Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Joint Evaluation of the Wind and Wave Energy Resources Close to the Greek Islands

The objective of this work is to analyze the wind and wave energy potential in the proximity of the Greek islands. Thus, by evaluating the synergy between wind and waves, a more comprehensive picture of the renewable energy resources in the target area is provided. In this study, two different data sources are considered. The first data set is provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) through the ERA-Interim project and covers an 11-year period, while the second data set is Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic data (AVISO) and covers six years of information. Using these data, parameters such as wind speed, significant wave height (SWH) and mean wave period (MWP) are analyzed. The following marine areas are targeted: Ionian Sea, Aegean Sea, Sea of Crete, Libyan Sea and Levantine Sea, near the coastal environment of the Greek islands. Initially, 26 reference points were considered. For a more detailed analysis, the number of reference points was narrowed down to 10 that were considered more relevant. Since in the island environments the resources are in general rather limited, the proposed work provides some outcomes concerning the wind and wave energy potential and the synergy between these two natural resources in the vicinity of the Greek islands. From the analysis performed, it can be noticed that the most energetic wind conditions are encountered west of Cios Island, followed by the regions east of Tinos and northeast of Crete. In these locations, the annual average values of the wind power density (Pwind) are in the range of 286–298.6 W/m2. Regarding the wave power density (Pwave), the most energetic locations can be found in the vicinity of Crete, north, south and southeast of the island. There, the wave energy potential is in the range of 2.88–2.99 kW/m.
Optimal pembrolizumab dosing for non-small cell lung cancer: further studies still needed.

The advent of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)/PD-1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitors has made dramatic progress for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In several series of clinical studies, anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies have generated durable effects, leading to long-term survival with manageable toxicity for patients with advanced NSCLC (1-6). The potential of these agents to generate durable clinical responses has led to their rapid uptake as standard therapy.
Size of rhythm-groups affects the memory trace of heard words in utterances: results from a pilot study using evoked potentials

Since speech involves fleeting acoustic events some portions of heard utterances must be parsed and stored on-line in order to be interpreted. Our previous work has shown that in recalling novel series, rhythmic grouping of up to 4 syllables facilitates memory, and this corresponds to size limits on rhythm groups observed in speech. Such results suggest that prosodic groups can correspond to the natural parsing frameworks of memory processing. The present study further investigates this correspondence by means of an eventrelated potential technique. It has been established that the quality of memory traces of words is associated with variations in the amplitude of the N400 component. We show that variations in the amplitude of the N400 confirm for one subject that words presented in rhythm groups that do not exceed a 4syllable limit present a better quality of memory trace than words presented in groups of 5 syllables, which rarely occur in speech and do not facilitate recall. Though the present observations are preliminary, our results converge on the point that prosodic grouping can be linked to mnemonic processes and that restrictions on memory may underlie size limits on prosodic groups. Gilbert, A. C. , Boucher, V. J., & Jemel, B. (2008). Size of rhythm-groups affects the memory trace of heard words in utterances: Results from a pilot study using evoked potentials. In P. A. Barbosa, S. Madureira & C. Reis (Eds.), Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2008 Conference (pp. 379-382). Campinas, Brazil.
Event-Related Potentials for Diagnosing Children and Adults With ADHD

Objective: The diagnosis of ADHD is based on behavioral criteria, which allow for subjective variability and invite criticism regarding the reality of the disorder. In this situation, more objective criteria would be desirable. We review the scientific literature for diagnostic tests based on event-related potentials (ERPs). Method: Seven studies met the inclusion criteria of reporting the sensitivity and specificity of an ERP-based classifier discriminating participants with ADHD from healthy controls. Study quality was rated using the second version of the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) system. Results: Overall, study quality was acceptable. The largest biases were lack of representativeness and overfitting. Sensitivities and specificities ranged from 57% to 96%, and 63% to 92%, respectively. However, no two studies used the same diagnostic test. Conclusion: There is a serious lack of coordination in worldwide efforts to find more objective ERP-based criteria for the diagnosis of ADHD. Concerted action is needed.
Allozyme Variation and Genetic Identification of Shad Species ( Pisces : Clupeidae , Genus Alosa ) Along Bulgarian Black Sea Coast

All Black Sea shads are listed in IUCN Red List as vulnerable species. The absence of correspondence between morphological and genetic features shows the complexity in genus Alosa taxonomy in Black Sea. To receive precise data for actual species status and respectively conservation of shads, the application of genetic methods are necessary. A comparison between two shad species (A. immaculata and A. caspia) from Bulgarian Black Sea coast and Danube River was carried out on the basis of genetic-biochemical analyses. Twelve enzymes (encoded by 27 loci) and general muscle proteins and haemoglobin (encoded by 43 loci) were investigated. Polymorphic variation in some loci as HB-1*, HB-2*, PROT-1*, PROT-2*, PROT-3*, ADH*, EST-3*, MDH-1*, MEP-1* PGM-2* and SDH* can be used for analyses of Alosa immaculata populations. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is a species specific marker for distinguishing A. immaculata and A. caspia. Genetic markers such as: 6-PGDH, SOD and PROT can be used to split the rare shad species (A. spp) found in Black Sea. Genetic distance (DNei = 0.038) between A. immaculata and A. caspia showed that they have quite recently divergated, while the distance between the two mentioned above species and A. spp was found to be higher (DNei = 0.066).
The Relationship between Interactive Functions and Website Ranking

ABSTRACT This study looks into different types of interactive functions, and the associative relationship between these interactive functions and website ranking. Six types of interactive functions are identified, and four of them are found to be significant in affecting website ranking. The four important types of interactive functions are Online Two-way Communication, Customization, Content Variety, and Interactive Job Search.
Tracheal Size Variability Is Associated With Sex

Purpose: Whereas selection of endotracheal tube (ETT) size in pediatric patients benefits from predictive nomograms, adult ETT sizing is relatively arbitrary. We sought to determine associations between cervical tracheal cross-sectional area (CTCSA) and clinical variables. Methods: One hundred thirty-two consecutive patients undergoing noncontrasted chest computed tomography (CT) at a single tertiary care institution from January 2010 to June 2011 were reviewed. Patients with improper CT technique, endotracheal intubation, and pulmonary/tracheal pathology were excluded. Tracheal luminal diameters in anteroposterior (D1) and transverse (D2) were measured 2 cm inferior to the cricoid and used to determine CTCSA = π*D1*D2*¼. The demographic variables of age, height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) were tested for association with CTCSA by Spearman correlation. Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare CTCSA by race and sex. Multivariate linear regression was performed including all clinical variables. Results: There were 91 patients who met inclusion criteria. There was no correlation between age, weight, or BMI and CTCSA. There was a significant positive correlation between patient height and CTCSA (P = .001, R = 0.35); however, this was confounded by sex. Female patients had significantly smaller CTCSA (mean = 241 mm2) compared to male patients (mean = 349 mm2, P < .001). Multivariate linear regression stratified by sex revealed that height is correlated with CTCSA only in males (P = .028). Males also had more variability in CTCSA (SD 118.6) compared to females (SD 65.5). Conclusion: Our data suggest that selection of ETT size in male patients should include height as a predictive factor. For female patients, it may be appropriate to select a uniformly smaller diameter ETT size.
Peroxisome Proliferators Disrupt Retinoic Acid Receptor Alpha Signaling in the Testis1

Abstract Peroxisome proliferators include a diverse group of chemicals, some of which have been demonstrated to be testicular toxicants. However, the mechanism by which peroxisome proliferators, such as phthalates, cause testicular damage is not clear. It is known that retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARα) and its retinoic acid ligand, the acid form of vitamin A, are required for spermatogenesis. It has been demonstrated that the absence of RARα gene or vitamin A in the animal leads to testis degeneration and sterility. Therefore, any compound that disrupts the action of vitamin A in the testis could potentially be damaging to male fertility. The current investigation examined a novel hypothesis that a mechanism of degeneration by peroxisome proliferators in the testis is due, in part, to disruption of the critical RARα signaling pathway. We show that peroxisome proliferators were able to disrupt the retinoic acid-induced nuclear localization of RARα and the retinoic acid-stimulated increase in transcriptional activity of a retinoic acid-responsive reporter gene in Sertoli cells. Concomitantly, peroxisome proliferators increased the nuclear localization of PPARα and the transcriptional activity of a peroxisome proliferator-responsive reporter gene in these cells. These results indicate that peroxisome proliferators can indeed shift the balance of nuclear localization for RARα and PPARα, resulting in deactivation of the critical RARα transcriptional activity in Sertoli cells.
The Implications of Flexible Work: Membership in Organizations Revisited

The erosion of standard forms of employment is creating new needs and management requirements in organizations. This article examines the polarization within the workforce. The classical approach of the core and marginal workforce based on the work of Doeringer and Piore (1971) will be reshaped by looking at conceptions of organizational boundaries. Moreover, the impact of shifting employment relations on coupling and membership in organizations will be discussed to conclude that the loosening of coupling has implications for the willingness of members to integrate in organizations.
An adaptive dynamic protocol for distributed convex optimization

This article considers the distributed convex optimization problem over a linear multi-agent system using an adaptive dynamic protocol. The communication network topology among the agents are assumed to be undirected and fixed. The global cost function of the network is strictly convex and is given by the sum of the local cost functions associated to each agents. It is proved that under the proposed protocol, the agents can reach an agreement on a common state value which optimizes the global cost function.
Self-relevance and purchase goals: Mapping a consumer decision

The purpose of this research is to introduce a cognitive mapping methodology designed to explore the goal structures that are activated by a consumer’s experienced feelings of self-relevance or involvement with a product or service. In particular, the authors examine how a consumer’s enduring involvement with a product class (greeting cards) and specific decision situations affect the content and structure of the activated purchase goals in a consumer’s decision map. As compared to enduring involvement, the decision situation more strongly affected the content of the goals in the decision maps. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of the method and the results for consumer behavior and marketing strategy research.
10.1.1 Managing the Project Team as a Special Class of Stakeholder for Enterprise Transformation Projects

The Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL's) Enterprise Project – the implementation of a commercial off‐the‐shelf (COTS) enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to replace the home‐grown business computing systems in use since the early 1980's – provides a provocative case study regarding the management of project teams in which team members are, themselves, stakeholders. This paper describes the project's approach to stakeholder management for the project team, which had mixed success, discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the approaches used, and provides lessons learned for handling project team members as a special class of stakeholders who have special needs. Specifically, it is noted that project team members may be either system advocates or system critics or adversaries. It is recommended that transition management tactics be developed in anticipation of both types of stakeholders being present on the project team.
How Does a Firm's Capital Structure Affect Stock Performance?

This paper examines the relationship between capital structure and shareholder returns in the UK between 1980 and 2008. Expanding on Modigliani and Miller’s (1958) Proposition 2, returns are estimated using the asset pricing models of CAPM, Fama and French and of Carhart. The analysis shows that gearing (in the form of debt finance) is a characteristic that influences stock returns and that, in contrast to accepted finance theory, is negatively related to estimated returns. This relationship is tested empirically for robustness with other risk factors such as corporate tax rates and industry concentration, the results remain consistent throughout the analysis. If confirmed, the negative impact of debt financing on shareholder returns should trigger a major rethink on corporate financing strategies.
College Choice in a Brand Elimination Framework: The High School Student's Perspective

Universities have belatedly recognized that they must consider their marketing strategies if they are to remain viable in the increasingly competitive market. In order to provide a logical framework through which to evaluate recruiting strategies, more needs to be known about the process which high school students utilize in college choice. This paper reports on two studies of high school students designed to examine college choice in a brand elimination framework. The paper then goes on to compare these results to what is known about the recruiting strategies of institutions of higher education. Recommendations are made to improve the effectiveness of these recruiting efforts.
Biomarkers of periodontitis and inflammation in ischemic stroke: A case-control study

Periodontitis is a common infectious disease associated with increased risk for ischemic stroke though presently unclear mechanisms. In a case-control study, we investigated salivary levels of four periodontal pathogens, as well as systemic and local inflammatory markers. The population comprised 98 patients with acute ischemic stroke (mean ± SD, 68.2 ± 9.7 yrs; 45.9% women) and 100 healthy controls (69.1 ± 5.2 yrs; 47.0% women). Patients were more often edentulous and had fewer teeth than controls (13.8 ± 10.8 versus 16.6 ± 10.1). After adjusting for stroke risk factors and number of teeth, controls had higher saliva matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8), myeloperoxidase (MPO), IL-1β, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, and serum LPS activity levels. Patients had higher serum MMP-8 and MPO, and they were more often qPCR-positive for A. actinomycetemcomitans (37.9% versus 19.0%) and for ≥3 periodontopathic species combined (50.0% versus 33.0%). We conclude that controls more often had evidence of current periodontal infection with higher periodontal pathogen amount, endotoxemia, local inflammation and tissue destruction. Stroke patients more often had evidence of end-stage periodontitis with edentulism and missing teeth. They were more often carriers of several periodontopathic pathogens in saliva, especially A. actinomycetemcomitans. Additionally, inflammatory burden may contribute to high systemic inflammation associated with elevated stroke susceptibility.
Customers’ reactions to price increases: Do customer satisfaction and perceived motive fairness matter?

Most of the previous research on price changes has focused on price decreases. This article investigates the effects of price increases at an individual level. The authors argue that customers’ reactions to price increases (i.e., repurchase intentions) are strongly driven by two factors: the magnitude of the price increase and the perceived fairness of the motive for the price increase. In this context, the authors examine the role of customer satisfaction in influencing the impact of these two variables on repurchase intentions after a price increase. Their findings reveal that as satisfaction increases, the negative impact of the magnitude of a price increase is weakened. Furthermore, the results suggest that satisfaction moderates the impact of perceived motive fairness. The authors also find that the level of satisfaction can influence the valence of the perceived motives in response to a price increase.
Energy Harvested from Respiratory Effort

Presently, a high cost of some medical equipment is due not only the sophisticated technology, but also because the cost of his maintenance. The electronic devices implanted in the human body are examples for this constant maintenance, requiring sophisticated medical operations. Extra weight and volume addition to the electronic devices are also a disadvantage, limiting the autonomy of such devices. An alternative to replace the batteries as power sources is to obtain the energy from the human body. In this work we present our prototype of Breathing Energy Transducer (BET) for an efficient energy conversion at fixed 2.6V from chest movements during breathing. A series of experiments were performed in order to calculate the power that could be generated from the respiratory effort during normal and deep breathings.
Reliability assessment of urban water networks

We present a framework for the seismic risk assessment of aging water supply networks in order to evaluate the water networks of the island of Cyprus. The proposed methodology aims at assessing the performance of water pipe networks based on the pipe vulnerabilities that are determined considering survival curves obtained from historical data of damage. The magnitude-distance seismic scenario adopted is consistent with the seismicity of sites mainly controlled by distant and moderate magnitude events. The network reliability is assessed using Graph Theory, while two alternative approaches are compared for calculating the system reliability: the path enumeration method and Monte Carlo simulation. Τhe methodology proposed can estimate the probability that the network fails to provide the desired level of service and thus allows the prioritization of retrofit interventions and capacity-upgrade actions for the existing water pipe networks.
Uracil‐Catalyzed Synthesis of Acetyl Phosphate: A Photochemical Driver for Protometabolism

Progress toward a protometabolism (the earliest energy storage networks) has been severely hindered by a shortage of driver reactions, which could have harnessed solar photons or coupled electron sources/sinks on the primordial Earth. Here, it is reported for the first time that thioacetate can be converted into a known metabolite, acetyl phosphate, by ultraviolet light and in aqueous solution at neutral pH. Of more compelling importance, the synthesis is catalyzed by uracil, which suggests that a genetic component may have also facilitated the emergence of metabolic pathways. The chemistry of acetyl phosphate has been extensively studied, and it is known to be a precursor of phosphate esters, pyrophosphate and possibly longer inorganic chains. Moreover, its bifunctional reactivity (as either an acetyl or phosphoryl donor) would have been integral for the first metabolic cycles.
Identification of a tumor-reactive T-cell repertoire in the immune infiltrate of patients with resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

ABSTRACT Purpose: The devastating prognosis of patients with resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) presents an urgent need for the development of therapeutic strategies targeting disseminated tumor cells. Until now, T-cell therapy has been scarcely pursued in PDA, due to the prevailing view that it represents a poorly immunogenic tumor. Experimental design: We systematically analyzed T-cell infiltrates in tumor biopsies from 127 patients with resectable PDA by means of immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, T-cell receptor (TCR) deep-sequencing and functional analysis of in vitro expanded T-cell cultures. Parallel studies were performed on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) from 44 patients with metastatic melanoma. Results: Prominent T-cell infiltrates, as well as tertiary lymphoid structures harboring proliferating T-cells, were detected in the vast majority of biopsies from PDA patients. The notion that the tumor is a site of local T-cell expansion was strengthened by TCR deep-sequencing, revealing that the T-cell repertoire in the tumor is dominated by highly frequent CDR3 sequences that can be up to 10,000-fold enriched in tumor as compared to peripheral blood. In fact, TCR repertoire composition in PDA resembled that in melanoma. Moreover, in vitro expansion of TILs was equally efficient for PDA and melanoma, resulting in T-cell cultures displaying HLA class I-restricted reactivity against autologous tumor cells. Conclusions: The tumor-infiltrating T-cell response in PDA shows striking similarity to that in melanoma, where adoptive T-cell therapy has significant therapeutic impact. Our findings indicate that T-cell-based therapies may be used to counter disease recurrence in patients with resectable PDA.
Improving communication of sensory profiling results – an illustration

Much sensory research focuses on an initial analysis of sensory descriptor data followed by a principal component analysis (PCA) of the sensory descriptors. This paper illustrates an alternative approach of conducting PCA and then applying analysis of variance (ANOVA) to the extracted principal components. The approach is applied to data from a case study quantifying the sensory characteristics of a sous vide vegetable product during storage. In the case study, 11 out of 18 descriptors were significantly influenced by product. Using the alternative approach, however, three out of six principal components were significantly influenced by product. The alternative approach, therefore, provided a more concise presentation of results and one that was consistent with the analysis of the original descriptors. It is hoped that this approach could improve interpretation and subsequent communication of sensory profiling results and help to bridge the gap between core and wider product development activities.