Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A discussion on the ethical issues in peer-to-peer network monitoring

Peer-to-peer networks have gained a significant amount of popularity since their inception, being used in a wide variety of contexts; both legal and illegal. The demand for monitoring techniques able to analyse performance, identify copyright infringers and detect the presence of peer-to-peer traffic on networks has similarly risen. Along with them ethical issues have surfaced, awareness of which is essential when planning research requiring peer-to-peer monitoring. This paper discusses the collection of data through the monitoring of peer-to-peer networks and identifies areas of particular ethical concern in its use.
Keep it simple: time-of-use tariffs in high-wind scenarios

Price signals have been suggested to bring about greater demand side flexibility and thus support the integration of variable sources of energy, such as wind. A conflict exists between keeping these signals simple for consumers, while making responses appropriate for increasingly complex supply–demand balancing dynamics in future. This study reviews some of the demand responses observed in time-of-use (ToU) tariff trials and assesses their effectiveness in scenarios with higher levels of wind. The authors simulate wholesale real-time prices for high-wind scenarios as a benchmark tariff. Simple tariff structures are compared against real-time prices for the extent to which they can ‘nudge’ demand in the ‘right direction’. They present results which suggest that even in high-wind scenarios, simple ToU tariffs could have a beneficial effect on overall system costs. The load shifting and reduction behaviour observed under ToU trials could lower energy costs by between 4 and 6% without the need for complex price signals.
Villa, R. and Wilson, R. and Crestani, F. (2004) Automatically attaching web pages to an ontology. In: International Conference on Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty in Knowledge-Based

This paper describes a proposed system for automatically attaching material from the world wide web to concepts in an ontology. The motivation for this research stems from the Diogene project, which requires the project's own databases of learning objects to be augmented with additional resources from the web. Two main approaches to this problem are being taken: one using ontology mapping, and another based on the conventional text search facilities of the web, covered in this paper. By generating queries based on the concepts in the ontology, the aim is to retrieve material from the web, and then filter it to ensure its proper correspondence with a concept. The Diogene system will be briefly outlined, before the query-generation system is described. A small pilot experiment, designed to provide some initial results and insight into the problem, is then presented.
Recent advances on single photon sources based on single colloidal nanocrystals

Single colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are increasingly exploited as triggered sources of single photons. This review reports on recent results on single photon sources (SPS) based on colloidal quantum dots, whose size, shape and optical properties can be finely tuned by wet chemistry approach. First, we address the optical properties of different colloidal nanocrystals, such as dots, rods and dot in rods and their use as single photon sources will be discussed. Then, we describe different techniques for isolation and positioning single QDs, a major issue for fabrication of single photon sources, and various approaches for the embedding single nanocrystals inside microcavities. The insertion of single colloidal QDs in quantum confined optical systems allows one to improve their overall optical properties and performances in terms of efficiency, directionality, life time, and polarization control. Finally, electrical pumping of colloidal nanocrystals light emitting devices and of NC-based single photon sources is reviewed.
Evidence of Supermassive Black Holes in Narrow Emission Line Galaxies

A sample of 229618 narrow emission-line galaxies is used to establish two new unambiguous types of evidence for supermassive black holes at the center of their nuclei: (1) the Seyfert 2 galaxies and LINERs follow the same characteristic power law relating the luminosity of the ionized flux with that of the continuum; (2) both show the highest concentration of mass at their center, independent of the morphology of the galaxy, consistent with higher binding energies. The full width at half maximum is shown to be related with the mass concentration, suggesting that the kinetic energy of the gas in AGNs has a gravitational origin. Within the standard accretion model, transition-type objects, Seyfert 2 galaxies and LINERs represent AGNs forming supermassive black holes on different mass-scales, or they could be related through an evolutionary process, the LINERs representing the end product of this evolution.
Marriage, norm orientation and leaving the parental home: Turkish immigrant and native families in Germany

This article investigates differences between native Germans and Turkish immigrants in the timing of leaving their parental homes in Germany. By using event history models, it is shown that leaving the parental home is closely linked to the intervening life-event of marriage, particularly among Turkish women. Moreover, there are interaction effects of religious norm orientation with gender which differ between native Germans and Turkish immigrants. In contrast to Turkish immigrants, the linkage of marriage and leaving home became much weaker over birth-cohorts with time in the group of German women. Finally, analyses of sequence patterns also show remarkable differences between native Germans and Turkish immigrants in the process of leaving home. Religious norm orientation turns out to be less important in the Turkish group than in the native German group.
Internationalization of State-Owned Enterprises Through Foreign Direct Investment

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are created to focus on domestic needs, and yet recent evidence points to increasing outward foreign direct investment by SOEs. Existing International Business (IB) theories focus on efficiency-based motives for internationalization; therefore, they do not fully capture SOEs' internalization dynamics, which are driven largely by political factors and social welfare considerations. We integrate public management and IB theories to develop propositions that combine these questions: why SOEs internationalize; what are their motivations; and what are the main managerial outcomes of SOEs' internationalization. Our findings suggest that SOEs display little hesitancy in entering international markets, and that SOE international expansion is not contradictory with the goals of state-ownership if the purpose is to adjust the company to changing institutional environments both in the domestic and international markets. Our propositions about SOE internationalization are based on an in-depth case study of the outward foreign direct investment conducted by Brazil's Petrobras over the past three decades.
A DEA Analysis of Bank Performance in Nigeria

The recent effort by the Nigerian Central Bank to merge banks, sorely with the aim of increasing shareholders confidence and improved performance, triggered this study. Therefore, the paper measures and decomposes efficiency using the non-parametric approach popularly known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and productivity growth using Malmquist Productivity index (MPI), in a sample of Nigerian commercial banks over the period of 5 years. Net fixed assets and total deposits were used as the input variables while total loans and advances, other earning assets and net operating income were used as the output variables. Under the Constant Return to Scale assumption, the average efficiency of all the banks over the 5-year period showed a constant improvement. Although the efficiency improvement in the 3rd year seems low, on the average over the years considered the results of all the banks consistently showed improvements. When we considered the variable return to scale we found the efficiency score to still maintain the score significance, although slightly lower in some instances. It is the recommendation of the paper that banks need to do more in terms of maintaining their level of efficiency, especially, when you consider the fact that they have merged with other banks that have somewhat different level of performance and productivity efficiency.
Tracking the Evolution of Written Language Competence: an NLP–based Approach

English. In this paper, we present an NLPbased innovative approach for tracking the evolution of written language competence relying on different sets of linguistic features that predict text quality. This approach was tested on a corpus essays written by Italian L1 learners of the first and second year of the lower secondary school. Italiano. In questo articolo, presentiamo un metodo innovativo per monitorare l’evoluzione delle competenze di scrittura basato su tecnologie del linguaggio che sfruttano caratteristiche linguistiche predittive della qualita del testo. Questo approccio e stato testato su un corpus di produzioni scritte di apprendenti l’italiano L1 del primo e secondo anno della scuola secondaria di primo grado.
A simulation of a police patrol service system with multi-grade time-varying incident arrivals

Due to the squeeze on public expenditure, the funding cuts imposed on the police provide a great impetus to find an efficient incident response sequence with limited resources. This is especially the case for police response systems which exhibit the characteristics of time-varying volume of demand. In this paper, we investigate two types of priority queues in the patrol service system. Both the incident arrival rate and the scheduled staff level change with time. For such a system, there is no analytical model available to give close-form performance, so simulation is used for the study. Although dynamic priority queues which enable more flexibility in setting the sequence of service requests are widely applied in many service systems, such as the NHS service system, the simulation model results show that in police patrol service systems static priority queue performs better.
Comparison of nitrogen incorporation in SiO2/SiC and SiO2/Si structures

The nitrogen content of SiO2/SiC (4H) structures annealed in NO and N2O has been measured using nuclear reaction analysis. Samples were annealed in 15N18O or 15N2O at 1000 °C at a static pressure of 10 mbar for either 1 or 4 h. Annealing in N2O incorporates ∼1013 cm−2 of N and annealing in NO incorporates ∼1014 cm−2, both of which are an order of magnitude lower than in SiO2/Si. In the NO anneal, N is predominantly incorporated near the SiO2/SiC interface with an atomic concentration of ∼0.5%. As in the nitridation of SiO2/Si, two features are observed in SiO2/SiC after the NO anneal: a surface exchange of O in the oxide with the gas phase and NO diffusion and reaction at the interface. The surface exchange reaction in SiO2/SiC is similar to SiO2/Si, but there is a large difference in the incorporation of N at the interface.
Both rare and common species make unique contributions to functional diversity in an ecosystem unaffected by human activities

Rare species typically contribute more to functional diversity than common species. However, humans have altered the occupancy and abundance patterns of many species—the basis upon which we define “rarity. ” Here, we use a globally unique dataset from hydrothermal vents—an untouched ecosystem—to test whether rare species over‐contribute to functional diversity.
Exploration of Pre-service Teachers’ Beliefs in relation to Mathematics Teaching Activities in Classroom-based Setting

This paper has been conducted to determine future teachers’ mathematical beliefs and to explore the relationship between their mathematical beliefs and initial teaching practice in a classroom setting, in terms of how they design the content of teaching activities, they employed the style of teaching in mathematics, and they engaged with pupils. A collective case study approach was used for this study so as to concentrate on a belief and belief in action association with numerous examples. Pre-service teachers were observed using a variety of procedures to reveal qualitative data about their teaching practice during the school-based practicum, and were then requested to complete six open-ended questions form concerning mathematical beliefs. The analysis of data revealed considerable coherence among pre-service teachers’ beliefs in relation to teaching and learning of mathematics and consistent associations between their beliefs and their teaching practices in a classroom-based setting. Although pre-service teacher’ accounts emphasized the use of contemporary approaches in mathematics teaching to enhance and extend students’ learning of mathematics but they felt not enough confident to integrate these ideas into teaching mathematics effectively. In addition, some teachers who held a learner-based mathematical beliefs but were teaching mathematics in a classroom with traditional sense.
Monetary transmission and bank lending in the Netherlands

This paper investigates the role of bank lending in the monetary transmission process in the Netherlands. We observe significant differences between the responses of corporate and household lending following a monetary shock. We also find that banks hold a buffer stock of securities which they use to offset monetary shocks. The main implication of our study is that a bank lending channel is not likely to be an important transmission mechanism of monetary policy.
Understanding the Structural Changes in Nafion due to Shelf-Life and Pretreatment : Thermo Dynamical Approach of Water and Metal Ion Sorption

Water and metal ion sorption of aged Nafion membrane have been studied. In order to understand water sorption, swelling pressure and free energy of swelling have been calculated for the water sorption data on studies carried out earlier. The larger free energy change observed on swelling of the transition metal ion form of Nafion as compared to its original protonated form indicates that hydration is more favored for the transition metal ion substituted membrane which supports its affinity toward these ions. Metal ion uptake data for differently treated aged Nafion membranes were analyzed with different isotherm models, and it is confirmed that that metal ion uptake followed chemisorption. Moreover, it was seen that pretreatment is found to affect the sorption behavior and therefore there is a change in the model that fits best to the sorption data.
Coping strategies as mediator variables between explanatory styles and depressive symptoms

The main goal of this study was to analyze the relationships among explanatory styles, coping strategies and depressive symptoms. Path analyses conducted with data of 234 individuals showed that Negative Ex- planatory Style (tendency to explain negative outcomes through internal, stable, and global causes) had both a positive direct effect on depressive symptoms, and an indirect effect on them through the use of avoidant strategies. On the contrary, Enhancing Explanatory Style (tendency to ex- plain positive outcomes through internal, stable, and global causes) had negative direct and indirect effects on these symptoms, but in this case, the indirect effect occurs through the use of problem solving and positive cog- nitive restructuring coping and the non-use of avoidant strategies. As a whole, the results suggest that to prevent the onset of depressive symp- toms or to reduce them once they appear, enhancing explanatory style and problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring strategies should be promoted.
A Hypersingular Numerical Green's FunctionGeneration For BEM Applied To General FractureMechanics Problems - Elastodynamics

The present paper discusses the application of the Hyper-singular Boundary Integral Equation to obtain the Green's function solution for elastodynamic Fracture Mechanics problems. The work introduces efficient numerical means of computing the Green's function components for multiple crack problems, of general geometry. Applications to time harmonic and transient (through inverse numerical transform) problems are presented.
Adsorption of Bovine Serum Albumin on Carbon-Based Materials

The protein adsorption plays a very important role in biotechnology, biomolecular engineering and it is one of the main factors determining bio- and hemocompatibility of biomedical materials in medical applications, such as blood purification and wound healing. Here we report adsorption properties of two carbon-based materials, thermally expanded graphite (EGr) and graphene nanoplatelets (GnP), for bovine serum albumin (BSA), the most abundant blood plasma protein. The influence of the surface chemistry of expanded graphite on the mechanism of BSA adsorption was studied by using EGr modified with oxygen or nitrogen functionalities. Having low microporosity and the specific surface area in the range of 5 to 50 m2/g, the expanded graphite exhibits high protein adsorption capacity at high equilibrium concentrations, which makes this material a potential candidate for biomedical applications as a carrier for high molecular weight (HMW) drug delivery or adsorption of HMW metabolites. At low equilibrium concentrations, the effect of specific protein-surface functional groups interaction reveals the differences between the adsorption affinity of different surface modified EGr materials to BSA. The adsorption of BSA on GnP with a specific surface area of 286 m2/g and a developed micro-/mesoporous structure did not follow the same mechanism as seen with EGr materials. At low equilibrium concentration of BSA, GnP exhibits high adsorption efficiency. An important finding is that no release of nanoparticles from expanded graphite adsorbents was observed, which makes them potentially suitable for direct contact with blood and other tissues while very small nanoparticles were noticed in the case of graphene nanoplatelets.
Reproductive foraging ecology of five sympatrically breeding Alcid seabirds

I used stable isotope methods to track the diets and habitat use of five sympatrically breeding Alcid seabirds throughout three stages of reproduction. Eggs, and nestling tissues were also collected in order to examine differences between items selected for provisioning offspring and those selected for self-feeding. This sampling protocol permitted an experimental field-based validation of isotopic discrimination for whole blood, which revealed that conventional lab-based estimates of this central parameter (-3.4%0) are >200% higher than the field-based estimates calculated here (-1.06%0). Using these field-based estimates, I show that the diets and habitat use of these five sympatric Alcids can differ between stages, as well as between adults and offspring. These results have implications for designing marine protected areas, and predicting the effects of climate-change, as well as for considering the evolutionary relationships between foraging and reproduction.
Real Earnings Management and Timely loss Recognition

Most of the contemporaneous research on earnings management focuses on the detection of abnormal accruals. The purpose of this study is to detect manipulation of real activities to meet zero earnings target in the firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) over 2002-2009 and investigate the relationship between real activities manipulation and timely loss recognition. Relying on prior studies (e.g. Roychowdhury) to develop our proxies for real earnings management, we analyze operating cash flows (OCF), production costs and discretionary expenses to detect evidence on real activities manipulation in TSE as an emerging capital market. Furthermore, to measure the timely loss recognition, we use the approach introduced by Basu. We detect abnormally low OCF, abnormally low discretionary expenses and abnormally high production costs for companies that report small positive net incomes at the annual level. The evidence is consistent with firms trying to increase reported annual earnings beyond zero by giving price discounts to boost sales temporarily and by overproduction and decrease in discretionary expenses. We also find that the timely loss recognition for firms engaging in real earnings management is lower than that of other firms. The paper motivates an interesting topic of earnings management in an emerging market where earnings management is more likely to be of concern. Also, this paper studies the relationship between real activities manipulation and timely loss recognition (TLR) as proxy for earnings quality.
Inversion of large loop transient electromagnetic data over layered earth models

The present paper describes an inversion scheme for the large loop transient electromagnetic (TEM) data that can be applied for all the measuring configurations due to a large loop source, such as central loop, in-loop and offset-loop configurations. The inversion is based on a non-linear least square method that generates a smooth layered earth model by minimizing the residual misfit function in an iterative process. It produces an inverted model from the data using the criteria of minimization of misfit function and/or convergence of residual in two successive iterations. The forward problem is formulated in frequency domain, and then it is transformed into the time domain using Fourier cosine or sine transform. The accuracy and robust· ness of algorithm is tested by inverting the large loop TEM data due to the central loop, in-loop and offset loop configurations over 3-layer synthetic models, with or without addition of random noise. Inverted results are in good accordance with theoretical models and demonstrate that different parameters are recovered with high accuracy. The program works satisfactorily with noisy data and produces inverted results with acceptable accuracy for synthetic data with 5% random noise. The program in its present form is meant for inversion of voltage response data, but it also possesses the option for inversion of apparent resistivity data with slight change of input parameters and modification in the program. It allows inversion of large loop TEM data with or without the displacement current factor.
ResearchArticle Dielectric Resonator Method for Measuring the Electrical Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes from Microwave to Millimeter Frequencies

Received 27 February 2007; Accepted 21 June 2007Recommended by Christian BrosseauWe describe a dielectric resonator-based measurement method for determining the electrical conductivity of carbon nanotubesat microwave to millimeter frequencies. This measurement method is not limited by the metal conductor contact resistances orimpedance mismatch commonly encountered in the measurement of single nanotubes. The measurement of carbon nanotubesyielded conductivities of approximately 0