Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Notes on the Life History of the Salamander Aneides aeneus

ALTHOUGH the plethodontid salamander, Aneides aeneus (Cope), seems to be common in some localities, there are comparatively few records of its occurrence and no life history data from the southern portion of its range in the Southern Appalachians. It has been reported from only two localities in North Carolina, Highlands (Brimley, 1941) and Bat Cave, Chimney Rock (Weller, 1930), each based on the collection of a single specimen. There are single published records for western South Carolina and northeast Alabama (Dunn, 1926, and Brimley, 1941-43) and in Georgia it has been found at several localities in the mountainous region, notably Tallulah Gorge in Rabun County (unpublished data of the writers and J. C. Nicholls, Jr.). During the summer of 1948 we discovered two breeding colonies of this salamander in the Highlands, North Carolina region and were able to make measurements and life history observations over a period of about two months. The work was aided by the Ward Research Fellowship, awarded by the Highlands Biological Laboratory. We are also indebted to Miss Thelma Howell, Resident Director of the Laboratory, and Dr. Eugene P. Odum for aid and suggestions in the preparation of this paper. The first group of breeding Aneides was found inhabiting a granite cliff near the Laboratory at an elevation of 4100 feet within the town limits of Highlands, which is located 10 miles north of the Georgia line on a high plateau of the Blue Ridge. This site, hereafter known as the Highlands site, was under observation from June 15 to August 20. Less extensive observations were made at the second site, a spectacular granite outcrop known as "Granite City," having an elevation of about 3100 feet and located about 10 miles southeast of Highlands in Jackson County, North Carolina (very near the common junction of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia). Aneides aeneus has been previously recorded as inhabiting "the loose bark of dead trees" (Pope, 1928), limestone cliffs (Walker and Goodpasteur, 1941), sandstone cliffs (Bishop, 1943), and quartzite cliffs (Nicholls, personal correspondence). Thus to this list the authors add exfoliated surfaces and horizontal crevices of granite cliffs. The granite cliffs in the Highlands site were located in a mature hemlock forest with a rhododendron understory. Eggs, immature and mature individuals were collected from crevices which were so densely shaded as to require the use of a flashlight in finding the salamanders. The crevices admitted little or no water from surface run off, the heavy plant growth holding enough moisture to keep the atmosphere humid. The sites of the eggs within the crevices were moist but not wet. No specimens were found in crevices directly exposed to sunlight. A similar situation existed at the "Granite City" site. The depth of the crevices at both localities was quite variable. The previous record from Highlands was an individual found August 1, 1938, by Dr. W. C. Coker in his woodpile, which incidentally was located a
Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Patients With Prior Ischemic Stroke

Background: It is uncertain if patients with prior ischemic stroke are vulnerable to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its complications. Methods: We used TriNetX, a global health collaborative clinical research platform with a large global COVID-19 database. COVID-19 infection was identified with a positive lab value for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and related ribonucleic acid (RNA). Findings: A total of 604,258 patients with history of ischemic stroke were identified, of which 891 patients (study cohort) were diagnosed with COVID-19. A control cohort with 32,136 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 after January 20th 2020 without a history of ischemic stroke were identified. A comparison between study cohort and control cohort showed patients with prior history of stroke (study cohort) were older (69.5 vs 47.8; p<0.0001) and had more comorbidities contributing to worse clinical outcomes. After propensity matching for demographic variables and comorbidities, only rate of hospitalization (287 vs 231; p=0.0035) and need for critical care services (85 vs 55; p=0.0082) remained statistically significant while intubation (51 vs 43; p=0.39) and death (119 vs 115; p=0.77) showed trends towards worse outcomes but were not statistically significant. Interpretation: Patients with history of ischemic stroke tend to be significantly older with several comorbid conditions contributing to worse clinical outcomes after COVID-19, which makes them a vulnerable population.
Neutral change

Language change is neutral if the probability of a language learner adopting any given linguistic variant only depends on the frequency of that variant in the learner’s environment. Ruling out non-neutral motivations of change, be they sociolinguistic, computational, articulatory or functional, a theory of neutral change insists that at least some instances of language change are essentially due to random drift, demographic noise and the social dynamics of ﬁnite populations; consequently, it has remained little investigated in the historical and so-ciolinguistics literature, which has generally been on the lookout for more substantial causes of change. Indeed, recent computational studies have argued that a neutral mechanism cannot give rise to ‘well-behaved’ time series of change which would align with historical data, for instance to generate S-curves. In this paper, I point out a methodological shortcoming of those studies and introduce a mathematical model of neutral change which represents the language community as a dynamic, evolving network of speakers. With computer simulations
Role of Biofloc in the Growth and Survival of Blue morph, Pseudotropheus saulosi

Objective: To evaluate the effect of biofloc on the growth and survival of ornamental cichlid, Blue morph. Methods/Statistical analysis: Thousand number of Blue morph were stocked in circular cement tanks of 14000 l capacity in control and biofloc rearing tanks. Various water quality parameters, qualitative and quantitative parameters of biofloc and growth parameters were estimated periodically. The results were statistically analysed using ANOVA. Results/Findings: All the water quality parameters were high in Control tank compared to biofloc. Floc volume was higher in biofloc tank (4.4 mg/l). The number of microorganisms present in biofloc was much higher than Control. The survival rate of Blue morph young ones in biofloc treatment was 93% and it was 90.2%in control.All growth parameters expect length, weight gain and mean length were significantly significant (P<0.01) among the days of culture as well as between control and biofloc treatment tanks. Conclusion: Biofloc increased the growth and survival of Blue morph significantly.
The effect of a bank liquidity shock on the performance of firms

We study the effect of a credit supply shock on the performance of Colombian firms, induced by an unexpected increase in the liquidity of banks. The increased liquidity was the result of sudden sell-off of Colombian government bonds by banks in response to an unexpected increase in their demand. The shift in demand for these government bonds followed the unexpected increase of its share in the composition of a prominent JP Morgan index. We exploit the variation in liquidity across Banks and their preexisting relationships with firms at the time of the shock to extract from the data the variation in loans that was driven by the exogenous shock. We then connect this variation in loans to the performance of firms. We find that the positive credit shock led to increased sales by firms, based mainly on increases of capital investment. **** RESUMEN: En este documento estudiamos el efecto de un choque a la oferta de credito en el desempeno de las firmas colombianas, como consecuencia de un incremento inesperado en la liquidez de los bancos. El aumento en la liquidez fue resultado de un aumento subito en las ventas por parte de los bancos de bonos gubernamentales en respuesta a un incremento inesperado en su demanda. El cambio en la demanda por estos activos fue resultado de un incremento en la participacion de estos activos en dos indices de mercados emergentes de J.P.Morgan. Explotamos la heterogeneidad en la tenencia de bonos entre bancos y las relaciones pre-existentes con las firmas en el momento del choque para extraer de los datos la variacion en los creditos inducida por el choque exogeno. Luego conectamos esta variacion de los creditos con el desempeno de las firmas. Encontramos que el aumento inesperado de la liquidez de los bancos condujo a un aumento en las ventas de las firmas, con base principalmente en aumentos en la inversion en capital fijo.
Intelligence without Representation: A Historical Perspective

This paper reflects on a seminal work in the history of AI and representation: Rodney Brooks’ 1991 paper Intelligence without representation. Brooks advocated the removal of explicit representations and engineered environments from the domain of his robotic intelligence experimentation, in favour of an evolutionary-inspired approach using layers of reactive behaviour that operated independently of each other. Brooks criticised the current progress in AI research and believed that removing complex representation from AI would help address problematic areas in modelling the mind. His belief was that we should develop artificial intelligence by being guided by the evolutionary development of our own intelligence and that his approach mirrored how our own intelligence functions. Thus, the field of behaviour-based robotics emerged. This paper offers a historical analysis of Brooks’ behaviour-based robotics approach and its impact on artificial intelligence and cognitive theory at the time, as well as on modern-day approaches to AI.
Comparing Formants and Vowel Duration in Standard and Non-Standard Varieties of Nepali

Language in India www.languageinindia. comISSN 1930-2940 18:4 April 2018 Nishant Lohagun Comparing Formants and Vowel Duration in Standard and Non-Standard Varieties of Nepali ================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia. comISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 18:4 April 2018 India’s Higher Education Authority UGC Approved List of Journals Serial Number 49042 ================================================================ Comparing Formants and Vowel Duration in Standard and Non-Standard Varieties of Nepali
Phytochemical profiling of Ailanthus excelsa leaf extracts using GC-MS

Ailanthus excelsa Roxb belongs to Simaroubaceae. It is commonly called as “Tree of Heaven”. The GCMS analysis of methanolic and ethanolic leaf extracts revealed 47 compounds. Among them seven compounds viz., 1-Dodecano, 12-Tridecen-2-one, 1-Dococsanol, Benzyldiethyl-(2, 6xylylcarbamoylmethyl)-ammonium benzoate, Dibutyl phthalate, Heneicosane and Hexadecanoic acidmethyl ester posses biopesticidal property. Hence, there is a scope of utilizing A. excelsa as botanical pesticide in the management of insect pests.
Apparent Nutrient Digestibility Coefficient of Sunflower and Sesame Seed Meal in Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) Fingerlings

The apparent digestibility coefficient of raw sunflower (Helianthus annus). and sesame (Sesamum indicum) seedmeal by Clariid catfish (Clarias gariepinus) fingerlings was evaluated at 15,30 and 45% levels of replacement respectively using soybean meal based diets as control diet. There was significant difference in apparent organic matter digestibility apparent
D ec 2 01 3 Hamiltonian operators of Dubrovin-Novikov type in 2

Abstract First order Hamiltonian operators of differential-geometric type were introduced by Dubrovin and Novikov in 1983, and thoroughly investigated by Mokhov. In 2D, they are generated by a pair of compatible flat metrics g and g̃ which satisfy a set of additional constraints coming from the skew-symmetry condition and the Jacobi identity. We demonstrate that these constraints are equivalent to the requirement that g̃ is a linear Killing tensor of g with zero Nijenhuis torsion. This allowed us to obtain a complete classification of ncomponent operators with n ≤ 4 (for n = 1, 2 this was done before). For 2D operators the Darboux theorem does not hold: the operator may not be reducible to constant coefficient form. All interesting (non-constant) examples correspond to the case when the flat pencil g, g̃ is not semisimple, that is, the affinor g̃g−1 has non-trivial Jordan block structure. In the case of a direct sum of Jordan blocks with distinct eigenvalues we obtain a complete classification of Hamiltonian operators for any number of components n, revealing a remarkable correspondence with the class of trivial Frobenius manifolds modelled on H∗(CP).
Ponticulus posticus : radiographic findings on the posterior arch of the atlas vertebrae – review article

The ponticulus posticus is a bony arch located on the posterior arch of the atlas vertebrae. It lies in relationship with the vertebral artery. The presence of ponticulus posticus on the atlas vertebrae has been associated with cerebrovascular disorders and cervical pain. It can no longer be considered as a rare anomaly and its finding on the lateral cephalogram can be of great importance for the patients, in whom this anomaly is present, as this information can prove beneficial for the diagnosis of head and neck symptoms in later life. Introduction The ponticulus posticus is an anomalous bony arch which forms on the posterior portion of the superior articular process and the posteriolateral portion of the superior margin of the posterior arch of the atlas vertebrae. It is a bony arch that connects the retroglenoid tubercle located posterior to the superior articular fossa of the atlas with their posterior arch.1 In Latin, the ponticulus posticus means “the little posterior bridge”. 2 Wstęp Ponticulus posticus to nieprawidłowy kostny łuk, który formuje się na tylnej części górnego wyrostka stawowego atlasu i tylno-bocznej części, górnej krawędzi tylnego łuku tego kręgu. Jest to kostny łuk łączący guzek zastawowy zlokalizowany dotylnie w stosunku do górnego dołka stawowego kręgu szczytowego, z jego łukiem tylnym.1 Z języka łacińskiego ponticulus posticus oznacza „mały tylny most”. 2 W literaturze używanych jest wiele terminów opisujących tę nieprawidłowość,
Phytochemical screening and antibacterial activities of cassia fistula leaf extracts on some selected pathogens

Cassia fistula, commonly known as golden shower tree has for long been used for treatment of number of ailment as decoction from its leaves by many. This study was carried out with the aim to evaluate the antibacterial activity and investigate the phytochemical properties of the leaves of Cassia fistula plant. Hot water, cold water and ethanol extracts of leaves of Cassia fistula were examined against medically important bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia and Salmonella typhi) by agar disc diffusion method using different extracts concentration. There was a remarkable inhibition of the bacterial growth against all tested organisms with highest activity seen at 100µg/ml for all the hot water, cold water and ethanol extract. Phytochemical analysis was carried out to determine the phytochemical constituents present in the leaf. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of capric acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, 1, E-11, Z-13-octadriene, 9-octadecenal, brassidic acid. The result from this study is an indication that Cassia fistula leaf is effective against these pathogens and can be further exploited for the development of new antimicrobials.
Pruning Neural Networks at Initialization: Why are We Missing the Mark?

Recent work has explored the possibility of pruning neural networks at initialization. We assess proposals for doing so: SNIP (Lee et al., 2019), GraSP (Wang et al., 2020), SynFlow (Tanaka et al., 2020), and magnitude pruning. Although these methods surpass the trivial baseline of random pruning, they remain below the accuracy of magnitude pruning after training, and we endeavor to understand why. We show that, unlike pruning after training, accuracy is the same or higher when randomly shuffling which weights these methods prune within each layer or sampling new initial values. As such, the per-weight pruning decisions made by these methods can be replaced by a per-layer choice of the fraction of weights to prune. This property undermines the claimed justifications for these methods and suggests broader challenges with the underlying pruning heuristics, the desire to prune at initialization, or both.
Waveform systematics in the gravitational-wave inference of tidal parameters and equation of state from binary neutron-star signals

Gravitational-wave signals from binary neutron star coalescences carry information about the star's equation of state in their tidal signatures. A major issue in the inference of the tidal parameters (or directly of the equation of state) is the systematic error introduced by the waveform approximants. We use a bottom-up approach based on gauge-invariant phase analysis and the Fisher information matrix to investigate waveform systematics and help identifying biases in parameter estimation. A mock analysis of 15 different binaries indicates that systematics in current waveform models dominate over statistical errors at signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ${\gtrsim} 80$. This implies biases in the inference of the reduced tidal parameter that are are larger than the statistical $90\%$ credible-intervals. For example, while the neutron-star radius could be constrained at ${\sim} 5\%$ level at SNR 80, systematics can be at the ${\sim} 10\%$ level. We apply our approach to GW170817 (SNR ${\sim}30$) and confirm that no significant systematic effects are present. Using an optimal frequency range for the analysis, we estimate a neutron-star radius of $12.5^{+1.1}_{-1.8}\,$km. The latter is consistent with an electromagnetic-informed prior and the recent NICER measurement. Exploring SNR ${\gtrsim}100$ in view of third-generation detectors, we find that all the current waveform models lead to differences of at least 1-sigma in the inference of the reduced tidal parameter (for any value of the latter). We conclude that current waveform models, including those from numerical relativity, are insufficient to infer the equation of state in the loudest (and potentially most informative) events that will be observed by advanced and third generation detectors.
Probably Approximately Correct Explanations of Machine Learning Models via Syntax-Guided Synthesis

We propose a novel approach to understanding the decision making of complex machine learning models (e.g., deep neural networks) using a combination of probably approximately correct learning (PAC) and a logic inference methodology called syntax-guided synthesis (SyGuS). We prove that our framework produces explanations that with a high probability make only few errors and show empirically that it is effective in generating small, human-interpretable explanations.
Bucket of Deep Transfer Learning Features and Classification Models for Melanoma Detection

Malignant melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and, in recent years, is rapidly growing in terms of the incidence worldwide rate. The most effective approach to targeted treatment is early diagnosis. Deep learning algorithms, specifically convolutional neural networks, represent a methodology for the image analysis and representation. They optimize the features design task, essential for an automatic approach on different types of images, including medical. In this paper, we adopted pretrained deep convolutional neural networks architectures for the image representation with purpose to predict skin lesion melanoma. Firstly, we applied a transfer learning approach to extract image features. Secondly, we adopted the transferred learning features inside an ensemble classification context. Specifically, the framework trains individual classifiers on balanced subspaces and combines the provided predictions through statistical measures. Experimental phase on datasets of skin lesion images is performed and results obtained show the effectiveness of the proposed approach with respect to state-of-the-art competitors.
An independence test based on recurrence rates. An empirical study and applications to real data

In this paper we propose several variants to perform the independence test between two random elements based on recurrence rates. We will show how to calculate the test statistic in each one of these cases. From simulations we obtain that in high dimension, our test clearly outperforms, in almost all cases, the other widely used competitors. The test was performed on two data sets including small and large sample sizes and we show that in both ases the application of the test allows us to obtain interesting conclusions.
On quasisymmetric plasma equilibria sustained by small force

We construct smooth, non-symmetric plasma equilibria which possess closed, nested flux surfaces and solve the magnetohydrostatic (steady three-dimensional incompressible Euler) equations with a small force. The solutions are also ‘nearly’ quasisymmetric. The primary idea is, given a desired quasisymmetry direction $\xi$, to change the smooth structure on space so that the vector field $\xi$ is Killing for the new metric and construct $\xi$–symmetric solutions of the magnetohydrostatic equations on that background by solving a generalized Grad–Shafranov equation. If $\xi$ is close to a symmetry of Euclidean space, then these are solutions on flat space up to a small forcing.
$\sigma^2$R Loss: a Weighted Loss by Multiplicative Factors using Sigmoidal Functions

In neural networks, the loss function represents the core of the learning process that leads the optimizer to an approximation of the optimal convergence error. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) use the loss function as a supervisory signal to train a deep model and contribute significantly to achieving the state of the art in some fields of artificial vision. Cross-entropy and Center loss functions are commonly used to increase the discriminating power of learned functions and increase the generalization performance of the model. Center loss minimizes the class intra-class variance and at the same time penalizes the long distance between the deep features inside each class. However, the total error of the center loss will be heavily influenced by the majority of the instances and can lead to a freezing state in terms of intra-class variance. To address this, we introduce a new loss function called sigma squared reduction loss ( 2R loss), which is regulated by a sigmoid function to inflate/deflate the error per instance and then continue to reduce the intra-class variance. Our loss has clear intuition and geometric interpretation, furthermore, we demonstrate by experiments the effectiveness of our proposal on several benchmark datasets showing the intra-class variance reduction and overcoming the results obtained with center loss and soft nearest neighbour functions.