Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occurrence of Deoxynivalenol in Maize and Wheat in Serbia

A total of 226 samples of maize and 59 of wheat from the 2004–2007 harvests were investigated for the presence and concentration of deoxynivalenol (DON). Samples of the 2004 harvest were analyzed after their storing for one year in barns, while those of the 2005–2007 harvest were taken directly off fields immediately after the harvest. The samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography on an ODS Hypersil column with DAD detector and ELISA methods. The average incidence rate of DON in maize from the 2004 harvest was 50% (concentration range 0.042–2.460 mg/kg, average value 0.536 mg/kg), while for those of the 2005–2007 harvest it was 32.4% (concentration range 0.027–2.210 mg/kg, average value 0.223 mg/kg). In the case of wheat incidence rate of DON for 2004 harvest was 50.0% (concentration range 0.630–1.840 mg/kg, average value 1.235 mg/kg), while for those of the 2005–2007 harvest it was 34.5% (concentration range 0.057–0.423 mg/kg, average value 0.190 mg/kg). Concentrations in two samples of maize and one of wheat (one sample of each cereal being of the 2004 harvest) were above the maximum level adopted by the European Commission. The results obtained were analyzed as a function of climatic conditions and compared with those of the neighboring countries where the relevant data existed.
Bang-bang control of a flexible-link manipulator with actuator saturation using neural network

In this paper, a methodology of finding a minimum time and non-linear state feedback control of a flexible-link manipulator with saturated control is proposed. Since the difficulty which is involved in minimization of the cost function is solving GHJB equation, having proper cost function can solve regulation and bang-bang control problem for non-linear systems. To show this, we present a proper non-quadratic cost function and solve corresponding optimal control problem by approximation the solution of GHJB. Since solving GHJB is difficult, we use neural network to approximate the solution of GHJB equation. The controller, which is found by that method, has better performance in contrast LQR method for linearized systems because it does not ignore the inherent nonlinearity of non-linear systems. The simulation results confirm that deflection modes are damped faster and cost function has a good upper band.
PieceMaker: selection of DNA fragments for selector-guided multiplex amplification

We describe PieceMaker, a software tool for the design of applications of selector probes–oligonucleotide probes that direct circularization of target nucleic acid molecules. Such probes can be combined in parallel to circularize a selection of fragments from restriction digested total genomic DNA. These fragments can then be amplified in a single PCR using a common primer pair, yielding substrates for subsequent analyses, such as parallel genotyping or sequencing. However, designing multiplex selector assays is a laborious task. The PieceMaker program alleviates this problem by selecting restriction enzymes to generate suitable fragments for selection, and generating the output data required to design the selector probes.
Cotrimoxazole prophylaxis for African HIV-infected children: no more delays, no more misinterpretations!

The provision of cotrimoxazole as primary or secondary prophylaxis for the prevention of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia and toxoplasmosis has been part of the standard care in the management of HIV-infected individuals in developed countries since the early 1990s. In spite of the differences in aetiology and the burden of common opportunistic infections between developed and resource-poor countries, clear evidence that cotrimoxazole prophylaxis is also effective for decreasing morbidity and mortality among HIV-infected adults who live in sub-Saharan Africa, including those treated for tuberculosis, has been available since the end of the 1990s [1,2]. WHO/UNAIDS guidelines recommending that this prophylaxis should be included in the routine care of HIV-infected adults have been in place since 2000 [3]. Although cotrimoxazole is widely available in both syrup and solid formulations at low unit cost in most places, including resource-limited settings, most African countries have not yet implemented this intervention widely among adults.
Association Between Smallpox Vaccination and Hepatitis C Antibody Positive Serology in Pakistani Volunteers

Goals: To determine whether the smallpox vaccination program has significantly contributed to the widespread prevalence of hepatitis C infection in Pakistan. Background: Hepatitis C virus has become a worldwide pandemic and has especially devastated developing nations such as Pakistan. There continues to be an increase in fatalities due to hepatitis C-related cirrhosis in Pakistan. Study: We studied 523 volunteers in the city of Lahore to determine whether the smallpox vaccination program, which ran from 1964 to 1982 in Pakistan, may be responsible for the national surge in hepatitis C viral infection, perhaps because of repetitive use of vaccination devices without proper sterilization or to contaminated vaccine contents. Results: There was a significantly higher likelihood of hepatitis C antibody seroprevalence in individuals vaccinated for smallpox versus nonvaccinated individuals (21.0% vs. 4.6%, P < 0.001, age-adjusted odds ratio, 3.39; 95% confidence interval, 1.36-8.46). Subjects with positive hepatitis C serology were also more likely to have a history of transfusions (19.2% vs. 9.0%, P = 0.01), but anti-HCV positive serology was not significantly associated with a history of surgery or dental procedures. Following adjustment for age, sex, and history of other conditions, including transfusion, the association between prior smallpox vaccination and hepatitis C antibody seroprevalence remained strong and highly significant (multivariate adjusted odds ratio, 6.11; 95% confidence interval, 2.58-14.51). Conclusion: These results suggest that the widespread prevalence of hepatitis C infection in Pakistan may be an unintended consequence of the country's smallpox vaccination program and that blood transfusion is also a significant risk factor.
Vocabulary Strategies in an Elementary Classroom in a Third World Country

Vocabulary Strategies in an Elementary Classroom in a Third World Country by Laurie F. Johnson M.Ed., McNeese State University, 1994 B.A., McNeese State University, 1987 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University February 2015
Action Sequence Detection in Motion Pictures

This paper describes an approach for automatically detecting action sequences in movies. We examine the filmmaking conventions that are inherent in action sequences and use these as a basis for our analysis. A system of lowmidand highlevel features is presented that combines pure digital video analysis at the lowand mid-levels, with high-level filmmaking knowledge. A state machine is used to combine these features and detect the action sequences. The overall system is designed so that the analysis can be used to detect different types of scenes, but in this paper we focus on action sequence detection.
Pasture mass and pasture allowance infl uence on sward quality, pasture intake and milk performance.

Sixty-four Holstein-Friesian cows were randomly assigned to one of four treatments (M15, M20, H15 and H20) in a 2x2 factorial design, by considering: two pre-grazing pasture mass levels (PM, kg DM/ha): medium (M-1,600) vs. high (H-2,400); and two pasture allowance levels (PA, kg DM/cow/day): low (15) vs. high (20). Two periods (PI vs. PII) were studied. Sward density and pre-grazing sward height were higher in high compared to medium pre-grazing PM swards in PI (P<0.001, 255 vs. 235 kg DM/cm/ha and P<0.001, 14.8 vs. 10.9 cm, respectively) and PII (P<0.001, 216 vs. 196 kg DM/cm/ha and P<0.001, 14.3 vs. 13.0 cm, respectively). Lower post-grazing sward height and higher pasture utilization were obtained in low compared to high PA swards in PI (P<0.001, 4.1 vs. 4.9 cm and P<0.001, 98.8 vs. 89.9 %, respectively) and PII (P<0.001, 4.3 vs. 5.0 cm and P<0.001, 97.1 vs. 89.9 %, respectively). Pasture crude protein content and pasture organic matter digestibility were higher in medium compared to high pre-grazing PM swards in PI (P<0.001, 210 vs. 176 g/kg DM and P<0.05, 846 vs. 836 g/kg DM, respectively) and PII (P<0.05, 212 vs. 192 g/kg DM and P<0.05, 828 vs. 821 g/kg DM, respectively). This was due to higher leaf and lower dead proportions in medium than in high pre-grazing PM swards. Pasture dry matter intake (PDMI) (P<0.001, 16.5 vs. 14.7 kg DM/cow/day), milk yield (MY) (P<0.01, 23.8 vs. 22.7 kg/day) and milk solids yield (MSY) (P<0.05, 1.69 vs. 1.61 kg/cow) were higher in high compared to low PA swards in PI. Higher PDMI (P<0.001, 15.7 vs. 14.1 kg DM/cow/day), MY (P<0.001, 15.4 vs. 13.6 kg/day) and MSY (P<0.01, 1.19 vs. 1.08 kg/cow) were also found in high than in low PA swards in PII. The highest (P<0.001) milk output per ha (16,983 kg/ha) and milk solids per ha (1,268 kg/ha) were found in the group of dairy cows grazing in the M20 swards.
An Aldose Reductase with 20α-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Activity Is Most Likely the Enzyme Responsible for the Production of Prostaglandin F2α in the Bovine Endometrium*

Prostaglandins are important regulators of reproductive function. In particular, prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) is involved in labor and is the functional mediator of luteolysis to initiate a new estrous cycle in many species. These actions have been extensively studied in ruminants, but the enzymes involved are not clearly identified. Our objective was to identify which prostaglandin F synthase is involved and to study its regulation in the endometrium and in endometrial primary cell cultures. The expression of all previously known prostaglandin F synthases (PGFSs), two newly discovered PGFS-like genes, and a 20α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was studied by Northern blot and reverse transcription PCR. These analyses revealed that none of the known PGFS or the PGFS-like genes were significantly expressed in the endometrium. On the other hand, the 20α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase gene was strongly expressed in the endometrium at the time of luteolysis. The corresponding recombinant enzyme has aK m of 7 μm for PGH2 and a PGFS activity higher than the lung PGFS. This enzyme has two different activities with the ability to terminate the estrous cycle; it metabolizes progesterone and synthesizes PGF2α. Taken together, these data point to this newly identified enzyme as the functional endometrial PGFS.
Production of EPS under Cr(VI) challenge in two indigenous bacteria isolated from a tannery effluent

Indigenous Cr(VI) reducing bacterial strains Pseudomonas aeruginosa Rb‐1 and Ochrobactrum intermedium Rb‐2 were evaluated for EPS production under Cr(VI) challenged and free conditions. Strain Rb‐2 was more efficient in total EPS production (13.63 mg g−1) than Rb‐1 (4.15 mg g−1) under Cr(VI) stress. Thick covering of capsular material around the cells of both bacterial strains was detected by electron microscopy. Transmission electron micrographs showed the appearance of pilli like structures under chromium stress by two bacteria suggested the possible involvement of this in exchange of hereditary material to increase their chances of survival under stress conditions. FTIR study showed involvement of sulphonate and hydroxyl groups in the binding with Cr(VI) ions. Solid‐state 13C NMR spectra revealed that EPS produced by both strains exhibited structural similarity with the glucan. The partial psl gene sequences of Rb‐1 and Rb‐2 showed homology with psl gene of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis protein of various strains of Pseudomonas. This is the first report on the identification of psl gene from Ochrobacterum in NCBI GenBank database up to our knowledge.
Event Summarization Using Tweets

Twitter has become exceedingly popular, with hundreds of millions of tweets being posted every day on a wide variety of topics. This has helped make real-time search applications possible with leading search engines routinely displaying relevant tweets in response to user queries. Recent research has shown that a considerable fraction of these tweets are about "events," and the detection of novel events in the tweet-stream has attracted a lot of research interest. However, very little research has focused on properly displaying this real-time information about events. For instance, the leading search engines simply display all tweets matching the queries in reverse chronological order. In this paper we argue that for some highly structured and recurring events, such as sports, it is better to use more sophisticated techniques to summarize the relevant tweets. We formalize the problem of summarizing event-tweets and give a solution based on learning the underlying hidden state representation of the event via Hidden Markov Models. In addition, through extensive experiments on real-world data we show that our model significantly outperforms some intuitive and competitive baselines.
Adaptive anisotropic filtering (AAF) for real-time visual enhancement of MPEG-coded video sequences

Current standards for video compression achieve good performances in terms of data compaction and signal-to-noise ratio of the decoded signal. Nevertheless, there are some known problems concerning the visual quality of reconstructed images, which can be partially solved using appropriate post-processing algorithms. The paper proposes a new adaptive anisotropic filter (AAF) that aims to unify the treatment of different sources of perceptive distortion in MPEG sequences. The process is driven by a local classification of blocks and single pixels of decoded frames, taking into account several parameters (distribution of DCT coefficient energy, presence of sharp variations, spatial position of DCT block boundaries). Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing enhancement approaches, in particular when constraints on complexity and real-time processing are compelling.
Program-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in Rural Preschools

This article describes the quantitative findings from an evaluation of program-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) in three rural preschool programs. Each rural preschool program included children 3 through 5 years of age with and without disabilities. Following 3 years of on-site training, technical assistance, and coaching support in universal tier PBIS, participating preschool programs increased their use of strategies and supports to prevent young children's challenging behavior. Specific improvements in universal PBIS practices are presented across each year of the initiative. The successes and challenges involved in implementing program-wide PBIS in rural preschools are discussed.
Design of a variable compliant humanoid foot with a new toe mechanism

The general approach to humanoid feet design considers the use of rectangular plate sole structures that are relatively stiff and compatible for flat terrain locomotion. Although this can be adequate the inability of these stiff feet to cope with small terrain irregularities, it makes them inappropriate for rough terrains. Toward improvement of humanoids feet this paper presents mechanism of new variable compliant humanoid feet which can provide functionality and adaptability to humanoids locomotion on uneven terrains. The proposed feet design introduces new toe mechanism in the feet with variable stiffness implemented using a leaf spring and rubber balls in series. We present the mechanism design and the implementation of the sensor, and discuss the estimation of variable stiffness range and coefficient of damping at sole. A prototype of the feet was built and experimental results are included to validate the feet design.
High School–Based Treatment for Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Results From a Pilot Study Examining Outcomes and Dosage

Abstract. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy and dose–response relationship of a school-based treatment program for high school students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Two paraprofessionals provided interventions to 24 students with ADHD randomly assigned to the treatment condition at two public high schools. They met in dyadic coaching sessions during one school year. In addition, parents attended weekly parent meetings and adolescents attended group sessions targeting social functioning in the evenings for 10 weeks in the fall semester. Intent-to-treat analyses showed little statistically significant benefit for the participants; however, effect sizes indicated moderate improvements in parent ratings of inattention, relationships with peers, academic impairment, and family functioning. There was large variability in the dosage of services received across participants, and an analysis of outcomes by dosage suggests large differences in response based on the number of sessions attended. This school-based intervention provides a viable option for educators and school mental health professionals who wish to provide interventions for high school students with ADHD, but further development and evaluation are needed.
Prioritization of Scenarios Based on UML Activity Diagrams

Increased size and complexity of software requires better methods for different activities in the software development lifecycle. Quality assurance of software is primarily done by means of testing, an activity that faces constraints of both time and resources. Hence, there is need to test effectively within the constraints in order to maximize throughput i.e. rate of fault detection, coverage, etc. Test case prioritization involves techniques aimed at finding the best prioritized test suite. In this paper, we propose a prioritization technique based on UML activity diagrams. The constructs of an activity diagram are used to prioritize scenarios. Preliminary results obtained on a case-study indicate that the technique is effective in extracting the critical scenarios from the activity diagram.
The Role of the Hyperpolarization-Activated Cationic CurrentIh in the Timing of Interictal Bursts in the Neonatal Hippocampus

Under both pathological and experimental conditions, area CA3 of the adult or juvenile hippocampus generates periodic population discharges known as interictal bursts. Whereas the ionic and synaptic basis of individual bursts has been comprehensively studied experimentally and computationally, the pacemaker mechanisms underlying interictal rhythmicity remain conjectural. We showed previously that rhythmic population discharges resembling interictal bursts can be induced in hippocampal slices from first postnatal week mice, in Mg2+-free solution with GABAAreceptor-mediated inhibition blocked. Here we show that these neonatal bursts occurred with high temporal precision and that their frequency and regularity were greatly reduced by the bradycardic agent ZD-7288 when applied at concentrations and durations that selectively block the hyperpolarization-activated, cationic currentIh. Augmenting Ihby elevating intracellular cAMP dramatically increased burst frequency in a protein kinase A-independent manner. Burst amplitudes were strongly correlated with the preceding, but not the following, interburst intervals. The experimentally observed distribution of interburst intervals was modeled by assuming that a burst was triggered whenever the instantaneous rate of spontaneous EPSPs (sEPSPs) exceeded a threshold and that the mean sEPSP rate was minimal immediately after a burst and then relaxed exponentially to a steady-state level. The effect of blocking Ih in any given slice could be modeled by decreasing only the steady-state sEPSP rate, suggesting that the instantaneous rate of sEPSPs is governed by the level of Ih activation and raising the novel possibility that interburst intervals reflected the slow activation kinetics of Ih in the neonatal CA3.
24.77 Pflops on a Gravitational Tree-Code to Simulate the Milky Way Galaxy with 18600 GPUs

We have simulated, for the first time, the long term evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy using 51 billion particles on the Swiss Piz Daint supercomputer with our N-body gravitational tree-code Bonsai. Herein, we describe the scientific motivation and numerical algorithms. The Milky Way model was simulated for 6 billion years, during which the bar structure and spiral arms were fully formed. This improves upon previous simulations by using 1000 times more particles, and provides a wealth of new data that can be directly compared with observations. We also report the scalability on both the Swiss Piz Daint and the US ORNL Titan. On Piz Daint the parallel efficiency of Bonsai was above 95%. The highest performance was achieved with a 242 billion particle Milky Way model using 18600 GPUs on Titan, thereby reaching a sustained GPU and application performance of 33.49 Pflops and 24.77 Pflops respectively.
Adaptive Regularization for Transductive Support Vector Machine

We discuss the framework of Transductive Support Vector Machine (TSVM) from the perspective of the regularization strength induced by the unlabeled data. In this framework, SVM and TSVM can be regarded as a learning machine without regularization and one with full regularization from the unlabeled data, respectively. Therefore, to supplement this framework of the regularization strength, it is necessary to introduce data-dependant partial regularization. To this end, we reformulate TSVM into a form with controllable regularization strength, which includes SVM and TSVM as special cases. Furthermore, we introduce a method of adaptive regularization that is data dependant and is based on the smoothness assumption. Experiments on a set of benchmark data sets indicate the promising results of the proposed work compared with state-of-the-art TSVM algorithms.
An active controller study of genetic algorithm search

Inadequate selection of operators and parameters will produce premature convergence that will be avoided by adopting finer setting of parameters. This research was inspired by the concept of quality control utilizing as a control mechanism for process control in various GA searching processes. The process controllers attempt to apply these mechanisms to optimize the settings of the operators and parameters. In this study, we explored the function of the active setting is to adjust the trade-off between the exploration and exploitation by twelve's searching divisions. It applies evolution evidence to supervise the active setting of the GA parameters. Three different kinds of theoretical test-beds were carried out to validate this approach. The test results have been discovered that the active setting can make better the performance of genetic algorithm search. The test consequences also are showed that active is superior to static setting.
Experimental and theoretical studies of consciousness

Partial table of contents: What Is the Mind-Body Problem? (T. Nagel). Functionalism and Consciousness (S. Shoemaker). Integrated Cortical Field Model of Consciousness (M. Kinsbourne). The Problem of Consciousness (J. Searle). A Reflexive Science of Consciousness (M. Velmans). Experimental Studies of Ongoing Conscious Experience (J. Singer). The Neural Time Factor in Conscious and Unconscious Events (B. Libet). Slippage in the Unity of Consciousness (A. Marcel). The Neuronal Basis of Motion Perception (W. Newsome & C. Salzman). Consciousness, Schizophrenia and Scientific Theory (J. Gray). Indexes.