Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tongue papillae morphology of brown-throated sloth Bradypus variegatus ( SCHINZ , 1825 )

The Bradypus variegatus inhabits the forests of South America and feeds from leaves, branches and sprouts from different plants. Due to its diet and the lack of literature on the morphological aspect of Xenarthras, five Bradypus variegatus tongues from animals which died from natural causes were evaluated, and they came from Pará State Museum Emílio Goeldi and were donated to the Laboratory of Animal Morphological Research (LaPMA) from UFRA, for revealing the different types of papillae and epithelial-connective tissue. Macroscopically, the tongues presented elongated shape, rounded apex, body, root, median sulcus in the root’s apex, and two vallate papillae. The mucous membrane of the tongue revealed a keratinized stratified pavement epithelium, while the ventral surface of the tongue was thin and smooth, not provided with any type of papillae. However, the dorsal surface of the tongue was irregular with the presence of three types of papillae: filiform, fungiform and vallate papillae. The filiform papillae found were of a simple type, presenting a rounded base, irregularly distributed with a larger concentration and development on the tongue’s apex and body. The fungiform papilla showed a practically smooth surface with irregular format, with the presence of gustatory pores; these were found all over the dorsal surface, with larger concentration at the rostral part of the apex. Only two vallate papillae were observed disposed in the root of the tongue, surrounded by a deep groove, and revealing several taste buds. The tongues from Bradypus variegatus presented gustatory papillae similar to the ones described for other Xenarthras species and wild mammals.
Rising R&D Intensity and Economic Growth

Over the past decades, private R&D spending in the US and other developed countries has been growing faster than GDP. In the United States, for example, R&D expenditures (excluding those funded by the federal government) have grown from 0.63% of GDP in 1953 to 1.95% of GDP in 2007, i.e. R&D intensity has increased by more than a factor of three in half a century. At the same time, the growth rates of per capita and aggregate output have been rather stable, possibly declining slightly. Standard models of endogenous growth and R&D cannot easily reproduce or explain this observation, not even along a transition path. This paper proposes a growth model that can account for the observed phenomenon by explicitly describing competition among technological leaders and followers in individual markets in a way that is consistent with existing studies on firms’ motivation to invest in R&D. The model shows that it is possible that the eventually unsustainable trend of rising R&D intensity persists for a very long time.
Aedes mosquito survey within the premises of University of Sri Jayewardenepura to determine its population density and seasonal shift in relative abundance

The Premises of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura was surveyed in the month of May for possible breeding habitats of mosquitoes which were mapped out and the immature stages of collected were identified. Subsequently investigations were made by placing ovitraps within the University premises from June to November 2008, to determine the abundance of Aedes aegyp ti and Aedes albopictus detected during the previous survey in the month of May. An Ae.aegypti positive container was detected only once in all the indoor and outdoor container observed and no Ae.aegypti positive ovitrap was recorded during the study period . The Ovitrap Index (01) for Ae.albopictus was calculated monthly. Breeding of Ae.albopictus was found in both indoor (Mean Monthly 01 =13.3) and out door containers (Mean Monthly 01 35.3). During the dry season the rainfall recorded a monthly range of 45.6 mm to 152.6mm. The larval population of Ae.albopictus remained low during this period with an 01 range from 0 to 12.5. However, during the rainy season which showed a monthly range of 294.9mm to 414.4mm, the 01 increased exponentionally (01 ranges from 13.3-80). In the month of September, Ae.albopictus were recorded in indoor ovitraps too (01=13.3), indicating its ability to replace the breeding places of Ae.aegypti, under certain environmental conditions. The monthly dengue incidence reported from the neighboring area declined in the month of August and started to increase again in the month of September. The ecological conditions in theses areas are very much similar to those within the University premises. The 01 values of dengue vector mosquito species could be utilized to indicate a potential increase in the dengue incidence.
What drives credit rating changes? : a return decomposition approach

This paper examines the relative importance of a shock to expected cash flows (i.e., cash-flow news) and a shock to expected discount rates (i.e., discount-rate news) in credit rating changes. Specifically, we use a Vector Autoregressive model to implement the return decomposition of Campbell and Shiller (Review of Financial Studies, 1, 1988, 195) and Vuolteenaho (Journal of Finance, 57, 2002, 233) to extract cash-flow news and discount-rate news from stock returns at the firm-level. We find that credit rating changes are, on average, more strongly associated with cash-flow news than with discount-rate news, consistent with cash-flow news being more permanent than discount-rate news. We further find that both cash-flow news and discount-rate news are more strongly related to credit rating changes when they convey negative information about firm value. This asymmetric association is consistent with the non-linear nature of default risk and with the fact that rating agencies incorporate bad news sooner than good news into their rating revisions. This paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the relative importance of cash-flow news and discount-rate news in the credit rating process.
The Bulge Metallicity Distribution from the APOGEE Survey

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) provides spectroscopic information of regions of the inner Milky Way, which are inaccessible to optical surveys. We present the first large study of the metallicity distribution of the innermost Galactic regions based on high-quality measurements for 7545 red giant stars within 4.5 kpc of the Galactic center, with the goal to shed light on the structure and origin of the Galactic bulge. Stellar metallicities are found, through multiple Gaussian decompositions, to be distributed in several components, which is indicative of the presence of various stellar populations such as the bar or the thin and the thick disks. Super-solar ([Fe/H] = +0.32) and solar ([Fe/H] = +0.00) metallicity components, tentatively associated with the thin disk and the Galactic bar, respectively, seem to be major contributors near the midplane. A solar-metallicity component extends outwards in the midplane but is not observed in the innermost regions. The central regions (within 3 kpc of the Galactic center) reveal, on the other hand, the presence of a significant metal-poor population ([Fe/H] = −0.46), tentatively associated with the thick disk, which becomes the dominant component far from the midplane ( kpc). Varying contributions from these different components produce a transition region at +0.5 kpc , characterized by a significant vertical metallicity gradient.
Effect of herbal feed additives on performance parameters of ruminants and especially on dairy goat; a Review

Over 90% of the goats in the world are owned by rural households, which are characterized by poverty, low input agricultural practice, lack of modern management skills, poor feeding and housing practices, inappropriate breeding practices and inadequate adoption of technologies essential to improve the productivity. According to the FAO, the lack of drugs to treat diseases and infections causes losses of 30 to 35% in the breeding sector of many developing countries, where poor animal health remains the major constraint to breeding. There are two principle reasons behind the changes in legislation on the use of in-feed antibiotic growth promoters. The first is to try to combat the development of microbial resistance to antibiotic drugs and the consequences on human health. The second is a response to consumer pressures to eliminate the use of all non-plant xenobiotic agents from the diets of animals, so natural resources of medicine like phytomedicines can help smallholders in rural areas to manage their only income resources from diseases and mortality. ( F. Mirzaei, Effect of herbal feed additives on performance parameters of ruminants and especially on dairy goat; a Review. Report and Opinion 2011;3(10):18-36). (ISSN: 1553-9873). http://www.sciencepub. net/report
Road culvert restoration expands the habitat connectivity and production area of juvenile Atlantic salmon in a large subarctic river system

The effects of restoration of impassable road culverts on the distribution of juvenile Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L. , were evaluated in seven small tributaries of the subarctic River Teno system, northernmost Finland/Norway. Restoration enabled the passage of juvenile salmon through the culverts and increased the distribution area of salmon parr in the seven streams by tens or hundreds of metres, depending on the natural slope of the tributary with a total of 1 km new area for ascending juveniles. Areas upstream of the culverts were colonised after varying number of years, mostly 2–3, following restoration. Age-1 and age-2 parr were the first salmon age groups entering the new territory after removal of the migration barrier. Although the restoration measures were conducted at the downstream outlet area of the culverts only, the connectivity was improved and increased the production area accessible to juvenile salmon. Such removal of migration barriers and securing habitat connectivity by passable culverts should be taken into account in environmental management strategies of river systems safeguarding the essential habitats of salmonid fish. K E Y W O R D S : Atlantic salmon, culvert, migration barrier, rearing habitat, restoration.
The Low Risk Anomaly Evidence from Sweden

This paper finds that the low risk anomaly is present on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm during January 2005 until December 2014. The result has been produced with a survivorship bias-free sample, consisting of 25 108 firm-month observations in total. We sort stocks into quintile portfolios based on both rolling total volatility and rolling beta with a one-month holding period strategy. Both value-weighted and equal-weighted portfolios are used to obtain Jensen’s alpha and Sharpe Ratio, leading to the same conclusion. The low risk anomaly is found in all market stages except for the bear market in 2007-2008. Benchmarking is one of the variables that explain the presence of the low risk anomaly in the Swedish market. A potential investment opportunity is thus to invest in low risk stocks and leverage the portfolio to increase expected risk-adjusted returns. 2015-05-28 GM1060 Master Degree project in Finance Anton Broden & Jonathan Fransson
Textural Analysis of Pap Smears Images for k-NN and SVM Based Cervical Cancer Classification System

Article history: Received: 15 February, 2018 Accepted: 17 July, 2018 Online: 05 August, 2018 Early detection and treatment of cervical cancer is crucial to patients’ recovery with a reported success rate of nearly 100%. Presently, Pap smear test which is a visual inspection of cells collected from the ectocervix is the screening tool mainly used in cancer prevention programs. The Pap smear is relatively easy to handle however, it is time-consuming and requires wet fixation of the cytological material. Thus, there is great demand for an automated-screening system that exhibits high sensitivity, high specificity and highthroughput. Hence, a textural based cervical cancer classification system has been developed in this research work. The wavelet transform was used to denoise 120 Pap smear images to enhance its visual quality while the images were segmented using the morphological operations. Eight textural features of GLCM that serve as inputs into the kNN and SVM classifiers were extracted from each of the images and the performance was evaluated using accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The result of the developed system shows that clustering shade SVM classifier out-performs entropy k-NN classifier in terms of classification accuracy of 90.0% and 88.3% respectively and vice visa in terms of sensitivity and specificity.
IMPACT OF SOIL CONDITIONERS AND WEATHER ON LAWN COMPACTNESS

The aim of this paper is to determine the effect of soil conditioners and one mineral fertilizer on turf, as well as their interaction with meteorological conditions in maintaining of lawn compactness. The field experiment was conducted in the experimental facility between 2013 and 2015. The following grass species were used in the experiment: Lolium perenne, Festuca rubra, and Poa pratensis. Another experimental factor tested in the research was soil conditioners. Between 2013 and 2015 an assessment of grass compactness based on the methods described by Domański (1998) was carried out. This assessment was conducted in three seasons: spring, summer, and autumn. Grass species tested in the experiment formed turf of different compactness, varying throughout seasons of the year and responding strongly to weather conditions. In drier periods red fescue had better turf, contrary to smooth meadow grass and perennial ryegrass, both of which had better turf in more humid conditions. Out of all the types of fertilizer Humus Active Papka affected turf compactness in the most favourable way although the response of individual grass species was not the same. From a practical point of view out of the grass species tested in the experiment Poa pratensis treated with Eko-Użyźniacz responded the most favourably.
Frequency of Bacteria and Fungi Isolated from Pumice in Dental Laboratories

Background: This study was conducted to determine the species of oral and non-oral microorganisms in dental laboratory pumice in order to undertake the necessary disinfection control protocols. Methods: Fourteen active and well-known dental laboratories of Tehran entered our study. Samples of pumice were collected from polishing containers in a completely sterilized and controlled condition. They were immediately sent to Microbiology laboratory and were cultured in specific media in order to identify the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and also genera of fungi. Results: Microorganisms recovered from pumice were shown in frequency order as follows: Acinetobacter lowffi, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Diphteroids, Serratia mercescens, Enterobacter aerogenes, Morganella morgani, Providencia rettgeri, Staphy-lococcus albidus and Streptococcus Sanguis. Therefore both oral and non-oral bacteria were visible. The isolated fungi were Aspergillus niger, fusarium sp. , Aspergillus flavous, Cephalosporium sp . and pencillium sp . Conclusion: This study showed that polishing pumice was contaminated by both oral and non-oral bacteria and fungi. Therefore, the chance of cross-contamination still severely exists, and measures should be conducted to prevent the contamination of technicians, dentists and patients.
Trade and income convergence: Sorting out the causality

This paper studies the linkage between international trade and income convergence across countries. Different theories offer conflicting predictions regarding how they might affect each other. In the existing empirical literature estimating the trade impact on income convergence, a long-lasting problem is the reverse causality from income convergence to trade. This paper provides a disaggregated bilateral trade data analysis to solve this problem. The results show that the reverse causality from income convergence to trade exists in differentiated product sectors, but not in homogeneous product sectors. Trade in homogeneous sectors reduces the income gaps among trade partners, but it is not significantly affected by their income difference. Therefore, the negative effect of trade in homogeneous sectors on the income gap is free from the reverse causality problem. It can be taken as a pure evidence of trade-induced income convergence. This result is robust to various econometric methods.
Soil-atmosphere greenhouse gases (CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O) exchange in evergreen oak woodland in southern Portugal

A 10–20% decrease in annual precipitation is predicted in the Mediterranean basin, and in particular to the Iberian Peninsula, with foreseen effects on the exchange of soil-atmosphere greenhouse gases (GHGs; CO2, CH4, and N2O). To simulate this scenario, we setup an experimental design in the particularly dry period of 2008–2009 using rainfall exclusion and irrigation, to obtain plots receiving 110% (538 mm), 100% (493 mm) and 74% (365 mm) of the natural precipitation. Soil CO2 fluxes showed a strong increase from summer to autumn as a consequence of increasing soil heterotrophic respiration that resulted from rewetting. Fluxes of N2O were negligible. According to our data, soil was a permanent CH4 sink independent of the soil water content (in the range between 6–26% WFPS – water-filled pore space) and of soil temperature (in the range of 7–28°C), supporting the concept that seasonally dry ecosystems (Mediterranean) may represent a significant sink of atmospheric CH4. The study provides evidence that the 26% decrease or 10% increase in the ambient rainfall from annual precipitation of ca 500 mm did not significantly affect soil functionality and had a limited impact on soil-atmosphere net GHGs exchange in evergreen oak woodlands in southern Portugal.
An Introduction to Mixed Models for Experimental Psychology

In order to increase statistical power and precision, many psychological experiments collect more than one data point from each participant, often across different experimental conditions. Such repeated-measures pose a problem to most standard statistical procedures such as ordinary least-squares regression or (between-subjects) ANOVA as those procedures assume that the data points are independent and identically distributed (henceforth iid). The iid assumption is comprised of two parts: The assumption of identical distribution simply means that all observations are samples from the same underlying distribution. The independence assumption states that the probability of a data point taking on a specific value is independent of the values taken by all other data points.1 In this chapter we are mainly concerned with the latter assumption.
The prophylactic effect of Nigella sativa against cyclophosphamide in the ovarian follicles of matured adult mice: a preliminary study.

This study aims to assess folli cle preservation in mature female mice with the provision of Nigella Sativa oil against effects of cyclophosphamide which can cause ovarian follicular loss. Forty -eight ICR mice aged 18 weeks were divided into 3 groups: group I = control, group II = cyclophosphamide-alone (50mg/kg) for 5, 10, 15 and 20 days; and group III = pre-treated with different doses of Nigella sativa oil (0.2ml, 0.5ml and 1.0ml/100g) for 5 days, all by intraperitoneal injection. The histology and the total number of ovarian follicles were studied. Results show that the number of primordial follicles following exposure to cyclophosphamide was significantly reduced (36.33 ± 5.86) as compared to the controls (86.67 ±32.52) at day 10 (p<0.05). There was also a significant reduction in the mean number of normal primary and secondary follicles (p<0.001), mean ovarian diameters (p<0.05) and an increased vacuolation with irregular distribution of granulosa cells . The numbers of normal primary and secondary follicles including ovarian diameters were significantly increased in the use of Nigella sativa as opposed to effects seen in controls a nd cyclophosphamide-alone groups at day 5. This study seems to suggest a prophylactic property of Nigella sativa in the reproductive system of female mice.
Identification and Classification of Different Aerosol Types over a Subtropical Rural Site in Mpumalanga, South Africa: Seasonal Variations as Retrieved from the AERONET Sunphotometer

This paper reports the observational results of aerosol optical characteristics, modification processes and discrimination of key aerosol types over Skukuza (24.9°S, 31.5°E, and 150 m), a subtropical rural site in South Africa (SA), using CIMEL Sunphotometer data, part of the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET), from December 2005 to November 2006. The results show that a pronounced spectral and temporal variability in the optical properties of aerosols is mainly due to anthropogenic emissions. The discrimination of different aerosol types over Skukuza is also made using the daily mean values of aerosol optical depth at 500 nm (AOD500) and Angstrom exponent (α440-870) by applying the threshold values. The results of the analysis indentified three individual components (biomass burning/urban (BU), desert dust (DD) and clean maritime (CM) aerosol types) of differing origin, composition and optical characteristics, and revealed that the percentage contribution of each of type of aerosol changed significantly from season to season. We also derived the curvature of a2 in an attempt to obtain information on aerosol-particle size and type, although the results revealed that the curvature alone is not enough to achieve this. In addition,, we analyzed the seasonal changes in aerosol characteristics using the classification scheme introduced in Gobbi et al. (2007) based on the measured scattering properties (α, dα) derived from the Sunphotometer data. The results show that during spring an extremely large fraction of fine-mode aerosols (η > 70%, Rf ~0.1 µm) in the turbid atmosphere was mainly caused by local anthropogenic pollution or biomass aerosol transported from forest fires. Whereas in summer, the low AOD (< 0.2) and smaller α (< 1.0) and η < 50% suggest the influence of transported mineral dust (coarse) over the region.
WASTE HEAT ENERGY SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE RECOVERY CYCLE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

The US Department of Energy has estimated that 280,000 MW of recyclable waste heat is expelled annually by U.S. industries. Further estimates suggest that harvesting it could result in a savings of $70 billion to $150 billion per year (1). Thus, any efficiency increase will result in savings to energy producers. Supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO2) provides unique advantages over alternative waste heat recovery systems however, it also produces unique design challenges. We propose a novel energy recovery device based on a SCO2 regenerative Rankine cycle for small-scale (1kW to 5kW) heat recovery. This study presents a thermodynamic SCO2 cycle analysis for waste heat recovery from low temperature (200°C 500°C) sources using small mass flow rates (20 – 60 grams/sec). This paper will present a prototype SCO2 cycle architecture including details of key system components. Preliminary modeling suggests that SCO2 systems are viable for low temperature waste heat recovery.