Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MODELLING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR THE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF WIRELESS PROTOCOLS

In this chapter, we show how a stochastic process algebra, PEPA, can be used to describe performance models of wireless network protocols. We highlight the existing body of tools and modelling techniques to demonstrate the different types of performance analysis that are possible on the underlying Markov model. We present a case study of the 802.11 family of protocols, which we analyse to obtain quality of service measurements in the form of passage time quantiles.
Monolithically Integrated 100 GHz DFB-TWEAM

A monolithically integrated distributed feedback (DFB) laser and traveling-wave electro-absorption modulator (TWEAM) with ges 100 GHz -3 dBe bandwidth suitable for Non-return-to-zero (NRZ) operation with on-off keying (OOK) is presented. The steady-state, small-signal modulation response, microwave reflection, chirp characteristic, and both data operation and transmission were investigated. The DFB-TWEAM was found to be an attractive candidate for future short distance communication in high bitrates systems.
Unscheduled return visits (URV) in adults to the emergency department (ED): a rapid evidence assessment policy review

Unscheduled return visits (URV) to the emergency department (ED) may be an important quality indicator of performance of individual clinicians as well as organisations and systems responsible for the delivery of emergency care. The aim of this study was to perform a rapid evidence assessment policy-based literature review of studies that have looked at URVs presenting to the ED. A rapid evidence assessment using SCOPUS and PUBMED was used to identify articles looking at unplanned returns to EDs in adults; those relating to specific complaints or frequent attenders were not included. After exclusions, we identified 26 articles. We found a reported URV rate of between 0.4% and 43.9% with wide variation in the time period defined for a URV, which ranged from 24 h to undefined. Thematic analysis identified four broad subtypes of URVs: related to patient factors, to the illness, to the system or organisation and to the clinician. This review informed the development of national clinical quality indicators for England. URV rates may serve as an important indicator of quality performance within the ED. However, review of the literature shows major inconsistencies in the way URVs are defined and measured. Furthermore, the review has highlighted that there are potentially at least four subcategories of URVs (patient related, illness related, system related and clinician related). Further work is in progress to develop standardised definitions and methodologies that will allow comparable research and allow URVs to be used reliably as a quality indicator for the ED.
Role of stoichiometry and implicit negative feedback in sigma factor regulation

Despite the central role of alternative sigma factors in bacterial stress response and virulence their regulation remains poorly understood. Here we investigate one of best-studied examples of alternative sigma factors: the σ B network that controls the general stress response of Bacillus subtilis to uncover widely relevant general design principles that describe the structure-function relationship of alternative sigma factor regulatory networks. We show that the relative stoichiometry of the synthesis rates of σ B , its anti-sigma factor RsbW and the anti-anti-sigma factor RsbV, plays a critical role in shaping the network behavior by forcing the σ B network to function as an ultrasensitive negative feedback loop. We further demonstrate how this type of negative feedback regulation insulates alternative sigma factor activity from competition with the housekeeping sigma factor for RNA polymerase and allows multiple stress sigma factors to function simultaneously with little competitive interference.
The Economics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: A Survey (Part I)

This survey provides an in-depth analysis of existing research on the economic analysis of terrorism and counter-terrorist measures. First the existing evidence on the causes of terrorism is analyzed, then we consider the evidence of the consequences of terrorism and we demonstrate why it is important to regarding of the issue of counter-terrorism policy. Moreover the survey presents the existing knowledge on the interrelation between the economy and the issue of security and it incorporates analysis the level of knowledge about the causal chains between security and the economy. Also it focuses on perspective and methodologies from the discipline of economics but also refers to research from related disciplines (sociology, political science). It also assembles the knowledge on the impact of terrorism on the economy as reflected in macro-economic variables and its impact on specific sectors. Furthermore it assesses how potential an actual terrorist event determine consumer and producer behaviour, public policy, as well as terrorist responses to these policies. Finally a European perspective on the terrorism security annexes is discussed and here we analyze the causes of terrorism in Europe.
Measuring adolescent science motivation

ABSTRACT To monitor science motivation, 232 tenth graders of the college preparatory level (‘Gymnasium’) completed the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ-II). Additionally, personality data were collected using a 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory. A subsequent exploratory factor analysis based on the eigenvalue-greater-than-one criterion, extracted a loading pattern, which in principle, followed the SMQ-II frame. Two items were dropped due to inappropriate loadings. The remaining SMQ-II seems to provide a consistent scale matching the findings in literature. Nevertheless, also possible shortcomings of the scale are discussed. Data showed a higher perceived self-determination in girls which seems compensated by their lower self-efficacy beliefs leading to equality of females and males in overall science motivation scores. Additionally, the Big Five personality traits and science motivation components show little relationship.
Tracing clusters in evolving graphs with node attributes

Data sources representing social networks with additional attribute information about the nodes are widely available in today's applications. Recently, combined clustering methods were introduced that consider graph information and attribute information simultaneously to detect meaningful clusters in such networks. In many cases, such attributed graphs also evolve over time. Therefore, there is a need for clustering methods that are able to trace clusters over different time steps and analyze their evolution over time. In this paper, we extend our combined clustering method DB-CSC to the analysis of evolving combined clusters.
Lack of Clostridium difficile Infection in Patients Treated With Rifaximin for Hepatic Encephalopathy: A Retrospective Analysis

Goals: The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence of Clostridium difficile infection in patients who received rifaximin for the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Methods: Medical charts of patients who received rifaximin for the treatment of HE were reviewed. The number of patients who developed diarrhea during treatment with rifaximin and results of latex agglutination assays to detect C. difficile in stool samples were analyzed. Results: A total of 211 patients received rifaximin for HE. Of these, 152 were treated in a university practice and 59 were treated in community practices. The mean dose of rifaximin was 1055 mg/d (range, 600 to 1600 mg/d) for a mean duration of 250 days (range, 180 to 385 d). Eighteen patients developed diarrhea during rifaximin treatment. None of these patients tested positive for C. difficile. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that treatment of HE with the safe, nonsystemic, gut-selective antibiotic rifaximin was not associated with the development of C. difficile infection.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in Adulthood: Concordance and Differences between Self- and Informant Perspectives on Symptoms and Functional Impairment

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a severe mental illness, associated with major impairment and a high comorbidity rate. Particularly undiagnosed ADHD in adulthood has serious consequences. Thus, a valid diagnosis is important. In adulthood, the diagnostic process for ADHD is complicated: symptoms may overlap with comorbid disorders, and the onset and progression of the disorder must be reconstructed retrospectively. Guidelines for the diagnostic process recommend the inclusion of additional informant ratings. Research into the relation between self- and informant ratings shows extremely heterogeneous results. The levels of agreement range from low to high. The focus of this study is the concordance and differences between self- and informant ratings on ADHD symptoms and impairments. In this regard, two possible influencing factors (gender and relationship type) are also examined. 114 people participated in this study, 77 with an ADHD diagnosis and 37 without a diagnosis. For all participants, either parents or partners also rated ADHD symptoms and impairments. Small to moderate concordance was found between self- and informant ratings, with females being slightly more concordant than males, particularly for ratings of problems with self-concept. Examination of the consistency within a particular perspective showed that people with ADHD seemed to be unaware of the causal relation between ADHD symptoms and their impairments. A close investigation found almost no influence of gender and relationship type on differences within perspectives. Based on these results, the implications for the diagnostic process are that additional informant information is clearly necessary and helpful.
Towards a quantum theory of polarization in ferroelectrics: The case of KNbO3.

The spontaneous macroscopic polarization of perovskite KNbO 3 is calculated asa Berry's phase using the Bloch functions of the tetragonal crystal. The result P=0.35 C/m 2 supports the measured value 0.37 C/m 2 and implies that earlier data from hysteresis loops are too low. The polarization is linear in the ferroelectric distortion; the Born effective charges show strong variations from nominal ionic values and a large inequivalence of the 0 ions. Linearity a posteriori demonstrates that the polarization of perovskites at finite temperature can be safely predicted assuming the ions frozen in their time-averaged positions
The Role of Sex Hormones in the Cardiovascular System

In developed countries heart disease is the primary cause of death in men and in women over the age of 60. While premenopausal women have a low incidence of cardiovascular disease as compared to men, the mortality among post-menopausal women rises to the same frequency or even exceeds the rates of men (Adams et al., 1995; Fraser et al., 2000; Gray et al., 2001; Wild & Bartholemew, 1988). This significant gender difference is mostly attributed to the beneficial role of estrogens (Collins et al., 1993; Gray et al., 2001). Many studies have suggested that females have reduced incidence of cardiovascular diseases due to the beneficial effects of estrogen on both the lipid profile and on the vasculature. Lately, many new mechanisms are discovered in cardiovascular diseases and research has been focused on the role of both estrogen and testosterone, as well as some other androgens, but also on the estrogen receptor GPER, which shows an important role in the cardioprotection of both, males and females (Deschamps &Murphy, 2009). The sex hormones in the cardiovascular system might be viewed at as biomarkers for cardiovascular health status, as well as by itself, as protective agents against myocardial diseases. The estrogens in premenopausal women are modulating health in the regular menstrual cycle. Testosterone is lacking such cycle activity and is probably more expressed in the physically active population. The effects of testosterone are increasing muscle mass induced by higher physical activity, and higher adrenal and hypophysis activity resulting in potential cardiovascular system damage. However, when testosterone or its derivatives are missused, ventricular hypertrophy, diastolic dysfunction and myocardial stiffening appear and the potential risk for infarction increases (Malkin et al., 2010). The sex hormones, i.e. estrogen, progesterone and androgens and their receptors, ERs, PRs and ARs, have been studied as candidates to mediate sex-specific effects observed in gender related responses of the cardiovascular system and related diseases. Above all estrogen has received major attention, while testosterone is at present studied for its potential beneficial and cardioprotective mechanism of action. However, within several cardiovascular diseases like myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease and other ischemia related diseases, heart failure, ECG gender specific differences, the focus was already turned to the gender related sex hormones differences. These studies presented new approaches and specificities in
Examining the Relationship Between Daily Stress and Problem Drinking Among College Students: Mediating Effects of Negative Affect and Maladaptive Coping Strategy

본 연구는 대학생들이 경험하는 일상적 스트레스가 문제음주 정도에 영향을 미치는지, 또한 우울ㆍ불안의 부정적 정서와 부적응적 대처전략이 스트레스와 문제음주의 관계에서 매개효과를 가지는지 파악하고자 하는 탐색적 연구이다. 연구표본은 편의추출방법을 사용하여 확보한 대전 지역의 남녀 대학생 289명이 었으며, 자기기입식 설문지를 통해 자료를 수집하고, 위계적 다중회귀분석방법을 사용해 자료 분석을 했다. 연구 결과 첫째, 대학생의 일상적 스트레스는 문제음주 정도에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 우울과 불안의 매개효과는 유의하지 않은 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 부적응적 대처전략은 부분 매개효과를 지녀서, 일상적 스트레스를 많이 경험할수록 유익하지 않은 대처전략을 사용하며 그 결과 문제음주의 정도를 악화시키는 것으로 나타났다. 연구결과를 기반으로 대학생 문제음주의 예방과 조기 개입을 위한 실천적, 정책적 제언을 했고 향후 연구 과제를 논의했다.
New myths of OZ: the Australian beach and the negotiation of national belonging by refugee background youth

In this article, we consider the Australian beach as a material, imaginary and social arena in which different versions of national belonging are performed and contested. Focusing on two short films produced by young people from refugee backgrounds, we explore the negotiation of national belonging on the beach by people who occupy identity categories that are typically excluded from idealizing Australian beach mythologies. We argue that both the production and distribution of these films contribute to a reimagining of the Australian beach that creates new opportunities for people from migrant backgrounds to engage in the co-production of Australian identities in their own terms.
Structured Dictionary Learning for Classification

Sparsity driven signal processing has gained tremendous popularity in the last decade. At its core, the assumption is that the signal of interest is sparse with respect to either a fixed transformation or a signal dependent dictionary. To better capture the data characteristics, various dictionary learning methods have been proposed for both reconstruction and classification tasks. For classification particularly, most approaches proposed so far have focused on designing explicit constraints on the sparse code to improve classification accuracy while simply adopting $l_0$-norm or $l_1$-norm for sparsity regularization. Motivated by the success of structured sparsity in the area of Compressed Sensing, we propose a structured dictionary learning framework (StructDL) that incorporates the structure information on both group and task levels in the learning process. Its benefits are two-fold: (i) the label consistency between dictionary atoms and training data are implicitly enforced; and (ii) the classification performance is more robust in the cases of a small dictionary size or limited training data than other techniques. Using the subspace model, we derive the conditions for StructDL to guarantee the performance and show theoretically that StructDL is superior to $l_0$-norm or $l_1$-norm regularized dictionary learning for classification. Extensive experiments have been performed on both synthetic simulations and real world applications, such as face recognition and object classification, to demonstrate the validity of the proposed DL framework.
The Association Between Relational Aggression and Perceived Popularity in Early Adolescence: A Test of Competing Hypotheses

This study examined two competing hypotheses regarding the moderators of the association between relational aggression and peer status in early adolescence. The mitigation relational aggression hypothesis examined whether positive social behaviors reduced the negative effects of relational aggression, thus amplifying the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity. The effective use of relational aggression hypothesis examined whether leadership skills facilitated the proficient use of relational aggression, thus amplifying the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity. Participants were 158 fifth graders (52% female). Post hoc analyses indicated that for girls, leadership significantly moderated the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity after controlling for positive social behaviors. Positive social behaviors did not similarly moderate the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity for boys or girls. Our results demonstrated that in the context of greater leadership, female early adolescents who used more relational aggression were perceived as more popular.
Enhancing Nitrification at Low Temperature with Zeolite in a Mining Operations Retention Pond

Ammonium nitrate explosives are used in mining operations at Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Residual nitrogen is washed into the mine pit and piped to a nearby retention pond where its removal is accomplished by microbial activity prior to a final water treatment step and release into the sub-Arctic lake, Lac de Gras. Microbial removal of ammonium in the retention pond is rapid during the brief ice-free summer, but often slows under ice cover that persists up to 9 months of the year. The aluminosilicate mineral zeolite was tested as an additive to retention pond water to increase rates of ammonium removal at 4°C. Water samples were collected across the length of the retention pond monthly over a year. The structure of the microbial community (bacteria, archaea, and eukarya), as determined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of PCR-amplified small subunit ribosomal RNA genes, was more stable during cold months than during July–September, when there was a marked phytoplankton bloom. Of the ammonia-oxidizing community, only bacterial amoA genes were consistently detected. Zeolite (10 g) was added to retention pond water (100 mL) amended with 5 mM ammonium and incubated at 12°C to encourage development of a nitrifying biofilm. The biofilm community was composed of different amoA phylotypes from those identified in gene clone libraries of native water samples. Zeolite biofilm was added to fresh water samples collected at different times of the year, resulting in a significant increase in laboratory measurements of potential nitrification activity at 4°C. A significant positive correlation between the amount of zeolite biofilm and potential nitrification activity was observed; rates were unaffected in incubations containing 1–20 mM ammonium. Addition of zeolite to retention ponds in cold environments could effectively increase nitrification rates year-round by concentrating active nitrifying biomass.
Evaluating Multilanguage-Comparability of Subjectivity Analysis Systems

Subjectivity analysis is a rapidly growing field of study. Along with its applications to various NLP tasks, much work have put efforts into multilingual subjectivity learning from existing resources. Multilingual subjectivity analysis requires language-independent criteria for comparable outcomes across languages. This paper proposes to measure the multilanguage-comparability of subjectivity analysis tools, and provides meaningful comparisons of multilingual subjectivity analysis from various points of view.
Occult alveolar haemorrhage in pulmonary veno-occlusive disease

Pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) is a rare cause of pulmonary arterial hypertension that affects predominantly post-capillary pulmonary vessels. A major concern with PVOD is the poor response to available therapies and the risk of pulmonary oedema with continuous intravenous epoprostenol. The present authors hypothesised that alveolar haemorrhage may be a characteristic feature of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease, as compared with other forms of pulmonary arterial hypertension that predominantly involve pre-capillary pulmonary arteries. This paper reports a series of 19 patients with either PVOD (n = 8) or idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH; n = 11) who underwent bronchoalveolar lavage. Cytological analyses were performed and differential counts were made on Perls-stained preparations. The Golde score was used to assess alveolar haemorrhage. As compared with IPAH, PVOD was characterised by a higher percentage of haemosiderin-laden macrophages (40±37 versus 3±6%), resulting in elevated Golde scores (81±88 versus 4±10). It was concluded that occult alveolar haemorrhage is a common feature of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease. Detecting occult alveolar haemorrhage may be of interest in the diagnostic approach of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease.
Effect of Continuous and Intermittent Exercises on Oxidised HDL and LDL Lipids in Runners

Abstract We studied the effects of different types of exercises on the concentrations of oxidised HDL (oxHDLlipids) and LDL lipids (oxLDLlipids), serum lipids, antioxidant potential, paraoxonase and malondialdehyde in endurance runners by performing both a 40-min continuous run (velocity corresponding to 80% VO2max) and a 40-min intermittent run (2-min run, velocity corresponding to 100% VO2max, and 2-min rest) using a treadmill. Blood samples were taken before exercise, after 20 and 40 min of exercise, and 15 and 90 min after the end of exercise. The concentrations of oxLDLlipids remained unchanged during the running tests, but after a 90-min recovery the concentrations decreased by 4% (P<0.05) for the intermittent run and by 16% (P<0.01) for the continuous run. The acute effect of the intermittent and continuous run increased the concentrations of oxHDLlipids by 26 and 25%, respectively (P<0.001 for both). Interestingly, oxHDLlipids did not increase after the first half of the run in middle-distance runners during the intermittent run, and a similar phenomenon was seen in marathon runners during the continuous run. These results may indicate that acute physical exercise increases the transport of lipid oxidation products by HDL, although a different training history or genetic background may alter these acute responses.