SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Firm-To-Firm trade networks

This project analyzes the propagation of shocks through international trade. The microeconomic structure of trade networks is argued to favor the propagation and amplification of shocks with an end-effect on the dynamics and volatility of aggregate trade. The exploitation of highly disaggregated firm-to-firm trade data offers a unique opportunity to analyze these questions into details.

The first part of the proposal studies the determinants of trade networks. I build a search-and-matching framework to explain the formation of bilateral trade relationships as a matching process between individual exporters in one country and individual buyers located in another country. This framework allows explaining the structure of trade networks observed in the data, both in the cross-section and over time. The model is also used to revisit several puzzles of the international economic literature, including the question of welfare gains from trade and the convergence to the law of one price. 

The second part of the proposal studies the consequences of the structure of trade networks for the volatility of trade and its resilience to relative price shocks. I study how the observed connections between individual firms help propagate individual and aggregate shocks, with an end-effect on the volatility of aggregate trade and the comovement of GDPs across countries. The high concentration of trade networks and the strength of production linkages, within and across countries, help amplify the aggregate effect of individual shocks. I also analyze how the structure of trade networks shapes the response of aggregate trade to relative price shocks. The nature and history of firm-to-firm relationships is argued to have implications for the aggregate elasticity of trade.
Physiological Fitness Associated to ACCase Target-Site Resistance Enhances Growth and Reproduction in Phalaris brachystachys

Short-spike canarygrass (Phalaris brachystachys (Link.)) from Iranian wheat fields has developed resistance to acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase) inhibitors due to a target-site mutation (Ile-1781-Thr). Target-site resistance mutations may confer pleiotropic effects in weeds. In this paper, the possible effect of the Ile-1781-Thr mutation on the ecological fitness during life cycles in P. brachystachys plants was investigated. ACCase genes of P. brachystachys populations resistant (R) and susceptible (S) to ACCase inhibitors were sequenced and the vegetative growth and reproductive characteristics of the plants were assessed. In the final growth stage (217 days after planting—DAP), R sub-population plants were 30 cm taller than the S plants. Additionally, the R sub-population produced up to 12 leaves and 2.8 tillers more per plant, and accumulated double the dry weight (2850 g m−2) compared to the S sub-population. The leaf area index (LAI) of the R sub-population was 1.1 times higher than that of the S sub-population. In addition, the net assimilation rate (NAR) and plant growth rate (PGR) between 114 and 182 DAP of the R sub-population were 0.11 and 13 g m−2 d−1 higher than the S sub-population, but the relative growth rate (RGR) was similar between R and S sub-populations. The number of spikes (6 vs. 3.8), the spike length (8.4 vs. 5.5), and number of seeds per plant (1276 vs. 751 seed plant−1) of the R sub-population were higher than the S ones, but the weight (3.25 g) and size (11.6 mm2) of 1000 seeds were similar between populations. The R sub-population of P. brachystachys exhibited higher plant growth and reproductive parameters than the S one, which may increase the frequency of resistance in the population in the absence of adequate weed-control methods.
It’s 2050: Do you know where your nuclear waste is?

In light of Japan’s nuclear disaster, a major lesson can be learned related to the back end of the fuel cycle: Planning is necessary for the safe and secure management of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. But the topic of storing waste continues to be subject to last-minute solutions, as the experiences of a number of countries besides Japan show. Countries with nuclear power programs need a medium-term strategy for spent fuel storage prior to the long-term plan for spent fuel or high-level waste disposal. Though difficult, the disposal of high-level nuclear waste is possible, and a clear strategy to develop a repository combines both technical and societal criteria in a phased approach. After Fukushima, it is now imperative to redefine what makes a successful nuclear power program—from cradle to grave. Nuclear waste management must be designed from the beginning; otherwise, the public in many countries will reject nuclear as an energy choice.
Enhancing the Robustness of the Posterior-Based Confidence Measures Using Entropy Information for Speech Recognition

In this paper, the robustness of the posterior-based confidence measures is improved by utilizing entropy information, which is calculated for speech-unit-level posteriors using only the best recognition result, without requiring a larger computational load than conventional methods. Using different normalization methods, two posterior-based entropy confidence measures are proposed. Practical details are discussed for two typical levels of hidden Markov model (HMM)-based posterior confidence measures, and both levels are compared in terms of their performances. Experiments show that the entropy information results in significant improvements in the posterior-based confidence measures. The absolute improvements of the out-of-vocabulary (OOV) rejection rate are more than 20% for both the phoneme-level confidence measures and the state-level confidence measures for our embedded test sets, without a significant decline of the in-vocabulary accuracy.
Monomer modifications of denture base acrylic resin: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Methyl methacrylate monomer of denture base resins was modified with several monomers to achieve better physico-mechanical properties without compromising the biocompatibility. However, there are no consensuses on the best strategy to achieve best modified monomer.To identify and evaluate the differences in the properties between conventional and modified monomers and to verify the influence of several variables on the properties of denture base acrylic resin.This study was executed by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. In-vitro studies that investigated the properties of conventional and modified monomers were selected. Searches were carried out in the Ebscohost, PubMed, Semantic scholar and J-stage databases. The search commenced from the year 1995 and the last search was done till November 2018. A comparison was performed between modified and unmodified monomers. The analyses were carried out using fixed-effect models.The meta-analysis results showed high heterogeneity in all aspects, and higher flexural strength for monomers modified with 20% methacrylic acid.Although the articles included in this meta-analysis showed high heterogeneity and high risk of bias, the in-vitro literature seems to suggest that use of modified monomers could improve the properties of denture base resins. Other variants of monomer modifications and their tested parameters were discussed in this systematic review as well. Dimensional accuracy is an unexplored variable to be evaluated extensively in the future researches.
Electronic neuropharmacology

As the population ages, neurodegenerative diseases (ND) will have a devastating impact on individuals and society. Despite enormous research efforts there is still no cure for these diseases, only care! The origin of ND is hugely complex, spanning from the molecular level to systemic processes, causing malfunctioning of signalling in the central nervous system (CNS). This signalling includes the coupled processing of biochemical and electrical signals, however current approaches for symptomatic- and disease modifying treatments are all based on biochemical approaches, alone.
Organic bioelectronics has arisen as a promising technology providing signal translation, as sensors and modulators, across the biology-technology interface; especially, it has proven unique in neuronal applications. There is great opportunity with organic bioelectronics since it can complement biochemical pharmacology to enable a twinned electric-biochemical therapy for ND and neurological disorders. However, this technology is traditionally manufactured on stand-alone substrates. Even though organic bioelectronics has been manufactured on flexible and soft carriers in the past, current technology consume space and volume, that when applied to CNS, rule out close proximity and amalgamation between the bioelectronics technology and CNS components – features that are needed in order to reach high therapeutic efficacy.
e-NeuroPharma includes development of innovative organic bioelectronics, that can be in-vivo-manufactured within the brain. The overall aim is to evaluate and develop electrodes, delivery devices and sensors that enable a twinned biochemical-electric therapy approach to combat ND and other neurological disorders. e-NeuroPharma will focus on the development of materials that can cross the blood-brain-barrier, that self-organize and -polymerize along CNS components, and that record and regulate relevant electrical, electrochemical and physical parameters relevant to ND and disorders
Embedded neuromorphic sensory processor

Neuromorphic computing has demonstrated high potential for creating computing systems with order-of-magnitude improvements in energy efficiency and robustness to noisy or unreliable sensory signals, such as those inherent in vision. However, a significant roadblock to realizing the full potential of this emerging brain-inspired technology is the current practical need to use inefficient and slow (high latency) legacy von Neumann architectures to convert the input data that needs to be processed, and supply it to the neuromorphic system for further processing. 
A promising solution to this problem is the recent availability of state-of-the-art neuromorphic sensors, which produce asynchronous event-based output in a form for neuromorphic processing. In parallel, we have developed state-of-the-art neuromorphic processors in the ERC NeuroP project, opening the path to creating fully neuromorphic combined sensing and processing systems.
Here we will demonstrate the potential of this technology by building a proof of concept Neuromorphic Sensory Processor (NSP), which will directly interface the neuromorphic Dynamic Vision Sensor with one of the neuromorphic processor devices developed in the ERC NeuroP project. This will represent the first ever general-purpose, end-to-end, fully neuromorphic vision sensing and processing system available for general usage.
In this project we will build a technology demonstrator and a detailed commercial business case for this technology, and demonstrate both its technological and commercial advantages. Possible applications for the technology include ultra-high performance and ultra-low power visual processing in ambient surveillance, driver assistance, mobile/wearable devices and robotics.
Intelligent Framework for Web-Service Testing

&lt;p&gt;Web services provides a distributed computing architecture, with an emerging way of service oriented architecture (SQA). Here service oriented architecture is an interface to both computer systems and web services. Which implements an interaction with each other in new and different ways. According to service oriented architecture it virtually provides a platform for web services to communicate with each other. As it was an easy way for communicating with both clients and services. Many organizations and companies are either evaluating themselves into an enterprise information architectures, or they are in the process of getting adopt to the web services technology. As web services are platform independent it is playing a major role in the enterprise environment, and currently web services are widely accepted by many companies and organizations. So commonly web services possess some challenges to the enterprise environment. As a part of it web service must be tested before publish into a service oriented architecture. It involves large number of test cases, test scenarios that takes more time and effort. Testing management is needed so that it should control the time effort and should reduce the complexity of web service in a large software system, also in a real time world. Automation testing faces these challenges and fixes these issues. Automation testing has an ability to handle the complexities which are experiencing by the web services in a current environment. This paper presents the automatic testing strategies of a web service and detect the problems between both manual and automation testing. Finally results shows the proper effective report on improving the visibility of testing process based on the web approach to enhance the critical communication among multiple testing groups.&lt;/p&gt;
Renewable energy consumption, environmental degradation and economic growth: the greener the richer?

Climate change presents the greatest challenge facing all countries of the world in the new millennium. Among others, objective 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims at adopting urgent measures to contrast climate change and its consequences. Part of the decline in the global growth of emissions has been the increase in using renewable energies. In this context, the relationship among GDP, CO2 emissions, and renewable energy use has been investigated in this study, starting from a systematic review that has noticed the presence of three clusters focused on: CO2 emissions, GDP, and energy consumption. Despite the current level of interest in examining the relationship among these variables, there have been few empirical studies. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper has been focused on the Scandinavian countries, where the use of renewable energies has steadily increased, developing novel panel analysis estimates. Using a dataset of these five economies over a 1990–2018 time period, several panel data tests have been carried out, in order to robustly assess the causality issue among renewable energies, CO2 emissions, and GDP. The results of the empirical analysis imply that renewable energy consumption is a useful policy instrument to reduce CO2 emissions without adversely affecting GDP growth. The main implications have been that the decrease of CO2 emissions, by increasing renewable energy use, can guarantee high levels of energy efficiency and economic growth. These empirical findings help design innovative energy policy roadmaps and accelerate the ecological transition through the promotion of renewable energy and the reduction of GHG emissions.
Business process re-engineering and functional toolkit for gdpr compliance

The goal of BPR4GDPR is to provide a holistic framework able to support end-to-end GDPR-compliant intra- and inter-organisational ICT-enabled processes at various scales, while also being generic enough, fulfilling operational requirements covering diverse application domains. To this end, proposed solutions will have a strong semantic foundation and cover the full process lifecycle addressing major challenges and priorities posed by the regulation, including requirements interpretation, broad territorial scope, accountability, security means enforcement, data subject’s rights and consent, unified data view and processing actions inventory, privacy by design, etc.
The starting point will be process models, either automatically discovered through organisation logs or manually specified, formally expressed through a Compliance Metamodel, a comprehensive process modelling technology able to capture advanced privacy provisions. Thereupon, a highly expressive policy framework will guide the automatic verification of these models regarding GDPR requirements, and their subsequent transformation, so that they are rendered inherently privacy-aware before being deployed for execution. Subsequently, the consistent execution of GDPR-compliant processes will be ensured by a comprehensive set of tools able to support all diverging requirements that may arise from GDPR, related to data handling, data subjects’ involvement, various PETs, etc., so that even organisations with currently no such infrastructure in place can readily have such mechanisms. Finally, process mining will be extensively used for the ex post analysis of processes, in order to ensure that specified policies are indeed enforced. However, apart from verifying compliance, such techniques will offer the added value of automatically improving process models over time towards optimised fulfillment of both legal and business requirements. 
Deployed on the Cloud, BPR4GDPR will provide for Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS)
Inclusion and Human Rights in Health Policies: Comparative and Benchmarking Analysis of 51 Policies from Malawi, Sudan, South Africa and Namibia

While many health services strive to be equitable, accessible and inclusive, peoples' right to health often goes unrealized, particularly among vulnerable groups. The extent to which health policies explicitly seek to achieve such goals sets the policy context in which services are delivered and evaluated. An analytical framework was developed--EquiFrame--to evaluate 1) the extent to which 21 Core Concepts of human rights were addressed in policy documents, and 2) coverage of 12 Vulnerable Groups who might benefit from such policies. Using this framework, analysis of 51 policies across Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Sudan, confirmed the relevance of all Core Concepts and Vulnerable Groups. Further, our analysis highlighted some very strong policies, serious shortcomings in others as well as country-specific patterns. If social inclusion and human rights do not underpin policy formation, it is unlikely they will be inculcated in service delivery. EquiFrame facilitates policy analysis and benchmarking, and provides a means for evaluating policy revision and development.
Service de vente d’Internet intelligent

Number_reference_aid_programme: SA.42799(2015/X), aid_de_minimis: Point 42 du règlement du ministre des Infrastructures et du Développement du 10 juillet 2015 relatif à l’octroi d’une aide financière par l’Agence polonaise pour le développement des entreprises dans le cadre du programme opérationnel «Croissance intelligente» 2014-2020. Le projet consiste à concevoir et développer un service de vente Internet intelligent (système informatique) adapté aux besoins du demandeur intégré à son site web. Le projet se distingue en particulier par le fait que la requérante, en tant que petite entreprise (4 employés), souhaiterait utiliser un outil informatique pour optimiser l’implication des forces et des ressources de l’entreprise d’une manière si intelligente et dépendante du marché pour minimiser les coûts de fonctionnement de l’entreprise. L’ISSI fonctionne tient compte des fonctions suivantes: 1. intégration avec les portails de vente utilisés par le demandeur (allegro, ebay, amazon), 2. réception automatique et séparation des commandes, 3. analyse de l’exécution des paiements, 4. mise en service et supervision de la cueillette des colis, 5. coordination de l’expédition dans le cadre du calcul des frais d’expédition (y compris non standard — résultant d’accords spéciaux dans la société de messagerie), validité de l’expédition, messagerie, direction, 6. analyse des stocks, prévision des états en fonction du calendrier et de la logistique de la sécurisation des besoins (préparation des commandes pour les fournisseurs et paiements), 7. le règlement des paiements multidevises, 8. l’intégration avec le système wfmag du demandeur, 9. le contrôle des créances et l’état actuel des ressources financières de la société, la 10e répartition des forces de l’entreprise pour l’exécution des tâches, 11. la communication des résultats des activités de l’entreprise selon des sections transversales définies, 12. la déclaration des effets des activités de l’entreprise selon des sections modélisées. Le système devrait être basé sur des algorithmes d’intelligence artificielle fonctionnant sur la base de bases de données accumulées, l’analyse des mouvements de courant dans la gamme de c
Moralité et arbitraire: un regard sur le rapport entre les agents publiques et les bénéficiaires de la Bolsa Família

Cet article a pour but de contribuer à l’analyse de l’implémentation locale du Programme Bolsa Família. En plus de ses objectifs déclarés, on essaie de comprendre comment les arbitraires, les préjugés et les stigmatisations sont construits autant dans la relation entre les agents publiques et les bénéficiaires que dans le contexte d’interaction des bénéficiaires avec leur voisinage. La base méthodologique repose sur 70 entretiens qui ont été conduits avec trois grands groupes : les familles bénéficiaires (femme responsable légale, conjoint/compagnon et adolescents), les acteurs institutionnels (agents sociaux, agents de santé, enseignants, coordinateur de la Bolsa Família et personnel du bureau d’inscription) et les voisins (non bénéficiaires de la Bolsa Família qui ont pourtant la même situation socio-économique). La recherche a été réalisée dans une périphérie de la région métropolitaine de Rio de Janeiro. On y a parcouru plusieurs lieux fréquentés par les bénéficiaires comme : écoles, postos de saúde, coordination de la Bolsa Família et le secteur d’inscription, Centre de Référence d’Assistance Sociale (CRAS) et restaurant populaire.
Intercultural Management as an Important Aspect of Modern Managers’ Work: Educational Challenges

The issue of intercultural management has become particularly pertinent because of globalization and the internationalization of economic activity undertaken by contemporary companies. Intercultural management and its challenges are extensively analysed in numerous Polish and foreign publications. The significant role played by intercultural management primarily stems from the tremendous impact it exerts on the efficient functioning of multicultural teams, the relationships between the people in these teams, and their communication and motivation. Moreover, at present it is a crucial aspect of the everyday work of managers operating in culturally diverse work environments. The article is of a theoretical nature. The first part describes the role and importance of manager values in the context of cultural diversity in their work environments, followed by the presentation of the concept and meaning of intercultural management. Next, the impact managers exert on the management of culturally diverse teams in modern organizations is analysed. The final part describes selected challenges connected to educating and training modern managers to work in intercultural work environments. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the role and importance of intercultural management as a vital aspect of modern managers’ work and to identify educational challenges related to this area.