Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constructions, Word Grammar, and grammaticalization

Abstract In this paper, I explore the hypothesis that constructions — here understood primarily as the dependencies of Word Grammar — can undergo systematic change, sometimes partly due to the effects of the grammaticalization of a lexical item or class of lexical items. I argue that the development of will as a future tense marker in English involves the development of a new construction where two separate syntactic items are associated with a single event in the semantics. I also look at the loss of the impersonal construction in English, where it has been argued that the change is driven by an increase in the schematicity of the Transitive Construction, as well as having been argued that dative experiencers have been reclassified as subjects. I observe that it has also been noted that dative experiencers could function as subjects in earlier varieties of English, and suggest that this is an example of category strengthening.
How Teens Become Engaged in Youth Development Programs: The Process of Motivational Change in a Civic Activism Organization

The question of how youth become engaged or motivated is vital to youth development programs, because engagement influences not only program retention but the likelihood of youth gaining the benefits that programs offer. This article reports on an in-depth study aimed at generating grounded theory about the change process through which youth who are initially disengaged become motivated by program activities. Youth in a civic activism program were interviewed over a 4-month period and qualitative analyses were used to derive a model of this change process. This process was found to proceed from the youth forming a personal connection to the program's mission to becoming intrinsically motivated by work on program activities. The analyses suggested that peers and the adult leader played important roles in supporting motivational change at each stage. The model developed from the investigation draws on existing theories of motivation.
Signature Extraction from 3D Point Clouds using Frame Theory for Environmental Modeling

Abstract In this paper a method based on the well-known frame theory is presented for the identification and classification of objects inside a scene. Three-dimensional (3D) point clouds have been firstly acquired using a laser triangulation system exploiting a high resolution camera, in order to derive accurate datasets for the method validation. The method performs a quadratic fit on the acquired samples and then extracts local curvatures from the analytical reconstructed surfaces. Such information is referred to a vocabulary of curvatures, created making use of the frame basis. Meaningful signatures can be finally analyzed to derive the recurrences of objects in the investigated scene. Specifically, by fixing a threshold value ζ, similarities can be estimated and thus objects can be recognized. Results prove the capability of the method to distinguish surface properties among several objects, validating this algorithm against the contributions of the measurement noise.
Competitiveness, Clusters and Policy at the Regional Level: Rhetoric vs. Practice in Designing Policy for Depressed Regions

This paper reviews the most important theoretical foundations of the concept of spatial competitiveness. To that effect it deals with three levels of competitiveness: the country, the region and the tourism destination. It draws attention to the main aspects that such concepts of competitiveness must include, and it links the regional competitiveness with the related concept of cluster. Therefore, section 2 reviews the key aspects of competitiveness at the first level, highlighting the role of the main forces that act at the national level. Section 3 extends the concept to the regional level, highlighting the critical aspects that must be considered when policy tries to increase the competitiveness of a particular region. Section 4 analyses the possibilities of extending the competitiveness concept to tourism destinations. Next, the paper analyses the literature on policy advice and discusses the inconsistency between the theory and the policy designed to promote regional competitiveness. Finally, the paper presents some concluding remarks on regional policy applied to depressed regions.
Which epistemological models predict the elimination of blinding trachoma by 2002 ?

If there were an effective vaccine for trachoma, the rationale for the elimination of trachoma would be clear. As long as enough people were vaccinated, then introduction of an infection in the community would die out and not lead to an epidemic because of herd immunity (Anderson et May, 1991). Unfortunately, no vaccine has shown to be effective, and in fact there has been a suggestion that vaccines increase scarring (Grayston et al., 1962).
Determinants of Employee Turnover in Kerio Valley Development Authority in Kenya

Organizations worldwide are experiencing frequent employee turnover as per the number of studies that exist. The employee turnover rates in organizations in Kenya have drawn a lot of concern from the scholars in Human Resource Management and in the behavioral science due to its effects on organizational performance. While various factors have been observed as to why most employee are leaving organizations on voluntary or involuntary there seem to be a gap as to why this trend still continue to persist in developing countries and more so in organizations in Kenya. This study sought to establish the determinants of employee turnover in Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) and to explore the possible remedies to the prevailing problem of high turnover rates in KVDA. Equity theory by John Stacy Adams which advocates that individuals will be better motivated if they are treated equitably and demoted if they are treated inequitably was used. The study adopted descriptive research design to generate data from the respondents of the study. A sample size of 120 employees was selected from the targeted population of 600 employees using the stratified random sampling method. Questionnaires, interview schedules and observation checklists were used to collect data for this study. The collected data was subjected to methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. From the study findings, poor compensation structures, lack of Human Resource Career Development Policies and low job satisfaction were the key factors that contributed to employee turnover at KVDA. The study therefore, recommends that the organization needs to review its compensation structure, formulate and implement Human Resource Career Development Policies and put strategies in place to enhance employee job satisfaction. The study suggests further studies should be carried out in other institutions in the public service in Kenya to ascertain whether similar findings are obtainable of turnover. Key words: Employee Turnover, Kerio Valley Development Authority
Contributions of operations management to the competitiveness of the Brazilian electronics sector

The objective of this paper is to identify and analyze various aspects of the internal and external operations management of Brazil's electronics sector and to consider the opportunities for and the threats to increasing the competitiveness of its participation in the global supply chain. To address this shortage in the literature, a survey of Brazilian Electric and Electronic Industry Association (ABINEE) companies was conducted. The collected data were complemented with secondary data to establish an overall view of the electronics sector in Brazil. The results suggest that electronics product assembly companies have the opportunity to invest more in information technology to expand process integration, plan and develop products, integrate customers, and maintain rather than expand their supply chain practices. The alignment between internal and external operations management becomes important in this context. The originality of this paper lies in its clarification of operations management in an economically important sector and the insight it provides to academics, practitioners and policy makers involved in the domestic and international electronics sector.
Rational Suicides: Evidence from Changes in Inmates' Expected Sentence Length

Are suicides rational? At least since the 70's economists have been trying to shed light on this question by studying whether suicide rates are related to contemporaneous economic conditions. This paper goes one step further: we test whether suicides are linked to forward-looking behavior. In Italy, collective sentence reductions (pardons) often lead to massive releases of prisoners. More importantly, they are usually preceded by prolonged parliamentary activity (legislative proposals, discussion, voting, etc.) that inmates seem to follow closely. We use the legislative proposals for collective pardons to measure changes in the inmates' expectations about their date of release, and find that suicide rates tend to be significantly lower when pardons are proposed in congress. This suggests that, amongst inmates in Italian prisons, the average decision to commit suicide has a rational component.
Chapter 4-Convex Optimization ∗

These lecture notes are meant to be used by students entering the University of Mannheim Master program in Economics. They constitute the base for a pre-course in mathematics; that is, they summarize elementary concepts with which all of our econ grad students must be familiar. More advanced concepts will be introduced later on in the regular coursework. A thorough knowledge of these basic notions will be assumed in later coursework. No prerequisite beyond high school mathematics are required.
VisDrone-VID2019: The Vision Meets Drone Object Detection in Video Challenge Results

Video object detection has drawn great attention recently. The Vision Meets Drone Object Detection in Video Challenge 2019 (VisDrone-VID2019) is held to advance the state-of-the-art in video object detection for videos captured by drones. Specifically, there are 13 teams participating the challenge. We also report the results of 6 state-of-the-art detectors on the collected dataset. A short description is provided in the appendix for each participating detector. We present the analysis and discussion of the challenge results. Both the dataset and the challenge results are publicly available at the challenge website: http://www.aiskyeye. com/.
RNA Binding Proteins Posttranscriptionally Regulate Genes Involved In Oncogenesis

Abstract : Whereas transcriptional gene regulation is well studied, posttranscriptional gene control is poorly understood. Yet, emerging evidence indicates that posttranscriptional control by RNA binding proteins (RBPs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) are important key regulators of gene expression of many cancer related genes. The RBP, HuR, is a master regulator of many early response genes in cancer. Of the six classical acquired traits first proposed by Hanahan and Weinberg that malignantly transformed cells develop, HuR has been demonstrated to control genes in multiple areas. The purpose of this research is to define the in vivo mRNA targets of the RNA binding protein, HuR using RNA immunoprecipitations applied to microarray chips (RIP-Chip) in estrogen positive (ER+) and estrogen negative (ER-) breast cancer. Additionally, we will test the hypothesis that HuR increases cell proliferation by regulating mRNAs involved in breast oncogenesis at the posttranscriptional level. We will do this by altering HuR levels in breast cancer cell lines using lentiviral short hairpin RNAi to knock down and also over-express HuR and assay tumor formation by injection into athymic nude mice (orthotopic model).
Automatic identification of weapons from images of the cartridge case head

This work is a preliminary step in the development of a computer system for automatic identification of weapons with the aid of fired cartridge cases. We study the particular characteristics that can be present on the bottom of the cartridge head, which are helpful for automatic identification of the corresponding weapon, and we discuss how to extract and use those features.
Recommendations on supplementary feeding introduction in patients with food allergies and risk group children : what and when ?

Author Affiliation: Elena Aleksandrovna Vishneva, leading research fellow at the department of standardization and clinical pharmacology of the Scientific Center of Children’s Health (Federal State Budgetary Research Institution), allergist-immunologist at the department of medical rehabilitation for children with allergic and respiratory diseases at the research institute of preventive pediatrics and medical rehabilitation of the Scientific Center of Children’s Health (of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences) Address: 2/1 Lomonosovskiy Av. , Moscow, 119991; tel. : +7 (499) 134-03-92; e-mail: vishneva@nczd.ru
An Overview on Fungal Cellulases with an Industrial Perspective

Lignocellulose is the most abundant biopolymer available on earth. Hydrolysis of lignocellulose into fermentable sugars, sugar acids and phenolics is the pre-requisite for its successful exploitation as substrates for the large scale production of industrially significant value added products. Though remarkable collection of lignocellulolytic microorganisms has been brought to limelight, only a few especially fungi have been studied extensively as they secrete copious lignocellulolytic enzymes extracellularly. Enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocelluloses is carried out by a group of enzymes viz., cellulases, hemicellulases, ligninases in unison or individually, and are collectively known as lignocellulolytic enzymes. In this light of this background, followed by a short introduction on lignocellulose, lignocellulolytic enzymes and mainly focused on fungal cellulase, this review discusses recent approaches on the production of cellulase by submerged and solid-state fermentation strategies; current knowledge on the purification, characterisation of cellulase; and finally concluded with detailed industrial applications of fungal cellulase.
INDOOR DISTRIBUTION NETWORK NOISE IN THE PLC FREQUENCY RANGE, FROM 10 MHz TO 30 MHz

In this article we present results of our investigations of some aspects of the power-line communications network noise phenomena. The noise samples were captured with spectrum analyzer in frequency domain, in the band from 10 to 30 MHz, which is a range of frequencies interesting primarily for indoor PLC communications systems. From the measured data some basic statistical properties of the observed noise were calculated. We have investigated the time and space dependency of the PLC medium noise. We have also studied the correlation between noise power and network's electrical load.
The Relationship between Electricity Consumption, Electricity Price and Economic Growth in Turkey: 1984-2007

The experience of economic development and industrialization of countries has revealed the increasing importance of the energy factor, which is a basic production input in the production process. Empirical studies have shown that a positive causality relation exists between the energy consumption and economic growth performance of countries. Another variable the effects of which need to be studied alongside the relation between these two variables, is energy price. In this study, the Granger causality between energy price, energy consumption and economic growth of Turkey is examined for the 1987-2007 period using a VAR model and quarterly data. The results indicate that a bidirectional causality relation appears to exist between electricity consumption and GDP, and that there is a causality relation that runs from real GDP to electricity price.
Managing change: mental models of SME managers

This study fills some of the gaps in existing studies on organisational change in SMEs by considering the management of change in SMEs in Queensland, Australia, built around the concept of employee participation. First, the paper examines what mental models SME managers espouse in relation to the management of organisational change; and whether small and medium organisations differ in relation to how they manage change. Data was obtained from a state-wide survey of 340 Queensland SME managers, conducted in 2008. The findings confirm the paucity of consultation in Australian workplaces. Within the context of change management, SMEs could benefit from combining their positive views on widespread involvement (including inspiring a shared vision and personally communicating the future vision; communicating the change message repeatedly up and down and across the organisation; and enabling others to act: by energising, empowering, building teams, tangible support with appropriate resources and structures) with a greater degree of ‘actual’ participation from employees in decision making.
DEVELOPING A NEURAL NETWORK BASED EXPERT SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING DESKTOP AND NOTEBOOK COMPUTER OPERATIONS AND WORKSTATIONS

Abstract: Office ergonomics is still very new in developing countries such as Thailand. Office employees have been mistakenly assumed to be safe from ergonomics, health, and safety hazards that are common in industrial facilities. Thus, inadequate training, education, and protection are being provided to office employees regarding possible dangers in their offices. Although musculoskeletal problems are known to link to video display terminal (VDT) operation, most office managers in Thailand are still unaware of such problems. Ergonomic and safety evaluation of business offices with respect to VDT operation is very rare. This is due in part to a lack of qualified and experienced ergonomists who are competent in conducting such ergonomic evaluations. This paper discusses a research proposal to build an expert system for evaluating desktop and notebook computer operations and workstations for the business office. Basically, appropriate evaluation checklist forms will be developed for both desktop and notebook computer operations. Simulated data will be generated and experts will be asked to give their opinions about the workplace based on the given data. Then, a neural network program will be constructed and trained based on the simulated data and evaluation results. An expert system called XP-Assessor will be developed based on the above mentioned neural network program. XP-Assessor is intended to generate appropriate checklist forms, perform the ergonomic evaluation of desktop and notebook computer operations and workstations, and give recommendations on how to improve work conditions.
MicroCT survey of larval skeletal mineralization in the Cuban gar Atractosteus tristoechus (Actinopterygii; Lepisosteiformes)

Using X-ray microtomography, we describe the ossification events during the larval development of a non-teleost actinopterygian species: the Cuban gar Atractosteus tristoechus from the order Lepisosteiformes. We provide a detailed developmental series for each anatomical structure, covering a large sequence of mineralization events going from an early stage (13 days post-hatching, 21mm total length) to an almost fully ossified larval stage (118dph or 87mm in standard length). With this work, we expect to bring new developmental data to be used in further comparative studies with other lineages of bony vertebrates. We also hope that the online publication of these twelve successive 3D reconstructions, fully flagged, will be an educational tool for all students in comparative anatomy.
COMPLEXITY OF ENTITIES AND ITS METROLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Presented in the paper is generalised knowledge on the need of and possibilities to investigate, teach and introduce in practice measurements of any and all entities influencing quality, prosperity and social responsibilities of organisations. The premise stems in the finding that salience and complexity of entities should be identified and respected or honoured individually within each phase of the process of reproduction. Then, the basis of the paper is seen in clarification of the measurement as of a process of attaining factual reference (or ready-reference) pieces of information, based on comparing of entities against their blueprints, as well as in describing subprocesses of measurements in the following segmentation: purpose reasoning, proposing or designing, realising and presenting results of the measurement.
GRAIN DISCOLORATION: AN EMERGING THREAT TO RICE CROP IN PAKISTAN

In Pakistan, on an average 6 million tons of rice is produced each year that is about 30% of the world's paddy rice. Rice grain discoloration disease (a bacterial/fungal disease) is emerging as a major threat in Pakistan that deteriorates grain quality and texture. With abrupt changes in climatic conditions in the country, the disease severity may be minor to major across different ecological zones. Grain discoloration affects the grain morphology (size and shape of the grain) and ultimately significantly lower yield of the crop. Grain discoloration also affects the drying, shelling, milling and processing of the rice due to weight loss. In coming years huge loss is expected in Pakistan due to this disease. With the passage of time the disease is also spreading to the major rice growing countries and resulting in huge loss in yield. The complexity of the disease is very serious threat to the rice worldwide. To cope with this alarming disease we have to devise the strategies to better utilization of genetic resources through advanced molecular breeding approaches. In addition to breeding, precise identification of pathogen and improvement in agronomic practices would also help deal with the problem.
Guest Editor Preface Special Issue of GLoCALL 2018 Conference Papers Exploring the Multiple Roles of Technology in Learning & Teaching in Diverse Educational Settings

This special issue is a compilation of selected articles presented at the GLoCALL 2018 Conferences which were organised jointly by PacCALL and ChinaCALL at Xi”an Jiatong Liverpool University from 16 th to 18 August 2018. This conference is part of the GLoCALL series of conference organised yearly since 2007 to share knowledge, research and experiences on how to use technology to enhance language learning and to explore how technology can be adapted to meet the needs of language learners in a variety of contexts. This special issue offers a selection of papers covering a range of topics that explore the multiple roles of technology in learning and teaching in diverse educational settings. The first four papers focus on multiple roles of technology in language learning. The fifth, sixth and seven articles describe studies that use technology tools to investigate student learning. The last two articles describe two studies that explore the effects of the use of technology on teachers. In the first paper