Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sugli effetti salariali e distributivi delle crisi dei regimi di cambio

The present paper investigates 28 episodes of transition from a fixed to a relatively more flexible exchange rate regime, taking place together with a depreciation of the national currency by more than 25% with respect to the US dollar, in the time period between 1980 and 2013. On average, the exchange regime crises examined emerge as being positively correlated to reductions in real wages and wage shares. However, any assessment of the relations between exchange regimes and distributive dynamics should proceed by comparing the possible implications of a regime shift to the effects of keeping the current one.
The Effect of the Random Magnetic Field Component on the Parker Instability

The Parker instability is considered to play important roles in the evolution of the interstellar medium. Most studies on the development of the instability so far have been based on an initial equilibrium system with a uniform magnetic field. However, the Galactic magnetic field possesses a random component in addition to the mean uniform component, with comparable strength of the two components. Parker and Jokipii have recently suggested that the random component can suppress the growth of small wavelength perturbations. Here we extend their analysis by including gas pressure, which was ignored in their work, and study the stabilizing effect of the random component in the interstellar gas with finite pressure. Following Parker and Jokipii, we model the magnetic field as a mean azimuthal component, B(z), plus a random radial component, ϵ(z)B(z), where ϵ(z) is a random function of height from the equatorial plane. We show that for the observationally suggested values of ⟨ϵ2⟩1/2, the tension due to the random component becomes important, so that the growth of the instability is either significantly reduced or completely suppressed. When the instability still works, the radial wavenumber of the most unstable mode is found to be zero. That is, the instability is reduced to be effectively two-dimensional. We discuss briefly the implications of our finding.
Distrust and Privacy: Axioms for Multicast Congestion Control

Existing multicast control algorithms typically assume trust and free sharing of information among receivers. We believe that this is not tenable in the long term. We examine multicast congestion control under the constraints of distrust and privacy among receivers. We claim that despite these constraints, large-scale multicast congestion control in a heterogeneousenvironmentis feasible. We discuss three classes of solutions for the multicast congestion control problem, called per-group feedback , selective participation and menu-adaptation . For each class, we identify the limitations imposed by receiverdistrust and privacy,and we argue that only a solution that integrateselements of each class can scale and adapt to heterogeneity in network and receiver characteristics. We outline such an integrated solution.
Magnetotactic Bacteria from Extreme Environments

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) represent a diverse collection of motile prokaryotes that biomineralize intracellular, membrane-bounded, tens-of-nanometer-sized crystals of a magnetic mineral called magnetosomes. Magnetosome minerals consist of either magnetite (Fe3O4) or greigite (Fe3S4) and cause cells to align along the Earth’s geomagnetic field lines as they swim, a trait called magnetotaxis. MTB are known to mainly inhabit the oxic–anoxic interface (OAI) in water columns or sediments of aquatic habitats and it is currently thought that magnetosomes function as a means of making chemotaxis more efficient in locating and maintaining an optimal position for growth and survival at the OAI. Known cultured and uncultured MTB are phylogenetically associated with the Alpha-, Gamma- and Deltaproteobacteria classes of the phylum Proteobacteria, the Nitrospirae phylum and the candidate division OP3, part of the Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae (PVC) bacterial superphylum. MTB are generally thought to be ubiquitous in aquatic environments as they are cosmopolitan in distribution and have been found in every continent although for years MTB were thought to be restricted to habitats with pH values near neutral and at ambient temperature. Recently, however, moderate thermophilic and alkaliphilic MTB have been described including: an uncultured, moderately thermophilic magnetotactic bacterium present in hot springs in northern Nevada with a probable upper growth limit of about 63 °C; and several strains of obligately alkaliphilic MTB isolated in pure culture from different aquatic habitats in California, including the hypersaline, extremely alkaline Mono Lake, with an optimal growth pH of >9.0.
Ray Interpolants for Fast Ray Tracing of Reflective and Refractive Objects

To render an object from multiple viewpoints by ray tracing, each frame is computed by tracing one or more rays from the viewpoint through every pixel of the image plane. For reflective and refractive objects, especially if multiple reflections and/or refractions occur, this requires many expensive intersection calculations. For complex objects, such as Bezier or NURBS surfaces, the intersection computations are even more expensive. This paper presents a new method for accelerating ray tracing of complex reflective and refractive objects by substituting accurate-but-slow intersection calculations with approximatebut-fast interpolation computations. Our approach is based on modeling the reflective/refractive object as a function that maps input rays entering the object to output rays exiting the object. As preprocessing, a quadtree-based two level data structure is built, storing discrete samples of this function. Sampling is done adaptively from multiple viewpoints in various directions. During rendering, rather than tracing each input ray through the object, we interpolate the collection of nearby ray samples to compute an approximate output ray. In most cases, object boundaries and other discontinuities are handled by applying various heuristics. We also rely on dense sampling in discontinuity regions, due to our adaptive sampling mechanism. In cases where we cannot find sufficient evidence to interpolate, we perform ray tracing as a last resort. We provide performance studies to demonstrate the efficiency of this method.
A framework for the estimation of OO software reliability using design complexity metrics

Reliability of a software product essentially denotes its trustworthiness or dependability. The stakeholder's requirement is normally a robust and highly reliable software product. Reliability is one of the dynamic characteristics of software, which can be quantitatively measured by analyzing the failure data. In order to estimate as well as to predict the reliability of software systems, failure data need to be properly measured by various means during software development. Most of the software failures happen due to poor design quality. Controlled and well-monitored design with respect to reliability can be achieved by quantitative analysis and appropriate mapping of design metrics. This analysis leads to the prediction of reliability at the design stage of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of Object Oriented (OO) software, which will provide early information for software architect about the quality of the design with respect to reliability. Chidamber and Kemerer (CK) design metrics play a dynamic role to understand the design aspects of object-oriented software. In this context, we have proposed a framework for predicting reliability at the design phase of software development life cycle. Through empirical analysis, a valid hypothesis is established relating the design complexity metrics and reliability. A functional relationship is established through polynomial regression technique for selected design metrics. With these equations, an estimation model called R-MODEL is formulated through weighted linear combination of multifunctional parameters, which predicts reliability for any module of the OO software project. The R-MODEL is evaluated and validated with commercial software, which is found to be satisfactory. This quantitative empirical analysis provides an idea for the percentage influence of design metrics on reliability at the design level. The approach is to make, measurement as an integral part of the software design process to assist software designer to predict the software reliability at early stage and to improve the product quality.
A Gene Expression Profile Test for the Differential Diagnosis of Ovarian Versus Endometrial Cancers

We have developed a gene expression profile test (Pathwork Tissue of Origin Endometrial Test) that distinguishes primary epithelial ovarian and endometrial cancers in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens using a 316–gene classification model. The test was validated in a blinded study using a pre-specified algorithm and microarray files for 75 metastatic, poorly differentiated or undifferentiated specimens with a known ovarian or endometrial cancer diagnosis. Measures of test performance include a 94.7% overall agreement with the known diagnosis, an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.997 and a diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 406. Ovarian cancers (n=30) gave an agreement of 96.7% with the known diagnosis while endometrial cancers (n=45) gave an agreement of 93.3%. In a precision study, concordance in test results was 100%. Reproducibility in test results between three laboratories was 94.3%. The Tissue of Origin Endometrial Test can aid in resolving important differential diagnostic questions in gynecologic oncology.
Is the unigram relevance model term independent?: classifying term dependencies in query expansion

This paper develops a framework for classifying term dependencies in query expansion with respect to the role terms play in structural linguistic associations. The framework is used to classify and compare the query expansion terms produced by the unigram and positional relevance models. As the unigram relevance model does not explicitly model term dependencies in its estimation process it is often thought to ignore dependencies that exist between words in natural language. The framework presented in this paper is underpinned by two types of linguistic association, namely syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations. It was found that syntagmatic associations were a more prevalent form of linguistic association used in query expansion. Paradoxically, it was the unigram model that exhibited this association more than the positional relevance model. This surprising finding has two potential implications for information retrieval models: (1) if linguistic associations underpin query expansion, then a probabilistic term dependence assumption based on position is inadequate for capturing them; (2) the unigram relevance model captures more term dependency information than its underlying theoretical model suggests, so its normative position as a baseline that ignores term dependencies should perhaps be reviewed.
Stroke in Young Adults: A Prospective Study from Northwestern Nigeria

Background. Stroke is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in young adults especially in developing countries. This two-centre prospective study aimed at reviewing the pattern, types, and case fatality of stroke in the young adults in Northwestern part of Nigeria. Methods. Consecutive patients aged 18–40 years admitted to the medical wards of two tertiary hospitals from June 2008 to August 2010 were recruited. Relevant clinical data were obtained from the patients.The survivors were followed up in neurology clinics for 6 months. Results. A total of 71 patients aged 18–40 yrs, (mean age was 31.9 ± 6) comprising 52(73%) males and 19(23%) females were enrolled. Forty two (59.1%) patients had infarctive stroke. The risk factors included hypertension (74.7%) patients, smoking (50.7%), hypercholesterolemia (9.9%), non-hypertensive cardiac diseases (8.5%), HIV (8.5%), diabetes mellitus (4.2%) cocaine and amphetamine (2.8%), and sickle cell disease (2.8%). Only twelve (17%) patients presented within the first 6 hours of onset of stroke. Seventeen (23.9 %) patients died, case fatality in the first 24 and 72 hrs was 4.2% and 19.7%, respectively. Conclusion. Our data suggests that stroke in young adults is not as uncommon as previously suggested. Hypertension, smoking, hypercholesterolemia, cardiac diseases and HIV are the most common risk factors.
Generalized linear precoder and decoder design for MIMO channels using the weighted MMSE criterion

We address the problem of designing jointly optimum linear precoder and decoder for a MIMO channel possibly with delay-spread, using a weighted minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) criterion subject to a transmit power constraint. We show that the optimum linear precoder and decoder diagonalize the MIMO channel into eigen subchannels, for any set of error weights. Furthermore, we derive the optimum linear precoder and decoder as functions of the error weights and consider specialized designs based on specific choices of error weights. We show how to obtain: (1) the maximum information rate design; (2) QoS-based design (we show how to achieve any set of relative SNRs across the subchannels); and (3) the (unweighted) MMSE and equal-error design for fixed rate systems.
i Re-thinking gender and energy : Old and new directions

Women/gender and energy has emerged as one of the critical pathways for linking energy interventions to the Millennium Development goals. Yet, despite many efforts, energy poverty is widespread, and gender inequality exits at every level of the energy sector. At the same time, most poverty assessments and research exclude energy. This paper is addressed primarily to researchers on gender and energy policy, and asks what approaches to policy research could help make the linkages among gender, energy and poverty more understandable and more convincing to policy makers and practitioners, both in the energy sector itself, and in the gender and development community. It attempts a " rethinking " of the gender and energy paradigm, by looking both backwards and forwards. This analysis seeks to initiate movement towards the development of an agreed framework for research on gender and energy that would be credible in both gender and energy communities. Most past gender and energy research has seen its primary audience as the energy community and has sought to respond to energy imperatives and frameworks. This paper seeks to explore the usefulness of gender theory in better explaining linkages among gender, energy and development. It begins by offering a selective review of approaches to gender in energy research and policy in two areas: biomass energy and labour-saving energy technologies. Chapter 1 attempts to " unpack " key assumptions and concepts about gender in past research and policy on gender and energy in these sub sectors. Then, state-of-the-art conceptual frameworks are explored for relevance to future policy research on gender and energy. In Chapter 2, the sustainable livelihoods framework as adapted to the energy sector is analysed, and its contributions and limitations. In Chapter 3, recent gender analytical approaches are examined: new gender and poverty thinking, and new gender and environment theoretical frameworks, including feminist political ecology. Themes from these frameworks that could be analysed in future case studies on gender and energy are then suggested, together with some possible hypotheses for exploration of gender-energy-development linkages. The analysis is focused on two questions of policy relevance: • Is gender equality a key variable in the success or failure of energy interventions? • Is improved access to energy a key variable in women's/gender empowerment? This paper is a joint output of the research program of ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, and an ETC project on Enabling Access to Sustainable …
Optimization Models for Routing in Switching Networks of Clos Type with Many Stages

We present optimization models for the problem of simultaneous routing of connections through a symmetric Clos network, and for the problem of minimal rerouting of previously routed connections when a new connection is to be routed. The models can be used as base for solution methods, such as heuristics for rerouting combined with Lagrangean relaxation. These approaches can together give bounds on the optimal number of rearrangements needed. This is done for Clos networks with three stages, ﬁve stages, seven stages, and for an arbitrary number of stages
Prevalence and Clinical Characteristics of the Metabolic Syndrome in Middle-Aged Korean Adults

Background The aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence and clinical characteristic of the metabolic syndrome of adults, over 40 years old, living in Korea. Methods This study was carried out for 2 years, 2003-2004, on total 5,330 individuals (2,197 men and 3,133 women) selected by the stratified random cluster sampling among adults over 40 years old. Metabolic syndrome was defined based on both the NCEP-ATP III criteria and Modified ATP III criteria applying the WHO-APR (Asian Pacific Region)'s abdominal obesity criteria (waist circumference > 90 cm in men, 80 cm in women) instead of NCEP-ATP III criteria. Results Using NCEP-ATP III criteria, the age-adjusted overall prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 24.8% (17.6% in men, 30.0% in women). Age-adjusted overall prevalence of metabolic syndrome as defined by modified-ATP III criteria was 34.3% (26.3% in men, 40.1% in women). The prevalence of metabolic syndrome for each age group (40-49, 50-59, 60-69, ≥ 70) in men was as follows: 18.8%, 17.4%, 18.3%, 14.5%. In women: 22.3%, 32.7%, 39.9%, 39.3%. The prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia (triglycerides ≥ 1.7 mmol/l) was well correlated with the changing pattern of the prevalence of metabolic syndrome both in men and women. Conclusions The peak age of metabolic syndrome in men was age 40 through 49, and the prevalence decreased with aging. Therefore, early intervention for risk factors of metabolic syndrome might be required in men. On the other hand, prevention for cardiovascular disease will be needed for perimenopausal women due to considerably increased prevalence in the age 50 through 59.
Regulating Concurrency in Software Transactional Memory: An Effective Model-based Approach

Software Transactional Memory (STM) is recognized as an effective programming paradigm for concurrent applications. On the other hand, a core problem to cope with in STM deals with (dynamically) regulating the degree of concurrency, in order to deliver optimal performance. We address this problem by proposing a self-regulation approach of the concurrency level, which relies on a parametric analytical performance model aimed at predicting the scalability of the STM application as a function of the actual workload profile. The regulation scheme allows achieving optimal performance during the whole lifetime of the application via dynamic change of the number of concurrent threads according to the predictions by the model. The latter is customized for a specific application/platform through regression analysis, which is based on a lightweight sampling phase. We also present a real implementation of the model-based concurrency self-regulation architecture integrated within the open source TinySTM framework, and an experimental study based on standard STM benchmark applications.
Active contours: Application to plant recognition

The problem we address in this paper is object segmentation applied to plant recognition. The image can contain one or more plants on a natural background. More precisely, we aim to segment flowers. This approach poses several challenges, such as texture, multiple colors that form one object, natural background, non-homogeneous regions, etc. We propose an approach that adapts the Chan-Vese model, [1], in order to use it with a fast level-set approximation algorithm, [2]. Our approach presents ongoing work towards flower segmentation and recognition. In this paper we present the main outcome of our research on segmentation problem (curve evolution from Chan-Vese model with a recent and faster approach, [2], and its optimization at implementation level) and on recognition problem (identifying flower species). At recognition level, we studied five features that may be extracted during segmentation. Experiments have been carried out over the Oxford Flowers dataset, [3].
Evaluating the Business Intelligence Systems Performance Criteria Using Group Fuzzy AHP Approach

Organizations must make good use of information system tools such as business intelligence (BI) systems to quickly acquire desirable information from huge volume of data to reduce the time and increase the efficiency of decision-making procedure. Despite the huge operational and managerial advantages of BI systems, many companies face problems in the completely utilization of these tools, therefore, to reduce risk of failure in utilization and also to measure the amount of realized benefits of BI tool defining and choosing the most proper performance measurement criteria and technique is an important issue. In this paper a practical framework based on appropriate criteria and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process technique is presented to performance evaluation of BI Systems. Result shows that a " Fitness" criterion is the most important criteria in the performance evaluation of BI System.
Genome-wide analysis of the relationships between DNaseI HS, histone modifications and gene expression reveals distinct modes of chromatin domains

To understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie global transcriptional regulation, it is essential to first identify all the transcriptional regulatory elements in the human genome. The advent of next-generation sequencing has provided a powerful platform for genome-wide analysis of different species and specific cell types; when combined with traditional techniques to identify regions of open chromatin [DNaseI hypersensitivity (DHS)] or specific binding locations of transcription factors [chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)], and expression data from microarrays, we become uniquely poised to uncover the mysteries of the genome and its regulation. To this end, we have performed global meta-analysis of the relationship among data from DNaseI-seq, ChIP-seq and expression arrays, and found that specific correlations exist among regulatory elements and gene expression across different cell types. These correlations revealed four distinct modes of chromatin domain structure reflecting different functions: repressive, active, primed and bivalent. Furthermore, CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) binding sites were identified based on these integrative data. Our findings uncovered a complex regulatory process involving by DNaseI HS sites and histone modifications, and suggest that these dynamic elements may be responsible for maintaining chromatin structure and integrity of the human genome. Our integrative approach provides an example by which data from diverse technology platforms may be integrated to provide more meaningful insights into global transcriptional regulation.