Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Range of Motion Adaptations During a Simulated Game Exposure in Softball Pitchers

Abstract Hip and shoulder range of motion (ROM) alterations are correlated with increased risk of injury in softball athletes. The purpose of this study was to investigate bilateral shoulder and hip ROM adaptation during a simulated softball double-header exposure. It was hypothesized that shoulder and hip ROM would decrease after simulated game exposure and would not return to baseline following a 30-minute break. Thirty (14.8±1.9 yrs, 162.5±18.3 cm, 71.79±16.03 kg) adolescent softball pitchers participated. Testing included: bilateral hip and shoulder ROM (preSG), simulated game exposure (100 pitches), bilateral hip and shoulder ROM (postSG), 30-minute break, bilateral hip and shoulder ROM (preDH), pitching first inning of a simulated double header (12 pitches), and bilateral hip and shoulder ROM (postDH). Two separate repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance tests determined differences in ROM between time points. Dominant shoulder internal rotation ROM and non-dominant shoulder internal and external rotation ROM significantly decreased from preDG. Stride hip external rotation ROM and drive hip internal and external rotation ROM significantly decreased from preSG to preDH. Key results revealed the break given between games may not be sufficient recovery time for hip ROM. Thus, assessing ROM as workload progresses can be a useful strategy for monitoring a softball pitcher’s injury risk.
Causes and biogeochemical implications of regional differences in silicification of marine diatoms

Diatoms facilitate the export of organic carbon and associated nutrient elements in the ocean because their dense opaline silica shells provide ballast to sinking particles. Marine ecosystem models generally assume that cellular silicification is either constant or varies solely due to physiological responses. Using a cell‐specific technique, synchrotron‐based X‐ray fluorescence (SXRF) microscopy, we show that diatom cells in the cold, high‐silicic‐acid waters of the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean (SOAZ) had 6 times more Si per volume than did those inhabiting the warm, low‐silicic‐acid waters of eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP). Ratios of Si:P and Si:S differed less than this because cellular P and S concentrations were higher in SOAZ cells. Resulting differences in excess density and frustule surface area‐to‐volume ratios should result in more efficient removal and slower dissolution of biogenic silica in the SOAZ compared to the EEP. Moreover, the difference between the excess densities of diatoms and nondiatoms was 15‐fold greater in the SOAZ than in the EEP. Several possible causes of the regional differences in silicification are evaluated. Differences in cell volume between regions and additions of silicic acid and iron had minor effects on silicification. Instead, cellular silicification varied substantially among diatom morphological types within each region, suggesting that community composition largely determined the community silicification in these regions. We suggest that ecological processes may cause much larger systematic regional and temporal differences in cellular stoichiometry than is currently accommodated by ecosystem models.
Does the Number of Stimuli Influence the Formation of the Endogenous Components of the Event-Related Auditory Evoked Potentials?

Abstract Introduction The number of stimuli is important to determine the quality of auditory evoked potential records. However, there is no consensus on that number in studies, especially in the sample studied. Objectives To investigate the influence of the number of rare stimuli on forming N2 and P3 components, with different types of acoustic stimuli. Methods Cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative study, approved by the ethics committee of the institution. The sample comprised 20 normal hearing adults of both sexes, aged 18 to 29 years old, with normal scores in the mental state examination and auditory processing skills. The event-related auditory evoked potentials were performed with nonverbal (1 kHz versus 2 kHz) and verbal stimuli (/BA/ versus /DA/). The number of rare stimuli varied randomly in the recordings, with 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 presentations. Results P3 latency was significantly higher for nonverbal stimuli with 50 rare stimuli. N2 latency did not show any difference between the type and number of stimuli. The absolute P3 and N2-P3 amplitudes showed significant differences for both types of stimuli, with higher amplitude for 10 rare stimuli, in contrast with the other ones. The linear tendency test indicated significance only for the amplitude – as the number of rare stimuli increased, the amplitude tended to decrease. Conclusion The components were identifiable in the different numbers of rare stimuli and types of stimuli. The P3 and N2-P3 latency and amplitude increased with fewer verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Recording protocols must consider the number of rare stimuli.
Species Distribution Modeling Reveals Insights into the Occurrence of a Locally Rare Snake at the Periphery of its Geographic Range

Abstract: Habitat management and species conservation plans are increasingly important as biodiversity losses increase. For many species, we lack the necessary data to implement habitat management or conservation plans because the species may be rare or difficult to detect, particularly at the periphery of geographic ranges. This may be especially true for snakes. For example, Pygmy Rattlesnakes (Sistrurus miliarius) have state-level protection at the northern terminus of the range but what little is known about the species in this region is derived from just 30 observations collected over the past 40 yr. This leaves considerable uncertainty regarding conservation status and establishes a need to better understand habitat suitability and their geographic distribution. Therefore, the objectives of our study were to determine landscape-scale environmental variables that influence patterns of distribution for S. miliarius in the northern extent of its range via the Maxent Species Distribution Algorithm coupled with on-site monitoring via standardized road-cruising transects (n = 43) to evaluate model suitability. The resulting species distribution model showed that suitable habitat (∼2045.96 km2) was composed primarily of riparian areas that exist in isolated patches. These habitats were primarily composed of sandy soils and low-elevation forested areas. Our on-site monitoring, informed by our modeling efforts, resulted in 12 new records for the species (an increase of 28.57%). Collectively, our species distribution model suggests that suitable habitat for S. miliarius within our study area is restricted to riverine or riparian habitats associated with the Lower Tennessee River Valley. The methods used in this study employ a strategy to better understand suitable habitat for rare or secretive species that occur across large geographic areas.
Phosphorus Sorption Dynamics in Soils and Coupling with Surface and Pore Water in Riverine Wetlands

Adsorption to soils is one of the dominant mechanisms of P storage in wetlands. We examined P sorption dynamics in soils collected at 12 sample points with diverse hydrology, geomorphic position, mineralogy, and plant communities in two riverine wetlands in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Phosphorus sorption parameters from these 12 sample points were correlated with corresponding biogeochemical variables and subsequently extrapolated across 157 sampling points in the two wetlands, based upon a large spatial dataset. We then used a series of single and stepwise regressions to determine the best set of predictive variables for surface water, soil, and plant P pools. Intrasite variation in P sorption dynamics was greater than intersite variation between the two wetlands and rivaled the variation found in the literature for both upland and wetland soils. An essentially constant final P concentration occurred at moderate P additions (≤32 μmol P L -1 ), indicating extreme soil buffering capacity of porewater P concentrations. Spatial variation in soil P pools across each wetland were predicted very well in stepwise regressions, particularly in the summer (R 2 = 0.49-1.00). Variables that were important in explaining this variation included the amount of P sorbed at equilibrium, maximum P sorption capacity, percentage of P sorption sites occupied at equilibrium, organic matter content, bulk density, and oxalate-extractable Fe and Al content. Phosphorus concentrations in surface water were predicted less well by stepwise regression (R 2 = 0.04-0.46), suggesting only weak-to-moderate spatial coupling between soils and surface-water P dynamics. Plant P pools were predicted poorly. Our results indicate the importance of geochemical sorption in controlling P dynamics in riverine soils. We suggest that nutrient studies in spatially diverse wetlands must be designed in a manner that adequately captures the rich spatial dynamics of the system.
Comparative Study of Facial Index of Rajput Community of Bikaner District of Rajasthan and other communities and races

The facial index is length of the face from root of nose to the bottom of the chin, expressed as a percentage of the greatest breadth across the cheek bones. Racial differences are much more marked in relation to face than elsewhere, so it is very useful anthropologically. For this 100 males from Rajput community between the age group of eighteen to thirty-five years were taken and their facial index was calculated. The result indicated that average facial index in Rajput individuals was 92.91 Mostly they were hyperleptoprosopic and Leptoprosopic The average facial index of Rajput individuals was not comparable to any other Indian groups studied so far. But it was very close to North European.
Jank Accounts: We Should Study `Broken' Games

We argue that HCI games research can benefit by understanding experiences of "jank". Jank is a gaming vernacular term for game-elements that are somehow “off”: sloppy, glitchy, or clumsy. Examples include frustrating control schemes, primitive visuals, absurd physics errors, and NPCs with wooden, alienating behaviour. Importantly, ‘jank’ is no straightforward term of abuse: players use the term appreciatively, even with affection. Attention to the “paradox” of jank-appreciation can help us understand the limits of usability in understanding player experience. It can clarify conditions which foster reflection and appreciation of adversity, and shed light on games as aesthetic experiences.
Game with Breathing Control System for Learning Circular Breathing

We demonstrate a game with a breathing control system designed to teach circular breathing, an advanced technique used by wind instrument players. Circular breathing allows players to produce continuous sound beyond the duration of a single breath by exhaling through the mouth while simultaneously inhaling through the nose. However, mastering this technique traditionally requires repetitive and often monotonous practice. To address this, we present a novel approach to skill acquisition that leverages gameplay with our breath control system, Fulow. Fulow uniquely controls the user’s exhalation involuntarily through facial vibrations, eliminating the need for users to consciously control their exhalation. This innovative feature allows users to effortlessly perform circular breathing. Interaction with Fulow through our designed breathing games is expected to facilitate easy and enjoyable learning of circular breathing, demonstrating the potential of human augmentation technologies as novel game controllers for skill acquisition through gameplay.
Toward a Better Understanding of Randomized Greedy Matching

There has been a long history of studying randomized greedy matching algorithms since the work by Dyer and Frieze [9]. We follow this trend and consider the problem formulated in the oblivious setting, in which the vertex set of a graph is known to the algorithm but not the edge set. The algorithm can make queries for the existence of the edge between any pair of vertices but must include the edge into the matching if it exists, i.e., as in the query-commit model by Gamlath et al. [12]. We revisit the Modified Randomized Greedy (MRG) algorithm by Aronson et al. [1] that is proved to achieve a (0.5+ε)-approximation. In each step of the algorithm, an unmatched vertex is chosen uniformly at random and matched to a randomly chosen neighbor (if exists). We study a weaker version of the algorithm named Random Decision Order (RDO) that, in each step, randomly picks an unmatched vertex and matches it to an arbitrary neighbor (if exists). We prove that the RDO algorithm provides a 0.639-approximation for bipartite graphs and 0.531-approximation for general graphs. As a corollary, we substantially improve the approximation ratio of MRG. Furthermore, we generalize the RDO algorithm to the edge-weighted case and prove that it achieves a 0.501-approximation ratio. This result solves the open question by Chan et al. [4] and Gamlath et al. [12] about the existence of an algorithm that beats greedy in edge-weighted general graphs, where the greedy algorithm probes the edges in descending order of edge-weights. We also present a variant of the algorithm that achieves a (1-1/e)-approximation for edge-weighted bipartite graphs, which generalizes the (1-1/e)-approximation ratio of Gamlath et al. [12] for the stochastic setting to the case when the realizations of edges are arbitrarily correlated, where in the stochastic setting, there is a known probability associated with each pair of vertices that indicates the probability that an edge exists between the two vertices, when the pair is probed.
Methane as a source of carbon and energy for chironomid larvae

In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that the microbial loop and microbial production play an important role in many aquatic ecosystems. Microorganisms decompose and thereby recycle organic material in the water column and the sediment, which would otherwise be lost from the food web. Decomposition of organic matter takes place in aerobic and anaerobic sediments of lakes and wetlands, with anaerobic regions representing the sites for methane production. It is estimated that methane oxidising bacteria (MOB, methanotrophs) consume more than 90% of the methane available. Thus, MOB represent a significant pathway for the recycling of methane carbon back into aquatic food webs. Possible sites of trophic transfer are the oxic-anoxic boundary layers in the sediment or the water-sediment interfaces. The results presented in this thesis looked at this specific habitat in lakes. I particularly focused on interactions between sediment-dwelling chironomid larvae and the methane carbon cycle. For the first time I showed experimentally that chironomid larvae can feed directly on MOB biomass and thus include high amounts of methane-derived carbon into their diet. This thesis also emphasises that the contribution of methane carbon to larval diet can vary during the year and is strongly influenced by lake characteristics, specifically by depth. Moreover I applied a multiple stable isotope approach to unravel complexities in benthic food webs. The results of this thesis show that methane is not only an important carbon and energy source for aquatic benthic macroinvertebrates but could also substantially fuel terrestrial and riparian food webs.
Behind the Screens: An Exploratory Study on Gamer Types and Identities in Game Jams

Game jams are events where development teams collaborate to create games in days or weeks, sharing common themes and limitations. However, it is unclear how participants in game jams fit into the larger gaming culture regarding their motivations and identities as gamers. Our paper surveys two game jam populations to determine their player motivation profiles using the Hexad-12 questionnaire, roles in the development teams at a game jam, their correspondence to the gamer and LGBTQ+ identity, and their play-time per week. The results show that the population in our samples does not differ significantly from the one reported in the original Hexad study. We found correlations between the Hexad player types and the development roles at a game jam. People interested in Game/Level Design and people reporting having fun as a reason for attending the game jam were more likely to be Achiever types, people interested in Art were more likely, while those interested in Programming were less likely to be Disruptor types, and the more participants identified as a gamer, the more likely they were Player types, and/or preferred the Game/Level Design role. Furthermore, we found that both samples identified to some extent with the term gamer. Additionally, the more participants leaned towards identifying as a gamer, the more likely they were Players and/or preferred the Game/Level Design hat.
Older People’s Contribution to Development Through Carework: The Role of Childcare by Grandparents in Migration and Development

This article applies a generational lens to understanding the role of older people in development, focusing primarily on older parents who stay in areas of origin while their adult children emigrate. An emerging body of literature from around the world demonstrates that older parents frequently provide childcare for their migrant family members, mainly in the country of origin, and sometimes through migrating themselves. This article goes further. It makes the conceptual argument that this carework should be regarded as development work. Drawing on research into Albanian families, located in Albania and Greece, the article asks how does carework by older people contribute to development and what are the relations of power around this? The analysis shows that grandparents provide significant support particularly for childcare but also for social reproduction and critically for building and maintaining productive assets and safety nets for migrants in their home country. In short, grandparent carers are the lynchpins in complex intergenerational strategies of migration and livelihood development. The analysis contributes to the literature on migration and development by bringing older people from the margins to the centre of these debates. Older people’s childcare, together with other productive and reproductive activities that they undertake for migrant children in countries of origin, is central to invisibilized ‘economies of care’ that underpin migration’s contribution to development. Moreover, this carework by older people contributes to development in home and host countries, thus bridging the Global South–Global North divide. Finally, older people’s carework is gendered, with older women doing the vast majority. Taken together, these insights disrupt two dominant (economistic and Eurocentric) narratives that: (a) development in migration contexts only happens in the Global South and (b) the most significant drivers of this development are migrants’ social and financial remittances from the Global North.
Long term trends in fertility of soils under continuous cultivation and cereal cropping in southern Queensland .VI. Loss of total nitrogen from different particle size and density fractions

The dynamics of total N in particle-size and density fractions of six major soils which have been used for cereal cropping for 20-70 years were studied in order to identify the labile organic matter fractions in soil. For virgin soils, no single particle-size was consistently enriched in N as compared with the whole soil. The clay fraction contained the largest proportion (53% overall) of total N. Silt-size and sand-size N fractions accounted for 26% and 21% of total N, respectively. Upon cultivation, the sand-size fraction lost most of its N (as much as 89% in Langlands-Logie soil). However, N losses also occurred from silt-size and clay-size fractions in most soils. Changes in C : N ratios of different particle-size fractions upon cultivation were not consistent in all soils, possibly because of the transfer of organic C and N among these fractions. Therefore, the separation of labile organic matter fractions from the whole soil based upon particle-size may not be successful in all soils. On the other hand, the density fractionation of soil into a light fraction ( 2 Mg m-3) containing less labile organic matter appears to be more successful in most soils. It is suggested that the cultural practices that enhance the amount of light fraction would increase the rate of nutrient cycling through microbial biomass and may increase the overall availability of nutrients in soil.
Detectability of Singularly Perturbed Systems

Detectability of Singularly Perturbed Systems A form of detectability, known as the input-output-to-state stability property, for singularly perturbed systems is examined in this work. This work extends the result of Christofides & Teel [5] wherein they presented a notion of total stability for input-to-state stability with respect to singular perturbations. Analyzing singularly perturbed systems with outputs we show that if the boundary layer system is uniformly globally asymptotically stable and the reduced system is input-output-to-state stable with respect to disturbances, then these properties continue to hold, up to an arbitrarily small offset, for initial conditions in an arbitrarily large compact set and sufficiently small singular perturbation parameter over the time interval for which disturbances, their derivatives, and outputs remain in an arbitrarily large compact set. An application of the result is presented where we analyze the stability of a circuit with a nonlinear element through the measurement of only one of the variables of interest.
Adubação nitrogenada em cultivares de arroz de terras altas

This work was developed during the agricultural years 2003/04 and 2004/05, in the experimental area of the Sao Paulo State University (Unesp - FCAV), in Jaboticabal (SP). The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of different N rates in side dressing (0, 30, 60, 90 and 120 kg ha-1) on agronomic characteristics of different cultivars of upland rice (Caiapo, Primavera, Confianca, IAC 202 and Carisma), with sprinkler-irrigation. The cultivars Caiapo, IAC 202 and Carisma showed the highest yields, while Primavera did not respond to the increase in nitrogen fertilization; IAC 202 and Carisma had the highest harvest rates and were responsive to side-dressed nitrogen application and can be indicated for more advanced production systems; cultivatr Caiapo was shown to be more efficient in absorbing and using the N in the soil and can be indicated for production systems with lower technology input.