Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Full exploitation of the SBAS-DInSAR algorithm in active seismogenetic scenarios

We perform a full exploitation of the Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR) algorithm referred to as Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) technique to investigate long term surface deformation occurring in extended, seismogenetic areas. To this aim we benefit of the SBAS technique capability to work in multi-frame and multi-sensor scenarios in order to improve the spatial and temporal coverage, as well as to employ new generation SAR sensors to increase the temporal sampling of the retrieved time series. In this work we apply the SBAS algorithm to analyze the temporal evolution of the detected displacements affecting three different seismogenetic scenarios by means of deformation time series retrieved through data acquired by European (ERS-1/2, ENVISAT) and Italian (COSMO-SkyMed) satellites. In particular, we focus on the analysis of the deformation patterns associated with the activity of the San Andreas (SAF, California, USA), the North Anatolian (NAF, Turkey) and the Paganica (PF, Abruzzo, Central Italy) Faults. The achieved results provide a clear idea of the surface deformation retrieval capability of the SBAS procedure.
Phase Maximum Ratio Combining Techniques to Reduce Error Probabilityand Increase Capacity Further

Phase maximum ratio combining Technique is introduce as an attractive solution for providing transmission diversity, to combat the adverse effects of fading and enhancing the capacity in various applications. Typically, MRC decoding requires accurate channel state information, which is traditionally estimated through sending periodic training symbols. In this paper a subspace approach is proposed based upon phase of channel fading coefficients for MRC system, in which multiple -input multiple-output (MIMO) channels are partially uncorrelated. Capacity of an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel with Rayleigh fading isstudiedunder an independently identically distributedfading assumption. Indeed, the variations of the phase of the channel are taken into account in this contribution. The received signal at each receive antenna is a linear superposition of the N Received signals perturbed by noise. Maximum likelihood decoding is achieved in a simple way through decoupling of the signals transmitted from different antennas rather than joint detection technique. Simulation results demonstrate BER improvements, up to 2 dB, with different modulation schemes.
Verification in the hierarchical development of reactive systems

In many approaches to the verification of reactive systems, operational semantics are used to model systems whereas specifications are expressed in temporal logics. Most approaches however fail to handle changes of the specification but assume, that the initial specification is indeed the intended one. Changing the specification thus necessitates to find an accordingly adapted system and to carry out the verification from scratch. During a systems life cycle however, changes of the requirements and resources necessitate repeated adaptations of specifications. We here propose a method that supports syntactic action refinement (in the process algebra TCSP and the Modal Mu-Calculus) and allows to automatically obtain (a priori) correct reactive systems by hierarchically adding details to the according specifications.
Generalized Association Rules for Connecting Biological Ontologies

The constantly increasing volume and complexity of available biological data requires new methods for managing and analyzing them. An important challenge is the integration of information from different sources in order to discover possible hidden relations between already known data. In this paper we introduce a data mining approach which relates biological ontologies by mining generalized association rules connecting their categories. To select only the most important rules, we propose a new interestingness measure especially well-suited for hierarchically organized rules. To demonstrate this approach, we applied it to the bioinformatics domain and, more specifically, to the analysis of data from Gene Ontology, Cell type Ontology and GPCR databases. In this way found association rules connecting two biological ontologies can provide the user with new knowledge about underlying biological processes. The preliminary results show that produced rules represent meaningful and quite reliable associations among the ontologies and help infer new knowledge.
Analysis of characteristics of three-phase AC electric arc furnace and the impact on the grid

This thesis introduced performance characteristic of the ac arc furnaces and its influence to the distribution network. Some typical VAr compensation devices, for example parallel connection capacitor, condenser, SVC, are introduced in this paper. As all the above, SVC was used to governance the ac arc furnace system. According to the fluctuation and flicker, low power factor and other characteristics of electric arc furnace, the software MATLAB is used to structure the model of arc furnace and simulate it. The papers analyze the principle of arc furnace and SVC, and construction SVC to governance electric arc furnace. Due to the low harmonics in output reactive current and fast response characteristics, SVC is suitable for balancing compensation of three phase unbalanced load. It is proved by the simulation results of the proposed compensation method that the SVC possesses the ability to carry out fast balancing compensation.
Gain-of-function mutations in complement factor B are associated with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome

Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is an important cause of acute renal failure in children. Mutations in one or more genes encoding complement-regulatory proteins have been reported in approximately one-third of nondiarrheal, atypical HUS (aHUS) patients, suggesting a defect in the protection of cell surfaces against complement activation in susceptible individuals. Here, we identified a subgroup of aHUS patients showing persistent activation of the complement alternative pathway and found within this subgroup two families with mutations in the gene encoding factor B (BF), a zymogen that carries the catalytic site of the complement alternative pathway convertase (C3bBb). Functional analyses demonstrated that F286L and K323E aHUS-associated BF mutations are gain-of-function mutations that result in enhanced formation of the C3bBb convertase or increased resistance to inactivation by complement regulators. These data expand our understanding of the genetic factors conferring predisposition to aHUS, demonstrate the critical role of the alternative complement pathway in the pathogenesis of aHUS, and provide support for the use of complement-inhibition therapies to prevent or reduce tissue damage caused by dysregulated complement activation.
Hematopoietic Repopulating Ability of Cord Blood CD34+ Cells in NOD/Shi‐scid Mice

Although umbilical cord blood (CB) is increasingly being used as an alternative to bone marrow (BM) as a source of transplantable hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), information on the hematopoietic repopulating ability of CB HSC is still limited. We recently established a xenotransplantation system in NOD/Shi‐scid mice to evaluate human stem cell activity. In the present study, we transplanted 5 to 10 × 104 CB CD34+ cells into six NOD/Shi‐scid mice treated with anti‐asialo GM1 antiserum to investigate the hematopoietic repopulating ability of CB. The BM of all recipients contained human CD45+ cells 10 to 12 weeks after the transplantation (43.8 ± 17.7%). Clonal culture of the recipient BM cells revealed the formation of various types of human hematopoietic colonies, including myelocytic, erythroid, megakaryocytic, and multilineage colonies, indicating that CB HSC can differentiate into hematopoietic progenitors of various lineages. However, the extent of the differentiation and maturation differed with each lineage. CD13+/CD14+/CD33+ myelocytic cells were mainly repopulated in BM and peripheral blood (PB). While CD41+ megakaryocytic cells and platelets were present, few glycophorin A+CD71+ or hemoglobin α‐containing erythroid cells were detected. CD19+ B cells were the most abundantly repopulated in NOD/Shi‐scid mice, but their maturational stage differed among the hematopoietic organs. Most of the BM CD19+ cells were immature B cells expressing CD10 but not surface immunoglobulin (Ig) M, whereas more mature CD19+CD10− surface IgM+ B cells were predominantly present in spleen and PB. CD3+ T cells were not detected even in the recipient thymus. The transplantation to the NOD/Shi‐scid mouse may provide a useful tool for evaluating the repopulating ability of transplantable human HSC.
Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator Is a Regulator of Monocyte Diapedesis through the Brain Endothelial Barrier1

Inflammatory cell trafficking into the brain complicates several neurological disorders including multiple sclerosis. Normally, reliable brain functioning is maintained and controlled by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which is essential to restrict the entry of potentially harmful molecules and cells from the blood into the brain. The BBB is a selective barrier formed by dedicated brain endothelial cells and dependent on the presence of intracellular tight junctions. In multiple sclerosis, a severe dysfunction of the BBB is observed, which is key to monocyte infiltration and inflammation in the brain. Proteolytic activity has been associated with these inflammatory processes in the brain. Our studies in plasma of rats indicated that the extracellular protease tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) correlates with the clinical signs of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, a rat model of multiple sclerosis. In this study, we studied the function of the tPA during diapedesis of monocytes through a rat and human brain endothelial barrier. Monocyte-brain endothelial cell coculture experiments showed that monocytes induce the release of tPA by brain endothelial cells, which subsequently activates the signal transduction protein extracellular signal related kinase (ERK1/2), both involved in monocyte diapedesis. Importantly, live imaging and immunoblot analyses of rat brain endothelial cells revealed that tPA and ERK1/2 control the breakdown of the tight junction protein occludin. These studies identify tPA as a novel and relevant pathological mediator of neuroinflammation and provide a potential mechanism for this.
2011 / 11 Multivariate volatility modeling of electricity futures

The deregulation of European electricity markets has led to an increasing need in understanding the volatility and correlation structure of electricity prices. We model a multivariate futures series of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) index, using an asymmetric GARCH model for volatilities and augmented dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) models for correlations. In particular, we allow for smooth changes in the unconditional volatilities and correlations through a multiplicative component that we estimate non-parametrically. We also introduce exogenous variables in our new multiplicative DCC model to account for congestion in short-term conditional volatilities. We find different correlation dynamics for long and short-term contracts and the new model achieves higher forecasting performance compared to a standard DCC model. The authors would like to thank participants of the 4th international conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics (CFE'10) for their questions and useful comments.
Using a design based research approach to explore the ways that primary school teachers conceptualise authentic learning: A work in progress

This paper reports on the use of design based research (Reeves, 2006) as an approach to conducting research for a doctoral thesis. The research explores the ways that teachers conceptualise authentic learning experiences for primary school children in response to consistent observations in the literature of the need for schools to change in an effort to meet the needs of modern learners. The research aims to report its findings from analysis of data gathered as early career teachers explore their professional identities in connection with a professional development model designed in response to themes emerging from the literature and collaboration with classroom teachers of more than five years experience. At the time of publication of this paper, the study was in Phase 3, the first iteration of the design.
Quantification and ultrastructure of oosorption in Eretmocerus eremicus (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae)

The potential for and ultrastructure of oosorption were examined in Eretmocerus eremicus, a short‐lived whitefly parasitoid that obligately produces anhydropic oocytes. In the absence of hosts, median egg load decreased by ∼12% per day between 2 days and 8 days following eclosion. Parasitoid mating status had no significant effect on either egg load alone or the relationship between egg load and age. Yolk degradation in E. eremicus is autolytic, with the enzymes required for yolk sphere digestion apparently being derived from within the ooplasm. The exochorion appear to be digested by the follicular epithelium concurrent with the uniform degradation of the entire ooplasm. The potential adaptive benefits of this novel oosorption mechanism to E. eremicus females include a reduction in the total digestion time per oocyte and resorption of chorion remnants. Finally, to our knowledge, the results of this study provide the first unequivocal ultrastructural evidence of a purely autolytic oosorption mechanism in Insecta. J. Morphol. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Editorial: Biotechnology Journal in Asia – the first official AFOB special issue

The first AFOB special issue of Biotechnology Journal is edited by Prof. Tai Hyun Park and Prof. George G. Q. Chen. The eleven articles are representative of the diverse nature of biotechnology today, covering topics such as microfluidic devices, high-throughput analysis, biosensors, bio-imaging, tissue engineering, vaccination, gene delivery, gene expression, and cell-free protein synthesis.
The Role of Conflict Avoidance in the Kibbutz-Community

The current study was designed to elucidate the nature of conflict management styles associated with conflict avoidance and their antecedents in the kibbutz cooperative community. Such a society is characterized by a high degree of participative democracy and collectivism, enrooted in motivation to maintain harmonic and long-lasting relationships. The study was conducted in four kibbutzim. Seventy one members aged 25-69 participated in the study, of whom 62% were females and 38% were males. The research instruments included Rahim (1983) ROCI-II questionnaire, an open questionnaire to examine conflict strategies in actual conflict situations, and Rhoades & Arnold's (1999) Conflict Responses and Definitions questionnaire, employed to assess conflict management strategies in conflict situations with persons of varying importance to the actor. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with 4 kibbutz members in order to further understand the choice of conflict strategies in specific situations. This study demonstrates that in contrast with the existing rational models of conflict management, handling conflicts in the cooperative kibbutz community is linked with the characteristics of the protagonists, their mutual relationship, especially the importance attached to these bonds, and the specific conflict course. The findings point out the limitations of quantitative data in elucidating subtle considerations, underlying strategic choice and use of more indirect ways to handle conflict. Quantitative data by and large illustrated the politically correct conflict management styles (problem solving and compromising), and the normative, rational representations of conflict situations. The qualitative data reveal emotional aspects and hidden considerations, which ensure maintenance and preservation of positive and/or significant relationships.
Cleaneval: a Competition for Cleaning Web Pages

Cleaneval is a shared task and competitive evaluation on the topic of cleaning arbitrary web pages, with the goal of preparing web data for use as a corpus for linguistic and language technology research and development. The first exercise took place in 2007. We describe how it was set up, results, and lessons learnt
Optimizing the Control Channel Interval of the DSRC for Vehicular Safety Applications

Dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) technology has been adopted by the IEEE community to enable safety and nonsafety applications for vehicular ad hoc networks. To better serve these two classes of applications, the DSRC standard divides the bandwidth into seven channels. One channel, which is called the control channel (CCH), serves safety applications, and the other six channels, which are called service channels, serve nonsafety applications. The DSRC standard specifies a channel-switching scheme to allow vehicles to alternate between these two classes of applications. The standard also recommends that vehicles should visit the CCH every 100 ms, which is called the synchronization interval (SI), to send and receive their status messages. It is highly desirable that these status messages be delivered to the neighboring vehicles reliably and within an acceptable delay bound. It is obvious that increasing the time share of the CCH from the SI will increase the reliability of safety applications. In this paper, we propose two algorithms to optimize the length of the control channel interval (CCI) such that nonsafety applications have a fair share of the SI interval. One algorithm, which is called optimal channel access, is proposed to allow vehicles to access the channel with a derived optimal probability such that the successful transmission rate is maximized. The second algorithm, which is called the mobility- and topology-aware algorithm, is an adaptive scheme proposed to change the DSRC parameters based on the road and network conditions to allow the coexistence of safety and nonsafety applications on the DSRC. Vehicles will execute both algorithms in a distributed manner to achieve a high success rate within the selected CCI interval. The simulation results show that using the two new algorithms keeps the CCI below half of the SI in all scenarios while maintaining a high success rate for safety messages. This will give nonsafety applications the opportunity to work in the second half of the SI interval without jeopardizing the critical safety applications.
"Family Composition and Children's Educational Outcomes"

This paper explores the relationship between sibship structure and educational outcomes, in the context of theories of dilution of parental time. Special efforts are made to disentangle the effects of family size and birth order, since these effects have often been confounded in the past. Children from larger families are found to do worse than children from smaller families, and children lower down the birth order do worse than those higher up the birth order. These findings are consistent with theoretical predictions, but the finding that only children perform worse than those from two-child families, even controlling for a whole range of parental and school characteristics, is not. This paper suggests that as well as inputs from parents, interactions with other children may be important in children’s educational development: this idea is supported by the finding that mixing with other children outside school reduces the disadvantage otherwise associated with being an only child. Additionally, the important finding emerges that only children are at much more of a disadvantage on mathematically-based measures of performance than on language-based measures, suggesting that these skills may be acquired via different processes.
Contributing to Wikipedia: Through Content or Social Interaction?

While the overall amount of user contributions in various namespaces has been discussed in previous research, the question of how and where users contribute, depending on their time spent in Wikipedia, is still open. This study analyzed contribution patterns in three namespaces of 685,897 active users of English Wikipedia since its inception. User editing behaviors were analyzed according to the amount of time spent within Wikipedia where contributions in content-oriented spaces were compared with social-oriented namespaces.
Self-fulfillment despite barriers: volunteer work of people living with HIV

Abstract With the decline in the morbidity and mortality associated with HIV infection, the majority of people living with HIV (PWHIV) experience a higher quality of life and longer life expectancy. Since this diagnosis no longer prevents an active lifestyle, many PWHIV are re-integrating into the workplace or are contemplating this possibility. Despite the multiple advantages associated with a return to work, research has identified barriers related to work and HIV infection. These barriers could prevent an important minority of PWHIV who wish to return to work from re-integrating into this environment. In this context, volunteering could be an alternate way to regain an active lifestyle. This research found that volunteer work allowed participants to enrich their social lives, to regain a sense of psychological well-being, and to apply their abilities to the benefit of others. However, participants are restricted by their preference to volunteer for HIV-related organizations in order to avoid social stigma and rejection.
Convex hull-based support vector machine rule extraction

Support vector machine (SVM) is a machine learning method based on statistical learning theory, and it can avoid the disadvantages well, such as over-training, weak normalization capability, etc. However, the black-box characteristic of SVM has limited its application. In order to open the black-box, a new rule extraction algorithm based on convex hull theory is proposed in this paper. First, all the vectors were clustered to be some clusters on the decision hyper-plane; then, extracted the convex hull for every cluster; finally, the region of each convex hull covered were transferred to each interval-type rule. Rule extraction has been experimented on two public datasets of Iris and Breast-cancer, which results showed that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of rule covering and fidelity.