Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon

This original study reveals the importance of ancient Cynicism in defining the Enlightenment and its legacy. Louisa Shea explores modernity's debt to Cynicism by examining the works of thinkers who turned to the ancient Cynics as a model for reinventing philosophy and dared to imagine an alliance between a socially engaged Enlightenment and the least respectable of early Greek philosophies. While Cynicism has always resided on the fringes of philosophy, Shea argues, it remained a vital touchstone for writers committed to social change and helped define the emerging figure of the public intellectual in the 18th century. Shea's study brings to light the rich legacy of ancient Cynicism in modern intellectual, philosophical, and literary life, both in the 18th-century works of Diderot, Rousseau, Wieland, and Sade, and in recent writings by Michel Foucault and Peter Sloterdijk. Featuring an important new perspective on both Enlightenment thought and its current scholarly reception, The Cynic Enlightenment will interest students and scholars of the Enlightenment and its intellectual legacy, 18th-century studies, literature, and philosophy.
An investigation into the improvement of graduate attributes within the Egyptian university sector

In Egypt earlier this century, the government recognised the importance of reforming its higher education sector to meet the challenges of the new era. One of these challenges was Egyptian employers’ dissatisfaction with graduate attributes which were described as not meeting employment demands. To address such a problem, the Egyptian government, through a reform strategy, initiated a number of projects which among other things aimed to improve graduates’ readiness for the labour market and thus reduce the skills gap. Yet, with all the initiatives achieved to date the problem still persists. This research has sought to study the skills gap problem in depth but within the scope of computer engineering undergraduate studies. It aims to understand the contextual factors affecting the effective implementation of graduate attributes in taught courses in Egyptian universities. To do this, a number of questions were posed, using semi-structured interviews, to a purposive sample of academics and graduates belonging to two different computer engineering undergraduate programmes; one private and the other public. To ensure the validity of the data, more information was collected from Egyptian employers as well as the documents that represent the different educational policies and practices implemented in both private and public programmes of study. Through thematic data analysis and by applying complexity theory as a conceptual framework, the study identified the different contextual factors that affected Egyptian academics’ performance when teaching and learning graduate attributes in computer engineering undergraduate courses. Keywords : University education in Egypt, the skills gap, higher education, education reform, education policy, complexity theory.
In Vitro α-Amylase Inhibitory Activity of theLeaves of Tinosporacordifolia

Postprandial hyperglycemia is a prime characteristic of diabetes mellitus and has been a focus in the therapy for diabetes. One of the therapeutic approaches which involve decreasing hyperglycemia aims at inhibiting the enzyme α-amylase. The leaves of T. Cordifolia were studied for the presence of amylase inhibitors. In this study area, herbal remedies are considered convenient for management of Type 2 diabetes with postprandial hyperglycemia due to their traditional acceptability and availability, low costs, lesser side effects. Comparative evaluation of alpha amylase inhibitory activities of selected plants extracts. The extracts obtained were subjected to in vitro alpha amylase inhibitory assay using starch azure as a substrate and porcine pancreatic amylase as the enzyme The fractions obtained by successive fractionation using solvents of varying polarity were studied for the presence of primary and secondary metabolites. The total phenolic content of the different fractions was determined by HPLC and was correlated with their amylase inhibitory potential. Similarly, the protein content of the extracts was also estimated to understand the nature of the inhibitor present. This study shows that the leaves of T. Cordifolia were effective in inhibiting α-amylase, thereby proving to be potential anti-hyperglycemic agents.
Fiscal Policy and Inflation: Understanding the Role of Expectations in Mexico

We exploit a hidden Markov model where inflation is determined by government deficits financed through money creation and/or by destabilizing expectations dynamics (expectations can potentially divorce inflation from fundamentals). The baseline model, proposed by Sargent et al. (2009), is used to analyze the interaction between fiscal deficits, inflation expectations, and inflation in Mexico. The model is able to distinguish between causes and remedies of hyperinflation, such as persistent or transitory shocks to seigniorage-financed fiscal deficits, deanchoring of inflation expectations from fiscal fundamentals, and cosmetic (non-fundamental) monetary reforms. The behavior of monetized deficits provides an adequate account of high inflation episodes and stabilizations for the period 1969-1994. We then extend the model to analyze the possibility that fiscal policy can affect inflation expectations in a context of Central Bank independence, as is the case in Mexico after 1994. We find evidence that the exchange rate and sovereign interest rate spreads influence the evolution of aggregate prices.
Assessing Errors in DNA Barcode Sequence Records

Assessing Errors in DNA Barcode Sequence Records Taryn B. T. Athey Advisors: University of Guelph, 2013 Dr P. McNicholas Dr R. Hanner DNA barcoding uses a standardized gene region to identify species. In animals, the barcode is a 648bp region of the cytochrome c oxidase I gene. These sequences are uploaded to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD), a reference library, which requires accuracy of its data. This thesis uses a cross-taxa study to assess the use of a frequency matrix approach to identify very low frequency variants (VLFs), which represent potential errors within BOLD. In each group analyzed, most VLFs occurred in the first and last 50bp of the sequences, consistent with known error properties of Sanger sequencing. To correct for this, success rates of different classification methods on full length and reduced barcodes were assessed. Neither reduction of the barcode, nor number of VLFs affected the success rate of classification. This indicates that trimming barcodes by 50bp could reduce the overall error in BOLD without affecting species identification. iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisors Dr. Paul McNicholas and Dr. Bob Hanner for their guidance. I would also like to thank the Hanner and McNicholas lab groups for their friendships and support. As well, thank you to Dr. Rodger Gwiazdowski for providing the Hemiptera dataset and Dr. Reza Zahiri for providing the Noctuoidea dataset. A special thank you to Dr. Mark Stoeckle for teaching me his methods and for offering advice and support throughout my research. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for their love and support.
A fully multiple-criteria implementation of the Sobol' method for parameter sensitivity analysis

[1] We present a novel rank-based fully multiple-criteria implementation of the Sobol′ variance-based sensitivity analysis approach that implements an objective strategy to evaluate parameter sensitivity when model evaluation involves several metrics of performance. The method is superior to single-criterion approaches while avoiding the subjectivity observed in “pseudo” multiple-criteria methods. Further, it contributes to our understanding of structural characteristics of a model and simplifies parameter estimation by identifying insensitive parameters that can be fixed to default values during model calibration studies. We illustrate the approach by applying it to the problem of identifying the most influential parameters in the Simple Biosphere 3 (SiB3) model using a network of flux towers in Brazil. We find 27–31 (out of 42) parameters to be influential, most (∼78%) of which are primarily associated with physiology, soil, and carbon properties, and that uncertainties in the physiological properties of the model contribute most to total model uncertainty in regard to energy and carbon fluxes. We also find that the second most important model component contributing to the total output uncertainty varies according to the flux analyzed; whereas morphological properties play an important role in sensible heat flux, soil properties are important for latent heat flux, and carbon properties (mainly associated with the soil respiration submodel) are important for carbon flux (as expected). These distinct sensitivities emphasize the need to account for the multioutput nature of land surface models during sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation. Applied to other similar models, our approach can help to establish which soil-plant-atmosphere processes matter most in land surface models of Amazonia and thereby aid in the design of field campaigns to characterize and measure the associated parameters. The approach can also be used with other sensitivity analysis procedures that compute at least two model performance metrics.
Comparison of the Hα circumstellar disks in Be/X-ray binaries and Be stars

We present a comparative study of the circumstellar disks in Be/X-ray binaries and isolated Be stars based upon the H α emission line. From this comparison it follows that the overall structure of the disks in the Be/X-ray binaries is similar to the disks of other Be stars, i.e. they are axisymmetric and rotationally supported. The factors for the line broadening (rotation and temperature) in the disks of the Be stars and the Be/X-ray binaries seem to be identical. However, we do detect some intriguing differences between the envelopes. On average, the circumstellar disks of the Be/X-ray binaries are twice as dense as the disks of the isolated Be stars. The different distribution of the Be/X-ray binaries and the Be stars seen in the full width half maximum versus peak separation diagram indicates that the disks in Be/X-ray binaries have on average a smaller size, probably truncated by the compact object.
Climatic regionalization of wine grapes in the Hengduan Mountain region of China

The Hengduan Mountain region of China is one of the world's highest altitude and lowest latitude wine grape cultivation areas. This study screened the existing regional indexes; the active accumulated temperature (AAT) for grapes in the growing season was chosen as the heat index, and the dryness index (DI) in the growing season was chosen as the water index for climatic regionalization. An analysis of 90-meter resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data and the corresponding slope degree and direction for the Hengduan Mountain region in the range of 97°E-103°E, 27°N-33°N, as well as daily meteorological data over 30 years (1981-2010) from 53 stations in the study region, were used to establish the AAT and DI models for the northern area of the Hengduan Mountains. According to the multiple stepwise regression method, the interaction terms among different geographical and topographic factors were considered. In addition, the residual errors were interpolated and corrected based on the modeling, and this approach further improved the simulation accuracy of meteorological factors. A regional climatic map of wine grapes was produced according to these results. The model was used to calculate the suitable altitude range for wine grape cultivation in different regions of the Hengduan Mountains. The study shows that the distribution of suitable wine grape cultivation areas in the northern part of the mountain range generally mimics distribution of dry warm and dry hot valleys. The accuracy of the results was confirmed based on the existing locations of vineyards in the Hengduan Mountain region.
Seeding methodbased on Independent Component Analysis for k-means Clustering

The k-means clustering method is a widely used clustering technique for the Web because of its simplicity and speed. However, the clustering result depends heavily on the chosen initial clustering centers, which are chosen uniformly at random from the data points. We propose a seeding method based on the independent component analysis for the k-means clustering method. We evaluate the performance of our proposed method and compare it with other seeding methods by using benchmark datasets. We applied our proposed method to a Web corpus, which is provided by ODP. The experiments show that the normalized mutual information of our proposed method is better than the normalized mutual information of k-means clustering method and k-means++ clustering method. Therefore, the proposed method is useful for Web corpus. Keywords-k-means; k-means++; independent component analysis; seeding;
An Algorithm for Locating Point Scatterers Using a Wide-Band Wireless Network

A map of the coordinates of the most significant point scatterersin the environment surrounding a wireless network would be useful in many contexts, e.g., in indoor positioning and mapping applications, for channel estimation, and also for wake-up radio schemes. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of creating such a map based on signal propagation path length data gathered at a number of wide-band network transceivers. Differently from previous approaches to this problem, we propose to formulate the point scatterer mapping problem as an assignment problem. Computer simulations show that, under a few simplifying assumptions, it is indeed feasible to position point scatterers using the proposed algorithm.
Application of Enhanced Hadamard Error Correcting Code in Video-Watermarking and his comparison to Reed-Solomon Code

Error Correcting Codes are playing a very important role in Video Watermarking technology. Because of very high compression rate (about 1:200) normally the watermarks can barely survive such massive attacks, despite very sophisticated embedding strategies. It can only work with a sufficient error correcting code method. In this paper, the authors compare the new developed Enhanced Hadamard Error Correcting Code (EHC) with well known Reed-Solomon Code regarding its ability to preserve watermarks in the embedded video. The main idea of this new developed multidimensional Enhanced Hadamard Error Correcting Code is to map the 2D basis images into a collection of one-dimensional rows and to apply a 1D Hadamard decoding procedure on them. After this, the image is reassembled, and the 2D decoding procedure can be applied more efficiently. With this approach, it is possible to overcome the theoretical limit of error correcting capability of ( d -1)/2 bits, where d is a Hamming distance. Even better results could be achieved by expanding the 2D EHC to 3D. To prove the efficiency and practicability of this new Enhanced Hadamard Code, the method was applied to a video Watermarking Coding Scheme. The Video Watermarking Embedding procedure decomposes the initial video trough multi-Level Interframe Wavelet Transform. The low pass filtered part of the video stream is used for embedding the watermarks, which are protected respectively by Enhanced Hadamard or Reed-Solomon Correcting Code. The experimental results show that EHC performs much better than RS Code and seems to be very robust against strong MPEG compression.
Some iterative method for finding a common zero of a finite family of accretive operators in Banach spaces

‎The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new mapping for a finite‎ ‎family of accretive operators and introduce an iterative algorithm‎ ‎for finding a common zero of a finite family of accretive operators‎ ‎in a real reflexive strictly convex Banach space which has a‎ ‎uniformly G^ateaux differentiable norm and admits the duality‎ ‎mapping $j_{varphi}$‎, ‎where $varphi$ is a gauge function invariant‎ ‎on $[0,infty)$‎. ‎Furthermore‎, ‎we prove the strong convergence under‎ ‎some certain conditions‎. ‎The results obtained in this paper improve‎ ‎and extend the corresponding ones announced by many others‎.
ISSN 2348 - 2710 Original Article Removal of Lead ion from aqueous solution by Bamboo activated Carbon

The current study focusing the removal of Pb 2+ from it aqueous solution using activated carbon obtained from bamboo stem has been investigated by batch adsorption method. The results were obtained and indicate that the maximum sorption for lead ion was found at p H 5. The bamboo activated carbon (BAC) dosage reveals better results even at lower metal ion concentrations. Greater adsorption occurs at smaller particle size of adsorbent and at high solution temperature. The results were also confirmed that the adsorption process follows Freundlich isotherm model with a better sorption fit and supported for the multilayer adsorption of Pb 2+ ions on BAC. The kinetic model of this study shows a pseudo-second order kinetic model with good correlation coefficient. Thermodynamic parameters such as change in Gibbs free energy, enthalpy and entropy were also evaluated. Thus, these results were reveals the negative free energy changes (ΔG) and positive entropy (ΔS) and enthalpy changes (ΔH) that were recognized the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the adsorption process.
Prospect of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell culture waste in regenerative medicine

Abstract : Objective: to analyzevarious growth factor (GF) content in umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cell ( UC- MSC) culture waste at harvest. Methods: We cultured UC- MSCs in complete medium, and collected the medium waste at harvests. We noted the time of harvests, and measured the concentrations of EGF, VEGF, NGF and Pl GF in the various medium waste s using ELISA method. We grouped GF concentrations according to various culture length sat harvest , and calculated them ean values and standard deviations of the various GF . We compareddescriptively the GF concentrations at various culture lengths at harvests to conclude which condition yielded the overall highest GF concentration . Results: EGF , VEGF and PlGF concentrations were highest at harvest day-3, while NGF concentration was the highest at harvest-day-5 , respectively . Therefore, overall highest concentration of most GF was at harvest day 3. Conclusion: UC- MSC culture waste at harvest day-3 containedEGF, VEGF, NGF and PlGF , which might be used in regenerative medicine.
Antagonism of Trichoderma spp. strains against pea (Pisum sativum L.) Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. pisi.

The antagonistic effectiveness of native strains of Trichoderma spp. on Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. pisi. in vitro , greenhouse and field conditions, were evaluated. in vitro conditions, the antagonistic capacity of 12 strains of Trichoderma spp. , C2, C7, C12 and C21 strains, exhibited a better behavior measured by the following variables: inhibition halo and mycelial growth. In greenhouse conditions, the four strains, which showed the best in vitro antagonistic behavior, were evaluated using a DIA experimental design with factorial arrangement for three factors, which corresponded to strain, concentration and dose. The results of this evaluation, showed that C12 and C21 strains at doses of 20 mL, and at concentrations of 108 and 106 conidia.mL-1, respectively. The best antagonistic response was determined by variables as follows: plant height, fresh root weight and incidence. Under field conditions, the evaluations were carried out in the municipalities of Ipiales, Pupiales and Gualmatan, in the department of Narino, Colombia. In each location, a BCA experimental design was used with four treatments and five replicates, treatments were as follows: C12 strains at 108 concentration, C21 at 106 concentration, chemical control and absolute control. In Gualmatan location, C12 and C21 strains, showed no antagonistic capacity, whereas in Ipiales and Pupiales locations, strain C12, presented a lower incidence of F. oxysporum than the control, but with no effect on yields. In Pupiales location, C21 strain surpassed in performance to the control treatment, even though the two treatments had similar incidence.
Synthetic pathway of a Cu2ZnSnS4 powder using low temperature annealing of nanostructured binary sulfides

N. S. Kozhevnikova, A. S. Vorokh, O. I. Gyrdasova, I. V. Baklanova, A. N. Titov, M. V. Kuznetsov Institute of Solid State Chemistry of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 620990, Pervomayskaya str. 91, Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation Ural Federal University, 620002, Mira str. 19, Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation Mikheev Institute of Metal Physics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 620108, S. Kovalevskaya str.18, Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation kozhevnikova@ihim.uran. ru, vorokh@ihim.uran. ru, gyrdasova@ihim.uran. ru, baklanova@ihim.uran. ru, anti-tov@mail.ru, kuznetsov@ihim.uran. ru
An Experimental Investigation of Landscape Resistance of Forest versus Old‐Field Habitats to Emigrating Juvenile Amphibians

Abstract: We used an experimental approach to investigate the effects of landscape composition on the initial dispersal success of juvenile amphibians. Larval amphibians—spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum), small‐mouthed salamander (A. texanum), and American toad ( Bufo americanus )—were added to artificial pools in four dispersal arrays on forest edges. Each array consisted of a pool surrounded by a circular drift fence with pitfall traps and two 2.5 × 50 m enclosures (runs) extending into forest and old‐field habitat. Juveniles captured at the circular fences were individually marked and released into either field or forest runs. We determined initial distance, initial rate, total distance, and net distance moved by juveniles in the field versus forest from recaptures in the runs. We also conducted 24‐hour dehydration trials to compare the rates of evaporative water loss by spotted and small‐mouthed salamanders in field and forest. Initial orientation of spotted salamanders and toads was significantly biased toward forest. Orientation of small‐mouthed salamanders did not differ significantly from random expectations. The avoidance of open‐canopy habitat by juvenile American toads in particular indicates that predictions of dispersal behavior based on adult habitat use may be misleading. Spotted salamanders moved almost four times farther and toads more than three times farther into the forest than into the field, and recapture rates of both species were much lower in the field. We attribute the lower recapture rates and shorter distances moved in the field to higher mortality due to desiccation or an abundance of predators. Juvenile spotted and small‐mouthed salamanders experienced greater evaporative water loss in the field. Our data on movement behavior and dehydration rates suggest that old‐field habitats offer greater landscape resistance to dispersing juveniles of some species. Thus, forest fragmentation is likely to reduce dispersal rates between local populations of these three species, with potentially negative consequences for population persistence in altered landscapes.