cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
An EPTAS for Budgeted Matching and Budgeted Matroid Intersection via Representative Sets
Creators: name: Doron-Arad, Ilan
name: Kulik, Ariel
name: Shachnai, Hadas
Publisher: name: CISPA
Year: 2023

description: We study the budgeted versions of the well known matching and matroid intersection problems. While both problems admit a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) [Berger et al. (Math. Programming, 2011), Chekuri, Vondrak and Zenklusen (SODA 2011)], it has been an intriguing open question whether these problems admit a fully PTAS (FPTAS), or even an efficient PTAS (EPTAS). In this paper we answer the second part of this question affirmatively, by presenting an EPTAS for budgeted matching and budgeted matroid intersection. A main component of our scheme is a construction of representative sets for desired solutions, whose cardinality depends only on $\eps$, the accuracy parameter. Thus, enumerating over solutions within a representative set leads to an EPTAS. This crucially distinguishes our algorithms from previous approaches, which rely on exhaustive enumeration over the solution set.
Remote Virtual Observatory schools
Creators: name: Mas-Buitrago, Pedro
name: Spanish Virtual Observatory Team
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Virtual Observatory

description: The Spanish Virtual Observatory is an initiative which main goal is to coordinate activities related with the Virtual Observatory (VO) in Spain. The SVO has large experience organizing VO schools and workshops. In the context of the pandemic situation, we have made a large effort to continue these educational activities by making them virtual. On one hand, we offered during the confinement two online “micro-workshops” showing the use and capabilities of different VO tools with real life examples, aiming at reaching the Amateur and the world wide Spanish speaking community as well. On the other hand, five remote VO schools have been carried out since November 2020 for MSc and PhD students of the main research centers of Astrophysics in Spain, the national Amateur community in collaboration with the federation of astronomic associations of Spain (FAAE), the Brazilian Astronomy Society, and european scientists under the umbrella of the ESCAPE project. We did not observe a negative impact on the follow-up of the tutorials nor the communication with the participants and we have additionally benefited from the advantages that the remote teaching presents, such as the increase in the number of attendants and the coverage of different profiles compared to the pre-pandemic routines.
A Systematic Survey of High Temperature Emission in Solar Active Regions
Creators: name: Warren, Harry P.
name: Winebarger, Amy R.
name: Brooks, David H.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The recent analysis of observations taken with the EIS instrument on Hinode suggests that well constrained measurements of the temperature distribution in solar active regions can finally be made. Such measurements are critical for constraining theories of coronal heating. Past analysis, however, has suffered from limited sample sizes and large uncertainties at temperatures between 5 and 10 MK. Here we present a systematic study of the differential emission cores. We focus on measurements in the "inter-moss" region, that is, the region between the loop footpoints, where the observations are easier to interpret. To reduce the uncertainties at the highest temperatures we present a new method for isolating the Fe XVIII emission in the AIA/SDO 94 channel. The resulting differential emission measure distributions confirm our previous analysis showing that the temperature distribution in an active region core is often strongly peaked near 4 MK. We characterize the properties of the emission distribution as a function of the total unsigned magnetic flux. We find that the amount of high temperature emission in the active region core is correlated with the total unsigned magnetic flux, while the emission at lower temperatures, in contrast, is inversely related. These results provide compelling evidence that high temperature active region emission is often close to equilibrium, although weaker active regions may be dominated by evolving million degree loops in the core.
description: Figures are degraded to reduce file sizes. Email the first author for a higher resolution version of the pdf. Submitted to ApJ. Minor revisions have been made to the manuscript. The AIA data were reprocessed and the emission measures have changed slightly
Large and prolonged food-borne multistate hepatitis A outbreak in Europe associated with consumption of frozen berries, 2013 to 2014
Creators: name: Severi, E.
name: Verhoef, L.
name: Thornton, L.
name: Guzman-Herrador, B. R.
name: Faber, M.
name: Sundqvist, L.
name: Rimhanen-Finne, R.
name: Roque-Afonso, A. M.
name: Ngui, S. L.
name: Allerberger, F.
name: Baumann-Popczyk, A.
name: Muller, L.
name: Parmakova, K.
name: Alfonsi, V.
name: Tavoschi, L.
name: Vennema, H.
name: Fitzgerald, M.
name: Myrmel, M.
name: Gertler, M.
name: Ederth, J.
name: Kontio, M.
name: Vanbockstael, C.
name: Mandal, S.
name: Sadkowska-Todys, M.
name: Tosti, M. E.
name: Schimmer, B.
name: O Gorman, J.
name: Stene-Johansen, K.
name: Wenzel, Jürgen J.
name: Jones, G.
name: Balogun, K.
name: Ciccaglione, A. R.
name: O Connor, L.
name: Vold, L.
name: Takkinen, J.
name: Rizzo, C.
Publisher: name: Universität Regensburg
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: 610 Medizin

description: In May 2013, Italy declared a national outbreak of hepatitis A, which also affected several foreign tourists who had recently visited the country. Molecular investigations identified some cases as infected with an identical strain of hepatitis A virus subgenotype IA. After additional European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries reported locally acquired and travel-related cases associated with the same outbreak, an international outbreak investigation team was convened, a European outbreak case definition was issued and harmonisation of the national epidemiological and microbiological investigations was encouraged. From January 2013 to August 2014, 1,589 hepatitis A cases were reported associated with the multistate outbreak; 1,102 (70%) of the cases were hospitalised for a median time of six days; two related deaths were reported. Epidemiological and microbiological investigations implicated mixed frozen berries as the vehicle of infection of the outbreak. In order to control the spread of the outbreak, suspected or contaminated food batches were recalled, the public was recommended to heat-treat berries, and post-exposure prophylaxis of contacts was performed. The outbreak highlighted how large food-borne hepatitis A outbreaks may affect the increasingly susceptible EU/EEA general population and how, with the growing international food trade, frozen berries are a potential high-risk food.
Exploring Neurocognition and Functional Outcome in Youth at Risk of Serious Mental Illness
Creators: name: Romanowska, Sylvia
Publisher: name: Cumming School of Medicine
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Neurocognition
subject: Social and Role Functioning
subject: Youth Mental Health
subject: High Risk State
subject: Neuroscience
subject: Psychology--Cognitive
subject: Psychometrics

description: There is a growing literature that suggests impairments in neurocognitive, social, and role functioning may be markers of susceptibility for serious mental illness development. This study assessed neurocognitive performance and social and role functioning in a sample of youth at risk of serious mental illness across different clinical stages as described by McGorry and colleagues and compared them to healthy controls. The sample consisted of 243 male and female youths aged 12-26 and included: non-help-seeking asymptomatic participants with risk factors (Stage 0; n=41); youth with early mood or anxiety symptoms and distress (Stage 1a; n=52); youth with attenuated psychiatric syndromes (Stage 1b; n=108); and healthy controls (n=42). Each participant underwent a comprehensive clinical and neurocognitive assessment. Subjects in Stage 1b had lower scores than healthy controls across all IQ measures, on the composite score of neurocognitive performance, in the domains of processing speed, working memory, attention/vigilance and reasoning and problem solving and on the social and role functioning measures. Subjects in Stage 1b also had lower scores than subjects in Stage 0 across most IQ measures, on the composite score of neurocognitive performance, in the domains of processing speed, working memory, and social cognition and on the social and role functioning measures. This study demonstrates that impairments in neurocognitive performance and social and role functioning can be present in young people experiencing subthreshold psychiatric symptoms and distress in the absence of a diagnosable mental illness. Further, it offers validation to the clinical staging model in that individuals in the higher stages of risk exhibit poorer functioning.
Charge Expulsion from Black Brane Horizons, and Holographic Quantum Criticality in the Plane
Creators: name: D'Hoker, Eric
name: Kraus, Per
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Quantum critical behavior in 2+1 dimensions is established via holographic methods in a 5+1-dimensional Einstein gravity theory with gauge potential form fields of rank 1 and 2. These fields are coupled to one another via a tri-linear Chern-Simons term with strength k. The quantum phase transition is physically driven by the expulsion of the electric charge from inside the black brane horizon to the outside, where it gets carried by the gauge fields which acquire charge thanks to the Chern-Simons interaction. At a critical value k=k_c, zero temperature, and any finite value of the magnetic field, the IR behavior is governed by a near-horizon Lifshitz geometry. The associated dynamical scaling exponent depends on the magnetic field. For k k_c, the IR flow is towards the purely magnetic brane in AdS_6. Its near-horizon geometry is AdS_4 \times R^2, so that the entropy density vanishes quadratically with temperature, and all charge is carried by the gauge fields outside of the horizon.
description: 37 pages v2: reference added and cosmetic improvements
Semantic Debugging
Creators: name: Eberlein, Martin
name: Smytzek, Marius
name: Steinhöfel, Dominic
name: Grunske, Lars
name: Zeller, Andreas
Publisher: name: CISPA
Year: 2023

description: Why does my program fail? We present a novel and general technique to automatically determine failure causes and conditions, using logical properties over input elements: "The program fails if and only if int(⟨length⟩) > len(⟨payload⟩) holds - that is, the given ⟨length⟩ is larger than the ⟨payload⟩ length." Our AVICENNA prototype uses modern techniques for inferring properties of passing and failing inputs and validating and refining hypotheses by having a constraint solver generate supporting test cases to obtain such diagnoses. As a result, AVICENNA produces crisp and expressive diagnoses even for complex failure conditions, considerably improving over the state of the art with diagnoses close to those of human experts.
title: Διερεύνηση της επίδρασης του εισοδήματος στην εξέλιξη της γονιμότητας και γεννητικότητας στην Ελλάδα στην περίοδο 1980-2018
title: Investigation of the effect of income on the evolution of fertility in Greece in the period 1980-2018
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Γραββάνη, Ευαγγελία
Publisher: name: Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Αττικής
Year: 2021
Subjects: Γονιμότητα
ΑΕΠ
Ανεργία
Ελληνική οικονομία
Δημογραφία
Υπογεννητικότητα

description: Σε όλα τα βιομηχανικά κράτη, η γονιμότητα, συνδυαζόμενη με τη σταδιακή μείωση της θνησιμότητας, ακολουθεί μια ομοιόμορφη πορεία. Η μακροχρόνια πτωτική τάση που συνήθως παρουσιάζεται, ερμηνεύεται από τους μεγάλους ρυθμούς της οικονομικής ανάπτυξης και της εκβιομηχάνισης μιας κοινωνίας. Σύμφωνα με το θεωρητικό πλαίσιο της "δημογραφικής μετάβασης", η πτώση των γεννήσεων σταθεροποιείται στο επίπεδο ανανέωσης των γενεών (2,1 παιδιά ανά γυναίκα). Όμως, τα κράτη που έχουν "περάσει" όλα τα διαδοχικά στάδια της δημογραφικής μετάβασης και έχουν φτάσει σε ένα επίπεδο "δημογραφικής ωρίμανσης", η πτωτική πορεία της γονιμότητας ξεπερνά το όριο των 2,1 παιδιών κατά γυναίκα και πηγαίνει σε πολύ χαμηλότερες τιμές. Για την Ελλάδα, η κατάσταση είναι δημογραφικά κρίσιμη, καθώς για πρώτη φορά στην ελληνική ιστορία, ο ελληνικός πληθυσμός κατά την μεταπολεμική περίοδο μειώνεται, αφού τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, οι νέοι κάτοικοι που γεννιούνται ή μεταναστεύουν στην Ελλάδα από άλλες χώρες, είναι λιγότεροι από αυτούς που πεθαίνουν και από αυτούς που μεταναστεύουν προς άλλες χώρες. Παράλληλα, η δημογραφική γήρανση αυξάνεται (ο πληθυσμός γερνάει συνεχώς) άλλες χώρες. Παράλληλα, η δημογραφική γήρανση αυξάνεται διαρκώς. Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι να μελετηθεί ο βαθμός επίδρασης οικονομικών παραγόντων το φαινόμενο της γονιμότητας και της γεννητικότητας της Ελλάδας, για την περίοδο1980-2018. Πιο αναλυτικά, το θεωρητικό μέρος επιχειρεί να δώσει μια εικόνα της δημογραφικής θεωρίας και της οικονομίας της χώρας. Στο εμπειρικό μέρος της εργασίας γίνεται με τη βοήθεια επιλεγμένων μεταβλητών (δημογραφικών, οικονομικών) η ανάδειξη της σχέσης της δημογραφικής συμπεριφοράς του Ελληνικού πληθυσμού με το οικονομικό περιβάλλον που βίωσε όλη αυτή την περίοδο: 1980-2018. Τα αποτελέσματα έδειξαν ότι: Η πτωτική τάση της γονιμότητας ακολούθησε κατά ένα μεγάλο ποσοστό τις οικονομικές μεταβολές και τις "διαταραχές" ή τις φάσεις της οικονομίας. Η αναβολή των γεννήσεων συνδέεται πιθανότατα με τη γενικότερη οικονομική κατάσταση. Η οικονομική ύφεση του 208-9 παρέσυρε με σχετική υστέρηση τη γονιμότητα σε αντίστοιχη ύφεση. υπάρχει μια ένδειξη της κυκλικής σχέσης ανάμεσα στις μεταβλητές που συσχετίζονται (ΣΔΓ - κατα κεφαλήν ΑΕΠ, δείκτης Ανεργίας). οι όποιες μεταβολές της γονιμότητας (ΣΔΓ) εξελίσσονται παράλληλα με τις μεταβολές των οικονομικών μεταβλητών (ΑΕΠ, Ανεργία).
Intermediate Haldane phase in spin-2 quantum chains with uniaxial anisotropy
Creators: name: Tu, Hong-Hao
name: Orus, Roman
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We provide evidence of an intermediate Haldane phase in a spin-2 quantum chain. By combining effective field theory and numerical approaches, we show that the phase diagram of the proposed model includes SO(5) Haldane, intermediate Haldane, and large-D phases. We determine the characteristic properties of these phases, including edge states, string order parameters, and degeneracies in the entanglement spectrum. The symmetries responsible for the degeneracy patterns observed in the entanglement spectrum are also discussed.
description: 5 pages, 3 figures, references added, published version
Identification of ultracool dwarfs in J-PLUS DR2 using Virtual Observatory tools and machine learning techniques
Creators: name: Mas-Buitrago, Pedro
name: Solano, Enrique
name: González-Marcos, Ana
name: Et Al.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Virtual Observatory
J-PLUS
Ultracool dwarfs
Machine learning

description: Poster contribution to the SEA XV Scientific Meeting. We present the search for Ultracool dwarfs (UCDs, spectral types later than M7V) performed across the entire Javalambre Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS) second data release (2 176 deg2) following a VO methodology. We also explored the ability to reproduce this search with a purely machine learning (ML)-based methodology that relies solely on J-PLUS photometry. We followed three different approaches based on parallaxes, proper motions, and colours, respectively, using the VOSA tool to estimate the effective temperatures. For the ML methodology, we built a two-step method based on principal component analysis and support vector machine algorithms. We identified a total of 7 827 new candidate UCDs, which represents an increase of about 135% in the number of UCDs reported in the sky coverage of the J-PLUS second data release. With the ML approach, we obtained a recall score of 92% and 91% in the 20×20 deg2 regions used for testing and blind testing, respectively. We consolidated the proposed search methodology for UCDs, which will be used in deeper and larger upcoming surveys such as J-PAS and Euclid. We concluded that the ML methodology is more efficient in the sense that it allows for a larger number of true negatives to be discarded prior to analysis with VOSA, although it is more photometrically restrictive.
A New Automatic Method to Identify Galaxy Mergers I. Description and Application to the STAGES Survey
Creators: name: Hoyos, Carlos
name: Aragon-Salamanca, Alfonso
name: Gray, Meghan E.
name: Maltby, David T.
name: Bell, Eric F.
name: Barazza, Fabio D.
name: Boehm, Asmus
name: Haussler, Boris
name: Jahnke, Knud
name: Jogee, Sharda
name: Lane, Kyle P.
name: McIntosh, Daniel H.
name: Wolf, Christian
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present an automatic method to identify galaxy mergers using the morphological information contained in the residual images of galaxies after the subtraction of a Sersic model. The removal of the bulk signal from the host galaxy light is done with the aim of detecting the fainter minor mergers. The specific morphological parameters that are used in the merger diagnostic suggested here are the Residual Flux Fraction and the asymmetry of the residuals. The new diagnostic has been calibrated and optimized so that the resulting merger sample is very complete. However, the contamination by non-mergers is also high. If the same optimization method is adopted for combinations of other structural parameters such as the CAS system, the merger indicator we introduce yields merger samples of equal or higher statistical quality than the samples obtained through the use of other structural parameters. We explore the ability of the method presented here to select minor mergers by identifying a sample of visually classified mergers that would not have been picked up by the use of the CAS system, when using its usual limits. Given the low prevalence of mergers among the general population of galaxies and the optimization used here, we find that the merger diagnostic introduced in this work is best used as a negative merger test, i.e., it is very effective at selecting non-merging galaxies. As with all the currently available automatic methods, the sample of merger candidates selected is contaminated by non-mergers, and further steps are needed to produce a clean sample. This merger diagnostic has been developed using the HST/ACS F606W images of the A901/02 cluster (z=0.165) obtained by the STAGES team. In particular, we have focused on a mass and magnitude limited sample (log M/M_{O}>9.0, R_{Vega}<23.5mag)) which includes 905 cluster galaxies and 655 field galaxies of all morphological types.
description: 25 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables. To appear in MNRAS
title: Δημιουργία εκπαιδευτικού περιεχομένου για την «Εξόρυξη δεδομένων με χρήση τεχνικών μηχανικής μάθησης»
title: Educational content for "Data Mining Using Machine Learning Techniques"
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Τσολακίδης, Αναστάσιος
Publisher: name: Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Αττικής
Year: 2021
Subjects: e-learning
Κατηγοριοποίηση
Συσταδοποίηση
Παλινδρόμηση
Εξόρυξη δεδομένων

description: H εξόρυξη δεδομένων τα τελευταία χρόνια εμφανίζει πολύ μεγάλη εξέλιξη και αποτελεί έναν από τους βασικούς τομείς ανάλυσης δεδομένων στο τομέα της πληροφορικής. Η χρήση των αλγορίθμων της εξόρυξης δεδομένων αυξάνεται συνεχώς καθώς είναι εφικτή η επίλυση προβλημάτων τα οποία περιέχουν μεγάλα δεδομένα και τα οποία δεν θα μπορούσαμε να διαχειριστούμε με τους παραδοσιακούς τρόπους ανάλυσης. Συνεπώς η γνώση των μεθόδων εξόρυξης γνώσης και της μηχανικής μάθησης αποτελούν απαραίτητα εφόδια για αυτούς που θέλουν να ασχοληθούν με τον τομέα της ανάλυσης δεδομένων. Οι ψηφιακές δεξιότητες και ικανότητες που απαιτούνται μπορούν να αποκτηθούν διαδικτυακά μέσω της εξ αποστάσεως εκπαίδευσης. Η εξ αποστάσεως εκπαίδευση δίνει την δυνατότητα στους εκπαιδευόμενους να παρακολουθήσουν ασύγχρονα τις θεματικές ενότητες του μαθήματος κάνοντας χρήση των σημειώσεων και του οπτικοακουστικού υλικού. Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία δημιουργήθηκε ένα διαδικτυακό μάθημα με σκοπό την ανάπτυξη των απαραίτητων γνώσεων και δεξιοτήτων για την εξόρυξη γνώσης από βάσεις δεδομένων, με χρήση σύγχρονων τεχνικών και μεθοδολογιών, Στόχος είναι η υποβοήθηση της λήψης αποφάσεων για μια εταιρία ή έναν οργανισμό. Οι εκπαιδευόμενοι έρχονται σε επαφή με τα χρήσιμα εργαλεία για το σχεδιασμό, ανάπτυξη και εφαρμογή ενός συστήματος εξόρυξης γνώσης και λήψης αποφάσεων. Με τον τρόπο αυτό καλύπτονται οι ανάγκες που προκύπτουν από τη λειτουργία πληροφοριακών συστημάτων προς την κατεύθυνση της πρόβλεψης πιθανών καταστάσεων, την κατηγοριοποίηση των δεδομένων και την εξαγωγή χρήσιμων συμπερασμάτων. Το μάθημα περιλαμβάνει έξι (6) διδακτικές ενότητες και έχει σχεδιαστεί με γνώμονα να παρέχει τις απαραίτητες γνώσεις στους νέους επιστήμονες του χώρου της ανάλυσης δεδομένων:  ΔΕ1: Μεθοδολογία Διαχείρισης γνώσης από βάσεις δεδομένων  ΔΕ2: Επεξεργασία και διαχείριση δεδομένων και μεταβλητών  ΔΕ3:Μελέτη , σχεδιασμός και εφαρμογή τεχνικών Κατηγοριοποίησης (Classification)  ΔΕ4: Μελέτη, σχεδιασμός και εφαρμογή τεχνικών Συσταδοποίησης (clustering)  ΔΕ5: Μελέτη, σχεδιασμός και εφαρμογή τεχνικών Πρόβλεψης (Prediction).  ΔΕ6: Μελέτη, σχεδιασμός και εφαρμογή τεχνικών Παλινδρόμησης (Regression).
title: Contrasting effects of irrelevant speech and non-speech sounds on short-term memory
Creators: name: Cahillane, M
Publisher: name: Bath Spa University
Year: 2008

description: The characteristics of speech that determine its greater disruption of serial recall relative to non-speech (the irrelevant sound effect) are investigated (c.f. Tremblay et al., 2000). Degraded non-words disrupted serial recall less than clear non-words. Tasks show that both vowels and consonants of degraded non-words were misperceived, with initial consonants misperceived to a greater degree. Measures that followed showed that clear sequences of non-words, with changing vowels were more disruptive than sequences with changing consonants. Degrading vowel only changing sequences reduced disruption of serial recall to a level observed with clear consonant only changing sequences, whereas degradation had no effect on disruption by consonant only changing sequences. In further experiments the acoustic complexity of speech was reduced while maintaining its intelligibility by removing fundamental frequency information. Whispered speech disrupted serial recall to the same degree as voiced speech. Alternating voiced and whispered speech sounds within a sequence did not reduce serial recall performance relative to a sequence of voiced-only speech sounds. Results indicate the formant structure of speech sounds and not fundamental frequency information is the important carrier of acoustic change. Reversing the fine structure of whispered speech damaged its intelligibility whilst preserving acoustic complexity and these sounds were as disruptive of serial recall as normal whispered speech. This indicates that vocal tract resonances (formants) of speech and not its intelligibility determine its disruptive power. The relative disruptiveness of speech and non-speech sounds was then examined. Sounds were matched for acoustic complexity, but their 'speech-likeness' was destroyed. Speech disrupted serial recall more than did non-speech. Results indicate that the biological nature of speech renders it more disruptive than non-speech. The findings refute the 'changingstate- hypothesis' which is derived from the object-oriented episodic record model. This hypothesis argues that it is the degree of acoustic variation within an irrelevant stream and not the nature of its component sounds which determines its disruption of serial memory. Biological sounds may disrupt serial memory to a greater degree since they are of behavioural relevance and provide information about the environment that may need to be attended to. The addition of an attentional mechanism to the object-oriented episodic record model that regulates the reallocation of cognitive processing resources is proposed.
title: Πρότυπα συστήματα απολογισμών βιώσιμης ανάπτυξης & επιχειρηματικής υπευθυνότητας και η αξιολόγηση των οργανισμών από επενδυτικούς οίκους αξιολόγησης
title: Corporate sustainability reporting frameworks and the organisations evaluation by rating agencies
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Παππά, Νίκη
Publisher: name: Πανεπιστήμιο Πειραιώς
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Βιώσιμη ανάπτυξη
subject: Εταιρική κοινωνική ευθύνη
subject: Υπολογισμοί βιωσιμότητας
subject: Επενδυτικοί οίκοι αξιολόγησης
subject: ESG
subject: Δείκτες βιωσιμότητας
subject: Υπεύθυνες επενδύσεις

description: Ο όρος της Βιώσιμης Ανάπτυξης, ή αλλιώς αειφόρου ανάπτυξης (Sustainable Development), διατυπώθηκε πρώτη φορά, το 1987, από την Παγκόσμια Επιτροπή Περιβάλλοντος και Ανάπτυξης (The World Commission on Environment and Development – WCED) και αφορά στην «ανάπτυξη που ικανοποιεί τις ανάγκες του παρόντος χωρίς να διακυβεύεται η ικανότητα των μελλοντικών γενεών να ικανοποιούν τις δικές τους ανάγκες». Τα οφέλη που προκύπτουν από την υιοθέτησή της είναι ποικίλα και έχουν προσελκύσει το ενδιαφέρον εταιρειών και οργανισμών, παγκοσμίως. Συγκεκριμένα, πλήθος ιδιωτικών και δημόσιων επιχειρήσεων σχεδιάζουν τη στρατηγική τους, δίνοντας έμφαση στην επίδρασή τους σε περιβαλλοντικό, κοινωνικό και επίπεδο εταιρικής διακυβέρνησης. Ειδικά τα τελευταία χρόνια, πολλές εταιρείες δημοσιεύουν την επίδοση και τις ενέργειές τους ως προς το περιβάλλον, την κοινωνία, αλλά και την οικονομία, ενημερώνοντας με αυτόν τον τρόπο τα ενδιαφερόμενα μέρη τους μέσω των απολογισμών που εκδίδουν ετησίως. Οι συγκεκριμένες εκθέσεις συντίθενται βάσει παγκοσμίων προτύπων αναφοράς και κατευθυντήριες γραμμές, όπως για παράδειγμα τα πρότυπα GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, τον Ελληνικό Κώδικα Βιωσιμότητας, τη σειρά προτύπων AA1000 του AccountAbility, τo Οικουμενικό Σύμφωνο των Ηνωμένων Εθνών, το ISO 26000:2010 κ.λπ.. Το περιεχόμενο αυτών των εκθέσεων αποτελεί, ιδιαίτερα τα τελευταία χρόνια, αντικείμενο ενδιαφέροντος και αξιολόγησης επενδυτών, οι οποίοι εστιάζουν σε επιχειρήσεις και πρωτοβουλίες με θετικό περιβαλλοντικό, κοινωνικό και οικονομικό αντίκτυπο, με στρατηγική βιώσιμης ανάπτυξης. Έτσι, επενδυτικοί οίκοι αξιολόγησης βαθμολογούν τις εταιρείες με βάση ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) κριτήρια και βάσει της επίδοσής τους σε αυτούς τους τομείς.
Assembly of Prussian blue analogue nanomaterials
Creators: name: Roy, Xavier
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: Coordination polymers have many attractive properties but the development of applications has been hampered by the challenges associated with their processing and the preparation of nanosized analogues. In this thesis, the synthesis and characterization of new coordination polymer nanomaterials with previously inaccessible morphologies and compositions are reported. Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) were investigated as model compounds. Mesostructured PBAs were fabricated via a ligand-assisted liquid-crystal templating approach. Molecular surfactants having a charged iron cyanide complex as hydrophilic head group and metal-coordinated hydrophobic tails were synthesized. In formamide, the metal-containing template formed liquid-crystalline phases that were crosslinked into PBA mesostructures with the addition of transition metals. PBAs with well-ordered lamellar, hexagonal and cubic structures were obtained with a wide range of compositions. The materials made of iron(II) and iron(III) exhibited mixed-valency and ferromagnetic interactions in the PBA framework. A synthetic approach to attach a PBA precursor onto polymer-based structure-directing agents was developed. A preformed macromolecular backbone was functionalized with ionic pendent groups that can coordinate iron cyanide complexes. Metal-containing homopolymers and block copolymers were synthesized. In organic solvents, the ionic block copolymers behaved as a block ionomer and self-assembled into stable wormlike and toroidal reverse micelles whose cores were metallated with the iron cyanide complex or used as an ion confinement region for different cyanometallate compounds to be crosslinked into PBA-type frameworks. The soluble PBA nanomaterials are stable in solution, assemble into arrays on surfaces and were used as precursors for metal oxide nanostructures. Soluble hollow polymer capsules with PBA inner-shells were fabricated via emulsion-induced assembly of the iron cyanide block ionomer. The metal-containing amphiphilic macromolecules stabilized nanosized water droplets dispersed in organic solvent by assembling at the water-oil interface. The hydrophilic iron cyanide inner-shells were crosslinked into PBAs with zinc ions. The hollow capsules have selective permeability, are tunable in size, organize into hexagonal arrays in the solid state and were used as nanocontainers to encapsulate molecular compounds. A rigid structure-directing ligand was incorporated into the network of a PBA under solvothermal conditions to engineer the connectivity of a coordination polymer. A crystalline triptycene-scaffolded copper PBA was obtained.
Observable gravitational waves from inflation with small field excursions
Creators: name: Hotchkiss, Shaun
name: Mazumdar, Anupam
name: Nadathur, Seshadri
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The detection of primordial gravitational waves, or tensor perturbations, would be regarded as compelling evidence for inflation. The canonical measure of this is the ratio of tensor to scalar perturbations, r. For single-field slow-roll models of inflation with small field excursions, the Lyth bound dictates that if the evolution of the slow-roll parameter epsilon is monotonic, the tensor-to-scalar ratio must be below observationally detectable levels. We describe how non-monotonic evolution of epsilon can evade the Lyth bound and generate observationally large r, even with small field excursions. This has consequences for the scalar power spectrum as it necessarily predicts an enhancement in the spectrum at very small scales and significant scale-dependent running at CMB scales. This effect has not been appropriately accounted for in previous analyses. We describe a mechanism that will generically produce the required behaviour in epsilon and give an example of this mechanism arising in a well-motivated small-field model. This model can produce r\geq0.05 while satisfying all current observational constraints.
description: 14 pages, 4 figures
title: An investigation of possibilities and limitations of 'education borrowing' in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago
Creators: name: Lam, E
Publisher: name: Bath Spa University
Year: 2009

description: This doctoral research investigates possibilities and limitations of 'education borrowing' in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago in the midst of competing objectives of improving quality in secondary education, encouragement of 'sharing' by the international community and the impulses towards the 'centre'. Two types of 'borrowing' are identified. The first involves 'horizontal borrowing', in which countries borrow from each other in the manner suggested by UNESCO and Commonwealth Secretariat policy documents. The second involves 'vertical borrowing' in which states are influenced by policies from the 'centre', usually countries of powerful significance due to relationships with the metropole or in the bid to raise achievement. The thesis analyzes literature on both types of 'education borrowing' and identifies policies encouraging 'horizontal borrowing' by the international community. Fieldwork was undertaken to identify pulses of foreign influence and innovation for policies in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. 50 interviews and 87 hours of observation for the purpose of triangulation took place between January - November 2007. Respondents include teachers, heads of departments, senior school managers, policymakers, local academics and members of regional and international institutions. Mathematics curricula and teaching were selected as the focus for examining policy. Drawing on the policy review and fieldwork data, patterns of policy 'borrowing' in the Caribbean are uncovered and considerations for policymakers are noted. There are two main findings: 1) Despite encouragement by UNESCO and Commonwealth Secretariat policy documents, there was no evidence of 'horizontal borrowing' between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago and 2) Possibilities for cross-national attraction were limited due to the overriding attention paid to the global 'centre' for 'vertical borrowing' rather than concern for regional growth and cohesion. There appear to be three tenets of limitations to 'horizontal borrowing': 1) Island policymakers look internationally for innovation, thereby rejecting policies advocating 'borrowing' from each other; 2) Sharing is not part of the island histories and cultures; and 3) Forces of tradition bind existing teaching and education values. Although some of the implications of this thesis may be valuable in other contexts, the findings cannot be extrapolated to the whole of the Caribbean, to other small states or to developing countries in general. As states are often treated similarly in policies advocating 'horizontal borrowing', more analysis is needed to unpack patterns of influence, dynamics of change and the needs of under-researched countries.
title: Προοπτικές ανάπτυξης της αγοράς Αρωματικών και Φαρμακευτικών Φυτών (ΑΦΦ) στον ελλαδικό χώρο
title: The potential of aromatic and medicinal plants market in Greece
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Κόκκαλη, Ειρήνη
Publisher: name: Πανεπιστήμιο Πειραιώς
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Αρωματικά και Φαρμακευτικά Φυτά (ΑΦΦ)
subject: Ιδιότητες
subject: Προϊόντα προστιθέμενης αξίας
subject: Απόδοση
subject: Οικονομική ανάλυση
subject: Ελληνικές εταιρίες
subject: Μελέτη περίπτωσης
subject: Περιθώριο κέρδους
subject: Ανάλυση SWOT
subject: Καλλιέργεια
subject: Παραγωγή
subject: Εξαγωγές
subject: ΑΕΠ
subject: Βιωσιμότητα
subject: Βιοοικονομία
subject: Πράσινη ανάπτυξη
subject: Αειφορία

description: Η εν λόγω διπλωματική εργασία επικεντρώνεται στην ανάλυση των ιδιοτήτων των ΑΦΦ της ελληνικής αγροτικής παραγωγής και ανάδειξη των σημαντικότερων από αυτά σε επίπεδο δραστικών ουσιών και εφαρμογών στη βιομηχανία φαρμάκων, καλλυντικών, τροφίμων και καλλιεργειών. Αναφέρει την σημασία των ΑΦΦ στην καθημερινότητα των ανθρώπων από τα αρχαία χρόνια μέχρι και σήμερα, παρουσιάζοντας τους ποικίλους τρόπους χρήσης τους. Η παρούσα ανάλυση πραγματοποιείται επίσης σε οικονομικούς όρους σε χρονικό εύρος πέντε ετών, βάσει της αποδοτικότητας κάθε φυτού ανά στρέμμα καλλιέργειας και ανά μονάδα τελικού προϊόντος ξηρής δρόγης, όπου αναδεικνύεται και η τάση καλλιέργειας του κάθε φυτού ανά τα έτη. Γίνεται επιπλέον μία ανασκόπηση της τρέχουσας κατάστασης της ελληνικής αγοράς ΑΦΦ η οποία αφορά στη μελέτη των ελληνικών εταιρειών που δραστηριοποιούνται στον τομέα των ΑΦΦ και της χρήσης των συγκεκριμένων φυτών στα προϊόντα τους. Πραγματοποιείται επίσης μία μελέτη περίπτωσης (case study) της εταιρίας ΚΟΡΡΕΣ Α.Ε. με αντίστοιχη χρηματοοικονομική ανάλυση, η οποία αποτελεί μία από τις σημαντικότερες επιχειρήσεις που χρησιμοποιούν ως πρώτη ύλη ΑΦΦ, συγκρίνοντάς την με δύο αντίστοιχες ελληνικές εταιρίες που δραστηριοποιούνται στην παραγωγή προϊόντων περιλαμβάνοντας ΑΦΦ. Η παρούσα εργασία στοχεύει επίσης στην ανάλυση των παραγόντων οι οποίοι ενισχύουν την καλλιέργεια των ΑΦΦ από Έλληνες παραγωγούς καθώς και κρατικές και ευρωπαϊκές δράσεις για την προώθησή τους. Εξετάζεται επίσης ο ανταγωνισμός στην ελληνική αγορά των ΑΦΦ και τις γειτονικές χώρες σε επίπεδο εξαγωγών καθώς και η συνεισφορά του κλάδου των ΑΦΦ στο ελληνικό ΑΕΠ. Τέλος, γίνονται προτάσεις για την περεταίρω αξιοποίηση των ΑΦΦ στη χώρα μας και προτείνονται φυτά τα οποία δυνητικά μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν σε νέες εφαρμογές λόγω πλούσιων ιδιοτήτων και περιθωρίου κέρδους για τις εταιρίες και τους παραγωγούς. Γίνονται επίσης προτάσεις για την ενίσχυση του κλάδου των ΑΦΦ μέσω κρατικών και ευρωπαϊκών πρωτοβουλιών.
Fuzzing Embedded Systems Using Debug Interfaces
Creators: name: Eisele, Max
name: Ebert, Daniel
name: Huth, Christopher
name: Zeller, Andreas
Publisher: name: CISPA
Year: 2023

description: Fuzzing embedded systems is hard. Their key components - microcontrollers - are highly diverse and cannot be easily virtualized; their software may not be changed or instrumented. However, we observe that many, if not most, microcontrollers feature a debug interface through which a debug probe (typically controllable via GDB, the GNU debugger) can set a limited number of hardware breakpoints. Using these, we extract partial coverage feedback even for uninstrumented binary code; and thus enable effective fuzzing for embedded systems through a generic, widespread mechanism. In its evaluation on four different microcontroller boards, our prototypical implementation GDBFuzz quickly reaches high code coverage and detects known and new vulnerabilities. As it can be applied to any program and system that GDB can debug, GDBFuzz is one of the least demanding and most versatile coverage-guided fuzzers.
Architecture of a Conference Management System Providing Advanced Paper Assignment Features
Creators: name: Kalmukov, Yordan
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Digital Libraries (cs.DL)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: This paper proposes an architecture and assignment management model of a conference management system that performs a precise and accurate automatic assignment of reviewers to papers. The system relies on taxonomy of keywords to describe papers and reviewers' competences. The implied hierarchical structure of the taxonomy provides important additional information - the semantic relationships between the separate keywords. It allows similarity measures to take into account not only the number of exactly matching keywords between a paper and a reviewer, but in case of non-matching ones to calculate how semantically close they are. Reviewers are allowed to bid on the papers they would like to (or not like to) review and to explicitly state conflicts of interest (CoI) with papers. An automatic CoI detection is checking for additional conflicts based on institutional affiliation, co-authorship (within the local database) and previous co-authorship in the past (within the major bibliographic indexes and digital libraries). The algorithm for automatic assignment takes into account all - selected keywords, reviewers' bids and conflicts of interest and tries to find the most accurate assignment while maintaining load balancing among reviewers.
description: Published by Foundation of Computer Science, New York, USA
Evidence-informed methods for predicting rehabilitation outcomes for individuals with patellofemoral pain
Creators: name: Watari, Ricky
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Rehabilitation and Therapy
subject: Engineering--Biomedical

description: Patellofemoral pain is a very common musculoskeletal complaint and exercise interventions are the treatment of choice for this condition. However, 15% to 40% of patients present a poor response to rehabilitation and identifying objective measures that can help screen patients who are more likely to present successful results after rehabilitation is important for the optimization of treatment strategies. Therefore, the overarching purpose of this thesis is to develop evidence-based methods for predicting the outcome of exercise treatment in young recreational runners with patellofemoral pain. We found that a classification model using data from conventional motion capture system was able to distinguish between treatment responders and non-responders with 78% of accuracy. To make this classification model more accessible in a clinical setting, we tested whether pelvic acceleration patterns during running could be clustered into homogeneous sub-groups of individuals with patellofemoral pain. We identified two clusters for females and one cluster for males, indicating the clinical utility of this approach for the identification of patient sub-groups. The next study developed a classification model based on pelvic acceleration data to classify patients according to treatment response, achieving an 85% classification accuracy and showing a more clinically accessible approach. Finally, we tested the equivalency of marker-based and inertial measurement unit-based segment acceleration data when applied to a random classification problem in order to understand if the latter classification model could be applied using wearable devices. Overall, the findings indicated a 35% likelihood of decrease in performance of classifiers when the input data were crossed over from different sources. Therefore, a new classification model would have to be developed using data from wearable sensors to facilitate the implementation of this method in a clinical setting. We conclude that the outcome of exercise intervention protocols for the treatment of patellofemoral pain can be predicted using baseline gait analysis data with systems that can be applied in a laboratory setting and has the potential of being translated to a clinical setting as well.
Fluctuating surface-current formulation of radiative heat transfer for arbitrary geometries
Creators: name: Rodriguez, Alejandro W.
name: Reid, M. T. Homer
name: Johnson, Steven G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
subject: Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We describe a fluctuating surface-current formulation of radiative heat transfer, applicable to arbitrary geometries, that directly exploits standard, efficient, and sophisticated techniques from the boundary-element method. We validate as well as extend previous results for spheres and cylinders, and also compute the heat transfer in a more complicated geometry consisting of two interlocked rings. Finally, we demonstrate that the method can be readily adapted to compute the spatial distribution of heat flux on the surface of the interacting bodies.
Exploring the impact of global agricultural production and trade on infectious disease risks
Creators: name: Shah, Hiral Anil
Publisher: name: Imperial College London
Year: 2020

description: Agriculture is considered a nexus issue on which the future of global sustainability, health and the environment depend. Although, the environmental impact of agriculture is well established, the potential human health impacts of agriculture are less well understood and quantified, despite their potential to hinder or undermine global health and development efforts. In this thesis, using gold standard methods from the medical sciences, epidemiology, and industrial ecology, I explore the impacts of agricultural land use and trade on infectious diseases risks. Through conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis, I quantify the association between occupational or residential exposure to agricultural land uses and being infected with a pathogen using Southeast Asia as a focal model system (Chapter 2). I further extend these evidence synthesis methods to other geographical regions and integrate meta-analytic estimates with burden estimation methods and input-output analysis to calculate the global human infectious disease impacts of agricultural production and trade (Chapter 3). To address the possibility of spatial autocorrelation and confounding within agriculture-disease relationships, I focus on childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa as a case study. Here, I assess the relationships between agricultural land use and malaria whilst controlling for socio-economic and environmental confounders using hierarchical modelling (Chapter 4). Finally, I summarise the main findings of my research, synthesise the added value of the research conducted and highlight future research opportunities (Chapter 5). To combat agricultural land use and trade induced infectious disease risks, governments must acknowledge and address the human health impacts involved with the production of agricultural commodities. The findings from this thesis provide decision makers with a number of impactful recommendations on how public health, development, economic and environmental practitioners can jointly respond to mitigate the negative health impacts of agricultural production and trade. This can aid governments in securing co-benefits and mitigating trade-offs when trying to achieve multiple sustainable development goals simultaneously.
SecBench.js: An Executable Security Benchmark Suite for Server-Side JavaScript
Creators: name: Bhuiyan, Masudul Hasan Masud
name: Parthasarathy, Adithya Srinivas
name: Vasilakis, Nikos
name: Pradel, Michael
name: Staicu, Cristian-Alexandru
Publisher: name: CISPA
Year: 2023

description: Npm is the largest software ecosystem in the world, offering millions of free, reusable packages. In recent years, various security threats to packages published on npm have been reported, including vulnerabilities that affect millions of users. To continuously improve techniques for detecting vulnerabilities and mitigating attacks that exploit them, a reusable benchmark of vulnerabilities would be highly desirable. Ideally, such a benchmark should be realistic, come with executable exploits, and include fixes of vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, there currently is no such benchmark, forcing researchers to repeatedly develop their own evaluation datasets and making it difficult to compare techniques with each other. This paper presents SecBench.js, the first comprehensive benchmark suite of vulnerabilities and executable exploits for npm. The benchmark comprises 600 vulnerabilities, which cover the five most common vulnerability classes for server-side JavaScript. Each vulnerability comes with a payload that exploits the vulnerability and an oracle that validates successful exploitation. SecBench.js enables various applications, of which we explore three in this paper: (i) crosschecking SecBench.js against existing security advisories reveals 168 vulnerable versions in 19 packages that are mislabeled in the advisories; (ii) applying simple code transformations to the exploits in our suite helps identify flawed fixes of vulnerabilities; (iii) dynamically analyzing calls to common sink APIs, e.g., exec(), yields a ground truth of code locations for evaluating vulnerability detectors. Beyond providing a reusable benchmark to the community, our work identified 20 zero-day vulnerabilities, most of which are already acknowledged by practitioners.