Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reproductive biology of Synallaxis albescens (Aves: Furnariidae) in the cerrado of central Brazil

Um tema central em estudos acerca da evolucao da historia de vida de aves e o entendimento das causas e consequencias da variacao em estrategias reprodutivas. O presente estudo descreve a biologia reprodutiva de Synallaxis albescens (Furnariidae) no bioma cerrado do Brasil central. Nos monitoramos 35 ninhos durantes as estacoes reprodutivas de 2003 a 2011, visitando-os a cada 2-4 dias. Synallaxis albescens se reproduz da metade de setembro a metade de janeiro, constroi ninho em forma de retorta e geralmente coloca tres ovos brancos. Os ovos apresentaram peso de 1,75g e medidas de 19,7 por 14,4 mm. A maior parte dos ninhos estudados estava em Campo sujo e Cerrado ralo a uma altura media, em relacao ao solo, de 0.3 m, com uma preferencia por arbustos de Davilla elliptica (Dilleniaceae) como substrato para os ninhos. O periodo de incubacao durou em media 18,1 dias, enquanto o periodo de permanencia dos ninhegos durou em media 13,6 dias. Dos 16 ninhos monitorados, quatro obtiveram sucesso (25%), 11 foram predados (69%) e um foi abandonado. A predacao foi semelhante durante a fase de incubacao (45%) e durante a fase de cuidado dos ninhegos (55%). Em geral, a biologia reprodutiva de S. albescens foi similar ao descrito previamente na literatura para esta especie, bem como para Furnariidae relacionados.
Establishment of stackable community networks

One of the research areas with increasing interest in the field of telecommunications, are the ones related to future telecommunication systems, both 4th generation and beyond. In parallel, during the last years, several concepts have been developed related to clustering of users according to their interested, in the form of community networks. Solutions proposed for these concepts tackle the challenges horizontally, for each layer of the communication stack, ranging from community based communication networks (e.g. Seattle Wireless, or Personal Telco), to interest networks based on peer-to-peer protocols. However, these networks are presented either as free joining, or overlay networks. In practice, the notion of a self-organized, service and community oriented network, with these principles embedded in its design principles, is yet to be developed. This work presents an novel instantiation of a solution in the area of community networks, with a underlying architecture which is fully service oriented, and envisions the support for multiple community networks in the same device. Considerations regarding security, trust and service availability for this type of environments are also taken. Due to the importance of resource management and access control, in the context of community driven communication networks, a special focus was given to the support of scalable and decentralized management and access control methods. For this purpose, it is presented a policy language which supports the creation and management of virtual communities. The language is not only used for mapping the social structure of the community members, but also to, following a distributed approach, manage devices, resources and services owned by each community member.
Assessment and Identification of Factors that Contribute to Divorce of Women in Ethiopia

An attempt has been done to assess and identify the major variables that contribute to divorce in Ethiopia. Age of women, place of residence, religion of a woman, education level of a woman, religion of a woman, number of living children are the major variables which influence divorce in Ethiopia using binary logistic regression model. Keywords : binary logistic regression, divorce, ever married women, Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey data
BLOCK SUBSPACE PURSUIT FOR BLOCK-SPARSE SIGNAL RECONSTRUCTION

Abstract– Subspace Pursuit (SP) is an efficient algorithm for sparse signal reconstruction. When the interested signal is block sparse, i.e., the nonzero elements occur in clusters, block sparse recovery algorithms are developed. In this paper, a blocked algorithm based on SP, namely Block SP (BSP) is presented. Contrary to the previous algorithms such as Block Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (BOMP) and mixed 1 2/l l -norm, our approach presents better recovery performance and requires less time when non-zero elements appear in fixed blocks in a particular hardware in most of the cases. It is demonstrated that our proposed algorithm can precisely reconstruct the blocksparse signals, provided that the sampling matrix satisfies the block restricted isometry property which is a generalization of the standard RIP widely used in the context of compressed sensingwith a constant parameter. Furthermore, it is experimentally illustrated that the BSP algorithm outperforms other methods such as SP, mixed 1 2/l l -norm and BOMP. This is more pronounced when the block length is small.
Experiment and Prediction of Ablation Depth in Excimer Laser Micromachining of Optical Polymer Waveguides

Extending the data transfer rates through dense interconnections at inter- and intraboard levels is a well-established technique especially in consumer electronics at the expense of more cross talk, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and power dissipation. Optical transmission using optical fibre is practically immune to the aforementioned factors. Among the manufacturing methods, UV laser ablation using an excimer laser has been repeatedly demonstrated as a suitable technique to fabricate multimode polymer waveguides. However, the main challenge is to precisely control and predict the topology of the waveguides without the need for extensive characterisation which is both time consuming and costly. In this paper, the authors present experimental results of investigation to relate the fluence, scanning speed, number of shots, and passes at varying pulse repetition rate with the depth of ablation of an acrylate-based photopolymer. The depth of ablation essentially affects total internal reflection and insertion loss, and these must be kept at minimum for a successful optical interconnection on printed circuit boards. The results are then used to predict depth of ablation for this material by means of adaptive neurofuzzy inference system (ANFIS) modelling. The predicted results, with a correlation of 0.9993, show good agreement with the experimental values. This finding will be useful in better predictions along with resource optimisation and ultimately helps in reducing cost of polymer waveguide fabrication.
Obtaining and Interpreting Maximum Performance Tasks from Children: A Tutorial

The diagnosis of motor speech disorders in children can be aided by the use and interpretation of measures of maximum performance tasks. These tasks include measuring how long a vowel can be sustained or how fast syllables can be repeated. This tutorial provides a rationale for including these measures in assessment protocols for children with speech sound disorders. Software developed to motivate children to cooperate with these procedures and to expedite recording of sound prolongations and syllable repetitions is described. Procedures for obtaining maximum performance measures from digital sound file recordings are illustrated followed by a discussion of how these measures may aid in clinical diagnosis.
1 WHAT IS A BETTER PREDICTOR OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS IN AN MBA PROGRAM : WORK EXPERIENCE OR THE GMAT ?

The goal of this study was to determine if work experience might be a better predictor of success in the MBA program than a Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) score by examining how successful students have been in an MBA program in a suburban metropolitan university. Success in the MBA program was measured by overall GPA for students completing the program. The study also examined the benefits of offering a GMAT Waiver to individuals with significant and leadership experience. Other characteristics, such as age, gender, race, undergraduate GPA and undergraduate upper division GPA were also studied. Preliminary results indicated that significant leadership and administrative work experience were a better predictor than GMAT scores in predicting the overall success of students enrolled in an MBA program. There appeared to be very little correlation between GMAT scores and the overall GPA that students received in the program. The study should be beneficia l to universities considering the criteria on which to place the most emphasis when making admissions decisions. Included in the paper will be a discussion of alternatives to offering the GMAT. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE In a part-time program such as the one being studied in this paper, students are often older and have more significant leadership and management work experience than students admitted to a traditional MBA program. To maximize the number of admittances and improve the retention and graduation rates, it is important that those involved with the administration of MBA programs understand the likely predictors of graduate student performance to be able to make quality admission choices (Sulaiman and Mohezar, 2006). More and more schools have recognized that the GMAT, including the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), should be waived for individuals with significant work experience (Braunstein, 2009). Fish and Wilson (2009) indicated that there also are other differences in factors, such as age, in predicting graduate performance in a part-time MBA compared to a one-year MBA program. This should
Localization of the calcium channel subunits Cav 1 . 2 ( α 1 C ) and Cav 2 . 3 ( α 1 E ) in the mouse organ of Corti

secretion, Ca2+ oscillations, and gene expression, and they can modulate a variety of enzymes and ion channels. Voltage-activated Ca2+ channels are formed by at least four different subunits (α1, α2-δ, ß, sometimes also γ; for review see Hofmann et al., 1994; Catterall, 1998). The physiological and pharmacological diversity of voltage-gated Ca2+ currents that have been classified into L-, P-, Q-, N-, R-, and T-type arises primarily from the existence of multiple pore-forming a1 subunits (Hofmann et al., 1994; Catterall, 1998; Randall, 1998). Ten different α1 genes have been found so far that have been classified into three families and according to a new nomenclature are now termed Cav1.1 (α1S), Cav1.2 (α1C), Cav1.3 (α1D), and Cav1.4 (α1F) all giving rise to L-type Ca2+ currents; Cav2.1 (α1A), Cav2.2 (α1B) and Cav2.3 (α1E) giving rise to P/Q, N and R-type Ca 2+ currents, respectively; and Cav3.1 (α1G), Cav3.2 (α1H), Cav3.3 (α1I) all giving rise to T-type Ca 2+ currents (Ertel et al., 2000). In the mouse cochlea, the occurrence of the α1 subunits Cav1.2 (formerly α1C), Cav1.3 (formerly α1D) and Cav2.3 (formerly α1E) subunits has been demonstrated using PCR analysis of total cochlear mRNA (Green et al., 1996). These subunits should give rise to L-type currents with high voltage of activation and intermediate kinetics of inactivation (Cav1.2), Ltype currents with low voltage of activation and slow inactivation (Cav1.3, Koschak et al., 2001), and to Rtype currents resistant to all known organic Ca2+ channel blockers, with an intermediate threshold of activation and fast inactivation (Cav2.3; Randall and Tsien, 1997; Randall, 1998). As we are interested in the role of Ca2+ channels in cochlear development and function we performed immunohistochemical and electrophysiological studies. Recently, we could show by recording from hair cells from wild-type mice and mice deficient for the Ca2+ channel Cav1.3 subunit that class D L-type Ca2+ channels (Cav1.3) are the dominating α1 subunits in both neonatal inner hair cells (IHC; Platzer et al., 2000) and outer hair cells (OHC; Michna et al., Localization of the calcium channel subunits Cav1.2 (α1C) and Cav2.3 (α1E) in the mouse organ of Corti
Growth, hematological and biochemical responses of growing lambs injected with growth hormone and supplemented with calcium soaps of fatty acids

Physiological and productive responses to recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) injection and calcium soap of fatty acids (CSFA) supplementation were studied in post-weaning male Rahmani lambs. Male lambs (n = 20) of similar initial body weight (27.9 kg) and age (162 d) were divided randomly into four equal groups. The first was fed the injected with 100 mg of rbST biweekly; the third (basal diet and served as control; the second (GH) was CSFA) was supplemented with 50 g/d of CSFA and the fourth (GH + CSFA) was injected with 100 mg of rbST biweekly plus 50 g/d of CSFA. Treatments increased the average daily gain and final body weight. Concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in lambs treated with (GH) and (GH + CSFA) was higher than that of CSFA and control groups. Haematological parameters (RBC, WBC, and haemoglobin concentrations) did not change. Animals injected with rbST had higher serum total protein than other treated groups and controls. Control lambs showed the least serum albumin concentration. Injection of rbST and supplementation of CSFA increased serum glucose in treated lambs compared to controls. Serum urea concentration was not affected by injection of GH, while CSFA supplementation decreased serum urea concentration compared to the control. Serum triglycerides concentration decreased in rbST-injected lambs than other treatment groups. Lambs supplemented with CSFA only or combined with rbST had higher concentration of serum cholesterol than control or rbST-injected lambs. The results of the present study suggest that rbST and CSFA may increase the average daily gain and improve the physiological status of growing lambs.
Price Inflation and Wealth Transfer During the 2008 SEC Short-Sale Ban

Using a factor-analytic model that extracts common valuation information from the prices of stocks that were not banned, we estimate that the ban on short-selling financial stocks imposed by the SEC in September 2008 led to substantial price inflation in the banned stocks. The inflation reversed somewhat following the ban, but the data are too noisy to conclusively link the reversal to the ban. Other factors such as the pending TARP legislation may also have affected prices, though our results suggest that it was not a significant factor. If prices were inflated, buyers paid more than they otherwise would have paid for the banned stocks during the period of the ban. We provide an estimate of $4.9 billion for the resulting wealth transfer from buyers to sellers. Such transfers should interest policymakers concerned about maintaining fair markets.
Health Human Capital, Height and Wages in China

Abstract We estimate the returns to height using data from 12 Chinese cities. We present both ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (TSLS) estimates. In the latter height is instrumented using proxies for health human capital, accumulated in childhood and adolescence, which influence adult height. The TSLS estimates are much higher, reflecting the fact that the OLS estimates are determined by the random genetic factors influencing height, while the TSLS estimates also take into account returns from investment in health human capital during childhood and adolescence. These results imply considerable returns to investment in health human capital.
Inflation-Indexed Bonds and the Expectations Hypothesis

This review empirically analyzes the expectations hypothesis (EH) in inflation-indexed (or real) bonds and in nominal bonds in the United States and in the United Kingdom. We strongly reject the EH in inflation-indexed bonds, and also confirm and update the existing evidence rejecting the EH in nominal bonds. This rejection implies that the risk premium on both real and nominal bonds varies predictably over time. We also find strong evidence that the spread between the nominal and the real bond risk premium, or the breakeven inflation risk premium, also varies over time. We argue that the time variation in real bond risk premia most likely reflects both a changing real interest rate risk premium and a changing liquidity risk premium, and that the variability in the nominal bond risk premia reflects a changing inflation risk premium. We estimate significant time series variability in the magnitude and sign of bond risk premia.
On common fixed point in probabilistic metric space

In this paper, we establish a new common fixed point theorem for four mappings in probabilistic metric spaces. The obtained result is a generalization of some fixed point theorems as in [1], [2], [6] and anthers. Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 54h25, 47H10
Continuum Foreground Polarization and Na i Absorption in Type Ia SNe

We present a study of the continuum polarization over the 400–600 nm range of 19 SNe Ia obtained with FORS at the VLT. We separate them into those that show Na i D lines at the velocity of their hosts and those that do not. Continuum polarization of the sodium sample near maximum light displays a broad range of values, from extremely polarized cases like SN 2006X to almost unpolarized ones like SN 2011ae. The non-sodium sample shows, typically, smaller polarization values. The continuum polarization of the sodium sample in the 400–600 nm range is linear with wavelength and can be characterized by the mean polarization ( ). Its values span a wide range and show a linear correlation with color, color excess, and extinction in the visual band. Larger dispersion correlations were found with the equivalent width of the Na i D and Ca ii H and K lines, and also a noisy relation between and RV, the ratio of total to selective extinction. Redder SNe show stronger continuum polarization, with larger color excesses and extinctions. We also confirm that high continuum polarization is associated with small values of RV. The correlation between extinction and polarization—and polarization angles—suggest that the dominant fraction of dust polarization is imprinted in interstellar regions of the host galaxies. We show that Na i D lines from foreground matter in the SN host are usually associated with non-galactic ISM, challenging the typical assumptions in foreground interstellar polarization models.
Ultrastructural Changes in the Ileum of White BALB/C Mice Experimentally Infected with Salmonella hadar

Problem statement: Recently, Salmonella hadar has been isolated and identified from goat in Iraq. The purpose of the present study was to in vestigate the ultrastructural changes in the ileum epithelial cells of mice experimentally infected wi th Salmonella hadar . Approach: The white BALB/c mice inoculated orally with Salmonella enterica serovar hadar strain and their ileums were examined by transmission electron microscopy at 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 h after inoculation. Results: The challenge organism appeared adhered to the mucosal microvilli of the ileum from 24 h post- inoculation. The early ultrastructural changes char acterized by local derangement with slight swelling of the proximal ends of the microvilli. In addition , there was ruffling of the apical cell surfaces of the microvilli with cytoplasmic vacuolization of entero cytes due to invading by the organisms. The Challenge organism was usually intact and enclosed by a membrane. The damage of the epithelial cells started as a minor lesion at 24 h and became severe after 48, 72 and 96 h post infection. The more sev ere ultrastructural changes in the ileum occurred at 12 0 h post infection, which revealed hypertrophy of goblet cell, dilatation of endoplasmic reticulum, s evere cytoplasmic vacuolization, thickening of the nuclear membrane and several Salmonella Containing Vacuoles (SCV). Conclusion: Our results revealed that the cellular invasion by Salmonella hadar may occurred early than 24 h because of the obvious alterations seen in the cells of the ileum at this time of infection. In addition, the continu ation of cellular pathological changes for 120 h post inf ection may refers that S. hadar has some mechanisms which aid it to survive and replicate wi thin intestinal cells. We recommend further studies with early observation periods in order to determin e the invasion time.
UNCERTAINTY IN SEISMIC INTENSITY MEASURES USED FOR FRAGILITY ANALYSIS

Abstract. Seismic fragility is the main tool used in the performance-based earthquake engineering, and represents the probability of a dynamic system to enter a damage state for a given intensity measure (IM). The most commonly-used seismic IMs are the peak ground acceleration (PGA), which is the absolute maximum of the ground acceleration, and the spectral acceleration (SA), which characterizes well the response of simple linear systems, but shows large uncertainties in the characterization of the seismic response of complex non-linear systems. The main assumption that underlies the basis of the selection of PGA or SA as IMs is that they correlate satisfactorily with the demand parameters (D) of realistic structures, i.e., nonlinear, complex dynamic systems. Statistics and tools of random vibrations are employed to quantify the dependence relations between seismic IMs and structural demand parameters, for non-linear systems subjected to seismic ground-motion records.
Model and experimental investigation of frequency conversion in AgGaGexS2(1 + x) (x = 0, 1) crystals

Analysis of available and developed data on phase matching in AgGaGexS2(1 + x) (x = 0, 1) crystals is carried out. Nanosecond AgGaS2 type I optical parametric oscillator with a continuously tunable range 2.65–5.29 µm is demonstrated pumped by a Q-switched Nd : YAG laser. An output pulse energy of up to 0.56 mJ at 4 µm is recorded. Phase matching of second harmonic generation in both crystals is represented. Best sets of Sellmeier equations for two crystals are determined.
Object Segmentation based on Saliency Extraction and Bounding Box

Object segmentation is desirable in many practical applications, e.g., object classification. However, due to various object appearances and shapes, confusing backgrounds, object segmentation in an effective way is still a challenging issue. In this paper, a novel algorithm of object segmentation based on saliency extraction and bounding boxes is proposed. The segmentation performance is significantly improved by introducing saliency extraction into the segmentation scheme. Firstly, bounding boxes are acquired by object detection algorithms, foreground and background model is constructed using bounding boxes. Then, saliency extraction procedure is introduced, and adaptive weights for each pixel are computed based on the saliency extraction. Finally, undirected graph which incorporates the adaptive weights for each pixel is constructed and graph cuts is implemented to obtain the segmentation results. Comprehensive and comparative experiments demonstrate that our proposed algorithm has achieved promising performance over a challenging public available dataset.
Market Reaction to Corporate Press Releases

Abstract We classify a unique and comprehensive data set of corporate press releases into topics and study the market reaction to various types of news. While confirming prior findings regarding strong stock price responses to financial news, we also document significant reactions to news about corporate strategy, customers and partners, products and services, management changes, and legal developments. Consistent with regulators' expectations, the level of informational asymmetry in the market declines following most types of press releases. At the same time, return volatility frequently increases in the post-announcement period, which we show can be attributed to higher levels of valuation uncertainty.