Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamics of inter- and intraregional development disparities in time in China and in East Central Europe

China and East Central Europe have undergone remarkable economic changes during the last decades. This paper deals with the dynamics, spatial patterns and regularities of regional disparities in these two regions. After a brief overview of the economic historical background, the connection between economic development and spatial disparities is analysed, and the validity of Williamson’s inverted U-curve hypothesis is tested. The second part of the article focuses on the spatial patterns of disparities. After the description and geographical localization of the „winners” and „losers” of the economic reforms, the emphasis is on the research of spatial regularities, such as the East–West divide, centre–periphery dichotomy and neighbourhood effect, which is analysed with the implementation of autocorrelation models. However, this part deals not only with the change, but also with the long-term stability of the spatial structure. It detecs the long-standingly developed and underdeveloped regions, the reasons behind their situation, and the possible way to dynamize them in the long-term through spatial planning. The third part of the article focuses on the problem of geographical scales in the research of disparities. The dynamics of inequalities at different levels are analysed and compared both between and within countries (in the case of East Central Europe) or provinces (in the case of China). In the final section a short overview is given on the so far experienced and the possible future spatial consequences of the global crisis. It scatches the new phase of growth in its aftermath, based on related news and on the regularities described in the article.
Consumer preferences towards biodiesel in Spain: A Choice Experiment Approach

In recent years the biofuels have been promoted as an alternative fuel for transport in order to solve problems of rising oil prices, energy security and environmental concerns attached to increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The European Union`s Directive 2009/28/EC sets obligatory share for its Member States of 10% share of renewable energy in transport sector by 2020. This target will be mostly achieved by promotion of biofuels, more specifically biodiesel, thus the aim of this paper is to analyze consumers preferences and attitudes towards biodiesel and their willingness to pay. For the purpose of analysis, the Choice Experiments (CE) technique has been employed using stated data obtained from a face to face survey conducted in the province of Barcelona (Spain). Results suggest that level of consumption of biodiesel is quite low among the sample and that respondents generally don’t have a high level of knowledge about main features of biodiesel. Moreover, they believe that the production of biodiesel using the agricultural raw material might play an important role in raising food prices. While the overall perception towards biodiesel is positive, respondents believe that the biodiesel is less polluting than the conventional one and its production can make county less energy dependent, they are reluctant to pay a premium for it and still prefer to use the conventional fuel for their vehicles. Our results may provide an interesting context for the further possibilities in development of market of biodiesel in Spain.
Instance Selection for Online Automatic Post-Editing in a multi-domain scenario

In recent years, several end-to-end online translation systems have been proposed to successfully incorporate human post-editing feedback in the translation workflow. The performance of these systems in a multi-domain translation environment (involving different text genres, post-editing styles, machine translation systems) within the automatic post-editing (APE) task has not been thoroughly investigated yet. In this work, we show that when used in the APE framework the existing online systems are not robust towards domain changes in the incoming data stream. In particular, these systems lack in the capability to learn and use domain-specific post-editing rules from a pool of multi-domain data sets. To cope with this problem, we propose an online learning framework that generates more reliable translations with significantly better quality as compared with the existing online and batch systems. Our framework includes: i) an instance selection technique based on information retrieval that helps to build domain-specific APE systems, and ii) an optimization procedure to tune the feature weights of the log-linear model that allows the decoder to improve the post-editing quality.
Broadband Extended Array Response-Based Subspace Multiparameter Estimation Method for Multipolarized Wireless Channel Measurements

The clustered delay line channel model, in which each cluster consists of many rays, is widely used for link-level evaluations in mobile communications. Multiple parameters of each ray, including the delay, amplitude, cross-polarization ratio (XPR), initial phases of four polarization combinations, and the azimuth and elevation angles of arrival and departure, must be known and are measured using a channel sounder. The number of rays in every cluster is usually greater than the number of elements in the antenna array of the channel sounder, which represents a challenging issue in multipolarized channel measurements. Based on the broadband extended array response of an electromagnetic vector antenna array, a new subspace estimation method is proposed to resolve a large number of rays. The inter-element spacing of the array can be greater than half the carrier wavelength, which reduces inter-element coupling and simplifies the array design, especially for millimeter-wave bands. The delay of each cluster is first estimated using the reference antenna element. Next, two-dimensional angles of every ray are estimated using the classic rank-deficient multiple signal classification algorithm. Finally, the initial phases, XPR, and amplitude of every ray are estimated. Simulation results validate the proposed method.
CRYPTOSPORIDIUM SPP.: CONVENTIONAL AND MOLECULAR DETECTION IN WILD PIGEONS (COLUMBA LIVIA) IN BABYLON PROVINCE, IRAQ

Cryptosporidium is one of the most prevalent protozoan parasites causing a disease in a wide range of birds. Wild pigeons are found in abundance around us and maybe infected or harbor many species of Cryptosporidium that can be transmitted to other animals or humans. This study was aimed to discover the prevalence of Cryptosporidium spp. in wild pigeons that inhabit in Babylon province, Iraq. A total of one hundred fecal samples were collected from wild pigeons and subjected to two diagnostic methods: staining by modified Ziehl–Neelsentechnique and molecular analyses using nested-PCR for amplification of fragments of the 18S rRNA gene. The total positivity for Cryptosporidium detection from both microscopical examination and nested-PCR results was 6% (6/100) and 11% (11/100) respectively. Sequencing of all positive amplified nested PCR results allowed the identification of Cryptosporidium baileyi 9/11 (81.81%) and C. parvum 2/11 (18.18%). Nested PCR was more sensitive for the detection of Cryptosporidium spp. than the staining method. In conclusion, the high prevalence rate of Cryptosporidium baileyi and less C. parvum in wild pigeons indicating the ability of these birds to harbor the infection and transmit these parasites to other birds or humans. These results provide baseline data to help for more studies of molecular epidemiology and control of Cryptosporidium infection in poultry in Iraq.
Human IgG3 Monoclonal Antibody Directed to an Unbranched Repeating Type 2 Chain (Galβ1→4GlcNAcβ1→3Galβ1→4GlcNAcβ1→3Galβ1→R) Which Is Highly Expressed in Colonic and Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Previously established human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed to carbohydrate antigens are essentially all IgM class, and show relatively low affinity and low reactivity at 37°C. We report here the establishment of a human IgG3 MAb displaying high affinity antigen-binding activity at 37°C and efficiently activating cellular cytotoxicity directed to human tumor cell lines expressing the polylactosamine antigen. The IgG3 MAb (MH21–134) reacted with the repeated unbranched polylactosamine structure Galβ1→4GlcNAcβ1→3Galβ1→4GlcNAcβ1→3Galβ1→R, i.e. , nLc6, nLc8, etc., but did not react with sialyl 2→3 or 2→6 substituted derivatives at the terminal Gal. This specificity differs from that of several anti-i antibodies, or human anti-i-like MAbs which react with sialyl 2→3 substituted structures. Directly biotinylated MH21–134 antibody was used in immunohistochemical staining of 154 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections to study distribution of the antigen. High incidence of positive staining was found in colon cancer (11/17; 65%) and hepatocellular carcinoma (8/12; 67%), followed by large cell and squamous cell carcinoma of lung cancer (10/13; 59%, and 14/26; 54%, respectively). TLC immunostaining of glycolipid extracts from a variety of tumor tissues showed the presence of nLc6 and/or nLc8 in over 50% of cases. The antigens nLc6 and nLc8 were found to be absent from normal colonic epithelia, kidney, and pancreas. Only a weak band corresponding to nLc8 and one corresponding to nLc6 were found in liver and spleen, although all these normal tissues, including gastrointestinal epithelia, lung, liver, spleen, erythrocytes, and lymphocytes, were essentially negative on immunohistology. However, the antigen was found to be highly expressed in myelocytes and weakly in bronchial glands of lung and pancreatic duct epithelia. Nevertheless, expression of unsubstituted, unbranched polylactosamine antigen could be an important basis for induction of humoral immune response against certain types of human cancer, despite its limited expression in normal cells.
Optimization techniques for reliable data communication in multi-antenna wireless systems

This thesis looks at new methods of achieving reliable data communication in wireless communication systems using different antenna transmission optimization methods. In particular, the problems of exploitation of MIMO communication channel diversity, secure downlink beamforming techniques, adaptive beamforming techniques, resource allocation methods, simultaneous power and information transfer and energy harvesting within the context of multi-antenna wireless systems are addressed.
Movie Question Answering via Textual Memory and Plot Graph

Movies provide us with a mass of visual content as well as attracting stories. Existing methods have illustrated that understanding movie stories through only visual content is still a hard problem. In this paper, for answering questions about movies, we introduce a new dataset called PlotGraphs, as external knowledge. The dataset contains massive graph-based information of movies. In addition, we put forward a model that can utilize movie clip, subtitle, and graph-based external knowledge. The model contains two main parts: a layered memory network (LMN) and a plot graph representation network (PGRN). In particular, the LMN can represent frame-level and clip-level movie content by the fixed word memory module and the adaptive subtitle memory module, respectively. And the plot graph representation network can represent the entire graph. We first extract words and sentences from the training movie subtitles and then the hierarchically formed movie representations, which are learned from LMN. At the same time, the PGRN can represent the semantic information and the relationships in the graph. We conduct extensive experiments on the MovieQA dataset and the PlotGraphs dataset. With only visual content as inputs, the LMN with frame-level representation obtains a large performance improvement. When incorporating subtitles into LMN to form the clip-level representation, we achieve the state-of-the-art performance on the online evaluation task of “Video+Subtitles. ” After the integration of external knowledge, the performance of the model consisting of the LMN and the PGRN is further improved. The good performance successfully demonstrates that the external knowledge and the proposed model are effective for movie understanding.
: A Study to Advise Safety Concerns Caused by Involuntary

In this paper, we explore various safety hazards that can be caused by involuntary inputs while configuring IoT (Internet of Things) devices in Augmented Reality (AR) environment and propose design guidelines to advise such risks. As a first step, we designed a safeguard interface which sets pre-conditions to prevent accidental changes while allowing users to deliberately adjust the parameters to their desired values. We evaluated the usability and safety of our interface designed with mid-air touch and wrist-rotation gestures through a controlled user study. We also conducted an observational study in a realistic setting where users controlled home appliances using our interface in order to explore various safety related issues. The results have revealed that the proposed interface was preferred when the configurational changes can cause more critical or irreversible damage. Also, through the qualitative analysis, we categorized safety related issues and suggested design guidelines based on the results.
Limits for increasing the WPT distance in AIMDs

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) can be used in Active Implantable Medical Devices (AIMDs) to reduce battery size and/or extend durability. Typically, the power transmitter (Tx) is placed over the patient’s skin during the recharge process. In this paper, we address the main challenges to overcome when trying to extend the distance between the Tx and the implant. An experimental example is presented which can deliver 5 mW at 30 cm. The specific absorption rate (SAR) was within the regulatory limits according to the evaluation performed with sim41ife software by Zürich MedTech.
From Modelling to Performance Prediction Asynchronous Connection of SPAD Federation of Models to RPAS Simulator

— This paper presents a modeling approach for analysing consequences of automation degradation in the context of large socio-technical systems. This modeling approach involves two different notations: FRAM [6] and HAMSTERS [2] and [8]. In previous work [7] we have proposed a synergistic approach integrating these two views for describing the evolution of system performances under automation degradation. The focus of the paper is on how such modeling approach (and thus the models) can be connected to system behavior either it being represented by a specific model (ICOs [9]) or a simulator. After describing the principles of such integration we exemplify it on an RPAS case study. More precisely we present how this federation of models can be connected to a standalone ATM simulator and how specific extensions can support models integration.
Resistance to beet armyworm, hemipterans, and Liriomyza spp. in Lycopersicon accessions

Accessions of Lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiforme (Dun.) A. Gray (cer) and L. pimpinellifol ium (Jusl.) Mill. (pimp), sustained significantly less damage to fruit by beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua (Hiibner)) than standard cultivars and breeding lines of L. esculentum Mill. (esc) under natural infestations in 1990 and 1991 in southern California. The dwarf vine cherry cultivar Tiny Tim also sustained less damage than the standards. Accessions of esc with various monogenic mutations sustained at least as much beet armyworm damage as did standard cultivars. The percentage of fruit damaged was significantly correlated with vine weight, weight per fruit, number of fruit, and the fruit-foliage weight ratio (Pearson's coefficients, respectively: -0.533, 0.450, -0.483, 0.390, n = 37). In laboratory assays, survival of beet armyworm was significantly lower (5% of susceptible& growth rates were significantly lower, and development time was significantly longer on the fruit of resistant 'Tiny Tim' and LA 1320 cer than the fruit of 11 other test lines. There were no substantial differences in beet armyworm survival on the foliage of the test lines. In the field trials, there were also significant differences among the test lines in damage by Liriomyza species and hemipteran pests. Lines with genes for increased densities of nonglandular leaf trichomes (especially LA 1663) were generally less damaged by Liriomyza than other lines. Damage by hemipterans was correlated with vine and fruit size, fruit count, and fruit-foliage weight ratio in 1991, but high intraseason variability prevented clear identification of test lines resistant to these pests.
Assessing the carbon sequestration potential of managed forests : a case study from temperate Australia

Summary 1. The concept of assessing forests for carbon sequestration is well established. Operationally, estimating a forests’ potential to sequester carbon requires comparing its current carbon state with a prediction of its carbon carrying capacity (CCC). Assessment of CCC is, however, problematic. Mathematical models can be used, although traditional modelling techniques, where parameters are estimated from empirical measurements, are usually limited by a lack of field data. For example, estimates of carbon residency times in vegetation and soil are not generally available, nor are they easily measured. Alternative methods are required. 2. Current carbon stocks in 17 previously logged field sites were measured by field survey. CCC for those sites was then predicted using a terrestrial carbon model, calibrated with measurements from mature, unlogged vegetation of a comparable forest type. Model parameters were estimated using ‘model‐data fusion’ methods, where the model is inverted and field measurements of the carbon stocks (the model outputs) are used to calibrate the model parameters. Spatial variation was included through functions defining landscape-scale effects on plant growth relating to topographic influences on light and soil water availability. 3. Current above-ground carbon stocks (living plus litter) varied with management history, averaging 273 ± 30 tC ha − 1 (mean ± SE). Model-predicted CCC was 445 ± 13 tC ha − 1 , yielding a carbon sequestration potential of 172 ± 31 tC ha − 1 . Model simulations predicted the recovery of an average site to take 53 years to reach 75% carrying capacity, and 152 years to reach 90% carrying capacity. Extrapolation of these results to 7 Mha of comparable managed forests in the same region suggested a potential carbon sink of 680‐895 Mt C. 4. Synthesis and applications . In this study we have demonstrated that forests recovering from prior logging have the potential to store significant amounts of carbon, with current biomass stocks estimated to be approximately 60% of their predicted carrying capacity, a value similar to those reported for northern temperate forests. Although sequestration activities often focus on the aforestation and reforestation of previously cleared land, our results suggest that, where appropriate, native forest management should also be considered when developing terrestrial carbon management options, and for terrestrial carbon accounting more generally.
Motivating Environmentally Responsible Behavior

5 Executive Summary . 6 Problem/Research Question . 6 Methods. 6 Results . 7 Discussion . 7 Introduction . 9 Two Theories Relating Motives and Prosocial Behaviors . 11 Method . 13 Participants . 13 CBF Education Programs. 13 Instruments . 14 Procedure. 16 Data Analysis . 17 Experimental Hypotheses. 17 Results . 19 Discussion . 22 Literature cited . 26
CAPACITY GROWTH OF A CDMA2000 BASE STATION DUE TO MOORE’S LAW

The software radio technology used by Vanu, Inc. is designed to deliver ongoing performance improvements to customers. An all-software approach, eliminating low-level firmware such as VHDL for FPGAs or DSP assembly code, enables low-cost porting of waveforms to new processors and platforms as they become available. This enables exploiting the Moore’s Law growth curve of the semiconductor industry. This paper evaluates the success of this approach by reporting performance improvements delivered for a particular waveform, CDMA2000 1xRTT, across multiple hardware generations.
Effect of hormonal and antibiotic treatment of Holstein cows with uterine discharges at 25 days in milk on reproductive performance in Mexican Plateau

Endometritis treatment is a controversial topic among veterinary practitioners. The objective of this study was to evaluate reproductive profiles of dairy cows that presented uterine discharge at 25 days in milk and were treated with hormones and a specific antibiotic for intrauterine infusion. In a single herd, at 25 (±5) days after parturition, the reproductive tract (vulva, vagina, cervix and size of the uterine horns) of Holstein cows (n = 304) were evaluated and grouped as: 1) cows that presented normal uterine horns size, none or light uterine discharge and needed no treatment (healthy, n = 250); and, 2) cows that had placental retention and/or uterine discharge and increased size of one of the uterine horns. Cows in group 2 were treated with hormones (estradiol benzoate and prostaglandin F 2  ) and uterine infusion (500 mg of cephapirin benzathine in 19.6 g ointment base; Metricure, Intervet; UIP group, n = 54). The statistical model included: number of treatments, days to first service, days open, number of services per conception and calving interval as affected by uterine discharge. Healthy cows had lower (P = 0.0001) number of treatments (0.0) than UIP cows (2.3 ± .31). UIP cows showed a delay (P = 0.0001) to first service (78.33 ± 2.9 days) compared with healthy cows (67.46 ± 0.9). Healthy cows conceived faster (P = 0.0001) and required less (P = 0.0001) services per conception (92.16 ± 2.7 days and 1.76 ± 0.08, respectively) than UIP cows (281.2 ± 31.6 days and 4.74 ± 0.47, respectively). The calving interval in healthy cows (374.05 ± 2.7 days) was shorter (P = 0.0001) than in UIP cows (591 ± 40.2 days). In conclusion dairy cows that had uterine discharge 25 days after calving and treated with hormones and intrauterine specific antibiotic showed no improvement in reproductive patterns compared to cows with no uterine
Molecular characterization of adenovirus causing acute respiratory disease in Malaysia from 2003 to 2011

Human Adenoviruses (HAdVs) are human pathogens that normally are associated with acute respiratory disease (ARD). Here, in this study, we characterized human adenovirus isolated from respiratory specimens collected from 2003 to 2011. Positive adenovirus were confirmed by cell culture and indirect immunoflourescence (IF) techniques. The isolates and positive clinical samples were subjected to adenovirus polymerase chain reaction, followed by DNA sequencing. BLAST searches and phylogenetic analysis revealed that only 2 species of HAdV, species C at 64% (47/73) and species B at 36% (26/73) were found circulating amongst ARD cases in Malaysia. Four types of HAdV species C were detected namely: HAdV-2 (66%), HAdV-1(17%), HAdV-5(13%) and HAdV-6(4%). For HAdV species B, only 2 types were detected with HAdV-3 being the highest at 58% and HAdV-7 at 42%. HadV-7 was associated with severe infections. Key words: Human adenoviruses, acute respiratory disease, molecular characterization, gene sequences