Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parental resources and the transition to junior high.

This study examined whether maternal resources of involvement and autonomy support might buffer children against the negative effects of the transition to junior high. A diverse sample of 60 children, their mothers, and teachers participated. Three types of involvement (school, cognitive, and personal) and levels of autonomy support were assessed during both 6th and 7th grades. Children’s motivational resources (perceived competence, control understanding, self-regulation) as well as outcomes of self-worth, grades, and adjustment were also assessed at the 2 time periods. Children whose mothers were higher in cognitive and personal involvement in 6th grade decreased less in perceived competence over the transition relative to those of mothers who were less involved. Children of more autonomy supportive mothers increased less in acting-out and learning problems. Changes in maternal resources were also predictive of changes in motivation and outcomes. The results suggest the importance of the home environment in children’s coping with the transition to junior high.
TESTING THE CHLORIDE PENETRATION RESISTANCE OF CONCRETE: A LITERATURE REVIEW

The ability of chloride ions to penetrate concrete must be known for design as well as quality control purposes. This document reviews the current common methods for determining chloride penetrability of concrete. First, some theoretical background of what influences the penetration of chlorides into concrete is presented. The different mechanisms of chloride penetration are presented, followed by a further elaboration of the chloride diffusion theory. The influence of basic properties of concrete on its chloride penetrability is also discussed. Next, individual test procedures are presented. Discussed first are the existing long-term procedures, namely the salt ponding test (AASHTO T259) and the Nordtest bulk diffusion test (NTBuild 443). The existing short-term tests are then presented. For each test, the procedure, the theoretical basis, and any advantages and disadvantages are presented. Also included in this document as an appendix is a glossary of some of the common terms related to chloride ingress testing and measurement.
Land use and climate change impacts on the hydrology of the upper Mara River Basin, Kenya: results of a modeling study to support better resource management

Abstract. Some of the most valued natural and cultural landscapes on Earth lie in river basins that are poorly gauged and have incomplete historical climate and runoff records. The Mara River Basin of East Africa is such a basin. It hosts the internationally renowned Mara-Serengeti landscape as well as a rich mixture of indigenous cultures. The Mara River is the sole source of surface water to the landscape during the dry season and periods of drought. During recent years, the flow of the Mara River has become increasingly erratic, especially in the upper reaches, and resource managers are hampered by a lack of understanding of the relative influence of different sources of flow alteration. Uncertainties about the impacts of future climate change compound the challenges. We applied the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to investigate the response of the headwater hydrology of the Mara River to scenarios of continued land use change and projected climate change. Under the data-scarce conditions of the basin, model performance was improved using satellite-based estimated rainfall data, which may also improve the usefulness of runoff models in other parts of East Africa. The results of the analysis indicate that any further conversion of forests to agriculture and grassland in the basin headwaters is likely to reduce dry season flows and increase peak flows, leading to greater water scarcity at critical times of the year and exacerbating erosion on hillslopes. Most climate change projections for the region call for modest and seasonally variable increases in precipitation (5–10 %) accompanied by increases in temperature (2.5–3.5 °C). Simulated runoff responses to climate change scenarios were non-linear and suggest the basin is highly vulnerable under low (−3 %) and high (+25 %) extremes of projected precipitation changes, but under median projections (+7 %) there is little impact on annual water yields or mean discharge. Modest increases in precipitation are partitioned largely to increased evapotranspiration. Overall, model results support the existing efforts of Mara water resource managers to protect headwater forests and indicate that additional emphasis should be placed on improving land management practices that enhance infiltration and aquifer recharge as part of a wider program of climate change adaptation.
Study of protein folding under native conditions by rapidly switching the hydrostatic pressure inside an NMR sample cell

Significance Development of specialized instrumentation enables rapid switching of the hydrostatic pressure inside an operating NMR spectrometer. This technology allows observation of protein signals during the repeated folding process. Applied to ubiquitin, a previously extensively studied model of protein folding, the methodology reveals an initially highly dynamic state that deviates relatively little from random coil behavior but also provides evidence for numerous repeatedly failed folding events, previously only observed in computer simulations. Above room temperature, direct NMR evidence shows a ∼50% fraction of proteins folding through an on-pathway kinetic intermediate, thereby revealing two equally efficient parallel folding pathways. In general, small proteins rapidly fold on the timescale of milliseconds or less. For proteins with a substantial volume difference between the folded and unfolded states, their thermodynamic equilibrium can be altered by varying the hydrostatic pressure. Using a pressure-sensitized mutant of ubiquitin, we demonstrate that rapidly switching the pressure within an NMR sample cell enables study of the unfolded protein under native conditions and, vice versa, study of the native protein under denaturing conditions. This approach makes it possible to record 2D and 3D NMR spectra of the unfolded protein at atmospheric pressure, providing residue-specific information on the folding process. 15N and 13C chemical shifts measured immediately after dropping the pressure from 2.5 kbar (favoring unfolding) to 1 bar (native) are close to the random-coil chemical shifts observed for a large, disordered peptide fragment of the protein. However, 15N relaxation data show evidence for rapid exchange, on a ∼100-μs timescale, between the unfolded state and unstable, structured states that can be considered as failed folding events. The NMR data also provide direct evidence for parallel folding pathways, with approximately one-half of the protein molecules efficiently folding through an on-pathway kinetic intermediate, whereas the other half fold in a single step. At protein concentrations above ∼300 μM, oligomeric off-pathway intermediates compete with folding of the native state.
Experiments with Universal CEFR Classification

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) guidelines describe language proficiency of learners on a scale of 6 levels. While the description of CEFR guidelines is generic across languages, the development of automated proficiency classification systems for different languages follow different approaches. In this paper, we explore universal CEFR classification using domain-specific and domain-agnostic, theory-guided as well as data-driven features. We report the results of our preliminary experiments in monolingual, cross-lingual, and multilingual classification with three languages: German, Czech, and Italian. Our results show that both monolingual and multilingual models achieve similar performance, and cross-lingual classification yields lower, but comparable results to monolingual classification.
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment sensitizes gastric cancer cells to melatonin‐induced apoptosis through multiple pathways

Although extensive efforts have been made in recent decades to treat advanced gastric cancer with comprehensive therapy based on chemotherapy, effective anti‐gastric cancer therapeutics are still lacking in the clinics. Therefore, potent novel anti‐gastric cancer ways are greatly needed. Here, we explored hyperbaric oxygen treatment as a novel and effective adjuvant treatment method which has anti‐gastric cancer effects when used together with melatonin. When performed together with MLT, HBO effectively inhibited tumorigenicity of gastric cancer through selectively inducing a robust tumor suppressive apoptosis response. Mechanistic studies revealed that the sensitizing effect of hyperbaric oxygen is due to decreased ratio of Bcl‐2/Bax, increased level of p53, cleaved Caspase3, GRP78, CHOP, and LC3. These results give a vivid picture that classic apoptosis pathways including mitochondrial pathway, tumor suppressive endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), and autophagy are all involved in the process. From the preliminary results got from the current study, we identified that HBO sensitizes human gastric cancer cells to MLT‐induced apoptosis through a variety of complicated molecular mechanisms. HBO may provide a novel candidate supplemental treatment method for further development of potential anti‐gastric cancer therapeutics. The combination of HBO and MLT could be a promising treatment for advanced gastric cancer.
Adversarial Complementary Learning for Weakly Supervised Object Localization

In this work, we propose Adversarial Complementary Learning (ACoL) to automatically localize integral objects of semantic interest with weak supervision. We first mathematically prove that class localization maps can be obtained by directly selecting the class-specific feature maps of the last convolutional layer, which paves a simple way to identify object regions. We then present a simple network architecture including two parallel-classifiers for object localization. Specifically, we leverage one classification branch to dynamically localize some discriminative object regions during the forward pass. Although it is usually responsive to sparse parts of the target objects, this classifier can drive the counterpart classifier to discover new and complementary object regions by erasing its discovered regions from the feature maps. With such an adversarial learning, the two parallel-classifiers are forced to leverage complementary object regions for classification and can finally generate integral object localization together. The merits of ACoL are mainly two-fold: 1) it can be trained in an end-to-end manner; 2) dynamically erasing enables the counterpart classifier to discover complementary object regions more effectively. We demonstrate the superiority of our ACoL approach in a variety of experiments. In particular, the Top-1 localization error rate on the ILSVRC dataset is 45.14%, which is the new state-of-the-art.
The Past, Present, and Future of Biofuels – Biobutanol as Promising Alternative

kDa for the two different subunits of the CoA transferase. A molecular mass of 23.6 kDa for both subunits of the protein in DSM 792 (Cary et al., 1990; Gerischer & Dürre, 1990; Petersen et al., 1993; Fischer et al., 1993) was found. Acetoacetate decarboxylase of C. acetobutylicum consists of 12 identical subunits, each of them with a molecular mass of 28 kDa, forming an holoenzyme of 330 kDa, while the enzyme from C. beijerinckii is only 200-230 kDa (Gerischer & Dürre, 1990; Petersen & Bennett, 1990; Chen, 1993). comprehensive current issues to the understanding of this important topic. find including biofuels development efforts, their implications for the food industry, current and future biofuels crops, the successful Brazilian ethanol program, insights of the first, second, third and fourth biofuel generations, advanced biofuel production techniques, related waste treatment, emissions and environmental impacts, water consumption, produced allergens and toxins. Additionally, the biofuel policy discussion is expected to be continuing in the foreseeable future and the reading of the biofuels features dealt with in this book, are recommended for anyone interested in understanding this diverse and developing theme.
Vitamin D and the Liver—Correlation or Cause?

Vitamin D is becoming increasingly accepted as an important physiological regulator outside of its classical role in skeletal homeostasis. A growing body of evidence connects vitamin D with hepatic disease. This review summarises the role of vitamin D in liver homeostasis and disease and discusses the therapeutic potential of vitamin D-based treatments to protect against hepatic disease progression and to improve response to treatment. While pre-clinical experimental data is promising, clinical trials around liver diseases have mostly been under-powered, and further studies will be required to clarify whether vitamin D or vitamin D analogues have beneficial effects on liver disease.
Biochemical Characterization of Detoxifying Enzymes in Dimethoate-Resistant Strains of Melon Aphid, Aphis gossypii(Hemiptera: Aphididae)

The melon aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is a highly polyphagous sap sucking pest on wide varieties of crops including cotton and vegetables. It is a notorious vector of many plant viruses that are persistently and non-persistently transmitted. In nature, aphids are regulated by their natural enemies. However, chemical control remains a major management tool even though resistance to insecticides has been documented worldwide. A better understanding of mechanisms by which insecticide resistance occurs and its early detection is desirable to develop effective management strategies. The present investigation was conducted to study the development of resistance to an organophosphate (OP) compound-dimethoate, identify biochemical mechanism(s) involved in resistance and study cross-resistance to imidacloprid in laboratory selected A. gossypii strains in comparison to susceptible strains. Bioassay studies revealed that the LC50 values increased dramatically with dimethoate selection in resistant strains and the resistance ratio (RR) was 270-, 243- and 210-fold greater than that of the susceptible strains by 30th generation. Further, biochemical assays revealed enhanced activities of carboxylesterases (CarE), glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) and cytochrome P450-mediated p-Nitroanisole O-demethylase (PNOD) in resistant strains supporting their role in dimethoate detoxification. This study thus revealed that enhanced activity of detoxifying enzymes viz., CarE, GSTs and PNODs is one of the mechanisms underlying dimethoate resistance in A. gossypii collected from South India. Interestingly, the possibility of negatively correlated cross-resistance to imidacloprid was identified in three OP- resistant strains exhibiting 2.97-, 2.56- and 3.76-fold sensitivity to imidacloprid (a novel neonicotinoid). This indicated that the latter was less affected by the resistance mechanism(s) present.
Physiological responses of red mangroves to the climate in the Florida Everglades

[1] This manuscript reports the findings of physiological studies of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle L.) conducted from June to August 2001 and from May to June 2003 in the Florida Everglades. In situ physiological measurements were made using environmentally controlled gas exchange systems. The field investigations were carried out to define how regional climate constrains mangrove physiology and ecosystem carbon assimilation. In addition, maximum carboxylation and photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) limited carbon assimilation capacities were investigated during the summer season to evaluate whether ecophysiological models developed for mesophyte plant species can be applied to mangroves. Under summertime conditions in the Florida Everglades, maximum foliar carbon dioxide (CO2) assimilation rates reached 18 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1. Peak molar stomatal conductance to water vapor (H2O) diffusion reached 300 mmol H2O m−2 s−1. Maximum carboxylation and PAR-limited carbon assimilation rates at the foliage temperature of 30°C attained 76.1 ± 23.4 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1 and 128.1 ± 32.9 μmol (e−) m−2 s−1, respectively. Environmental stressors such as the presence of hypersaline conditions and high solar irradiance loading (>500 W m−2 or >1000 μmoles of photons m−2 s−1 of PAR) imposed sharp reductions in carbon assimilation rates and suppressed stomatal conductance. On the basis of both field observations and model analyses, it is also concluded that existing ecophysiological models need to be modified to consider the influences of hypersaline and high radiational loadings on the physiological responses of red mangroves.
Millimeter Wave Analog Beamforming With Low Resolution Phase Shifters for Multiuser Uplink

We consider millimeter wave multiuser uplink system with low resolution phase shifters, where users transmit simultaneously to base station. Transmit and receive beamforming through large antenna arrays is used to compensate severe path loss of millimeter waves. We first propose a joint precoder and detector design based on the low-complexity local search algorithm that iteratively finds the preferred transmit and receive beamforming vectors, which maximizes the sum-rate of the multiuser uplink system. Although the joint design achieves similar sum-rate to a fully digital system, the computation complexity to determine good beamforming vectors is high. To reduce complexity, we then propose nonjoint designs of precoder and detector. For the precoder design, the transmit beamforming vectors are chosen to maximize either the signal to noise ratio or the signal to interference plus noise ratio of each user. For the detector design, the receiver beamforming vectors are selected using either an approximate ML detector or a successive cancellation detector. Through simulations, we show that our designs with low resolution phase shifters outperform the traditional methods using steering vectors as beamforming vectors with high resolution phase shifters.
Sparse Convolution-based Markov Models for Nonlinear Fluid Flows

Data-driven modeling for nonlinear fluid flows using sparse convolution-based mapping into a feature space where the dynamics are Markov linear is explored in this article. The underlying principle of low-order models for fluid systems is identifying convolutions to a feature space where the system evolution (a) is simpler and efficient to model and (b) the predictions can be reconstructed accurately through deconvolution. Such methods are useful when real-time models from sensor data are needed for online decision making. The Markov linear approximation is popular as it allows us to leverage the vast linear systems machinery. Examples include the Koopman operator approximation techniques and evolutionary kernel methods in machine learning. The success of these models in approximating nonlinear dynamical systems is tied to the effectiveness of the convolution map in accomplishing both (a) and (b) mentioned above. To assess this, we perform in-depth study of two classes of sparse convolution operators: (i) a pure data-driven POD-convolution that uses left singular vectors of the data snapshots - a staple of Koopman approximation methods and (ii) a sparse Gaussian Process (sGP) convolution that combines sparse sampling with a Gaussian kernel embedding an implicit feature map to an inner product reproducing kernel Hilbert space.
Comparing text and graphics in navigation display design

Thirty-six participants were tested in a flight simulator on their ability to decide which of two airports was furthest from a storm front, based on the manner in which information was presented on a navigational display. Results indicated that use of a moving-map display was superior to either a tabular, text-only display or a text display with an additional orienting symbol. In addition, in contrast to an earlier study (Williams, 1999), pilots performed better using a north-up map than when using a track-up map. Discussion of the results focuses on recommendations for moving-map displays and the display requirements for support of the nearest-airport function within a navigational display in particular.
Estimation of violin bowing features from Audio recordings with Convolutional Networks

The acquisition of musical gestures and particularly of instrument controls from a musical performance is a field of increasing interest with applications in many research areas. In the last years, the development of novel sensing technologies has allowed the fine measurement of such controls. However, the acquisition process usually involves the use of expensive sensing systems and complex setups that are generally intrusive in practice. An alternative to direct acquisition is through the analysis of the audio signal. So called indirect acquisition has many advantages including the simplicity and low-cost of the acquisition and its nonintrusive nature. The main challenge is designing robust detection algorithms to be as accurate as the direct approaches. In this paper, we present an indirect acquisition method to estimate violin bowing controls from audio signal analysis based on training Convolutional Neural Networks with a database of multimodal data (bowing controls and sound features) of violin performances.
The effects of dietary Selenium‐yeast level on glutathione peroxidase activity, tissue Selenium content, growth performance, and carcass and meat quality of broilers

Abstract The present study was conducted to assess effects of selenium (Se)‐yeast supplementation on glutathione peroxidase activity, Se levels in tissues, growth performance, carcass, and meat composition in broilers. A total of 275 one‐d‐old Cobb 500 broilers of both sexes were randomly allotted to 1 of 5 treatments during a 42‐d period. The 5 treatments differed only in Se content: group 1 had no additional Se (background only); groups 2, 3, and 4 received 0.3 mg/kg of added Se from the beginning of the trial until d 21, whereas in the second half of the study (from d 22 to 42), these groups received 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9 mg/kg of added Se, respectively; and group 5 received 0.9 mg/kg of Se for the entire experimental period. At the end of the study, the control group showed significantly lower (P < 0.01) glutathione peroxidase activity in blood plasma compared to Se‐supplemented groups. Regarding Se concentration in various tissues, the groups receiving Se yeast showed higher plasma, feces, and meat Se contents than the control group (P < 0.01). Supplementation of Se improved broilers’ body weight, weight gain and feed conversion ratio (P < 0.01). Dressing percentage was lower in the control group and the group with 0.3 mg/kg of added Se compared to other experimental groups (0.6 and 0.9 mg/kg of dietary Se). The proportion of less valuable carcass parts (wings and legs) was higher (P < 0.01) in the group fed the basal diet compared to groups supplemented with 0.9 mg/kg of Se. Initial and ultimate pH values differed among experimental groups (P < 0.05). Supplementation of Se improved the broiler's antioxidative resistance, growth performance, carcass quality, and chemical composition of meat.