Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seismic Assessment of a Typical Building from Azores

Traditional Azorean buildings are mostly made of rubble stone masonry walls. As the masonry walls are vulnerable to seismic action, it is of utmost importance: (i) the characterization of their mechanical properties and (ii) the study of the behaviour of these constructions to this type of action. On the other hand, it is important to remember that urban buildings are significantly affected by the behaviour of the city block, thus, the adjacent buildings should be considered in numerical models to properly evaluate the seismic performance of the building under consideration.
Hybridization Facilitates Adaptive Evolution in Two Major Fungal Pathogens

Hybridization is increasingly recognized as an important force impacting adaptation and evolution in many lineages of fungi. During hybridization, divergent genomes and alleles are brought together into the same cell, potentiating adaptation by increasing genomic plasticity. Here, we review hybridization in fungi by focusing on two fungal pathogens of animals. Hybridization is common between the basidiomycete yeast species Cryptococcus neoformans × Cryptococcus deneoformans, and hybrid genotypes are frequently found in both environmental and clinical settings. The two species show 10–15% nucleotide divergence at the genome level, and their hybrids are highly heterozygous. Though largely sterile and unable to mate, these hybrids can propagate asexually and generate diverse genotypes by nondisjunction, aberrant meiosis, mitotic recombination, and gene conversion. Under stress conditions, the rate of such genetic changes can increase, leading to rapid adaptation. Conversely, in hybrids formed between lineages of the chytridiomycete frog pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the parental genotypes are considerably less diverged (0.2% divergent). Bd hybrids are formed from crosses between lineages that rarely undergo sex. A common theme in both species is that hybrids show genome plasticity via aneuploidy or loss of heterozygosity and leverage these mechanisms as a rapid way to generate genotypic/phenotypic diversity. Some hybrids show greater fitness and survival in both virulence and virulence-associated phenotypes than parental lineages under certain conditions. These studies showcase how experimentation in model species such as Cryptococcus can be a powerful tool in elucidating the genotypic and phenotypic consequences of hybridization.
E DUCATIONAL A TTAINMENTS AND L ABOR P ARTICIPATION OF F EMALES ACROSS THE T URKISH R EGIONS : A P ANEL D ATA A PPROACH

This paper aims at testing whether educational attainments of females beside other primary determinants have significant impacts on their participation in the labor markets across the regions of Turkey during the years 2004-2016. Even though there are certain number of empirical studies on this fact, they mostly employ time series data or micro data sets. However, very few of them stick with the regional data analysis and also do not take care of the recent developments in the empirical literature. So, the existing empirical findings do not suggest a clear evidence about the matter, particularly about the Turkish regional differences, yet. Therefore, this work exploits a panel data technique that pays attention to the recent empirical considerations. The findings suggest that, in contrary to most of the current empirical results, both the high school and the higher education graduations of females beyond the other determinants do not have significant impacts on their participation rates in the labor market across the Turkish regions in the relevant span.
Seismicity Parameters of Seismogenic Zones

The completeness of the earthquake catalogue applies to the territory within the area shown on the map in Fig. 1. This area comprises those parts of the Dead Sea transform system within the JSN and the ISN stations. Hence, assuming that Mmin=2.2 and Mmax=7.5 and following Wiechert (1980), we estimated the optimal values a,  and b that yield the least sum of squared residuals for log n(M) and log N(M).
Impacts of Climate and Land Cover on Soil Organic Carbon in the Eastern Qilian Mountains, China

Soil, as the largest organic carbon pool of terrestrial ecosystem, plays a significant role in regulating the global carbon cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and global climate change. It is of great significance to scientifically understand the change rule and influence mechanism of soil organic carbon (SOC) to further understand the "source–sink" transformation of SOC and its influence on climate change. In this paper, the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics and influencing mechanism of SOC were analyzed by means of field investigation and laboratory analysis and the measured data in the Eastern Qilian Mountains. The results showed that the average SOC content of 0–50 cm was 35.74 ± 4.15 g/kg and the range of coefficients of variation (CV) between 48.84% and 75.84%, which suggested that the SOC content exhibited moderate heterogeneity at each soil layer of the Eastern Qilian Mountains. In four land cover types, the SOC content of forestland was the highest, followed by alpine meadow, grassland, and wilderness, which presented surface enrichment, and there was a decreasing trend with the soil depth. From the perspective of seasonal dynamics, there was a uniform pattern of SOC content in different land cover types, shown to be the highest in winter, followed by autumn, spring, and summer, and with the biggest difference between winter and summer appearing in the surface layer. At the same time, our study suggested that the SOC content of different land cover types was closely related to aboveground biomass and negatively related to both the mean monthly temperature and the mean monthly precipitation. Therefore, the distribution and variation of SOC was the result of a combination of climate, vegetation, and other factors.
APA Handbook of Career Intervention, Volume 2: Applications

In our experience, it is common in career counseling to hear clients talk about wanting to discover and live out a calling. The term calling means different things to different people. Typically, calling refers to a personally or socially meaningful engagement with one’s work, sometimes linked to one’s religious or spiritual perspective, sometimes to a sense of passion or giftedness, and sometimes to a deeply held set of values for making a difference or leaving a legacy. Whatever the particulars, the concept seems very powerful when expressed through a client’s tone of despair, longing, or hope. We have worked with many objectively successful but subjectively miserable middle-career adult clients who have fantasized about what it would be like to experience work as a calling rather than as an obligation to which they felt chained (sometimes with “golden handcuffs”). Interactions with clients such as these are part of what has driven us to devote much of our careers to better understanding what it means to have a calling, the difference it makes (in work and life) for people who approach work as a calling, and strategies for discerning and living out a calling. Although much has yet to be learned, what is clear from research is that a sense of calling provides, for many people, a key pathway for experiencing work and life as meaningful and satisfying (e.g., Dik, Eldridge, Steger, & Duffy, 2012; Dik, Sargent, & Steger, 2008; Duffy & Sedlacek, 2007; Hirschi, 2012). How, then, might career development practitioners help clients discern and live out a calling? In this chapter, we offer some suggestions that address this question. We begin with an overview of the historical and conceptual context for the recent surge of scholarly interest in calling. We then summarize the rapidly accumulating research on the construct and explore implications for career interventions that target discerning and living out a calling. To close the chapter, we use a case study to demonstrate the use of calling in career counseling.
JURNAL TEKNIK POMITS 1 Abstrak— Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memberikan gambaran mengenai nilai strategis dari investasi teknologi informasi (TI) yang dilakukan oleh sebuah perusahaan. Penelitian sebelumnya menyatakan bahwa investasi teknologi informasi pada perusahaan dapat memberikan kontribusi 

Abstrak— Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memberikan gambaran mengenai nilai strategis dari investasi teknologi informasi (TI) yang dilakukan oleh sebuah perusahaan. Penelitian sebelumnya menyatakan bahwa investasi teknologi informasi pada perusahaan dapat memberikan kontribusi positif terhadap performa perusahaan apabila sumber daya dari teknologi informasi, khususnya sumber daya manusia dan infrastruktur TI, dapat dimanfaatkan dengan baik dan sejalan untuk mendukung kompetensi utama dari perusahaan. Saat ini, investasi TI secara besar-besaran menjadi tren dikalangan perusahaan-perusahaan, baik itu perusahaan skala kecil maupun besar. Tetapi terkadang investasi TI yang besar tidak diikuti dengan strategi pemanfaatan sumber daya manusia dan infrastruktur TI yang baik untuk mendukung tujuan perusahaan. Oleh karena itu, dibutuhkan strategi yang tepat dalam memanfaatkan sumber daya manusia dan infrastruktur TI agar dapat meningkatkan produktivitas perusahaan. Penelitian ini akan memberikan analisis mengenai hubungan antara sumber daya manusia dan infrastruktur teknologi informasi terhadap performa perusahaan menggunakan metode Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) yang hasilnya nanti akan menunjukkan diantara faktor sumber daya manusia dan sumber daya infrastruktur TI, manakah yang paling berpengaruh didalam perusahaan agar nantinya perusahaan dapat menentukan strategi pemanfaatan sumber daya yang tepat untuk meningkatkan produktivitas perusahaan.
Modelling and Control of a Chopper using Feedback and Feedforward Control Schemes

Designing two degree of freedom controller to control the boost chopper system is challenging. A new feedforward combined with feedback controller design is proposed. Increasing the efficiency of the DC-DC converters can be achieved by decreasing the distortion and noise for both input and output stages in the system. A linearization mathematical model analysis for boost chopper is presented. Both the input voltage with multiple steps and the duty cycle of PWM which control the switching circuit were applied to study the behaviour of the system. In this study, the simulation results show that the disturbance rejection and input tracking were improved for different cases and situations. Also, the results show that the proposed method can be adapted by redesigning the feedforward controller to recover the impact of the boost parameter changes.
MicroRNA-193b-3p Promotes the Development of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Targeting CCND1 and IGF1R

The abnormal expression of miR-193a-3p was associated mostly with the development and progress of the tumors. In the present study, the expression levels of miR-193b-3p and its associated mRNAs were measured by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and the methylation levels of its promoter were detected via the methylation-specific PCR in serum and tissues of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The results demonstrated that the expression level of miR-193b-3p were significantly decreased in preoperative serum and cancer tissues in patients with ESCC (p<0.01). The expression level of miR-193b-3p significantly was upregulated in serum after surgical removal of the cancerous tissue in ESCC patients (p<0.01). The target gene CCND1 of miR193a-3p showed the high expression in the tumor tissues, and its up- and down-stream gene Rb and p16 showed the low expression; and the target gene IGF1R and its up- and down-stream gene IGF1 and PI3K showed the high expression. The methylation level of miR-193a-3p in the promoter region was higher significantly in the tumor tissues than that in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues (p<0.01). This showed that the high methylation of genetic promoter region of miR-193b-3p might inhibit the expression of miR-193b-3p and further the regulation of CCND1 and IGF1R, as well as the relevant signaling pathways, facilitating the development and progress of ESCC.
A Classroom Example of Semi-Blind Deconvolution Using Sample-Based Inference

We present an assignment example that asks the students to perform a blind deconvolution task using samplebased Bayesian inference, as well as some extensions to the structuring of the sampling task that provide substantial computational speed up. This example has the role of providing a direct comparison with the regularized solution that students have previously evaluated; for this example the resulting mean deconvolved image has the same visual quality as achieved by regularization methods while demonstrating that the (effective) regularizing parameter can determined within the inferential framework, unlike regularization where an extra ad hoc procedure is required. The extension we present restructures the probabilistic calculation by integrating over the latent field (unknown image) to give exactly the same inference result, but reduces computational cost to less than that required for regularized inversion, when selection of the regularizing parameter is accounted for.
Exploiting Pooling Methods for Building Datasets for Novel Tasks

Information Retrieval is not any more exclusively about document ranking. Continuously new tasks are proposed on this and sibling fields. With this proliferation of tasks, it becomes crucial to have a cheap way of constructing test collections to evaluate the new developments. Building test collections is time and resource consuming: it requires time to obtain the documents, to define the user needs and it requires asses-sors to judge a lot of documents. To reduce the latest, pooling strategies aim to decrease the assessment effort by presenting to the assessors a sample of documents in the corpus with the maximum number of relevant documents in it. The quality of these collections is also crucial, as the value of any evaluation depends on it. In this article, we propose the design of a system for building test collections easily and cheaply by implementing state-of-the-art pooling strategies and simulating competition participants with different retrieval models and query variants. We aim to achieve flexibility in terms of adding new retrieval models and pooling strategies to the system. We want the platform also to be useful to evaluate the obtained collections.
Development of a high affinity Anticalin® directed against human CD98hc for theranostic applications

Enhanced amino acid supply and dysregulated integrin signaling constitute two hallmarks of cancer and are pivotal for metastatic transformation of cells. In line with its function at the crossroads of both processes, overexpression of CD98hc is clinically observed in various cancer malignancies, thus rendering it a promising tumor target. Methods: We describe the development of Anticalin proteins based on the lipocalin 2 (Lcn2) scaffold against the human CD98hc ectodomain (hCD98hcED) using directed evolution and protein design. X-ray structural analysis was performed to identify the epitope recognized by the lead Anticalin candidate. The Anticalin - with a tuned plasma half-life using PASylation® technology - was labeled with 89Zr and investigated by positron emission tomography (PET) of CD98-positive tumor xenograft mice. Results: The Anticalin P3D11 binds CD98hc with picomolar affinity and recognizes a protruding loop structure surrounded by several glycosylation sites within the solvent exposed membrane-distal part of the hCD98hcED. In vitro studies revealed specific binding activity of the Anticalin towards various CD98hc-expressing human tumor cell lines, suggesting broader applicability in cancer research. PET/CT imaging of mice bearing human prostate carcinoma xenografts using the optimized and 89Zr-labeled Anticalin demonstrated strong and specific tracer accumulation (8.6 ± 1.1 %ID/g) as well as a favorable tumor-to-blood ratio of 11.8. Conclusion: Our findings provide a first proof of concept to exploit CD98hc for non-invasive biomedical imaging. The novel Anticalin-based αhCD98hc radiopharmaceutical constitutes a promising tool for preclinical and, potentially, clinical applications in oncology.
Investigating the role of coat colour, age, sex, and breed on outcomes for dogs at two animal shelters in the United States

The popular press frequently reports that coat colour bias negatively impacts shelter adoption rates for black domestic dogs. This phenomenon, commonly called ‘black dog syndrome’ (BDS), reportedly increases the likelihood of euthanasia for black dogs and negatively affects the length of black dogs’ time to adoption. While organisations may focus on BDS and ways to promote black dogs, it is possible that the influences of other important factors, such as sex, age and breed, may be overlooked. To evaluate the veracity of BDS and examine the impact of various phenotypic traits on shelter outcomes, we analysed four years of intake and outcome data from two animal shelters in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Results indicated that the average length of availability for adoption (LOA) for black dogs was not significantly longer than that for other coloured dogs, nor was the rate of euthanasia of black dogs significantly higher than average. On the other hand, age and breed group were consistent predictors of shelter outcomes across the two shelters. Older dogs tended to have longer LOA and to be euthanised at rates higher than expected. Bully breeds had significantly longer LOA in both shelters and, compared to other breeds, were euthanised at higher than expected rates. The methods implemented in this study could be utilised by other shelters to inform intake and marketing strategies.
Stochastic labour market shocks and Active labour market policies: a theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper develops a life-cycle model of labour supply with human capital formation that captures key aspects of labour market dynamics. The model determines both unobserved human capital that is different from experience and, in the event of unemployment, the rate at which human capital depreciates in the absence of Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP). Allowing for agent’s heterogeneity, the model implies endogenous human capital formation (growth or depreciation) with respect to individual’s characteristics and time-independent idiosyncratic labour market shocks. Whereas these shocks imply transitory monetary returns, the effects on human capital are long-lasting within skill class. Using several waves of the Swiss Labour Force Survey (1991 – 2003), the paper presents estimates of the dynamic process on human capital formation that allow a more complete understanding of the overall impact of labour market policies. The empirical findings show that relative to lower skill formations semiskill workers are more efficient at increasing productivity at any level of human capital. On the other hand, the long term unemployed with medium/low skill levels experience depreciation of human capital relative to the higher skill classes. This latter do not necessarily experience depreciation rates over a spell of long-term unemployment.
Findings from a Genotyping Study of over 1000 People with Inherited Retinal Disorders in Ireland

The Irish national registry for inherited retinal degenerations (Target 5000) is a clinical and scientific program to identify individuals in Ireland with inherited retinal disorders and to attempt to ascertain the genetic cause underlying the disease pathology. Potential participants first undergo a clinical assessment, which includes clinical history and analysis with multimodal retinal imaging, electrophysiology, and visual field testing. If suitable for recruitment, a sample is taken and used for genetic analysis. Genetic analysis is conducted by use of a retinal gene panel target capture sequencing approach. With over 1000 participants from 710 pedigrees now screened, there is a positive candidate variant detection rate of approximately 70% (495/710). Where an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern is observed, an additional 9% (64/710) of probands have tested positive for a single candidate variant. Many novel variants have also been detected as part of this endeavor. The target capture approach is an economic and effective means of screening patients with inherited retinal disorders. Despite the advances in sequencing technology and the ever-decreasing associated processing costs, target capture remains an attractive option as the data produced is easily processed, analyzed, and stored compared to more comprehensive methods. However, with decreasing costs of whole genome and whole exome sequencing, the focus will likely move towards these methods for more comprehensive data generation.
Listeriosis Outbreak in South Africa: A Comparative Analysis with Previously Reported Cases Worldwide

Listeria species are Gram-positive, rod-shaped, facultative anaerobic bacteria, which do not produce endospores. The genus, Listeria, currently comprises 17 characterised species of which only two (L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii) are known to be pathogenic to humans. Food products and related processing environments are commonly contaminated with pathogenic species. Outbreaks and sporadic cases of human infections resulted in considerable economic loss. South Africa witnessed the world’s largest listeriosis outbreak, characterised by a progressive increase in cases of the disease from January 2017 to July 2018. Of the 1060 laboratory-confirmed cases of listeriosis reported by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), 216 deaths were recorded. Epidemiological investigations indicated that ready-to-eat processed meat products from a food production facility contaminated with L. monocytogenes was responsible for the outbreak. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) revealed that a large proportion (91%) of the isolates from patients were sequence type 6 (ST6). Recent studies revealed a recurrent occurrence of small outbreaks of listeriosis with more severe side-effects in humans. This review provides a comparative analysis of a recently reported and most severe outbreak of listeriosis in South Africa, with those previously encountered in other countries worldwide. The review focuses on the transmission of the pathogen, clinical symptoms of the disease and its pathogenicity. The review also focuses on the major outbreaks of listeriosis reported in different parts of the world, sources of contamination, morbidity, and mortality rates as well as cost implications. Based on data generated during the outbreak of the disease in South Africa, listeriosis was added to the South African list of mandatory notifiable medical conditions. Surveillance systems were strengthened in the South African food chain in order to assist in preventing and facilitating early detection of both sporadic cases and outbreaks of infections caused by these pathogens in humans.