Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of soft faeces for the prediction of the caecal contents concentration of Clostridium perfringens in rabbits weaned at two ages.

Since its emergence in 1997, the Epizootic Rabbit Enteropathy (ERE) has become a severe disease affecting Europe almost as a whole. The aetiological agent remains to be identified, even if several researchers have shown the bacterium Gram-positive Clostridium perfringens to be involved in ERE development. The average count of Clostridium perfringens in the caecal contents of young rabbits was found to be highly correlated with average diarrhea mortality in the fattening period (R=0.92; P 2 x 10 cfu/g) of Clostridium perfringens were related with the appearance of the clinical signs of ERE. Accordingly, the caecal enumeration of Clostridium perfringens might be used as a good indicator of ERE. However, previous slaughter of rabbits is required to make this determination. Slaughter might be avoided by using samples of caecotrophs. In this context, the main aim of this work was to develop a method leading to estimate the caecal contents counts of Clostridium perfringens through its concentration in the rabbit soft faeces. Fortyfour rabbits weaned at 28 or 42 d of age were used. Animals were fed a common commercial diet, not supplemented with antibiotics, and housed in pairs in flat-deck cages. Nine days after weaning, rabbits were fitted neck plastic collars during four hours (from 08:00 to 12:00). Afterwards, they were slaughtered and both their soft faeces excretion and caecal contents were sampled in order to determine the concentration (cfu/g) of Clostridium perfringens. This concentration was determined by plate counting according to the standard ISO 7937 (1997). Values were transformed to a logarithmic scale to homogenize variances. Eight out of the 44 animals used did not excrete soft faeces; five of them showed clinical symptoms of ERE. Otherwise, concentration of Clostridium perfringens in the caecal contents tended to be higher in animals weaned at 28 than at 42 days of age (5.46 vs. 5.13 log cfu/g), although differences did not reach significance levels. Regression procedures were used to relate Clostridium perfringens quantification in the soft faeces (CPsf, log cfu/g) with that of the caecal contents (CPc, log cfu/g) for each rabbit. The regression equation obtained was: CPc=0.622+0.858 CPsf (r=+0.885, RSD=0.529; P<0.001). In conclusion, collecting and analyzing soft faeces could be used as an alternative method to predict the content of Clostridium perfringens in the caecal contents of rabbits before presenting symptoms of ERE.
Object oriented transmission line corridors classification using LIDAR technology and a non-metric digital camera

The increasing availability of high-resolution imagery as well as high density and accurate Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) as provided by LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology, has been extending the use of remote sensing data in applications that demand a higher work scale, as transmission line design. The result of the processed LIDAR data consists in three-dimensional information about cables, structures as well as all obstacles along the corridor in a form of a point cloud with X,Y,Z coordinates and intensity value. Post-processing procedures are needed in order to discriminate features and to derive additional information. In order to discriminate the obstacles along the line corridor, information derived from LIDAR data as obstacles height and the intensity image, as well as color imagery from a non-metric digital camera are used. The integrated use of LIDAR data and color aerial photography provides more accurate classification result as well as the discrimination of additional features. The classification method used is based on an object-oriented analysis, which is considered the most adequate procedure when working with high-resolution imagery. In this work, the objects are generated using multiresolution segmentation, FNEA (Fractal Net Evolution Approach), hierarchical network of image objects, which represents image information in different spatial resolutions simultaneously. The classification method is based on fuzzy logic with the membership functions
Enhancing University- Industry collaboration via teaching company scheme: A case study on research partnerships in Hong Kong

The concept of partnering has gained growing attention in the research community in the past two decades. Various issues associated with partnering have been widely investigated in the prevailing literature. These research efforts have built up a solid theoretical foundation for partnering development. A review of prevailing literature indicates that case study, survey and interview are the common research approaches employed for partnering research. Close collaboration between the industry and university can facilitate the research process, especially on soliciting information and insights from practitioners in partnering. To facilitate collaboration between industry and university, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) introduced a collaborative platform, termed as Teaching Company Scheme (TCS), which enables companies to take on university’s research expertise to conduct business-specific research projects. At the same time, universities can put the research deliverables into real business world to increase practical values of research. This paper aims to introduce the organization and operation of TCS by a case study on a successful TCS between a utility company in Hong Kong and PolyU. This paper concludes that the TCS is an effective means to foster collaboration between industry and university, resulting enhancement of both theoretical and empirical development of partnering research.
The opportunism problem revisited : the case of retailer sales effort

We study a setting where the opportunism or commitment problem identifed by Hart and Tirole (1990) may arise. An upstream monopolist may sell its product to two differentiated downstream retailers. Contract unobservability induces the manufacturer and each retailer to free-ride on margins earned by rival retailers, resulting in low transfer prices and low overall profit. O'Brien and Shaffer (1992) proposed a solution to this problem involving squeezing retail margins by using maximum RPM and high transfer prices. We show that when retail demand depends in any degree of retail sales effort, this equilibrium breaks down, and the opportunism problem reappears with full force. We show that no type of own-sale contracts or combination of own-sale restraints will solve the problem if sales effort matter. Moreover we show that certain horizontal commitments, as for example industrywide minimum RPM, may restore the fully integrated outcome, but only in special cases.
Habitats colonized by non-native flowering rush Butomus umbellatus (Linnaeus, 1753) in the Niagara River, USA

During the summer of 2012, we first observed non-native flowering rush Butomus umbellatus (Linnaeus, 1753) in the upper Niagara River, NY, USA, where this species had previously been undocumented. In a 2013 study, Butomus was present at 33 of 161 (20%) submersed nearshore (≤ 3 m) sites surveyed. It was the species of greatest biomass at 27% of the sites where it was collected, and was observed growing at depths > 3 m. Butomus was disproportionately prevalent in the upper observed ranges of water depth and velocity. Butomus was also closely associated with coarse substrates, differing from canopy-forming species but not other linear-leaved species. Emergence of Butomus from the sediment generally occurred from late-May to early-June, with peak coverage and height occurring in midto late-July. Coverage was generally minimal by midSeptember. Rhizome bulbil production occurred on specimens as small as 25 cm in length and was first observed in mid-August when water temperatures were about 22.5°C. Although we did not investigate the ploidy status of Butomus in the Niagara River, the presence of these vegetative reproductive structures is consistent with reports of genetically diploid Butomus populations in North America. No linear correlations between the biomasses of Butomus and other species were detected, although the data suggest a possible limiting effect on the biomasses of other species in dense Butomus stands. Even if emergent Butomus was eradicated from shorelines and wetlands, submersed areas would likely act as a refuge from which Butomus could continue to distribute viable bulbils and rhizome fragments into the nearshore. Submersed Butomus is a potential ecosystem engineer because it can colonize barren areas with coarse substrates, reach high densities, and grow to a considerable height in the water column. Subsequently, deposition and retention of fine sediments may occur, potentially allowing other species to expand into previously unsuitable areas.
Punch Planting to Establish Grass

Perennial grasses are difficult to establish from seed in the Southern Great Plains. The conventional planting practice is to plant grass seeds 1 to 2 cm deep in the soil; but that soil layer often dries quickly, thus preventing plant establishment. I investigated punch planting, which may avoid the problem of soil drying around grass seeds. Punch planting is defined as the placement of seeds in open, small-diameter holes, punched in the soil to a much greater depth than conventional planting. Under drying conditions, punch planting produced satisfactory stands for 5 grasses, but conventional planting produced failures. Where the soil was kept wet, both methods produced satisfactory grass stands. Optimum depth of punch planting was related to seed size and seedling vigor. Small-diameter holes (0.6 cm) produced best plant emergence, because soil at the bottom of these holes dried slower than at the bottom of large holes. Punch planting may offer a solution to the problem of seeding failures. Native grasses, legumes, and other forage plants are often difficult to establish in both pasture and range conditions. Seeding failures are costly because seedbed preparation, seed, and seeding costs are lost, and production is lost from the land for one ormore years. A 3-year study of grass seeding in the Great Plains (Great Plains Council 1966) showed that seeding failures were most common in the Southern Great Plains, and that more than 50% failures occurred even in humid areas. Weather conditions often determined the degree of success or failure, and fallowed seedbeds or planting in crop stubble improved the chances forsuccessful establishment. However, even the best treatments produced numerous failures. Germination and establishment of grasses or legumes require that several factors or conditions be within some adequate range in the seed zone. Soil and air temperatures and soil water content are among the most critical conditions. Temperature can be controlled partially by selecting planting date wisely. However, soil water is often a serious limiting factor in the Southern Plains because the top 2 cm of soil, where grass seeds are planted, dries very quickly. Dowling and Smith (1976) reported that plant establishment for two Australian pasture grasses and two legurhes was linearly related to available soil water during the first 6 weeks after sowing seeds on the soil surface. Army and Hudspeth (1960) found that, in summer on the Texas High Plains, the top 1.3 cm of Pullman silty clay loam soil dried from field capacity to wilting point within I day. Wiegand (1962) showed that during summer the top 2 crn of a sandy clay loam dried from field capacity to wilting point within 2 days in the Lower Rio Grande valley of Texas. Reginato (1975) reported that the top I cm of a loam soils at Phoenix, Arizona, dried from near field capacity to the wilting point within 4 hours in
Forecasting the Real Exchange Rate using a Long Span of Data. A Rematch: Linear vs Nonlinear

This paper deals with the nonlinear modeling and forecasting of the dollar-sterling real exchange rate using a long span of data. Our contribution is threefold. First, we provide significant evidence of smooth transition dynamics in the series by employing a battery of recently developed in-sample statistical tests. Second, we investigate the small sample properties of several evaluation measures for comparing recursive forecasts when one of the competing models is nonlinear. Finally, we run a forecasting race for the post-Bretton Woods era between the nonlinear real exchange rate model, the random walk, and the linear autoregressive model. The winner turns out to be the nonlinear model, against the odds.
Sustainability of Livelihoods among Farmers Community in Kermanshah Province, Iran: A Comparison of Farmers’ Attitude Based on Their Characteristics

Sustainable livelihoods approach is one of the new analytical approaches in the arena of rural development, and is considered much in recent years in order to achieve rural development and poverty reduction. The purpose of this study was to assess the sustainability of livelihoods of rural households from the perspective of the householders whose main occupation and source of livelihoods was agriculture and to identify those factors that could predict the accuracy of the classification of farmers with different perspectives of their livelihoods sustainability. Survey technique was used to collect data. Statistical population of the study included the farmers of Kermanshah Province, Iran. By using two-stage stratified sampling and determining selected counties, 250 householder farmers were chosen as a sample. Face validity of the data collection means was approved by an expert panel, and through the implementation of a pilot study, its reliability was approved. The results indicate that the study group felt insecurity and instability: about three-quarters of them assessed their livelihoods as unsustainable, and only one-quarter of them assessed their livelihoods as sustained. Statistical analysis showed that environmental, individual, and socio-economic factors have relationship with farmers' perspective toward their livelihoods sustainability. According to discriminate analysis, six variables were able to predict farmers' attitude toward their livelihoods sustainability and that prediction would be accurate with a probability of 70 percent.
Evaluation of the Performance of LABGEO PT Hepatic Test 9

Background: The Samsung LABGEO PT Hepatic Test 9 (Samsung electronics, Korea) was developed as a point-of-care (POC) testing device. The levels of 9 analytes, namely, albumin, AST, ALT, alkaline phosphatase, gamma-glutamyl transferase, glucose, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, and total protein, could be evaluated simultaneously by using 70 μL of whole blood, plasma, or serum samples. In this study, we assessed the performance of the Samsung LABGEO PT Hepatic Test 9. Methods: The precision and linearity of the test were evaluated according to the CLSI EP5-A2 and CLSI EP6-A guidelines, respectively. Correlational analyses between Samsung LABGEO PT Hepatic Test 9 and Cobas 8000 modular analyzer (Roche, Switzerland) were carried out as per the CLSI EP9-A2 guidelines. Additionally, the results between 3 different specimen types, whole blood, plasma, and serum samples obtained from the same individual were compared to evaluate the matrix effect. Results: The total imprecision at both low and high levels of the 9 analytes was within 10% and in the clinically important concentration range for all test items, all obtained results were linear. We compared the above results with those obtained using Cobas 8000 and a good correlation was observed with a correlation coefficient of more than 0.975 for all 9 analytes. Simple linear regression analyses between the 3 different specimen types indicated that there was no statistically significant difference (P <0.001). Conclusions: The Samsung LABGEO PT Hepatic Test 9 showed good precision and linearity when compared to established assays for 9 clinical test items and could be useful in cases where the POC testing is required.
Intensify the I/O Performance of OODBS by Collaboration between Clustering and Buffer Replacement

There are different techniques for improving I/O performance of Object oriented database Management Systems (OODBMS). Over 15 years of research into OODBMS design, performance remains as one of the major problems. I/O reduction has proven to be one of the most effective ways enhancing performance. The two main techniques of improving I/O performance of Object Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMS) are clustering and buffer replacement. Clustering is the placement of objects accessed near to each other in time into the same page. Buffer replacement involves the selection of a page to be evicted, when the buffer is full. The page evicted ideally should be the page needed least in the future. These two techniques both influence the likelihood of a requested object being memory resident. We believe an effective way of reducing disk I/O is to take advantage of the synergy that exists between clustering, and buffer replacement. Hence, we design a framework, whereby clustering algorithms incorporating buffer replacement cache behaviour can be conveniently employed for enhancing the I/O performance of OODBMS. We call this new type of clustering algorithm, Cache Conversant Clustering (C3). In this paper, we present the C3 framework, and a C3 algorithm that we have developed, namely C3-GGP Greedy Graph Partioning. We have tested C3-GGP against three well known clustering algorithms. The results show that C3-GGP out performs them by up to 42% when using popular buffer replacement algorithms such as LRU,FCFS and CLOCK. C3-GGP offers the same performance as the best existing clustering algorithm when the buffer size compared to the database size is very small.
Segmentation of Football Video Broadcast

In this paper a novel segmentation system for football player detection in broadcasted video is presented. Proposed detection system is a complex solution incorporating a dominant color based segmentation technique of a football playfield, a 3D playfield modeling algorithm based on Hough transform and a dedicated algorithm for player tracking, player detection system based on the combination of Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) descriptors with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification. For the shot classification the several classification technique SVM, artificial neural network and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) are used. Evaluation of the system is carried out using HD (1280 × 720) resolution test material. Additionally, performance of the proposed system is tested with different lighting conditions (including non-uniform pith lightning and multiple player shadows) and various camera positions. Experimental results presented in this paper show that combination of these techniques seems to be a promising solution for locating and segmenting objects in a broadcasted video.
Immigration Restriction and Long-Run Cultural Assimilation: Theory and Quasi-Experimental Evidence

We study the effect of restrictions to immigration on the cultural assimilation of the second generation. Our theoretical model shows that restrictive policies incentivize to permanent immigration individuals with a stronger taste for their original culture. Permanent immigration implies reproduction in the destination country and transmission of cultural traits to the second generation, which will therefore experience a more difficult assimilation. We test this prediction by using the 1973 immigration ban in Germany (Anwerbestopp) as a quasi-experiment, since it only concerned immigrants from countries outside the European Economic Community. Thus, our treatment group is given by the second generation of non-EEC immigrants. Our estimates show that the Anwerbestopp has reduced the cultural assimilation of this generation. This result is robust to several checks, including a triple differences analysis. We conclude that restrictive immigration policies may have unwanted consequences on the process of cultural assimilation.
Sustainable innovation through public procurement: The case of ‘closed loop’ recycled paper

Sustainability has been at the forefront of procurement policy in the UK in recent years, and innovation can be a key constituent to deliver the sustainability agenda. This paper uses a single case study to illustrate the procurement of recycled paper by a UK government department. It charts the transformation in procurement from that of a product to an integrated service, and highlights the procurement of a sustainable innovation to achieve multiple objectives. The study indicates the importance of certain factors for enabling the procurement of a more innovative and sustainable solution. In particular it illustrates the role of project champions driving change, senior management support, a good working relationship between buyer and supplier and the creation of a space in which trust and ideas generation can be enabled. Data is drawn from secondary sources, observations and in-depth interviews with public and private stakeholders participating in the process.
AlGaAs Microring Resonators for All-Optical Signal Processing

Photonic integration and all-optical signal processing are promising solutions to the increasing demand for high-bandwidth and high-speed communication systems. IIIV semiconductor materials, specially AlGaAs, have shown potentials for photonic integration and efficient nonlinear processes due to their low nonlinear absorption, flexibility at controlling the refractive index, and mature fabrication technology. In this thesis, we report the designs of AlGaAs microring resonators optimized for efficient four-wave mixing. Four-wave mixing (FWM) is a nonlinear optical phenomenon which can be used to realize many optical signal processing operations such as optical wavelength conversion and optical time division multiplexing and demultiplexing. Our designed AlGaAs microring resonators are expected to have good optical confinement, transmission characteristics, and efficient coupling between the ring and waveguide. Here we also present our fabrication efforts to fabricate the microring resonators device and the insights gained in the process. The microring resonators devices have a potential to be used in optical communication networks for all-optical signal processing operations.
How to Control for Many Covariates? Reliable Estimators Based on the Propensity Score

We investigate the finite sample properties of a large number of estimators for the average treatment effect on the treated that are suitable when adjustment for observable covariates is required, like inverse probability weighting, kernel and other variants of matching, as well as different parametric models. The simulation design used is based on real data usually employed for the evaluation of labour market programmes in Germany. We vary several dimensions of the design that are of practical importance, like sample size, the type of the outcome variable, and aspects of the selection process. We find that trimming individual observations with too much weight as well as the choice of tuning parameters is important for all estimators. The key conclusion from our simulations is that a particular radius matching estimator combined with regression performs best overall, in particular when robustness to misspecifications of the propensity score is considered an important property.