Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transitional Labour Markets, from theory to policy application. The "Transitional Labour Markets" Approach: Theory, History and Future Research Agenda

This contribution aims at presenting a critical and syntetic overview of the researches done, since 1995, under the aegis of the "Transitional Labour Markets" current. In its first part, the survey focuses on the positive theoretical bases of this current. They come from diverse theories of the labour market and of organisations, and are integrated into a systemic perspective. The second part deals with the normative consequences stemming from this approach. The third part presents and discusses recent developments, identifying unsolved problems
Nebuliser performance, pharmacokinetics, airways and systemic effects of salbutamol given via a novel nebuliser delivery system ("Ventstream").

BACKGROUND--Currently available nebulisers are inefficient and show variable aerosol deposition in the lung owing to the differences in the particle size generated. The aim of this study was to compare systemic absorption and bronchodilator effects of salbutamol given via a novel ("Ventstream") and a conventional ("Hudson Updraft II") nebuliser system, having initially evaluated the performance of both nebulisers in vitro. The "Ventstream" nebuliser uses a one way valve system to provide an additional inspiratory side flow to match aerosol delivery with tidal volume. METHODS--Nebuliser output and particle distribution from 10 Ventstream and 10 Hudson nebulisers were compared in vitro. Eight asthmatic patients, FEV1 55(2)% predicted, were then randomised to receive salbutamol via Ventstream or Hudson nebulisers on separate days. On each day cumulative doses of inhaled salbutamol were given: 1.25 mg, 2.5 mg (1.25 + 1.25 mg), and 5.0 mg (2.5 + 2.5 mg). Airways responses, systemic responses, and plasma salbutamol concentrations were measured at each dose and for up to 240 minutes after the final dose. RESULTS--The in vitro comparison showed a greater respirable fraction with a higher percentage volume of particles < 5 microns in diameter using Ventstream than Hudson nebulisers (mean (95% CI) for difference): 25.4% (95% CI 22.4% to 28.3%), and a higher aerosol rate of output: 0.08 g/min (95% CI 0.05 to 0.11 g/min). At the 5.0 mg dose the Ventstream produced a twofold greater concentration of plasma salbutamol than the Hudson nebuliser (AUC0-240): 392.1 ng/ml.min (95% CI 240.6 to 543.6 ng/ml.min). There was a higher AUC0-240 for PEFR with the Ventstream than with the Hudson nebuliser: 74.161 x 10(2) (95% CI 39.50 to 108.821 x 10(2). For FEV1 and FEV25-75 there was a difference in the peak response between the 5.0 mg and 2.5 mg doses with the Ventstream only. Extrapulmonary beta 2 responses were greater with the Ventstream than with the Hudson at 2.5 mg and 5.0 mg doses, although the differences did not appear to be clinically relevant. CONCLUSIONS--The Ventstream produced a twofold increase in the delivery of salbutamol to the lung compared with the Hudson nebuliser, and there was an associated increase in systemic beta 2 responses with an improvement in some parameters of bronchodilator efficacy. As a consequence of improved delivery with the Ventstream, it may be possible to halve the drug dose to produce similar bronchodilator efficacy at reduced cost. Further studies are required to evaluate the value of the Ventstream for delivery of nebulised antibiotics and corticosteroids.
Maximum F1-Score Discriminative Training Criterion for Automatic Mispronunciation Detection

We carry out an in-depth investigation on a newly proposed Maximum F1-score Criterion (MFC) discriminative training objective function for Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) based automatic mispronunciation detection that makes use of Gaussian Mixture Model-hidden Markov model (GMM-HMM) as acoustic models. The formulation of MFC seeks to directly optimize F1-score by converting the non-differentiable F1-score function into a continuous objective function to facilitate optimization. We present model-space training algorithm according to MFC using extended Baum-Welch form like update equations based on the weak-sense auxiliary function method. We then present MFC based feature-space discriminative training. We train a matrix projecting from posteriors of Gaussians to a normal size feature space, and add the projected features to traditional spectral features. Mispronunciation detection experiments show MFC based model-space training and feature-space training are effective in improving F1-score and other commonly used evaluation metrics. It is also shown MFC training in both the feature-space and model-space outperforms either model-space training or feature-space training alone, and is about 11.6% better than the maximum likelihood (ML) trained baseline in terms of F1-score. Further, we review and compare mispronunciation detection results with the use of MFC and some traditional training criteria that minimize word error rate in speech recognition. The experimental analysis and comparison provide useful insight into the correlations between F1-score maximization and optimization of these training criteria.
A Gateway Selection Scheme for Internetworking of MANET and Internet Using Improved Genetic Algorithm

To enhance the access performance when connecting of MANET and Internet via multiple gateways, a gateway selection scheme using improved genetic algorithm was proposed. This scheme selected gateways based on hopcount, gateway load and path quality, and made use of an hybrid search approach which based on orthogonal genetic algorithm and sensitivity analysis. The optimum gateway was elected out through performance analysis. The process of the hybrid search approach and the calculation of the gateway selection metrics were also put forward in this paper. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieved better performance in packet delivery radio and average packet delay.
Government-to-Business: The Brazilian Public Digital Bookkeeping System (Sped) and the eSocial Project

This paper presents some initiatives of government-to-business in Brazil: The Sped and its project called eSocial. The Sped Fiscal is the Brazilian Public Digital Bookkeeping System and it can be considered an innovation in the relation between the government and the corporate taxpayers, especially in the informatization area. In this research, we explain how it works and its regulatory legislation. After that, we show some benefits of this system. The eSocial Project is the Digital Bookkeeping System of Tax, Social Security and Labor Obligations which is integrated to the Sped Fiscal system. So we make comments about both projects in order to present these new features which have been in development in Brazil.
Bariatric Surgery in Moderately Obese Patients: A Prospective Study

Introduction. Moderate obesity (BMI 30–35 kg/m2) affects 25% of the western population. The role of bariatric surgery in this context is currently debated, reserved for patients with comorbidity, as an alternative to conservative medical treatment. We describe our experience in moderately obese patients treated with bariatric surgery. Materials and Methods. Between September 2011 and September 2012, 25 patients with grade I obesity and comorbidities underwent bariatric surgery: preoperative mean BMI 33.2 kg/m2, 10 males, mean age 42 years. In presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) (56%), gastric bypass was performed; in cases with hypertension (64%) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (12%), sleeve gastrectomy was performed. All operations were performed laparoscopically. Results. Mean follow-up was 12.4 months. A postoperative complication occurred: bleeding from the trocar site was resolved with surgery in local anesthesia. Reduction in average BMI was 6 points, with a value of 27.2 kg/m2. Of the 14 patients with T2DM, 12 (86%) discontinued medical therapy because of a normalization of glycemia. Of the 16 patients with arterial hypertension, 14 (87%) showed remission and 2 (13%) improvement. Complete remission was observed in patients with OSAS. Conclusions. The results of our study support the validity of bariatric surgery in patients with BMI 30–35 kg/m2. Our opinion is that, in the future, bariatric surgery could be successful in selected cases of moderately obese patients.
Concurrent View Maintenance Scheme for Soft Real-time Data Warehouse Systems

The data warehouse should be refreshed periodically or aperiodically in order to prevent OLAP transactions from reading extremely stale data. This refreshing process is referred to as view maintenance. There have been many researches on ways to preserve data consistency during the process of view maintenance. The simplest approach among them is to perform view maintenance in the nighttime while OLAP transactions are allowed to be active only in daytime. However, this approach cannot be applied to globalized corporations because no common idle time is available for such corporations. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for performing view maintenance without blocking OLAP transactions. Our algorithm improves data freshness by allowing one or more maintenance transactions and OLAP transactions to be executed concurrently. We introduce the details of algorithm with some examples, present proofs of devised scheme, and then evaluate performance gains by means of simulation method.
Should Parents Work Away from or Close to Home? The Effect of Temporary Parental Absence on Child Poverty and Children's Time Use in Vietnam

Working away from home might bring higher earnings than working near home. However, the absence of parents due to work can have unexpected effects on children. This paper examines the effects of the temporary absence of parents on the well-being of children aged 5–8 years old in Vietnam, using indicators of household poverty, per capita consumption expenditure, and child time allocation. The paper relies on OLS and fixed-effects regression and panel data from the Young Lives surveys in 2007 and 2009. It finds a positive correlation between parental absence and per capita expenditure. Parental absence tends to increase per capita food expenditure instead of per capita non-food expenditure. Regarding the way children spend their time, there are no statistically significant effects of parental absence.
Development of Nanocrystalline 304L Stainless Steel by Large Strain Cold Working

The microstructural changes leading to nanocrystalline structure development and the respective tensile properties were studied in a 304L stainless steel subjected to large strain cold rolling at ambient temperature. The cold rolling was accompanied by the development of deformation twinning and martensitic transformation. The latter readily occurred at deformation microshear bands, leading the martensite fraction to approach 0.75 at a total strain of 3. The deformation twinning followed by microshear banding and martensitic transformation promoted the development of nanocrystalline structure consisting of a uniform mixture of austenite and martensite grains with their transverse sizes of 120–150 nm. The developed nanocrystallites were characterized by high dislocation density in their interiors of about 3 × 1015 m−2 and 2 × 1015 m−2 in austenite and martensite, respectively. The development of nanocrystalline structures with high internal stresses led to significant strengthening. The yield strength increased from 220 MPa in the original hot forged state to 1600 MPa after cold rolling to a strain of 3.
Exhaustive search of puzzles in operational transformation

Operational Transformation (OT) is a collaboration-enabling technology and increasingly adopted in a wide range of real-world applications. One long-lasting issue in OT research is detecting and resolving puzzles -- subtle and characteristic collaborative editing scenarios in which an OT system may fail. After many years of extensive search and research, a variety of intricate puzzles have been de-tected and resolved. However, it remains open whether all puzzles, under certain well-defined conditions, have been discovered. To address this issue, we set out to devise a system of verification frameworks and a software tool, that are independent of specific OT algorithms and able to ex-haustively cover all possible transformation cases in which puzzles (if any) will manifest themselves. With the support of these tools, we verified OT correctness and concluded: all puzzles, under basic data and operation models and established transformation properties, have been discov-ered and resolved. Our discoveries help resolve a number of long-standing mysteries surrounding OT correctness and contribute to the advancement of OT fundamental knowledge and technology.
A Steady State Solution to a Mortgage Pricing Problem

This paper considers a mortgage contract where the borrower pays a fixed mortgage rate and has the choice of making prepayment. Assume the market interest follows the CIR model, a free boundary problem is formulated. Here we focus on the infinite horizon problem. Using variational method, we obtain an analytical solution to the problem, where the free boundary is implicitly given by a transcendental algebraic equation.
Design of implantable CPW fed l-slot antenna for biomedical applications

The proposed implantable CPW fed monopole slot antenna for industrial scientific and medical (ISM) band biomedical applications of dimension 25mm × 16mm × 0.5mm at ISM band (2.4 - 2.48 GHz) and short distance communication band (Electronic Communications Committee approved the frequency band 688 MHz). The antenna is placed on human tissues like skin, fat, muscle, etc and it is made compatible for implantation by embedding it on FR4 substrate. These Implantable CPW fed monopole slot antennas are significantly used in implantable biomedical devices due to the merits such as flexibility in design, conformability, size, safety and low power consumption.
Modeling software failures and reliability growth during system testing

A number of time-domain software reliability models attempt to predict the growth of a system's reliability during the system test phase of the development life cycle. In this paper we examine the results of applying several types of Poisson-process models to the development of a large system for which system test was performed in two parallel tracks, using different strategies for test data selection. We show that the reliability growth predicted by non-homogeneous Poisson process models was found for only one of these testing strategies. These results imply that the applicability of a reliability growth model to a given software development project will depend on the nature of that project's system test process; they also raise theoretical questions about the assumption of certain statistical properties for failure occurrence during testing.
Spatial competition and equilibrium in a circular market

The paper presents an analysis of spatial competition between two firms in a circular market. It is shown that the existence problem of a Bertrand-Nash- Equilibrium exists for the circular market in the same way as for the linear and bounded market. This is demonstrated by directly studying the reaction functions of the competing producers and without referring to merely technical fixed point arguments. The existence problem is solved by adding a move structure to the game, regarding market entry as sequential and taking place in historical time.
Minimizing Variability of Cascade Impaction Measurements in Inhalers and Nebulizers

The purpose of this article is to catalogue in a systematic way the available information about factors that may influence the outcome and variability of cascade impactor (CI) measurements of pharmaceutical aerosols for inhalation, such as those obtained from metered dose inhalers (MDIs), dry powder inhalers (DPIs) or products for nebulization; and to suggest ways to minimize the influence of such factors. To accomplish this task, the authors constructed a cause-and-effect Ishikawa diagram for a CI measurement and considered the influence of each root cause based on industry experience and thorough literature review. The results illustrate the intricate network of underlying causes of CI variability, with the potential for several multi-way statistical interactions. It was also found that significantly more quantitative information exists about impactor-related causes than about operator-derived influences, the contribution of drug assay methodology and product-related causes, suggesting a need for further research in those areas. The understanding and awareness of all these factors should aid in the development of optimized CI methods and appropriate quality control measures for aerodynamic particle size distribution (APSD) of pharmaceutical aerosols, in line with the current regulatory initiatives involving quality-by-design (QbD).
Overexpression of muscle uncoupling protein 2 content in human obesity associates with reduced skeletal muscle lipid utilization

Uncoupling proteins (UCP) may influence thermogenesis. Since skeletal muscle plays an important role in energy homeostasis and substrate oxidation, this study was undertaken to test the hypotheses that skeletal muscle UCP2 content is altered in obesity and could be linked to basal energy expenditure, insulin sensitivity, or substrate oxidation within skeletal muscle under postabsorptive (fasting) conditions. To examine these possibilities, limb basal energy expenditure and respiratory quotient (bRQ) were measured in 18 obese nondiabetic (Ob) and lean individuals (L). Total body fat (%) ranged from 11% to 46%. In addition, insulin‐stimulated rates of glucose disposal (Rd) were measured under euglycemic hyperinsulinemic conditions. Biopsy of vastus lateralis muscle was used to measure cytochrome c oxidase (COX) enzyme activity and UCP2 content. Whereas low muscle COX activity was found in the Ob compared to L (6.9±1.6 vs. 9.6±1.2 U/g; P<0.001), skeletal muscle UCP2 content in Ob was significantly higher than in L (48±9 vs. 33±12 arbitrary units/g; P<0.05). Moreover, UCP2 content was positively correlated with percent of total body fat (r=0.57; P<0.05) and bRQ (r=0.59; P<0.01), but not with visceral fat (r=0.17; P=0.49), basal energy expenditure (r=0.07; P=0.79) or Rd (r=−0.23; P=0.34). In summary, these results indicate that if development of obesity in humans is mediated by defective expression of UCP2 within skeletal muscle, then this effect is not observed in people with established obesity. The present study also suggests that skeletal muscle UCP2 content is not related to basal energy expenditure or insulin sensitivity in humans. However, the increased content of UCP2 within skeletal muscle in obesity appears to coincide with a reduced postabsorptive lipid utilization by muscle. —Simoneau, J.‐A. , Kelley, D. E. , Neverova, M. , Warden, C. H. Overexpression of muscle uncoupling protein 2 content in human obesity associates with reduced skeletal muscle lipid utilization. FASEB J. 12, 1739–1745 (1998)
Accessory DNA in the Genomes of Representatives of the Escherichia coli Reference Collection

ABSTRACT Different strains of the Escherichia coli reference collection (ECOR) differ widely in chromosomal size. To analyze the nature of the differential gene pool carried by different strains, we have followed an approach in which random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was used to generate several PCR fragments. Those present in some but not all the strains were screened by hybridization to assess their distribution throughout the ECOR collection. Thirteen fragments with various degrees of occurrence were sequenced. Three of them corresponded to RAPD markers of widespread distribution. Of these, two were housekeeping genes shown by hybridization to be present in all theE. coli strains and in Salmonella enterica LT2; the third fragment contained a paralogous copy of dnaK with widespread, but not global, distribution. The other 10 RAPD markers were found in only a few strains. However, hybridization results demonstrated that four of them were actually present in a large selection of the ECOR collection (between 42 and 97% of the strains); three of these fragments contained open reading frames associated with phages or plasmids known in E. coli K-12. The remaining six fragments were present in only between one and four strains; of these, four fragments showed no similarity to any sequence in the databases, and the other two had low but significant similarity to a protein involved in the Klebsiella capsule synthesis and to RNA helicases of archaeal genomes, respectively. Their percent GC, dinucleotide content, and codon adaptation index suggested an exogenous origin by horizontal transfer. These results can be interpreted as reflecting the presence of a large pool of strain-specific genes, whose origin could be outside the species boundaries.
Functional-oriented BIST of Sequential Circuits Aiming at Dynamic Faults Coverage

New product development using nanometer semiconductor technologies require high-quality BIST solutions able to uncover dynamic faults. Most existing solutions rely on test-per-scan BIST, for high fault coverage. However, reconfiguration, in test mode, may significantly modify delays in signal paths, thus reducing the degree of confidence of dynamic fault coverage values. The purpose of this paper is to present a new high-quality test-per-clock BIST methodology for sequential digital systems. The proposed BIST methodology is an extension to sequential systems of the masked-based (or m-BIST) methodology. Determinism in test patterns (to uncover random-pattern resistant faults) is inserted with a low-intrusion scheme, in which the sequential behavior is preserved, and a bit-flipping technique is used. Functional-oriented patterns lead to high coverage of structural faults. Both academic (VeriDOS, ASCOPA) and commercial (Design Visiontrade Verifaulttrade tools are used to implement the methodology, which is demonstrated with an industrial design, the PIC controller of an electric static power meter. The methodology has been incorporated in the industrial partner design flow
Density-dependent mating tactic expression is linked to stress hormone in Woodhouse's toad

The social environment can alter mating tactic expression through modulatory effects on the endocrine system. In anuran amphibians (frogs and toads), males often adopt noncalling mating tactics in response to increased chorus density, but the underlying physiological factors mediating this response are poorly understood. Recent models suggest that density-dependent expression of alternative mating tactics in anurans is associated with a cascade of hormonal events: high chorus density is expected to promote an increase in circulating androgen levels that elicits an increase in vocal effort, a reduction in energy reserves, and elevations in circulating corticosterone (CORT) levels that, in turn, suppress vocalization. Here, we show that chorus density was positively correlated with the proportion of males adopting a noncalling ‘‘satellite’’ mating tactic in explosive-breeding Woodhouse’s toad (Bufo woodhousii). We also show that chorus density was positively correlated with circulating CORT levels in calling males, thereby linking density-dependent mating tactic expression to a hormone that has previously been shown to elicit noncalling mating tactics in this species. Chorus density, however, was not correlated with circulating androgen levels, vocal effort, or body condition. Our results suggest that satellite tactic expression may not be readily traceable to energetic constraints associated with calling behavior—a leading prediction of current models. Key words: androgens, body condition, chorus density, corticosterone, satellite behavior, vocal effort. [Behav Ecol]