Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Climate Skeptics Be Convinced? The Effect of Nature Videos on Environmental Concern

Much research has demonstrated that videos can function as primers or nudges that influence attitudes and behaviors. Studies to date suggest that this includes influence over individual pro-environmental attitudes. However, the existing evidence all stems from samples comprised of university students. In this paper, we describe the results of a randomized online experiment in a sample of 468 climate skeptics. We presented 3-min nature documentary videos that highlighted either the beauty of nature, the endangerment of nature by humans, or a mixture of both. The results suggest that the mixed stimulus video, which shows first the beauty of nature and then its endangerment by humans does indeed increase environmental concern by almost half a standard deviation. However, none of the video treatments increased donations to pro-environmental organizations. Still, the results suggest that nudging by video also works in samples of climate skeptics, which demonstrates the external validity of former findings.
Jumps in Geopolitical Risk and the Cryptocurrency Market: The Singularity of Bitcoin

ABSTRACT Are price discontinuities in cryptocurrencies jointly related to large swings in geopolitical risk? This is a relevant question to answer given recent news from the press that Bitcoin’s price jumps are driven by jumps in the level of geopolitical risk index. To answer this question, we examine first the jump incidence of daily returns for Bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies and then study the co-jumps between cryptocurrencies and the geopolitical risk index using logistic regressions. Our dataset is at the daily frequency and covers the period 30 April 2013 to 31 October 2019. The results show that the price behaviour of all cryptocurrencies under study is jumpy but only Bitcoin jumps are dependent on jumps in the geopolitical risk index. This revealed evidence of significant co-jumps for the case of Bitcoin only nicely complements previous studies arguing that Bitcoin is a hedge against geopolitical risk.
Elementary Particles, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy: Descriptions that Explain Aspects of Dark Matter to Ordinary Matter Ratios, Inflation, Early Galaxies, and Expansion of the Universe

Physics theory has yet to settle on specific descriptions for new elementary particles, for dark matter, and for dark energy forces. Our work extrapolates from the known elementary particles. The work suggests well-specified candidate descriptions for new elementary particles, dark matter, and dark energy forces. This part of the work does not depend on theories of motion. This work embraces symmetries that correlate with motion-centric conservation laws. The candidate descriptions seem to explain data that prior physics theory seems not to explain. Some of that data pertains to elementary particles. Our theory suggests relationships between masses of elementary particles. Our theory suggests a relationship between the strengths of electromagnetism and gravity. Some of that data pertains to astrophysics. Our theory seems to explain ratios of dark matter effects to ordinary matter effects. Our theory seems to explain aspects of galaxy formation. Some of that data pertains to cosmology. Our theory suggests bases for inflation and for changes in the rate of expansion of the universe. Generally, our work proposes extensions to theory in three fields. The fields are elementary particles, astrophysics, and cosmology. Our work suggests new elementary particles and seems to explain otherwise unexplained data.
A Field Experiment on Wave Forces on an Energy-Absorbing Breakwater

The U-OWC is a caisson breakwater embodying a device for wave energy absorption. Under the wave action, the pressure acting on the upper opening of the vertical duct fluctuates, producing a water discharge alternatively entering/exiting the plant through the U-duct, formed by the duct and the chamber. The interaction between incoming waves and the water discharge alters the wave pressure distribution along the wave-beaten wall of this breakwater compared with the pressure distributions on a vertical pure reflecting wall. As a consequence, the horizontal wave forces produced on the breakwater are also different. A small scale U-OWC breakwater was put off the eastern coast of the Strait of Messina (Southern Italy) to measure the horizontal wave force. Experimental results were compared with Boccotti’s and Goda’s wave pressure formulas, carried out for conventional upright breakwaters, to check their applicability on the U-OWC breakwaters. Both models are suitable for design of U-OWC breakwaters even if they tend to overestimate by up to 25% the actual horizontal loads on the breakwater. Indeed, the greater the absorption of the energy is, the lower the wave pressure on the breakwater wall is.
Machine learning for determining accurate outcomes in criminal trials

Advances in mathematical and computational technologies have brought unique and ground-breaking benefits to diverse fields throughout society (engineering, medicine, economics, etc.). Within legal systems, however, the potential applications of data science and innovative mathematical tools have yet to be embraced with the same ambition. The complex decision-making that is needed for reaching just verdicts is often seen as out of reach for such approaches and, in the case of criminal trials, this inhibits exploration into whether machine learning could have a positive impact. Here, through assigning numerical scores to prosecution and defence evidence, and employing an approach based on dimensionality reduction, we showed that evidence strands presented at historical murder trials could be used to train effective machine-learning algorithms (or models). We tested the evidence quantification approach with the trained model and showed that, through machine learning, criminal cases could be clearly classified (probability >99.9%) as belonging to either a guilty or a not-guilty category. The classification was found to be as expected for all test cases. All guilty test cases that were not wrongful convictions were correctly assigned to the guilty category by our model and, crucially, test cases that were wrongful convictions were correctly assigned to the not-guilty category. This work demonstrated the potential for machine learning to benefit criminal trial decision-making, and should motivate further testing and development of the model and datasets for assisting the judicial process.
Spectrum-based Fault Localization Techniques Application on Multiple-Fault Programs: A Review

Software fault localization is one of the most tedious and costly activities in program debugging in the endeavor to identify faults locations in a software program. In this paper, the studies that used spectrum-based fault localization (SBFL) techniques that makes use of different multiple fault localization debugging methods such as one-bug-at-a-time (OBA) debugging, parallel debugging, and simultaneous debugging in localizing multiple faults are classified and critically analyzed in order to extensively discuss the current research trends, issues, and challenges in this field of study. The outcome strongly shows that there is a high utilization of OBA debugging method, poor fault isolation accuracy, and dominant use of artificial faults that limit the existing techniques applicability in the software industry.
First non-predaceous syrphine flower fly (Diptera: Syrphidae): a new leaf-mining Allograpta from Costa Rica

The first syrphine flower fly with non-predaceous larva (Allograpta centropogonis NISHIDA spec, nov.) is described from Costa Rica. The larva is a leaf-miner in Centropogon species (Campanulaceae). The biology as well as all life-stages are described in detail.
The Good Outcome of Bad News

By favoring early diagnosis, mammography screening decreases breast cancer mortality and treatment costs. However, participation in public screening programs is low in many countries. We ran a randomized field experiment to assess whether costless manipulations of the informational content (restricted or enhanced information) and the framing (gain or loss framing) of the invitation letter to the breast cancer screening program in Messina (Italy) affects participation. We show that giving enhanced loss-framed information about the risks of not having a mammography increases the take-up. This manipulation is most effective among subgroups with lower baseline take-ups, thereby reducing inequalities in screening. Finally, subjects exposed to this manipulation are much less likely to postpone the screening conditional on participation, revealing enhanced awareness about the risks related with delayed participation.
Language input, learning environment, and motivation of a successful EFL learner

The present study involved one EFL learner who was regarded as successful, not only of understanding second language acquisition theories but also of demonstrating exceptional language skills thus far. An in-depth semi-structured interview was administered with three key objectives – to identify features of language inputs that enable her to develop English skills, to investigate her situation of the learning environment, and to reveal her motivation in learning the language. The participant was a successful EFL learner who was determined by the excellent TOEFL score and performed an outstanding achievement in English proven by the academic transcript. The data were gathered by means of a semi-structured interview and analyzed through the transcription process, coding, and drawing the conclusion. The results indicated that joining an intensive class and integrating English in her daily activities had primarily contributed to her language skill improvement. While the physical environment slightly provided a conducive environment for learning English, her academic environment was steadily supporting her. In addition to the importance of English in her future, the participant was successful in keeping her motivation to learn the language. These findings could contribute to a better understanding of how Indonesian EFL learners successfully acquire a foreign language.
FMRP and CYFIP1 at the Synapse and Their Role in Psychiatric Vulnerability

There is increasing awareness of the role genetic risk variants have in mediating vulnerability to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. Many of these risk variants encode synaptic proteins, influencing biological pathways of the postsynaptic density and, ultimately, synaptic plasticity. Fragile-X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) and cytoplasmic fragile-X mental retardation protein (FMRP)-interacting protein 1 (CYFIP1) contain 2 such examples of highly penetrant risk variants and encode synaptic proteins with shared functional significance. In this review, we discuss the biological actions of FMRP and CYFIP1, including their regulation of (i) protein synthesis and specifically FMRP targets, (ii) dendritic and spine morphology, and (iii) forms of synaptic plasticity such as long-term depression. We draw upon a range of preclinical studies that have used genetic dosage models of FMR1 and CYFIP1 to determine their biological function. In parallel, we discuss how clinical studies of fragile X syndrome or 15q11.2 deletion patients have informed our understanding of FMRP and CYFIP1, and highlight the latest psychiatric genomic findings that continue to implicate FMRP and CYFIP1. Lastly, we assess the current limitations in our understanding of FMRP and CYFIP1 biology and how they must be addressed before mechanism-led therapeutic strategies can be developed for psychiatric disorders.
Hybrid Sensing of Internal and Surface Partial Discharges in Air-Insulated Medium Voltage Switchgear

Partial discharge (PD) measurements have proved their reliability for health monitoring of insulation systems in power system components including synchronous generators, power transformers, switchgear and cables etc. Online condition monitoring and pro-active detection of PD faults have been highly demanded over the last two decades. This paper provides results from a research project to develop advanced non-intrusive sensing technologies that are cost effective, reliable and efficient for early detection of PD faults in medium voltage (MV) and high voltage (HV) air-insulated switchgear. Three sensors (high frequency E-field (D-dot) sensor, Rogowski coil and loop antenna) have been developed and tested under various PD faults and their performance were evaluated in comparison with high frequency current transformer (HFCT) which is being used commercially for PD testing and measurement. Among these three sensors, it is shown that D-dot sensor and Rogowski coil are more dependable when it comes to the PD measurements due to their high signal to noise ratio and hence high accuracy. These sensors can be customized according to a specific application and can be connected together with one data acquisition device while developing an online condition monitoring system.
DeepSLAM: A Robust Monocular SLAM System With Unsupervised Deep Learning

In this article, we propose DeepSLAM, a novel unsupervised deep learning based visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system. The DeepSLAM training is fully unsupervised since it only requires stereo imagery instead of annotating ground-truth poses. Its testing takes a monocular image sequence as the input. Therefore, it is a monocular SLAM paradigm. DeepSLAM consists of several essential components, including Mapping-Net, Tracking-Net, Loop-Net, and a graph optimization unit. Specifically, the Mapping-Net is an encoder and decoder architecture for describing the 3-D structure of environment, whereas the Tracking-Net is a recurrent convolutional neural network architecture for capturing the camera motion. The Loop-Net is a pretrained binary classifier for detecting loop closures. DeepSLAM can simultaneously generate pose estimate, depth map, and outlier rejection mask. In this article, we evaluate its performance on various datasets, and find that DeepSLAM achieves good performance in terms of pose estimation accuracy, and is robust in some challenging scenes.
Dityrosine formation via reactive oxygen consumption yields increasingly recalcitrant humic‐like fluorescent organic matter in the ocean

Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a massive elemental pool on Earth and is thought to consist of a chemically complex mixture of molecules. Part of marine DOM is fluorescent (FDOM) and includes humic‐like compounds. The chemical composition of, and biochemical pathways that yield, autochthonous humic‐like FDOM in the ocean is largely unknown. Inspired by medical and biochemical research detailing the formation of colored and fluorescent dityrosine via peroxidase mediated reactions, we used fluorometry and spectroscopy and found dityrosine exhibits humic‐like fluorescence similar to that of marine FDOM. Investigating its recalcitrance, we conducted short‐term nutrient‐addition and light exposure experiments with dityrosine and found it is resistant to respiration or assimilation by marine microbial communities, yet readily photodegraded. The formation and characteristics of dityrosine newly points to polymerization via reactive oxygen quenching, under aphotic and putatively photic conditions, as an explanation for autochthonous, humic‐like, (semi‐)recalcitrant DOM in the ocean.
Mutations in the Histone-like Nucleoid Structuring Regulatory Gene (hns) Decrease the Adherence of Shiga Toxin-producing Escherichia coli 091:H21 Strain B2F1 to Human Colonic Epithelial Cells and Increase the Production of Hemolysin

Abstract : Non-0 157 serotype Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) cause a significant amount of food-borne hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) worldwide and yet these strains do not encode intimin a major adherence factor encoded by the most common serotype 0157:117 isolated from documented cases of HC and HUS. In this investigation. we attempted to isolate specific adhesins critical for attachment of intimin-negative STEC 091:H21 to human colonic epithelial cells. Transposon mutagenesis of B2F1 was accomplished with the mini-Tn5phoACm mobile element and a mutant bank of B2F1 colonies that carried putative in-frame PhoA-positive transposon insertions was isolated. The bank was screened for mutants unable to adhere to the human colonic epithelial T84 cell line in both its nonpolarized and polarized states. An adherence mutant designated as 34.7 was identified that did not bind to these cells. Subsequently, mutant 34.7 was found to contain an out-of-frame insertion of the transposon into hns. The hns gene encodes the H-NS protein that has been reported to modulate the expression of various housekeeping as well as virulence-associated genes encoded by E. coli and other gram-negative organisms. Disruption of hns in 34.7 not only caused reduced adherence to T84 cells but resulted in over- production of STEC-hemolysin encoded on the large 90 kb plasmid carried by this strain. When H-NS was supplied to 34.7 in trans on a moderate copy number plasmid, both the reduced adherence phenotype and the hyper-hemolytic phenotype reverted to wild-type. Because hemolysin can destroy the T84 monolayer over the course of the adherence assay, it was difficult to assess the direct effect of the hns mutation on adherence of B2F1 to T84 cells. Hence, we sought to separate the reduced adherence phenotype from the hyper-hemolytic phenotype exhibited by mutant 34.7.
Do online consumer reviews help to evaluate the performance of automobile manufacturers?

This research proposes a text analytics–based framework that examines the utility of online customer reviews in evaluating automobile manufacturers and discovering their consumer-perceived weaknesses. ,The proposed framework integrates aspect-level sentiment analysis with the house of quality (HoQ), TOPSIS, Pareto chart and fishbone diagram. While sentiment analysis mines and quantifies review-embedded consumer opinions on various automobile attributes, the integrated HoQ-TOPSIS analyzes the quantified opinions and evaluates the manufacturers. The Pareto charts assist in discovering consumer-perceived weaknesses of the underperforming manufacturers. Finally, the fishbone diagram visually represents the results in the form with which the manufacturing community is acquainted. ,The proposed framework is tested on a review data set collected from CarWale, a well-known car portal in India. Selecting five manufacturers from the mid-size car segment, the authors identified the worst-performing one and discovered its weak attributes. ,The proposed framework can help the manufacturers in evaluating competitor; identifying consumers' contemporary interests; discovering own and their competitors' weak attributes; assessing the suppliers and sending early warnings; detecting the hazardous defects. It can assist the component suppliers in devising process improvement strategies; improving their customer network; comparing them with competitors. It can support the customers in identifying the best available alternative. ,The proposed framework is first of its kind to integrate the sentiment analysis with (1) HoQ-TOPSIS to assess the manufacturers; (2) Pareto chart to discover their weaknesses; (3) fishbone diagram to visually represent the results.
Spatial variability of modern tectonic stress fields in the north‐eastern margin of Tibetan Plateau

A modern tectonic stress field for the north‐eastern margin of Tibetan Plateau was determined using linear inversion. Focal mechanism solutions and the depths of 54 earthquakes from 2009 to 2017 were obtained from broadband seismic waveforms. We derived the tectonic stress field using the SATSI (Spatial and Temporal Stress Inversion) software based on the damped linear inversion method. The stress tensor structures are primarily indicative of strike‐slip and thrust faulting; their distributions are controlled by the West Qinling and Haiyuan faults. The Longxi Block is surrounded by two faults dominated by thrust faulting; the regions in the periphery of the faults, (e.g., West Qingling Fault Zone and Liupanshan Basin) are primarily characterized by strike‐slip faulting. However, normal faulting has developed in the Haiyuan–Zhongwei Belt of Liupanshan Basin, indicating that the latest tectonic regime is an NNW–SSE extension instead of a strike‐slip fault with a thrust component, as has been previously suggested. This anomalous stress mechanism reflects the combined effects of block rotation and local extension resulting from movement along strike‐slip faults. The West Qinling Fault is dominated by thrust faulting instead of strike‐slip faulting. The Haiyuan–Liupanshan and Niushoushan–Luoshan faults are predominantly strike‐slip faulting. The directions of the maximum stress axes (σ1) in both Liupanshan Basin and the Longxi Block are ENE–WSW down to Liupanshan in the south and West Qinling Fault Zone, where the stress axes gradually rotate clockwise to E–W. The modern tectonic stress field implies that regional stress originates from far‐field effects of Indian and Eurasian plate collision.
Experimental Investigation of the Mass Transfer Coefficients of Metals in Stainless Steel Crude Alloy from Mixed Low-grade Chromite and Nickel Laterite Ores

The processing of liquid steel uses a very high temperature. The reaction between the liquid steel and the slag generates liquid-liquid mass transfer of the species involved. The mass transfer coefficients of the metals present in the stainless steel crude alloy were the central point of this study. The study in particular aimed to estimate the liquid-liquid mass transport coefficients of the species involved in this very important process. These were evaluated using the experimental results obtained from direct smelting of mixed low-grade chromite and nickel laterite ores. In this investigation, the kinetics of slag-metal reactions was stimulated by metal phase control mechanism and slag phase control mechanism. Results obtained from the experiments showed that the metal phase control was the dominating mechanism in the study as seen from the degree of fit of the experimental data to such mechanism.
Do chick and rodent neuron biosensors function similarly?

A growing number of research papers report similarities in cell types, neuronal connections and information-processing principles between chick and rodent cortical tissues, which have very different architectures. This paper extends these comparisons beyond the cortical tissues. Using microelectrode array technology, we report three remarkable functional similarities between our original chick data and rodent data from the literature: (a) the pattern of spontaneous spiking activity from chick spinal cord neuron biosensors is very similar to that of rodent spinal cord neuron biosensors (i.e. rodent counterparts). (b) The spontaneous spiking activity pattern of the chick forebrain neuron biosensors is very similar to that of the rodent cortical neuron biosensors, but chick forebrain neuron biosensors contain not only cortical neurons, but also diencephalic neurons. In other words, chick forebrain neuron biosensors cannot be considered the counterparts of rodent cortical neuron biosensors. (c) Chick forebrain neuron biosensors respond to several classical neuroactive agents in a way similar to rodent cortical neuron biosensors as reflected in their agent-specific concentration–response curves and their values of EC 50 (the effective concentration that causes 50% of the maximal effect of an agent). These preliminary findings provide both direct and indirect support for a positive answer to the big research question in the title: ‘Do chick and rodent neuron biosensors function similarly’ if the sources of the neurons are homologous between chick and rodent? Our findings are of particular value to comparative biology/physiology, pharmacology, neurotoxicology and bioengineering and to research on the more cost-effective extended application of chick neuron biosensors.