Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Larval development, metabolism and diet are possible key factors explaining the decline of the threatened Dytiscus latissimus

In Western Europe, the diving beetle Dytiscus latissimus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) has become rare and went extinct in several countries during the last century. This study investigated whether larval development rate, metabolism and feeding ecology differ between D. latissimus and the congeneric D. lapponicus to explore factors explaining its decline. During instar I and II, D. latissimus larvae developed faster and gained more weight than D. lapponicus larvae. In accordance, D. latissimus larvae had higher oxygen consumption rates than D. lapponicus larvae, which signifies a greater energy expenditure. Food preference tests showed that D. latissimus larvae strongly prefer caddisfly larvae (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae) with early instars being obligatory dependent on caddisfly larvae for their development. Only instar III larvae readily fed on alternative prey items. In contrast, D. lapponicus larvae had a broader diet and even rejected caddisfly larvae. Based on field observations, availability of caddisfly larvae strongly declined before the end of the larval development of D. latissimus, suggesting that time constraints on food availability limit completion of larval development. Our results suggest that food limitation during (early) larval stages is a possible bottle‐neck for this species, potentially explaining its disappearance from former localities. Promoting caddisfly larvae in the vicinity of D. latissimus oviposition sites, may possibly safeguard the present distribution of D. latissimus and support the species recovery. Although more research is needed, promoting leaf litter in shores may be beneficial to the shredding caddisfly larvae and in turn for their predator D. latissimus.
06 Climatology of the U.S. Inter-Mountain West

The Inter-Mountain West (IMW) of North America is a region that lies between the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the west (Fig. 1). The climate of the IMW is generally semi-arid but this varies by location and elevation. An estimated 5080% of the IMW’s streams and rivers are fed by mountain snowpack (Marks and Winstral 2001), while the majority of the streams and rivers flow into desert sinks or closed-basin lakes such as the Great Salt Lake (Fig. 1). These streams and rivers create some agriculturally productive areas in the otherwise dry basins and mountain valleys. In particular, the Colorado River supplies water to the population-booming southwestern
Designing for agency and compassion : Critical reflections on technology to support physical activity in late life

Contemporary policy on ageing overwhelmingly focuses on active ageing and the increase of disability-free years. Consequently, the research community has adopted an agenda that broadly addresses the issue through technology interventions that focus on deficits of older persons, who are often viewed as a homogeneous group, and little consideration is given to the relationship between the ageing body and physical (in)activity, the impact of the life course, and implications of the acceptance of life stages. As a result, technology interventions are potentially effective on a functional level, but simultaneously fail to consider personal and emotional aspects, resulting in prescriptive, standardised interventions rather than empowering systems that emphasize agency. In this paper, we give an overview of ongoing discourses in critical gerontology questioning common approaches to ageing as decline and active ageing to adopt a broader perspective on technology and activity across the life course. We present findings from a systematic review of systems presented at leading venues in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and analyse to which extent the model of active ageing pervades existing research. We leverage the lenses of critical gerontology and sports science to examine existing systems (including our own work on playful technologies), and discuss shortcomings along with strengths of present research to help guide discourse and future work in HCI. Moving beyond critical analysis, this paper outlines challenges that need to be addressed in order to create technology that offers room for the lived experiences of older adults, and empowers them to re-gain ownership of their embodied experiences of physical activity.
Segmentation of HyperAcute Ischemic Infarcts from Diffusion Weighted Imaging Based on Support Vector Machine

Accurate and automatic segmentation of hyper-acute ischemic infarct from magnetic resonance imaging is of great importance in clinical trials. Manual delineation is labor intensive, exhibits great variability due to unclear infarct boundaries, and most importantly, is not practical due to urgent time requirement for prompt therapy. In this paper, segmentation of hyper-acute ischemic infarcts from diffusion weighted imaging based on Support Vector Machine (SVM) is explored. Experiments showed that SVM could provide good agreement with manual delineations by experienced experts to achieve an average Dice coefficient of 0.763 ± 0.121. The proposed method could achieve significantly higher segmentation accuracy and could be a potential tool to assist clinicians for quantifying hyper-acute infarction and decision making especially for thrombolytic therapy.
Evaluation of Optical Proxies for Suspended Particulate Mass in Stratified Waters

AbstractOptical instruments that measure the particulate beam attenuation and backscattering coefficients have been used widely to estimate suspended particulate mass (SPM) in various environments. In pycnoclines, density differences can cause significant forward light scattering (schlieren). This fluid-induced scattering increases the measured by instruments with small acceptance angles that are open to the environment (not pumped). When the 1-m bin-averaged buoyancy frequency (N) exceeds 0.05 s−1 in the Columbia River estuary, inaccurate estimates of are observed by such instruments. The schlieren phenomena do not affect the and measured with a pumped transmissometer or a backscattering meter. It follows that to obtain a reliable proxy of SPM in a highly stratified environment, the use of either a backscattering sensor or a pumped transmissometer is required.
AHA Consensus Statement

Lance B. Becker, MD, FAHA, Chair; Tom P. Aufderheide, MD, FAHA; Romergryko G. Geocadin, MD; Clifton W. Callaway, MD, PhD; Ronald M. Lazar, PhD, FAHA; Michael W. Donnino, MD; Vinay M. Nadkarni, MD, FAHA; Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil; Christophe Adrie, MD; Robert A. Berg, MD, FAHA; Raina M. Merchant, MD, MS; Robert E. O’Connor, MD, MPH, FAHA; David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD; Margo B. Holm, PhD; William T. Longstreth, MD; Henry R. Halperin, MD, MA, FAHA; on behalf of the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee and the Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation
Ethos of conflict: The concept and its measurement.

The main objective of the current research is to construct a scale that measures individual differences in adherence to the ethos of conflict (EOC). The development of such a scale is of importance because EOC is seen as a determinative concept in describing the worldview of society members involved in intractable conflict. The first study shows that the 8 themes of EOC load on a single factor, reflecting a holistic and coherent view of the conflict situation. The second study indicates that the EOC constitutes an independent construct. The third study shows that EOC partially mediates between general conservative orientations and judgments of specific solutions proposed to end the conflict. Altogether, the new scale can serve scholars who study sociopsychological mechanisms and dynamics involved in various intractable conflicts around the world.
A PARADIGM SHIFT FROM SYNTHETIC TO NATURAL DEFENDERS : PROPOLIS-A HEALING AGENT

* Reader, Department Of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Rama Dental College Hospital and Research Center, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India ** Professor & Head, Department Of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Rama Dental College Hospital and Research Center, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India *** Senior Lecturer, Department Of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Rama Dental College Hospital and Research Center, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India † Post Graduate Student, Department Of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Rama Dental College Hospital and Research Center, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India †† Post Graduate Student, Department Of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Rama Dental College Hospital and Research Center, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India ________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Over the last few decades, worldwide increase in the use of natural products for pharmacological purposes has been observed. Propolis is a natural resinous mixture produced by honeybees from substances collected from parts of plants, buds and exudates. Propolis has been extensively employed by man since ancient times, especially in folk medicine to treat several maladies. Propolis has a degree of anti microbial action against fungi such as Candida Albicans and some bacteria including a range of oral micro organisms and viruses and may be as effective as acyclovir against herpes simplex virus. It also has immuno modulatory activity with augmentation of non specific anti tumor resistance. In dentistry, Propolis has been used in dentifrices, as a storage medium for teeth that have avulsed, in periodontal therapy and in endodontic treatment. Propolis extract used as mouth rinse possesses anti microbial activity against Streptococcus mutans present in the oral cavity. Subgingival irrigation with Propolis extract as an adjunct to periodontal treatment may also be more effective than scaling and root planning alone. It has promising role in future medicine as well as dentistry. Thus, switching back to natural resources, Propolis seems to be a promising alternative for the control of oral diseases in terms of anti microbial response and lower associated risk. This paper is an attempt to review various applications of this compound in dentistry.
Robust Representation Learning for Low Resource Languages

Understanding the meaning of words is essential for most natural language processing tasks. Word representations are means to mathematically represent the meaning of a word in a way that computers can understand. These representations are often in the form of vectors in which words are represented in a continuous vector-space of fixed dimensionality also referred to as word embeddings. In this thesis, we focus on generating better and reliable word representations for low resource languages. Many languages, though widely spoken, are largely under-represented in this area of research. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of reliable evaluation metrics to compare between different approaches of building these embeddings. Word similarity task is a widely used, computationally efficient method to directly evaluate the quality of word vectors. It relies on finding correlation between human assigned similarities between words, and those between corresponding word vectors. We release word similarity datasets for six low resource languages – Urdu, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Gujarati. For the construction of these datasets, our approach relies on translation and re-annotation of word similarity datasets of English. We also present baseline scores for word representation models using state-of-the-art techniques for Urdu, Telugu and Marathi by evaluating them on newly created word similarity datasets. For linguistically similar languages, we show that it is possible to use the better trained word representations of the more resourceful language for the other language in the pair, using a projection learning approach which relies on a mapping between words having similar meaning from the two languages. This cross-lingual vector space transformation results in state of the art results on word similarity test sets of French and German an increase of 13% in case of French and 19% for German, using English as the source language. We also go on to demonstrate that this approach is better suited for linguistically similar language pairs like Hindi-Urdu (where 60% words are simply transliterations of each other) than English-German or English-French. We go on to see how we modelled prefix-suffix based morphoology using a similar technique.
Risk Management at the Latin American Observatory

The Observatorio Latinoamericano de Eventos Extraordinarios (OLE2), or Latin American Observatory, is a regional collaborative network that, in addition to the existing infrastructure in each country, aims to ultimately increase the efficiency of the decisionmaking processes, especially in terms of getting more accurate environmental information and exchanging experiences on data, methodologies and scientific products, all of which are done with a standardized methodology and a Web-sharing service.
LOSSLESS IMAGE COMPRESSION METHOD USING REVERSIBLE LOW CONTRAST MAPPING (RLCM)

This research introduces a new lossless image compression method by a transform function named a Reversible Low Contrast Mapping (RLCM). This function was successful to be implemented as a reversible watermarking method. This proposed method divides an image into fixed-size blocks and groups the blocks into watermark blocks and host blocks. Furthermore, the watermark blocks are embedded in the host blocks. The proposed method does not use any other lossless compression method in its algorithm. Nevertheless, the proposed method can still be combined with other methods. On all the testing images, the compression ratio of the proposed method achieves 1.19 on average. As a comparison, the Huffman compression ratio is 1.08. By combining the method using the Differential coding and the Golomb encoding, the compression ratio of the proposed method increases to 1.32 on average.
FEA estimation and experimental validation of solid rotor and magnet eddy current loss in single-sided axial flux permanent magnet machines

The rotor and magnet loss in single-sided axial flux permanent magnet machines with non-overlapped windings is studied in this paper. FEA estimations of the loss are carried out using both 2-D and 3-D modeling. The rotor and magnet losses are determined separately for stator slot passing and MMF space harmonics from currents in the stator. The segregation of loss between the solid rotor plate and the magnet is addressed. The eddy current loss reduction by magnet segments is discussed as well. The prototype 24 slot/22 pole single-sided AFPMs, fabricated with both single layer and double layer windings are assembled. Methods of loss segregation are illustrated in order to separate the eddy current loss.
Identification of CVM Carriers in Iranian Cow Populations changes the amino acid sequence from a valine to a phenylalanine at position 180 of uridine 5’-diphosphate-N- acetyl-glucosamine transporter protein

The complex vertebral malformation syndrome (CVM) is a lethal autosomal recessively inherited disorder in Holstein breed. The CVM syndrome was identified at first in a Danish Holstein stock in 1999 (Agerholm et al. 2001), and during the following years it was also found in the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Japan (Nagahata et al. 2002). The vast international use of Carlin-M Ivanhoe Bell and the large number of animals descending from him, induced the spread of the CVM gene in Holstein cattle all over the world. By the turn of the 21 century, more than 30 percent of the best Holstein sires in both Denmark and Japan were CVM carriers (Rusc et al. 2007) (Table 1). This syndrome has increased the frequency of abortion, premature birth and stillborn calves (Agerholm et al. 2004b; Nielsen et al. 2003). The major morphological changes in CVM-affected calves delivered after gestation day 260 consist of growth retardation, vertebral malformation, and bilateral symmetrical arthrogryphosis affecting the carpal and the metacarpophalangeal joints. Additional arthrogryposis of the posterior distal joints is present in some cases (Revell 2001; Agerholm et al. 2004a). The SLC35A3 gene codes an uridinediphosphateN-acetylglucosamine transporter (Thomsen et al. 2006). The molecular cause of CVM syndrome is a singlebase transversion of guanine to thymine at nucleotide position 559 in exon 4 of SLC35A3 gene on chromosome 3, which Complex vertebral malformation (CVM) is an autosomal recessive hereditary disorder caused by a point mutation in position 559 in exon 4 of the SLC35A3 gene on chromosome 3 in Holstein dairy cattle. This mutation changes the function of uridine 5-diphosphate-N-acetylglucosamine transporter protein by the substitution of valine for phenylalanine at position 180 of this protein. The disease causes premature birth, aborted fetuses and stillborn calves. Latent recessive enes in heterozygous individuals can be identified with high accuracy and repeatability using PCR-SSCP technique. In the present study, blood samples from two different cow populations, including 100 Holstein cows and 100 Guilan native cattle were randomly collected. Specific primers were used to amplify the 177-bp fragment of exon 4 of the SLC35A3 gene. No heterozygous genotype was detected in the studied samples. The Lack of carriers could be a consequence of the selection against the defective gene and preventative programs for entering mutant genes into the populations or very low frequency of this gene in these populations. However, there is a risk for increased genetic defects prevalence and it is necessary to develop screening programs to identify the defective gene. g
The youth movement Nashi: contentious politics, civil society, and party politics

The youth movement Nashi was established in Russia with the support of the Putin regime in 2005. The success of anti-regime demonstrators in Ukraine's ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004 had been noted in Moscow, and Nashi's role was to serve as a pro-regime force to be mobilised against the opposition. Its focus was the contentious politics of the street. Nashi represents an interesting theoretical case from the perspective of contentious politics and its relationship with civil society and formal party politics. Nashi's role has developed to include facilitating young people's engagement with party politics and business. Its early centralised control has been ameliorated somewhat by a reorganisation focused on local action. Nonetheless, Nashi exists with state support. Its continued role in contentious politics in support of the Putin regime, for example, countering opposition demonstrations in Moscow in December 2011, makes its identification as a component of democratic civil society problematic.
Spline Guided Path of a Mobile Robot with Obstacle Avoidance Characteristics

Path planning of a mobile robot is a wide field of research. Researchers in different places of the world have developed various techniques/algorithms for planning the movement of a mobile robot - online or offline. On line path planning is difficult than off line but when there is any obstacle appear on the path during movement in off line planning that obstacle avoidance is difficult. The developed off line path planning algorithm based on spline CURVE PATH FOLLOWING method, can be useful for offline planning and obstacle avoidance. The obstacle is treated as a static obstacle in 2D environment. The obstacles are detected by the mobile robot and avoid it smoothly. The method of path generation is continuous between any two successive control points.
Non-Linear Precoding Techniques for Physical-Layer Security in Wireless Networks

In this paper, we propose successive optimization non-linear precoding strategies for physical-layer security in wireless networks. We also investigate different precoding techniques for multi-user MIMO systems under various conditions of channel state information (CSI) between the access point and the users and the eavesdroppers. A nonlinear precoding technique based on Successive Optimization Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (SO-THP) and Simplified Generalized Matrix Inversion (S-GMI) technique is proposed along with a strategy for injecting artificial noise prior to transmission. Simulation results show that the proposed SO-THP+S-GMI precoding technique outperforms existing non-linear and linear precoding algorithms in terms of BER and secrecy rate performances.
CHANGE OF DIRECTION SPEED AND REACTIVE AGILITY PERFORMANCE – THE RELIABILITY OF A NEWLY CONSTRUCTED MEASURING PROTOCOLS: A BRIEF REPORT HITROST SPREMEMBE SMERI IN IZVEDBA NEPROGRAMIRANE AGILNOSTI – ZANESLJIVOST NA NOVO ZASNOVANIH MERITVENIH POSTOPKOV: KRATKO POROČILO

IZVLEČEK Čeprav je pomen neprogramirane agilnosti že znan v športu, obstaja le nekaj postopkov testiranja te sposobnosti. V tem poročilu želimo potrditi zanesljivost zasnovanega postopka testiranja neprogramirane agilnosti in obenem predstaviti originalno opremo za testiranje narejeno posebej za ta namen. Oprema je zasnovana na mikrokontrolerju ATMEL AT89C51RE2 s fotoelektronskim infrardečim senzorjem kot zunanjim sprožilcem časa in kontrolno LED osvetlitvijo. V raziskavi je sodelovalo 63 telesno dobro pripravljenih merjencev (39 moških; starost: 21,1 ± 2,4 leta). Postopek je sestavljen iz treh predvidljivih (za programirano agilnost) in treh nepredvidljivih (za neprogramirano agilnost) sprememb smeri teka. Analize so bile izvedene ločeno za moške in ženske. Rezultati kažejo na visoko zanesljivost obeh testiranj (ICC med 0,88 in 0,88, koeficient Cronbach Alpha: 0,78 – 0.85, koeficient variacije: 5 – 6 %). ANOVA je pokazala stabilnost rezultatov vse do tretjega preizkusa testiranja. Izvedbi programirane in neprogramirane agilnosti na istem terenu sta si delili 36 % in 42 % skupne variance (za moške in ženske). Simultana izvedba obeh testov je koristna, saj bo izračunano razmerje rezultatov omogočilo neposredno določitev odzivnih lastnosti udeležencev testiranja.
Cross-Linked Alginate Film Pore Size Determination Using Atomic Force Microscopy and Validation Using Diffusivity Determinations *

The deficit of organ donors has fueled the need for advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Microencapsulation in alginate immuno-isolation membranes has been used to treat many disabling metabolic disorders, namely, phenylketonuria, kidney failure and diabetes mellitus. Systematic nutrient flux determinations are hindered by the lack of experimental data on alginate-based membrane topography and the pore size thus preventing the full therapeutic potential of the bio-membranes to be reached. In this study, samples of cross-linked alginate membranes were subjected to the following analytical characterization: 1) pore size characterization using atomic force microscopy operated in contact mode to detect and measure pore size; 2) differential scanning calorimetry to confirm biopolymer cross-linking; and 3) diffusivity measurements using spectrophotometry and fluorescence microscopy to confirm the presence of through pores and to calculate reflection coefficients. The pore sizes for the pre-clinical standard formulation of 1.5% (w/v) medium viscosity alginate cross-linked with 1.5% CaCl2 and 0.5% (w/v) alginate and chitosan cross-linked with 20% CaCl2 are 5.2 nm ± 0.9 nm and 7.0 nm ± 3.1 nm, respectively. An increase in the glass transition temperatures as a function of cross-linker concentration was observed. Diffusivity values obtained from the inward diffusivity of creatinine into macrocapsules (d = 1000 μm ± 75 μm) and the outward diffusivity of FITC dextrans from macrocapsules (d = 1000 μm ± 75 μm) and microcapsules (d = 40 μm ± 5 μm) were shown to correlate strongly (R2 = 0.9835) with the ratio of solute to pore sizes, confirming the presence of through pores. Reflection coefficients approaching and exceeding unity correlate with the lack of permeability of the membranes to MW markers that are 70 kDa and greater.