Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The service-productivity learning cockpit - a business intelligence tool for service enterprises

The paper describes the development of an agent-based simulation tool for hospital managers to manage their productivity of services, especially in the context of supporting services like patient transport logistics. The learning cockpit allows hospital managers to see how the change of inputs changes the overall perceived customer values of all stakeholders and therefore to get a visualization of the impacts their decisions cause. The paper introduces the general research domain service-productivity, followed by a description of the development steps of artefact creation. The learning cockpit is part of a research project called BELOUGA, which is funded by the German government.
Are Swiss birds tracking climate change ?

Climate change is affecting biodiversity worldwide inducing species to either “move, adapt or die”. In this paper we propose a conceptual framework for analysing range shifts, namely a catalogue of the possible patterns of change in the distribution of a species along elevational or other environmental gradients and an improved quantitative methodology to identify and objectively describe these patterns. Patterns are defined in terms of changes occurring at the leading, trailing or both edges of the distribution: (a) leading edge expansion, (b) trailing edge retraction, (c) range expansion, (d) optimum shift, (e) expansion, (f) retraction, and (g) shift. The methodology is based on the modelling of species distributions along a gradient using generalized additive models (GAMs). Separate models are calibrated for two distinct periods of assessment and response curves are compared over five reference points. Changes occurred at these points are formalized into a code that ultimately designates the corresponding change pattern. We tested the proposed methodology using data from the Swiss national common breeding bird [. ] MAGGINI LEHMANN, Ramona, et al. Are Swiss birds tracking climate change? Ecological Modelling, 2011, vol. 222, no. 1, p. 21-32 DOI : 10.1016/j.ecolmodel. 2010.09. 010
Challenges experienced by medical device software development organizations while following a plan-driven software development life cycle

Medical device software organisations face challenges not faced by generic software devel-opment organisations. These challenges include the adherence to regulatory controls. Regula-tory bodies require medical device software organisations to provide objective evidence that the software they are developing is safe and reliable. To produce this, regulatory bodies re-quire a number of deliverables which must be achieved. However, they do not dictate which Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) must be followed in order to achieve these delivera-bles. Despite not dictating which SDLC must be followed when developing medical device software, organisations typically develop their software in accordance with a Plan-Driven soft-ware development lifecycle. By conducting semi structured interviews with seven medical device software organisations, we gained a deeper insight into how the challenges experienced impact on the development of medical device software. The interviews also attempted to learn from the participants how they believe the challenges experienced can be overcome. The aim of this paper is to explain the methodology used to perform interviews with medical device software organisations and to present these interviews.
Observation of convection initiation processes with a suite of state‐of‐the‐art research instruments during COPS IOP 8b

In the afternoon of 15 July 2007, a thunderstorm was initiated within a line of cumulus clouds which formed parallel to the crest of the Black Forest mountains during the Intensive Observation Period (IOP) 8b of the Convective and Orographically‐induced Precipitation Study (COPS). This paper extends the analysis of processes that led to convection initiation (CI), i.e. the transition from shallow to deep convection, on this day with the data from several COPS instruments that have not been considered in previous studies. In particular, the boundary‐layer structure, lids and the water‐vapour field in the pre‐convective environment of the event are discussed. For this purpose, we investigated measurements of water‐vapour lidars, temperature lidars and wind lidars, profiles from radiosondes, in situ aircraft data and gridded data of weather stations as well as GPS integrated‐water‐vapour data and satellite imagery. Thermally driven circulation systems formed over both the Black Forest and the Vosges mountain ranges which resulted in local convergence zones. These superimposed with the large‐scale convergence in the Black Forest area. In the presence of sufficient moisture and updraught, clouds formed close to the mountain crests. The related latent‐heat release allowed larger thermals to be produced, which may have had a positive feedback on stabilizing these convergence zones as a whole. We believe that differences in the moisture field explain why convection remained shallow and sparse over the Vosges mountains because these differences were responsible for differences in convective inhibition (CIN). The stationary location of the convergence zone over the southern Black Forest was probably decisive for CI because it constantly transported sensible and latent heat into the area in which CI took place. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society
Cross-seasonal effects and the dynamics of waterfowl populations

Cross-seasonal effects (CSEs) on waterfowl populations link together events and habitats that individuals experience as carry-over effects (COEs) throughout the annual cycle. The importance of CSEs has been recognised since at least the 1950s. Studies of nutrient dynamics beginning in the 1970s, followed by regression analyses that linked production of young to winter habitat conditions, confirmed the importance of CSEs. CSEs have been most apparent in large-bodied waterfowl, but evidence for CSEs in much smaller passerines suggests the potential for CSEs in all waterfowl. Numerous studies have established effects of winter weather on body condition and reproduction in both ducks and geese. Additionally, the ubiquitous use (during laying and incubation) of nutrients stored previously during spring migration suggests that such nutrients commonly influence reproductive success in waterfowl. Carry-over effects from the breeding season to autumn and winter are less well understood, although nutrition during the growth period in geese has been widely demonstrated to influence subsequent survival and reproduction. Only a few studies have examined effects of breeding on reproduction in later years. Because pathogens and parasites can be carried between seasonal habitats, disease represents an important potential mechanism underlying CSEs; so far, however, this role for diseases and parasitism remains poorly understood. CSEs were originally of interest because of their implications for management of seasonal habitats and CSEs represent a fundamental rationale for the habitat joint ventures in North America. Substantial research examining the role of COEs in individual fitness and of CSEs on population dynamics has now been conducted. New techniques (e.g. stable isotopes, geolocators) developed over the last decade, combined with more traditional marking programmes have created opportunities to understand CSEs more fully and to inform the management of seasonal habitats for waterfowl.
iGen: Toward Automatic Generation and Analysis of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) using Convolutional Neural Network

Field of cyber threats is evolving rapidly and every day multitude of new information about malware and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) is generated in the form of malware reports, blog articles, forum posts, etc. However, current Threat Intelligence (TI) systems have several limitations. First, most of the TI systems examine and interpret data manually with the help of analysts. Second, some of them generate Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) directly using regular expressions without understanding the contextual meaning of those IOCs from the data sources which allows the tools to include lot of false positives. Third, lot of TI systems consider either one or two data sources for the generation of IOCs, and misses some of the most valuable IOCs from other data sources. To overcome these limitations, we propose iGen, a novel approach to fully automate the process of IOC generation and analysis. Proposed approach is based on the idea that our model can understand English texts like human beings, and extract the IOCs from the different data sources intelligently. Identification of the IOCs is done on the basis of the syntax and semantics of the sentence as well as context words (e.g., “attacked”, “suspicious”) present in the sentence which helps the approach work on any kind of data source. Our proposed technique, first removes the words with no contextual meaning like stop words and punctuations etc. Then using the rest of the words in the sentence and output label (IOC or non-IOC sentence), our model intelligently learn to classify sentences into IOC and non-IOC sentences. Once IOC sentences are identified using this learned Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based approach, next step is to identify the IOC tokens (like domains, IP, URL) in the sentences. This CNN based classification model helps in removing false positives (like IPs which are not malicious). Afterwards, IOCs extracted from different data sources are correlated to find the links between thousands of apparently unrelated
Effect of GPD2 and PDC6 Deletion on Isobutanol Titer in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Objectives: Isobutanol is regarded as a next-generation biofuel for its higher octane number and higher energy density than ethanol. However, during isobutanol biosynthesis, ethanol and glycerol are major unwanted byproducts. In order to improve isobutanol production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we used molecular biology and genetic recombination technologies to eliminate ethanol and glycerol titers. Methods: In this study, GPD2 and PDC6 were deleted to increase isobutanol production in microaerobic fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Engineered strain HZAL–13 (PGK1p–BAT2 gpd2Δ::RYUR) was constructed by overexpressing of BAT2 (which encodes a branched-chain amino-acid aminotransferase) and deleting GPD2 (which encodes glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase). Engineered strain HZAL–14 (PGK1p–BAT2 pdc6Δ::R gpd2Δ::RYUR) was obtained by further deleting PDC6 (which encodes pyruvate decarboxylase) in HZAL– 13 pILV2. Then we tested the fermentation performances of engineered strains and control strain. During microaerobic fermentation, cultures were performed at 30°C in the unbaffled shake flasks kept at constant stirring speed of 100 rev/min with 100 ml medium for 48 hours. Results: The maximum isobutanol titers of control strain, HZAL–13 pILV2 and HZAL–14 pILV2 were 29.8 mg/l, 162.3 mg/l and 309.3 mg/l, respectively. These results demonstrate that decreasing glycerol formation and ethanol biosynthesis in combination through deletion of PDC6 and GPD2 could increase dramatically the isobutanol titer in S. cerevisiae. Conclusion: Overexpression of related genes in isobutanol biosynthesis pathway and deletion of key genes that encode glycerol and ethanol biosynthesis is a promising strategy to increase isobutanol titer in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Electromagnetism-like Algorithms for The Fuzzy Fixed Charge Transportation Problem

In this paper, we consider the fuzzy fixed-charge transportation problem (FFCTP). Both of fixed and transportation cost are fuzzy numbers. Contrary to previous works, Electromagnetism-like Algorithms (EM) is firstly proposed in this research area to solve the problem. Three types of EM; original EM, revised EM, and hybrid EM are firstly employed for the given problem. The latter is being firstly developed and proposed in this paper. Another contribution is to present a novel, simple and cost-efficient representation method, named string representation. It is employed for the problem and can be used in any extended transportation problems. It is also adaptable for both discrete and continues combinatorial optimization problems. The employed operators and parameters are calibrated, according to the full factorial and Taguchi experimental design. Besides, different problem sizes are considered at random to study the impacts of the rise in the problem size on the performance of the algorithms.
Modeling and Experimental Verification of Ultrasound Transmission in Electro Insulation Oil

A verification study of ultrasound transmission numerical simulation results with experiment results is presented in this paper. The work considers a model of a transformer tank which is filled with electro insulating oil. In the experiment, performed under laboratory conditions, an ultrasound wave is generated by a piezoelectric transducer that is fixed in the centre of the tank and measured by another transducer mounted inside the tank at three distances: 10, 20 and 30 cm from the sound source. The transducer is able to measure and generate acoustic waves in the ultrasound frequency band up to 1 MHz. The simulation considers numerical calculation of acoustic pressure distribution inside the tank in which acoustic source emits waves with frequency equal to 100 kHz. Verification analysis has confirmed consistency of the numerically calculated values with the measurement results.
Approaches for Analyzing Behavioral Interactions of Fishes Using Time Series Video Observations at an Ocean Observatory off the Coast of Georgia

Remote underwater video produces replicate visual observations of species composition, behavior and interactions with habitat under the most natural conditions possible. Previous video-based studies are associated with adequate spatial coverage but poor temporal coverage of particular habitats, due to limited bottom time for divers and other underwater vehicles. However, time series data from a single long-term study site reveals fine scale variations in species composition and behavior. We used time series video from an ocean observatory site in the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) off the coast of Georgia to quantify patterns of species interactions and group foraging in a sub-tropical fish community. Six cameras mounted centrally with outward looking fields of view recorded 10-second video clips every hour during daylight. Video clips from November 2002 were examined to evaluate multivariate techniques for distinguishing patterns in behavioral interactions between species.
38th Congress of the European Regional Science Association 28 August-1 September 1998, Vienna

Unemployment is one of the most important problems of the Spanish and European economies. A possible analysis, vastly extended in recent literature, focuses on mismatch problems between labour demand and supply. In this sense, the empirical relationship between the vacancy rate and the unemployment rate, the so-called Beveridge curve, offers a potential instrument to characterise the unemployment of the considered economy. Different studies, such as Jackman et al. (1989), Pissarides (1986, 1990) Antolin (1994) among others, point out that outward shifts of the Beveridge curve can be interpreted as increases in structural unemployment. The identification of these shifts provide useful information that can be used for policy planning. The main objective of this paper is to identify the outward shifts of the Beveridge curve for the Spanish economy in the period 1978-1996. We also analyse a possible change in the elasticity of unemployment to vacancies since middle 80's. We use annual data from the Encuesta de Poblacion Activa (INE) and the Estadistica de Empleo (INEM), as both sources provide regional disaggregated data. In order to analyse the effect of unemployment rate persistence we use a Dynamic Panel Data (Arellano and Bond, 1991).
Emotional Intelligence, Religious Orientation, and Mental Health Among University Students

Present research explored the relationship among emotional intelligence, religious orientation and mental health of university students. It was assumed that emotional intelligence would be a better predictor of psychological well-being than religious orientation. To study the effect of religious orientation and emotional intelligence on psychological distress and to investigate the role of religiosity in development of emotional intelligence were also focal points of research. The purposive convenient sample included 209 students (89 men and 120 women) from GC University, Lahore, Pakistan. Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Steer, and Brown, 1996), Positive and Negative Affectivity Scale (Watson, Clark, and Tellegen, 1988), Trait Anxiety Scale (Speilberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, and Jacobs, 1983), Age-Universal I-E Scale (Maltby, 1999), Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998), and Well-being Manifestation Measure Scale (Masse et al., 1998) were administered to the participants. Results indicated signif cant positive relationship among emotional intelligence, religious orientation, and psychological well-being while emotional intelligence and religious orientation both have significant negative association with psychological distress. Results of multiple regression showed that emotional intelligence and religious orientation have significant effect on psychological distress. Moreover, emotional intelligence was a better predictor of psychological well-being than religious orientation, while religious orientation also has significant predictive association with emotional intelligence.
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF BRIDGELESS BUCK CONVERTER WITH FUZZY CONTROLLER FED PMDC DRIVE

This paper presents the Fuzzy controller based bridgeless buck converter has been estimated and the performance of the converter is analyzed. This converter has advantages like reduced switching losses, stresses and EMI. The method to predict the steady state and dynamic performance of the converter fed with PMDC motor operation has been presented. The proposed converter has been analyses with the closed loop and open loop condition. The simulation study indicates the superiority of fuzzy control over the conventional control methods. A prototype Buck converter is designed and experimentally demonstrated. The prototype is tested for the steady state and transient conditions. Comparison between experimental and simulations show a very good agreement and the reliability of fuzzy controller.
Critical Role of CA1 Nicotinic Receptors on Memory Acquisition Deficit Under Induction of Total Sleep Deprivation and REM Sleep Deprivation

Objective : Sleep disorder or sleep deprivation (SD) is a common issue in today’s society. Numerous evidences show that sleep is essential for proper brain performance and cognitive processes; on the other hand, cognitive functions have a broad range with learning and long-term memory as the most important ones related to attention. Since many studies show that cholinergic system has a significant role in sleep, learning, and memory, this study aims to investigate the impacts of CA1 Cholinergic Nicotinic Receptors on memory acquisition deficit which is stimulated by total sleep deprivation (TSD) and REM sleep deprivation (RSD). Methodology : In this study a water box or a multi-platform apparatus was used in order to induce total sleep deprivation (TSD) or REM sleep deprivation (RSD). In order to investigate interactions of cholinergic system and hippocampus-dependent memory, nicotinic receptor agonist (nicotine) or nicotinic receptor antagonist (mecamylamine) was injected in hippocampal CA1. Results : According to the results of this study, 24 hours TSD or RSD decreased memory acquisition and injection of nicotine (0.0001 or mecamylamine (0.001 in TSD and RSD sham groups didn’t change memory acquisition. However, injection of sub-threshold dose of nicotine (0.0001 and mecamylamine (0.001 could reduce negative effects of SD in both TSD and RSD. Discussion ; According to the present study, cholinergic nicotinic receptors are effective in learning and memory improvement.
Who is audited? Experimental study on rule-based tax auditing schemes

In this study, we employ a game theoretic framework to formulate and analyze tax audit schemes. We test the theoretical predictions in a laboratory experiment. We compare audit schemes based on three audit rules: random audit rule, cut-off audit rule, and lowest income reporter audited rule (LIRA). While the cut-off audit rule is known to be optimal in theory, it has not been examined in a controlled laboratory experimental setting. The primary experimental finding is that LIRA rule yields the highest degree of truthful reporting among the rules, contrary to the theory. Moreover, the regression analysis shows that individual social norms regarding tax payment as well as the cut-off rule and the LIRA significantly increase the degree of truthful reporting. Our experimental finding that the LIRA yields the highest degree of truthful reporting is practically important because the tax authority in most countries assigns higher priority for enhancing tax compliance.
Viability of tobacco production under smallholder farming sector in Mount Darwin District, Zimbabwe

Smallholder commercial agriculture in developing countries is hinged on cash crop production and in Zimbabwe tobacco is increasingly becoming an important smallholder cash crop. This study therefore, analyzed the viability of tobacco production by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. Cross sectional survey data was collected for the 2010 and 2011 production season from 60 smallholder households in the Mount Darwin District of Mashonaland Central Province in Zimbabwe. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, breakeven analysis and ordinary least square (OLS) criterion to determine the viability and determinants of income earnings from tobacco by farmers. The study revealed that, smallholder tobacco production was viable, with farmers achieving average yield of 2052 kg/ha, average price of US $2.45 per kilogram and earning, on average, about US $2352 per hectare as gross margin. Break-even analysis revealed a margin of safety of 50% with respect to both yield and prices, indicating that, small-scale tobacco production will remain lucrative even at much lower prices and yields. Regression analysis showed that, off farm employment was inversely related to revenue earnings from tobacco with coefficient (-0.058) and the relationship was significant at 5%. Price and yield were positively related to tobacco gross margins with coefficients 0.865 and 1.001 and the relationship was significant at 1%. It is therefore concluded that, tobacco production is viable and can improve incomes for smallholder farmers. To improve income earnings from tobacco, there is a need for farmers to focus on farm production for better yields and improve quality for better prices.
A New Block-Wise Algorithm for License Plate Location

In this paper, a new block-wise algorithm is proposed for Iranian license plates location. The proposed algorithm uses the density of vertical edges (DVE) in the license plate region as a feature for detecting the candidate license plates. It employs the quad-tree decomposition algorithm to adjust the size of the blocks used for computing local DVEs. According to the experimental results, the algorithm is fairly robust against variations of imaging geometry (e.g. scale and orientation) and illumination conditions. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm provided better performance compared to a well-known method while it was significantly more efficient.