Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disturbance-generated niche-segregation in a structured metapopulation model

Question: Does limiting similarity apply for co-existence maintained by disturbance in a metapopulation? Methods: In contrast to patch occupancy modelling, we follow both local- and metapopulation-scale dynamics explicitly. The theory of structured metapopulations is used for this purpose. Adaptive dynamics is employed to study evolution. Key assumptions: Local catastrophes at a given rate. Fixed dispersal rate, trade-off between fecundity and local competitiveness. Results: Co-existence of a few (up to 5) but not more species is observed. They are distinctly different along the trade-off variable and partition the patch-age axis. A series of evolutionary branchings leads to an evolutionarily stable coalition. Conclusions: The usual niche theoretical picture of decreased competition with increased differentiation applies. The patch age is the proper niche axis. Niche differentiation along this axis is the requirement of co-existence. Constraints of co-existence are overlooked in patch occupancy models.
Transition metal oxide nanoparticles as surfaces for surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry of asphaltenes

ABSTRACT We report the first use of NiO, Fe3O4, TiO2, and Co3O4 nanoparticles as surfaces for surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization (SALDI) mass spectrometry of asphaltenes. Higher signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns) for asphaltene species were observed using NiO and Fe3O4 nanoparticles for SALDI as compared to LDI, where both surfaces consistently provided 2- to 3-fold improved S/Ns. The new SALDI detection method showed reliable adsorption data measuring supernatant solutions after 24 hour asphaltene adsorption on NiO, Fe3O4, and Co3O4. These results indicated that NiO has a higher adsorption affinity than Fe3O4 and Co3O4 for asphaltene molecules, corroborating reported asphaltene adsorption on metal oxide nanoparticles.
Physiological response of soybean seeds to spray volumes of industrial chemical treatment and storage in different environments

Abstract: The increase in spray volumes in industrial seed treatments may increase the deterioration and reduce the physiological potential of seeds, especially when stored in unfavorable environments. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of spray volumes obtained by the combination of different chemical products, via industrial treatment, on the physiological potential of soybean seeds during storage in different environments. A completely randomized experimental design was used in a 5 × 3 factorial arrangement, with four replications. The factors were five spray volumes (0, 600, 1200, 1800 and 2400 mL.100 kg-1 of seeds), obtained from the combination of different products in commercial use, and three storage periods (0, 60 and 120 days), evaluated separately in two environments (storage without climate control and cold storage). The following variables were evaluated: germination, first germination count, seedling emergence in sand, emergence speed index, seedling length (total, shoot, and root) and dry matter (shoot and root). The physiological potential of soybean seeds is reduced by increasing the spray volume used in the industrial treatment and by prolonging the storage period. However, this effect is mitigated by the controlled conditions of cold storage.
Indirect clinical markers for the detection of anabolic steroid abuse beyond the conventional doping control in athletes

Abstract Growing analytical challenges have arisen for the detection of misuse of androgenic anabolic steroids (AAS) in athletes the last years. Therefore, consideration of additional indirect markers can substantially aid the efforts to detect AAS abuse in athletes. Moreover, this approach can also help physicians to suspect AAS abuse when treating athletes. Laboratory markers highly indicative of AAS abuse in athletes include the considerable downregulation of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, elevation of haematocrit or serum γ-glutamyl transpeptidase levels and for males reduced serum levels of both luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone. Moreover, physical signs suggestive of current AAS abuse are hypertension, apparent changes in behaviour making the athlete more irritable and aggressive and the sudden appearance of acne vulgaris in an adult athlete with no recent history of acne, while testicular atrophy and gynecomastia raise suspicion of current or past AAS abuse in male athletes.
Element tests on hydraulic-mechanical behavior of saturated/unsaturated landslide dam materials

Stability of landslide dam is of great concern worldwide. Geomaterials of a landslide dam, a natural dam, are usually at unsaturated state, which requires a saturated/unsaturated constitutive model to describe the hydro-mechanical behavior of the landslide dam materials (LDM). Study (Xiong et al., 2018) has been done on the failure mechanism under seepage loadings both in model tests and numerical simulations, while the element behavior of LDM is still unclear. In this paper, large-scale saturated triaxial compression tests under undrained condition, water retention test and unsaturated triaxial compression test under undrained/unvented condition were conducted on four kinds of LDM. Results of saturated large-scale triaxial tests show the shear stress ratio at critical state with a gap-graded mixture is the largest, which indicates the landslide dam made of this material is the most stable. Water retention curve (WRC) of LDM is obtained in water retention tests. Hysteresis of WRC varies with different grain size distributions. Unsaturated triaxial test results in four different LDM show that the strength of the materials increases with the increase of suction and mean net stress, and the same tendency in the change of the volumetric strain can be observed.
Modeling Music-Selection Behavior in Everyday Life: A Multilevel Statistical Learning Approach and Mediation Analysis of Experience Sampling Data

Music listening has become a highly individualized activity with smartphones and music streaming services providing listeners with absolute freedom to listen to any kind of music in any situation. Until now, little has been written about the processes underlying the selection of music in daily life. The present study aimed to disentangle some of the complex processes among the listener, situation, and functions of music listening involved in music selection. Utilizing the experience sampling method, data were collected from 119 participants using a smartphone application. For 10 consecutive days, participants received 14 prompts using stratified-random sampling throughout the day and reported on their music-listening behavior. Statistical learning procedures on multilevel regression models and multilevel structural equation modeling were used to determine the most important predictors and analyze mediation processes between person, situation, functions of listening, and music selection. Results revealed that the features of music selected in daily life were predominantly determined by situational characteristics, whereas consistent individual differences were of minor importance. Functions of music listening were found to act as a mediator between characteristics of the situation and music-selection behavior. We further observed several significant random effects, which indicated that individuals differed in how situational variables affected their music selection behavior. Our findings suggest a need to shift the focus of music-listening research from individual differences to situational influences, including potential person-situation interactions.
Service Quality Dimensions, Students’ Satisfaction and the Link Between Them: A Study of Student Information System at Jiangsu Province’ Universities China

The Chinese educational system's reputation is remarkable in the region. Graduates from universities in China have played a great role in the development of their countries. The increasing number of students is the most significant challenge facing the higher education sector in China. This study sought to examine the impact of students information system’s service quality on students satisfaction among universities in Jiangsu Province in China. Data for the study was obtained from 400 international students sampled across the region of Jiangsu province in China. Findings from this study shows that a rise of 0.485 in empathy will result in increased satisfaction of students in universities. Likewise, an while 0.174 tangibles increase will result in an increase directly in satisfaction of student in universities. Moreover, the satisfaction of students in universities in China will be influenced by Reliability when a 0.165 reliability increase will result in increased directly to satisfaction of student within universities. Keywords: Chinese education , service quality dimentions , student satisfaction . DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-9-04 Publication date: March 31 st 2020
Intellectual Capital: ISVA, the Alternative Way of Calculating Creating Value in Agricultural Entities—Case of Poland

In the knowledge-based economy, knowledge is regarded as a strategic resource that helps entities to become market leaders. This strategy has been successfully used for years by companies operating in various sectors of the economy. The exception, however, is agriculture, which has been seen for years as a sector with low knowledge intensity and is one that is skeptical about the possibility of using knowledge. This is important especially in that the use of it is, for many managers, still unconscious, and, therefore, this factor remains unused in practice. This paper describes the Intellectual Sources of Value Added (ISVA), an alternative method for analyzing the productivity of tangible and intangible inputs affecting the value-adding process in agricultural holdings. The reasons for developing the concept of that indicator were the imperfections found in the Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™), a widely adopted method authored by A. Pulić. However, the index of efficiency of intellectual capital (VAIC), recognized as suitable for research purposes, demonstrates certain methodological imperfections, including the simultaneous use of resource- and flow-based values. In addition to certain relevant reservations, the above has other consequences, including the declining trend followed by the efficiency of working capital calculated using this formula. In a situation where working capital is observed to grow, this would mean that funds are irrationally invested in assets with a decreasing capacity to add value. This results in drawing a false picture of economic realities of agricultural holdings which, by nature, demonstrate a high share of physical asset consumption in total production costs. As another consequence, the calculated value of the indicator becomes unacceptable in the long run. The use of the ISVA indicator allowed the author to obtain homogeneous results in terms of methodology and confirming the regularities observed in practice. In addition, the research confirmed not only the fact that agricultural enterprises have intellectual capital resources, but also the high efficiency of their use, exceeding the efficiency of use of traditional ones. It also indicates the desirability of continuing research using measures that will enable the monitoring of intellectual capital and their use in agricultural enterprises.
Reserve evaluation of a fault-conditioned aquifer: the Barreiras Aquifer in the coastal region of NE Brazil

Saturated thickness is a vital parameter in the assessment of hydrogeological reserves. By considering thickness variations associated with faults, the present study aimed to evaluate the water reserves of an unconfined aquifer. The study area was the Barreiras Aquifer in the lower course of the Maxaranguape River in Brazil. The methodology involved morphotectonic and lithostratigraphic analysis, well profile correla-tion, and hydrogeological and geoelectrical analysis (vertical electrical sounding, VES). The morphotectonic analysis employed topographical (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) and hydrographical data to support the structural characterization, considering the lack of outcrops with specific features in the area. The results of these assessments enabled the creation of a morphotectonic lineament map, highlighting the prevailing NE and NW directions. The hydrogeophysical cross sections obtained from geoelectrical inverse models and well data reveal saturated thickness values ranging from 19 to 66 m, featuring some lineaments as faults. The hydrogeological reserve was calculated based on 18 subareas associated with blocks resulting from structural compartmentalization. Based on an area of approximately 250 km 2 , the average saturated thickness for each subarea, and an average effective porosity of 7.6%, the saturated reserve is estimated to be 8.7 × 10 8 m 3 .
Linking science-based firms with performance factors

Science-based firms (SBFs) are venture or corporation based on the development and commercialization of scientific discoveries that are exposed to the unique challenge to handle together business and science. Despite extensive efforts in the attempt to identify those factors that lead to the success of an SBFs the adoption of different definitions and names resulted in a lack of comprehensive picture on the determinants of SBFs' performances. With the objective to review the extant literature on SBFsâ€™ performances and to understand what are the most appropriate parameters to evaluate an SBF, a systematic literature review adopting a comprehensive definition of SBFs was performed. The review, adopting an integrative approach, identified 30 papers published in top journals whose research questions deal with the determinants of SBFs' performances. Findings showed that determinants widely used such as net income within profitability measures, do not fully reflect SBFs performances and innovation abilities should be further investigated. Moreover, preconceived factors such as location and size have low or no impact on SBFs which opens the debate for more investigation. Also, the review identifies a comprehensive and multi-level set of determinants which allows delineating a number of research questions to be addressed in future research. Key Words:Science-Based Firms, Performances, Determinants, Systematic Literature Review
A Strategy for Classification of “Vaginal vs. Cesarean Section” Delivery: Bivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition of Cardiotocographic Recordings

We propose objective and robust measures for the purpose of classification of “vaginal vs. cesarean section” delivery by investigating temporal dynamics and complex interactions between fetal heart rate (FHR) and maternal uterine contraction (UC) recordings from cardiotocographic (CTG) traces. Multivariate extension of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) yields intrinsic scales embedded in UC-FHR recordings while also retaining inter-channel (UC-FHR) coupling at multiple scales. The mode alignment property of EMD results in the matched signal decomposition, in terms of frequency content, which paves the way for the selection of robust and objective time-frequency features for the problem at hand. Specifically, instantaneous amplitude and instantaneous frequency of multivariate intrinsic mode functions are utilized to construct a class of features which capture nonlinear and nonstationary interactions from UC-FHR recordings. The proposed features are fed to a variety of modern machine learning classifiers (decision tree, support vector machine, AdaBoost) to delineate vaginal and cesarean dynamics. We evaluate the performance of different classifiers on a real world dataset by investigating the following classifying measures: sensitivity, specificity, area under the ROC curve (AUC) and mean squared error (MSE). It is observed that under the application of all proposed 40 features AdaBoost classifier provides the best accuracy of 91.8% sensitivity, 95.5% specificity, 98% AUC, and 5% MSE. To conclude, the utilization of all proposed time-frequency features as input to machine learning classifiers can benefit clinical obstetric practitioners through a robust and automatic approach for the classification of fetus dynamics.
Time‐dependent model and life prediction for reinforcement corrosion in magnesium oxychloride cement concrete

An effective approach to make better use of the salt‐brine resistance of magnesium oxychloride cement concrete (MOCC) and reduce “magnesium damage” (the concentrate of magnesium resources) that destroys the ecological balance in salt lake areas is to apply MOCC widely. However, the first problem is the high chloride ion content in MOCC, which corrodes reinforcement easily. Concrete cover depth, the experimental environment, and surface treatment of rebar were considered factors study in reinforcement corrosion in MOCC. Based on the tests conducted, a time‐dependent model for reinforcement corrosion in MOCC was proposed, and its life time (initial corrosion and initial cracking time) was calculated and verified in tests. The results showed that proper coating could inhibit reinforcement corrosion and increase the service life of rebar significantly. Further, the salt lake environment had little influence on reinforcement corrosion in MOCC. For exposed rebar in MOCC, the larger the concrete cover depth, the more serious the reinforcement corrosion, while, for coated rebar, the converse was true. All cases of reinforcement corrosion in MOCC conformed to the logarithmic‐type time‐dependent model before concrete cracking. Accordingly, reinforcement corrosion in MOCC and the excess of magnesium resources are expected to be solved.
Phylogenetic and morphometric assessment of the evolution of the longirostrine crocodylomorphs

Study of the evolution of crocodile-line archosaurs (Pseudosuchia) has intensified recently. Along with this increased attention have come dramatic changes in our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of the group. Modern crocodylians are generally similar-looking with most of their morphological disparity expressed in their skulls. However, phylogenetic studies have demonstrated that skull shape is highly convergent, with similar skull forms arising in distantly related lineages. Yet, crocodylians and their relatives (crocodyliforms) have traditionally been divided into taxonomic and ecomorphological groups based on skull morphology. Many of the crocodyliform groups with the most controversial affinities also share the same skull shape (long, slender snouts). This issue was assessed from multiple angles including geometric morphometrics, detailed assessment of anatomy, and expanded phylogenetic analyses. Previously proposed skull shape categories were based largely on assessments of snout length and width but ignored important features in the rest of the skull. I applied two-dimensional geometric morphometrics including landmarks and sliding semilandmarks to characterize the skull shape of 131 extant and extinct crocodyliforms. Newly developed shape categories based on normal mixture analysis show a weak correlation to phylogeny corroborating hypotheses of convergent evolution. Different skull shapes are not evenly distributed through time and the results presented here indicate that crocodyliform disparity peaked in the Late Cretaceous followed by a dramatic decline in the Maastrichtian (preceding the end-Cretaceous extinction). The emptied region of morphospace, exemplified by a short and narrow snout, was never explored by crown-group crocodylians. Modern crocodylian disparity is much lower than in the Cretaceous, but is similar to Jurassic levels.
Incidence and outcomes of eclampsia: a single-center 30-year study

ABSTRACT Objective: We aimed to determine the incidence of eclampsia at Erciyes University Hospital which is a tertiary referral center situated at central Anatolia. Additionally, we investigated eclampsia-associated maternal and perinatal outcomes for the 30-year study period. Methods: A retrospective review was performed for all women who were diagnosed with eclampsia and admitted to the Erciyes University Medical School, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology from January 1985 to December 2015. Improvement in management gained over time was determined by comparing the results of the years 2005–2015 with data which were already published from years 1985–1999 and 2000–2004. Results: Eclampsia prevalence was 289/46,928 (% 0.61). Maternal age at the time of diagnosis did not differ statistically; however, gestational age at diagnosis and birth weight decreased significantly throughout the years (p < 0.005). The perinatal mortality rate showed a slight decrease throughout the years (p = 0.238). Maternal mortality rate also decreased throughout the years; it was 1.7% in 2005–2009 and 0 % in 2010–2015 (p = 0.246). Conclusion: The prevalence of eclampsia cases has decreased over the years. Maternal mortality attributed to eclampsia has also declined. The early diagnosis and treatment of eclampsia have resulted in the increase of premature deliveries. The perinatal mortality rate showed a slight decrease throughout the years (p = 0.238); however, it is not at a desirable rate compared to developed countries.
A comparison of obstetric outcomes in adolescent pregnancies and adult pregnancies

Abstract Introduction: Adolescent pregnancies are associated with adverse maternal and fetal outcomes including preeclampsia, preterm birth, and fetal growth restriction compared to adult pregnancies. The purpose of our study is to compare the incidents of obstetric outcomes between the adolescent pregnancies and adult pregnancies. Materials and methods: This retrospective case-control study was conducted between January 2013 and January 2018 at Kanuni Sultan Suleyman Research and Training Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey. The institutions’ medical records were screened for women with pregnancies after 24 weeks of gestation. Women under 19 years of age were included as the adolescent group and women between the ages of 20 and 29 were included as the control group. Obstetric outcomes were compared between the groups. Results: There were 3875 adolescent pregnancies in the case group and 3875 adult pregnancies in the control group. Even after adjusting for confounders in our adolescent pregnant cohort, the odds of intrauterine growth restriction, preterm birth and premature rupture of membranes were higher than in our adult pregnant cohort. On the other hand, we found low incidents of preeclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus in pregnant women younger than 19 years of age. Conclusions: Adolescent pregnancies should be closely followed up as they have higher preterm birth rates as well as the risk of intrauterine growth restriction.
The Power of Crossing SIBTEST

Crossing SIBTEST or CSIB is designed to detect crossing differential item functioning (DIF) as well as unidirectional DIF. A theoretical formula for the power of CSIB is derived based on the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic under the null and alternative hypotheses. The derived power formula provides insights on the factors that influence the CSIB power, including DIF effect size, standard error, and sample size. The power formula and those influencing factors are further discussed in the context of the item response theory (IRT) three parameter logistic model (3PL) model. Simulation results show the consistency between the theoretical power and the observed rejection rate. The power of CSIB is compared with the unidirectional SIBTEST in theory and through simulation.