Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Managerial Perspective on Common Identity-based and Common Bond-based Groups in Non-governmental Organizations. Patterns of Interaction, Attachment and Social Network Configuration

The paper approaches the common identity and common bond theories in analyzing the group patterns of interaction, their causes, processes and outcomes from a managerial perspective. The distinction between identity and bond refers to people’s different reasons for being in a group, stressing out whether they like the group as a whole — identity-based attachment, or they like individuals in the group — bond-based attachment. While members of the common identity groups report feeling more attached to their group as a whole than to their fellow group members and tend to perceive others in the group as interchangeable, in bond-based attachment people feel connected to each other and less to the group as a whole, loyalty or attraction to the group stemming from their attraction primarily to certain members in the group. At this level, the main question concerns with the particularities of common identity-based or common bond-based groups regarding social interaction, the participatory architecture of the group, the levels of personal and work engagement in acting like a cohesive group. In order to address pertinently this issue, the current work focuses on a qualitative research which comprised in-depth (semi-structured) interviews with several project coordinators from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). To make the investigation more complex and clear, the research relies on social network analysis which is indicative of the group dynamics and configuration, highlighting the differences between common identity-based and common bond-based groups.
Short-Term Shocks and Long-Term Investment

A little under half of the variance in shocks hitting firms appears to emanate from shortterm, transitory sources. Forward-looking investment comoves substantially with these transitory shocks. Mistaken inference in analyses of firm investment will likely result from ignoring these patterns, which can in fact provide valuable discipline for a wide range of investment frictions. An estimated quantitative model incorporating these insights reveals that the sensitivity of long-term investment to short-term shocks causes substantial misallocation of capital and lost firm value. ∗Thanks to participants at the ISIR program at the ASSA meetings, the Boston Area Macro Juniors Group, and the BU Macro Faculty Lunch. Thanks also to our discussant Robert Chirinko.
Flipped learning – a case study of enhanced student success

ABSTRACT This study presents the benefits of changing the delivery of a second-year engineering course from the traditional lecture-based format to the flipped approach that is becoming increasingly embraced by universities. The new format involved replacing theoretical lectures with online recordings and devoting the class time to working through problems (workshops). These workshops were complemented by pre- and post-class activities. The success of this change is measured by comparing the outcomes of the flipped and traditional offerings of the same course. This comparison reveals the following benefits from flipping the course: higher marks; improved engagement; and widespread student satisfaction with the flipped format based on student feedback. These outcomes are compared with those reported in the literature for similar teaching approaches. This paper differs from most previous studies by considering all of these outcomes together for one course. The detailed explanation of how the course was flipped provides a model that can be applied to successfully flip other courses. This paper concludes by provocatively raising several key issues that are surprisingly absent or glossed over in the literature. Further studies of these issues are proposed to make a firm case for flipped learning.
Regime-Dependent output convergence in Latin America

This paper test for long-run output convergence between a sample of eight Latin American countries and over the study period 1900-2003. The key contribution of this paper is in term of the econometric methodology where non-stationarity of log real per capita income differentials is tested within a Markov regime-switching framework. In contrast to existing studies, this paper defines two new concepts of output convergence where one allows for the possibility that output differentials behaviour either switches between stationary and non-stationary regimes (partial convergence), or switches between stationary regimes characterised by differing degrees of persistence (varied convergence). Whereas standard univariate and panel data unit root testing clearly suggest that output differentials are non-stationary, employment of the regime-switching methodology indicates that most of the sample is characterised by the existence of two distinct stationary regimes. Furthermore, it is argued that the often-cit
The old and the new risk factors for chronic renal disease in type 2 diabetics

The pathophysiological mechanisms associated with chronic renal disease in type 2 diabetic are complex and still remain to be fully understood. It is well known that there are traditional factors responsible for kidney disease such as poor metabolic control, time of evolution of diabetes, age, gender, uncontrolled hypertension, ethnical background and genetic factors. Nevertheless, recent evidence also points to non-traditional risk factors that might trigger glomerular barrier changes, leading to an increase durinary album in excretion along side with the progression of diabetic nephropathy to end-stage chronic kidney disease. Among these factors are inflammation and oxidative stress; alterations in mineral metabolism and homeostasis might also contribute to the clinical manifestation and/or progression of diabetic nephropathy. Our proposal is firstly to discuss the traditional risk factors associated pathogenesis and progression of chronic kidney disease associated with diabetes and secondly we will consider the new risk factors or new signs including the KlothoFGF23 axis, magnesium and vitamin D.
IPSO Smart Objects

Standards for constrained devices are rapidly consolidating and the availability of IP on constrained devices enabled these devices to easily connect to the Internet. The IETF has also created a set of specifications for such IP-enabled devices to work in a Web-like fashion. One such protocol is the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [1] that provides request/response methods, ways to identify resources, discovery mechanisms, etc. similar to HTTP [2] but for use in constrained environments. However, the use of standardized protocols does not ensure interoperability on the application layer. Therefore, there is a clear need for being able to communicate using structured data models on top of protocols like CoAP and HTTP. IPSO Smart Objects provide a common design pattern, an object model, to provide high level interoperability between Smart Object devices and connected software applications on other devices and services. IPSO Objects are defined in such a way that they do not depend on the use of CoAP, any RESTful protocol is sufficient. Nevertheless, to develop a complete and interoperable solution the Object model is based on the Open Mobile Alliance Lightweight Specification (OMA LWM2M) [3], which is a set of management interfaces built on top of CoAP in order to enable device management operations (bootstrapping, firmware updates, error reporting, etc.). While LWM2M uses objects with fixed mandatory resources, IPSO Smart Objects use a more reusable design.
Standardization of extraction process for Rumex vesicarius L.

The use of bioactive compounds in different commercial sectors needs the most appropriate and standard method to extract the active components from plant material. Thus standardization of the extraction process is an important step for the establishment of a consistent biological activity, a consistent chemical profile or for quality assurance in production and manufacturing of herbal drugs or any herbal formulations. In the present study, hot soxhlet extraction and cold maceration extraction methods using petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol, aqueous as solvents have been developed for extraction of bioactive compounds from Rumex vesicarius L. Among the extraction methods applied, hot soxhlet extraction method was found to be effective in terms of the percentage of yield compared to cold maceration extraction method. And also the percentage of extract varies with the solvent and duration of extraction process. Thus extraction time and the solvent systems were also standardized for Rumex vesicarius L. to extract the compounds.
Methods for passive acoustic tracking of marine mammals : estimating calling rates , depths and detection probability for density estimation

Anthropogenic activities and their impacts on marine ecosystems are steadily becoming an issue of global concern. From fisheries interactions to pollution, shipping and habitat degradation, human activities are driving ecosystem changes and are increasingly threatening the existence of numerous marine species (Davidson et al., 2012; Halpern et al., 2007; Kappel, 2005; Read, 2008). For scientists working within a management framework, effective and efficient means for assessing species distribution, abundance and their risk of impact by anthropogenic threats is of critical importance. Government agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S., include within their mission the conservation, protection and recovery of marine species. This incorporates the evaluation of marine mammal abundance and occurrence, assessing the effects of sound on acoustic communication, hearing and behavior, monitoring interactions with fisheries, and evaluating the risk of vessel interactions (i.e. ship strikes).
FOREIGN BODY GRANULOMA AFTER FILLER WITH POLYMETHYL METHACRYLATE (PMMA)

Soft tissue fillers are a safe option for treatment and rejuvenation, but complications can occur. The formation of nodules or granulomas is one of the most commonly long-term complications. We report a case of a patient that was submitted to a nasogenian sulcus filling with PMMA 15 years ago that developed a possible foreign body granuloma after a new procedure where she was submitted so alar and zygomatic filling with hyaluronic acid years after the first procedure.
Trends of Thyroid Cancer Mortality Rates in Ecuador

Objective: To analyze thyroid cancer (TC) mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 in Ecuadorian men and women and compare their trends with Latin American and international trends. Design: A population-based temporal-trend study using the database of the Ecuadorian National Death Registry. Methods: Crude and age-adjusted mortality rates were calculated, and age-related mortality rates were standardized with the world population (WHO). Trends in age-standardized mortality rates were estimated by join point regression analysis. The trends were expressed as annual percentage change (APC) and average annual percentage change (AAPC). Results: In total, TC caused 2,107 deaths (1,475 women and 632 men) in the selected period. The mortality in men showed a statistically non-significant decrease. The estimated APC was −0.4% (P = 0.70), and the average AAPC was −0.4% (P = 0.70) without any identified jointpoint. In women, the mortality decreased significantly between 1990 and 1998, with the estimated APC being −6.6% (P < 0.05). However, it increased significantly from 1998 to 2016, with the estimated APC of 5.4% (P < 0.05), and a jointpoint was identified; the AAPC was 1.4 (P = 0.30). Conclusions: While TC mortality in Ecuadorian men showed a decrease, that in Ecuadorian women showed an initial decrease and a final increase. Our findings can be contrasted with the global data, which show decreases in TC mortality in both sexes.
THE TICKET MACHINE CHALLENGE ? SOCIAL INCLUSION BY BARRIER-FREE TICKET VENDING MACHINES

Subjective access barriers to public transport are often the result of insufficient knowledge of how to use the electronic systems (ticket machines) that are becoming increasingly common at railway stations and of the complexity of these systems. The hardware and software used in self-service machines can also raise additional barriers for people with restricted mobility or who have a low affinity for technology. The InnoMat research project seeks to identify how new machines should be designed to best meet the needs of their different user groups. This article presents the insights obtained from a literature review and from observations and interviews at Austrian railway stations. The literature review focuses on the special needs of the visually impaired, wheelchair users and the elderly, uncovering numerous specific hardware requirements that are needed to make such machines more accessible. Although a large number of passengers had no problems quickly purchasing the ticket they wanted, and the senior citizens interviewed made absolutely no reference to the special needs of older people and the problems with text size and layout/size of keys, etc. discussed in literature, this group was reluctant to use Austrian Rail ticket machines and, at times, had difficulty understanding the menus on the machines currently in use. Despite frequent demands that such machines need to be self-explanatory, this proved to be not the case, and both the interviews and the observations revealed that some passengers needed someone else to teach them how to use the ticket machines.
Title: Elucidating role of bacteria in psoriatic disease: from skin and gut perspectives

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by skin lesions. Psoriasis development has been associated both with genetic and environmental factors. Though skin and gut microbiota has been implicated in number of pathologies including atopic dermatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, allergy, obesity, its role has been poorly studied in psoriatic disease, which incorporates both psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. This literature review summarizes the most recent and major findings on microbiota features in psoriatic disease as well as gives immune system role in the given condition. Despite conflicting findings, psoriasis patients were frequently found to have distinct microbial composition in both skin and guts especially in the major bacterial phyla, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Akkermansia. Furthermore, bacterial DNA has been found in psoriatic patients both locally and systemically, and altogether suggesting role of bacteria in the chronic disease and future studies in this field.
Novel annihilation filter framework for accelerated parameter mapping

Synopsis Quantitative parameter maps offer valuable information about various tissue attributes, which are early markers for many neurological disorders. However the long acquisition time of the associated image time series puts a restriction on the achievable spatial resolution. In this work, we introduce a novel framework, which exploits the exponential nature of the time profiles at every pixel and spatial smoothness of the exponential parameters to recover the images from highly under-sampled measurements. Our preliminary results clearly demonstrate the potential of the proposed algorithm.
Exploiting user context and preferences for intelligent web search

Seeking information relevant to a topic of interest has become a common task in our daily activities. However, searching the Web using current technologies still presents many limitations. One of the main limitations is that existing tools for searching the Web restrict user queries to a small number of terms. As a result, a single query may not reflect the user information needs at a sufficient level of detail. In addition, even if longer queries were allowed, the user may not find the right terms to supply appropriate queries, or may not be willing to put the effort required to explicitly describe his or her information needs. Another limitation of today’s search tools is that they are not capable of performing qualitative inference on the suggestions they offer. For certain domains, such as news or scientific articles, a good amount of structural information can be usefully exploited to extract meaningful content. This can help sort out the material returned by a search engine and to perform a qualitative analysis to warrant some of the search results. This paper shows how to enhance current search engines capabilities by (1) taking advantage of the user context, and (2) ranking search results based on preferential criteria provided by the user. We describe ongoing research on the use of context-specific terms to refine Web search and on the use of a defeasible argumentation framework to prioritize search results.
Comparison of heavy metals burden in two freshwater fishes Wallago attu and Labeo dyocheilus with regard to their feeding habits in natural ecosystem

We examined Zn, Ni, Cr, Cu, Cd and Pb in the skin, gills, intestine, liver and muscle of two fresh water fishes, Wallago attu (Bloch and Schneider, 1801) and Labeo dyocheilus (McClelland, 1839). The aim of the study was to determine the metal accumulation pattern of two species occupying different feeding zones in the same habitat. Metals accumulated in the order Zn>Cr>Cu>Pb>Ni>Cd in the body of Wallago attu. Metal abundance in different organs of this fish was skin>gills>muscle>intestine>liver. Similarly, the order of metal accumulation in the body of Labeo dyocheilus was Zn>Cr>Cu>Pb>Ni>Cd, while metal abundance in different organs of this fish was in the order liver>muscle>skin>intestine>gills. The order of metals bioaccumulation in both the species was different, but in both species Zn was the highest and Cd was the least accumulated metal. Skin, gills, intestine, liver and muscle of Labeo dyocheilus accumulated 43%, 36%, 63%, 105%, 86%, higher metal concentrations as compared to that of Wallago attu. Overall, Labeo dyocheilus accumulated 65.2% extra heavy metals burden as compared to Wallago attu. Our findings suggest that omnivorous fish may bioaccumulate more heavy metals than the carnivorous fish in natural habitats.
Marine Fish Population Collapses: Consequences for Recovery and Extinction Risk

Abstract Rapid declines threaten the persistence of many marine fish. Data from more than 230 populations reveal a median reduction of 83% in breeding population size from known historic levels. Few populations recover rapidly; most exhibit little or no change in abundance up to 15 years after a collapse. Reductions in fishing pressure, although clearly necessary for population recovery, are often insufficient. Persistence and recovery are also influenced by life history, habitat alteration, changes to species assemblages, genetic responses to exploitation, and reductions in population growth attributable to the Allee effect, also known as depensation. Heightened extinction risks were highlighted recently when a Canadian population of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) was listed as endangered, on the basis of declines as high as 99.9% over 30 years. Unprecedented reductions in abundance and surprisingly low rates of recovery draw attention to scientists' limited understanding of how fish behavior, habitat, ecology, and evolution affect population growth at low abundance. Failure to prevent population collapses, and to take the conservation biology of marine fishes seriously, will ensure that many severely depleted species remain ecological and numerical shadows in the ecosystems that they once dominated.
Medulla Cerebellum Spinal Cord Tectum Diencephalon Retina Pallium Olfactory Bulb

The human and mouse genomes both consist of a little over 3 billion base pairs, which produce approximately 21 and 23 thousand genes, respectively. Interestingly enough, a rice plant has only one order of magnitude fewer base pairs but, in fact, 28 thousand genes. These numbers, huge in their own right, represent the tips of enormous icebergs, i.e. search spaces. Assuming that all combinations of base pairs are possible, though many are surely lethal, a sequence of length 3 billion is a point in a space of 43,000,000,000 possibilities, which is approximately equivalent to 166 followed by 1.8 billion zeros. By comparison, the estimated age of the universe, in seconds, is 43 followed by 16 zeros.
Localization in IoTA Review

We are witnessing the dawn of a new era of Internet of Things. With the development in various technologies, the internet of things has been widely used in building smart cities and homes. There are various challenging issues in IoT like routing, addressing, localization and so on. Localization is one of the key issues which needs to be taken into account. Many localization algorithms and systems have been developed by means of wireless sensor networks for both indoor and outdoor environments. This paper reviews various localization algorithms designed for IoT systems. With the increasing demand of smart objects in our everyday life promotes an advance generation of communications under the umbrella of the Internet of Things (IoT). For IoT, location-based service is one of the main services, while localization accuracy is a primary problem. Keywords— Internet of things, localization, outdoor localization, indoor localization.
Auxin biology in roots

Auxin regulates almost every aspect of plant growth and development. Its intracellular concentration is controlled by biosynthesis and degradation. In addition, there is an "auxin pool" that consists of the conjugates with sugars, amino acids, and peptides. Some of the conjugates reversely release auxin, enabling alternative methods to regulate auxin concentrations. Auxin concentrations are also affected by transport. Besides the long distance delivery through the phloem, auxin is transported across the cell by influx and efflux carriers, from the shoot to root with maximum concentration at the root tip. At the root tip, the auxin flow reverses, and shootward auxin transport occurs. An auxin gradient formed this way is indispensable for proper development, maintenance of the meristem, and cell identity. The formation of root hairs is auxin-dependent. Auxin controls not only the initiation of root hairs but also regulates their elongation. In Arabidopsis thaliana, auxin accumulates in atrichoblasts and it is supplied to trichoblasts. Before hair initiation, randomization of cortical microtubule arrays is observed in lettuce seedlings. This action is promoted by auxin and is indispensable to hair formation. Furthermore, light promotes CMT randomization and root hair initiation via auxin signaling. Ethylene is another promoter of root hair formation. Ethylene affects auxin signaling and vice versa. Interactions between these hormones are synergistic for root growth inhibition but antagonistic for lateral root formation. Reactive oxygen species also regulate various responses in plants. They play an important role during root hair elongation, although their precise relationship with auxin is yet not clear.
Software Fault Prediction Methods: A Brief Survey

: Software fault prediction is a valuable exercise in software quality assurance to best allocate limited testing resources . One strategy is to process and analyze previous generated data to predict future failures. This makes it extremely important in software development to develop quality and fault free software. In this paper, we discuss Data mining techniques for software defect prediction. Various classifiers are used to classify faulty or non-faulty modules. Then we compare our methods and find which method is better. The quality of software datasets can be improved by data preprocessing. In empirical studies, we chose datasets from real-world software projects, such as Eclipse and NASA.