Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ECOLOGY OF PHYTOPLANKTON IN THE REGIONAL LANDSCAPE PARK " SLAVYANSKY RESORT " , UKRAINE

We analysed relationships of chemical and biological variables with the help of statistics for phytoplankton communities of seven lakes in the Regional Landscape Park “Slavyansky Resort”, Ukraine that were studied during 2007-2013. Lake communities were divided into two groups: northern deep lakes Ripne, Veysove, Garache, and Slipne under high salinity and organic load influence, and southern shallow lakes Levadne, Chervone, and Lake under influence of mineral ions and organic load. Abundance and biomass fluctuated synchronously and correlated with species richness in deep lakes but not in shallow lakes. Two types of communities were revealed: (1) low species-rich communities in moderate conductivity waters and low-organic load, and (2) species rich communities in high conductivity and organic load waters. We found salinity indicator Dunaliella salina (Dunal) Teodor. in deep northern lakes with CCA. Adlafia minuscula (Grunow in Van Heurck) Lange-Bert. in Lange-Bert. et Genkal and Chaetoceros muelleri Lemmerm. were bio-indicators of high salinity and alkalinity, and biosensors of acidic water in shallow southern lakes. Cyclotella stelligera (Cleve et Grunow) Van Heurck and Navicula gregaria Donkin were indicators of silica and biosensors of carbonates. Therefore, water conductivity and pH, which were closely related to organic pollution, were found as major regulators of phytoplankton in studied lakes.
Evaluation of Transmission Route and Replication Efficiency of H9N2 Avian Influenza Virus

Abstract A/Chicken/Beijing/1/94 (Ck/BJ/1/94) avian influenza virus (AIV), a prototype of the H9N2 subtype, is phylogenetically similar in its hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes to A/Chicken/Shanghai/F/98 (Ck/SH/F/98; H9N2) AIV, a natural reassortant between different sublineages. To understand the role of HA and NA genes in the airborne transmission of H9N2 AIV, we compared the transmission route and the relative replication efficiency of these strains in specific-pathogen-free chickens. Three recombinant viruses were generated by reverse genetics, containing the HA and NA genes (or both) from A/Chicken/Guangdong/SS/94 (Ck/GD/SS/94), in a background of internal genes derived from Ck/SH/F/98. Inoculated chickens were kept in either direct or indirect contact with uninoculated chickens, and viral shedding and titers were monitored. The results showed that Ck/GD/SS/94 lacks the ability to be transmitted through indirect contact, while Ck/SH/F/98 could be transmitted indirectly. Recombinant virus (RF/SSHA), containing the internal genes of Ck/SH/F/98 and the HA gene of Ck/GD/SS/94, resulted in decreased viral titers in lung tissue as compared to the parental strain. Interestingly, substituting the NA gene, or both the NA and HA genes, of Ck/SH/F/98 with that of Ck/GD/SS/94 completely abolished the airborne transmission of the recombinant RF/SSNA and RF/SSHA/SSNA. In conclusion, Ck/SH/F/98 acquired the ability of airborne transmission and replicated with a higher efficiency in the respiratory tract of the chickens. Our data indicated that the NA gene of Ck/SH/F/98 can affect virus replication and, therefore, indirectly affect the transmission for the gene constellations of these viruses.
Climate-driven synchrony in otolith growth-increment chronologies for three Bering Sea flatfish species

Dendrochronology (tree-ring science) techniques were applied to otolith growth incre- ments in 3 flatfish species collected from the eastern Bering Sea: northern rock sole Lepidopsetta polyxystra, yellowfin sole Limanda aspera, and Alaska plaice Pleuronectes quadrituberculatus. Within each species, otoliths were visually crossdated to ensure that the correct calendar year was assigned to each growth increment. Growth-increment widths were measured in each otolith, cross- dating was statistically checked, and a single master chronology was generated for each species by averaging measurement time series after age-related growth declines had been removed. The 3 final chronologies spanned 18 to 20 yr and were significantly correlated with each other (p < 0.001), indicating a high level of growth synchrony among species. Final chronologies were compared to annual and monthly climate variables including water temperature, ice cover, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Of the climate indices examined, chronologies were most strongly related to summertime eastern Bering Sea bottom temperatures, with R 2 values of 0.81, 0.61, and 0.34 for the yellowfin sole, Alaska plaice, and northern rock sole chronologies, respec- tively. Chronologies were significantly (p < 0.01) and positively related to monthly resolved records of sea surface temperature, though the seasons of the year exhibiting the strongest correlations varied among species. The present study suggests that flatfish growth is strongly influenced by the temperature of the eastern Bering Sea, underscoring the effect of climate on fisheries in a high- latitude ecosystem.
Beyond Words : The Causal Effects of News on Information May 30 , 2018

This paper studies the causal effects of media coverage on the information environment by examining the micro-process of press release timing. Although press releases in the first two minutes of each hour are indistinguishable in content, they cluster strongly in the very first minute. These clustered releases must compete for journalist attention, and are significantly less likely to be covered. Overall, media coverage is complementary to other information channels, and exogenous increases in coverage cause investors to produce more information via Edgar search, analysts to revise their forecasts, and more trading. However, suggestive evidence indicates overreaction (efficient reaction) to positive (negative) news.
2 Problem Setup and Main Results

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is one of the most widely used algorithms for large scale optimization problems. While classical theoretical analysis of SGD for convex problems studies (suffix) averages of iterates and obtains information theoretically optimal bounds on suboptimality, the last point of SGD is, by far, the most preferred choice in practice. The best known results for last point of SGD [1] however, are suboptimal compared to information theoretic lower bounds by a logT factor, where T is the number of iterations. [2] shows that in fact, this additional logT factor is tight
A scalable Verilog-A modeling method for ESD protection devices

A novel and practical modeling method is presented for ESD protection devices, using behavior language Verilog-A. This method is simulator-independent, easy-to-implement, and extendable to different types of ESD protection devices. The triggering voltage, holding voltage, and turn-on resistance of ESD devices are scalable with device dimensions so that the models are suitable for predictive ESD simulations. This method has been validated by the good silicon correlation between the models of zener-triggered bipolar devices and NMOS devices and transmission line pulsing measurement. These models are suitable for circuit level ESD simulations without encountering convergence problems.
A Predictive Power Management System for Mobile Processors based on Long Short-Term Memory

Recently, since smartphone specification is continuously upgraded, various researches have been conducted on software-based power-saving techniques for mobile processors. The existing frequency/voltage control system in Android smartphone is based on the current processor usage, but it allocates resources more than necessary and consumes power frequently. In this paper, we propose a new machine learning based processor power control system that more accurately predicts the processor frequency that an application requires. Keywords-DVFS; Android; Governor; Power Management System; Load Prediction;
Hamartoma of the breast: A rare case

Breast hamartomas "Breast within a breast" is a rare entity with a low incidence (0.1 - 7%). It was first mentioned by Hogeman and Ostberg in 1968, and described by Arrigoni et al (6) in 1971. They clinically resemble fibroadenoma. The concern with the condition is that it may present as a palpable breast lump or may be identified on sometimes routine mammographic examination leading to appropriate triple test and its associated investigations to rule out possible breast malignancy. They have a possibility for malignant transformation and thus should be speculated and treated in the same manner. We present the case of a 36 year old female with a palpable breast lump identified as fibroadenomatoushamartoma. Simple excision is was treatment of choice as there was no coincidental epithelial malignant lesion. No recurrence or complications developed in the post-operative and follow-up period.
An endophyte‐rich diet increases ant predation on a specialist herbivorous insect

1. All plants form symbioses with microfungi, known as endophytes, which live within plant tissues. Numerous studies have documented endophyte–herbivore antagonism in grass systems, but plant–endophyte–insect interactions are highly variable for forbs and woody plants.
Collaborative Mind-Mapping: A Study of Patterns, Strategies, and Evolution of Maps Created by Peer-Pairs

We present a study on collaborative mind-mapping to understand how peers collaborate in pairs to create mind-maps, how the maps evolve over time, and how collaboration changes between the peer-pair across multiple maps. Mind-mapping is an important tool that is studied and taught in design practice and research respectively. While widely used as a brainstorming technique, the collaborative aspects of mind-mapping are little understood in comparison to other ideation methods such as concept sketching etc. In addition to presenting creativity ratings on the outcome (i.e. the mind-map), we extensively report on the patterns of collaborative exploration, strategies that emerge from the collaborators, inhibition, and the overall process of map creation. We discuss the implications of these observations on the development of computer-support for mind-mapping.
ChalkboARd: exploring augmented reality for public displays

Augmented Reality (AR) devices and applications are gaining in popularity, and - with recent trends such as Pokemon Go - are venturing into public spaces where they become more and more pervasive. In consequence, public AR displays might soon be part of our cityscapes and may impact on our everyday view of the world. In this work, we present ChalkboARd, a prototype of an AR-enabled public display that seamlessly integrates into its environment. We investigate the influence of our system on the attention of bystanders in a field study (N=20). The field deployment of ChalkboARd provides evidence that AR for public displays needs to be interactive and adaptive to their surroundings, while at the same time taking privacy issues into account. Nevertheless, ChalkboARd was received positively by the participants, which points out the (hidden) potential of public AR displays.
Multiple CPGs with Local Feed- back Mechanisms for Locomo- tor Adaptation of Hexapod Robots

Walking animals show versatile locomotion. They can also adapt their movement according to changes in their morphology and environmental conditions. These emergent properties are realized by biomechanics, distributed central pattern generators (CPGs), local sensory feedback, and their interactions during body and leg movements through the environment. Based on this concept, a decentralized control system with different local sensory feedback mechanisms is presented here. In this system, the intra-limb coordination is formed by multiple single CPG-based controls, while the inter-limb coordination is attained by the interactions between body dynamics, neural control, and the environment through local sensory feedback of each leg. Simulation results show that these feedback control approaches can generate self-organizing emergent locomotion allowing the robot to adaptively form regular patterns, to deal with morphological change and special functionalities of the front legs, to maintain its body position while traversing irregular terrains, to achieve high walking speeds, and to synchronize its movement with another robot during a collaborative task. keywords: Adaptive behavior, Hexapod locomotion, Brain-body-environment interaction, Autonomous robots, Neural networks.
Mutual Authorizations: Semantics and Integration Issues

Studies in fields like psychology and sociology have revealed that reciprocity is a powerful determinant of human behavior. None of the existing access control models however captures this reciprocity phenomenon. In this paper, we introduce a new kind of grant, which we call mutual, to express authorizations that actually do this, i.e., users grant access to their resources only to users who allow them access to theirs. We define the syntax and semantics of mutual authorizations and show how this new grant can be included in the Role-Based Access Control model, i.e., extend RBAC with it.
GestMan: a cloud-based tool for stroke-gesture datasets

We introduce GestMan, a cloud-based GESTure MANagement tool to support the acquisition, design, and management of stroke-gesture datasets for interactive applications. GestMan stores stroke-gestures at multiple levels of representation, from individual samples to classes, clusters, and vocabularies and enables practitioners to process, analyze, classify, compile, and reconfigure sets of gesture commands according to the specific requirements of their applications, prototypes, and interactive systems. Our online tool enables acquisition of 2-D stroke-gestures via a HTML5-based user interface as well as 3-D touch+air and webcam-based gestures via dedicated mappers. GestMan implements five software quality characteristics of the ISO-25010 standard and employs a new mathematical formalization of stroke-gestures as vectors to support efficient computation of various gesture features.
A framework to support the engineering of internet of things software systems

Internet of Things is a technology paradigm that enables the interaction of devices and communications technologies with embedded software, integrating different areas and multidisciplinarity. It is built from smart objects, that relies on things interaction and information exchange, which can lead to development challenges. This paper presents research towards the definition of a framework to support the engineering of IoT software systems. From a literature review, we introduce six IoT facets representing knowledge areas and topics to consider while engineering IoT software systems. The proposed framework uses them to have a multifaceted perspective of the IoT problem domain. Three steps going from Project Characterization to a strategy to support decision-making for development compose the framework. The article presents a real case scenario of a shrimp farm used to illustrate its use.
Capturing and Reporting Provenance Information of Simulation Studies Based on an Artifact-Based Workflow Approach

Provenance comprises information about how a product has been generated in a process. Thus, provenance information about an entire simulation study would support the interpretation and reuse of the developed simulation model and simulation experiments. However, current approaches only support to capture parts of the provenance information of a simulation study, i.e., the provenance information of the simulation data generated by individual simulation experiments. In this work, we extend a declarative, artifact-based workflow to capture provenance information about an entire simulation by observing the user in the study process. The workflow relates the building processes of central products of a simulation study, such as the conceptual model, requirements, input data, simulation model, and simulation experiments. Additionally, the workflow guides the modeler through the simulation study process while ensuring the consistency between its products. Further, we also develop different strategies to report the captured provenance information. These enable the user to respectively understand the simulation study at different levels of abstractions.
A Distributed Virtual Time System on Embedded Linux for Evaluating Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical systems have a cyber presence, collecting and transmitting data, while also collecting information and modifying the physical surrounding world. In order to evaluate the cyber-security of cyber-physical systems, simulation and modeling is a tool often used. In this work, we develop a distributed virtual time system that enables the synchronization of virtual clocks between physical machines enabling a high fidelity simulation based testing platform. The platform combines physical computing and networking hardware for the cyber presence, while allowing for offline simulation and computation of the physical world. By incorporating virtual clocks into distributed embedded Linux devices, the testbed creates the opportunity to interrupt real and emulated cyber-physical applications to inject offline simulated data values. The ability to run real applications and being able to inject simulated data temporally transparent to the running process allows for high fidelity experimentation. Distributed virtual time enables processes and their clocks to be paused, resumed, and dilated across embedded Linux devices through the use of hardware interrupts and a common kernel module. By interconnecting the embedded devices' general purpose IO pins, they can coordinate and synchronize through a distributed virtual time kernel module with low overhead, under 50 microseconds for 8 processes across 4 embedded Linux devices.
The loss of slow skeletal muscle isoform of troponin T in spindle intrafusal fibres explains the pathophysiology of Amish nemaline myopathy

The pathogenic mechanism and the neuromuscular reflex‐related phenotype (e.g. tremors accompanied by clonus) of Amish nemaline myopathy, as well as of other recessively inherited TNNT1 myopathies, remain to be clarified. The truncated slow skeletal muscle isoform of troponin T (ssTnT) encoded by the mutant TNNT1 gene is unable to incorporate into myofilaments and is degraded in muscle cells. By contrast to extrafusal muscle fibres, spindle intrafusal fibres of normal mice contain a significant level of cardiac TnT and a low molecular weight splice form of ssTnT. Intrafusal fibres of ssTnT‐knockout mice have significantly increased cardiac TnT. Rotarod and balance beam tests have revealed abnormal neuromuscular co‐ordination in ssTnT‐knockout mice and a blunted response to a spindle sensitizer, succinylcholine. The loss of ssTnT and a compensatory increase of cardiac TnT in intrafusal nuclear bag fibres may increase myofilament Ca2+‐sensitivity and tension, impairing spindle function, thus identifying a novel mechanism for the development of targeted treatment.
ADLAuth: Passive Authentication Based on Activity of Daily Living Using Heterogeneous Sensing in Smart Cities

The Internet of Things is a rapidly growing paradigm for smart cities that provides a way of communication, identification, and sensing capabilities among physically distributed devices. With the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoTs), user dependence on smart systems and services, such as smart appliances, smartphone, security, and healthcare applications, has been increased. This demands secure authentication mechanisms to preserve the users’ privacy when interacting with smart devices. This paper proposes a heterogeneous framework “ADLAuth” for passive and implicit authentication of the user using either a smartphone’s built-in sensor or wearable sensors by analyzing the physical activity patterns of the users. Multiclass machine learning algorithms are applied to users’ identity verification. Analyses are performed on three different datasets of heterogeneous sensors for a diverse number of activities. A series of experiments have been performed to test the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The results demonstrate the better performance of the proposed scheme compared to existing work for user authentication.
Inter‐individual variation in honey bee dance intensity correlates with expression of the foraging gene

Individual behavioural differences in responding to the same stimuli is an integral part of division of labour in eusocial insect colonies. Amongst honey bee nectar foragers, individuals strongly differ in their sucrose responsiveness, which correlates with strong differences in behavioural decisions. In this study, we explored whether the mechanisms underlying the regulation of foraging are linked to inter‐individual differences in the waggle dance activity of honey bee foragers. We first quantified the variation in dance activity amongst groups of foragers visiting an artificial feeder filled consecutively with different sucrose concentrations. We then determined, for these foragers, the sucrose responsiveness and the brain expression levels of three genes associated with food search and foraging; the foraging gene Amfor, octopamine receptor gene AmoctαR1 and insulin receptor AmInR‐2. As expected, foragers showed large inter‐individual differences in their dance activity, irrespective of the reward offered at the feeder. The sucrose responsiveness correlated positively with the intensity of the dance activity at the higher reward condition, with the more responsive foragers having a higher intensity of dancing. Out of the three genes tested, Amfor expression significantly correlated with dance activity, with more active dancers having lower expression levels. Our results show that dance and foraging behaviour in honey bees have similar mechanistic underpinnings and supports the hypothesis that the social communication behaviour of honey bees might have evolved by co‐opting behavioural modules involved in food search and foraging in solitary insects.
A CT saturation detection algorithm using symmetrical components for current differential protection

A method of symmetrical component analysis for the detection of current-transformer (CT) saturation in a numerical current differential feeder protection relay is presented in this paper. The performance of the differential relay is investigated for various faults on a typical Electro-Magnetic Transients Program/Alternative Transients Program (EMTP/ATP) simulated transmission feeder. The simulator includes the effects of CT saturation. A comparison between simulation and tests conducted on an analog model testbench are also evaluated. The results show a high degree of similarity and illustrate the effect that CT saturation imposes on the sensitivity and stability of the protection scheme. An algorithm is presented that shows significant improvement in sensitivity on internal faults while still maintaining a high level of stability on external faults and nonfault events.
Area-efficient charge pump with local boost technique for embedded flash memory

An area-efficient charge pump (AE-CP) used for embedded flash memory is proposed with the combination of an area-efficient voltage doubler (AE-VD). An optimized strategy for AE-CP with local boost technique is discussed to maximize output capability by using low-voltage MOS capacitors together. The proposed circuits are simulated in a 130nm CMOS process. Simulation results show the proposed AE-VD decreases the power consumption by 11.4%. And the proposed AE-CP with proposed voltage doubler achieves 29% improvement of the maximum output capability as compared to the conventional CP. A 253 × 8KB embedded flash memory IP has been fabricated in HHGrace 130nm 4 poly 4 metal CMOS process. The die size of the proposed IP is 0.65mm2 and the area size of charge pump has been reduced to 0.0317mm2 with an optimized α=0.6 and the area ratio decreases by 10%.