Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Laser–Air-Coupled Hybrid Noncontact System for Defect Detection in Rail Tracks

Recent train accidents, with associated direct and indirect costs as well as safety concerns, have reaffirmed the need for developing rail defect detection systems that are more effective than those used today. One of the recent developments in rail inspection is the use of ultrasonic guided waves and noncontact probing techniques to target transverse-type defects. Besides the obvious advantages of noncontact probing, which include robustness and potential for large inspection speed, such a system can detect transverse defects under horizontal shelling or head checks. A rail inspection prototype based on these concepts and funded by the FRA is under development at the University of California–San Diego. This work reports on the status of the prototype development, including hardware and software development. Key features of the software are the feature extraction and the automatic pattern recognition algorithms. The laboratory results demonstrate the detection and sizing of transverse, surface-breaking cracks that extend for less than 20% of the rail head cross-sectional area.
Personalized Choice Model for Managed Lane Travel Behavior

This paper presents a methodology for enhancing discrete choice models for managed lane travel behavior with personal trip history. We refer to this process as personalization and the enhanced model as a personalized choice model. With the objective of better understanding managed lane choices and improving the model’s prediction capability, personalization was carried out at two levels. First, we used each traveler’s habits and travel experiences before each trip for constructing a set of explanatory variables that could be used with any model structure. Second, under a logit mixture framework, the distribution of random parameters was updated with Bayesian inference according to personal trip history. The structure of the parameter distribution explicitly considered preference variations across individuals (interpersonal heterogeneity), as well as preference variations across trips performed by the same individual (intrapersonal heterogeneity). The proposed methodology is especially relevant for modeling revealed preference (RP) data from automatic vehicle identification sensors, for which limited socioeconomic characteristics of travelers are available. An empirical study was conducted on an operational managed lane corridor near Dallas/Fort Worth Airport in Texas. Available trip records over a 5-month period were utilized. A hierarchical Bayes estimator was adopted for efficient model estimation. The results suggest significant inter- and intrapersonal heterogeneity and that the proposed personalization method improves the model’s explanatory power and prediction capability. To the best of our knowledge, this paper represents the first introduction of personalization in managed lane choice behavior modeling and the first attempt to estimate intrapersonal heterogeneity with RP data.
Noxious Stimuli-Induced Sensitization of Thigmotaxis in Larval Zebrafish

Author(s): Ly, Duy Truong | Advisor(s): Glanzman, David L | Abstract: Chronic pain and anxiety disorders are known to be intimately connected in humans. Occasionally, the sensation of pain and the associated emotional affects like anxiety linger past the end of the triggering stimulus or even in the absence of a trigger. Central sensitization has been posited as a simple form of memory that may underlie the persistence of idiopathic disorders like fibromyalgia. In the present study, we examined the effect of a known chemical irritant, allyl isothiocyanate (mustard oil), and electric shock on freely swimming zebrafish larvae (5 and 12 DPF). We found that mustard oil (MO, concentration = 10i? ½M) and electric shock induced thigmotaxis, an anxiety-related behavior. Future work should determine the specific changes induced by MO or shock in the behavioral circuits that mediate swimming in the zebrafish. The results of this future work may contribute to our understanding of the neural basis of pain and anxiety disorders.
Glandular trichomes of Humulus lupulus var. Brewer's Gold: Ontogeny and histochemical characterization of the secretion

Leaves of Humulus lupulus possess two types of glandular trichomes: - peltate (lupulin) and bulbous. Peltate trichomes are formed from a protodermal cell by two anticlinal divisions in perpendicular planes, followed by two periclinal ones that give rise to the initials of the head cells, the basal and the stalk cells. Head cells divide successively in radial and irregular planes. Fully developed peltate trichomes are built of a glandular head consisting of 30 to 72 cells, four stalk cells and four basal cells. Bulbous trichomes are also formed from a protodermal cell by an anticlinal division followed by two periclinal ones that produce the initials of the glandular head cells, and the basal and stalk cells. Fully developed bulbous trichomes consist of four (occasionally eight) head glandular cells, two stalk cells and two basal cells. The density of peltate trichomes decreases with the expansion of the leaves. Both peltate and bulbous trichomes secrete essential oils. Peltate trichomes are the preferential site for the synthesis of bitter resins. Tannic acids could not be detected histochemically either in peltate or in bulbous trichomes. Both types of trichomes produce secretion that accumulates in the subcuticular space, being released, in the case of bulbous trichomes, by rupture of the cuticle.
Leveraging Crowd for Collecting and Maintaining Educational Resources for Privacy Learning

As the Internet grows in importance, it is vital to develop methods and techniques for educating end-users to improve their awareness of online privacy. Web-based education tools have been proven effective in many domains and have been increasingly adopted by many online professional and educational services. However, the design and development of Web-based education tools for online privacy is still in its early stage. The traditional solutions always involve privacy experts who have sophisticated expertise. However, it is not clear how inspiring and effective these education tools are to general users of varying backgrounds. Furthermore, such involvement can make the tool development costly. In this paper, we discuss our experiences of designing a quiz-based privacy learning tool by leveraging the wisdom of the crowd on Amazon Mechanic Turk for two purposes: (1) designing the quiz questions for the tool; and (2) evaluating and assessing the effectiveness of the tool. Empirical study demonstrates that the crowd can provide high-quality educational materials for privacy learning.
Reproductive Features Of Several Ukrainian True Lizards (lacertidae)

В работе представлены сведения об особенностях откладки яиц некоторых представителей семейства Lacertidae фауны Украины в лабораторных условиях, а также приводится сравнительный материал по характеристикам кладок ящериц в природе. Сроки инкубации яиц настоящих ящериц в лабораторных условиях при стабильной, относительно невысокой температуре могут значительно превышать таковые в природе, что позволяет получать эмбриональный материал с плавным, растянутым во времени процессом развития. Наибольшей плодовитостью отличаются представители крупных видов – ящерица зеленая (Lacerta viridis) и прыткая (Lacerta agilis). Самки прыткой ящерицы могут проявлять агрессию по отношению к кладкам других самок, выражающуюся в разорении гнезд. Ключевые слова: репродуктивные особенности, настоящие ящерицы, инкубация яиц, Украина.
Levantamento pedológico e sistema de informações geográficas naavaliação do uso das terras em sub-bacia hidrográfica de Minas Gerais

A aptidao agricola das terras consiste em uma classificacao tecnica que identifica o potencial agricola de utilizacao das mesmas, considerando as limitacoes do solo em niveis de manejo diferenciados a partir das informacoes geradas em um levantamento pedologico. O cruzamento dos dados de aptidao agricola e uso atual das terras em ambiente SIG (Sistema de Informacoes Geograficas) consiste numa ferramenta adequada de planejamento, pois permite determinar a inadequacao entre uso e aptidao agricola, dando bases sustentaveis a exploracao. Neste estudo, foram realizadas a avaliacao da aptidao agricola das terras e seu uso atual com auxilio de imagens de satelite e observacoes de campo, e a identificacao de Areas de Preservacao Permanente (APPs) em uma sub-bacia hidrografica da Bacia do Alto Rio Grande, MG. Com base no levantamento de solos, a utilizacao do sensoriamento remoto, por meio de imagens de satelites, aliado ao ambiente SIG, constituem-se em ferramentas adequadas para avaliacao da aptidao agricola e uso atual das terras, e permitem o monitoramento das areas da sub-bacia hidrografica. O levantamento pedologico forneceu uma base segura e real para que, com o auxilio de ferramentas de geoprocessamento, os mapas resultantes tivessem melhor qualidade e representassem com acuracia os diferentes ambientes naturais na paisagem da sub-bacia hidrografica. Ocorreu o predominio de usos da terra menos intensivos que os das classes de aptidao agricola encontradas. As Areas de Preservacao Permanente (APPs) estao recebendo os mais diferentes usos agricolas, caracterizando uma inadequacao entre a legislacao ambiental e o uso atual da terra.
A Remote Monitoring and Decision-Making System for the Vehicle Rental

Vehicle rental service is being developed greatly in recent 10 years. A remote monitoring and decision-making system is proposed in this paper. This system can help the lessors to supervise their vehicles in real time. It also facilitates the customers to acquire the real time status of the rented vehicle, such as the working conditions, locations of the vehicle, costs, etc. The system consists of a data acquisition terminal and a remote monitoring and decision-making system. The data acquisition terminal is responsible for collecting and transmitting the vehicle fault information from the OBD (OnBoard Diagnostics) interface and the vehicle location information from GPS module. And the remote monitoring and decision-making system integrated a fault expert system based on ontology with GIS platform, thus remote monitoring and diagnosis for vehicle can be achieved, which can provide effective suggestions when vehicle failure occurs. Ontology engineering theory is introduced in order to improve the intelligence and scalability of the expert system for fault diagnosis. Finally, some vehicle rental company is taken as an example to demonstrate the system functions. The result is proved that this system presents many advantages such as effective remote monitoring and decision making, and accurate ontology-based analysis. Keywordsfault diagnosis, ontology, wireless communication, monitoring and decision making
Leaf expansion as related to plant water availability in a wild and a cultivated sunflower

This study aimed to determine if two species of sunflower, Helianthus annus L. cv. Hysun 31 (cultivated, single-stemmed genotype) and Helianthus petiolaris Nuttall ssp. fallax (wild, many-hranched genotype) differed in the response of leaf growth to water deficits. Earlier published studies, concerned only with H. annuus, failed to reveal differences in the response of sunflowers to water stress. Plants of the two species were paired in large containers of soil and grown under high radiation in a glasshouse. One batch of plants was irrigated and the other allowed to dry so that predawn leaf water potentials declined at an average of 0.072 MPa day−1. The dry batch was rewatered when predawn leaf water potentials reached −0.85 MPa. The stress imposed was sufficient to curtail leaf growth so that plants in the dry treatment had only 60% of the leaf area of irrigated plants at the onset of rewatering. Both species were affected by stress to the same relative extent, though their leaf areas at this stage differed 7-fold. Both genotypes also recovered to the same degree in the long term, finally having leaf areas and gross dry matter distribution patterns which were indistinguishable from plants which were irrigated throughout. However, water stress resulted in different distribution patterns of leaf area: H. annuus produced larger leaves at the top of its single stem which compensated for the reduced area in lower leaves, whereas H. petiolaris compensated in the leaves on its branches. Leaves which emerged after the time of stress were most able to compensate in area subsequently. For example, those leaves of H. annuus which emerged one week after stress-relief were more than three times larger than comparable leaves on plants irrigated continuously. Leaf expansion rates were affected earlier in the stress cycle than leaf conductance in H. annuus, but not in H. petiolaris. But as with other plant responses to water stress, the differences between the two species were small.
Visibility of disciplines in academic web space

In academic web space, only a small portion of hyperlinks point to topic‐related contents, while most of them are designed for general use. In this study, a hierarchy affiliation model (department‐school‐university) is proposed to extract discipline structure from linkage network and then to evaluate the discipline visibility on academic web. The case study of the Chinese academic web shows that this hierarchy model performs better in detecting disciplines on academic web over that was applied previously to a similar sample set.
Rule-based analysis of throughfall kinetic energy to evaluate biotic and abiotic factor thresholds to mitigate erosive power

Below vegetation, throughfall kinetic energy (TKE) is an important factor to express the potential of rainfall to detach soil particles and thus for predicting soil erosion rates. TKE is affected by many biotic (e.g. tree height, leaf area index) and abiotic (e.g. throughfall amount) factors because of changes in rain drop size and velocity. However, studies modelling TKE with a high number of those factors are lacking. This study presents a new approach to model TKE. We used 20 biotic and abiotic factors to evaluate thresholds of those factors that can mitigate TKE and thus decrease soil erosion. Using these thresholds, an optimal set of biotic and abiotic factors was identified to minimize TKE. The model approach combined recursive feature elimination, random forest (RF) variable importance and classification and regression trees (CARTs). TKE was determined using 1405 splash cup measurements during five rainfall events in a subtropical Chinese tree plantation with five-year-old trees in 2013. Our results showed that leaf area, tree height, leaf area index and crown area are the most prominent vegetation traits to model TKE. To reduce TKE, the optimal set of biotic and abiotic factors was a leaf area lower than 6700 mm2, a tree height lower than 290 cm combined with a crown base height lower than 60 cm, a leaf area index smaller than 1, more than 47 branches per tree and using single tree species neighbourhoods. Rainfall characteristics, such as amount and duration, further classified high or low TKE. These findings are important for the establishment of forest plantations that aim to minimize soil erosion in young succession stages using TKE modelling.
Using faecal profiling to assess the effects of different management types on diet quality in semi-arid savanna

We used faecal profiling to assess diet quality of animals under three different management types in a semi-arid savanna, northwest of Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The levels of faecal crude protein (FCP) and faecal phosphorus (FP) of free-ranging springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) and blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) on a game ranch, goats and cattle grazing in a communally-managed area, as well as cattle grazing under commercial management were determined in the wet and dry seasons over a period of two years. Plant and soil analyses were also conducted. Goats had the highest FCP and FP of all species in all seasons during the study. It appeared that selective feeders (goats and springbok) and short-grass feeders (wildebeest) do not suffer from low forage quality because their FCP and FP levels were above critical values during all seasons. Contrastingly, cattle need nutrient supplementation because their FCP and FP were below critical nutritional values during the dry seasons. Plant and soil chemical characteristics, especially soil P, had an influence on faecal quality during the study. Clay pans provide an important habitat because of the high soil quality and, consequently, high diet quality. Our surprising finding that faecal CP levels were higher under communal management than under commercial management may be ascribed to higher nutrient deposition (due to higher stocking rates) and greater diet selectivity available to free-ranging animals under communal management. Higher faecal CP and P levels in game animals may also be ascribed to unrestricted movement and, consequently, greater access to palatable plants. The results of this study demonstrate the value of faecal profiling for management of semi-arid savanna livestock and game.
TreeVersity

Transportation data sets of all kinds are hierarchical in nature and therefore are easily represented in tree structures. Visually comparing the changes in these hierarchical data sets over time can be extremely difficult, even when the trees are relatively small. TreeVersity is a novel inter active visualization that allows users to detect and analyze changes in the structure and value of various components of the tree. TreeVersity uses dual comparison techniques (side by side and explicit differences) coupled with a tabular representation to help users understand and explore changes to the tree over time. TreeVersity uses carefully selected color palettes to show positive or negative absolute and relative value changes and glyphs that show these changes preattentively. A study illustrated the value of this visualization technique through various short case studies based on federal transportation budget data, airline maintenance budget data, and transportation publication data. Hypotheses for TreeVersity's future relevance for congestion trend analysis are provided.
Effects of supplementary concentrates on growth and partitioning of nutrients between different body components in steers fed on grass silage at similar levels of metabolizable energy intake

A comparative slaughter experiment was carried out to examine the effects of feeding either grass silage alone or a mixed diet of silage and concentrate on animal performance and the partitioning of nutrients between lean and fat deposition in steers. Eighteen Hereford×Friesian steers were randomly assigned to two dietary treatments; grass silage only (S) or a mixture of grass silage and a barley/soya bean meal concentrate (80[ratio ]20 on fresh basis) in the ratio of 60[ratio ]40 (on a metabolizable energy basis; SC), and to one of three target slaughter liveweights, 250, 350 or 500 kg. Metabolizable energy (ME) intake was maintained at 800 kJ ME per kg metabolic liveweight (kg0·75) per day. The relationships between chemical composition and empty body weight (EBW) at slaughter were assessed using allometric equations (logey=logea+blogeEBW). When assessed across the slaughter weights, supplementing silage with concentrates resulted in higher rates of liveweight (P<0·001), carcass fat (P<0·05) and protein (P<0·01) gains and a reduction in time taken to reach the average slaughter weight by 57 days (P<0·001). Carcass protein deposition was relatively linear across the slaughter weights (250–500 kg) and the relationship with EBW was Y=0·2372X0·8831 across treatments and did not differ between the diets. The rate at which carcass fat was deposited in relation to weight across all steers was Y=0·0004X1·9648 and was not different between the two diets. Hence, ratios of carcass fat[ratio ]protein and carcass fat[ratio ]protein gain ratios were not different. The results suggest that the main effect of feeding grass silage compared with grass silage-concentrate at similar levels of ME intake was to increase the rate of tissue accretion, but nutrient partitioning between fat and protein deposition was unchanged. There was no evidence of increased carcass fat[ratio ]protein deposition in silage-fed animals, which suggests that there is no problem of greater fat and reduced protein deposition in animals fed higher quality grass silage.
The Role ofNGOs in alleviating the Problems of Children Orphaned by HIV / AIDS: The Case of Mekdim Ethiopia National Association (MENA).

At present, HIV is an endemic that is causing millions of children Orphan. This study is mainly intended to investigate the role that NGOs are playing in alleviating the problem of children orphaned by HIV/ AIDS. The research method adopted for the study is · Descriptive · and Analytical research, type and a survey method. An in-depth interview and focus group discussion were used as primary data collection techniques. Both open ended and closed ended questionnaires were employed as tools to collect primary data. The total sample size was 347, 187 orphans and 160 guardians and a stratified random sampling coupled with purposive sampling were employed. To describe the quantitative aspect of the study descriptive statistics were used, while the qualitative aspect was presented through discussion. The finding indicates that, children orphaned by HIV/ AIDS have access to all types of supports to a varying degree except house rent support. Moreover, orphans have either complained or dissatisfied in most cases with the adequacy and significance of the supports they received, while for some orphans some supports are so crucial for their survival. On the other hand, the organization was unable to address the felt needs of orphans due to financial limitation and the donor driven nature of the projects. Furthermore, the growing number of destitute children that seriously need the support has forced the organization to cut in the types and amount of support such as educational support, health care, food aid and housing. However, to meet the growmg demand the organization has established linkages with public schools, government hospitals and clinics and kebele officials to provide orphans with free access to services such as; educational support, health care, food aid and housing. In addition, the organization has initiated livelihood interventions to Improve the ability of orphan households to remain self reliant. The recommendations of the study revolve around its finding aiming at improving how supports should be given by the organization by minimizing it limiting factors.
Towards Privacy-Preserving Driver’s Drowsiness and Distraction Detection: A Differential Privacy Approach

The ubiquitous need for detecting driver’s drowsiness and distraction by using a camera mounted inside the car directed to driver’s face is driving significant concern about protecting driver’s identity from being discovered or exploited by hackers. In this paper, we present a novel technique called block Laplacian Obfuscation Mechanism (bLOM), to privatize the camera data stream by using differential privacy techniques introduced in database domain. We introduce a metric to measure privacy and utility for driver’s drowsiness and distraction algorithms. Our experimental results show that in 87% of test cases, bLOM is able to keep the identity of the driver private while still be able to extract facial features needed for driver’s drowsiness and distraction detection.