Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporary employment in Europe: stagnating rates and rising risks

ABSTRACT There is a perception that temporary employment is rising in Europe but there is little evidence to support this. If one takes the position that temporary employment should be rising due to large structural changes in European labor markets, then stagnating trends represents something of a puzzle. I examine the puzzle by applying a life-course approach to understand the distribution and trends in temporary employment among prime-age workers in 31 European countries. I compare and contrast changes in the temporary employment rate in a single period of time using cross-sectional data from the European Labour Force Survey (LFS), with changes in the risk of experiencing temporary employment in multiple periods of time using longitudinal data from the European Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC). Results from cross-sectional data suggest that between 1996 and 2007, the temporary employment rate increased in Europe by 28%, but between 2007 and 2019, there was little change. By contrast, results from panel data suggest that between 2013 and 2019, the risk of experiencing at least one temporary employment contract rose 36%. Over time, the temporary employment rate stagnated, but the temporary employment risk rose. The contribution provides insight into the nature of employment experiences associated with insecurity.
ANALISIS KUALITAS SOAL PRA UJIAN NASIONAL MATA PELAJARAN EKONOMI AKUNTANSI

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui Validitas, Reliabilitas, Tingkat Kesukaran, Daya Pembeda, dan Efektivitas Pengecoh soal Pra Ujian Nasional Mata Pelajaran Ekonomi Akuntansi Kelas XII IIS SMA Negeri 1 Magelang. Metode pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode dokumentasi untuk mendapatkan data yang meliputi soal, kunci jawaban, kisi-kisi soal dan lembar jawab siswa. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah teknik deskriptif kuantitatif. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa ditinjau dari: (1) Validitas, soal yang valid berjumlah 29 butir (72,5%), dan tidak valid 11 butir (27,5%). (2) Reliabilitas, soal memiliki Reliabilitas rendah dengan koefisien Reliabilitas sebesar 0,62 (3) Tingkat Kesukaran, soal yang tergolong sukar berjumlah 6 butir (15%), sedang 24 butir (60%), dan mudah 10 butir (25%). (4) Daya Pembeda, butir soal dengan Daya Pembeda jelek 13 butir (32,5%), Daya Pembeda sedang 17 butir (42,5%), Daya Pembeda baik 8 butir (20%) dan Daya Pembeda negatif 2 butir (5%). (5) Efektivitas Pengecoh, Butir soal dengan Efektivitas Pengecoh sangat baik 5 butir (12,5%), Efektivitas Pengecoh baik 5 butir (12,5%), Efektivitas Pengecoh kurang baik 16 butir (40%), Efektivitas Pengecoh tidak baik 8 butir (20%), Efektivitas Pengecoh sangat tidak baik 6 butir (15%) . Kata kunci: Validitas, Reliabilitas, Tingkat Kesukaran, Daya Pembeda, Efektivitas Pengecoh, Soal Pra Ujian Nasional, Ekonomi Akuntansi
Design of Boost-Type Power Factor Correction with Stepped Air-Gap Ferrite Inductor for Peak-Power-Load Condition

This paper presents the designed method and the implementation of stepped air-gap ferrite inductor applied in power factor correction (PFC). Conventionally, the input inductor of the PFC has a designed consideration on the maximum output power; thus, designing the PFC for peak-power-load conditions results in a very large inductor. The proposed designed method improves the load-carrying capability without increasing the volume of the inductor when the PFC is operating in peak-power-load conditions. The stepped air-gap ferrite inductor maintains the inductance in the rated-full-load and sustains the peak-power-load conditions with the lower inductance. Compared with the convectional ferrite inductor, the proposed method can maintain the size and the efficiency of the power supply, and promote the power-carrying ability. The detailed analysis and the design of the proposed method are described. Experimental results are recorded and evaluated by a prototype PFC with an AC input voltage of 110–264 VAC and a DC output voltage of 384 VDC. Finally, the volume of input inductor is kept with 40950 mm2, the efficiency is also same compared with the conventional inductor, and the load-carrying capability of the converter is promoted from the normal rated power of 1 kW to the peak power load of 2 kW.
Seismic Upgrade of Earth Dams - Australian Practice

After the introduction of the ANCOLD Guidelines on the dam design to withstand earthquakes in 1998, many dams in Australia have been reviewed on their capacity to withstand earthquakes. As results, many of them have been upgraded in the last two decades to increase their resistance against seismic loading. This paper presents the current methods used in Australia to undertake seismic upgrade for earth dams. The paper firstly presents brief discussion on the current methods of seismic stability assessment of earth dams. It then discusses the advantages and limitations of the available methods for seismic rehabilitation. Finally, it presents one of the case histories of seismic upgrade in Victoria, Australia.
With warming, spring streamflow peaks are more coupled with vegetation green‐up than snowmelt in the northeastern United States

In forested watersheds, climate change may have substantial implications for both ecological and hydrological processes by altering the snow and vegetation seasonal dynamics. However, to date, there have been few studies which systematically analysed their combined effects on seasonal streamflow behaviour at the watershed scale. Using long‐term remote‐sensed vegetation data and snowpack measurements, we characterized the long‐term patterns in the timings of green‐up/senescence and subsequent growing season length, as well as snowpack development/disappearance and subsequent snowpack duration. We further investigated the correlations of phenological and snowpack seasonal variations with the cumulative percentiles of daily streamflow over two transition periods: vernal (between snowmelt and green‐up) and autumnal (between senescence and snowpack development) windows. We found growing season significantly lengthened by ~30 days over the last four decades at the study watershed, driven by both earlier green‐up and later senescence. The long‐term snowfall significantly decreased by ~2.4 cm, and the snowpack duration has been shortened by ~25 days, mostly driven by earlier snow disappearance. While there were no significant changes in the lengths of vernal and autumnal windows, the normalized streamflow distributions over the vernal window have widened and the low‐frequency peak flow over the autumnal window has shifted earlier over the study period. Interestingly, although the snow disappearance timing has advanced by ~18 days, there was no evidence of changes in the timing of spring peak discharge. Our results suggest that with long‐term decreases in winter snowfall and snowpack duration, the impacts of snowpack dynamics on seasonal streamflow regimes over the vernal and autumnal windows have weakened. Meanwhile, the seasonal streamflow dynamics are more closely mediated by vegetation green‐up with time. This study emphasizes the importance of understanding the phenological responses to climate change for prediction of future seasonal flow regimes in forested watersheds.
LINCing Senescence and Nuclear Envelope Changes

The nuclear envelope (NE) has emerged as a nexus for cellular organization, signaling, and survival. Beyond its role as a barrier to separate the nucleoplasm from the cytoplasm, the NE’s role in supporting and maintaining a myriad of other functions has made it a target of study in many cellular processes, including senescence. The nucleus undergoes dramatic changes in senescence, many of which are driven by changes in the NE. Indeed, Lamin B1, a key NE protein that is consistently downregulated in senescence, has become a marker for senescence. Other NE proteins have also been shown to play a role in senescence, including LINC (linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton) complex proteins. LINC complexes span the NE, forming physical connections between the cytoplasm to the nucleoplasm. In this way, they integrate nuclear and cytoplasmic mechanical signals and are essential not only for a variety of cellular functions but are needed for cell survival. However, LINC complex proteins have been shown to have a myriad of functions in addition to forming a LINC complex, often existing as nucleoplasmic or cytoplasmic soluble proteins in a variety of isoforms. Some of these proteins have now been shown to play important roles in DNA repair, cell signaling, and nuclear shape regulation, all of which are important in senescence. This review will focus on some of these roles and highlight the importance of LINC complex proteins in senescence.
A Robust Expression and Purification Method for Production of SpCas9-GFP-MBP Fusion Protein for In Vitro Applications

Genome editing using the CRISPR/Cas9 system is one of the trendiest methodologies in the scientific community. Many genome editing approaches require recombinant Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) at some point during their application, for instance, for in vitro validation of single guide RNAs (SgRNAs) or for the DNA-free editing of genes of interest. Hereby, we provide a simple and detailed expression and purification protocol for SpCas9 as a protein fused to GFP and MBP. This protocol improves protein yield and simplifies the purification process by overcoming the frequently occurring obstacles such as plasmid loss, inconsistent protein expression levels, or inadequate protein binding to affinity resins. On average, this protocol yields 10 to 30 mg of purified, active, His6−MBP−SpCas9 NLS−GFP protein. The purity addressed through SDS-PAGE is > 80%.
Seismic Diffraction Imaging for Improved Coal Structure Detection by a Structure-Oriented Moving Average Error Filter

Instead of dismissing seismic diffractions as interfering noise and ignoring or suppressing them, they can be used to identify small geological discontinuities such as faults, dykes, and other features that act as small scatters in the subsurface. We describe a simple, but fast and effective, structure-oriented, moving average error filter (MAEF) applied to the neighboring traces to extract diffractions from time-stack reflection seismic data or diffractors from migrated seismic data. The filter estimates the reflections with the average values of the neighboring traces along the reflection dip direction, which can be computed by the gradients of seismic data. The difference between the input data (unmigrated or migrated) and the estimated reflections yields the diffractions. By identifying diffractions, small faults and other minor features that are difficult to detect using conventional seismic reflection processing can be enhanced and detected. The effectiveness of the proposed method for diffraction extraction is demonstrated by numerical models and by applying it to a 3-D seismic survey data over a partially mined-out coal deposit.
Effect of Dietary and Lifestyle Interventions on the Amelioration of NAFLD in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome: The FLIPAN Study

Background: Adults with fatty liver present unusual glycaemia and lipid metabolism; as a result, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is now considered as part of the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Objective: To assess the 6- and 12-month effects of customized hypocaloric dietary and enhanced physical activity intervention on intrahepatic fat contents and progression of NAFLD, in patients with MetS. Design: Cross-sectional study in 155 participants (40–60 years old) from Balearic Islands and Navarra (Spain) with a diagnosis of NAFLD and MetS, and BMI (body mass index) between 27 and 40 kg/m2; patients were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to either Conventional Diet, Mediterranean diet (MD)–high meal frequency, and MD–physical activity groups. Methods: Dietary intake was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Adherence to Mediterranean diet, anthropometrics, physical activity, and biochemical parameters (fasting glucose, glycated hemoglobin, bilirubin, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase—ALT–, gamma-glutamyl transferase, uric acid, urea, creatinine, albumin, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol—HDL-cholesterol–, and triglycerides) were also assessed. Results: Subjects with NAFLD and MetS had reduced intrahepatic fat contents, and liver stiffness, despite the intervention the participants went through. All participants ameliorated BMI, insulin, Hb1Ac, diastolic blood pressure, HDL-cholesterol, and ALT, and improved consumption of total energy, fish, and legumes. Participants in the MD–HMF group improved waist circumference. Conclusions: Customized hypocaloric dietary and enhanced physical activity interventions may be useful to ameliorate NAFLD.
Generalized Sequential Rotation Arrays with Full Control of Dual-Circularly-Polarized Aperture-Field Distribution Based on Elliptically-Polarized Elements

In this paper, the theory, design, and experimental validation of wideband generalized sequential rotation arrays (GSRAs) are reported. Specially, the GSRA has the ability to provide dual-circularly-polarized (dual-CP) beams with different handedness using a single feeding network, whose aperture amplitude and phase distributions can both be independently controlled. Such functionality is achieved by jointly utilizing the dynamic phase and Berry phase, as well as exploiting elliptically-polarized array elements with different axial ratio values. The proposed technique and design methodology are verified by two proof-of-concept microstrip GSRAs consisting of an 8 × 8 array of elliptically-polarized stacked-patch elements operating in the K-band. The first prototype exhibits a 3 dB gain difference between the two CP beams, while the other offers a 6 dB gain difference and different sidelobe levels for the generated dual-CP beams. Both arrays are fabricated and measured, experimentally achieving a joint S11 < -10 dB, axial ratio < 3 dB, and 3-dB gain bandwidth of more than 28.4% and 20.1%, respectively, with a beam squinting of less than 30. In addition, the two GSRAs enable a bandwidth of about 19% and 3% within which the gain difference between the two CP beams of different handedness deviates from the targeted value by less than 1 dB. With the large degree of freedom in aperture field control, the proposed GSRAs could be potential candidates for use in satellite communications, point-to-multipoint communications, and so on.
Trichoderma virens mitigates the root-knot disease progression in the chickpea plant

ABSTRACT This study was planned to investigate the efficacy of various concentrations of Trichoderma virens against Meloidogyne incognita in vitro. The five concentrations viz., S, S/2, S/ 10, S/25, S/50 were prepared and planned for in vitro study to test the potential of T. virens against hatching and mortality of second-staged juveniles of M. incognita. It was observed a reduction in second-staged juveniles hatching within all tested aqueous concentrations of T. virens. The second-stage juvenile mortality was also recorded in the above-given concentrations of T. virens. The maximum decrease in second-stage juveniles hatching was found in standard aqueous fungal concentration (S). Moreover, in the same T. virens concentration (S), mortality of juveniles was also recorded as highest, and was followed by S/2, S/10, S/25 and S/50. Additionally, the application of T. virens as an individual, simultaneous, and sequential order with M. incognita was also investigated in pot-grown chickpea plants and found that its use was significantly effective in suppressing root-galling disease and improved the plants' growth and physiological attributes. According to the correlation coefficient analysis, the root-knot index correlated significantly with the per cent reduction of the plants' growth and physiological attributes.
A Low-Power and High-Accuracy Approximate Multiplier with Reconfigurable Truncation

Multipliers are among the most critical arithmetic functional units in many applications, and those applications commonly require many multiplications which result in significant power consumption. For applications that have error tolerance, employing an approximate multiplier is an emerging method to reduce critical path delay and power consumption. An approximate multiplier can trade off accuracy for lower energy and higher performance. In this paper, we not only propose an approximate 4-2 compressor with high accuracy, but also an adjustable approximate multiplier that can dynamically truncate partial products to achieve variable accuracy requirements. In addition, we also propose a simple error compensation circuit to reduce error distance. The proposed approximate multiplier can adjust the accuracy and power required for multiplications at run-time based on the users’ requirement. Experimental results show that the delay and the average power consumption of the proposed adjustable approximate multiplier can be reduced by 27% and 40.33% (up to 72%) when compared to the Wallace tree multiplier. Moreover, we demonstrate the suitability and reconfigurability of our proposed multiplier in convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to meet different requirements at each layer.
The Operation Characteristics and open-loop method of 1000/500/220kV Three-level Electromagnetic Loop Network

During the development of the high-voltage power grid, the emergence of electromagnetic loop in the network is inevitable. To ensure the normal operation of the grid, it needs to deal with the problems brought by electromagnetic loop with scientific methods. In this paper, the impacts of the electromagnetic loop have been discussed from several aspects such as heat stability, transient stability, short-circuit current levels, reactive power and voltage control; an open-loop principle of UHV three-level electromagnetic loop were put forward and its correctness has been proved by the simulation results of the actual grid. The study can provide some suggestions for the new emerging electromagnetic loop problems in the future period of rapid UHV development.
Prevalence of Bacterial and Protozoan Pathogens in Ticks Collected from Birds in the Republic of Moldova

Epidemiological knowledge on pathogens in ticks feeding on birds in Moldova is scarce. To reduce this gap of information, a total of 640 migrating and native birds of 40 species were caught from 2012 to 2015 and examined for the presence of ticks in the Republic of Moldova. Altogether, 262 ticks belonging to five tick species (Ixodes ricunus n = 245, Ixodes frontalis n = 12, Haemaphysalis punctata n = 2, Hyalomma marginatum n = 2 (only males), Dermacentor marginatus n = 1) were collected from 93 birds. Of these ticks, 250 (96%) were at the stage of a nymph and 9 at the stage of a larva (3%). One imago of I. frontalis and two imagoes of Hy. marginatum were found. Generally, ticks infested 14.1% of the assessed birds belonging to 12 species. DNA was extracted from individual ticks with subsequent PCR targeting Rickettsia spp. , Borrelia spp. in general, as well as relapsing fever-associated Borrelia spp. , in particular, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Neoehrlichia mikurensis, Babesia spp. and Coxiella burnetii. The bird species Turdus merula showed the heaviest infestation with ticks and the highest incidence of infected ticks. Altogether, 32.8% of the assessed ticks (n = 86) were positive for one of the pathogens. DNA of Borrelia spp. was found in 15.2% (40/262) of the investigated ticks; in 7.6% of ticks (20/262), DNA of rickettsiae was detected; 6.9% (18/262) of the ticks were positive for A. phagocytophilum DNA; in 1.5% of the ticks (4/262), DNA of Neoehrlichia mikurensis was detected, followed by 1.5% (4/262) Babesia microti and 1.5% (4/262) Borrelia miyamotoi. Within the B. burgdorferi complex, B. garinii (n = 36) was largely predominant, followed by B. valaisiana (n = 2) and B. lusitaniae (n = 2). Among the detected Rickettsia spp. , R. monacensis (n = 16), R. helvetica (n = 2) and R. slovaca (n = 1) were identified. In conclusion, the study provided some new information on the prevalence of ticks on birds in Moldova, as well as the presence of DNA of pathogens in the ticks. By doing so, it provided an additional piece in the puzzle of the global epidemiology of tick-transmitted infectious diseases from a geographic side from where respective surveillance data are scarce.
Single-Source Personalized PageRanks With Workload Robustness

Given a source node <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$s$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq1-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> and a target node <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>t</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq2-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> in a graph <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$G$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>G</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq3-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, the Personalized PageRank (PPR) from <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$s$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq4-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>t</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq5-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> is the probability of a random walk starting from <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$s$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq6-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> terminates at <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$t$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>t</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="mo-ieq7-3175814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>. PPR is a classic measure of the relevance between two nodes in a graph. It has been applied in numerous real-world systems. However, existing techniques for PPR queries are not robust to dynamic real-world graphs, which typically have different evolving speeds. Their performance is significantly degraded either at a lower graph evolving rate (e.g., much more queries than updates) or a higher rate. To address the above deficiencies, we propose <italic>Agenda</italic> to efficiently process, with strong approximation guarantees, the single-source PPR (SSPPR) queries on dynamically evolving graphs with various evolving speeds. Compared with previous methods, <italic>Agenda</italic> has significantly better workload robustness, while ensuring the same result accuracy. <italic>Agenda</italic> also has theoretically-guaranteed small query and update costs. Experiments on up to billion-edge scale graphs show that <italic>Agenda</italic> significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods for various query/update workloads, while maintaining better or comparable approximation accuracies.
AUTOMATION OF AS-BUILT BIM CREATION FROM POINT CLOUD: AN OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH WORKS FOCUSED ON INDOOR ENVIRONMENT

Abstract. While BIM (Building Information Modelling) appears as a solution to reduce the cost and environmental impact of buildings, its implementation on existing buildings is still a major challenge. In the last five years, an important number of publications on the topic have been published. This paper proposes an up-to-date overview about the automation of as-built BIM creation from point clouds, focused on indoor environment. It is structured in two main parts. The first one deals with the segmentation and classification of point clouds by storey, rooms, walls, and slabs. The second one focuses on the modelling, strictly speaking, of the main elements of an indoor scene. The approaches are grouped into principal ideas. Through the presentation of methods using new types of scanners and associated sensors, it highlights the promising use of other information in addition to 3D geometry.