Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical Frequency Comb Generation in Monolithic Microresonators

This thesis presents an entirely novel approach for frequency comb generation based on nonlinear frequency conversion in micrometer sized optical resonators. Here, the comb generation process can be directly described in frequency domain as energy conserving interactions between four photons (four-photon mixing). This process is a result of extremely high light intensities that build up in microresonators with long photon storage times. The thesis is composed of four main parts that answer fundamental questions in the context of microresonator-based frequency comb generation as well as providing insights in the control and possible applications of this type of comb generators.
Superior success rate of intracavitary electrocardiogram guidance for peripherally inserted central catheter placement in patients with cancer: A randomized open-label controlled multicenter study

Background Intracavitary electrocardiogram (IC ECG) guidance emerges as a new technique for peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) placement and demonstrates many potential advantages in recent observational studies. Aims To determine whether IC ECG-guided PICCs provide more accurate positioning of catheter tips compared to conventional anatomical landmarks in patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Methods In this multicenter, open-label, randomized controlled study (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02409589), a total of 1,007 adult patients were assigned to receive either IC ECG guidance (n = 500) or anatomical landmark guidance (n = 507) for PICC positioning. The confirmative catheter tip positioning x-ray data were centrally interpreted by independent radiologists. All reported analyses in the overall population were performed on an intention-to-treat basis. Analyses of pre-specified subgroups and a selected large subpopulation were conducted to explore consistency and accuracy. Results In the IC ECG-guided group, the first-attempt success rate was 89.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 86.5% to 91.9%), which was significantly higher than 77.4% (95% CI, 73.7% to 81.0%) in the anatomical landmark group (P < 0.0001). This trend of superiority of IC ECG guidance was consistently noted in almost all prespecified patient subgroups and two selected large subpopulations, even when using optimal target rates for measurement. In contrast, the superiority nearly disappeared when PICCs were used via the left instead of right arms (interaction P-value = 0.021). No catheter-related adverse events were reported during the PICC intra-procedures in either group. Conclusions Our findings indicated that the IC ECG-guided method had a more favorable positioning accuracy versus traditional anatomical landmarks for PICC placement in adult patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Furthermore, there were no significant safety concerns reported for catheterization using the two techniques.
Crime and Social Interactions

The high degree of variance of crime rates across space (and across time) is one of the oldest puzzles in the social sciences (see Quetelet (1835)). Our empirical work strongly suggests that this variance is not the result of observed or unobserved geographic attributes. This paper presents a model where social interactions create enough covariance across individuals to explain the high cross- city variance of crime rates. This model provides a natural index of social interactions which can compare the degree of social interaction across crimes, across geographic 1units and across time. Our index gives similar results for different data samples and suggests that the amount of social interactions are highest in petty crimes (such as larceny and auto theft), moderate in more serious crimes (assault, burglary and robbery) and almost negligible in murder and rape. The index of social interactions is also applied to non-criminal choices and we find that there is substantial interaction in schooling choice.
Structure-Borne Wave Radiation by Impact and Vibratory Piling in Offshore Installations: From Sound Prediction to Auditory Damage

Anthropogenic noise emission in the marine environment is a key issue nowadays and has drawn the attention of regulatory bodies in various nations. In particular, the noise generated during the installation of foundation piles for the offshore wind industry is considered to be harmful for aquatic species. A reliable prediction of the underwater noise during the installation of a foundation pile is thus essential for the proper assessment of the ecological impact. In this paper, the structure-borne wave radiation is investigated with the help of a semi-analytical model for two cases. The first case considers a pile that is installed with the help of an impact hammer, whereas the second one deals with a pile that is driven into the seabed with the help of a vibratory device. The spatial distribution and the frequency content of the radiated sound are analyzed, and the differences are highlighted between the two cases. The model is validated with data available in the literature that were collected during several measurement campaigns. Subsequently, the predicted noise levels are converted into an equivalent index that reflects the auditory damage to certain marine species, and a method is presented for the derivation of zones of impact around the pile that are based on the noise predictions by the models and the chosen method of installation. This approach can be used to define critical zones within which a predefined level of auditory damage is to be expected based on a specific installation scenario.
Sodium Current in Rat and Cat Thalamocortical Neurons: Role of a Non-Inactivating Component in Tonic and Burst Firing

The properties of the Na+ current present in thalamocortical neurons of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus were investigated in dissociated neonate rat and cat neurons and in neurons from slices of neonate and adult rats using patch and sharp electrode recordings. The steady-state activation and inactivation of the transient Na+ current (INa) was well fitted with a Boltzmann curve (voltage of half-maximal activation and inactivation, V1/2, −29.84 mV and −70.04 mV, respectively). Steady-state activation and inactivation curves showed a small region of overlap, indicating the occurrence of a INa window current.INa decay could be fitted with a single exponential function, consistent with the presence of only one channel type. Voltage ramp and step protocols showed the presence of a noninactivating component of the Na+ current (INaP) that activated at potentials more negative (V1/2 = −56.93 mV) than those of INa. The maximal amplitude ofINaP was ∼2.5% ofINa, thus significantly greater than the calculated contribution (0.2%) of theINa window component. Comparison of results from dissociated neurons and neurons in slices suggested a dendritic as well as a somatic localization of INaP. Inclusion of papain in the patch electrode removed the fast inactivation of INa and induced a current with voltage-dependence (V1/2 = −56.92) and activation parameters similar to those ofINaP. Current-clamp recordings with sharp electrodes showed thatINaP contributed to depolarizations evoked from potentials of approximately −60 mV and unexpectedly to the amplitude and latency of low-threshold Ca2+potentials, suggesting that this noninactivating component of the Na+ channel population plays an important role in the integrative properties of thalamocortical neurons during both tonic and burst-firing patterns.
THE TIME-COURSE OF PROCESSING SYNTACTIC DEPENDENCIES: EVIDENCE FROM EYE MOVEMENTS DURING SPOKEN NARRATIVES

The current study used head mounted eyetracking to exam ine the time course and nature of processing filler-gap relations in wh-questions, and the role of verb argument frame information. Subjects listened to a short narrative while viewing pictures of entities mentioned in the story and answered an auditorily presented question; eye movements in response to these questions were recorded. In Experiment 1, subjects heard wh-questions (e.g., “What did Jody squash the spider with? ”), contrasted with yes/no question questions with no gap (e.g., “Did Jody squash a spider with her shoe? ”). Results showed evidence of anticipatory gap projection at the verb only for whquestions. In Experiment 2, wh-questions containing a strongly transitive verb used intransitively (e.g., “Who did the mother bear kill for? ”) were compared to questions containing an intransitive verb (e.g., “Who did the mother bear die for? ”). Verb-argument information was used to constrain hypotheses of possible gap locations. These results provide converging evidence for active on-line resolution of syn tactic dependencies mediated by verb argument structure, and introduce an important methodological tool for investigating processes that underlie syntactic dependencies.
FOURIER AND BIOT NUMBERS AND THE ACCURACY OF CONDUCTION MODELLING

Recent validation work has shown the importance of accurate modelling in order to bring together experimental results and predictions. A number of important areas were identified: heat transfer coefficient, edge effects, etc. This paper dwells on the latter. After a short review of the associated theory the paper concentrates on the effects of Fourier and Biot numbers on the accuracy of the numerical approximation of the diffusion equation for heat flow through solid elements of buildings. Since this is the most widely used method, the paper focusses on finite-difference modelling. However, the main conclusions are applicable to other numerical approaches as well. By practical examples, representing typical building applications, it is demonstrated that it is easy to introduce - but also relatively easy to minimalize - errors due to space and time discretisation of building structures. Symbols Bi Biot number (h 1/2d λ -1 ), α thermal diffusivity( λρ - 1 c - 1 ), m 2 s -1 c specific heat,Jkg -1 K -1 ρ density, kg m -3 d wall thickness, m
What ‘gives life’ to critical pedagogy in the lifelong learning sector?

ABSTRACT Critical pedagogy in the UK has traditionally been practised in the Lifelong Learning sector. However, the sector has become constrained by funding cuts, instrumental curricula and accountability measures, and teachers can feel that they have little room for professional autonomy and therefore the practice of critical pedagogy. Yet some do continue to do practice, often in relatively isolated circumstances, by working within the system but drawing upon their personal and professional identities. This paper presents the rationale and methodology, together with some very early findings, of a study examining what inspires, motivates and sustains practitioners of critical pedagogy in the face of constraints, the teaching strategies they consider to be successful, and how these stories could be harnessed and mobilised to enable critical pedagogy to flourish. The research draws on the philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry to capture these stories of success. This contrasts with the documented difficulties of using critical pedagogy in the current educational climate. A qualitative research strategy is used, comprising 12 in depth, semi-structured interviews with practitioners of critical pedagogy in the Lifelong Learning sector in the West Midlands.
K-Ar and Ar-Ar Dating

The aim of this chapter is to present the K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating techniques in the context of noble gas studies, since there are already several recent texts on K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating (Dickin 1995; McDougall and Harrison 1999). The focus of this section will be aspects of argon transport and storage in the crust, which affect K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating including Ar-loss from minerals by diffusion and Ar-gain by minerals or “excess argon. ” The K-Ar dating technique was one of the earliest isotope dating techniques, developed soon after the discovery of radioactive potassium, and provided an important adjunct to U-Pb and U-He dating techniques. The ease of measurement and ideal half-life (1250 million years; see Table 2⇓ below), for dating geological events has made this the most popular of isotopic dating techniques. Aldrich and Nier (1948) first demonstrated that 40Ar was the product of the decay of 40K, and soon after K-Ar ages were being measured in several laboratories most often using an absolute method such as a McLeod gauge to measure argon concentrations. The first published K-Ar results by such a technique were those of Smits and Gentner (1950) who analyzed sylvite from the Buggingen Oligocene evaporite deposits, obtaining an age of 20 million years. Mass spectrometers, which simultaneously measured very small amounts of gas, and the isotope ratios necessary to make corrections for atmospheric contamination, quickly replaced manometric techniques. Crucially the use of static vacuum techniques, pioneered by John Reynolds at the University of California-Berkeley, meant that mass spectrometers were sufficiently sensitive to analyse the small amounts of gas released from common rocks and minerals. Although the earliest mass spectrometers were built ‘in house’, the introduction of the commercially available MS10 (Farrar et al. 1964), a small 180° metal mass spectrometer built for …
ARGUMENTS FOR A NONSEGMENTAL VIEW OF SPEECH PERCEPTION

Systematic acoustic variation reflects vocal tract dynamics; it provides the acoustic coherence that makes a signal sound like speech. It is thus basic to speech perception, defined as lexical access. Implications of this argument are that the perceptual system maps an informationallyrich signal directly onto lexical forms that are structurally rich, and that phonemes are not essential for lexical access. Some properties of such a view of speech perception are discussed.
Effects of Decreased Occlusal Loading during Growth on the Mandibular Bone Characteristics

Background Bone mass and mineralization are largely influenced by loading. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reaction of the entire mandibular bone in response to decreased load during growth. It is hypothesized that decreased muscular loading will lead to bone changes as seen during disuse, i.e. loss of bone mass. Methods and Findings Ten 21-day-old Wistar strain male rats were divided into two groups (each n=5) and fed on either a hard- or soft-diet for 11 weeks. Micro-computed tomography was used for the investigation of bone mineralization, bone volume, bone volume fraction (BV/TV) and morphological analysis. Mandibular mineralization patterns were very consistent, showing a lower degree of mineralization in the ramus than in the corpus. In the soft-diet group, mineralization below the molars was significantly increased (p<0.05) compared to the hard diet group. Also, bone volume and BV/TV of the condyle and the masseter attachment were decreased in the soft-diet group (p<0.05). Morphological analysis showed inhibited growth of the ramus in the soft-diet group (p<0.05). Conclusion Decreased loading by a soft diet causes significant changes in the mandible. However, these changes are very region-specific, probably depending on the alterations in the local loading regime. The results suggest that muscle activity during growth is very important for bone quality and morphology.
Inhibition of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Prevents the Melanogenesis in Murine B16/F10 Melanoma Cells

The purpose of this study was to investigate if PPARγ plays a role in the melanogenesis. B16/F10 cells were divided into five groups: control, melanin stimulating hormone (α-MSH), α-MSH+retinol, α-MSH+GW9662 (PPARγ antagonist), and GW9662. Cells in the control group were cultured in the Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) for 48 hrs. To initiate the melanogenesis, cells in all α-MSH groups were cultured in medium containing α-MSH (10 nM) for 48 hrs. Cells were treated simultaneously with retinol (5 μM) in the α-MSH+retinol group. Instead of retinol, GW9662 (10 μM) was cocultured in the α-MSH+GW9662 group. Cells in the final group were cultured in the DMEM with GW9662. All the analyses were carried out 48 hours after treatments. The α-MSH was able to increase cell number, melanin production, and the activity of tyrosinase, the limiting enzyme in melanogenesis. These α-MSH-induced changes were prevented either by retinol or by GW9662. Further analyses of the activities of antioxidant enzymes including glutathione, catalase, and the superoxide dismutase (SOD) showed that α-MSH treatment raised the activity of SOD which was dependent on PPARγ level. According to our results, the α-MSH-induced melanogenesis was PPARγ dependent, which also modulated the expression of SOD.
Long-term adverse health outcomes of physical workplace violence: a 7-year population-based follow-up study

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study was to analyse whether physical workplace violence increases the risk of long-term adverse health outcomes (i.e., high number of visits to the general practitioner, outpatient treatment, hospital admittance, antidepressant use, and/or having a mental disorder). The study was based on representative survey data from 2006 and 2010 (entitled “How are you? ”) merged with register data for a 7-year follow-up period (N = 30,812). To examine if physical workplace violence was a predictor of adverse health outcomes, logistic regression models were conducted for the total follow-up period and for each follow-up year with the different outcome measures as the dependent variables. In the follow-up period, individuals who were exposed to physical workplace violence had a higher number of visits to the general practitioner, had more often received outpatient treatment, and had more often been admitted to hospital than their non-exposed counterparts. Moreover, exposed individuals had higher odds of using antidepressants in the last three follow-up years than did non-exposed individuals. The findings call for heightened attention to securing preventive as well as rehabilitative strategies to help victims of physical workplace violence with the aim of avoiding adverse long-term health consequences.
“There were only friendly people and love in the air”

This chapter will give some insight into the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) as an event that attracts a particular group of tourists – fans. Fan tourism is a growing field and the travel industries are increasingly viewing fans as a key market segment. What makes the ESC unique both as an event and a fandom is that the fans are firstly fans of the competition, and not of a particular artist. With a television audience of around 200 million the ESC can be regarded as a mega event, but despite its size it has maintained a certain intimacy – which may be partly due to the friendly atmosphere among the traveling fans (many of whom are regular ESC attendees). The ESC as a media event is sometimes prone to stereotyping, and perhaps constructing simplified European identities, but the corporal event experience adds other aspects and dimensions. While watching from the sofa and following social media comments may reinforce old-fashioned dichotomies, traveling to attend the event and mixing with fans from other countries foster a greater sense of respect for other cultures.
Experimental Assessment of Crystal Collimation at the Large Hadron Collider

Physics Faculty Department of Physics Doctor of Philosophy in Accelerator Physics Experimental Assessment of Crystal Collimation at the Large Hadron Collider by Roberto ROSSI The crystal collimation of hadron beams relies on the usage of highly pure bent crystals to deflect halo particles coherently and steer them onto optimised beam absorber blocks. This concept is being studied as a possible upgrade of the present multi-stage collimation system at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for its High Luminosity upgrade (HL-LHC). Crystals might allow improved cleaning performance, in particular for ion beams. This concept requires, however, a demonstration of feasibility with the LHC beam conditions before being considered for collimation upgrades. While significant results were produced in other circular accelerators, the specific challenges of the LHC call for dedicated experiments in final configuration and a direct comparison against the present collimation system. A crystal collimation setup consisting of two crystals for horizontal and vertical halo channeling, has been designed and installed in the LHC betatron cleaning insertion, and was operational for beam tests starting in 2015. Two other crystals were installed on the counter–rotating Beam 2 at the end of 2016. So, the LHC features now a complete system for crystal collimation measurements on both beams and planes. In this Ph.D. work, the validation of crystal collimation is addressed experimentally for the first time with LHC beams and operational conditions. The results of LHC beam tests are analysed and interpreted by using detailed simulation tools developed for crystal collimation studies. The work also includes analysis of experimental data of LHC–relevant crystal tests which have been carried out at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) where a crystal test stand is operational.
Monte Carlo simulations of metal-poor star clusters

Context. Metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) can provide a probe of the earliest epoch of star formation in the Universe, being the oldest observable stellar systems. In addition, young and intermediate-age low-metallicity GCs are present in external galaxies. Nevertheless, inferring their evolutionary status by using integrated properties may suffer from large intrinsic uncertainty caused by the discrete nature of stars in stellar systems, especially in the case of faint objects. Aims. In this paper, we evaluate the intrinsic uncertainty (due to statistical effects) affecting the integrated colours and mass-to-light ratios as a function of the cluster's integrated visual magnitude ($M_V^{\rm tot}$), which represents a directly measured quantity. We investigate the case of metal-poor, single-burst stellar populations with age from a few million years to a likely upper value for the Galactic globular cluster ages (~15 Gyr). Methods. Our approach is based on Monte Carlo techniques for randomly generating stars distributed according to the cluster's mass function. Results. Integrated colours and mass-to-light ratios in different photometric bands are checked for good agreement with the observational values of low-metallicity Galactic clusters; the effect of different assumptions on the horizontal branch (HB) morphology is shown to be irrelevant, at least for the photometric bands explored here. We present integrated colours and mass-to-light ratios as a function of age for different assumptions on the cluster total V magnitude. We find that the intrinsic uncertainty cannot be neglected. In particular, in models with $M_V^{\rm tot}=-4$ the broad-band colours show an intrinsic uncertainty high enough to prevent the precise age of the cluster from being evaluated. The effects of different assumptions on the initial mass function and on the minimum mass for which carbon burning is ignited for both integrated colours and mass-to-light ratios are also analysed. Finally, the present predictions are compared with recent results available in the literature, showing non-negligible differences in some cases.