Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ezoneplus Working Paper No . 17 A May 2003 EMU ACCESSION ISSUES IN BALTIC COUNTRIES

After joining EU, the accession countries are expected to join the EMU and the euroarea. This cannot take place immediately after EU enlargement, as prior joining euroarea the accession countries should apply to the European Commission for entering EMU stage three and fulfil Maastricht convergence criteria’s. There is no deadline, when accession countries should make the decision to join euro-area. However, there is no opt-out clause for accession countries either, like there was for Denmark and UK in 1999. All accession countries are expected to join the monetary union in some stage. This paper analyses briefly the EMU accession issues in Baltic countries. In addition, a formal inspection of the OCA criteria in Baltic countries is carried out, using the structural VAR methodology. The results of Baltic countries are compared with the results of other accession countries and EU countries.
Long-term results of combined treatment of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of worldwide cancer mortality. Its incidence in Eastern Europe has been growing systematically with the changes in life style adopted from the West. Material and method . The analysis was based on a prospective study of 1332 patients operated on for primary colorectal cancer at the 1st Department of General and GI Surgery in Cracow, Poland, between the years 1984 and 2000. The same study protocol was applied to all patients included in the study. Results . In the group of 1332 operated patients, 1262 underwent resective operations, and in the remaining 70 cases palliative procedures, such as intestinal by-pass, colostomy or explorative surgery without tumor removal were performed. 96.3% and 93.2% resective procedures were performed in the colon and the rectal cancer group, respectively. Five-year survival rates after resection were as follows (p<0.001): 86.3% for stage I colorectal cancer, 68.7% for stage II, 47.5% for stage III, and 7% for stage IV. Chemotherapy administered to patients with colorectal cancer prolonged both survival and the recurrence-free period. The results were statistically significant in the groups with stage II (p=0.04) and III (p=0.05) colon cancer. In stage IV colon cancer systemic chemotherapy prolonged patient survival, but failed to achieve statistical significance. In stage II and III rectal cancer, systemic chemotherapy prolonged patient survival , however statistically significant differences were found for stage III rectal cancer acc. to UICC/AJCC. In both colon and rectal cancers chemotherapy had no effect on the recurrence-free period. Conclusion . We conclude that extended lymphadenectomy and multivisceral resection is extremely important for the curative outcome, also one cannot deny the importance of careful planning of the extent of colorectal surgery, including decisions concerning the endpoints. Combined treatment of colorectal cancer improves long term results.
Beam dynamics simulations for the GSI high current injector with the new versatile computer code DYNAMION

The multi-particle code DYNAMION was developed for beam dynamics simulations of complex beam transport lines and accelerating structures. The equations of motion are solved by time integration including three-dimensional external fields and space charge forces. Simulations were performed at the different sections of the new high current injector at GSI: LEBT, 36 MHz RFQ, two IH tanks, stripper section, Alvarez tank and beam line with octupole lenses. New features added to DYNAMION for these calculations are described. After commissioning of the linac, the results of simulations can be compared with beam measurements along the linac. Discrepancies between DYNAMION and other standard simulation codes will be discussed.
Localized states in glasses

Abstract The properties of amorphous materials determined by the presence of localized atomic and electronic states are reviewed. Experimental data on atomic dynamics in glasses are described. The two-level-system (TLS) model is presented, and the limits of its applicability analysed. The concept of soft atomic potentials, allowing generalization of the TLS model to higher energies, is introduced. Atomic dynamics in soft potentials, as well as soft-potential coupling with phonons and thermal expansion of glasses, are described. Localized electronic states in glasses are investigated and different theoretical models of such states in glassy semiconductors are reviewed. The connection between localized electronic states and soft potentials is studied. Particular attention is paid to low-relaxation processes in glasses controlled by two-well soft potentials; specifically, low-frequency noise in disordered conductors is considered. The possibility of investigating the localized states in question with the hel.
The nature of the faint low-frequency radio source population

The authors acknowledge support from the Square Kilometre Array South Africa project, the South African National Research Foundation and Department of Science and Technology. EFO acknowledges funding from the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme. MV acknowledges support from the European Commission Research Executive Agency (FP7-SPACE-2013-1 GA 607254), the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST/CON 0134/2014) and the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (PGR GA ZA14GR02). We thank the staff of the GMRT that made these observations possible. GMRT is run by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.
Evaluation of the Effects of Maintenance and Rehabilitation Projects on Road User Costs via HDM-4 Software

Rapid growth in a number of vehicles on roadways accelerates pavement deterioration trends. Pavement inefficiency in carrying the applied load from passing vehicles results in spending significant costs on continues Maintenance and Rehabilitation (MR namely, Vehicles Operational Cost (VOC) and Travel Time Cost (TTC). The main contribution of the paper was to demonstrate the importance of RUCs in long-term economic analysis and planning of future M&R activities. A number of complicated parameters are involved in RUC estimation. The latter is the primary reason for excluding RUCs in the economic analysis. Towards this end, the HDM-4 Software was employed to calculate costs using localized data. Calibrating the HDM-4 as well as collecting the required information, the long-term effects of preservation alternatives associated with their costs were evaluated and compared. Results showed that RUCs were approximately 10 times higher than RACs on each route of the selected roads network. This revealed the importance of RUC in the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LLCA) of different M&R actions tale place on highways. Hence, taking into account RUCs within analysis approaches would yield propose the most appropriate and cost-effective M&R alternative. Also, it was concluded that traffic composition and the number of Equivalent Single Axle Loads (ESALs) in the analysis period were contributing factors to RUCs calculation. In addition, owing to the long queue formation because of road obstruction, VOCs were always higher than increased TTCs, illustrating the importance of traffic volume and composition.
3 D nano-acoustic Bragg reflectors for CMOS embedded NEMS

Integration of CMOS electronic circuits and electromechanical resonators has been pursued for a long time by many different research groups and even foundries. This would improve the overall performance of electromechanical oscillators and sensors. However, the postprocessing on the CMOS substrates that is necessary to attain this integration increases the production cost so much that it becomes not interesting in most cases. We present here a method of embedding a nano electromechanical resonator within a CMOS substrate by making use of the metal layers and intermetal dielectrics to build a phononic cage that stops most acoustic energy from being lost, and thus the resonator quality factor can reach values of more than 3000 at a frequency of 3.37 GHz, taking the particular case of a 65nm node. Our results show that the performance of the integrated resonator, both in terms of quality factor and electromechanical coupling will improve when moving to smaller nodes, thus setting the roadmap for future hybrid systems. Index Terms — CMOS-microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), radio frequency (RF) MEMS, resonators, phononic crystals, Bragg gratings, Q-factor.
CHANGES IN BLOODANDINTERSTITIAL FLUID RESULTING FROM SURGICAL OPERATION ANDETHER ANESTHESIA ' By

Much attention has been given in the past to the study of changes in the blood produced by hemorrhage. Considerably less study has been devoted to changes in body fluid resulting from ether anesthesia, though such findings as elevation of blood sugar, increase in hydrogen ion concentration of the blood, and reduction in plasma bicarbonate, have been well established. The present work presents measurements of changes in quantity, as well as concentration, of certain components of body fluid as found in 16 patients subjected to the traumatizing factors of major surgical operations and to ether anesthesia. The time chosen for obtaining data to compare with the preoperative normal values was just at the end of operation, while the patient was still anesthetized. None of the patients studied showed evidence of more than mild shock or anoxemia during the study period.
Analysis of agromorphological diversity of southern Tunisia faba bean ( Vicia faba L.) germplasm

Forty two faba bean landraces (traditional farmers’ varieties) ( Vicia faba L.) from southern Tunisia, belonging to 8 oasis agro-ecosystems were assessed using morphological descriptors. The studied descriptors focused on morpho-phenological and morpho-agronomical traits. The data obtained is extracted on the basis of 35 descriptors of 42 populations from 8 localities, at a rate of 30 replications (plants) per population, in totality of 1260 individuals. The data underwent an analysis of variance and a multivariate analysis. Significant differences among populations for the thirty five descriptors were observed. The multivariate analysis performed on averages of all parameters revealed eight main groups, and variation within the same oasis agro-ecosystems was extremely important. Particularly, the group of ‘Tozeur’ made up of five populations (P38, P39, P40, P41 and P42), and the group of ‘Medenine’ composed of seven populations (P19, P20, P21, P22, P23, P24 and P25) showed a special characters than the other populations especially for seedling characters. The geographical location did not seem to be the main factor structuring the variability of the studied landraces. There proved to be substantial phenotypic variability in the Tunisian faba bean germplasm. Keywords: Diversity analysis, germplasm, faba bean ( Vicia faba L.), oasis agro-ecosystems, Southern Tunisia
Civic attitudes and behavioural intentions among 14-year-olds. How can education make a difference towards a more democratic and cohesive Europe?

Using data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), this policy report provides a detailed analysis of adolescentsâ€™ civic attitudes and behavioural intentions, and the mechanisms shaping them, with a particular emphasis on the broader role of education. ICCS 2016 offers broad information on 14-year-old studentsâ€™ civic and citizenship knowledge, their civic attitudes and behaviours, as well as their individual characteristics and the school and community contexts. We focus on the 14 the European Member States participating in ICCS 2016. This reports aims at improving the understanding of the associations between studentsâ€™ school experiences and their attitudes towards citizenship values, the equal rights to minority groups, students' expected political participation and their level of institutional trust. Our findings support the expectation that school can have a role in educating engaged and open-minded young individuals. In particular we find that maintaining an open classroom climate is a key factor associated not only with studentsâ€™ civic knowledge and later engagement but also with civic attitudes and behavioural intentions. Likewise, motivating students to take part in various forms of within-school activism is likely to increase their interest in actively engaging in democratic processes in later life. Active community involvement (which could be promoted by the school) is also positively associated with attitudes towards social-movement-related citizenship in almost all the participating countries. Above these education approaches, both civic and citizenship knowledge and civic efficacy remain important predictors of studentsâ€™ civic outcomes. Their roles are very different, though: while efficacy is consistently positively related to all the non-cognitive outcomes across all the countries, for civic knowledge this is true regarding only some attitudes. Finally, we also show that there is no systematic, universal gap between immigrant and native studentsâ€™ democratic attitudes. A significant gap between immigrant and native students is apparent in most Member States participating in ICCS only with regard to expected electoral participation. On the other hand, immigrant students are generally more in favour of equal rights for minorities. Policies implications are also discussed.
Cu and Zn tolerance and responses of the Biochemical and Physiochemical system of Wheat

The concentrations of heavy metals such as Zinc and copper in the environment are currently increasing, due mainly to human activities. Zinc and copper are essential elements for several biochemical processes in plants. Any of these metals, at high concentrations in soil, can cause severe damage to physiological and biochemical activities of plants. Plant growth, pigment concentration, biochemical parameters, uptake of heavy metals were investigated in 30-days old wheat (
Evaluation of a low-cost optical particle counter ( Alphasense OPC-N 2 ) 1 for ambient air monitoring 2 3

13 A fast growing area of research is the development of low-cost sensors for measuring air 14 pollutants. The affordability and size of low-cost particle sensors makes them an attractive 15 option for use in experiments requiring a number of instruments such as high density spatial 16 mapping. However, for these low-cost sensors to be useful for these types of studies their 17 accuracy and precision needs to be quantified. We evaluated the Alphasense OPC-N2, a 18 promising low-cost miniature optical particle counter, for monitoring ambient airborne 19 particles at typical urban background sites in the UK. The precision of the OPC-N2 was 20 assessed by co-locating 14 instruments at a site to investigate the variation in measured 21 concentrations. Comparison to two different reference optical particle counters as well as a 22 TEOM-FDMS enabled the accuracy of the OPC-N2 to be evaluated. Comparison of the OPC23 N2 to the reference optical instruments demonstrated reasonable agreement for the measured 24 mass concentrations of PM1, PM2.5 and PM10. However, the OPC-N2 demonstrated a significant 25 positive artefact in measured particle mass during times of high ambient RH (>85%) and a 26 calibration factor was developed based upon-Kohler theory, using average bulk particle 27 aerosol hygroscopicity. Application of this RH correction factor resulted in the OPC-N2 28 measurements being within 33% of the TEOM-FDMS, comparable to the agreement between 29 a reference optical particle counter and the TEOM-FDMS (20%). Inter-unit precision for the 30 14 OPC-N2 sensors of 22±13% for PM10 mass concentrations was observed. Overall, the OPC31
Out of the Shadows: Interacting and responding to the creative experience in pre-service teacher education

This paper explores how the creative experience and related dispositional outcomes can be fostered in undergraduate primary generalist pre-service teachers through the development of innovative learning approaches to visual and creative arts education. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the results and show how creative thinking and action can be fostered in pre-service teachers. I argue that the creative arts courses offered in teacher education programs need to design for levels of creativity by developing an understanding how the creative experience generates different dispositional outcomes during experiential studio-based workshops. Building on Eisner (1998) developmental work on creative dispositional outcomes, the paper explores how pre-service teachers develop their ‘creativity’ through flexibility and risk-taking attitudes; mindfulness and avoidance of premature closure and a willingness to visualise new possibilities through inquiry learning approaches. This paper reports on the findings of 350 pre-service teachers as part of the Creative Arts program offered at a Sydney-based university. The focus of the mixed-method approach was on how the creative experience affects participants’ opinions and experiences of creativity. Pre-service teachers’ creative expressions were queried before and after the studio-based workshops. Firstly, a questionnaire was given to the total cohort, followed by participant observations made during the creative activities using video footage. Twelve participants then contributed in qualitative semi-structured interviews; this follow-up part of the research was aimed at evaluating the impact of the creative experience specifically, the participants’ changing opinions of creative experiences and how new approaches can be developed with children. The significance of this study is that it connects to a socio-cultural framework that works with a community of practice model. In this model, the core role of the teacher is to facilitate the development of primary school children’s creativity learning in informal classroom settings. Consequences of this study suggest that pre-service teachers need to become more aware of the different levels of creativity and how to develop creative dispositional outcomes. The outcomes suggest that studio-based workshops encourage participants to become more mindful of the artistic creative experience and how to visualise new approaches to use with children.
Agronomic evaluations of maize genotypes selected for extreme fiber concentrations

Maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids with good yields of grain and whole plant dry matter are recommended for silage production. The stover can comprise more than 50% of the whole-plant dry matter and, therefore, can influence dry matter yield and nutritive value of the whole plant. The objective of this study was to determine relationships between agronomic characteristics (stover and whole-plant forage yield and moisture, grain yield and moisture, lodging, maturity, and ear percentage) and nutritional quality of maize forage in three populations. Twenty-four S 0.1 , families (S 0 -derived families in S 1 ) exhibiting a range in neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and lignin at mid-flower, were testcrossed to two commercial inbred lines (FR23 and LH74) to form two groups of F 1 hybrids
Testing Gender Productivity Difference with Informal Enterprises Data: A Case Study of Burkina Faso

In the literature, we have seen results stating that women are less efficient than men in entrepreneurship. In this chapter, we have used data of informal enterprises in Burkina Faso to test gender productivity difference. Our data support the assumption that men ’ s enterprises employ and carry out more income than women ’ s enterprises. Nevertheless, women ’ s enterprises are technically more efficient and stable than men ’ s enterprises. We have also found out that to succeed in entrepreneurship, it is profitable for women to be young. However, men need to get more experiences in order to become efficient in informal entrepreneurship. on the determinants of the credit application by entrepreneur women in the informal sector.
Trait differences between grass species along a climatic gradient in South and North America

Abstract Question: Are trait differences between grasses along a gradient related to climatic variables and/or photosynthetic pathway? Location: Temperate grassland areas of South and North America. Methods: In a common garden experiment, we cultivated C3 and C4 grasses from grasslands under different climatic conditions, and we measured a set of 12 plant traits related to size and resource capture and utilization. We described (1) interspecific plant trait differences along a climatic gradient defined by the precipitation and temperature at the location where each species is dominant and (2) the association between those plant trait differences and the photosynthetic pathway of the species. Results: Trait differences between grasses were related to the precipitation at the area where each species is dominant, and to the photosynthetic pathway of the species. Leaf length, leaf width, plant height, leaf area per tiller, specific leaf area, leaf δ13C ratio, and nitrogen resorption efficiency increased while leaf dry matter content and nitrogen concentration in senesced leaves decreased as precipitation increased. A proportion of these changes along the gradient was related to the photosynthetic pathway because dominant grass species in cold areas with low precipitation are mainly C3 and those from warm and wet areas are C4. Conclusions: A previous worldwide analysis showed that traits of graminoid species measured in situ changed slightly along climatic gradients (< 10% variance explained). In contrast, under a common environment we observed that (1) grass traits changed strongly along a climatic gradient (30–85% variance explained) and, (2) a proportion of those changes were related to the association between photosynthetic pathway of the species and precipitation. Nomenclature: Cabrera & Zardini (1978); Correa (1971–1988); Anon. (2005).
Gravitational instability and star formation in NGC 628

The gas-stars instability criterion for infinitesimally thin disc was applied to the galaxy NGC 628. Instead of using the azimuthally averaged profiles of data the maps of the gas surface densities (THINGS, HERACLES), of the velocity dispersions of stars (VENGA) and gas (THINGS) and of the surface brightness of the galaxy (S$^4$G) were analyzed. All these maps were collected for the same region with a noticeable star formation rate and were superimposed on each other. Using the data on the rotation curve values of $Q_\mathrm{eff}$ were calculated for each pixel in the image. The areas within the contours $Q_\mathrm{eff} 0.007 \, M_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$kpc$^{-2}$) and showed a good coincidence between them. The Romeo-Falstad disc instability diagnostics taking into account the thickness of the stellar and gas layers does not change the result. If the one-fluid instability criterion is used, the coincidence is worse. The analysis was carried out for the area $r < $ 0.5$r_{25} $. Leroy et al. (2008) using azimuthally averaged data obtained $Q_\mathrm{eff} \approx 3-4$ for this area of the disc, which makes it stable against non-axisymmetric perturbations and gas dissipation, and does not predict the location of star forming regions. Since in the galaxies the distribution of hydrogen and the regions of star formation is often patchy, the relationship between gravitational instability and star formation should be sought using data maps rather than azimuthally averaged data.