Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GIS-based modelling of topography-induced solar radiation variability in complex terrain for data sparse region

Solar radiation not only sustains the lives on the Earth, but also creates spatial and temporal variations of hydrological ingredients, such as vegetation, soil moisture, and snow. Precise quantification of spatial solar radiation incident on the Earth's surface which accounts for the topographic modulation, especially in complex terrain, underpins the study of many catchment hydro-meteorological and hydro-ecological processes. Topography is a key parameter that affects the spatial solar radiation pattern across different scales. This article addresses the issue of modelling spatial variability of actual solar radiation caused by topography from the hydrological perspective. Models with different algorithms and different complexities, from the simple empirical equations to process-based physical approach, have been developed to parameterize and calculate the potential radiation (under clear-sky condition) and the actual radiation (under overcast cloudy condition). Based on a review of the general steps of solar radiation modelling and the corresponding models for each step, two models with easily or globally available data for spatial solar radiation modelling in complex terrain, namely, the physically parameterized, remote-sensing-oriented Heliosat-2 model and the sunshine duration-based Angström–Prescott regression model are selected and implemented in a GIS framework. The capability of both models for simulation of cloudy-sky radiation on horizontal surfaces has been verified against observed station data showing an R 2 greater than 0.9. The validity of the models for modelling inclined surface is tested by comparing against each other, which has shown a satisfactory agreement and demonstrated that the simple Angström–Prescott method performed reasonably well compared with the more elaborate Heliosat-2 method. Scale sensitivity of the models and the shading effect are examined with different digital elevation model (DEM) resolutions from 30 to 500 m and reveal the existence of a threshold grid size to resolve the topography-induced spatial solar radiation variability. Spatial mapping of potential solar radiation and actual solar radiation has been demonstrated in a small catchment in Southern Germany, with a spatial difference up to 30% in winter and 5% in summer. This may lead to a significant difference for the energy-limited hydrological processes, such as snowmelt, and evapotranspiration.
Functionalized self-assembling peptide hydrogel enhance maintenance of hepatocyte activity in vitro

There is a major challenge in maintaining functional hepatocytes in vivo as these cells rapidly lose their metabolic properties in culture. In this work we have developed a bioengineered platform that replaces the use of the collagen I – in the traditional culture sandwich technique – by a defined extracellular matrix analogue, the self‐assembling peptide hydrogel RAD16‐I functionalized with biologically active motifs. Thus, after examining side by side the two culture systems we have found that in both cases hepatocytes acquired similar parenchymal morphology, presence of functional bile canaliculi structures, CYP3A2 induction by dexamethasone, urea production, secretion of proteins such as apolipoprotein (class A1, E, J), α1‐microglobulin, α1‐macroglobulin, retinol binding protein, fibronectin, α1‐inhibitor III and biotin‐dependent carboxylases. Interestingly, by assessing in more detail some other hepatic markers, one of the functionalized matrix analogues – carrying the 67 kD laminin receptor ligand – enhanced the gene expression of albumin, HNF4‐α, MDR2 and tyrosine aminotransferase. We conclude that the use of a synthetic culture system with designed matrix functionalization has the advantage in controlling specific cellular responses.
A Reduced-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Method Based on POD for Electromagnetic Simulation

This paper is concerned with the design of a reduced-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method based on the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method for electromagnetic simulation. A centered flux approximation for surface integral and a second-order leap-frog scheme for advancing in time are applied in the classical DG method. The POD basis is created by the eigensystem of the correlation matrix, which is generated by the snapshot matrix whose columns are the snapshot vectors extracted from the high-fidelity DG simulation. The POD discontinuous Galerkin time-domain formulation with lower dimension and sufficiently high accuracy is established by applying a Galerkin projection for the semidiscrete DG scheme. The overall goal is to reduce the computational cost while maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy. Numerical experiments for electromagnetic problems illustrate the performance of the proposed reduction method.
Towards integration of quadratic placement and pin assignment

Pins serve as both the logical and physical interface between two levels in a hierarchical flow. Pin assignment is the placement of pins on the boundary of a chip or macro. Proper pin placement has a large influence on wire length. Experiments indicate a spread in wire length up to over 20%. To address the pin assignment problem, a modification to the well-known and widely used quadratic placement is introduced. This modification allows for the integration between pin assignment and global placement. Wire length within macros is minimized, while top-level considerations such as the relative position of macro and clusters of cells are taken into account in the form of a side assignment. As indicated by experimental results, integration is promising. More research is necessary to fully exploit the ideas in this paper, and assess the practical impact of the approach.
Obstacles à l’intégration des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) dans le système éducatif marocain Barriers to integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in Moroccan education system

L’etude presentee dans le cadre de cet article vise l’identification des obstacles qui entravent l’integration des technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’education au Maroc. Pour ce faire, 33 directeurs d’etablissements scolaires primaires et secondaires et 4 responsables ministeriels charges de l’application de la strategie du gouvernement en matiere de la generalisation de ces technologies a l’ecole marocaine ont ete entretenus. L’analyse thematique des donnees recueillies montre la presence de cinq principales categories d’obstacles, a savoir : des obstacles generaux lies au systeme educatif marocain lui-meme, des obstacles relatifs a la politique et a la strategie de mise en œuvre des technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’education, des obstacles relatifs au soutien et au developpement professionnel, des obstacles culturels et linguistiques et enfin des obstacles relatifs a l’infrastructure des technologies.
β-Blockers and All-Cause Mortality in Adults with Episodes of Acute Bronchitis: An Observational Study

Background Recent observational studies suggest that β-blockers may improve long-term prognosis in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We assessed whether β-blocker use improves all-cause mortality in patients with episodes of acute bronchitis. Methods An observational cohort study using data from the electronic medical records of 23 general practices in the Netherlands. The data included standardized information about daily patient contacts, diagnoses, and drug prescriptions. Cox regression was applied with time-varying treatment and covariates. Results The study included 4,493 patients aged 45 years and older, with at least one episode of acute bronchitis between 1996 and 2006. The mean (SD) age of the patients was 66.9 (11.7) years, and 41.9% were male. During a mean (SD) follow up period of 7.7 (2.5) years, 20.4% developed COPD. In total, 22.7% had cardiovascular comorbidities, resulting in significant higher mortality rates than those without (51.7% vs. 12.0%, p<0.001). The adjusted hazard ratio of cardioselective β-blocker use for mortality was 0.62 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.50–0.77), and 1.01 (95% CI 0.75–1.36) for non-selective ones. Some other cardiovascular drugs also reduced the risk of mortality, with adjusted HRs of 0.60 (95% CI 0.46–0.79) for calcium channel blockers, 0.88 (95% CI 0.73–1.06) for ACE inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers, and 0.42 (95% CI 0.31–0.57) for statins, respectively. Conclusion Cardiovascular comorbidities are common and increase the risk of mortality in adults with episodes of acute bronchitis. Cardioselective β-blockers, but also calcium channel blockers and statins may reduce mortality, possibly as a result of cardiovascular protective properties.
The behavioural ecology of modern families: a longitudinal study of parental investment and child development

In recent decades, behavioural ecologists have contributed to our understanding of the family through extensive studies of animal and traditional human populations. This research emphasises the importance of sibling competition for parental resources and adaptive patterns of biased parental care. In contrast, modern human families are rarely considered by behavioural ecologists, with increases in wealth generally considered to decrease the importance of resource dilution within families and modern cultural rules discouraging of unequal treatment of children. In this thesis, I question the validity of these assumptions and use rich longitudinal data to consider family structure effects on parental investment and child development in contemporary Britain. I consider time-based and financial investment in offspring and measures of physical, cognitive and behavioural development over a 10 year period. The following specific hypotheses are tested. First, parents will face a trade-off between fertility, investment per child and ultimately child well-being. This hypothesis is supported for all measures, except for behavioural well-being. Second, parents will bias investment towards early-born offspring. This hypothesis is largely supported. Later-born children receive lower investment and have reduced physical and cognitive well-being. However, mental health is improved in the presence of older siblings. Third, parents will bias investment towards male offspring. Support for this hypothesis is mixed. Measures of investment indicate a male-bias driven by fathers, while number of brothers relative to sisters is associated with reduced cognitive, but not physical or behavioural well-being. Fourth, children with unrelated father figures will receive less investment. This hypothesis is supported. Unrelated father figures are associated with lower investment from both parents and reduced physical and behavioural well-being. Finally, I test the hypothesis that higher socio-economic status will alleviate family size trade-offs. This hypothesis is rejected, with some evidence that resource competition is of increased importance in relatively wealthy and well-educated families.
Tackling test trade-offs from design, manufacturing to market using economic modeling

This paper presents a general economic modeling methodology for digital semiconductor production test approaches. The methodology can be used to quantify trade-offs and evaluate test approaches, including distributed test across test insertions, multi-site test, on-chip/off-chip test trade-offs and ATE architectural tradeoffs, with modeled cost contributions that include test time, die area, yield, time-to-market, and engineering effort. It allows one to forecast how those test approaches scale with technology progress. The economic models are modular and expandable. The modeling methodology will be illustrated on various test approaches.
Modeling of a Bulk Current Injection Setup for Susceptibility Threshold Measurements

A mathematical model is formulated for a Bulk Current Injection (BCI) setup to evaluate the susceptibility of electronic components to electro­ magnetic interference. A comparison of calculated and measured data shows that the model predicts current distributions with reasonable accuracy. The sensitiv­ ity of standing wave patterns to a number of parameters has been investigated. This information can be used to reduce measurement variability and increase the correlatability of BCI results with measurements from other techniques.
Cervical Microbiota in Women with Preterm Prelabor Rupture of Membranes

Objective To analyze the cervical microbiota in women with preterm prelabor rupture of membranes (PPROM) by pyrosequencing and to document associations between cervical microbiota, cervical inflammatory response, microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity (MIAC), histological chorioamnionitis, and intraamniotic infection (IAI). Study Design Sixty-one women with singleton pregnancies complicated by PPROM were included in the study. Specimens of cervical and amniotic fluid were collected on admission. The cervical microbiota was assessed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing by pyrosequencing. Interleukin (IL)-6 concentration in the cervical fluid and amniotic fluid was measured by ELISA and lateral flow immunoassay, respectively. Results Four bacterial community state types [CST I (Lactobacillus crispatus dominated), CST III (Lactobacillus iners dominated), CST IV-A (non-Lactobacillus bacteria dominated), and CST IV-B (Gardnerella vaginalis and Sneathia sanguinegens dominated)] were observed in the cervical microbiota of women with PPROM. Cervical fluid IL-6 concentrations differed between CSTs (CST I = 145 pg/mL, CST III = 166 pg/mL, CST IV-A = 420 pg/mL, and CST IV-B = 322 pg/mL; p = 0.004). There were also differences in the rates of MIAC, of both MIAC and histological chorioamnionitis, and of IAI among CSTs. No difference in the rate of histological chorioamnionitis was found among CSTs. Conclusions The cervical microbiota in PPROM women in this study was characterized by four CSTs. The presence of non-Lactobacillus CSTs was associated with a strong cervical inflammatory response and higher rates of MIAC, both MIAC and histological chorioamnionitis, and IAI representing a PPROM subtype with pronounced inflammation. CST I represents the dominant type of PPROM with a low rate of MIAC, IAI, and the combination of MIAC and histological chorioamnionitis.
The tartrate-resistant purple acid phosphatase of bone osteoclasts--a protein phosphatase with multivalent substrate specificity and regulation.

Tartate-resistant purple acid phosphatases (TRAP/PAP) are iron-containing, cationic glycoproteins with molecular weights of around 35 kDa and a monomeric peptide structure (Vincent and Averill, 1990; Andersson et al, 1992). When isolated and sufficiently concentrated, these enzymes exhibit a characteristic purple color. The purple acid phosphatases of spleen and uterus have been extensively characterized, in particular with respect to the unique active site containing two iron atoms, which are essential for catalytic activity (Vincent and Averill 1990). This binuclear iron center can exist in two interconvertible states: in the purple enzyme as a diferric pair which is catalytically inactive or in the reduced, catalytically active pink species where the di-iron cluster exist as a mixed-valent Fe(II)-Fe(III) couple (Wang et al. 1992). Low levels of TRAP/PAP enzymes can be detected in most tissues, whereas much higher expression levels are detected in bones of growing animals (Ek-Rylander et al. 1991a). In .
Part-based recognition of vehicle make and model

Fine-grained recognition is a challenge that the computer vision community faces nowadays. The main category of the object is known in this problem and the goal is to determine the subcategory or fine-grained category. Vehicle make and model recognition (VMMR) is a hard fine-grained classification problem, due to the large number of classes, substantial inner-class and small inter-class distance. In this study, a novel approach has been proposed for VMMR based on latent SVM formulation. This approach automatically finds a set of discriminative parts in each class of vehicles by employing a novel greedy parts localisation algorithm, while learning a model per class using both features extracted from these parts and the spatial relationship between them. An effective and practical multi-class data mining method is proposed to filter out hard negative samples in the training procedure. Employing these trained individual models together, the authors’ system can classify vehicles make and model with a high accuracy. For evaluation purposes, a new dataset including more than 5000 vehicles of 28 different makes and models has been collected and fully annotated. The experimental results on this dataset and the CompCars dataset indicate the outstanding performance of the authors’ approach.
Timing constraint workflow nets for workflow analysis

The analysis of the correctness and rationality of a workflow model plays an important role in the research of workflow techniques and successful implementation of workflow management. This paper points out the relevant problems in the verification and analysis of a workflow model. It discusses two important properties: schedulability and boundedness of a workflow model considering timing constraints. To specify the timing constraints, WorkFlow net is extended with time information, leading to timing constraint workflow net (TCWF-net). This paper presents a model mapping method to convert a directed network graph (DNG) based workflow model, which is built by a graphic process modeling language extended with time information, into a TCWF-net. It then discusses its schedulability verification and synthesis. An algorithm to decompose an acyclic and free-choice TCWF-net into a set of T-components is presented, followed by a boundedness verification method. The usefulness of the research results is illustrated by an example.
Mental health nursing staff's attitudes towards mental illness: an analysis of related factors

Accessible summary Employer/workplaces have an impact on mental health nursing staff's general attitudes towards persons with mental illness. Staff have more positive attitudes if their knowledge about mental illness is less stigmatized and currently have or have once had a close friend with mental problem. More favourable attitudes among staff towards persons with mental illness could be developed and transmitted in the subculture at work places. Abstract There is growing awareness that mental illness is surrounded by negative attitudes and stigmas. The aim of the present study was to investigate factors associated with mental health nursing staff's attitudes towards persons with mental illness. Data were collected from 256 mental health nursing staff employed by one county council and 10 municipalities. The findings show that staff have more positive attitudes towards persons with mental illness if their knowledge about mental illness is less stigmatized, their work places are in the county council, and they currently have or have once had a close friend with mental health problems. The multiple regression model explained 16% of the variance; stigma-related knowledge and employer had significant Beta-coefficients. To account for unknown correlations in data, a linear generalized estimating equation was performed. In this model, stigma-related knowledge and employer remained significant, but a new significant factor also emerged: personal contact, i.e. currently having or having once had a close friend with mental health problems. This indicates correlations at unit level in the county council and in the municipalities. The conclusion is that more favourable attitudes among staff towards persons with mental illness could be developed and transmitted in the subculture at work places.
Dusty ERO Search behind Two Massive Clusters

We performed deep K � -band imaging observations of 2 massive clusters, MS 0451.6−0305 at z =0 . 55 and MS 0440.5+0204 at z =0 . 19, for searching counterparts of the faint sub-mm sources behind these clusters, which would provide one of the deepest extremely red object (ERO) samples. Comparing our near-infrared images with optical images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and by the Subaru Telescope, we identified 13 EROs in these fields. The sky distributions of EROs are consistent with the previous results, that there is a sign of strong clustering among detected EROs. Also, the surface density with corrected lensing amplification factors in both clusters are in good agreement with that derived from previous surveys. We found 7 EROs and 3 additional very red objects in a small area (∼ 0.6arcmin 2 ) of the MS 0451.6−0305 field around an extended SCUBA source. Many of their optical and near-infrared colors are consistent with dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshifts (z ∼1.0–4.0), and they may be constituting a cluster of dusty starburst galaxies and/or lensed star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Their red
Unambiguous Auxiliary Pushdown Automata and Semi-unbounded Fan-in Circuits

Abstract Notions of unambiguity for uniform circuits and AuxPDA′s are studied and related to each other. In particular, a coincidence for counting and unambiguous versions of AuxPDA′s and semi-unbounded fan-in circuits is shown. Moreover, an improved simulation of LOGUCFL (the class of languages logspace many-one reducible to unambiguous context-free languages) by unambiguous circuits and AuxPDA′s is developed. Next, an inductive counting technique on semi-unbounded fan-in circuits is presented and employed for several applications, especially an alternative proof for the closure under complementation of LOGCFL. A cost-free simulation of polynomially ambiguity bounded AuxPDA′s by unambiguous ones is given. A first nontrivial upper bound for a circuit class defined by Lange and its closure under complementation are indicated. Finally, a normal form for AuxPDA′s is investigated. Inter alia, it is shown that for unambiguous AuxPDA′s operating in polynomial time and logarithmic space a pushdown height of O(log2n) suffices, thus paralleling results for deterministic and nondeterministic AuxPDA′s. It is pointed out that without loss of generality the underlying machines of the most important AuxPDA classes work obliviously.
LOT: Logic optimization with testability - new transformations using recursive learning

A new approach to optimize multi-level logic circuits is introduced. Given a multi-level circuit, the synthesis method optimizes its area, simultaneously enhancing its random pattern testability. The method is based on structural transformations at the gate level. New transformations involving EX-OR gates derived based on indirect implications by Recursive Learning have been introduced in the synthesis of multi-level circuits. This method is augmented with transformations that specifically enhance random-pattern testability while reducing the area. Testability enhancement is an integral part of our synthesis methodology. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology can not only realize lower area, but also achieves better testability compared to testability enhancement synthesis tools such as tstfx. Specifically for ISCAS-85 benchmark circuits, it was observed that EX-OR gate-based transformations can yield smaller circuits compared to state-of-the-art logic optimization tools like SIS and HANNIBAL.