Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring High-energy Emission from the BL Lacertae Object S5 0716+714 with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

We present the results of an extensive γ-ray data analysis of the emission from the blazar S5 0716+714 with the primary motivation to study its temporal and spectral variability behavior. In this work, we extract a 10 days binned γ-ray light curve from 2008 August 4 to 2016 April 27 in the energy range of 0.1–300 GeV and identify six outburst periods with peak flux of >4 × 10−7 ph cm−2 s−1 from this highly variable source. The brightest flares are identified by zooming in these outburst periods to 1 day binning and using the Bayesian Blocks algorithm. The fastest variability timescale is found to be 1.5 ± 0.3 hr at MJD 57128.01 ± 0.01 with a peak flux above 100 MeV of (26.8 ± 6.9) × 10−7 ph cm−2 s−1. No hint of periodic modulations has been detected for the light curve of S5 0716+714. During the outburst phases, the γ-ray spectrum shows an obvious spectral break with a break energy between 0.93 and 6.90 GeV energies, which may be caused by an intrinsic break in the energy distribution of radiating particles. The five highest-energy photons, with E > 100 GeV, imply that the high-energy emission from this source may originate from a moving emission region in a helical path upstream in the jet. The spectral behavior and temporal characteristics of the individual flares indicate that the location of the emission region lies in the sub-parsec scale (rγ < 0.85 pc).
Vertical Line Extension Decisions in a Competitive Market with Consumers’ Need for Product Uniqueness

One important reason for offering customized products is to satisfy consumers’ need for product uniqueness. In this paper, we take consumers’ unique preferences into account to examine how firms make decisions on vertical line extensions with introducing a customized product. This study develops the consumer’s utility function, which captures consumers’ behavioural and emotional factors, and the results show that the high-quality firm always introduces an upward extension without uniqueness sensitivity. However, introducing a downward extension may be more profitable especially when consumers have the high unique ness sensitivity. We also find that the upward extension of the high-quality firm does not intensify competition with the low-quality firm, but its downward extension will intensify the competition between two firms, whether with or without unique preferences. We also analyse the low-quality firm’s extension decisions when it faces a high-end competitor and find that the low-quality firm may change from introducing a downward extension to introducing an upward extension when intrafirm quality differentiation is small.
Automating Jellyfish Species Recognition through Faster Region-Based Convolution Neural Networks

In recent years, citizen science campaigns have provided a very good platform for widespread data collection. Within the marine domain, jellyfish are among the most commonly deployed species for citizen reporting purposes. The timely validation of submitted jellyfish reports remains challenging, given the sheer volume of reports being submitted and the relative paucity of trained staff familiar with the taxonomic identification of jellyfish. In this work, hundreds of photos that were submitted to the “Spot the Jellyfish” initiative are used to train a group of region-based, convolution neural networks. The main aim is to develop models that can classify, and distinguish between, the five most commonly recorded species of jellyfish within Maltese waters. In particular, images of the Pelagia noctiluca, Cotylorhiza tuberculata, Carybdea marsupialis, Velella velella and salps were considered. The reliability of the digital architecture is quantified through the precision, recall, f1 score, and κ score metrics. Improvements gained through the applicability of data augmentation and transfer learning techniques, are also discussed. Very promising results, that support upcoming aspirations to embed automated classification methods within online services, including smart phone apps, were obtained. These can reduce, and potentially eliminate, the need for human expert intervention in validating citizen science reports for the five jellyfish species in question, thus providing prompt feedback to the citizen scientist submitting the report.
The absence of standard modifiable cardiovascular risk factors does not predict better outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome

The standard modifiable cardiovascular risk factors (SMuRFs), like diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia,hypertension and smoking, are central elements of the well-established European Society of Cardiology SCORE calculator. However, acute coronary syndromes (ACS) in SMuRF-less individuals are not uncommon. Our study aimed to describe the population with and without SMuRFs attended for an ACS and study prognostic factors associated with mortality. We identified 1347 ACS patients without prior history of cardiovascular disease (ACS, cerebrovascular or peripheral artery disease)attended in our university hospital between 2009 and 2012 and examined the proportion of SMuRF-less patients as well as outcomes.The primary outcome was 5-year all-cause death. Overall, the median age was 63 years, 73.4% were male and 52 patients (7%)had no SMuRFs. The most common SMuRF was hypertension (60%), followed by smoking (47%), dyslipidemia (48%) and diabetes mellitus (27%). In patients with and without SMuRFs there were no differences in the proportion of females (27% vs 28%), age (63.7 years [IQR 54–75] vs 62 years [IQR 53–71]), renal failure (4.7% vs 0%, p=0.159), prior heart failure (1.6% vs 1.9%, p=0.590) and pulmonary obstructive disease (11.3% vs 9.6%, p=0.707). SMuRF-less patients had substantially less angina in the previously month (1.9% vs 19.1%, p<0.001), were less treated previously with aspirin (3.9% vs 18.9%, p=0.006), betablockers (5.8% vs 16.6%, p=0.039)and ACEI/ARAII (0% vs 38.1%, p<0.001). Patients with SMuRFs presented significantly more frequently with a NSTEMI (63.1% vs 48.1%) and less frequently with STEMI (32.3% vs 44.2%) or a non-classifiable ACS (2.7% vs 7.7%), compared to those without SMurFS. In patients with and without SMuRFs, there were no significant differences in Killip I class (95.4% vs 98%, p=0.370)and GRACE risk score (105 vs 103, p=0.694). Patients with SMuRFS compared to those without had a higher systolic blood pressure (141 mmHg vs 131 mmHg, p=0,03) and a lower glomerular filtration rate (81.8 ml/min/m2 vs 94 ml/min/m2, p=0.04). There were no differences in those with and without SMuRFs in performance of angiography (83% vs 90%, p=0.160), but SMurF-less patients had lower proportion of multivessel disease (18.6% vs 38.2%, p=0.011), higher tendency to percutaneous angioplasty (70.6% vs 57.8%, p=0.073) or performance of CABG (6.1% vs 1.1%, p=0.028). At 5-year follow up (IQR 3–7),SMuRF-less patients had a lower mortality (11.5% vs 23.4%, p=0.049). On multivariable Cox Regression age, chronic renal failure, glomerular filtration rate and GRACE score were independent predictors of death. Coronary angioplasty was a strong protective risk factor of death.However, being SMuRF-less was not protective against mortality. The absence of SMuRFs was not an independent predictor of mortality. Our study highlights the importance of the often-overlooked subgroup of ACS patients with atherosclerosis not predicted by SMuRFs. Type of funding source: None
The endangered White Sands pupfish (Cyprinodon tularosa) genome reveals low diversity and heterogenous patterns of differentiation

The White Sands pupfish (Cyprinodon tularosa), endemic to New Mexico in Southwestern North America, is of conservation concern due in part to invasive species, chemical pollution, and groundwater withdrawal. Herein, we developed a draft reference genome and use it to provide biological insights into the evolution and conservation of C. tularosa. We used our assembly to localize microsatellite markers previously used to demarcate evolutionary significant units (ESU), quantified genomic divergence and transposable element profiles between species, and compared C. tularosa genomic diversity related species. Our de novo assembly of PacBio Sequel II error‐corrected reads resulted in a 1.08 Gb draft genome with a contig N50 of 1.4 Mb and 25,260 annotated protein coding genes, including 95% of the expected Actinopterygii conserved complete single‐copy orthologues. Many of the C. tularosa microsatellite markers used for conservation assessments fell within, or near, genes and exhibited a pattern of increased heterozygosity near genic areas compared to those in intergenic regions. Nuclear alignments between these two species revealed 193 genes contained in rapidly diverging tracts; transposable element profiles were largely concordant and suggest a shared, rapid expansion of LINE and Gypsy elements. Genome‐wide heterozygosity was markedly lower in C. tularosa compared to estimates from other related species, probably because of smaller long‐term effective population sizes constrained by their isolated and limited habitat. Overall, these inferences provide new insights into C. tularosa that should help inform future management efforts.
Characterisation and evaluation of interspecific cross-incompatibility in two Delphinium species

Abstract Delphinium yunnanense is an endemic species in the Yunnan Province of China, while Delphinium elatum ‘Guardian Blue’ is widespread as cut flowers in the world. They all bloom attractive blue flowers, which are a crucial ornamental trait for floriculture. In this experiment, the cross-compatibility between D. yunnanense and D. elatum was characterised and evaluated. The results showed that a strong cross-incompatibility was observed in D. yunnanense × D. elatum, resulting in hybrid sterility. The F1 hybrid generation produced neither fruits nor seeds. The cross-incompatibility of the hybrids resulted from the disturbed structure of the pollen tubes penetrating pistil style and callose deposits on stigma and in style. Moreover, the germination rate of D. elatum × D. yunnanense F1 seed was lower than their own allogamic crosses, although there was no difference in fruit set rate. The results confirmed the cross-incompatibility between D. yunnanense and D. elatum, suggesting that D. elatum is more suitable as a maternal parent for hybridisation breeding. Our study characterised and evaluated the interspecific cross-compatibility through the pollen–stigma interaction and the reproductive system in Delphinium, which could provide the basis for the development and utilisation of potential ornamental traits in Delphinium.
Global patterns and predictors of trophic position, body size and jaw size in fishes

Aim: The aim of this study was test whether maximum body mass and jaw length are reliable predictors of trophic position ( TP ) in fishes, and to compare linear and nonlinear machine-learning (ML) models incorporating biogeography, habitat and other morphological traits. Location: Global. Time period: Modern. Major taxa studied: Fishes. Methods: We compiled a global database of TP (2.0–4.5), maximum body mass, jaw length, order, ecoregion,
Action de divers diluants sur les produits pétroliers lourds : mesure, interprétation et prévision de la floculation des asphaltènes

La mesure de la teneur normalisee en asphaltenes ne fournit pas de renseignements sur le moment d'apparition de la precipitation ni sur sa cinetique. Ces phenomenes ont une importance pratique indeniable et leur etude fait l'objet de ce travail. Dans cet article, on definit le seuil de floculation et l'on presente une methode originale de mesure de ce dernier. On introduit ensuite la notion de potentiel de precipitation et l'on demontre ses proprietes d'additivite. Cette notion permet de prevoir, a partir d'un petit nombre d'essais, si la dilution d'un produit petrolier lourd par une certaine quantite d'un diluant pur ou d'un melange de diluants provoque ou non la floculation des asphaltenes. De plus, les potentiels de precipitation permettent de classer les differents diluants en fonction de leur aptitude a faire floculer ou a solubiliser les asphaltenes.
Few-shot Thangka image classification based on improved DenseNet

Thangka is an important part of Tibetan culture, and the classification of Thangka image is one of the basic works of Thangka research. DenseNet(Densely connected convolutional networks) has achieved a very good effect in the field of image classification. Considering that the DenseNet adopts ReLU function which loses the negative feature of the image in the feature propagation process, this paper proposed an improved DenseNet, called L-DenseNet that Leaky ReLU replaces ReLU function to increase the negative feature of propagation. In order to solve the problem of insufficient Thangka image sample, we adopted the method of based fine-tuned network. Experimental results show that L-DenseNet obtains an outstanding performance, which improves 1.1% performance compared with DenseNet. Compared with other CNNs, such as VGG16, ResNet50 and InceptionV3, L-DenseNet obtains state-of-the-art performance in the classification of Thangka image.
Northwest Native American Research Center for Health: A Summary of Fellowship Trainees’ Success Over 15 Years of Funding

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) continue to be severely underrepresented in biomedical research, particularly in principal investigator roles. Efforts to decrease health disparities have shifted to building research capacity and training highly skilled AI/AN health researchers who can conduct quality research within their tribal communities. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Indian Health Service, the Northwest Native American Research Centers for Health (NW NARCH) program has offered financial support and mentorship to 149 AI/AN biomedical and public health graduate students for the past 15 years. In 2018, trainees were surveyed to track their progress and career development. Survey results confirmed that the financial support and mentorship available via the NW NARCH program were instrumental to their professional advancement. Support to AI/AN biomedical graduate students should continue not only to diversify the public health workforce, but also to address risk factors and health conditions that disproportionately affect AI/AN people.
Social Isolation and Stress as Predictors of Productivity Perception and Remote Work Satisfaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Concern about the Virus in a Moderated Double Mediation

From mid-March to the end of May 2020, millions of Italians were forced to work from home because of the lockdown provisions imposed by the Italian government to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. As a result, many employees had to suddenly switch to remote work, experiencing both troubles and opportunities. Social isolation from colleagues and the workplace represents a typical aspect of remote work which increased significantly during the social confinement imposed by the government. This study investigates the correlates of social isolation in terms of stress, perceived remote work productivity and remote work satisfaction, proposing the sequential mediation of stress and perceived remote work productivity, and the moderating role of concern about the new coronavirus. An online survey was conducted, and the responses of 265 employees showed the deleterious role of social isolation in stress, which leads to decreased perceived remote work productivity that, in turn, is related to remote work satisfaction. Furthermore, the results suggest that concern about the virus moderates the relationships between social isolation and remote work satisfaction, from one side, and remote work perceived productivity and remote work satisfaction from the other. This latter result suggests that the indirect sequential effect of social isolation on remote work satisfaction is conditional on concern about the virus. Some conclusions are drawn to support managers and HR officers in the choices to better manage employees’ work during the health emergency.
Does size matter? Non-market social and political engagement by accounting firms in the #Brexit discourse on Twitter

ABSTRACT Social media is widely used by accounting firms to achieve a variety of business objectives and is a key enabler of non-market strategies. Socio-political involvement (SPI) involves firms taking positions on issues that lack societal consensus, have low information rationality, evolving viewpoints and issue salience, with no clear performance outcomes for firms. SPI may result in firms alienating stakeholders with opposing views, resulting in no or adverse performance outcomes. Accounting firms traditionally may not engage with such issues due to the associated reputational risk. Further, research suggests firm size is one of the most prominent firm-level antecedents of socio-political engagement. As the empirical context for this paper, we choose the Brexit referendum, a significant historical but divisive event with contested social norms. This paper explores the engagement of accounting firms on Twitter with the #Brexit discourse from the referendum announcement to one month after the vote. The objectives of the study are to understand the nature of non-market socio-political engagement by accounting firms in the #Brexit discourse on Twitter, and explore the differences between accounting firms of different size in this context. Our findings suggest that accounting firms engaged in the #Brexit Twitter discourse through a variety of non-market socio-political engagement activities, and that smaller firms tended to engage more than larger firms, most likely reflecting the ideological inclination of firm management. The engagement of accounting firms in socio-political discourse extends our understanding of how accounting firms of all sizes use social media and supports critical accounting and institutional perspectives.
Development and evaluation of occupancy-aware model predictive control for residential building energy efficiency and occupant comfort

The residential sector accounts for 25% of global primary energy consumption. Two methods have previously been proposed to reduce residential energy use associated with the provision of occupant thermal comfort: 1. Occupancy-based HVAC control, operating systems only during confirmed occupancy, and 2. model predictive control (MPC), harnessing a mathematical model and forecasts to find optimal operating strategies. Previous studies estimate the average energy savings of the two methods individually in the range of 21% and 16%, respectively. The research presented herein was carried out to evaluate the energy savings potential in residential buildings by combining both approaches across different climates, house vintages, and occupancy patterns. Occupancy and eight different physical modalities (e.g. CO2 and VOC) data were collected from five homes for time periods of 4–9 weeks. Collected data sets were used to train occupancy prediction models suggested by an extensive literature survey of occupancy model types. The trained prediction models were combined with MPC and detailed EnergyPlus building simulation models to evaluate residential building performance in terms of annual energy savings and thermal comfort, along with discomfort exceedance metrics. Multiple home types and regions were analyzed to understand regional and climate-dependent potential. Based on actual field data, the occupancy models had a prediction inaccuracy between 8% and 35% across the investigated homes. Average occupancy for the collected data ranged from 56% to 86%, a typical range reported in the literature. Building simulations were conducted for three control scenarios: conventional thermostatic control, occupancy-based, and occupancy-based MPC. The results indicate that all advanced strategies improve upon the conventional control, with some scenarios cutting energy use in half with only occasional incurrence of discomfort. The findings indicate that occupancy-aware model predictive residential building control has the potential to drastically reduce energy use and associated emissions while maintaining occupant comfort for both new and existing buildings.
Single input magnetorheological pseudo negative stiffness control for bridge stay cables

The bridge stay cable, one of the most critical components in cable-stayed bridges, is vulnerable to vibrations owing to its low inherent damping capacity. Thus effective vibration control technology for bridge stay cables is extremely critical to safe operations of cable-stayed bridges. Several countermeasures have been presented and/or implemented to mitigate this vibration; however the passive method can only add a small amount of damping to the cables, excessive energy demand of active control devices severely limits its practicality, the semi-active control methods still have the drawbacks of complex state estimation module and a large amount of control algorithm calculation. This paper proposes a practical magnetorheological pseudo negative stiffness (MR-PNS) control system coupled with control strategy for bridge stay cables. The current reference point is introduced in the dynamic modeling of the MR-PNS control system to characterize the current control strategy. This paper investigates the adjustable of MR-PNS control system performance and energy consumption caused by different current strategies. Taking the vibration control of the Nanjing Second Yangtze River Bridge J20 cable as an example, the simulation results highlight the advantages of the MR-PNS control system that the failure area is small, the quasi-optimal area is wide, and it can still keep sort of vibration damping performance in the degenerate area. The model cable vibration control test proves the feasibility and efficiency of the single input MR-PNS bridge stay cables control method.
Torgania coronata gen. et sp. nov.: a new needle-shaped genus, with comments on the raphe system as a diagnostic character in Eunotiales (Ochrophyta, Bacillariophyceae)

ABSTRACT The diatom Torgania coronata gen. et sp. nov. from the Brazilian Amazon is described based on light and scanning electron microscopy. Members of this genus have the raphe system entirely located on the valve surface, needle-shaped, isopolar valves with one rimoportula at each apex, and isovalvar frustules. Under the light microscope, members of Torgania can be confused with some species of Fragilaria, such as F. tenera, due to the aciculiform valve outline and inconspicuous striae. We consider that the presence of the raphe on the valve surface prevents Torgania from being placed in the Eunotiaceae. We also consider that Torgania’s placement within Peroniaceae is inadequate due to its isovalvar frustules and isopolar valves. Therefore, we did not include Torgania in this family either. Fragilaria braunii was recently transferred to the genus Peronia due to the discovery of a vestigial raphe system, along with the presence of rimoportulae, and characteristics of the girdle elements. However, in our opinion, this species better fits in the newly proposed Torgania than in Peronia and we therefore propose the new combination, Torgania braunii comb. nov. The characteristics found in the newly proposed genus indicate that the traditional dichotomy between Eunotiaceae/Peroniaceae is no longer appropriate. We argue that the eunotioid clade should be defined mainly by the raphe system non-integrated with the sternum, and that terms such as ‘simple’ or ‘short’ in reference to the raphe should be avoided. In addition, we provide a morphological key for the identification of Eunotiales genera.