept of human capital is complex and multifaceted one, consisting of: native human capital (biological), educational capital, health capital and social skills (Neagu, 2010). Clearly, human capital is intangible, a stock that is not directly observable as physical capital. Therefore, the estimation of human capital must be constructed indirectly. The stock of human capital in economy creates economic value, expressed through the economic output per capita. In order to estimate this economic value we have to find an appropriate proxy for the human capital stock producing that value. In the purpose of our paper, we consider that the economic value of human capital can be estimated by calculating the aggregate value created by the active human capital in the economy. In this view, GDP per person employed is a relevant estimation of value created by the employed labour force. The aggregate value is created by the employed persons with different educational level. The market value of human capital is calculated by dividing the GDP per person employed to the human capital stocks active in the economy. The human capital stock depends on educational costs ( on primary, seconadry, tertiary education) as a the share of GDP per capita weighted by the employment rates. For OECD countries, the market value of their human capital was calculated for 1999-2008, showing their efficiency on utilisation of the human capital stock. The most efficient OECD countries are Australia Austria and USA and the less efficient are Mexico, Czech Republic and Hungary.The market value of human capital has a ascending trend in all OECD countries, reflecting the results of their efforts to valorise their human capital in employment.The originality of the paper consists on introduction the concept of the market value of the human capital, defining his content and providing estimates for OECD countries.As a concept, the market value of human capital of a country shows the ability of the economy to use the existent human capital to produce economic output. The market value of human capital reflects an aspect of the economic efficiency, by relating the economic output per person employed to the human capital per capita employed in the economy. It expresses the economic output per one unit of human capital, reflecting the aggregate perfomance of that economy.
Optimal Resource Placement in Structured Peer-to-Peer Networks

Utilizing the skewed popularity distribution in P2P systems, common in Gnutella and KazaA like P2P applications, we propose an optimal resource (replica or link) placement strategy, which can optimally trade off the performance gain and paid cost. The proposed resource placement strategy, with better results than existing works, can be generally applied in randomized P2P systems (Symphony) and deterministic P2P systems (e.g., Chord, Pastry, Tapestry, etc.). We apply the proposed resource placement strategy, respectively, to two novel applications: PCache (a P2P-based caching scheme) and PRing (a P2P ring structure). The simulation results as well as a real deployment on Planetlab demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed resource placement strategy in reducing the average search cost of the whole system.
The Necessity of Commensuration Bias in Grant Peer Review

Peer reviewers at many funding agencies and scientific journals are asked to score submissions both on individual criteria and overall. The overall scores should be some kind of aggregate of the criteria scores. Carole Lee identifies this as a potential locus for bias to enter the peer review process, which she calls commensuration bias. Here I view the aggregation of scores through the lens of social choice theory. I argue that, when reviewing grant proposals, it is in many cases impossible to avoid commensuration bias.
Effects of the Generation Size and Overlap on Throughput and Complexity in Randomized Linear Network Coding

To reduce computational complexity and delay in randomized network coded content distribution, and for some other practical reasons, coding is not performed simultaneously over all content blocks, but over much smaller, possibly overlapping subsets of these blocks, known as generations. A penalty of this strategy is throughput reduction. To analyze the throughput loss, we model coding over generations with random generation scheduling as a coupon collector's brotherhood problem. This model enables us to derive the expected number of coded packets needed for successful decoding of the entire content as well as the probability of decoding failure (the latter only when generations do not overlap) and further, to quantify the tradeoff between computational complexity and throughput. Interestingly, with a moderate increase in the generation size, throughput quickly approaches link capacity. Overlaps between generations can further improve throughput substantially for relatively small generation sizes.
Kernel Similarity Modeling of Texture Pattern Flow for Motion Detection in Complex Background

This paper proposes a novel kernel similarity modeling of texture pattern flow (KSM-TPF) for background modeling and motion detection in complex and dynamic environments. The texture pattern flow encodes the binary pattern changes in both spatial and temporal neighborhoods. The integral histogram of texture pattern flow is employed to extract the discriminative features from the input videos. Different from existing uniform threshold based motion detection approaches which are only effective for simple background, the kernel similarity modeling is proposed to produce an adaptive threshold for complex background. The adaptive threshold is computed from the mean and variance of an extended Gaussian mixture model. The proposed KSM-TPF approach incorporates machine learning method with feature extraction method in a homogenous way. Experimental results on the publicly available video sequences demonstrate that the proposed approach provides an effective and efficient way for background modeling and motion detection.
Nitrogen balance of a boreal Scots pine forest

The productivity of boreal forests is considered to be limited by low nitrogen (N) availability. Increased atmospheric N deposition has altered the functioning and N cycling of these N-sensitive ecosystems by increasing the availability of reactive nitrogen. The most important components of N pools and fluxes were measured in a boreal Scots pine stand in Hyytiala, Southern Finland. The measurements at the site allowed direct estimations of nutrient pools in the soil and biomass, inputs from the atmosphere and outputs as drainage flow and gaseous losses from two micro-catchments. N was accumulating in the system, mainly in woody biomass, at a rate of 7 kg N ha −1 yr −1 . Nitrogen input as atmospheric deposition was 7.4 kg N ha −1 yr −1 . Dry deposition and organic N in wet deposition contributed over half of the inputs in deposition. Total outputs were 0.4 kg N ha −1 yr −1 , the most important outputs being N 2 O emission to the atmosphere and organic N flux in drainage flow. Nitrogen uptake and retranslocation were equally important sources of N for plant growth. Most of the assimilated N originated from decomposition of organic matter, and the fraction of N that could originate directly from deposition was about 30%. In conclusion, atmospheric N deposition fertilizes the site considerably, but there are no signs of N saturation. Further research is needed to estimate soil N 2 fluxes (emission and fixation), which may amount up to several kg N ha −1 yr −1 .
ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS OF PERIODICALLY-PERFORATED NONLINEAR MEDIA AT THE CRITICAL EXPONENT

We give a Γ-convergence result for vector-valued nonlinear energies defined on periodically perforated domains. We consider integrands with n-growth where n is the space dimension, showing that there exists a critical scale for the perforations such that the Γ-limit is non-trivial. We prove that the limit extra-term is given by a formula of homogenization type, which simplifies in the case of n-homogeneous energy densities.
Different Positive Feelings Leading to Different Ad Evaluations : The Case of Cosiness , Excitement and Romance

This study adds to the debate about the valence-based versus the unique and discrete view of feelings. By conducting an experiment using 317 subjects, we compared the differential impact of three different positive feelings on ad effectiveness. Support for the discrete view of feelings was found in the sense that adand context-evoked cosiness, excitement and romance had a different impact on ad attitudes. Moreover, in the area of context effects further support for the unique view of feelings was found: the exciting, the romantic and the cosy ad scored best after telling a feeling-congruent story.
Simplification of the diagnostic management of suspected deep vein thrombosis.

BACKGROUND The standard diagnostic approach in patients with suspected deep vein thrombosis is to repeat the compression ultrasonography after 1 week in all patients with an initial normal result. We hypothesized that a normal finding of a D-dimer assay safely obviates the need for repeated ultrasonography. In addition, we evaluated the potential value of a pretest probability assessment for this purpose. METHODS At presentation, consecutive outpatients with suspected thrombosis underwent independent assessment by means of ultrasonography of the proximal veins, a whole-blood D-dimer assay, and a pretest clinical model. Patients with normal ultrasonographic findings and an abnormal D-dimer assay result were scheduled for repeated ultrasonography. We evaluated the incidence of symptomatic venous thromboembolic complications during a 3-month follow-up, and the value of clinical pretest probability with ultrasonography or D-dimer assay in scenario analyses. RESULTS We studied 1756 patients with prevalence of thrombosis of 22%. At entry, results of the D-dimer assay and ultrasonography were normal in 828 patients (47%). Of these, 6 returned with confirmed symptomatic venous thromboembolism (complication rate, 0.7%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.3%-1.6%). Repeated ultrasonography was avoided in 61% of the patients with an initial normal test result. Scenario analyses disclosed that the complication rate was 1.6% (95% CI, 0.8%-2.6%) in those with a low clinical pretest probability and a normal result of ultrasonography at referral, whereas this figure was 1.8% (95% CI, 0.9%-3.3%) in patients with a low clinical probability result and a normal result of the D-dimer assay at referral. CONCLUSIONS It is safe to withhold repeated ultrasonography in patients with suspected deep vein thrombosis who have normal results of ultrasonograpy and the SimpliRED D-dimer assay at presentation. The combination of a low clinical pretest probability with a normal result of compression ultrasonography or the D-dimer assay appears to be equally safe in refuting the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis.
Increasing Spatial Detail of Burned Scar Maps Using IRS-AWiFS Data for Mediterranean Europe

Abstract: A two stage burned scar detection approach is applied to produce a burned scar map for Mediterranean Europe using IRS-AWiFS imagery acquired at the end of the 2009 fire season. The first stage identified burned scar seeds based on a learning algorithm (Artificial Neural Network) coupled with a bootstrap aggregation process. The second stage implemented a region growing process to extend the area of the burned scars. Several ancillary datasets were used for the accuracy assessment and a final visual check was performed to refine the burned scar product. Training data for the learning algorithm were obtained from MODIS-based polygons, which were generated by the Rapid Damage Assessment module of the European Forest Fire Information System. The map produced from this research is the first attempt to increase the spatial detail of current burned scar maps for the Mediterranean region. The map has been analyzed and compared to existing burned area polygons from the European Forest Fire Information System. The comparison showed that the IRS-AWiFS-based burned scar map improved the delineation of burn scars; in addition the process identified a number of small burned scars that were not detected on lower resolution sensor data. Nonetheless, the results do not clearly support the improved capability for the detection of smaller burned scars. A number of reasons can be provided for the under-detection of burned scars, these include: the lack of a full coverage and cloud free imagery, the time lag between forest fires and image acquisition date and the occurrence of fires after the image acquisition dates. On the other hand, the limited
The Arabidopsis KINβγ Subunit of the SnRK1 Complex Regulates Pollen Hydration on the Stigma by Mediating the Level of Reactive Oxygen Species in Pollen

Pollen–stigma interactions are essential for pollen germination. The highly regulated process of pollen germination includes pollen adhesion, hydration, and germination on the stigma. However, the internal signaling of pollen that regulates pollen–stigma interactions is poorly understood. KINβγ is a plant-specific subunit of the SNF1-related protein kinase 1 complex which plays important roles in the regulation of plant development. Here, we showed that KINβγ was a cytoplasm- and nucleus-localized protein in the vegetative cells of pollen grains in Arabidopsis. The pollen of the Arabidopsis kinβγ mutant could not germinate on stigma, although it germinated normally in vitro. Further analysis revealed the hydration of kinβγ mutant pollen on the stigma was compromised. However, adding water to the stigma promoted the germination of the mutant pollen in vivo, suggesting that the compromised hydration of the mutant pollen led to its defective germination. In kinβγ mutant pollen, the structure of the mitochondria and peroxisomes was destroyed, and their numbers were significantly reduced compared with those in the wild type. Furthermore, we found that the kinβγ mutant exhibited reduced levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in pollen. The addition of H2O2 in vitro partially compensated for the reduced water absorption of the mutant pollen, and reducing ROS levels in pollen by overexpressing Arabidopsis CATALASE 3 resulted in compromised hydration of pollen on the stigma. These results indicate that Arabidopsis KINβγ is critical for the regulation of ROS levels by mediating the biogenesis of mitochondria and peroxisomes in pollen, which is required for pollen–stigma interactions during pollination.
Evaluation of the Structural disorder of the protein FMR1 with Carbon Composition

Ever since the disorder of proteins is the main cause for many diseases. As compared with other disorders, the major reason that causes disease is of structural inability of many proteins. The potentially imminent availability of recent datasets helps one to discover the protein disorders, however in majority of cases, the stability of proteins depend on the carbon content. Addressing this distinct feature, it is possible to hit upon the carbon distribution along the sequence and can easily recognize the stable nature of protein. There are certain reported mental disorders which fall in to this category. Regardless, such kind of disorder prone protein FMR1p (Fragile X mental retardation 1 protein) is identified as the main cause for the disease Fragile X syndrome. This paper deals with the identification of defects in the FMR1 protein sequence considering the carbon contents along the sequence. This attempt is to evaluate the stability of proteins, accordingly the protein disorders in order to improvise the certain Biological functions of proteins to prevent disease. The transition of the disorder to order protein involves careful considerations and can be achieved by detecting the unstable region that lacks hydrophobicity. This work focuses the low carbon content in the FMR1 protein so as to attain the stable status in future to reduce the morbidity rate caused by Fragile X syndrome for the society.
Arc welding Control for Shaped Metal Deposition Process

Abstract This paper is focused on the study and the control of a deposition process of robotic arc welding. The process consists of a SMD (Shaped Metal Deposition) system, that is a novel rapid prototyping tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding technique leading to near-net-shape, using a layer by layer deposition technique. An experimental setup has been properly implemented in order to study the system and to develop and tune the parameters of an automatic controller.