Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abundant and rare spiders on tree trunks in German forests (Arachnida, Araneae)

The spider fauna active on the bark of trees in forests on eight sites in different regions in Germany was investigated. Trunk eclectors at about 2-4 meters height on living trees were used in different regions of Germany (SW Bavaria, Hesse, Brandenburg) between 1990 and 2003. In Hesse eclectors were also used on dead beech trees (standing and lying). In this study data, mainly from beech (Fagus sylvatica) and spruce (Picea abies), from May to Octo- ber are compared - whole year samples (including winter) are only available from Hesse. A total of 334 spider species were recorded with these bark traps, i.e. about one third of the spider species known from Germany. On average, each of the eight regions yielded 140.5 (± 26.2) species, each single tree 40.5 (± 12.2) species and 502 (± 452) adult spiders per season (i.e. May to Oct.). The 20 most abundant species are listed and characterised in detail. Six of the 20 species were not known to be abundant on bark, three prefer conifers and three beech/broadleaf. Even in winter (December-March) there was a remarkably high activity on the trunks. However, only a few spe- cies occur exclusively or mainly in winter. Finally, the rarity of some bark spider species is discussed and details (all known records in Germany, phenology) of four of them are presented (Clubiona leucaspis, Gongylidiellum edentatum, Kratochviliella bicapitata, Oreonetides quadridentatus). The diversity and importance of the spider fauna on bark in Central Europe is still underestimated.
Parametrized tests of the strong-field dynamics of general relativity using gravitational wave signals from coalescing binary black holes: Fast likelihood calculations and sensitivity of the method

Thanks to the recent discoveries of gravitational wave signals from binary black hole mergers by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory and Advanced Virgo, the genuinely strong-field dynamics of spacetime can now be probed, allowing for stringent tests of general relativity (GR). One set of tests consists of allowing for parametrized deformations away from GR in the template waveform models and then constraining the size of the deviations, as was done for the detected signals in previous work. In this paper, we construct reduced-order quadratures so as to speed up likelihood calculations for parameter estimation on future events. Next, we explicitly demonstrate the robustness of the parametrized tests by showing that they will correctly indicate consistency with GR if the theory is valid. We also check to what extent deviations from GR can be constrained as information from an increasing number of detections is combined. Finally, we evaluate the sensitivity of the method to possible violations of GR.
Minireview Biotechnological Aspects of Microbial Extracellular Electron Transfer

1Bioproduction Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 2–17–2–1 Tsukisamu-Higashi, Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 062–8517, Japan; 2Division of Applied Bioscience, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Kita-9 Nishi-9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060–8589, Japan; and 3Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 4–6–1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153–8904, Japan
Dispersive optomechanics: a membrane inside a cavity

We present the results of theoretical and experimental studies of dispersively coupled (or ‘membrane in the middle’) optomechanical systems. We calculate the linear optical properties of a high finesse cavity containing a thin dielectric membrane. We focus on the cavity's transmission, reflection and finesse as a function of the membrane's position along the cavity axis and as a function of its optical loss. We compare these calculations with measurements and find excellent agreement in cavities with empty-cavity finesses in the range 104–105. The imaginary part of the membrane's index of refraction is found to be ∼10−4. We calculate the laser cooling performance of this system, with a particular focus on the less-intuitive regime in which photons ‘tunnel’ through the membrane on a timescale comparable to the membrane's period of oscillation. Lastly, we present calculations of quantum non-demolition measurements of the membrane's phonon number in the low signal-to-noise regime where the phonon lifetime is comparable to the QND readout time.
Pharmacology of Hormone Replacement Therapy in Menopause

Menopause represents the final stage of the continuous process of reproductive aging in a woman’s life, marking the end of her fertility. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the natural menopause is defined as the permanent cessation of menstruation resulting from the loss of ovarian follicular activity (WHO Report, 1996). Preceded by endocrine and menstrual cycle changes described as “menopausal transition”, natural menopause occurs at an average age of approximately 51 years, although a high inter-individual variability is supported by results from epidemiological studies. However, occurrence of menopause outside the estimated normal age interval (45-55 years) is associated with increased morbidity, either when a late or on the contrary, a premature cessation of menstruation appears. A late menopause implies a longer exposure to estrogens and a possible increased risk for breast (Colditz, 1993; Kelsey & Bernstein, 1996) and endometrial cancer (Dossus et al., 2010; McPherson et al., 1996) or for venous thromboembolism (Simon et al., 2006). On the other hand, women entering menopause earlier are facing a hypo-estrogenic state for a longer period compared to women undergoing normal menopause. That is the case for about 1% of women, which are confronted with the diagnosis of primary ovarian insufficiency (POI). POI is defined by the presence of amenorrhea associated with elevated follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels in the menopausal range in women younger than 40 years (Bachelot et al., 2009). Women facing a premature cessation of the ovarian function were shown to be at increased risk for premature death, cardiovascular disease, neurologic disease, mood disorders, osteoporosis or psychosexual dysfunction (Shuster et al., 2010). As the main rationale for these disorders was linked to hormonal changes, maintaining a certain level of ovarian steroids for a given period of time arose as an essential condition for conserving life quality in women (Wilson, [1966]). Accentuated by the increasing life span, researches related to menopause and its treatment have provided scientific community with an increased body of data during the last decades. However, different aspects regarding the benefit/risk balance or the ideal doses and routes of administration of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in menopausal women remain uncertain (Grodstein et al., 1997; Rossouw et al., 2002).
The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Nicotine Dependence in Lebanese Adults

ABSTRACT Emotional intelligence (EI) is known to be a risk factor for several types of addiction. The purpose of this study was to investigate, in a cross-sectional design, the presence of a relationship between the level of EI and nicotine dependence in a sample of Lebanese adults. A self-administered questionnaire was used to determine the sociodemographic characteristics, the level of nicotine dependence, and the level of EI in a sample of 142 Lebanese participants from the community. The sample was 51.4% women, with a mean age of 33.9 years. There was no difference in EI level between smokers and non-smokers (p = 0.66), and there were no associations between EI level and the level of nicotine dependence (p = 0.59). However, EI was positively correlated with age (p = 0.023). Due to the fact that smokers have been dependent on nicotine for many years and that EI is known to increase with age, findings suggest that low EI may be a risk factor for initiation, rather than maintenance, of nicotine dependence.
Tacotron: Towards End-to-End Speech Synthesis

A text-to-speech synthesis system typically consists of multiple stages, such as a text analysis frontend, an acoustic model and an audio synthesis module. Building these components often requires extensive domain expertise and may contain brittle design choices. In this paper, we present Tacotron, an end-to-end generative text-to-speech model that synthesizes speech directly from characters. Given pairs, the model can be trained completely from scratch with random initialization. We present several key techniques to make the sequence-to-sequence framework perform well for this challenging task. Tacotron achieves a 3.82 subjective 5-scale mean opinion score on US English, outperforming a production parametric system in terms of naturalness. In addition, since Tacotron generates speech at the frame level, it's substantially faster than sample-level autoregressive methods.
Relationship between daily suicide counts and temperature in England and Wales.

BACKGROUND Seasonal fluctuation in suicide has been observed in many populations. High temperature may contribute to this, but the effect of short-term fluctuations in temperature on suicide rates has not been studied. AIMS To assess the relationship between daily temperature and daily suicide counts in England and Wales between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 2003 and to establish whether heatwaves are associated with increased mortality from suicide. METHOD Time-series regression analysis was used to explore and quantify the relationship between daily suicide counts and daily temperature. The impact of two heatwaves on suicide was estimated. RESULTS No spring or summer peak in suicide was found. Above 18 degrees C, each 1 degrees C increase in mean temperature was associated with a 3.8 and 5.0% rise in suicide and violent suicide respectively. Suicide increased by 46.9% during the 1995 heatwave, whereas no change was seen during the 2003 heat wave. CONCLUSIONS There is increased risk of suicide during hot weather.
The carbon balance of South America: a review of the status, decadal trends and main determinants

We summarise the contemporary carbon budget of South America and relate it to its dominant controls: popu- lation and economic growth, changes in land use practices and a changing atmospheric environment and climate. Com- ponent flux estimate methods we consider sufficiently reli- able for this purpose encompass fossil fuel emission invento- ries, biometric analysis of old-growth rainforests, estimation of carbon release associated with deforestation based on re- mote sensing and inventories, and agricultural export data. Alternative methods for the estimation of the continental- scale net land to atmosphere CO2 flux, such as atmospheric transport inverse modelling and terrestrial biosphere model
Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany

How far can the media protect or undermine democratic institutions in unconsolidated democracies, and how persuasive can they be in ensuring public support for dictator's policies? We study this question in the context of Germany between 1929 and 1939. Using geographical and temporal variation in radio availability, we show that radio had a significant negative effect on the Nazi electoral support between 1929 and 1932, when political news were slanted against Nazi party. This effect was reversed in just 5 weeks following Hitler's appointment as chancellor and the transfer of control of the radio to the Nazis. Pro-Nazi radio propaganda caused higher vote for the Nazis in March 1933 election. After full consolidation of power, radio propaganda helped the Nazis to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti-Semitism. The effect of Nazi propaganda was not uniform. Depending on listeners' priors about the message, propaganda could be very effective or could backfire. Nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-Semitism was historically high and had a negative effect on the support for anti-Semitic policies in places with historically low anti-Semitism.
A Satellite-LTE Network with Delay-Tolerant Capabilities: Design and Performance Evaluation

In this paper, a delay tolerant approach for traffic management in LTE over satellite link is presented. Due to the long propagation delays and frequent disruptions, mobile satellite communications pose many challenges, especially to the transport layer when the TCP protocol is used. We design and evaluate the performance of a transport protocol solution based on the DTN architecture in the satellite-LTE system. Our proposal, named Tiny Bundle Layer, acts as an overlay on top of different versions of TCP in order to overcome the satellite link impairments.
Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data

Horses were domesticated from the Eurasian steppes 5,000–6,000 years ago. Since then, the use of horses for transportation, warfare, and agriculture, as well as selection for desired traits and fitness, has resulted in diverse populations distributed across the world, many of which have become or are in the process of becoming formally organized into closed, breeding populations (breeds). This report describes the use of a genome-wide set of autosomal SNPs and 814 horses from 36 breeds to provide the first detailed description of equine breed diversity. FST calculations, parsimony, and distance analysis demonstrated relationships among the breeds that largely reflect geographic origins and known breed histories. Low levels of population divergence were observed between breeds that are relatively early on in the process of breed development, and between those with high levels of within-breed diversity, whether due to large population size, ongoing outcrossing, or large within-breed phenotypic diversity. Populations with low within-breed diversity included those which have experienced population bottlenecks, have been under intense selective pressure, or are closed populations with long breed histories. These results provide new insights into the relationships among and the diversity within breeds of horses. In addition these results will facilitate future genome-wide association studies and investigations into genomic targets of selection.
The Effects of Foreign Aid for Health on Health Outcomes in Developing Countries

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of foreign aid for health on the child mortality rate in developing countries. This is a controversial subject as many economists have found grounds to believe it is effective while others provide rationale for why it is ineffective. Based on panel data analysis, this study looks at the effects of external resources for health as a percentage of health spending on the child mortality rate in developing countries to determine how effective aid for health is in terms of improving health outcomes. With an understanding of the current nature of aid and previous empirical research on this topic, this paper will highlight what has been done and what still needs to be improved in future research in order to answer this
Treatments for Acute Bipolar Depression: Meta-analyses of Placebo-controlled, Monotherapy Trials of Anticonvulsants, Lithium and Antipsychotics

Abstract Background: Optimal treatments for bipolar depression, and the relative value of specific drugs for that purpose, remain uncertain, including agents other than antidepressants. Methods: We searched for reports of placebo-controlled, monotherapy trials of mood-stabilizing anticonvulsants, second-generation antipsychotics, or lithium for acute major depressive episodes in patients diagnosed with type I or II bipolar disorder and applied random-effects meta-analysis to evaluate their efficacy, comparing outcomes based on standardized mean drug-placebo differences (SMD) in improvement, relative response rates (RR), and number-needed-to-treat (NNT). Results: We identified 24 trials of 10 treatments (lasting 7.5 weeks, with ≥50 collaborating sites/trial) that met eligibility criteria: lamotrigine (5 trials), quetiapine (5), valproate (4), 2 each for aripiprazole, olanzapine, ziprasidone, and 1 each for carbamazepine, lithium, lurasidone, and olanzapine-fluoxetine. Overall, pooled drug-over-placebo responder-rate superiority (RR) was moderate (29% [CI: 19–40%]), and NNT was 8.2 (CI: 6.4–11). By SMD, apparent efficacy ranked: olanzapine+fluoxetine≥valproate>quetiapine>lurasidone>olanzapine, aripiprazole, and carbamazepine; ziprasidone was ineffective, and lithium remains inadequately studied. Notably, drugs were superior to placebo in only 11/24 trials (5/5 with quetiapine, 2/4 with valproate), and only lamotrigine, quetiapine and valproate had > 2 trials. Treatment-associated mania-like reactions were uncommon (drugs: 3.7%; placebo: 4.7%). Discussion: Controlled trials of non-antidepressant treatments for bipolar depression remain scarce, but findings with olanzapine-fluoxetine, lurasidone, quetiapine, and perhaps carbamazepine and valproate were encouraging; lithium requires adequate testing.
Subgroups in Agile and Traditional IT Project Teams

This paper analyzes the formation of subgroups within project teams that apply agile methods and teams that apply traditional methods. Subgroups form based on faultlines, which are dividing lines regarding attributes of diversity of the team members. We conduct case studies of two agile projects and two projects with a traditional approach. We find that the formation of subgroups differs between the two methods. Task assignment is the dominant factor that leads to the formation of subgroups in traditional methods, whereas previous ties between team members is the dominant factor in agile projects. In addition, location and language lead to the formation of subgroups in both methods. Our analysis is exploratory and our data is limited to four teams. We contribute to the literature on team formation and groups in IT project teams and show that research should consider subgroups and potential consequences when examining agile and traditional software development methods.
FINANCE AND DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH PROGRAMME

Financial development is vulnerable to social conflict. Conflict reduces the demand for domestic currency as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Conflict also leads to poor quality g overnance, including weak regulation of the financial system, thereby undermining the sustainability of financial institutions. Conflict therefore reduces the social return to financial liberalization and other financial-sector reforms. This paper presents a theoretical model integrating the effects of conflict and financial liberalization, and then tests the model on data for 79 countries. Using an explanatory variable that measures the intensity of conflict (from low to high) the results show that conflict significantly reduces financial development, and that this negative effect increases as conflict intensifies. The paper concludes that conflict reduction is essential if financial reform is to have its full benefit for development.
SPECTRAL INDEX AND QUASI-PERIODIC OSCILLATION FREQUENCY CORRELATION IN BLACK HOLE (BH) SOURCES: OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE OF TWO PHASES AND PHASE TRANSITION IN BHs

Recent studies have shown that strong correlations are observed between the low frequencies (1-10 Hz) of quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) and the spectral power law index of several Black Hole (BH) candidate sources, in low hard states, steep power-law (soft) states and in transition between these states. The observations indicate that the X-ray spectrum of such state (phases) show the presence of a power-law component and are sometimes related to simulataneous radio emission indicated the probable presence of a jet. Strong QPOs (> 20% rms) are present in the power density spectrum in the spectral range where the power-law component is dominant ( i.e. 60-90% ). This evidence contradicts the dominant long standing interpretation of QPOs as a signature of the thermal accretion disk. We present the data from the literature and our own data to illustrate the dominance of power-law index-QPO frequency correlations. We provide a model, that identifies and explains the origin of the QPOs and how they are imprinted on the properties of power-law flux component. We argue the existence of a bounded compact coronal region which is a natural consequence of the adjustment of Keplerian disk flow to the innermost sub-Keplerian boundary conditions near the central object and that ultimately leads to the formation of a transition layer (TL) between the adjustment radius and the innermost boundary. The model predicts two phases or states dictated by the photon upscattering produced in the TL: (1) hard state, in which the TL is optically thin and very hot ( kT 2 50 keV) producing photon upscattering via thermal Componization; the photon spectrum index I' N 1.5 for this state is dictated by gravitational energy release and Compton cooling in an optically thin shock near the adjustment
Driving Solar Giant Cells through the Self-organization of Near-surface Plumes

Global 3D simulations of solar giant-cell convection have provided significant insight into the processes which yield the Sun’s observed differential rotation and cyclic dynamo action. However, as we move to higher-resolution simulations a variety of codes have encountered what has been termed the convection conundrum. As these simulations increase in resolution and hence the level of turbulence achieved, they tend to produce weak or even anti-solar differential rotation patterns associated with a weak rotational influence (high Rossby number) due to large convective velocities. One potential culprit for this convection conundrum is the upper boundary condition applied in most simulations, which is generally impenetrable. Here we present an alternative stochastic plume boundary condition which imposes small-scale convective plumes designed to mimic near-surface convective downflows, thus allowing convection to carry the majority of the outward solar energy flux up to and through our simulated upper boundary. The use of a plume boundary condition leads to significant changes in the convective driving realized in the simulated domain and thus to the convective energy transport, the dominant scale of the convective enthalpy flux, and the relative strength of the strongest downflows, the downflow network, and the convective upflows. These changes are present even far from the upper boundary layer. Additionally, we demonstrate that, in spite of significant changes, giant cell morphology in the convective patterns is still achieved with self-organization of the imposed boundary plumes into downflow lanes, cellular patterns, and even rotationally aligned banana cells in equatorial regions. This plume boundary presents an alternative pathway for 3D global convection simulations where driving is non-local and may provide a new approach toward addressing the convection conundrum.