Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Lactobacillus from Algerian Goat’S Milk Based on Phenotypic, 16S rDNA Sequencing and their Technological Properties

Nineteen strains of Lactobacillus isolated from goat’s milk from farms in north-west of Algeria were characterized. Isolates were identified by phenotypic, physiological and genotypic methods and some of their important technological properties were studied. Phenotypic characterization was carried out by studying physiological, morphological characteristics and carbohydrate fermentation patterns using API 50 CHL system. Isolates were also characterized by partial 16S rDNA sequencing. Results obtained with phenotypic methods were correlated with the genotypic characterization and 13 isolates were identified as L. plantarum, two isolates as L. rhamnosus and one isolate as L. fermentum. Three isolates identified as L. plantarum by phenotypic characterization were found to be L. pentosus by the genotypic method. A large diversity in technological properties (acid production in skim milk, exopolysaccharide production, aminopeptidase activity, antibacterial activity and antibiotic susceptibility) was observed. Based on these results, two strains of L. plantarum (LbMS16 and LbMS21) and one strain of L. rhamnosus (LbMF25) have been tentatively selected for use as starter cultures in the manufacture of artisanal fermented dairy products in Algeria.
Evaluation of accuracy of ambulatory glucose profile in an outpatient setting in children with type 1 diabetes

Background: In children with type 1 diabetes, intensive diabetes management has been demonstrated to reduce long-term microvascular complications. At present, self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) by patients at home and glycated hemoglobin estimation every 3 months are used to monitor glycemic control in children. Recently, ambulatory glucose profile (AGP) is increasingly being used to study the glycemic patterns in adults. However, accuracy and reliability of AGP in children have not been evaluated yet. Objectives: To assess the accuracy of AGP data in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus when compared with laboratory random blood sugar (RBS) levels, capillary blood glucose (CBG) measured by glucometer in the hospital, and SMBG monitored at home. Methods: Paired RBS, CBG, and AGP data were analyzed for 51 patients who wore AGP sensors for 2 weeks. Simultaneous venous and CBG samples were collected on day 1 and day 14. SMBG at home was checked and recorded by the patients for optimizing insulin doses. Accuracy measures (mean absolute deviation, mean absolute relative difference (MARD), and coefficient of linear regression of AGP on RBS, CBG, and home-monitored SMBG were calculated. Results: Seventy paired RBS, CBG, and AGP data and 362 paired home-monitored SMBG and AGP data were available. The MARD was 9.56% for AGP over RBS and 15.07% for AGP over CBG. The linear regression coefficient of AGP over RBS was 0.93 and that of AGP over CBG was 0.89 (P < 0.001). The accuracy of AGP over SMBG was evaluated over four ranges: <75, 76–140, 141–200, and >200 mg/dl. Conclusion: In this study, AGP data significantly correlate with RBS and CBG data in children with type 1 diabetes. However, a large number of samples in a research setting would help to document reproducibility of our results.
Self-Organization in Networks of Spiking Neurons

Traditionally artificial neural network design was based on average firing rate model of a biological neuron. In this paper we briefly review approaches based on single action potentials. Then we describe a self-organizing neural network based on a spiking neuron model. We show how this network of laterally connected spiking neurons self-organizes into a topological map in response to external stimulation. Two unsupervised, activity-dependent, instantaneous learning rules for adjusting the synaptic efficacies are introduced and analyzed in the paper. The first rule is based on the postsynaptic contribution of the presynaptic neuron, while the second, called temporal correlation rule is based only on the time difference between the preand postsynaptic neuron spikes. Interestingly applying either of the two learning rules results in a well-segregated map, where the afferent connections from non-active input neurons die-off and the lateral connections gradually restrict themselves into one of the regions of the formed map. We also draw an analogy between our temporal correlation learning rule and Kohonen's SOM learning rule.
The five-factor model for leisure management: pedagogies for assessing personality differences in positive youth development programmes

ABSTRACT The field of leisure management and positive youth development (PYD) programmes has expanded with new research highlighting the practical issues of working with a diverse population of clients seeking recreational experiences. One factor contributing to the diverse population in leisure services is the variety of personality differences among individual participants. Research in personality differences examines variations as outlined by McCrae and Costa [(1991). The NEO personality inventory: Using the five-factor model in counseling. Journal of Counseling and Development, (4), 367)] in the “Big Five” otherwise known as the five-factor model; extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness. This is a conceptual paper which advocates for a pedagogy which uses the five-factor personality model in leisure services for PYD programmes. This paper has three main objectives: first, to provide a brief overview of leisure and PYD literature; second, to address the role of the five-factor model of personality in leisure and PYD programmes; and third, to provide propositions regarding practical applications.
An excluded half-integral grid theorem for digraphs and the directed disjoint paths problem

The excluded grid theorem, originally proved by Robertson and Seymour in Graph Minors V, is one of the most central results in the study of graph minors. It has found numerous applications in algorithmic graph structure theory, for instance as the basis for bidimensionality theory on graph classes excluding a fixed minor. In 1997, Reed [25] and later Johnson, Robertson, Seymour and Thomas [17] conjectured an analogous theorem for directed graphs, i.e. the existence of a function f: N → N such that every digraph of directed tree-width at least f(k) contains a directed grid of order k. In this paper, we make significant progress toward this conjecture. Namely, we prove that every digraph of directed tree-width at least f(k) contains a "half-integral" directed grid of order k. This structural result allows us to contribute to the disjoint paths problem. We show that the following can be done in polynomial time: Suppose that we are given a digraph G and k terminal pairs (s1, t1), (s2, t2),. , (sk, tk), where k is a fixed constant. In polynomial time, either • we can find k paths P1,. , Pk such that Pi is from si to ti for i = 1,. , k and every vertex in G is in at most four of the paths, or • we can conclude that G does not contain disjoint paths P1,. , Pk such that Pi is from si to ti for i = 1,. , k. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first positive result for the general directed disjoint paths problem. Note that the directed disjoint paths problem is NP-hard even for k = 2. Therefore, polynomial-time algorithms for semiintegral disjoint paths is the best one can hope for.
Preparing for portfolio careers in Australian music: Setting a research agenda

In the twenty-first century, Australian musicians increasingly maintain 'portfolio' careers, in which they combine diverse employment arrangements and activities. Often, these incorporate industry sectors outside of music. This career pattern is widespread but not well understood, largely because of the limitations of existing research. The lack of knowledge about musicians' work and careers means that Australia currently may not provide appropriate and effective policy, funding, initial training and continuing career support across the diverse music sector. This article discusses existing research relating to the careers and skilling needs of musicians in Australia, and outlines a targeted agenda for further research that has the potential to inform stronger alignment between the requirements of building sustainable music careers and musicians' education and training.
A Population-based Study on Pediatric Spinal Cord Tumors, with Emphasis on Intramedullary Ones

Purpose: Pediatric spinal cord tumors are rare accounting for 4-6% of all primary CNS tumors in this age group. Collecting large number of cases has always been difficult due to their scarcity. SEER database provides a source on varioustumors. Methods: We performed analysis on tumors of the spinal cord in patients between births to 20 years of age using the SEER data available for the period 1973-2005. Analysis of the incidence rate, the frequency of the most common types, the age, gender, treatment modality including radiotherapy and surgery is provided. In addition; the overall survival and the median survival has been analyzed for each tumor type and comparison between various types is performed. Results: There were 483 cases of spinal cord tumors with available data, representing 4.7% of all pediatric central nervous system tumors diagnosed over the same period. They predominated in males and in whites. The median age for diagnosis was 10 years, with two age peaks noted; in <3 years old and in adolescents 12 to 17 years old. Of intramedullary tumors astrocytoma was the most common histology followed by ependymoma. Low grade tumors predominated. Of all variables examined; histologic type, grade, gross total resection and not receiving radiotherapy showed significant association with outcome. Conclusions: Low- grade astrocytoma is the most common intramedullary tumor in first 2 decades of life, while ependymoma is mostly seen in the second decade of life. Assigning the appropriate histologic type and grade is important in determining the outcome of the patients.
Student perceptions of reflections as an aid to learning

An important aspect in any learning situation is the approach that students take to learning. Studies in the 1980's built an increasingly convincing case for the existance of three learning approaches; deep, surface and achieving. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a single student may use any or all of them in combination. In addition, a connection has been demonstrated between deep learning approaches and understanding of the material being learned. Encouraging deep learning behaviour, however, is a much more complex issue, since choice of learning approach seems to be dependent on the manner in which the student experiences the learning environment. This paper explores the use of reflections in the instructional design of two computing courses based on the text of the reflections and student feedback regarding the reflection exercise collected through surveys and interviews. Student's learning approaches are infered from a textual analysis of the reflection texts. Results describing student's perceptions of the utility of reflections as a learning tool are explored using interview data collected from students in one of the study cohorts.
Ensemble UCT Needs High Exploitation

Recent results have shown that the MCTS algorithm (a new, adaptive, randomized optimization algorithm) is effective in a remarkably diverse set of applications in Artificial Intelligence, Operations Research, and High Energy Physics. MCTS can find good solutions without domain dependent heuristics, using the UCT formula to balance exploitation and exploration. It has been suggested that the optimum in the exploitation-exploration balance differs for different search tree sizes: small search trees needs more exploitation; large search trees need more exploration. Small search trees occur in variations of MCTS, such as parallel and ensemble approaches. This paper investigates the possibility of improving the performance of Ensemble UCT by increasing the level of exploitation. As the search trees become smaller we achieve an improved performance. The results are important for improving the performance of large scale parallelism of MCTS.
Moving Object Segmentation Using Dynamic 3D Graph Cuts and GMM

It is one of the most challenging problems in computer vision how to segment moving objects accurately. In this paper, we present a novel approach to segment moving objects with edge information and temporal information using 3D graph cuts model when cameras is fixed. Moving object segmentation is modeled as finding a minimum energy of 3D graph. Our algorithm assigns n-links in 3D graph according to spatial gradient in same frame and temporal gradient in neighboring frames. Gaussian mixture model is used to assign t-links with edge difference term and shadow elimination term. Finally, a dynamic graph cuts algorithm is used to find the minimum cut of 3D graph and segments moving objects in image sequences. Experiments show that our approach achieves nice performance
On Our Own Terms: The Working Conditions of Internet-Based Sex Workers in the UK

The sex industry is increasingly operated through online technologies, whether this is selling services online through webcam or advertising, marketing or organising sex work through the Internet and digital technologies. Using data from a survey of 240 internet-based sex workers (members of the National Ugly Mug reporting scheme in the UK), we discuss the working conditions of this type of work. We look at the basic working patterns, trajectories and everyday experiences of doing sex work via an online medium and the impact this has on the lives of sex workers. For instance, we look at levels of control individuals have over their working conditions, prices, clientele and services sold, and discuss how this is mediated online and placed in relation to job satisfaction. The second key finding is the experience of different forms of crimes individuals are exposed to such as harassment and blackmail via the new technologies. We explore the relationship internet-based sex workers have with the police and discuss how current laws in the UK have detrimental effects in terms of safety and access to justice. These findings are placed in the context of the changing landscape of sex markets as the digital turn determines the nature of the majority of commercial sex encounters. These findings contribute significantly to the populist coercion/choice political debates by demonstrating levels and types of agency and autonomy experienced by some sex workers despite working in a criminalized, precarious and sometimes dangerous context.
Social Media Competition : Differentiation with User-Generated Content

This paper studies competition between social media sites in a game theoretic framework. We model three important institutional features of social media sites: (i) firms’ content is usually “user-generated”; (ii) consumers’ preferences are governed by local network effects, and (iii) consumers have strong tendencies to multi-home. In such a setting, ex-ante identical sites can acquire differentiated market positions that spontaneously emerge from user-generated content. Furthermore, sites may obtain unanticipated and sometimes ambiguous market positions, wherein one site simultaneously attracts multiple distinct consumer segments that are isolated from each other. The degree of “spontaneous differentiation” increases with the localness of network effects. Spontaneous differentiation increases firms’ profits but may imply too much consumer segregation and lower social welfare. In most equilibria, a subset of consumers multi-home. Interestingly, more multi-homing consumers imply reduced differentiation and higher site competition. In an extension, we examine the case where firms explicitly position their sites by designing website features. We find that user-generated content can either enhance or override the sites’ positioning decisions, leading to interesting situations where sites acquire ‘unintended’ market positions. Our findings shed light on a few stylized facts related to the rapid evolution of the social media industry and also highlight the incentives of competing industry players.
Wall-Pasted Cell Segmentation Based on Gabor Filter with Parameter Constraint

Gabor filter has been widely used in image processing because of multi-scale, multi-orientation and multi-frequency. To deal with so many parameters, however, especially the frequency parameter, are of great complexity. From the study of one dimensional Gabor filter and its comparison with one dimensional Gauss filter, we proposed a new scheme to simplify its designing work, which mainly deals with the frequency parameter. The filters designed with constrained parameter can approximate the March band effect well. We also applied parameter constraint into 2D Gabor filter designed to reduce the complexity and improve the calculation efficiency. Basing on theoretical analysis and a large amount of experiments, we come to the conclusion that, assisted with rotational filter and Morphological operation, accurate and satisfactory segmentation results can be obtained to the cell images with frequency parameter f taking values between a narrow region. This not only reduces the calculation consumption but also give a direction of how to choose the best segmentation and recognition result
The Initial Mass Functions in the Super-Star Clusters NGC 1569A and NGC 1705-1

I use recent photometric and stellar velocity dispersion measurements of the super-star clusters (SSCs) NGC 1569A and NGC 1705-1 to determine their present-day luminosity/mass ratios (LV/M). I then use the inferred LV/M, together with population synthesis models of evolving star clusters, to constrain the initial mass functions (IMFs) in these objects. I find that (LV/M)☉ = 28.9 in 1569A and (LV/M)☉ = 126 in 1705-1. It follows that in 1569A the IMF is steep with α ~ 2.5 for m-αdm IMFs that extend to 0.1 M☉. This implies that most of the stellar mass in 1569A is contained in low-mass (<1 M☉) stars; however, in 1705-1 the IMF is either flat, with α ≲ 2, or it is truncated at a lower mass limit between 1 and 3 M☉. I compare the inferred IMFs with the mass functions (MFs) of Galactic globular clusters. It appears that 1569A has a sufficient reservoir of low-mass stars for it plausibly to evolve into an object similar to Galactic globular clusters; however, the apparent deficiency of low-mass stars in 1705-1 may make it difficult for this SSC to become a globular cluster. If low-mass stars do dominate the cluster mass in 1705-1, the large LV/M in this SSC may be evidence that the most massive stars have formed close to the cluster cores.
The Company that You Keep: When to Buy a Competitor's Keyword

In search advertising, brand names are often purchased as keywords by the brand owner or a competitor. We aim to understand the strategic benefits and costs of a firm buying its own brand name or a competitor's brand name as a keyword. We model the effect of search advertising to depend on the presence or absence of a competitor's advertisement on the same results page. We find that the quality difference between the brand owner and the competitor moderates the purchase decision of both firms. Interestingly, in some cases, a firm may buy its own brand name only to defend itself from the competitor's threat. It is also possible that the brand owner, by buying its own branded keyword, precludes the competitor from buying the same keyword. Our result also implies that the practice of bidding on the competitor's brand name creates a prisoner's dilemma, and thus both firms may be worse off, but the search engine captures the lost profits. We also discuss the difference in our results when the search is for a generic keyword instead of a branded keyword. Finally, we find some empirical support for our theory from the observation of actual purchase patterns on Google AdWords.
An Anonymous Communication Scheme based on Ring Signature in VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks allow vehicles to connect themselves as networks so that cars could communicate with each other. This paper introduces an anonymous communication scheme providing integrity protection, multi-level privacy and auditability. The scheme is based on a certificateless ring signature proposed in this paper, which is contributed to reduce the length of the signature and simplify the key management. In our scheme, vehicles can compose the anonymous group without the help of road-side infrastructure or central authority. The computation overhead is close to a normal signature scheme, so it is efficient in most application scenarios. We also present a small-scale implementation to show the availability of the prototype system.
Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods a Comparison of Shape and Scale Estimators of the Two-parameter Weibull Distribution a Comparison of Shape and Scale Estimators of the Two-parameter Weibull Distribution

Weibull distributions are widely used in reliability and survival analysis. In this paper, different methods to estimate the shape and scale parameters of the two-parameter Weibull distribution have been reviewed and compared, based on the bias, mean square error and variance. Because a theoretical comparison is not possible, an extensive simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of different estimators. Based on the simulation study it was observed that MLE consistently performs better than other methods.
Argument structure, alignment and auxiliaries between Latin and Romance. A diachronic syntactic account

Although Latin displays many characteristics of nominative/accusative alignment, it also exhibits a number of properties that are typical of active/inactive linguistic systems. More specifically, the Latin verbal clause displays an active/inactive distinction, as it regularly marks, through the occurrence of dedicated morphological strategies, the presence of non-agentive as opposed to agentive contexts. This dissertation explores the syntactic motivations behind this opposition, addressing the crucial question about the relationship between syntax and morphology. The claim is made that verbal morphology in Latin is always syntactically motivated, since it directly reflects the difference between active and inactive structures. In particular, deponent verbs are shown not to be a case of syntax-morphology mismatch: these verbs exhibit inactive morphology because of their non-agentive properties. Moreover, it will be argued that syntax and semantics are closely related to each other within the syntactic computation. From this perspective, this thesis also provides an account of the development of a number of analytic constructions in Romance: perfective, possessive and deontic periphrases. Substantial attention is devoted to the diachronic study of the Romance auxiliation patterns occurring in these constructions and to their relationship with alignment and argument structure. The main claim is that the Romance outcomes of these periphrases are closely related to the active/inactive opposition characterizing the Latin system and to the alignment changes that characterized the passage from Latin to Romance. Therefore, these developments cannot be seen as isolated phenomena, but must be understood as the various manifestations of a systematic change affecting the whole linguistic system. Finally, the analysis and investigation of these diachronic facts confirms that syntactic reanalysis is one of the major forces at the basis of language change. This study will be of relevance to anyone interested in diachronic syntax, historical linguistics, classical philology and Italian dialectology.