Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carabid beetle diversity and distribution in Boston Harbor Islands national park area (Coleoptera, Carabidae)

Abstract As part of an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in Boston Harbor Islands national park area, an inventory of carabid beetles on 13 islands was conducted. Intensive sampling on ten of the islands, using an assortment of passive traps and limited hand collecting, resulted in the capture of 6,194 specimens, comprising 128 species. Among these species were seven new state records for Massachusetts (Acupalpus nanellus, Amara aulica, Amara bifrons, Apenes lucidulus, Bradycellus tantillus, Harpalus rubripes and Laemostenus terricola terricola—the last also a new country record; in passing we report also new state records for Harpalus rubripes from New York and Pennsylvania, Amara ovata from Pennsylvania, and the first mainland New York records for Asaphidion curtum). For most islands, there was a clear relationship between species richness and island area. Two islands, however, Calf and Grape, had far more species than their relatively small size would predict. Freshwater marshes on these islands, along with a suite of hygrophilous species, suggested that habitat diversity plays an important role in island species richness. Introduced species (18) comprised 14.0% of the total observed species richness, compared to 5.5% (17 out of 306 species) documented for Rhode Island. We surmise that the higher proportion of introduced species on the islands is, in part, due to a higher proportion of disturbed and open habitats as well as high rates of human traffic. We predict that more active sampling in specialized habitats would bring the total carabid fauna of the Boston Harbor Islands closer to that of Rhode Island or eastern Massachusetts in richness and composition; however, isolation, human disturbance and traffic, and limited habitat diversity all contribute to reducing the species pool on the islands relative to that on the mainland.
Initial experimental results of real-time variant pose face detection and tracking system

A face detection system is a computer application for automatically detecting a human face from digital image or video frame. This paper presents a face detection system that used web camera to detect and track a face in real-time. To detect a face in the image, a simple method of skin color detection is used. By using color detection method in this project, the face can be segmented easily from the complex background. However, to detect a face in real-time is quite challenging especially when a face is moving and the real-time environment has uneven illumination. This paper presents the preliminary result of face detection and tracking system, which is the system, detects a face that has different poses in a real-time situation, where the light condition is uneven. Here, to complete the detection process, contour detection method is added so that the detection is more accurate. This system can be applied in many applications such as banking system to reduce the number of forgery, security system, and human-computer interaction (HCI).
Lifetime Estimation of High-Power White LED Using Degradation-Data-Driven Method

High-power white light-emitting diodes (HPWLEDs) have attracted much attention in the lighting market. However, as one of the highly reliable electronic products which may be not likely to fail under the traditional life test or even accelerated life test, HPWLED's lifetime is difficult to estimate by using traditional reliability assessment techniques. In this paper, the degradation-data-driven method (DDDM), which is based on the general degradation path model, was used to predict the reliability of HPWLED through analyzing the lumen maintenance data collected from the IES LM-80-08 lumen maintenance test standard. The final predicted results showed that much more reliability information (e.g., mean time to failure, confidence interval, reliability function, and so on) and more accurate prediction results could be obtained by DDDM including the approximation method, the analytical method, and the two-stage method compared to the IES TM-21-11 lumen lifetime estimation method. Among all these three methods, the two-stage method produced the highest prediction accuracy.
Mechanical brake design for passive haptic device

This paper explores a new mechanical brake design to be used in order to limit the motion in low cost and high force passive haptic device design. The designed mechanical brake was inspired from the working principle of a coaster brake used in bicycles. The brake consists of conic surfaces actuated by a DC motor. A leaf spring is added to the system to detect the direction of the user movement. A 1-DOF haptic interface was developed to study virtual wall collisions. Two different prototypes were manufactured with different braking torque capacities. The second prototype is smaller and has a PID controller. The aim of this novel approach is to allow the user to move the haptic tool away from inside of the virtual wall without using torque sensor when full braking force applied. Experimental results showed that the mechanical brake can be a promising alternative as a brake mechanism for passive haptic device design.
Candida baotianensis sp. nov., an ascomycetous yeast species from forest soil in China.

Forest soil is a rich source of new yeast species. In the past few years, many yeast species have been isolated from soil samples collected in different forests worldwide. Several yeast strains have been recognized as new species, such as Candida dajiaensis, Candida yuanshanicus, Candida jianshihensis and Candida sanyiensis (Liu et al., 2008), and Millerozyma phetchabunensis (Tammawong et al., 2010). Yeasts from these habitats may hold keys to nutrient cycling, metal detoxifi cation, and food-webs in the natural environment, as well as potentially provide unique biomolecules for industry and medicine. Baotianman Nature Reserve, which is located in Henan Province of Central China, has a transitional climate between the northern subtropical zone and warm temperate zone. Due to its unique geographical position and very rich diversity of wildlife resources, a survey of the yeast community associated with forest soil was conducted in Baotianman Nature Reserve. During this investigation, a number of yeast strains belong to known species in the genera Candida, Cryptococcus, Debaryomyces, Hanseniaspora, Kluyveromyces, Pichia, Saccharomyces, Scheffersomyces, Trichosporon, Williopsis and Zygosaccharomyces were isolated. However, two novel strains, BY-29T and BY-30, were obtained and we propose the name Candida baotianensis sp. nov. for these isolates based on morphological, physiological and molecular characteristics. The two strains were isolated from soil collected in a mixed deciduous forest (BY-29T) and a Quercus variabilis forest (BY-30) in Baotianman Nature Reserve, by using an enrichment technique. Each soil sample (5 g) was added to 50 ml acidifi ed YM broth (0.3% yeast extract, 0.3% malt extract, 0.5% peptone, 1% glucose; adjusted to pH 4.0‒ 4.5 with 1 M HCl) supplemented with 0.025% sodium propionate and 200 mg/L chloramphenicol in a 250 ml Erlenmeyer fl ask and incubated at 25°C for 3 days on a rotary shaker (Limtong et al., 2007). The enrichment culture was then spread out on YM agar supplemented with 0.025% sodium propionate and 200 mg/L chloramphenicol. Representative colonies were purifi ed by the conventional streaking technique on YM agar plates. Purifi ed yeast strains were suspended in YM broth supplemented with 10% glycerol and maintained at -80°C. The morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics were examined according to standard methods that are employed in yeast taxonomy (Yarrow, 1998). All assimilation tests were performed three times, and the results were read after 5 and 21 days of J. Gen. Appl. Microbiol. , 58, 59‒63 (2012)
Biochemical kinetics of porcine cardiac subfragment-1.

The actin binding and ATPase kinetics of cardiac myosin subfragment-1 were compared with prior studies on skeletal myosin subfragments. Previous kinetic studies on rabbit skeletal subfragment-1 (S-1) have revealed two important features of the actomyosin ATPase activity. First, hydrolysis of ATP by myosin subfragment-1 proceeds both when S-1 is bound to actin and when it is dissociated from actin. Second, the actin concentration required to reach half the maximum ATPase activity, Ka(ATPase), is considerably lower than the actin concentration required to bind half the subfragment-1 during steady state hydrolysis of ATP, Ka(binding). These kinetic facts require that skeletal myosin hydrolyze ATP without dissociating from actin; therefore, a "nondissociating" pathway for ATP hydrolysis exists. The studies reported here show that porcine cardiac S-1 is very similar to rabbit skeletal S-1. Under identical conditions to prior work on skeletal S-1, the Ka(ATPase) of porcine cardiac S-1 is approximately equal to that reported for skeletal S-1. This is also true for Ka(binding). Comparison of Ka(ATPase) and Ka(binding) shows that for cardiac proteins Ka(ATPase) is fourfold to sixfold stronger than Ka(binding), i.e., half maximal ATPase activity is achieved at about one fifth the actin necessary to reach 50% binding. The extrapolated maximum ATPase activity at saturating actin concentration for cardiac S-1 is consistently slower than skeletal S-1 by about a factor of 2.5. Furthermore, studies of the actoS-1 ATPase activity at high actin concentrations as well as with crosslinked actoS-1 show no significant inhibition, implying the requirement of a "nondissociating" pathway for ATP hydrolysis by cardiac myosin subfragment-1.
Analysis of Algorithms for Distributed Optimization

Gradient descent (GD) and coordinate descent (CD) are two competing families of optimization algorithms used to solve numerous machine learning tasks. The proliferation of large, web-scale datasets has led researchers to investigate minibatch variants of these algorithms in parallel and distributed settings. However, there is a lack of consensus in the community about the relative merits of these two algorithm families in various settings, and no best practice for evaluating performance. The number of free parameters associated with each algorithm makes it difficult not only to choose between algorithms, but also to tune each independently. To this end, we formalize a methodology to test both algorithms in a distributed setting. We implement the algorithms using Spark and analyze the results on a number of large, realworld datasets. Our results suggest several systems-related issues that are crucial to performance, including batch size, data skew, and patterns of communication. We comment on plausible remedies for these issues and also formalize new, open research questions within this area.
Modeling pronunciation variation for ASR: overview and comparison of methods

In this contribution an overview is provided of the papers presented at this workshop. First, the most important characteristics that distinguish the various studies on pronunciation variation modeling are discussed. Subsequently, the issues of evaluation and comparison are addressed. Particular attention is paid to some of the most important factors that make it difficult to compare the different methods in an objective way. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as to the importance of objective evaluation and the way in which it could be carried out.
Aggressiveness and dominance in captive cock red grouse

A method for measuring the aggressiveness of captive cock red grouse is described. A cock's aggressiveness varied according to season, type of cage and social environment. A method for ranking the dominance order of cocks in a group is also described. Dominance ranks remained stable for up to two years. Correlations between the aggressiveness of isolated cocks and their dominance ranks when in a group were positive but weak. Aggressiveness and dominance should be clearly distinguished. Both aggressiveness and dominance were related to the size of cock's combs, and implants of testosterone increased all three. In situations where a cock's aggressiveness changed, comb size changed in the same direction. The aggressive behaviour of captive cocks shows several major parallels with that of wild cocks.
Two Faces of Participation: The Story of Kerala

This paper analysis the impact of collective action and political participation on the economic development of the south Indian state of Kerala over the last three decades. Despite its low economic basis, Kerala’s successive governments have implemented a large redistributive programme that resulted in impressive levels of social development. Kerala’s success has been largely attributed to the actions of organised collective movements, both in the formal and informal sectors, in the form of militant peasants associations and labour unions. Collective actions have, however, also contributed towards political instability, increase in the risk of investment and uncertainty in labour productivity. This paper examines the effects of collective actions on Kerala’s economic growth during the last three decades using time-series analysis techniques, considering in turn collective action and redistributive policies to be external and then endogenous variables to the process of economic growth in Kerala. The results show that while some forms of collective action can contribute towards the decrease of poverty and increase in state income, other forms harm economic growth. We compare these results with those obtained for a panel of 14 major Indian states.
A Modular Design for the Common Language Runtime (CLR) Architecture

This paper provides a modular high-level design of the Common Language Runtime (CLR) architecture. Our design is given in terms of Abstract State Machines (ASMs) and takes the form of an interpreter. We describe the CLR as a hierarchy of eight submachines, which correspond to eight submodules into which the Common Intermediate Language (CIL) instruction set can be decomposed.
Salinomycin and lasalocid effects on growth rate, mineral metabolism and ruminal fermentation in steers.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of salinomycin and lasalocid on metabolism and growth of growing steers. In Exp. 1, 80 Angus steers (228 kg) were assigned to the following treatments: 1) control, 2) 50 mg salinomycin.hd-1.d-1, 3) 100 mg salinomycin.hd-1.d-1 and 4) 250 mg lasalocid.hd-1.d-1. Steers were fed corn silage once daily with allotments based on the amount of silage that each pen of five steers would consume in a 24-h period. In addition, . 81 kg/hd of a corn-soybean meal supplement was fed daily during the 112-d study. Daily gains were similar across treatments, but feed intake was lower (P less than .05) for steers fed ionophores. Molar proportions of ruminal acetate were lower (P less than .05) in steers fed ionophores at 28 and 90 d. Ruminal propionate was lower (P less than .05) in control steers at 28 d, but values were similar across treatments on d 90. Plasma copper (Cu) was lower (P less than .05) in control steers on both sampling days. In Exp. 2, 16 Hereford steers were allotted to two blocks of eight animals each and assigned to one of three treatments: 1) control (n = 6), 2) 11 mg salinomycin/kg diet (n = 6) and 3) 33 mg lasalocid/kg diet (n = 4). Following a 28-d adjustment period, apparent absorption and retention of macrominerals and nitrogen (N) were determined during a 5-d collection period. Apparent absorption and retention of N did not differ among treatments when data were analyzed using N intake as a covariate. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site recognition by the 5′-dRP/AP lyase in poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1)

The capacity of human poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) to interact with intact apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites in DNA has been demonstrated. In cell extracts, sodium borohydride reduction of the PARP-1/AP site DNA complex resulted in covalent cross-linking of PARP-1 to DNA; the identity of cross-linked PARP-1 was confirmed by mass spectrometry. Using purified human PARP-1, the specificity of PARP-1 binding to AP site-containing DNA was confirmed in competition binding experiments. PARP-1 was only weakly activated to conduct poly(ADP-ribose) synthesis upon binding to AP site-containing DNA, but was strongly activated for poly(ADP-ribose) synthesis upon strand incision by AP endonuclease 1 (APE1). By virtue of its binding to AP sites, PARP-1 could be poised for its role in base excision repair, pending DNA strand incision by APE1 or the 5′-dRP/AP lyase activity in PARP-1.
Some characteristics of mathematics teaching in Zimbabwean infant and primary school classrooms

The purpose of this paper is to highlight some observations made in a recent study aimed at describing the nature of current practice in the teaching of mathematics in Zimbabwean infant and primary school grades. It has been observed that the teaching is characterized by, among other things, a preponderance of chorus responses, non‐questioning pupils, lack of problem solving, teaching more than mathematics, more product and less process orientation, and small group work with group leaders. It is proposed that if teachers wish to improve the quality of their teaching then an appropriate starting point is that of apprehending and understanding what they currently do in their classrooms. Such an understanding can be developed through deliberate and serious observation of and reflection on their own current practice. This paper is intended to stimulate that process. It is also suggested that the observations described here can be turned into research questions for investigations that can provide insights into ways of increasing effectiveness of mathematics teaching and learning in primary schools.
Sparse functional stores for imperative programs

In recent years, the trend in program representations for imperative programs has been to make them more functional, or to make them more sparse. However, new sparse representations have been non-functional, and new functional representations have not been sparse in the presence of pointer operations. In this paper, we present a functional representation that is sparse even in the presence of pointer operations. Conventionally, a store is represented in a functional program representation by a single object—typically a mapping from locations to values. We show how such a store object may be fragmented into several objects, each representing part of the store. The result is a sparser representation, which has not only the usual benefit of directly linking producers to consumers, but which also for static program analysis often leads to smaller domains of abstract values for store objects. Store fragmentation corresponds to assignment factored SSA form (a factorization of SSA form introduced in this paper). We report on experiments with a thorough fragmentation based on a data flow points-to analysis and an intermediate level fragmentation based on an almost linear time complexity points-to analysis by type inference.
Extracting Word Relationships from Unstructured Data (Learning Human Activities from General Websites)

One of the biggest challenges of instructing robots in natural language, is the conversion of goals into executable instructions [1]. A core problem in this area is to train the robot to identify the speciﬁc actions (verbs) that help fulﬁl the goal using the objects (nouns) at its disposal. This project presents a new algorithm, which we call “Extracto”, to extract noun-verb-noun relationships from unstructured text. Extracto is built on the Coupled Pattern Learner framework [2,3] presented by the creators of the ‘Never Ending Language Learner’ (NELL) project. Extracto gives a 70% precision in identifying suitable action verbs, given two nouns. We have extended this to create the “Extracto-Categorize” algorithm that extracts actions for the categories of the respective nouns instead of the nouns themselves. This increases extraction precision to 82%. Since this is a ﬁrst of its kind method created purely for this purpose (noun-verb-noun extraction), we have benchmarked it against related algorithms that extract semantic relationships from unstructured text. Existing algorithms reach precision levels of 70 - 91% [4,5,6,7], which is in line with Extracto’s performance.
The CIFF proof procedure for abductive logic programming with constraints: Theory, implementation and experiments

Abstract We present the CIFF proof procedure for abductive logic programming with constraints, and we prove its correctness. CIFF is an extension of the IFF proof procedure for abductive logic programming, relaxing the original restrictions over variable quantification (allowedness conditions) and incorporating a constraint solver to deal with numerical constraints as in constraint logic programming. Finally, we describe the CIFF system, comparing it with state-of-the-art abductive systems and answer set solvers and showing how to use it to program some applications.
Web site topic-hierarchy generation based on link structure

Navigating through hyperlinks within a Web site to look for information from one of its Web pages without the support of a site map can be inefficient and ineffective. Although the content of a Web site is usually organized with an inherent structure like a topic hierarchy, which is a directed tree rooted at a Web site’s homepage whose vertices and edges correspond to Web pages and hyperlinks, such a topic hierarchy is not always available to the user. In this work, we studied the problem of automatic generation of Web sites’ topic hierarchies. We modeled a Web site’s link structure as a weighted directed graph and proposed methods for estimating edge weights based on eight types of features and three learning algorithms, namely decision trees, naïve Bayes classifiers, and logistic regression. Three graph algorithms, namely breadth-first search, shortest-path search, and directed minimum-spanning tree, were adapted to generate the topic hierarchy based on the graph model. We have tested the model and algorithms on real Web sites. It is found that the directed minimum-spanning tree algorithm with the decision tree as the weight learning algorithm achieves the highest performance with an average accuracy of 91.9%.
Conceptualising and measuring academic motivation

There is an almost bewildering array of different ways in which practitioners and researchers can conceptualise and measure academic motivation, and how academic motivation may overlap with and relate to adjacent constructs such as interest, engagement and enjoyment in learning. Conceptual clarity is required to clearly delineate between different constructs, develop precision in measurement tools and to advance theory. The purpose of this article is to describe one popular and contemporary approach to academic motivation – achievement goals – and how it can be measured.
CSI and moral authority: The police and science

Since it first aired in 2000, CSI has consistently been among the top-rated television programs in the United States. In this article, we analyze CSI’s debut season and also include observations about the program today as well as its two spin-offs: CSI: NY and CSI: Miami. We are interested in the cultural meanings conveyed in this very popular forensic crime drama, especially in terms of the moral authority of the police and of science. We consider how CSI uses the conventions of the crime genre to assert the police as a moral authority. We also demonstrate how CSI portrays a sense of forensic realism, and, in so doing, asserts the veracity of science. We conclude with a discussion of what these meanings suggest about the legitimacy of policing and of science.