Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE INTERNATIONAL GROWTH OF THE ITALIAN PROVINCES : THE ROLE OF SPILLOVERS

Data on the internationalisation of the productive processes of Italian firms, as measured by their outward foreign direct investments (FDI), sho w a remarkable territorial heterogeneity both at the NUTS2 (regions) and NUTS3 level (provin ces). Differences in sectoral composition account for part of this heterogeneity, while a growing body of literature has been underlining the role played by the virtuous re lationships existing between the international growth of a geographical area and the innovation capabilities of the firms sited in it (Storper, 1997; Cooke and Morgan, 1998). Such a relationship appears to be circular as, on one hand, innovation allows firms to gain co mpetitive advantages that foster their internationalisation processes; on the other hand, scholars have noticed that being multinational stimulates innovative performances, b y providing the incentives for introduction of new products and processes and lead ing, in general, to a better exploitation of innovative capabilities. Foreign subsidiaries ac t often as sources of new ideas: indeed, they allow the company to absorb local knowledge, t hus integrating and enriching its existing technological competence base (Frost, 2001 ).
On remote procedure call

The Remote Procedure Call (RPC) paradigm i s reviewed. The concept is described, along with the backbone structure of the mechanisms tha t support it . An overview of works in supporting these mechanisms is discussed . Extensions to the paradigm that have been proposed t o enlarge its suitability, are studied . The main contributions of this paper are a standard vie w and classification of RPC mechanisms according to different perspectives, and a snapshot o f the paradigm in use today and of goals for the future of RPC .
Magnetic field evolution in galaxies interacting with the intracluster medium 3D numerical simulations

A fully three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) model is applied to simulate the evolution of the large-scale magnetic field in cluster galaxies interacting with the intra-cluster medium (ICM). As the model input we use time-dependent gas velocity fields resulting from 3D N-body sticky-particle simulations of a galaxy. The modeled clouds are affected by the ram pressure due to their rapid motion through the ICM in the central part of a cluster. Numerical simulations have shown that after the initial compression phase due to ram pressure, a process of gas re-accretion onto the galactic disk takes place. We find that the gas re-accretion leads to an increase of the total magnetic energy without any dynamo action. The simulated magnetic fields are used to construct the model maps of high-frequency (Faraday rotation-free) polarized radio emission. We show that the evolution of the polarized intensity shows features that are characteristic of di fferent evolutionary stages of an ICM-ISM interaction. The comparison of polarized radio continuum emission maps with our model permits us to determine whether the galaxy is in the compression or in the re-accretion phase. It also provides an important constraint upon the dynamical modeling of ICM-ISM interactions.
The Molecular Chaperone Binding Protein BiP Prevents Leaf Dehydration-Induced Cellular Homeostasis Disruption

BiP overexpression improves leaf water relations during droughts and delays drought-induced leaf senescence. However, whether BiP controls cellular homeostasis under drought conditions or simply delays dehydration-induced leaf senescence as the primary cause for water stress tolerance remains to be determined. To address this issue, we examined the drought-induced transcriptomes of BiP-overexpressing lines and wild-type (WT) lines under similar leaf water potential (ψw) values. In the WT leaves, a ψw reduction of −1.0 resulted in 1339 up-regulated and 2710 down-regulated genes; in the BiP-overexpressing line 35S::BiP-4, only 334 and 420 genes were induced and repressed, respectively, at a similar leaf ψw = −1.0 MPa. This level of leaf dehydration was low enough to induce a repertory of typical drought-responsive genes in WT leaves but not in 35S::BiP-4 dehydrated leaves. The responders included hormone-related genes, functional and regulatory genes involved in drought protection and senescence-associated genes. The number of differentially expressed genes in the 35S::BiP-4 line approached the wild type number at a leaf ψw = −1.6 MPa. However, N-rich protein (NRP)- mediated cell death signaling genes and unfolded protein response (UPR) genes were induced to a much lower extent in the 35S::BiP-4 line than in the WT even at ψw = −1.6 MPa. The heatmaps for UPR, ERAD (ER-associated degradation protein system), drought-responsive and cell death-associated genes revealed that the leaf transcriptome of 35S::BiP-4 at ψw = −1.0 MPa clustered together with the transcriptome of well-watered leaves and they diverged considerably from the drought-induced transcriptome of the WT (ψw = −1.0, −1.7 and −2.0 MPa) and 35S::BiP-4 leaves at ψw = −1.6 MPa. Taken together, our data revealed that BiP-overexpressing lines requires a much higher level of stress (ψw = −1.6 MPa) to respond to drought than that of WT (ψw = −1.0). Therefore, BiP overexpression maintains cellular homeostasis under water stress conditions and thus ameliorates endogenous osmotic stress.
A Pragmatic Solution to an Indian Accented English Speech Synthesizer Using Residual Excited Linear Predictive Coded Voice

This paper elucidates a practical solution to an Indian accented English text to speech synthesizing system. The paper covers the complete procedure to generate the speech signal of the text, in Indian accented voice. The technique described considers the various prosodic features that need to be incorporated into the synthesized speech to make it appear natural and in the way an Indian speaks. The paper describes the complete method for synthesizing the speech including the pre-processing of the text and prosody analysis in the Indian style of speaking. The diphones extracted from an Indian’s voice are coded using Residual Excited Linear Predictive (RELP) coding technique and the resulting formants and residual values of the diphones are used to resynthesize the final output speech for the text to be synthesized. ‘PALSA’ – an Indian accented English speech synthesizer has been successfully implemented using the mentioned technique to produce the Indian accented speech and is described in this paper.
MRI Tumor Image Segmentation by Parametric Kernel Graph Cut with Deformable Shape Prior

Kernel graph cuts is one of the most efficient methods for image segmentation. However, kernel graph cuts for medical image segmentation without prior information is inefficient, especial for MRI tumor image segmentation. This paper presents a kernel graph cuts algorithm with deformable priors, which can successfully seize clinical MIR image features. The proposed networks for graph cuts are tailored to model the glioblastomas (both low and high grade) pictured in MR images for improvement accuracy performance. The experiment shows the success of the proposed approach.
Transposition-Invariant Self-Similarity Matrices

Self-similarity matrices have become an important tool for visualizing the repetitive structure of a music recording. Transforming an audio data stream into a feature sequence, one obtains a self-similarity matrix by pairwise comparing all features of the sequence with respect to a local cost measure. The basic idea is that similar audio segments are revealed as paths of low cost along diagonals in the resulting self-similarity matrix. It is often the case, in particular for classical music, that certain musical parts are repeated in another key. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a transposition-invariant self-similarity matrix, which reveals the repetitive structure even in the presence of key transpositions. Furthermore, we introduce an associated transposition index matrix displaying harmonic relations within the music recording. As an application, we sketch how our concept can be used for the task of audio structure analysis.
Determiners in bilingual German–Italian children: What they tell us about the relation between language influence and language dominance

This study addresses the question of whether language dominance and cross-linguistic influence are related by investigating the acquisition of determiner omission in four bilingual German–Italian children. The study begins by showing that monolingual Italian learners omit determiners less extensively than monolingual German learners. If bilingual children had two autonomous grammatical systems, this contrast should be mirrored in their language acquisition. The analysis suggests the contrary. The bilingual children are compared in terms of language balance and language influence in determiner use. Based on the analysis, I argue that influence is not dependent on language dominance alone. Rather, both language dominance and the properties of the target languages must be taken into account when predicting cross-linguistic influence.
Analysis of Influential Features for Information Diffusion

We analyze information diffusion focusing on network structures. We propose a network growth model that can produce networks with the required features for analysis and we perform validation experimentation using Twitter and Facebook networks. The proposed model produces networks having features calculated from these networks with high accuracy. Using this proposed model, we produce several networks exhibiting various features. We simulate information diffusion on these networks using an asynchronous independent cascade (ASIC) model and calculate the average of influence degree (AID). The AID increases more when there are several small hub nodes than when there area few large hub nodes and when there are many links between the nodes, except for the hub nodes.
Asymmetric Business Cycle Fluctuations and Contagion Effects in G7 Countries

This research studies possible existence of business cycle asymmetries in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US real GDP growth rates. Asymmetries in these countries are modeled using in-sample as well as jackknife out-of-sample forecasts approximated from artificial neural networks. Univariate results show statistically significant evidence of asymmetries in business cycle fluctuations in all the series; this is corroborated with bivariate analysis, which also finds evidence of contagion effects in these countries.
FMA-RRSS: Fingerprint Matching Algorithm Based on Relative Received Signal Strength in Indoor Wi-Fi Positioning

Indoor positioning based on Wi-Fi signal attracts a lot of attention in the location field. However, accuracy of positioning is often affected due to the instability of indoor Wi-Fi signal. In order to overcome this problem and reduce the errors, we present a new indoor WiFi-based positioning algorithm called FMA-RRSS which is the abbreviation of Fingerprint Matching Algorithm Based on Relative Received Strength Signal. In this paper, we propose a new position-determined model to produce location information from WiFi signal. Combined with the traditional solution of fingerprint database in indoor positioning, we use relative RSS value representing location information to estimate a clients actual position. We set up a positioning system and implement the FMA-RRSS in the actual WiFi environment. The experimental results show the improvement of positioning accuracy, fingerprint training complexity and response time of matching algorithm compared with other traditional indoor positioning algorithm like RADAR and Free Loc.
Information Back-propagation for Blind Separation of Sources in Non-linear Mixture

The linear mixture model is assumed in most of the papers devoted to independent component analysis. A more realistic model for mixture should be non-linear. In this paper, a two layer perceptron is used as a de-mixing system to extract sources in non-linear mixture. The learning algorithms for the de-mixing system are derived by two approaches: maximum entropy and minimum mutual information. The algorithms derived from the two approaches have a common structure. The new learning equations for the hidden layer are different from our previous learning equations for the output layer. The natural gradient descent method is applied in maximizing entropy and minimizing mutual information. The information (entropy or mutual information) back-propagation method is proposed to derive the learning equations for the hidden layer.
Kalman Filtering for Fuzzy Discrete Time Dynamic Systems

This paper uses Kalman ﬁlter theory to design a state estimator for noisy discrete time Takagi–Sugeno (T– S) fuzzy models. One local ﬁlter is designed for each local linear model using standard Kalman ﬁlter theory. Steady state solutions can be found for each of the local ﬁlters. Then a linear combination of the local ﬁlters is used to derive a global ﬁlter. The local ﬁlters are time-invariant, which greatly reduces the computational complexity of the global ﬁlter. The global ﬁlter is shown to be unbiased and (under certain conditions) stable. In addition, under the approximation of uncorrelatedness among the local models, the global ﬁlter is shown to be minimum variance. The proposed state estimator is demonstrated on a backing up truck–trailer example.
Graph Local Clustering for Topic Detection in Web Collections

In the midst of a developing Web that increases its size with a constant rhythm, automatic document organization becomes important. One way to arrange documents is by categorizing them into topics. Even when there are different forms to consider topics and their extraction, a practical option is to view them as document groups and apply clustering algorithms. An attractive alternative that naturally copes with the Web size and complexity is the one proposed by graph local clustering (GLC) methods. In this paper, we define a formal framework for working with topics in hyperlinked environments and analyze the feasibility of GLC for this task. We performed tests over an important Web collection, namely Wikipedia, and our results, which were validated using various kinds of methods (some of them specific for the information domain), indicate that this approach is suitable for topic discovery.
Parameter estimation for the pitching dynamics of a flapping-wing flying robot

In this paper we consider the problem of plant parameter estimation for a flapping wing flying robot. These parameters are the coefficients of polynomials appearing in transfer functions that govern some robot dynamics e.g pitching, and their values are completely unknown and even susceptible to variation over time. First, we analyse the pitching dynamics of the SlowHawk2 flapping wing flying robot under study and derive the linearized state-space model. Our analysis shows that in addition to the elevator deflection inducing pitching motion on the flying robot, extraneous pitching is also caused by the flapping wings. Thus, our derivations yield a multiple-input single-output (MISO) system consisting of two uncoupled transfer functions where both the elevator deflection and the wing-flapping action are the inputs that determine the pitching. Subsequently, an online parameter estimator is designed for the MISO system in order to estimate values of coefficients in the transfer functions. We use the recursive least squares method with the so-called forgetting factor. How the parameter estimator is designed using only the known input signals and measured output signals is described in detail. Using real sensor data obtained from real test flights, the designed estimator shows that the values of the unknown parameters can be accurately and robustly determined.
Joint Task Force in Reducing Human Trafficking

This Master‟s level thesis paper discusses the important topic of human trafficking. As this paper will explore, human trafficking is a very heinous crime that involves women, children and families and is a crime against humanity. It involves the illegal trading of human beings for personal gain in the form of forced labor, sexual exploitation and even slavery. Each and every year human beings are recruited, tricked, transferred and harbored as slaves. This is an international crime and each country is affected by trafficking, whether it is as a country of destination, transit or origin destination for victims. Counter Human Trafficking 3
Exploring universities' information systems security awareness in a changing higher education environment : a comparative case study research

The use of technical information system security measures may prove insufficient in protecting information assets if proper and adequate information security awareness is not maintained. The quantity of in-depth studies concerning the organizational aspect of information security is very limited. The number of these studies within higher education is even more limited. This limited attention is even more apparent in the case of developing countries where factors such as lack of infrastructure, lack of resources, lack of knowledge, and other language and sociological barriers may come into play. In an effort to improve the quality of higher education, the UAE has witnessed, in the recent few years, the establishment of a number of U.S. and other foreign higher education institutions branch campuses. In addition, while some of the UAE local higher education institutions have been seeking US accreditation or affiliation, others have adopted a North American system of higher education. The purpose of this study is to explore the different information systems security threats and the levels of information systems security awareness of information systems decision maker and personnel in higher education within the context of a developing country, namely the UAE, compared to those of developed countries, namely the UK and the US. To conduct the research, an interpretive case-study approach was employed using multiple data gathering instruments. In sum, this thesis present information, implications, and recommendations obtained from an evaluation of the current information systems security practices within the examined higher education environments. It is from this information that a clear picture emerges of the present role of technology. The findings of this thesis could also be transferred to other higher education settings that share similar goals and attributes.
Neural Headline Generation with Sentence-wise Optimization

Recently, neural models have been proposed for headline generation by learning to map documents to headlines with recurrent neural networks. Nevertheless, as traditional neural network utilizes maximum likelihood estimation for parameter optimization, it essentially constrains the expected training objective within word level rather than sentence level. Moreover, the performance of model prediction significantly relies on training data distribution. To overcome these drawbacks, we employ minimum risk training strategy in this paper, which directly optimizes model parameters in sentence level with respect to evaluation metrics and leads to significant improvements for headline generation. Experiment results show that our models outperforms state-of-the-art systems on both English and Chinese headline generation tasks.
Audience expectations and trust in online journalism

Audience trust towards journalism gives meaning to the work of journalists. Yet this trust is in decline, which is threatening both media businesses and the society at large. This development is the worrisome but still natural result of trust’s intrinsic qualities. Trust is context-dependent: different situations evoke different expectations, the fulfilment of which defines what is “worthy of trust”. Changes to the journalistic environment shift audience expectations and thus disrupt the existing trust. The Internet and the introduction of online journalism are major drivers of such change. In light of these changes we can ask: what does the audience expect from online journalism? This article explores the question using experimental focus-group interviews with young Finnish adults (aged 18–28; n = 34). The results suggest this audience segment has very traditional, even puritan ideals for journalism – and that Finnish online journalism is not always able to meet the audience’s expectations.
Mining Search Subtopics from Query Logs

queries are usually short and ambiguous. Subtopic mining plays an important role in understanding user's search intent and has attracted many researchers' attention. In this paper, we describe our approach to identify users' intents from query logs, which is a subtopic mining subtask of the NTCIR-9 Intent task for Chinese. We extract queries that are semantically related to the original query from query log, measure their similarities based on their relationship with urls, and cluster them into groups which represent different subtopics. In the experiment section, we show the results of our method evaluated by the organizers and a case study for one of the NTCIR-9 intent queries. The results shows that most found intents are different. The proposed method is easy to implement in real applications and can be computed quickly.
Ad hoc concepts : atomic or decompositional ? *

The meanings of words are frequently pragmatically modulated in context, so that the concept a word is used to communicate is different than what it encodes. In this short paper, I begin to consider the nature of these communicated, „ad hoc‟ concepts. I start from the assumption that the concepts encoded by monomorphemic lexical items are atomic – or, at least, that the stable concepts these lexical items are often used to communicate are – and assess whether it is plausible to maintain that genuinely ad hoc concepts are also atomic, or whether some variety of decompositional account is to be preferred.
Reflexive engagement: enacting reflexivity in design and for 'participation in plural'

This paper joins the discussion on participation in Participatory Design (PD) by proposing reflexivity as an orientation for engaging in design and for the plurality of participation. Based on our study in which a social media-supported collaboration model was designed with professionals working against workplace harassment, the paper recounts how the designer--researcher's reflexive orientation allowed participation to be uncovered as manifold and dynamic and how this affected the design process. We discuss the critical sensitivity and attentiveness enacted in design practice as reflexive engagement that encouraged negotiations of roles, goals, and technology. Regarding participation, we discuss reflexive engagement with multiple relationships, participatory assemblies and their intersections and overlaps---participation in plural---in our study. We conclude by proposing the conceptualization of reflexive engagement as an orientation for PD designers to engage in the particularities of situated design practices, while holding to the ethical (political), practical and creative commitments of PD.