SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Resilience in ant societies

Complex systems are found at all levels of biological organisation, from molecules to ecosystems. Despite the huge differences in scale, each of them has evolved homeostatic processes conferring resilience to external perturbations. Ants provide an ideal system to identify behavioural responses allowing biological systems to recover from disturbance. The overall aim of this proposal is to identify the collective mechanisms responsible for this resilience. This will be achieved by conducting both abiotic and biotic perturbations. Abiotic perturbations such as flooding frequently have major effects on the demography of the workforce, for example by whipping out all the foragers. We will therefore perform highly controlled perturbations (e.g., targeted removal of worker groups) designed to induce compensatory changes in the behavioural trajectories of the remaining ants to test whether ants can deviate from their baseline behavioural trajectory to mitigate the effect of external perturbations A major biotic challenge faced by all highly social species is the rapid spread of disease between closely-packed conspecifics. Because the kinetics of disease transmission in social groups depends upon the structure of the interaction network, we will investigate how the prophylactic properties of the social interaction network emerge from the individual-level behaviours. Finally, we will perform controlled inoculations with a generalist fungal pathogen to identify active individual-level behavioural responses that further hinder pathogen transmission. The proposed studies which capitalise on two recent methodological advancements (the development of sophisticated network analysis tools and, a tracking system which allows unprecedented collection of behavioural data (e.g., millions of pairwise interactions) will make important contributions to our understanding of processes involved in resilience of complex systems and how animal societies respond to stochastic environments.
Web 2.5: The Symbiotic Web

A new form of symbiosis is developing on the Web. The current ecommerce model, which relies heavily on the supply of 'free' content, has made individuals and commercial enterprises mutually dependent: enterprises have built business models reliant on a currency of personal data, while individuals expect free access to services supplied by search engines, email systems and social networking sites, and media services such as YouTube and Hulu. These 'free' services use personal data to generate revenues through targeted advertising, profile building, and the direct brokering of personal data. The symbiosis is essentially benign-it lies behind many recent positive developments. Both users and the businesses that provide online services benefit. Nevertheless, there are significant risks associated with this symbiotic nature that need to be addressed. This paper will describe the model that is the Symbiotic Web, explain the risks associated with it, and suggest possible approaches to address them.
Modelling and optimal design of refractories for high-temperature industrial applications for a low carbon society

Population growth is combined with unprecedented improvements in standards of living for developing countries so that a massive demand for steel is expected for the construction of new infrastructures. This is going to produce a massive waste of energy and CO2 emission which cannot be tolerated by the world’s ecosystems. Indeed, steel production requires enormous amounts of energy and resources and consequently is a major source of pollution in terms of CO2 emission and waste production.
Therefore, improvement and optimization of steel production targeted to sustainability and to the reduction of its eco-footprint are of crucial importance, if Europe is to maintain on the one hand its own steel industry and the environmental challenge on the other. 
In this sector (and others which deal with high-temperature liquids, e.g. aluminium, glass, molten salts in thermal solar power stations) the performance of refractory materials and related components plays a key role in energy efficiency, waste reduction and processing times.
In order to drastically reduce the overall CO2 emissions from the production of steel, the development of breakthrough technologies is crucial.
The overarching objective of the RE-FRACTURE2 project is to derive new computational models for refractory materials, which will make possible for the first time to simulate in-silico their behaviour over the whole of working temperature range. These models will be a breakthrough in the design of components like refractory nozzles, plates, ladle and tundish slide gate systems, which will directly translate to energy savings, waste reduction and decreases in pollution and CO2 emission, together with safety improvements.
This goal will be achieved by the training of a new generation of “environment enthusiast designers” who will keep Europe to be the leading country in sustainable growth for a low carbon society.
Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: A Profile of the Healing Goddess

In his introduction to Ancient Mesopotamia, A. L. Oppenheim expressed his doubts about the feasibility to write a systematic account of Mesopotamian religion (1977, p. 172; cf. 1950). Indeed, if we understand religion as the sum of individual, conceptual and social concepts and take into account the nature and the state of preservation of the sources, it becomes evident that any description must remain incomplete. This is also the case when portraying the figure of the Ancient Mesopotamian healing goddess or goddesses. As a matter of fact, five deities were associated with the domain of healing and merged together into principally one goddess. Though they are all presented in the following discussion, emphasis is laid on the specific character of the healing goddess.
Reflexiones de un joven con discapacidad visual sobre su experiencia escolar

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar las reflexiones que produce un estudiante de bachillerato con discapacidad visual sobre su experiencia escolar a través de la técnica de foto-voz. Se trata de un estudio de caso que analiza cuatro encuentros en los que fueron utilizados guiones de entrevista semiestructurados, participó un alumno de primer año de bachillerato regular de un municipio del interior del Estado de São Paulo en Brasil. Los principales hallazgos están relacionados a la efectividad de la técnica para promover reflexiones y motivar la participación de los alumnos a través de sus propios relatos; con ellos el estudiante mostró interés por ser un agente que promueve cambios para él mismo y su comunidad.
Ro-Boost inno smes – boosting the innovative potential of romanian smes

In the context of innovation-divided Europe and scarce consultancy in RDI, Macro Region 4 Romania is in full process of moving towards a "turning point" of economic positioning in a climate of globalization, disruptive innovations and circular economies. This dynamic brings to surface impediments innovation actors in the region face multiple challenges, while their ability to overcome them is crucial to the impact of such changes.  The core members of the Ro-Boost SMEs consortium are aware that it is time for smart action in order to achieve the goal of reducing the innovation divide among companies. Based on the vision stated in the Ro-Boost SMEs Implementation Strategy, the core members of the consortium jointly elaborated the project "Ro-Boost Inno SMEs" aimed at consolidating innovative businesses - rooted into the Smart Specialisation Strategy - and to expand their position within the sector global value chains. To achieve this goal, dedicated innovation support envisaged at the beginning of 2015 shall be continued in order to increase added value of SMEs and innovative sectors in the global economy, using an innovative delivery system and consolidating the community of innovators. 
The proposal is built around the expertise of relevant partners at Macro Region 4 level and in-depth competences gained in 2015-2016. It shall also capitalize on the impact generated in the previous period in order to gain further recognition of the innovation management as success driver among SMEs in terms of both economic impact and innovation culture within business environment.
Molecular mechanisms of photoprotection in plants.

Photosynthesis is a biological process of primary importance, as it provides the energy that drives food, feedstock and biofuel production and mitigates climate change. Light in excess of photosynthetic capacity can be damaging, thus ways to protect against damage have evolved, including ways to minimize light absorption, detoxify reactive oxygen species generated by excess light, and dissipate excess absorbed light. Together, these processes are known as photoprotection. Despite the physiological importance of photoprotection, the molecular mechanisms that protect against light stress remain largely unknown, especially those that protect from prolonged light stress. The objective of the proposed research project is to solve molecular mechanisms of photoprotection in plants. My specific aims are to 1) investigate the function of known involved factors in sustained energy dissipation in the model plant Arabidopsis, 2) identify novel molecular players and 3) use an organism that is genetically adapted to cope with high light stress, the evergreen Norway spruce. The research will be carried out in my laboratory where genetics, biochemistry, biophysics and physiological approaches will be combined to address this problem. The research in my group will provide insights into fundamental mechanisms of light energy capture, utilization and dissipation and will lead to the identification of new targets for manipulation, key to increasing yields of energy and food crops.
A Flexibility Home Energy Management System to Support Agreggator Requests in Smart Grids

Energy flexibility will play a key role in the proper functioning of energy systems, introducing a set of benefits to all involved stakeholders and changing the shape of electricity markets as we know them. It is expected that new players with different interests will emerge in this context. Particularly, the aggregators might allow end-users to be aware of their consumption flexibility value, or merely facilitate consumer’s participation, for instance through the use of demand response. To this end, a prompt system response allowing the interaction between aggregators and residential users is needed. Therefore, the so-called Home Energy Management System (HEMS) becomes an active tool to communicate end-users with aggregators, performing the necessary changes in the consumption profiles in benefit of all involved parts. In this paper, a model with the objective of achieving a match between the flexibility required by an aggregator and the flexibility offered by residential users through the HEMS capability of shifting specific appliances is proposed. The model is then solved using a well-known swarm intelligence algorithm, the particle swarm optimization (PSO). An illustrative example of how the model is optimized using PSO, re-scheduling appliances to meet a flexibility curve, is presented. After that, a case study with 15 appliances based on real profiles of home devices is solved showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach to procure flexibility.
Targeting 5-lipoxygenase in the context of acute myeloid leukemia

Drug efficacy is cornerstone for successful drug discovery programs. Considering that, on average, FDA-approved drugs modulate dozens of off-targets it remains imperative to find strategies to overcome adverse drug reactions correlated with pernicious polypharmacology. In fact, several chemical entities displaying promising anticancer are discontinued from drug development pipelines due to narrow therapeutic windows in pre-clinical models. Here, we propose the development of antibody-drug conjugates exploring the unique bioactivity profile of the naphthoquinone natural product-lapachone (Lp) against acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an unmet medical need. Using a machine learning method, we disclosed Lp as an allosteric modulator of 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO), correlated its anticancer activity with 5-LO expression in blood cancers and showed its efficacy in a disseminated mouse model of AML.

In this project, a comprehensive investigation of novel means for the targeted delivery of Lp to leukaemia cells is sought after, considering both the promising bioactivity profile but also the significant toxicity in untargeted dosage forms. We apply state-of-the-art synthetic medicinal chemistry to design and access cleavable linkers, and site-specifically conjugate Lp to an anti-IL7R antibody, a validated biomarker in AML and other leukaemia’s. We aim at employing biophysical and chemical biology approaches to validate quantitative and fast release of Lp with accurate spatiotemporal control in in vitro disease models. Finally, we will validate the deployment of the constructs through preclinical in vivo models of AML. We foresee broad applicability of the developed technology, which may have profound implications in drug discovery. Upon successful completion of this research program, we hope to yield a new targeted drug to treat AML patients with improved efficacy and reduced side-effects.
Occasional smoking in college: Who, what, when and why?

The majority of college students who smoke do so on an occasional basis and generally do not define themselves as smokers. This represents a considerable challenge for public health efforts to prevent escalation of use and to promote cessation. Strengthening such efforts will require further examination of the motivations behind occasional smoking within this vulnerable group.Based within a priori identified content areas, we conducted eight focus groups of occasional smokers (N=53) at two demographically diverse colleges in the southeastern U.S.Few participants self-identified as a smoker and few had immediate desire to quit. Most identified extrinsic motivations for future quitting, including college graduation and parenthood. Although participants acknowledged smoking-related health risks, they minimized them as being personally irrelevant. Participants highlighted social (i.e., alcohol and other smokers) and stress-related smoking triggers. They also described how they carefully managed the situations in which they would, and would not smoke in order to preserve their identity.College students who smoke occasionally appear to engage in impression management, taking effort to shape their personal image to not appear as a smoker. They use smoking mainly as a social engagement tool, but also to alleviate negative emotions. They express minimal desire to quit and believe they are immune to the health risks of smoking. Public health messages should address this common pattern of smoking among young adults differently than regular smoking patterns by highlighting the social, emotional, and health consequences of occasional smoking before nicotine dependence has fully developed.
Termination Analysis by Learning Terminating Programs

We present a novel approach to termination analysis. In a first step, the analysis uses a program as a black-box which exhibits only a finite set of sample traces. Each sample trace is infinite but can be represented by a finite lasso. The analysis can learn a program from a termination proof for the lasso, a program that is terminating by construction. In a second step, the analysis checks that the set of sample traces is representative in a sense that we can make formal. An experimental evaluation indicates that the approach is a potentially useful addition to the portfolio of existing approaches to termination analysis.
Supporting Multiplicity and Hierarchy in Model-Based Configuration: Experiences and Lessons Learned

When developing large-scale industrial software systems engineers need to instantiate, configure, and deploy diverse reusable components. The number of component instances required depends on customer requirements only known during configuration and is typically unknown when modeling the systems’ variability. Also, the hierarchy of dynamically created component instances leads to complex dependencies between configuration decisions. Dealing with component multiplicity and hierarchy thus requires an approach capable of expressing the dependencies among dynamically instantiated components and configuration decisions. Furthermore, users need tool support for navigating the complex decision space during configuration. In this experience paper we report on applying a decision-oriented modeling approach for defining component variability, multiplicity, and hierarchy. We further present a configuration tool that guides end users through the complex decision space. We report applications of the approach to industrial software systems and describe patterns and lessons learned.
Sex-Specific demography and the evolution of gender-biased harmful cultural practices

Cultural practices that are harmful to one sex, but favour the other, are the focus of intense interest in the public eye, the social sciences and the evolutionary human sciences. The foundational work of Hamilton, Bateman and Trivers, showed how kin selection theory provides a framework for understanding the evolutionary basis of conflicts of interest between the sexes and between parents and offspring. However, many gender-biased practices do not seem to fit this classic model of sexual conflict, in which males exploit females for their own mating advantage. Rather than focus on the inherent differences in sexual strategies of males and females, I will explore an alternative explanation, which is sex-specific demography. This framework refocuses attention away from sexual selection, towards patterns of cooperation and conflict within families. If one sex disperses at marriage, that generates sex and age-based asymmetries in relatedness in residential groups, but few theoretical models, or empirical studies, have examined how such demographic effects could explain the origins of gender-biased cultural behaviour. EvoBias will develop and test new evolutionary demographic models that will focus on the role of sex-ratios, sex-biased dispersal and some modes of marriage, in generating gender-biased harmful cultural practices. The behaviours to be studied include: female-biased workloads, witchcraft accusation, sending men to war, sending boys into monastic life, bride-capture and the ‘honour’ killing of women by their own kin. These represent both social issues and evolutionary puzzles. The diverse kinship systems in east and central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa provide opportunities to test these hypotheses. Through a combination of mathematical modelling, comparative studies using the literature and field-based sociodemographic studies, the team will seek evidence that sex-specific demography underpins these gender-biased harmful cultural traditions.
Gas-liquid contacting apparatus

A ceramic nozzle support structure (13) comprises: (A) a ceramic nozzle (12) having a ridge portion (24) on the outer peripheral surface of a nozzle body (23); (B) a tightening flange (16) including a flange body (30) having an aperture larger than the outside shape of the nozzle body and a central cylindrical portion (28) extending substantially concentrically with the nozzle body from lower surface of said flange body, the tightening flange having through holes (26) in the wall of central cylindrical portion thereof; (C) a support nozzle (14) consisting of a cylindrical body having an inside diameter larger than the central cylindrical portion of tightening flange and connected to the tightening flange by bolting (32, 36, 38) via the flange body at the upper portion of the cylindrical body; and (D) an elastomeric resin filled in a space (18) between the nozzle (12) and the support nozzle (14) so that the outside and inside of the central cylindrical portion of tightening flange are integrated via the through holes. <IMAGE>
SWEETENER COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS OF MAKING SAME

Natural steviol glycosides sweetener compositions comprise a blend of Rebaudioside C extract and at least one of Rebaudioside A extract and STV extract including methods for producing the same and uses thereof in foods, beverages, functional foods and nutraceuticals.
Rapid resolution liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry and high-performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection for metabolism and pharmacokinetic studies of ergosta-4,6,8(14),22-tetraen-3-one

Ergosta-4,6,8(14),22-tetraen-3-one (ergone) from many medicinal plants has been demonstrated to possess a variety of pharmacological activities in vivo and in vitro, including cytotoxic, diuretic and immunosuppressive activity. Metabolism and pharmacokinetic studies on rat were conducted for ergone. Rapid resolution liquid chromatography with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization tandem multi-stage mass spectrometry (RRLC-APCI-MS(n)) and high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) methods were applied for the identification and quantification of ergone and its metabolite from rat plasma, faeces and urine. A metabolite was identified by RRLC-DAD-APCI-MS(n): 22,23-epoxy-ergosta-4,6,8(14)-triaen-3-one (epoxyergone). The concentrations of the analyte with its metabolites were determined by HPLC-FLD at excitation wavelength of 370 nm and emission wavelength of 485 nm. The samples were deproteinized with methanol after addition of camptothecin as internal standard (IS). The analysis was performed on a Diamonsil C18 column (150 mm x 4.6 mm x 5 microm) with a mobile phase gradient consisting of methanol and water at a flow rate of 1 mL min(-1). The assay was linear over the concentration range of 42-1500, 36-7500 and 42-1500 ng mL(-1) for plasma, faecal homogenate and urine respectively. The absolute recoveries were found to be 97.0+/-1.2%, 98.1+/-0.7% and 96.6+/-1.8% for plasma, faecal homogenate and urine respectively. The intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations (RSD) were less than 10%. The previous HPLC-MS/MS method is not affordable for most laboratories because of the specialty requirement and high equipment cost. However, the HPLC-FLD method is economic and operating simply for quantitative determination of ergone and its metabolite in rat plasma, faeces and urine. In addition, liquid chromatography coupled with ion trap multi-stage mass spectrometry is becoming a useful technique for ergone metabolite identification.