Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diversity and Distribution of Microphytes and Macrophytes in Artificial Irrigation Ponds in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Region (SE Spain)

The seasonal diversity and distribution of microphytes and macrophytes in 40 artificial irrigationponds constructed in a semi-arid region, and the most suitable conditions to maintain these enclaves asbiodiversity spots were studied for the first time. A total of 104 species were detected. Bacillariophyta,cyanobacteria and chlorophyta dominated both pelagic and benthic microphytic communities, with dinophytaand euglenophyta also comprising a large part of the pelagic assemblages. Artificial ponds were built with lowdensity polyethylene (LDP) covered with stones and sand and were also constructed with other plasticmaterials, such as PVC or high-density polyethylene (HDP), with no natural cover. Regression tests were used to analyze the relationship between plant species diversity (Shannon index H’) and physic-chemical pond water parameters. The test showed that the species diversity from the ponds was significantly correlated with pond’s type. LDP ponds contained a significantly wider range of microphytes and macrophytes species, in summer than in winter, than HDP. These artificial irrigation ponds have led to the creation of new water habitats for plant diversity conservation within semi-arid areas.
Emergency Nurse Self Perception of the Benefit of the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course

EMERGENCY NURSE SELF PERCEPTION OF THE BENEFIT OF THE EMERGENCY NURSING PEDIATRIC COURSE By Diana Ropele This study evaluated whether emergency nurses perceived an increase in knowledge and skill in caring for pediatric emergency patients after taking the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course (ENPC). Also it evaluated whether non-certified nurses reported a greater increase in knowledge and skill after the ENPC than the certified nurse. A cross-sectional, retrospective, correlational design was used with a random sample of 333 registered nurses living in Michigan who completed the ENPC in 1995 or 1996. Ninety-three nurses practicing in emergency care returned the demographic sheet and the ENPC perception questionnaire (EPQ). Analysis compared knowledge and skill scores before and after taking the ENPC, and summed scores of knowledge and skill of non-certified nurses with the summed scores of certified nurses. Using the paired t-test significant differences were foimd in the perceived before and after mean scores on knowledge and skill (p < .001). The t-test was used to compare the mean scores of nurses with and without certification in emergency nursing. There were no significant differences in reported increase in knowledge and skill of noncertified nurses when compared to certified ntnrses (p = .183).
The Water‐Energy Nexus of Hydraulic Fracturing: A Global Hydrologic Analysis for Shale Oil and Gas Extraction

Shale deposits are globally abundant and widespread. Extraction of shale oil and shale gas is generally performed through water‐intensive hydraulic fracturing. Despite recent work on its environmental impacts, it remains unclear where and to what extent shale resource extraction could compete with other water needs. Here we consider the global distribution of known shale deposits suitable for oil and gas extraction and develop a water balance model to quantify their impacts on local water availability for other human uses and ecosystem functions. We find that 31–44% of the world's shale deposits are located in areas where water stress would either emerge or be exacerbated as a result of shale oil or gas extraction; 20% of shale deposits are in areas affected by groundwater depletion and 30% in irrigated land. In these regions shale oil and shale gas production would likely compete for local water resources with agriculture, environmental flows, and other water needs. By adopting a hydrologic perspective that considers water availability and demand together, decision makers and local communities can better understand the water and food security implications of shale resource development.
Deltamethrin-induced Alterations in Sperm Morphology and Spermatogenesis Impairment in Adult Sprague-Dawley Rats

The aim of this investigation was to assess Deltamethrin-induced alterations in sperm quality and testicular toxicity. Sixty adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned Four Groups (A-D). A acted as control and received deionised distilled water, B-D were exposed orally to 6.25, 12.5 and 25 mg/kg/day of Deltamethrin Emulsifiable concentrate for 35 days. The results showed significant (p<0.05) reduction in bodyweight at 25 mg/kg/day with no effect on vital organs weights. Accesory sex organ weights declined significantly (p<0.05). A concentration-dependent reduction (p<0.05) in the testes weight (2.81±0.52 to 2.56±0.22 g) epididymal weight (2.36±0.12 to 2.18±0.22 g) occured. Histopathological evaluation of the testes showed degenerative changes and impairment of spermatogenesis accompanied by cellular losses at 12.5 and 25 mg/kg/day. The most affected spermatogenic elements were the primary spermatocytes. Post testicular toxicity was confirmed from epididymal sperm quality with reduction in motility and viability, increased percentage dead sperm cells and percentage abnormality in the sperm morphology including retention of cytoplasmic droplet and sperm head abnormality. There was elevation in the concentration of Aspartate aminotransferase which was positively and significantly (p<0.01) correlated with Deltamethrin concentration (r = 0.9060), R 2 = 0.8209, Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) r = 0.9015, R 2 = 0.8127 and Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) r = 0.9099, R 2 = 0.828. It was concluded that Deltamethrin has the potential to impair fertility and general reproductive health by inhibiting spermatogenesis and thus, limiting sperm production potential. Periodic evaluation of reproductive health especially in males constantly exposed to Deltamethrin due to their occupation is recommended.
Derived-equivalent rational threefolds

We describe an infinite set of smooth projective threefolds that have equivalent derived categories but are not isomorphic, contrary to a conjecture of Kawamata. These arise as blow-ups of $\mathbb P^3$ at various configurations of 8 points, which are related by Cremona transformations.
Variational Mutual Information Distillation for Transfer Learning

We consider the teacher-student framework for knowledge transfer, where the goal is to improve learning of a “student” neural network, given a “teacher” neural network pretrained on the same or a similar task. The majority of existing approaches for distilling knowledge from a teacher network to a student network rely on matching either activations or handcrafted features from the teacher network. Instead, in this paper we establish an information-theoretic framework for knowledge distillation which encourages high mutual information between two networks. Our framework can be applied to knowledge transfer between different tasks without any assumptions on the architectures of the teacher and the student network. We empirically validate our proposed framework by demonstrating its improvement over existing methods on various knowledge transfer tasks.
A Unified Approach for Performance Degradation Analysis from Transistor to Gate Level

In this paper, we present an extensive analysis of the performance degradation in MOSFET based circuits. The physical effects that we consider are the random dopant fluctuation (RDF), the oxide thickness fluctuation (OTF) and the Hot-carrier-Instability (HCI). The work that we propose is based on two main key points: First, the performance degradation is studied considering BULK, Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) and Double Gate (DG) MOSFET technologies. The analysis considers technology nodes from 45nm to 11nm. For the HCI effect we consider also the time-dependent evolution of the parameters of the circuit. Second, the analysis is performed from transistor level to gate level. Models are used to evaluate the variation of transistors key parameters, and how these variation affects performance at gate level as well.The work here presented was obtained using TAMTAMS Web, an open and publicly available framework for analysis of circuits based on transistors. The use of TAMTAMS Web greatly increases the value of this work, given that the analysis can be easily extended and improved in both complexity and depth.
Service Oriented Testing for Web Services

Web Services are an emerging facet of Service Oriented Architecture and have promised to address the challenging issue of application integration. Web Services, as a concept, have been developed in order to build and create distributed software applications. These services have many advantages such as, the interoperability between heterogeneous applications, and the ability to design and launch these services regardless of platform, programming language or operating system. For enterprises and academic establishments this is advantageous in a number of ways. It has become apparent however that Web Services face many diverse challenges which are preventing the technology from truly being adopted. Many industries such as defence and critical infrastructure have become increasingly interested in the use of Web Services but in order for them to play an integral part in today’s society, an array of issues must first be addressed. We believe that as an issue, trust can be considered as one of the main technological barriers currently facing Web Services, in particular, trust challenges such as reliability and security. By implementing Web Services into systems that rely on having high standards of reliability and security, trust needs to be guaranteed between the provider and the consumer. One way to help provide assurance for this is to provide adequate means of testing. At its core, testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of finding errors to ensure whether a system is functioning as intended. This can involve activities such as specifying test cases, generating test data, monitoring test execution, measuring test coverage, validating test results and tracking system errors. In recent years, research on testing Web Services and Web Service compositions has been gaining much attention and is growing at a rapid pace. Testing is vital in any environment to help ensure a degree of trust. While there are many issues facing Service Oriented Architecture and in particular, Web Service technology, the trust challenge is a particularly critical issue which needs to be addressed. This paper outlines current research for the effective means of testing Web Services, online and in the cloud computing environment. We aim to provide means for Web Services to be composed and tested in real time, over the cloud, utilising test case generation methods and Oracle decision making. By testing Web Services and ensuring their functionality, we can provide a degree of trust to the service consumer, that the Service they are requesting is available and will function as intended. We have detailed the importance of Service testing and the reason for why it should be considered as an immediate issue to address.
Oxidative stress based response of a transcriptional regulator, OhrR, from Burkholderia thailandensis (LB252)

Bacteria face a burst of oxidative species during host invasion. As a protective mechanism, they possess several proteins involved in inorganic peroxide sensing. However, much has to be discovered about the sensor‐responder proteins involved in organic hydroperoxide (OHP) resistance, which is important since OHPs are more toxic. Burkholderia thailandensis, a soil dwelling bacterium, contains genes ohrR and ohr, that are involved in OHP detoxification, with the former encoding an organic hydroperoxide reductase regulator (OhrR), a MarR family transcriptional regulator, regulating expression of the gene encoding organic hydroperoxide reductase (Ohr). EMSAs revealed specificity of B. thailandensis OhrR for the promoter region of ohr, with half‐maximal saturation of 3.6 nM. SDS‐PAGE demonstrated formation of reversible, oligomeric species of OhrR on treatment with organic and inorganic oxidants. Conformational changes were indicated by reduced thermal stability of oxidized protein compared to its reduced form (Tm 65.3 °C). Attenuated DNA binding in the presence of oxidants further confirmed structural changes in oxidized OhrR by virtue of disulfide bond formation between redox‐active cysteines. B. thailandensis shares 80% genetic homology with its pathogenic homologues B. pseudomallei and B. mallei, making characterizing its protein machinery involved in peroxide resistance even more crucial.
Problem Solving : DNA Data Acquisition and Analysis

MULTIPLE SUPPLIERS OF PROFILES TO A NATIONAL DNA DATABASE In the UK, the National DNA Database data is owned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). They provide the framework for suppliers, such as the Forensic Science Service (FSS), to submit information to the database. In addition to its role as supplier, the FSS acts as custodian for the database by the administration of a proficiency test program. Those supplying profiles to the database must take part in proficiency testing, and potential suppliers must take part in a number of validation tests. The FSS advises the ACPO (on the science used, match criteria, etc.), and the ACPO builds this information into the approval and framework for supply of profiles to the database.
Evaluating the experience of daylight through a virtual skylight

• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Emotional voice conversion using generative adversarial networks

Emotional speech generation is one of key mile-stones for deeper, more expressive human-computer interactions, and one method of achieving this is emotional voice conversion. However, a difficult challenge of using machine learning models for emotional voice conversion is the scarcity of available annotated, aligned data. To solve this problem, we explore generative models that proved successful in computer vision and voice conversion: variational autoencoders (VAE) and Wasserstein generative adversarial networks (WGAN). Using the VAE-WGAN (VAWGAN) model, we were able to convert neutral speech into emotional speech from which listeners could infer the intended emotion, despite the small size of training dataset.
Infra-Red Absorption Spectra Study of Some Amphibole Minerals

Infrared spectra of some amphibole minerals show that the absorptivity of the fundamental vibrational OH band is strongly wave number dependent. The investigated have been done on sample include amphibole of termolite,actinolite, anthophylite, grunerite, riebeckite and amphibole asbestos. Spectra obtained from Ca and Fe-Mg amphiboles consist of sharp, well resolved bands. The emphasis on the hydroxyl stretching region, but the vibrational spectra of the silicate anions also discussed. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ــــــــــــــــــــ يط ةسارد صاصتما ف عاونا ضعبل ءارمحلا تحت ةعشلاا نداعم لوبيفملاا
The 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

Nonlinear Seismic Response analysis and Seismic performance evaluation for cable-stayed bridge are very important, especially for the tower of it. Based on the recent researches, A simplified single tower finite element model was developed to modelling the seismic response under the longitudinal excitation in this paper. In order to investigate the nonlinear seismic response of the tower, a fiber flexural element was adopted and the P-delta Effect was considered in present study. On the other hand, the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) of this Tower has been done herein, in order to evaluate the seismic performance of the tower more reasonably. The results show the damage zone (or the plastic zone) for this tower mainly concentrated in three regions. According to IDA analysis and the summary curves of it, seismic damage state evaluation can be more reasonable which has more probabilistic characteristic. Finally, some suggestions on the definition of the global ductility factor for a complex structure like the tower of cable-stayed bridge were given herein.
NON-SINGULAR THERMODYNAMIC GRAVITY

Newton formed his laws of motion, but still had to assume a law of gravity in order to determine the motions of bodies interacting through gravitational forces. Newton gave a prescription of how to find the dynamics produced by gravity. Einstein sought to determine the motions of gravity without using a force. Rather, he sought a system of equations by which the dynamics of bodies interacting through gravity were determined by the least distance between two points in a curved space. In both of these approaches gravity was basically independent of other forces of nature. Newton’s approach was to provide a system of equations that determined the motion of bodies interacting through forces in any choice of geometry. Einstein’s approach was to require that the force of gravity determine the geometry since he sought to find the motions without using a force. Newton gave three laws of motion in equations that could be used to find various types of energy such as potential energy or kinetic energy. This arrangement has the forces determining the energy of interactions. The approach presented here basically reverses these roles of energy and forces. It starts with a law stating the conservation of energy which states how any exchange of energy between a system and its surroundings affects the system’s energy and the work it can perform. It is a law stating how these three energies, exchange energy, system energy and work, can interact. The expression for work, force acting through a distance, must be a path dependent term which also makes the exchange energy path dependent. However, the system’s energy is not path dependent. The difference between the path dependence of the work and the path independence of the system’s energy is shown to be crucial to the law’s determination of dynamics.
The Nobel Prizes of 2011 The accelerated universe . On the Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

with religion, philosophy, etc. Today cosmology is its own field but the need of humanity to understand the universe has re­ mained the same. The present article does not include a de­ scription of the evolution of ideas in cosmology and the many people that have contributed to achieving progress in the un­ * Based on the lecture given by the author at the Institute for Catalan Studies, Barcelona, on 16 December 2011, and at the Octubre Centre of Contemporary Culture, Valencia, on 11 January 2012 for the Nobel Prize Cycle.
A possible formation scenario for dwarf spheroidal galaxies – III. Adding star formation histories to the fiducial model

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are regarded as the basic building blocks in the formation of larger galaxies and are believed to be the most dark matter dominated systems known in the Universe. There are several models that attempt to explain their formation and evolution, but they have problems to model the formation of isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Here, we will explain a possible formation scenario in which star clusters form inside the dark matter halo of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Those star clusters suffer from low star formation efficiency and dissolve while orbiting inside the dark matter halo. Thereby, they build the faint luminous components that we observe in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. In this paper we study this model by adding different star formation histories to the simulations to compare the results with our previous work and observational data to show that we can explain the formation of dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
Genetic characterization of French local chicken breeds

Finally, combining these genetic analyses with morphological data could help in detecting genomic regions of interest in a selection perspective. To conclude, French local breeds appeared to be genetically and morphologically diverse making them a good example of a successful management by both breeders and selection centers. Nevertheless attention should be paid on them for long term conservation.
The influence of age and gender on entrepreneurial behaviour characteristics of students and professionals of Business Administration

The main objective of this study is to identify the elements that show the influence of age and gender on entrepreneurial behavior characteristics observed in both enterprising professionals and students of Business Administration. It was based on a survey with 851 professionals registered by the Regional Board of Directors of Business Administration of Bahia and with 207 students from public and private universities in Salvador, Bahia. Our hypothesis was that the age and gender of the respondents influence their entrepreneurial profile. The results associated with a structural modeling equation indicated that gender did not show a significant relationship with entrepreneurship since the age variable explains the variability of this construct. This study, therefore, may contribute to students’ education and the updating of professional entrepreneurs since these findings indicate specific patterns of limitations and biases concerning entrepreneurship. Key words: Age, gender, entrepreneurs, behavioral characteristics, Structural Equation Modeling.