Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences in Diplomatic and Media Rhetoric Regarding Croatia's Conditions for Serbian EU Accession Negotiations

The process of stronger connecting of countries belonging to the Old Continent in the form of the European Union is moving towards the East, which made Serbia start its negotiation process for a full EU membership. The Croatian view on this process is specific and largely based on negative past experience of living together in one country, which ended up in the Homeland War (internationally called Yugoslav war), whose memories are still fresh. Therefore, this process is of great importance for the Croatian politics. Serbian political elites and media advocate for fast accession to the EU, whereas a significant number of Croatian politicians show not only caution and distrust, but to some extent even the fear of this integration. To become a full member state, Serbia must undoubtedly fulfil strong accession criteria. From the beginning of the negotiation process, Croatia started with a rather harsh political rhetoric of setting different conditions and using its recently established right of being an EU member state to force Serbia to compromises in solving still open legal disputes.The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate by using adequate methods and modern metrics how differences in statements given by various diplomatic-political circles in comparison to specific media announcements may with their varieties and various interpretations generate instability in both countries.The purpose of this paper is the research and analysis of diplomatic statements and media announcements on this matter in order to gain a better understanding of bilateral relations between two countries and of perception by its citizens - Croatia as the full member state and Serbia as the candidate country.Results of this research imply the presence of a conflict situation in the negotiation process and a negative turn in geopolitical perception which is of a decreasing probability to solve open issues in bilateral negotiation. The Governments of both countries must raise their efforts in communication to reach valid decisions based on more rational assessment and subsequently inform their public on the discussions in an adequate and correct manner.
Serum Vitamin D Levels In Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus - A Missing Link

INTRODUCTION Type 2 diabetes, a significant global health care problem is the fifth leading cause of death and also a major cause of significant morbidity. Although our current methods of treating type 2 DM and its complications are improving, its prevention is preferable. Epidemiological data suggest 9 of 10 cases of type 2 DM are attributed to habits and form of modifiable behavior. Vitamin D has been traditionally known as anti ricketic factor or sunshine vitamin. It is unique because it is a vitamin synthesized by the body and functions as a hormone. Besides its pivotal role in calcium homeostasis and bone mineral metabolism, vitamin D endocrine system is now recognized to sub-serve a wide range of biological functions in cell differentiation, inhibition of cell growth and immunomodulation. 25-Hydroxyvitamin D serum level (measure of vitamin D status) of less than 20 ng/mL is vitamin D deficiency and 21 to 29 ng/mL is insufficiency. lt is currently recognized that. Systemic inflammation seen in type 2 DM has been linked primarily to insulin resistance, but elevated cytokines may also play a role in beta-cell dysfunction by triggering |3-cell apoptosis. Vitamin D may improve insulin sensitivity and promote beta-cell survival by directly modulating the generation and effects of cytokines. This raises important questions of association between vitamin D and type 2 diabetes hence the purpose of this current study.
Extended Mathematical Expression of BER for MB-UWB System in Underground Mine Channel

The IEEE802.15. 3a cluster-based channel model has been adapted for Ultra Wideband (UWB) system. The suggested realistic channel is assessed by its distribution of fading amplitude and time of arrivals. Yanjing Sun et al. use this model as a basis to improve the channel model for underground mine. In this paper we present the closed form expression of bit-error-rate (BER) of uncoded and convolution coded Multi Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) UWB system in terms channel parameters of UWB channel, using Gauss–Hermite quadrature integration. This paper provides weight and zeros of Hermite polynomial, error weights of Hamming Distant for Rayleigh fading for convolution coding and simulated time and frequency domain signal of MBOFDM. Theoretical and simulation analysis of MBOFDM have been performed for IEEE UWB channel and underground mine channel model. The analytical result is validated with simulation.
METABOLIC INFLUENCES OF FIBER SIZE IN AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC MUSCLES OF THE BLUE CRAB , Callinectes sapidus

Diameters of some white muscle fibers in the adult blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, exceed 500 μm whereas juvenile white fibers are <100 μm. It is hypothesized that aerobically dependent processes, such as recovery from exercise, will be significantly impeded by size in these large white fibers. In addition, dark aerobic fibers of adults, which do rely on aerobic contraction, grow as large as the white fibers. These large aerobic fibers are subdivided, thus decreasing the effective diameter of the fiber and enabling aerobic contraction. The two goals of this study were: (1) to characterize the development of subdivisions in the dark muscle fibers and (2) to monitor post-contractile metabolism as a function of fiber size. Dark muscle fibers from crabs ranging from <0.1 g to >200 g were examined with transmission electron microscopy to determine the density of mitochondria and subdivision diameters. Mitochondrial fractional areas were consistently 25% of the total subdivision area and subdivision sizes remained constant throughout development, with an average diameter of 36.5 ± 2.7 μm. Citrate synthase (CS) activities in dark muscle were higher and scaled with a steeper negative slope (b=-0.19) than activities in white muscle (b=-0.09). In addition, the time course of [lactate] was monitored during recovery from anaerobic, burst exercise in white and dark muscle and hemolymph. Burst escape responses were elicited in crabs ranging from <1 g to >200 g and [lactate] measured. There were no differences among size classes with respect to lactate accumulation as a result of exercise, however, in white fibers from large crabs, lactate continued to increase after exercise, and lactate removal from tissues required a longer period of time relative to small and medium crabs. Differences in lactate removal among size classes were less pronounced in dark fibers. These data suggest that in addition to normal metabolic scaling, aerobic metabolic processes are limited to SA:V and intracellular diffusion constraints in large white muscle fibers.
Spin correlations and doublon production rate for fermionic atoms in modulated optical lattices

We compute the integrated doublon production rate in response to a lattice modulation for two-component fermions in an optical lattice. We derive a general formula for the integrated intensity, valid in the presence of inhomogeneous potentials such as the trap, which gives the integrated intensity in terms of equal time correlation functions only. Such a formula is thus well suited for direct numerical calculations. We show that, in the limit of large repulsion for commensurate fillings, or for temperature ranges for which the hopping is incoherent, the integrated doublon spectrum is directly related to the nearest-neighbor spin-spin correlation function. We compute its temperature dependence in this regime using finite temperature quantum Monte Carlo calculation
Transformative Leadership and Learning Management Systems Implementation: Leadership Practices in Instructional Design for Online Learning

 Abstract — With the growth of online learning, several higher education institutions have attempted to incorporate technology in their curriculum. Successful technology implementation projects really on technology infrastructure and on the acceptance of education professionals towards innovation. This research study is aimed at illustrating the relevance of the human component in technology implementation projects in higher education by describing the Learning Management System implementation project executed by instructional designers working for a higher education institution in the southeast region of the United States. An analysis of the Transformative Leadership Theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, and the Diffusion of Innovation Process provide the support for a solid understanding of this issue and address recommendations for future technology implementation projects in higher education institutions.
HERTTA KARJALAINEN COMBINING DIRECTED SELF-ASSEMBLY OF BLOCK COPOLY- MERS WITH SOFT LITHOGRAPHY

TAMPERE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Master’s Degree Programme in Science and Engineering KARJALAINEN, HERTTA: Combining directed self-assembly of block copolymers with soft lithography Master of Science Thesis, 69 pages, 3 Appendix pages August 2014 Major: Chemistry Examiners: Associate Professor Tapio Niemi, Professor Nikolai V. Tkachenko
Grasping complex casting shapes with an underactuated parallel jaw gripper on an industrial robot

approved: Ravi Balasubramanian Steel foundries are in great need of automation as current operations involve many hazardous manual tasks. Automating foundry operations is very challenging due to the variety of tasks that must be performed on physical objects that vary significantly in size, shape, and weight. This thesis focuses on robotically automating the material handling operation in the foundry by designing an underactuated parallel jaw robotic gripper that can handle a variety of foundry products regardless of their shape. This design is driven by a linear underactuated system composed of a series of coupled hydraulic pistons that enable the gripper to securely grasp objects by conforming to their shape. In the course of evaluating this problem, two main contributions have emerged: (i) A method is presented that uses physics-based simulations to optimize the design of the underactuated parallel jaw gripper for grasping a variety of steel foundry operations. (ii) The resultant design is then validated on a physical industrial robot to show that the underactuated parallel jaw gripper is 30% more effective at grasping typical casting shapes when compared with the standard parallel jaw gripper and 280% better than a similar underactuated robot gripper using revolute fingers.
Numerical Analysis of the Relationship between the Photoelectric Effect and Energy of the X-Ray Photons in CT

Purpose : Attenuation of x-rays in any object is a combined effect of scattering and absorption of x-ray photons by the atoms in the material. While the scattering part dependents linearly upon the material’s electron density (ρe) and is weakly dependent on the energy (E) of the photon, the photoelectric part varies as [ρe Zx eff /Ey] where Zeff is the effective atomic number of the material. We aim to determine the exponents (x,y) which are crucial for many radiological studies. Methods : In order to obtain exponent ‘y’, we find an equation in which the exponent x does not appear and the dependence on ‘y’ appears only linearly. Having thus reduced the problem to that of ‘one parameter fit’ in ‘y’, we generate the ‘data’ numerically from the numerical values of physical constants given in the NIST (The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST) tables and determine ‘y’ from linear regression. The effect of the source spectrum on the effective value of ‘y’, denoted by ‘ym’ is studied for different low Zeff substances in different energy ranges. Results : It is seen that with x-ray sources operating at 80, 100,120,140 kVp, the effective exponent ‘y’ progressively decreases, as the x-ray source spectrum is pushed to higher energy side. However, for most practical purposes y=2.99 may be used for a wide variety of low Zeff substances. For practical cases with different source spectra, the effective energy of the source and the effective photoelectric exponent are seen to increase as the thickness of the aluminum filter increases. Conclusion : It thus follows that for applications such as DECT inversion, the appropriate values of ‘ym’ ought to be used that takes into account the appropriate source spectrum.
Diversity Sampling in Machine Learning

This project is a detailed study of [1], along with an implementation of [2] for the task of language generation using neural language models. Diversity sampling is a general paradigm which attempts to discover different “modes” of a probability distribution. Diverse solutions are often very useful in situations where a user needs to choose a solution amongst M different options. Since the top M MAP solutions are usually very similar to each other and the MAP solution need not correspond to a suitable output, discovering a diverse set of solutions (M -best modes of the distribution) is a practical requirement. We study the paper [1], which poses this problem as a convex optimization problem, and proposes diversity sampling algorithms for three different problem domains interactive segmentation, categorical segmentation and pose estimation. Keeping up with recent trends in Deep Learning, the original diversity sampling technique proposed by [1] has been extended to neural beam search in [2, 3]. We investigate the benefits of [2] for language generation using neural language models.
Is Living Altitude a Determinant of Ski-Mountaineering Performance? An Analysis from the Patrouille Des Glaciers

Analyses of parameters of habitat such as altitude and their effects on performance are scant. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the relevance of altitude of the habitual place of abode for course times of alpinists in one of the largest backcountry skiing races in the Swiss West Alps: “Patrouille des Glaciers” (PDG) from Zermatt and Arolla to Verbier. Therefore course times and altitudes of the habitual place of abode of 1569 male and 240 female alpinists participating in the PDG in the years 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014 were analyzed. Results revealed that an increase in elevation of about 1000 m (e.g. from 500 to 1500 m above sea level) lead to a decrease in course time of around 80 minutes. Findings can be explained by the effects of reduced oxygen partial pressure at higher altitudes, respectively hypoxia, through induction of several physiological changes in the alpinists’ bodies. Alpinists primarily living at higher altitude are therefore better acclimatized and thus prepared for the race; hence adequate acclimatization is paramount not only for improving course time but also for staying safe whilst participating in the PDG.
Environment‐dependent plasticity and ontogenetic changes in the brain of hatchery‐reared Atlantic salmon

Lowered rearing density has repeatedly been shown to increase the performance of hatchery-reared salmonids stocked into natural environments. One possible mechanism for this pattern could be that lower densities enhance brain development, which has been shown to be the case in other hatchery enhancement strategies, like environmental enrichment. Here, we investigated the size of the brain in hatchery-reared Atlantic salmon Salmo salar kept at standard (high) and reduced (low) tank densities. In contrast to our predictions, we found that fish reared at high density had larger dry mass of cerebellum and telencephalon, correcting for body size. No differences were detected for total brain mass. Furthermore, we found that the relative size of both telencephalon and cerebellum, in relation to total brain mass, changed with body size. Cerebellum increased in relative size with increased body size, while the opposite pattern was observed for telencephalon. Overall, these results reveal substantial brain plasticity depending on the surrounding environment as well as ontogenetic adaptive changes in the brain of the Atlantic salmon.
Role of nicotine during diabetic macular edema development

Diabetic macular edema (DME) represents the major cause of visual loss in diabetes patients. It is characterized by retinal thickening in the macular area due to breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier (BRB) [1]. By altering blood vessels supplying retina, hyperglycemia triggers tissue hypoxia. The primary response to latter is mediated by hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) which in turn promote vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. The most important psychoactive compound in cigarette smoke, nicotine (NT), binds nicotinic cholinergic receptors (nAchRs) which are widely distributed in several human tissues, including retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) [2]. Until now, little is known about risk factors linked to cigarette smoke inducing DME development. In the present study, we have evaluated NT effect in an in vitro model of outer BRB following exposure to hyperglycemic/hypoxic insult mimicking DME microenvironment. Our results have suggested that NT deeply impacts on outer BRB integrity by increasing its permeability. To investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in negative effect of this compound, we have analyzed HIF/VEGF system in cells exposed to hyperglycemic/hypoxic damage. NT treatment induced upregulation of HIF-1α/HIF-2α, VEGF mediated through activation of MAPK/ERK1/2 pathway. In conclusion, all this data have suggested a unfavorable role of this psychoactive agent in smokers DME affected.
Decoherence-free subspace and disentanglement dynamics for two qubits in a common non-Markovian squeezed reservoir

We study the non-Markovian entanglement dynamics of two qubits in a common squeezed bath. We see a remarkable difference between the non-Markovian entanglement dynamics and its Markovian counterpart. We show that a non-Markovian decoherence-free state is also decoherence free in the Markovian regime, but all the Markovian decoherence-free states are not necessarily decoherence free in the non-Markovian domain. We extend our calculation from a squeezed vacuum bath to a squeezed thermal bath, where we see the effect of finite bath temperatures on the entanglement dynamics.
Rules versus statistics in reading aloud: New evidence on an old debate

Nonword reading performance, that is, the ability to generate plausible pronunciations to novel items, has probably been the hardest test case for computational models of reading aloud. This is an area where rule-based models, such as the Dual-Route Cascaded (DRC) model, typically outperformed connectionist learning models. However, what is the evidence that people apply rules when reading nonwords? This was investigated in German. Nonwords were created that allowed us to test whether people apply an abstract rule to determine vowel length or whether they would be sensitive to the statistical distribution of vowel length in the mental lexicon. The human data showed a great amount of variability in nonword pronunciations. Simulations of these nonwords, where the DRC was contrasted with a fully implemented and freely available German version of the connectionist dual process model (German_CDP+), a model that learns the statistical mapping between spelling and sound, showed that CDP+ provided a better account of the data than the DRC. These results support the view that rule based models may simply approximate patterns of language use rather than provide an accurate description of the underlying cognitive machinery.
The Role of Fiscal Policy in Spain from 2007 to 2010 and the Influence of Aggregate Public Spending on Economic Growth

In the early stages of the crisis that is currently affecting the Spanish economy, the fiscal policy that excessively resorted to automatic stabilizers helped overwhelm the deficit and public debt. In this context, first, in this paper we analyse the trend and variation rate of government revenue as well as expenditure on final consumption and government investment in the last 15 years in relation to the business cycle. In another vein, we also explore and quantify the impact of the countercyclical policies provided from 2007 to 2010 and their impact on the tax burden, which enables us to evaluate the stabilizing role of fiscal policy and thus highlight its fragility. Second, given the challenges of budgetary stability facing the Spanish economy, and always based on the above analysis in which we display the limited room for fiscal manoeuvre, we present the effects of aggregate public spending in a systematic and quantified way as well as its composition as an instrument of fiscal policy. In this framework, a long term stable equilibrium relationship is studied, based on two bivariate models that cointegrate econometrically, that is to say, to estimate models for error correction for cointegrated nonstationary series (and ultimately able to anticipate the evolution of the Spanish economy), we estimate and assess the contribution of spending on investment and government final consumption on aggregate output as well as its differential effect, to assess the concrete impact of the measures applied and ultimately the role of fiscal policy implemented in the early years of the crisis and those that will be designed in the future. Finally, the main conclusion given by the model of behaviour for the final consumption expenditure of general government and GDP, is the existence of delayed adverse effects on the rate of growth of public spending on growth rate GDP. Taking into account the response function of GDP for a boost in public consumption, we estimate that with a lag of two years, an increase in the growth rate of public consumption is falling in the rates of change of aggregate output. Moreover, we can also deduce that the delayed effects of the rate of decline in public investment have a negative impact on economic growth.
Critical Thinking : How to Prepare Students for a Rapidly Changing World

In recent times there was a consensus that students should learn through inquiry and through the construction of their own mathematics (Davis, 1991; Harel & Papert, 1990; NCTM, 1989). The same situation remains nowadays. The view of the learner has changed from that of a passive recipient of knowledge to that of an active constructor of knowledge. We take into account that current learning perspectives incorporate three important assumptions (Anthony, 1996): learning is a process of knowledge construction, not of knowledge recording or absorption;
Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship ( QSAR ) modelling for the analysis of Estrogen Receptor Beta modulators

Estrogen is mediated through two estrogen receptors (ERs), ER alpha and ER beta in cell signaling. The first estrogen receptor, known as ER alpha, was cloned in 1986. At that time this was the only receptor reported that mediates estrogenic effects. Later a second ER, now known as Estrogen receptor beta, was cloned from rat prostate. ER alpha and ER beta belong to the nuclear receptors superfamily. More specifically, they belong to the family of steroid receptors that act as ligand-regulated transcription factors. ER and ER show a high sequence homology and share affinity for mostly the same ligands. ER beta have very significant role for the development of many tissues and organs, including the uterus, ovary, mammary gland, ventral prostate, brain and immune system. There are various ligands for estrogen receptors which are useful for the treatment or prevention of a variety of conditions related to estrogen functioning including: osteoporosis, bone fractures, bone loss, fibroid disease, cartilage degeneration, uterine, endometriosis, hot flashes, cardiovascular disease, increased LDL cholesterol levels, etc. The QSAR analysis of few of these ligand molecules reveals the activity modulation as the function of their structural properties.