Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wie nationale Souveränität zu Markte getragen wird

While free trade zones, offshore banking and open ship registers have long been known, it is only during the last three decades that the offshore complex has become an important structural element of the world market. Governments offer special conditions for non-citizens on a world market. While these “havens” are often made use of for criminal activities, their use has also become a feature of legal strategies in the global economy. As far as the shipping industry is concerned “flags of convenience” offer several possibilities for cost reduction, the most important factor being the possibility to legally circumvent national labor markets. Most seafarers of today therefore work in a politico-legal no-man’s land.
Numerical modeling of magnetic field for magnetic particle imaging

The paper presents the magnetic field modeling for magnetic particle imaging (MPI). The custom static magnetic field solver which enables fast calculation of three dimensional magnetic field distribution was elaborated. The regular square grid is applied in this solver. A setup of coils for MPI was designed. The selection field and the drive fields are generated by three pairs of coils. The magnetic field was calculated using the elaborated custom solver and using the COMSOL commercial FEM software. The comparison of results is presented. The elaborated solver can be used in numerical simulation of spatial encoding methods for magnetic particle imaging.
Evaluating Feasibility of Blockchain Application for DSCSA Compliance

We evaluated the feasibility of using a blockchain technology to create a traceability solution for pharmaceutical drugs that would promote compliance with recent legislation. Counterfeit and other illegitimate pharmaceutical drugs threaten patient safety, drug efficacy, and patient trust. The purpose of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) is to greatly reduce distribution of illegitimate drugs by requiring all pharmaceuticals to be serialized and traceable from the manufacturer through the supply chain to the dispenser. A software application to serialize and track pharmaceuticals must overcome numerous obstacles. In particular, the solution must provide a high degree of trust while also protecting privacy for manufacturers, distributors, and patients. This research will propose that a blockchain-enabled application will solve for many of the most challenging needs for this solution.
Effects of Long-Haul Transmeridian Travel on Subjective Jet-Lag and Self-Reported Sleep and Upper Respiratory Symptoms in Professional Rugby League Players.

PURPOSE To examine the effects of 24-h travel west across 11 time zones on subjective jet-lag and wellness responses together with self-reported sleep and upper respiratory symptoms in 18 professional rugby league players. METHODS Measures were obtained 1 or 2 d before (pretravel) and 2, 6, and 8 d after travel (post-2, post-6, and post-8) from Australia to the United Kingdom (UK) for the 2015 World Club Series. RESULTS Compared with pretravel, subjective jet-lag remained significantly elevated on post-8 (3.1 ± 2.3, P < .05, d > 0.90), although it was greatest on post-2 (4.1 ± 1.4). Self-reported sleep-onset times were significantly earlier on post-2 than at all other time points (P < .05, d > 0.90), and large effect sizes suggested that wake times were earlier on post-2 than on post-6 and post-8 (d > 0.90). Although significantly more upper respiratory symptoms were reported on post-6 than at pretravel (P < .05, d ˃ 0.90), no incidence of injury and negligible changes in wellness and muscle strength and range of motion (P > .05, d < 0.90) were evident after travel. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that westward long-haul travel between Australia and the UK exacerbates subjective jet-lag and sleep responses, along with upper respiratory symptoms, in professional rugby league players. Of note, the increase in self-reported upper respiratory symptoms is a reminder that the demands of long-haul travel may be an additional concern in jet-lag for traveling athletes. However, due to the lack of sport-specific performance measures, it is still unclear whether international travel interferes with training to the extent that subsequent competition performance is impaired.
Meta-Evaluation of a Diagnostic Quality Metric for Machine Translation

Diagnostic evaluation of machine translation (MT) is an approach to evaluation that provides finer-grained information compared to state-of-the-art automatic metrics. This paper evaluates DELiC4MT, a diagnostic metric that assesses the performance of MT systems on user-defined linguistic phenomena. We present the results obtained using this diagnostic metric when evaluating three MT systems that translate from English to French, with a comparison against both human judgements and a set of representative automatic evaluation metrics. In addition, as the diagnostic metric relies on word alignments, the paper compares the margin of error in diagnostic evaluation when using automatic word alignments as opposed to gold standard manual alignments. We observed that this diagnostic metric is capable of accurately reflecting translation quality, can be used reliably with automatic word alignments and, in general, correlates well with automatic metrics and, more importantly, with human judgements.
A hybrid variable structure control scheme for nonlinear systems

This paper presents a hybrid variable structure control scheme for nonlinear systems. A hard variable structure control is constructed firstly for achieving uniform ultimate boundedness control. Then, a soft variable structure control using fuzzy logic is incorporated to help improve dynamic responses when trajectories enter into the ultimate bound. For practical consideration, we added a GA-based alpha-beta filter in front of the fuzzy controller to suppress noise and obtain smooth input signals. The performance of the control scheme was examined not only by a simulative example of an inverted pendulum but also by an experimental PC-based magnetic levitation system. The simulation and experimental results strongly suggest the newly proposed control scheme is encouraging for practical applications.
An analytical model to characterize the input stage of a MOSFET based RF energy harvester for improved impedance matching

RF energy harvesting has been widely investigated as a promising method of providing power to passive wireless devices or recharging the battery used in such systems. The AC input signal which is the ambient RF radiation from the available ISM band is received through the coupled antenna and converted into DC output voltage through the energy harvester chip. The energy harvester, which is a novel resonant boost rectifier circuit, typically consists of multiple stages of voltage doubler stacked in series to achieve a desired output voltage level. In order to achieve maximum rectifier conversion efficiency, it is imperative to have impedance matching between the receiving antenna and the harvester circuit. The input of the harvester is frequently modeled as a resistance in parallel with a capacitance [1]. Therefore, a physical model-based derivation of the equivalent input resistance and capacitance of the rectifier is useful to design an appropriate matching network to resonate out the input capacitance and to match the input resistance to the radiation resistance of the antenna. This paper presents an analytical approach to derive the equivalent input impedance of a multistage voltage doubler circuit designed using short-channel diode-connected MOSFETs.
Investigating hybrids of evolution and learning for real-parameter optimization

In recent years, more and more advanced techniques have been developed in the field of hybridizing of evolution and learning, this means that more applications with these techniques can benefit from this progress. One example of these advanced techniques is the Learnable Evolution Model (LEM), which adopts learning as a guide for the general evolutionary search. Despite this trend and the progress in LEM, there are still many ideas and attempts which deserve further investigations and tests. For this purpose, this thesis has developed a number of new algorithms attempting to combine more learning algorithms with evolution in different ways. With these developments, we expect to understand the effects and relations between evolution and learning, and also achieve better performances in solving complex problems. The machine learning algorithms combined into the standard Genetic Algorithm (GA) are the supervised learning method k-nearest-neighbors (KNN), the Entropy-Based Discretization (ED) method, and the decision tree learning algorithm ID3. We test these algorithms on various real-parameter function optimization problems, especially the functions in the special session on CEC 2005 real-parameter function optimization. Additionally, a medical cancer chemotherapy treatment problem is solved in this thesis by some of our hybrid algorithms. The performances of these algorithms are compared with standard genetic algorithms and other well-known contemporary evolution and learning hybrid algorithms. Some of them are the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategies (CMAES), and variants of the Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDA). Some important results have been derived from our experiments on these developed algorithms. Among them, we found that even some very simple learning methods hybridized properly with evolution procedure can provide significant performance improvement; and when more complex learning algorithms are incorporated with evolution, the resulting algorithms are very promising and compete very well against the state of the art hybrid algorithms both in well-defined real-parameter function optimization problems and a practical evaluation-expensive problem.
The serine protease inhibitors and plant-insect interaction

ABSTRACT Plants respond to a physical injury or biological attack by producing, among other compounds, an arsenal of defense proteins, secondary metabolites and phytohormones, all necessary for plant survival. Defense proteins include the group of serine protease inhibitors (SPI), proteins that interact with the active site of their target enzymes. The activity of these protease inhibitors has been exploited to combat insect pests. SPI is an interesting alternative to produce plants with improved resistance characters through selection in the field or expressing their genes in sensitive plants by genetic engineering. The alternative that these natural products offer makes them valuable for the control of several crop pests. Key words : biological control, defense proteins, serine protease inhibitors. RESUMEN Frente a una agresion fisica o biologica, las plantas responden bioquimicamente sintetizando, entre otros, un arsenal de proteinas de defensa, metabolitos secundarios y fitohormonas, todos los cuales le permiten sobrevivir. Dentro del grupo de proteinas de defensa se encuentran los inhibidores de serin proteasas (SPI), los cuales interaccionan con el sitio activo de sus enzimas blanco. La actividad de estos inhibidores de proteasas se ha aprovechado en su aplicacion para combatir insectos plaga. Los SPI repre-sentan una interesante alternativa para producir plantas con mejores caracteristicas de resistencia, ya sea a traves de seleccion en campo o bien expresando sus genes en plantas sensibles por medio de ingenieria genetica. Estos productos innatos de las plantas ofrecen alternativas que los hacen valiosos en el control biologico de plagas de varios cultivos.
Modeling Light Reflection for Computer Color Vision

In computer vision applications, analysis of shading information requires a proper model of light reflection from object surfaces. To overcome the shortcoming of the most often used model and to extend the reflection model for computer color vision, an examination is made of the light reflection problem using the bidirectional spectral-reflectance distribution function (BSRDF) to specify both incident- and reflected-beam geometries. It is shown that the product form can still be retained for a polychromatic light source under two lighting conditions: the light source is collimated; or the spectral factor and the geometric factor can be separated for both the light source and the BSRDF of the surface. The reflection model is then applied to the formulation of a neutral-interface-reflection model, which is tested experimentally. The results show the adequacy of this type of model for surfaces of some material compositions, e.g. plastics, plant leaves, painted surfaces, orange peels, and some glossy cloth, but not for others, e.g. colored paper and some ceramics. >
Robustness analysis of consensus for multi-agents with leader-follower topology

In this paper the robustness of consensus is considered for multi-agents systems described by double-integral with leader-follower communication topology. The effect of measured errors involved in a communication protocol on achieving consensus is analyzed with time-invariant communication topology and in-degree one for each follower. The analysis results for robustness of consensus are provided.
Outgrowth of human liver metastases after resection of the primary colorectal tumor: A shift in the balance between apoptosis and proliferation

Rapid outgrowth of metastases after removal of the primary tumor has been described in several mouse models. Loss of primary tumor‐induced inhibition of angiogenesis in the metastases has been suggested as the underlying cause. Accordingly, we recently demonstrated that vascular density in human colorectal liver metastases increases after primary tumor resection. Here, we investigate whether this increase in vascular density has, in its turn, effects on the tumor growth of the liver metastases. We analyzed tumor growth in synchronous liver metastases from patients with the primary tumor in place, in synchronous metastases from patients with the primary tumor resected and in metachronous metastases. Tumor growth was studied by assessing the percentage of cells undergoing apoptosis by activated caspase‐3 staining, and the percentage of proliferating cells by Ki‐67 staining. While the percentage of proliferating cells within the metastases showed a modest increase after primary tumor resection, a significant decrease in the percentage of apoptotic cells was observed. Taken together, an increased net tumor growth of the metastases occurred after primary tumor resection. This acceleration of tumor growth could be confirmed by studying biopsies taken from the same patient before and after tumor resection. Our data show that in human cancer patients, a primary tumor may inhibit the growth of its liver metastases. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Added value of diffusion-weighted acquisitions in MRI of the abdomen and pelvis.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to review abdominopelvic applications of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), discuss advantages and limitations of DWI, and illustrate these with examples. CONCLUSION High-quality abdominopelvic DWI can be performed routinely on current MRI systems and may offer added value in image interpretation. Particularly in unenhanced MRI examinations, DWI may provide an alternative source of image contrast and improved conspicuity to identify and potentially characterize pathology. DWI is a powerful technique that warrants implementation in routine abdominal and pelvic imaging protocols.
Single system image: pilar de los sistemas de clustering

Es evidente que una aplicacion no accede de forma directa a los recursos fisicos (procesadores, memoria, discos, placas de red), en vez de ello el sistema operativo brinda a la aplicacion una vista logica de dichos recursos (procesos y threads, espacios de direccionado, archivos, sockets). Si cada nodo de un cluster utiliza su propio sistema operativo, los recursos seran locales a cada nodo, y no sera simple lograr que dos procesos se comuniquen mediante un archivo compartido o un area de memoria compartida. Ademas, la migracion de un proceso producira una perdida de su entorno, sin mencionar que los usuarios y programadores deberan encargarse de la distribucion de los recursos en un ambiente de estas caracteŕisticas. Una forma elegante de resolver este problema es presentar una coleccion de recursos fisicos como un recurso unico y compartido. Ejemplo de ello es un sistema de archivos jerarquico el cual permita a cada nodo acceder a cada archivo. Una “ilusion” de este tipo es lo que usualmente se conoce como Single System Image (SSI) y posibilita que el usuario y las aplicaciones tengan una vista global de los recursos disponibles, sin importar a que nodo especifico del cluster esten fisicamente asociados.
The History of Toxoplasma gondii—The First 100 Years

ABSTRACT. In this paper the history of Toxoplasma gondii and toxoplasmosis is reviewed. This protozoan parasite was first discovered in 1908 and named a year later. Its medical importance remained unknown until 1939 when T. gondii was identified in tissues of a congenitally infected infant, and veterinary importance became known when it was found to cause abortion storms in sheep in 1957. The discovery of a T. gondii specific antibody test, Sabin–Feldman dye test in 1948 led to the recognition that T. gondii is a common parasite of warm‐blooded hosts with a worldwide distribution. Its life cycle was not discovered until 1970 when it was found that felids are its definitive host and an environmentally resistant stage (oocyst) is excreted in feces of infected cats. The recent discovery of its common infection in certain marine wildlife (sea otters) indicates contamination of our seas with T. gondii oocysts washed from land. Hygeine remains the best preventive measure because currently there is no vaccine to prevent toxoplasmosis in humans.
Dengue - Clinical and public health ramifications.

BACKGROUND Dengue virus infection is spread by the mosquito vector Aedes aegypti and causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Australia, it is an important cause of fever in the returned traveller and recent outbreaks have occurred in northern Queensland. A comprehensive understanding of the clinical and public health ramifications of dengue infection is essential for general practitioners. OBJECTIVE The aim of this article is to review the pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, complications, laboratory investigations and public health consequences of dengue infection. DISCUSSION Dengue should be considered as a differential diagnosis of fever in a returned traveller, including in patients who have travelled to northern Queensland within 3 months of an outbreak. Clinical manifestations vary from asymptomatic infection to serious disease. Typical symptoms last 7 days and may include: fever, headache, myalgia, fatigue, abnormal taste sensation, arthralgia, maculopapular rash and anorexia. Around 1% of patients will get the more severe form of the illness, dengue haemorrhagic fever. Recommended diagnostic tests depend on the time since the onset of symptoms. Management involves symptomatic treatment and monitoring for complications. Dengue haemorrhagic fever requires hospitalisation. Prompt notification to public health authorities and advice to patients about prevention of spread are a key role of the GP.
Strain from Genogroup II Antibodies Cross-Reactive with a Human Particles and Evaluation of Monoclonal Virus-LikeProtein of a Swine Norovirus into Self-Assembly of the Recombinant Capsid

Published Ahead of Print 8 October 2008. 10.1128/JCM.01204-08. 2008, 46(12):3971. DOI: J. Clin. Microbiol. Juan Bárcena and Ignacio Mena Mateos, José R. Castón, Wim H. M. van der Poel, Jan Vinje, Horacio Almanza, Carolina Cubillos, Iván Angulo, Francisco Strain from Genogroup II Antibodies Cross-Reactive with a Human Particles and Evaluation of Monoclonal Virus-Like Protein of a Swine Norovirus into Self-Assembly of the Recombinant Capsid
Eph/ephrin signalling during development

Eph receptors and their membrane-tethered ligands have important functions in development. Trans interactions of Eph receptors with ephrins at cell-cell interfaces promote a variety of cellular responses, including repulsion, attraction and migration. Eph-ephrin signalling can be bi-directional and controls actin cytoskeleton dynamics, thereby leading to changes in cellular shape. This article provides an overview of the general structures and signalling mechanisms, and of typical developmental functions along with cell biological principles.
Epidemiological features of hand-foot-and-mouth disease in Shenzhen, China from 2008 to 2010

SUMMARY This study analysed the spatio-temporal distribution and propagation of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) in Shenzhen from 2008 to 2010. Specifically, we examined the epidemiological data, temporal distribution and spatial distribution, and then the relationship between meteorological, social factors and the number of reported HFMD cases was analysed using Spearman's rank correlation. Finally, a geographically weighted regression model was constructed for the number of reported HFMD cases in 2009. It was found that three independent variables, i.e. the number of reported HFMD cases in 2008 and, annual average temperature and precipitation, had different spatial impacts on the number of reported HFMD cases in 2009. In addition, these variables accounted for the propagation mechanism of HFMD in the centre and east of Shenzhen, where the high incidence rate areas are located. These results will be of great help in understanding the spatio-temporal distribution of HFMD and developing approaches to prevent this disease.
Influence of ethanol and dexamethasone on blood‐brain barrier dysfunction to albumin

Stab‐wounded ethanol‐intoxicated and non‐intoxicated rats were studied with respect to the effect of postoperative dexamethasone treatment on blood‐brain barrier dysfunction to bovine albumin. In ethanol‐intoxicated rats, fluorescence microscopy revealed an increased area of extravasation of fluorescent tracer, compared to non‐intoxicated ones. No significant effect of dexamethasone treatment was observed in non‐intoxicated rats. In ethanol‐intoxicated rats, dexamethasone treatment resulted in a decreased area of extravasation.
Issues, Challenges and Techniques in WSN for Performance Enhancement in Underground Coal Mining

Recently, technological growth has gained huge attraction and it is widely adopted in various real-time application systems/ this increasing growth has improved the communication technology by developing small and tiny sensors for information gathering and transferring by consuming less energy in real-time systems. These type of sensor systems are known as wireless sensor network which are used widely in real-time applications such as environment monitoring, traffic monitoring and bio-medical applications etc. In this work, we have focused on the coal-mine monitoring system which can provide the security for mine workers. Mine monitoring systems require an automated process to obtain the information about mine-roof and its convergence along with time which can be used for safety of miners or workers. In order deal with this, wireless sensor network based study is considered as base application.