Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimating the Effects of Corruption: Implications for Bangladesh

Building on the pioneering work of Barro (1991) and Mauro (1995) to include the most recent years for which data are available (for Bangladesh in the 1990s), the authors investigate the relationships between corruption, and growth, and, between corruption and investment, both domestic and foreign, to see whether they have changed from earlier decades. Then they move away from Mauro's implicit assumption that the corruption index value for a relatively short period of time, can be used as a proxy for the long run, and further augment Mauro's model by including significant regional dummy variables, in an attempt to take account of various region-specific effects. The authors also analyze the sensitivity of corruption in the presence, and absence of various policy, geographic, and demographic variables that are widely used in empirical growth, and investment literature. The findings suggest that countries serious about improving governance, and reducing corruption, should redefine the role of government, overhaul the system of incentives, and strengthen domestic institutions, to make sure the necessary checks, and balances are in place. Such an approach to reform would help attract more investment - both domestic and foreign - and would accelerate economic growth, and poverty reduction.
DETECTING NETWORK-UNFRIENDLY MOBILES WITH THE RANDOM NEURAL NETWORK

Mobile networks are universally used for personal communications, but also increasingly used in the Internet of Things and machine-to-machine applications in order to access and control critical services. However, they are particularly vulnerable to signaling storms, triggered by malfunctioning applications, malware or malicious behavior, which can cause disruption in the access to the infrastructure. Such storms differ from conventional denial of service attacks, since they overload the control plane rather than the data plane, rendering traditional detection techniques ineffective. Thus, in this paper we describe the manner in which storms happen and their causes, and propose a detection framework that utilizes traffic measurements and key performance indicators to identify in real-time misbehaving mobile devices. The detection algorithm is based on the random neural network which is a probabilistic computational model with efficient learning algorithms. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Anti-Tumor Activity of a miR-199-dependent Oncolytic Adenovirus Callegari , Elisa 2013-09-12

The down-regulation of miR-199 occurs in nearly all primary hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) and HCC cell lines in comparison with normal liver. We exploited this miR-199 differential expression to develop a conditionally replicationcompetent oncolytic adenovirus, Ad-199T, and achieve tumor-specific viral expression and replication. To this aim, we introduced four copies of miR-199 target sites within the 3’ UTR of E1A gene, essential for viral replication. As consequence, E1A expression from Ad-199T virus was tightly regulated both at RNA and protein levels in HCC derived cell lines, and replication controlled by the level of miR-199 expression. Various approaches were used to asses in vivo properties of Ad-199T. Ad-199T replication was inhibited in normal, miR-199 positive, liver parenchyma, thus resulting in reduced hepatotoxicity. Conversely, the intrahepatic delivery of Ad-199T in newborn mice led to virus replication and fast removal of implanted HepG2 liver cancer cells. The ability of Ad-199T to control tumor growth was also shown in a subcutaneous xenograft model in nude mice and in HCCs arising in immune-competent mice. In summary, we developed a novel oncolytic adenovirus, Ad-199T, which could demonstrate a therapeutic potential against liver cancer without causing significant hepatotoxicity. Citation: Callegari E, Elamin BK, D’Abundo L, Falzoni S, Donvito G, et al. (2013) Anti-Tumor Activity of a miR-199-dependent Oncolytic Adenovirus. PLoS ONE 8(9): e73964. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0073964 Editor: Ilya Ulasov, University of Chicago, United States of America Received February 12, 2013; Accepted July 25, 2013; Published September 12, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Callegari et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by the University of Ferrara and by Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: sbs@unife.it (SS); ngm@unife.it (MN)
How Robust Are the Surface Temperature Fingerprints of the Atlantic Overturning Meridional Circulation on Monthly Time Scales?

It has been suggested that changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) can drive sea surface temperature (SST) on monthly time scales (Duchez et al., 2016, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382‐015‐2918‐1). However, with only 11 years of continuous observations, the validity of this result over longer, or different, time periods is uncertain. In this study, we use a 120 yearlong control simulation from a high‐resolution climate model to test the robustness of the AMOC fingerprints. The model reproduces the observed AMOC seasonal cycle and its variability, and the observed 5‐month lagged AMOC‐SST fingerprints derived from 11 years of data. However, the AMOC‐SST fingerprints are very sensitive to the particular time period considered. In particular, both the Florida current and the upper mid‐ocean transport produce highly inconsistent fingerprints when using time periods shorter than 30 years. Therefore, several decades of RAPID observations will be necessary to determine the real impact of the AMOC on SSTs at monthly time scales.
Arc NetContent Element Transition Place source target Petri Net Arc weight : Integer name : String Transition Place Element name : String TransitionToPlace PlaceToTransition

The correctness of model transformations is key to obtain reliable MDE solutions. However, current transformation tools provide limited support to statically detect and correct errors. This way, the identification of errors and their correction are mostly manual activities. Our aim is to improve this situation. Based on a static analyser for ATL model transformations which we have previously built, we present a method and a system to propose quick fixes for transformation errors. The analyser is based on a combination of program analysis and constraint solving, and our quick fix generation technique makes use of the analyser features to provide a range of fixes, notably some nontrivial, transformation-specific ones. Our approach integrates seamlessly with the ATL editor. We provide an evaluation based on an existing faulty transformation, and automatically generated transformation mutants, showing overall good results.
Low genetic diversity in nurseryfish, 'Kurtus gulliveri' (Perciformes: Kurtidae), and an appraisal of its breeding system using microsatellite loci

The Nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri, is a freshwater fish distributed in northern Australia and southern New Guinea that exhibits forehead brooding, a unique form of male parental care. Microsatellite markers were developed for paternity analysis to study its reproductive life history in a population from the Adelaide River, Northern Territory, Australia. In 20 microsatellite loci tested, only two polymorphic markers were found. The microsatellite data are mostly consistent with the hypotheses that the putative egg-carrying male sired the egg mass and no multiple paternity occurred in the population examined. However, caution should be taken in interpreting the results, given the low genetic diversity and limited analytical power. The extremely low genetic diversity was also corroborated by mitochondrial DNA, the most variable fragment in the piscine mitogenome. Eighteen individuals from the Adelaide River were sequenced, revealing four polymorphic sites in the control region and five haplotypes in total, with an average p-distance of 0.001. Additional individuals from three other isolated populations in the Northern Territory (Daly River, South Alligator River and East Alligator River) were sequenced and found to be identical to one of the common haplotypes from the Adelaide River. Four specimens collected from New Guinea represent a single haplotype that had 24.5 substitutions, on average, relative to the Australian populations.
Lead telluride based thermoelectrics : approaches for higher efficiency

The current research scenario for alternative energy sources is primarily focused on the reduction of dependency on fossil fuels, so that the harmful effects of green house gases can be minimised. Thermoelectricity is one such niche area of research by which the waste heat can be utilized for electric power generation. Apart from the modern infrared optoelectronic applications, lead chalcogenides gained a great interest worldwide in the field of thermoelectricity because of its promising electrical and thermal properties. Among the other lead chalcogens, lead telluride (PbTe) is the most studied thermoelectric material and holds the best performance in the mid-temperature range (500 – 900 K) power generation. The focus of this chapter is to discuss the various approaches adopted to tune the carrier transport phenomena for further enhancement of the performance of PbTe based materials for practical realization.
Quantification of the Self-healing Behaviour of a Supramolecular Elastomer by means of a Peel Testing Procedure

A method for testing and quantifying the self-healing behaviour of an elastomer was investigated at the NovAM (Novel Aerospace Materials) group at the Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands). A testing plan was devised using design of experiments, aiming at optimising sample production for studying the influence of temperature, pressure and time on the healing response exhibited by the supramolecular elastomer. The production method was investigated through experimenting alternative strategies for processing the polymer. Several samples were produced, fractured and healed. The data analysis of the results revealed significant inconsistencies in the peeling curves obtained in the testing of the virgin samples, hindering the suitability for a statistical model of the phenomenon of self-healing. Some of the issues related to the scatter of results were further explored, aiming at understanding and improving the production procedure and obtaining reproducible samples. It can be concluded that an adhesive is required to prevent failure of the polymer-aluminium bond. Adhesion promoted simply by curing of the material on top of the aluminium revealed to be insufficient. The last samples produced resorting to adhesive display consistent results in what comes to both the stable peeling curves and the homogeneous fracture mode (suitable for healing).
Linux/SimOS: A Complete System Simulation Environment for Evaluating High-Speed Communication Systems 1

This paper presents a performance study of UDP/IP and M-VIA using Linux/SimOS. Linux/SimOS is a Linux operating system port to a complete machine simulator SimOS. A complete machine simulator includes all the system components, such as CPU, memory, I/O devices, etc., and models them in suffi- cient detail to run an operating system. Therefore, a real program execution environment can be set up on the simulator to perform detailed system evaluation in a non-intrusive manner. The motivation for Linux/SimOS is to alleviate the limitations of SimOS (and its variants), which only support proprietary operating systems. Therefore, the availability of the popular Linux operating system for a complete ma- chine simulator will make it an extremely effective and flexible open-source simulation environment for studying all aspects of computer system performance, especially evaluating communication protocols and network interfaces. The contributions made in this paper are two-fold: First, the major modifications that were necessary to run Linux on SimOS are described. These modifications are specific to SimOS I/O device models and thus any future operating system porting efforts to SimOS will experience similar challenges. Second, a detailed analysis of the UDP/IP protocol and M-VIA is performed to demonstrate the capabilities of Linux/SimOS. The simulation study shows that Linux/SimOS is capable of capturing all aspects communication performance, including the effects of the kernel, device driver, and network interface.
The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree (WP-02-17)

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the Children of the NLSY, and from a study in Prince George's County, Maryland, to assess the relationship between 17 characteristics of mothers measured during adolescence and the same characteristics of their children, also measured during adolescence. We find positive correlations between specific characteristics of parents and children. But we also find that few parental characteristics predict characteristics of children other than the same one that is measured in parents. Four mechanisms might explain such correlations — socioeconomic resources, parenting practices, genetic inheritance, and role modeling. These four mechanisms make varying predictions about which parental traits will be correlated with which child traits; whether the traits of fathers or mothers should be more important to sons or daughters; and to what extent parental socioeconomic characteristics, parenting behaviors, and children’s identification with their parents account for the observed correlations. Our evidence provides little support for the SES and parenting explanations, but more substantial support that role modeling may account for some of the intergenerational correlations, and genetic factors may account for others.
Understanding polarization vs. charge dynamics effects in ferroelectric-carbon nanotube devices

To optimize the performance of multifunctional carbon nanotube-ferroelectric devices, it is necessary to understand both the polarization and charge dynamics effects on their transconductance. Directly comparing ferroelectric Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 and dielectric SrTiO3 field effect transistors, we show that the two effects strongly compete, with transient charge dynamics initially masking up to 40% of the ferroelectric field effect. For applications, it is therefore crucial to maximize the quality of the ferroelectric film and the interface with the carbon nanotube to take full advantage of the switchable polarization.
Shearlet Transform with Neutrosophic Set as uncertainty handling 2 tool

7 In any image segmentation problem, there exist uncertainties. These uncertainties occur from gray level and spatial ambiguities in an image. As a result, accurate segmentation of text regions from non-text regions (graphics/images) in mixed and complex documents is a fairly difficult problem. In this paper, we propose a novel text region segmentation method based on Digital Shearlet transform(DST). The method is capable of handling the uncertainties arising in the segmentation process. To capture the anisotropic features of the text regions, the proposed method uses the DST coefficients as input features to a segmentation process block. This block is designed using the Neutrosophic set(NS) for management of the uncertainty in the process. The proposed method is experimentally verified extensively and the performance is compared with that of some state-of-the-art techniques both quantitatively and qualitatively using benchmark dataset.
On-Board Correction of Systematic Odometry Errors in Differential Robots

An easier method for the calibration of differential drive robots is presented. Most calibration is done on-board and it is not necessary to spend too much time taking note of the robot’s position. The calibration method does not need a large free space to perform the tests. The bigger space is merely in a straight line, which is easy to find. The results with the method presented are compared with those from UMB for reference, and they show very little deviation while the proposed calibration is much simpler.
Sun and planets from a climate point of view

Abstract The Sun plays a dominant role as the gravity centre and the energy source of a planetary system. A simple estimate shows that it is mainly the distance from the Sun that determines the climate of a planet. The solar electromagnetic radiation received by a planet is very unevenly distributed on the dayside of the planet. The climate tries to equilibrate the system by transporting energy through the atmosphere and the oceans provided they exist. These quasi steady state conditions are continuously disturbed by a variety of processes and effects. Potential causes of disturbance on the Sun are the energy generation in the core, the energy transport trough the convection zone, and the energy emission from the photosphere. Well understood are the effects of the orbital parameters responsible for the total amount of solar power received by a planet and its relative distribution on the planet's surface. On a planet, many factors determine how much of the arriving energy enters the climate system and how it is distributed and ultimately reemitted back into space. On Earth, there is growing evidence that in the past solar variability played a significant role in climate change.
Finite Element Model of the Active Organ of Corti Guangjian

The cochlear amplifier that provides our hearing with its extraordinary sensitivity and selectivity is thought to be the result of an active biomechanical process within the sensory auditory organ, the organ of Corti. Although imaging techniques are developing rapidly, it is not currently possible, in a fully active cochlea, to obtain detailed measurements of the motion of individual elements within a cross section of the organ of Corti. This motion is predicted using a two-dimensional finite element model. The various solid components are modelled using elastic elements, the outer hair cells as piezoelectric elements, and the perilymph and endolymph as viscous and nearly incompressible fluid elements. The model is validated by comparison with existing measurements of the motions within the passive organ of Corti, calculated when it is driven either acoustically, by the fluid pressure, or electrically, by excitation of the outer hair cells. The transverse basilar membrane motion and the shearing motion between the tectorial membrane and the reticular lamina are calculated for these two excitation modes. The fully active response of the basilar membrane to acoustic excitation is predicted using a linear superposition of the calculated responses and an assumed frequency response for the outer hair cell feedback.
Dipeptidyl aminopeptidase processing and biosy n t hesis of a

Institute of Marine Resources’ and Section Of Microbiology*, University of California, Davis, CA 9561 6, USA Alkaline extracellular protease (AEP) from Yarmwia /ipo/’ica is synthesized as a precursor with a 157 aa prepro-region. Signal peptide cleavage was shown to occur after Ala,, by N-terminal amino acid radiosequencing of the largest intracellular AEP precursor. AEP proteolytic activity was not required for AEP processing. After a change of the putative active site Ser to Ala, inactive AEP with the same mobility on SDS-PAGE as wild-type mature AEP was secreted. The role of dipeptidyl aminopeptidase (DPAPase) activity in AEP processing was also investigated. Mutations early in the -X-Alaand -X-Prodipeptide stretch (Pro,, to Met which should prevent DPAPase processing and Ala,, to Val which should allow removal of only the first dipeptide) did not prevent synthesis of active mature AEP nor did use of the DPAPase inhibitor ProboroPro. Deletion of the entire dipeptide stretch (Ala,, to Pro,) resulted in intracellular accumulation of an AEP precursor, which surprisingly was not glycosylated, and litt le or no secretion of AEP-related polypeptides. Expression of AEP in wild-type and dpp1 dap2 Sacchammyces cerevisiae strains (lacking both the Golgi and vacuolar DPAPases) resulted in secretion of only mature AEP and no AEP precursors. Transit times and levels of AEP secretion were similar for both strains. These results indicate that the KEXZ-like cleavage after Lys,,-Arg,, which yields mature active AEP can occur in the absence of DPAPase processing and that DPAPase processing is not necessary for secretion of mature active AEP.
Sociology in the 1980s – The Rise of Gender (and intersectionality)

The social, economic and political context of the 1980s in Britain shaped the contributions to the journal, and the early part of the decade was marked by emphasis on the interrelations between class and gender. The introduction of this e-special discusses the increasing importance of gender in sociological analysis in the 1980s. This development is related to a shift from production to consumption and a growing interest in life-style leading to the debate around “the end of class”, the “cultural turn” and “identity politics”. We assess the influence of articles published in the 1980s and how sociology – both the discipline and the journal – have changed since these articles have been published. The selected articles provide a historical perspective and are – as we argue – still highly relevant for the current state of the discipline and sociological debate. They illustrate the evolution of British sociology, from emphasis on class analysis in the 1970s towards the growing prominence of intersectionality and subjectivity in the 1990s and beyond. Feminist theory and research in the 1980s within and beyond Sociology indicate the importance and utility of intersectionality, even if the terminology has shifted, and the decade resulted in considerable advances in terms of the prominence, legitimacy and sophistication of gender analysis
At the root of parliamentary party cohesion: the role of intraparty heterogeneity and party ideology

Party cohesion is a central issue in legislative studies. The way cohesion is reached in parliamentary parties has therefore attracted a lot of attention. A frequent assumption states that party cohesion stems from party agreement measured as the homogeneity of preferences among MPs. This paper argues that the two concepts –agreement and homogeneity– cover different realities, and shows that the relationship between them is not as straightforward as often suggested. The paper contends that party ideology works as a mediator between the heterogeneity of preferences and intra-party disagreement. The analysis is based on attitudinal data collected among 840 MPs from 15 European national assemblies and is computed at the aggregate –party– level. The results bring new perspectives on the relationship between ideology, homogeneity of preferences and agreement within parliamentary parties.