Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Failure of Classic Elasticity in Predicting Elastic Wave Propagation in Gyroid Lattices for Very Long Wavelengths

In this work we investigate the properties of elastic waves propagating in gyroid lattices. First, we rigorously characterize the lattice from the point of view of crystallography. Second, we use Bloch–Floquet analysis to compute the dispersion relations for elastic waves. The results for very long wavelengths are then compared to those given by classic elasticity for a cubic material. A discrepancy is found in terms of the polarization of waves and it is related to the noncentrosymmetry of the gyroid. The gyroid lattice results to be acoustically active, meaning that transverse waves exhibit a circular polarization when they propagate along an axis of rotational symmetry. This phenomenon is present even for very long wavelengths and is not captured by classic elasticity.
In-Situ Energy Dispersive X-ray Reflectivity Applied to Polyoxometalate Films: An Approach to Morphology and Interface Stability Issues in Organic Photovoltaics

Organic solar cells, characterized by a symmetrical regular layered structure, are very promising systems for developing green, low cost, and flexible solar energy conversion devices. Despite the efficiencies being appealing (over 17%), the technological transfer is still limited by the low durability. Several processes, in bulk and at interface, are responsible. The quick downgrading of the performance is due to a combination of physical and chemical degradations. These phenomena induce instability and a drop of performance in working conditions. Close monitoring of these processes is mandatory to understand the degradation pathways upon device operation. Here, an unconventional approach based on Energy Dispersive X-ray Reflectivity (ED-XRR) performed in-situ is used to address the role of Wells–Dawson polyoxometalate (K6-P2W18O62, hereafter K6-P2W18) as hole transporting layer in organic photovoltaics. The results demonstrate that K6-P2W18 thin films, showing ideal bulk and interface properties and superior optical/morphological stability upon prolonged illumination, are attractive candidates for the interface of durable OPV devices.
Formation of the Dynamic Energy Cascades in Quartic and Quintic Generalized KdV Equations

In this study we investigate for the first time the formation of dynamical energy cascades in higher order KdV-type equations. In the beginning we recall what is known about the dynamic cascades for the classical KdV (quadratic) and mKdV (cubic) equations. Then, we investigate further the mKdV case by considering a richer set of initial perturbations in order to check the validity and persistence of various facts previously established for the narrow-banded perturbations. Afterwards we focus on higher order nonlinearities (quartic and quintic) which are found to be quite different in many respects from the mKdV equation. Throughout this study we consider both the direct and double energy cascades. It was found that the dynamic cascade is always formed, but its formation is not necessarily accompanied by the nonlinear stage of the modulational instability. The direct cascade structure remains invariant regardless of the size of the spectral domain. In contrast, the double cascade shape can depend on the size of the spectral domain, even if the total number of cascading modes remains invariant. The results obtained in this study can be potentially applied to plasmas, free surface and internal wave hydrodynamics.
Investigating the Relationship between Personality and Technology Acceptance with a Focus on the Smartphone from a Gender Perspective: Results of an Exploratory Survey Study

Prior research found that user personality significantly affects technology acceptance perceptions and decisions. Yet, evidence on the moderating influence of user gender on the relationship between personality and technology acceptance is barely existent despite theoretical consideration. Considering this research gap, the present study reports the results of a survey in which we examined the relationships between personality and technology acceptance from a gender perspective. This study draws upon a sample of N = 686 participants (n = 209 men, n = 477 women) and applied the HEXACO Personality Inventory—Revised along with established technology acceptance measures. The major result of this study is that we do not find significant influence of user gender on the relationship between personality and technology acceptance, except for one aspect of personality, namely altruism. We found a negative association between altruism and intention to use the smartphone in men, but a positive association in women. Consistent with this finding, we also found the same association pattern for altruism and predicted usage: a negative one in men and a positive one in women. Implications for research and practice are discussed, along with limitations of the present study and possible avenues for future research.
Prenatal Visual Exposure to a Predator Influences Lateralization in Goldbelly Topminnows

The role of genetic and environmental factors in modulating the development of brain lateralization is far from being fully understood, and the presence of individual differences in several lateralized functions is still an open question. In goldbelly topminnows, the genetic basis of asymmetrical functions in the brain has been studied, and recently it has been found that light stimulation influences the expression of lateralization of newborns. Here, we investigated whether prenatal exposure to predators affects the development of lateralization in 10-day-old topminnows born from females exposed to a real or to a simulated predator during pregnancy. Offspring from females exposed to a real predator were lateralized in both visual and motor tests, whereas fish from females exposed to a simulated predator were not and did not differ from controls. Prenatal exposure to a real predator might promote the alignment of lateralization in the same direction in different individuals.
Improving Search Quality in Crowdsourced Bib Number Tagging Systems Using Data Fusion

Today, crowd computing is successfully applied for many information processing problems in a variety of domains. One of the most acute issues with crowd-powered systems is the quality of results (as humans can make errors). Therefore, a number of methods have been proposed to process the results obtained from the crowd in order to compensate human errors. Most of the existing methods of processing contributions are constructed based on a (natural) assumption that the only information available is unreliable data obtained from the crowd. However, in some cases, additional information is available, and it can be utilized in order to improve the overall quality of the result. The paper describes a crowd computing application for community tagging of running race photos. It presents a utility analysis to identify situations in which community photo tagging is a reasonable choice. It also proposes a data fusion model making use of runners’ location information recorded in their Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks. Field experiments with the applications show that community-based tagging can collect enough contributors to process photosets from medium-sized running events. Simulation results confirm, that the use of data fusion in processing the results of crowd computing is a promising technique, and the use of probabilistic graphical models (e.g., Bayesian networks) for data fusion allows one to smoothly increase the quality of the results with an increase of the available information.
Gas-liquid Chromatography of Human Bile Acids.∗

Conclusions The major bile acids in samples of bile as determined with the aid of gas-liquid chromatography were cholic acid, chenodcoxycholic and deoxycholic acid. Regarding the proportions of the different bile acids, the results from this small group agree with those of Wootton and Wiggins(5). Isaksson(6) and Sjövall(7.8). Deoxycholic acid seemed to disappear in obstructive jaundice. In hepatic bile obtained from patients without jaundice only very small amounts of deoxycholic acid were found. Similar results have been reported by Sjövall (7) and Rudman and Kendall(9). An interesting finding is the very small amount of deoxycholic acid present in a patient with familial hypercholesterolemia. This patient had been on a general mixed diet without the consumption of highly unsaturated fats or any other treatment of the hypercholesterolemia. Sjövall(7) has reported a similar bile acid pattern in a patient with hypercholesterolemia but on a formula diet. Further studies are in progress on the bile acid pattern in diseases with an altered cholesterol metabolism. The author wishes to thank colleagues at the Dept. of Surgery for samples of bile. Technical assistance of Mr. J. Gürtler is gratefully acknowledged.
Performance and meat chemical composition of quails fed with different sorghum levels instead of corn

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of replacing corn with sorghum in feed on performance, carcass yield, and composition of specialized meat cuts in quails. A total of 1200, 1-day-old female quails were raised up to 42 days of age. The completely randomized design consisted of four treatments with six replicates each and with 50 quails in each cage. Treatments consisted of four levels of sorghum replacement in the diet (0, 40, 60, and 100% sorghum). All birds were weighed to assess the weight gain. Feed conversion was calculated as the relationship between feed intake and weight gain. Mortality was reported daily and calculated at the end of each week. At 42 days, the birds were slaughtered and the carcass, thigh and drumstick, and breast yields were assessed. Mineral matter, ether extract, and crude protein analyses were performed using breast cuts and thigh + drumstick cuts. No significant differences were noted in cut performance, yield, or composition. Thus, it can be concluded that the ground grain sorghum can entirely replace corn in quail feed, as it does not negatively affect carcass performance, yield, and nutritional quality.
Design, Construction, and Characterization of a New Regioisomer and Diastereomer Material Based on the Spirooxindole Scaffold Incorporating a Sulphone Function

The 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction is one of the most rapid, and efficient protocols to access, and construct highly divergent heterocycle chiral auxiliaries. Free catalyst synthesis of spirooxindole scaffold incorporating sulphone moiety via one pot–three component reaction of 6-chloro-isatin, L-proline, and the phenylvinylsulphone as dienophile is presented. The new regioisomer and diastereomer was isolated by precipitation without the tedious purification step, and then characterized via NMR and single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Using Hirshfeld analysis, the analysis of molecular packing was performed. It depended mainly on strong O…H and N…H interactions, and weak H…H, C…H, and Cl…H interactions as well. DFT calculations were used to optimize the experimental X-ray structure, which was found well matched with the calculated one. Reactivity descriptors based on the energies of the highest occupied (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied (LUMO) molecular orbitals were calculated. Additionally, the donor–acceptor interactions which stabilized the system via σ–σ*, π→π*, n→σ* and n→π* electron delocalization processes were also computed using NBO calculations. The net interaction energies are 49.96, 235.38, 179.66 and 107.06 kJ/mol, respectively. Additionally, the calculated NMR chemical shifts correlated well with the experimental data (R2=0.99).
Does Brain Lateralization Affect the Performance in Binary Choice Tasks? A Study in the Animal Model Danio rerio

Researchers in behavioral neuroscience commonly observe the behavior of animal subjects in the presence of two alternative stimuli. However, this type of binary choice introduces a potential confound related to side biases. Understanding whether subjects exhibit this bias, and the origin of it (pre-existent or acquired throughout the experimental sessions), is particularly important to interpreting the results. Here, we tested the hypothesis according to which brain lateralization may influence the emergence of side biases in a well-known model of neuroscience, the zebrafish. As a measure of lateralization, individuals were observed in their spontaneous tendencies to monitor a potential predator with either the left or the right eye. Subjects also underwent an operant conditioning task requiring discrimination between two colors placed on the left–right axis. Although the low performance exhibited in the operant conditioning task prevents firm conclusions from being drawn, a positive correlation was found between the direction of lateralization and the tendency to select the stimulus presented on one specific side (e.g., right). The choice for this preferred side did not change throughout the experimental sessions, meaning that this side bias was not the result of the prolonged training. Overall, our study calls for a wider investigation of pre-existing lateralization biases in animal models to set up methodological counterstrategies to test individuals that do not properly work in a binary choice task with stimuli arranged on the left–right axis.
Level of economic damage for leaf-cutting ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Eucalyptus plantations in Brazil

The objective of this research was to estimate level of economic damage for leaf-cutting ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Eucalyptus plantations, because it represents an important tool for integrated management of thesepests. Data from the continue forest inventory of Eucalyptus plantation of the V & M Florestal, in the Municipality of Joao Pinheiro, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil from 1991 to 1996 were correlated with those of control costs of monitoring leaf-cutting ants in this area and period. Data of each stand of Eucalyptus were arranged in spreadsheets and statistically analyzed. Reduction in wood production per unitary increment of number of leaf-cutting ant nests per hectare was 0.87% for all Eucalyptus species; 0.68% for Eucalyptus camaldulensis; 3.26% for Eucalyptus citriodora; and 1.78% for Eucalyptus tereticomis. Wood production in stands of Eucalyptus cloeziana and Eucalyptus urophylla were not affected by density of nests of leaf-cutting ants present in the area studied. On the other hand, leaf-cutting ants negatively affected wood production in stands of other Eucalyptus species.
Fully Automated 3D Cardiac MRI Localisation and Segmentation Using Deep Neural Networks

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is used widely for morphological assessment and diagnosis of various cardiovascular diseases. Deep learning approaches based on 3D fully convolutional networks (FCNs), have improved state-of-the-art segmentation performance in CMR images. However, previous methods have employed several pre-processing steps and have focused primarily on segmenting low-resolutions images. A crucial step in any automatic segmentation approach is to first localize the cardiac structure of interest within the MRI volume, to reduce false positives and computational complexity. In this paper, we propose two strategies for localizing and segmenting the heart ventricles and myocardium, termed multi-stage and end-to-end, using a 3D convolutional neural network. Our method consists of an encoder–decoder network that is first trained to predict a coarse localized density map of the target structure at a low resolution. Subsequently, a second similar network employs this coarse density map to crop the image at a higher resolution, and consequently, segment the target structure. For the latter, the same two-stage architecture is trained end-to-end. The 3D U-Net with some architectural changes (referred to as 3D DR-UNet) was used as the base architecture in this framework for both the multi-stage and end-to-end strategies. Moreover, we investigate whether the incorporation of coarse features improves the segmentation. We evaluate the two proposed segmentation strategies on two cardiac MRI datasets, namely, the Automatic Cardiac Segmentation Challenge (ACDC) STACOM 2017, and Left Atrium Segmentation Challenge (LASC) STACOM 2018. Extensive experiments and comparisons with other state-of-the-art methods indicate that the proposed multi-stage framework consistently outperforms the rest in terms of several segmentation metrics. The experimental results highlight the robustness of the proposed approach, and its ability to generate accurate high-resolution segmentations, despite the presence of varying degrees of pathology-induced changes to cardiac morphology and image appearance, low contrast, and noise in the CMR volumes.
Bimetallic Mo-Fe Co-Catalyst-Based Nano-Carbon Impregnated on PAC for Optimum Super-Hydrophobicity

The application of super-hydrophobic nanomaterials for synthesizing membranes with unique physiochemical properties has gained a lot of interest among researchers. The presence of super-hydrophobic materials inside the membrane matrix can play a vital role not only in the separation of toxins, but also to achieve higher water flux with lower fouling tendencies required for an efficient membrane distillation process. In this research, super-hydrophobic carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) were synthesized using powder activated carbon (PAC) as a precursor, whereby the growth was initiated using a bimetallic catalyst of iron (Fe) and molybdenum (Mo). Until recently, no research has been conducted for synthesis and to observe the catalytic influence of bimetallic catalysts on the physiochemical characteristics of the derived CNMs. The synthesis process was carried out using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The CVD process was optimized using Box–Behnken factorial design (BBD), whereby 15 experiments were carried out under different conditions. Three input variables, which were percentage composition of catalysts (percentage of Fe and Mo) and reaction time (tr), were optimized with respect to their impact on the desired percentage output of yield (CY) and contact angle (CA). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) testing was carried out. It was observed that the developed model was statistically significant. The highest CY (320%) and CA (172°) were obtained at the optimal loading of 5% Fe and 2% Mo, with a reaction time of 40 min. Surface morphological features were observed using field emission scanning electron microscopic (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) analysis. The images obtained from FESEM and TEM revealed the presence of two types of CNMs, including carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Thermogravimetric analysis was carried out to observe the temperature degradation profile of the synthesized sample. Raman spectroscopic analysis was also used in order to have a better understanding regarding the proportion of ordered and disordered carbon content inside the synthesized sample.
Vibrio alginolyticus infection in cobia (Rachycentron canadum) cultured in Taiwan

Vibrio alginolyticus was isolated from cobia (Rachycentron canadum) for the first time from floating marine cages placed near the Penghu Island, Taiwan during an epizootic outbreak in October of 2000. The identity of the isolate was confirmed as Vibrio alginolyticus by biochemical test. The epizootic was effectively controlled by the oral administration of oxytetracyclin.
Effect of season, genotype and lactation on milk yield and composition of local and crossbred dairy cows reared under different feed base region

A total of 160 cows, 10 cows in each of native (local cow) and crossbred (local × Holstein Friesian) origins differing in lactation were used in 2×2×2×2 factorial experiment using Randomized Block Design (RBD) to evaluate milk yield and composition of cows considering regions (good & poor feed base region), seasons (dry: Nov.Feb. 2009 & wet: Jun.Oct. 2009), genotypes and lactation. A good and/or poor feed base region was classified based on the availability of quantity and quality roughages throughout the year. The study revealed that the daily milk yield and 4% FCM of cows under good feed base condition were 6.76 and 6.49 kg, respectively and under poor feed base condition were 3.67 and 3.31 kg, respectively. Feed base region did not affect on milk fat and it was observed that the milk protein, lactose, solids-not-fat (SNF), minerals and total solids under good feed base condition were 37.9, 54.9, 100.9, 6.3 and 140.6 g/kg, respectively, whereas, under poor feed base condition the values were 36.3, 52.9, 98.0, 6.1 and 135.2 g/kg, respectively. Season did not affect milk yield and composition except minerals (6.5 g/kg vs. 5.9 g/kg). Genotypes significantly (p? 0.01) influenced daily milk yield, the milk protein and minerals. Lactation did not affect milk yield and the milk protein, but influenced the fat, lactose, SNF, minerals and total solids. The interaction of feed base regions and seasons significantly (p? 0.01) influenced milk yield and the milk fat and SNF. The milk protein and lactose was influenced by the interaction of feed bases region, seasons and lactation. Milk yield negatively correlated with fat per cent. The percentage of fat significantly (p? 0.01) correlated with protein, lactose, SNF, and minerals %. The percentage protein correlated with lactose, SNF and minerals. Lactose % significantly (p? 0.01) correlated with SNF%. It may be concluded that milk yield and composition depends on feed base region, genotype and lactation of cows. Season did not influence milk yield and the composition. Milk yield negatively correlated with the percentage of fat, protein, lactose, SNF and milk composition strongly correlated with each other. Bangladesh J. of Livestock Res. 19(1-2): 50-65, Jan-Dec 2012
Anthropic Impact Evaluation of Two Brazilian Estuaries Trough Biomarkers in Fish

Coastal and estuarine areas can be impacted by several sources of anthropogenic activities derived from industries, agriculture, sewage and harbor activities. Two Brazilian estuarine areas (Piraque – ES e Paranagua – PR) located close to harbours, industries and sewage from urban centers were evaluated through analysis of somatic indexes, histopathological, biochemical and genetic biomarkers on fish. Histopathological lesions as lamellar fusion, hyperplasia, epithelial lifting, and second lamellae disorganization were found in gills. Necrosis was the main alteration observed in the liver of sampled animals and the occurrence of melano-macrophages in Cathorops spixii was similar among the evaluated areas. Cholinesterase activity increased in most of the contaminated areas. Genotoxic responses as micronucleus induction and occurrence of DNA strand breaks were detected in Piraque and Paranagua estuaries in all sampling seasons. Our results suggest that these areas are impacted by anthropogenic activities and that a multi-biomarker approach is valuable and recommended for environmental pollution evaluation.
Identifying blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) stock structure in the Northeast Atlantic by otolith shape analysis

Information on stock identification and spatial stock structure provide a basis for understanding fish population dynamics and improving fisheries management. In this study, otolith shape analysis was used to study the stock structure of blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) in the northeast Atlantic using 1693 samples from mature fish collected between 37°N and 75°N and 20°W and 25°E. The results indicated two stocks located north and south of ICES Divisions VIa and VIb (54°5N to 60°5N, 4°W to 11°W). The central area corresponds to the spawning area west of Scotland. Sampling year effects and misclassification in the linear discriminant analysis suggested exchanges between the northern and southern stocks. The results corroborate previous studies indicating a structuring of the blue whiting stock into two stocks, with some degree of mixing in the central overlap area.