Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biomarkers of Pesticide - Contaminated Environment

Pesticide is the umbrella term for chemicals or biologicals used to control pests. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a pesticide as any substance or mixture of substances/chemicals intended to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate any pest (US-EPA, 2006). A pesticide need not always kill a pestː it could sterilize, or repel. Pesticides can be classified in various ways such as, by their target, chemical nature, physical state and mode of action (Ware, 2000). Classification based on the target is perhaps the most widely known as the following examples indicate; Pesticides used to manage insects are called insecticides; and those used to manage rodents are called rodenticide; those used to manage fungi are called fungicides e.t. c (Ware and Whitacre, 2004). Pesticides also include plant growth regulators, defoliants, or desiccants (Hagtrum and Subramanyam, 2006). The environmental pollution and poisoning owing to the widespread use of pesticides in agricultural and domestic pest control may be detrimental to the health of handlers, nontarget organisms and consumers. Pesticides or their residues are ubiquitous contaminants in the environmental media (air, soil, water), and in humans, plants and animal tissue samples. Pesticides uptake occurs through the skin, eyes, by inhalation, or by ingestion directly or through the food chain. The fat-soluble pesticides, and to some extent, the water-soluble pesticides are absorbed through intact skin. Sores and abrasions may facilitate uptake through the skin. The vapours of pesticides or aerosol droplets smaller than 5μm in diameters are absorbed effectively through the lungs. Larger inhaled particles or droplets may be swallowed after being cleared from the airways. A common toxic effect to the lung is the result of oxidative burden which occurs as a result of active oxidants in pesticide mixtures, especially free radicals that are generated by a variety of toxic agents and the action of lung defense cells. Much of the oxidative damage to lungs is probably done by free radicals, such as hydroxyl radical, HO·, and superoxide ion, O.which initiate and mediate oxidative chain reactions. Lungs of animals exposed to oxidants have shown elevated levels of enzymes that scavenge free radicals, providing evidence for their role in oxidative damage. There is evidence to suggest that lung cells damaged by toxicants release species that convert lung O2 to reactive superoxide anion. Pesticide ingestion can occur from the consumption of contaminated food or from using contaminated utensils. Contaminated
DESIGN OF MINIATURIZED RAT-RACE COUPLERS WITH ARBITRARY POWER DIVISION RATIOS

A miniaturized rat-race coupler with arbitrary power division ratio is proposed in this paper. The design formulas of the rat-race coupler with arbitrary power division ratio are derived using even-odd decomposition analysis. The proposed structure demonstrates miniaturized size and perfect isolation due to adding phase inverter to the branch. For demonstration, a 20 dB rat-race coupler operating at 1GHz with 81.34% size reduction is designed and fabricated. There is good agreement between measured and simulated results.
Dual and Concurrent Enrollment and Transition to Postsecondary Education.

Dual and concurrent enrollments enable students to earn post secondary credits while still in high school. The 2006 Perkins legislation encourages such enrollments as a component of programs of study. There is evidence th at students who earn dual enrollment credits have slightly (typically 4% to 5%) more p ositive outcomes in postsecondary education than similar students who do not. These effects, however, may be due to self-selection into dual credit courses. The mod est advantages associated with dual enrollment may not be sufficient to ju stify the effort to develop and implement such programs. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement A ct of 2006 (P.L. 109-270) states that Programs of Study (POS ) “may include the opportunity for secondary education students to participate in dual or concurrent enrollment programs or other ways to acquire postsecondary edu cation credits” (Sec 122 [c][1][A][iii]). This language encourages but does not require POS to include such opportunities. It reflects a growing interest in expand ing dual enrollment beyond its traditional function of providing challenging ed ucational experiences for high-achieving students. In 1974, the first middle college h i h school was established to provide a different environment for students who were oft n alienated from the typical high school (Lieberman, 2004). The middle college was l ocated on a college campus and enabled students to earn college credits while in hig h school. In recent years, the Early College High School Initiative expanded the mid dle college concept by attempting to give students the opportunity to earn eno ugh credits for an associate degree or the first two years of a baccalaureate degree while in high school (American Institutes for Research and SRI International, 2007). Proponents of dual enrollments perceive them as a means of bot h increasing the efficiency of education by reducing the time and cost of obt aining postsecondary degrees and increasing the rigor of high school instruction, hereby, reducing the need for postsecondary remediation. Reindel’s (2006) summary of a conference that addressed the broad issues of accelerated learning identified a tensio n between these two objectives. The efficiency benefits (reducing time and cost) are maximized if accelerated learning primarily serves students who do well in scho ol. The rigor
Competing against online sharing

Purpose – This paper aims to explore online sharing of copyrighted content over peer‐to‐peer (p2p) file sharing networks and its impact on the music industry, and to assess the viable business models for the industry in the future.Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyze the evolution of the online content market over the years that followed the widespread adoption of p2p. The paper is based on a teaching case, and builds on two related academic papers that provide the theoretical underpinnings for the analysis.Findings – Based on the early developments observed in this marketplace and the aforementioned theoretical work, the paper argues that it is unfeasible to fully eradicate p2p, and so the industry must embrace it by understanding how consumers derive value from the technologies that enable it.Originality/value – The developments analyzed here offer relevant insights for the online content marketplace, allow the scope of strategies available to the music industry to be understood better, and.
ctivation and Dysregulation of the Unfolded Protein Response in onalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond; Division of astrointestinal and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond; and Division of Pulmonary edicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia
Portfolio Selection with Skew Normal Asset Returns

This paper examines the portfolio selection problem with skew normal asset returns. By exploring an alternative parameterization of Azzalini & Dalla Valle (1996)’s multivariate skew normal distribution I show that the multivariate skew normal distribution is a special case of Simaan (1993)’s three-parameter model. All Simaan (1993)’s results are applicable to the skew normal asset returns. The three-parameter efficient frontier is spanned by three funds which include two funds from the mean-variance portfolio selection. Combining the skew normal asset returns with the CARA utility, I obtain the closed-form certainty equivalent and skewness premium. I show that the skewness premium is positive (negative) when asset returns have negative (positive) skewness. The magnitude of the skewness premium is increasing in market risk aversion. I use the skew normal certainty equivalent to evaluate the economic value of incorporating higher moments in portfolio selection. I find that when investors face broad investment opportunities, the economic value of considering higher moments is negligible under realistic margin requirements. (JEL. G11, G12, D81)
The Role of Land in Temperate and Tropical Agriculture

We document differences in the elasticity of agricultural output with respect to land in temperate and tropical regions. We estimate this elasticity from the relationship of rural labour/land ratios and agroclimatic constraints using global district&#8208;level data. We find that the elasticity in temperate areas (0.285) is higher than in the tropics (0.126), and that this is not an artefact of the level of development. The land elasticity influences the degree of decreasing returns to labour and capital in agriculture, and thus how sensitive living standards are to shocks in productivity and population. Evidence from the postwar mortality transition supports this prediction.
The Health Benefits of Medicare Expenditures : Evidence from the Healthcare Cost Slowdown

There is little consensus on the question of whether the incremental Medicare dollar spent yields health benefits to elderly Americans. In this paper, we develop a model of productive and allocative efficiency, and demonstrate that most empirical estimates are biased because they fail to account for differences in supply-side hospital productivity. We then test the model using a dataset of 890,080 Medicare enrollees, including 128,337 tourists, admitted to hospital with a heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction, during 2007-12. During this period, some hospitals experienced a slowdown in Medicare spending, and we further test whether reductions in spending had an adverse impact on health. We develop hospital-year measures of highly effective inputs (e.g., beta blocker and statin use, primary stenting) and ineffective inputs (e.g., home health care predictive of fraud). We explain a large fraction of hospital-level variability in both survival, and Medicare spending, solely by differences in hospital input choices. Hospitals that cut spending during 2007-12 experienced no significant difference in survival trends from those that increased spending, because the cutbacks occurred for inputs with little or no incremental health benefit. That is, it’s less important how much money is spent; far more important is how it is spent. We are grateful to the National Institute on Aging (PO1 AG19783) and the National Institutes of Health (U01 AG046830) for financial support, and John E. Wennberg, Douglas Staiger, Daniel Gottlieb, Weiping Zhou, and Greg Roth for very helpful comments and assistance. Daniel Gottlieb and Weiping Zhou provided extraordinary programming and data assistance.
Mixed FEM of higher‐order for a frictional contact problem

This paper presents mixed finite element methods of higher‐order for an idealized frictional contact problem in linear elasticity. The approach relies on a saddle point formulation where the frictional contact condition is captured by a Lagrange multiplier. The convergence of the mixed scheme is proven and some a priori estimates for the h‐ and p‐method are derived. Furthermore, a posteriori error estimates are presented which rely on the estimation of the discretization error of an auxiliary problem and some further terms capturing the error in the friction and complementary conditions. Numerical results confirm the applicability of the a posteriori error estimates within h‐ and hp‐adaptive schemes. (© 2011 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Inductive tissue interactions. An interview with Chancellor Lauri Saxén. Interview by Eero Lehtonen.

Chancellor Lauri Saxén has been one of the leading figures in developmental biology for more than thirty years and he is one of the best known experimental embryologists of the post World War II period. Lauri Otto Saxén was born on July 27, 1927 in Helsinki, Finland. Studying at the University of Helsinki, he earned a M.Sc. in 1950, M.D., Ph.D. (Faculty of Medicine) in 1954 and Ph.D. (Faculty of Science) in 1962. He had a short Postdoctoral Fellowship in the laboratory of Clifford Grobstein at Stanford University in 1959. Dr. Saxén continued his research at the University of Helsinki, intermittently as a Research Fellow of the National Research Council, as an Assistant (Instructor) and as a Specialist (Consultant) in Pathology until 1965, when he was appointed Associate Professor in Pathology. In 1967, Lauri Saxén was appointed lifetime Professor in Experimental Pathology (invited position) at the University of Helsinki and in 1993 he was elected to the post of Chancellor of this University. After retiring in 1996, Lauri Saxén has maintained a very active national and international role in science. The main scientific interests of Lauri Saxén have included the development of visual cells, hormonal control of Amphibian metamorphosis, primary embryonic induction and epithelio-mesenchymal interactions. He has also had a major impact in both epidemiological and experimental teratology. Lauri Saxén has published three monographs, approximately 300 scientific publications and 80 editorials and has held 130 invited international lectures. He has supervised 25 academic dissertations. The many international positions of Lauri Saxén include the presidencies of the European Teratology Society (1973-74) and the International Society of Developmental Biologists (1973-77). He was the Editor-in-Chief of Cell Differentiation from 1981-90 (Cell Differentiation and Development, 1988-1990). Lauri Saxén was the President of the Finnish Cultural Foundation (1977-79), President of the Finnish Medical Society Duodecim (1982-85), Chairman of the Section for Medical Sciences of the Finnish Academy of Sciences (1983-92), Chairman of Board of the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, (1989-93) and General Secretary of the Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science in 1993. He acted as Editor-in-Chief of the Finnish Medical Journal “Duodecim” in 1971-72. Lauri Saxén has been the Chairman of the Finnish Institute in Athens since 1995. The many awards of Lauri Saxén include Honorary Memberships of the Finnish Medical Society Duodecim (1987) and the Finnish Society of Developmental Biology (1987), and the Honorary Presidentship of the Finnish Culture Foundation (1994).
Ju n 20 07 Alternative approach to all-angle-negative-refraction in two-dimensional photonic crystals

We show that with an appropriate surface modification, a slab of photonic crystal can be made to allow wave transmission within the photonic band gap. Furthermore, negative refraction and allangle-negative-refraction (AANR) can be achieved by this surface modification in frequency windows that were not realized before in two-dimensional photonic crystals [C. Luo et al, Phys. Rev. B 65, 201104 (2002)]. This approach to AANR leads to new applications in flat lens imaging. Previous flat lens using photonic crystals requires object-image distance u + v less than or equal to the lens thickness d, u+v ∼ d. Our approach can be used to design flat lens with u+v = σd with σ ≫ 1, thus being able to image large and/or far away objects. Our results are confirmed by FDTD simulations.
Prevention Methods for Discrimination in Data Mining

Discrimination is a very important issue when considering as law and professional aspects of data mining. Data mining is an increasing crucial technology for extracting useful information hidden in large collections of data and negative social perceptions in data mining. This is providing along with privacy and security of the information and potential discrimination. The latter consists of unequal treating people depends on their belonging to a specific group of membership. Data mining methods used for data collection automating and data mining techniques that is classification rule mining have to cover the way to providing decisions automatically like loan granting or reject, insurance premium computation, etc. If the training data sets are cover in what regards discriminatory (sensitive) attributes like gender, race, religion, nationality etc. Discriminatory decisions may ensue because antidiscrimination techniques including discrimination discovery and prevention have been introduced in data mining. Discrimination can be providing either direct or indirect. Direct discrimination takes as when decisions are made depends on sensitive attributes. Indirect discrimination takes sa when decisions are made depends on nonsensitive attributes which are strongly relation with biased sensitive ones. In this paper handled by discrimination prevention in data mining and propose new techniques applicable for direct or indirect discrimination prevention individually or both at the same time and how to clean training data sets are handle and outsourced data sets in used to cover way to that direct and/or indirect discriminatory decision rules are converted to perfect (nondiscriminatory) classification rules and providing loan is process is speed . the important advantages for manager how because he is easily check details and grating loan. The practical result demonstrate that the proposed methods are effective at removing direct and/or indirect discrimination biases in the original data set with preserving data quality.
Effects of the nitrification inhibitor DMPP on soil bacterial community in a Cambisol in northeast China

A long-term experimental site was built to study effects of the nitrification inhibitor 3, 4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP) on a bacterial population's diversity and activity in a Cambisol in northern China. Treatments included no fertilization (CK), application of urea alone (U), and application of urea plus DMPP (UD). The annual application rate for the urea was 180 kg N ha -1 , and that of the DMPP was 1.8 kg ha -1 . The diversity and composition of the overall soil bacterial community were analyzed using pyrosequencing, and the abundances of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) were analyzed using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. The dominant phyla were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and Planctomycetes in all of the samples. However, compared with treatment U, the relative abundance and identities of the dominant phyla that were increased in treatment UD were more similar to those of the CK treatment. DMPP significantly reduced the targeted ammonia oxidizing bacterial abundance, and the soil potential nitrification rate had a significant positive correlation with the amoA gene copy number of the AOB (r=0.685, n=9, p<0.05) but not of the AOA. The results suggested that long-term application of DMPP to this agricultural soil was relatively beneficial for both urea application and soil bacterial ecosystem reversion.
Latin American Clubs: Uncovering Patterns of Convergence

This paper explores the dynamics of convergence in Latin American countries and asks whether there are tendencies for converging to different clubs. The analysis shows clear differences between two groups: a large group of low-to-middle income countries and a small group of rich ountries. The club of low-to-middle income countries showed a tendency of spreading out until the mid 1990s and slight convergence afterwards. At the same time, the distance between the rich countries and the low-to-middle income countries faded away over time,particularly during the 1980s. However, during most of the 1990s, when convergence was occurring in the group of low-to-middle income countries, the rich countries started to pull away clearly distancing themselves again as a different club. The study of club behavior is important because the presence of clubs might suggest that there are common factors among groups of countries leading them to develop (and converge) in similar fashion. Identifying such common factors (if they exist) might improve our understanding of why some countries in the region grow faster than others. This is not possible to analyze with traditional growth regressions that employ a single catching up parameter or with a dispersion statistics like the sigma-convergence. Since these methods cannot detect club behavior much less they can analyze the reasons behind their formation.
Numerical modeling of hydrokinetic turbines using actuator disks : flow interaction and upscaling to regional models

xii RESUMEN . xiv
Progettazione di unâinterfaccia di annotazione lessicale per un programma di Quantitative Narrative Analysis

La tesi ha come obiettivo il miglioramento delle prestazioni della procedura di inserimento dei dati in PC-ACE, un programma per svolgere Quantitative Narrative Analysis, una tecnica di analisi dei testi usata nelle scienze sociali. Dal punto di vista applicativo si e quindi sviluppata una nuova interfaccia grafica in sostituzione della precedente mentre dal punto di vista teorico si e discusso della possibilita di applicare tecniche di Information Extraction ai documenti in input
Studying a Funerary Roman Vessel Glass Collection from Patras, Greece: An Interdisciplinary Characterisation and Use Study

Abstract In a rescue excavation of a Roman funerary complex located at the city of Patras, Achaia, Greece, an assemblage of high quality glass vessels of the 2nd-3rd c. AD was recovered. Here we present the results from the physicochemical examination of the collection using a combination of non-destructive techniques, namely optical microscopy, portable X-Ray Fluorescence, Scanning Electron Microscopy and Infrared spectroscopy (IR) techniques. The analyses resulted in the chemical characterization of the glass samples and the identification of a rare example of soda plant-ash glass. Moreover, madder lake was identified as the original content of several glass vessels. Finally, the effect of the original content on the corrosion processes was investigated, along with issues of biocorrosion. Statement of significance The interdisciplinary study of an assemblage of 2nd-3rd c. AD Roman funerary vessel glasses from Patras, Greece is reported. The archaeological and archaeometric study of Roman glass in south and central Greece has so far been limited. The present work is the first attempt to examine the complete chaîne opératoire of Roman funerary glass vessels, using a multi-technique approach. More specifically, the basic aims of the study were (1) the chemical characterization of the glass and the determination of the raw materials used; (2) the determination of the original content of the vessels; and (3) the examination of the corrosion effects on the glass.