Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CHAPTER 7 EXPANSION OF SMALL-SCALE CHANGES IN MACROBENTHIC COMMUNITY INSIDE AN OFFSHORE WIND FARM ?

The presence of offshore wind farms in the marine environment has some impacts on the macrobenthic community living in the natural sandy sediments. Changes in hydrodynamics, presence of epifaunal coverage along the turbine and fisheries exclusion are expected to be the main causes influencing the macrobenthos. In this study it was investigated whether changes in sediment characteristics and the macrobenthic community occurred inside a wind farm in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Both stations in the close vicinity of the turbines (50 m distance, close samples) and further away (350-500 m distance, far samples) were sampled with a Van Veen grab in autumn 2015. Reubens, Alsebai & Moens 78 No significant differences in abiotic factors were observed between the two distances. All samples were characterized by coarse sediments, with a low mud and total organic matter content. Macrobenthic densities on the other hand differed significantly between the two distances. Densities and number of species were higher for the far samples compared to the close samples. The latter were dominated by Urothoe brevicornis and Gastrosaccus spinifer, while Bathyporeia elegans and Spiophanes bombyx were more important in far samples. It is currently unclear what underlying ecological processes are responsible for the difference in community structure between both distances. Further, the current results are not consistent with results from previous studies, which might be related to the turbine type used. Therefore it is recommended to continue following the current sampling design for the coming years. In addition, it would be interesting to perform a targeted monitoring study to investigate potential changes in sedimentology and organic enrichment in the close vicinity of different turbine types.
Altered development in GABA co-release shapes glycinergic synaptic currents in cultured spinal slices of the SOD 1 G 93 A mouse model of ALS

1 Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, 34127 Trieste, Italy. 2 International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA/ISAS), 34136 Trieste, Italy. 3 Neuroimmunology Unit, Division of Neuroscience, Institute of Experimental Neurology (INSPE), San Raffaele Scientific Institute, 20132 Milan, Italy. 4 Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London (UCL), London WC1E 6BT, England, UK.
Partnerships and Consortia : The Effect of Sharing Rules on Oligopolistic Pricing

We study experimental Bertrand duopoly markets where each competitor is modeled as a threeplayer team. Each team member states an individual asking price, these are summed to form the team’s total asking price, and the team with the lower total asking price wins the competition. Competitors in the market can be of two different types: In consortia each member of the winning team receives her own individual asking price; in partnerships each member of the winning team receives the team’s average individual asking price. We vary market composition and the availability of information regarding the type of the other team. Our results show that: (1) Prices are higher in homogenous consortia markets than in homogeneous partnership markets. (2) With “type information”, Price levels in heterogeneous markets are as low as in homogenous partnership markets. (3) Without “type information”, prices in heterogeneous markets are (almost) as high as in homogenous consortia markets. (4) The availability of “type information” leads to higher prices in homogeneous markets but to lower prices in heterogeneous markets. We propose an explanation of the results and discuss implications for market participants and regulators.
Title Endothelial cells derived from embryonic stem cells respond to cues from topographical surface patterns Permalink

The generation of microand nano-topography similar to those found in the extra cellular matrix of three-dimensional tissues is one technique used to recapitulate the cell-tissue physiology found in the native tissues. Despite the fact that ample studies have been conducted on the physiological significance of endothelial cells alignment parallel to shear stress, as this is the normal physiologic arrangement for healthy arterial EC, very few studies have examined the use of topographical signals to initiate endothelial cell alignment. Here, we have examined the ability for our mouse embryonic stem cell-derived endothelial cells (ESC-EC) to align on various microchip topographical systems. Briefly, we generated metal molds with ‘wrinkled’ topography using 1) 15 nm and 2) 30 nm of gold coating on the pre-strained polystryene (PS) sheets. After thermal-induced shrinkage of the PS sheets, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchips were then generated from the wrinkled molds. Using similar ShrinkTM-based technology, 3) larger selectively crazed acetone-etched lines in the PS sheets, and 4) fully crazed acetone-treated PS sheets of stochastic topographical morphology were also generated. The 15 nm and 30 nm gold coating generated ‘wrinkles’ of uniaxial anisotropic channels at nano-scaled widths while the crazing generated micron-sized channels. The ESC-EC were able to respond and align on the 320 nm, 510 nm, and the acetone-etched 10.5 μm channels, but not on the fully ‘crazed’ topographies. Moreover, the ESC-EC aligned most robustly on the wrinkles, and preferentially to ridge edges on the 10.5 μm-sized channels. The ability to robustly align EC on topographical surfaces enables a variety of controlled physiological studies of EC-EC and EC-ECM contact guidance, as well as having potential applications for the rapid endothelialization of stents and vascular grafts.
The viability of image registration as a method for the quantification of displacement in penetrating impact experiments

Experimental characterisation of tissue deformations associated with penetrating impact of fragments from explosive devices is challenging. Whereas experiments involving ballistic gelatine tissue simulants enable direct visualisation of deformation patterns, quantification of these deformations remains difficult. This thesis investigates the use of image registration for this purpose. Image registration methods optimise alignment of corresponding structures in image pairs, and in the process estimate the deformation fields that best achieve this. In the current context, it is hypothesised that registration of consecutive images from videos of gelatine penetration events can enable the corresponding gelatine deformation fields to be estimated. Three main activities were undertaken towards validation of this hypothesis: the proposed registration approach was tested on a series of synthetic images emulating the types of deformations expected in penetration events; the approach was then tested on images derived from a carefully controlled indentation experiment, in which a block of gelatine was deformed quasi-statically with a rigid indenter while the resulting deformation was filmed; and finally it was tested on video footage from projectile penetration experiments, in which metal projectiles were fired into blocks of gelatine and filmed with a high speed video camera. A series of complementary studies was also undertaken in support of these experiments. Firstly, to better understand the parameters of real penetration scenarios, the fragment generation and flight behaviour of a typical explosive device were analysed. Secondly, to improve understanding of the material behaviour of the test gelatine, mechanical characterisation tests were undertaken, and a visco-hyperelastic constitutive model was proposed. The individual registration operations themselves appeared to perform well, in the sense that initially disparate consecutive image pairs were brought into good alignment. However, composition of the corresponding transformation fields, necessary for tracking accumulated deformations over the course of a video sequence, was found to yield artefacts and unphysical deformation estimates in some cases. These were judged to result both from deficiencies in the methods themselves, and flaws in the experimental arrangements. Therefore, while the proposed registration approach appears to show promise, further work is needed to establish its validity conclusively. The thesis closes with a discussion of possible approaches to the latter.
The Shape of [u]: Towards a Typology of Final Vowel Devoicing in Continental French

Phrase-final vowel devoicing is a feature of Continental French in which utterance-final vowels variably lose their voicing and produce fricative-like whistles. Although the phenomenon is singularly referred to as “vowel devoicing,” most research on the topic ignores the parameter of voicing loss in favor of a description of the emergent downstream fricative, a fact that is complicated even further when considering that the fricative by-product is not uniform in nature. In this study, we investigate the multiplicity of phonetic phenomena occurring under the heading of “final vowel devoicing” via an analysis of normalized measures of center of gravity. Six resulting COG profile shapes emerge: one describing literal vowel devoicing, the others describing five different energy profiles of fricative epenthesis. Results indicate an interaction of vowel and percent devoicing, suggesting that PFVD is a singular phenomenon with several allophonic realizations predicted by both vowel type and length. Keywords​: center of gravity, vowel devoicing, fricative epithesis, French, acoustic analysis
PERCEIVED IMPACT OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENT ON PUPILS ’ PERFORMANCE AND INTEREST IN BASIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN OBANLIKU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF CROSS RIVER STATE , NIGERIA

This study investigated the impact of physical learning environment on pupils’ performance and interest in basic science and technology. The investigation was carried out in Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. This study used a survey design and 294 pupils were involved in the study. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviations statistics while the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistical tool. The study found that physical learning environment has significant impact on pupils performance and interest in the area under investigation. It recommended among others conducive classroom with basic facilities like tables, desks, fans, chairs and equipped laboratory, technical and vocational workshop as well as equipped library for effective teaching of this subject.
Plant Growth Promoting Activities of Cyanobacteria Growing In Rhizosphere of Agriculturally Fertile Soil

Cyanobacteria are gram negative oxygenic photo synthesizer prokaryotes and are considered as an important group of microorganisms capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. In the present investigation fifteen cyanobacteria were isolated from the rhizosphere of rice fields. Of these, the heterocystous isolates possess high levels of chl-a, nitrogenase, total nitrogen, IAA, P-solubilization and siderophore production. Hence, heterocystous cyanobacterial isolates have greater capacity to fix dinitrogen, to produce IAA, siderophores and P-solubilization, and might proved to be effective biofertilizers for agricultural crops.
MONITORING CV SYLLABLES VERSUS PHONEMES IN INTERNAL SPEECH

English and French listeners have been found to monitor faster utterance-initial CV syllables than C consonants in overt speech. We report a similar “syllable advantage” with Spanish-speaking Argentinean participants monitoring for inner speech. They were faster to detect CV syllables than C consonants at the beginning of the names of the pictures they were presented with (Experiment 1). This syllable advantage in internal monitoring resisted to adding “foil pictures,” whose name’s first syllable differed from the target syllable by the vowel only (Experiment 2), a manipulation logically more detrimental to syllable than phoneme detection. The foils induced a more cautious strategy across the board (longer RTs) but the syllable advantage was maintained. Our results converge with prior studies in revealing intriguingly parallel perceptual effects in overt and inner speech, suggesting that both are processed using a common abstract code, possibly based on syllabic gestural scores.
Study on Prevalence of Ovine Paramphistomiasis in Kutaber Woreda, South Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

A study was conducted to identify the current status of Paramphisthomum infections in small ruminants in Kutaber. A total of 384 fecal samples from small ruminants were collected and subjected to sedimentation technique. Out of 384 fecal samples inspected, 150 (39.1%) were positive for Paramphisthomum. The prevalence rates of 36.5 and 30.8% were observed in good and medium body condition, respectively. In adult and young sheep, the prevalence rates of 40.9 and 33.3 were identified from fecal samples inspected, respectively. The highest prevalence of Paramphistomiasis was observed in Lewcho (50.0%) followed by Beshilo (44.5%) and Elsa (42.1%) The lowest incidence of Paramphistomiasis was observed in Alansha (19.0%). Based on age groups, the highest prevalence rate was 40.9% observed in age category of adult and the lowest prevalence rate 33.3% was observed in young. When body condition was considered as a risk factor for the prevalence of Paramphistomiasis, 49.5, 30.8 and 36.5% was observed in poor, medium and good body condition respectively. The prevalence of Paramphistomiasis in male (33.9%) and female (41.3%) was recorded. This parasitic disease is distributed in every district and considered as one of the major setbacks to sheep product utilization causing direct and indirect losses.
MemInsight : Platform-Independent Memory Profiling for JavaScript

JavaScript programs often su↵er from memory issues that can either hurt performance or eventually cause memory exhaustion. While existing snapshot-based profiling tools can be helpful, the information provided is limited to the coarse granularity at which snapshots can be taken. We present MemInsight, a tool that provides detailed, time-varying analysis of the memory behavior of JavaScript applications, including web applications. MemInsight is platform independent and runs on unmodified JavaScript engines. It employs tuned source-code instrumentation to generate a trace of memory allocations and accesses, and it leverages modern browser features to track precise information for DOM (document object model) objects. It also computes exact object lifetimes without any garbage collector assistance, and exposes this information in an easily-consumable manner for further analysis. We describe several client analyses built into MemInsight, including detection of possible memory leaks and opportunities for stack allocation and object inlining. An experimental evaluation showed that with no modifications to the runtime, MemInsight was able to expose memory issues in several real-world applications.
D 3 . 2-0007 POLAR OBSERVATIONS OF SOLITARY WAVES AT HIGH AND LOW ALTITUDES AND COMPARISON TO THEORY

Solitary waves with large electric fields (up to 100 mV/m) are often observed by Polar in the low altitude auroral zone and, at high altitudes(~ 4-8 RE ), during crossings of the plasma sheet boundary and cusp. Electron solitary waves are ubiquitous, and are observed for wide range of fce/fpe. In contrast, to date, ion solitary waves have only been observed in the auroral zone at low altitudes in the region where fce/fpe>>1. We describe some results of statistical studies of ion solitary waves at low altitudes and electron solitary waves at high altitudes. Ion solitary waves, observed in regions of upward field-aligned currents and ion beams, are negative potential structures and have velocities between O and H beam speeds, scale sizes of approximately 10λD, and normalized amplitudes, eφ/kTe, of order 0.1 because the electron temperatures are large (plasma sheet values). In addition, the amplitude increases with both the velocity and the scale size which is inconsistent with the predictions of ion acoustic soliton theory. The observations are well modeled by the simulations of Crumley et al. (2000) which include only the plasma sheet electrons and the beam ions. Both observations and the simulations are consistent with an ion hole mode associated with the ion two stream instability. The high altitude electron solitary waves have velocities from ~1000km/s to >2500 km/s. Observed scale sizes are on the order of 1-10λD with eφ/kTe up to O(1). For these solitary waves also, the amplitude increases with both the velocity and the scale size, consistent with electron hole modes as was observed at low altitudes. Even the very large amplitude solitary waves are stable based on the criterion developed by Muschietti et al.(1999).
ASSESSMENT OF SALINITY STRESS AND THE PROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF GLYCINE BETAINE ON LOCAL WHEAT VARIETIES

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that affects plant growth and productivity. Wheat as a major fodder crop is severely damaged by salinity. In the current research, the effect of various salt stress conditions was determined on morphological and biochemical parameters of three locally developed wheat varieties. The ameliorating effect of Glycine betaine (GB), on salt damages in the three varieties under various salt stress conditions was also determined. The three varieties used were Atta-Habib, Siren and variety A (VA). Plants were subjected to three different salt stress conditions i.e. 0 mM, 50 mM, and 100 mM in the presence of 100 mM GB. Mostly non-significant differences were shown for morphological traits by all the three varieties from control to 100 mM salt stress with application of GB. However, in comparison to Atta-Habib and VA, the Siren variety performed better. Siren showed significantly high (P≤ 0.05) number of roots (19.0), as compared to Atta-Habib (14.3), and VA (14.3) under 100 mM salt stress with GB application. Similarly, significantly high (P≤ 0.05) shoot length was observed in Siren (55.9 mm) as compared to that of Atta-Habib (37.0 mm) and VA (39.3 mm) under 100 mM salt stress with GB application. The Siren variety retained significantly high water content as compared to the other two varieties. At high salt stress (100 mMNaCl), Siren showed high chlorophyll content (13.0 μg/g fresh weight) than that of Atta-Habib (11.7 μg/g), and VA (6.8 μg/g). Atta-Habib and VA accumulated comparatively high proline content at high salt stress. Our results revealed that GB protected plants against the damaging effects of salt stress. The Siren variety showed high tolerance and recovery from salt stress as compared to Atta-Habib and VA with GB application.
Genetic analysis of aluminum tolerance in Brazilian barleys

Aluminum (Al) toxicity is a major factor limiting barley growth in acid soils, and genotypes with adequate level of tolerance are needed for improving barley adaptation in Brazil. To study the inheritance of Al tolerance in Brazilian barleys, cultivars Antarctica 1, BR 1 and FM 404 were crossed to sensitive Kearney and PFC 8026, and intercrossed. Parental, F1, F2 and F6 generations were grown in nutrient solution containing 0.03, 0.05 and 0.07 mM of Al and classified for tolerance by the root tip hematoxylin staining assay. Tolerant by sensitive F2 progenies segregated three tolerant to one sensitive, fitting the 3:1 ratio expected for a single gene. The F6 populations segregated one tolerant to one sensitive also fitting a monogenic ratio. The F2 seedlings from crosses among tolerant genotypes scored the same as the parents. Since the population size used would allow detection of recombination as low as 7%, the complete absence of Al sensitive recombinants suggests that tolerance in these cultivars is most probably, controlled by the same gene. Thus, the potential for improving Al tolerance through recombination of these genotypes is very low and different gene sources should be evaluated.
Pengecekan Turnitin: The Shift of Grice’s maxim flouting in Indonesian translation of the Donald Duck comics.

Flouting of Grice’s cooperative maxim could result in humor. There are evidences of flouted cooperative maxims in the humor found in the Donald Duck comics. The original author of the comics uses a lot of cooperative maxim flouts to create humor as realized in the characters’ utterances. All the four maxims, i.e. maxim of quantity, quality, relation, and manner, are flouted in different combinations. This study aims to compare how cooperative maxims are flouted in the original English and in the Indonesian translation of humorous utterances in the Donald Duck comics. The research findings reveal that 34.79% of the translated humorous utterances undergo shifting in the pattern of cooperative maxim non-observance. Interestingly, the most dominant shift is in the flouting of the maxim of manner and its combination, where the English original humour flouts more maxim of manner than the Indonesian translated utterances. This probably relates to the use of certain translation techniques such as discursive creation, generalization, reduction, and amplification for the sake of readibility and ‘decency’.
Title Impact of single nucleotide polymorphism on short stature and reduced tongue pressure among community-dwelling elderly Japanese participants : a cross-sectional study

Background: Asian-specific single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) (rs3782886) is reported to be associated with myocardial infarction; sarcopenia is reported to be associated with coronary subclinical atherosclerosis. On the other hand, short stature has been revealed as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, no studies have reported on the association between sarcopenia and short stature nor on the impact of rs3782886 on this association. Methods: Since reduced maximum voluntary tongue pressure against the palate (MTP) reflects one aspect of sarcopenia, we conducted a cross-sectional study of 537 community-dwelling elderly Japanese participants aged 60–89 years who had participated in a general health checkup in 2015. Short stature was defined as values at or under the 25th percentile, and reduced MTP was defined as the lowest tertile of the study population (<158.0 cm and <26.5 kPa for men, <145.0 cm and <24.1 kPa for women). Results: Independent of classical cardiovascular risk factors, short stature was revealed to be positively associated with reduced MTP. The adjusted-odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of reduced MTP for short stature was 1.87 (1.19, 2.94). We also found that independent of known cardiovascular risk factors, with the non-minor homo of rs3782886 taken as the reference group, the adjusted OR and 95% CI for short stature and reduced MTP of the minor homo allele were 3.06 (1.23, 7.63) and 3.26 (1.33, 8.03), respectively. Conclusion: Short stature is independently associated with reduced MTP, with Asian-specific SNPs possibly playing an important role in this association.
E-commerce and Web 3 D for involving the customer in the design process The case of a gates 3 D configurator

This paper aims to show to what extent the Web3D is an advantage for Living Lab paradigm. From this viewpoint, we present various applications of online ecommerce or using the Web3D. A state of the art on these existing solutions enabled us to select the most suitable functionalities and properties for designing a gates 3D configurator. This tool has been evaluated by 27 participants. The results of this evaluation show that the particular 3-dimensional visualization of the object is an advantage for the sale, because a single image does not usually allow user to imagine the product in its environment. The use of Web3D for e-commerce gives the consumer a strong capacity to get involved in the design process. This point is a first answer to a research question on the role and definition of Living Labs. Internet, e-commerce, Web3D, Living Lab