Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Textural Analysis of a Microcrystalline Quartz using X-Ray and Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) Techniques

An unusual microcrystalline quartz texture has been recognized in the investigation of pervasively silicified ore-bearing horizons occurring in the uppermost part of carbonate platform sequences of different ages (from Precambrian to Mesozoic) and of different geotectonic settings. This peculiar texture has been labeled "grid-work texture", and derives only by a rather fast and preferred crystallization of quartz on the pre-existing morphological faces of other developed quartz crystals. The 001 pole figures obtained by X-ray textural analysis describe this grid-work texture as constituted by two components of orientation: one component at about 35° from the normal to the surface of the sample and a second orientation component having the c axes oriented at about 75° from the normal to the surface of the sample. Textural maps and parameters obtained by EBSD found very similar components of orientation highlighting as 30-40° and 70-80° misorientations are very common; moreover they allowed to establish as many of the quartz crystals are characterized by Dauphine Twin boundaries.
Resurgence of the interest in plants as sources of medicines and resistance-modifying agents

In the last decades, bacterial resistance to antimicrobials has become a serious threat to clinical and public health. Traditional methods of antibiotic discovery have failed to get new alternatives and solutions to face the fast rhythmus of resistance evolution. Therefore, new strategies to control bacterial infections are highly desirable. The therapeutic value of plant extracts is well-known for centuries. Indeed, medicinal plants always had an important role on the treatment of several illnesses and infections. Plants can produce complex mixtures of structural different compounds. Some of them are being reported to have significant antimicrobial activity against several important clinical pathogens or for their action as synergists or potentiators of other antibacterial agents, by interacting with them or with the pathogens in several ways. This chapter aims to present an overview about the current state of the use of antibiotic coadjuvants and resistance-modifying agents in clinical treatments. Also, the use of plants as promising sources of novel compounds with clinical interest will be highlighted.
Comparison between SACH foot and a new multiaxial prosthetic foot during walking in hypomobile transtibial amputees: physiological responses and functional assessment.

BACKGROUND The most prescribed prosthetic foot for hypomobile transtibial amputees (TTAs) is the solid ankle cushion heel (SACH). Recently, the new 1M10 Adjust (Ottobock, Duderstadt, Germany) has been designed for hypomobile TTAs. No studies are available about the physiological responses to walking with 1M10 Adjust or about the related energy cost of walking (ECW). The aim of this study was to assess physiological responses to walking with 1M10 Adjust and with SACH in low-mobility TTAs and their ECW, and to compare 1M10 Adjust and SACH for physiological responses, ECW, relative perceived effort and satisfaction (SATPRO) using the prosthesis. DESIGN Observational study. SETTING The study was conducted in the outpatient rehabilitation unit of a rehabilitation center. POPULATION Twenty hypomobile unilateral TTAs were enrolled. Amputees who ranged K-levels 1 or 2 were defined. METHODS TTAs performed two over ground walking tests in two separate days, with an interval time in between of 30 days. TTAs performed the first walking test wearing their habitual SACH foot; the second walking test fitting the 1M10 Adjust, after 30 days of its use. During walking tests, TTAs walked back and forth for 6 minutes at self-selected walking speed (SSWS) and physiological data were collected. At the end of each walking test, the relative perceived effort was assessed by Borg scale. Finally, SATPRO questionnaire was administered. RESULTS Twenty TTAs (17 males) were enrolled (mean age, body mass and height were 66.6±6.7 years, 78.5±13.2 kg, and 168.5±7.5 cm, respectively): 19 had a K-level 2 and one had a K-level 1. Physiological responses using SACH or 1M10 Adjust foot did not show statistical differences. ECW, SSWS and relative perceived effort significantly improved using the 1M10 Adjust. Satisfaction with 1M10 Adjust was significantly greater than with SACH. CONCLUSIONS TTAs showed a significant improvement in ECW, relative perceived effort and SATPRO with 1M10 Adjust than with SACH. This suggests that 1M10 Adjust foot could be a good choice for hypomobile TTAs. CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT The better prosthetic performance provided by 1M10 Adjust foot during gait could improve mobility in TTAs with low mobility contributing to prevent comorbidity deriving from sedentary lifestyle. With its long-term benefits, 1M10 Adjust could contribute to a better quality of life.
Ontology Driven Sentiment Analysis on Social Web for Government Intelligence

The World Wide Web as a global information medium has evolved radically from the first 'read only web' generation to the next participative- collaborative 'read and write' social web to the intelligent generation of web referred to as Semantic Web, the 'Read Write and Execute Web'. As a novel facet, digital governance intends to ensure and assure that stakeholders (government and citizens) have greater access and control over the governance mechanism which leads to a more transparent, accountable and efficient governance. Social media can be used to facilitate interaction between people and can offer a substantial, unparallel platform for extensive involvement of citizens in the governance measures. We propose using an ontology-based analytics on social media that expounds an intelligent governance model where sentiment can be mined for extracting views of citizens towards government practices, policies, rules and monitoring performance. The idea is to deploy ontology based techniques to determine the subjects/topics discussed in the tweets, which are related to Ministries of India: their policies, rules, schemes, and analyzing the sentiment (positive, negative and neutral) for tweets retrieved (based on the concepts defined in Ontology). The proposed tool SentIndiGov--O proffers a sentiment analysis application model based on ontologies, where the ontology IndiGov-O is created for "Ministries of Government of India" to reinforce the feature selection task in a Naïve Bayesian classification paradigm. The preliminary results with performance accuracy of ~77% are encouraging and foster the need to exploit hybrid of concept based techniques and machine learning for sentiment analysis.
Public and Private Law-making: Subordinate Legislation, Contracts and the Status of «Student Rules»

This article draws analogies between the making of norms by contract, often seen as typical of private law, and by subordinate law-making, often seen as a typically public function and for public bodies. These analogies are set in the context of those rules which govern the relations between universities and their students, as the same types of rule may find their source in a range of legal sources: prescription, royal charter, parliamentary legislation or contract. Of these different sources, the common law courts long accepted that chartered corporations, created by exercise of royal prerogative, were entitled to make subordinate legislation (known as byelaws) for the furthering of their purposes for both members and non-members, despite this law-making being extra-parliamentary. This article suggests how this power to make byelaws in chartered corporations may apply to chartered universities, noting the difficulties arising from the allegedly eleemosynary nature of these bodies and from the possible coexistence of statutory powers. It then examines the way in which the contract between a student and a university arises, and how this contract may form the legal basis of student rules, whether these rules are conceived as terms of the contract itself or as expressions of a unilateral power in the university arising from the contract. A subsequent article will compare the review of student rules on the grounds of public law principle and of contractual regulation.
Modelling the Interaction of Fundamental and Portfolio Exchange Rate Behaviour: An Application to Australia and the Asean3

This paper explores the interaction of fundamental and portfolio factors in the determination of the exchange rate. The weights on the factors evolve endogenously as a function of relative fundamental and portfolio errors. The model also generates exchange rate mixture distributions that may be skewed, leptokurtic or bimodal and as such can explain small and large changes endogenously. The model is applied to the exchange rates of Australia and the ASEAN3 to examine the role of fundamental and portfolio behaviour, especially over the 1997/98 currency crisis period.
Peripheral blood as a stem cell source for hematopoietic cell transplantation in children: is the effort in vein?

Abstract: Since 1968 HSCT utilizing bone marrow as a stem cell source has become an accepted treatment modality for a variety of immunologic, hematologic and malignant disorders. However, with widespread use it became apparent that BM donation is inconvenient, uncomfortable and not without risk. These observations led to a search for a more easily and safely acquired hematopoietic stem cell source. Recent experience suggests that peripheral blood may serve as an alternative to marrow. Indeed if the current trend continues PBSC will soon replace BM in adults as the preferred stem cell source for both HLA‐matched and unrelated HSCT. Furthermore adults who have experienced both seem to prefer PBSC to BM donation. Recently a number of small trials support the feasibility of PBSC harvest from HLA‐matched minor sibling donors. With regard to the recipient, data indicate more rapid engraftment, an acceptable incidence of acute and chronic GVHD, decreased infection and an increased survival for patients with malignancies (suggesting an increased GVT/L effect) when PBSC are utilized. These observations based almost entirely on the adult experience are far from definitive when children are considered. The relatively lower risk and severity of acute and chronic GVHD, the more frequent use of HSCT for non‐malignant disorders and the diminished role of GVT/L in the treatment of typical malignancies are factors particular to pediatric HSCT. In addition the sense that mobilization and harvest of PBSC may pose unique and significant risk for the young donor suggest to some that PBSC may not posses sufficient advantage to warrant their use in the pediatric transplant setting. Thus both the available adult‐derived data and experience suggest clinical equipoise with regard to the choice of stem cell product, under certain circumstances, when children are considered. This circumstance strongly supports the need for a comprehensive study evaluating the safety and efficacy of PBSC vs. BM HSCT in children.
Assessing the impact of economic liberalization across countries: a comparison of dairy industry efficiency in Canada and the USA

This paper examines and compares the technical efficiency measures of Ontario and New York dairy producers for the period 1992 to 1998. A nonparametric stochastic frontier model is introduced to estimate technical efficiency. The backfitting algorithm of Breiman and Friedman is used to estimate the frontier. Empirical results indicate that during the period of study, New York dairy farmers produced milk more efficiently than Ontario dairy producers, but the magnitude of the difference was small. The estimated mean technical efficiency for the former group is 0.602 as compared to 0.532 for the latter. The results also indicated that over time, dairy farms in both regions improved their level of technical efficiency. Furthermore, no correlation was found between farm size and estimated technical efficiency.
Corporate governance scandals in the Indian Premier League (IPL): implications for labour

This article investigates the corporate governance issues in the context of the rapidly growing and successful business model of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket league in India. Our analysis of the governance issues and the related recent scandals in this league reveal a number of startling conclusions and the need for serious reforms. We find that a weak institutional environment for corporate governance in India, combined with the very rapid success of the IPL business model, within a few years of its birth contribute to the munificent environment within which greed-mongering has proliferated. The number of inconsistencies and loopholes within the governance mechanisms of the IPL are identified and situated within the broader literature on corporate governance and the more specific literature within sport business. We discuss implications for labour, sport as a business and its internationalisation in the context of cricket.
One Monetary Policy and Eighteen Central Bankers: The European Monetary Policy as a Game of Strategic Delegation

This paper employs a multi-country delegation model of a single monetary policy and argues that a decision making mechanism based on the median voter theorem is too restrictive for capturing important aspects of monetary policy in the European Monetary Union, particularly because intensity of preferences cannot play a role when only the median voter matters. Replacing the median voter mechanism by a less restrictive “weighted mean mechanism”, it is shown that strategic delegation leads to a single monetary policy set in accordance with the preferences of the most inflation-averse member state. This finding provides theoretical support for “The Twin Sister Hypothesis” and the perception of the European Central Bank implementing the policy of the Bundesbank rather than the policy of an average union-wide central bank.
The Pregnancy Assistance Fund as a Support for Student Parents in Postsecondary Education. Fact Sheet #C398.

Pregnancy and parenting can pose special challenges to students enrolled in secondary and postsecondary education, including issues related to child care, financial aid, transportation, and academic and career planning. In some circumstances, the responsibilities related to pregnancy and parenting can undermine students’ ability to pursue and complete their educational goals, particularly among students enrolled in community college and other two-year institutions. Only 40 percent of students with dependent children—across all institution types—completed a degree or certificate within six years of enrolling, compared to 54 percent of student who did not have children (Miller, Gault, and Thorman, 2011). Yet, despite the significant challenges many student parents face, few federal programs exist to provide supports to help these student parents succeed in postsecondary education. The Pregnancy Assistance Fund (PAF) isa competitive grant program created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that provides funding to states and tribes to support programs that provide pregnant and parenting women and girls with supportive services to help them complete high school or postsecondary degrees(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010a). Only two states, Minnesota and Virginia, have used their PAF grants to provide services related to postsecondary institutions. This fact sheet describes several of the programs and initiatives created by these PAF grantees. Unless otherwise noted, all program information comes from interviews with program officials and staff.
Spreadsheet simulation to aid capacity management of batch chemical processing using JIT pull control

The application of just‐in‐time manufacturing techniques in batch chemical processing environments, under conditions of variable demand, imposes significant capacity management problems. Making decisions which involve levels of customer service and resource untilization can be aided by the application of the calculation methodology outlined, which uses standard spreadsheet techniques and forecast queue analysis. Presents a case example to clarify the links between service levels and resource utilization which can aid management decisions regarding timing, levels of stocks and sizing of facilities.
Redirected Primary Human Chimeric Antigen Receptor Natural Killer Cells As an “Off-the-Shelf Immunotherapy” for Improvement in Cancer Treatment

Primary human natural killer (NK) cells recognize and subsequently eliminate virus infected cells, tumor cells, or other aberrant cells. However, cancer cells are able to develop tumor immune escape mechanisms to undermine this immune control. To overcome this obstacle, NK cells can be genetically modified to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) in order to improve specific recognition of cancer surface markers (e.g., CD19, CD20, and ErbB2). After target recognition, intracellular CAR domain signaling (CD3ζ, CD28, 4-1BB, and 2B4) leads to activation of PI3K or DNAX proteins (DAP10, DAP12) and finally to enhanced cytotoxicity, proliferation, and/or interferon γ release. This mini-review summarizes both the first preclinical trials with CAR-engineered primary human NK cells and the translational implications for “off-the-shelf immunotherapy” in cancer treatment. Signal transduction in NK cells as well as optimization of CAR signaling will be described, becoming more and more a focal point of interest in addition to redirected T cells. Finally, strategies to overcome off-target effects will be discussed in order to improve future clinical trials and to avoid attacking healthy tissues.
Modeling and predictive control of Free Piston Engine Generator

This paper focuses on the modeling and control of a Free Piston Engine Generator (FPEG) which is an alternative to conventional internal combustion engines to be used as an auxiliary power unit (APU) in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). A physics-based, continuous-time model and a discrete-time, control-oriented model are derived. A model predictive control approach is proposed to manage system constraints and to control piston position by regulating the fuel injection quantity and external electrical load. Top Dead Center (TDC) clearance height is used for feedback and is estimated using Newton's method and an Extended State Observer (ESO). Simulation results are reported and show that the proposed control framework successfully tracks the target piston clearance height and reduces clearance fluctuations caused by instantaneous electrical load changes.
Values as Moderators of the Association between Interpersonal-Psychological Constructs and Suicidal Ideation among Veterans

This study examined whether valuing relationships, achievement, and security moderated the association between interpersonal-psychological constructs (Joiner, 2005) and suicidal ideation (SI). A total of 122 veterans completed the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire, Survey of Life Principles, and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation. Valuing relationships moderated the association between thwarted belongingness and SI. Specifically, thwarted belongingness predicted SI among veterans who reported moderate and high, but not low, levels of valuing relationships. The estimated impact of perceived burdensomeness on SI was stronger at higher levels of valuing relationships, but only approached statistical significance. Valuing achievement and security did not moderate the association between perceived burdensomeness and SI. Future research should continue to examine specific values as they relate to interpersonal-psychological constructs and suicidal behavior.
The Use of Composite Price Expectations In Supply Response Models

This paper advocates the use of composite price expectation models in which alternative expectation hypotheses are simultaneously considered in the estimating model. This approach allows flexibility in expectation specification, recognizes that agents may use historical as well as current market information, and provides endogenous weights and testing for alternative expectation specifications within the model being estimated. Data on the northeastern United States' fresh tomato market were used to estimate a simultaneous equation market model under alternative price expectation structures. These included rational expectations hypothesis, Cobweb, and composite price expectation models. Empirical results suggest that a composite expectation model is consistent with data and that they provide significantly more accurate ex ante price forecasts than pure rational expectations or lagged response models. Furthermore, performance of alternative statistical tests on model results indicated that log likelihood tests are not definitive, requiring the use of other statistics to evaluate the expectation models in question. A central conclusion emerging from this paper is the consideration of alternative expectation hypotheses as complementary information sources to decision makers rather than substitute or competing sources as previously postulated. Cette etude preconise l'usage d'un modele d'expectation composite de prix dans lequel des hypotheses d'expectation alternative sont considerees simultanement dans le modele d'estimation. Cette approche donne de la flexibilite quant a la specification des expectations, reconnait que les agents utilisent des informations historiques de meme que celles qui proviennent du marche courant, et pourvoie des coefficients endogenes aussi bien que des tests pour les specifications d'expectation alternative a l'interieur meme du modele en cours d'estimation. Des donnees du marche de tomates du nord-est des Etats-Unis d'Amerique ont ete utilisees pour estimer un modGle de marche avec des hypotheses differentes d'expectation de prix, represente par un systeme d‘equations simultanees. Les hypotheses comprennent l'Hypothese d'Expectation Rationelle, “Cobweb,” et les modeles d'expectations composites de prix. Les resultats empiriques suggerent que les modeles d'expectations composites de prix sont en accord avec les donnees et qu'ils pourvoient des previsions de prix ex ante significativement plus precises que les modeles de pures Expectations Rationelles de meme que ceux bases sur la reponse retardee. En plus, la performance des tests statistiques sur les resultats du modele indique que les tests de probabilite (“likelihood”) ne sont pas definitives, requerant ainsi l'usage d'autres statistiques pour evaluer les modeles d'expectation en question. Une conclusion centrale emanant de cette etude est la consideration des hypotheses d'expectation alternative comme sources complementaires pour formuler des decisions, plutot que des sources substitutives ou rivales comme postule auparavant.