Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hydrological modeling of a large urban catchment using a stormwater management model (SWMM)

Author Henri Tikkanen Title of thesis Hydrological modeling of a large urban catchment using a stormwater management model (SWMM) Degree programme Transport and Environmental Engineering Major/minor Water and Environmental Engineering / Strategic Management Code of professorship Yhd-12 Thesis supervisor Professor Harri Koivusalo Thesis instructor M.Sc. Gerald Krebs Date 13.08. 2013 Number of pages 64+1 Language English Abstract Stormwater modeling has a major role in preventing issues such as flash floods and urban water-quality problems. However, in-detail modeling of large urban areas is timeconsuming as it typically involves model calibration based on highly detailed input data. Stormwater models of a lowered spatial resolution would thus appear valuable if only their ability to provide realistic results could be proved.Stormwater modeling has a major role in preventing issues such as flash floods and urban water-quality problems. However, in-detail modeling of large urban areas is timeconsuming as it typically involves model calibration based on highly detailed input data. Stormwater models of a lowered spatial resolution would thus appear valuable if only their ability to provide realistic results could be proved. This study proposes a methodology for rapid catchment delineation and stormwater management model (SWMM) parameterization in a large urban area, without calibration. The effect of spatial resolution on the accuracy of modeling results is also being discussed. A catchment delineation and SWMM parameterization is conducted for an urban area in the city of Lahti in southern Finland. GIS methodology is utilized for simultaneous processing of data representing large areas. Literature values are also of importance where no spatial data is available. To evaluate the parameterization results, the SWMM application is run using an hourly data series of meteorological observations covering a period of four years. The routines established in the study make the catchment delineation and subdivision process reasonably fast and accurate, although manual work cannot be fully avoided due to defects in the input data. In contrast, the SWMM parameterization of the lowresolution subcatchments is the more challenging part and involves larger uncertainties. Even so, the model application provides sufficient results compared to literature and other studies performed on the same site, indicating non-calibrated SWMM applications of low spatial resolution seem promising for certain tasks in stormwater modeling. Overall, the methods developed in this study provide a feasible approach for SWMM parameterization in large urban areas.
Management of Single Brain Metastases

Guideline Questions Diagnosis 1. What is the optimal imaging modality for the diagnosis of single brain metastases? 2. When should stereotactic biopsy be used to establish tissue diagnosis of single brain metastases prior to the initiation of other treatments? Management 3. What is the optimal dose of whole brain radiation therapy for patients with confirmed single brain metastases? 4. Should patients with confirmed single brain metastases have surgical resection prior to radiation therapy? 5. What is the role of stereotactic radiosurgery in the management of patients with single brain metastases? 6. What is the role of chemotherapy in patients with single brain metastases?
Stable isotopes and diet: their contribution to Romano-British research

The study of stable isotopes surviving in human bone is fast becoming a standard response in the analysis of cemeteries. Reviewing the state of the art for Roman Britain, the author shows clear indications of a change in diet (for the better) following the Romanisation of Iron Age Britain—including more seafood, and more nutritional variety in the towns. While samples from the bones report an average of diet over the years leading up to an individual's death, carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures taken from the teeth may have a biographical element—capturing those childhood dinners. In this way migrants have been detected—as in the likely presence of Africans in Roman York. While not unexpected, these results show the increasing power of stable isotopes to comment on populations subject to demographic pressures of every kind.
The Impact of Treatment on Serum Level of Procalcitonin in Patients with Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Introduction: About one third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB) and each year, about 1.5 to 2 million people die from TB. Procalcitonin (PCT) is an inflammatory marker that its level has variable Materials and Methods: This conducted on patients with pulmonary TB. Data were collected using a check list. The serum level of PCT was measured by ELISA test at the beginning and after six months of treatment. All data were analyzed using SPSS 16. Results: There are some discussions in the utilization of PCT as a diagnostic marker in active pulmonary TB. The aim of this study was to compare serum PCT before and after treatment in patients with pulmonary TB. Results: Forty-two patients with active pulmonary TB entered in this study. The mean age of the patients was 45.48 ± 12.54 years and 54.8% of them were male. Most of the patients (59.5 %) were rural inhabitants. There was a family history of TB in 26% of patients. The most common symptom (45.2%) was cough. Mean PCT prior to treatment was 1.25 ± 0.98 ng/ml. and 81% of the patients had PCT higher than 0.5 to 5. After treatment PCT level reduced significantly (P<0.001). The mean erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) before treatment were 45.88 ± 21.87 and 7.16 ± 3.98 respectively that were reduced significantly after treatment (P<0.001). Neutrophil counts before treatment was 6221 ± 3161 Cells per ml. and decreased statistically significant after treatment (P=0.01). Conclusion: Our results showed that the PCT levels in pulmonary TB were high in active disease and reduced after treatment. PCT level may be used for follow-up as a discriminative marker between active and cured pulmonary TB and predict treatment response, although the PCT assay cannot be substituted for microbiological and pathological data.
Revised and Updated

ii The Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (NEWMOA) is a non-profit interstate governmental association whose membership is composed of the hazardous and solid waste program Rhode Island and Vermont. NEWMOA was established by the Governors of the northeast states as an official interstate regional organization and, in accordance with Section 1005 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, has been formally recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency. NEWMOA is a forum for increased communication and cooperation among the member states, a vehicle for the development of unified positions on various issues and programs, and a source of research and training on hazardous and solid waste management and pollution prevention. NEWMOA's well-established pollution prevention (P2) program is active in the following areas: (1) managing the Northeast States Pollution Prevention Roundtable-a regional roundtable of state and EPA pollution prevention staff; (2) coordinating several committees of the NE Roundtable; (3) training state and EPA officials and industry representatives in pollution prevention concepts and methods; (4) publishing a quarterly newsletter on state pollution prevention activities; and (5) managing a clearinghouse of pollution prevention technical information.
Formation of Nervous Systems and Neural Stem Cells in Ascidians

The central nervous system of the ascidian embryo is formed from the neural plate by its rolling into a hollow tube on the dorsal surface. This feature is unique to and common in chordates (synapomorphy). Cell number of mature tadpole remains nearly constant until metamorphosis begins. From earlier, two histological features are noticed in the tissues of the swimming larva; the first is the cessation of cell division in all the larval tissues and also in rudiments of adult organs, and the second is that functional cells are restricted to the larval organs. These cells differentiate almost synchronously in the larva. Larvae swim first for distribution and then for search the settlement places for metamorphosis without feeding. After onset of metamorphosis, the cells of larval organ disintegrate and/or rearrangement and those of adult rudiments begin to divide and differentiate into functional organs. Body wall muscle begins to contract intermittently, concomitant with the beginning of the feeding. That is, the cells of adult organs inhibited by some factors during swimming stage. The adult ascidian neural complex comprises the cerebral ganglion and the neural gland/its derived organ. The former is formed from the primodium of the cerebral ganglion constructed by rearrangement of the larval central nervous system during metamorphosis, and the latter is formed from a thin tube called the neurohypophyseal duct, respectively. The larval central nervous system contains functional neurons and glial cells, called the ependymal cells. Most of functional neurons and the glial cells in the tail region are lost during metamorphosis. Neurohypophyseal duct cells, located in the anterior left side of the sensory vesicle of swimming larvae, are derived from the anterior embryonic neural plate, which expresses common transcription factors in vertebrates and urochordates. After metamorphosis begins, the duct elongates anteriorly and fuses with the stomodeal ectoderm, where the dorsal tubercle, a large ciliated structure that opens into the upper part of the pharynx, later develops. The rudiment of the cerebral ganglion and the duct elongate posteriorly. The duct also differentiates into the neural gland. The dorsal wall of the neural gland in more developed ascidians has a thick epithelium (placode), the central part of which forms the dorsal strand by repeated invaginations along the visceral nerve. Both
The imporTance of subcuTaneous abscess infecTion by Pasteurella spp. and staPhylococcus aureus as a cause of meaT condemnaTion in slaughTered commercial rabbiTs

Subcutaneous abscesses are lesions frequently reported in commercial rabbits. Both at farm and slaughterhouse level, these lesions are responsible for economic losses and a potential decrease in meat quality. The present study was devised to identify the main causes of meat condemnation in slaughtered commercial rabbits and assess the importance of abscess lesions in this domain. For these purposes, 281423 rabbits were evaluated during meat inspection at the slaughterhouse. The results achieved showed that subcutaneous abscesses were the major cause of condemnation, being responsible for the rejection of 1355 (0.48%) rabbit carcasses. The main affected area was the hind limbs (31.37%), followed by the cervical area (23.10%). Microbiological analyses of 27 abscess samples indicated Pasteurella spp. as the bacteria mostly isolated (59.3%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (25.9%). These results enable us to advise the industry on the significance of abscesses as an important cause of economic losses, due to meat condemnation during post mortem inspection, and highlight the importance of implementing monitoring plans as a way to control this pathological problem.
Indian Fly Ashes: Their Characteristics and Potential for Mechanochemical Activation for Enhanced Usability

In India, the generation of electricity is overwhelmingly dependent on the combustion of high-ash coal. The present availability of fly ash has already exceeded 130 million tons, and its generation is likely to reach 170 million tons by 2011–2012. Although the present gainful use of fly ash is close to 50% of the quantity generated, a countrywide directive has been established to effectively use the entire quantity generated in 2011–2012. This objective can be met only if one looks for newer avenues of bulk use that have not been tried successfully. To achieve this target, several technological endeavours are in progress in India to enhance the quality and reactivity of fly ashes through mechanochemical activation. The regular and experimental technologies of comminution and size classification have not resulted in producing submicrocrystalline or nanocrystalline particles from the crystalline fly ashes; and hence, no quantum jumps in their reactivity have been realized. Therefore, the need for converting.
The glasses of the transept's rosette of the Cathedral of Tarragona: Characterisation, classification and decay

The glasses of the rosette forming the main window of the transept of the Gothic Cathedral of Tarragona have been characterised by means of SEM/EDS, XRD, FTIR and electronic microprobe. The multivariate statistical treatment of these data allow to establish a classification of the samples forming groups having an historical significance and reflecting ancient restorations. Furthermore, the decay patterns and mechanisms have been determined and the weathering by-products characterised. It has been demonstrated a clear influence of the bioactivity in the decay of these glasses, which activity is partially controlled by the chemical composition of the glasses.
Acquisition of Gender in Russian as L 3 by Native Speakers of Turkish

According to L2 research, the acquisition of grammatical gender is considered to be one of the most challenging domains for learners of different foreign languages. However, as far as L3 research is concerned, until recently, the acquisition of gender by L3 learners has not been much investigated. The aim of the present study was to find out whether or not the level of proficiency in English as L2 has an impact on the acquisition of the Russian grammatical gender by native speakers of Turkish. The data for this piece of research were collected from two groups of native speakers of Turkish studying Russian for three years. While all the participants had been exposed to equal amount of formal instruction in Russian, their levels of English were significantly different. The first group had low level of English; the second group, in contrast, was determined to have a high level of proficiency in English. The acquisition of the Russian gender by the native speakers of Turkish was examined using a number of tasks: determining the gender of a noun, choosing the correct agreement between a noun and its dependent words and free-writing compositions. The results of the study revealed no significant difference between the two groups on recognition tasks; however, the students of the groups were found to demonstrate significantly different results in their freewriting compositions. Relying on the findings of the study, it was suggested that the sufficient prior knowledge of English as L2 had a positive impact on the Russian gender acquisition and metalinguistic awareness of the L3 learners could be a plausible explanation for the better performance of the second group. Contact Information of Corresponding author: ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: LIT2012-0299
Short‐term anuran community dynamics in the Missouri River floodplain following an historic flood

Extreme ecological disturbances such as floods, wildfires, and droughts are difficult to study because they are rare and unpredictable. We had the opportunity to study the effect of an historic flood on an anuran community in the Missouri River floodplain. We used occupancy estimation to estimate the proportion of wetlands occupied by calling adult male anurans. Three species—the plains leopard frog (Lithobates blairi), Woodhouse's toad (Anaxyrus woodhousii), and Blanchard's cricket frog (Acris blanchardi)—had only minor changes in occupancy rate two years after the flood. Colonization rates for these species were positively associated with wetlands that were shallower near the shore and they did not appear to be affected by reduced vegetation. Three other species or species complexes—the northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens), the gray treefrog complex (Hyla versicolor and Hyla chrysocelis), and the boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris maculata)—had greatly reduced occupancy rates two years after the flood. Colonization rates for these species were relatively low, while they had high extinction rates. Colonization rates for these species were not associated with any habitat characteristic we measured. Future flood events will likely continue to make northern leopard frogs, gray treefrogs, and boreal chorus frogs a less important part of the ecological community. While some species may fare well under extreme climate events, such as this flood, that are forecast under climate change scenarios, many species will struggle.
Metabolic enzymes in seasonally acclimatized and cold acclimated rufous-collared sparrow inhabiting a Chilean Mediterranean environment

Due to the higher energy requirements of birds during winter, it is predicted that the activities of metabolic enzymes (e.g., citrate synthase, CS and cytochrome C oxidase, COX) should increase in tandem with increases in rates of energy expendi- ture (e.g., basal metabolic rate, BMR). However, there is mixed support for the hypothesis of enzymatic acclimatization. Fur- thermore, there is little information about the effect of ambient temperature on energetics and tissue enzyme activity levels in passerines inhabiting seasonal Mediterranean environments. In this study we evaluated the interplay between BMR and enzyme activities of freshly caught individuals of the passerine Zonotrichia capensis in winter and summer in a Mediterranean environ- ment from central Chile, and also in warm (30°C) and cold (15°C) lab-acclimated birds. The results revealed a lack of seasonal variation in BMR, thermal conductance and in the activity of CS and COX. However, we found higher BMR and lower thermal conductance in cold-acclimated than in warm-acclimated birds. Also, total CS activity was higher in the flight muscles of cold-acclimated than in warm-acclimated birds. We found also a significant correlation between BMR and total CS activity in pectoral muscle. Although some authors have suggested that BMR mainly depends on the metabolic intensity and mass of internal organs, our results revealed that skeletal muscles such as the flight muscles may also affect BMR. Finally, differences in the accli- mation and acclimatization responses in Rufous-collared sparrows suggest that large-scale oscillations in the physical environment might maintain the capacity for flexibility in thermogenic traits through generations (Current Zoology 60 (3): 338-350, 2014).
DCSO: Dynamic Combination of Detector Scores for Outlier Ensembles

Selecting and combining the outlier scores of different base detectors used within outlier ensembles can be quite challenging in the absence of ground truth. In this paper, an unsupervised outlier detector combination framework called DCSO is proposed, demonstrated and assessed for the dynamic selection of most competent base detectors, with an emphasis on data locality. The proposed DCSO framework first defines the local region of a test instance by its k nearest neighbors and then identifies the top-performing base detectors within the local region. Experimental results on ten benchmark datasets demonstrate that DCSO provides consistent performance improvement over existing static combination approaches in mining outlying objects. To facilitate interpretability and reliability of the proposed method, DCSO is analyzed using both theoretical frameworks and visualization techniques, and presented alongside empirical parameter setting instructions that can be used to improve the overall performance.
Impact of Molecular Methods in the Diagnosis of Lymphomas

In this issue of Topical Update, Dr. Cheuk takes us through the evolution of applications of molecular methods in pathology using examples in haematolymphoid pathology. He also explains the new technique of microarray with its various abilities in understanding diseases and application on individual patients. This article illustrates how advances in basic sciences and informatics technology can be harnessed and applied in the diagnostic laboratories. We welcome any feedback or suggestions. Please direct them to Dr. Polly Lam (e-mail: lamwy@ha.org.hk) of Education Committee, the Hong Kong College of Pathologists. Opinions expressed are those of the authors or named individuals, and are not necessarily those of the Hong Kong College of Pathologists.
Pairwise- and marginal-likelihood estimation for the mixed Rasch model with binary data

A marginal–pairwise-likelihood estimation approach is examined in the mixed Rasch model with the binary response and logit link. This method belonging to the broad class of composite likelihood provides estimators with desirable asymptotic properties such as consistency and asymptotic normality. We study the performance of the proposed methodology when the random effect distribution is misspecified. A simulation study was conducted to compare this approach with the maximum marginal likelihood. The different results are also illustrated with an analysis of the real data set from a quality-of-life study.
Activist Hedge Funds: Evidence from the Recent Financial Crisis

This study extends the empirical evidence of hedge fund activism impact on target firm performance. We investigate whether activism strategies as well as their effects have changed following the recent financial crisis of 2007-2008. The analysis is based on the U.S. data covering 112 hedge funds, 551 target firms, from 2000 to 2013. We find that returns to activism accrue to approximately 5% during the (-20, +5) event window. Activism-related categories that generate significant and positive abnormal returns include capital structure, business strategy, and general undervaluation. Since the financial crisis, business-related activism generates the highest returns, followed by activism in financially depressed firms. We also find significant cross-sectional abnormal returns, both before and during the crisis, for hedge funds who do not pre-specify an objective. One year post-activism performance suggests that target firms experience substantial improvement in value, profit margin, and investment.
Learning the Forward and Inverse Kinematics of a 6-DOF Concentric Tube Continuum Robot in SE(3)

Recent physics-based models of concentric tube continuum robots are able to describe pose of the tip, given the preformed translation and rotation in joint space of the robot. However, such model-based approaches are associated with high computational load and highly non-linear modeling effort. A data-driven approach for computationally fast estimation of the kinematics without requiring the knowledge and the uncertainties in the physics-based model would be an asset. This paper introduces an approach to solve the forward kinematics as well as the inverse kinematics of concentric tube continuum robots with 6-DOF in three dimensional space SE(3). Two artificial neural networks with ReLU (rectified linear unit) activation functions are designed in order to approximate the respective kinematics. Measured data from a robot prototype are used in order to train, validate, and test the proposed approach. We introduce a representation of the rotatory joints by trigonometric functions that improves the accuracy of the approximation. The results with experimental measurements show higher accuracy for the forward kinematics compared to the state of the art mechanics modeling. The tip error is less then 2.3 mm w.r. t. position (1 % of total robot length) and 1.1○ w.r. t. orientation. The single artificial neural network for the inverse kinematics approximation achieves a translation and rotation actuator error of 4.0 mm and 8.3 0, respectively.