Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The abundance of large wild herbivores in a semi‐arid savanna in relation to seasons, pans and livestock

Summary Large herbivores, including livestock and ostrich, were counted along a 200-km long track in south-western Kalahari, Botswana. Altogether, 37 counts were made during different seasons. The number of animals seen and group size were recorded. These variables were compared with monthly and accumulated rainfall (number of animals and group size) and distance to pans (number of animals). Observations of game and livestock were also related to distance to villages. In four of the seven studied species, most animals were seen during the wet season. Group size also varied between seasons apart from the non-gregarious steenbok and duiker. Number of animals and group size were in some cases correlated with rainfall during the month of observation or with accumulated rainfall during the preceding months. The various species were more often observed close to pans than further away from the pans. Compared to livestock, game was on average observed >10 km further away from the villages. Few observations of game were made between village centres and the livestock observations most distant from the village. Resume On a denombre les grands herbivores, y compris le betail et les autruches, le long d’une piste de 200 km dans le sud-ouest du Kalahari, au Botswana. En tout, on a fait 37 comptages en differentes saisons. On a note le nombre des animaux apercus et la taille des groupes. On a compare ces variables avec les chutes de pluies mensuelles et totales (nombre d’animaux et taille des groupes) et avec l’eloignement des cuvettes (nombre d’animaux). Les observations de gibier et de betail ont aussi ete liees a la distance par rapport aux villages. Pour quatre des sept especes etudiees, la plupart des animaux etaient apercus pendant la saison des pluies. La taille des groupes variait aussi selon les saisons sauf pour les deux especes non gregaires, le steenbok et la cephalophe. Le nombre des animaux et la taille du groupe etaient dans certains cas lies aux chutes de pluie du mois de l’observation ou au total des pluies durant les mois qui avaient precede. Les differentes especes ont ete observees plus souvent pres des cuvettes que loin d’elles. Par rapport au betail, les animaux sauvages etaient observes en moyenne >10 km plus loin des villages. On a observe peu de gibier entre le centre des villages et le betail qui se trouvait le plus loin des villages.
Sovereign Ratings of Advanced and Emerging Economies after the Crisis

The three major credit rating agencies have reassessed sovereign credit risks in the light of the Great Financial Crisis, increasing the transparency of their methodologies. This has resulted in material shifts in the rank-ordering of risks. Simple statistical models explain the lion's share of ratings differentials and capture some, but not all, of the methodological changes. Support is not found for the hypothesis of bias against emerging market economies (EMEs). Some rating agencies other than the big three offer alternative risk rankings that are more favourable to EMEs. However, these tend to be less closely aligned with the rankings provided by market prices and institutional investors.
Effects of Temperature on the Characterisation of a New Design for a Non-Articulated Prosthetic Foot

This paper presents a new design for a non-articulated prosthetic foot made from high density polyethylene. The mechanical and physical properties of the proposed design are then compared with a Solid Ankle Cushioned Heel (SACH) foot based in a numerical and experimental investigation. The prosthetic foot failure characteristics at room temperature and at a relatively high temperature (60 °C) were determined using a fatigue foot tester and the dorsiflexion angle was measured using inclined compression. The numerical solution can be used to find the safety factor for the new design using SolidWorks software and ANSYS. From the results in this case, the maximum dorsiflexion angle at toe off for the SACH and new prosthetic foot are 4.7° and 6.3°, respectively. Fracture of the new prosthetic foot occurs at 1,1047,321 and 1,089,463 cycles for tests performed at room temperature (23 °C) and at (60 °C) respectively.
Glue Ear in Children with Cleft Lip and Palate: An Update

The clinical significance of otitis media with effusion (OME), a complication associated with cleft lip/palate (CLP), is often overlooked in children. The author reviews the pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, and diagnoses of OME in children with CLP as well as the controversies surrounding treatment. He also provides a flowchart to guide the management of OME in children with CLP.
Lipase production from a wild (LPF-5) and a mutant (HN1) strain of Aspergillus niger

In this study, a wild (LPF-5) and a mutant (HN1) strain of A. niger were compared for lipase production. Several physical parameters (carbon source, nitrogen source, pH, temperature and incubation period) were optimized for maximization of lipase production. Lipase activity between wild type and mutant strain were compared. Among all carbon sources, mixture of glucose (1%, w/v) and olive oil (1%, v/v) exhibited maximum increase in the production of lipases by both the wild (94.91 ± 0.60 U mL -1 min -1 ) and mutant (118.23 ± 0.73 U mL -1 min -1 ) strain. Addition of glucose into the production medium (containing olive oil) increased the production of lipase up to 20% in case of both the strains. The production of lipase by both the strains was higher in the medium of pH 7.0 containing peptone (1%, w/v) as nitrogen source after 3 days of incubation at 28°C. The activity of lipase from HN1 strain in optimized medium was 40% higher (147.65 ± 1.14 U mL -1 min -1 ) than in un-optimized medium (105.19 ± 0.91 U mL -1 min -1 ), while it was 38% higher for LPF-5 strain in optimized medium. Therefore the mutant strain (A. niger HN1) is prospective for the development of industrial biotechnology for production of extracellular lipase. Lipase enzyme was partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and 70% precipitate showed highest specific activity of 66.12 U mg -1 for mutant strain as compared to specific activity of 29.88 U mg -1 in crude lysate. Keywords: Wild strain, mutant strain, Aspergillus niger , lipase activity, specific activity, ammonium sulfate
PREVALENCE AND CHARACTERIZATION OF VIRULENCE GENES OF ESCHERICHIA COLI IN DIABETIC AND NON-DIABETIC URINARY TRACT INFECTED PATIENTS USING MULTIPLEX PCR TECHNIQUE

E. coli was the most frequent isolate from urinary tract infection in diabetic patients and had poor antibiotic sensitivity to conventional antibiotics. Metabolic abnormalities are due to deficiency of insulin: 1. Hypertension and high urinary albumin excretion show significant association with type 2 diabetes. 2. Bacteriuria is more common in diabetic than in non diabetic women because of a combination of host and local risk factors 3. Resistant bacteria are more frequently isolated from diabetic outpatients with urinary infections (Rakhshanda Baqai et al., 2008).
Learning Representations for Biomedical Named Entity Recognition

Biomedical Named Entity Recognition is a common task in Natural Language Processing applications, whose purpose is to recognize and categorize different types of entities in biomedical documents. Recently, the literature has shown effective methods based on combinations of Machine Learning algorithms and Natural Language Processing techniques. However, a critical issue of such applications is the choice of the data representation. Generic and abstract word-embeddings can be easily used to train a learning algorithm, without prior knowledge of the domain. On the other hand, dedicated hand-crafted features are expensive to define, but they could represent better the specific problem. In this work, an extensive experimental assessment is carried out, where different representations have been analyzed. Then, a general framework to learn the representation by combining general and domain-specific features is proposed and evaluated, showing empirical results on the CRAFT corpus.
Nano-Sized Silver Colloids Produced and Stabilized by Amino-Functionalized Polymers: Polymer Structure-Nanoparticle Features and Polymer Structure-Growth Kinetics Relationships

The synthesis of highly stable silver colloids has been successfully achieved by using reducing/ stabilizer amino-functionalized polymers without the aid of any other external agent. The polymer coated inorganic nanoparticles have been detailed characterized via scattering, imaging and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The combination of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and light scattering suggested nearly spherical structures stabilized by a lengthy polymeric shell with surface charge dependent on polymer nature and molecular weight. The hybrid nanomaterials are produced via an autocatalytic process where the onset of colloid formation is influenced by the available hydrophobic nitrogen units normalized by the weight of polymer. The induction period, however, does not influence the dimension of the metallic cores which are similar although with a high degree of dispersity. The coating confers a large hydrodynamic size to the silver nanoparticles and the length of the stabilizing shell is chiefly governed by the molecular weight of the aminofunctionalized polymers. These features may significantly impact the cytotoxicity and bactericidal properties of the hybrid materials. These investigations are currently underway.
Predicting Quasar Continua near Lyα with Principal Component Analysis

Measuring the proximity effect and the damping wing of intergalactic neutral hydrogen in quasar spectra during the epoch of reionization requires an estimate of the intrinsic continuum at rest-frame wavelengths of λrest ∼ 1200–1260 Å. In contrast to previous works which used composite spectra with matched spectral properties or explored correlations between parameters of broad emission lines, we opted for a nonparametric predictive approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) to predict the intrinsic spectrum from the spectral properties at redder (i.e., unabsorbed) wavelengths. We decomposed a sample of 12764 spectra of z ∼ 2–2.5 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)/Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) into 10 red-side (1280 Å < λrest < 2900 Å) and 6 blue-side (1180 Å < λrest < 1280 Å) PCA basis spectra, and constructed a projection matrix to predict the blue-side coefficients from a fit to the red-side spectrum. We found that our method predicts the blue-side continuum with ∼6%–12% precision and ≲1% bias by testing on the full training set sample. We then computed predictions for the blue-side continua of the two quasars currently known at z > 7: ULAS J1120+0641 (z = 7.09) and ULAS J1342+0928 (z = 7.54). Both of these quasars are known to exhibit extreme emission line properties, so we individually calibrated the uncertainty in the continuum predictions from similar quasars in the training set, finding comparable precision but moderately higher bias than the predictions for the training set as a whole, although they may face additional systematic uncertainties due to calibration artifacts present in near-infrared echelle spectra. We find that both z > 7 quasars, and in particular ULAS J1342+0928, show signs of damping wing-like absorption at wavelengths redward of Lyα.
A Novel Approach for Identifying Synthetic Dosage Lethal Interactions in Pooled Yeast Cultures

Systematic genomic studies in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae have greatly increased our capacity to conduct functional profiling of the eukaryotic genome. I describe a new method that makes use of yeast “Barcoder” strains to uniquely tag strains in a yeast overexpression collection (FLEX) and to systematically examine the effects of gene overexpression on cell fitness. This novel system is compatible with the so-called Synthetic Genetic Array (SGA) method, which automates yeast genetics and allows introduction of marked query alleles of interest into arrayed collections of yeast mutants. I identified SDL interactions for two key regulatory kinases, Dun1 and Mck1, using my system. I also used my array and approach to identify SDL interactions for Dun1 that are only manifest in the presence of DNA damage. These studies demonstrate the utility of the pooled SGA-SDL method for systematic discovery of condition-specific genetic interactions in conserved biological pathways.
Predicting the Mobile Consumer Purchase Behavior using Quantified Visual Preferences

Most mobile consumers make a decision about the product in a split second. The decision making in the mobile environment is surely faster than in front of the desktop. This paper claims that the decision-making in the mobile shopping is highly depending on the product’s first impression and their visual preference. By predicting the human’s visual preference based on the image processing model of perceived colorfulness and perceived visual complexity, this study tested an S-O-R path model from visual preference to consumer’s bookmarking and purchase intention via age and gender as moderators. With the controlled laboratory experiment, we substantiated our predicting image preference model. Further, a plan for a real data based analysis is proposed to validate the congruity of our model with the Korean mobile shopping company later.
Learning from China's Rise to Escape the Middle-Income Trap: A New Structural Economics Approach to Latin America

This paper discusses the causes of the middle-income trap in Latin America and the Caribbean, identifies the challenges and opportunities for Latin America that come from China's rise, and draws lessons from New Structural Economics and the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework to help Latin America escape the middle-income trap. Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are caught in a middle-income trap due to their inability to structurally upgrade from low value-added to high value-added products. Governments in Latin America and the Caribbean should intervene in industries in which they have a comparative advantage, calibrating supporting policies in close collaboration with the private sector through public-private sector alliances. Through continuous structural upgrading in sectors intensive in factors such as natural resources, scientific knowledge, and unskilled labor, the region could achieve dynamic growth. This would require investments in education, research and development, and physical infrastructure. Therefore, industrial upgrading and diversification would be essential to avoid further de-industrialization arising from the competitive pressures of the rise of China, broaden the base for economic growth, and create the basis for further sustained reduction in unemployment, poverty and income inequality. Failure to do so would lead to a loss of competitiveness and risks of further de-industrialization.
Assessing Risk for Re-Offense : Validating the Washington State Juvenile Court Assessment

The 1997 Washington State Legislature embarked on an experiment to encourage the use of researchbased programs that reduce juvenile offender recidivism with the enactment of the Community Juvenile Accountability Act (CJAA). New funding for these programs was appropriated, contingent upon significant changes in several court operating features. One of these changes was the use of a statewide risk assessment to assign youth to programs based on their level of risk and risk profile.
Multi‐generational long‐distance migration of insects: studying the painted lady butterfly in the Western Palaearctic

Long-range, seasonal migration is a widespread phenomenon among insects, allowing them to track and exploit abundant but ephemeral resources over vast geographical areas. However, the basic patterns of how species shift across multiple locations and seasons are unknown in most cases, even though migrant species comprise an important component of the temperate-zone biota. The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui is such an example; a cosmopolitan continuously-brooded species which migrates each year between Africa and Europe, sometimes in enormous numbers. The migration of 2009 was one of the most impressive recorded, and thousands of observations were collected through citizen science programmes and systematic entomological surveys, such as high altitude insect-monitoring radar and ground-based butterfly monitoring schemes. Here we use V. cardui as a model species to better understand insect migration in the Western Palaearctic, and we capitalise on the complementary data sources available for this iconic butterfly. The migratory cycle in this species involves six generations, encompassing a latitudinal shift of thousands of kilometres (up to 60 degrees of latitude). The cycle comprises an annual poleward advance of the populations in spring followed by an equatorward return movement in autumn, with returning individuals potentially flying thousands of kilometres. We show that many long-distance migrants take advantage of favourable winds, moving downwind at high elevation (from some tens of metres from the ground to altitudes over 1000 m), pointing at strong similarities in the flight strategies used by V. cardui and other migrant Lepidoptera. Our results reveal the highly successful strategy that has evolved in these insects, and provide a useful framework for a better understanding of long-distance seasonal migration in the temperate regions worldwide.
Discrimination Nets, Production Systems, and Semantic Networks: Elements of a Unified Framework

A number of formalisms have been used in cognitive science to account for cognition in general and learning in particular. While this variety denotes a healthy state of theoretical development, it somewhat hampers communication between researchers championing different approaches and makes comparison between theories difficult. In addition, it has the consequence that researchers tend to study cognitive phenomena best suited to their favorite formalism. It is therefore desirable to propose frameworks which span traditional formalisms.
Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics

Econometricians would like to project the image of agricultural experimenters who divide a farm into a set of smaller plots of land and who select randomly the level of fertilizer to be used on each plot. If some plots are assigned a certain amount of fertilizer while others are assigned none, then the difference between the mean yield of the fertilized plots and the mean yield of the unfertilized plots is a measure of the effect of fertilizer on agricultural yields. The econometrician's humble job is only to determine if that difference is large enough to suggest a real effect of fertilizer, or is so small that it is more likely due to random variation. This image of the applied econometrician's art is grossly misleading. I would like to suggest a more accurate one. The applied econometrician is like a farmer who notices that the yield is somewhat higher under trees where birds roost, and he uses this as evidence that bird droppings increase yields. However, when he presents this finding at the annual meeting of the American Ecological Association, another farmer in the audience objects that he used the same data but came up with the conclusion that moderate amounts of shade increase yields. A bright chap in the back of the room then observes that these two hypotheses are indistinguishable, given the available data. He mentions the phrase "identification problem," which, though no one knows quite what he means, is said with such authority that it is totally convincing. The meeting reconvenes in the halls and in the bars, with heated discussion
On the classification of inductive limits of II$_1$ factors with spectral gap

We consider II$_1$ factors $M$ which can be realized as inductive limits of subfactors, $N_n \nearrow M$, having spectral gap in $M$ and satisfying the bi-commutant condition $(N_n'\cap M)'\cap M=N_n$. Examples are the enveloping algebras associated to non-Gamma subfactors of finite depth, as well as certain crossed products of McDuff factors by amenable groups. We use deformation/rigidity techniques to obtain classification results for such factors.
Age Trajectories of Poverty During Childhood and High School Graduation

Thisarticleexaminesdistincttrajectoriesofchildhoodexposuretopovertyandprovidesestimatesoftheireffect on high school graduation. The analysis incorporates three key insights from the life course and human capital formation literatures: (1) the temporal dimensions of exposure to poverty, that is, timing, duration, stability, and sequencing, are confounded with one another; (2) age-varying exposure to poverty not only affects, but also is affected by, other factors that vary with age; and (3) the effect of poverty trajectories is heterogeneous across racial and ethnic groups. Results from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show that any extended exposures to poverty substantially lower children's odds of graduating from high school. Persistent, early, and middle-to-late childhood exposures to poverty reduce the odds of high school graduation by 77 percent, 55 percent, and 58 percent, respectively, compared to no childhood exposure to poverty. The findings thus suggest that the impact of poverty trajectories is insensitive to observed age-varying confounders. These impacts are more pronounced for white children than for black and Hispanic children.
New Nuclear Methods for Studies of Soil Dynamics Utilizing Cosmic Ray Produced Radionuclides

* Devendra Lal, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Geosciences Research Division, La Jolla, CA 92093-0244, USA. dlal@ucsd.edu ABSTRACT Since soils are primarily “open systems”, containing a suite of chemical compounds, which are labile and freely exchange elements and isotopes with the environment, studies of soil dynamics cannot be carried out with the conventional nuclear methods. In this paper we discuss the studies to date, and the promise of three cosmic ray produced (cosmogenic) radionuclides for elucidating key soil dynamics processes. There are two principal ways in which these radionuclides are produced. The radionuclides, Be and Si are initially produced in the earth’s atmosphere (in nuclear interactions of cosmic rays with nitrogen and oxygen, and argon, respectively), and subsequently brought into soil by rainfall: they serve as useful tracers for determining soil formation and erosion rates. The radionuclides Be and C are produced not only in the atmosphere but are also produced directly, in situ, by nuclear interactions of cosmic rays with oxygen in the mineral grains present in the soil. These nuclides serve as useful tracers for providing reliable information on the rates of erosion of soil over time scales of few thousands to few millions of years. Our present-day knowledge of the production and dispersion of the cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, and simple soil weathering and erosion models are discussed. Model soil erosion and soil formation rates are presented based on atmospheric Be data. They underscore the value of the cosmogenic tracers for studies of soil dynamics. Since the source strengths of the cosmogenic radionuclides, both of the atmospheric and the in situ varieties are fairly well known, they should find applications in wide ranging situations of soil formation and loss through erosion.