Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parametric uncertainty or hydrological changes

Abstract. The model calibration is the way of hydrologists for searching also a physical interpretation of complex interactions acting within a basin. Actually, it can be frequently noticed how model calibration performed on a given time-window may converge to a point in the parameter space that could be distant from another obtainable calibration of the model in the same basin but considering a different time window. Is that again parametric uncertainty or does the trajectory in the parametric space relate about to a slow hydrological basin change? This paper depicts a possible path for detecting changes' signatures in a streamflow time series. In particular, the paper seeks to draw a way to discern the random variability over different time-windows of the calibrated model parameters set from that induced by the variation in time of some boundary conditions and external forcings. To this purpose, we will refer to a conceptual lumped model for simulating daily streamflow, the EHSM (EcoHydrological Streamflow Model), and to a hypothetical case study. The selected hydrological model requires a total of seven parameters, some of which can be easily related to land use, while others rely on climate variables. The calibration of the EHSM parameters with regard to different time-windows and the analysis of potential impacts of the anthropic variation in land use and/or climatic variability on the calibrated parameters set, will support our investigation.
Hofstede Revisited: Is Making the Ecological Fallacy when Using Hofstede’s Instrument on Individual Behavior Really Unavoidable?

This paper suggests that avoiding the ecological fallacy is - under certain circumstances - possible. One problem in (cross-cultural) research is that there are often two levels of theorizing (individual and country) that needs to be taken into account when data are being analyzed and conclusions are drawn. Typically, as is the case with Hofstede's (1980) well-known research, cultural values are measured on country level. Consequently, researchers who make causal inferences from such group data to individual behaviors are making the ecological fallacy, i.e they (most often) wrongly assume that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals. If, however, a method could be found that could help determining how individuals behave from the study of aggregated data, the usefulness of Hofstede's research (and research on aggregated data in general) from a manager's point of view would definitely increase. In this paper the problem of the ecological fallacy, as well as different methods of avoiding it is discussed, and a particular solution of the problem is suggested.
Near real‐time GPS sensing of atmospheric water vapor

We describe sensing of atmospheric column water vapor in near real‐time using the Global Positioning System (GPS). We use predicted GPS orbits for automated computation of vertical column water vapor within 30 minutes of GPS data collection. Based on a 4 month comparison, near real‐time GPS column water vapor agrees with radiosondes and radiometers within 2 mm rms. Our near real‐time column water vapor data are posted hourly at www.unavco. ucar.edu. They are available for assimilation in numerical weather models and for other applications.
Performance Evaluation of TCP Connections over Software Defined Networks

Software Defined Networking (SDN) decouples the control plane from the data plane, thereby facilitates network virtualization, dynamic programmability and flexibility in network management. Earlier works on SDN modeling only focused on packet-level arrivals without considering flow-level arrivals. However, the model without considering flow-level arrivals cannot correctly reflect the probability of packets sent to the controller. In this paper, we propose an analytical model (4D state) which consider flow-level (TCP connection) arrivals and packet-level arrivals simultaneously. Our analytical model (4D state) use four-dimensional states to evaluate the steady state probability. We have derived analytical formulas of average packet delay and packet loss probability for TCP connections in SDN. We have conducted numerical analysis and extensive simulations. Our results show good matches, which verify the suitability and correctness of our analysis. Error ratio of the analytical results for 4D state model against the simulation results are also given. Results show that the error ratio of 4D state model for packet delay is 0.31v0. 82% and for packet loss probability is 1.24v1. 31%.
Optic Neuritis Unresponsive to Steroids: Prevalence, Characteristics and Plasma Exchange Treatment

Abstract Background: Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a demyelinating disease associated to the presence of anti-aquaporin 4 (AQP4) antibodies and damage to the optic nerve and spinal cord. Sometimes Steroids do not stop the autoimmune response. Plasma exchange (PE) is a purification technique used to remove high weight molecules (e.g. antibodies), and it has shown efficacy in NMO unresponsive to steroids. However, the roll of PE in optic neuritis (ON) unresponsive to steroids secondary to NMO has been less studied. Objective: We present our experience about ON unresponsive to steroids in NMO´s patients characteristics and PE treatment results. Materials and method: retrospective study included 56 NMO medical records since January 2010 to May 2015. ON unresponsive to steroids cases and PE treatment were included. Visual acuity (VA) and EDSS score were recorded before and after the PE. Categorical variables were compared with Chi square, continuous variables were assessed using Wilcoxon´s test or Mans Whitney U test according to groups. Results: We included 12 cases (10 females and 2 males). Prevalence of ON unresponsive to steroids was 0.21. We found a significant difference between VA pre and post PE in both eyes and in EDSS score. Bilateral ON was the most frequent presentation. Rate of response was of 75%. Conclusion: We described the prevalence of ON unresponsive to steroids. Women were mostly affected and bilateral ON was the type more frequent. PE was effective up to 75%.
Osteogenic differentiation of electrostimulated human mesenchymal stem cells seeded on silk-fibroin films

Anıl S. ÇAKMAK, Soner ÇAKMAK, James D. WHITE, Waseem K. RAJA, David L. KAPLAN, Menemşe GÜMÜŞDERELİOĞLU* Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA Bioengineering Division, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine Division, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey Department of Chemical Engineering, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey
Lipid Self-Spreading on Solid Substrates

This chapter is dedicated to wetting and fracturing processes involving molecular phospholipid films and high-energy solid surfaces. In these systems, wetting of planar surfaces occurs in an aqueous environment by means of self-spreading of phospho‐ lipid membranes from artificially generated lipid sources, which range from manually deposited single sources (multilamellar liposomes) to liposome suspensions of different particle sizes, which are directly pipetted onto the substrate. The most prominent of the molecular lipid films is the phospholipid bilayer, which constitutes the fundamental structure of the biological cell membrane. Lipid membranes have peculiar characteristics, are highly dynamic, feature two-dimensional fluidity, and can accommodate functional molecules. Understanding the interactions of lipid films with solid interfaces is of high importance in areas like cell biology, biomedical engineering, and drug delivery.
Compact UWB bandpass filter with reconfigurable notched band

A compact bandpass filter is presented for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications with a reconfigurable notched band to reject unwanted signals from the WiMAX systems. A single pin diode is used for the purpose of switching the notch. An optical switch, comprised of a silicon dice activated using near infrared light is also investigated as an alternative to the pin diode. While the switch is in the ON state this reconfigurable filter behaves as a bandpass filter with a notch at 3.5 GHz and a full band response is obtained in the OFF state. The filter offers excellent performance for the lower-band frequency of a UWB system, ranging from 3.1 to 5.0 GHz and exhibits very low passband insertion loss. Also, transmission zeros are generated at the passband edges to enhance the signal selectivity. A filter sample has been designed and fabricated to provide experimental verification on the proposed filter. A good agreement has been achieved between simulated and measured results with both the pin diode as well as the optical switch. The proposed reconfigurable filter with notched band was able to achieve 40% size reduction as compared to an embedded open-circuited stub.
Degradation of zooxanthellae and regulation of their density in hermatypic corals

This study investigated the process of zooxanthellae degradation in hermatypic corals. The number of degraded zooxanthellae in corals taken fmm rllfferent light conditions amounted to 1 to 6 % a day, which was similar to the number of dividing amxanthellae. Zooxanthellae degradation takes place only at night in the connecting sheet and tentacle but both at night and during the day in the gastroderm of the mesenteries. Zooxanthellae degradation continues for about 6 h. DNA staining with DAPI (4'6-diamidino-2-phenylindole) and light, UV and electron microscopic examinations showed that zooxanthellae under degradation lost DNA, protein of pyrenoids and lipid drops. The degraded zooxanthellae particles contained 'accumulat~on bodies', unpacked thylakoids, starch grains and a pyrenoid starch envelope. Under starvation experirnenls the number of degraded zooxanthellae in Stylophora pistillata increased in the tissue, as did thefi ~ e l e a s e . It is concluded that hermatypic corals are capable of regulating their zooxanthellae popu la t i a by digestion and extrusion of zooxanthellae remnants.
Achieving Equity in Health through Community-based Health Insurance: India's Experience with a Large CBHI Programme

Abstract This article analyses equity in enrolment, renewal of enrolment, and utilisation of community-based health insurance with special reference to the Yeshasvini health care programme. The analysis employs a primary survey conducted in rural Karnataka using a random sample of 4109 households. The study identifies quantifiable variables covering various dimensions of vulnerability and assesses their relationship with enrolment, renewal of enrolment, and utilisation using logistic regression techniques. The results demonstrate that inequities do exist even though they are less pronounced in utilisation than in enrolments and renewals. While community-based health insurance (CBHI) may be used as a mechanism to reach the disadvantaged population, they can not be considered as substitute for government-created health infrastructure.
Corpus Construction and Semantic Analysis of Indonesian Image Description

Understanding language grounded in visual content is a challenging problem that has raised interest in both the computer vision and natural language processing communities. Flickr30k, which is one of the corpora that have become a standard benchmark to study sentence-based image description, was initially limited to English descriptions, but it has been extended to German, French, and Czech. This paper describes our construction of an image description dataset in the Indonesian language. We translated English descriptions from the Flickr30K dataset into Indonesian with automatic machine translation and performed human validation for the portion of the result. We then constructed Indonesian image descriptions of 10k images by crowdsourcing without English descriptions or translations, and found semantic differences between translations and descriptions. We conclude that the cultural differences between the native speakers of English and Indonesian create different perceptions for constructing natural language expressions that describe an image.
Influence of Fibrinogen Deficiency on Clot Formation in Flow by Hybrid Model

In this work we develop the 2D model suggested in [32] in order to study the impact of fibrinogen concentration and the fibrin polymer production rate on clot growth in flow. The model is based on the method of Dissipative Particle Dynamics describing blood plasma flow and platelet suspension and on a system of partial differential equations describing blood coagulation regulatory network. We study the influence of parameters on clot development and on its final size.
Clinical undernutrition in 2014; pathogenesis, early diagnosis and consequences; undernutrition and trophopathy.

The last ten years have allowed me to mature some concepts and criteria in relation to malnutrition in the clinical practice. A lot of us have devoted all our efforts in an attempt to take it under control. The results, however, have shown to be insufficient in the clinical practice, because Hospital Undernutrition still persists in our hospitals and in fact, its prevalence is growing due to an ageing population. I think it is necessary to insist in renaming it as Clinical Undernutrition because it not only appears in hospital settings but it is present before and persists even after hospitalization; the latter reinforces the condition by forcing a change in the habits of the patient and the consequences of the treatments. I would also like to sustain that the risk is not caused by the undernutrition in itself but rather in the disruption of the nutritional balance which is a consequence of the aforementioned conditions and which is defined in a term: Trophopathy; that is, a disruption in the trophism or in the normal functioning of the nutritional status. This disruption constitutes the core risk that is associated with clinical undernutrition and the physical consequences of it. The disruption occurs internally and it will play havoc on cellular nutrition, tissues and further. It appears simultaneously in the blood, so it should be searched and detected there as it is the closest possible place to its origin. The new therapeutic procedures make it possible to cure some cases that in the past were impossible to treat. However, this also means increased risks and so requires a strict control to achieve the best results. Both illness and its treatment put homeostasis at risk and they will definitely impact the nutritional balance, being the latter the key objective in order to achieve or restore the healing process and health. Apart from the benefit obtained with the treatment, it is necessary to apply an appropriate nutritional support that will guarantee the least amount of risks which could derive from an imbalanced nutritional status. The use of automated systems to predict and control the risk factors during the clinical phase makes it possible to have a more thorough control of the illness from its origins, allowing an early diagnosis and treatment of it.
Knowledge Discovery from Students ’ Result Repository : Association Rule Mining Approach

Over the years, several statistical tools have been used to analyze students’ performance from different points of view. This paper presents data mining in education environment that identifies students’ failure patterns using association rule mining technique. The identified patterns are analysed to offer a helpful and constructive recommendations to the academic planners in higher institutions of learning to enhance their decision making process. This will also aid in the curriculum structure and modification in order to improve students’ academic performance and trim down failure rate. The software for mining student failed courses was developed and the analytical process was described. Keyword: Association rule mining, Academic performance, Educational data mining, Curriculum, Students’ Result Repository.
D Viewer Software Build Based on Scanned Synthetic Female Pelvic Floor Model

Anatomy is considered an essential subject for Medicine students. Furthermore, the practice class using a comprehensive and manageable anatomic tool is fundamental for a satisfactory teaching and learning process.The goal of this study was to build a tutorial type softwareof the female pelvic floor anatomy utilizing data from the three-dimensional laser scanning of a physical resinated syntheticmodel. The synthetic model was constructed emphasizing the intricated system of layers of the female pelvic floor. These anatomical structures are very difficult to be understood when studied in the cadaver and bi-dimensional figures and even in other three-dimensional samples. It was hypothesized that this schematic model was a useful and meaningful tool for visualization and manipulation of the anatomical elements once it being in the virtual environment. The tutorial was constructed based on the manipulative perspective that allowed a tridimensional viewing of all anatomical elements expressed in this model.
Magnetorheology of carbonyl iron particles coated with polypyrrole ribbons: The steady shear study

The aim of this study is a preparation and application of polymer coating on the surface of carbonyl iron particles. Oxidative polymerization of the pyrrole provides ribbon-like morphology. Compact coating of particles has a slightly negative impact on their magnetic properties (measured for magnetic field strength in the range from 0 to 300 mT); however, there is a significant increase in sedimentation stability. The effect of the particle concentration and temperature on the toughness of the internal structures was also investigated.
Nonparametric Dynamic Network Modeling

Certain relational datasets, such as those representing social networks, evolve over time, motivating the development of time-series models where the characteristics of the underlying groups of entities can adapt with time. This paper proposes the Dynamic Gamma Process Poisson Factorization for Network (D-NGPPF) modeling framework, wherein binary network entries are modeled using a truncated Poisson distribution and the ideal number of network groups is discovered from the data itself. Crucially, a Gammamarkov chain enables the characteristics of these groups to smoothly evolve over time. Exploiting the properties of the Negative Binomial distribution and a novel data augmentation technique, closed form Gibbs sampling updates are derived that yield superior empirical results for both synthetic and real world datasets.
Qualitative Investigation of Digital Divide in Indonesia: Toward a Comprehensive Framework

The issue of digital divide has attracted many researchers for over a decade, yet the understanding of digital divide is not comprehensive. This research examines three commonly recognised orders of the digital divide, which are: economic divide, the inequality of access to ICT associated with economic conditions; access divide, the disparity of access to ICT; and capability divide, the inequality of ability in using ICT, while conceptualising a fourth divide, innovativeness divide, which is defined as the disparity of individual’s willingness to try out any new information technology. The paper presents a tentative model based on extensive literature review which was explored using qualitative method. The findings generate new insights into the relationships among those four orders of digital divide which contribute to the theoretical framework to understand the digital divide more comprehensively and provide evidence on the impact of digital divide on e-government use. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed in this paper.
ON IN VITAO PROPAGATION OF M 9 APPLE ROOTSTOCK ( MALUS SYL VESTRIS MILL )

A comparative study was conducted to vindicate micropropagtion and callus culture in Mailing 9 apple rootstock. Supplemented Murashige and Skoog basal salts were used as culture medium. Callus from nodal segments was readily initiated in 1.0 mg I' IBA and 0.5 mg I' BA, on subculturing in 2.0 mg I' NAA embryoids and then shoots were developed. Direct shoot formation from nodal segments was obseved in 1.0 mg I' BA and the most acceptable shoot proliferation was in 1.0 mg I' BA plus 1.0 mg I' NAA. Rhizogenesis in the shoots obtained from path methods was noted superior in 2.0 I"l,lg1-lBAwhen exposed for short duration. Survival was 100 percent in sand or silt. Both the methods were found very effective and equally poised.
Wind and Comfort

Wind plays always an important role in dealing with outdoor human comfort in an urban climate. Although various models of different complexity have been proposed to characterize the effect of wind on pedestrians in relation to their specific activities, it has been also recognized that human comfort in general may be affected by a wide range of additional parameters, including air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, air quality, clothing level, age, gender etc. Several criteria have been developed in the wind engineering community for evaluating only the wind-induced mechanical forces on the human body and the resulting pedestrian comfort and safety. It is also noteworthy that there are significant differences among the criteria used by various countries and institutions to establish threshold values for tolerable or unacceptable wind conditions even if a single parameter, such as the wind speed is used as criterion. These differences range from the speed averaging period (mean or gust) and its probability of exceedance (frequency of occurrence) to the methodology of evaluation of its magnitude (experimental or computational). The paper attempts to review some of the work carried out in this area and to address some of the most recent efforts to develop wind ordinances, as well as to incorporate additional parameters in order to specify the threshold values or comfort ranges for respective weather parameters. Ideally, for design purposes, an approach towards the establishment of an overall comfort index taking into account wind conditions and other microclimatic factors should be an ultimate objective. Contact person: T. Stathopoulos, Professor and Associate Dean, 1515 St. Catherine W. , Room EV-6.125, 514-848-2424 ext. 3186 and 514-848-7965 (FAX). E-mail statho@bcee.concordia. ca Wind and Comfort
The Hazards of Starting and Quitting Smoking: Some Australian Evidence

The empirical analysis employs individual level data from the Australian Health Survey combined with retrospective data on tobacco price matched to the age at which the individual started and quit smoking. Split-population hazard models are estimated for both starting and quitting smoking. The analysis suggests price plays a significant role in the decision to start smoking but not in the decision to quit. Further sensitivity analysis of different age groups and an alternative data source, questions the robustness of the significant role of price in the smoking initiation decision. From a policy perspective, the results indicate that increases in tobacco taxation can be an important instrument in reducing the incidence of smoking, but should be combined with other mechanisms such as mandating smoke-free environments and antismoking education. Our results strongly support the targeting of antismoking campaigns towards teenagers.