Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An empirical simulation analysis on cotton marketing strategies in west Texas

An Empirical Simulation Analysis of Cotton Marketing Strategies in West Texas. (December 2008) Christopher Patrick Elrod, B.S., California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. James Richardson The three marketing strategies, buying a put option, cash sale at harvest, and cash sale in June after December harvest, are simulated for six representative irrigated and dryland cotton farms in West Texas. Each marketing strategy is ranked using the net cash income probability distribution for the representative farms using stochastic efficiency with respect to a function (SERF). SERF rankings were consistent across dryland and irrigated farms. The buying of a put option was found to be the marketing strategy that produced the highest certainty equivalent (CE) for normal risk averse decision makers. Cash sale at harvest followed by cash sale in June marketing strategies were ranked second and third, respectively. A sensitivity analysis increased the national baseline price used in the model by 45 percent. Cash sale at harvest then consistently became the highest ranked marketing strategy followed by buying a put option and then cash sale in June. The research found that if a strike price and premium that covered the production costs of the representative farm was available during the pre-harvest period, the decision maker may have the ability to increase utility by hedging with the put option.
Fgf8 dosage regulates jaw shape and symmetry through pharyngeal‐cardiac tissue relationships

Background Asymmetries in craniofacial anomalies are commonly observed. With respect to the facial skeleton, the left side is more commonly and/or severely affected than the right. Such asymmetries complicate treatment options. Mechanisms underlying variation in disease severity between individuals as well as within individuals (asymmetries) are still relatively unknown. Results Developmental reductions in Fibroblast growth factor 8 (Fgf8) have a dosage dependent effect on jaw size, shape, and symmetry. Further, Fgf8 mutants have directionally asymmetric jaws with the left side being more affected than the right. Defects in lower jaw development begin with an early disruption to Meckel’s cartilage, which is discontinuous and appears as two separate condensations in Fgf8 mutants. All skeletal elements associated with the proximal condensation are dysmorphic in the mutants, which is exemplified by a malformed and mis-oriented malleus. At later stages, Fgf8 mutants exhibit syngnathia, which falls into 2 broad categories: bony fusion of the maxillary and mandibular alveolar ridges and zygomatico-mandibular fusion. All of these morphological defects exhibit both inter- and intra-individual variation. Conclusions We hypothesize that these asymmetries are linked to asymmetries in heart development resulting in higher levels of Fgf8 on the right side of the face during development, which may buffer the right side to mild developmental perturbations. This mutant mouse is a good model for future investigations of mechanisms underlying human syngnathia and facial asymmetry.
A subpopulation of Talin 1 resides in the nucleus and regulates gene expression

Talin 1 (TLN1) is best known for its role at focal adhesions, where it activates β-integrin receptors and transmits mechanical stimuli to the actin cytoskeleton. Interestingly, the localization of TLN1 is not restricted to the focal adhesions, but its function in other cellular compartments remains poorly understood. By utilizing both biochemical and confocal microscopy analyses, we show that TLN1 localizes to the nucleus and that it strongly interacts with the chromatin. Importantly, depletion of endogenous TLN1 results in extensive changes in the gene expression profile of human breast epithelial cells. To determine the impact of nuclear TLN1 on gene regulation, we expressed a TLN1 fusion protein containing a nuclear localization signal. Our results revealed that nuclear TLN1 regulates a specific subset of the TLN1-dependent genes. Taken together, we show that apart from localizing at the plasma membrane and cytoplasm, TLN1 also resides in the nucleus where it functions in the regulation of gene expression.
Leaf bacterial community structure and variation in wild ruderal plants are shaped by the interaction of host species and defense chemistry with environment

Variable phenotypes help plants ensure fitness and survival in the face of unpredictable environmental stresses. Leaf bacteria (bacteriomes) can extend plant phenotypes and are well-known to vary from one plant to the next, but little is known about controls on this variation. Here, we find in 9 populations of Arabidopsis thaliana that core leaf bacteriomes are largely, but not completely, shared with other ground-dwelling ruderal plant species. Strength of differentiation between plant species and between A. thaliana populations shifts from year to year, becoming stronger when plants within populations have more similar leaf bacteriomes (less plant-to-plant variation or stochasticity). Interestingly, across different populations, plants with shared leaf aliphatic glucosinolate chemotypes exhibited similar strong year-to-year stochasticity shifts. Therefore, stochasticity of leaf bacteriomes in plant populations changes in specific ways and might be controlled by plant traits, with important implications for how plants adapt to complex and shifting environments.
Retrospective North American CFL Experience Curve Analysis and Correlation to Deployment Programs

Author(s): Smith, Sarah J.; Wei, Max; Sohn, Michael D. | Abstract: Retrospective experience curves are a useful tool for understanding historic technology development, and can contribute to investment program analysis and future cost estimation efforts. This work documents our development of an analysis approach for deriving retrospective experience curves with a variable learning rate, and its application to develop an experience curve for compact fluorescent lamps for the global and North American markets over the years 1990-2007. Uncertainties and assumptions involved in interpreting data for our experience curve development are discussed, including the processing and transformation of empirical data, the selection of system boundaries, and the identification of historical changes in the learning rate over the course of 15 years. In the results that follow, we find that that the learning rate has changed at least once from 1990-2007. We also explore if, and to what degree, public deployment programs may have contributed to an increased technology learning rate in North America. We observe correlations between the changes in the learning rate and the initiation of new policies, abrupt technological advances, including improvements to ballast technology, and economic and political events such as trade tariffs and electricity prices. Finally, we discuss how the findings of this work (1) support the use of segmented experience curves for retrospective and prospective analysis and (2) may imply that investments in technological research and development have contributed to a change in market adoption and penetration.
Natural Interaction with an Assistive Humanoid Robot

This paper addresses the concept of “natural interaction”, defined as a way to interact in a simple, human-like and intuitive manner with personal assistive robots. A human-robot interaction system was developed for this purpose in order to provide means for expert and non-expert users to cooperate and interact with an assistant humanoid robot (Nao) operating in a domestic environment, allowing them to express their instructions as combinations of gestures and speech inputs.
High Precision Unmanned Agro Copters In Eco-Friendly Viticulture Systems

This research presents the results of studying traditional and alternative colonized systems of viticulture: organic, biodynamic, adaptive landscape. The fundamental similarities and differences in the organization of viticulture are determined. Particular attention in the study is paid to the aspects of using precision viticulture technology to increase the yield of grapes. The introduction of the Agrofly TF1A high precision agro drone-sprayer for all types of grape processing will make it possible to qualitatively and effectively ensure the psychopathological resistance of each grape bush to the main types of diseases that occur in the subtropical conditions of the southern regions of Russia. Providing the domestic viticulture industry with agro drones-sprayers will significantly increase the yield of grape plantations and provide the wine industry with healthy high-quality raw materials.
1. What is action-oriented perception?

Contemporary scientific and philosophical literature on perception often focuses on the relationship between perception and action, emphasizing the ways in which perception can be understood as geared towards action or ‘action-oriented’. In this paper I provide a framework within which to classify approaches to action-oriented perception, and I highlight important differences between the distinct approaches. I show how talk of perception as action-oriented can be applied to the evolutionary history of perception, neural or psychological perceptual mechanisms, the semantic content or phenomenal character of perceptual states, or to the metaphysical nature of perception. I argue that there are no straightforward inferences from one kind of action-oriented perception to another. Using this framework and its insights, I then explore the notion of action-oriented perceptual representation which plays a key role in some approaches to embodied cognitive science. I argue that the concept of action-oriented representation proposed by Clark and Wheeler is less straightforward than it might seem, because it seems to require both that the mechanisms of perceptual representation are action-oriented and that the content of these perceptual representations are action-oriented. Given that neither of these claims can be derived from the other, proponents of action-oriented representation owe us separate justification for each claim. I will argue that such justifications are not forthcoming in the literature, and that attempts to reconstruct them run into trouble: the sorts of arguments offered for the representational mechanisms being action-oriented seem to undermine the sorts of arguments offered for the representational content being action-oriented, and vice-versa.
Warship Cabin Layout Design Optimization Based on an Improved Genetic Algorithm

This paper investigates the warship cabin layout problem from the perspective of layout optimization. A living district cabin layout is taken as an example,and the theories and methods in two-dimensional Facility Layout Problem(FLP)analysis are adopted to simplify the cabin layout model. Once the simplified model is established,an mathematic optimization model is further analyzed,which includes cabin sequence variables,objective evaluation functions,and layout constraints. Then,an improved Genetic Algorithm is proposed to solve the mathematical model,which is of high efficiency due to its advantages in the encoding method,gene operators,and procedure frames. Finally,through programming calculation,the Pareto layout schemes are obtained. It is observed from both theoretical analysis and practical examples that the proposed algorithm can well solve the layout problems of living district cabins.
Automation of Binary Analysis: From Open Source Collection to Threat Intelligence

Many open sources of binaries, including malware, have emerged in the landscape in recent years. Their quality compares very favourably with commercial sources, as emphasised by Thibaud Binetruy (Twitter influencer under a pseudonym, Société Générale CERT, 2020): “Integrating operational threat intel in your defense mechanisms doesn’t mean buying Threat Intel. You can start by using the [mass] of open source indicators available for free. ” Some are provided by official sources (Abuse.ch, with data supplied by the Swiss national CERT, among others), while others are made available in more obscure ways, sometimes anonymously (VirusShare, VX-Underground, etc.). Our examination of these sources underlines the wide disparity in quality and quantity between them. We have had to take this diversity into account in our research, designing a dedicated platform that enables us to supply information to our binary analysis products and to conduct daily analyses of correlations between and within malware families on a large scale. This work can then be applied to concrete cases such as Babuk, Ryuk and Conti. We have been able to highlight links for these families by immediately identifying correlations, with additional manual analysis then confirming the genealogy of the samples precisely.
The work of liberal health professionals in the COVID-19 pandemic context

As of March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made an important impact on work on a global scale. In the absence of a vaccine, the most adopted measures were social distance and preference for remote work. The present study sought to understand the meanings that eight health professionals attributed to their practices in this context. Meetings held with a dentist, a physician, an occupational therapist, a nurse, a psychologist, a physiotherapist, a speech therapist, and a nutritionist, were registered through comprehensive narratives. Three categories of results were found: 1) the meaning of work, 2) the option for liberal practice, and 3) the implications of the pandemic. It was possible to see how the effects of the pandemic were peculiarly experienced by each of the participants, in some cases making them reconsider the meaning of work in their lives. © 2022 Universidad Catolica del Uruguay. All right reserved.
New Control Strategy of Interlinking Converters as The key Segment of Hybrid AC-DC Microgrids

This paper is concerned with presenting control strategy for interlink converters in hybrid microgrids. When both ac microgrids (AC-MG) and dc microgrids (DC-MG) are in the vicinity of each other, they can be interconnected via ac-dc converters, known as interlinking converters (ICs), making it possible to exchange energy between two grids. Common methods employed in IC control strategy use frequency variation and current-controlled method (CCM) in their structure. This method requires the frequency variation at IC ac-side to be large, leading to poor power quality and stability of AC-MG. Furthermore, CCM does not directly regulate the IC ac-side voltage, which again deteriorates the IC ac-side voltage quality. The proposed strategy is based on droop method, similar to what is used in the autonomous control of sources in an AC-MG. This technique uses voltage-controlled method (VCM) and does not need frequency measurement in its structure. This considerably improves the voltage quality of AC-MG. The derivation of appropriate droop characteristic is explained. Time domain simulation is used to verify the performance of the proposed method. The small-signal stability of the system is studied. It is shown how by introducing a proper virtual impedance, the small-signal stability of the system can be improved.
Epidemiology of Patients with Cerebrovascular Accident

A stroke, or cerebrovascular accident, is an emergency medical condition characterized by an acute compromise of the cerebral perfusion or vasculature. The leading cause of ischemic stroke is hypertension whereas clotting disorders, carotid dissection, and illicit drug abuse are common causes in the younger populations. A quick diagnosis followed by prompt management needs to be set in motion by the interprofessional team members to improve outcomes for those with stroke. Stroke continues to carry high morbidity and mortality. For those who survive, the recovery is prolonged and the risk of another stroke is high. Most patients following a stroke remain disabled or have partial neurological deficits that prevent them from being active in the workforce.
Immediate Effect of Cold Spinal Spray on Autonomic Variables in Hypertensive Individuals-A Randomised Control Trial

Background: Hypertension (HTN) has become an important public health issue. From the past few decades, different classes of antihypertensive drugs are used in treating HTN and non-pharmacological complementary therapies like naturopathy are efficiently employed. Clinically naturopathic physicians were using the cold spinal spray as one of the therapy in managing hypertension. It is important to understand the immediate efficacy and underlying mechanism of cold spinal spray in, patients with primary hypertension. Methods: Pre diagnosed primary hypertensive subjects are screened as per the criteria of diagnosis and 60 subjects were selected after considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subjects were randomly assigned and group one underwent 20 min of cold spinal spray (CSS) whereas group two was made to lay down in the same tub for 20 min. Baseline assessments were done followed by 20 min of intervention and finally, immediate post-assessments were done. Data were assessed and analysed. Results: Group one with CSS intervention showed a significant decrease in low frequency (LF), low frequency/high frequency (LF/HF) ratio and an increase in high frequency (HF) after the intervention (p˂0.01). Group two without intervention showed decreased LF/HF ratio, increased LF and HF but LF increased after the intervention but was not significant (p˃0.01). Comparing the groups showed a significant difference in all components of HRV (p˂0.05) and group one have more significant results than group two. Conclusion: Comparing both the groups, results suggested a significant decrease in sympathetic activity and a shift of sympathovagal balance towards vagal dominance immediately after the intervention of cold spinal spray is observed. Therefore CSS can be helpful in the immediate reduction of blood pressure in primary HTN patients.
A THREE LAYER PRIVACY PRESERVING STORAGE SCHEME FOR PROVIDING SECURITY

: In current scheme, user’s data is completely stored in data servers. While storing the info in main server, users lose their right of control on data and face privacy leakage risk. Traditional privacy protection schemes usually support encryption technology. But these forms of methods cannot effectively resist attack within main server. So as to unravel this problem, we propose a framework which can take full advantage of information storage and also protect the privacy of information. We use Hash-Solomon code algorithm to divide data into different parts, so that these parts of data can be stored in local machine and main server and secondary server so as to guard privacy. To support computational intelligence, this algorithm can compute the distribution stored in main server, secondary server and native machine respectively.
Exploration of GO-CuO nanocomposite for its antibacterial properties and potential application as a chemosensor in the sensing of L-Leucine

Abstract Graphene known as the wonder material and finds its utilization in various applications including sensors.This work reports the solvothermal route and the chemical reflux method synthesis of graphene oxide copper oxide nanocomposite material (GO-CuO). The hitherto prepared GO-CuO nanocomposite was well characterized using the usual spectroscopic and microscopic technique such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis Spectroscopy (UV), Photoluminescence Spectroscopy(PL) etc. The prepared GO-CuO nanocomposite was found to selectively bind to L-Leucine without any interference from the other naturally occurring L-amino acids as a potential fluorescent chemosensor. The interference studies, effect of time, effect of pH and various equivalence studies were also performed for the GO-CuO nanocomposite with L-Leucine. The antibacterial activity of GO-CuO nanocomposite revealed a minimum inhibitory zone concentration for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus to be 200 μg/ml, whereas for A. baumannii it was found to be 100 μg/ml.
The Perceptual Magic of Binocular Rivalry

Binocular rivalry (BR) refers to the spontaneous, unpredictable fluctuations in visual awareness provoked by dissimilar stimulation of the two eyes. Reports of the phenomenon date back several centuries, but interest in BR has exploded in recent years as researchers in diverse disciplines—psychology, neuroscience, medicine, philosophy—have found reasons to study it. New ideas about BR have emerged, sparking controversies about its neural bases, which may be resolved thanks to new methodological developments. This essay provides a synopsis of some key empirically determined aspects of BR as well as an overview of theoretical developments in this field. Work published during the past decade or so is emphasized (and explicitly referenced); earlier key findings are mentioned and referenced in the annotated bibliography included in the Supplemental Material.
Using support vector regression and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm in multi-objective optimization of milling of S50C steel under MQL condition

The modern machining industry faces reducing manufacturing cost pressure and improve product quality expectations. Due to this competition a manufacturer must continually identify cost cutting opportunities in manufacturing process. The keys technology represents cost-saving opportunities associated with reducing cutting fluid consumption, cutting energy consumption, and improves the overall performance of machining operations at the same time. Hence, multiple response optimization techniques have recently become the focus of research to improve product quality by increasing surface quality and reduce costs by reducing cutting force, cutting fluids, and energy consumption of the cutting process recently. Among various optimization methods, few Taguchi-based likes as TOPSIS, COPRAS, MOORA, VIKOR. were chosen to solve complex multiple criteria problems. However, the limitation of these techniques is that it was helped to rank and select the best parameters set for the implemented experiments only. In this work, an attempt was made to streamline the milling and coolant condition parameters of S50C carbon steel under MQL condition. Experiments were performed based on Taguchi's L27 orthogonal array. Five input factors includes machining parameters including cutting speed (Vc), feed (fz), and depth of the cut (ap) combined with two coolant parameters such as coolant air pressure (P), flow rate of lubricant (Q) were considered the variants, while specific cutting energy (Ec), material removed rate (MRR) and surface roughness were response variables. Particle swarm optimization Support Vector Machines (SVM) was used to generate the regression model, then Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA) was used to optimize surface roughness (Ra), specific cutting energy (Ec), and production rate (MRR).
False-positive Elevation of Beta-D-glucan and Aspergillus Galactomannan Levels Due to Mendelson's Syndrome after Rice Aspiration

Both 1,3-beta-D-glucan (BDG) and galactomannan (GM) are polysaccharide components of the fungal cell wall. Although elevated levels of serum BDG and Aspergillus GM suggest invasive fungal infection or Pneumocystis pneumonia and aspergillosis, respectively, it is also necessary to consider the possibility of false-positives. We herein report a 68-year-old man with marked elevation in serum BDG and GM levels accompanied by Mendelson's syndrome after rice aspiration. With the improvement of Mendelson's syndrome, his serum BDG and GM levels decreased. The false-positive serum BDG and GM findings may have been due to his aspiration of food containing them. It is important to take a detailed history of aspiration in addition to making a conventional differential diagnosis in patients with pneumonia with elevated serum BDG and GM levels.