Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tone Merging Patterns in Congenital Amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting fine-grained musical pitch processing without brain injury. This disorder also affects pitch processing in speech such as lexical tone perception. On the other hand, the phenomenon of tone merging has been observed among some speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC), who exhibit confusion between certain tone pairs in perception and/or production. It has been reported that tone merging may relate to individual variation in cognitive abilities of working memory and attention. The current study is a first attempt to investigate the relationship between amusia and tone merging by examining tone merging patterns in perception of amusics in HKC and their cognitive abilities of working memory and attention as well as pitch threshold. The results revealed a different profile of amusics from that of merger groups reported in previous studies. Amusics exhibited a profound impairment in discriminating tones compared to musically intact controls, which appeared to differ from the highly selective perceptual confusion of tone pairs reported in the merger groups. Regarding cognitive measures, amusics also demonstrated broad deficits in selective attention, working memory and inhibitory control. The temporary results imply that amusia might have a limited contribution to the previously reported tone merging.
MOTIVATION IN THE MUSEUM - MEDIATING BETWEEN EVERYDAY ENGAGEMENT AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

Museums are facing increasing challenges regarding the design of new exhibition spaces and their role in society. Recent years have seen a growing recognition that museums need to give greater priority to the visitor experience and the ways in which exhibition spaces invite visitors to engage with natural or cultural history. This has led many museums in the direction of digital and interactive technologies in an effort to renew styles of communication and create new ways for visitors to engage in the exhibition space. This movement has attracted the attention of researchers within various fields concerned with the design and understanding of interactive technologies. In particular, the fields of Interaction Design, HCI, and CSCW have begun to shed much needed light on the use and potential of technologies to engage visitors in exhibition spaces. These range from the studies of social interaction and participation in museums (e.g. Heath al. 2002) to studies on learning approaches (e.g. Pierroux et al. 2007) and visitor engagement (e.g. Edmonds et al. 2008). Engagement is a situational phenomenon that occurs in the interplay between visitors and the exhibition space, but it is also very much rooted in the visitors’ prior experiences, knowledge and preferences. Indeed, as argued by Csikszentmihalyi & Hermanson (1995), a central issue for museums is to create strong links between the museum and the everyday life of the visitor. In this respect, a central aspect of understanding how exhibition spaces may engage visitors is to understand the structures of motivation and the relations between the everyday life of the visitors and the museum knowledge.
Rickettsioses in Sri Lanka – A mini review

Rickettsioses are a group of vector-borne diseases that have come to the limelight in Sri Lanka during the last two decades. Evidence for spotted fever group rickettsioses, scrub typhus and other related diseases have been reported from Sri Lanka in a geographically restricted manner. This review summarizes the work done locally, that are publicly accessible as of 24th November 2018 with keyword searches ‘rickettsioses and Sri Lanka’, and ‘typhus and Sri Lanka’, on PubMed and Google Scholar. There is a considerable body of literature on rickettsioses in Sri Lanka, particularly as a result of collaborations with international research groups. These indicate that rickettsioses are found throughout the country, in a geographically restricted manner.
MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI ASSOCIATIONS WITH FOUR SALT MARSH SPECIES

The value of salt marshes in reducing wave energy, enhancing sedimentation, stabilizing sediment, providing fisheries habitat, and serving as a food source for wildlife is well documented and widely recognized. Restoration efforts often consist of whole plant harvesting from natural habitats. This imposes strong disturbances to the harvested areas, as well as plant availability being limited to the growing season. Development and evaluation of ecologically sound and cost-effective restoration methods using nurserygrown marsh grasses will advance the current state of restoration science and improve restoration effectiveness in estuarine and coastal habitats. The introduction of Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi may have the potential to increase nursery production and the health of the plants produced. VAM colonization may increase plant growth, improve water transport, increase resistance to pathogens, and mediate transplant shock of saltmarsh plants. VAM are also associated with enhanced plant survival in stressful environments including: water-stress, salinity stress, and low nutrient availability. Saltmarsh species Juncus roemerianus, Spartina alterniflora, Schoenoplectus robustus, and Schoenoplectus americanus plants of various ages were inoculated with commercial mycorrhizal inoculant. Colonization rates were monitored and plant growth and health were assessed by morphological measurements. The effect of inoculant on * Corresponding author: Tel: 301 713 3070 x 138 Email: melissa.pratt-zossoungbo@noaa.gov ** Tel: 228 872 4200 Fax: 228 872 4204 Email: Patrick.biber@usm.edu Melissa Pratt-Zossoungbo and Patrick D. Biber 2 morphological changes was also compared with the effects that the addition of fertilizer, and less saturated soil conditions had on plant growth and health. These studies showed that species Juncus roemerianus and Schoenoplectus spp. are capable of acquiring VAM colonization, while Spartina alterniflora did not become colonized in mature or seedling stages. The effects of VAM on plant morphology varied between species and by the age of the plants and inoculation generally only had a measurable effect in seedlings. Inoculation had significant effects on plant growth for Schoenoplectus spp. , while the addition of fertilizer had more pronounced effects on growth for Juncus roemerianus and Spartina alterniflora.
Generation of maximally-polarization-entangled photons on a chip

Sergei V. Zhukovsky,1,2,* Lukas G. Helt,1 Dongpeng Kang,2 Payam Abolghasem,2 Amr S. Helmy,2 and J. E. Sipe1 1Department of Physics and Institute for Optical Sciences, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A7 2The Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King’s College Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G4 (Received 1 September 2011; published 25 January 2012)
Deterrence: Evidence and Inference

Because of space limitations and the short time I have been given to prepare my response to the two critiques of my work published in this issue of the Journal, I shall confine myself principally to the critique by Bowers and Pierce.1 I do that not because the paper by Baldus and Cole2 does not warrant a detailed reply but because an elaborate response to the central issues they raise is contained in a study of mine now in progress which deals critically with published research by Sellin and others.3 I choose to focus on the Bowers and Pierce piece also because, as I hope to show, their work largely misinterprets and misapplies the framework I have developed for testing the deterrence hypothesis. Addressing their work critically provides the opportunity to elaborate upon some pertinent aspects of my research, hopefully for the benefit of interested scholars. The conclusions of my time series study of murder basically are two: (1) that previous research never adequately tested a set of direct and specific implications suggested by a general theory of deterrence and (2) that my empirical findings, while tentative and inconclusive by the very nature of observational statistics, are not, inconsistent with rather sharp implications emanating from this theory, including the hypothesized deterrent effect of the conditional risk of execution. Bowers and Pierce tacitly accept the first conclusion and seek to evade the second, evidently on faulty grounds. In their efforts to obscure the empirical findings, they have selectively deleted observations, utilized an inferior regression specification, considered irrelevant variables and correlations, and revealed in the process misunderstanding of elementary statistical concepts, as I discuss in points III, IV, and V below. They do not provide evidence based on a systematic statistical analysis showing that capital punishment, or punishment in general, does not deter crime. Essentially, they make only the point that the observed deterrent effect of the risk of execution can be confounded
Stretching and Transporting DNA Molecules Using Motor Proteins

Inside cells, motor proteins perform a variety of complex tasks including the transport of vesicles and the separation of chromosomes. We demonstrate a novel use of such biological machines for the mechanical manipulation of nanostructures in a cell-free environment. Specifically, we show that purified kinesin motors in combination with chemically modified microtubules can transport and stretch individual λ-phage DNA molecules across a surface. This technique, in contrast to existing ones, enables the parallel yet individual manipulation of many molecules and may offer an efficient mechanism for assembling multidimensional DNA structures.
Customer Satisfaction in Business to Consumer (B2C) E-commerce: A Comparative Study of Turkey and Pakistan

The World Wide Web and the medium of internet have invaded the world from all directions and it has transformed the business and economies into series of electronic financial transactions. E-Commerce is a relatively new born phenomenon and this study explores into the realm of Business-to-Customer e-commerce customer satisfaction in Pakistan and Turkey. The methodology used to extract primary data is the contingency valuation approach; questionnaire. In total 205 Questionnaire were filled and collected online which constituted 110 surveys from Pakistan and 95 surveys from Turkey. The study uses descriptive analysis and also two sample t-test to test the hypothesis of the study which is that there is no difference in the levels of Business-to-Customer e-commerce customer satisfaction in Pakistan and Turkey. The findings of the study reveal that there is no significant difference between the levels of Pakistan and Turkey as the individual factors affecting e-commerce customer satisfaction do not differ in intensity. There are few differences but mainly the countries are on converging paths in this context.
PIGEON PEA ( CAJANUS CAJAN L . ) BY-PRODUCTS AS POTENT NATURAL RESOURCE TO PRODUCE PROTEIN RICH EDIBLE FOOD PRODUCTS

Received 19th April, 2017 Received in revised form 10th May, 2017 Accepted 9th June, 2017 Published online 28th July, 2017 Pigeon pea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp. ] is one of the important perennial food legume crop in the semi-arid tropics acting as an important source of protein, dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. It is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, accomplishing it as a suitable healthy substitution to meat. Normally, pigeon pea is consumed in the form of dehulled splits, which are obtained after milling or processing. During this process various byproducts are released, which found to contain 20 % of the protein, can be blended with other flour to produce protein rich edible food products. So, pigeon pea by-products in combination with grains constitute a well-balanced human diet and can be used as a potential protein source to reduce the protein deficiency and malnutrition. The present article describes the use of pigeon pea by-products as low cost alternative protein source to improve the nutritional value of human diet.
Optimal strictly positive real approximations for stable transfer functions

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the optimal strictly positive real (SPR) approximation to a given stable transfer function. The transfer function is further assumed to be strictly proper and the SPR approximation is constrained to have the same pole structure. The optimization is carried out using the (weighted) H/sub 2/-norm and the problem is reduced to a strictly convex quadratic programming problem with linear inequality constraints. At the heart of the method is a parameterization for all SPR compensators which possess a given denominator polynomial. Motivation for the problem stems from the robust stability provided by SPR compensation for passive plants such as flexible structures with colocated sensing and actuation. A numerical example is provided as well as the experimental implementation of an optimal approximation to the control of a single flexible link manipulator.
Use of a multiwavelength pyrometer in several elevated temperature aerospace applications

A multiwavelength pyrometer was developed for applications unique to aerospace environments. It was shown to be a useful and versatile technique for measuring temperature, even when the emissivity is unknown. It has also been used to measure the surface temperatures of ceramic zircornia thermal barrier coatings and alumina. The close agreement between pyrometer and thin film thermocouple temperatures provided an independent check. Other applications of the multiwavelength pyrometer are simultaneous surface and bulk temperature measurements of a transparent material, and combustion gas temperature measurement using a special probe interfaced to the multiwavelength pyrometer via an optical fiber. The multiwavelength pyrometer determined temperature by transforming the radiation spectrum in a broad wavelength region to produce a straight line (in a certain spectral region), whose intercept in the vertical axis gives the temperature. Implicit in a two-color pyrometer is the assumption of wavelength independen.
Multi-frequency observations of seawater carbonate chemistry on the central coast of the western Antarctic Peninsula

Assessments of benthic coastal seawater carbonate chemistry in Antarctica are sparse. The studies have generally been short in duration, during the austral spring/summer, under sea ice, or offshore in ice-free water. Herein we present multi-frequency measurements for seawater collected from the shallow coastal benthos on a weekly schedule over one year (May 2012–May 2013), daily schedule over three months (March–May 2013) and semidiurnal schedule over five weeks (March–April 2013). A notable pH increase (max pH = 8.62) occurred in the late austral spring/summer (November–December 2012), coinciding with sea-ice break-out and subsequent increase in primary productivity. We detected semidiurnal variation in seawater pH with a maximum variation of 0.13 pH units during the day and 0.11 pH units during the night. Daily variation in pH is likely related to biological activity, consistent with previous research. We calculated the variation in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) over each seawater measurement frequency, focusing on the primary DIC drivers in the Palmer Station region. From this, we estimated net biological activity and found it accounts for the greatest variations in DIC. Our seasonal data suggest that this coastal region tends to act as a carbon dioxide source during austral winter months and as a strong sink during the summer. These data characterize present-day seawater carbonate chemistry and the extent to which these measures vary over multiple time scales. This information will inform future experiments designed to evaluate the vulnerability of coastal benthic Antarctic marine organisms to ocean acidification.
The Robust Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows: Compact Formulation and Branch-Price-and-Cut Method

We address the robust vehicle routing problem with time windows (RVRPTW) under customer demand and travel time uncertainties. As presented thus far in the literature, robust counterparts of standard formulations have challenged general-purpose optimization solvers and specialized branch-and-cut methods. Hence, optimal solutions have been reported for small-scale instances only. Additionally, although the most successful methods for solving many variants of vehicle routing problems are based on the column generation technique, the RVRPTW has never been addressed by this type of method. In this paper, we introduce a novel robust counterpart model based on the well-known budgeted uncertainty set, which has advantageous features in comparison with other formulations and presents better overall performance when solved by commercial solvers. This model results from incorporating dynamic programming recursive equations into a standard deterministic formulation and does not require the classical dualization scheme typically used in robust optimization. In addition, we propose a branch-price-and-cut method based on a set partitioning formulation of the problem, which relies on a robust resource-constrained elementary shortest path problem to generate routes that are robust regarding both vehicle capacity and customer time windows. Computational experiments using Solomon’s instances show that the proposed approach is effective and able to obtain robust solutions within a reasonable running time. The results of an extensive Monte Carlo simulation indicate the relevance of obtaining robust routes for a more reliable decision-making process in real-life settings.
A Diachronic Comparison of the Vai Script of Liberia (1834–2005)

This dataset provides the first comprehensive diachronic comparison of the Vai script of Liberia, as derived from sixteen sources dated between 1834 and 2005. The Vai syllabary was invented by non-literate speakers of a Mande language and is of interest to scholars in the fields of writing and cultural transmission as an emergent writing system. Script samples that entered the dataset were retrieved from a wide variety of published manuscripts. The compiled dataset tracks the evolution of the Vai script via archival records and has reuse potential across various fields of research.
First Report on Fusarium solani, a Pathogenic Fungus Causing Stem Rot Disease on Dragon Fruits (Hylocereus sp.) in Bali

In recent years, dragon fruit crop ( Hylocereus spp.) has become increasingly important in Bali Indonesia due to its high nutrient content and healing properties. However, the dragon fruit was reported to be seriously infected with several complex diseases caused by fungi and causing serious losses to the farmers. The study on morphological and molecular characterization the fungal pathogen was conducted to confirm the species of the fungi. Koch Postulate was applied to confirm the causal agent of the disease. There were two isolates of fungi isolated from the stems of diseased plants, namely isolate w1 (from stem of H. undatus ) and isolate w2 (from stem of H. polyrhizus ). Based on macroscopic and microscopic characteristics, and analysis of 18S rDNA, both of them were identified as Fusarium solani . This is the first report on the F . solani the cause of stem rot disease on dragon fruits in Bali. Keywords : stem rot disease, dragon fruit, Fusarium solani
Fashion clothes matching scheme learned from fashionista's suggestions in MicroBlog

Intelligent fashion analysis for clothing is receiving a great deal of attentions rencently, since there is a huge profit potential in the fashion industry. Although there are several related studies about clothes matching, clothing matching and recommendation is still an challenging problem. This paper mainly introduces a fashion clothes matching scheme with consideration of the labeled data from fashionista in MicroBlog and unlabeled data from online shopping website. More specifically, the gallery data is collected starting from the matching clothes outfits recommended by fashionista in MicroBlog firstly. Then, these matching clothes are semi-automatically segmented into matched upper and lower parts as positive samples. Meanwhile, a semi-supervised clustering based assembling was proposed to generate negative samples to form a comprehensive dataset. After that, a classifier is trained to determine the testing upper and lower samples as matching or not. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments and empirical evaluations on a set of clothes images to demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of the scheme.
High Resolution Rapid Response Observations of Compact Radio Sources with the Ceduna Hobart Interferometer (CHI)

Context. Frequent, simultaneous observations across the electromagnetic spectrum are essential to the study of a range of astrophysical phenomena including active galactic nuclei. A key tool of such studies is the ability to observe an object when it flares i.e. exhibits a rapid and significant increase in its flux density. Aims. We describe the specific observational procedures and the calibration techniques that have been developed and tested to create a single baseline radio interferometer that can rapidly observe a flaring object. This is the only facility that is dedicated to rapid high resolution radio observations of an object south of −30 degrees declination. An immediate application is to provide rapid contemporaneous radio coverage of AGN flaring at γ-ray frequencies detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Methods. A single baseline interferometer, the Ceduna Hobart Interferometer (CHI), was formed with radio telescopes in Hobart, Tasmania and Ceduna, South Australia. A software correlator was set up at the University of Tasmania to correlate these data. Results. Measurements of the flux densities of flaring objects can be made using our observing strategy within half an hour of a triggering event. These observations can be calibrated with amplitude errors better than 15%. Lower limits to the brightness temperatures of the sources can also be calculated using CHI.
Genetic Diversity of Macrophomina phaseolina Populations, the Causal Agent of Sesame Charcoal Rot Using Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat Markers

Macrophomina phaseolina is an important soil-borne pathogen causing charcoal rot in many important crop plants including sesame, in Iran. A total of 60 isolates of M. phaseolina were collected from the main sesame producing regions in ten provinces of Iran. The genetic diversity among M. phaseolina populations was estimated using InterSimple Sequence Repeat (ISSR), focusing particularly on geographic differentiation. Five ISSR primers generated 105 discernible DNA bands, of which 85 (77.11%) were polymorphic. The greatest value of variability (PPB: 60.00%; H: 0.185; I: 0.284) was estimated for Fars population, whereas the least variability (PPB: 9.52%; H: 0.042; I: 0.060) was estimated for Kerman population. Total gene diversity exhibited high levels of variability (H T = 0.186). Analysis of molecular variance indicated a large proportion of genetic variability within populations.