Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Greenhouse gas balance of an establishing Sphagnum culture on a former bog grassland in Germany

The cultivation of Sphagnum mosses on re-wetted peat bogs for use in horticulture is a new land use strategy. We provide the first greenhouse gas balances for a field-scale Sphagnum farming experiment on former bog grassland, in its establishment phase. Over two years we used closed chambers to make measurements of GHG exchange on production strips of Sphagnum palustre L. and Sphagnum papillosum Lindb. and on irrigation ditches. Methane fluxes of both Sphagnum species showed a significant decrease over the study period. This trend was stronger for S. papillosum. In contrast, the estimated CO2 fluxes did not show a significant temporal trend over the study period. The production strips of both Sphagnum species were net GHG sinks of 5– 9 t ha-1 a-1 (in CO2-equivalents) during the establishment phase of the moss carpets. In comparison, the ditches were a CO2 source instead of a CO2 sink and emitted larger amounts of CH4, resulting in net GHG release of ~11 t ha-1 a-1 CO2-equivalents. We conclude that Sphagnum farming fields should be designed to minimise the area covered by irrigation ditches. Overall, Sphagnum farming on bogs has lower on-field GHG emissions than low-intensity agriculture.
Ongoing Activity in Temporally Coherent Networks Predicts Intra-Subject Fluctuation of Response Time to Sporadic Executive Control Demands

Can ongoing fMRI BOLD signals predict fluctuations in swiftness of a person’s response to sporadic cognitive demands? This is an important issue because it clarifies whether intrinsic brain dynamics, for which spatio-temporal patterns are expressed as temporally coherent networks (TCNs), have effects not only on sensory or motor processes, but also on cognitive processes. Predictivity has been affirmed, although to a limited extent. Expecting a predictive effect on executive performance for a wider range of TCNs constituting the cingulo-opercular, fronto-parietal, and default mode networks, we conducted an fMRI study using a version of the color–word Stroop task that was specifically designed to put a higher load on executive control, with the aim of making its fluctuations more detectable. We explored the relationships between the fluctuations in ongoing pre-trial activity in TCNs and the task response time (RT). The results revealed the existence of TCNs in which fluctuations in activity several seconds before the onset of the trial predicted RT fluctuations for the subsequent trial. These TCNs were distributed in the cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal networks, as well as in perceptual and motor networks. Our results suggest that intrinsic brain dynamics in these networks constitute “cognitive readiness,” which plays an active role especially in situations where information for anticipatory attention control is unavailable. Fluctuations in these networks lead to fluctuations in executive control performance.
Comparison between Two Generic Questionnaires to Assess Satisfaction with Medication in Chronic Diseases

Objective The objective of this work was to compare two generic questionnaires assessing patients’ satisfaction with medication. In addition we tested whether satisfaction can predict adherence to medication regimens in patients with chronic diseases, and which dimensions of satisfaction are most involved. Methods This prospective, observational study was conducted over one year in a heterogeneous population of patients with various chronic diseases. Satisfaction with medication was assessed by using the TSQM® vII and the SatMed-Q® questionnaires, and adherence to treatment was assessed with the Morisky-Green questionnaire. Clinical pharmacists interviewed patients to collect clinical, demographic and therapeutic data. Results 190 patients were enrolled. Both questionnaires showed excellent reliability and correlation was high (R = 0.70; p<0.001). Adherence was correlated with satisfaction with medication whether assessed with the SatMed-Q® (R = 0.23; p = 0.002) or the TSQM® (R = 0.17; p = 0.02). Among different dimensions of satisfaction, convenience of use and side effects are prominent predictors of adherence. Conclusion Adherence is related to the patient’s satisfaction with medication whether assessed with the TSQM® vII or the SatMed-Q®. Therefore, these simple questionnaires could be used as predictive tools to identify patients whos’ adherence needs to be improved.
Business Cycles in the Eastern Caribbean Economies: The Role of Fiscal Policy and Interest Rates

This paper analyzes the business cycle characteristics of the economies of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States using a model of a small open economy subject to interest rate and fiscal expenditure shocks and financial frictions. The paper shows that macroeconomic aggregates in this region are quite volatile, with consumption exhibiting higher volatility than gross domestic product. The analysis also finds that in these economies real interest rates are highly volatile and strongly countercyclical with gross domestic product and other macroeconomic aggregates. Similarly, fiscal expenditures show significant volatility, but are pro-cyclical with gross domestic product. The results suggest two major directions for designing policies to help reduce the volatility experienced by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States economies. First, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States countries should seek a greater openness to international financial markets, which could help them smooth out the effects of fundamental shocks, such as shocks to technology and terms of trade, and shocks associated with natural hazards. However, this removal of international financial barriers needs to be accompanied by improvements in domestic financial conditions, as this would reduce the vulnerability of these economies to country risk premium shocks. Second, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States region should try harder to move toward a countercyclical fiscal policy stance, as this could help to stabilize the domestic risk premium and cushion the negative effects of interest rate shocks on economic activity, hence reducing volatility.
Using some fiber properties to predict strength and regularity of carded yarn for some Egyptian cotton varieties

The present investigations were carried out to determine prediction equation and the relative contribution of three fiber properties to predict yarn strength, yarn neps and yarn evenness. Six cotton varieties i.e., Giza93, Giza 87, Giza 88, Giza70 as extra-long staple varieties and Giza 80 and Giza 90 as long staple under carded ring spinning system were used during 2015 season. The full model regression and stepwise multiple linear regression model were used to satisfy the target of this work. The obtained results indicated that fiber length, fiber strength and micronaire value had the greatest influence on yarn strength, yarn evenness C.V. % and number of neps for the extra-long and long staple cotton varieties. All calculated models of regression were significant and reflected large part of the variation of studied yarn properties expressed as high values of R. The prediction study helps in the industrial applications in the textile industry because it allows of the most important yarn cotton qualities i.e., (yarn strength, yarn evenness C.V. % and number of neps) using the inputs of the most important cotton fiber qualities i.e., (fiber length, fiber strength and microner value).
Organizational Agility Key Factors for Dynamic Business Process Management

For several years, Business Process Management (BPM) is recognized as a holistic management approach that promotes business effectiveness and efficiency. Increasingly, corporates find themselves, operating in business environments filled with unpredictable, complex and continuous change. Driven by these dynamic competitive conditions, they look for a dynamic management of their business processes to maintain their processes performance. To be competitive, companies have to respond quickly and nimbly to changing environment. One domain that has dominated the thinking of most managers from few years is organizational agility. It is considered as inescapable feature of today's forward-looking corporates. About 90% of executives surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit believe that organizational agility is critical for business success. Many researchers tried to define and characterize organizational agility according to their context and domain application. The first aim of this paper is to tighten and explicate a conceptualization of organizational agility that clarifies what it is and how it can be reached by proposing a framework that leads to improve organizational agility. The second aim of the current research is to suggest ideas on how to make business processes agile and what are the practices of organizational agility that can be transferred to BPM.
Multimodal Dialogs (MMD): A large-scale dataset for studying multimodal domain-aware conversations

While multimodal conversation agents are gaining importance in several domains such as retail, travel etc., deep learning research in this area has been limited primarily due to the lack of availability of large-scale, open chatlogs. To overcome this bottleneck, in this paper we introduce the task of multimodal, domain-aware conversations, and propose the MMD benchmark dataset. This dataset was gathered by working in close coordination with large number of domain experts in the retail domain and consists of over 150K conversation sessions between shoppers and sales agents, with over 6.5Million utterances. With this dataset, we propose 5 new sub-tasks for multimodal conversations along with their evaluation methodology. We also propose two novel multimodal neural models in the encode-attend-decode paradigm and demonstrate their performance on two of the sub-tasks, namely text response generation and best image response selection. These experiments serve to establish baseline performance and open new research directions for each of these sub-tasks.
DMC – PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ACCURACY – CALIBRATION ASPECTS AND GENERATION OF SYNTHETIC DMC IMAGES

For a reasonable financial amount, today no CCD-arrays are available with an information content close to traditional photogrammetric aerial cameras. By this reason the Digital Mapping Camera DMC of Z/I Imaging is using a combination of 4 CCD-arrays, each with app. 4000 x 7000 pixels. As CCD-arrays cannot be fitted together without gaps, the 4 individual optics of a DMC camera are combined in a convergent arrangement. For easy handling, the images of the individual optics have to be arranged together to a single virtual image, corresponding to the geometry of one single perspective camera. In spite of a very stable mounting, small movements of one optic against the other cannot be avoided. By this reason, the sub-images are transformed together based on tie points in the overlapping areas by bundle adjustment solution. This is resulting in a sub-pixel accuracy of the virtual image based on the availability of a precise determination of the interior orientation of the single camera heads.
Effect of Regulatory Element DNA Methylation on Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator Gene Expression

Expression of the tissue-type plasminogen activator gene (t-PA; gene name PLAT) is regulated, in part, by epigenetic mechanisms. We investigated the relationship between PLAT methylation and PLAT expression in five primary human cell types and six transformed cell lines. CpG methylation was analyzed in the proximal PLAT gene promoter and near the multihormone responsive enhancer (MHRE) -7.3 kilobase pairs upstream of the PLAT transcriptional start site (TSS, -7.3 kb). In Bowes melanoma cells, the PLAT promoter and the MHRE were fully unmethylated and t-PA secretion was extremely high. In other cell types the region from -647 to -366 was fully methylated, whereas an unmethylated stretch of DNA from -121 to +94 was required but not sufficient for detectable t-PA mRNA and t-PA secretion. DNA methylation near the MHRE was not correlated with t-PA secretion. Specific methylation of the PLAT promoter region -151 to +151, inserted into a firefly luciferase reporter gene, abolished reporter gene activity. The region -121 to + 94 contains two well-described regulatory elements, a PMA-responsive element (CRE) near -106 and a GC-rich region containing an Sp1 binding site near +59. Methylation of double-stranded DNA oligonucleotides containing the CRE or the GC-rich region had little or no effect on transcription factor binding. Methylated CpGs may attract co-repressor complexes that contain histone deacetylases (HDAC). However, reporter gene activity of methylated plasmids was not restored by the HDAC inhibitor trichostatin. In conclusion, efficient PLAT gene expression requires a short stretch of unmethylated CpG sites in the proximal promoter.
Dynamic and conventional spin-echo MR of pituitary microlesions.

PURPOSE To determine whether dynamic traditional spin-echo MR imaging, with the use of routine T1 parameters during contrast infusion, is superior to standard MR imaging after contrast administration for detecting microlesions of the pituitary gland. METHODS Sixty-four patients with pituitary microlesions 3 to 10 mm in diameter were examined with a dynamic traditional spin-echo technique; that is, a typical T1 spin-echo sequence of 500-600/20-25/2 (repetition time/echo time/excitations), 3-mm-thick sections, 16-cm field of view, 256 x 128 matrix, and a scan time ranging from 2 minutes to 2 minutes 40 seconds during contrast infusion. In addition, standard imaging with unenhanced and contrast-enhanced spin-echo sequences were obtained. The three sequences were evaluated retrospectively and graded for gland-lesion contrast conspicuity, lesion homogeneity, and delineation of lesion margin. RESULTS The dynamic sequence was judged to be better than the standard enhanced sequence for depicting microlesions in 42% to 47% of patients. Lesions were identified only on the dynamic study in an additional 1% to 14% of patients. Lesions were seen equally well on the standard and dynamic sequences only in 16% to 23% of cases. The standard postcontrast sequence was judged better in 12.5% to 17% of cases, with lesions identified only on the standard sequence in an additional 8% to 9%. CONCLUSION Dynamic traditional spin-echo MR imaging improved lesion detection and provided increased clarity over standard sequences after contrast infusion. Both sequences are important, since lesions were detected only on the dynamic sequence in 11% to 14% of patients and only on the standard sequence in 8% to 9% of patients.
An Evaluation of Coupling Coordination between Tourism and Finance

The tourism industry has become a new growth engine that closely coordinates with the financial industry and contributes to the sustainable development of local economies. This study establishes a comprehensive index system and evaluates the coupling coordination based on an integrated approach, and the dynamic relationship between tourism and finance through applying coupling coordination degree modeling, the Granger causality test, and an impulse response function based on the regional coordination theory and system theory. Using data from 2000 to 2016 of three tourism-based cities in China, the findings reveal heterogeneous results among the cities. Specifically, the following: (1) The coupling coordination degree between finance and tourism in Zhangjiajie increased with strong fluctuations. A one-way causality relationship existed between two subsystems, and finance continuously contributed to the growth of tourism with serious lags; (2) The coupling coordination degree between finance and tourism in Huang Shan presented a ladder-type and continuous rise. A two-way causality relationship existed between the two subsystems mentioned above, and finance influenced the growth of tourism with continuously positive or negative effects, while tourism continuously contributed to the development of finance. (3) The coupling coordination degree between finance and tourism in Sanya grew with a frequent, tiny, and fluctuating trend. A two-way causality relationship existed between the two subsystems mentioned above, and finance influenced the growth of tourism with continuously positive or negative effects, while tourism influenced the development of finance with temporary positive or negative effects.
Gauging Chinese Public Support for China’s Role in Peacekeeping

In recent years, Beijing has significantly increased its support for UN peacekeeping operations (UNPKOs). Of the five permanent members of the Security Council, China is currently the largest troop-contributing country and the second-largest financial contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget. What is the view of the Chinese public on its country’s involvement in peacekeeping operations? We investigate the question using a public opinion survey experiment conducted in China. Our main findings are, first, that respondents showed a high level of support generally for China’s participation in peacekeeping operations but highest of all when China performed a leadership role. Secondly, China’s particular interest in a host country did not affect the degree of public support for China’s involvement; however, respondents did perceive broad benefits to China’s international reputation from such activities. Thirdly, although there was a similar level of support for China’s participation in peacekeeping whether the mission was authorised by the United Nations or by the African Union, neither was seen as a substitute for host state consent. Finally, respondents generally preferred China to make personnel (military and police) contributions in addition to financial contributions. These findings provide important insights into the domestic motivations for Beijing’s future peacekeeping policy and attendant constraints in this regard.
Attention Start End Question & Passage Representation Question & Passage Interaction Candidate Scoring Question Passage

While sophisticated neural-based techniques have been developed in reading comprehension, most approaches model the answer in an independent manner, ignoring its relations with other answer candidates. This problem can be even worse in open-domain scenarios, where candidates from multiple passages should be combined to answer a single question. In this paper, we formulate reading comprehension as an extract-then-select twostage procedure. We first extract answer candidates from passages, then select the final answer by combining information from all the candidates. Furthermore, we regard candidate extraction as a latent variable and train the two-stage process jointly with reinforcement learning. As a result, our approach has improved the state-ofthe-art performance significantly on two challenging open-domain reading comprehension datasets. Further analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of our model components, especially the information fusion of all the candidates and the joint training of the extract-then-select procedure.
Relationship between Knowledge, Environmental Sanitation and Personal Hygiene with Scabies (Observational study in the Diamond Miners Community of Cempaka District Banjarbaru South Kalimantan)

Scabies is a disease that can affect diamond miners community, because of their work related to the lack of personal hygiene and unsanitary environment. Based on preliminary observations, there are cases of scabies in the diamond miners community of Cempaka District, which is likely due to job factors, personal hygiene and the unsanitary environment. The aims research is to determine the relation of knowledge, environmental sanitation and personal hygiene with disease incidence of scabies in the diamond miners community of Cempaka District Banjarbaru South Kalimantan. This research method is analytical observation with cross sectional design. The subjects were diamond miners numbered 100. Chi-square test results shows correlation between knowledge, personal hygiene and environmental sanitation with scabies with p value (0,000;0,000;0,000) < 0,05. Based on the results of this research are expected miners community can improve personal hygiene by cutting the nails once a week, take a bath twice a day, change clothes when they are sweating, not alternately wearing a towel with family, drying clothes, towels and bed spray the sun and keeping the environment cleaning. Index Terms— knowledge, sanitation, personal hygiene, scabies
The degrees of freedom of the Lasso for general design matrix

In this paper, we investigate the degrees of freedom ($\dof$) of penalized $\ell_1$ minimization (also known as the Lasso) for linear regression models. We give a closed-form expression of the $\dof$ of the Lasso response. Namely, we show that for any given Lasso regularization parameter $\lambda$ and any observed data $y$ belonging to a set of full (Lebesgue) measure, the cardinality of the support of a particular solution of the Lasso problem is an unbiased estimator of the degrees of freedom. This is achieved without the need of uniqueness of the Lasso solution. Thus, our result holds true for both the underdetermined and the overdetermined case, where the latter was originally studied in \cite{zou}. We also show, by providing a simple counterexample, that although the $\dof$ theorem of \cite{zou} is correct, their proof contains a flaw since their divergence formula holds on a different set of a full measure than the one that they claim. An effective estimator of the number of degrees of freedom may have several applications including an objectively guided choice of the regularization parameter in the Lasso through the $\sure$ framework. Our theoretical findings are illustrated through several numerical simulations.
Environmental Determinants of Recent Endemism of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Infections in Amphibian Assemblages in the Absence of Disease Outbreaks

The inconsistent distribution of large‐scale infection mediated die‐offs and the subsequent population declines of several animal species, urges us to understand how, when, and why species are affected by disease. It is often unclear when or under what conditions a pathogen constitutes a threat to a host. Often, variation of environmental conditions plays a role. Globally Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) causes amphibian declines; however, host responses are inconsistent and this fungus appears equally capable of reaching a state of endemism and subsequent co‐existence with native amphibian assemblages. We sought to identify environmental and temporal factors that facilitate host–pathogen coexistence in northern Europe. To do this, we used molecular diagnostics to examine archived and wild amphibians for infection and general linear mixed models to explore relationships between environmental variables and prevalence of infection in 5 well‐sampled amphibian species. We first detected infection in archived animals collected in 1999, and infection was ubiquitous, but rare, throughout the study period (2008–2010). Prevalence of infection exhibited significant annual fluctuations. Despite extremely rare cases of lethal chytridiomycosis in A. obstetricans, Bd prevalence was uncorrelated with this species’ population growth. Our results suggest context dependent and species‐specific host susceptibility. Thus, we believe recent endemism of Bd coincides with environmentally driven Bd prevalence fluctuations that preclude the build‐up of Bd infection beyond the critical threshold for large‐scale mortality and host population crashes.