Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synthetic Data Generation for Evaluating Parallel I/O Compression Performance and Scalability

Compression is one of the most common forms of data reduction and is typically the least invasive. As compute capability continues to outpace I/O bandwidths, compression becomes that much more attractive. This paper explores the scalable performance of parallel compression and presents an indepth analysis of a coherent noise algorithm to generate synthetic data that can be used to easily evaluate parallel compression. The algorithm favors simplicity, ease-of-use, and scalability over highfidelity reconstruction of real data, so we go to lengths to show that the synthetic data generated is suitable as a proxy for evaluating compression, especially in benchmarks and mini-apps. Keywords—I/O, compression, data systems, data reduction, high performance computing
Experimental Evaluation of a Behavioural Marker System for Surgeons' Non-Technical Skills (NOTSS)

Non-technical skills provide a critical underpinning for good surgical practice, but they must be trained and assessed according to properly developed skills frameworks and validated measurement tools. The NOTSS (Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons) skills taxonomy was developed from cognitive task analysis with subject matter experts and has been reported previously. It comprises five categories (situation awareness, decision making, task management, communication and teamwork, and leadership) divided into fourteen elements. The aim of the present study was to evaluate this as a behavioural rating system. An evaluation was conducted with 44 consultant (attending) surgeons who were trained to use the prototype NOTSS system and then rated surgeons' behaviours in six videos of simulated surgical scenarios. Evaluation results indicate that the system is complete, the skills are observable, and can be rated with approaching acceptable levels of agreement. Responses regarding initial usability were positive.
Towards Dynamic Financial Valuation of Social Licence to Operate under Uncertainty

The concept of a Social Licence to Operate (SLO), first introduced in the minerals industry, has significantly evolved over the last decade and is currently viewed as a broad, ongoing approval and acceptance of business activities by society and stakeholders. It is gaining prominence outside the minerals industry, in the energy and manufacturing sectors. SLO is broadly recognized as crucial for profitable and sustainable mineral resource extraction operations. Recent research shows that the reduction in project value due to the lack of the SLO can be as high as 70%. This motivates a strong interest from industry to assess the financial value of SLO to the company, in order to prioritise the SLO investments alongside other operational investments and to connect SLO with the project value, business risk and decision-making. However, there are still no accepted methodologies available to achieve this. The consensus emerging in the literature is that the quality of company engagements with stakeholders/communities is among the most important factors influencing the SLO outcome. However, there are other factors affecting SLO outcome, such as existing and future economic, environmental and political conditions in the region; environmental and social impacts generated by mining operations; the company’s ability to anticipate future risks and their proactivity in engagements with stakeholders and communities. The long timeframes for mining operation (>30 years) also mean that technological innovation can drive significant change in the value of economic, environmental and social assets over the life of a mine. Capturing this requires systematic quantitative work with deep qualitative grounding in context. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis is a major challenge in SLO research. In this paper, we discuss the possibility of quantitative modeling of SLO and propose several quantitative approaches and a novel integrated conceptual framework for dynamic financial valuation of SLO that accounts for such important SLO features as: Complex and non-linear interactions between industrial operations, communities and stakeholders responses, business decision making and company’s value; Dynamic nature of SLO and its evolution over the lifecycle of mineral operations; Multiple uncertainties surrounding mining operations and SLO outcomes; Importance of flexibility and timing of business decisions in SLO management; Importance of anticipating future risks and proactive engagements with stakeholders/community; Unknown response to managerial actions from community and stakeholders. The proposed framework is based on the integrated real options, adaptive management and risk analysis approaches. This paper lays the foundation for development of decision support tools in which economic, social and environmental challenges are addressed simultaneously during the lifecycle of the minerals extraction operations, to achieve sustainable operations with robust SLO.
Abstract P143: The Angiotensin AT2 Receptor Agonist Compound 21 Is a Low Affinity Thromboxane A2 Receptor Antagonist

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate potential vasorelaxant effects of angiotensin AT2-receptor stimulation by the specific AT2-receptor agonist C21 in pericardial resistance arteries from cardiovascular disease patients. Methods: Parietal pericardium was obtained during coronary artery bypass-grafting and/or valve replacement in patients. Pericardial arteries from pigs and mesenteric arteries from C57BL-6J and AT2R deficient (AT2R-/y) mice were used for comparison. Isolated arteries were mounted onto wire myographs, pre-contracted with either K+, phenylephrine, endothelin-1 (ET-1) or the thromboxane agonist U46619, and the relaxing effect of C21 (0.1nM - 10μM) was investigated in the absence or presence of 3nM valsartan (AT1R antagonist), 10μM PD123319 or 10μM M132 (AT2R antagonists). Results: C21 significantly relaxed ET-1 contracted porcine arteries (Emax -37 ± 6 %; -0.87 vs -0.45 N/m relaxation; N=6; P<0.05, two-way ANOVA) and phenylephrine contracted mouse mesenteric arteries (Emax -52 ± 10 %; -0.26 vs -0.09 N/m relaxation; N=6; P<0.01, two-way ANOVA), and this was inhibited by PD123319 or M132 and absent in arteries from AT2R-/y. C21 significantly induced vasorelaxation in U46619 contracted vessels from all species and vascular beds (e.g. in human pericardial arteries: Emax -78 ± 10 %; -0.67 vs -0.07 N/m relaxation; N=17; P<0.01, two-way ANOVA), and this effect was not blocked by AT2R antagonists and still present in AT2R-/y. C21 further inhibited U46619 induced platelet aggregation. An Arrestin Biosensor Assay revealed that C21 binds to the TXA2 receptor with a Ki of 3.74 μM. Conclusion: Depended on species, vascular bed and contractile stimulus, C21 relaxes resistance-sized arteries by AT2R stimulation or by TXA2 antagonism. These data together with the low affinity binding of C21 to the TXA2 receptor and its effect on platelet aggregation strongly suggest that C21 is not only a high affinity, selective AT2R agonist, but also a low affinity TXA2 receptor antagonist.
Contour Fitting High Density Personalized 3 Dimensional Cortical Electrodes

Morris Shayne, M.D.1); Masayuki Hirata, M.D., Ph.D.1, 2); Tetsu Goto, M.D., Ph.D.1, 2); Kojiro Matsushita1), Ph.D., Takufumi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D.1); Youichi Saitoh, M.D., Ph.D.1); Haruhiko Kishima, M.D., Ph.D. 1); and Toshiki Yoshimine, M.D., Ph.D.1) 1) Department of Neurosurgery and 2) Division of Functional Diagnostic Sciences, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan
Comparative Assessment of Adhesion to Dental Enamel and Friction Forces of Bracers

The study is devoted to comparative analysis of some technical aspects of braces. According to some reports, the prevalence of dentofacial anomalies in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania reaches nearly 40 %, which is slightly higher than the level across the Russian Federation in general. Undue detection and treatment of dentofacial anomalies subsequently leads to various complications. The purpose of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of technical characteristics of braces of various price range made of various materials. The friction force of orthodontic arches in braces and adhesion of various braces to dental enamel was studied. The study covered metal braces Yoka Ortho, Ortodent-T, DamonClear. The comparison was carried out with ceramic braces – Empower (American Orthodontics), ClarityAdvanced, InspireICE where orthodontic arches were fixed and the friction force was measured at a test bench. Besides, the braces of the specified firms were fixed on teeth extracted for orthodontic indications thus measuring the adhesion force. Results. The study made it possible to conclude that Empower braces (American Orthodontics) have preferable characteristics in comparison with other ceramic samples. It was also found out that ceramic braces have higher adhesion to dental enamel in comparison with metal systems. It was established that out of all studies braces the InspireIce braces have the highest adhesion.
An augmented level set model for the propagation of bushfire fronts

Based on the model of Rothermel (1972), during several decades, the spread of bushfires has been studied by empirical, quasi-empirical and physical models, in order to increase the knowledge on this phenomenon and its relevant characteristics, and to deliver timely information for fire extinction. In Chile, since 1976, the UNESCO has proclaimed in total 9 Biosphere Reserves within its ‘Man and the Biosphere’ program (Gedda, 2014). This program emphasizes the importance of protection measures and the relevance of scientific research in the area. Recently, in March 2015, a large forest fire in the ‘China Muerta’ National Park in mid-southern Chile devastated some 8,000 hectares of native Araucaria araucana-Nothofagus forest, as firefighters had a hard job to extinguish the fires. This study is motivated by the need of a better understanding of forest fire dynamics in order to allow for improved prediction and prevention measures. Propagating fronts or interfaces in general can be described by the Hamilton-Jacobi equation ∂φ ∂t + v ∂φ ∂x + w ∂φ ∂y = 0, (1) where φ = φ(t, x, y) represents the front implicitly as level-set where φ = 0. This implicitly defined front is propagated by the convection velocities v and w in x and y direction, respectively. The propagation direction is normal to the front, pointing to the side where φ > 0. Propagating fronts can be observed in different situations such as the interaction of gas and liquid in improved oil recovery, medical image segmentation and object tracking. In the application of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation to bushfire propagation, the sign of φ distinguishes whether the corresponding area is burned (φ < 0) or unburnt (φ > 0), thus implicitly characterising the location of the fire front as φ = 0. In this contribution, an augmented propagation model based on the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is developed by introducing additional variables such as combustion and heat. The evolution of these variables is described by differential equations. The goal is to couple the equation for front evolution with a heat equation and an equation that corresponds to the local combustion process. The model dynamics is demonstrated by numerical simulations.
Social Returns to Education Evidence from Italian Local Labor Market Areas

The paper provides a quantitative assessment of social returns to education in Italy. It shows that, after controlling for individual characteristics, local average human capital is positively correlated with individual wages, with estimated social returns between 2 and 3 percent. This result is robust to alternative estimation methods and does not seem to depend on endogenous sorting. The paper also shows that social returns are higher in the lagged areas of the south of Italy.
Development of spatial models for bushfire occurrence in South-Eastern Australia

Australia is one of the most flammable continents in the world. The southeastern region of the continent, where the population is densely settled, is susceptible to low frequency and high intensity bushfires that can threaten human lives and cause extensive loss of properties. This paper describes the development and validation of spatial models for bushfire occurrence in South-Eastern Australia, especially in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. The active fire database from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is used as original data source of fire activity over the 11-year period 2003-2013. Those active fire detections are grouped into burning events using the Fire Spread Reconstruction approach (FSR) algorithm based on the spatial and temporal proximity between fire detections. Fire occurrence point is defined as the ignition point of each identified event. Univariate and multiple logistic regression models are investigated for the comprehensive understanding of determinants contributing to the spatial distribution of bushfires. The probability of bushfire occurrence in South-Eastern Australia is also studied for the prediction of future fire occurrence. Bushfires in the study area are significantly influenced by both environmental and anthropogenic variables. The mean annual precipitation positively influences the fire incidence, because the semi-arid regions lack the fuels necessary for a fire to start, while the coastal regions with abundant rain provide ample fuels for fire ignition. This finding is inconsistent with that at a small landscape scale. Fire probabilities are different regarding various land cover types. Forests are most likely to burn because they are covered by heavy fuel loads. Savannas are equivalently fire-prone because they are fundamentally easy to ignite. Permanent wetlands are also susceptible to fire possibly due to the influence of climate change and urban expansion. Shrublands are less fire-prone because of the low-level shrub canopy cover. Fires are also found to distribute in areas near the zero meso-scale elevation residual contour, which is consistent with the previous finding. Anthropogenic variables also show predictive power because of the influence of human activities on fire occurrence. The final model for the probability of bushfire occurrence include mean annual precipitation, MODIS land cover, distance to zero meso-scale elevation residual contour, distance to secondary road and distance to railway. The bushfire probability map was generated accordingly. From the information provided by the quantitative statistics and the bushfire probability map, bushfires in the study area mostly likely to occur in coastal and mountainous areas close to various types of infrastructure and zero meso-scale elevation residual contours, as well as on forests, savannas and permanent wetlands, while they rarely occurred inland. It is concluded that the proposed model provides practical guidance for fire management actions in South-Eastern Australia.
Impact of Scope Creep on Software Project Quality*

Despite advances in project management methodologies and tools, the chances that a software project is able to achieve its process estimates is about 30% (The Standish Group, 2004). A major reason behind such phenomena is the frequent change of requirements during project progress, brought about by the dynamic nature of development activities (Winters, 2010). This phenomenon where there is a change in the set of requirements due to addition, deletion, and modification during project progress is called requirement volatility. Studies related to software project risks have attributed requirement volatility as one of the primary causes resulting in project failures (Davis, Nurmuliani, Park and Zowghi, 2008; Mathiassen, Saarinen, Tuunanen and Rossi, 2007).
GOOD GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: THE ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE EGBETUNDE,

For any nation to experience genuine growth and accelerated development, conscious efforts have to be made in terms of socio-economic inclusion of the entire citizenry, good governance and ensuring justice in all spheres. The existential reality is that most Africans do not trust their governments as evidence show that most so-called leaders are actually dealers with public money. This ugly reality leads to people receding into their ethnic and religious cocoons once the nationalism question arises as against seeing their countries as primary constituencies. Notwithstanding this overstated fact, Africa must move forward as a continent and its people should enjoy the natural resources which their lands are endowed with. This paper advocates some Islamic elements of governance and economic blueprint as panacea for development that will culminate to a harmonious communal living devoid of sectional schisms and economic exploitation of the majority by the few. The Islamic institutions of Zakaat (Compulsory Annual Charity), Sadaqah (Voluntary Alms), Kaffaarah (Atonement Feeding) and Zakaatul-Fitr (End-of-Ramadhan Charity) that are effective instruments of redistribution of wealth and bridging the gap between the affluent and the destitute were proposed for adoption by Sub-Saharan African countries in order to achieve the much-sought national reconciliation, integration, economic prosperity and survival justice for all. The paper concluded that it is only through good governance and economic emancipation of people that genuine progress and real nationhood can be achieved.
J ul 2 01 7 Multivariable reductions of the dispersionless DKP hierarchy

We consider multi-variable reductions of the dispersionless DKP hierarchy (the dispersionless limit of the Pfaff lattice) in the elliptic parametrization. The reduction is given by a system of elliptic Löwner equations supplemented by a system of partial differential equations of hydrodynamic type. The compatibility conditions for the elliptic Löwner equations are derived. They are elliptic analogues of the Gibbons-Tsarev equations. We prove solvability of the hydrodynamic type system by means of the generalized hodograph method. The associated diagonal metric is proved to be of the Egorov type.
Leadership and Governance Tools for Village Sustainable Development in China

The Chinese central government has recognized that village–government networks are promising for the sustainable development of rural villages. Though many local governments tend to deploy various hands-on or hand-off governance tools to influence the sustainable development of village-governance networks, the number of villages successfully achieving “good governance” is still rare. Therefore, this study empirically elaborates on the application of three classic tools of governance networks, analyzing how leaders of local government and village communities influence the effectiveness of these tools. The data were collected by snowball interviews, careful observations, and documentary analysis in Xiaonan village, a representatively successful case of rural-village governance networks in China. We detected that governance tools are often inadequately used and under-development in Chinese rural-village governance networks, accompanying a strong interaction between the effectiveness of tools and leadership. Excellent leadership is necessary for a successful rural-village governance network and its scaling-up.
Risky Mix: Drinking, Drug Use, and Homicide

About the Authors Phyllis Sharps, Ph.D., R.N. , is director of the masters program and an associate professor of community health nursing at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Jacquelyn C. Campbell, Ph.D., R.N. , F.A. A.N. , is the associate dean for faculty affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Doris Campbell, Ph.D., R.N. , F.A. A.N. , is professor emeritus at the University of South Florida. Faye Gary, Ed.D. , R.N. , F.A. A.N. , is the Medical Mutual of Ohio Professor in Nursing for Vulnerable and At-Risk Persons at Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. Daniel Webster, Sc.D. , M.P.H. , is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.
Effects of Intra-Family Relationship on Post – Succession Performance of Selected Family Businesses in North East Nigeria

ne major problem faced by many businesses and indeed family-O owned businesses is the issue of transition. For a family-owned business, generational change is a matter of concern as a small mistake in the selection of a successor could seriously affect the survival and performance of the business. This study examined the effect of intra-family relationship on the post-succession performance of selected family-owned businesses in the North East Nigeria. The study used primary data with the aid of questionnaire collected from one hundred and nine (109) family-owned businesses. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The study found that intra-family relationship is a signiﬁcant determinant of post-succession performance of family-owned businesses in the North East on aggregate level. On the speciﬁc level, both level of trust and lack of conict have signiﬁcant effects while, personal quality of family members though exerting positive inuence, has no statistical signiﬁcance. These ﬁndings imply that when a family has a close relationship, members work weather to improve the performance of their family business. In line with the ﬁndings, this study recommends for a closer tie among family members in a succession period. This could create better ideas for a better business performance after succession.
Decoder Design and Decoding Models for Joint Source-Network Coding

The aim of this work is to study decoder design and decoding models for joint source-network coding. The key idea of network coding is to replace routing operations by coding operations in networks with several sinks, combining packets at intermediate network nodes to make the data distribution more flexible and efficient. A sink node can obtain its intended data using the received packets and processing them in order to extract the required information. If, additionally, there is correlation between the sources, source coding operations can reduce the amount of data for transmission, taking the correlation into account. However, performing joint source-network coding requires, in general, the usage of high complexity decoders. The main goal of the thesis is to provide algorithms that construct decoding models for a given scenario in an automatic fashion, and allow for an efficient decoder implementation. We are interested in a sensor network scenario, in which several sources collect information and send it to a number of sinks through the network. We assume that the sensor network topology and the source model are given and can be described by a graphical model. The goal is to find a graphical model representing the coding operations performed within the network. By combining the source model with the network model, a graphical source-network coding model is constructed, which is then used for the decoder implementation. Our results show that this approach yields an effective source-network coding and decoding mechanism with manageable complexity.
SHIELD Deliverable

Contributors H. Attak, L. Jacquin, V. Sallard (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), C. Fernandez, C. Dávila, B. Gastón (I2CAT), D. Katsianis, I. Neokosmidis, D. Xydias (INCITES), A. Litke, N. Papadakis, D. Papadopoulos (INFILI), E. Trouva (N.C.S.R. Demokritos), O. E. Segou, G. Xylouris, E. Kafetzakis (ORION Innovations), A. Lioy, M. De Benedictis (POLITO), G. Gardikis, K. Tzoulas (Space Hellas), A. Pastor, J. Núñez, D. Lopez (Telefónica I+D), T. Batista, R. Preto, F. Ferreira (UBIWHERE)