Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intraspecific Spatial Dynamics of Urban Stray Cats

Sara Steen-Ash Supporters of the TTVAR (trap-test-vaccinate-alter-release) approach for the control of stray cat populations assume that a group of cats sharing a common food source will defend their space and resources from immigrating individuals. Previous studies have indicated that group-living domestic cats exhibit a high degree of home range overlap, associate frequently and amicably with group members, and defend their resources against immigrating individuals. This study was designed to examine the spatial relationships among cats managed with the TTVAR method on the Texas A&M University campus. Specific objectives of this study include quantifying individual home ranges and examining the spatial overlap and degree of association between individuals. Nineteen cats from 6 sites were fitted with radiocollars in September and October 1998, and 11 cats from 5 sites were fitted with radiocollars in January and February 1999. Males ranged an average area of 15.2 ha. The mean female home range size was 12.8 ha. No significant difference was found in home range size between males and females (P< 0.3244, Mann-Whitney U). In all 6 sites, cats exhibited a high degree of home range overlap; however, only 15 individuals were found to associate with other cats. The majority of associating pairs of individuals were found together infrequently. The findings of this study suggest that most cats living on the Texas A&M University campus do not exhibit the same spatial dynamics as expected from colonies of individuals sharing a common food source. Behaviors common to cats living in cohesive groups were observed in this population of cats only occasionally. Consequently, the assumption of resource defense by individuals sharing a common feeding area may not fully apply for this population of stray cats.
Sensitive uncooled ir detectors using gallium nitride resonators and silicon nitride absorbers

This paper presents the theory and measured results of a lownoise un-cooled infrared (IR) detector, which uses a combination of piezoelectric, pyroelectric, electrostrictive, and resonant effects to achieve high sensitivity. The sensor consists of a high-Q gallium nitride (GaN) micro-mechanical resonator coated with an IR absorber layer. The IR absorber converts the IR energy into heat. The generated heat causes a shift in the frequency characteristics of the GaN resonators. IR detection is achieved by sensing the shift in the resonance frequency of the exposed GaN resonator as compared to a reference resonator. A prototype GaN-based IR sensor is implemented, showing a frequency shift of 400 Hz per μW of absorbed power. The change in the beat frequency upon IR radiation is 1830 ppm/μW, making it possible to sense IR radiation in nano watts range. INTRODUCTION The detection of infrared radiation is generally accomplished using either photonic or thermal detectors, both of which have generated a large amount of research over the last two decades [1]. The relative disadvantages of thermal detectors in terms of detectivity and response time are balanced by the fact that they do not require cooling systems, reducing the system weight, power consumption, and form factor. Furthermore, thermal detectors are better suited for radiation extending into the far wavelength IR, which is extremely useful for optical astronomy. While bolometric devices have been the most popular thermal sensors commercially, there is an increasing interest in resonant IR detectors [2]-[4]. This work presents a GaN-based resonant IR sensor that utilizes the unique material properties of GaN to achieve high sensitivity. A reference resonator is included in the system for self-calibration (Fig. 1). Fig. 2 shows a representative scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a GaN detector. Figure 1: Schematic of a resonant sensor and a reference pair with interdigitated finger electrodes. The sensor is coated with an absorber layer. The reference resonator is either not coated with the absorber or the absorber layer on the reference resonator is blocked using the top electrode.
Small fingers, big data: Preschoolers’ subitizing speed and accuracy during interactions with multitouch technology

Abstract This study focused on 18 students 4–5 years old in an urban full-day preschool program in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Over the course of a month, students used a touchscreen tablet to interact with Fingu, an app designed to develop students’ early number sense. Using backend data generated by the app, 8,153 individual task attempts were recorded. Multilevel growth modeling, with task attempts nested within students, was used to examine the extent to which students’ speed of response and response accuracy changed over the course of the study, as well as whether any individual characteristics were associated with either speed or accuracy. Results indicate that, on average, students become both faster and more accurate. Girls were also found to be more accurate than boys, and older students were found to be both slightly slower to respond and less accurate.
Childhood Lead Poisoning Associated with Gold Ore Processing: a Village-Level Investigation—Zamfara State, Nigeria, October–November 2010

Background: During May–June 2010, a childhood lead poisoning outbreak related to gold ore processing was confirmed in two villages in Zamfara State, Nigeria. During June–September of that year, villages with suspected or confirmed childhood lead poisoning continued to be identified in Zamfara State. Objectives: We investigated the extent of childhood lead poisoning [≥ 1 child with a blood lead level (BLL) ≥ 10 µg/dL] and lead contamination (≥ 1 soil/dust sample with a lead level > 400 parts per million) among villages in Zamfara State and identified villages that should be prioritized for urgent interventions. Methods: We used chain-referral sampling to identify villages of interest, defined as villages suspected of participation in gold ore processing during the previous 12 months. We interviewed villagers, determined BLLs among children < 5 years of age, and analyzed soil/dust from public areas and homes for lead. Results: We identified 131 villages of interest and visited 74 (56%) villages in three local government areas. Fifty-four (77%) of 70 villages that completed the survey reported gold ore processing. Ore-processing villages were more likely to have ≥ 1 child < 5 years of age with lead poisoning (68% vs. 50%, p = 0.17) or death following convulsions (74% vs. 44%, p = 0.02). Soil/dust contamination and BLL ≥ 45 µg/dL were identified in ore-processing villages only [50% (p < 0.001) and 15% (p = 0.22), respectively]. The odds of childhood lead poisoning or lead contamination was 3.5 times as high in ore-processing villages than the other villages (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 11.3). Conclusion: Childhood lead poisoning and lead contamination were widespread in surveyed areas, particularly among villages that had processed ore recently. Urgent interventions are required to reduce lead exposure, morbidity, and mortality in affected communities.
Switchable Materials Containing Polyzwitterion Moieties

In recent decades, the design and construction of smart materials capable of switching into a polyzwitterionic state by an external trigger have been intensively pursued. Polyzwitterionic states have unique antifouling and surface properties and external triggers, such as pH, light, ions, electric field and CO2, cause significant changes in materials with regard to overall charge, ionic strength and wettability. This survey highlights current progress in the irreversible as well as the reversible switching process involving polyzwitterionic moieties, which can, in turn, be applied to studying the interaction of various interfaces with biological species as protein, DNA, bacteria or platelets and also for advanced use.
Successional Trajectories of Soil Nematode and Plant Communities in a Chronosequence of Ex-arable Lands

Conversion of arable land into semi-natural grassland or heath land is a common practice for restoring and conserving plant diversity. However, little is known about the effectiveness of land conversion for restoring and conserving taxonomic and functional diversity in the soil. We studied soil nematode community development in a chronosequence of abandoned fields and related this to plant community development. The taxonomic and functional composition of the soil nematode community was analyzed to detect changes in soil food web structure, using semi-natural sites and theoretical plant and soil communities as references. While plant communities clearly developed towards the semi-natural references, there was less direction in succession of nematode taxa. The number of fungal feeding nematodes increased after land abandonment. Numbers of omni-carnivorous nematodes expanded only during the first years, after which there were no substantial changes for the next three decades. Plant communities on the ex-arable fields developed towards the theoretical reference plant associations Galio hercynici-Festucetum ovinae and Genisto anglicae-Callunetum. Nematode communities developed away from a theoretical community indicative of arable land, but there was no clear development towards a theoretical (semi-)natural reference. Our results show that restoration and conservation of plant communities is of limited indicative value for developments belowground: successful restoration of plant diversity does not necessarily imply successful restoration of belowground diversity. Assessing the impact of conservation measures on restoring soil biodiversity requires information on belowground community composition of (semi-)natural areas in order to establish proper references for restoration sites.
Learning Style and Learner Satisfaction in a Course Delivery Context

— This paper describes the results and implications of a correlational study of learning styles and learner satisfaction. The relationship of these empirical concepts was examined in the context of traditional versus e-blended modes of course delivery in an introductory graduate research course. Significant results indicated that the visual side of the visual-verbal dimension of students’ learning style(s) was positively correlated to satisfaction with themselves as learners in an e-blended course delivery mode and negatively correlated to satisfaction with the classroom environment in the context of a traditional classroom course delivery mode.
Timing Attacks on Implementations of Di(cid:14)e-Hellman, RSA, DSS, and Other Systems

By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to (cid:12)nd (cid:12)xed Di(cid:14)e-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext. Actual systems are potentially at risk, including cryptographic tokens, network-based cryptosystems, and other applications where attackers can make reasonably accurate timing measurements. Techniques for preventing the attack for RSA and Di(cid:14)e-Hellman are presented. Some cryptosystems will need to be revised to protect against the attack, and new protocols and algorithms may need to incorporate measures to prevent timing attacks.
Comparison of Radiative Accelerations Obtained with Atomic Data from OP and OPAL

Microscopic diffusion processes (such as radiative levitation, gravitational settling, and thermal diffusion) in the outer layers of stars are important because they may give rise to surface abundance anomalies. Here we compare radiative accelerations (grad) derived from the new Opacity Project (OP) data with those computed from OPAL and some previous data from OP. For the case in which we have full data from OPAL (carbon, five points in the ρ-T plane), the differences in the Rosseland mean opacities between OPAL and the new OP data are within 12% and are less than 30% between new OP and previous OP data (OP1). The radiative accelerations grad differ at up to the 17% level when compared to OPAL and up to the 38% level when compared to OP1. The comparison with OP1 on a larger ρ-T space gives a difference of up to 40% for grad(C) and increases for heavier elements, reaching 60% for Si and 65% for S and Fe. We also constructed four representative stellar models in order to compare the new OP accelerations with prior published results that used OPAL data. The Rosseland means overall agree better than 10% for all our cases. For the accelerations, the comparisons with published values yield larger differences in general. The published OPAL accelerations for carbon are even larger relative to OP compared to those that our direct comparisons indicate. Potential reasons for this puzzling behavior are discussed. In light of the significant differences in the inferred acceleration rates, theoretical errors should be taken into account when comparing models with observations. The implications for stellar evolution are briefly discussed. The sensitivity of grad to the atomic physics may provide a useful test of different opacity sources.
Dietary Polyphenols and the Prevention of Diseases

Polyphenols are the most abundant antioxidants in the diet and are widespread constituents of fruits, vegetables, cereals, dry legumes, chocolate, and beverages, such as tea, coffee, or wine. Experimental studies on animals or cultured human cell lines support a role of polyphenols in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, or osteoporosis. However, it is very difficult to predict from these results the effects of polyphenol intake on disease prevention in humans. One of the reasons is that these studies have often been conducted at doses or concentrations far beyond those documented in humans. The few clinical studies on biomarkers of oxidative stress, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and tumor or bone resorption biomarkers have often led to contradictory results. Epidemiological studies have repeatedly shown an inverse association between the risk of myocardial infarction and the consumption of tea and wine or the intake level of some particular flavonoids, but no clear associations have been found between cancer risk and polyphenol consumption. More human studies are needed to provide clear evidence of their health protective effects and to better evaluate the risks possibly resulting from too high a polyphenol consumption.
When music compensates language: a case study of severe aphasia in dementia and the use of music by a spousal caregiver

ABSTRACT Background: There is accumulating evidence of the preservation of music skills in people with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), including spared memory for familiar music and the ability to produce music by singing or playing an instrument. Music can also be used to alleviate symptoms of dementia, leading to reduced agitation, improved positive mood, memory, and expressive language functions. Aims: We evaluated the rate of decline of expressive language and music skills in TC, a 77 year old woman with aphasia in the context of severe AD, and her husband’s use of music in caregiving. Neither TC nor her husband had any formal music training. We also explored whether the preservation of music skills had implications for treating a symptom of her dementia, specifically her misidentification delusion. Methods & Procedures: A retrospective comparison of the progressive decline in TC’s expressive music and language skills was obtained through interviews with her husband. He also completed a purposefully developed questionnaire regarding his use of music during caregiving. Assessment of TC’s language skills was attempted using the Sydney Language Battery, and her music engagement skills were evaluated with the Music Engagement Questionnaire (MusEQ, informant version). Her behaviour and verbal communication was observed during four different conditions, presented by her husband; (1) reading a newspaper article, (2) reading familiar song lyrics, (3) singing familiar song lyrics, and (4) listening to the original version of the familiar song. Outcomes & Results: TC exhibited a gradual deterioration of her expressive language abilities, whereas her music skills (singing and music engagement), were relatively preserved. Her overall score on the MusEQ was in keeping with age matched healthy controls (50–55 percentile) and she had a high average (80–85 percentile) score on the “emotion” subscale. The impact of preserved music engagement was powerfully demonstrated when TC developed a transient misidentification delusion and believed that her husband was an intruder. Her delusion was only resolved after her husband repeatedly sang a significant song that they had shared as a couple for close to 60 years. By singing this special song (“Unchained Melody”), TC eventually “came back” and recognised him. During behavioural observations under different language and music conditions, TC’s verbal communication did not appear to change. Conclusions: This case study illustrates that when language skills deteriorate in AD, music functions may persist, providing a vital tool in coping with the symptoms of severe dementia.
MahNMF: Manhattan Non-negative Matrix Factorization

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) approximates a non-negative matrix $X$ by a product of two non-negative low-rank factor matrices $W$ and $H$. NMF and its extensions minimize either the Kullback-Leibler divergence or the Euclidean distance between $X$ and $W^T H$ to model the Poisson noise or the Gaussian noise. In practice, when the noise distribution is heavy tailed, they cannot perform well. This paper presents Manhattan NMF (MahNMF) which minimizes the Manhattan distance between $X$ and $W^T H$ for modeling the heavy tailed Laplacian noise. Similar to sparse and low-rank matrix decompositions, MahNMF robustly estimates the low-rank part and the sparse part of a non-negative matrix and thus performs effectively when data are contaminated by outliers. We extend MahNMF for various practical applications by developing box-constrained MahNMF, manifold regularized MahNMF, group sparse MahNMF, elastic net inducing MahNMF, and symmetric MahNMF. The major contribution of this paper lies in two fast optimization algorithms for MahNMF and its extensions: the rank-one residual iteration (RRI) method and Nesterov's smoothing method. In particular, by approximating the residual matrix by the outer product of one row of W and one row of $H$ in MahNMF, we develop an RRI method to iteratively update each variable of $W$ and $H$ in a closed form solution. Although RRI is efficient for small scale MahNMF and some of its extensions, it is neither scalable to large scale matrices nor flexible enough to optimize all MahNMF extensions. Since the objective functions of MahNMF and its extensions are neither convex nor smooth, we apply Nesterov's smoothing method to recursively optimize one factor matrix with another matrix fixed. By setting the smoothing parameter inversely proportional to the iteration number, we improve the approximation accuracy iteratively for both MahNMF and its extensions.
Exploring Learners’ Self-Reported Behavioral Patterns in Two Task-Readiness Conditions: A Qualitative Study

Abstract Task-planning studies have mostly been conducted using quantitative methods, not qualitative. However, the actual planning behaviors by learners could be overlooked by quantitative research which focuses mostly on planning outcomes rather than the processes. This study aims to bridge this gap by exploring learner behavioral patterns in pre-task planning as well as the under-investigated area of topic familiarity by drawing upon interview data. This consists of a comparison between the task-external and task-internal readiness constructs proposed in Bui’s (2014) task-readiness framework. Eight undergraduate students in Hong Kong completed two speaking tasks (a familiar and an unfamiliar task), followed by retrospective interviews. Though largely confirming previous (but parsimonious) research on task planning behaviors, this study discovered three major findings that had not been covered well in previous literature. First, while past studies focused on the psycholinguistic processes of task planning, these participants extensively reported its affective influences. Next, most participants reported their overall intended emphasis was on accuracy. These reports contradict general quantitative research results which suggest that task planning often leads to complexity, not accuracy. Finally, the lack of planning time as task-external readiness can be partly compensated for by topic familiarity as task-internal readiness. These issues along with their relevant implications in teaching and learning are discussed in this study.
Individual differences in non-adjacent statistical dependency learning in infants

Abstract There is considerable controversy over the factors that shape infants’ developing knowledge of grammar. Work with artificial languages suggests that infants’ ability to track statistical regularities within the speech they hear could, in principle, support grammatical development. However, little work has tested whether infants’ performance on laboratory tasks reflects factors that are relevant in real-world language learning. Here we tested whether the language that infants hear at home, and their receptive language skills, predict their performance on tasks assessing the ability to learn non-adjacent statistical dependencies (NADs) at 15 months, and whether that in turn predicts sensitivity to native-language NADs at 18 months. We found evidence for some (though not all) of these relations, and primarily for females. The results suggest that performance on the artificial language-learning task reveals something about the mechanisms of grammatical development, and that females and males may be learning NADs differently.
Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of the Symptom Checklist-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale

The Symptom Checklist - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale (SCL-PTSD), also known as Crime-Related PTSD Scale has been validated in survivors of interpersonal trauma in the general population. However, the psychometric properties have not been investigated in a clinical setting for patients with PTSD from diverse traumatic events. This study investigates the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the SCL-PTSD among 104 psychiatric outpatients with PTSD, caused by interpersonal (n = 50) or non-interpersonal trauma (n = 54). Self-report data of the SCL-PTSD, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) were gathered. The Korean version of the SCL-PTSD showed excellent internal consistency and moderate-to-good four-week temporal stability in both the interpersonal and non-interpersonal trauma groups. In comparison with other diagnostic groups, the scores of the SCL-PTSD were significantly higher compared to those of adjustment disorder, depression, other anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia, demonstrating its criteria-related validity. Convergent validity was confirmed because the scores of the SCL-PTSD were significantly correlated with BDI, SAI and TAI scores. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by significant correlation with the IES-R score. This study demonstrated the favorable psychometric prosperities of the Korean version of the SCL-PTSD, supporting its use in clinical research and practice.