Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The didactic value of a web log in the first educational period of primary school

The Internet undoubtedly represents a technological invention affecting the way people communicate, access information, and gain knowledge. For the younger generations, who grew up and live with the Internet, it is of paramount importance that it properly supplements and aids the classical education practice. This paper presents selected results and discusses experiences obtained in a comprehensive action research study dealing with the investigation of opportunities for the application of a web log in the first educational period of primary school. The main purpose of educational innovation is to encourage pupils to become active participants and creators of their own social learning environment, where knowledge is represented and shared in the form of various authentic materials and reflections. The results of the study reveal that a computer with the appropriate educational soft ware, and especially a web log, can be applied as an effective teaching and motivational tool to help achieve curriculum objectives, contributes to the development of digital literacy, and supports the acquisition of reflection skills. Competent use of modern educational technologies therefore stimulates new ways of thinking, while the acquired knowledge not only helps achieve the educational objectives, but also breaks new ground for active participation in the information society.
EFFECT OF ANGIPARS™, A NEW HERBAL DRUG ON DIABETIC FOOT ULCER: A PHASE 2 CLINICAL STUDY

Diabetes foot ulcers are a major predictor of future lower-extremity amputation in patients with diabetes. The animal studies have indicated that treatment with a new herbal extract named ANGIPARS™ improves healing of chronic ulcers. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the safety and healing rates of diabetic foot ulcers in patients treated with ANGIPARS™. Ten diabetic patients (7 males and 3 females) were eligible for enrollment in this single arm before-after clinical trial. The target wound's greatest length and width was measured at baseline. The target wound was photographed at baseline and then every two weeks. The wound area was determined by means of planimetry. The mean age of patients was 57± 2.3 years. The mean surface area of ulcers was 12.32±11 cm 2 , 9.55±9 cm 2 , and 6.96±6 cm 2 at baseline, one month and two months of study, respectivly. Our results showed that the drug could reduce the wound size at least 50% during 8 weeks period. We found no adverse side effects in our patients. The main conclusion of the present study was to show the efficacy and safety of ANGIPARS™ as a novel therapy in diabetic foot ulcers.
Ocean State Estimation for Climate Research

Spurred by the sustained operation and new development of satellite and in-situ observing systems, global ocean state estimation efforts that gear towards climate applications have flourished in the past decade. A hierarchy of estimation methods is being used to routinely synthesize various observations with global ocean models. Many of the estimation products are available through public data servers. There have been an increasingly large number of applications of these products for a wide range of research topics in physical oceanography as well as other disciplines. These studies often provide important feedback to the observing systems. This white paper describes the approaches used by the estimation systems in synthesizing observations and model dynamics, highlights the applications of their products for climate research, and addresses the challenges ahead in relation to the observing systems. Further applications to study climate variability using ENSEMBLE state estimation products are described by a white paper by Stammer et al. (2010).
Enhance Plugging Performance of Microgel by Introducing Cationic Group

To enhance plugging performance of microgels, a series of microgels with varied cationic degrees was synthesized by inverse microemulsion polymerization with acrylamide and methylacryloxylethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride as monomers. The properties and performance of cationic microgels were examined by transmission electron microscope, dynamic light scattering analysis, viscosity measurement and plugging test. The results show that cationic microgel exhibits better ability in water adsorption and viscosity enhancement than nonionic microgels. It can efficiently plug formation with permeability lower than 1200×10-3 μm2 (mD), compared to 800 mD of nonionic microgels. The optimal cationic degree is 10%. Key words: Cationic microgel; Polyacrylamide; Profile control
Foundation Control and Investment Performance: Do Intrinsic Aspects Of Ownership and Control Matter?

This paper investigates the relevance of intrinsic motives in the value-enhancing monitoring role of large shareholders. A standard view in the corporate governance literature is that the large shareholder monitors management precisely because of personal financial interests. This paper argues that the exclusive focus on extrinsic considerations sidesteps the intrinsic motives of the large shareholder to minimize managerial opportunism and inefficiency. The paper sheds light on the importance of the intrinsic aspects of firm ownership and control by examining the relative investment performance of foundation controlled firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 1999-2005. Foundations are not-for-profit organizations with no residual claimants and thus largely lack the personal financial motives to monitor management. The empirical analysis is carried out in the framework of the marginal q methodology. The results suggest that whereas the typical firm in the sample overinvests, the extent of overinvestment is significantly lower in firms with at least one large shareholder. More importantly, the results suggest that even though foundations largely lack the residual claimants and, hence, the personal financial interest, they are as efficient as other large shareholders in curbing managerial opportunism. This finding is consistent with the view that large shareholders are not only actuated by extrinsic motives to minimize managerial opportunism and inefficiency. Intrinsic motives matter.
Productivity and Product Quality Measures for Chippers and Grinders on Operational Southern US Timber Harvests

Abstract Growth in bioenergy interests in the southeastern United States has created a need for cost-effective woody biomass harvesting systems. We evaluated three operational systems for their potential production and cost: horizontal grinders fed with residue from roundwood harvests, horizontal grinders fed with residue from clean chipping harvests, and whole tree chippers fed with entire stems. We evaluated three contractors operating each of the three system types over the course of approximately one working week each. Utilization rates for chippers and grinders were 44% and 38% respectively. Hourly production ranged between 22 – 30 metric green tonnes (gt)/SMH and 64 – 70 gt/PMH and did not differ significantly between the three systems. Delivered costs per gt of material were also very similar for the three systems and ranged between $22.68 and $23.81.
Continuous Classes of Power Amplifiers

In wireless systems a trend towards integration of all building blocks of trans- mitter and receiver into mainstream CMOS is going on. The Power Ampli¯er is one of the most di±cult blocks to integrate; a relative high power block to in- tegrate in a process with relative low quality factors and nonlinear components. In this report an RF model is presented that can be used for designing a PA using nonlinear components. With this developed model calculations are done that show that it is possible to in°uence the output phase by varying the input signal and by varying the X reactance. It is also shown that there is a trade o® between the input signal amplitude and the PA e±ciency. Simulations with varying input signal and varying X reactance show that it is possible to control both the output power and output phase of a Class-E PA.
Settling and Dewatering Characteristics of an A-stage Activated Sludge Process Proceeded by Shortcut Biological Nitrogen Removal

The waste solids settling and dewatering characteristics of an A/B process pilot study were evaluated using standardized characterization methods, like sludge volume index and zone settling velocity, and recently developed characterization methods that measure settleability and dewaterability. The test results indicated that the A/B process had similar settling, thickening, and dewatering characteristics when compared to four full-scale water resource recovery facilities. Sludge volume index values of 85 ± 26 mL g-1 over an 18-month operating period were obtained in the pilot A-stage. The centrifuge cake solids obtained from undigested A/B pilot waste activated sludge dewatered to an average value of 25.7% dry solids with a range of 23.2-28.0%. Settling, thickening, and dewatering performance of the undigested A/B waste sludge indicated that the A/B process is a viable process from a solids handling standpoint with similar characteristics to full-scale single-sludge activated sludge processes.
A Survey of Componentwise Perturbation Theory

Perturbation bounds in numerical linear algebra are traditionally derived and expressed using norms. Norm bounds cannot reflect the scaling or sparsity of a problem and its perturbation, and so can be unduly weak. If the problem data and its perturbation are measured componentwise, much smaller and more revealing bounds can be obtained. A survey is given of componentwise perturbation theory in numerical linear algebra, covering linear systems, the matrix inverse, matrix factorizations, the least squares problem, and the eigenvalue and singular value problems. Most of the results described have been published in the last five years.
Averaging of moment condition estimators

We establish the consistency and asymptotic normality for a class of estimators that are linear combinations of a set of vn- consistent estimators whose cardinality increases with sample size. A special case of our framework corresponds to the conditional moment restriction and the implied estimator in that case is shown to achieve the semiparametric efficiency bound. The proofs do not rely on smoothness of underlying criterion functions.
The extreme chemistry of multiple stellar populations in the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 4833

Our FLAMES survey of Na-O anticorrelation in globular clusters (GCs) is extended to NGC 4833, a metal-poor GC with a long blue tail on the horizontal branch (HB). We present the abundance analysis for a large sample of 78 red giants based on UVES and GIRAFFE spectra acquired at the ESO-VLT. We derived abundances of Na, O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Y, Ba, La, and Nd. This is the first extensive study of this cluster from high resolution spectroscopy. On the scale of our survey, the metallicity of NGC 4833 is [Fe/H] = −2.015 ± 0.004 ± 0.084 dex (rms = 0.014 dex) from 12 stars observed with UVES, where the first error is from statistics and the second one refers to the systematic effects. The iron abundance in NGC 4833 is homogeneous at better than 6%. On the other hand, the light elements involved in proton-capture reactions at high temperature show the large star-to-star variations observed in almost all GCs studied so far. The Na-O anticorrelation in NGC 4833 is quite extended, as expected from the high temperatures reached by stars on the HB, and NGC 4833 contains a conspicuous fraction of stars with extreme [O/Na] ratios. More striking is the finding that large star-to-star variations are also seen for Mg, which spans a range of more than 0.5 dex in this GC. Depletions in Mg are correlated to the abundances of O and anti-correlated with Na, Al, and Si abundances. This pattern suggests the action of nuclear processing at unusually high temperatures, producing the extreme chemistry observed in the stellar generations of NGC 4833. These extreme changes are also seen in giants of the much more massive GCs M 54 and ω Cen, and our conclusion is that NGC 4833 has probably lost a conspicuous fraction of its original mass due to bulge shocking, as also indicated by its orbit.
Compliance of Spectacle Wear Among School Going Children in District Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Compliance of spectacles is associated with improvement in visual function.To study compliance of spectacles and determine the reasons of non compliance among school going children in District Rawalpindi.This was a cross-sectional study of 441 students who had been prescribed spectacles for constant wear during school screening program done by Al-Shifa trust. After 6-8 months a follow up visit was conducted for assessing the compliance of spectacles. Information on age, gender, school system, type of refractive error etc was collected and analyzed to associate with compliance of spectacles.The non compliance rate in school going children of Rawalpindi District was 59%. A significant higher proportion of boys (20.7%) were wearing spectacles than girls (20.5%) (P<0.05). Compliance of spectacles were positively associated with age (P=0.000), type of refractive error (P=0.008), father education (P=0.000), mothers occupation (P=0.000) and fathers occupation (P=0.000)(C.I=95%). The reasons of non compliance include broken (16%), forgot at home (13%), lost (9%), peer pressure (19%), don’t like spectacles (28%) and poor financial conditions (15%). The compliance rate was found to be 41%. The school screening services should include follow up visits to ensure compliance of spectacles. Counseling of parents, teachers, students and providing spectacles free of cost will be an effective step towards improvement of compliance.
Energy-Aware Routing Protocol for Ad HocWireless Sensor Networks

Wireless ad hoc sensor networks differ from wireless ad hoc networks from the following perspectives: low energy, lightweight routing protocols, and adaptive communication patterns. This paper proposes an energy-aware routing protocol (EARP) suitable for ad hoc wireless sensor networks and presents an analysis for its energy consumption in various phases of route discovery and maintenance. Based on the energy consumption associated with route request processing, EARP advocates the minimization of route requests by allocating dynamic route expiry times. This paper introduces a unique mechanism for estimation of route expiry time based on the probability of route validity, which is a function of time, number of hops, and mobility parameters. In contrast to AODV, EARP reduces the repeated flooding of route requests by maintaining valid routes for longer durations.
Hybrid nanolayer architectures for ultrafast acousto-plasmonics in soft matter

The goal of the presented work is to explore the interaction between gold nanorods (GNRs) and hyper-sound waves. For the generation of the hyper-sound I have used Azobenzene-containing polymer transducers. Multilayer polymer structures with well-defined thicknesses and smooth interfaces were built via layer-by-layer deposition. Anionic polyelectrolytes with Azobenzene side groups (PAzo) were alternated with cationic polymer PAH, for the creation of transducer films. PSS/PAH multilayer were built for spacer layers, which do not absorb in the visible light range. The properties of the PAzo/PAH film as a transducer are carefully characterized by static and transient optical spectroscopy. The optical and mechanical properties of the transducer are studied on the picosecond time scale. In particular the relative change of the refractive index of the photo-excited and expanded PAH/PAzo is Δn/n = - 2.6*10‐4. Calibration of the generated strain is performed by ultrafast X-ray diffraction calibrated the strain in a Mica substrate, into which the hyper-sound is transduced. By simulating the X-ray data with a linear-chain-model the strain in the transducer under the excitation is derived to be Δd/d ~ 5*10‐4. Additional to the investigation of the properties of the transducer itself, I have performed a series of experiments to study the penetration of the generated strain into various adjacent materials. By depositing the PAzo/PAH film onto a PAH/PSS structure with gold nanorods incorporated in it, I have shown that nanoscale impurities can be detected via the scattering of hyper-sound. Prior to the investigation of complex structures containing GNRs and the transducer, I have performed several sets of experiments on GNRs deposited on a small buffer of PSS/PAH. The static and transient response of GNRs is investigated for different fluence of the pump beam and for different dielectric environments (GNRs covered by PSS/PAH). A systematic analysis of sample architectures is performed in order to construct a sample with the desired effect of GNRs responding to the hyper-sound strain wave. The observed shift of a feature related to the longitudinal plasmon resonance in the transient reflection spectra is interpreted as the event of GNRs sensing the strain wave. We argue that the shift of the longitudinal plasmon resonance is caused by the viscoelastic deformation of the polymer around the nanoparticle. The deformation is induced by the out of plane difference in strain in the area directly under a particle and next to it. Simulations based on the linear chain model support this assumption. Experimentally this assumption is proven by investigating the same structure, with GNRs embedded in a PSS/PAH polymer layer. The response of GNRs to the hyper-sound wave is also observed for the sample structure with GNRs embedded in PAzo/PAH films. The response of GNRs in this case is explained to be driven by the change of the refractive index of PAzo during the strain propagation.
“TransEpiGen-omics” in cardiovascular disease research: Unraveling the genetic basis of complex diseases

Summary. The genome, methylome, and transcriptome are functional components of a comprehensive network working in the background in support of our health. Thus, an integrative approach in combining and analyzing data from different sources and of different types is necessary in order to improve the understanding of biological processes and biological systems as a whole. In the past two decades, most candidate gene association studies in cardiovascular disease (CVD) have identified genes and variants that affect lipid levels, inflammation and the biology of the vascular wall. Further, a non-candidate-driven approach has yielded the definition of both biologically explainable and novel genes without a known biological background. In summary, the genetic susceptibility to CVD is mainly described by the influence of many common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), with the small effect size supporting the common disease/common variant hypothesis. Consequently, many integrative concepts were applied in order to distinguish functionally relevant genetic variants, especially noncoding ones. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis refers to the widespread regulation of gene expression mostly by cis -acting SNPs. MicroRNAs have also become interesting targets in both research and therapy in atherosclerosis and CVD. A number of miRNAs has been shown to have a role as risk factors for atherosclerosis progression, while some share their atheroprotective effect. The complex and multidimensional nature of cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes could additionally be resolved by research into epigenetic regulation. Distinct epigenomic patterns exist in key DNA elements (promoter CpG islands, intragenic CpG islands, gene bodies and H3K36me3-enriched regions) of the cardiac genome. Moreover, differential expression of each corresponding gene correlates with differential DNA methylation in heart failure. It is clear that the aim of cardiovascular -omics in the next decade is to find better algorithms to integrate as much as possible different types of data into the biological networks underlying the disease phenotype.
Physical properties of small bodies from Atens to TNOs

Properties of small, heliocentric bodies in the solar system share many attributes because of their small sizes, yet vary in other ways because of their different locations of formation and the diverse subsequent evolutionary processes that have affected them. Our insights concerning their properties range from highly detailed knowledge of a few specific bodies (like Eros), to rich knowledge about unspecific bodies (meteorite parent bodies), to no knowledge at all (other than existence and rough limits on size) concerning much smaller and/or more distant bodies. Today's state of learning about physical properties of TNOs is analogous to that for main-belt asteroids 35 years ago. This invited review attempts to elucidate linkages and differences concerning these populations from the highly heterogeneous data sets, emphasizing basic properties (size, shape, spin, density, metal/rock/ice, major mineralogy, presence of satellites) rather than the highly detailed knowledge we have of a few bodies or their dynamical properties. The conclusion is that there are vital interrelationships among these bodies that reinforce the precept that guided the original ACM meetings, namely that we should all think about small bodies in an integrated way, not just about subsets of them, whether divided by size, composition, or location.
Communication, customer relationship and value creation in the banking system: an empirical evidence

Purpose : Customers have showed a greater disaffection with regard to the quality of banking services. This element constitutes a fundamental aspect since the competition between banks will turn from the activities to the relationship with and the defence of the customer base. The banking business model will have to be re-thought and the level of service will be the key criteria of the banking offer. In this context, the paper investigates different clusters of Italian banks in order to verify if and to which extent the communication plays a role in creating the brand image of the bank and in promoting a strong relationship with customers. More specifically, the paper aims to verify if the communication is a critical basic attribute for banks that still operate on a stand-alone basis such as the cooperative banks. Methodological approach : The paper begins with the analysis of the literature available with particular reference to communication, brand and value creation. The field research will be conducted in two steps. Step 1 is a qualitative analysis that aims to base the first empirical verification on experience and obtain information to set the quantitative questionnaire. Following and Marbach’s (2000) recommendations, the modality will be a customer focus research on clients belonging to different clusters of banks (i.e. stand-alone banks, banks acquired by larger banks). Step 2 is a quantitative analysis that aims to extend the validity of the results of the qualitative phase and acquire information for writing the paper. The method will be by a questionnaire with targets relating to different groups of customers. The elements to be analyzed/verified will be tangible aspects and intangible aspects. Expected results: The first finding is to determine which key factors are fundamental for improving the quality of communication in the banking system. The second finding is the ability of a bank to reinforce its competitive position by reinforcing the role of communication while maintaining a strong relationship with customers. This study provides empirical evidence of how a bank can benefit from following a communication-oriented strategy to improve the satisfaction of the customer base and uphold its competitive advantage in the modern banking system.