Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A task aimed at leading teachers to promoting a constructive early algebra approach

We tackle the issue of how teachers can be led to acquire conceptions and models of behaviours suitable to foster among pupils a constructive and linguistic approach to the algebra since primary school. We propose a model of structured task, as a connected set of questions addressed to teachers and centred at the analysis of activities and pupils’ productions as well as on the design of classroom discussions. This task is made of operative and critical reflection activities, aimed at favouring the development of predictive and interpretive thinking by teachers, with respect to pupils’ behaviours. We briefly report on some results of its use in teacher training.
4-12-2012 Constructive function approximation : theory and practice

In this paper we study the theoretical limits of finite constructive convex approximations of a given function in a Hilbert space using elements taken from a reduced subset. We also investigate the trade-off between the global error and the partial error during the iterations of the solution. These results are then specialized to constructive function approximation using sigmoidal neural networks. The emphasis then shifts to the implementation issues associated with the problem of achieving given approximation errors when using a finite number of nodes and a finite data set for training.
Do spillovers matter ? CDM model estimates for Spain using panel data

This paper uses a structural model to analyse the impact of innovation activities and externalities on the productivity of Spanish firms. To the best of our knowledge, no previous paper has examined spillover effects by adopting such an approach. Here, therefore, we seek to determine the extent to which external knowledge may affect both firms’ behaviour (first stage of the model) and a firm’s performance (last stage). Additionally, firm’s technology level is taken into account in order to ascertain whether there are any differences in this regard between high-tech and low-tech firms both in industrial and service sectors. The database used is the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) which includes 9,042 firms for the period 2004-2010. We find that the firm’s decision whether to engage in R&D activities or not is influenced by what other firms do. In particular, the higher the number of firms undertaking R&D activities, the more likely to start R&D projects the firm is. Moreover, our results suggest that innovation carried out by other firms (intraand interindustry externalities) have a positive impact on firm’s productivity. Finally, regarding the technology level, no clear pattern has been found.
Evaluation of Some Micronutrients among Sickle Cell Disease Patients in Benin City , Edo State , Nigeria

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder of haemoglobin caused by a single nucleotide substitution of thymidine for adenine (GAG-GTG) of the β-chain that results in the amino acid valine instead of glutamic acid. This congenital haemoglobin mutation alters this balance and creates a pro-oxidant and micronutrient reactive milieu. This study investigated some micronutrients status of sickle cell patients. A total of one hundred (100) participants were recruited for this study which consists of fifty (50) sickle cell subjects and fifty (50) apparently healthy age -matched individuals were monitored as control. Blood samples were collected by venepuncture and some micronutrients (Iron, Zinc, Manganese, cobalt, Calcium and Magnesium) were analyzed using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. All parameters were significantly decreased in sickle cell patients when compared with apparently controls (p<0.05). Considering the results obtained in this study, it could be inferred that sickle cell subjects are predisposed to nutritional deficiencies. We therefore advocate routine assessment of micronutrients in sickle cell patients. It may be necessary to routinely provide nutritional supplements for sickle cell disease patients in Nigeria.
Rent Control and Tenancy Duration

This paper investigates how rent control affects mobility on the Danish private rental housing market. Based on a unique and extensive data set a measure of the degree of rent regulation of each housing unit is calculated, and this is coupled with socio-economic characteristics and spells of tenancy duration for each household. To accommodate the special features of such a data set we apply a proportional hazard duration model, that encompasses both the presence of left truncated tenancy durations, right censored observations and allows for a very flexible specification of the time dependency as captured by the baseline hazard function. We find that tenancy mobility is severely reduced by the presence of rent control. Tenancy duration for a typical household in the private rental sector is found to be more than six years longer if the apartment belongs to the 10 per cent most regulated units than if it belongs to the 10 per cent least regulated units.
Free Cash Flow and Executive Compensation

The study examines the contract-relevance of Free Cash Flow (FCF) on the premise that it captures efforts managers devote to working capital management, offers firms flexibility in project financing, and has a direct link to shareholders’ wealth creation. Although these features suggest FCF will play a role in incentive contracts, empirical evidence is limited. This paper shows that FCF is contract-relevant and its relevance varies with the sensitivity of shareholders’ value to FCF, the firm’s demand for spending flexibility, and the scope for managerial misuse of FCF. Furthermore, following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) the contract-relevance of FCF remains positive and significant in long-term contracts, but is reduced in bonus contracts. JEL Classification: J33.
Biodegradation of Polylactic Acid by Proteolytic and Lipolytic Bacteria Rasha

Biodegradable plastics opened a new way for waste management strategies since these materials are intended to degrade under various conditions. Two complementary parts were conducted to study the ability of bacteria to degrade bioplastic (polylactic acid) (PLA) under in vitro conditions. The first part was to screen seven bacterial strains adopted on their ability to produce proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes. As well as, use lactic acid (LA) as a sole carbon source by estimate dehydrogenase activity (DHA), optical density (OD), dry weight (DW), consumed and residual LA of the medium. The second part was incubation of those strains into media supplemented with PLA films as a sole carbon source for two months. Changes in pH, accumulated LA and weight loss were estimated periodically every 15 days during two months. The tested seven bacterial strains showed high ability to produce protease and lipase and able to use LA as a sole carbon source. Concerning PLA biodegradation, results also showed that pH was gradually decreased from the initial period to reach their maximum after 60 days of incubation. Whereas, the accumulated LA and loss of PLA films weight were increased and the highest records were observed after 60 days in medium inoculated with Serratia marcescens (ZH5) followed by Pseudomonas fluorescence (ZH6). Optical and scanning electron microscopy were conducted to observe changes in PLA films. In this respect, results showed roughening of the outer surface, formation of holes and cracks in addition changes in color.
MIDAS : Automated Approach to Design Microwave Integrated Inductors and Transformers on Silicon

The design of modern radiofrequency integrated circuits on silicon operating at microwave and millimeterwaves requires the integration of several spiral inductors and transformers that are not commonly available in the process design-kits of the technologies. In this work we present an auxiliary CAD tool for Microwave Inductor (and transformer) Design Automation on Silicon (MIDAS) that exploits commercial simulators and allows the implementation of an automatic design flow, including threedimensional layout editing and electromagnetic simulations. In detail, MIDAS allows the designer to derive a preliminary sizing of the inductor (transformer) on the bases of the design entries (specifications). It draws the inductor (transformer) layers for the specific process design kit, including vias and underpasses, with or without patterned ground shield, and launches the electromagnetic simulations, achieving effective design automation with respect to the traditional design flow for RFICs. With the present software suite the complete design time is reduced significantly (typically 1 hour on a PC based on Intel® Pentium® Dual 1.80 GHz CPU with 2-GB RAM). Afterwards both the device equivalent circuit and the layout are ready to be imported in the Cadence environment.
TRANSCATHETER AORTIC VALVE IMPLANTATION : ACUTE AND 6-MONTH OUTCOMES OF THE FIRST LEBANESE EXPERIENCE AND A LITERATURE

Background : Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has recently emerged as a therapeutic alternative for high-risk surgical patients with severe symptomatic aortic valve stenosis and has been shown to improve clinical outcomes and reduce all-cause mortality in the PARTNER Trial. However, there is still no published data on similar outcomes in the Lebanon. Objectives : The aim of the study is to evaluate the immediate and short-term results of transfemoral (TF) and transaortic (TAo) TAVI done in Lebanon with 6 months follow-up. Methods : From July 2012 till March 2015, 10 consecutive high-risk and intermediate risk patients with severe symptomatic AS underwent TAVI using Edwards SAPIEN valve. The mean age was 79.4 ± 6.9 years, logistic EuroSCORE 12.56 ± 11.78 and mean STS 5.71 ± 2.44. Patients were equally distributed among genders (50%). The mean ejection fraction (EF) was 50.0 ± 14.9% and mean AV area 0.61 ± 0.1 cm2; mean aortic valve gradient (mAVG) 45.6 ± 20.2 mmHg, and AV annulus size 21.8 ± 1.8 mm. Results: TF approach was performed in 9 patients (90%) and TAo in 1 patient (10%). All valves (17 size 26 mm and 25 size 23 mm) were implanted successfully. The overall 6-month survival was 80%. Grade I paravalvular aortic regurgitation (AR) was present in 60% of the patients; grade II in 10% while none of the patients developed AR with grade III or VI. The post-procedural mean aortic valve gradient (mAVG) was 9.77 ± 3.31 mmHg; EF was 52.5 ± 11.9% and immediate postoperative complications included only one case of newonset arrhythmia (AV Block). After 6 months, one patient died of cardiac arrest following a massive pulmonary embolism while another patient died from a fatal stroke following infective endocarditis affecting the valve prosthesis. Conclusion: TAVI is a feasible technique for intermediate/high risk AS with high success rate and acceptable complications.
Rectangle Packing 방식 기반 NoC 테스트 스케쥴링 NoC-Based SoC Test Scheduling Using Rectangle Packing with Power Constraints

This paper addresses an efficient NoC-based SoC test scheduling method based on a rectangle packing algorithm. In order to apply the proposed ideas to NoC-based systems, we designed a new test platform suitable for NoC structures. Furthermore, we extended the proposed algorithm considering multiple test clocks and power constraints. Experimental results using some ITC'02 benchmark circuits show the proposed algorithm can reduce the overall test time by up to 50% and 20% on the average in comparison with previous works.
To Trade or Not to Trade : Oil Leases , Information Asymmetry , and Coase

We exploit a federal oil lease lottery to examine how markets correct for initial misallocation. Lottery participants included oil companies, as well as individuals without the capital or expertise to drill for oil. In the absence of reallocation, we expect less drilling on leases won by individuals. We find that leases won by firms and individuals have similar shortand long-term outcomes, suggesting that secondary markets rapidly and efficiently correct for misallocation to individuals. However, the small subset of parcels with nearby oil production have 50% less drilling when they are won by firms. We develop a simple model to demonstrate how information asymmetry adversely affects firms to a greater degree. Because individuals have larger gains from trade, they are less likely to have their decision to trade affected by asymmetric information and are more likely to trade with a nearby producing firm. ∗pabrehm@umich.edu and erickyle@umich.edu. We are very grateful for financial assistance provided by Rackham Graduate School, MITRE, and the National Science Foundation GRFP. For helpful comments and discussions, we thank Ryan Kellogg, Catie Hausman, Hoyt Bleakley, Shaun McRae, Jeremy West, Akshaya Jha, Arthur van Benthem, Kelsey Jack, Yiyuan Zhang, Sarah Johnston, Chris Sullivan, Julian Hsu, Andrew Litten, Maggie (O’Rourke) Brehm, Berkeley’s Energy Camp attendees, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan. This paper does not represent the views of the Department of Justice. All errors are our own.
Disturbance of Arginase Activity and Nitric Oxide Levels in Iraqi Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This study is an attempt to find whether arginine metabolism dysregulation by arginase activity is related to hyperglycemia, followed by changes in nitric oxide (NO) generation in type 2 diabetic patients. This study includes 42 control subjects (Group I), and 92 Iraqi patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The patient group was subdivided into two groups: Group II (54) with T2DM only and Group III (38) with T2DM and dyslipidemia (who were treating with atorvastatin along with diabetes treatment). The samples were obtained to measure arginase activity and NO levels. Serum arginase activity increased significantly in patients(groupII and groupIII) compared to control group. While serum NO level was significantly lower in diabetic patients as compared to control group, three significant correlations appeared in this study between glucose and arginase activity, glucose and NO levels, and between arginase activity and NO levels. The results also show that treatment with atorvastatin affects arginase activity and NO levels. Increasing in levels of arginase activity can be considered as an indicator of diabetic status. Endothelial dysfunctions accompanied with diabetes mellitus reverses correlation between arginase and NO in diabetic.
Compressional and shear-wave velocity measurements in unconsolidated topsoil and comparison of the results

Seismic compressional, Pand shear, S-wave measurements were done on the unconsolidated top-soil with depth of 1 m at the different locations of the study area. In case of working with metallic P-wave source, the effect of the air-filled zone and disturbance of the air-wave are received by geophones located near the source (short offset). It is possible to reduce the effect of the disturbance of air-wave and to obtain correct Pand S-wave velocities by using source equipment consisting plastic hammer and wooden cone for very short offsets. In this study, a 12-channel seismograph with signal stacking ability was used together with high frequency (100 Hz) geophones on the top-soil. The geophone intervals were set to 20 cm at the all locations. Two dimensional models were constructed by applying two dimensional inversions to the first arrival time of direct and refracted waves. It was seen that compressional wave velocity (Vp) values of very-near-surface soils are lower than the velocity of the Pwave in air (330 m/s). Additionally, it should be noted that the ratio between P and S wave velocity is about 1.5 in the dry unconsolidated top-soils.
Agromorphological response of rice ( Oryza sativa L . ) to foliar application of potassium silicate

A field experiment was conducted in Mobarakeh region, Isfahan, Iran, to investigate the effect of foliar application of silicon (Si) on the yield, as also to investigate some morphoagronomical traits of rice (Oryza sativa L.). The research was designed as a randomized complete block with three replications. Forty-eight-day-old seedlings of rice were sown in plots 3 m × 3 m in size. Foliar application of silicon solution was used in treatments comprising of: Control, 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 mg l-1 of silicon. Potassium silicate ((K2SiO3, 20% SiO2) was used as the source of silicon. The data was recorded according to the standard evaluation system for rice, published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The data were then subjected to analysis of variance. The results showed that spraying Si on leaves had a significant effect on rice grain yield (GY), 1000-grain weight (GW), number of filled grains (FG), and grain breadth. However, the stem length, panicle length (PL), and grain length were not affected by Si. Compared with the control, the highest increase in GY was obtained at 250 mg l-1 (up to almost 28.2%). The results suggested that there was a significant regression in the GY and Si concentrations. Estimation of the Pearson correlation coefficients among the studied traits revealed that GY was positively correlated with the GW and FG. Also, there were positive significant correlations between the GW and traits of PL and FG. According to the results, the recorded increase in GY, under the impact of foliar silicon, was probably because of the significant increase in FG. Foliar application of Si can be economically and environmentally efficient to increase rice yield and provide enough food for the increasing world population. The results of this research will also be important for research that deals with the enrichment of rice grains, which is of great importance to health.
Pattern Of Paediatric Holiday-Related Injuries : An Observational Study From King Abdulaziz Medical City Trauma Registry

The type of injuries that are observed in children vary on a seasonal basis and might, therefore, influence injury patterns. However, very little information is available on the pattern of injuries over the calendar year. This study aims to describe the holiday variations in children’s’ injuries in Saudi Arabia. Using King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC) trauma registry records from between 2009-2014, we assessed the pattern of holidayrelated injuries. Data were analyzed for the rate of injuries between groups of children who had sustained an injury during holiday and non-holiday seasons in term of age, gender, type of injury, shift hours, and mortality. A total of 1,762 injury-related admissions were included, of these around 531 injury-related admissions occurred during the holiday with an average of 1.6 admissions per day, compared to 1.5 admissions per day during non-holiday periods. There was no difference between the rate of injury-related admission during the holidays and non-holidays in terms of age, gender, and mortality. Traffic-related injuries were the most common among the study population. The purpose of this study was to assess the patterns, mechanisms, demographics, and mortalities of paediatric trauma injuries during school holidays vs. non-school holidays . the results suggests that there were no significant differences between trauma-related admission in holiday and non-holiday periods with the exception of the higher percentage of road-traffic related trauma injuries that presented in the holiday period. This suggests further improvements to the preventive program should be implemented to control certain behavior and activities and to reduce such injuries. __________________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Methyl Jasmonateon Chloride Andnitrate Concentrations , Nitrate Reductaseactivity , Malondialdehyde Content And Peroxidase Activity in Nicotianatabacum l . Cv . Coker 347 in Different Concentrations Of Chloride

Jasmonate (Jasmonic acid and its methylated ester, methyl jasmonate) are a new group of plant growth regulators. These compounds reduce damage from dehydration, cold and salinity. In this study, methyl jasmonate (30μm) was applied in the early stages of growth and its effect on nitrate concentrations, malondialdehyde content, nitrate reductase and peroxidase activities were studied in Nicotianatabacum L. cv. Coker 347 at high concentrations of chloride. An experiment was performed in a complete randomized setup during 2012 crop year at Guilan Tobacco Research Center outside greenhouse in pot conditions. After transplanting similar seedlings to pots, the plants grewfaster inthree concentrations of irrigation water chlorine (50, 150 and 300 mgL -1 ), in presence or absence of methyl jasmonate for 8 weeks. The experiments were carried out with 4 replications. Results showed that by increasing the Cl concentration to 300 mgL -1 , the Cl content of leaves increased linearly, and malondialdehyde and peroxidase activities also increased significantly. In addition, there was a significant reduction in nitrate reductase activity of the middle leaves, while there was no change in the nitrate level. External application of methyl jasmonate resulted in a significant reduction of starch content, especially at 150 and 300 mgL -1 chloride concentrations. Furthermore, nitrate and nitrate reductase activity were significantly increased at 50 mgL -1 chloride concentration.There was no change in the amount of malondialdehyde content and peroxidase activity. It seemsthat in lower chloride concentrations, methyl jasmonate (30μm) off sets the stress induced by the chloride concentration andresultsin improved living conditions.
Lagrangian Particle Tracking in Velocity-Vorticity Resolved Viscous Flows by Subdomain BEM

A numerical study of particle motion in a cubic lid driven cavity is presented. As a computational tool, a boundary element based flow solver with a Lagrangian particle tracking algorithm is derived. Flow simulations were performed using an in-house boundary element based 3D viscous flow solver. The Lagrangian particle tracking algorithm is capable of simulation of dilute suspensions of particles in viscous flows taking into account gravity, buoyancy, drag, pressure gradient and added mass. The derived algorithm is used to simulate particle behaviour in a cellular flow field and in a lid driven cavity flow. Simulations of particle movement in a cellular flow field were used to validate the algorithm. The main goal of the paper was to numerically simulate the flow behaviour of spheres of different densities and different diameters, as experimentally observed in work of Tsorng et al.The study of slightly buoyant and non-buoyant particles in a lid driven cavity was aimed at discovering cases when particles leave the primary vortex and enter into secondary vortices, a phenomenon described in the work of Tsorng et al. A parametric study of this phenomenon was preformed. The presented computational results show excellent agreement with experiments, confirming the accuracy of the developed computational method.
About strange effects related to rotating magnetic systems

The basic hypothesis of topological geometrodynamics (TGD) is that spacetime is representable as a 4-surface in 8-dimensional space M + × CP2. The notion of manysheeted spacetime forced by this hypothesis implies numerous new physics effects including gravitational anomalies, the possibility of negative energy spacetime sheets making possible overunity energy production and classical communications to the geometric past. The geometrization of the classical gauge fields in turn predicts the existence of long range color and electroweak gauge fields, in particular classical Z field, which gives rise to macroscopic effects resembling those assigned usually with torsion fields. In this article the strange findings about the physics of rotating magnetic systems are discussed in order to illustrate the new physics predicted by TGD. 1 Classical TGD in nutshell Topological Geometro-Dynamics (TGD) is a unified theory of fundamental interactions, which was born as an attempt to construct a Poincare invariant theory of gravitation [1, 2, 3, 4]. Spacetime, rather than being an abstract manifold endowed with a pseudo-Riemannian structure, is regarded as a 4-surface