Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The outsized trophic footprint of marine urbanization

Artificial structures are proliferating along coastlines worldwide, creating new habitat for heterotrophic filter feeders. The energy demand of this heterotrophic biomass is likely to be substantial, but is largely unquantified. Combining in situ surveys, laboratory assays, and information obtained from geographic information systems, we estimated the energy demands of sessile invertebrates found on marine artificial structures worldwide. At least 950,000 metric tons of heterotrophic biomass are associated with commercial ports around the world, emitting over 600 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and consuming 5 million megajoules of energy per day. We propose the concept of a trophic “footprint” of marine urbanization, in which every square meter of artificial structure can negate the primary production of up to 130 square meters of surrounding coastal waters; collectively, these structures not only act as energy sinks and carbon sources, but also potentially reduce the productivity of coastal food webs.
Sequential transfer learning in NLP for text summarization

This thesis investigates recent techniques for transfer learning and their influence on machine summarization systems. A current trend in Natural Language Processing (NLP) is to pre-train extensive language models in advance and adapt these to address problems in various task domains. Since these techniques have rarely been investigated in the context of text summarization, this thesis develops a workflow to integrate and evaluate pre-trained language models in neural text summarization. Based on news articles of the CNN / DailyMail dataset [35] and the CopyNet [32] summarization model, the conducted experiments show that transfer learning can have a positive impact on summarising texts. Further findings suggest that datasets with less historical data are more likely to benefit from transfer learning. On the other hand, however, this work demonstrates that the components of text summarization models limit the abilities of state-of-the-art transfer learning techniques. In the field of machine learning, this thesis is designed for readers interested in the state-of-the-art in transfer learning for NLP and its influence on the generation of summaries.
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT REDUCTION IN PAKISTAN

This paper aims to explore the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on Unemployment in Pakistan among some other explanatory variables namely Corruption, Population size and Inflation. The study covers the time period from 1995 to 2011. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the effect of selected explanatory variables on unemployment in Pakistan. Results reveal that Foreign Direct Investment plays a significant role in unemployment reduction in Pakistan. Policy recommendations are given in the light of results obtained by this
Contextual Integration of Causal Coherence in People with Down Syndrome : Evidence from Figurative Comprehension

Contextual integration is seldom explored in people with Down syndrome (DS). This study aimed to investigate this ability by comparing causal inferences made by people with DS who were presented with homonyms embedded within sentences and asked to choose which of three interpretations (figurative meaning, literal meaning, or unrelated meaning) was correct. Accuracy was the dependent variable. Each homonym was presented in a scenario familiar to the participants. The results revealed that the participants with DS were the least accurate in responding to figurative meanings and erred most compared to matched controls in chronological age and mental age. It was concluded that people with DS were developmentally delayed in causal inferences and weak central coherence is indeed a syndrome-general phenotype across populations with developmental disorders.
Assessment of Indigenous Sheep Production Systems in Bale Zone , Oromia Regional State , Ethiopia

The present study aims to describe production system of indigenous sheep types, selective breeding objectives and traits preferences of sheep types in five districts of Bale zone (Agarfa, Dinsho, Goba, Sawena and DaweKechan). The study was performed based on household survey using structured questionnaires. Three kebeles from each district and 20 households from each kebeles were sampled using simple random sampling techniques. For household survey, 300 households (60 from each district) were involved. Data were analyzed using SAS versions 9. Pastoral, agro pastoral and mixed crop livestock production system were the main production system in the study area with large proportion of sheep per house hold were found in Dinsho (15.6) and Goba (15.4). Across all the districts, Sheep were used primarily as a source of income generations through the sale of live animals with index value of 0.39, 0.42, 0.39, 0.38 and 0.37 for Agarfa, Dinsho, Goba, Sawena and Dawe Kechan District, respectively. In the study area selection was practiced both for male (70.33%) and female (86.33%) and appearance was the most selection criteria both for male and female sheep. Diseases, feed shortage and lack of good genotypes were the 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd production constraints with index value of 0.28, 0.19 and 0.18, respectively. The study indicated that the information obtained would assist in planning suitable conservation, improvement and extension programs for the indigenous sheep types.
Origin of non-linear piezoelectricity in III-V semiconductors : Internal strain and bond ionicity from hybrid-functional density functional theory

Miguel A. Caro, 2, 3, 4, ∗ Stefan Schulz, and Eoin P. O’Reilly 2 Photonics Theory Group, Tyndall National Institute, Dyke Parade, Cork, Ireland Department of Physics, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Department of Electrical Enegineering and Automation, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland COMP Centre of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland (Dated: November 5, 2018)
Impact of hospital pharmacist-led home medication review program for people with schizophrenia: A prospective study from Malaysia

This study was to evaluate the impact of hospital pharmacist-led home medication review (HMR) program on medication adherence, knowledge toward antipsychotic drugs, and quality of life among people with schizophrenia. This was a prospective longitudinal study conducted from October 2012 to December 2013. This study involved 133 people with schizophrenia under the care of the home care team in Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta Hospital, Malaysia. Upon attaining written informed consent, subjects were home visited after 1, 3, and 6 months by the pharmacist to perform a comprehensive medication review. Friedman analysis of variance test was used to compare the differences of the patients’ medication adherence, knowledge of antipsychotic treatment, and quality of life at baseline and each follow-up visit. Subjects had a significant improvement on medication adherence as shown by the mean medication adherence rating scale scores (baseline: 8.42 ± 1.40 vs. sixth month: 9.47 ± 1.02; p < 0.001) and mean pill count percentage (baseline: 56.68% ± 39.43% vs. sixth month: 90.37% ± 15.19%; p < 0.001). Subjects’ mean knowledge score on antipsychotics were improved significantly with the HMR program (baseline: 5.56 ± 1.51 vs. sixth month: 7.65 ± 0.60; p < 0.001). Regarding the subject’s quality of life, the “social” and the “family” components of the Sheehan disability scale demonstrated significant improvement (p < 0.001). However, the improvement of the “work” component and overall quality of life were not statistically significant. In conclusion, pharmacist-led HMR program has a positive impact on medication adherence, knowledge of antipsychotics, and quality of life on “social” and “family” components among people with schizophrenia.
Longitudinal study on community response to noise in Vietnam and Kumamoto

Although a number of socio-acoustic surveys on community response to transportation noise have been conducted in developed countries thus far, only a few such surveys have been conducted in developing countries such as those in Southeast Asia [1]. In order to remedy this situation and to contribute to Vietnamese and global noise policies, socio-acoustic surveys have been conducted in two cities of Vietnam since 2005 [2, 3]. Since Japan’s first high-speed railway line, Tokaido Shinkansen, was opened between Tokyo and Osaka in 1964, high-speed railway networks have been developed not only in Japan but also in Europe and some East Asian countries. The construction of the Kyushu Shinkansen Line began around the Kumamoto Station area in 2004. By the time the construction of the Shinkansen and the conventional railway lines is completed in 2016, the positions of the both lines will have changed, leading to changes in the noise exposures to houses. In this paper, we present two ongoing longitudinal studies on community response to noise. The first study is the socio-acoustic survey on community response to aircraft, road traffic, and railway noises in four cities of Vietnam: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Danang. The second study is on community response to the step changes in exposure to the noise caused by the Shinkansen, the conventional railway, and the construction work going on in Kumamoto.
A Pervasive Sensing Approach to Automatic Assessment of Trunk Coordination Using Mobile Devices

Assessing trunk coordination has many potential applications in health promotion. However, traditional bio-mechanical approaches are not suited for daily use as they require expensive devices and manual analysis. This study aimed to develop an approach for automatic classification of good and poor trunk coordination using widely available mobile devices. We investigated different combinations of sensor locations (i.e. chest and pelvis), sensing modalities (i.e. accelerometer and gyroscope) and classification techniques (i.e. SVM, KNN, and decision tree). Results showed that using both sensing modalities at chest and pelvis with SVM produced the best classification accuracy: 96% for chest rotation and 100% for pelvis rotation. In practice, however, using one device with both sensing modalities (i.e. accelerometer and gyroscope) will achieve a better trade-off between feasibility and accuracy. In this case, the device should be fixed on the chest. KNN should be selected as the classification technique for chest rotation (best accuracy 95%), and SVM should be selected as the classification technique for pelvis rotation (best accuracy 79%). Post hoc analysis found that poor coordination during chest rotation was associated to weak cross-correlation of angular velocity between chest and pelvis in the frontal plane, while poor coordination during pelvis rotation was associated to weak correlations of angular velocity between the three orthogonal components at chest. This study demonstrated how simple mobile devices can capture relevant motion data and extract key features that help construct computational models for automatic assessment of trunk coordination.
Single Oxygen Molecule Sensitivity of Organolead Halide Perovskite Photoluminescence

The photoluminescence (PL) of organolead halide perovskites (OHPs) is sensitive to its surface conditions, especially surface defect states, making the PL of small OHP crystals an effective way to report their surface states. At the ensemble level, when averaging a lot of nanocrystals, the photoexcitation of OHP nanorods under inert nitrogen (N2) atmosphere leads to PL decline, while subsequent exposure to oxygen (O2) results to reversible PL recovery. At the single-particle level, individual OHP nanorods photoblinks, whose probability is dependent on both the excitation intensity and the O2 concentration. Combining the two sets of information, we are able to quantitatively evaluating the interaction between a single surface defect and a single O2 molecule using a kinetic model. This model provides fundamental insights that could help reconcile the contradicting views on the interactions of molecular O2 with OHP materials and help design a suitable OHP interface for a variety of applications in photovoltaics and optoelectronics.
Performance of Malaysian Financial Firms: An Intellectual Capital Perspective Using MVAIC Model

This study examined the influence of intellectual capital on Malaysian financial firms from two perspectives, performance of intellectual capital and impact of intellectual capital on financial performance. The data used were collected from the audited annual reports of 21 financial firms listed in the finance sector of Bursa Malaysia. The sample period was from 2011 to 2015 and the number of observations for this analysis was 105. Intellectual capital was measured using the modified value-added intellectual coefficient (MVAIC) model and financial performance was proxied by the return on asset (ROA). The findings suggested a strong association between MVAIC and ROA. CEE, HCE and SCE made significant and positive contributions towards financial performance. As for RCE, the findings revealed a positive but insignificant relationship with ROA. On the performance of intellectual capital, the HCE contributed approximately 82% to MVAIC followed by SCE 16%, RCE 1% and CEE 1%. Thus, the value creation capability of Malaysian financial firms is directly attributable to the HCE of the firms. The main limitations of the study were no control for firm-specific variables such as firm-size, and that the level of risk, firms? complexity and structural capital were not segregated into its components namely innovation capital and process capital to identify which was more dominant in creating value. Financial firms may use the results to address the factors affecting intellectual capital performance in order to maximize value creation capability. Education institutions need to collaborate with the finance industry to increase the relevance of their educational mission and to stimulate new directions in the education industry.
Evaluation of the Speed Loss in Seaway by Computational Methods

In this paper, the speed loss in seaway is evaluated by simulating the self-propulsion test in calm water and in sea state. The weather factor thus can be computed from ship speeds obtained at the same power in both calm water and waves. In the presented method, we use both the potential flow method and the viscous flow method. Two different approaches for evaluating the speed loss in sea way are presented. For the first approach, “Double-body model” is used in the viscous flow computations to compute the viscous drag, and both wave-making resistance and added resistance are computed by potential flow methods. For the second approach, the free surface effects are included in the viscous flow computations. Therefore, ship hull forces in calm water are all computed by the viscous flow method. The added resistance is still computed by a potential flow method. The body force method is used to represent the propeller effects in all approaches. The KCS model ship is used to demonstrate the speed loss computations, and results from two approaches are compared to each other and investigated.
Chapter 8 Passive Immunotherapy in Alzheimer ’ s Disease

The development of therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been challenged with a myriad of obstacles: an evolving and incomplete understanding of disease etiology and progression, challenges with early diagnosis, multifactorial genetic and environmental factors that contribute to patient variability, and the cost of conducting lengthy clinical trials. One approach that has garnered a significant amount of attention and resources for its potential as a disease modifying approach is passive immunotherapy directed at clearing amyloid-β (Aβ) species, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. While passive immunotherapeutic trials directed at Aβ have not yet demonstrated clinical benefit, they have prompted important advances in the application and understanding of biomarkers, patient selection, novel functional readouts, and safety monitoring. Application of these lessons has enabled more recent clinical trials to incorporate better trial designs and refine inclusion criteria to optimize patient population enrollment. In addition, new passive immunotherapy targets emerging in the clinic have emerged, as well as novel technologies to enhance future antibody therapeutics. Taken together, the advances in research and clinical science have prepared the passive immunotherapy field to advance emerging promising disease modifying treatments in AD.
Assessment of combining ability and heterosis for yield and yield related traits in maize (Zea mays L.).

The present investigation was conducted at Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, Punjab during 2015-2016. The experimental material consisted of 7 inbreed lines with 3 tester in maize and 21 F1s, along with one check (P-1543). All these are were grown in a Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. The hybrids were evaluated to know the extent of heterosis and combining ability for grain yield per plant, yield contributing characters in maize. Considerable variability existed among the genotypes for all the characters studied as observed from the significant mean squares due to genotypes. Combining ability analysis showed the predominant role of non-additive gene action for all characters studied. The line I-07-19-6 was found to be good general combiner and tester CML-269 was found average combiners for grain yield per plant. Crosses I-07-19-6 x CM-140, I-07-19-5 x CML-269 and I-0726-7 × CML-269 revealed high specific combining ability effects for grain yield per plant. The hybrids I-07-19-6 × CM-140, I07-19-2 × HKI-193-1 and I-07-19-5 × CML-269 were identified as superior hybrids as it recorded high percentage of relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis for grain yield per plant along with other characters. These hybrids were identified as potential hybrids for widespread cultivation and commercial exploitation.
Remark on Unified Vortical Singularity (UVS) model in Comparison with Navier-Stokes Cosmology

In this paper , we review shortly UVS model of the Universe, based on information in their website. Universal Vortical Singularity (UVS) is a postulated cosmic archetype of a nested vortical hypersphere system. All sorts of its torus transformed hypersphere structures, are perceivable to be ubiquitously manifested in the observable universe throughout macrocosms and microcosms. We also discuss briefly a new model that we call Navier-Stokes cosmology, because we realize that the Cosmic Web of large scale structure of the Universe can only be approached using turbulence/NS theory. This short review is of course not complete, and therefore more research is needed.
Influence of genetic variation on flavour perception and food choices

In 1932, Blakeslee and Fox published detailed reports on the inability of some people to taste phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), calling this heritable trait ‘tasteblindness’. In 2003, the molecular mechanism underlying this trait was finally elucidated. Over the last 15 years, molecular genetics and modern psychophysics have made it clear that this heritable dimorphism is only one of many, some of which are directly relevant to the food supply. Nor are these differences restricted to taste, as other sensory modalities involved in flavour perception also show genetic variability. Here I review some mechanisms involved in systematic variation in chemosensation across individuals, and highlight a few examples that are relevant to ingestive behavior, food choice, and consumer behavior. Other complications are also discussed.
Critical analysis of query processing techniques for heterogeneous environments

This deliverable surveys the most important techniques for processing queries in heterogeneous environments. The accent is on those models and solutions that are suitable to be applied in peer-to-peer scenarios. In particular, solutions are reviewed by considering their capability to support one or more of the following query types: key-based, feature-based, schema-based, and relevance-based.
Beyond 1 / f α fluctuation-1 Interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition : Beyond 1 / f α fluctuation

It has been suggested that human behavior in general and cognitive performance in particular emerge from coordination between multiple temporal scales. In this paper, we provide quantitative support for such a theory of interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition by using wavelet-based multifractal analysis and accompanying multiplicative cascading process on the response series of 4 different cognitive tasks, simple response, word naming, choice decision and interval estimation. Results indicated that the major portion of these response series had multiplicative interactions between temporal scales, visible as intermittent periods of large and irregular fluctuations (i.e., a multifractal structure). Comparing two component-dominant models of 1/f α fluctuations in cognitive performance with the multiplicative cascading process indicated that the multifractal structure could not be replicated by these component-dominant models. Furthermore, a similar multifractal structure was shown to be present in a model of self-organized criticality in the human nervous system, similar to a spatial extension of the multiplicative cascading process. These results illustrate that a wavelet-based multifractal analysis and the multiplicative cascading process form an appropriate framework to characterize interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition. This new framework goes beyond the identification of 1/f α power laws and non-Gaussian distributions in response series as used in previous studies. Taken together, the present paper provides quantitative support for a paradigm shift towards interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition. Beyond 1/f α fluctuation 3
N ov 2 01 7 Spread rate of branching Brownian motions

We find the exponential growth rate of the population outside a ball with time dependent radius for a branching Brownian motion in Euclidean space. We then see that the upper bound of the particle range is determined by the principal eigenvalue of the Schrödinger type operator associated with the branching rate measure and branching mechanism. We assume that the branching rate measure is small enough at infinity, and can be singular with respect to the Lebesgue measure. We finally apply our results to several concrete models.