Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Massive pre-main-sequence stars in M17

The formation process of massive stars is still poorly understood. Massive young stellar objects (mYSOs) are deeply embedded in their parental clouds; these objects are rare, and thus typically distant, and their reddened spectra usually preclude the determination of their photospheric parameters. M17 is one of the best-studied H ii regions in the sky, is relatively nearby, and hosts a young stellar population. We have obtained optical to near-infrared spectra of previously identified candidate mYSOs and a few OB stars in this region with X-shooter on the ESO Very Large Telescope. The large wavelength coverage enables a detailed spectroscopic analysis of the photospheres and circumstellar disks of these candidate mYSOs. We confirm the pre-main-sequence (PMS) nature of six of the stars and characterise the O stars. The PMS stars have radii that are consistent with being contracting towards the main sequence and are surrounded by a remnant accretion disk. The observed infrared excess and the double-peaked emission lines provide an opportunity to measure structured velocity profiles in the disks. We compare the observed properties of this unique sample of young massive stars with evolutionary tracks of massive protostars and propose that these mYSOs near the western edge of the H ii region are on their way to become main-sequence stars (~6–20 Msun) after having undergone high mass accretion rates (\dot{M}_{acc} ~ 10^{-4}−10^{-3} Msun/yr). Their spin distribution upon arrival at the zero age main-sequence is consistent with that observed for young B stars, assuming conservation of angular momentum and homologous contraction.
BCI-controlled mechatronic devices, systems, and environments

Use of BCIs in patients with severe neurological deficits can improve their quality of life (QoL), provide them increased independence, and possibly increase effectiveness, shorten, and reduce cost of diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and care. Many publications have shown evidences for efficacy of BCI-based neurorehabilitation so far, including application as output devices mechatronic modules such as robots and active orthosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which the available opportunities in BCI-based control of mechatronic devices are being exploited, and discuss their perspectives and directions of further research from the engineers’ point of view.
Migrating from Closed Source Software to OSS–Security Issues and Challenges

Open source software (OSS) allows users and developers to, amongst others, study, modify and redistribute the source code. At the other end of the spectrum, closed source software (CSS – the antonym of OSS) disallows users and developers to access and modify any source code. This paper presents an overview of the migration from closed source systems (CSS) to open source systems (OSS) with respect to Security Issues and Challenges. The paper proposes a Model to address such challenges. The various OSS initiatives undergone by different national governments are highlighted. A comparison of OSS security and CSS security aspects, and an overview of security challenges during migrations to OSS are presented. On the strength of these comparisons, and using summative content analysis, a model to address security challenges during migrations to OSS is proposed. The model is developed through enhancements of previous models aimed at addressing security threats and protecting sensitive information during system migrations.
Decision Bounds for Data-Admissible Seasonal Models

The selection problem among models for the seasonal behavior in time series is considered. The central decision of interest is between models with seasonal unit roots and with deterministic cycles. In multivariate models, also the number of stochastic seasonal factors is a discrete parameter of interest. To enable restricting attention to data-admissible models, a new attempt is made at defining data admissibility. Among data-admissible model classes, statistical decision rules are constructed on the basis of weighting priors and decision-bounds analysis. The procedure is applied to some exemplary economics series. Many univariate series select models without seasonal unit roots but the bivariate experiments enhance the importance of seasonal unit roots with restricted influence of seasonal constants. The framework of decision-bounds analysis offers a convenient alternative to sequences of classical hypothesis tests.
DISCREPANT HARDENING OBSERVED IN COSMIC-RAY ELEMENTAL SPECTRA

The balloon-borne Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass experiment launched five times from Antarctica has achieved a cumulative flight duration of about 156 days above 99.5% of the atmosphere. The instrument is configured with complementary and redundant particle detectors designed to extend direct measurements of cosmic-ray composition to the highest energies practical with balloon flights. All elements from protons to iron nuclei are separated with excellent charge resolution. Here, we report results from the first two flights of ∼70 days, which indicate hardening of the elemental spectra above ∼200 GeV/nucleon and a spectral difference between the two most abundant species, protons and helium nuclei. These results challenge the view that cosmic-ray spectra are simple power laws below the so-called knee at ∼1015 eV. This discrepant hardening may result from a relatively nearby source, or it could represent spectral concavity caused by interactions of cosmic rays with the accelerating shock. Other possible explanations should also be investigated.
Empirical Verification of the Performance Measurement System

In their endeavor to increase profits, companies usually become aware that this is predominantly the result of employee competence and satisfaction, excellent processes, and customer's satisfaction. Based on that assertion, companies integrate different managerial tools in the performance measurement system (PMS) and therefore in their management system. One of the most dominant managerial tools is the Kaplan and Norton's balanced scorecard (BSC). In this chapter, the approach that represents the basis for further work in the field of research in PMSs of companies, with the use of econometric tools, was empirically tested and developed.
Epidemiologic Response to Anthrax Outbreaks : Field Investigations , 1950 – 2001

We used unpublished reports, published manuscripts, and communication with investigators to identify and summarize 49 anthrax-related epidemiologic field investigations conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1950 to August 2001. Of 41 investigations in which Bacillus anthracis caused human or animal disease, 24 were in agricultural settings, 11 in textile mills, and 6 in other settings. Among the other investigations, two focused on building decontamination, one was a response to bioterrorism threats, and five involved other causes. Knowledge gained in these investigations helped guide the public health response to the October 2001 intentional release of B. anthracis, especially by addressing the management of anthrax threats, prevention of occupational anthrax, use of antibiotic prophylaxis in exposed persons, use of vaccination, spread of B. anthracis spores in aerosols, clinical diagnostic and laboratory confirmation methods, techniques for environmental sampling of exposed surfaces, and methods for decontaminating buildings.
Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical Patterns

Militarized interstate disputes are united historical cases of conflict in which the threat, display or use of military force short of war by one member state is explicitly directed towards the government, official representatives, official forces, property, or territory of another state. Disputes are composed of incidents that range in intensity from threats to use force to actual combat short of war. The new dispute data set generated by the Correlates of War project contains information on over 2,000 such disputes found to have occurred in the period 1816–1992. As in the earlier version of the data set, the participants, start and end dates, fatality totals, and hostility levels for each dispute are identified, but the newer version disaggregates this information for each participant and provides additional information about the revisionist state(s), type(s) of revision sought, outcome, and method of settlement for each dispute. A preliminary analysis of the data shows some interesting empircal patterns. Contagion and a slight upward trend are found in the frequency of disputes at the system level. The duration of disputes appears to be positively associated with the level of hostility reached and the number of states involved, and disputes appear to have a feud-like character. The single most important factor found to increase the fatality level of a dispute is the number of states that join after its onset. However, most disputes begin and end as one-on-one confrontations, and this tendency is stronger in the current period than in the past. An examination of dispute escalation reveals that many disputes begin with uses of force rather than less intense threats or displays of force and that states joining an ongoing dispute raise the likelihood that the dispute will reach higher levels of hostility. With respect to the settlement of disputes it was found that the longer a dispute continues, the higher the likelihood of some settlement, either negotiated or imposed, being achieved, althogh there is a discernable trend away from such settlements over the period studied. A related trend was found with respect to the outcome of disputes as stalemate has become a much more likely outcome in the present than in the past.
Literacy and cognitive change among ethnically diverse elders

Research concerned with relations between literacy level and assessment of cognition among ethnically diverse elders is presented. The evidence suggests that literacy has a profound effect on neuropsychological measures across verbal and nonverbal domains, and that this effect is independent of other demographic and experiential factors such as age, years of education, sex, ethnicity, and language use. It appears that reading level is a more sensitive predictor of baseline test performance, and also that literacy skills are protective against memory decline. Adjustment for reading level, which in part reflects quality of education, overcomes the limitations of years of education as an index of educational experience among multicultural elders and thus can improve the specificity of certain neuropsychological measures. Differences in organization of visuospatial information, lack of previous exposure to stimuli, and difficulties with interpretation of the logical functions of language are possible factors .
DIVERSE TWINS : THE IMPACT OF CHINA ON ITALIAN AND GERMAN MANUFACTURING EXPORTS

Germany and Italy are two major manufacturing producers and export a substantial part of their products – over 70 per centto OECD countries. While they share many characteristics, in term of specialization and destination markets, they are also “diverse twins”. Italy has a productive structure still largely based on so-called “traditional” sectors, while Germany specialized mainly in high tech goods. Italy is therefore more likely to be more vulnerable to the competitive pressure by emerging economies, and especially China, which experienced a strong increase in its export market share during the last decades. This paper addresses the issue of the impact of China on the export performance of Italy and Germany to their main trading partners to assess how well they withstood competition. Using data for the period 1995-2009, we implement a longitudinal multilevel model on quantiles to take into account two very important data characteristics: their hierarchical hidden structure (captured by a multilevel model) and the heterogeneity of the export shares (captured by a quantile approach). This innovative estimation method, together with the introduction of Chinese export shares as explanatory variable to account for the potential Chinese competition, allows us to estimate the impact of China on Italy and Germany’s market shares. Results show that China has affected Italy’s and Germany’s market shares in different ways, in different sectors, characterized by different market shares. However, Italy does not seem to have been “more at risk”. These results are relevant also for their policy implications and for an ex post analysis of the “response” to the Chinese competition. JEL Classification: F-10; F-14
Exploring Factors Affecting Students' Continued Wiki Use for Individual and Collaborative Learning: An Extended UTAUT Perspective.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what factors affect students’ adaptation and continued use of a Wiki system for collaborative writing tasks through an extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). This study was conducted in a general education course in a university in northern Taiwan. Data were collected from surveys of 103 students after their continued writing on the CourseWiki system for one semester. With structural equation model (SEM) analysis, results from this study partially confirm that, in the UTAUT model, factors of social influence have direct and significant effects on students’ actual usage of the Wiki system. Moreover, students’ actual use of the Wiki influences their intention of future use. This study successfully applies the extended UTAUT model and tests the predictive power in determining students’ acceptance of a Wiki system in terms of their actual use and their behavioural intentions of future use. It further provides suggestions for future research and practice, and should contribute to theoretical understanding as well as practical application of learning technology in post-secondary teaching.
Mutation testing of ASP.NET MVC

Mutation testing deals with assessing and improving quality of a test suite for a computer program. The range and effectiveness of the m ethod depends on the types of modifications injected by mutation operators. We ha ve checked whether mutation testing technique can be used to evaluate test case s for ASP. NET MVC-based web applications. Several new specific mutation operato rs were created and discussed. The operator judgment was experimentally verified with the mutation tool implementing the operators in the Common Intermediate Language (CIL) of . NET. The results show that mutation testing can be successfully applied t o an application running on a web server, but execution times of functional tests can be long.
ANTIOXIDANT STATUS, HORMONE LEVELS AND IMMUNITY IN CROSSBRED COWS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PRODUCTION

Twelve crossbred (KF) cows were selected 60 days before expected date of calving for experiment. The animals were grouped on the basis of their milk production as high (> 15 kg/day) and low (< 10 kg/day) producers based on their previous milk yield. Blood samples were collected at days 60, 45, 30, 15 and 7 before calving, on day of calving and 7, 15, 30, 45 and 60 days after calving. Hormones, leptin, insulin and growth hormone have been estimated in plasma samples. Plasma leptin and insulin levels were lower and growth hormone was found to be higher in high yielding cows as compared to low yielding cows. There was significant variation in leptin, insulin and growth hormone levels between groups (P< 0.01) and between days (P< 0.01). Plasma glucose level was lower and plasma NEFA was found to be significantly higher (P< 0.01) in high yielding cows as compared to low yielding cows. Lymphocyte proliferation index was 1.33± 0.11 and 1.45± 0.15 in high and low yielding cows, respectively. Average value of total plasma antioxidant activity was 1377.39± 23.00 and 1313.09± 14.99 FRAP value (μM/L) in high and low yielding cows, respectively. The study shows that changes in leptin, insulin, growth hormone, glucose and NEFA play important roles in metabolic adaptation of cows to changes around calving and the levels of these hormones and metabolites vary with level of milk production.
An Analysis of PCK to elaborate the difference between Scientific and Technological Knowledge

This research addressed the key area of early career teacher education and aimed to explore the use of a ‘Content Representation’ (CoRe) as a planning tool to develop early career secondary teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). This study was situated in the subject areas of science and technology, in which sound teacher knowledge is important to student engagement. The study was designed to examine whether such a tool (CoRe), co-designed by an early career teacher with expert content and pedagogy specialists, can enhance the PCK of early career science and technology secondary teachers. The research design incorporated a unique partnership between expert classroom teachers, content experts, early career teachers, and researchers experienced in science and technology education. This paper will present an analysis of CoRe development and the effect that had on the early career teacher’s PCK. In addition, as the same tools and methodology were applied to both a science and a technology teaching context, differences between the two areas became clear. This paper will elaborate and discuss the differences which arose as a result of the development of the CoRe’s and an analysis of PCK differences in science and technology. Introduction Research has shown that one of the factors that enables effective teachers is their rich pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a special blend of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge that is built up over time and experience. This form of professional knowledge, first theorized by Shulman (1987), is topic-specific, unique to each teacher, and can only be gained through teaching practice. The academic construct of PCK is recognition that teaching is not simply the transmission of concepts and skills from teacher to students but rather a complex and problematic activity that requires many and varied “on the spot” decisions and responses to students’ ongoing learning needs. While much has been written about the nature of PCK since Shulman first introduced the concept in 1987, and its elusive characteristics have led to much debate, there are still gaps in our knowledge about teacher development of PCK. However, the work of Magnusson, Krajcik and Borko (1999) is helpful in clarifying this special form of a teacher’s professional knowledge by proposing that PCK is made up of five components. In their view, an experienced teacher’s PCK encompasses his/her:
Leverage and Covariance Matrix Estimation in Finite-Sample IV Regressions

This paper develops basic algebraic concepts for instrumental variables (IV) regressions which are used to derive the leverage and influence of observations on the 2SLS estimate and compute alternative heteroskedasticity-consistent (HC1, HC2 and HC3) estimators for the 2SLS covariance matrix in a finite-sample context. Monte Carlo simulations and applications to growth regressions are used to evaluate the performance of these estimators. The results support the use of HC3 instead of White’s robust standard errors in small and unbalanced data sets. The leverage and influence of observations can be examined with the various measures derived in the paper.
Elective colectomy after colonoscopic polypectomy for unexpected polypoid T1 cancer

Purpose. The treatment of early-stage colorectal adenocarcinoma removed endoscopically depends on histopathologic findings. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the benefit–risk balance to patients who underwent colectomy after endoscopic polypectomy of T1 carcinoma with unfavourable histological factors. Methods. Thirty one patients (15 men and 16 women, median age 66 years) who underwent colectomy after endoscopic resection of malignant polyps with T1 carcinoma within the period from 1 January 2004 Vilnius to 11 February 2015 were included in this retrospective study. Specimens resected after endoscopic polypectomy showed at least one of the following unfavourable factors: no free margin or piecemeal resection. The main objective was to assess the benefit–risk balance of an oncological resection performed after the polypectomy. The oncological benefit was measured by the lymph node metastasis rate. The risk was measured by the occurrence of severe complications of grade III–IV or death. Results. The most common localisation of T1 cancer was sigmoid colon – 16 cases (51.6%) and upper rectum – 11 cases (35.5%). 11 (35.5%) patients had well-differentiated adenocarcinoma (G1), others (20 patients from 31, 64.5%) had moderate differentiated adenocarcinoma (G2). The main indications of colectomy were two: the margin of resection ≤1 mm (n = 23) and piecemeal resection (n = 9). An oncological benefit of colectomy was reached for four patients (12.9%), who had lymph node metastasis. Six patients (19.4%) presented postoperative complications. All of them were of I–II grade according to the Clavien classification. There were no deaths. Conclusions. 12.9% of patients, who underwent oncological colectomy after endoscopic polypectomy for unexpected polypoid T1 cancer with unfavourable histology (no free margin or piecemeal polypectomy), had metastasis in the lymph nodes; thus this study suggests the rationale of an oncological surgical resection after endoscopic polypectomy for these patients.
Unmarried Fertility, Crime, and Social Stigma

Children born to unmarried parents may receive lower human capital investments, leading to higher levels of criminal activity as adults. Therefore, unmarried fertility may be positively associated with future crime. Alternatively, in an environment in which social stigma attached to nonmarital fertility is high, many low‐match‐quality parents will marry, and children reared in these families may actually be worse off than if their parents had not married. We explore these effects empirically, finding that over the long run unmarried fertility is positively associated with murder and property crime but that the degree of social stigma has affected this relationship. For instance, our results suggest that some marriages in the 1940s and 1950s were of such low quality that the children involved would have been better off in single‐parent households; however, this finding is reversed for marriages in the 1960s and thereafter—many marriages that would have benefited children were forgone.
Integrated Motivation Model of Entrepreneurial Team

Members of the entrepreneurial team play a vital role in new venture's survival and further development. Because of the differences in the development and the initial endowment of human capital, the lack of the appropriate motivation among entrepreneurial team members will lead to the failure of these startups. An integrated motivation model is proposed according to the different stages which targets at entrepreneurial teams, from major relation governance supplemented by contract governance at team building stage, while from major relation governance supplemented by contract governance at developing and adjourning stage.