Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Food Availability on Time Budget and Home Range of Siberian Marmots in Mongolia

The Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica) is a common rodent species that ranges widely throughout northern Asia. However, due to overharvesting for fur and meats its population in Mongolia declined steeply and they are now categorized as an endangered. They are considered a keystone species because they can have a great impact on the landscape heterogeneity and its burrows serve as a refuge for a variety of taxa. Despite the important roles in the ecosystem and endangered status of the Siberian marmots, there is no study quantifi ed behavioral ecology of this species in Mongolia. We studied effects of food availability on home range and time budget of the Siberian marmot in Hustai National Park, Mongolian, during 16-29 June, 2007. We conducted direct observations and vegetation surveys at one livestock grazed and one ungrazed site. Vegetation biomass, percent cover, plant height, and number of plant species were lower in the grazed site than in the ungrazed site. Marmots in the grazed site used larger home ranges, spent more time foraging, and spent less time vigilant compared to marmots in the ungrazed site. A central question in ecology is how observed patterns in the spatial distribution of individuals within populations are determined by the interactions between individuals and their environment (Turchin, 1998; Matthiopoulos, 2003). A useful approach to address this question is to understand the dynamics of animal movements in relation to state-dependent social and ecological factors (Whitehead & Rendell, 2004). Most animals use the same areas
Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Eimeria spp . in Cattle of Baghdad , Iraq

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of Eimeria species in cattle in Baghdad, Iraq. A study performed during the period from November 2014 to May 2015. Two hundreds faecal samples were collected randomly from animals without clinical signs from different regions of Baghdad province and examined for Eimeria species infection using parasitology methods. The overall infection rate of Eimeria species was 9.50%. There were statistically significant differences with respect to Eimeria infection and age group (P < 0.05, OR = 3.07) and between infection rate and region (P < 0.0001). While no statistically significant relationship was found for sex (P = 0.54). In conclusion, however, the results of the current study showed the low prevalence of Emeria spp. in cattle, further epidemiological investigation on coccidia species is needed to investigate the effect of other risk factors such as breed and season. As there are many species that could infect cattle it is very imperative to identify which of them is more occurrence. Moreover, the absence of clinical signs lead to a lack of attention to the disease in spite of the great possibilities of its existence. Therefore, integrated strategies should be utilized to prevent and control Eimeria spp. infection.
Public Sector Rationing and Private Sector Selection

We study the interaction between nonprice public rationing and prices in the private market. Under a limited budget, the public supplier uses a rationing policy. A private firm may supply the good to those consumers who are rationed by the public system. Consumers have different amounts of wealth, and costs of providing the good to them vary. We consider two regimes. First, the public supplier observes consumers’ wealth information; second, the public supplier observes both wealth and cost information. The public supplier chooses a rationing policy, and, simultaneously, the private firm, observing only cost but not wealth information, chooses a pricing policy. In the first regime, there is a continuum of equilibria. The Pareto dominant equilibrium is a means-test equilibrium: poor consumers are supplied while rich consumers are rationed. Prices in the private market increase with the budget. In the second regime, there is a unique equilibrium. This exhibits a cost-effectiveness rationing rule; consumers are supplied if and only if their cost–benefit ratios are low. Prices in the private market do not change with the budget. Equilibrium consumer utility is higher in the cost-effectiveness equilibrium than the meanstest equilibrium.
Shear Resistance Of Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams With Opening Strengthened By CFRP Strips

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) as an external reinforcement is used extensively to address the strength requirements related to flexure and shear in structural systems. In this paper, the behavior and performance of reinforced concrete deep beams with opening strengthened with externally bonded CFRP strips failed in shear is presented. The experimental work includes testing eight reinforced concrete deep beams. The variables considered in the experimental study include the effect of fiber orientation (90o or 45o CFRP strips with respect to beam longitudinal axis), the effect of using longitudinal CFRP strips with vertical CFRP strips and effect of anchoring the vertical CFRP strips. Test results were discussed based on shear resistance – mid span deflection, strain in CFRP and maximum crack width of beams. Experimental results reveal that externally CFRP strips can significantly increase the ultimate shear capacity and limit the shear crack width and increase the stiffness of the deep beams with opening.
Relationship between prepucial Epstein pearls with gestational age, birth weight and birth order.

This prospective study was carried in Mahila Chikitsalya and State Zenana Hospital attached to S.M.S. Medical College, Jaipur, between October 1992 to March 1993. Live born male babies delivered during this period were examined for the presence of epstein pearls on the prepuce. Prepucial epstein pearl was cleaned with cotton swab to remove any smegma, which might mimic epstein pearl. Then its shape, position
Paris APPLICATION OF PRE-STRESSED UN-BONDED CFRP FOR STRENGTHENING OF METALLIC STRUCTURES

Application of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites for retrofitting reinforced concrete structures has been extensively investigated and used in practice. Many studies demonstrated the beneficial influence of such composite materials for the flexural and shear strengthening of concrete girders, as well as for confinement of concrete columns. However, the strengthening techniques and the accompanying theories for metallic structures have not been developed as thoroughly as those for concrete structures. There are several differences between the behavior of bonded joints in CFRP-strengthened concrete and metallic members, which will be briefly explained in this paper. Furthermore, one of the main aims of the paper is to give an overview on different techniques for carbon-fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) strengthening of steel plates and beams. Different bonded and un-bonded retrofit systems will be discussed with particular focus on application of pre-stressed un-bonded retrofit (PUR) systems. Furthermore, some details about design and testing procedure of a new so called flat PUR (FPUR) system will be given. Finally, the paper gives some details about CFRP strengthening and wireless sensor monitoring of two old metallic bridges in Switzerland and Australia.
It’s Your Game-Tech: Toward Sexual Health in the Digital Age

Adolescent sexually transmitted infection (STI) and birth rates indicate a need for effective middle school HIV/STI, and pregnancy prevention curricula to delay, or mitigate consequences of, early sexual activity. Individual and organizational barriers to adoption, implementation, and maintenance, however, can hamper dissemination of evidence-based sexual health curricula, adversely impacting fidelity and reach. Internet-based approaches may help mitigate these barriers. This paper describes the development and feasibility testing of It’s Your Game (IYG)-Tech, a stand-alone 13-lesson Internet-based sexual health life-skills curriculum adapted from an existing effective sexual health curriculum—It’s Your Game… Keep it Real (IYG). IYG-Tech development adaptation steps were to: 1) Select a suitable effective program and gather the original program materials; 2) Develop “proof of concept” lessons and test usability and impact; 3) Develop the program design document describing the core content, scope, and methods and strategies; and 4) produce the new program. Lab- and school-based tests with middle school students demonstrated high ratings on usability parameters and immediate impact on selected psychosocial factors related to sexual behavior—perceptions of friends’ beliefs, reasons for not having sex, condom use self-efficacy, abstinence intentions, negotiating with others to protect personal rules, and improved knowledge about what constitutes healthy relationships (all p < .05). Youth rated IYG-Tech is favorably compared to other learning channels (>76.2% agreement) and rated the lessons as helpful in making healthy choices, selecting personal rules, detecting challenges to those rules, and protecting personal rules through negotiation and refusal skills (89.5% – 100%). Further efficacy testing is indicated for IYG-Tech as a potential strategy to deliver effective HIV/STI, and pregnancy prevention to middle school youth.
Progress on Design and R&D of CN Solid Breeder TBM FTP/3-5Ra

Current progress on the design and R&D of Chinese helium-cooled solid breeder test blanket module,CN HCSB TBM is presented. The updated design on structural, neutronics, thermal-hydraulics and safety analysis has been completed. In order to accommodate the HCSB TBM ancillary system, the design and necessary R&Ds corresponding sub-systems have being developed. Current status on the development of function materials, structure material and the helium test loop are also presented. The Chinese low-activation ferritic/martensitic steels CLF-1, which is the structural material for the of HCSB TBM is being manufactured by industry. The neutron multiplier Be and tritium breeder Li4SiO4 pebbles are being prepared in laboratory scale.
A meta-analysis of nocturnal noninvasive positive pressure ventilation in patients with stable COPD.

STUDY OBJECTIVES The potential benefits of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) for patients with COPD remains inconclusive, as most studies have included only a small number of patients. We therefore undertook a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared nocturnal NIPPV with conventional management in patients with COPD and stable respiratory failure. DESIGN RCTs were identified from several sources, such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL. In addition, records were identified through hand searching of abstracts from meetings of the American Thoracic Society, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the European Respiratory Society. PATIENTS Patients with COPD according to the definition of the American Thoracic Society. INTERVENTIONS NIPPV applied via a nasal or facemask for at least 5 h/d for at least 3 weeks. Patients in the actively treated group continued to receive the usual management for COPD. The control group received the same management as the study group but did not receive NIPPV. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS PaCO(2), PaO(2), 6-min walking distance (6MWD), respiratory muscle function, FEV(1), vital capacity, and sleep efficiency (time asleep as a percentage of total time in bed) were used as outcome measures. The publications were reduced to 10 potentially eligible articles from 164 publications retrieved from computer searches and 8 further abstracts. Four trials were finally included in the meta-analysis. The only outcome for which the confidence intervals excluded zero was maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax). The confidence intervals for the other outcomes included zero. The mean treatment effects for FEV(1) and PImax were small, whereas it was moderate for the 6MWD. Small negative effects were found for the outcomes of vital capacity, PaCO(2), and sleep efficiency. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis of 3 months of NIPPV in patients with stable COPD showed that ventilatory support did not improve lung function, gas exchange, or sleep efficiency. The high upper limit of the confidence interval for the 6MWD suggested that some people do improve their walking distance. The small overall sample size precluded a clear clinical direction regarding the effects of NIPPV in patients with COPD.
Resilience for Young People with Physical Motor Deficiency

Resilience is a complex concept that describes different ways to overcome traumatic situations, failures, or radical changes in life, understood to be an individual capacity to fight adversity. In this paper we propose two hypotheses in the case of adolescents with physical motor deficiency (PMD)1: if positive elements can be identified in adolescent behavior with PMD, considered as components of resilience and if, by the psychological intervention, there was a better resilience. Psychological tests with deep resonance within the personality were applied: WM Personality Inventory, Introversion-Extraversion-Neurosis Test, DE-AN Questionnaire. There have been also used projective methods. Following the quantitative-statistical and qualitative analysis of the results obtained in the group of teenagers with PMD, were identified a series of specific traits and also some compensatory features along with compensatory conducts as elements of resilience. Resilience is interpreted through compensation (features and conducts), through individual and social valorisation, through integrating teenagers with PMD in school and social groups. Other related concepts are discussed: compensation and expectance, idolizing normality, labelling etc.
Review of Post-Peak Parameters and Behaviour of Rock Masses : Current Trends and Research

Estimates of the strength and deformation characteristics of rock masses are required for the analysis of underground excavations. The Hoek-Brown failure criterion (Hoek et al. 2002) is widely accepted and has been applied to numerous projects and applications around the world. This failure criterion, however, only deals with the stress in the rock mass up to the point of failure. There has been comparatively little work in the literature that deals with the field scale behaviour of rock after significant damage or failure (i.e., the post-peak behaviour). Laboratory testing of hard rock often demonstrates strain-softening behaviour, resulting in relatively low confining stresses at high strains in the post-peak. The question remains as to what is the precise mode of stress-strain behaviour between these end-points.
Dynamic response of seismically isolated rigid blocks under near-fault ground motions

This study investigates the effect of the impulsive nature of near-fault ground motions on the rocking response of base-isolated rigid blocks. Two models of seismic-isolation system are considered in the analysis, namely a linear model with viscoelastic behavior and a nonlinear model with hysteretic behavior. The response of the system is calculated for both recorded ground motions and simulated pulse-type motions. An extensive numerical investigation is carried out for a class of rigid blocks with different geometric characteristics, in terms of the slenderness ratio (λ) and size of the block (r), for both isolated and non-isolated blocks. The comparison of results between the rocking response of isolated and non-isolated blocks demonstrates the benefits of the isolation method: for the case of the isolated block, the initiation of rocking (uplift) is shifted towards higher values of slenderness ratio λ, while the instability region (overturning) in the λ-r space is generally reduced.
A Non-Linear System for Semi-Rigid Steel Portal Frame Analysis

This paper describes in detail a structural system, FTOOL/SRC, conceived to perform non-linear analysis of semi-rigid steel frames. The system can be used to validate the semi-rigid connection approaches by means of a parametric analysis in a simple and compact form. It is based on an efficient graphical interface and efficient external solver FEMOOP [2]. A connection finite element, developed by Del Savio [1], was implemented enabling plastic hinge analysis to be performed on the structural connections and bars. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate, through a series of validating examples, the performance of the FTOOL/SRC system and its implemented strategies, focusing on the newly conceived object oriented data structure.
Migration: Epidemic of Mental Disorders Caused by Global Warming and Inequality

Rising global temperatures may be driving up rates of mental illness as well, a new study suggests. Last year was the third hottest on record, and 2016 was the hottest ever. And more people are struggling with mental health issues in the US now than any other time in the nation’s history. Superior predatory skills led to the evolutionary triumph of jawed vertebrates. However, the mechanisms by which the vertebrate brain controls predation remain largely unknown. Here, we reveal a critical role for the central nucleus of the amygdala in predatory hunting. Both optogenetic and chemogenetic stimulation of central amygdala of mice elicited predatory-like attacks upon both insect and artificial prey. Coordinated control of cervical and mandibular musculatures, which is necessary for accurately positioning lethal bites on prey, was mediated by a central amygdala projection to the reticular formation in the brainstem. populations during active hunting, we performed electromyogram monitoring of the masseter muscle concomitantly to array neuronal recordings. Principal component analyses of the neuronal data revealed that ∼40% of the recorded neurons increased activity during insect hunting, with hunting-excited CeA neurons maintaining activity levels throughout prey pursuit. The Central Nucleus of the Amygdala Controls Cervical-Mandibular Systems by Acting on Inhibitory Interneurons of the Parvocellular Reticular Formation. The Parvocellular Reticular Formation Contains Both Mandibular and Cervical Premotor Neurons. We investigated in greater depth the reticular circuitry mediating CeA control over craniofacial musculatures.
A spatially smoothed seismicity forecasting model for MW ≥ 5 . 0 earthquakes in northern Algeria and Morocco

We study the correlation between locations of MW ≥ 5.0 earthquakes and locations of 5.0 > MW ≥ 4.0 events for Northern Algeria and Morocco. A preliminary study shows that it can be observed a relatively good agreement between locations for these two data sets, that is, minor earthquake locations could be used to forecast future places where will happen moderate to strong earthquakes. Then, we propose a time-independent forecasting model based on the spatially smoothed seismicity rate of MW ≥ 4.0 earthquakes. Initially, the area under study was divided into square cells. The number of earthquakes with magnitude MW ≥ 4.0 that have taken place at a given cell is counted and smoothed. The time-independent forecasting model is proposed from the computation of MW ≥ 5.0 earthquake probabilities for each cell for different exposure times. Probabilities are computed considering that seismicity follows both a Poisson process and the Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency relationship.
1 Automated Linking of Historical Data *

The recent digitization of complete count census data is an extraordinary opportunity for social scientists to create large longitudinal datasets by linking individuals from one census to another or from other sources to the census. We evaluate different automated methods for record linkage, performing a series of comparisons across methods and against hand linking. We have three main findings that lead us to conclude that automated methods perform well. First, a number of automated methods generate very low (less than 5%) false positive rates. The automated methods trace out a frontier illustrating the tradeoff between the false positive rate and the (true) match rate. Relative to more conservative automated algorithms, humans tend to link more observations but at a cost of higher rates of false positives. Second, when human linkers and algorithms have the same amount of information, there is relatively little disagreement between them. Third, across a number of plausible analyses, coefficient estimates and parameters of interest are very similar when using linked samples based on each of the different automated methods. We provide code and Stata commands to implement the various automated methods. * We are grateful to Jaime Arellano-Bover, Helen Kissel, and Tom Zohar for superb research assistance and useful comments and conversations, and to Horace Lee and Antigone Xenopoulos for help with data collection. We are grateful to Alvaro Calderón, Jacob Conway, John Parman, Laura Salisbury and Marianne Wanamaker for their most useful comments and suggestions. We are grateful to the Laura and John Arnold Foundation for financial support. We especially wish to thank Joe Price and Jacob Van Leeuwen from the BYU Record Linking Lab for comparing linkages made using our codes to the hand linkages made by users in the Family Tree Data on the FamilySearch.org website.
A systematic review of information security risk assessment

Many standards exist to guide the process of risk assessment, particularly in the field of information security. This leads to many, subtly different, definitions of risk analysis, evaluation and assessment. Consequently, researchers often confuse these terms and disciplines, which leads to further confusion within the community. In this sense, it is important to come to a common understanding of the processes and terminology to clarify research in this area. A common approach to achieve this goal is to carry out a literature review. This paper takes a formal approach to the literature review based on the ideas of the Cochrane group. The result is a systematic review of risk assessment in the field of infor mation security. We present a systematic review of over 80 research papers published between 2004 and 2014. The main contribution of our paper is to construct a classification of these published papers into seven types. This classification aims to help researchers obtain a clear and unbiased picture of the terminology, developments and trends of information security risk assessment in the academic sector.
C‐Reactive protein in viral and bacterial gastroenteritis in childhood *

To differentiate bacterial from viral infections the level of C‐reactive protein in serum samples was studied in three groups of children under 5 years of age with gastroenteritis. Of the 53 children with bacterial infection, 41 (77%) had C‐reactive protein levels ≥ 12mgl‐1, 32 (66%) ≥ 20mgl‐1 and 24 (45%) ≥ 35mgl‐1. Of the 35 patients with viral infection, 4 (11%) had C‐reactive protein levels ≥ 12mgl‐1, 3 (9%)≥20 mgl‐1 and 1(3%) ≥ 35mgl‐1. The best balance between sensitivity and specificity of C‐reactive protein was obtained for a cut‐off level ≥ 12mgl‐1 (sensitivity 77%, specificity 89%) as compared to ≥ 20mgl‐1 (sensitivity 58%, specificity 97%) and ≥ 35mgl‐1 (sensitivity 44%, specificity 97%). Our results suggest that the determination of C‐reactive protein values may be a useful tool for predicting bacterial gastroenteritis in children.