Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of interspecific interference competition in character displacement and the evolution of competitor recognition

The extent to which interspecific interference competition has contributed to character evolution is one of the most neglected problems in evolutionary biology. When formerly allopatric species come into secondary contact, aggressive interactions between the species can cause selection on traits that affect interspecific encounter rates (e.g. habitat preferences, activity schedules), competitor recognition (e.g. colouration, song), and fighting ability (e.g. weaponry, body size). We define agonistic character displacement (ACD) as the process of phenotypic evolution in a population caused by interference competition with one or more sympatric species and which results in shifts in traits that affect the rate, intensity or outcome of interspecific aggression. After clarifying the relationships between ACD and other evolutionary processes that may occur when species come into secondary contact, we develop an individual‐based, quantitative genetic model to examine how traits involved in competitor recognition would be expected to evolve under different secondary contact scenarios. Our simulation results show that both divergence and convergence are possible outcomes, depending on the intensity of interspecific exploitative competition, the costs associated with mutual versus unilateral recognition, and the extent of phenotypic differences prior to secondary contact. We then devise a set of eight criteria for evaluating putative examples of ACD and review the empirical literature to assess the strength of existing evidence and to identify promising avenues for future research. Our literature search revealed 33 putative examples of ACD across insects, fishes, bats, birds, lizards, and amphibians (15 divergence examples; 18 convergence examples). Only one example satisfies all eight criteria for demonstrating ACD, but most case studies satisfy four or more criteria. The current state of the evidence for ACD is similar to the state of the evidence for ecological character displacement just 10 years ago. We conclude by offering suggestions for further theoretical and empirical research on ACD.
Lacustrine wetland in an agricultural catchment: nitrogen removal and related biogeochemical processes

The role of specific catchment areas, such as the soil-river or lake interfaces, in removing or buffering the flux of N from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems is globally recog- nized but the extreme variability of microbiological and hy- drological processes make it difficult to predict the extent to which different wetlands function as buffer systems. In this paper we evaluate the degree to which biogeochemical pro- cesses in a lacustrine wetland are responsible for the nitrate removal from ground waters feeding Candia Lake (Northern Italy). A transect of 18 piezometers was installed perpendic- ular to the shoreline, in a sub-unit formed by 80 m of poplar plantation, close to a crop field and 30 m of reed swamp. The chemical analysis revealed a drastic NO 3 -N ground water depletion from the crop field to the lake, with concentrations decreasing from 15-18 mg N/l to the detection limit within the reeds. Patterns of Cl , SO 2 , O2, NO 2 -N, HCO 3 and DOC suggest that the metabolic activity of bacterial commu- nities, based on the differential use of electron donors and ac- ceptors in redox reactions is the key function of this system. The significant inverse relationship found between NO 3 -N and HCO 3 is a valuable indicator of the denitrification ac- tivity. The pluviometric regime, the temperature, the organic carbon availability and the hydrogeomorphic properties are the main environmental factors affecting the N transforma- tions in the studied lacustrine ecosystem.
Voluntary Rapid Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Testing in Jails

Objectives: To provide human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rapid testing to persons in jails, identify previously undiagnosed cases of HIV infection, and refer HIV-infected inmates to care, treatment, and prevention services. Design: Four state health departments (Florida, Louisiana, New York, and Wisconsin) collaborated with jails to implement stand-alone voluntary rapid HIV testing programs. Inmates requested or were referred by medical staff for rapid HIV testing. HIV testing was provided by the health department, correctional facility, or a community-based organization. Inmates whose rapid test was reactive were offered confirmatory testing, medical evaluation, prevention services, and discharge planning. Results: From December 2003 through May 2006, rapid HIV testing was provided to 33,211 inmates, more than 99.9% of whom received their test results. Most of the inmates tested were male (79%), black (58%), and less than 35 years of age (60%). A total of 440 (1.3%) rapid HIV tests were reactive, and 409 (1.2%) of the results were confirmed positive. The testing programs identified 269 (0.8%) previously undiagnosed cases of HIV infection. In the multivariate analyses, new HIV diagnoses were associated with race/ethnicity, report of risky behaviors, and with no report of HIV risk behavior. Almost 40% of diagnoses were for inmates whose only reported risk was heterosexual contact. Conclusions: Rapid HIV testing in jails identified a considerable number of previously undiagnosed cases of HIV infection. Rapid HIV testing should be available to all inmates, regardless of whether inmates reported HIV risky behaviors.
Bitcoin Currency Fluctuation

Predicting currency prices remains a difficult endeavour. Investors are continually seeking new ways to extract meaningful information about the future direction of price changes. Recently, cryptocurrencies have attracted huge attention due to their unique way of transferring value as well as its value as a hedge. A method proposed in this project involves using data mining techniques: mining text documents such as news articles and tweets try to infer the relationship between information contained in such items and cryptocurrency price direction. The Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network (LSTM RNN) assists in creating a hybrid model which comprises of sentiment analysis techniques, as well as a predictive machine learning model. The success of the model was evaluated within the context of predicting the direction of Bitcoin price changes. Findings reported here reveal that our system yields more accurate and real-time predictions of Bitcoin price fluctuations when compared to other existing models in the market.
Executive Functioning as a Predictor of Children's Mathematics Ability: Inhibition, Switching, and Working Memory

Children's mathematical skills were considered in relation to executive functions. Using multiple measures-including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), dual-task performance, Stroop task, and counting span-it was found that mathematical ability was significantly correlated with all measures of executive functioning, with the exception of dual-task performance. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that each executive function measure predicted unique variance in mathematics ability. These results are discussed in terms of a central executive with diverse functions (Shallice & Burgess, 1996) and with recent evidence from Miyake, et al. (2000) showing the unity and diversity among executive functions. It is proposed that the particular difficulties for children of lower mathematical ability are lack of inhibition and poor working memory, which result in problems with switching and evaluation of new strategies for dealing with a particular task. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, along with suggestions for task changes and longitudinal studies that would clarify theoretical and developmental issues related to executive functioning.
Relation extraction from wikipedia articles by entities clustering

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on wiki technology. It is multilingual high quality knowledge base. In this work a episode based extraction method are proposed to extract relations from Wikipedia articles. The entities are clustered and labeled. The relation extraction is benefited by the information redundancy provided by the clusters. A strict Wikipedia entities clustering algorithm based on the category system and first sentence of the article is approached. This work required less manual assist. And the relations are abundant. The results are comparable with other works [1, 2].
Automatic Chessboard Detection for Intrinsic and Extrinsic Camera Parameter Calibration

There are increasing applications that require precise calibration of cameras to perform accurate measurements on objects located within images, and an automatic algorithm would reduce this time consuming calibration procedure. The method proposed in this article uses a pattern similar to that of a chess board, which is found automatically in each image, when no information regarding the number of rows or columns is supplied to aid its detection. This is carried out by means of a combined analysis of two Hough transforms, image corners and invariant properties of the perspective transformation. Comparative analysis with more commonly used algorithms demonstrate the viability of the algorithm proposed, as a valuable tool for camera calibration.
Efficient Boolean function matching

Efficient algorithms for performing the matching step in technology mapping are proposed. The main result is an algorithm for matching under input negations that takes time polynomial in the size of the BDDs representing the functions to be matched. This algorithm is the basis for efficient methods for matching under permutations, bridging and constant inputs. A simple mapper based on the algorithms was implemented and tested on a suite of combinational circuits. Using the Actel type 1 mother cell, the mapper required an average of 8.5% fewer cells than mispga. When integrated into a more sophisticated technology mapper, the matching algorithms could provide even better performance. <<ETX>>
ISE: Interactive Image Search using Visual Content

CBIR (Content-Based Image Retrieval) is an image retrieval method that exploits the feature vector of the image as the retrieval index, which is based upon the content, including colors, textures, shapes and distributions of objects in the image, etc. The implementation of the image feature vector and the searching process take a great influence upon the efficiency and result of the CBIR. In this paper, we are introducing a new CBIR system called ISE based on the optimum combination of color and texture descriptors, in order to improve the quality of image recovery using the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO). Our system operates also the Interactive Genetic Approach (GA) for a better research output. The performance analysis shows that the suggested 'DC' method upgrades the average precision metric from 66.6% to 89.50% for the Food category color histogram, from 77.7% to 100% concerning CCV for the Flower category, and from 44.4% to 67.65% regarding co-occurrence matrix for the Building category using the Corel data set. Besides, our ISE system showcases an average precision of% 95.43 which is significantly higher than other CBIR systems presented in related works.
Pressure-Controlled Versus Volume-Controlled Ventilation During One-Lung Ventilation for Thoracic Surgery

BACKGROUND: Pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV) has been suggested as a tool to improve oxygenation during one-lung ventilation (OLV) for patients undergoing thoracic surgery. In this study we investigated whether PCV results in improved arterial oxygenation compared with volume-controlled ventilation (VCV) during OLV. METHODS: Fifty-eight patients with good preoperative pulmonary function scheduled for thoracic surgery were prospectively randomized into two groups. Those in group A underwent OLV initially with VCV for 30 min followed by PCV for a similar period of time. Those in group B underwent OLV initially with PCV for 30 min followed by VCV for a similar duration. Airway pressures and arterial blood gases were obtained during OLV at the end of each ventilatory mode. RESULTS: There were no differences during OLV in arterial oxygenation between VCV (Pao2, 206.1 ± 62.4 mm Hg) and PCV (Pao2, 202.1 ± 56.4 mm Hg; P = 0.534). Peak airway pressure was lower with PCV than with VCV (24.43 ± 3.42 cm H2O vs. 34.16 ± 5.21 cm H2O; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The use of PCV during OLV does not lead to improved oxygenation during OLV compared with VCV for patients with good preoperative pulmonary function, but PCV did lead to lower peak airway pressures. Further study is needed for patients with severe obstructive or restrictive pulmonary disease.
African American Consumers' Evaluations of Ethnically Primed Advertisements

This study is a conceptual replication of Appiah and Liu (2009). Distinctiveness theory and social identity theory are used to study the effect of embedding African American cultural ethnic primes beyond the use of ethnic minority models in ads on ad attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intentions. Empirical results show that African American consumers respond significantly different when viewing a high African American cultural ethnic primed ad compared to a low and high white cultural ethnic primed ad (i.e., high, low = high, low levels of African American cultural ethnic primes found embedded in the ad). No significant responses from African American consumers were found when exposed to a high African American cultural ethnic primed ad versus a low African American cultural ethnic primed ad. This indicates it is not enough to include cultural ethnic primes beyond ethnic minority models to influence significantly different responses. This study recommends that situational and psychological factors (e.g., strength of ethnic identification, ethnic self-awareness, usage rate of cultural ethnic primes in media and geographic location of target audience, levels of ethnocentrism, and proportion of minority group to overall population in geographic location of target audience) need to be considered by marketers to increase ad effectiveness.
M.Gesture: An Acceleration-Based Gesture Authoring System on Multiple Handheld and Wearable Devices

Gesture-based interaction is still underutilized in the mobile context despite the large amount of attention it has been given. Using accelerometers that are widely available in mobile devices, we developed M.Gesture, a software system that supports accelerometer-based gesture authoring on single or multiple mobile devices. The development was based on a formative study that showed users' preferences for subtle, simple motions and synchronized, multi-device gestures. M.Gesture adopts an acceleration data space and interface components based on mass-spring analogy and combines the strengths of both demonstration-based and declarative approaches. Also, gesture declaration is done by specifying a mass-spring trajectory with planes in the acceleration space. For iterative gesture modification, multi-level feedbacks are provided as well. The results of evaluative studies have shown good usability and higher recognition performance than that of dynamic time warping for simple gesture authoring. Later, we discuss the benefits of applying a physical metaphor and hybrid approach.
Formaldehyde and Epigenetic Alterations: MicroRNA Changes in the Nasal Epithelium of Nonhuman Primates

Background: Formaldehyde is an air pollutant present in both indoor and outdoor atmospheres. Because of its ubiquitous nature, it is imperative to understand the mechanisms underlying formaldehyde-induced toxicity and carcinogenicity. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can influence disease caused by environmental exposures, yet miRNAs are understudied in relation to formaldehyde. Our previous investigation demonstrated that formaldehyde exposure in human lung cells caused disruptions in miRNA expression profiles in vitro. Objectives: Using an in vivo model, we set out to test the hypothesis that formaldehyde inhalation exposure significantly alters miRNA expression profiles within the nasal epithelium of nonhuman primates. Methods: Cynomolgus macaques were exposed by inhalation to approximately 0, 2, or 6 ppm formaldehyde for 6 hr/day for 2 consecutive days. Small RNAs were extracted from nasal samples and assessed for genome-wide miRNA expression levels. Transcriptional targets of formaldehyde-altered miRNAs were computationally predicted, analyzed at the systems level, and assessed using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: Expression analysis revealed that 3 and 13 miRNAs were dysregulated in response to 2 and 6 ppm formaldehyde, respectively. Transcriptional targets of the miRNA with the greatest increase (miR-125b) and decrease (miR-142-3p) in expression were predicted and analyzed at the systems level. Enrichment was identified for miR-125b targeting genes involved in apoptosis signaling. The apoptosis-related targets were functionally tested using RT-PCR, where all targets showed decreased expression in formaldehyde-exposed samples. Conclusions: Formaldehyde exposure significantly disrupts miRNA expression profiles within the nasal epithelium, and these alterations likely influence apoptosis signaling.
The Slow Adjustment of Aggregate Consumption to Permanent Income

This paper investigates the relationship between aggregate consumption and permanent income using a new approach to the estimation of cointegrated systems that builds on Stock and Watson's common stochastic trends representation. The permanent and transitory movements in aggregate income and consumption are estimated directly using the Kalman filter and are allowed to be correlated. This approach avoids any implicit restriction that permanent income be as smooth as consumption. Instead, permanent income appears to be relatively volatile, with consumption adjusting toward it only slowly over time. These results provide a clear rejection of the standard version of the permanent income hypothesis and are suggestive of alternative theories of consumption behavior such as habit formation or precautionary savings. Copyright 2007 The Ohio State University.
Matching, Aspiration and Long-Term Relationship

This paper studies a simple matching model with a single population where players, who are identical ex ante but not necessarily so ex post, are randomly matched and decide whether or not to form a long-term relationship. When two agents are matched, they observe a relation-specific productivity as well as their respective shares and decide whether or not to agree to form a long-term relationship. The pair forms a long-term relation if and only if both the agents in the pair agree to do so; otherwise, they join the pool of singles, who continuously search for partners. A long-term relationship is subject to a small probability of break-up, which results in both the players going back to the pool of singles. Each agent agrees to form a long-term relationship if and only if his share exceeds his own past average payoff. It is shown that almost all the agents in the society are engaged in a long-term relationship and play the symmetric efficient outcome.
Opinions of the irish public on the goals of primary education

In a survey of a representative sample of the Irish adult (aged 15+ years) population (n:1,511), respondents were asked in interview their opinion about the emphasis which primary schools placed on 13 goals. In this paper, results are provided for respondent gender, age, socioeconomic level, school leaving standard, and whether or not the respondent had children in the education system. While the findings indicate broad public support for the objectives, there were considerable differences in the approval given various objectives and between categories of respondent. Male and female respondents differed for only three goals. Differences relating to age, socioeconomic status, and school leaving standard were much more common. Younger and better educated respondents were most critical of the current system.
MONITORING OF LANDSLIDES AND INFRASTRUCTURES WITH WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS IN AN EARTHQUAKE ENVIRONMENT

Besides precipitation triggered landslides, a major thread from landslides is related to earthquake triggered landslides, which account for the majority of catastrophic landslides. This fact is complicated due to the progressive development of urban areas and infrastructure, the dependency of our society on a functioning infrastructure and an increasing number of endangered objects in the affected areas. Therefore there is a need to improve basic understanding of the technical, financial and social risks posed by earthquakes triggered landslides. Furthermore basic understanding of processes and cascading hazards related to earthquake triggered landslides must be improved. For the past two decades an increasing number of landslide warning systems are developed and applied for general public and industrial purposes. On the other side earthquake triggered landslide warning and monitoring has made very little advances and is still under development. Resent research in the area of sensor network development focus on the application of micro sensors (MEMS) in ad hoc wireless sensor networks operated in an interoperable spatial data infrastructure (SDI) according to the sensor web enablement (SWE) guidelines of the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) for real-time monitoring of landslides like the SLEWS – Sensor based Landslide Early Warning System. The SLEWS sensor nodes provide next to motion detection also a 3D acceleration data to evaluate direction and value of the peak acceleration. This information can be used in an event case both to monitor endangered slopes or critical infrastructures and to initiate warnings to trigger e.g. rail or road blocks. Furthermore the data from the sensor network can be provided in real-time for shake or alert maps via standardized interfaces.
Leadership for Increasingly Diverse Schools

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION - INTERSECTIONALITY IN EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP Martin Scanlan and George Theoharis SECTION 1 CHAPTER TWO : INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND DISABILITY George Theoharis, Julie Causton, and Casey Woodfield CHAPTER THREE: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND POVERTY Curt Dudley-Marling and Anne Dudley-Marling CHAPTER FOUR: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND RACE Sonya Douglass Horsford and Christine Clark CHAPTER FIVE : INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND ENGLISH LEARNERS Isabel Kelsey, Carmen Campuzano, and Francesca Lopez SECTION 2 CHAPTER SIX: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, AND QUESTIONING STUDENTS Frank Hernandez and Don Fraynd CHAPTER SEVEN: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND GENDER Margaret Grogan & Shamini Dias CHAPTER EIGHT: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP AND RELIGION Joanne Marshall CHAPTER NINE: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP ON THE SOCIAL FRONTIERS: FAMILY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Martin Scanlan and Lauri Johnson CHAPTER TEN: THE EQUITY AUDIT AS THE CORE OF LEADING INCREASINGLY DIVERSE SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS Colleen A. Capper and Michelle D. Young
Mittag-Leffler modules and positive atomicity

is a monomorphism for all collections of right R-modules {Ni : i ∈ I} . Restricting the Ni to certain classes of modules one obtains various relativized concepts. For instance, Goodearl investigated this notion relativized to flat modules. The present study provides a uniform background for such relativizations and thus covers and generalizes, among others, a number of known results about such modules. The point of view taken here allows, on the other hand, a natural strengthening of the concept of Mittag-Leffler module corresponding to various weaker purities, hence stronger notions of pure-projective (via an appropriate generalization of a characterization due