Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quadratic Functions for Estimating Biomass in Eucalyptus camaldulensis Energy Plantations in the Semi-Arid Region of Northeastern Nigeria

Quadratic functions for estimating biomass yield were developed for 25-year-old Eucalyptus camaldulensis energy plantations, in a semi-arid region of northeastern Nigeria. Data obtained using the mean tree method were subjected to stepwise multiple regression analysis. Forty-eight (48) mean trees were clearfelled, separated into components and weighed fresh. Replicate wood discs and foliage samples were extracted fresh from tree components and dried in the oven until constant weight was attained. The fresh:dry weight ratio of the samples were used to estimate the dry biomass of the mean trees. The total aboveground biomass (TAGB) production per hectare was 256,245.08 kg. Mean TAGB per tree was 289.87 kg, biomass of the bole, branches, twigs and the foliage were 153.08, 85.52, 29.81 and 21.46 kg, respectively. Mean contribution of components to total above ground biomass were 52.82, 29.5, 10.28 and 7.4%, by the bole, branches, twigs and foliage respectively. Increases in dbh of the trees resulted in a corresponding increase in TAGB, total woody biomass, bole and biomass of the branches, but increases in twigs and foliage biomasses was less responsive to dbh. Dbh as the only measured independent variable explained a lot of the variation observed in yield. The combination of Dbh and Dbh within the same models gave better estimations of biomass yield, than the 2 use of Dbh only. The addition of a third variable Dbh H made only a slight improvement in a few of the models. 2 For foliage biomass, dbh alone gave a good estimate, but the addition of another variable; number of large branches (NTBr) made an improvement. Results of residual analysis showed that the models satisfied all the assumptions of regression analysis.
ERIM: Secure, Efficient In-process Isolation with Protection Keys (MPK)

Isolating sensitive state and data can increase the security and robustness of many applications. Examples include protecting cryptographic keys against exploits like OpenSSL’s Heartbleed bug or protecting a language runtime from native libraries written in unsafe languages. When runtime references across isolation boundaries occur relatively infrequently, then conventional page-based hardware isolation can be used, because the cost of kernelor hypervisormediated domain switching is tolerable. However, some applications, such as the isolation of cryptographic session keys in network-facing services, require very frequent domain switching. In such applications, the overhead of kernelor hypervisor-mediated domain switching is prohibitive. In this paper, we present ERIM, a novel technique that provides hardware-enforced isolation with low overhead on x86 CPUs, even at high switching rates (ERIM’s measured overhead is less than 1% for 100,000 switches per second). The key idea is to combine protection keys (MPKs), a feature recently added to x86 that allows protection domain switches in userspace, with binary inspection to prevent circumvention. We show that ERIM can be applied with little effort to new and existing applications, doesn’t require compiler changes, can run on a stock Linux kernel, and has low runtime overhead even at high domain switching rates.
Dynamic structured illumination microscopy: focused imaging and optical sectioning for moving objects

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is a valuable tool for three-dimensional microscopy and has numerous applications in bioscience. Its success has been limited to static objects, though, as three sequential image acquisitions are required per final processed, focused image. To overcome this problem we have developed a multicolored grid which when used in tandem with a color camera is capable of performing SIM with just a single exposure. Images and movies demonstrating optical sectioning of three-dimensional objects are presented, and results of applying color SIM for wide-field focused imaging are compared to those of SIM. From computer modeling and analytical calculations a theoretical estimate of the maximum observable object velocity in both the lateral and axial directions is available, implying that the new method will be capable of imaging a variety of live objects. Sample images of the technique applied to lens paper and a pigeon feather are included to show both advantages and disadvantages of CSIM.
ALTO Deployment Considerations

Many Internet applications are used to access resources, such as pieces of information or server processes, which are available in several equivalent replicas on different hosts. This includes, but is not limited to, peer-to-peer file sharing applications. The goal of Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) is to provide guidance to these applications, which have to select one or several hosts from a set of candidates, that are able to provide a desired resource. The protocol is under specification in the ALTO working group. This memo discusses deployment related issues of ALTO for peer-to-peer and CDNs, some preliminary security considerations, and also initial guidance for application designers using ALTO.
GRADE PREDICTION USING SUPERVISED MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

Data Mining and Machine Learning can provide invaluable insights to Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences. Predicting student’s performance beforehand can help management, faculty and as well students to make timely decisions. Using machine learning approaches we predict student marks and grades before the final examination for 2500 student course records of an institute of higher education. This assessment helps the department to plan for the courses of the upcoming semester beforehand, and helps the students to make more informed decisions. Our findings suggest that the grade of more than 96% students can be accurately predicted even before the conduct of final exam.
303. Surgical treatment of equinus foot deformity in cerebral palsy patients

Since 1997 thirty seven spastic cerebral palsy children (54 feet) with shortening m. triceps surae (soleus and gastocnemius portions) underwent heel cord advancement by simplified technique of Murphy procedure. Good correction of the deformity and gait improvement was obtained in 52 cases (96%). No patient had a recurrence of equines. All patients and his parents are satisfied with results of treatment. It study has documented that heel cord advancement is biomechanicalyand pathophysiologicalygrounded procedure for adequate correction and following prevention of equinus deformity. Proposed technique of heel cord advancement is relatively simple minimal invasive and can use for treatment as single or(and) with combination in multilevel operations. Best results of surgical treatment obtained in young child who has non-formed rigid deformation and has no stable pathological gait patterns yet.
Hristijan Sardjoski Activity recognition using accelerometers

Activity recognition is considered to have a wide range of applications, especially in the health sector. The assessment of different activities of daily living is useful because it can highlight information related to a specific health condition such as obesity, overweight, stroke, or fall. Moreover, the prevalence of different user-friendly wearable devices enables collecting tri-axial accelerometer data in a non-intrusive and discrete manner. The accelerometer data used for activity recognition in this thesis is provided by SPHERE [1]. The accelerometer readings are recorded from four wearables attached on a single person’s hands and legs. This thesis compares the capabilities for activity recognition of the random forest model and the long short-term memory neural network to discern among 9 in-door activities including brushing teeth, eating a meal, flossing, getting dressed/undressed, mixing (food), spreading (food), walking, washing hands, writing. In addition, the list of activities is extended with an unknown activity. Greater focus is given on the following topics: feature extraction, segmentation of the time-series accelerometer data, parameter and hyper-parameter tuning, model training, model evaluation and generalization capability. The results suggest that the random forest model using the accelerometer-based extracted features slightly outperforms the long short-term memory neural network using raw accelerometer data when the activity recognition task is limited on the 9 chosen activities, and, additionally, when the unknown activity is included.
J ul 2 01 9 Interpretability logics and generalized Veltman semantics

We obtain modal completeness of the interpretability logics ILP0 and ILR w.r. t. generalized Veltman semantics. Our proofs are based on the notion of full labels [2]. We also give shorter proofs of completeness w.r. t. generalized semantics for many classical interpretability logics. We obtain decidability and finite model property w.r. t. generalized semantics for ILP0 and ILR. Finally, we develop a construction that might be useful for proofs of completeness of extensions of ILW w.r. t. generalized semantics in the future, and demonstrate its usage with ILW* = ILM0W.
Labor Dismissal Costs and Process Innovation

We show that an arguably exogenous increase in labor dismissal costs leads firms to increase their process innovation but not their product innovation. The effect is stronger in industries that are more reliant on labor that is easily replaceable by physical capital and for which labor costs account for a larger share of production costs. The increase in process innovation is accompanied by increases in capital expenditures per employee and in capital-labor ratios, as well as by a higher productivity of labor. Our evidence suggests that, by creating adjustment costs that increase operating leverage, labor dismissal costs lead firms to increase innovation efforts toward developing technologies that allow producing with higher capital-labor ratio. * We would like to thank Markus Baldauf, Murray Carlson, and Will Gornall, as well as seminar participants at the University of British Columbia and Virginia Tech for helpful discussions and comments. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. a Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, jan.bena@sauder.ubc. ca. b Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, ortizmolina@sauder.ubc. ca. c Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, elena.simintzi@sauder.ubc. ca.
Imaging features and diagnosis of early psoriatic arthritis with lower limb entheseal abnormalities in psoriasis patients under high frequency ultrasonography

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a musculoskeletal inflammatory disease, which is always derived from psoriasis. Among psoriasis patients, about 3-8% display several similar articular symptoms with early psoriatic arthritis (ePsA). Studies have shown that ultrasound performs remarkably well in checking the effusion, soft tissue inflammation, tendon injury, etc. It is also reported that high-frequency ultrasound can be used to differentially diagnose PsA and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by examining finger-joint soft tissue lesions. Thus, ultrasound is thought to be effective for the early diagnosis of PsA and the differential diagnosis of ePsA and psoriasis. However, this hypothesis remains unclear and unexplored. In our experiments, to investigate lower limb entheseal abnormalities in patients with early psoriatic arthritis (ePsA) and psoriasis, sixty patients with ePsA, one hundred patients with psoriasis and twenty healthy controls were divided into groups. High-frequency ultrasound was performed to examine the entheses (quadriceps, patellar, Achilles tendons and plantar fascia) of the lower limbs and the Glasgow Ultrasound Enthesitis Scoring System (GUESS) scores and a clinical assessment were conducted. The results showed that the mean GUESS scores were significantly higher in patients with ePsA (7.8±1.7) and psoriasis (7.4±0.9) compared to the controls (2.4±0.4) (P<0.01). The enthesophytes and bursitis of the Achilles tendon and the bony erosions and the PD signal of the ePsA group were higher than the psoriasis group (P<0.05). The GUESS scores did not correlate with the psoriasis course, morning stiffness, the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PSAI), the Maastricht Ankylosing Spondylitis Enthesitis Index (MASES) or the Health Assessment Questionnaire modified for SpA (SHAQ). In conclusion, entheseal abnormalities are common in patients with psoriasis and ePsA. Regular screening of patients with psoriasis via high-frequency ultrasound can help to detect ePsA.
Model Uncertainty and Portfolio Insurance ( July 2002 )

Some real-world insurance products contain a minimum wealth or a income stream guarantee, both of which have to be met irrespective of capital market conditions. Therefore, the seller of such products will have to choose that portfolio strategy that performs best in a reasonable worst case capital market scenario, as the literature under model uncertainty (in particular Anderson/Hansen/Sargent (2000)) suggests, if he wants to avoid additional cash payments. This paper shows that this solution to the portfolio problem crucially hinges on the assumption that model uncertainty is taken into account by adding an explicit preference for models’ similarity to the objective function of the decision problem, a so-called preference for robustness. If there are strictly to meet minimum investment goals instead, as in the case of the real-world insurance products cited above, the Anderson/Hansen/Sargent (2000) solution will not exist in general. Then, only one trivial portfolio strategy is able to defend minimum investment goals, namely invest in the riskless asset the amount guaranteed discounted at the riskfree rate.
Assessing Cognitive and Metacognitive Learning Strategies in School Children : Construct Validity and Arising Questions

Self-regulated learning is a complex construct that has inspired innumerable research in recent years. The self-regulated activity of a learner and the awareness in a learning process are shaped by cognitive and metacognitive strategies students use. This study addresses the questions how metacognitive and cognitive learning strategies can be assessed and which different groups of strategies can be identified empirically. For this reason two studies were conducted with a self-report questionnaire. In study one learning strategies in elementary school children (N= 1083) were assessed; in the second study students of the fifth and sixth grade (N= 1067) of a secondary school were tested with the same instrument. The results of both studies show whereas for the cognitive subscales three different dimensions are clearly empirically separable, metacognitive processes in self-regulated learning are more interwoven. Our data reveals that only Planning as a metacognitive strategy can be separated from other metacognitive processes.
Quality of DOTS Adherence Counselling among Hospitalized Tuberculosis Patients

Setting: Non-adherence to tuberculosis treatment is a risk factor for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). In 2015, 480,000 cases of MDR-TB were notified worldwide, leading to 250,000 deaths. Aim: The quality of the Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) adherence counselling among patients with drug resistant and sensitive was assessed. Methods: A hospital based crossectional analytical study was conducted at the national TB hospital in Windhoek among patients with MDR-TB and drug susceptible TB (DS-TB). The quality of adherence counselling was assessed against the WHO counselling guidelines using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Quality was measured by completeness, duration and frequency of the adherence counselling sessions or program as well as patient satisfaction and preferences. Quantitative and qualitative data were by descriptive statistics in SPSS v23 and thematic analysis respectively. Results: Of the 50 patients, 60% were male, 76% were aged <45 years and 92% perceived the direct observation of TB treatment as good or excellent. Only 40% of the patients received DOT adherence counselling over the last three months and 16% had not received counselling since admissions. The patient-related factors affecting the quality of DOT adherence counselling were forgetfulness (22%) and/or treatment cessation upon feeling better (12%), limited access to DOT services in the community versus the health facility and lack of individual versus group counselling as well as comprehension of languages and messages used during counselling. Conclusions: The quality of DOT adherence counselling among hospitalized TB patients is sub-optimal. There is need for a standard operating procedure and guidelines for effective adherence counselling among TB patients to optimize treatment outcomes.
EFFECT OF GIRDLING AND GROWTH REGULATORS APPLICATION ON FRUIT QUALITY AND YIELD OF PEAR (PYRUS COMMUNIS) CV. PUNJAB NECTAR

Pear (Pyrus communis) is one of the important temperate fruit crop next only to apple, it is placed in the family Rosaceae, sub-family Pomoideae, along with apple and quince. Cultivated pear (Pyrus communis L.) is major pear of commerce possibly derived from Pyrus caucasica and Pyrus nivalis its probable progenitors are native to Eastern Europe and Asia Minor near the Mediterranean widely distributed throughout Europe. The Asian pear (Pyrus pyrifolia (Burm) Nakai) was originated in China, where its cultivation dates back to 2500-3000 years. A temperature range of 27oC to 33oC in summer is very congenial for pear cultivation. At the same time a winter temperature of 7oC or below for 2-3 months is essential for most of the English and Chinese varieties of pear (Nauriyal and Prakash, 1990). Major pear producing countries of the world, the improved pear cultivars in India were introduced in the later part of the 19th century and the cultivation got momentum with success of Bartlett and Gola cultivars in hills of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir. In India, pear occupies the second place among temperate fruits both in area and production.
Evidence of error-driven cross-situational word learning

One powerful way children can learn word meanings is via cross-situational learning, the ability to discern consistent word-referent mappings from a series of ambiguous scenes and utterances. Various computational accounts of word learning have been proposed, with mechanisms ranging from storing and testing a single hypothesized referent for each word, to tracking multiple graded associations and selectively strengthening some of them. Nearly all word learning models assume storage of some feasible word-referent mappings from each situation, resulting in a degree of learning proportional to the number of co-occurrences. While these accumulative models would generally predict that incorrect co-occurrences would slow learning, recent empirical work suggests these accounts are incomplete: paradoxically, giving learners incorrect mappings early in training was found to boost performance (Fitneva & Christiansen, 2015). We test this finding’s generality in a new experiment with more items, consider systemand item-level explanations, and find that a model with error-driven learning best accounts for this benefit of initially-inaccurate pairings.
Mesenchymal stem cells joint simvastatin therapy improves oleic acid induced acute lung injury in rats

Acute lung injury (ALI) is still a complex problem that has no special method to deal with. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) treatment is reported to be beneficial in ALI model. Though simvastatin has no significant effect in ALI model, it also has some mechanisms such as suppressing inflammation in theory. We hypothesized that the joint use of MSCs and Simvastatin has a better effect on ALI treatment. The rats were assigned to the following groups: Blank group as the vehicle; other animals received intravenous oleic acid (OA) treatment to induce ALI and were allocated to groups as follow: Control group, received intravenous PBS; Simvastatin group, received oral simvastatin treatment; MSCs group, received intravenous MSCs; Joint group received both simvastatin and MSCs treatment. All treatments were given at 4 h and 24 h after ALI was established. 48 h after the OA-ALI model was established, injury score of morphology of lung tissue, wet/dry ratio were calculated. Arterial blood pressure (PaO2), the level of IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α in serum were assessed. In order to find the possible mechanism, an in vitro experiment was designed as follow: There are two groups involved, Simvastatin group (n=12), 1×105 MSCs were cultured with 7.25 ng simvastatin in 500 μl serum-free MSC condition medium (MSC-CM); Control group (n=12), 1×105 MSCs were cultured in 500 μl serum-free MSC-CM alone. 24 hours later, the level of Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) in MSC-CM was examined. Rats in joint group decreased the level of IL-6 (P=0.02) and TNF-α (P=0.03) in serum and increased IL-10 (P=0.02), and decreased the injury score (P=0.1) of lung tissue. The in vitro experiments showed that, co-culture with simvastatin, the level of KGF in Simvastatin group was significantly higher (P=0.02) than that in control group. Joint use of MSCs and simvastatin can significantly improve OA-ALI, and simvastatin’s ability to stimulate MSCs to secret more KGF may be the probable mechanism.
INTERANNUAL AND INTERDECADAL LINKS VARIATIONS IN THE STREAMFLOW OF SOUTH AMERICAN RIVERS AND THEIR LINKS TO CLIMATE

Interannual and interdecadal variations in annual-mean streamflow for eight major rivers in South America during most of the 20 century are examined. A singular spectrum analysis method (SSA) is applied to extract contributions to the variance in the periods 2-3 years, 3-5 years, and 6-13 years. The reconstructed time series are correlated with indices representative of known global climate variations. It is shown that, while almost all of the rivers in this study show increasing trends during the 20 century, their reconstructed time series for the three selected bands present different behaviors.
Globalization , Revolution , and Democracy

This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to the unreasonably high economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country's degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (‘velvet revolutions’) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections.