Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Joining Inventory by Parataxonomists with DNA Barcoding of a Large Complex Tropical Conserved Wildland in Northwestern Costa Rica

Background The many components of conservation through biodiversity development of a large complex tropical wildland, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG), thrive on knowing what is its biodiversity and natural history. For 32 years a growing team of Costa Rican parataxonomists has conducted biodiversity inventory of ACG caterpillars, their food plants, and their parasitoids. In 2003, DNA barcoding was added to the inventory process. Methodology/Principal Findings We describe some of the salient consequences for the parataxonomists of barcoding becoming part of a field biodiversity inventory process that has centuries of tradition. From the barcoding results, the parataxonomists, as well as other downstream users, gain a more fine-scale and greater understanding of the specimens they find, rear, photograph, database and deliver. The parataxonomists also need to adjust to collecting more specimens of what appear to be the “same species” – cryptic species that cannot be distinguished by eye or even food plant alone – while having to work with the name changes and taxonomic uncertainty that comes with discovering that what looked like one species may be many. Conclusions/Significance These career parataxonomists, despite their lack of formal higher education, have proven very capable of absorbing and working around the additional complexity and requirements for accuracy and detail that are generated by adding barcoding to the field base of the ACG inventory. In the process, they have also gained a greater understanding of the fine details of phylogeny, relatedness, evolution, and species-packing in their own tropical complex ecosytems. There is no reason to view DNA barcoding as incompatible in any way with tropical biodiversity inventory as conducted by parataxonomists. Their year-round on-site inventory effort lends itself well to the sampling patterns and sample sizes needed to build a thorough barcode library. Furthermore, the biological understanding that comes with barcoding increases the scientific penetrance of biodiversity information, DNA understanding, evolution, and ecology into the communities in which the parataxonomists and their families are resident.
What constitutes effective manual handling training? A systematic review.

BACKGROUND Injuries caused by manual handling are a major burden to society. Manual handling training programmes have been designed to reduce the likelihood of injury among the workforce; however, concerns have been raised over the efficacy of current manual handling training methods. AIMS To undertake a systematic review of the literature examining the effectiveness of different approaches to training in manual handling. METHODS Peer-reviewed publications along with published conference proceedings published in English, between 1980 and 2009, on the topic of manual handling training comprised the search criteria. A published checklist for reviewing papers was selected, which formed the basis for assessing the quality of the papers reviewed. RESULTS A total of 1827 papers were located. Following elimination of duplicates, 221 papers were collected and reviewed. Of these, 53 papers were intervention studies with the primary aim of investigating the effectiveness of manual handling training. The review identified little evidence supporting the effectiveness of both technique- and educational-based manual handling training. In addition, there was considerable evidence supporting the idea that the principles learnt during training are not applied in the working environment. Strength and flexibility training shows promise; however, further research is needed to ascertain whether such an intervention is sustainable over the long term. CONCLUSIONS The evidence collected indicates that manual handling training is largely ineffective in reducing back pain and back injury. High priority should be given to developing and evaluating multidimensional interventions, incorporating exercise training to promote strength and flexibility, which are tailored to the industrial sector.
Implementing actor-based primitives on distributed-memory architectures

We are engaged in a research aiming to implement, on a highly-parallel distributed-memory architecture, a set of primitives based on the actor model. In this paper, the motivations and a number of preliminary results of the project are reported. Discussion is focused on implementation issues. The overall software architecture of the distributed run-time kernel is presented. Solutions to mail address representation and to distributed collection of garbage actors are briefly described.
TPR-STORYTELLING. A key to speak fluently in english

The purpose of this article is to share a general idea of the Total Physical Response-Storytelling method, the principles upon which it arises, and how it works in an EFL classroom. We offer, on the one hand, a historical background review of the TPR-Storytelling method, this helps to contextualize it and understand its focus as well as its influence on children or adult learners' oral production and fluency development. On the other hand, we show a contrast in the methodological development of this method, highlighting some partial findings achieved in this on-going research project, based particularly on the steps followed within the American and Colombian didactic foreign language learning contexts. This article is based on a research study developed by the authors of this article, carried out with children as well as with adults, including university students majoring in English in a Language Licensure Program, and particularly with primary school teachers bound to teach English to children, despite the fact that they are not formally qualified to do so. The theoretical review of this project includes the consideration of both cognitive and affective factors in human learning.
Radio network design and multiple access for airport surface traffic automation

A radio communications network design supporting airport surface traffic automation (ASTA) using global positioning system (GPS) data is considered. The emphasis is on spectrally efficient channel access schemes taking into account traffic characteristics. The bandwidth requirements of two time-domain-based multiple access schemes and code division multiple access (CDMA) are analyzed. In the case of CDMA, both a single base station and multiple base stations are considered. It is shown that the use of multiple base stations can significantly improve the total system capacity for a fixed bandwidth. To obtain specific results, it is assumed that the CDMA system employs convolutional forward error correction and operates in a Rayleigh fading channel.
Design and experimental validation of UAV-assisted radiological and nuclear sensing

For the detection of radiological and nuclear material a wide - area deployment of unmanned ground and aerial vehicles acting as an autonomous sensor swarm has been developed and validated by the ANCHORS project. In this paper the software architecture and platform for the control of the heterogeneous robot system as well as the communication system are presented. For a highly-reliable communication the ANCHORS system integrates a flexible ad-hoc wireless communication infrastructure using a combination of a stand-alone LTE system and IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networking technology. The system was validated in 2015 during a large-scale fire brigade exercise in strong cooperation with potential end-users. Ongoing research addresses the integration of the results gained with systems such as the ANCHORS system in a cloud-based data storage accessible for rescue organizations. The paper introduces therefore the combination of the autonomous distributed sensor swarm with a cloud emergency information system concept currently developed within the EU-Project SecInCoRe (Secure Dynamic Cloud for Information, Communication and Resource Interoperability based on Pan-European Disaster Inventory).
Activity in somatosensory cortices during stroke recovery

The aim of the thesis was to examine how activity in somatosensory cortex changes during stroke recovery by analysing previously-recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses to tactile pneumatic stimulation and passive movement of the right and left index fingers. The measurements were made for 23 stroke patients with upper limb paresis at acute phase, one month and 12 months after stroke. To our knowledge, this is the first follow-up study to research somatosensory evoked responses to passive movement in several stroke patients. The activity in somatosensory cortices evoked by both tactile and passive stimuli increased significantly from the acute phase to 12 months post-stroke in both affected and unaffected hemispheres. In addition, the activity was stronger in patients than in healthy control subjects at 12 months after the stroke symptoms in both hemispheres. In healthy subjects, the SEF-response amplitudes are approximately equal in two hemispheres whereas the patients had weaker responses to tactile stimuli in the affected (AH) than the unaffected hemisphere (UH) at one month after the stroke. In contrast to tactile stimuli, no significant differences between the contralateral affected and unaffected hemispheres in the passive movement were observed. However, both tactile and passive stimuli elicited enhanced activity in the ipsilateral unaffected hemisphere with respect to the impaired hand stimulation during the whole follow-up year. In conclusion, the results confirmed that a stroke changes both proprioceptive and tactile information processing and a unilateral stroke affects both hemispheres. Moreover, the results indicate that the activity changes during one-year follow-up, which refers that neural changes occur within first three months but can continue significantly up to 12 months. Enhanced activity in the healthy hemisphere may be associated with incomplete functional recovery.
Fully scalable texture coding of arbitrarily shaped video objects

This paper presents a fully scalable texture coding algorithm for arbitrarily shaped video object based on the 3D-SPIHT algorithm. The proposed algorithm, called Fully Scalable Object-based 3D-SPIHT (FSOB-3DSPIHT), modifies the 3D-SPIHT algorithm to code video objects with arbitrary shape and adds spatial and temporal scalability features to it. It keeps important features of the original 3D-SPIHT coder such as compression efficiency, full embeddedness, and rate scalability. The full scalability feature of the modified algorithm is achieved through the introduction of multiple resolution dependent lists for the sorting stage of the algorithm. The idea of bitstream transcoding without decoding to obtain different bitstreams for various spatial and temporal resolutions and bit rates is completely supported by the algorithm.
The Supply Effect and the Share Repurchase Puzzle: A Fresh Look with Evidence from Japan

Open-market repurchases reduce the supply of a stock’s shares in the market. Japanese stock repurchase data allows us to successfully isolate the supply effect from information effects of the stock repurchase. We focus on stock price behavior during the actual repurchase period when no new information is released and find that the excess stock returns are significantly positive only during actual repurchase periods. Our evidence supports the presence of a supply effect indicating downward-sloping demand curves, consistent with Miller’s (1977) divergence of opinion model. We do not find evidence supportive of managers’ ability to time the repurchases.
Study on the stator faults in the field-oriented control of asynchronous machine

It is well known that the induction machine is considered by its qualities of robustness and low cost of construction, it happens nevertheless that this one presents an electric or mechanical breakdown. Among these breakdowns, we quote turn-to turn short circuit, stator phase breakdown, rotor bars breakdownwn. etc. In our article, we are interested in the study by simulation of the operation of an asynchronous machine presenting an electric breakdown which is the broke stator phase by modeling the machine in the two-phases reference mark. Another point is discussed in this article, it relates to the influence of this fault on the vector control. The results obtained are presented at the end of the article.
Exercise Training Enhances Vasodilation Responses to Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Porcine Coronary Arterioles Exposed to Chronic Coronary Occlusion

Background—Chronic coronary occlusion (CCO) impairs endothelial function of distal collateral–dependent microvasculature; however, long-term exercise training (EX) seems to improve endothelial dysfunction. We hypothesized that EX enhances vasodilation responses to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF165), mediated via nitric oxide (NO), in arterioles exposed to CCO. Methods and Results—The proximal left circumflex coronary artery (LCx) of female Yucatan miniswine was surgically instrumented with an ameroid occluder to induce CCO; 8 weeks after surgery, animals were randomized into 14-week sedentary (SED) or EX (treadmill; 5 d/wk) protocols. Coronary arterioles (≈100 &mgr;m in diameter) were isolated from collateral-dependent (LCx) and nonoccluded (left anterior descending; LAD) perfused myocardium of SED and EX animals. Vasodilation was assessed by videomicroscopy and MacLab data acquisition. Responses to VEGF165 were unaffected by EX in nonoccluded LAD arterioles; in contrast, EX markedly enhanced VEGF165-induced vasodilation of collateral-dependent LCx arterioles (P <0.05; EX versus SED). Furthermore, VEGF165-induced vasodilation of EX LCx arterioles exceeded that of EX or SED LAD arterioles (P <0.05). Enhanced vasodilation of EX LCx arterioles was abolished by inhibition of NO synthase and tyrosine kinase activity. Combined inhibition of NO synthase and cyclooxygenase decreased VEGF165-induced vasodilation of all vessels. Conclusions—EX enhances VEGF165-induced vasodilation in arterioles distal to CCO; EX effects seem to be mediated through increases in NO.
Media performance in the ‘age of austerity’: British newspaper coverage of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, 2008–2010

This article explores how British newspapers framed the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession and austerity that followed. Analyzing a sample of 1586 articles published between 2008 and 2010, it focused on identifying the primary sources, main issues and key discourses. In common with other empirical studies of British media coverage of these events, this article reveals that the political and economic elite were dominant in terms of sourcing and that the main issues and key discourses featured in these articles reflected the elite perspective. Many politicians and corporate executives welcomed the brief Keynesian revival – in the form of the 2008 bailout of the financial system and the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus – in order to prevent economic calamity. Newspapers reported these events in a factual manner and did not question them. By contrast, in 2010, as the elite attempted to redirect blame for the crisis away from bankers towards the state, much of the newspaper coverage presented public spending cuts as ‘necessary’ and ‘unavoidable’, while revenue-raising alternatives to austerity were ignored or marginalized. Unlike other empirical studies, this article attempted to explain such coverage and it employed the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model of mass media performance to do so.
Lipidia : An Artificial Chemistry of Self-Replicating Assemblies of Lipid-like Molecules

Lipidia is a new simulation system that is related to the “Lipid World” scenario for the origin of life. Lipidia allows for conducting experiments with a population of assemblies containing lipid-like molecules on a two dimensional grid. The dynamics of the assemblies is modelled using the Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain (GARD) model. New experiments using a finite environment model with GARD were conducted with Lipidia. The experiments show that more self-replicating assembly species appear when using a model of finite environment than when using a model of infinite environment. In many species the number of individuals increases as well.
Towards Conceptual MapReduce Algorithm for Big Data Platform

MapReduce Comes from its simplicity to preparing the input data, the programmer needs only to implement the mapper, the reducer, and optionally, the combiner and the partitioner. All other aspects of execution are handled transparently by the execution framework on clusters ranging from a single node to a few thousand nodes, over datasets ranging from gigabytes to petabytes. However, this also means that any conceivable algorithm that a programmer wishes to develop must be expressed in terms of a small number of rigidly defined components that must fit together in very specific ways. It may not appear obvious how a multitude of algorithms can be recast into this programming model. The purpose of this paper is to provide, a guide to MapReduce algorithm design. This paper presents the notion of design pattern of MapReduce, which instantiate arrangements of components and specific techniques designed to handle frequently encountered situations across a variety of domains.
An Integrative System For Prediction Of Nac Proteins In Rice Using Different Feature Extraction Methods

The NAC gene family encodesa large family of plant-specific transcription factors with diverse roles in various developmental processes and stress responsesin plants. Creation of genome wide prediction tools for NAC proteins will have a significant impacton gene annotationin rice. In the present study, NACSVM, a tool for computational genome-scale prediction of NAC proteins in rice was developed integrating compositional and evolutionary information ofNAC proteins. Initially, support vector machine (SVM) based modules were developed using combinatorial presence of diverse protein features such as traditional amino acid, dipeptide (i+1), tripeptide (i+2 ), four-parts composition and PSSM and an overall accuracy of 79%, 93%, 93%, 79%and 100% respectively was achieved. Later, two hybrid modules were developed based on amino acid , dipeptide and tripeptide composition, through which an overall accuracy of 83% and 79% was achieved. NACSVM wasalso evaluated using position-specific iterated – basic local alignment search tool which resulted in a lower accuracy of 50%. In order to benchmark NAC SVM , the tool was evaluated using independent data test and cross validation methods.The different statistical analyses carried out revealed that the proposed algorithm isan useful tool for annotating NAC proteins in genome of rice.
Analysis of the dynamic behaviour of a single Hodgkin-Huxley neuron model

Brain is a major organ for processing thought, feelings, learning and memory. Neurons being the basic building unit of the brain, mathematical modeling of a neuron can give a great insight into the functioning of the central nervous system. This paper describes the most biologically realistic neuron model and its implementation in Simulink to understand the behavior of a neuron in a real-time environment. Hodgkin-Huxley neuron model is the first successful mathematical model which describes the initiation and propagation of action potentials in neurons. The dynamic behavior of a single HH neuron is examined for varying external stimulus and studied to help develop an interactive biological neural network by coupling a large number of neurons in the future.
Self-efficacy is independently associated with brain volume in older women.

BACKGROUND ageing is highly associated with neurodegeneration and atrophy of the brain. Evidence suggests that personality variables are risk factors for reduced brain volume. We examine whether falls-related self-efficacy is independently associated with brain volume. METHOD a cross-sectional analysis of whether falls-related self-efficacy is independently associated with brain volumes (total, grey and white matter). Three multivariate regression models were constructed. Covariates included in the models were age, global cognition, systolic blood pressure, functional comorbidity index and current physical activity level. MRI scans were acquired from 79 community-dwelling senior women aged 65-75 years old. Falls-related self-efficacy was assessed by the activities-specific balance confidence (ABC) scale. RESULTS after accounting for covariates, falls-related self-efficacy was independently associated with both total brain volume and total grey matter volume. The final model for total brain volume accounted for 17% of the variance, with the ABC score accounting for 8%. For total grey matter volume, the final model accounted for 24% of the variance, with the ABC score accounting for 10%. CONCLUSION we provide novel evidence that falls-related self-efficacy, a modifiable risk factor for healthy ageing, is positively associated with total brain volume and total grey matter volume. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00426881.
Variable Length Floating Point FFT Processor Using Radix-2 2

— A mixed radix, floating point FFT processor is designed using radix-2 and radix-2 anandganesh250@gmail.com 2 butterfly elements, adapting a pipelined architecture for a variable length of 128/512/2048. The single-path delay feedback (SDF) architecture is employed to exploit the symmetry in signal flow graph of FFT algorithm. Area minimization has been achieved for the reconfigurable FFT processor by using pipelining and higher radix butterfly structures. (radix-2 2 ). Then area power trade off is done with parallel mixed radix processing blocks, to achieve better throughput. A reconfigurable architecture has been achieved by bypassing certain processing blocks while keeping the other blocks functional through control mechanism. The proposed design is implemented in 45nm technology and the synthesis results show a silicon area of 4.7mm 2
New Findings on Impact Variation From the Head Start Impact Study: Informing the Scale-Up of Early Childhood Programs

This article synthesizes findings from a reanalysis of data from the Head Start Impact Study with a focus on impact variation. This study addressed whether the size of Head Start’s impacts on children’s access to center-based and high-quality care and their school readiness skills varied by child characteristics, geographic location, and the experiences of children in the control group. Across multiple sets of analyses based on new, innovative statistical methods, findings suggest that the topline Head Start Impact Study results of Head Start’s average impacts mask substantial variation in its effectiveness and that one key source of that variation was in the counterfactual experiences and the context of Head Start sites (as well as the more typically examined child characteristics; e.g., children’s dual language learner status). Implications are discussed for the future of Head Start and further research, as well as the scale-up of other early childhood programs, policies, and practices.
PSO Facing Non-Separable and Ill-Conditioned Problems

This report investigates the behavior of particle swarm optimization (PSO) on ill-conditioned functions. We find that PSO performs very well on separable, ill-conditioned functions. If the function is rotated such that it becomes non-separable, the performance declines dramatically. On non-separable, ill-conditioned functions we find the search costs (number of function evaluations) of PSO increasing roughly proportional with the condition number. We never observe premature convergence, but on non-separable, ill-conditioned problems PSO is outperformed by a contemporary evolution strategy by orders of magnitude. The strong dependency of PSO on rotations originates from random events that are only independent within the given coordinate system. We argue that invariance properties, like rotational invariance, are desirable, because they increase the predictive power of performance results.