Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Season Long Case Study Investigation of Collective Efficacy In Male Intercollegiate Basketball

Collective efficacy is defined as a group’s shared belief, which emerges from an aggregation of individual group members’ perception of the group’s capabilities to succeed at a given task (Bandura, 1986). The present study used a case study design to explore the relationships between collective efficacy and performance over the course of one season. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive relationship between collective efficacy and team performance. Although this prediction was not supported, findings indicated that there was a positive relationship between collective efficacy and the opponent’s winning percentage. Although the lack of a performanceconfidence relationship may be due to the limitations of case study design, the importance of the quality of the opponent is consistent with previous conceptualization.
Functional Principal Component Analysis of GFR Curves after Kidney Transplant

This article is motivated by some longitudinal clinical data of kidney transplant recipients, where kidney function progression is recorded as the estimated glomerular filtration rates (GFR) at multiple time points post kidney transplantation. We propose to use the functional principal component analysis (FPCA) method to explore the major source of variations of GFR curves. We find that the estimated functional principal component (FPC) scores can be used to cluster GFR curves. Ordering a function of FPC scores can detect abnormal GFR curves. Finally, FPCA can effectively estimate missing GFR values and predict patient future long-term GFR.
7 Bioartificial Brains and Mobile Robots

The growth in neuroscience discoveries continues to be explosive, with new frontiers being reached every year in the understanding of new principles of the central and peripheral nervous system (CNS and PNS), in the interplay between structure and function at different scales (from molecules to behavior), and with the introduction of new technologies for direct transfer of information between natural neuronal systems and artificial devices. Rapid advances in biomedical engineering and computer science are producing the methodologies required for predictive models of neural function that can interact with the brain in real time. The continuous achievements in microelectronics that allow ever-greater circuitry miniaturization together with increased speed and computational capacity are providing the next-generation hardware platforms for neuroprostheses and Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) or Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs). On the other hand, in the last ten years, demonstrations of direct, real-time interfaces between living brain tissues and artificial devices, such as computer cursors, robots and mechanical prostheses, have opened new avenues for experimental and clinical investigations (Nicolelis and Lebedev, 2009). Interest in these BMIs has been kindled by the contribution that they may make to the treatment or rehabilitation of patients suffering from severe motor disabilities (Daly and Wolpaw, 2008; Hatsopoulos and Donoghue, 2009). When motor pathways fail, BMIs offer a physical bridge for movement intention to reach the external world (Donoghue, 2008). The first experimental demonstration that ensemble of cortical neurons could directly control a robotic manipulator was given in 1999 by the group of M. Nicolelis at the Duke University (USA) (Chapin et al., 1999). Since then, a continuous stream of research papers in the BMI field came out. Many groups (Nicolelis and Chapin, 2002; Taylor et al., 2002; Andersen et al., 2004; Schwartz, 2004; Hochberg et al., 2006; Velliste et al., 2008) have successfully shown the possibility of using cortical signals, recorded from different subjects, like rats, monkeys or humans, to move an artificial effector and, in these systems, the feedback was constituted by vision, tactile information and proprioception. BMIs have also been recently used as a tool for studying neural processing of information (Nicolelis and Lebedev, 2009). Nevertheless the limitations arising from the reduced possibility of a full control and observation of the system do not allow a systematic study on how information is processed and transmitted within and among cell-assemblies.
Population ecology and reproduction of the white.eared opossum Didelphis albiventris (Mammalia, Marsupialia)in an urban environment of Brazil

The seasonal variation in numbers of individuaIs, causes for death, breeding season and litter size of the whíte-eared opossum, Didelphis albiventris, were studied in two small urban forest fragments of southern Brazil. In order to trap opossums, 30 live traps were used once a week in a forest fragment (5 ha) between February 1995 and January 1996. In addition, 10 traps were used twice a month in another area (2.5 ha) between November 1996 and February 1997. IndividuaIs trapped were sexed, aged, and released. Females with litter had their pouch young counted. The bait used was banana with codfish liver oil. As results after an effort of 1770 traps set, 37 opossums were captured (20 females and 17 males) with the sex ratio being significantly equal (p > 0.40). Juvenile individuaIs were captured seasonally during the wet season (spring and summer). Since juveniles represented the most common individuaIs trapped, total abundances were higher during the wet season. Immigrations (plus births) rather than emigrations were thought to be the main factor for abundance variations. Moreover, road kill by cars and fights with dogs were the main causes for death of opossums. Based on time of captures of recently weaned opossums and females with litters, the breeding season showed mainly two periods of births (between August and November), though two litters were seen in April of two years. The mean litter size was 9.0 young (N = 14 litters). The white-eared opossum revealed a great potential to colonize urban environments where there are forest fragments, with its higher numbers of juveniles compensating adult deaths mainly by anthropical factors.
Georgian Blessing Formulas from the Standpoints of Face and Politeness Theories

Current Georgian speech etiquette, whether formal, neutral, or informal, is abundant in blessing formulas and well-wishing phrases. Quite often in Georgian culture blessings serve as essential elements of the rituals of greeting, leave-taking, thanking, expressing condolences, congratulating, showing sympathy, toasting etc. Moreover, alongside some standard polite formulas the Georgian language employs blessings as their substitutes and emotionally charged equivalents. The paper examines Georgian blessing formulas and well-wishes from the perspectives of face and politeness theories with the aim of stating their cultural specificity and social value. In the study well-wishes are regarded as indirect blessings. For a comprehensive analysis of the data, the following issues have also been discussed: (a) general structural, cognitive, pragmatic, and discoursal peculiarities of Georgian blessings; (b) religious experience and the idea of God as reflected in the data under discussion; (c) types of meaning-function relationship in blessings.
Global mode analysis of axisymmetric bluff-body wakes: Stabilization by base bleed

The flow around a slender body with a blunt trailing edge is unstable in most situations of interest. Usually the flow instabilities are generated within the wake behind the bluff body, inducing fluctuating forces and introducing the possibility of resonance mechanisms with modes of the structure. Base bleed is a simple and well-known means of stabilizing the wake. In the present research, we investigate the global instability properties of the laminar-incompressible flow that develops behind a cylinder with sharp edges and axis aligned with the free stream using a spectral domain decomposition method. In particular, we describe the flow instability characteristics as a function of the Reynolds number, Re=ρW∞D/μ, and the bleed coefficient, defined as the bleed-to-free-stream velocity ratio, Cb=Wb/W∞, where D is the diameter of the body and ρ and μ the density and viscosity of the free stream, respectively. For a truncated cylinder of aspect ratio L/D=5, where L is the length of the body, our calculations .
To understand subduction initiation, study forearc crust: To understand forearc crust, study ophiolites

Articulating a comprehensive plate-tectonic theory requires understanding how new subduction zones form (subduction initiation). Because subduction initiation is a tectonomagmatic singularity with few active examples, reconstructing subduction initiation is challenging. The lithosphere of many intra-oceanic forearcs preserves a high-fidelity magmatic and stratigraphic record of subduction initiation. We have heretofore been remarkably ignorant of this record, because the “naked forearcs” that expose subduction initiation crustal sections are distant from continents and lie in the deep trenches, and it is difficult and expensive to study and sample this record via dredging, diving, and drilling. Studies of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana convergent margin indicate that subduction initiation there was accompanied by seafloor spreading in what ultimately became the forearc of the new convergent margin. Izu-Bonin-Mariana subduction initiation encompassed ∼7 m.y. for the complete transition from initial seafloor spreading and eruption of voluminous mid-ocean-ridge basalts (forearc basalts) to normal arc volcanism, perhaps consistent with how long it might take for slowly subsiding lithosphere to sink ∼100 km deep and for mantle motions to evolve from upwelling beneath the infant arc to downwelling beneath the magmatic front. Many ophiolites have chemical features that indicate formation above a convergent plate margin, and most of those formed in forearcs, where they were well positioned to be tectonically emplaced on land when buoyant crust jammed the associated subduction zone. We propose a strategy to better understand forearcs and thus subduction initiation by studying ophiolites, which preserve the magmatic stratigraphy, as seen in the Izu-Bonin-Mariana forearc; we call these “subduction initiation rule” ophiolites. This understanding opens the door for on-land geologists to contribute fundamentally to understanding subduction initiation.
A new climate index controlling winter wave activity along the Atlantic coast of Europe: The West Europe Pressure Anomaly

A pioneering and replicable method based on a 66‐year numerical weather and wave hindcast is developed to optimize a climate index based on the sea level pressure (SLP) that best explains winter wave height variability along the coast of western Europe, from Portugal to UK (36–52°N). The resulting so‐called Western Europe Pressure Anomaly (WEPA) is based on the sea level pressure gradient between the stations Valentia (Ireland) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). The WEPA positive phase reflects an intensified and southward shifted SLP difference between the Icelandic low and the Azores high, driving severe storms that funnel high‐energy waves toward western Europe southward of 52°N. WEPA outscores by 25–150% the other leading atmospheric modes in explaining winter‐averaged significant wave height, and even by a largest amount the winter‐averaged extreme wave heights. WEPA is also the only index capturing the 2013/2014 extreme winter that caused widespread coastal erosion and flooding in western Europe.
Abnormal resting-state functional network centrality in patients with high myopia: evidence from a voxel-wise degree centrality analysis.

AIM To investigate the functional networks underlying the brain-activity changes of patients with high myopia using the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method. METHODS In total, 38 patients with high myopia (HM) (17 males and 21 females), whose binocular refractive diopter were -6.00 to -7.00 D, and 38 healthy controls (17 males and 21 females), closely matched in age, sex, and education levels, participated in the study. Spontaneous brain activities were evaluated using the voxel-wise DC method. The receiver operating characteristic curve was measured to distinguish patients with HM from healthy controls. Correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship between the observed mean DC values of the different brain areas and the behavioral performance. RESULTS Compared with healthy controls, HM patients had significantly decreased DC values in the right inferior frontal gyrus/insula, right middle frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal/inferior parietal lobule (P<0.05). In contrast, HM patients had significantly increased DC values in the right cerebellum posterior lobe, left precentral gyrus/postcentral gyrus, and right middle cingulate gyrus (P<0.05). However, no relationship was found between the observed mean DC values of the different brain areas and the behavioral performance (P>0.05). CONCLUSION HM is associated with abnormalities in many brain regions, which may indicate the neural mechanisms of HM. The altered DC values may be used as a useful biomarker for the brain activity changes in HM patients.
The Consistency between Writing Self-efficacy and Writing Performance

This study aimed to evaluate the consistency between tertiary learners’ writing self-efficacy and writing performance evaluation in academic writing in order to understand the tertiary students’ self-efficacy phenomena in learning to write. Two measurements were analysed and compared namely the learners’ writing self-efficacy scales and learners’ writing performance. Basically, it is a case study where 33 UPM students participated in the research for four months. In this study, the learners’ writing self-efficacy was assessed based on the writing self-efficacy (WSE) scale adapted from Bottomley, Henk & Melnick (1997), while, the document analysis was based on the students’ writing performance throughout the four months. Overall, this study did not mainly based on the score of WSE scales only but also looked from the angle of the students’ writing performance by looking at writing skills in detail namely content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanic of writing. Here, the analysis of the essay and rating was done from the perspective of Jacobs, Zinkgraf, Wormuth, Hartfiel, & Hughey (1981) and adapted by Hedgcock and Lefkowitz (1992). In order to plot the consistency and trend of the two measurements (WSE and writing skills), ratio and Chi-square analysis were carried out using SPSS program. Findings showed that the distribution of writing skills performance vary depending on the self-efficacy level (i.e. high, average and low self-efficacy level).
Using Remote Sensing Techniques for Appraisal of Irrigated Soil Salinity

Waterlogging and salinization are the twin evils of the irrigated agriculture in arid and semi-arid areas, which reduce the productivity of agricultural lands adversely. Managing salinity so as to minimize its environmental impact is a prerequisite for the long-term sustainability of irrigated agriculture. It necessitates establishing fast monitoring systems that facilitate taking actions. Remote sensing appears to offer several advantages over the conventional ground methods used to map and monitor soil salinity. This paper describes an integrated approach to assess soil salinity using remotely sensed data. This encompasses spatial analysis of ground truth and satellite data. The study area is located in the District of Faisalabad in Pakistan. The ground truth data of soil salinity from selected sampling points is tied to the corresponding pixels from the satellite image bands. Remotely sensed data based salinity indices (band combinations) and principal components using principal component analysis (PCA) are developed to find out the occurrence pattern of the salinization. Out of the six salinity indices developed, the following proved to be the most promising when compared with ground truth data.
Excess noise in GaAs and AlGaAs avalanche photodiodes with GaSb absorption regions—composite structures grown using interfacial misfit arrays

Interfacial misfit arrays were embedded within two avalanche photodiode (APD) structures. This allowed GaSb absorption layers to be combined with wide-bandgap multiplication regions, consisting of GaAs and Al0.8Ga0.2As, respectively. The GaAs APD represents the simplest case. The Al0.8Ga0.2As APD shows reduced dark currents of 5.07 μAcm−2 at 90% of the breakdown voltage, and values for effective k=β/α below 0.2. Random-path-length modeled excess noise is compared with experimental data, for both samples. The designs could be developed further, allowing operation to be extended to longer wavelengths, using other established absorber materials which are lattice matched to GaSb.
Bug Localization via Supervised Topic Modeling

Bug tracking systems, which help to track the reported software bugs, have been widely used in software development and maintenance. In these systems, recognizing relevant source files among a large number of source files for a given bug report is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task for software developers. To tackle this problem, information retrieval methods have been widely used to capture either the textual similarities or the semantic similarities between bug reports and source files. However, these two types of similarities are usually considered separately and the historical bug fixings are largely ignored by the existing methods. In this paper, we propose a supervised topic modeling method (STMLOCATOR) for automatically locating the relevant source files for a given bug report. In particular, the proposed model is built upon three key observations. First, supervised modeling can effectively make use of the existing fixing histories. Second, certain words in bug reports tend to appear multiple times in their relevant source files. Third, longer source files tend to have more bugs. By integrating the above three observations, the proposed STMLOCATOR utilizes historical fixings in a supervised way and learns both the textual similarities and semantic similarities between bug reports and source files. We further consider a special type of bug reports with stack-traces in bug reports, and propose a variant of STMLOCATOR to tailor for such bug reports. Experimental evaluations on three real data sets demonstrate that the proposed STMLOCATOR can achieve up to 23.6% improvement in terms of prediction accuracy over its best competitors, and scales linearly with the size of the data. Moreover, the proposed variant further improves STMLOCATOR by up to 76.2% on those bug reports with stack-traces.
Evaluation the Effects of Foliar Treatments of Polyamines and Some Organic Acids on Quantitative and Qualitative Traits in Some Pistachio Cultivars

Among the most important problems of pistachio are physiological disorders such as fruit abscission and production of blank nuts. Environmental stresses and inadequate nutrition during flowering time have increased these problems in recent years. In order to evaluate the effects of foliar treatments with polyamines and other compounds (amino acids and ascorbic acid) on quantitative and qualitative traits in pistachio cultivars, an investigation was conducted using a factorial experiment base on a completely randomized block design (CRBD) at an orchard condition in the Rafsanjan region. This experiment was performed to evaluate three factors, 1) type of treatment (spermine, spermidin, amino acids and ascorbic acid) at 6 concentrations, 2) cultivar ( ، Ohadi , , ، Akbari , and ، Kalehghoochi , ) with three replications and 3) year (2013 and 2014). Different traits, such as yield per shoot, number of nuts per cluster, fruit abscission, blank nuts, split nuts, deformed nuts, length and diameter shoot were measured. The results indicated that all of the treatments increased yield and percentage of split, and decreased fruit abscission, blank and deformed nuts in comparison with the control. Spermine (1 mM) combined with ascorbic acid and amino acid, had the most significant effect, increasing yield 50 % and split nuts 18 % and also decreasing fruit abscission 20 %, and decreasing blank and deformed nuts 5 % in all cultivars, in comparison with controls. Ascorbic acid and amino acid treatment without polyamines had a lower effect in comparison with spermine treatment combined with these compounds. The combined use of these compounds, e.g., 1 mM spermine, ascorbic acid (0.5 g/L) and amino acids (3 g/L) suggests that they might act as a suitable compound fertilizer in order to reduce fruit abscission and increase the yield of pistachio crops without the impact of environmental pollution.
Herbivore-induced defence response in the brown seaweed Fucus vesiculosus (Phaeophyceae): temporal pattern and gene expression

This study aimed to reveal the dynamics of inducible anti-herbivory traits in the brown seaweed Fucus vesiculosus, in response to grazing by the isopod Idotea baltica. As the molecular basis of defence induction in seaweeds is poorly understood, a transcriptomic approach was used to gain insight into cellular processes underlying defence induction and thus promote the mechanistic understanding of anti-herbivory responses in seaweeds. In a 27 day feeding-assayed induction experiment, temporal patterns of the induced anti-herbivory resistance of F. vesiculosus were assessed under laboratory conditions. Feeding assays were performed at three day intervals, using fresh and reconstituted food. Microarray hybridizations investigating the expression of genes 3 days before, as well as at the same time as, feeding assays revealed a decreased palatability of previously grazed F. vesiculosus pieces compared with non-grazed control pieces. Despite permanent exposure to grazers, F. vesiculosus palatability varied over time. Non-grazed F. vesiculosus pieces were significantly preferred to grazed pieces after 18 and again after 27 days of previous grazing, while their relative palatability for isopods was comparable at all other times during the experiment. Relative to controls, 562/402 genes were ≥ 1.5-fold up-/down-regulated in seaweed pieces that were grazed for 18 days, i.e. when induction of defences was detected in feeding assays. Massive reprogramming of the regulatory expression orchestra (translation, transcription) as well as up-regulation of genes involved in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, intracellular trafficking, defence and stress response was found. At the same time, down-regulation of photosynthesis was observed in grazed seaweed pieces. This study suggests a high level of temporal variability in induced anti-herbivory traits of F. vesiculosus and reveals increased expression of genes with putative defensive functions in conjunction with the reallocation of resources from primary to secondary metabolism.
A KL-LUCB Bandit Algorithm for Large-Scale Crowdsourcing

This paper focuses on best-arm identification in multi-armed bandits with bounded rewards. We develop an algorithm that is a fusion of lil-UCB and KL-LUCB, offering the best qualities of the two algorithms in one method. This is achieved by proving a novel anytime confidence bound for the mean of bounded distributions, which is the analogue of the LIL-type bounds recently developed for sub-Gaussian distributions. We corroborate our theoretical results with numerical experiments based on the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.