Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
impact des variations paléoclimatiques sur la sédimentation carbonatée au Valanginien

L'etude des geometries et des facies des depots sedimentaires du Berriasien-Valanginien de la Plate-forme du Jura-Dauphine jusqu'au Bassin Vocontien (SE France) met en evidence la crise globale des plates-formes carbonatees au Valanginien, celle-ci se faisant en plusieurs etapes. Le developpement de glaces en hautes latitudes entraine des variations du niveau marin de plusieurs dizaines de metres. L'asymetrie de ces variations traduit des debâcles rapides et des englacements plus lents qui sont controles par les cycles d'excentricite de l'orbite terrestre. Le refroidissement global couple a une hausse des apports en nutriments sous un climat plus humide et la baisse du niveau marin global vont progressivement diminuer la production des plates-formes, installer des systemes de rampe, jusqu'a la mort de ces systemes au Valanginien superieur. La comparaison de cet evenement de crise avec celui de l'Aptien-Albien suggere qu'a plus d'une reprise le Mesozoique a connu des episodes glaciaires.
Comparison of Risk Assessment-Predicted Ecologically Safe Concentrations of Azinphos-Methyl and Fenvalerate to Observed Effects on Estuarine Organisms in a South Carolina Tidal Stream Receiving Agricultural Runoff

A prospective ecological risk assessment method was developed evaluating the cumulative probabilistic impact of chemical stressors to aquatic organisms. This method was developed in response to the need to evaluate the magnitude, duration and episodic nature of chemical stressors on aquatic communities under environmental exposure scenarios. The method generates a probabilistic expression of the percent of an ecosystem's species at risk from a designated chemical exposure scenario.
Distinct spatial coordinate of visual and vestibular heading signals in macaque FEFsem and MSTd

Precise heading estimate requires integration of visual optic flow and vestibular inertial motion originating from distinct spatial coordinates (eye- and head-centered, respectively). To explore whether the two heading signals may share a common reference frame along the hierarchy of cortical stages, we explored two multisensory areas in macaques: the smooth pursuit area of the frontal eye field (FEFsem) closer to the motor side, and the dorsal portion of medial superior temporal area (MSTd) closer to the sensory side. In both areas, vestibular signals are head-centered, whereas visual signals are mainly eye-centered. However, visual signals in FEFsem are more shifted towards the head coordinate compared to MSTd. These results are robust being largely independent on: (1) smooth pursuit eye movement, (2) motion parallax cue, and (3) behavioral context for active heading estimation, indicating that the visual and vestibular heading signals may be represented in distinct spatial coordinate in sensory cortices.
Multidimensional Test Assembly Using Mixed-Integer Linear Programming: An Application of Kullback–Leibler Information

Many educational testing programs require different test forms with minimal or no item overlap. At the same time, the test forms should be parallel in terms of their statistical and content-related properties. A well-established method to assemble parallel test forms is to apply combinatorial optimization using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). Using this approach, in the unidimensional case, Fisher information (FI) is commonly used as the statistical target to obtain parallelism. In the multidimensional case, however, FI is a multidimensional matrix, which complicates its use as a statistical target. Previous research addressing this problem focused on item selection criteria for multidimensional computerized adaptive testing (MCAT). Yet these selection criteria are not directly transferable to the assembly of linear parallel test forms. To bridge this gap the authors derive different statistical targets, based on either FI or the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence, that can be applied in MILP models to assemble multidimensional parallel test forms. Using simulated item pools and an item pool based on empirical items, the proposed statistical targets are compared and evaluated. Promising results with respect to the KL-based statistical targets are presented and discussed.
Atrial Fibrillation Detection by the Combination of Recurrence Complex Network and Convolution Neural Network

In this paper, R wave peak interval independent atrial fibrillation detection algorithm is proposed based on the analysis of the synchronization feature of the electrocardiogram signal by a deep neural network. Firstly, the synchronization feature of each heartbeat of the electrocardiogram signal is constructed by a Recurrence Complex Network. Then, a convolution neural network is used to detect atrial fibrillation by analyzing the eigenvalues of the Recurrence Complex Network. Finally, a voting algorithm is developed to improve the performance of the beat-wise atrial fibrillation detection. The MIT-BIH atrial fibrillation database is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Experimental results show that the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the algorithm can achieve 94.28%, 94.91%, and 94.59%, respectively. Remarkably, the proposed method was more effective than the traditional algorithms to the problem of individual variation in the atrial fibrillation detection.
The governance of tourism development in Athens: A strategic-relational approach

Academic literature has examined how the development of tourism destinations involves collaborative relationships between the various actors that participate in tourism policy and planning. In terms of an institutional analysis this thesis is about similar processes, yet it also explores the ways in which place- and time-specific material factors and perceptions characterize different patterns of tourism politics. Without making assumptions about the harmonious or conflicting nature of interactions among actors and the contexts surrounding them, the thesis advances the idea of a relational-evolutionary perspective on the processes of tourism policy and planning. Studying the governance of tourism development requires an assessment of the contextual coupling of different elements as both the corollary of earlier events and the precursor of future developments. In this thesis, a strategic-relational approach to tourism governance comprises the conceptual framework that provides explanatory depth into the contextual analysis of experiences and events. The case study approach is employed for the operationalization of the strategicrelational approach in the context of Athens as a tourist-historic and capital city of a highly centralised Southern-European state. The endeavour is based on the collection and analysis of data from documentary sources and semi-structured interviews. The interpretation of empirical evidence through the strategic-relational approach reveals the irony of a multifarious and multi-scalar governance context, which has not met the expectations of interest groups, especially in recent years, concerning tourism development in Athens. In other words, the thesis portrays the challenges and weaknesses that expand within and beyond the boundaries of state apparatus and hinder the enhancement of Athens as an urban tourism destination while recording the perceptions, experiences and practices of various actors.
Extracting the internal tide from data: Methods and observations from the Mixed Layer Dynamics Experiment

Several methods are developed for analyzing data containing a highly variable internal tide. In particular, the methods are aimed at the analysis of moored observations with relatively few measurements in the vertical. The analysis depends upon an “elliptical decomposition” that is a generalization of the familiar “rotary decomposition. ” The technique is applied to velocity and temperature observations in the upper ocean made during the Mixed Layer Dynamics Experiment (MILDEX) in the northeast Pacific Ocean, about 700 km west of Santa Barbara, California, during October-November 1983. The observed propagation direction and amplitude of the internal tide was highly variable in time. It was anticipated that the wave could be propagating from the continental shelf where it is presumed to be generated. However, most of the time the internal tide appears to be propagating parallel to the coast. This result suggests the importance of density and velocity structure at mesoscale and frontal scale in affecting the propagation of the internal tide.
EXPERIENCE WITH THE USE OF METHYLCELLULOSE AS A VISCOUS PORE FLUID IN CENTRIFUGE MODELS. TECHNICAL NOTE

Pore fluids having viscosity greater than water are sometimes used in geotechnical centrifuge model tests to more accurately satisfy the scaling laws relating to movement of pore fluid through the soil when modeling dynamic loading events. This is frequently done using either silicone oil or mixtures of water and glycerol. There are some drawbacks in using silicone oil and this paper describes an alternative solution of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) in water that has recently come into use. The authors present test data showing the variation in solution viscosity with concentration and temperature and the variation in specific gravity with concentration. The relative performance of the fluid is illustrated with pore pressure dissipation data from two centrifuge model tests involving earthquake simulations. One test was done with pure water as the pore fluid and the other test was done with an HPMC solution having viscosity ten times that of water.
Expanding Global Features in the Outer Heliosphere

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer continues to observe the outer heliosphere’s response to the large (∼50%) increase in solar wind dynamic pressure at 1 au that began in late 2014 and continues today. The response of the outer heliosphere to this pressure increase resulted in enhanced energetic neutral atom (ENA) emission late in 2016 and much more enhanced emission in early 2017. The time evolution of enhanced emissions provides a measure of the distance to the termination shock and heliosheath over the sky, and the emission intensity provides unique insight into the plasma properties within the heliosheath. The initial ENA brightening was centered on the closest and thinnest region of the inner heliosheath, ∼20° south of the upwind direction. From early 2017 to early 2018, ENA emissions rapidly expanded northward to cover nearly the entire upwind direction, as the pressure increase encompassed heliosheath regions located progressively farther from the Sun. This preferential expansion shows that the next closest regions span the upwind side from the north-port to the south-starboard directions. These are consistent with the heliosphere being shaped by the combined flow and magnetic pressures of the local interstellar medium. The observations fit the expectations of the geometry shown by McComas & Schwadron and are inconsistent with recent suggestions of a roughly spherical heliosphere. The next few years will see the Sun’s enduring 2014 pressure enhancement propagate farther out in the heliosphere, generating increasingly broad regions of enhanced ENA emissions and exposing the directional-dependent distances to the termination shock and heliopause and underlying physics of the global heliospheric interaction.
Hormonal Determinants of Nipple Aspirate Fluid Yield among Breast Cancer Cases and Screening Controls

Background: Nipple aspiration fluid (NAF) use as a biosample is limited by the variable yield across studies. We investigated the endocrine determinants of yield in an ongoing breast cancer case–control study. Methods: One-hundred and eighteen women yielding ≥2 μL NAF and 120 non-yielders were included; serum hormones were measured; differences in median hormones were assessed using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. ORs and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for yielder status relative to hormone levels were estimated using logistic regression, adjusting for parity and lactation, and, in premenopausal women, menstrual cycle phase (MCP). Results: Prolactin concentrations were higher in yielders than non-yielders (premenopausal: 7.6 and 2.5 ng/mL, P < 0.01; postmenopausal 5.3 and 2.2 ng/mL; P < 0.01). Among premenopausal-yielders, estradiol was lower (64.3 vs. 90.5 pg/mL, MCP-adjusted P = 0.02). In separate menopausal status and parity-adjusted models, significant case–control differences persisted in prolactin: case OR 1.93 (95% CI, 1.35–2.77), control OR 1.64 (95% CI, 1.17–2.29). Premenopausal control yielders had higher progesterone (OR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.18–2.46) and sex-hormone binding-globulin (OR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.08–4.05) than non-yielders. Among parous women, further adjustment for lactation suggested a stronger positive association of serum prolactin with yield in cases than controls. Conclusion: NAF-yielders show higher prolactin than non-yielders, regardless of menopause and parity; implications of this and other endocrine differences on NAF biomarkers of breast cancer risk deserve further study. Impact: NAF yield is associated with a distinct endocrine environment that must be considered in studies of NAF-based breast cancer risk markers. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(12); 2277–84. ©2013 AACR.
Can Chimpanzee Biology Highlight Human Origin and Evolution?

The closest living relatives of humans are their chimpanzee/bonobo (Pan) sister species, members of the same subfamily “Homininae”. This classification is supported by over 50 years of research in the fields of chimpanzee cultural diversity, language competency, genomics, anatomy, high cognition, psychology, society, self-consciousness and relation to others, tool use/production, as well as Homo level emotions, symbolic competency, memory recollection, complex multifaceted problem-solving capabilities, and interspecies communication. Language competence and symbolism can be continuously bridged from chimpanzee to man. Emotions, intercommunity aggression, body language, gestures, facial expressions, and vocalization of intonations seem to parallel between the sister taxa Homo and Pan. The shared suite of traits between Pan and Homo genus demonstrated in this article integrates old and new information on human–chimpanzee evolution, bilateral informational and cross-cultural exchange, promoting the urgent need for Pan cultures in the wild to be protected, as they are part of the cultural heritage of mankind. Also, we suggest that bonobos, Pan paniscus, based on shared traits with Australopithecus, need to be included in Australopithecine’s subgenus, and may even represent living-fossil Australopithecines. Unfolding bonobo and chimpanzee biology highlights our common genetic and cultural evolutionary origins.
Youtube Decade: Cultural Convergence in Recorded Music

The YouTube platform reduces fixed entry costs for local artists but also lowers the cost of access to international superstars. The net effect is an empirical question. We study the effect of YouTube on the market for music, focusing on converging tastes for international hits. We consider Austria and Germany, which share a common culture and technological development but differ in access to music videos on YouTube. Exploiting a contract dispute that has blocked official music videos in Germany since 2009, we find that YouTube increases the number of US hits on European charts. We further find evidence that YouTube speeds the hit-making cycle and brings more unique titles to top charts. Although the superstar effect dominates, the magnitude of estimated effects are modest, suggesting that YouTube will not drive out the market for local music
Self-consistent theory of mobility edges in quasiperiodic chains

We introduce a self-consistent theory of mobility edges in nearest-neighbour tight-binding chains with quasiperiodic potentials. Demarcating boundaries between localised and extended states in the space of system parameters and energy, mobility edges are generic in quasiperiodic systems which lack the energy-independent self-duality of the commonly studied Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model. The potentials in such systems are strongly and infinite-range correlated, reflecting their deterministic nature and rendering the problem distinct from that of disordered systems. Importantly, the underlying theoretical framework introduced is model-independent, thus allowing analytical extraction of mobility edge trajectories for arbitrary quasiperiodic systems. We exemplify the theory using two families of models, and show the results to be in very good agreement with the exactly known mobility edges as well numerical results obtained from exact diagonalisation.
Estimation of strong ground motion in broad-frequency band based on a seismic source scaling model and an empirical Green's function technique

We introduce a generalized method for simulating strong ground motion from large earthquakes by summing subevent records to follow the ? 2 law. The original idea of the method is based on a constant stress parameter between the target event and the subevent. It is applicable to a case where both events have a different stress drop after some manipulation. However, the simulation for a very large earthquake from a small event with this method has inevitably some deficiencies of spectral amplitudes in the intermediate frequency range deviating f`rom the ? 2 model, although the high and low frequency motions match the scaling. We improve the simulation algorithm so as not to make spectral sags, introducing self-similar distribution of subfaults with different sizes in the fault plane, so-called fractal composite faulting model. We show successful simulations for intermediate-sized earthquakes (MJMA = 5.0, 6.0 and 6.1), the large aftershocks of the 1983 Akita-Oki earthquake. using the records of smaller aftershocks (MJMA = 3.9 and 5.0) as an empirical Green's function. Further, we attempted to estimate strong ground motion for the 1946 Nankai earthquake with Mw 8.2, using the records of a MJMA 5.1 earthquake occurring near the source region of the mainshock. We found that strong ground motions simulated for the fractal composite faulting model with two asperities radiating significantly high frequency motions matched well the observed data such as the near-field displacement record, the source spectrum estimated from the teleseismic record, and the seismic intensity distribution during the 1946 Nankai earthquake.
Single imputation method of missing air quality data for i-Tree Eco analyses in the conterminous United States

Air pollution is a major environmental and human health concern in urban areas where urban forests can play an important role to remove air pollutants through dry deposition processes. Employing the US EPA’s country-wide hourly air quality data set, the USDA Forest Service’s i-Tree Eco assesses annual impacts of urban forests on air quality improvement. When applying i-Tree Eco, missing values in the air quality data degrades the assessments. The goal of this study is to develop a new single imputation method to fill gaps in the hourly air quality data set to enhance the applicability of i-Tree Eco across the conterminous United States. Considering weekly, daily and hourly time effects of air pollutant level, the developed method can estimate missing values with only on-site data. Compare to other standard single imputation methods, the performance of the developed method was the best for gaps greater than 4 hours, and as good as the other methods for smaller gaps.
Toll-like receptor and associated regulators in pneumonia and sepsis

Humanity struggles against micro-organism invasion on a daily basis. Innate immunity is part of the first line of defense when it comes to preventing infection, signaling a perceived health threat and eliminating microbes before they can cause harm. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and other pattern recognition receptors are vital in those processes. The downside of a rigorous inflammatory response elicited by host defense is detrimental collateral tissue damage and, as a consequence thereof, dysfunction of affected organs. To regulate immune responses and thus limit unnecessary tissue destruction a crucial role is reserved for inhibitors of inflammation. This thesis aims to elucidate the role of such negative regulators and associated signaling molecules in pneumonia and sepsis caused by common human pathogens. The role of two specific negative regulators of TLR signaling (ST2 and single immunoglobulin interleukin-1 related receptor i.e.SIGIRR) and two TLR adaptor molecules (myeloid differentiation primary response 88 i.e.MyD88 & TIR-domain-containing adapter-inducing interferon-β i.e.TRIF) in murine models of gram positive (Streptococcus pneumoniae; as a primary infection or secondary to Influenza A) and gram negative (Klebsiella pneumoniae) pneumonia and sepsis is investigated. In addition, one chapter is dedicated to the pro-inflammatory signaling property of ST2 by its ligand IL-33. The last two chapters are dedicated to human studies: one concerns inhibitory molecules of innate immunity in pulmonary tuberculosis and reports soluble (s)ST2 as a potential biomarker for tuberculosis disease activity and the other further investigates the value of sST2 as a biomarker in lung infection by measuring it in community-acquired pneumonia patients.
A Study on the Construction of a Multi-Level Autonomous Learning Mode in College English Teaching

This article probes into the construction of a multi-level autonomous learning mode in the light of the problems existing in the college English teaching in China. A tentative study has been conducted to facilitate students’ personalized learning and autonomous learning by the establishment and operation of this learning mode, and the principles of guiding autonomous learning, emphasizing responsive interaction, advocating collaborative constructivism and manifesting humanistic atmosphere are also elaborated on for reference.
ANALYSIS OF CASHEW NUTS MARKETING IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

This study analysed cashew nut marketing in Kwara State, Nigeria. Data were collected from the respondents with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The analytical tools employed were the herfindahl index, descriptive, gross margin and regression analyses. The study revealed that most of the wholesale marketers (81.1%) were male with mean age of 33.5 years. The study revealed a monthly gross margin of N 1, 821, 922. The average rate of returns to total investment was 25.5% implying that an average profit of N 0.25k could be realized on every naira invested in cashew nuts marketing in the study area. The Herfindah index was 0.007 and this revealed that cashew nut market tended towards pure competition. The coefficient of multiple determinations (R 2 ) was 0.506%, implying that about 51% of the total variation in output was explained by the independent variables. Moreover, the purchase cost (X 1 ), transport cost (X 3 ), agent cost (X 4 ) and storage cost (X 5 ) were indicated as the important variables determining the returns of cashew nut marketing. The marketing of cashew nuts is mostly affected by price instability due to the seasonal nature of cashew nut production, poor storage and processing facilities. Consequently, a controllable pricing system for efficient and effective marketing is recommended. Marketers are to ensure good quality nuts as well as observe good hygiene practices in drying, sorting and packaging of cashew nut to enhance their profitability. More researches into the production of high yielding varieties of cashew nuts and policies that lower the costs of marketing should be vigorously pursued