Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation-Based Analysis of Blockchain Architectures

In Software Architectures, architectural design decisions (ADDs) strongly influence the quality of the resulting software system. Wrong decisions lead to low quality systems and are only difficult to repair later on in the development process. As of today, only little is known about the impact of certain ADDs for the development of architectures for Blockchain-based systems. Thus, it is difficult to predict the outcome of certain ADDs when developing architectures for such systems. In the following, we propose a simulation-based approach for Blockchain architectures in which the impact of certain ADDs can be simulated. Therefore, we implemented a simulation environment for Blockchain architectures. Then, we evaluated it by executing a series of experiments. Based on the simulation environment we also propose a first version of an empirical model for Blockchain architectures.
Modified Activated Carbon and Bentonite Used to Adsorb Petroleum Hydrocarbons Emulsified in Aqueous Solution

Adsorption is one commonly used technique for treatment of petroleum contaminated water. This study aims to modify the adsorption surface of bentonite clay and activated carbon as organoclay and acid modified activated carbon, respectively. The modified and unmodified adsorbents were characterized by analysis of specific surface area, cation exchange capacity and point of zero charge (pH pzc ). Furthermore, adsorbents efficiencies were evaluated in the adsorption of petroleum hydrocarbon from oil-water emulsion. The synthetic wastewater samples were generated by emulsifying diesel oil in distilled water to investigate the effects of: (i) contact time, (ii) initial hydrocarbon concentration, (iii) pH, and (iv) adsorption isotherm. The modification of bentonite and activated carbon produced higher adsorption capacity than the unmodified adsorbents. In addition, the results showed that the adsorption of hydrocarbon depend strongly on pH and increased with increasing contact time and the equilibrium was reached after 3 and 4 hr with clays and activated carbons, respectively. The hydrocarbon removal efficiency achieved in the following order: organic bentonite > acid modified activated carbon > bentonite > activated carbon. The modified bentonite is an excellent alternative in the adsorption of hydrocarbon from oil-water emulsion removal with the highest adsorption capacity (48 mg/g at 2 g/L). Freundlich isotherm was best to describe the adsorption isotherm of hydrocarbons from oil-water emulsion by the all adsorbents.
Quantitative and qualitative determination of enrofloxacin residues in fish tissues

Presence of enrofloxacin residues in fish liver, kidney and muscle tissue was investigated after per os application of the drug. For the purpose of determination of enrofloxacin, the following analytical methods were used: microbiological method - plate pH 8 with Escherichia coli ATCC 11303 and HPLC method with fluorescence detection. After a 5-day oral treatment of carps, enrofloxacin residues in tissues were determined up to the 10th day after the end of the drug application. Enrofloxacin content determined by the HPLC method was lower than MRL; drug residues were determined in liver on the 6th day after treatment, in kidney on the 7th day and in muscle on the 9th day after treatment. The results of enrofloxacin residues determination by screening method on the medium with E. Coli ATCC 11303, pH 8 show that this procedure can be used for qualitative determination of enrofloxacin. The screening method allows determination of enrofloxacin in fish tissues below the MRL. Cyprofloxacin was not detected in fish liver, kidney and muscle tissue.
THE RELATION BETWEEN GAS AND DUST IN THE TAURUS MOLECULAR CLOUD

We report a study of the relation between dust and gas over a 100 deg2 area in the Taurus molecular cloud. We compare the H2 column density derived from dust extinction with the CO column density derived from the 12CO and 13CO J = 1 → 0 lines. We derive the visual extinction from reddening determined from 2MASS data. The comparison is done at an angular size of 200″ corresponding to 0.14 pc at a distance of 140 pc. We find that the relation between visual extinction AV and N(CO) is linear between AV ≃ 3 and 10 mag in the region associated with the B213-L1495 filament. In other regions, the linear relation is flattened for AV≳ 4 mag. We find that the presence of temperature gradients in the molecular gas affects the determination of N(CO) by ∼30%–70% with the largest difference occurring at large column densities. Adding a correction for this effect and accounting for the observed relation between the column density of CO and CO2 ices and AV, we find a linear relationship between the column of carbon monoxide and dust for observed visual extinctions up to the maximum value in our data ≃23 mag. We have used these data to study a sample of dense cores in Taurus. Fitting an analytical column density profile to these cores we derive an average volume density of about 1.4 × 104 cm−3 and a CO depletion age of about 4.2 × 105 yr. At visual extinctions smaller than ∼3 mag, we find that the CO fractional abundance is reduced by up to two orders of magnitude. The data show a large scatter suggesting a range of physical conditions of the gas. We estimate the H2 mass of Taurus to be about 1.5 × 104 M☉, independently derived from the AV and N(CO) maps. We derive a CO integrated intensity to H2 conversion factor of about 2.1 × 1020 cm−2 (K km s−1)−1, which applies even in the region where the [CO]/[H2] ratio is reduced by up to two orders of magnitude. The distribution of column densities in our Taurus maps resembles a log-normal function but shows tails at large and low column densities. The length scale at which the high column density tail starts to be noticeable is about 0.4 pc.
Study of the transgalactosylation activity of β-galactosidase from a new strain Kluyveromyces lactis 3

Beta-galactosidase (EC.3.2.1.23) is an important enzyme industrially used for the hydrolysis of lactose from milk and milk whey for several applications. Lately, the importance of this enzyme was enhanced by its galactosyltransferase activity, which is responsible for synthesis of transgalactosylated oligosaccharides that act as prebiotics with several beneficial effects on the consumers. s-Galactosidase production by Kluyveromyces lactis 3 was studied in shake flask culture. The highest enzymatic activity was obtained at 10-th hour of the fermentation. The optimum temperature for transferase activity was 50°C. When incubated with 30% lactose in 50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 6.0) the enzyme can synthesize up to 41% galacto-oligosaccharides (GalOS). β-Galactosidase from strain Kluyveromyces lactis 3 produces mainly oligosaccharides with degree of polymerization (DP) 6 at 40°C and with DP 3 at 50°C.
Effects of interval time between high-intensity intermittent aerobic exercise on strength performance: analysis in individuals with different training background

Panissa VLG, Julio UF, Pinto e Silva CM, Andreato LV, Hardt F, Franchini E. Effects of interval time between high-intensity intermittent aerobic exercise on strength performance: analysis in individuals with different training background. J. Hum. Sport Exerc. Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 815-825, 2012. This study aimed to analyze the effect of the time interval after high-intensity aerobic exercise on strength performance in individuals with different training backgrounds. Participants (n = 27) were divided into three groups according to their training backgrounds (aerobic, strength or concurrent) and submitted to eight sessions: (1) determination of the peak velocity (Vpeak) during the incremental treadmill test to exhaustion and familiarization of the evaluation of maximum strength (1RM) for the half-squat; (2) 1RM determination; and (3-8) randomly assigned experimental sessions consisting of either a strength exercise (SE), four sets at 80% of the 1RM, in which maximum number of repetitions (MNR) and the total volume performed (TV) was computed, and five sessions consisting of high-intensity intermittent aerobic exercise (100% of Vpeak - 1 min:1 min) totaling 5 km, followed by a SE with varying recovery intervals between activities (30, 60 minutes, 4, 8, and 24 hours). Comparisons for MNR and TV were made using two-way variance analysis (group and time interval) with repeated measures in the second factor. When significant differences were detected (P < 0.05), a Bonferroni and Dunnet post-hoc test were used. There was an effect of group for MNR, with the Aerobic Group performing a higher MNR compared to Strength Group (P = 0.002). Moreover, there was an effect of the time interval for MNR and TV, with reduction after 30 (P < 0.001 for both variables) and 60 minutes intervals (P = 0.035; P = 0.007, respectively) compared to the control condition. Thus, it is concluded that the drop in performance related to the SE activity occurred with the
Multiple tree-ring proxies (earlywood width, latewood width and δ13C) from a secular pendunculate oak (Quercus robur L

The aim of this study was to analyse the effects of climatic factors (i.e. monthly mean temperature and total precipitation) on radial growth (earlywood width, latewood width, and total ringwidth) and on latewood stable carbon isotope composition in a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) stand in northeastern Hungary. Earlywood widths showed the weakest common variance and lack of statistically significant relationship to monthly precipitation and temperature. Latewood width showed the strongest common chronological signal. Correlation analysis with the monthly climate series pointed out the strongest positive/negative correlation with June precipitation for latewood width/stable carbon isotope ratio. These parameters shared the strongest climatic response also for seasonal scale since the highest correlation coefficients, 0.49 and -0.62 for latewood width and stable carbon isotope ratio, respectively, were obtained for both with a 10-month precipitation total (from previous November to current August of the growing season). A combined parameter, derived as difference between latewood width and stable carbon isotope indices showed improved statistical relationship compared to the hydroclimatic calibration target both for local and regional spatial scales. Spatial correlation analysis indicated that the hydroclimatic signal encoded in these moisture sensitive tree-ring parameters from Bakta Forest is expected to be representative for the northeastern Carpathians and for the large part of the Great Hungarian Plain. In addition, the hydroclimatic signal of latewood width chronology was compared to three independent records. Results showed that neither the strength nor the rank of the similarity of the local hydroclimate signals were stable throughout the past two centuries. Future palaeo(hydro)climatological efforts targeting the Carpathian(-Balkan) region are recommended to track carefully the spatial domains for which a given, local, proxy-derived hydroclimate reconstruction might provide useful information.
Impact Evaluation of a Large-Scale Rural Sanitation Project in Indonesia

Lack of sanitation and poor hygiene behavior cause a tremendous disease burden among the poor. This paper evaluates the impact of the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing project in Indonesia, where about 11 percent of children have diarrhea in any two-week period and more than 33,000 children die each year from diarrhea. The evaluation utilizes a randomized controlled trial but is unusual in that the program was evaluated when implemented at scale across the province of rural East Java in a way that was designed to strengthen the enabling environment and so be sustainable. One hundred and sixty communities across eight rural districts participated, and approximately 2,100 households were interviewed before and after the intervention. The authors found that the project increased toilet construction by approximately 3 percentage points (a 31 percent increase in the rate of toilet construction). The changes were primarily among non-poor households that did not have access to sanitation at baseline. Open defecation among these households decreased by 6 percentage points (or 17 percent). Diarrhea prevalence was 30 percent lower in treatment communities than in control communities at endline (3.3 versus 4.6 percent). The analysis cannot rule out that the differences in drinking water and handwashing behavior drove the decline in diarrhea. Reductions in parasitic infestations and improvements in height and weight were found for the non-poor sample with no sanitation at baseline.
Retributive justice and social categorizations: the perceived fairness of punishment depends on intergroup status

In the current research, the authors investigate the influence of intergroup status and social categorizations on retributive justice judgments, that is, the extent to which observers perceive punishment as fair. Building on social identity theory and the model of subjective group dynamics, it is predicted that when the ingroup has higher status than the outgroup, people are relatively less concerned about punishment of an outgroup offender than when the ingroup has lower status than the outgroup. Two experiments revealed that participants are more punitive towards an ingroup than an outgroup offender when ingroup status is high but not when ingroup status is low. Furthermore, in correspondence with our line of reasoning, this finding emerged because participants were less punitive towards outgroup offenders when ingroup status is high than when ingroup status was low. It is concluded that the perceived fairness of punishment depends on the offender’s social categorization and intergroup status. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In human society, it is an almost inescapable fact of life that people occasionally are confronted with criminal offenders. Many encounters with offenders are from an observer perspective, either directly (e.g., when watching an offense being committed) or indirectly (e.g., through media such as newspapers, TV,andinternet). Observinganoffensetypicallyproducesstrongmoralreactions,whicharereflectedina subjective desire that the offender receives appropriate punishment. These punitive responses are studied in the social psychology of retributive justice, defined as lay people’s perceptions of what constitutes fair punishment (Hogan & Emler, 1981; Miller & Vidmar, 1981). People’s retributive justice judgments are sensitive to numerous social factors that are directly connected to the offense, such as mitigating circumstances, expressions of remorse, and attributions of blame (e.g., Bradfield & Aquino, 1999; Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson, 2002; Gold & Weiner, 2000). Besides these offense-specific factors, however, retributive justice judgments are also sensitive to social factors that are relatively less offense-specific. Notably, it has been suggested that social categorizations (i.e., whether or not the
Causes and Consequences of Earnings Manipulation: An Analysis of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions by the SEC*

This study investigates firms subject to accounting enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for alleged violations of GAAP. We investigate: (i) the extent to which the alleged earnings manipulations can be explained by extant earnings management hypotheses; (ii) the relation between the earnings manipulations and weaknesses in the firms' internal governance structures; and (iii) the capital market consequences experienced by the firms when the alleged earnings manipulations are made public. We find that an important motivation for earnings manipulation is the desire to attract external financing at low cost. We show that this motivation remains significant after controlling for contracting motives proposed in the academic literature. We also find that firms manipulating earnings are: (i) more likely to have boards of directors dominated by management; (ii) more likely to have a CEO who simultaneously serves as Chairman of the Board; (iii) more likely to have a CEO who is also the firm's founder; (iv) less likely to have an audit committee; and (v) less likely to have an outside blockholder. Finally, we document that firms manipulating earnings experience significant increases in their costs of capital when the manipulations are made public.
Most Reliable Time in Predicting Residual Kyphosis and Stability: Pediatric Spinal Tuberculosis

Study Design A case study. Purpose To assess the chronological changes of the disease-related kyphosis after chemotherapy alone, secondly to clarify the role of growth cartilage in the healed lesion on kyphosis change, and to define the accurate prediction time in assessing residual kyphosis. Overview of Literature None of the previous papers up to now dealt with the residual kyphosis, stability and remodeling processes of the affected segments. Methods One hundred and one spinal tuberculosis children with various stages of disease processes, age 2 to 15 years, were the subject materials, between 1971 to 2010. They were treated with two different chemotherapy formula: before 1975, 18 months of triple chemotherapy (isoniazid [INH], para-aminosalicylic acid, streptomycin); and since 1976, 12 months triple chemotherapy (INH, rifampicin, ethambutol, or pyrazinamide). The first assessment at post-chemotherapy one year and at the final discharge time from the follow-up (36 months at minimum and 20 years at maximum) were analyzed by utilizing the images effect of the remaining growth plate cartilage on chronological changes of kyphosis after initiation of chemotherapy. Results Complete disc destruction at the initial examination were observed in two (5.0%) out of 40 cervical spine, eight (26.7%) out of 30 dorsal spine, and six (19.4%) out of 31 lumbosacral spine. In all those cases residual kyphosis developed inevitably. In the remainders the discs were partially preserved or remained intact. Among 101 children kyphosis was maintained without change in 20 (19.8%), while kyphosis decreased in 14 children (13.7%), and increased in 67 children (66.3%) with non-recoverably damaged growth plate, respectively. Conclusions It could tentatively be possible to predict the deformity progress or non-progress and spontaneous correction at the time of initial treatment, but it predictive accuracy was low. Therefore, assessment of the trend of kyphotic change is recommended at the end of chemotherapy. In children with progressive curve change, the deformity assessment should be continued till the maturity
The Estimation of Owner Occupied Housing Indexes using the RPPI: The Case of Tokyo ∗

Dramatic increases and decreases in housing prices have had an enormous impact on the economies of various countries. If this kind of fluctuation in housing prices is linked to fluctuations in the consumer price index (CPI) and GDP, it may be reflected in fiscal and monetary policies. However, during the 1980s housing bubble in Japan and the later U.S. housing bubble, fluctuations in asset prices were not sufficiently reflected in price statistics and the like. The estimation of imputed rent for owneroccupied housing is said to be one of the most important factors for this. Using multiple previously proposed methods, this study estimated the imputed rent for owner-occupied housing in Tokyo and clarified the extent to which the estimated imputed rent diverged depending on the estimation method. Examining the results obtained showed that, during the bubble’s peak, there was an 11-fold discrepancy between the Equivalent Rent Approach currently employed in Japan and Equivalent Rent calculated with a hedonic approach using market rent. Meanwhile, with the User Cost Approach, during the bubble period when asset prices rose significantly, the values became negative with some estimation methods. Accordingly, we estimated Diewert’s OOH Index, which was proposed by Diewert and Nakamura (2009). When the Diewert’s OOH Index results estimated here were compared to Equivalent Rent Approach estimation results modified with the hedonic approach using market rent, it revealed that from 1990 to 2009, the Diewert’s OOH Index results were on average 1.7 times greater than the Equivalent Rent Approach results, with a maximum 3-fold difference. These findings suggest that even when the Equivalent Rent Approach is improved, significant discrepancies remain.
Asymmetry of an Equilibrated Gulf Stream–Type Jet over Topographic Slope

Abstract The symmetry properties of the Gulf Stream–type jet equilibrated over topographic slope are investigated in a series of idealized numerical experiments. A baroclinically unstable zonal jet equilibrates over a sloping bottom through the process of potential vorticity (PV) homogenization underneath the main thermocline by the bottom-intensified eddy activity associated with the stream meandering. Potential vorticity homogenization underneath the main thermocline leads to formation of recirculation gyres on both sides of the jet. The magnitude of the northern recirculation gyre, as measured by its westward transport, is larger than the magnitude of the southern recirculation gyre. This asymmetry in recirculations is shown to be the result of an asymmetric PV mixing underneath the thermocline produced by an asymmetric jet. In particular, the lateral shift of the velocity maximum near the surface relative to the velocity maximum at depth is shown to be responsible for the asymmetry. The results are re.
The Influence of Headphones on the Localization of External Loudspeaker Sources

When validating systems that use headphones to synthesize virtual sound sources, a direct comparison between virtual and real sources is sometimes needed. This paper considers the passive influence of headphones on the sound transmission and perception of external loudspeaker sources, for which physical measurements and behavioral data have been obtained. Physical measurements of the effect of a number of headphone models are given and analyzed using an auditory filter bank and binaural cue extraction. These highlighted that all of the headphones had an effect on localization cues and repositioning had a measurable effect. A localization test was undertaken using one of the best performing headphones from the measurements. It was found that the presence of the headphones caused a small increase in localization error and that the process of judging source location was different, highlighting a possible increase in the complexity of the localization task.
Annales Geophysicae Observations of magnetic flux ropes during magnetic reconnection in the Earth ’ s magnetotail

We present an investigation of magnetic flux ropes observed by the four Cluster spacecraft during periods of magnetic reconnection in the Earth’s magnetotail. Using a list of 21 Cluster encounters with the reconnection process in the period 2001–2006 identified in Borg et al.(2012), we present the distribution and characteristics of the flux ropes. We find 27 flux ropes embedded in the reconnection outflows of only 11 of the 21 reconnection encounters. Reconnection processes associated with no flux rope observations were not distinguishable from those where flux ropes were observed. Only 7 of the 27 flux ropes show evidence of enhanced energetic electron flux above 50 keV, and there was no clear signature of the flux rope in the thermal particle measurements. We found no clear correlation between the flux rope core field and the prevailing IMFBy direction.