Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multidisciplinary study of the “Salinelle" of Paternò mud volcanoes: characteristics of the fluids and possible correlations with the activity of Mt. Etna

Monitoring of hydrothermal fluid emissions can provide detailed information about convective upwelling of geothermal fluids and their geochemical characteristics, as a function of tectonic stress or deeper gas input. In particular, at the Salinelle of Mt. Etna Geosite (Paternò and Belpasso, Eastern Sicily) natural emissions mainly consist of a fluid phase made of salty water, mud, gas and liquid hydrocarbons from an admixture of magmatic and hydrothermal gases. In this framework, our study mainly focused on the thermal and geochemical monitoring of hydrothermal fluids of the most active site, Salinelle dei Cappuccini . Nearby hydrothermal vents ( Salinelle del Fiume ; Salinelle di San Biagio) , were also investigated. Analysis of the magnitude and frequency of seismic events all around Mt. Etna were conducted as well. Analysis of daily temperatures showed a constant trend: higher values ( > 35° C) within the first monitoring period, followed by a strong decrease (down to 9° C), and a new gradual increase over the following months. This trend seems to be linked to magmatic processes occurring at depth below Mt. Etna, and could lead to a modification of the geochemical and thermal characteristics of the fluids issuing at the mud-pools and gas vents of Salinelle. The higher the frequency of seismic events corresponding to higher daily energy released, the higher fluid temperatures observed. Understanding how these fluids blend and what is their relationship with Mt. Etna volcanism can be of great importance in forecasting new eruptive cycles in the case they precede changes in volcanic activity. in the flux of high-enthalpy fluids due to crustal stress changes induced by intrusion of newly ascending magma can modify the gas-water interaction process in the shallow aquifers crossed by major faults that act as gas escape pathways through the crust beneath Mt Etna. This can explain the marked modifications of the geochemical characteristics of the fluids issuing at the surface, mostly their temperature, in the mud pools of the Salinelle.
Efficient adenoviral infection with I k B a reveals that macrophage tumor necrosis factor a production in rheumatoid arthritis is NF- k B dependent

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) a has been shown to be a major therapeutic target in rheumatoid arthritis with the success of anti-TNF a antibody clinical trials. Although signaling pathways leading to TNF a expression have been studied in some detail, there is evidence for considerable differences between individual cell types. This prompted us to investigate the intracellular signaling pathways that result in increased TNF a synthesis from macrophages in the diseased synovial joint tissue. Using an adenoviral system in vitro we report the successful delivery of genes to more than 95% of normal human macrophages. This permitted us to show, by using adenoviral transfer of I k B a , the natural inhibitor of NF- k B, that induction of TNF a in normal human macrophages by lipopolysaccharide, but not by some other stimuli, was inhibited by 80%. Furthermore the spontaneous production of TNF a from human rheumatoid joint cell cultures was inhibited by 75%, indicating that the NF- k B pathway is an essential step for TNF a synthesis in synovial macrophages and demonstrating that NF- k B should be an effective therapeutic
Analyst Conservatism in Poor Information Environments: The Effect on Earnings Management and the Likelihood of Meeting or Beating the Analyst Consensus

Conservative analysts react more to negative news than positive news, and the market response is greater for forecast revisions from conservative analysts, specifically in poor information environments (Hugon and Muslu, 2010; Keskek and Tse, 2018). While market participants have been shown to respond more to conservative analysts in poor information environments, little is known about how firms and managers respond to having a more conservative analyst following. We examine the effect of analyst conservatism on both accrual-based earnings management and the likelihood of meeting or beating the consensus forecast. Consistent with conservative analysts having a greater monitoring effect on managers, we find that firms in poor information environments with more conservative analyst followings engage in less income-increasing accrual-based earnings management. These results are stronger when analyst conservatism is easier for managers to identify. We also find that firms with a more conservative analyst following are more likely to meet or beat the consensus analyst forecast. Conservative analysts issue relatively lower earnings forecasts in response to both good and bad news, resulting in benchmarks which are easier for firms to meet or beat. a given firm forecast. Our results suggest that manager and firm behavior is associated not only with a specific analyst characteristic (conservatism), but also the information environment. We advance the literature by examining manager and firm behavior while simultaneously consider analyst characteristics and the information environment.
Design of adaptive unstructured grids using differential methods

Adaptive generation of computational grids can improve the eﬃciency of mathematical modeling by increasing the accuracy of numerical approximations. The paper describes a method for constructing unstructured grids with adaptation based on diﬀerential methods. The application of these methods ensures a smooth distribution of the geometric characteristics of the grid, i
Driving styles and the effect on passengers : - Developing ride comfort indicators

Poor ride experience in principle leads to lower attractiveness of the public transportation system. How big is the divers’ role for bus and rail passengers’ perceived comfort and how much are they affected by various misbehaviors? Interviews showed that heavy braking and cornering forces, jerks as well as uneven speed affect passengers' comfort experience.
School Leadership: A Narra�ve Review of Literature

Objec�ve: The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of empirical studies on school leadership across the globe and then specifically for public high schools in Vietnam. There are very few studies done on the leadership of school leaders in Vietnamese public schools and how leadership can affect the school’s overall performance. Hence this review aims to address this gap and provide a review of leadership prac�ces, the effect of school leadership which might enhance the leadership at public high schools in Vietnam Journal of Intercultural Management Vol. 13 | No. 3 | September 2021 pp. 47–74 DOI 10.2478/joim-2021-0066
Heterogeneous Sensor Fusion with GMPHD for Environmentally Adaptable Obstacle Detection in Mobility Systems

: Obstacle detection is an essential process in consumer’s autonomous mobility systems such as autonomous vehicles inside the dedicated lane to acquire the location of obstacles, and it has become a popular topic in this decade with the blooming of various object detection algorithms and the enhancement of sensor quality. To maintain high accuracy of obstacles’ detection in mobility systems outdoor, a sensor fusion system is required to essentially support environmental inﬂuence such as lousy weather as well as high moving speeds and adaptably deal with clutter and miss detection based on the incoming measurements from heterogenous sensors with Camera, LiDAR and Radar. Since no current literature about Gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density (GMPHD) handles the above low accu- racy fusion problem due to environmental inﬂuence for heterogeneous sensors, we propose the concept of integrating GMPHD to heterogeneous sensor fusion with three architectures, Track-to-Track-Fusion (T2TF), Measurement-to- Track-Fusion (M2TF) and Track-to-Association-Fusion (T2AF) and further evaluate their performances respectively in terms of their fusion improvement abilities to determine their practicalities for mobility systems by using the sim- ulation datasets which reproduce ordinary and poorer conditions with the degradation of sensors’ performance in the assumption of environmental inﬂuences.
Hepatitis E virus infection in buffaloes in South China

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is an important global public health issue. HEV infections are recognized as a zoonotic disease. Swine are believed to be the main reservoir of HEV. Recently, yaks, cows, and yellow cattle have been reported as new reservoirs of HEV. However, whether other species of cattle and buffaloes are sensitive to HEV infection is unknown. To investigate the prevalence of HEV infection in buffaloes, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-nPCR) were performed. Only one buffalo was positive to anti-HEV IgM antibody (1/106, 0.94%), and none were positive for anti-HEV IgG antibody. To our surprise, five serum (5/106, 4.72%) and three milk samples (3/40, 7.50%) from buffaloes were positive to HEV RNA. All strains of HEV isolated from buffaloes belong to genotype 4. Results indicate that buffaloes may be a new reservoir of HEV.
Combining reduced dynamics models and whole-body control for agile humanoid locomotion

Bipedal locomotion is a difficult control problem due to issues such as underactuation, unilateral constraints and the hybrid nature of stepping. In this work, using the reduced model of CoM dynamics, analytical controllers are designed for both walking and running. Both methods are powerful, purely analytical and very insightful. In a second step, the locomotion controllers are successfully embedded into a quadratic programming based whole-body control framework, which ensures good trade-offs between different necessary tasks and accomplishes the bipedal locomotion tasks.
Design of Ultra-Thin and Compact Metamaterial Monopolar Patch Antenna with Broad Bandwidth

Abstract A novel magneto-electro-dielectric waveguided metamaterial (MED-WG-MTM) that the effective permeability εeff is changed obviously with the decrease of substrate’s thickness is proposed. The proposed MTM can be used to simultaneously achieve the miniaturization and ultra-thin profile of overall antenna. Then, for demonstrated the characteristic, a coplanar-waveguide (CPW)-fed antenna by loading the proposed MTM is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured result shows that the S11 less than –10 dB is from 1.48 to 5.08 GHz (109.7 % bandwidth) and 72 % miniaturization is achieved. The results between simulation and measurement coincide well. The thickness of the overall antenna is only 0. 003λmax, which is smallest compared with the reported ones. (λmax is the wavelength at the lowest operating frequency).
Multiomics-empowered Deep Phenotyping of Ulcerative Colitis Identifies Biomarker Signatures Reporting Functional Remission States

Objective: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic disease with rising incidence and unclear etiology. The application of mass spectrometry-based analysis methods shall support the establishment of systemic molecular biomarker signatures providing status information with regard to individual UC pathomechanisms. Design: UC pathomechanisms were assessed by proteome profiling of human tissue specimen, obtained from five distinct colon locations each of 12 patients. Systemic disease-associated alterations were investigated in a cross-sectional setting by mass spectrometry-based multi-omics analyses comprising proteins, metabolites and eicosanoids of plasma obtained from UC patients during disease and upon remission in comparison to healthy controls. Results: Tissue proteome profiling identified colitis-associated activation of neutrophils, macrophages, B- and T-cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells and platelets, and indicated hypoxic stress, as well as a general downregulation of mitochondrial proteins accompanying the establishment of apparent wound healing-promoting activities including scar formation. While the immune cells mainly contributed pro-inflammatory proteins, the colitis-associated epithelial cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells and platelets predominantly formed anti-inflammatory and wound healing-promoting proteins. Blood plasma proteomics indicated chronic inflammation and platelet activation, whereas plasma metabolomics identified disease-associated deregulation of bile acids, eicosanoids and gut microbiome-derived metabolites. Upon remission, several, but not all, molecular candidate biomarker levels recovered to normal levels. These findings may indicate that pathomechanisms related to gut functions, gut microbiome status, microvascular damage and metabolic dysregulation associated with hypoxia may not resolve uniformly during remission. Conclusions: This study integrates and expands the knowledge about local and systemic effects of UC and identifies biomarker profiles related to molecular UC pathomechanisms.
Pro- and anti-fibrotic effects of vascular endothelial growth factor in chronic kidney diseases

Abstract Renal fibrosis is the inevitable common end-point of all progressive chronic kidney diseases. The underlying mechanisms of renal fibrosis are complex, and currently there is no effective therapy against renal fibrosis. Renal microvascular rarefaction contributes to the progression of renal fibrosis; however, an imbalance between proangiogenic and antiangiogenic factors leads to the loss of renal microvasculature. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the most important pro-angiogenic factor. Recent studies have unraveled the involvement of VEGF in the regulation of renal microvascular rarefaction and fibrosis via various mechanisms; however, it is not clear whether it has anti-fibrotic or pro-fibrotic effect. This paper reviews the available evidence pertaining to the function of VEGF in the fibrotic process and explores the associated underlying mechanisms. Our synthesis will help identify the future research priorities for developing specialized treatments for alleviating or preventing renal fibrosis. Abbreviation: VEGF: vascular endothelial growth factor; CKD: chronic kidney disease; ESKD: end-stage kidney disease; ER: endoplasmic reticulum; VEGFR: vascular endothelial growth factor receptor; AKI: acute kidney injury; EMT: epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; HIF: hypoxia-inducible factor; α-SMA: α smooth muscle actin; UUO: unilateral ureteral obstruction; TGF-β: transforming growth factor-β; PMT: pericyte-myofibroblast transition; NO: nitric oxide; NOS: nitric oxide synthase; nNOS: neuronal nitric oxide synthase; iNOS: inducible nitric oxide synthase; eNOS: endothelial nitric oxide synthase; sGC: soluble guanylate cyclase; PKG: soluble guanylate cyclase dependent protein kinases; UP R: unfolded protein response
Chattering-Free Time Domain Passivity Approach

The time-domain passivity approach (TDPA) has gained considerable attention (even beyond the fields of haptics and teleoperation) because it can ensure passivity while maintaining high system performance. Despite its simplicity and effectiveness, the practical applications of this method are limited by its high-frequency force modification, so-called chattering. Virtual mass-spring (VMS) filters have been proposed to overcome this limitation. However, such approaches also suffer from certain limitations attributable to the distorted forces. Herein, we propose a method to mitigate the chattering of the TDPA, while also retaining its merits. We introduce a non-zero velocity threshold, within which the adaptive damping of the TDPA is scaled down, to attenuate the chattering while maintaining a stable response significantly. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are evaluated using a time-delayed bilateral teleoperation system. We confirm that the proposed method can significantly outperform the conventional and VMS filter-based TDPAs.
Mycorrhizal type of woody plants influences understory species richness in British broadleaved woodlands

Summary Mature temperate woodlands are commonly dominated by ectomycorrhizal trees, whereas understory plants predominantly form arbuscular mycorrhizal associations. Due to differences in plant–fungus compatibility between canopy and ground layer vegetation the ‘mycorrhizal mediation hypothesis’ predicts that herbaceous plant establishment may be limited by a lack of suitable mycorrhizal fungal inoculum. We examined plant species data for 103 woodlands across Great Britain recorded in 1971 and in 2000 to test whether herbaceous plant species richness was related to the proportion of arbuscular mycorrhizal woody plants. We compared the effect of mycorrhizal type with other important drivers of woodland plant species richness. We found a positive effect of the relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal woody plants on herbaceous plant species richness. The size of the observed effect was smaller than that of pH. Moreover, the effect persisted over time, despite many woodlands undergoing marked successional change and increased understorey shading. This work supports the mycorrhizal mediation hypothesis in British woodlands and suggests that increased abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal woody plants is associated with greater understory plant species richness.
Engagement patterns with female and male scientists on Facebook

Social networks are becoming powerful agents mediating between science and the public. Considering the public tendency to associate science with men makes investigating representations of female scientists in social media important. Here we set out to find whether the commenting patterns to text-based science communication are similar. To examine these, we collected and analyzed posts (165) and their comments (10,006) published between 2016 and 2018 on an Israeli popular science Facebook page. We examined post characteristics as well as the relevance and sentiment of comments. Several gendered differences in commenting patterns emerged. Posts published by female scientists received more irrelevant and fewer relevant comments. Female scientists received more hostile and positive comments. These findings are consistent with results of previous research, but also demonstrate a more nuanced understanding that when female scientists write using scientific jargon (usually an unwanted feature of popular science writing), they received less hostile comments and were given less advice.
Enhancing inter-organisational partnerships in integrated care models for older adults: a multiple case study.

PURPOSE The purpose of this paper was to develop deeper insights into the practices enacted by entrepreneurial healthcare managers to enhance the implementation of a partnership logic in integrated care models for older adults. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH A multiple case study design in two urban centres in two jurisdictions in Canada, Ontario and Quebec. Data collection included 65 semi-structured interviews with policymakers, managers and providers and analysis of key policy documents. The institutional entrepreneur theory provided the theoretical lens and informed a reflexive iterative data analysis. FINDINGS While each case faced unique challenges, there were similarities and differences in how managers enhanced a partnership's institutional logic. In both cases, entrepreneurial healthcare managers created new roles, negotiated mutually beneficial agreements and co-located staff to foster inter-organisational partnerships between public, private and community organisations in the continuum of care for older adults. In addition, managers in Ontario secured additional funding, while managers in Quebec organised biannual meetings and joint training to enhance inter-organisational partnerships. ORIGINALITY/VALUE This study has two main implications. First, efforts to enhance inter-organisational partnerships should strategically include institutional entrepreneurs. Second, successful institutional changes may be supported by investing in integrated implementation strategies that target roles of staff, co-location and inter-organisational agreements.
Live Birth Rate Following Bed Rest Versus Early Mobilization After Embryo Transfer: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis

Embryo transfer (ET) is the final step of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Different strategies have been proposed to increase the likelihood of implantation, such as post-transfer bed rest. The objective of this manuscript was to compare the clinical outcomes of embryo transfers after IVF of patients offered rest vs. early ambulation. The patient, intervention, comparison, and outcome(s) (PICO) model was used to select the study population, which included women/couples submitted to IVF and prescribed bed rest or early ambulation. Only studies including live birth (LB) as an outcome were included (www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/CRD42020188716) A systematic search for studies was conducted on MEDLINE, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library. A librarian coordinated the searches in May 2020, which considered articles published since 1995. All original peer-reviewed articles in English were included, regardless of study design. The search retrieved 27 citations, of which 14 were eligible for full-text analysis and four accepted for inclusion. The studies included data on 21,598 patients/cycles (rest: 20,138; early ambulation: 1,460). Patients prescribed bed rest had an LB rate of 43.6% vs. 52.5% in the individuals not offered bed rest. The meta-analysis yielded an odds ratio of 0.77 (95% CI 0.5-1.2), which means patients on bed rest were 23% less likely to have a LB; nevertheless, this difference was not statistically significant. Considering that there is no difference between the two strategies, there is no evidence to recommend bed rest after embryo transfer.
BRDF of human skin in the visible spectrum

Purpose Significant research has been carried out in terms of development of new bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) instruments; however, there is still little research available regarding spectral BRDF measurements of human skin. This study aims to investigate the variation in human skin reflectance using a new fibre optic-based spectral-BRDF measurement device. Design/methodology/approach Design of this system mainly involves use of multiple fibre optics to illuminate and detect light reflected from a sample, whereas a hemispherical dome was 3D printed to mount the fibres at various slant/tilt angles. To investigate the spectral differences in BRDF of human skin, 3 narrowband filters in the visible spectrum were used, whereas measurements were taken from the back of the hand for Caucasian and Asian skin types. Findings The experiments demonstrate that the BRDF of human skin varies with wavelengths in the visible spectrum and it is also different for Caucasian and Asian skin types. Both skin types exhibit off-specular reflection with increase in angle of incidence and show less variation with respect to viewing angles when the angle of incidence is normal to the surface. Research implications A database of spectral BRDF measurements of human skin will help not only in creating realistic skin renderings but also in development of novel skin reflectance models for biomedical and machine vision applications. The measurements would also provide means to validate the predictions from existing light transport/spectral simulation models for human skin and will ultimately help in the accurate diagnosis and simulation of various skin disorders. Originality/value The proposed system provides fast scatter measurements by utilising multiple fibres to detect light simultaneously at different angles while also allowing easy switching between incident light directions. Due to its flexible design and contact-based measurements, the device is independent of errors due to sample movements and does not require any image registration. Also, measurements taken from the device show that the BRDF of skin varies significantly in the visible spectrum and it is different for Caucasian and Asian skin types.