Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tourism, Nationalism and Post-Communist Romania: The Life and Death of Dracula Park

The following analysis examines how Romania is responding to Dracula as a tourist attraction and focuses on the debate surrounding the proposed development of Dracula Park. The theme park employed a mythology developed from Bram Stoker's popularised Count Dracula, a character loosely based on medieval Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes. The proposal triggered a string of heated debates that eventually thwarted the project. Although Dracula Park was met with opposition in Romania and from abroad, tourism (mainly from the western European Union and north American countries) to ‘Dracula sites’ continues and local tourism industries are thriving. This paper will contextualise this situation in longstanding debates on national identity and attempts to redefine Romania after Communism.
An analysis of the European covered bond market

La ultima crisis financiera que se ha dado en llamar "crisis de la liquidez", pone de manifiesto la necesidad de efectuar un analisis mas profundo sobre los elementos que deben imperar en una adecuada gestion de los riesgos por parte de las entidades , asi como de la estructura y fuentes de financiacion del sistema en su conjunto. Las cedulas hipotecarias (Covered Bonds emitidos en Espana) se han convertido, en los ultimos anos, en una de las principales fuentes de financiacion de las entidades financieras espanolas y europeas a pesar de ser uno de los productos mas antiguos del mercado europeo. Su importancia como fuente de financiacion se ha visto reflejada no solo en terminos del incremento de los volumenes emitidos, sino tambien por la incorporacion a este mercado de numerosos paises europeos sin tradicion previa en este tipo de emisiones. Se puede definir un Covered Bond (CB) como un bono emitido por una entidad financiera y garantizado por un conjunto de hipotecas o prestamos a entidades territoriales. A pesar del espectacular desarrollo del mercado de CBs, no ha sido un producto muy estudiado desde el punto de vista academico, quiza debido a su centralizacion en el mercado europeo. Sin embargo, este mercado posee caracteristicas claras que hacen interesante profundizar en su estudio. En primer lugar, a pesar de que esperariamos encontrar que estos activos ofrecieran una rentabilidad de acorde al rating asociado, proximo a la renta fija del Estado, y muy por debajo de los bonos emitidos con las mismas caracteristicas sin garantia, estos activos cotizan en el mercado con un diferencial o spread relativamente alto sobre el libre de riesgo; en particular, los CBs espanoles cotizan por encima de sus homonimos europeos. Esta puede ser otra de las causas de la expansion del mercado de CBs, no solo resultan atractivos como fuente de financiacion de las entidades financieras sino tambien lo son para distintos inversores, dado que permiten realizar un "arbitra je de rating", ofreciendo una mayor rentabilidad dentro de los limites de rating permitidos para sus inversiones. En segundo lugar, al ser un mercado marcadamente europeo, nos parece interesante el analisis de la dinamica de interrelacion de los precios entre los distintos paises. En tercer lugar, resulta una cuestion relevante obtener una formula de valoracion adecuada a sus especiales caracteristicas. Por ultimo, la interaccion de los CBs con otros derivados de credito de los mismos emisores.
Geometric interference in a high-mobility graphene annulus 
p-n
 junction device

The emergence of interference is observed in the resistance of a graphene annulus pn junction device as a result of applying two separate gate voltages. The observed resistance patterns are carefully inspected, and it is determined that the position of the peaks resulting from those patterns are independent of temperature and magnetic field. Furthermore, these patterns are not attributable to Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, Fabry Perot interference at the junction, or moiré potentials. The device data are compared with those of another device fabricated with a traditional Hall bar geometry, as well as with quantum transport simulation data. Since the two devices are of different topological classes, the subtle differences observed in the corresponding measured data indicate that the most likely source of the observed geometric interference patterns is quantum scarring. * Email: curt.richter@nist.gov
Intelligent Trajectory Classification for Improved Movement Prediction

We treat the problem of movement prediction as a classification task. We assume the existence of a (gradually populated/trained) knowledge base and try to compare the movement pattern of a certain object with stored information in order to predict its future locations. A conventional prediction scheme would suffer from potential noise in movement patterns. Such noise (typically manifested as small-random deviations from previously seen patterns): 1) negatively impacts the prediction capability (accuracy) of the classification system and 2) oversizes the knowledge base (i.e., the storage needs become excessive). We try to alleviate such shortcomings through the use of optimal stopping theory (OST) and the introduction of a very specific movement prediction work-flow. OST relaxes the classification task so that slightly different patterns can be treated as similar. Moreover, the underlying knowledge base is kept as concise as possible by retaining those patterns with limited spatial variance. The performance assessment and comparison to other schemes reveals the superiority of the proposed system.
Accidental natalizumab administration to the third trimester of pregnancy in an adolescent patient with multiple sclerosis

Bayas A, Penzien J, Hellwig K. Accidental natalizumab administration to the third trimester of pregnancy in an adolescent patient with multiple sclerosis. Acta Neurol Scand: 2011: 124: 290–292. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
NeuroImage: Clinical Resting-state connectivity in neurodegenerative disorders: Is there potential for an imaging biomarker?

Biomarkers in whichever modality are tremendously important in diagnosing of disease, tracking disease pro- gression and clinical trials. This applies in particular for disorders with a long disease course including pre-symptomatic stages, in which only subtle signs of clinical progression can be observed. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers hold particular promise due to their relative ease of use, cost-e ﬀ ectiveness and non-invasivity. Studies measuring resting-state functional MR connectivity have become increasingly common during recent years and are well established in neuroscience and related ﬁ elds. Its increasing application does of course also include clinical settings and therein neurodegenerative diseases. In the present review, we critically sum- marise the state of the literature on resting-state functional connectivity as measured with functional MRI in neurodegenerative disorders. In addition to an overview of the results, we brie ﬂ y outline the methods applied to the concept of resting-state functional connectivity. While there are many di ﬀ erent neurodegenerative disorders cumulatively a ﬀ ecting a substantial number of patients, for most of them studies on resting-state fMRI are lacking. Plentiful amounts of papers are available for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), but only few works being available for the less common neurodegenerative diseases. This allows some conclusions on the potential of resting-state fMRI acting as a biomarker for the aforementioned two diseases, but only tentative statements for the others. For AD, the literature contains a relatively strong consensus regarding an impairment of the connectivity of the default mode network compared to healthy individuals. However, for AD there is no considerable doc- umentation on how that alteration develops longitudinally with the progression of the disease. For PD, the available research points towards alterations of connectivity mainly in limbic and motor related regions and networks, but drawing conclusions for PD has to be done with caution due to a relative heterogeneity of the disease. For rare neurodegenerative diseases, no clear conclusions can be drawn due to the few published results. Nevertheless, summarising available data points towards characteristic connectivity alterations in Huntington's disease, frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, multiple systems atrophy and the spinocerebellar ataxias. Overall at this point in time, the data on AD are most promising towards the eventual use of resting-state fMRI as an imaging biomarker, although there remain issues such as reproducibility of results and a lack of data demonstrating longitudinal changes. Improved methods providing more precise classi ﬁ cations as well as resting- state network changes that are sensitive to disease progression or therapeutic intervention are highly desirable, before routine clinical use could eventually become a reality.
Urocortin-Deficient Mice Display Normal Stress-Induced Anxiety Behavior and Autonomic Control but an Impaired Acoustic Startle Response

ABSTRACT Corticotropin-releasing hormone (Crh) plays an important role in modulating physiological and behavioral responses to stress. Its actions are mediated through two receptors, Crhr1 and Crhr2. Urocortin (Ucn), a Crh-related neuropeptide and the postulated endogenous ligand for Crhr2, is a potential mediator of stress responses. We generated Ucn-deficient mice using embryonic stem cell technology to determine its role in stress-induced behavioral and autonomic responses. Unlike Crhr1- or Crhr2-deficient mice, Ucn-deficient mice exhibit normal anxiety-like behavior as well as autonomic regulation in response to stress. However, the mutant mice display an impaired acoustic startle response that is not due to an obvious hearing defect. Thus, our results suggest that Ucn does not play an essential role in stress-induced behavioral and autonomic responses. Ucn may modulate the acoustic startle response through the Ucn-expressing neuron projections from the region of the Edinger-Westphal nucleus.
Concept Learning , Recall , and Blending with Regulated Activation Networks

Herein we present the cognitive model Regulated Activation Networks (RANs), which aims at unifying the three perspectives (symbolic, connectionist, and geometric featurespace) of conceptual representations. It learns new concepts from input data, dynamically builds a hierarchy of abstract concepts, and learns the associations among them, both between different levels, and within the same level of the hierarchy. Its recall mechanism, the geometric backpropagation algorithm, allows the understanding of the meaning of higher level concepts in terms of input level features. The regulation mechanism we also introduce has a de-noising effect over the results obtained from the recall mechanism.
Demand Management and Exchange Rate Policy: The Italian Experience

En este trabajo se utiliza un modelo de 31 ecuaciones de la economia italiana en el cual se hace endogeno el tipo de cambio mediante una funcion de reaccion de las autoridades monetarias, a fin de analizar varias cuestiones pertinentes de politica, como por ejemplo la eficacia a corto y largo plazo de la politica monetaria y fiscal bajo diferentes regimenes de tipo de cambio, y el efecto de modificaciones discretas del tipo de cambio en las corrientes de reservas y la inflacion. El modelo se especifica en tiempo continuo y se estima mediante un metodo de informacion completa de maxima verosimilitud elaborado por Wymer. Dos de las caracteristicas de este modelo son originales en el campo empirico. En primer lugar, se usa una serie de tasas de inflacion previstas, sacadas de encuestas muestrales, y se explora el mecanismo de formacion de la prevision. En segundo lugar, se utiliza la suma del capital fisico y del patrimonio (externo) financiero como principal variable de escala, tanto en el sector financiero de la economia como en el real. Las principales conclusiones de este trabajo son las siguientes: 1) las politicas monetaria y fiscal son mas eficaces cuando los tipos de cambio son fijos, como sugiere la literatura referente a las previsiones racionales, ya que la vinculacion del tipo de cambio desacelera el ajuste de las previsiones de inflacion, y de la propia inflacion, a la perturbacion inicial, y 2) el tipo de cambio es un instrumento eficaz para reajustar la balanza en cuenta corriente y elevar el nivel de las reservas internacionales. Sin embargo, la elevacion del nivel de precios tras una devaluacion reduce el nivel del patrimonio real y crea un lastre fiscal, el cual ocasiona, durante algun tiempo, una desaceleracion del aumento del producto. El aumento inadecuado del producto podria tentar a las autoridades monetarias a adoptar medidas expansionistas, creandose asi circulos viciosos de depreciacion e inflacion sucesivas.
Lexical Cohesion Between An Examination Question Prompt and its Answers

In hierdie artikel word verslag gedoen van 'n gedeelte van 'n navorsingstudie wat ondemeem is om die verband tussen die leksikale kohesie in akademiese skryfwerk van studeme en die koherensiemetings asook die akademiese vlakke van sodanige tekste te ondersoek. Tydens die navorsing is 70 eksamentekste ontleed ten einde vas te stel of daar leksikale kohesie geidentifiseer kan word. Die digtheid van leksikale kohesie tussen die eerste en laaste paragrawe van hierdie tekste en die opdrag is gekorreleer met die metings van drie onafhanklike evalueerders. Verder is die digtheid van die leksikale kohesie tussen hierdie paragrawe en die opdrag ook gekorreleer met die akademiese meriete. Daar is bevind dat daar 'n hoogs betekenisvolle verband bestaan tussen die digtheid van die leksikale verband tussen die slotparagrawe van die genoemde tekste en die opdrag enersyds en die koherensiemeting van hierdie tekste andersyds.
Chloroplast microsatellites reveal colonization and metapopulation dynamics in the Canary Island pine

Chloroplast microsatellites are becoming increasingly popular markers for population genetic studies in plants, but there has been little focus on their potential for demographic inference. In this work the utility of chloroplast microsatellites for the study of population expansions was explored. First, we investigated the power of mismatch distribution analysis and the FS test with coalescent simulations of different demographic scenarios. We then applied these methods to empirical data obtained for the Canary Island pine (Pinus canariensis). The results of the simulations showed that chloroplast microsatellites are sensitive to sudden population growth. The power of the FS test and accuracy of demographic parameter estimates, such as the time of expansion, were reduced proportionally to the level of homoplasy within the data. The analysis of Canary Island pine chloroplast microsatellite data indicated population expansions for almost all sample localities. Demographic expansions at the island level can be explained by the colonization of the archipelago by the pine, while population expansions of different ages in different localities within an island could be the result of local extinctions and recolonization dynamics. Comparable mitochondrial DNA sequence data from a parasite of P. canariensis, the weevil Brachyderes rugatus, supports this scenario, suggesting a key role for volcanism in the evolution of pine forest communities in the Canary Islands.
Aggregation kinetics at sedimentation: the impact of particles diffusion

We investigate the aggregation kinetics of sedimenting particles theoretically and numerically, using the advection-diﬀusion equation. Agglomeration, caused by both transport mechanisms (dif-fusion and advection), is important for small particles, like primary ash or soot particles in atmosphere, and large particles of equal or close size, where the advection mechanism is weak. For small Peclet numbers, which quantify the relative importance of diﬀusion and advection, we obtain the aggregation rates, as an expansion in Peclet numbers. For large Peclet numbers we use purely ballistic aggregation rates. Combining these results we obtain the rational approximant for the whole range of Peclet numbers. We also compute the aggregation rates by numerically solving the advection-diﬀusion equation. The results of the numerical simulations are in excellent agreement with the analytical theory for the studied Peclet numbers, varying by four orders of magnitude.
Exponential Genetic Algorithm-Based Stable and Load-Aware QoS Routing Protocol for MANET

Abstract As the actual links in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are dynamic, the feasible path generated may not exist during the transmission of multimedia data. There is a need for generating multiple paths for guaranteed transmission. The multi-path finding can be achieved through a genetic-based algorithm that faces the major challenge in quality-of-service (QoS)-aware routing. To enhance the QoS communication over the MANETs, an exponential genetic algorithm (GA)-based stable and load-aware QoS routing protocol (SLAQR) is proposed in this paper. This paper chiefly focuses on the enhancement of the GA-based routing algorithm by including exponential function in the searching process and modifying the fitness function, which incorporates QoS metrics like the node’s static resource capacity, dynamic resource availability, neighborhood quality, and link quality. The originality of the proposed protocol comes from the fact that it introduces multiple parameters into the route quality computation and integrates the exponential function into the GA. For experimental validation, the simulation of the proposed method is done and the results are compared with existing protocols such as GAQR (GA-Based QoS Routing), QMRB-AODV (QoS Mobile Routing Backbone Over Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing), and EISGA (Ensemble of Immigrant Strategies with Genetic Algorithm). From the outcome, we conclude that the delivery ratio, throughput, and delay of our proposed SLAQR approach have improved the GAQR approach by 58%, 56%, and 97%, respectively.
Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Evaluation of the Tapered Plastic Multimode Fiber-Based Sensor Performance With and Without Silver Thin Film for Different Concentrations of Calcium Hypochlorite

An adaptive neurofuzzy (ANFIS) evaluation study has been applied on tapered plastic multimode sensors. This study is basically using tapered plastic multimode fiber polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) optical as a sensor. It is proposed and demonstrated for continuous monitoring of solutions based on different concentration of sodium chloride and glucose in deionized water. The tapered PMMA fiber was fabricated using an etching method involving deionized water and acetone to achieve a waist diameter and length of 0.45 and 10 mm, respectively. In addition, a tapered PMMA probe, which was coated by silver film, was fabricated and demonstrated using calcium hypochlorite (G70) solution. The working mechanism of such a device is based on the observation increment in the transmission of the sensor that is immersed in solutions at higher concentration. As the concentration varies from 0 to 6 ppm, the output voltage of the sensor increases linearly from 3.61 to 4.28 mV with a sensitivity of 0.1154 mV/ppm and a linearity of more than 99.47%. The silver film coating increases the sensitivity of the proposed sensor due to the effective cladding refractive index, which increases with the coating and thus allows more light to be transmitted from the tapered fiber. To estimate the output voltage response of the sensors with and without silver film, this paper constructed a process, which simulates the sensors voltage output in regard to different concentration of calcium hypochlorite with ANFIS method. This intelligent estimator is implemented using MATLAB/SIMULINK and the performances are investigated. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method.
Depressive Symptoms and Stressful Life Events Predict Metabolic Syndrome Among Middle-Aged Women

OBJECTIVE—We evaluated whether psychosocial factors that are related to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes predict prospectively the risk for the metabolic syndrome using the different clinical criteria available for defining the syndrome. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Women were enrolled in a population-based prospective cohort study called the Healthy Women Study and were followed for an average of 15 years after baseline. Metabolic syndrome was defined via the World Health Organization, the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III, and the International Diabetes Foundation clinical criteria. RESULTS—Among women who did not have the metabolic syndrome at the baseline, the risk for the metabolic syndrome defined in multiple ways varied from 1.21- to 2.12-fold ([95% CI 1.00–4.25], P < 0.05) for more severe depressive symptoms or very stressful life event(s). These associations were largely the same, regardless of the clinical criteria used to define the metabolic syndrome. Those who at the baseline reported feeling frequently and intensely angry, tense, or stressed also had an increased risk for developing the metabolic syndrome at least by one definition (relative risk 1.19–1.66 [1.00–2.39]). CONCLUSIONS—These are the first data to demonstrate that psychosocial factors predict the risk for developing the metabolic syndrome by multiple definitions. Psychosocial factors may play a causal role in the chain of events leading to the metabolic syndrome.
Different therapy options protecting microvasculature after experimental cerebral ischaemia and reperfusion

Summary Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) is successfully used in human stroke, but often shows serious drawbacks. To find an alternative, we hypothesised that the novel thrombolytic microplasmin would have fewer adverse effects on haemoglobin extravasation and microvascular damage compared with the effects of rt-PA and tenecteplase (TNK). A constant period of ischaemia (3 hours) was induced in a rat suture model followed by reperfusion (24 hours). Mikroplasmin (10 mg/kg), TNK (5 mg/kg), rt-PA (9 mg/kg) and saline (control), were administered. The volume of the ischaemic lesion was calculated, the loss of collagen type IV and the extravasation of haemoglobin were quantified by Western blotting. The matrix-metalloproteinases 2 and 9 (MMP-2/-9) were quantified by zymography and their endogenous tissue inhibitors (TIMPs) were analysed by reverse zymography. Microplasmin treatment caused the lowest volume of the ischaemic lesion (51.0 ± 22.6 mm3) compared with control (167.3 ± 13.1 mm3; p<0.05). The content of col-lagen type IV was significantly increased and haemoglobin extravasation reduced (154 ± 24%; p<0.05) compared with control (442 ± 124%); MMP-2/-9 and the corresponding TIMPs remained unchanged. In comparison, TNK did not significantly reduce basal lamina damage and caused the highest extravasation. MMP-2/-9 were severely increased after TNK treatment (p<0.05). Thus, the balance between MMPs and TIMPs was shifted toward the inhibitory side with TNK. Microplasmin had a protective effect on the microvascular basal lamina and blood-brain barrier, whereas TNK was significantly disadvantageous from the viewpoint of ischaemic damage. Microplasmin also appears to be safer than other PAs in terms of damage to the microvasculature associated with thrombolytic therapy of ischaemic stroke.