Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isoenzymic Genetic Variability in Populations of Messor structor ( Hymenoptera , Formicidae ) from Bulgaria

Genetic variability in 36 populations of Messor structor (Latreille, 1798) from Bulgaria was studied using analysis of two enzymic systems corresponding to four loci (Sod-1, Sod-2, Sod-3 and Me-1). Three of the studied loci were found to be polymorphic. One of them was found to be monomorphic (Sod-3). One to three alleles were detected for the different isozymic systems: one allele at Sod-3 locus (Sod-3100), two alleles at Sod-1 (Sod-1100 and Sod-195) and Sod-2 (Sod-2100 and Sod-297) loci and three alleles at Me-1 locus (Me-1100, Me-198 and Me-196). The observed and expected heterozygosities (Ho and He) ranged from 0.0 to 0.111 and from 0.168 to 0.372, respectively. Allele frequencies of all loci were used to estimate Nei’s (1972) genetic distance, which was found to range from 0.001 (between Boliarino and Lubenova mahala) to 0.462 (between Chirpan and Merichleri). The estimated mean FIS and FST values from isozyme data were 0.8738 and 0.1432, respectively. The Neighbour-joining method and Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean phylogenetic trees were obtained using genetic distance matrix methods. Two of the studied populations were grouped separately in dendrograms as compared to all other populations which formed a large cluster consisting of three sub-clusters.
The Complexities of Teaching the Complex: Examining How Future Educators Construct Understandings of Sociocultural Knowledge and Schooling

This article examines how students enrolled in a university course focused on sociocultural influences and learning changed in their understanding of the relationship between sociocultural factors, teaching, and schooling over the duration of the semester. In this context, sociocultural factors refer to key social constructs such as race, class, and gender that play an organizing role in how people and societies understand and interact with one another. This article is specifically concerned with how students in the course understood the way sociocultural factors influenced schooling and teaching, and the implication these processes had on educators in meeting the needs of all students. This inquiry is relevant because one of the primary challenges teacher educators face is preparing teacher candidates to work effectively with students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds. Literature in the teacher education field abounds with reports about the difficulty that university teachers have in helping teacher education candidates develop (a) the requisite background and sociocultural knowledge and (b) personal beliefs,
Applying practice theory to the study of consumption: Theoretical and methodological considerations

In the context of continuing debate in social theory and philosophy about the structure-agency problematic, recent years have seen scholars (re)turn to this theoretical complexity through so-called theories of social practices. Practice theories are a set of cultural and philosophical accounts that focus on the conditions surrounding the practical carrying out of social life. It has roots in the philosophy of Heidegger and Wittgenstein and social scientific roots in the work of early Bourdieu, early Giddens, late Foucault and Butler. Their insights have recently become fused in a composite philosophical ontology of practices developed by Theodore Schatzki (1996, 2002) and colleagues (Schatzki et al., 2001). Together with the useful theoretical mapping provided by Reckwitz (2002) – who sketches practice theory as an ideal type, drawing out its peculiarities through a contrast with theoretical narratives in the broader domain of ‘cultural theories’ – it could be argued that practice theories have come to occupy salient theoretical space across the social sciences and humanities. When Reckwitz (2002) drafted his overview, the principles of these perspectives had already made inroads in ‘science studies, gender studies and organizational studies’ (p. 257). In recent years, this has spread to include anthropology, cultural studies, design studies, environment and
Making Do and Getting By: Non‐Market Work and Elderly Women's Standards of Living in the United States

We use pooled data from the 2003, 2004, and 2005 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) to explore the impact of non‐market household work on the living standards of the elderly. We describe how women and men allocate their time after they reach age 55 by race/ethnicity, age, and household structure. Focusing on those aged 55–64 and 65–74, we examine white, Black, and Hispanic differences in time use by gender, and compare women and men living alone and only with a spouse or cohabiter. Finally, we impute the replacement‐cost value of non‐market household work and its effect on standards of living of elderly women and men who live alone and elderly married couples. We find that older people reduce their paid work and increase their leisure time considerably, but non‐market work in one's own household increases only slightly at retirement. Time devoted to direct care of others in the household is small compared to indirect care activities such as housework and shopping. Older women devote more time than older men to non‐market work in their own household and spend less time than men in leisure pursuits, whether they are married or living alone. Elderly women who live alone generally enjoy more leisure time than older married women. Adding the value of non‐market work to money income has a modest equalizing effect on gender differences among persons living alone because women have less money income than men, but perform more unpaid work in their own households.
Short-Term Exposure of Paddy Soil Microbial Communities to Salt Stress Triggers Different Transcriptional Responses of Key Taxonomic Groups

Soil salinization due to seawater intrusion along coastal areas is an increasing threat to rice cultivation worldwide. While the detrimental impact on rice growth and yield has been thoroughly studied, little is known about how severe salinity affects structure and function of paddy soil microbial communities. Here, we examined their short-term responses to half- and full-strength seawater salinity in controlled laboratory experiments. Slurry microcosms were incubated under anoxic conditions, with rice straw added as carbon source. Stress exposure time was for 2 days after a pre-incubation period of 7 days. Relative to the control, moderate (300 mM NaCl) and high (600 mM NaCl) salt stress suppressed both net consumption of acetate and methane production by 50% and 70%, respectively. Correspondingly, community-wide mRNA expression decreased by 50–65%, with significant changes in relative transcript abundance of family-level groups. mRNA turnover was clearly more responsive to salt stress than rRNA dynamics. Among bacteria, Clostridiaceae were most abundant and the only group whose transcriptional activity was strongly stimulated at 600 mM NaCl. In particular, clostridial mRNA involved in transcription/translation, fermentation, uptake and biosynthesis of compatible solutes, and flagellar motility was significantly enriched in response salt stress. None of the other bacterial groups were able to compete at 600 mM NaCl. Their responses to 300 mM NaCl were more diverse. Lachnospiraceae increased, Ruminococcaceae maintained, and Peptococcaceae, Veillonellaceae, and Syntrophomonadaceae decreased in relative mRNA abundance. Among methanogens, Methanosarcinaceae were most dominant. Relative to other family-level groups, salt stress induced a significant enrichment of transcripts related to the CO dehydrogenase/acetyl-coenzyme A synthase complex, methanogenesis, heat shock, ammonium uptake, and thermosomes, but the absolute abundance of methanosarcinal mRNA decreased. Most strikingly, the transcriptional activity of the Methanocellaceae was completely suppressed already at 300 mM NaCl. Apparently, the key taxonomic groups involved in the methanogenic breakdown of plant polymers significantly differ in their ability to cope with severe salt stress. Presumably, this different ability is directly linked to differences in their genetic potential and metabolic flexibility to reassign available energy resources for cellular adaptation to salt stress.
Participatory Survey Research

This article outlines a research strategy for studying difficult-to-reach migrant populations that combines community collaboration, targeted random sampling, and parallel sampling in sending and receiving areas. The authors describe how this methodology was applied to the study of gender, migration, and HIV risks among Hispanic migrants in Durham, North Carolina. They illustrate the usefulness of community collaboration for informing survey design and providing a contextual understanding of research findings. They likewise demonstrate the importance of parallel sampling and assess the bias that would have resulted from conducting their study with convenience samples as opposed to a targeted random sampling technique. While the authors describe its application to HIV risks among Hispanic migrants, the methodology can easily be extended to other migrant groups as well as to other sensitive topics pertaining to migration and social adaptation.
International mobility of professional knowledge from the Global South: Indian IT workers in the Netherlands

Although there are many studies on both expatriates and the phenomenon of brain drain, there are few on those professionals who move from a less to a more advanced economy through a transfer from one division of a transnational corporation to another. In a study of Indian IT professionals employed by the Dutch division of the producer-service company Capgemini, we assessed the reasons for their recruitment and the type of professional knowledge they bring to the job. Our main findings are that the international mobility of Indian professionals is not just a matter of reducing labour costs and that, though some Indian IT professionals engage in routine programming activities, others are involved in activities that require tacit forms of knowledge. This applies to those who link the Dutch and Indian offices of Capgemini and to those who acquire assignments operating in the epistemic community of the international business milieu.
Support Vector Machines with PSO Algorithm for Short-Term Load Forecasting

Accurate forecasting of short-term electricity load has been one of the most important issues in the electricity industry. Because of the remarkable nonlinear mapping capabilities of forecasting, artificial neural networks have played a crucial role in forecasting electricity load. Support vector machine (SVM) is a novel type of learning machine, which has been successfully employed to solve nonlinear regression and time series problems. This paper investigates the feasibility of using SVM to forecast electricity load. Moreover, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to determine the free parameters of the SVM model automatically. Subsequently, examples of electricity load data from a practical power system were used to verify the proposed PSO-SVM model. The empirical results reveal that the proposed model outperforms the other two models. Consequently, the PSO-SVM model provides a promising alternative for forecasting electricity load
A MACROSCOPIC TRAFFIC MODEL FOR ROAD NETWORKS WITH A REPRESENTATION OF THE CAPACITY DROP PHENOMENON AT THE JUNCTIONS

Abstract This article deals with the modelling of a road network from a macroscopic point of view. First, the existing models for a road network based on the LWR model are reviewed. Then, these models are extended to take account of the capacity drop phenomenon. The consequences of this modification are finally illustrated in a particular case.
Detection of Tactile Change on a Bodily Location Where Pain is Expected

As it is adaptive to accurately detect and localize bodily threats, it has been proposed that the brain prioritizes somatosensory input at body locations where pain is expected. To test this proposition, the detection of tactile changes on a body location was investigated to assess whether detection was facilitated by threat of pain. Healthy participants (N = 47) indicated whether two consecutive patterns of three tactile stimuli were the same or not. Stimuli could be administered at eight possible locations. In half of the trials, the same pattern was presented twice. In the other half, one stimulus location was different between the two displays. To induce bodily threat, a painful stimulus was occasionally administered to the non-dominant lower arm. Mean accuracy of tactile change detection as a function of location was analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Tactile changes on the threatened arm (i.e., when a tactile stimulus emerged at or disappeared from that arm), both at the exact pain location (lower arm) and at the other location (upper arm), were better detected than tactile changes on other limbs.
The effect of participation in subsidised employment on labour market transitions

This paper provides estimates of the impact of participation in subsidised employment for young long-term unemployed workers. I apply a multivariate duration model with correlated unobserved heterogeneity to control for selective programme-participation. The estimates for the effect of participation in subsidised employment are derived by the means of simulation for different duration outcomes. I find that participation in subsidised employment a) significantly shortens the duration until regular employment. b) has a significantly positive effect on the duration of the first employment spell. c) has no significant effects on the second unemployment spell, after participation. The simulations suggest that subsidised employment has larger effects on unemployed people with unfavourable labour market characteristics.
Flexible network architecture and provisioning strategy for geographically distributed metro data centers

The fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) is expected to introduce new services with strict end-to-end delay requirements. For this reason, service providers and network operators are increasingly relying on geographically distributed metro data centers (DCs) to bring services closer to end-users and reduce delivery time. The metro DCs frequently exchange data for different purposes, such as backup and load balancing. Some of these data transfers require guaranteed low delays. Meanwhile, efficient use of network resources is necessary to limit the cost of the network infrastructure. To address these issues, in this paper, we propose a converged intra- and inter-DC network architecture and a dynamic provisioning strategy that are able to (i) efficiently support different classes of service, (ii) offer fast data transfers among metro DCs, and (iii) enable efficient utilization of network resources. Simulation results show that the proposed network architecture and provisioning strategy achieve at least two times faster average data transfer between DCs and better network resource utilization compared with conventional solutions. We also present a prototype and an extensive set of experimental results, thus proving the implementation feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
GaAs/AlOx Nonlinear Waveguides for Infrared Tunable Generation

New optical sources in the nearand mid-infrared (NIR/MIR respectively) have recently attracted a growing attention for potential applications in telecommunication systems (Yoo, 1996), spectroscopy (Chen et al., 1999; Arie et al., 2002), gas sensing (Lancaster et al., 1999), and quantum information (Gisin et al., 2002; Sergienko & Jaeger, 2003). In this respect, guided-wave frequency conversion is an appealing solution, due to its efficiency, compactness and tunability of the output wavelength. In this process, three guided modes coupled by the material optical nonlinearity exchange power during propagation; provided that their phase-velocity mismatch is absent or cancelled, such interaction allows the efficient transfer of power from the injected pump modes to a new-frequency generated mode, according to energy conservation (Boyd, 2008). After the demonstration of a few original phase-matching schemes, nonlinear waveguides based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) have carved out a prominent position in the panorama of integrated frequency converters. Among their main assets, in comparison with alternative material systems: a higher nonlinear coefficient, a wider infrared transparency range, and potential monolithic integration with a laser diode pump source. On the other hand, conversion efficiency in such devices is still affected by non-negligible scattering loss, in spite of recent technological developments. Due to this limitation, no optical parametric oscillator has been reported to date in GaAs waveguides, whereas it was demonstrated long ago in lithium niobate (LiNbO3) waveguides (Bortz et al., 1995). In this chapter we focus on GaAs/AlAs nonlinear waveguides, where phase-matched threewave mixing can be performed thanks to form birefringence. This is obtained by oxidizing a few AlAs thin layers in the waveguide core, with AlAs being transformed into a low-index non-stoichiometric aluminium oxide (hereafter referred to as AlOx). Although all different χ(2) processes have been reported so far, these devices especially lend themselves to parametric down-conversion towards mid-infrared, and are promising candidates as compact sources for infrared spectroscopy. In the first section we briefly summarize the state-of-the art of midinfrared tunable coherent sources, focusing on frequency converters. At present, none of these sources fully meets the main requirements of practical spectroscopic systems. In section two, we describe the phase-matching principle and the design guidelines of GaAs/AlOx waveguides, while the fabrication process and its crucial issues are detailed in section three.
Extracellular matrix rigidity controls podosome induction in microvascular endothelial cells

Podosomes are actin‐based structures involved in cell adhesion, migration, invasion and extracellular matrix degradation. They have been described in large vessel endothelial cells, but nothing is known concerning microvascular endothelial cells. Here, we focussed on liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs), fenestrated microvascular cells that play major roles in liver physiology. Liver fibrosis induces a dedifferentiation of LSECs leading notably to a loss of fenestrae. Because liver fibrosis is associated with increased matrix stiffness, and because substrate stiffness is known to regulate the actin cytoskeleton, we investigated the impact of matrix rigidity on podosome structures in LSECs.
Assessing the Effects of the McGraw Hill Phonemic Awareness Program with Preschool Children with Developmental Delays: A Case Study

This study assessed the effects of McGraw Hill Phonemic Awareness on the phonemic awareness skills of 5 preschool children with developmental delays. The children received 60 of the 110 lessons included in this program over 5 months. They were pre- and posttested using the kindergarten level Initial Sound Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency subtests of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Results showed average increases of 16.6 initial sounds per minute and 27 phonemes per minute. Implications for future research are discussed.
Analytical Modeling of Multi-hop IEEE 802.15.4 Networks

Many of existing analytical studies of the IEEE 802.15. 4 medium access control (MAC) protocol are not adequate because they are often based on assumptions such as homogeneous traffic and ideal carrier sensing, which are far from reality for multi-hop networks, particularly in the presence of mobility. In this paper, a new generalized analysis of the unslotted IEEE 802.15. 4 MAC is presented. The analysis considers the effects induced by heterogeneous traffic due to multi-hop routing and different traffic generation patterns among the nodes of the network and the hidden terminals due to reduced carrier-sensing capabilities. The complex relation between MAC and routing protocols is modeled, and novel results on this interaction are derived. For various network configurations, conditions under which routing decisions based on packet loss probability or delay lead to an unbalanced distribution of the traffic load across multi-hop paths are studied. It is shown that these routing decisions tend to direct traffic toward nodes with high packet generation rates, with potential catastrophic effects for the node's energy consumption. It is concluded that heterogeneous traffic and limited carrier-sensing range play an essential role on the performance and that routing should account for the presence of dominant nodes to balance the traffic distribution across the network.
Graph grammars for self assembling robotic systems

In this paper we define a class of graph grammars that can be used to model and direct distributed robotic assembly or formation forming processes. We focus on the problem of synthesizing a grammar so that it generates a given, prespecified assembly. In particular, to generate an acyclic graph we synthesize a binary grammar (rules involve at most two parts), and for a general graph we synthesize a ternary grammar (rules involve at most three parts). We then show a general result that implies that no binary grammar can generate a unique stable assembly. We conclude the paper with a discussion of how graph grammars can be used to direct the synthesis of parts floating in a fluid or for self-motive robotic parts.
Introducing translation dictionary into phrase-based SMT

This paper presents a method to effectively introduce a translation dictionary into phrase-based SMT. Though SMT systems can be built with only a parallel corpus, translation dictionaries are more widely available and have many more entries than parallel corpora. A simple and low-cost method to introduce a translation dictionary is to attach a dictionary entry into a phrase table. This, however, does not work well. Target word order and even whole target sentences are often incorrect. To solve this problem, the proposed method uses high-frequency words in the training corpus. The high-frequency words may already be trained well; in other words, they may appear in the phrase table and therefore be translated with correct word order. Experimental results show the proposed method as far superior to simply attaching dictionary entries into phrase tables.