Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TESTING THE INTERFACE HYPOTHESIS: THE CASE OF AUXILIARY CHANGE UNDER RESTRUCTURING IN L2 ITALIAN

This paper investigates whether the purely syntactic aspect of auxiliary change under restructuring in Italian can be fully acquired in the L2. Restructuring constructions in Italian involve modal, aspectual or motion verbs that take infinitival complements. The main verb in these constructions normally takes avere (‘have’). However, when the embedded verb is unaccusative and requires essere (‘be’), the main verb can shift to essere. In the presence of clitic climbing, the shift from avere to essere is obligatory. Constructions with the clitic in situ exhibit optionality as well. The optionality or obligatoriness of auxiliary change in restructuring constructions with embedded unaccusatives thus hinges on a purely syntactic factor: clitic presence and placement. In the paper, findings are reported of an experimental study in which a group of highly proficient (possibly near-native) adult L2 learners, who are native speakers of Croatian (a language with clitic climbing, but without auxiliary selection), and a group of adult native speakers expressed their auxiliary preferences in restructuring constructions with unaccusative complements by means of Magnitude Estimation. The L2 learners proved not to know under which syntactic conditions auxiliary change is obligatory and under which it is optional. Contrary to the native speakers, they exhibited optionality in auxiliary choice in all cases, revealing incomplete knowledge of the phenomenon. Such findings do not support the hypothesis that purely syntactic properties are fully acquirable in the L2. Possible reasons for the incomplete acquisition of auxiliary change under restructuring in L2 Italian are discussed in the paper.
Department of Economics- FEA/USP

In this paper, we examine an innovative affirmative action policy designed to increase the representation of underprivileged students at UNICAMP, a large and highly ranked Brazilian university. The university awarded bonus points to targeted applicants (i.e., public high school applicants) on their admission exam, as opposed to imposing a typical quota system. Using a rich set of administrative data from UNICAMP, we assess the effect of this policy on the composition of admitted students, and investigate for possible behavioral responses at the extensive (participation) and intensive (preparation effort) margins. We find that the admission probability of public high school applicants, the targeted applicants, significantly increased following the adoption of the affirmative action program. The policy was also associated with sizable redistribution in the composition of admitted students, with a shift towards students from families with lower socio-economic status. Surprisingly, we find little evidence of behavioral reactions to the affirmative action policy, in terms of test performance or application decision.
The apparent width of spatially extended sources

The apparent source width (ASW) is an important aspect of sound perception in rooms and has been extensively researched for statistically decorrelated point sources. Spatially extended sound sources differ from point sources in that they do not necessarily yield coherent binaural signals, even when radiating coherently under anechoic conditions. Yet, the relationship between the spatial extent of a sound source and the ASW it elicits is not entirely clear. We investigated the ASW of sound sources extended spatially along a line with stimuli containing different spectro-temporal properties. The results suggest that the spatial extent of the sound source may influence ASW perception.
Maintaining Cloud Performance under DDOS Attacks

The popularity of cloud computing has been growing where the cloud became an attractive alternative rather than classic information processing system. The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is one of the famous attacks to cloud computing. This paper proposes a Multiple Layer Defense (MLD) scheme to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks which due to resource depletion. The MLD consists of two layers. The first layer has an alarm system send alarms to cloud management when DDoS attacks start. The second layer includes an anomaly detection system detects VM is infected by DDoS attacks. Also,MLD tested with a different DDoS attack ratio to show scheme stability. MLD evaluated by The energy consumption and the overall SLA violations. The results show the great effect of the MLD to reduce the energy consumption and the overall SLA violation for all datasets. Also, the MLD shows acceptable stability and reactivity with different DDoS attack ratio
THERMODYNAMIC MODELING OF HIGH PRESSURE PHASE EQUILIBRIA FOR CLOVE ESSENTIAL OIL+CARBON DIOXIDE

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum) is widely cultivated at the eastern countries and the bud essential oil is extracted by supercritical fluid because of vegetable structure of raw material. Clove essential oil has antifungal, antibacterial, insecticidal, and antioxidant properties. The aim of this work is to modeling the solubility of clove essential oil in supercritical carbon dioxide using EoS PR with three mixing rules: van der Walls 1 (vdW1), van der Walls 2 (vdW2) and Mathias-Klotz-Prausnitz (MKP). It was performed the isothermal vapor-liquid equilibria calculation of CO2/clove essential oil considered as a binary system and CO2/eugenol/β-caryophyllene as a ternary system, where the oil composition is said to be the major oil compounds, i.e., eugenol and β-caryophyllene. It was developed a mathematical routine in Matlab to obtain the fitted parameters of the EOS Peng Robinson mixing rules, both for the binary mixture and for the ternary mixture at the following temperatures: 313.2 K, 318.2 K and 328.2 K. Results showed that mixing rule that best represent the experimental data for the binary system CO2/clove oil was vdW2 with a maximum error in pressure of 3.07%. For the ternary mixture, mixing rule that best represent the experimental data was MKP with a maximum error in pressure of 2.18%.
PREVENTION AND MANAGEMENT OF HYDROGEOLOGICAL DISASTERS: BENEFIT- COST ANALYSIS OF GEOLOGICAL HAZARD MITIGATION

The monitoring of geological hazards with conventional ground-based techniques is usually expensive and time consuming. One of the best way to overcome to this problem is to use remote-sensing techniques that allow us to reduce operating costs and time, covering large portion of territory. Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) is one of the best tool to monitor and study ground displacement in a cost-effective way. In this work, we applied DInSAR to the subsidence affecting the city of Ravenna, Italy; the sinkholes in the Dead Sea area in Jordan; the detection of instabilities in Cuba. The aim is to give an overall view of the DInSAR techniques potential when applied to the study of different geological hazards. This can be useful to show to local authorities that DInSAR techniques can be fully integrated as part of territory planning activity in the framework of geological hazard risk management and mitigation.
Software-Deﬁned Networking: Part I

—In this technical report, we brieﬂy review our research efforts on software-deﬁned networking (SDN), which were mainly done in the period of 2012-2017. Speciﬁcally, our studies covered three topics, 1) SDN with the protocol-oblivious forwarding (POF) technology to achieve a fully programmable data plane, 2) SDN in the optical layer to realize software-deﬁned elastic optical networks, and 3) the combination of SDN with network virtualization to slice virtual software-deﬁned networks (vSDNs). For each topic, we studied the network architectures, the algorithms, and the system implementations.
Research Issues

In this column the author synthesizes and discusses the findings of six studies conducted to examine what happens for nurses and patients when human becoming is the guide for practice. In all of the studies, nurse participants’ descriptions led to three main themes: transforming intent, unburdening joy, and struggling with change. Patient and family participants’ descriptions of nursing care guided by human becoming are also summarized. This column concludes with a presentation of the universal and overarching values for knowledge development in nursing that emerged with the synthesis of the findings and that have the potential to ensure personalized, meaningful, and dignified nursing service delivery.
Cluster Analysis of LIS Students Based on Their Choice of Subjects

Cluster analyses were carried out on two sets of questionnaire data collected from a survey of students and graduates of the MSc (Information Studies) program at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a survey of applicants to the same program. The respondents were clustered based on the elective subjects that they selected in these two questionnaires. For both sets of data, two distinct clusters were found - a library-oriented cluster and an IT/information management-oriented cluster. In each cluster, further sub-clusters were found that correspond to known specializations in the field. An analysis of the relationship between the clusters and the areas of specialization selected by respondents indicated some ways of improving the areas of specialization defined in the MSc program. The cluster analyses were found to yield useful results and provide a better understanding of the students' interests and how the interests are structured.
Work-in-Progress: Drama: A High Efficient Neural Network Accelerator on FPGA using Dynamic Reconfiguration

In this paper, we propose a high efficient neural network accelerator on FPGA by using dynamic reconfiguration, named Drama. Firstly, we design a high-efficient hardware architecture and provide a hardware template that can generate optimal configuration for each layer. Then, to explore the key features of the neural network models, we employ a layer-clustering algorithm to classify different layers. After that, we transform CNN models into task sequences. To accomplish the execution of the sequence, the FPGA-based hardware is able to switch the accelerator with dynamic reconfiguration and offload the related tasks to the accelerator at runtime. Preliminary results on the FPGA platform demonstrate that Drama is able to improve the performance significantly due to the dynamic reconfiguration techniques.
Work-in-Progress: An Improved Network Interface Card with Query Filter for Big Data Systems

In this paper we approach to accelerate the data processing of storage and computing separated big data systems. We propose an improved Network Interface Card with Query Filter (NIC-QF), implemented by FPGA on storage nodes, to accelerate the data queries, which can also reduce the workload and communication overhead on computing nodes. NIC-QF is designed with query filtering accelerator and Network Interface Card (NIC) communicator, which can filter the original data on storage nodes as an implicit coprocessor and directly send the filtered data to computing nodes of big data systems. Filter units in NIC-QF can perform multiple SQL tasks in parallel, and each filter unit is internally pipelined, which can further speed up the data processing. Experiments with two benchmarks demonstrate the efficiency of our approach, which can achieve average up to 65.56% faster than the traditional approach.
Work-in-Progress: Cooperative Communication Between Two Transiently Powered Sensors by Reinforcement Learning

The transmission between two energy harvesting (EH) powered sensors is successful only when both sensors have enough energy at the same time. Given the scarce, unpredictable, and unevenly distributed energy between two sensors, it is challenging to ensure efficient data transmission. We propose a sensor node architecture with multiple wake-up radios, each with a different ratio of energy consumption on the transmitter and receiver. Two sensors cooperatively select wake-up radios to maximize data throughput. The communication procedure is modeled as a cooperative Markov game with partial observability and multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) is employed to maximize the throughput. The proposed methods achieve near-optimal data throughput.
Living kidney donation among ethnic minorities: A Dutch qualitative study on attitudes, communication, knowledge and needs of kidney patients

Background: Terminal kidney patients are faced with lower quality of life during dialysis treatment, restricted diets and high morbidity and mortality rates while waiting for a deceased donor kidney transplantation. Fortunately, living donor kidney transplantation offers an alternative with considerable advantages in terms of waiting time and graft survival rates. Nevertheless, we observed an inequality in the proportion of living kidney transplantations performed between the non-European patients and the European patients in our centre. To date little is known about the factors contributing towards this racial disparity. Previous research from our centre did not find any medical reasons to explain this racial disparity. We believe that non-medical psychosocial and cultural factors predominantly account for this discrepancy. Purpose Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted in order to gain insight in the attitudes, (non-)communication and knowledge of our non-European patients (compared to European patients) regarding living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT). Additionally, we investigated their attitudes towards professional support in finding an eligible living donor. Methods: The interviews were held in line with the focus group method and analyzed according to the grounded theory. The interviews were focused on six main topics (kidney transplantation, living kidney donation, communication, information, knowledge and intervention needs). European patients were included as a comparison group. The qualitative data analyses were performed in Atlas.ti. Results:We found nearly all our patient to be in favour of a living kidney transplantation (96%). However multiple prohibiting intertwined factors play a role when actually considering a living donor. We found four major barriers to the living donor transplantation process in our non-European patients: 1) not (so easily) comprehensible non-patient-centered information 2) cognitions and emotions (based on fears, concerns and misconceptions) 3) a state of basically non-communication with the potential donor(s) on this issue (as a consequence of personal and cultural beliefs) 4) and social influences. We also found some similar factors playing a role in the donation course of our European patients without a living donor. Finally, our patients held a welcoming attitude towards an intervention aimed at assisting them getting though the living donation program. Discussion: This study has identified several modifiable determinants underlying racial disparity in our living donor kidney transplantation program and investigated patients’ attitude towards two interventions aimed at alleviating this inequality. We realize that our list of barriers may not be thorough enough and surely more is to be said on this topic, the findings offer possible targets for intervention. In accordance with our patients’ preference, we argue that a home-based education best suits the complexity of issues and patients’ personal needs.
Midwifes’ Opinions about Reinforcing Factors in Skin to Skin Contact, Immediately After Delivery: A Descriptive Study

Aim: Benefits of Skin-to-Skin Contact (SSC) between mother and her newborn, specifically when it is conducted immediately after birth, have been recognized for more than 40 years. To determine why SSC is not conducted, the present study considers the opinions of the labor working midwifes about the reinforcing factors in SSC immediately after birth in Tehran's hospitals in 2012-2013. Methods: In this descriptive study, we have employed the reinforcing factors of the phase 3 of PRECEDE-PROCEED model. The samples consisted of 292 midwifes who were responsible for delivery or for newborns immediately after birth in 18 hospitals of Tehran. The sampling was firstly performed using stratified and then simple random manner. They were classified into educational, social security, and private hospitals. Data collection instrument was a self-developed questionnaire consisting of demographic characteristics, social support and midwifes' motivation to conduct the reinforcing factors in the SCC at birth. It was derived from a qualitative study. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data analysis was conducted through applying the SPSS version 18. Findings: The results show that 93.8% of midwifes had a good idea about social support of the midwifes with Cronbach's alpha 0.744 and 96.6% of them believed in the Midwifes ' motivation in skin contact effects with Cronbach's 0.773. Conclusions: The midwives believed in the key role of reinforcing factors such as social support and their own motivation in successful and standard SSC. Therefore, further studies are suggested on exploring the opinions of pediatric, obstetrics and anesthesia specialists, midwives, mothers and their husbands concerning the SSC.
Medications for Improving Urine Output and Renal Insufficiency Following Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease: A Case Study

We report the effects of various agents for treatment of renal insufficiency in the immediate post-operative period in a case of Fontan surgery. Because of the failing atriopulmonary Fontan, the patient underwent a total cavopulmonary connection, atrial septectomy, homograft patch angioplasty of the left pulmonary artery, modified MAZE procedure, and placement of a permanent pacemaker. Diuretics, dopamine and low-dose intravenous Fenoldopam were used for renal insufficiency intra- and postoperatively. The cardiovascular effects and renal function were documented during the use of these agents. Apart from transient hypotension, oliguria and impairment of renal function following cardiopulmonary bypass, there was no deleterious haemodynamic effect. Fenoldopam is a benzazepine derivative with selective dopamine-1 receptor agonist properties. At low doses, it has also been proposed that fenoldopam exerts effects on renal blood flow similar to that of dopamine. The availability of a new agent for postoperative use is attractive but further studies are warranted to explore its potential use in children following congenital heart surgery who are likely to have reduced renal function.
Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage and salivary antibodies induced by pneumococcus in Vilnius preschool children

Correspondence to: Raimonda Kvietkauskaitė, Institute of Immunology, Vilnius University, Molėtų pl. 29, LT-08409, Vilnius, Lithuania. E-mail: kvietka2000@yahoo.com Background. Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a potential respiratory pathogen causing high-risk diseases, particularly in young children. Otherwise, carriage of pneumococcus may be asymptomatic depending on the serotype and the immune system of the individual. Th e aim of this study was to determine nasopharyngeal carriage rates, serotype distribution and to evaluate the mucosal immune response to S. pneumoniae infection in healthy 2–7-year-old children attending day care centres in Vilnius, Lithuania. Materials and methods. Nasopharyngeal (n = 601) and saliva samples were collected randomly. A pneumotest kit (Statens Serum Institute, Denmark) was used for serogrouping / serotyping; the sandwich ELISA with a double monoclonal system was used for immunoglobulin concentration measurement. Results. Carriage rate in the children’s population was 43%; from 33 serotypes found, the following six prevailed: 19F, 23F, 6B, 6A, 3 and 18C, which accounted for 58% of isolates. Th e carriage rates in children over four were found to be decreased. Th e concentrations of total and specifi c salivary antibodies of three isotypes (IgA, IgM and IgG) in carriers of six pneumococcal serotypes (3, 6B, 14, 18C, 19F and 23F) were measured. Conclusions. Th e carriage rates and prevalent serotypes of S. pneumoniae in healthy preschool Lithuanian children were similar as in the neighbouring states. Th e response of total and specifi c salivary antibodies was found to be serotype-specifi c. Th e pneumococcal carriage stimulated the production of not only specifi c antibodies, but also of total immunoglobulins of S-IgA, IgM and IgG isotypes.
Síndrome da fragilidade no idoso: importância da fisioterapia Frailty syndrome in elderly patients: the importance of physiotherapy

The frailty syndrome is a clinical syndrome that may be identified by involuntary loss of weight, exhaustion, weakness, decrease of walking rate and balance, and decrease of physical activity. Each one of these clinical manifestations predicts a series of adverse reactions (falls, hospitalization, institutionalization, functional decline, and death). The aim of this literature review was to expose the elements on Frailty Syndrome in the elderly in a narrative literature review, providing a general panorama upon epidemiology, actual trends, frailty cycle, sarcopenia, immunological disorders, neuroendocrinal disorders, clinical, laboratorial and differential diagnosis, and the possibilities of physiotherapeutic intervention. Therefore, a national and international literature review on the subject was performed. By knowing studies involving fragile elderly patients, it is possible to plan strategies towards the identification of parcel of the population that would benefit the most from actions to delay, to attenuate and, if possible, to revert such manifestations.
Age-Related Decline in Striatal Dopamine Transporter Binding with Iodine-123-β-CITSPECT

UNLABELLED The effect of age on human striatal dopamine (DA) transporters was investigated with SPECT using the ligand [123I]2 beta-carbomethoxy-3 beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane ([123I]beta-CIT). METHODS Iodine-123-beta-CIT binding in the striatum was examined in 28 healthy human subjects (14 men, 14 women) who ranged in age from 18 to 83 yr. Following injection with [123I]beta-CIT (mean +/- s.d. = 9.9 +/- 1.2 mCi), subjects were scanned with the brain-dedicated CERASPECT camera. A reconstructed transaxial slice 13.3-mm thick at the level of maximal striatal activity was used to determine tracer uptake in striatal and occipital regions of interest. The stability of regional uptake on Day 2 (approximately 18-24 hr postinjection) permitted estimation of the specific-to-nondisplaceable equilibrium partition coefficient: V3", calculated as (striatal--occipital)/occipital uptake at equilibrium. RESULTS Values of V3" ranged from 3.6 to 11.4 for this sample (6.7 +/- 1.9). V3" showed a significant inverse correlation with age (r = -0.73, n = 28, p < 0.0001). Linear regression analysis revealed that V3" declined by 51% over the age range studied or approximately 8% per decade. CONCLUSION These findings confirm postmortem reports of dopamine transporter loss with aging. In vivo methodologies may permit the age-related degeneration of dopamine nerve terminals to be studied in relation to the cognitive and motor deficits that occur in normal aging.
The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso (Journal Article)

This article evaluates a program that constructed high quality â€œgirl-friendlyâ€ primary schools in Burkina Faso. After 2.5 years, the program increased enrollment by 19 percentage points and increased test scores by 0.41 standard deviations. Girlsâ€™ enrollment increased by 5 percentage points more than boysâ€™ enrollment, but test scores were the same for boys and girls.