Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FIRE FREQUENCY AND THE SPATIAL AGE MOSAIC OF THE MIXED‐WOOD BOREAL FOREST IN WESTERN CANADA

One approach to ecosystem management is to emulate the effects of natural disturbance in producing landscape patterns; this approach requires a spatial analysis of the pattern and an understanding of the processes producing the pattern. Forested landscapes exhibit mosaic patterns of both stand types and ages. This study investigates the spatial mosaic of stand ages produced by high-intensity stand-replacing fires in the mixed-wood boreal forest of western Canada. A high-resolution, accurately dated, time-since-fire map for a large (3461 km2) contiguous area is used to produce the landscape survivorship distribution in which both spatial and temporal changes in fire cycle are statistically tested. Spatial multivariate analysis of the time-since-fire map is also used to investigate the spatial assembly of the age mosaic. Significant changes in fire cycle can be explained by climatic change as well as land use change in the surrounding area. The shift from a short (15 yr) fire cycle to a longer (75 yr) cycle after 1890 in the northern half of the study area coincides with climatic change at the end of the Little Ice Age. In the southern half of the study area, the short fire cycle continues after 1890 due to the spread of human-caused fires from the adjacent area which was settled and cleared for agriculture during the first half of the 20th century. Upon completion of settlement in 1945, the fire cycle becomes significantly longer due to the fragmentation of the once continuous forest that surrounded the study area and from which the majority of large fires propagated in the past. The different fire cycle histories of the two parts of the study area also explain the spatial mosaic pattern of stand ages, sizes, and shapes. The extended period of the short fire cycle through the first half of this century in the southern region results in it being dominated by younger, larger, oblong-shaped polygons with irregular edges: characteristics that describe the shapes of large burns. The northern region has generally older and smaller, more circular, compact polygons that are the remnants of larger much earlier burns that have since been overburned. The polygons in the northern region are more similar in size and shape but less similar in age to adjacent polygons than are those in the southern region. Thus, this study shows how spatial heterogeneity in the landscape mosaic pattern can be characterized and related to the disturbance history of an area. Furthermore, it provides evidence of the impacts on the age mosaic due to forest fragmentation in surrounding areas.
First report ofLaimaphelenchus heidelbergi(Nematoda: Aphelenchoididae) in Europe

Summary A survey of nematodes associated with branches of cork oak, Quercus suber, a species in decline since the second half of the 20th century, was conducted on two farms located in Alentejo, Portugal. Using specific morphological characters, some nematodes were identified as belonging to the genus Laimaphelenchus and one of the isolates being identified as L. heidelbergi. This research aimed to characterize the Portuguese L. heidelbergi isolate using morphobiometrical and molecular analyses and to analyze its phylogenetic relationship to other Laimaphelenchus spp. Morphometric and morphological characteristics of L. heidelbergi females and males were similar to the original description. For molecular analyses, the mitochondrial DNA region from the cytochrome oxidase subunit I and the D2/D3 expansion segments of the large subunit of rDNA were amplified and sequenced. In phylogenetic analyses, sequences of the Portuguese L. heidelbergi isolate clustered with sequences from the Australian isolate. Laimaphelenchus heidelbergi was originally described from wood of Pinus radiata growing in Australia and is here reported for the first time in Europe and Portugal. Cork oak is a new host record for L. heidelbergi.
Effects of stocking density on blood chemistry and amino enzymatic activity of juvenile Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758) in hyperosmotic rearing condition

Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, a euryhaline species, is a good candidate for culture in estuarine areas in the Philippine archipelago. Thus, the effects of stocking density on plasma cortisol, blood glucose, plasma aspartate transaminase (AST), and plasma alanine transaminase (ALT) were determined. The group of juvenile Nile tilapia O. niloticus (14.67 ± 0.12 cm TL and 44.57 ± 0.48 g W) was subjected to three different stocking densities (6, 12 & 24/60 L) for 14 days in 15‰ rearing condition. The experiment was composed of three treatments with triplicated groups arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD). Highest stocking density affected the plasma cortisol, blood glucose, plasma AST and ALT of Nile tilapia by increasing its concentration level in the blood. These manifestations suggest that overcrowding in Nile tilapia affects the physiological function through hormonal secretion, glucose utilization, and protein catabolism of the species.
The Late Holocene Vegetational History of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Israel

L'etude palynologique d'une carotte de 5 metres effectuee dans le lac de Tiberiade (Israel) montre, au cours de ces 5 300 dernieres annees, des modifications dans la vegetation. Celles-ci paraissent etre liees a l'activite humaine. La foret naturelle, intacte, semble-t-il, jusqu'a la fin du 3e millenaire, aurait souffert pendant les 3e et 2e millenaires; a la periode suivante, la region est couverte de plantations d'oliviers; vers 550 apres J.C. la foret se regenere mais les essences qui la peuplent paraissent refleter certaines activites anthropiques. Au cours des 250 dernieres annees, de nombreux defrichements entrainent a nouveau une contraction de la foret qu'essaie de contrecarrer l'effort de reboisement entrepris ces dernieres annees. L'interpretation du diagramme pollinique est confrontee aux evidences archeologique et historique.
TR Optimization in High-Performance Drilling Machine for Various Control Actions & Algorithm

Drilling industry has moved into a paradigm shift with the controlled Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) tuning, which provides optimum outcomes in recent decades. Interestingly the outcomes of several aspects of these PIDs are quite important for the industry sector. Many of the large industry or construction firms’ project that was seemed impossible at one point of time is now feasible. A significant amount of research has been commenced for tuning of PID controllers from the last six decades. Many tuning methods have also been proposed. Most of the tuning methods are model-based like Ziegler Nichols (ZN) method. It provides initial tuning of PID, which offer consistent result, but there is always suggested to fine-tune the PID controller further for the particular process to get optimum results. This paper represents a comparison for the several control schemes such as PID controller, PI with PD in feedback, PID with PD in feedback, PID-D and PID-PD controller and lead compensator. This relative study based upon rise time, settling time and peak-overshoot. The block diagrams were simulated in MATLAB, and their results are compared.
Epidemiological Observations on the Association Between Anosmia and COVID-19 Infection: Analysis of Data From a Self-Assessment Web Application

Background We developed a self-assessment and participatory surveillance web application for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was launched in France in March 2020. Objective Our objective was to determine if self-reported symptoms could help monitor the dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak in France. Methods Users were asked questions about underlying conditions, sociodemographic status, zip code, and COVID-19 symptoms. Depending on the symptoms reported and the presence of coexisting disorders, users were told to either stay at home, contact a general practitioner (GP), or call an emergency phone number. Data regarding COVID-19–related hospitalizations were retrieved from the Ministry of Health. Results As of March 29, 2020, the application was opened 4,126,789 times; 3,799,535 electronic questionnaires were filled out; and 2,477,174 users had at least one symptom. In total, 34.8% (n=1,322,361) reported no symptoms. The remaining users were directed to self-monitoring (n=858,878, 22.6%), GP visit or teleconsultation (n=1,033,922, 27.2%), or an emergency phone call (n=584,374, 15.4%). Emergency warning signs were reported by 39.1% of participants with anosmia, a loss of the sense of smell (n=127,586) versus 22.7% of participants without anosmia (n=1,597,289). Anosmia and fever and/or cough were correlated with hospitalizations for COVID-19 (Spearman correlation coefficients=0.87 and 0.82, respectively; P<.001 for both). Conclusions This study suggests that anosmia may be strongly associated with COVID-19 and its severity. Despite a lack of medical assessment and virological confirmation, self-checking application data could be a relevant tool to monitor outbreak trends. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04331171; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04331171
Consequences of the reduction of plant diversity for litter decomposition: effects through litter quality and microenvironment

Decomposition of plant litter is a key process for the flow of energy and nutrients in ecosystems that may be sensitive to the loss of biodiversity. Two hypothetical mechanisms by which changes in plant diversity could affect litter decomposition are (1) through changes in litter species composition, and (2) by altering the decomposition microenvironment. We tested these ideas in relation to the short-term decomposition of herbaceous plant litter in experimental plant assemblages that differed in the numbers and types of plant species and functional groups that they contained to simulate loss of plant diversity. We used different litterbag experiments to separate the two potential pathways through which diversity could have an effect on decomposition. Our two litterbag trials showed that altering plant diversity affected litter breakdown differently through changes in decomposition microenvironment than through changes in litter composition. In the decomposition microenvironment experiment there was a significant but weak decline in decomposition rate in relation to decreasing plant diversity but no significant effect of plant composition. The litter composition experiment showed no effect of richness but significant effects of composition, including large differences between plant species and functional groups in litter chemistry and decomposition rate. However, for a nested subset of our litter mixtures decomposition was not accurately predicted from single-species bags; there were positive, non-additive effects of litter mixing which enhanced decomposition. We critically assess the strengths and limitations of our short-term litterbag trials in predicting the longer-term effects of changes in plant diversity on litter decomposition rates.
COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF NOISE SOURCES IN TWO RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBOURHOODS IN BENIN CITY, NIGERIA

The study assessed sources of noise between two residential neighbourhood in Benin City, Nigeria using a cross-section survey. Mann-Whitney Test was employed to identify relative differences in noise sources between the locations. Results showed that prominent sources of noise across the two locations were those from generator and market activities, however with varying magnitude. However, the test results revealed statistically significant difference in noise sources from generator, market activities, vehicular across the two locations considered. Relevant measures for noise control actions necessary to mitigate noise pollution were identified.
Genetic variation in Heterobasidion abietinum populations detected with the M13 minisatellite marker

Summary Amplification profiles of the M13 minisatellite core sequence from 47 isolates of Heterobasidion annosum s.l. , collected mostly from Abies alba in different European countries, were analysed in comparison with profiles of four isolates of H. annosum s.s. and three isolates of H. parviporum. Genetic variation within and among groups of populations was studied by analysis of molecular variance. A dendrogram constructed with the Neighbor-Joining method differentiated the three species from each other. Isolates of H. abietinum from Balkan peninsula, Italian peninsula and French Pyrenees each separated into clusters according to geographical origin. Such clear geographic clustering was not detected among isolates from central Europe. The variations between H. abietinum isolates in relation to the migration history of Abies are discussed.
GaitPart: Temporal Part-Based Model for Gait Recognition

Gait recognition, applied to identify individual walking patterns in a long-distance, is one of the most promising video-based biometric technologies. At present, most gait recognition methods take the whole human body as a unit to establish the spatio-temporal representations. However, we have observed that different parts of human body possess evidently various visual appearances and movement patterns during walking. In the latest literature, employing partial features for human body description has been verified being beneficial to individual recognition. Taken above insights together, we assume that each part of human body needs its own spatio-temporal expression. Then, we propose a novel part-based model GaitPart and get two aspects effect of boosting the performance: On the one hand, Focal Convolution Layer, a new applying of convolution, is presented to enhance the fine-grained learning of the part-level spatial features. On the other hand, the Micro-motion Capture Module (MCM) is proposed and there are several parallel MCMs in the GaitPart corresponding to the pre-defined parts of the human body, respectively. It is worth mentioning that the MCM is a novel way of temporal modeling for gait task, which focuses on the short-range temporal features rather than the redundant long-range features for cycle gait. Experiments on two of the most popular public datasets, CASIA-B and OU-MVLP, richly exemplified that our method meets a new state-of-the-art on multiple standard benchmarks. The source code will be available on https://github.com/ChaoFan96/GaitPart.
Do norms and procedures speak louder than outcomes?

Economists have recently produced theories and evidence concerning the role of social preferences in various circumstances of economic behaviour. This has meant that in addition to selfish preferences for one’s own material payoffs, economists have become increasingly interested also in investigating one’s preferences for material and nonmaterial payoffs of the opposing side, or the parties involved, in general. A recent branch in this research is built on the contractarian aspect of behaviour: are we willing to follow the rules we have collectively agreed upon? A case in point is the work by Sacconi and Faillo (2005) which shows that a remarkable portion of the players in an exclusion game shifted from a selfish strategy towards an equal division of monetary payoffs after they jointly agreed upon the sharing rule (of an equal division) and had good reasons to expect that their opposing players also agreed upon the rule. This paper studies the Sacconi-Faillo model by taking into account the players’ process-regarding preferences in selecting the sharing rule. It also illustrates the measurement of procedural fairness with an analysis of empirical data gathered in a small-scale piloting experiment.
Effects of nitrogen nutrition on Sandersonia cut flower and tuber production in a soil‐less medium

Abstract The effects of five nitrogen (N) application rates—14.2, 28.4, 56.8, 113.6, and 227.2 g N/ m2 (equivalent to 37.5, 75, 150, 300, and 600 ppm of N as a daily liquid feed), on greenhouse cut flower production and outdoor tuber production in Sandersonia aurantiaca (Hook.) were compared in two experiments using a peat:pumice medium. Stem length and weight declined with increasing N rate. Tuber weight declined slightly along with tuber quality with increasing N rate. High N rates resulted in an increased incidence of tuber disorders including secondary tuber formation and tuber rots. Leaf N concentration increased with N rate to a maximum of 56.8 g N/m2, but tuber N continued to increase (from 0.68 to 2.01% dry weight) with increasing N rate. The effects of the N rates on tuber storage and subsequent cut flower production were assessed at two N rates (28.4 and 113.6 g N/m2) in a third experiment. Leaf nutrient concentrations were not affected when tubers were forced at the two N rates in the third exp.
Human usage of mermaid's glove sponge (Isodictya palmata) on the Faroes

There is very little documentation on the economic importance of locally available marine sponges (Porifera) in north-western Europe. From Iceland and the Faroe Islands there are records of naming and using the so-called mermaid's glove sponge (Isodictya palmata) especially for cleaning purposes. As late as in the 1940s, school children in the Faroe Islands gathered this sponge and used it to clean the slate.
Traditions in monkeys

Traditions, defined as relatively long‐lasting behavioral practices shared among members of a group partly via social learning, were studied in monkeys, specifically Japanese macaques, before being studied in great apes. Although apes and humans may share some social learning capacities that are absent in monkeys, a complete understanding of the roots of human culture requires attention to the socioecological conditions favoring traditions, however generated, in animals generally and in multiple behavioral domains. Using the four criteria of intergroup variation, observation of the origin and spread of a novel behavior, dissemination patterned according to age or kinship, or individuals' close observation of others' performance of the behavior before engaging in it, over twenty‐five behaviors have been nominated as traditions in free‐ranging monkey populations. Tolerant gregariousness has been proposed to increase the likelihood of the emergence of traditions in any behavioral domain. Omnivory and extractive foraging should favor the emergence of foraging‐related traditions; strong cooperative relationships and flexible coalitionary structure should favor the emergence of social conventions that function to test social bonds. These conditions are taxonomically widespread. Thus, the current restriction of most reported free‐ranging monkey traditions to two taxa (Macaca fuscata and Cebus) is likely to reflect variation in primatologists' research goals, methods, and concepts rather than real interspecific variation in the propensity to generate traditions.
DNA sequence data and morphology define Cryphonectria species in Europe, China, and Japan

Cryphonectria includes important tree pathogens as well as species believed to be saprophytes. Recent phylogenetic studies have concentrated on North American and southern hemisphere Cryphonectria spp. , but little is known about Asian and European taxa. In this study we identify and differentiate among the species occurring in Europe, China, and Japan using morphological and phylogenetic comparisons among the Cryphonectria species. Phylogenetic comparisons were based on sequence data from the ribosomal ITS operon and two regions in the β-tubulin gene. Unknown Japanese and Chinese isolates showing different cultural features than those of Cryphonectria parasitica (Murrill) M.E. Barr from Japan and the USA, grouped with isolates of Cryphonectria nitschkei (G.H. Otth) M.E. Barr from Quercus spp. and Rhus javanica L. Isolates of Cryphonectria havanensis (Bruner) M.E. Barr from Quercus grosseserrata Blume, Castanopsis cuspidata Schottky, Pyrus sinensis Lindl. , and Eucalyptus globulus Labill. also grouped in th.
Multidimensional Shape Constraints

We propose new multi-input shape constraints across four intuitive categories: complements, diminishers, dominance, and unimodality constraints. We show these shape constraints can be checked and even enforced when training machine-learned models for linear models, generalized additive models, and the nonlinear function class of multi-layer lattice models. Real-world experiments illustrate how the different shape constraints can be used to increase explainability and improve regularization, especially for non-IID train-test distribution shift.
Comparative analysis of quality of life of HIV positive support group and non-support group members in a tertiary hospital in Anambra State, Nigeria

Quality of Life (QoL) refers to “individuals’ perceptions of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, standards, expectations and concerns. ” It is a ubiquitous term that has different philosophical, political and health related connotations. Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) distinctly focuses on the aspects of human experience and a person’s assessment of same that are amenable to health interventions. The HRQoL quantifies the degree to which a medical condition or a treatment intervention impacts an individual’s life in a valid and reproducible way. Recent advances in management of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and the increase in survival rate of ABSTRACT
AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INTERACTIVE ROLE OF INTEREST RATE SPREAD, INFLATION, FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE CORPORATE DEBT FINANCING: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN

This study aims to investigate the dynamic relationship among the corporate financial policy, macroeconomic and institutional factors through error correction model in Pakistan over the period from 1975 to 2013. We used the cointegration methodology to study the long run short run effect of selected macroeconomic factors on the corporate borrowing patterns. The direction of causality is studied by Granger causality test within the framework of VECM. We note that inflation, foreign direct investment, and economic growth are significant determinants of long-run corporate financial policy. Interest rate spread has a negative short-run impact on the corporate borrowing. There is a long run capital structure equilibrium and any deviation from the long-run path is corrected at the rate of 23% annually if other things remain same. We also found that there is a reciprocal causal relation between corporate financial policy and economic growth. Corporate financial policy induces the FDI in the short run. The empirical results indicate that the corporate financial policy shares a stochastic linear trend with a country's macroeconomic and financial conditions.
Prey location and prey choice by the freshwater leech Erpobdella octoculata using foraging kairomones

Summary 1. The freshwater leech, Erpobdella octoculata, is a generalist predator feeding on prey organisms such as Tubifex spp. , Chironomus spp. and Asellus aquaticus. Using different experimental designs, we studied the use of foraging kairomones by the leeches for prey location. 2. Leeches were attracted to living as well as to freshly killed larvae of Chironomus sp. , to Tubifex sp. , and to A. aquaticus offered in Petri dishes covered with gauze. The leeches also reacted to an extract of macerated Tubifex sp. presented in agar. 3. Using ion exchange chromatography, the presence of histidine and glutamic acid was demonstrated in water contaminated by living larvae of Chironomus sp. and Tubifex sp. Agar blocks containing a synthetic mixture of these compounds at concentrations above 5 mg mL−1 were attractive to the leeches. 4. Choice tests showed that leeches preferred chemical signals from Tubifex sp. over larvae of Chironomus sp. No difference was found between chemicals from Tubifex sp. and A. aquaticus, and A. aquaticus and larvae of Chironomus sp. 5. The results demonstrate that E. octoculata uses specific foraging kairomones in searching for prey and indicate that amino acids serve as foraging kairomones.