Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mycobacterial Infections Associated with TNF-α Inhibitors

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is a proinflammatory cytokine involved in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases. TNF also plays a critical role in host responses to intracellular pathogens and in granuloma formation and maintenance. The TNF-α inhibitors are a class of highly effective, targeted anti-inflammatory medications in widespread use for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. However, evidence has accumulated since the introduction of the TNF-antagonists that they are also associated with an increased risk of granulomatous infections, including tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infections. This chapter will review the literature on the role of TNF in response to mycobacterial infection, the various TNF-α inhibitors and their biological differences, and the indications for TNF-α inhibitors in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. We will also review the literature to date on the risk of tuberculosis associated with rheumatoid arthritis and TNFantagonist therapy. We will discuss the clinical evaluation and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection in the setting of proposed TNF-antagonist therapy, as well as the presentation and treatment of active tuberculosis. We will review the current literature on the risk of NTM disease associated with TNF-α inhibitor therapy, as well as the presentation, treatment, and prevention of NTM disease in this setting.
Firm Age and the Demand for Marginal Employment in Germany

Many empirical studies point towards an increase in non-standard employment. The reasons for this rise are mainly seen in the increasing economic internationalization or the rapid technological changes which raise the need for both flexibility and cost-cuts on behalf of firms. Yet, only little is known about the role of firm age in this context. Based on a large representative data set of establishments in Germany, this paper analyzes how establishment age impacts on the demand for marginal employment, the main form of non-standard employment in Germany. We find an inverted U-shape relationship between firms’ share of marginal employment and their age indicating that the demand for marginal employment peaks during the middle ages of a firm, which can be explained by both the liabilities of newness and aging. Distinguishing between the extensive and intensive margin by using hurdle models, we find again an inverted U-shape relationship between the probability of having marginally employed workers and establishment age, which coincides with our previous results. However, a further kind of establishment seems to exist in that among those which have at least one marginal employee, young firms have most of them. Taking into account effects of the sample composition, we find that, although the very old establishments in our sample exhibit an equally low share of marginal employment as young establishments, the effect of young firms on the grand share of marginal employment is larger because of their larger number.
Sustainable Technique for Selected Live Feed Culture

Sustainability in the aquaculture industry depends on several factors including the minimum production cost in comparison to the yield, unexpected environmental conditions which affect the farm and practices in the farm management itself. These factors are inter-connected and always incur a synergistic effect on the issue of sustainability. Live feeds as the fundamental needs for larval rearing and fry production have to be prioritised for sustainable farming activity. Dependency on imported sources of live feeds or inert feed will increase the production cost. Thus, the continued activity of screening, stocking and maintaining some local species as an option for live feed production is economically necessary. Live feeds are an important basic diet for newly-hatched fish and shrimp larvae as they still have an incomplete digestive system and are lacking in enzymes. They are still at a very young stage to generate their own required nutrients or convert them from any pre-cursor obtained from a diet. They need a ready-made diet with readily available nutrient to be absorbed through their digestive system. There have been many species suggested or tested for their potential as live feed. All test animals were mostly zooplankton in nature and must meet the requirement as live feed. They must be in a compatible size with the mouth size or gape of the larvae predator, or they cannot be swallowed. Since larvae are still weak to track down the food, the wave created by the prey will be a great help, thus ‘active’ swimming prey is preferred. The most important role of a prey is the ability to supply energy and other nutrients which are essential for the larval survival and growth. Live feeds, as the starter diet in larval rearing and fry production must be continuous in supply. Good, nutritious and compatible-size prey must be able to reproduce fast to meet the requirement and adaptable to a simple mass-production technique.
Scheduling and provision of secondary frequency reserves by aggregations of commercial buildings

Summary form only given. Due to thermal inertia, commercial buildings can provide power system frequency reserves with the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. In this paper, we follow up on a recently proposed framework for scheduling and provision of secondary frequency control (SFC) reserves within a building aggregation. We extend this framework with a new reserve scheduling formulation, which is based on a combination of robust and stochastic optimization, to allocate reserve capacities among buildings. The HVAC system setpoints are determined by a model predictive controller, the frequency signal is tracked by heat pump (HP) control with virtually no occupant discomfort, and the tracking quality is evaluated using a dynamic HP model. In simulations, we consider an aggregation of typical Swiss office buildings and compare the robust and stochastic reserve scheduling approaches in terms of performance and complexity. Using the framework, we demonstrate the importance of energy-constrained SFC signals and asymmetric reserves with hourly resolution, and we investigate the sensitivity of reserves on the comfort zone's width, capacity payments, and HP constraints. Finally, we show that commercial buildings can track SFC signals well and substitute generators in SFC.
Integration of soil, crop and weed management in low-external-input farming systems

Summary Greater adoption and refinement of low-external-input (LEI) farming systems have been proposed as ways to ameliorate economic, environmental and health problems associated with conventional farming systems. Organic soil amendments and crop diversification are basic components of LEI systems. Weed scientists can improve the use of these practices for weed management by improving knowledge of four relevant ecological mechanisms. First, multispecies crop rotations, intercrops and cover crops may reduce opportunities for weed growth and regeneration through resource competition and niche disruption. Secondly, weed species appear to be more susceptible to phytotoxic eAects of crop residues and other organic soil amendments than crop species, possibly because of diAerences in seed mass. Thirdly, delayed patterns of N availability in LEI systems may favour large-seeded crops over small-seeded weeds. Finally, additions of organic materials can change the incidence and severity of soil-borne diseases aAecting weeds and crops. Our research on LEI sweetcorn and potato production systems in central and northern Maine (USA) suggests that these mechanisms can reduce weed density and growth while maintaining crop yields. Low-external-input farming systems will advance most quickly through the application of interdisciplinary research focused on these and other ecological mechanisms.
Metallicity measurements of gamma-ray burst and supernova explosion sites: lessons from H ii regions in M31

We examine how the small-scale ($<$\,kpc) variation of metallicity within a galaxy, which is found in nearby galaxies, affect the observational estimates of metallicity in the explosion sites of transient events such as core-collapse supernovae (CC SNe) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Assuming the same luminosity, metallicity, and spatial distributions of \ion{H}{ii}\ regions (hereafter HIIRs) as observed in M31, we compute the apparent metallicities that we would obtain when the spectrum of a target region is blended with those of surrounding HIIRs within the length scale of typical spatial resolution. When the spatial resolution of spectroscopy is $\lesssim$ 0.5\,kpc, which is typical for the existing studies of CC SN sites, we find that the apparent metallicities reflect the metallicities of target regions, but with significant systematic uncertainties in some cases. When the spatial resolution is $\gtrsim$ 1.0 kpc, regardless of the target regions (which has a wide range of metallicity that spans $\sim$ 0.6 dex for the M31 HIIRs), we always obtain the apparent metallicities similar to the average metallicity of the M31 HIIRs. Given that the apparent metallicities measured with $\gtrsim$\,kpc scale resolution do not necessarily reflect the immediate environment of the stellar explosions, the current observational estimates of high metallicities for some of the long GRB host galaxies do {\em not} rule out the hypothesis that the long GRBs are exclusively born in a low-metallicity environment.
Mechanisms of Cortical Oscillations Waxing and waning , Resonance and Internetwork interactions

Cortical electrical oscillations critically depend on connectivity and synaptic strength between neurons, but intrinsic dynamics of cellular membrane potentials may also contribute. The amplitude of subthreshold fluctuating potential dynamics can depend on frequency, which also determines the neuron’s resonance properties. One of the voltage-dependent ionic currents responsible for resonance behaviour of membrane potential responses is the hyperpolarization-activated current, Ih. How h-currents modify firing activity during network oscillations is still poorly understood. We addressed this question using a computational model of oscillating networks with excitatory and inhibitory neurons, driven by constant depolarizing currents and innervated by external action potentials. We show that when Ih is present in excitatory cells, the resulting shortening of the hyperpolarized states by Ih activation accelerates depolarisations to firing threshold, increases the firing probability of the cell, and disrupts the synchronytiming between pairs of neurons while leading to loss of rhythmicity in the activity of the network. We find that expression of Ih in excitatory neurons alters the regularity and fluctuations of oscillation amplitude and duration. Thus, effects of Ih are not restricted to subthreshold membrane potential dynamics, but significantly determine synchronous activity in neuronal networks.
Factors related to EDP personnel commitment to the organization

This paper investigates the relationship between organizational commitment and five dimensions of job satisfaction, as well as the relationship between commitment and several personal variables, for a sample of EDP personnel. Results show a strong positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment for all five satisfaction dimensions under investigation. Several personal variables, position level, years working in the computer field, and income, also were significantly and positively related to organizational commitment.
Performance of BICM-ID with Signal Space Diversity

This paper presents a performance analysis of bit-interleaved coded-modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) and complex N-dimensional signal space diversity in fading channels to investigate its performance limitation, the choice of the rotation matrix and the design of a low-complexity receiver. The tight error bound is first analytically derived. Based on the design criterion obtained from the error bound, the optimality of the rotation matrix is then established. It is shown that using the class of the optimal rotation matrices, the performance of BICM-ID systems over a Rayleigh fading channel approaches that of the BICM-ID systems over an AWGN channel when the dimension of the signal constellation increases. Furthermore, by exploiting the sigma mappings for M-QAM constellations, a very simple suboptimal, but yet effective iterative receiver structure suitable for signal constellations with large dimensions is proposed. Simulation results in various cases and conditions indicate that the proposed receiver can achieve the analytical performance bounds with low complexity.
A Study of Timing in Two Louis Armstrong Solos

For years musicians and critics have made statements about the nature of swing in jazz in general and the playing of Louis Armstrong in particular, based on the evidence of their ears. In order to quantify these issues, precise timing analyses of two mid-tempo solos by Louis Armstrong were analyzed, focusing in particular on stop-time sections. Two key elements of swing were analyzed; placement of the downbeats, and the swing or triplet ratio. For these solos, Armstrong played fairly close to on the beat, with a swing ratio of about 1.6 to 1.
Evaluation of water balance components in the Elbe river catchment simulated by the regional climate model CCLM

For investigations of feedbacks between the hydrological cycle and the climate system, we assess the performance of the regional climate model CCLM in reconstructing the water balance of the Elbe river catchment. To this end long-term mean precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff are evaluated. Extremes (90th percentile) are also considered in the case of precipitation. The data are provided by a CCLM presentday simulation for Europe that was driven by large-scale global reanalyses. The quality of the model results is analyzed with respect to suitable reference data for the period 1970 to 1999. The principal components of the hydrological cycle and their seasonal variations were captured well. Basin accumulated, averaged daily precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff differ by no more than 10 % from observations. Larger deviations occur mainly in summer, and at specific areas.
Pilot precoding and combining in multiuser MIMO networks

Although the benefits of precoding and combining of data streams are widely recognized, the potential of precoding the pilot signals at the user equipment (UE) side and combining them at the base station (BS) side has not received adequate attention. This paper considers a multiuser multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) cellular system in which the BS acquires channel state information (CSI) by means of uplink pilot signals and proposes pilot precoding and combining to improve the CSI quality. We first evaluate the channel estimation performance of a baseline scenario in which CSI is acquired with no pilot precoding. Next, we characterize the channel estimation error when the pilot signals are precoded by spatial filters that asymptotically maximize the channel estimation quality. Finally, we study the case when, in addition to pilot precoding at the UE side, the BS utilizes the second order statistics of the channels to further improve the channel estimation performance. The analytical and numerical results show that, specially in scenarios with large number of antennas at the BS and UEs, pilot precoding and combining has a great potential to improve the channel estimation quality in MU-MIMO systems.
Considerations on the measurement of the stability of oscillators with frequency counters

The most common time-domain measure of frequency stability, the Allan variance, is typically estimated using a frequency counter. Close examination of the operation of modern high-resolution frequency counters shows that they do not make measurements in the way commonly assumed. The consequence is that the results typically reported by many laboratories using these counters are not, in fact, the Allan variance, but a distorted representation. We elucidate the action of these counters by consideration of their operation in the Fourier domain, and demonstrate that the difference between the actual Allan variance and that delivered by these counters can be very significant for some types of oscillators. We also discuss ways to avoid, or account for, a distorted estimation of Allan variance
The matching of AGFL subcategories to Russian lexical and grammatical groupings

The problem of enumerating a set of grammatical categories and arranging their taxonomy is a classical task for any linguistic description, the formal grammar representation being the most strict. It is vital for the formal description to characterise the scope of its relevance to language expressions: valid grounds for grammar organisation from one side, and the number of grammatically acceptable language expressions from the other side. Concerning the latter, it is well known that a lot of expressions in such languages as Russian with its free word order are constructed syntactically according to excessively loose rules. The common attitude to such situation in grammatical theory is to distinguish two layers: syntactic structure and sentence functional perspective one, each being described by its own grammar component. The weak point of such position is that there is a huge intersection between devices in both. So the only possible way is to choose the paradigmatically fixed constructions for grammar incorporation, but this may have subjective colouring. The conventional lexical groupings such as animate nouns, action verbs, act verbs are considered concerning AGFL syntactic categories: verb personality/ impersonality and transitivity/ intransitivity, substantive cases. The grammatical description of a language, especially syntactic one, may vary greatly in that what set of language features are described and for what objectives. Thus a number of descriptions are possible at once: constructive, communicative, semantic, logical, functional, expressive and so on. We choose, however, one or several perspectives in accordance with our main goal. The problem of defining the main syntactic item – simple sentence – is rather typical. In the AG-80 [5] at the beginning of the sentence section the objective is postulated to describe all grammatical units constructed as relatively independent of linguistic and extralinguistic context, well-formed grammatically, predestined to communicate messages. These special items are called sentences, they are opposed to the wide stock of any possible linear speech fragments executing the communicative function in some situation. Trying to describe what distinguishes sentences and fragments of speech, AG-80 comes to the conclusion that the former are relatively context-free while the latter are context-dependent; the former, therefore, are well-formed grammatically, that is, constructed after some limited in number valid grammatical patterns. The following material, however, shows us that sometimes contextually dependent sentences may be considered grammatically well-formed. For example, in the case of the elliptic realisations, which are conceivable in the context.
Person memory : associative networks, categories, and schemas

A model of impression memory was utilized which partitioned impression information into category-consistent (schema) and category-inconsistent information (peripheral). The memory for consistent and inconsistent information was investigated in a series of experiments. Two information-processing models, the Schema-Pointer-Plus-Tag (SP+T) and the Associative-Network-Plus-Elaborative-Processing (AN+EP) models were tested for their ability to account for impression memory data. Experiment 1 tested subjects' recognition memory for an impression. Subjects' hit rates for schema and peripheral impression traits were equal both at immediate and delayed test intervals. False alarm rates were greater for schema nonimpression distractors than for peripheral dis tractors at each retention interval. Reaction times paralleled recognition performance. Times to make schema and peripheral hits were equal, while correct rejections of schema nonimpression distractors took longer than peripheral distractors. Experiment 2 tested subjects' recall memory for an impression. Subjects recalled equal proportions of schema and peripheral impression traits at immediate test, but recalled a greater proportion of schema traits after a delay. Recall intrusions at immediate test were equal for schema and peripheral nonimpression traits, but there were more schema than peripheral intrusions at the delayed test. Experiment 3 also tested subjects' recall memory for an impression, though in this experiment subjects were required to furnish impression traits themselves, rather than selecting them from a checklist as in Experiments 1 and 2. The pattern of results was similar to that of Experiment 2, except that there was a greater proportion of schema impression traits recalled at both retention intervals, rather than only at the delayed test. Experiment 4 found that recalled impression traits were no more or less associated or linked with other impression traits than nonrecalled impression traits. Additionally, recalled traits were no more likely to be linked with other recalled traits than nonrecalled traits, and no more likely to be the source of links to other impression traits. Experiment 5 found a similar pattern of results to Experiment 4 with respect to not only