Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative Analysis of Oil Yield and Its Components in Newly Developed Hybrids of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.)

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is an important crop, primarily grown for vegetable oil which is used for human consumption, but also as a raw material in industry (Mijić et al., 2009). The main objective of any plant breeder includes the highest seed yield and oil content in any oilseed crop especially in sunflower (Vrânceanu et al., 2005). The success of breeding programs primarily depends on the variation present for yield and yield components traits as well as nature of initial material (Nehru and Manjunath, 2003). Seed yield in sunflower is a complex quantitative trait controlled by large number of genes and is highly influenced by environmental, morphological and physiological properties. Correlation studies between yield and its component traits helps to decide the indirect selection using yield components traits to improve seed yield of International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 8 (2017) pp. 3088-3098 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Whole-tree bark and wood properties of loblolly pine from intensively managed plantations

A study was conducted to identify geographical variation in loblolly pine bark and wood properties at the whole-tree level and to quantify the responses in whole-tree bark and wood properties following contrasting silvicultural practices that included planting density, weed control, and fertilization. Trees were destructively sampled from both conventionally managed stands and various designed experimental trials established across the southern United States by various research cooperatives and forest product industries to quantify the bark and wood properties of loblolly pine. Bark (percentage bark, specific gravity [SG], and moisture content [MC]) and wood (SG, MC, green weight of wood/m 3 , and green weight of wood and bark/m 3 of volume) properties were measured from disks collected at multiple heights from sampled trees and used to compute the whole-tree bark and wood properties. Significant regional variation was observed for whole-tree bark and wood properties. Bark and wood SG showed an increasing trend from inland to coastal regions and vice versa for bark and wood MC. The effect of different silvicultural treatments on bark and wood properties were generally absent; but a significant effect on bark percentage, MC, and green weight of wood and bark/m 3 was observed for trees that received
An M-dwarf star in the transition disk of Herbig HD 142527: physical parameters and orbital elements.

S.L. acknowledges fruitful discussions with S. Casassus about the existence of HD 142527B and the inner disk of HD 142527A. This research made use of Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013). This work was supported by the French National Agency for Research (ANR-13-JS05-0005) and the European Research Council (ERC-STG-639248). A.G. and A.S. acknowledge support from NSF Graduate Research Fellowship grant No. DGE-1232825 and NASA grant NNX11AF74G. J.O. acknowledges support from the Millennium Nucleus RC130007 (Chilean Ministry of Economy). I.B. acknowledges the European Research Council through grant ERC-AdG No. 320478-TOFU. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) during runs 088.C-0691(A), 090.C-0649(A), 091.C-0572(A), and 094.C-0608(A). Also based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory (programs GS-2014A-SV-406 and GS-ENG-GPI-COM), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao (Brazil) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Productiva (Argentina).
The Computational Principles of Learning Ability

It has been quite a long time since artificial intelligence (AI) researchers in the field of computer science have stopped talking about simulating human intelligence or trying to explain how the brain works. Recently, represented by deep learning techniques, the field of machine learning has been experiencing unprecedented prosperity and some applications with near human-level performance bring researchers confidence to imply that their approaches are the promising candidates for understanding the mechanism of the human brain[1][2]. However apart from several ancient philological criteria and some imaginary black box tests (Turing test, Chinese room) there is no computational explanation, definition or criteria about intelligence or any of its components. Based on the common sense that learning ability is one critical component of intelligence and from the viewpoint of mapping relations, this paper presents two laws which explain what “learning ability" is, as we familiar with it and under what conditions a model can be acknowledged as a “learning model". Furthermore, corresponding corollaries prove the existence of a common learning model (L), and by comparing with traditional learning theory with the theoretical framework proposed in this dissertation, the author explains why traditional classification models are not able to learn spontaneously.
Addressing Carbon Leakage by Border Adjustment Measures

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for industrialized countries and economies in transition (listed in the Annex B) to reduce their aggregate carbon equivalent emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.5 percent of their 1990 levels. To fulfil domestic mitigation targets efficiently, policymakers have typically focused on two market-based regulatory mechanisms: taxes and caps with trading. Both policy measures will create a similar carbon price on the combustion of fossil fuels and therefore increase the domestic production costs of energy-intensive industries. Because the Kyoto Protocol does not require mitigation from developing countries, such asymmetric climate policies will lead to changes in terms of trade. Firms located in countries which implement carbon pricing policies will bear an additional production cost and are placed at a disadvantageous position comparing with their competitors in countries which do not internalise the carbon costs in production. Facing an increase in production cost, firms can choose to pass carbon related costs onto their downstream consumers or to cut their profit margins in order to keep the market share. Both options will however lead to losses in both international competitiveness and employment. An alternative way of produce domestically is to relocate production to countries with less stringent climate policies. Relocation may help to address losses in competitiveness but in employment. Another concern closely related to the competitiveness losses and relocation is “carbon leakage”, which generally refers to an increase of emissions in countries without climate policies that are attributable to emission reductions in countries with climate policies. The effectiveness of climate polices on reducing global emissions will be undermined if the leakage is high. The competitiveness and leakage concerns have centred in the climate policy debates first in EU when EU Emissions Trading System was introduced and implemented, then in US and Australia when a cap-and-trade system is being considered (Houser et al., 2008; Reinaud, 2008; Carbon Trust 2010; van Asselt & Brewer, 2010). The best way to address these concerns in implementing carbon pricing policies would be the completion of a harmonized international climate policy (Stern, 2006; Manders & Veenendaal, 2008). However differences between countries in the level of economic development, political conditions, obligations stemming from historic emissions, and responsibilities arising from current and future emissions mean that harmonization is still a long way off. Among other policy
Image pre-processing for optimizing automated photogrammetry performances

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how optical pre-processing with polarizing filters and digital pre-processing with HDR imaging, may improve the automated 3D modeling pipeline based on SFM and Image Matching, with special emphasis on optically non-cooperative surfaces of shiny or dark materials. Because of the automatic detection of homologous points, the presence of highlights due to shiny materials, or nearly uniform dark patches produced by low reflectance materials, may produce erroneous matching involving wrong 3D point estimations, and consequently holes and topological errors on the mesh originated by the associated dense 3D cloud. This is due to the limited dynamic range of the 8 bit digital images that are matched each other for generating 3D data. The same 256 levels can be more usefully employed if the actual dynamic range is compressed, avoiding luminance clipping on the darker and lighter image areas. Such approach is here considered both using optical filtering and HDR processing with tone mapping, with experimental evaluation on different Cultural Heritage objects characterized by non-cooperative optical behavior. Three test images of each object have been captured from different positions, changing the shooting conditions (filter/no-filter) and the image processing (no processing/HDR processing), in order to have the same 3 camera orientations with different optical and digital pre-processing, and applying the same automated process to each photo set.
Beyond Social Contagion: Associative Diffusion and the Emergence of Cultural Variation

Network models of diffusion predominantly think about cultural variation as a product of social contagion. But culture does not spread like a virus. We propose an alternative explanation we call associative diffusion. Drawing on two insights from research in cognition—that meaning inheres in cognitive associations between concepts, and that perceived associations constrain people’s actions—we introduce a model in which, rather than beliefs or behaviors, the things being transmitted between individuals are perceptions about what beliefs or behaviors are compatible with one another. Conventional contagion models require the assumption that networks are segregated to explain cultural variation. We show, in contrast, that the endogenous emergence of cultural differentiation can be entirely attributable to social cognition and does not require a segregated network or a preexisting division into groups. Moreover, we show that prevailing assumptions about the effects of network topology do not hold when diffusion is associative.
The Effect of Stress Due to Nitrogen Limitation on Lipid Content of Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Bohlin) Cultured Outdoor in Photobioreactor

The effect of nitrogen limitation on the cell density, biomass, chlorophyll a, total carotene, protein and lipid content of Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Bohlin), Bacillariophyceae, cultured in photobioreactors outdoor was investigated. Phaeodactylum tricornutum was cultivated in an appropriate medium as the control group, at the same time it was cultured in a medium of which nitrogen was reduced to 50%. At the end of the study, it was determined that 35.04% lipid with 0.980±0.02 gL biomass and 8.87% protein content, meanwhile, in the control group, 16.93% lipid, 1.036±0.025 gL biomass and 31.05% protein were determined. As a result, it was observed that while nitrogen limitation increased to the lipid amount, decreased the biomass and chlorophyll a, total carotene and protein of the cell.
Bandgap-confined large-mode waveguides for surface plasmon-polaritons

The optical properties of a novel type of open waveguiding structure for surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) are experimentally investigated. The waveguide consists of a strip-like region of a gold surface confined by a periodic sequence of dielectric ridges forming a Bragg-type reflector. This bandgap structure resembles the plasmonic analogue of an antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) for SPPs, providing direct access to the guided plasmonic field. The main structural parameters are evaluated by numerical modeling using the finite element and finite-difference time-domain methods. We investigate field distributions of the plasmonic modes in the antiresonant Bragg-reflector waveguides with varied numbers of dielectric ridges and demonstrate a large mode-area single-mode performance at a telecom wavelength of 1550 nm. Furthermore, for an excitation wavelength of 974 nm, it is shown that different low-order modes can be selectively excited using multiple laser beams with variable phase relation. Selective excitation of single longitudinal and transversal modes of the waveguide is realized by coherent two-beam excitation. Possible sensing applications of these large-mode open waveguides are discussed.
Decelerating Wage Inequality and Higher Education : Cross – State Evidence from the 1990 s ∗

This paper exploits differences across the U.S. states in the evolution of the returns to college from 1979 to 2002, and in the evolution of nine-years lagged college enrollment rates, tuition levels and state appropriations per-college-age person, to investigate the potential links between wage inequality and higher education. Once the supply effects induced by declining cohort size and the “favorable" state-specific higher education policies of the mid-1980s are taken into account, the counterfactual returns to college no longer decelerate in the 1990s, rather they reach their highest points in the mid to late 1990s, but come down in the early 2000s. The implied changes for relative aggregate demand mirror these trends. The findings also highlight that inter-state migration is an important mechanism that weakens the connection between the college premium and relative labor supply shocks at the state level. JEL Codes: J31, I22, J61, H71, D63
Molecular genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains circulating in Dakar, Senegal

Tuberculosis is a contagious infectious disease, in which epidemiologic monitoring by molecular approaches is a critical element of prevention and control. The population structure of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBc) in Senegal was last described in the 1970’s using biochemical methods. In this present study, we applied molecular approaches to genotype M. tuberculosis isolates from active pulmonary tuberculosis patients who participated in a prospective cohort study between 2004 to 2006. Genetic characterization, using standard spoligotype analysis and Line Probe Assay for resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin, was applied after culture on egg based solid media. The prevalence of resistance to isoniazid was 1.0% and to rifampicin 0.0% among 203 isolates tested. Of the 203 isolates, spoligotype patterns present in the TB-insight database were identified in 178 (87.6%) while 25 (12.3%) showed patterns suggestive of mixed infection. The major spoligotypes identified were the Haarlem lineage (22%), followed by the T (19%), Beijing (12%), LAM (12%), and M. africanum West African 2 (10%). Patterns suggestive of mixed infections, such as the sole lack of spacers 33 and 34, suggested a combination of Euro-American M. tuberculosis and Beijing lineage, which were confirmed by polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) for lineage defining deletions in a subset of isolates. The population structure of the M. tuberculosis complex in Dakar reflects a predominance of Euro-American M. tuberculosis (Haarlem, T and LAM), with a decreased prevalence of M. africanum West African 2, compared with reports from the 1970’s based on biochemical speciation, which reported prevalence of M. africanum around 20% in Dakar. Key words: Tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, polymerase chain reactions (PCRs).
Characteristics of green alga ( Chlamydomonas noctigama ) Class : Chlorophyceae Order : Volvocales Family : Chlamydomonadaceae Genus : Chlamydomonas Species : Chlamydomonas noctigama

A research involving random isolation and characterization of naturally occurring microalgae in Bangladesh was carried out for assessing their potential for biofuel feedstock and other uses. Among the isolates, one identified as a green alga Chlamydomonas noctigama and another one as blue-green alga Nostoc spongiaeformewere grown in modified Chu-10D medium. The optimization of their growth was performed following incubation of the isolates under different levels of media concentration, temperature, pH, light intensity and aeration. Both the species showed optimum growth in terms of total chlorophyll at a temperature of 25oC. However, significant differences (at 5% level) in growth were observed for the isolates under other conditions. The optimum growth of Chlamydomonas noctigama was observed for the vitamin B1+B6, whereas there was no significant difference on growth of Nostoc spongiaeforme for any vitamin supplement. The optimum pH for the growth of Chlamydomonas noctigama and Nostoc spongiaeforme were 6.5 and 7.5, light intensity 110 μEm-2 s-1 and 70 μEm-2 s-1, and media concentration 2x and 1x of normal concentration, respectively.
AUDIO SCENE SEGEMENTATION USING A MICROPHONE ARRAY AND AUDITORY FEATURES

OF THESIS Auditory stream denotes the abstract effect a source creates in the mind of the listener. An auditory scene consists of many streams, which the listener uses to analyze and understand the environment. Computer analyses that attempt to mimic human analysis of a scene must first perform Audio Scene Segmentation (ASS). ASS find applications in surveillance, automatic speech recognition and human computer interfaces. Microphone arrays can be employed for extracting streams corresponding to spatially separated sources. However, when a source moves to a new location during a period of silence, such a system loses track of the source. This results in multiple spatially localized streams for the same source. This thesis proposes to identify local streams associated with the same source using auditory features extracted from the beamformed signal. ASS using the spatial cues is first performed. Then auditory features are extracted and segments are linked together based on similarity of the feature vector. An experiment was carried out with two simultaneous speakers. A classifier is used to classify the localized streams as belonging to one speaker or the other. The best performance was achieved when pitch appended with Gammatone Frequency Cepstral Coefficeints (GFCC) was used as the feature vector. An accuracy of 96.2% was achieved.
Differentiating the effects of entrepreneurs’ intelligence and educational attainment on venture outcomes

PurposeIntelligence or general mental ability (GMA) is a strong predictor of job performance across most occupations, and educational attainment has been shown to be a predictor of entrepreneurial outcomes. However, there has been little research examining the simultaneous effects of entrepreneurs’ GMA and educational attainment on their venture outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of these human capital resources on venture performance and survival.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 234 self-employed entrepreneurs from a longitudinal database, regression analysis was employed to examine the predictors of venture performance. A hazard model was utilized to assess venture survival.FindingsEntrepreneurs’ intelligence influenced venture performance directly and indirectly via educational attainment. Entrepreneurs with higher GMA were subsequently able to obtain more education, and GMA had an indirect, positive influence on venture performance through this additional educational attainment. Findings also demonstrated an inverted-U, curvilinear effect on venture survival for GMA and educational attainment. This indicates that both intelligence and educational attainment should be considered when examining how likely entrepreneurs are to persist or survive in their ventures.Originality/valueEntrepreneurs with higher GMA had ventures that performed better and obtained more education, which influenced venture survival. These findings suggest that entrepreneurs’ intelligence is likely to be an important predictor of venture outcomes, as well as a source of entrepreneurs’ human capital acquisition. Therefore, GMA should have a more central role in the human capital discussion within the entrepreneurship literature.
EPA-11 1 HighT c DC SQUIDs for magnetoencephalography

We have investigated the microstructural and electron transport properties of 45 step-edge Josephson junctions grown on MgO substrates and used them for the preparation of SQUID magnetometers intended for magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurement systems. The high-Tc SQUID magnetometers also incorporate 16 mm multilayer superconducting flux transformers on the MgO substrates and demonstrate a magnetic field resolution of ∼ 4 fT/√Hz at 77 K. Results are illustrated for the detection of auditory evoked magnetic responses of the human cortex and compared between high-Tc SQUIDs and a commercial low-Tc MEG system. Our results demonstrate that MEG systems can be upgraded using high-Tc SQUIDs to make them independent of helium and more user-friendly, saving operating costs and leading to the widespread utilization of MEG systems in clinical practice and at universities.
Blue light regulation of host pigment in reef-building corals

Reef-building corals harbor an astounding diversity of colorful GFP (green fluorescent protein)-like proteins. These pigments can easily be detected and thus may serve as intrinsic optical markers of physiological condition, provided that the determinants that control their expression are well understood. Here we have analyzed the effect of light on the regulation of major classes of GFP- like pigments in corals of the taxa Acroporidae, Merulinidae and Pocilloporidae. Pigment levels in the tissues of all studied species were observed to be tightly controlled by light. Two groups could be dis- tinguished by their distinctly different light-dependent regulation. The low-threshold group contains mainly cyan fluorescent proteins; they are expressed in considerable amounts at very low light inten- sities, and their tissue content increases with light to a maximum at a photon flux of 400 µmol m -2 s -1 . The high-threshold group includes green and red fluorescent proteins as well as non-fluorescent chromoproteins. These pigments are essentially absent in corals grown under very low light, but their tissue content increases in proportion to photon flux densities >400 µmol m -2 s -1 . The enhancement of coral pigmentation is primarily dependent on the blue component of the spectrum and regulated at the transcriptional level. The specific regulation patterns suggest complex functions of GFP-like proteins related to the photobiology of reef corals. Moreover, the distinct response of coral coloration to light climate promises that the pigment complement can also be predicted in natural habitats. Our results stress the potential of GFP-like proteins as intrinsic markers of physiological processes, as well as overall health, in corals.