Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reversible signal transmission in an active mechanical metamaterial

Mechanical metamaterials are designed to enable unique functionalities, but are typically limited by an initial energy state and require an independent energy input to function repeatedly. Our study introduces a theoretical active mechanical metamaterial that incorporates a biological reaction mechanism to overcome this key limitation of passive metamaterials. Our material allows for reversible mechanical signal transmission, where energy is reintroduced by the biologically motivated reaction mechanism. By analysing a coarse-grained continuous analogue of the discrete model, we find that signals can be propagated through the material by a travelling wave. Analysis of the continuum model provides the region of the parameter space that allows signal transmission, and reveals similarities with the well-known FitzHugh–Nagumo system. We also find explicit formulae that approximate the effect of the time scale of the reaction mechanism on the signal transmission speed, which is essential for controlling the material.
Zonation and Directional Dynamics of Mangrove Forests Derived from Time-Series Satellite Imagery in Mai Po, Hong Kong

Mangrove deforestation is occurring globally at a rapid rate, and is causing serious ecological and economic losses on all scales. Monitoring mangrove changes is the first important step for mangrove management and conservation. Zonation of mangrove species (ZMS) is the predictable and discrete ordering of mangrove species caused by a unique, intertidal environment. Mapping the ZMS is critical to understanding the mangrove community at a species level. In this paper, the Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) was proposed as a method to evaluate mangrove species from a new dimension of directional changes. Three dominant mangrove species, Kandelia obovata (KO), Avicennia marina (AM), and Acanthus ilicifolius (AI), in Mai Po, Hong Kong were analyzed using SDEs based on the time series Systeme Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) and Gaofen-1 (GF-1) satellite images. The SDE results demonstrated that in the past 25 years: (1) The overall spatial extent of the mangroves in Mai Po expanded significantly, approximately from 150 to 350 Ha, and show a zonation pattern with a clear sequence of species perpendicular to the shoreline; (2) KO was the dominant species in most years, showing the strongest directional characteristic; (3) All three species zones have moved toward the north and west, as observed by the SDE centers. The SDE was proved to be a useful tool for understanding the temporal and spatial changes of mangrove zonation.
Cytotoxic effect of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans Lipopolysaccharide on Human Leukemia Cell Lines and Human Gingival Fibroblasts

Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans is implicated in the etiology of aggressive periodontitis and chronic periodontitis. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a major constituent of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. LPS from Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aa-LPS) and Escherichia coli (Ec-LPS) was isolated by the hot phenol-water method and partially purified on a column. The purpose of this study was to compare the properties of Aa-LPS with Ec-LPS. Aaand Ec-LPS showed different patterns in the results of SDS-PAGE. Furthermore, the total sugar and limulus activity of Aa-LPS were different from those of Ec-LPS. The cytotoxic effect of Aa-LPS was in a timeand dose-dependent manner. Aa-LPS had a strong cytotoxic effect on human leukemia cell lines and human gingival fibroblasts compared with Ec-LPS. These results suggested that the difference in structure, total sugar amount and limulus activity of Aa-LPS from those of Ec-LPS or the cell difference may participate in the cytotoxic effect.
MEASURING QUALITY OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES: ANALYSIS OF THE VALIDITY OF THE EARLY CHILDHOOD ENVIRONMENT RATING SCALE-REVISED IN COLOMBIA

In recent years, governments and international organizations have turned to preschool programs to address child poverty and related problems in low and middle income countries (LAMI). As preschool attendance has spread across the globe from 22% in 1999 to 45% in 2010, attention has shifted from preschool access to program quality, and researchers and policymakers have turned to the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECEERS-R) to assess the quality of preschool experiences in their countries. However, important questions exist about the reliability and validity of this measure in LAMI countries. Colombia is among the countries that have expanded access to preschool programs in recent years, and have started to use the ECERS-R for assessing program quality. This study examines the reliability and validity of ECERS-R for preschool settings in Colombia, finding no evidence that the original scale structure is valid in the Colombian context. Additionally, it considered whether items on the ECERS-R could be used to generate a measure with stronger psychometric properties in Colombia. Evidence indicated that some items of the scale are not valid in the Colombian context but that others form three different factors related to routines, interactions and availability of materials for learning. Finally, analysis of predictive validity indicated that the routines factor significantly predicts children’s gains in execute function and language skills over the kindergarten year. This evidence suggests that only some items of the ECERS-R consistently measure meaningful variability early education quality in Colombia, but that even low scores in routines are associated with gains in cognitive and social development.
Facial emotion recognition and its association with symptom severity, functionality, and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia: preliminary results

Introduction. There is evidence to suggest that individuals with schizophrenia have greater difficulty in recognizing facial emotions, which has been related to cognitive impairment and higher symptom severity in this disease and seems to lead to a worse functional prognosis. Objective. To determine the association between facial emotion recognition and symptom severity, functionality, and cognitive impairment in a sample of schizophrenic patients. Method. This is an observational, cross-sectional, and correlational study conducted on 72 patients. The following scales: PANSS, MOCA, ERI, and FACT-Sz were used to assess symptom severity in schizophrenia, cognitive functioning, facial emotion recognition, and functionality, respectively. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to measure the linear association between all variables. Results. Overall, moderate symptom severity and mild cognitive and functional disability were found. The most frequently recognized emotion was joy (70%) and the least frequently recognized one was anger. A positive association was also found between anger recognition and severity of the PANSS cognitive subscale (r = - .24, p = .03), sadness recognition and severity of the PANSS negative subscale (r = - .24, p = .03), and the FACT-Sz score and fear recognition (r = .31, p = .008). Discussion and conclusion. The present study yields preliminary results that provide a broader perspective on facial emotion recognition and, indirectly, social interaction and functionality in people with schizophrenia.
Optimum partition in flight route anomaly detection

Anomaly detection of flight route can be analyzed with the availability of flight data set. Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS-B) is the data set used. The parameters used are timestamp, latitude, longitude, and speed. The purpose of the research is to determine the optimum area for anomaly detection through real time approach. The methods used are: a) clustering and cluster validity analysis; and b) False Identification Rate (FIR). The results archieved are four steps, i.e: a) Build segments based on waypoints; b) Partition area based on 3-Dimension features P1 and P2; c) grouping; and d) Measurement of cluster validity. The optimum partition is generated by calculating the minimum percentage of FIR. The results achieved are: i) there are five partitions, i.e: (n/2, n/3, n/4, n/5) and ii) optimal partition of each 3D, that is: for P1 was five partitions and the P2 feature was four partitions
Exploring spatial features of science-industry partnerships: A study on French data

The aim of this paper is to provide explanatory elements of the geography of collaboration by testing various potential factors related to the partners' features (sector of activity, location, affiliation to a parent firm, etc.) and to the pair of regions involved in the partnership (economic and scientific endowment of regions and proximities that separate them). Based on a database collecting around 15,000 Science-Industry agreements signed in France between 1981 and 2006, we first realized a probit model that focus on the local dimension of science-industry collaborations on an inter-individual level. We then test a gravity model (sample selection model) in order to explain the probability and the intensity of interregional collaborations. El proposito de este articulo es aportar elementos que expliquen la geografia de la colaboracion mediante el ensayo de varios factores potenciales relacionados con las caracteristicas de los socios (sector de la actividad, localizacion, afiliacion a una empresa matriz, etc.) y con el par de regiones involucradas en la sociedad (dotacion economica y cientifica de las regiones y las proximidades que las separan). Mediante la utilizacion de una base de datos que incluye alrededor de 15.000 acuerdos de colaboracion entre ciencia e industria firmados en Francia entre 1981 y 2006, establecemos en primer lugar un modelo probit que se centra en la dimension local de las colaboraciones entre ciencia e industria a nivel inter-individual. A continuacion, hacemos ensayos con un modelo de gravedad (modelo de seleccion muestral) para explicar la probabilidad y la intensidad de las colaboraciones interregionales.
Modeling N-th Order Derivative Creation Based on Content Attractiveness and Time-Dependent Popularity

SUMMARY For amateur creators, it has been becoming popular to create new content based on existing original work: such new content is called derivative work. We know that derivative creation is popular, but why are individual derivative works created? Although there are several factors that inspire the creation of derivative works, such factors cannot usually be observed on the Web. In this paper, we propose a model for inferring latent factors from sequences of derivative work posting events. We assume a sequence to be a stochastic process incorporating the following three factors: (1) the original work’s attractiveness, (2) the original work’s popularity, and (3) the derivative work’s popularity. To characterize content popularity, we use content ranking data and incorporate rank-biased popularity based on the creators’ browsing behaviors. Our main contributions are three-fold. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the ﬁrst study modeling derivative creation activity. Second, by using real-world datasets of music-related derivative work creation, we conducted quantitative experiments and showed the e ﬀ ectiveness of adopting all three factors to model derivative creation activity and considering creators’ browsing behaviors in terms of the negative logarithm of the likelihood for test data. Third, we carried out qualitative experiments and showed that our model is useful in analyzing following aspects: (1) derivative creation activity in terms of category characteristics, (2) temporal development of factors that trigger derivative work posting events, (3) creator characteristics, (4) N-th order derivative creation process, and (5) original work ranking.
Fabrication of MSM-Based Biosensing Device for Assessing Dynamic Behavior of Adherent Mammalian Cells

Adherent mammalian cells are susceptible to the physiological conditions, i.e., physicochemical and topological properties of the extracellular microenvironment surrounding them. In this paper, cell-substrate interaction is taken as the primary step for exhibiting their optimal functions, including cell adhesion, proliferation, migration, and differentiation. Herein, the change in characteristic properties of transparent semiconducting metal oxide, ZnO thin film as a function of the progression of cellular processes and functions resulting from cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions is reported. We have monitored the change in characteristic electrical properties of ZnO thin film by a fabricated metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) structure based biosensing platform. Further, we have demonstrated the improvement in cell adhesion on ZnO thin films through the gelatin functionalization process. Furthermore, the Nyquist plot characteristics are used to investigate the electrical properties of the fabricated MSM biosensor, which gets altered with the progression of cellular functions over time. Correspondingly, it is also observed that the true impedance of the fabricated device gets increased with a noticeable shift towards the higher resistance region with a significant increase in the semi-circle diameter. Hence, we anticipate that the fabricated MSM based biosensing platform can be used as a promising device for monitoring the functional behavior of adherent cells.
Multiple Regular Expression Pattern Monitoring over Probabilistic Event Streams

SUMMARY As smartphones and IoT devices become widespread, probabilistic event streams, which are continuous analysis results of sensing data, have received a lot of attention. One of the applications of probabilistic event streams is monitoring of time series events based on regular expressions. That is, we describe a monitoring query such as “ Has the tracked object moved from RoomA to RoomB in the past 30 minutes? ” by using a regular expression, and then check whether corresponding events occur in a probabilistic event stream with a sliding window. Although we proposed the fundamental monitoring method of time series events in our previous work, three problems remain: 1) it is based on an unusual assumption about slide size of a sliding window, 2) the grammar of pattern queries did not include “negation”, and 3) it was not optimized for multiple monitoring queries. In this paper, we propose several techniques to solve the above problems. First, we remove the assumption about slide size, and propose adaptive slicing of sliding windows for e ﬃ cient probability calculation. Second, we calculate the occurrence probability of a negation pattern by using an inverted DFA. Finally, we propose the merge of multiple DFAs based on disjunction to process multiple queries e ﬃ ciently. Experimental results using real and synthetic datasets demonstrate e ﬀ ectiveness of our approach.
Residual Stresses in Different Heat Treated Workpieces after Turning

The use of short process chains for the realization of complex and high performance components is a reasonable approach to achieve sustainable products and to reduce energy consumption. In the Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR TRR30 which is supported by the German Research Foundation DFG this approach is investigated applying thermo-mechanically forming processes. In this way, combining hot metal forming and heat treatment steps in a single process, tailored materials properties together with appropriate geometries are achieved [1, 2] . However, still additional machining operations, e. g. turning operations in case of shafts, are needed to achieve proper workpiece finish. Due to locally varying mechanical properties, undesired changings of the process conditions occur, leading to varying surface and subsurface properties, e.g. the residual stress state. It is well known that residual stresses have a major impact on the components properties during service [3]. In this paper, a survey is given about near surface residual stress states after exterior dry turning of differently heat treated cylindrical workpieces made of steel AISI 6150.
Assessing the Intellectual Capital and Related Performance in the Teaching Process using FES models: first evidence in Italian Universities

Our study provides to define two frameworks of indicators to assess both the Intellectual Capital (IC) employed in the Educational Process in the University sector and the Performance Educational Process reached. The scope is to obtain two tools for measuring, on the one hand, the level and the determinant variables of the IC that represents the input of the Educational Process. On the other hand, the level and the determinant variables of the outcome of the Educational Process. The comparison of the tools scores allows you to understand if at a high level of Educational Performance corresponds to a high level of IC trying to evaluate the ability of the IC to create value. The research questions are answered using a quantitative methodology using the FES models. We define two models to measure the IC Educational Index and Educational Performance. We construct the FES models in compliance with the previous literature on the IC and the theoretical model report of the Intellectual Capital of the Austrian Universities. To define the frameworks of indicators to assess the IC Educational Index and the Educational Performance we use, compliant to the previous literature, the SMA Indicators required by the AVA-MIUR for Italian University Sector. We collected 30 Italian public Universities. Thus, we determined and compared both the IC Educational Index and its determinants and Educational Performance Score and its determinants. Our main result is the construction of two toolboxes to assess the level of IC and the connected Performance of the Educational Process in the University sector. The findings suggest which are the indicators to improve the IC Index or the Educational Performance Score for an in-depth understanding of the value creation process.The paper is novel because it contributes to the literature examining the model to measure both the IC employed in the Educational Process and the Educational Performance. Moreover, comparing the resultant scores, we investigated the relation between input and output in the Educational value creation.
Refugees and Endogenous Local Productivity-Evidence from Germany ’ s Post-War Population Expulsions

Can increases in the size of the local workforce raise productivity and spur economic development? This paper uses a particular historical episode to study this question empirically. After the Second World War, between 1945 and 1948, about 8m Ethnic Germans were expelled from their domiciles in Middle and Eastern Europe and transferred to counties in Western Germany. At the time, this inflow amounted to almost 20% of the Western German population. Using the variation across counties I study the effects of the refugee inflow on regional economic outcomes in the 50s and 60s. I find that refugee-inflows are positively correlated with income per capita, overall manufacturing employment and the entry of new plants. Importantly, the long-run effect on income per capita are much larger than the short-run effects. To explain this finding, I propose a new dynamic spatial model of semi-endogenous growth, where local productivity growth responds to local market size. The model makes tight predictions on the long-run distribution of economic activity and implies that the productivity effects of a shock to the local population can build up slowly if labor mobility is limited. When calibrated to the empirical estimates, the model implies that the inflow of refugees increased aggregate income pc by 3% after 10 years. ∗eMail: m.peters@yale.edu. I am very grateful to Abhijit Banerjee, Penny Goldberg, Tarek Hassan, Chad Jones, Pete Klenow, Virgiliu Midrigan, Steve Redding, Gianluca Violante, Joachim Voth and Alwyn Young for their comments. I particularly thank Steve Redding and Ben Faber for their discussions at the NBER SI. I also thank numerous seminar participants for their comments and the staff at the GESIS Institute in Mannheim, especially Bernhard Schimpl-Neimanns, for their hospitality and help in accessing the historical microdata of the 1971 census.
Nutritional Epidemiology Consumption of ( n-3 ) Fatty Acids Is Related to Plasma Biomarkers of Inflammation and Endothelial Activation in Women 1

We evaluated the hypothesis that intake of (n-3) fatty acids is inversely associated with biomarkers of inflammation and endothelial activation. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 727 women from the Nurses’ Health Study I cohort, aged 43–69 y, apparently healthy at time of a blood draw in 1990. Dietary intake was assessed by a validated FFQ in 1986 and 1990. C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were 29% lower among those in the highest quintile of total (n-3) fatty acids, compared with the lowest quintile; interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were 23% lower, E-selectin levels 10% lower, soluble intracellular adhesion molecule (sICAM-1) levels 7% lower, and soluble vascular adhesion molecule (sVCAM-1) levels 8% lower. The intake of -linolenic acid was inversely related to plasma concentrations of CRP ( 0.55, P 0.02), Il-6 ( 0.36, P 0.01), and E-selectin ( 0.24, P 0.008) after controlling for age, BMI, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and intake of linoleic acid (n-6) and saturated fat. Long-chain (n-3) fatty acids (eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic) were inversely related to sICAM-1 ( 0.11, P 0.03) and sVCAM-1 ( 0.17, P 0.003). Total (n-3) fatty acids had an inverse relation with CRP ( 0.44, P 0.007), IL-6 ( 0.26, P 0.009), E-selectin ( 0.17, P 0.004), sICAM-1 ( 0.07, P 0.02), and sVCAM-1 ( 0.10, P 0.004). These associations were not modified by intake of vitamin E, dietary fiber, trans fatty acids, or by the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy. In conclusion, this study suggests that dietary (n-3) fatty acids are associated with levels of these biomarkers reflecting lower levels of inflammation and endothelial activation, which might explain in part the effect of these fatty acids in preventing cardiovascular disease. J. Nutr. 134: 1806–1811, 2004.
Interaction of Surface Energy Components between Solid and Liquid on Wettability, and Its Application to Textile Anti-Wetting Finish

With various options of anti-wetting finish methods, this study intends to provide basic information that can be applied in selecting a relevant anti-wetting chemical to grant protection from spreading of liquids with different surface energy profiles. With such an aim, the anti-wetting effectiveness of fluorinated coating and silane coating was investigated for liquids having different surface energy components, water (WA), methylene iodide (MI) and formamide (FA). The wetting thermodynamics was experimentally investigated by analyzing dispersive and polar component surface energies of solids and liquids. The role of surface roughness in wettability was examined for fibrous nonwoven substrates that have varied surface roughness. The presence of roughness enhanced the anti-wetting performance of the anti-wetting treated surfaces. While the effectiveness of different anti-wetting treatments was varied depending on the liquid polarities, the distinction of different treatments was less apparent for the roughened fibrous surfaces than the film surfaces. This study provides experimental validation of wetting thermodynamics and the practical interpretation of anti-wetting finishing.