Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The methodological status of co-authorship networks

A powerful strategy within the study of collaboration in science is to posit that co-authorship patterns represent social networks. It is prerequisite to an application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to define the network entities. A network analysis of the inter-institutional collaboration in COLLNET on the basis of co-authorships was conducted. The study reveals that it is crucial whether the co-authorship itself is seen as an author's relational property or as a social event that brings the authors together. The former possibility is represented by a onemode network in which each author can be related to each other author. Quite distinct from that are two-mode networks, the latter approach. They consist of two single data sets in which relations are only possible between different sets. Different modes of representations require different network approaches. One is that co-authorship networks are seen as one-mode networks, which has the advantage of the application of a variety of measures. In contrast, twomode networks, the other option, cannot be analysed by standard techniques but its distinctive features demand a new conceptualisation of measures. In conclusion, the two-mode perspective is more promising because it allows a dual perspective on collaboration in science which includes researchers as well as their scientific output.
Contingent Capital with a Dual Price Trigger

This paper evaluates a form of contingent capital for financial institutions that converts from debt to equity if two conditions are met: the firm's stock price is at or below a trigger value and the value of a financial institutions index is also at or below a trigger value. This structure potentially protects financial firms during a crisis, when all are performing badly, but during normal times permits a bank performing badly to go bankrupt. I discuss a number of issues associated with the design of a contingent capital claim, including susceptibility to manipulation, whether conversion should be for a fixed dollar amount of shares or a fixed number of shares; uniqueness of the share price when contingent capital is outstanding; the susceptibility of different contingent capital schemes to different kinds of errors (under and over-capitalization); and the losses likely to be incurred by shareholders upon the imposition of a requirement for contingent capital. I also present an illustrative pricing example.
Paleohydrography of the Kuroshio-Kuroshio Extension off Sanriku Coast based on fossil diatoms

The high-resolution analyses of fossil diatom assemblages in four cores recovered from the area off Sanriku Coast revealed the most complicated hydrographic history in this area. The fossil diatom assemblages changed in responding to the expansion of the warm-water eddies detached from the Kuroshio Extension and of the southward Oyashio Intrusion. Diatom abundances are higher in the cores from near shore than in the area off shore. The diatom assemblages were affected more seri- ously by the environmental changes in the cores from near shore. The diatom assemblages were also changed by the fluctua- tions at the intervals of ~40-kyr corresponding to the obliquity (tilt) band variations among the Earth's orbital parameters and ~60-kyr intervals suggesting changes in the sea level due to glacial/interglacial phases, with secondary and smaller fluctuatio ns at ~20-kyr intervals corresponding to the precessional changes. Diatom assemblages in the southern margin of the Perturbed Area have been controlled mainly by the Kuroshio-Kuroshio Extension, but in the northern margin they changed in responding to the mixing of warm-water eddies and Oyashio Intrusion.
Study on an Optimistic Reaction-Diusion Simulator based on Gillespie SSA

The parallel simulation of biochemical reactions is a very interesting problem: biochemical systems are inherently parallel, yet the majority of the algorithms to simulate them, including the well-known and widespread Gillespie SSA, are strictly sequential. Here we investigate, in a general way, how to characterize the simulation of biochemical systems in terms of Discrete Event Simulation. We dissect their inherent parallelism in order both to exploit the work done in this area and to speed-up their simulation. We study the peculiar characteristics of discrete biological simulations in order to select the parallelization technique which provides the greater benefits, as well as to touch its limits. We then focus on reaction-diffusion systems: we design and implement an efficient parallel algorithm for simulating such systems that include both reactions between entities and movements throughout the space. This is the preliminary version of a paper that was published in Proceedings of the sixth international conference on Computational Methods in Systems Biology (CMSB2008), LNBI 5307, pp. 191 – 210. The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink. com/content/w341771l12012560/
The impacts of a child allowance program on the behavior of adults in the labor market. The case of Argentina

In 2009 Argentina implemented a cash transfer program to households with children –the Universal Child Allowance program (UCA)-, which extended the coverage of the already existing contributory family allowance program to families in the informal economy, unemployed and domestic workers. This paper evaluates the effects of the UCA on adult labor participation and income generation, by using the Difference-in-Difference Estimator. The results suggest that no important disincentive to work has been generated by the program given that it did not discourage adults from working or lead to a reduction in the number of hours worked. These findings are highly relevant in the Latin American context where this kind of cash transfers became an important component of the social protection systems.
An Approach of Removing Stroke Based on Touching Pattern for Handwritten Digits Segmentation

For finding precise segmentation, a new approach to remove and amend stroke connecting touching handwriting digits based on touching pattern is presented. Firstly, background region of touching digits is analyzed by using water reservoirs concept, and then the classification scheme is developed to identify the pattern of touching digits according to the structural features. In single-point touching type, two touching pairs of digits can be connected with a ligature, which can be a component of one of the digits or belong to no digit. After segmentation is performed to get isolated digits. the pattern-oriented ligature analysis investigates whether candidate ligature is a part of digit or a useless stroke and decides to be preserved or be removed. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is effective for segmentation of handwritten touching digits and segmentation errors have been reduced. Index Terms - Water reservoirs, handwritten digits segmentation, remove stroke
Intelligent Analysis of Database Users Based on A Dynamic Model

Database security issues play an important role in modern information systems. This paper aims to deal with one of the most difficult issues for database security. We propose a novel intelligent method for database user behaviour analysis. Specially, we use hidden Markov model (HMM) to model the user profile. Different from most of previous works which only focus on query syntax for anomaly analysis, our approach explores more temporal relationships between operations and can take advantage of big training data. Experimental result has shown that our model is quite effective and efficient.
Image Segmentation Employing Neural Networks and Multivariate Analysis

This paper addresses a neural network model employing multivariate analysis to implement the image segmentation task. Image segmentation is the process of partitioning an image into related regions or sections based on the characteristics. Each pixel of the segmented image belongs to one of the predefined segment classes. In order to classify the pixels of the image, a neural network is applied. The proposed neural network model contains a single hidden layer with a small number of nodes determined by the desired percentage of variation in the selected principal components obtained from a principal component analysis of the training sample features. The weights between the input layer and the hidden layer are computed directly using principal component analysis. The weights between the hidden layer and the output layer are computed by applying the delta rule iteratively in the training procedure. The significance of this research is that the proposed model considerably reduces number of hidden nodes and training time, compared with the neural network model trained by backpropagation algorithm, and still maintains the expected accuracy for the classification results.
Seismic hazard assessment in the Catania and Siracusa urban areas (Italy) through different approaches

The seismic hazard assessment (SHA) can be performed using either Deterministic or Probabilistic approaches. In present study a probabilistic analysis was carried out for the Catania and Siracusa towns using two different procedures: the “site” (Albarello and Mucciarelli, 2002) and the “seismotectonic” (Cornell 1968; Esteva, 1967) methodologies. The SASHA code (D’Amico and Albarello, 2007) was used to calculate seismic hazard through the “site” approach, whereas the CRISIS2007 code (Ordaz et al., 2007) was adopted in the Esteva-Cornell procedure. According to current international conventions for PSHA (SSHAC, 1997), a logic tree approach was followed to consider and reduce the epistemic uncertainties, for both seismotectonic and site methods. The code SASHA handles the intensity data taking into account the macroseismic information of past earthquakes. CRISIS2007 code needs, as input elements, a seismic catalogue tested for completeness, a seismogenetic zonation and ground motion predicting equations. Data concerning the characterization of regional seismic sources and ground motion attenuation properties were taken from the literature. Special care was devoted to define source zone models, taking into account the most recent studies on regional seismotectonic features and, in particular, the possibility of considering the Malta escarpment as a potential source. The combined use of the above mentioned approaches allowed us to obtain useful elements to define the site seismic hazard in Catania and Siracusa. The results point out that the choice of the probabilistic model plays a fundamental role. It is indeed observed that when the site intensity data are used, the town of Catania shows hazard values higher than the ones found for Siracusa, for each considered return period. On the contrary, when the Esteva-Cornell method is used, Siracusa urban area shows higher hazard than Catania, for return periods greater than one hundred years. The higher hazard observed, through the site approach, for Catania area can be interpreted in terms of greater damage historically observed at this town and its smaller distance from the seismogenic structures. On the other hand, the higher level of hazard found for Siracusa, throughout the Esteva-Cornell approach, could be a consequence of the features of such method which spreads out the intensities over a wide area. However, in SHA the use of a combined approach is recommended for a mutual validation of obtained results and any choice between the two approaches is strictly linked to the knowledge of the local seismotectonic features.
Formation of giant amphiphiles by post-functionalization of hydrophilic protein–polymer conjugates

A novel, generic method for the synthesis of families of tri-block protein–polymer giant amphiphiles was designed and developed. We have synthesized a hydrophilic α-maleimido poly-1-alkyne with Mn = 9.5 kDa (1H-NMR) and narrow PDi (1.15 as measured by SEC) via ATRP (Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization). This polymer was succesfully coupled to BSA to afford a hydrophilic multifunctional bioconjugate which was isolated using protein purification techniques and fully characterized. Following the post-functionalization approach, we introduced hydrophobicity to the resulting hydrophilic biohybrid by a straightforward, high yield “click”-chemistry cycloaddition step. The resulting tri-block protein–polymer amphiphiles were isolated and showed interesting aggregation patterns (TEM, confocal microscopy).
Identifying Individual Disease Dynamics in a Stochastic Multi-pathogen Model From Aggregated Reports and Laboratory Data

Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus are the leading etiologic agents of seasonal acute respiratory infections around the world. Medical doctors usually base the diagnosis of acute respiratory infections on patients' symptoms and do not always conduct laboratory tests necessary to identify individual viruses due to cost constraints. This limits the ability to study the interaction between specific etiological agents responsible for illnesses and make public health recommendations. We establish a framework that enables the identification of individual pathogen dynamics given aggregate reports and a small number of laboratory tests for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus in a sample of patients, which can be obtained at relatively small additional cost. We consider a stochastic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model of two interacting epidemics and infer the parameters defining their relationship in a Bayesian hierarchical setting as well as the posterior trajectories of infections for each illness over multiple years from the available data. We conduct inference based on data collected from a sentinel program at a general hospital in San Luis Potos\'i, M\'exico, interpret the results and make recommendations for future data collection strategies. Additional simulations are conducted to further study identifiability for these models. Supplementary materials are provided online.
Optimization Number of Topic Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is a probability model for grouping hidden topics in documents by the number of predefined topics. If done incorrectly, determining the number of K topics will result in limited word correlation with topics. Too large or too small number of K topics causes inaccuracies in grouping topics in the formation of training models. This study aims to determine the optimal number of corpus topics in the LDA method using the maximum likelihood and Minimum Description Length (MDL) approach. The experimental process uses an Indonesian news articles with the numbers of documents are 25, 50, 90, and 600 with the numbers of words are 3898, 7760, 13005, and 4365. The results show that the maximum likelihood and MDL approach result in the same number of optimal topics. The optimal number of topics is influenced by alpha and beta parameters. In addition, the number of documents does not affect the computation times, but the number of words does. Computational times for each of those datasets are 2.9721, 6.49637, 13.2967, and 3.7152 seconds. The optimization model has resulted a number of LDA topics as a classification model. This experiment shows that the highest average accuracy is 61% with alpha 0.1 and beta 0.001. Keywords—optimization, number of topic, likelihood, minimum description length, latent dirichlet allocation, text clustering.
ECOLOGICAL NICHE MODELING AND AN UPDATED GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION MAP OF Leptodactylus notoaktites HEYER, 1978 (ANURA, LEPTODACTYLIDAE) WITH A NEW OCCURRENCE RECORD

Leptodactylus notoaktites Heyer, 1978 (Anura, Leptodactylidae) is a Neotropical frog that can be found in open areas, forest edges, and inside forest clearings in southern Brazil. In this study, we present an updated distribution map of this species for a variety of vegetation types in the Atlantic Rain Forest and report a new occurrence record in the Alto Parana Atlantic Forests. We also performed an Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) which combined environmental variables with occurrence records to predict environmentally suitable areas for this species. Our study was based on published data, specimens collected in the field, and specimens from Brazilian herpetological collections. The ENM predicted high environmental suitability ranging from Sao Paulo, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul states, mainly in Serra do Mar Coastal Forest areas, while the lowest values were in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and some inland regions in the states of Sao Paulo and Parana. Based on the distribution of L. notoaktites , we suggest that field efforts should be extended to inland regions of the Atlantic Rain Forest. In fact, species restricted to coastal regions of the Atlantic Rain Forest could have larger ranges than expected if data from such inland regions was available.
Prevalence of risk factors, population-attributable fraction and risk of stroke among Kaunas middle-aged population

The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of risk factors, populationattributable risk fraction and prognosis of multiple risk factors for the risk of death from stroke among middle-aged Kaunas population during 1983–2003. Patients and methods. The random samples of men and women aged 35– 64 years were examined in MONICA-1, 2, 3 (n = 5437). The risk factors were assessed by the standard epidemiological questionnaire. New cases of deaths from stroke were registered from the beginning of every survey until December 31, 2003. During the follow-up period 85 deaths occurred: 45 in men and 43 in women. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the relative risks for death from stroke. The prevalence of arterial hypertension, physical inactivity, obesity, ischemic changes on electrocardiogram was higher among men who died of stroke as compared to men examined in the MONICA-1 survey. Results. The highest population attributable fraction of stroke was for arterial hypertension (59.1%) among men and for obesity (55.1%) among women. The risk of death from stroke among men was 2.3-fold higher with arterial hypertension, 4.9-fold with previous stroke, 2.3-fold with ischemic changes on electrocardiogram and 1.9-fold with physical inactivity. Arterial hypertension and impaired fasting glycaemia displayed the risk of death from stroke for women. Arterial hypertension and obesity were showed the highest prevalence among men and women who died from stroke. Arterial hypertension among men and obesity among women showed the greatest population-attributable fraction. Conclusion. Arterial hypertension, previous stroke, ischemic changes on electrocardiogram and physical inactivity approved the risk for stroke among men; arterial hypertension and impaired fasting glycaemia were independently associated with the risk for stroke among women. The highest population-attributable fractions among middle-aged men were arterial hypertension, physical inactivity and obesity, and among women obesity, arterial hypertension and coronary heart disease.
IMPACTS OF ISTANBUL EMISSIONS ON REGIONAL AIR QUALITY: QUANTIFICATION USING MODEL-3 FRAMEWORK AND TRAJECTORY ANALYSIS

Istanbul, the demographic and economic heart of Turkey, has gone through enormous changes over the past century. The Megacity of about 13 to 16 million inhabitants, 20% of Turkey’s total population has registered a dramatic population increase since 1950 (OECD, 2008). The city is located at 41°N 29°E, on the Bosporus strait which connects Black Sea to Aegean Sea via Marmara Sea. The city extends both on the European and on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The metropolitan region covers 6,220 square kilometers. Istanbul has a humid subtropical climate. The summer temperature is about 23 Co, where the winter temperature is about 7 Co. The humidity is high during all sessions. Average annual precipitation is about 693 mm and average wind speed is 17 km/h. According to the study conducted by OECD in 2008, Istanbul ranked 12 among 45 OECD metro-regions, growth rate slightly over 4%.
Crude oligosaccharides from Alternaria solani with Bacillus subtilis enhance defense activity and induce resistance against early blight disease of tomato

The present study was aimed to find an eco-friendly approach for the management of tomato early blight disease through seed treatment with different concentrations of crude oligosaccharide elicitor of Alternaria solani with PGPR alone and in combination. Seed treatment with the combination of 3 mg/ ml of CO with TN_Vel-35 showed significant increase in germination of 93.33% and 2733 seedling vigor when compared to control as well as individual treatments showing 75% germination and 887 seedling vigor. Under green house conditions maximum disease protection of 83% against early blight disease was recorded in combined treatment of CO with TN_Vel-35 when compared to control which showed less than 10%. At the biochemical level, enhanced accumulation of POX (49.86 U at 24 hpi) and PPO (44.56 U at 48 hpi) was obtained in challenge inoculated seeds treated with combined treatment of CO with TN_Vel-35 when compared to all other treatments and control.
A stepwise evolution of functions

A Genotype-Phenotype mapping in most Genetic Programming (GP) systems uses a predefined and rigid grammar definition. This method has been successful in producing the required solution. However, it can only be used to solve a limited set of problems. In this paper, a Teachable GP (TGP) system is proposed. An external GP system evolves a complete computer program, which acceptable solution is then added automatically to the existing grammar definition as a function and made available to the TGP system. This dynamic grammar definition allows for a more complex program to be generated, solving more complex problems. Experiments are performed to compare performances between GP without the added function, GP with a user-defined function and GP with the evolved function and results shows that GP with an evolved function is comparable to the GP with user-defined function and outperformed GP without function.
Oral Administration of Phosphorylated Dextran Regulates Immune Response in Ovalbumin-Immunized Mice

Phosphorylated dextran (P-Dex) is an acidic polysaccharide that functions as an immune adjuvant. P-Dex is known to regulate immune response by maintaining a balance between Th1 and Th2 cells in vitro, and thus may also be important in the control of allergic reactions. In the current study, we report the optimum conditions required for the efficient phosphorylation of dextran without toxicity. We found that when dextran was heated at 160°C for 24 h in phosphate buffer (pH 5.0), the resulting P-Dex demonstrated the highest phosphorus content (6.8%). We also report that P-Dex enhances mitogenic activity in mouse splenocytes and induces expression of CD69 and CD86 on the surface of B cells and dendritic cells (DC) in vitro. Oral administration of P-Dex to ovalubmin (OVA)-immunized mice was found to reduce antigen-induced cell proliferation and suppress the expression of CD86 on Th2-inducing DC via exogenous OVA stimulation. P-Dex was also found to increase IL-10 expression in the splenocytes of treated mice. These findings suggest that oral administration of P-Dex increases immunological tolerance and improves the specificity of immunological response to specific antigens.