Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drying of calcium carbonate in a batch spouted bed dryer: optimization and kinetics modeling

In the present work, the drying of calcium carbonate in a batch spouted bed dryer with inert particles has been investigated experimentally. The effect of several operating parameters including air temperature (90, 100, and 110 ˚C), air velocity (Ums, 1.2 Ums, and 1.5 Ums), and dry solid mass (5, 10, 20 g) has been studied. The Taguchi method has been applied to determine the optimal parameters and also to reduce the number of required experimental runs. It has been found that the dryer performance was affected by all parameters. It has also been found that drying with 5 g dry solid at a temperature of 100 ˚C and a velocity of 1.2 Ums leads to maximum drying efficiency. Additionally, the effect of air inlet velocity and temperature on the drying kinetics of calcium carbonate has been investigated. Several semi-theoretical models with temperature and velocity dependent parameters have been selected to estimate the drying kinetics. The performance of all fitted models was acceptable but the logarithmic model was the best model in terms of the statistical analysis.
Sex Differences in Emotion Recognition and Working Memory Tasks

It is proposed that emotional and cognitive functions may be differentiated based on sex. However, it is still unknown whether this assumption could be generalized for all emotional faces and working memory (WM) functions. To examine this, 50 females, and 60 males performed an emotion recognition task, consisting of a series of emotional faces as well as three working memory tasks from Cambridge Neuropsychological test battery (CANTAB); namely, spatial working memory (SWM), stocking of Cambridge (SOC), and intra/extradimensional shifts tasks (IED). The results found that females had faster response times in recognition of both positive and negative faces as compared to males. Furthermore, it was observed that while females were better on SWM task processing, males performed better on IED and four move SOC tasks, illustrating that processing of WM components may differentiate by sex. It has been concluded that emotional and cognitive functions are indeed sensitive to sex differences.
Impulsive versus reflective influences on health behavior: a theoretical framework and empirical review

Abstract Often, health behavior seems to be governed not only by reasoned attitudes and goal-directed behavior but also by impulsive influences. The notion of a conflict between reflective and impulsive processing which is incorporated in prominent dual-system accounts (e.g., Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Strack & Deutsch, 2004) may yield important benefits for the understanding and prediction of health-related behavior. In this article, we suggest a basic framework for the prediction of health-related behavior which combines (a) reflective influences (as measured via self-report), (b) impulsive influences (as measured via implicit measures), and (c) situational or dispositional moderators that shift the weight between reflective and impulsive influences. The practical utility of such a framework is demonstrated by drawing on recent evidence from several areas of health psychology such as eating, drinking, drug abuse, and sexual behavior. Implications for the understanding of health behavior and applied health interventions are discussed.
Postnatal morphological development and production of short-chain fatty acids in the digestive tract of gnotobiotic piglets

The present study examined the impact of Enterococcus faecium on morphological development and production of short-chain fatty acids in the digestive tract of gnotobiotic piglets during milk nutrition and weaning. The experiment was carried out on (18) gnotobiotic piglets. The piglets were non-colostral and the feeding ration consisted of autoclaved milk substitute (Sanolac Ferkel, Germany). From the first day of life a probiotic strain of Enterococcus faecium was administered continually at a dose of 2 ml of inoculum (1 ml contained 1 × 10 4 CFU). The animals were weaned on Day 28. Gastrointestinal tract was collected from 18 gnotobiotic piglets slaughtered at three hours after birth and at the age of 2, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 days. The level of short-chain fatty acids was determined in the contents of jejunum, ileum and colon. Samples of intestinal mucosa (from duodenum, jejunum and ileum) were subjected to morphological analysis. We characterized regional variations in morphological and functional responses of the small intestine. The jejunal part of the intestinal tract of gnotobiotic piglets was characterized by relatively short crypts, extremely long villi and narrow propria which contained only few cells up to Day 14 of life. Morphological examination showed that jejunal and ileal villi were significantly lower at 21 days of age (P < 0.05 and P < 0.001, resp.). Depending on age, the concentration of both acetoacetic acid and acetic acid was higher in the jejunal contents. The difference was significant on Day 7 of age ( P < 0.05) for acetoacetic acid and on Day 28 of age (P < 0.01) for acetic acid. The concentration of acetic acid in the colonal content of gnotobiotic piglets was significantly higher on Day 7 (P < 0.05) and 21 of age (P < 0.01). The study demonstrated that the respective bacterial species affected differently the intestinal morphology and concentration of short-chain fatty acids and suggested that postnatal bacterial colonization patterns may have long-term effects on intestinal health and development.
Does Good Advice Come Cheap? –– On the Assessment of Risk Preferences in the Lab and the Field

Advice is important for decision making, especially in the financial sector. We investigate how individuals assess risk preferences of others given sociodemographic information or pictures. Both non-professionals and financial professionals participate in this artefactual field experiment. Subjects mainly rely on the other's self-assessment of risk preferences and on gender when forming the belief about someone else's risk preferences. On average, subjects consider themselves to be more risk-tolerant than the person they evaluate. Subjects use their own risk attitude as a reference point for predicting others' risk preferences. This false consensus effect is less pronounced for young professionals than for senior and non-professionals. Furthermore, financial professionals predict risk preferences more accurately compared to non-professionals.
Niche versus neutrality in structuring the beta diversity of damselfly assemblages

1. Differences among communities in taxonomic composition – beta diversity – are frequently expected to result from taxon-specific responses to spatial variation in ecological conditions, through niche partitioning. Such process-derived patterns are in sharp contrast to arguments from neutral theory, where taxa are ecologically equivalent and beta diversity results primarily from dispersal limitation. 2. Here, we compared beta diversity among assemblages of damselflies (Odonata: Zygoptera), for which previous experiments have shown that niche differences maintain genera within a community, but patterns of relative abundance for species within each genus are shaped primarily by neutral dynamics. 3. Using null-model and ordination-based methods, we find that both genera and (in contrast to neutral theory) species assemblage composition vary across the landscape in a deterministic fashion, shaped by environmental and spatial factors. 4. While the observed patterns in species composition conflict with theory, we suggest that this a result of weak ecological filters acting to produce spatial variation in assemblages of ecologically similar species undergoing ecological drift within communities. Such patterns are especially likely in systems of relatively weak dispersers like damselflies.
Maturity and Intermittent Endurance in Male Soccer Players during the Adolescent Growth Spurt : A Longitudinal Study

The biological maturation of pubescent soccer players is known to markedly affect not only their physical fitness levels, but also soccer skills (Malina et al., 2004, 2005, 2007; Figueiredo et al., 2011; Philippaerts et al., 2006). Philippaerts et al. (2006) investigated the relationships between physical fitness, motor ability tests, and age at peak height velocity (PHV), and demonstrated that the yearly development of pubescent soccer players for the speed of limb movement, trunk strength, upper body muscular endurance, explosive strength, running speed, agility, cardiorespiratory endurance, and anaerobic capacity was maximum at the PHV age. They also reported that the development of upper body muscular endurance, explosive strength, and anaerobic capacity continued to be elevated for 1 to 2 years after the PHV age. However, individual variations in PHV age have been reported to be as high as 5 years, even in boys at the same age. In our previous study (Chuman et al., 2009), this wide variation in the maturity status was found to greatly affect fitness performance in junior soccer players. Soccer is a physically demanding sport requiring the ability to repeatedly perform high-intensity exercise with short rest intervals (intermittent endurance) (Bangsbo, 1994). Bangsbo developed Maturity and Intermittent Endurance in Male Soccer Players during the Adolescent Growth Spurt: A Longitudinal Study
Design Considerations for Low Power Internet Protocols

Low-power wireless networks provide IPv6 connectivity through 6LoWPAN, a set of standards to aggressively compress IPv6 packets over small maximum transfer unit (MTU) links such as 802.15. 4.The entire purpose of IP was to interconnect different networks, but we find that different 6LoWPAN implementations fail to reliably communicate with one another. These failures are due to stacks implementing different subsets of the standard out of concern for code size. We argue that this failure stems from 6LoWPAN’s design, not implementation, and is due to applying traditional Internet protocol design principles to low- power networks.We propose three design principles for Internet protocols on low-power networks, designed to prevent similar failures in the future. These principles are based around the importance of providing flexible tradeoffs between code size and energy efficiency. We apply these principles to 6LoWPAN and show that the modified protocol provides a wide range of implementation strategies while allowing implementations with different strategies to reliably communicate.
A new leech species from Southern Germany , Trocheta intermedia nov . sp

A new amphibious species of Trocheta Dutrochet, 1817, Tocheta intermedia nov. sp. from freshwater ecosystems in Freiburg i. Br. (Southern Germany) is described and named for its intermediate size between that of the type species of the family, Erpobdella octoculata Linnaeus 1758, and the other, larger Trocheta species. The nova species shows the following characteristics: length of living adult specimens 56−64 mm, fully extended up to 95 mm long. Dorsal and ventral side dark grey to green-brown; head region with an extended upper lip and dorsum with two faint, black-pigmented, parallel longitudinal stripes and very small white dots; eight eyes. Gonopores separated by two annuli. Cocoons irregularly shaped, 5−7 mm long, with 3−8 eggs from which 1−4 (on average 2) juveniles hatch. Part of the gene mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I of this nova species was sequenced and deposited in the GenBank database. A phylogenetic tree revealed that Trocheta intermedia nov. sp. is the sister taxon of T. pseudodina Nesemann, 1990.
Executive Summary Exploring Victims' Experiences of Workplace Bullying: A Grounded Theory Approach

Exit Behaviour Despite considerable research on workplace bullying, trying to identify causal relationships and measurements of specific constructs, there is a need to draw from the experiences and feelings of the targets of workplace bullying. The current study explores the victims’ experiences from an interpretive perspective in the context of Information Technology organizations in India. The qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with the victims of workplace bullying. The analysis using grounded theory approach resulted in a conceptual model, which explains the antecedents, bullying behaviours, consequences, and self-coping methods of the victims.
Effect of workplace stress on job performance

The study examines the relationship between workplace stress and job performance. A survey method was employed to gather self-administered questionnaires from executive and non-executive employees of a leading private investment bank in Peninsular Malaysia. The outcomes of SmartPLS path model analysis of the data showed two important findings: firstly, physiological stress was positively and significantly correlated with job performance. Secondly, psychological stress was positively and significantly correlated with job performance. This finding reveals that physiological and psychological stresses act as important predictors of job performance in the studied organization. The paper provides discussion, implications and conclusion.
Does Training Make French Speakers More Able to Identify Lexical Stress

The aim of this research is to determine whether a prosodic training could improve the ability of French‐speaking listeners to identify the stressed syllable in Spanish words. For this, native speakers of French and native speakers of Spanish performed a pre‐test and a post‐test, involving a stress identification task. Between both tests, some of the French speakers participated in a training session, in which they were trained to perceive Spanish accentual contrasts, while the others received no training. Firstly, results show that, although their performance does not reach those of native speakers of Spanish, French‐ speaking listeners are able, after a short training, to learn to perceive Spanish accentual contrasts. More interestingly, results also reveal that the improvement from pre‐ to post‐test does not depend on the mere fact of receiving training, but rather depends on the French‐speaking listenerʹs learning ability in the training session.
Interest rate pass-through in Turkey and impact of global financial crisis: asymmetric threshold cointegration analysis

This paper aims to investigate the interest rate pass-through of monetary policy rate to banking retail rates in Turkey by employing the asymmetric threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoegressive (MTAR) procedures introduced by Enders and Siklos (2001). Over the period December 2001 to April 2011, the empirical results of asymmetric threshold cointegration analysis suggest that there exist significant and complete pass-through between policy rate and loan rates. Positive and negative departures from the equilibrium converge to long run path almost at the same speed. Pace of convergence is about two to three months for all loan rates. Policy rate has significant short run impact on loan rates. Our analysis revealed that there is no significant relationship between policy rate and bank deposit rates due to sluggish adjustment of deposit rates. Lastly, the speed and behavior of interest rate pass-through between policy rate and loan rates did not change when we encounter the effect of 2008 financial crisis. Having a banking sector dominated financial system in Turkey, the results suggest that banks adjust loan rates faster than deposit rates. This indicates that Central Bank can affect the consumption behavior of people, in other words aggregate demand through loan rates.
Multimodal Image Denoising Based on Coupled Dictionary Learning

In this paper, we propose a new multimodal image denoising approach to attenuate white Gaussian additive noise in a given image modality under the aid of a guidance image modality. The proposed coupled image denoising approach consists of two stages: coupled sparse coding and reconstruction. The first stage performs joint sparse transform for multimodal images with respect to a group of learned coupled dictionaries, followed by a shrinkage operation on the sparse representations. Then, in the second stage, the shrunken representations, together with coupled dictionaries, contribute to the reconstruction of the denoised image via an inverse transform. The proposed denoising scheme demonstrates the capability to capture both the common and distinct features of different data modalities. This capability makes our approach more robust to inconsistencies between the guidance and the target images, thereby overcoming drawbacks such as the texture copying artifacts. Experiments on real multimodal images demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to better employ guidance information to bring notable benefits in the image denoising task with respect to the state-of-the-art.
Susceptibility of selected murine and microtine species to infection by a wild strain of Francisella tularensis subsp. holoarctica.

The purpose of this study was to compare susceptibility of BALB/c mice, common voles (Microtus arvalis) and yellow-necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) to infection by a virulent Francisella tularensis subsp. holarctica strain. Median survival in these three species following experimental infection with 320 colony form- ing units of F. tularensis (both intraperitoneally and subcutaneously) amounted to 4.5, 7 and 4 days, respectively. Survival curves of BALB/c and yellow-necked mice were very similar and were significantly different from that of common voles. LD 50 was 0.5 and 37.9 colony forming units in BALB/c mice and common voles, respectively. The bacterial burden in the spleen, liver, lung, kidney and blood of common voles started to develop later post exposure and amounted to lower levels (except in kidneys) than in BALB/c mice. The results demonstrate that yellow-necked mice are even more susceptible to infection by F. tularensis than BALB/c mice and that the common vole is a small mammalian host with a susceptibility which is two-orders-of-magnitude lower.
Conscious and unconscious: Toward an integrative understanding of human mental life and action.

Human consciousness is one of the wonders of the world. It integrates sensation, perception, emotion, and interpretation, often understanding events in sequences that include causal analyses and extended narrative structures. How inert bits of lifeless physical matter, such as protons, neutrons, and electrons, combine and organize so as to make conscious experience possible remains one of the most unassailable mysteries in the scientific understanding of the universe. Yet consciousness itself is, of course, no mystery for the billions of human beings who have and use it all day, every day. We, the authors of this chapter, have found ourselves on opposite sides of debates about several important questions, including the efficacy of conscious thought and the scientific viability of free will. Still, we have followed each other's work over the years with interest, respect, and admiration, and this has enabled our programs of research to benefit and to be informed by each other's work. Moreover, we actually agree on far more than our periodic debates might suggest. Our purpose in this chapter is to explore and elucidate these areas of agreement.
7 Parallel Spatial-Spectral Processing of Hyperspectral Images

Hyperspectral image processing has been a very active area in remote sensing and other application domains in recent years. Despite the availability of a wide range of advanced processing techniques for hyperspectral data analysis, a great majority of available techniques for this purpose are based on the consideration of spectral information separately from spatial information information, and thus the two types of information are not treated simultaneously. In this chapter, we describe several spatial-spectral techniques for dimensionality reduction, feature extraction, unsupervised and supervised classification, spectral unmixing and compression of hyperspectral image data. Most of the techniques addressed in this chapter are based on concepts inspired by mathematical morphology, a theory that provides a remarkable framework to achieve the desired integration. Parallel implementations of some of the proposed techniques are also developed to satisfy time-critical constraints in remote sensing applications, using NASA’s Thunderhead Beowulf cluster for demonstration purposes throughout the chapter. Combined, the different topics covered by this chapter offer a thoughtful perspective on future potentials and emerging challenges in the design of robust spatial-spectral techniques for hyperspectral image analysis.
Renewable energy, arable land, agriculture, CO2 emissions, and economic growth in Morocco

The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration and Granger causality tests are used to investigate the dynamic short and long-run causality relationships between per capita renewable energy (RE) consumption, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, real gross domestic product (GDP), agricultural value added (AVA), and arable land use (LUSE) for the case of Morocco during the period 1980-2013. Two models are used: the first with the AVA variable, and the second with the LUSE variable. The Wald test confirms the existence of a long-run relationship between variables for each considered model. Our long-run estimates indicate that an increase in economic growth, agricultural production, and arable land use contribute to increase the use of renewable energy, while a decrease in CO2 emissions increases renewable energy consumption. Granger causality tests reveal the existence of a short-run unidirectional causality running from AVA and from LUSE to RE consumption; a long-run unidirectional causality running from LUSE to RE, and a long-run bidirectional causality between AVA and RE. We recommend that Morocco should continue to encourage renewable energy use because this latter is not in competition with agricultural production for land use, but rather it is a complementary activity.
Character Trustworthiness 1 Running Head : CHARACTER TRUSTWORTHINESS The persuasive influence of a fictional character ’ s tru tworthiness

The present research examined the role of a fiction al character’s trustworthiness on narrative persuasion. The authors suggest that trus tworthiness indicators within the story, rather than paratextual cues (fact-fiction-labeling ) affect persuasive outcomes. An experiment on fuel-efficient driving behavior (gree n driving) was conducted, with behavioral intentions and self-reported behavior (t hree weeks post-exposure) as dependent variables. A story with a trustworthy character who introduced green driving behavior led to stronger intentions to engage in fuel-efficient driving among car owners than a story with a less trustworthy character who provided the same information or a control story. Low character trustworthiness was particularly detrimen tal to story-consistent intentions and behavior for recipients who were not deeply immerse d into the story world (low narrative presence).
The selection of closed-class elements during language production: a reassessment of the evidence and a new look on new data

Are closed-class items such as free-standing determiners and bound inflectional morphemes selected by a competitive or a noncompetitive mechanism? Jescheniak, Schriefers, and Lemhöfer provide a survey of the literature on this topic involving studies employing the picture–word interference and simple picture naming tasks. They claim that the extant evidence supports a competitive lexical selection mechanism for both types of closed-class items. In this commentary, we critically evaluate their proposal and present new empirical data. We come to the conclusion that the available data do not allow a straightforward interpretation in terms of a particular hypothesis of lexical selection. We highlight the need to consider answers to the theoretical question within a broader research context.