Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Urban socio-technical innovations with and by citizens

This article investigates bottom-up socio-technical innovations with and by citizen developers in an Urban living Lab, which is considered a platform for grassroots service creation in a city. In specific, the Living Lab framework is discussed as an instrumental platform within a Smart City, facilitating the governance of bottom-up innovation ‘by’ and ‘with’ citizens. The analysis is based on an in-depth case-study analysis on the use of Open Data and the ‘hackathon’ format within the Ghent Living Lab (Ghent, Belgium). The analytical framework focusses on the innovation ecosystem, urban transitions, user innovation, civic engagement, public and economic value creation and sustainability issues. Our findings explore the nature of the interactions and the outcomes of the projects. While hackathon events within an Urban Living Lab have already proven some of their potential, several opportunities remain. Especially the lack of involvement of private partners and a rather low focus on potential business models for the projects forecloses long-term sustainability and economic value creation. Central governance, focus on follow-up processes and a rigid innovation development framework are needed to overcome these challenges.
Distribution of Integrons in Different Serotype Isolates of Shigella

Objective To investigate the characteristic of integrons and the relationship between integrons and antimicrobial resistance in Shigella spp. Methods Ninety Shigella strains (83 S. flexneri and 7 S. sonnei) were isolated from the stools of patients in China. Susceptibility to 8 antimicrobials was tested for all isolated strains. PCR, RFLP and sequencing analysis of integrons were applied to all of them. Results High prevalence of multi‐drug resistance (95.6%) was identified. Of the isolates 79 (87.8%) carried integrase genes of class 1 integron (3.3%), class 2 integron (10.0%) or both (74.4%). No intI3 was detected in the tested isolates. The prevalence of intI2 was significantly higher in isolates with multi‐drug resistance to at least 3 antibiotics than that in isolates with resistance to 2 and less antibiotics (P<0.05). Gene cassettes dfrA17‐aadA5, dfrA12‐orfF‐aadA2 of class 1 integron and dfrA1‐sat1‐aadA1 of class 2 integron were identified. Conclusion The class 2 integron may play a role in the emergence of multi‐drug resistance in Shigella spp.
Heterogeneous Beliefs and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We consider an exchange economy with two groups of investors with identical CRRA utility function but heterogeneous beliefs. The stochastic central tendency of the dividend drift is not observable. Rational investors learn about it from the dividend drift and a signal, while irrational investors base their inference only on the dividend drift observations. The model shows that heterogeneous beliefs increase the bond yields and have strong impact on yield volatilities and correlations. The effect of the level of difference in beliefs is stronger for short term yields, while the effect of consumption share fluctuations between investor groups is stronger for medium and long term yields.
The merging cluster of galaxies Abell 3376: an optical view

Context. The cluster Abell 3376 is a merging cluster of galaxies at redshift z = 0.046. It is famous mostly for its giant radio arcs, and shows an elongated and highly substructured X-ray emission, but has not been analysed in detail at optical wavelengths. Aims. To improve our understanding of the effects of the major cluster merger on the galaxy properties, we analyse the galaxy luminosity function (GLF) in the B band in several regions as well as the dynamical properties of the substructures. Methods. We have obtained wide field images of Abell 3376 in the B band and derive the GLF applying a statistical subtraction of the background in three regions: a circle of 0.29 deg radius (1.5 Mpc) encompassing the whole cluster, and two circles centred on each of the two brightest galaxies (BCG2, northeast, coinciding with the peak of X-ray emission, and BCG1, southwest) of radii 0.15 deg (0.775 Mpc). We also compute the GLF in the zone around BCG1, which is covered by the WINGS survey in the B and V bands, by selecting cluster members in the red sequence in a (B - V) versus V diagram. Finally, we discuss the dynamical characteristics of the cluster implied by an analysis based on the Serna & Gerbal (SG) method. Results. The GLFs are not well fit by a single Schechter function, but satisfactory fits are obtained by summing a Gaussian and a Schechter function. The GLF computed by selecting galaxies in the red sequence in the region surrounding BCG1 can also be fit by a Gaussian plus a Schechter function. An excess of galaxies in the brightest bins is detected in the BCG1 and BCG2 regions. The dynamical analysis based on the SG method shows the existence of a main structure of 82 galaxies that can be subdivided into two main substructures of 25 and six galaxies. A smaller structure of six galaxies is also detected. Conclusions. The B band GLFs of Abell 3376 are clearly perturbed, as already found in other merging clusters. The dynamical properties are consistent with the existence of several substructures, which is in agreement with a previously published X-ray analysis.
PBDEs Altered Gut Microbiome and Bile Acid Homeostasis in Male C57BL/6 Mice

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are persistent environmental contaminants with well characterized toxicities in host organs. Gut microbiome is increasingly recognized as an important regulator of xenobiotic biotransformation; however, little is known about its interactions with PBDEs. Primary bile acids (BAs) are metabolized by the gut microbiome into more lipophilic secondary BAs that may be absorbed and interact with certain host receptors. The goal of this study was to test our hypothesis that PBDEs cause dysbiosis and aberrant regulation of BA homeostasis. Nine-week-old male C57BL/6 conventional (CV) and germ-free (GF) mice were orally gavaged with corn oil (10 mg/kg), BDE-47 (100 μmol/kg), or BDE-99 (100 μmol/kg) once daily for 4 days (n = 3–5/group). Gut microbiome was characterized using 16S rRNA sequencing of the large intestinal content in CV mice. Both BDE-47 and BDE-99 profoundly decreased the alpha diversity of gut microbiome and differentially regulated 45 bacterial species. Both PBDE congeners increased Akkermansia muciniphila and Erysipelotrichaceae Allobaculum spp. , which have been reported to have anti-inflammatory and antiobesity functions. Targeted metabolomics of 56 BAs was conducted in serum, liver, and small and large intestinal content of CV and GF mice. BDE-99 increased many unconjugated BAs in multiple biocompartments in a gut microbiota-dependent manner. This correlated with an increase in microbial 7α-dehydroxylation enzymes for secondary BA synthesis and increased expression of host intestinal transporters for BA absorption. Targeted proteomics showed that PBDEs downregulated host BA-synthesizing enzymes and transporters in livers of CV but not GF mice. In conclusion, there is a novel interaction between PBDEs and the endogenous BA-signaling through modification of the “gut-liver axis”.
Dynamical Seasonal Prediction of Tropical Cyclone Activity: Robust Assessment of Prediction Skill and Predictability

Improving the seasonal prediction of tropical cyclone (TC) activity demands a robust analysis of the prediction skill and the inherent predictability of TC activity. Using the resampling technique, this study analyzes a state‐of‐the‐art prediction system and offers a robust assessment of when and where the seasonal prediction of TC activity is skillful. We found that uncertainties of initial conditions affect the predictions and the skill evaluation significantly. The sensitivity of predictions to initial conditions also suggests that landfall and high‐latitude activity are inherently harder to predict. The lower predictability is consistent with the relatively low prediction skill in these regions. Additionally, the lower predictability is largely related to the atmospheric environment rather than the sea surface temperature, at least for the predictions initialized shortly before the hurricane season. These findings suggest the potential for improving the seasonal TC prediction and will help the development of the next‐generation prediction systems.
The Value of Improved Water Quality to Chesapeake Bay Boaters

As part of an economic survey of Maryland registered boat owners, an open ended contingent valuation question was posed regarding willingness to pay for an improvement in water quality in Chesapeake Bay. The boaters ranked their perception of water quality on a scale of one to five, and the payment was for an improvement of one unit. Boaters also indicated the type of concern poor water quality raised, ranging from no concern to concern about long term effects of exposure to toxic chemicals. Median willingness to pay for a one step improvement in water quality was $17.50 per year and the mean was $63, with 38% expressing a zero willingness-to-pay. A tobit model was estimated to determine what factors influenced willingness to pay amounts. Sailboaters and boats that were kept in the water rather than trailered were willing to pay more for water quality improvements. Additionally, the lower the individual ranked water quality and the greater concern for the health effects from water quality, the more the willingness to pay for a water quality improvement. In aggregate, Chesapeake Bay boaters in Maryland were willing to pay approximately $7.3 million per year to achieve the stated water quality improvement. The present value of this improvement, at a 5% discount rate is a $146 million.
Improving the mesoscopic modeling of DNA denaturation dynamics

Although previously developed mesoscopic DNA models have successfully reproduced thermodynamic denaturation data, recent studies show that these overestimate the rate of denaturation by orders of magnitude. Using adapted Peyrard–Bishop–Dauxois (PBD) models, we have calculated the denaturation rates of several DNA hairpins and made comparison with experimental data. We show that the addition of a barrier at the onsite potential of the PBD model gives a more accurate description of the unzipping dynamics of short DNA sequences. The new models provide a refined theoretical insight on the dynamical mechanisms of unzipping which can have implications for the understanding of transcription and replication processes. Still, this class of adapted PBD models seems to have a fundamental limitation which implies that it is not possible to get agreement with available experimental results on the dynamics of long DNA sequences and at the same time maintain the good agreement regarding its thermodynamics. The reason for this is that the denaturation rate of long DNA chains is not dramatically lowered by the additional barrier—as the base-pairs that open are more likely to remain open, facilitating the opening of the full DNA molecule. Some care has to be taken, since experimental techniques suitable to the study of denaturation rates of long sequences seem not to agree with other experimental data on short DNA sequences. Further research, both theoretical and experimental, is therefore needed to resolve these inconsistencies—which will be a starting point for new minimalistic models that are able to describe both thermodynamics and dynamics at a predictive level.
Driver identification using histogram and neural network from acceleration data

Sensor technology has continuously improved in term of size and cost. It encourages car companies to embed various types of sensors in their cars. The most common sensors that can be found are location sensor and acceleration sensor. The sensors generate a lot of useful data which could be applied for many future applications such as car tracking or emergency warning. One of the most interesting applications among others is analyzing the driver behavior. There are some previous works using this information to define types of drivers that are related to levels of accident risk. However, the driver behavior not only can separate the type of drivers but also can identify driving characteristic of an individual driver. The driver identification benefits a security application and it can eliminate the global car theft issue. Because the driver behavior cannot be repeated or copied like other anti-theft systems so this is an essential solution to stop increasing the number of stolen cars every year. In this paper, we propose a methodology to identify each driver and classify group of drivers using only accelerating behavior with machine learning technique. In order to identify an individual driver, the acceleration data have been transformed to a histogram in order to represent the accelerating behavior then we utilize a neural network model. We evaluate our methodology with data that have been collected from the acceleration sensors installed on 13 shuttle buses in our campus for more than 10 months. The results show the accuracy of the proposed methodology up to 88.3% for driver identification and up to 92% for driver classification.
Inter-decadal variability of phytoplankton biomass along the coastal West Antarctic Peninsula

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a climatically sensitive region where periods of strong warming have caused significant changes in the marine ecosystem and food-web processes. Tight coupling between phytoplankton and higher trophic levels implies that the coastal WAP is a bottom-up controlled system, where changes in phytoplankton dynamics may largely impact other food-web components. Here, we analysed the inter-decadal time series of year-round chlorophyll-a (Chl) collected from three stations along the coastal WAP: Carlini Station at Potter Cove (PC) on King George Island, Palmer Station on Anvers Island and Rothera Station on Adelaide Island. There were trends towards increased phytoplankton biomass at Carlini Station (PC) and Palmer Station, while phytoplankton biomass declined significantly at Rothera Station over the studied period. The impacts of two relevant climate modes to the WAP, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode, on winter and spring phytoplankton biomass appear to be different among the three sampling stations, suggesting an important role of local-scale forcing than large-scale forcing on phytoplankton dynamics at each station. The inter-annual variability of seasonal bloom progression derived from considering all three stations together captured ecologically meaningful, seasonally co-occurring bloom patterns which were primarily constrained by water-column stability strength. Our findings highlight a coupled link between phytoplankton and physical and climate dynamics along the coastal WAP, which may improve our understanding of overall WAP food-web responses to climate change and variability. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The marine system of the West Antarctic Peninsula: status and strategy for progress in a region of rapid change’.
Cluster-based content download and forwarding scheme for highway VANETs

The recent advances in wireless communication technology enable high-speed vehicles to download data from roadside units (RSUs). However, the data download volume of individual vehicle is rather restricted due to high mobility and limited transmission range of vehicles, bringing users poor performance. To address this issue, we exploit the combination of both clustering and carry-and-forward schemes in this paper. Our scheme coordinates the cooperation of multiple infrastructures, cluster formation in the same direction and data forwarding of reverse vehicles to facilitate the target vehicle to download large-size content in dark areas. The process of data dissemination and achievable data download volume are then derived and analyzed theoretically. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations to verify the performance of the proposed scheme. Results show significant benefits of the proposed scheme in terms of increasing data download volume and throughput.
Consumption of vegetables and their relation with ultra-processed foods in Brazil

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To characterize the household purchase and the individual consumption of vegetables in Brazil and to analyze their relation with the consumption of ultra-processed foods. METHODS We have used data on the purchase of food for household consumption and individual consumption from the 2008–2009 Brazilian Household Budget Survey. The Brazilian Household Budget Survey studied the purchase of food of 55,970 households and the food consumption of 34,003 individuals aged 10 years and over. The foods of interest in this study were vegetables (excluding roots and tubers) and ultra-processed foods. We have described the amount of vegetables (grams) purchased and consumed by all Brazilians and according to the quintiles of caloric intake of ultra-processed food. To this end, we have calculated the crude and predicted values obtained by regression models adjusted for sociodemographic variables. We have analyzed the most commonly purchased types of vegetables (% in the total amount) and, in relation to individual food consumption, the variety of vegetables consumed (absolute number), the participation (%) of the types of culinary preparations based on vegetables, and the time of consumption. RESULTS The adjusted mean household purchase of vegetables was 42.9 g/per capita/day. The adjusted mean individual consumption was 46.1 g. There was an inverse relation between household purchase and individual consumption of vegetables and ultra-processed foods. Ten types of vegetables account for more than 80% of the total amount usually purchased. The variety consumed was, on average, 1.08 type/per capita/day. Approximately 60% of the vegetables were eaten raw, and the amount consumed at lunch was twice that consumed at dinner; individuals with higher consumption of ultra-processed foods tended to consume even less vegetables at dinner. CONCLUSIONS The consumption of vegetables in Brazil is insufficient, and this is worse among individuals with higher consumption of ultra-processed foods. The most frequent habit was to consume raw vegetables at lunch and with limited variety.
Performance Analysis for Joint Illumination and Visible Light Communication Using Buck Driver

The visible light communication (VLC) can provide data transmission via the illumination light emitting diodes (LED). This paper introduces a new model to analyze the bit error rate (BER) of binary phase modulation in VLC for an arbitrary modulation depth and data duty cycle while taking into account both the Gaussian and signal-dependent shot noise. The impact of the driver design on the BER and its impact on ripple have not been considered in detail before. We compare two different LED driver schemes, namely directly adapting the driver control loop and binary shunting. We address data rate, BER, and power efficiency, for which we propose to use the extra energy per symbol above unmodulated light. We further introduce an analysis of the effect that (truncated) ripple interference has in the (matched or other) filter of the receiver. Ripple causes a harmful interference in VLC, and thus a BER expression is derived to include its effect. Two approximations are proposed to model the ripple interference, and their accuracies are compared by simulations. A low-pass filtering is proposed to alleviate the impact of ripple interference in VLC system.
Aging and lymphocyte changes by immunomodulatory therapies impact PML risk in multiple sclerosis patients

New potent immunomodulatory therapies for multiple sclerosis (MS) are associated with increased risk for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). It is unclear why a subset of treated patients develops PML, but patient age has emerged as an important risk factor. PML is caused by the JC virus and aging is associated with immune senescence, which increases susceptibility to infection. With the goal of improving PML risk stratification, we here describe the lymphocyte changes that occur with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) associated with high or moderate risk toward PML in MS patients, how these changes compare to immune aging, and which measures best correlate with risk. We reviewed studies examining how these therapies alter patient immune profiles, which revealed the induction of changes to lymphocyte number and/or function that resemble immunosenescence. Therefore, the immunosuppressive activity of these MS DMTs may be enhanced in the context of an immune system that is already exhibiting features of senescence.
Colour Vision Defect in Patients with High-Tension Glaucoma

Objective: To prove potential difference between black/white and yellow/blue stimulation when using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) examination in advanced stages of glaucoma disease. Methods and materials: The authors examined eight patients with various stages of high-tension glaucoma using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The group was compared to a group of eight healthy persons. Measurements were performed on the Philips Achieva 3T TX MR system using the BOLD method. Optical stimulation was provided by black/white and yellow/blue checkered patterns alternated with their negatives with a frequency of 2 Hz. Each measurement consisted of a sequence with five 30-second periods of active phase and five resting periods of the same length. The obtained data were processed by SPM8 software and GLM. The difference in the number of activated voxels when using the black/white or yellow/blue stimulations was tested by a t-test. Statistical maps of BW>YB and BW YB difference between the control group and the patients differed by the statistically significant 1606 voxels (p=0.039), no difference was found for BW<YB (p=0.18). Conclusion: The authors showed that in the advanced stages of the glaucoma disease functional changes occurred in the cerebral cortex. The colour vision defect in the patients with high tension glaucoma was more significant than the authors had expected.
Housing and Business Cycle

Housing investment is one of the component with more volatility inside the business cycle. This is a relationship showed but not demonstrated in Spanish economy. This paper try to deep in this way finding an econometric link explaining how housing construction is connected with the economic evolution in Spain as well as the lags existing between them. We use cointegration technique and error correction model to find time lags and give some economics explanations that show how Spanish housing market works and clear.