Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accurate recognition of colorectal cancer with semi-supervised deep learning on pathological images

Machine-assisted pathological recognition has been focused on supervised learning (SL) that suffers from a significant annotation bottleneck. We propose a semi-supervised learning (SSL) method based on the mean teacher architecture using 13,111 whole slide images of colorectal cancer from 8803 subjects from 13 independent centers. SSL (~3150 labeled, ~40,950 unlabeled; ~6300 labeled, ~37,800 unlabeled patches) performs significantly better than the SL. No significant difference is found between SSL (~6300 labeled, ~37,800 unlabeled) and SL (~44,100 labeled) at patch-level diagnoses (area under the curve (AUC): 0.980 ± 0.014 vs. 0.987 ± 0.008, P value = 0.134) and patient-level diagnoses (AUC: 0.974 ± 0.013 vs. 0.980 ± 0.010, P value = 0.117), which is close to human pathologists (average AUC: 0.969). The evaluation on 15,000 lung and 294,912 lymph node images also confirm SSL can achieve similar performance as that of SL with massive annotations. SSL dramatically reduces the annotations, which has great potential to effectively build expert-level pathological artificial intelligence platforms in practice. Machine-assisted recognition of colorectal cancer has been mainly focused on supervised deep learning that suffers from a significant bottleneck of requiring massive amounts of labeled data. Here, the authors propose a semi-supervised model based on the mean teacher architecture that provides pathological predictions at both patch- and patient-levels.
Atlas55+: Brain Functional Atlas of Resting-State Networks for Late Adulthood

Currently, several human brain functional atlases are used to define the spatial constituents of the resting-state networks (RSNs). However, the only brain atlases available are derived from samples of young adults. As brain networks are continuously reconfigured throughout life, the lack of brain atlases derived from older populations may influence RSN results in late adulthood. To address this gap, the aim of the study was to construct a reliable brain atlas derived only from older participants. We leveraged resting-state functional MRI data from three cohorts of healthy older adults (total N=563; age=55-95years) and a younger-adult cohort (N=128; age=18-35 years). We identified the major RSNs and their subdivisions across all older-adult cohorts. We demonstrated high spatial reproducibility of these RSNs with an average spatial overlap of 67%. Importantly, the RSNs derived from the older-adult cohorts were spatially different from those derived from the younger-adult cohort (p=2.3×10−3). Lastly, we constructed a novel brain atlas, called Atlas55+, which includes the consensus of the major RSNs and their subdivisions across the older-adult cohorts. Thus, Atlas55+ provides a reliable age-appropriate template for RSNs in late adulthood and is publicly available. Our results confirm the need for age-appropriate functional atlases for studies investigating aging-related brain mechanisms.
Effect of Visual Field Location on Global Motion Perception: A Developmental Study

Previous work has shown that motion perception in school-age children is similar to that of adults for fast speeds but is immature at slow speeds for stimuli presented in the central visual field. This study examined whether visual field location affects this developmental pattern. We measured left/right and up/down global motion direction discrimination for fast and slow speeds in 7- to 10-year-old children and in adults with stimuli presented to upper, central, or lower visual fields. For left/right direction discrimination, children showed significantly higher (worse) coherence thresholds than adults for slow, but not fast, speeds in the central visual field. In the upper and lower visual fields, children showed significantly higher coherence thresholds than adults for both speeds. For up/down direction discrimination, children showed similar performance to adults for the central visual field. In the upper and lower visual fields, children performed significantly worse than adults; this finding was speed-tuned only for the lower visual field. Thus, children show immature global motion perception in the periphery even when performance in central vision is adult-like. These results enrich our understanding of motion perception development in children with typical vision.
Organizing for Effective New Product Development: The Moderating Role of Product Innovativeness

Marketing and sales personnel are frequently called on to work with—and sometimes to lead—specialists from other functional areas in the development of new products and services. Such cross-functional interactions can be structured and coordinated in a variety of ways, from bureaucratic approaches to more decentralized participatory mechanisms. Recently, cross-functional team structures have received a great deal of positive press. However, this paper questions whether teams are a universal panacea for shortening development times and improving success rates across all types of projects. It presents a contingency model based on resource dependency theory, which suggests that more participative structures are likely to improve the effectiveness and timeliness of the development process when the product being developed is truly new and innovative. However, the model also predicts that more bureaucratic structures may produce better outcomes on less innovative projects, such as those involving line extensions or product improvements. An empirical test involving 45 projects from 12 firms in widely varying industries substantially supports the model's predictions. The findings indicate that the better the fit between the newness of the product concept and the participativeness of the coordination mechanism used the better the outcomes of the development process in terms of (1) objective measures of product and team performance, (2) the attitudes of team members toward the process, and (3) the efficiency and timeliness of the new product development process.
From Fear to Loathing? How Emotion Influences the Evaluation and Early Use of Innovations

Innovation adoption is rarely a short process for consumers; accordingly, recent research has explored adoption as a dynamic process that is characterized by changing patterns, or diffusion, of consumer use of the innovation. This research suggests that adoption is rarely a neutral process and that consumers can experience strong emotions in the initial use of innovations. However, given such emotions, two opposing arguments can be made as to whether the inclusion of emotional responses increases the predictive power of traditional models of diffusion. On the one hand, experienced emotion may simply be a function of gained benefits and, as such, may already be captured in extant models through cognitive assessments of net benefits. On the other hand, and as data from two empirical and longitudinal studies demonstrate, the learning process is potentially emotion generating (independent of net benefits), and this emotion colors product evaluations. The emotional influence is sizable and, importantly, not a straightforward case of “easier is better. ” In this work, the authors present the E3 (expectation → emotion → evaluation) model, which describes how managers can better predict and influence the successful diffusion of complex technological products.
Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary System of Saudi Arabia: A Literature Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the prominent technological developments in the 21st century. It has gained application in diverse fields, including healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. Like other global countries, Saudi Arabia has accelerated its efforts to develop AI. This study aims to investigate AI techniques’ influence on the Saudi judiciary system and determine possible future developments. The study was a literature review of 10 different international and Saudi Arabia publications on Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary System using related titles, terms, and abstracts. The findings revealed that AI techniques are promising developments in the judiciary. Research evidence supports that augmenting human expertise with appropriate AI techniques like machine learning, text mining, NLP, and machine interpretation can improve efficiency, effectiveness, accuracy, transparency, and fairness in judicial processes. However, the studies focusing on AI applications in the Saudi judicial system are also limited. Despite the limited research, with inferences from the findings from studies in other contexts. AI is a promising development that can improve the Saudi judiciary system. Although these findings provide insight, they are inferential and not an accurate explanation of the influence of AI on the Saudi judicial system. Such gaps call for future studies to determine the influence of AI on the judicial system within the Saudi context.
Effects of Herbal Extracts Towards Microbicidal Activity Against Pathogenic Escherichia coli in Poultry

A total number of five plants were tested qualitatively to the presence of microbicidal activity by Kirby-Bour method in agar gel plates using poultry pathogenic E. coli as microbes. Among the five herbs used two herbs namely Piper betal and Cassia auriculata found to have microbicidal activity. The potency of microbicidal activity of that two herbs were tested quantitatively by the same method by using different dilutions and in different solvents, clinical experiments conducted in birds with infection and found that the plant Cassia auriculata have had more potent microbicidal activity when compare to Piper betel and screened for side effects, additional effects in birds.
Germinación de semillas de tomate (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cv ”˜Río Grande sembradas en bandejas plásticas, utilizando distintos sustratos

Se evaluo el efecto de sustratos sobre la germinacion de semillas de tomate cv Rio Grande. Las semillas se sembraron en bandejas plasticas con alveolos, utilizando seis sustratos, bajo un diseno experimental de parcelas divididas en el tiempo con seis repeticiones. La germinacion acumulada ocho dias despues de la siembra (DDS) fue: 97,83% en turba (TUR), 94,75; 87,08 y 93,92% en mezclas de compost y aserrin de coco en proporcion 2:1 (MCA21), 1:1 (MCA11), y 1:2 (MCA12) v/v, respectivamente, 95,42% en capa vegetal (CVG) y 57,16% en almacigo tradicional (AT). La tasa de germinacion en estos sustratos fue de 4,36; 5,25; 6,06; 5,84; 5,30 y 6,75, respectivamente. MCA21 y CVG presentaron porcentaje, tasa de germinacion y uniformidad en la germinacion similares a los obtenidos en TUR. Las plantulas producidas en TUR, MCA21 y CVG presentaron mayor crecimiento inicial 10 DDS, medido como longitud y diametro del tallo, numero de hojas verdaderas y peso seco. La mezcla de MCA21 es recomendable como sustituta de la turba.
Naturalization and biomass allocation of the invasive tree Melaleuca quinquenervia in wetlands of the Bahamas.

The myrtaceous tree Melaleuca quinquenervia (Cav.) Blake occurs naturally along Australia’s eastern coast and has been internationally disseminated for ornamental and agroforestry purposes. We describe the naturalization of M. quinquenervia in the Bahamas and compare stand characteristics to other populations in the exotic tree’s native and adventive ranges. Naturalized M. quinquenervia stands were assessed at single locations on Grand Bahama, New Providence and Andros Island. We conclude that M. quinquenervia is at an incipient stage of invasion at these locations, based on the small spatial distribution of stands and the relatively smaller size class distributions at each site. Densities of the M. quinquenervia stands varied dramatically among sites, ranging from 11,800 to 105,800 trees per ha and fell within the range of stands observed in other adventive ranges, including Florida (USA) where the tree is among the most insidious invaders of natural areas. M. quinquenervia trees in the Bahamas have greater biomass dedicated to reproductive structures than other adventive ranges. The number of capsular fruit produced per cm of infructescence is similar among adventive ranges but markedly greater in comparison to its native range of Australia. As a result of invasion, native plant diversity was negatively correlated with increases in M. quinquenervia densities. Consistent with many plant invasions, the most probable seed sources for these naturalized populations are 1
Testing zooplankton food limitation across gradients of depth and productivity in small stratified lakes

We examined the significance of vertical structure in lake plankton to grazer‐resource coupling by quantifying how the intensity and mechanism of grazer food limitation varies with depth. We used Daphnia growth assays and also sampled resources (chlorophyll, particulate carbon, and phosphorus) and the day/night depth distributions of Daphnia spp. during summer in four depth strata of lakes that differ in trophic state. The growth assays included treatments with natural seston and seston supplemented with phosphate or Synechococcus, an energy‐ and P‐rich cyanobacterium highly deficient in essential fatty acids and sterols. Results from growth assays and measurements of Daphnia P balance indicate strong energy limitation and weak and sporadic P limitation, despite seston C: P ratios in the upper depth strata above the predicted threshold for Daphnia P limitation. Growth improved with depth and was very high with resources collected from a deep layer of sulfur bacteria that was partially protected from grazing by low dissolved oxygen. Strong positive responses to Synechococcus supplements and high growth with resources from the sulfur bacteria layer are both contrary to limitation by essential lipids. The intensity of food limitation was independent of lake trophic state but was influenced by the quality of the deep‐water refuge. Across depths and lakes, food limitation was dependent on Daphnia density; strong food limitation was associated with high Daphnia biomass (>100 µg L−1) and Daphnia grazing >;20% per day.
Influence of cardamom essential oils and seeds on growth performance, blood characteristics and immunity of broilers

This study was conducted to investigate the impact of dietary supplementation of cardamom essential oils (CEO) and powdered cardamom seeds (PCS) on the growth performance, plasma biochemistry, haematological characters, immune response and meat acceptability in broilers. In total, 300 day-old male broilers (Ross 308) were allocated to five treatments with six replicates. Dietary treatments included the basal diet as control, CEO-supplemented diets with an inclusion level of 50 (CEO1) or 100 (CEO2) mg/kg, and PCS-supplemented diets with an inclusion level of 3 (PCS1) or 6 (PCS2) g/kg. Feeding PCS1 diet improved (P 0.05) by diet. By contrast, CEO1 and CEO2 diets decreased (P 0.05) among treatments for appearance, flavour, texture and overall acceptability. Our results suggest that the CEO2 diet was advantageous compared with control diet with respect to feed efficiency. Moreover, CEO1 had a positive effect on the blood cholesterol profile by decreasing the plasma cholesterol and LDL-C levels.
Distribution of Norway spruce bark and wood‐boring beetles along Alpine elevational gradients

Temperature is probably the most important driver of insect response to climate change and has many implications at both individual and population levels. The present study explored how elevation, as a proxy for temperature, affects the abundance and diversity of bark and wood‐boring beetles associated with Norway spruce (Picea abies) along its southern range. We selected three elevational gradients (approximately 900–1500 m) in spruce stands in the south‐eastern Alps, each consisting of four locations. From April to September 2011, four traps of different types were installed at each location: three baited with generic lures (α‐pinene and ethanol) and one baited with a pheromone specific for Ips typographus. In addition, three fresh spruce logs were exposed on the same locations. Species richness did not vary significantly with elevation, whereas the abundance of most individual species did. Generally, aggressive species responded positively to higher temperature, whereas most non‐aggressive species responded negatively. In a warming scenario, it is likely that spruce forests will face increasing damage from aggressive species. This will threaten the growth and survival of Norway spruce at low elevation, especially at southern latitudes.
When Should the Customer Really be King? On the Optimum Level of Salesperson Customer Orientation in Sales Encounters

In today's age of relational selling, a key challenge for salespeople is to determine the degree to which their customer-oriented behaviors drive sales performance. Therefore, this study analyzes whether a salesperson's customer orientation in sales encounters has an optimum level with regard to sales performance and customer attitudes. Using triadic data from a cross-industry survey of 56 sales managers, 195 sales representatives, and 538 customers, the authors provide strong empirical support for a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped effect of a salesperson's customer orientation on sales performance, whereas the effect of customer orientation on customer attitudes is continuously positive. Moreover, the findings reveal that the optimum level of customer orientation with regard to sales performance is higher for salespeople selling individualized products, in firms pursuing a premium price strategy, and in markets with a high degree of competitive intensity.
Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence

Evidence from past research and insights from an exploratory investigation are combined in a conceptual model that defines and relates price, perceived quality, and perceived value. Propositions about the concepts and their relationships are presented, then supported with evidence from the literature. Discussion centers on directions for research and implications for managing price, quality, and value.
Effects of various densities of Ophiostoma ips inoculations on Pinus sylvestris in north-western Spain

Summary The aim was to determine the inoculation density above which Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is overcome by the blue-stain fungus Ophiostoma ips (Rimb.) Nannf. that is associated with the bark beetle Ips sexdentatus Boern. In north-western Spain, stems of 16 Scots pines were inoculated at various densities (0, 400, 800 or 1600 inoculi/m 2 ) along circumferential 100 or 150 cm wide inoculation belts. Each inoculum consisted of a 5 mm diameter cylinder of malt extract agar colonized by the fungus. Three months later, all trees were harvested and trunk resinosis and foliage colour were visually assessed. The percentage of healthy, desiccated, resin soaked, and blue-stained sapwood, as well as growth productivity indices, were calculated from stem disks cut from within the inoculated zone of each tree. Sapwood-specific hydraulic conductivity (Ks) of each tree was measured in the middle of the inoculated zone. All parameters of tree vigour changed dramatically to the worse when inoculation densities were above 400 inoculi/m 2 , and foliage changed from green to yellow-green or yellow when an inoculation density of 800 instead of 400 was used. The percentage loss of sapwoodspecific conductivity (PLC) increased from 30 to 90% and the percentage of healthy, conductive sapwood dropped from 85 to 35% at 800 inoculi/m 2 . No effect of the width of the inoculation belt was observed, and there was no relationship between tree productivity indices and the level of resistance. A non-linear negative relationship was found between PLC and the percentage of healthy sapwood. It is concluded that tree resistance was overcome and that trees were going to die when the inoculation density was ‡800 inoculi/m 2 .
Root tissue structure is linked to ecological strategies of grasses.

The present study investigated to what extent there is a link between root tissue structure and ecological strategies of plant species; such a link is known for leaf tissue structure. We investigated experimentally root tissue mass density, root diameter and several characteristics of root anatomy in the axile roots of 19 perennial grass species from different habitats and related these parameters to the ecological behaviour of the species. Root characteristics were assessed in new roots produced by mature plants grown under standardized conditions. The ecological behaviour was characterized in terms of relative growth rate (RGR), plant height at maturity and ecological indicator values for nutrients, light and tolerance to mowing according to Ellenberg. We found a striking dichotomy between root anatomical characteristics associated with interspecific variation in RGR and those associated with variation in plant height. RGR correlated with anatomical characteristics that contribute to root robustness, whereas plant height correlated with characteristics associated with axile root hydraulic conductance. RGR correlated negatively with tissue mass density (TMDr ) in roots. Interspecific variation in TMDr was explained by the proportion of stele in the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the axile root and the proportion of cell wall in the CSA of the stele. For a given root diameter, slow growing species had smaller, albeit more numerous, xylem vessels, indicating a higher resistance to cavitation and protection against embolisms. Plant height correlated positively with root CSA, total xylem CSA and mean xylem vessel CSA, indicating a need for a high transport capacity in roots of species that attain a large size at maturity. TMDr correlated positively with dry matter content in leaves. The results emphasize the close relationship between tissue structure and growth characteristics at the whole-plant level.
Investigation of threatened arable weeds and their conservation status in Turkey

Summary Agronomic operations carried out in arable lands may cause changes in weed populations and also decrease the number of animal species that depend on these weed species. An emerging paradigm is the conservation and sustainability of weed species. In this study, risk status of arable weeds in Turkey was evaluated and it was determined that 112 of them (76 endemic and 36 non-endemic species) were at risk according to the IUCN Red List. Turkey is extremely diverse, with over 3000 endemic plant species out of nearly 12 000 recorded. Considering endemic weeds, they are classified in the following risk categories: critically endangered (four weed species), endangered (EN) (six), vulnerable (VU) (14), near threatened (seven), least concern (41) and data deficient (DD) (four species). Among the non-endemic weeds, three species are EN, 31 VU and two are DD. The families with the highest threatened weed species are Scrophulariaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae and Lamiaceae. The identification of weed species in arable habitats and their risk status is a useful tool for assessing and monitoring how the sustainability of weed populations is affected by farming practices. The results show the necessity of adopting new environment-friendly agricultural methods to conserve the high number of endemic weed species under threat in Turkey.