Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Localized Electroencephalography Sensor and Detection of Evoked Potentials

The limitations of current electroencephalographs are unanimous and relate primarily to its low spatial density and assembly complexity for certain applications. In this paper, we introduce an innovative technique, capable to answer to some challenges created by those limitations. A localized, miniaturized and user-friendly electroencephalography (EEG) sensor was developed for signal acquisition in a bipolar montage, to be placed anywhere on the scalp. The low consumption, small size and high spatial resolution, compared with the standard systems, are the main features of the EEG sensor presented. With this sensor we acquired and analyzed spontaneous EEG activity and auditory evoked potentials which are relevant for the cognitive activity analysis. The developed sensor is an important unobtrusive tool for applications of mental health evaluation.
The effects of acetylation on properties of flax fibre and its polypropylene composites

Flax fibre was modified with acetylation. The influence of the acetylation on the structure and properties of flax fibre were investigated as well as modified flax fibre reinforced polypropylene composites were also prepared. The catalyst was used to accelerate acetylation reaction rate. Flax fibre was characterised after modification. Surface morphology, mois- ture absorption property, components content, degree of polymerisation, crystallinity of cellulose and thermal stability of flax fibres were studied. Due to acetylation, the flax fibre surface morphology and moisture resistance properties improved remarkably. Flax fibre (modified and unmodified) reinforced polypropylene composites were fabricated with 30 wt% fibre loading. The mechanical properties were investigated for those composites. Tensile and flexural strengths of composites were found to increase with increasing degree of acetylation up to 18% and then decreased. Charpy impact strengths of composites were found to decrease with increasing degree of acetylation. Owing to addition of coupling agent (maleated polypropylene -MAH), the tensile and flexural strength properties were found to increase in between 20 to 35% depending on degree of acetylation.
Zebedee : a lexical description model for Sign Language synthesis

The aim in this paper is to present a new representation model for signs, the lexical units of sign languages, in view of Sign Language (SL) processing applications, in particular SL synthesis. After reviewing the present approach inspired by the linguistic parametric view of signs, we show its limitations when it comes to implementation. We state their essential sources of trouble to which we suggest alternative solutions, thereby constituting the requirements for the model to be presented. The core of the paper is the presentation of the model, called Zebedee. Its main novel features are: not focusing on hands or giving special status to any body articulator; being based on intention rather than perception; regarding signs as synchronised geometric constraints; accounting for the iconic exibility of signs, making the descriptions highly reusable in di erent contexts. We explain the bene ts of these properties throughout the paper. We then conclude by giving an overview of the model's philosophy and end with uses and prospects, some of which already being under implementation.
Optimizing n‑gram Order of an n‑gram Based Language Identification Algorithm for 68 Written Languages

Language identification technology is widely used in the domains of machine learning and text mining. Many researchers have achieved excellent results on a few selected European languages. However, the majority of African and Asian languages remain untested. The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of our new n‑gram based language identification algorithm on 68 written languages used in the European, African and Asian regions. The secondary objective is to evaluate how n‑gram orders and a mix n‑gram model affect the relative performance and accuracy of language identification. The n-gram based algorithm used in this paper does not depend on the n‑gram frequency. Instead, the algorithm is based on a Boolean method to determine the output of matching target n‑grams to training n‑grams. The algorithm is designed to automatically detect the language, script and character encoding scheme of a written text. It is important to identify these three properties due to the reason that a language can be written in different types of scripts and encoded with different types of character encoding schemes. The experimental results show that in one test the algorithm achieved up to 99.59% correct identification rate on selected languages. The results also show that the performance of language identification can be improved by using a mix n‑gram model of bigram and trigram. The mix n-gram model consumed less disk space and computing time, compared to a trigram model. DOI: 10.4038/icter.v2i2. 1385 The International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2009 02 (02): 21-28
URBAN WATERSHED STUDIES IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

One of the greatest problems observed in Brazilian urban watersheds are concerned to the amount of solid residues, domestic sewerage and sediments that are disposed in the rivers and streams that drain those areas. This project aims to present these problems through a study of case taken in an urban watershed in Porto Alegre city, Southern Brazil. For this study, different procedures were used, such as field surveys, interviews with the inhabitants, satellite images, sediment samples, flow measures and morphology assessment of part of the local fluvial system to check the degree of instability of the channel. In 2005, it was verified that 42.57% of the watershed was impermeable, considering the paved streets, the residential and commercial buildings and stone pavements. As there was no sewer treatment, most of this sewerage was directly disposed into the stream and the TOC has reached 20% (m/m). Moreover, the occupation of riparian areas, a great amount of soil exposed in the watershed, the non- paved streets and a great volume of solid residues were causing the instability in the channel, silting the stream bed. The metals (Zn, Pb and Cr) selected for this study are most frequently found in high concentrations in urban areas. The results suggest the occurrence of a high enrichment of the fluvial sediment by these metals. The concentrations of these elements vary temporally during storms due to the input of impervious area runoff containing high concentration of elements associated to vehicular traffic and other anthropogenic activities. Then, it is possible to conclude that the contamination of the urban watershed is reflected in the results obtained in the fluvial suspended sediments.
Secondary seed dispersal systems, frugivorous lizards and predatory birds in insular volcanic badlands

1 Secondary seed dispersal occurs whenever a seed is dispersed in two or more different dispersal events, so that different dispersal agents (e.g. animal frugivores or invertebrates) contribute to different events. Three secondary seed dispersal systems, in which lizards and predatory birds participate, are studied in Lanzarote (Canary Islands). 2 Seeds from all three plant species studied (Lycium intricatum, Rubia fruticosa and Asparagus nesiotes) were found with the remains of lizards (Gallotia atlantica) when they appeared inside shrike (Lanius meridionalis) and kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) pellets. This suggests that these two avian predators might secondarily disperse these plants by incidentally ingesting seeds when they prey upon the frugivorous lizards. 3 Lycium and Rubia seeds dispersed by Falco had significantly thinner seed coats compared to the other treatments (Gallotia and Lanius) and to uningested seeds. Correlated with this result, seed hardness increased from Lycium (the softest coat), to Rubia (intermediate values), to Asparagus. 4 Seed viability was high in all three species, although both viability and germination were significantly reduced in seeds of Lycium and Rubia dispersed by Falco. 5 The seed distribution was markedly different, Gallotia being an important disperser in the open ground microhabitats, Lanius in hillocks and Falco in hills. Because all three plant species were present in all these microhabitats, our observations suggest that the dispersal of these plants might be associated with the differential use of the habitat by the different dispersers. 6 Synthesis: Contrary to some long‐distance seed dispersal (LDD) paradigms, the complex seed dispersal systems we describe are common and affect an important number of seeds that are moved each year to particular microhabitats. Finally, the simultaneous ecological factors analysed in this study support the hypotheses that diplochory by double endozoochory could have played a more important role in LDD events than is currently recognized, both in recent volcanic areas (lowlands) and also probably in the colonization of other subtropical islands.
Endophytic Fungi of Tropical Forests: A Promising Source of Bioactive Prototype Molecules for the Treatment of Neglected Diseases

Endophytic fungi are ubiquitous fungi that reside interor intracellularly in plant parts for at least a portion of their lives without causing apparent symptoms of infection (Petrini, 1991) and represent a large portion of fungal species. Endophytic fungi can be biotrophic mutualists, benign commensals, decomposers or latent pathogens (Promputtha et al., 2007). According to Rodriguez et al. (2009), all plants in the natural environment can shelter endophytic fungi, including algae, mosses, ferns, conifers and angiosperms. This fungal group appears to significantly influence the lifestyle of its host. Taxonomically, most of the endophytic fungi belong to the phylum Ascomycota and its associated anamorphs, while some species belong to the phyla Basidiomycota and Zygomycota (Huang et al., 2001). There have been many studies on the diversity, ecology and biotechnological applications of endophytic fungi in grasses and wood plants in temperate environments. However, there is limited information about the diversity of endophytic fungal communities in tropical forests, which are endowed with a rich biodiversity of flora. Dreyfuss & Chapela (1994) have estimated that approximately 1.3 million species of endophytic fungi remain to be discovered. This diverse fungal group could impact the ecology, fitness and shape of plant communities, conferring resistance to abiotic (temperature, pH, osmotic pressure) and biotic (from bacteria, fungi, nematodes and insects) stresses (Rodriguez et al., 2001). Endophytic fungi are an important source of bioactive molecules. These bioactive metabolites have a broad range of biological activities and could be the starting materials for pharmaceuticals or lead structures for the development of pharmaceutical or agrochemical products. The substances produced by endophytic fungi originate from different biosynthetic pathways, including isoprenoid, polyketide and amino acid and belong to diverse structural groups, such as terpenoids, steroids, xanthones, quinones, phenols, isocoumarins, benzopyranones, tetralones, cytochalasins and enniatins (Schulz et al., 2002). Indeed, these bioactive
Review of nutrition among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed a Decade of Action on Nutrition from 2016 to 2025 in recognition of the need to eradicate hunger and prevent all forms of malnutrition, including under-nutrition and over-nutrition, worldwide [2]. The Global nutrition report provides context for nutrition issues internationally and in Australia, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders [5].
Relevance of tilling in plant genomics

With the development of rapid and inexpensive sequence technologies, the efficiency and accuracy in sequencing have interpreted the genomic information of many plant species. The emphasis on genomics has been changing from complete sequenced genomes to the study of the functional genomics. To understand the function of gene(s) many approaches like RNAi, gene knockout, site-directed mutagenesis, transposon tagging etc. have been exploited for many years. All these techniques demand the use of transgenic material which is not always possible in many commercially important crops. So it is not only impeding the functional analysis of gene(s) but also retards the improvement of existing as well as the development of improved cultivars. In this review, a nontransgenic technique called Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes (TILLING) was emphasized that determines the allelic sequence of induced point mutations in gene (s) of concern. It allocates the rapid and cost-effective detection of induced point mutations in populations of physical/chemically mutagenized individuals. Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) is mostly used and produce G/C to A/T transition by alkylating the G residues and the alkylated G resides to base pair with T instead of pairing with C. The crop species whose genome sequence has been finished; TILLING can be used to find the alleles in gene of interest for biotic and abiotic stresses. EcoTILLING, an extension of TILLING, is an inexpensive and rapid method of discovery and analysis of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in natural populations. In TILLING parental DNA sequence whereas in EcoTILLING genomic DNA sequence is used to identify the mutations created using endonuclease (CEL I). These techniques are independent of genome size, ploidy level and reproductive system of plants. They can be applied not only to model organisms but also to economically important crops. These provide a powerful approach for gene discovery, DNA polymorphism assessment and linkage disequilibrium. It is concluded that the induced mutations and natural polymorphism can be identified by TILLING and EcoTILLING approaches, and the next task is their implementations in crop breeding.
TORUS

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) contain intertwined and distributed software, hardware, and physical components to control complex physical processes. They find wide application in industrial systems, such as smart grid protection systems, which face increasingly complex communication and computation needs. Due to the scale and complexity of the interactions that occur within CPS, tracing requirements through to the system components and software code that implement them is often hard. Existing requirements management systems do not scale well, and traceability is difficult to implement and maintain in highly heterogeneous systems. However, the information trace that links provide is crucial for supporting testing and certification activities in safety-critical environments such as smart grids. The well-formed models of power systems provided by the IEC 61850 standard and the software design structure provided by the IEC 61499 Function Blocks standard can be leveraged to automate many traceability operations. We present Traceability of Requirements Using Splices (TORUS), a novel traceability framework for the development of large-scale safety-critical CPS. TORUS introduces splices, autonomous graph-based data structures that automatically create and manage trace links between requirements and components through the inevitable changes that occur during system development. The formal, graph-based structure of TORUS lends itself well to the development of sophisticated algorithms to automate the extraction of useful traceability information such as historical records and metrics for requirements coverage and component coupling. By capturing not only the current state of the system but also historical information, TORUS allows project teams to see a much richer view of the system and its artifacts. We apply TORUS to the development of a protection system for smart grid substations. In addition, through a number of experiments in splice creation, modification, and application of automated algorithms, we show that TORUS scales easily to large systems containing hundreds of thousands of requirements and system components and millions of possible trace links.
Prosocial behavior increases perceptions of meaning in life

Abstract Finding meaning in life is a fundamental personal need, and motivating prosocial behavior is a fundamental societal need. The present research tests whether the two are connected – whether helping other people can increase helpers’ perceptions of meaning in life. Evidence from a nationally representative data-set and two experiments support this hypothesis. Participants who engaged in prosocial behaviors – volunteering and spending money to benefit others – reported experiencing greater meaning in their lives (Studies 1–3). Study 3 also identifies increased self-worth as the mechanism – participants who spent money to benefit other people felt higher personal worth and self-esteem, and this mediated the effect of prosocial behavior on meaningfulness. The present results join other findings in suggesting that the incentives for helping others do not necessarily depend on the prospect of others’ reciprocity. Prosocial behavior can be incentivized through the psychological benefits it creates for prosocial actors.
Optimization method in designing a finite-time average consensus protocol

In this paper, the optimization methods in designing a finite-time average consensus protocol for multi-agent systems or wireless sensor network are taken into account. As we all know, the purpose of the average consensus protocol is that all agents reach the final common value, which is the average of the initial values. In order to run a consensus protocol, there are 2 main steps: self-configuration step, and execution step. In the self-configuration step, the consensus protocol is designed and uploaded to each agent of the system so that the final average value is achieved in the minimal execution time. The proposed optimization method is based on learning and training methods applied for neural network.
Enhancement of Thermoelectric Figure‐of‐Merit by a Bulk Nanostructuring Approach

Recently a significant figure‐of‐merit (ZT) improvement in the most‐studied existing thermoelectric materials has been achieved by creating nanograins and nanostructures in the grains using the combination of high‐energy ball milling and a direct‐current‐induced hot‐press process. Thermoelectric transport measurements, coupled with microstructure studies and theoretical modeling, show that the ZT improvement is the result of low lattice thermal conductivity due to the increased phonon scattering by grain boundaries and structural defects. In this article, the synthesis process and the relationship between the microstructures and the thermoelectric properties of the nanostructured thermoelectric bulk materials with an enhanced ZT value are reviewed. It is expected that the nanostructured materials described here will be useful for a variety of applications such as waste heat recovery, solar energy conversion, and environmentally friendly refrigeration.
The Effect of Kefir on the Healing of Colonic Anastomosis in Rabbits

The present study was investigated the effect of kefir on anastomosis healing and bacterial translocation in rabbits with colonic anastomosis following colon preparation with laxative and antibiotic (AB) use. For this aim, 16 rabbits were divided into two groups each having 8 rabbits. All rabbits had prepared for surgery and received preoperative antibiotics. Control group received standard rabbit diet and water. The experimental group received 30 ml/kg kefir per day in addition to standard feeding, for 5 days before and after the operation. Right colonic resection and end-to-end anastomosis were done in both groups. Anastomosis bursting pressure and bacterial translocation were investigated on the fifth day after the operation. Also, histopathological evaluation was done. No bacterial growth was observed in blood cultures. However, mesenteric lymph node samples showed bacterial growth in two rabbits (one from each group). Mean anastomosis bursting pressure was 85.0±17.5 mmHg and 133.75±25.03 mmHg in the control and experimental group, respectively, with a statistically significant difference (P<0.01). Histopathological examination of the sections from the anastomosis sites revealed similar findings in both groups such as increased connective tissue proliferation and vascularisation. The increased bursting pressure in the experimental group particularly suggests that kefir may contribute to the healing of colonic anastomosis.
The Going Public Decision and the Structure of Equity Markets

The industries in which listed firms are concentrated in less developed equity markets are not random, nor entirely explained by the underlying composition of production. Listed firms and market capitalization are disproportionately concentrated in industries with low beta (measured with their beta with the market portfolio in the U.S.). We document a strong positive relationship between the industry-weighted country beta and the degree of market development across countries. Recent IPO activity confirms the result since new listings have higher betas than the average firm already in the market.
Simulation Semantics for formal e-contracts

Relationships between entities in today’s increasingly interconnected context have grown in complexity and evolved from simple communication processes to more complicated distributed systems. It is in this context that we aim to develop a consistent definition for these relationships together with a set of techniques to check their proper use. In this paper we present a process algebra to describe these contract relationships and a set of formal machinery to determine whether an implementation follows the rules established by these contracts. The main formal technique used is a simulation relation where an implementation is checked step by step against a given contract. Several toy examples are provided to facilitate understanding of the formal definitions.
Synthesis, characterization, electrochemistry and photophysical studies of tetranuclear ruthenium(II) complexes with two new spacers containing four 1,10-phenanthroline units as donor

Two novel tetranucleating spacers (BL 1 and BL 2 ) incorporating four 1,10-phenanthroline units have been synthesized and characterized. The reaction of these spacers with the building block cis-[Ru(bpy) 2 Cl 2 ] resulted inthe formation of tetranuclear complexes [{Ru(bpy) 2 } 4 BL 1 ][PF 6 ] 8 . 2H 2 O and [{Ru(bpy) 2 } 4 BL 2 ][PF 6 ] 8 . 2H 2 O. Cyclic voltammograms of these complexes show Ru(II)→Ru(III) oxidation at +1.25 V (vs SCE), and a few ligand-based reductions in the region -1.32 to - 1.54 V. Both complexes show strong metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) band in the visible region (457 and 456 nm). These complexes exhibit strong emission band ( 3 MLCT) at 612 nm. The excited state life-times of both the complexes have been determined by laser flash photolysis experiments. The observed life-times, 252 ns for 1 and 226 ns for 2, and also electrochemical results, however suggest no intercomponent electronic interaction between the metal centers. The transient absorption difference spectra show bleaching of the MLCT band around 450 nm.