Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parasites of non-native gobies in the Włocławek Reservoir on the lower Vistula River, first comprehensive study in Poland

Key-words: alien species, goby fish, parasite community, Vistula River A parasitological study of Ponto-Caspian gobies, including the monkey goby Neogobius fluviatilis, racer goby Babka gymnotrachelus and tubenose goby Proterorhinus semilunaris, carried out over four years in the lower Vistula River is described. These fish species represent one of the most impressive invasions of European inland waters, connected with the spontaneous, east-to-west intracontinental movement observed in the last two decades. The parasite community consisted of 24 taxa. Typical for racer goby were: Trichodina domerguei, Diplostomum pseudospathaceum, Gyrodactylus proterorhini and glochidia of unionids. The list of parasites typical for monkey goby is supplemented with: Tylodelphys clavata (met.) and Eimeria sp. , while the glochidia were rarely detected in this fish host. Holostephanus spp. , Apatemon gracilis, Diplostomum gobiorum and glochidia predominated in parasite fauna of tubenose goby. Unlike the other species tested, P. semilunaris was poorly infected with T. domerguei and G. proterorhini. Parasites commonly distributed through native fishes in the observed area prevailed in gobies. Species rare in natives were also numerously represented. In this way, alien fish reinforce populations of those parasites in invaded waters. Parasites dragged to the colonized area (G. proterorhini, Holostephanus spp., A. gracilis and D. gobiorum) complement the community. Larval stages were typical for parasite fauna of all studied gobies.
Economic Growth and Government Size in OECD Countries: New Evidence from the Quantile Regression Approach

The purpose of this paper is to employ the quantile regression methodology to investigate the relationship between government size and economic growth using a panel data set for 24 OECD countries. We find that the magnitude of the effect of government size on economic growth varies through the quantiles. When the economic growth is low, increasing the size of the government may have a positive effect and stimulate economic growth. However, as the economic growth rate increases, such an effect declines and has a negative effect on economic growth.
Stabilization of Subgrade Soil for Highway by Recycled Polyester Fiber

Article history: Received: Accepted: Subgrade soil stabilization is one of the primary and major processes in the construction of any highway; also environmental authorities are concerned about the growing amount of polyethylene (PET) bottles produced by household sectors. This research in order to study effect of adding recycled polyester fiber on soil engineering properties, especially shear strength and California Bearing Ratio (CBR) used clay soil with low liquid limit (CL) and atterberg limits used high liquid limit (CH). Clay soil with recycled polyester fibers are mixed with soil in three different percentages 0.1%, 0.3% & 0.5% (the portion of stabilizer matters to soil net weight). Shear strength, CBR, atterberg limits of stabilizer samples were measured by direct shear test and CBR test and atterberg limits test. Experiments results show this fact that using of recycled polyester leads to increasing shear strength and CBR and reduction, plasticity index. It is remarkable that according to economic problems, the most optimum quantity of recycled polyester fiber to reach to favorite strength is 0.5%.
REME v13 n2.pmd

In order to improve health care quality provided to premature newborns, the use of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) has become more common. This study aims to describe some variables related to the insertion, to the maintenance and to the removal of PICC in neonates who are hospitalized in an Intensive Care Unit. It is a descriptive study with a longitudinal design. Prospective data collection was held in a private institute in upstate São Paulo. Data were obtained through observation and analysis of patients’ charts between August and September 2008. The study was previously approved by the Ethics Research Committee. Fourteen newborns who met the criteria for inclusion were evaluated. The most prevalent gestational age was 30 to 34 weeks with weight over 1500 g. Most patients were female (57.2%), and the main indication for catheter insertion was partial parenteral nutrition. The catheter used was silicone 1.9Fr; the average frequency of puncture was 3.1 and in 57.2% of the cases the first punch was successful. The most commonly punctured vein was the basilica (71.2% of the cases). The main reasons for failure were bruises, vascular weakness and difficulty of progression. The mean time of catheter permanence was 10.5 days, and the main indication for removal was end of intravenous therapy (71.4% of the cases). Culture of the catheter tip was required for all catheters with positive result for Staphylococcus aureus.
Inventory redistribution for fashion products under demand parameter update

Demand for fashion products is usually highly uncertain. Often, there is only one possibility for procurement before the selling season. In order to improve the traditional newsvendor-type overage-underage trade-off we study a network of two expected profit maximizing retailers selling a fashion product where there is an additional opportunity for redistribution of stock during the selling season. We distinguish between the situation where redistribution is done at the moment when one of the retailers is running out of stock and the situation where the redistribution time is already determined and fixed before the selling season. We model the demand process at a retailer by a Poisson Process with an uncertain mean and use a Bayesian approach to update the distribution parameters before transshipments are done. In a numerical study we compare the different policies and show that timing flexibility and updating are especially beneficial in situations with low profit margins and high parameter uncertainty. Further, we show that depending on the instance, an optimal predetermined transshipment timing depends on the problem parameters and may be between the middle and the end of the selling season.
Comparative study of male brood stock populations of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Iran

Rainbow trout , Oncorhynchus mykiss , is one of the cultured fishes in the cold and fresh waters of the world. In this project, the main objective is the evaluation of samples of all male brood stock populations of rainbow trout in Iran. Phenotype of male brood stocks was identified in three categories, namely unclear, clear and clear with orange bands. The results indicated that there were significant differences amongst the three different phenotypes, in terms of gonad weight, GSI, sperm volume and concentration. Seemingly, phenotype 1 was inferior (P<0.05). Sperm motility of phenotypes 3 and 2 were placed in the same group, while phenotype 1 and 2 were positioned in another category. Furthermore, there was a positive significant correlation between gonad weight and body weight, testis weight and GSI, total sperm volume and GSI, along with total sperm concentration and volume. This proved that there was a significant relation between the biological characteristics of rainbow trout sperms and its phenotype in Iran. It can be concluded that phenotypes 1, 3 and 2, respectively, were the most suitable phenotypes for mating and also promoting its percentage.
Employee Stock Options and Share Repurchases: An Empirical Study of the Swedish Market

During the lasts two decades, the employee stock option plans (ESOPs) have become more important in the global remuneration polices to first level executives. As a consequence of this, the repurchase activity has been increased to face the exercise of those options. This text is committed to give the reader a general overview of the ESOPs and share repurchases (SR), as well as analyse the current situation in some of the biggest companies in Sweden. To do this, the following report is divided in two main parts; first it will be introduced “why” and “when” ESOPs are profitable for the company and which facts could influence a company to start a buyback of own shares. The second part will introduce the data collected from the annual reports of the Swedish companies and will analyse if the fact of having an ESOP implemented influences the choice on the benefits distribution method. Considering the tightly relation between share repurchases and dividends distributions, this text includes a small summary of the impact of the ESOPs in the dividends polices. For that reason, the database also includes data regarding to the share yields and profit distribution. After having analysed all the data collected, the results point to a non-influence of the Employee Stock Option Plans on the benefits distribution method. Thus, a significant difference between the fraction of total number of shares repurchased and the dividend yield in companies with and those without outstanding stock options among their managerial group cannot be confirmed. Although having found a non-significant difference on the dividend treatment between companies with and without stock options, a weak negative relation between the magnitude of the ESOP and the dividend yield was found for those companies with stock options among their managerial group. Moreover, after having divided the sample depending on the type of stock options their managerial group held, the results show a slight difference between those companies with outstanding warrants and employee options; and those without stock options. Despite this fact, it is not possible to assert a real influence of these facts due to a not enough number of observations gathered for the sample.
Accurate predictions of chemical phenomena in chemically reacting flows

In the past decade, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) community has put increasing attention on incorporating complex chemistry and physics into CFD simulations. However, for many practicing engineers today there is still much lacking in the effectiveness of reacting-flow simulation. Particularly in the area of combustion, the results can often be either too time consuming, or still too inaccurate to provide practical solutions for applications where chemistry details are critical. There are important alternatives to forcing such detailed phenomena directly into CFD. Such alternatives leverage CFD advances but also provide more effective and more accurate chemistry capabilities. These approaches build on reduced-geometry models that provide higher fidelity chemistry predictions, while establishing indirect coupling to the transport environment that is well predicted by CFD. The solvers employed in reduced-order models easily handle large chemistry reaction mechanisms and accurately resolve both trace and major species over disparate time scales. Links to CFD can be established through determination of zonal mapping to equivalent reactor networks or through table look-up methods. Central to these hybrid approaches is the continued advancement of the chemistry accuracy provided by reduced-order models. One area of particular importance is the combustion of large hydrocarbon fuel molecules that results in soot-particle formation. Presented here is a new capability for tracking the formation and destruction of particles dispersed in a gas flow. This capability has been incorporated into models for batch, perfectly stirred, plug-flow, and shear-layer flow reactors. A key advance is the incorporation of general, detailed surface kinetics in the description of particle growth and oxidation processes, together with poly- aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) condensation and particle coagulation. This capability allows kineticists flexibility in hypothesizing and testing competing reaction pathways to more accurately capture the particle-formation process. The implementation in reduced-order models further allows discrimination of important reaction and transport processes and, through comparisons with well controlled experiments, allows testing and verification of competing pathways in a more systematic way than previously possible.
Dimensionality Reduction and Generation of Human Motion

To reuse existing motion data and generate new motion, a method of human motion nonlinear dimensionality reduction and generation, based on fast adaptive scaled Gaussian process latent variable models, is proposed. Through statistical learning on motion data, the motion data are mapped from high-dimensional observation space to low-dimensional latent space to implement nonlinear dimensionality reduction, and probability distributing of posture space which measures the nature of posture is obtained. The posture which meets constraints and has maximal probability can be computed as the solution of inverse kinematics. This method can avoid cockamamie computation and posture distortion existing in traditional inverse kinematics. The experiments show that our method has higher convergence velocity and precision and extends editing range of motion by adapting motion editing direction.
The dual role of soil crusts in desertification

Vegetation cover in dry regions is a key variable in determining desertification. Soils exposed to rainfall by desertification can form physical crusts that reduce infiltration, exacerbating water stress on the remaining vegetation. Paradoxically, field studies show that crust removal is associated with plant mortality in desert systems, while artificial biological crusts can improve plant regeneration. Here it is shown how physical crusts can act as either drivers of or buffers against desertification depending on their environmental context. The behavior of crusts is first explored using a simplified theory for water movement on a uniform, partly vegetated slope subject to stationary hydrologic conditions. Numerical model runs supplemented with field data from a semiarid Long‐Term Ecological Research site are then applied to represent more realistic environmental conditions. When vegetation cover is significant, crusts can drive desertification, but this process is potentially self‐limiting. For low vegetation cover, crusts mitigate against desertification by providing water subsidy to plant communities through a runoff‐runon mechanism.
Evaluation of a lingual interface as a passive surgical guiding system

Under conventional "open-" surgery, the physician has to take care of the patient, interact with other clinicians and check several monitoring devices. Nowadays, the Computer Assisted Surgery proposes to integrate 3D cameras in the operating theatre in order to assist the surgeon in performing minimal-invasive surgical punctures. The cameras localize the needle and the computer guides the surgeon towards an intracorporeal clinically-defined target. A visualization system (screen) is employed to provide the surgeon with indirect visual spatial information about the intracorporeal positions of the needle. The present work proposes to use another sensory modality to guide the surgeon thus keeping the visual modality fully dedicated to the surgical gesture. For this, the sensory substitution paradigm using the Bach-y-Rita's "Tongue Display Unit" (TDU) is exploited to provide to the surgeon information of the position tool. The TDU device is composed of a 6x6 matrix of electrodes transmitting electrotactile information on the tongue surface. The underlying idea consists in transmitting information about the deviation of the needle movement with regard to a pre-planned "optimal" trajectory.
Lessons learned from Automatic Indexing Projects regarding to Persian Language Specifications

Persian reading and writing are associated with some difficulties due to specific features of this language. this paper attempts to examine automated indexing experiences, lessons, and outcomes of Persian language documents to provide effective solutions for improvement of indexing and retrieval of them. The most important problems in Persian language and script in automatic indexing include selection of an appropriate keyword, building a vocabulary, Semantic, Verb and word sense ambiguities in the sentences, Spaces and Pseudo-spaces in Persian script, isolated and cursive writing, morphology of Persian language, typographical and spelling errors. Removing the stop words, pre-processing of characters and script, identifying the boundaries of words, equalizing different spellings, the automatic stemming, Weighting and scoring of words, Detection of phrasal verbs and compound phrases, Spellchecking through creating morphological or even syntactic spellcheckers design of a corrector and proposer system , developing an infrastructure database for Persian language and script usage are solutions proposed to facilitate the automatic indexing of Persian texts.
Deciphering the driving forces of erosion rates on millennial to million‐year timescales in glacially impacted landscapes: An example from the Western Alps

In many regions, tectonic uplift is the main driver of erosion over million‐year (Myr) timescales, but climate changes can markedly affect the link between tectonics and erosion, causing transient variations in erosion rates. Here we study the driving forces of millennial to Myr‐scale erosion rates in the French Western Alps, as estimated from in situ produced cosmogenic 10Be and a newly developed approach integrating detrital and bedrock apatite fission‐track thermochronology. Millennial erosion rates from 10Be analyses vary between ~0.27 and ~1.33 m/kyr, similar to rates measured in adjacent areas of the Alps. Significant positive correlations of millennial erosion rates with geomorphic measures, in particular with the LGM ice thickness, reveal a strong transient morphological and erosional perturbation caused by repeated Quaternary glaciations. The perturbation appears independent of Myr‐scale uplift and erosion gradients, with the effect that millennial erosion rates exceed Myr‐scale erosion rates only in the internal Alps where the latter are low (<0.4 km/Myr). These areas, moreover, exhibit channels that clearly plot above a general linear positive relation between Myr‐scale erosion rates and normalized steepness index. Glacial erosion acts irrespective of rock uplift and thus not only leads to an overall increase in erosion rates but also regulates landscape morphology and erosion rates in regions with considerable spatial gradients in Myr‐scale tectonic uplift. Our study demonstrates that climate change, e.g., through occurrence of major glaciations, can markedly perturb landscape morphology and related millennial erosion rate patterns, even in regions where Myr‐scale erosion rates are dominantly controlled by tectonics.
Water-to-Cement Ratio Prediction Using Anns from Non-Destructive and Contactless Microwave Measurements

In concrete industry, there is a need for water-to-cement ratio (w/c) estimation of cement-based materials since the w/c ratio of cement mixtures is typically given at the batch plant, and this ratio, sometimes, is deliberately changed to have a more workable cement mixture. To meet the requirements of accurate w/c ratio determination of cement-based materials, in this research paper, we propose an artiflcial neural network approach for w/c ratio estimation of these materials using free-space non-contact re∞ection and transmission measurements of mortar specimens with w/c ratios of 0.40, 0.45, 0.50, 0.55 and 0.60. We have tested the network and observed less than 5 percent difierence between the estimated and known values of
There Is No Best β-Normalization Strategy for Higher-Order Reasoners ?

The choice of data structures for the internal representation of terms in logical frameworks and higher-order theorem provers is a crucial low-level factor for their performance. We propose a representation of terms based on a polymorphically typed nameless spine data structure in conjunction with perfect term sharing and explicit substitutions. In related systems the choice of a β-normalization method is usually statically fixed and cannot be adjusted to the input problem at runtime. The predominant strategies are hereby implementation specific adaptions of leftmost-outermost normalization. We introduce several different βnormalization strategies and empirically evaluate their performance by reduction step measurement on about 7000 heterogeneous problems from different (TPTP) domains. Our study shows that there is no generally best β-normalization strategy and that for different problem domains, different best strategies can be identified. The evaluation results suggest a problem-dependent choice of a preferred β-normalization strategy for higher-order reasoning systems.
Beyond confusion and controversy, can we evaluate the real efficacy and safety of cholesterol-lowering with statins?

A strong controversy has emerged about the reality of safety and efficacy of statins as stated by company-sponsored reports. However, physicians need credible data to make medical decisions, in particular about the benefit/harm balance of any prescription. This study aimed to test the validity of data on the company-sponsored statin trial by comparing them over time and then comparing statins with each other. Around the years 2005/2006, new stricter Regulations were introduced in the conduct and publication of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). This would imply that RCTs were less reliable before 2006 than they were later on. To evaluate this, we first reviewed RCTs testing the efficacy of statins versus placebo in preventing cardiovascular complications and published after 2006. Our systematic review thereby identified four major RCTs, all testing rosuvastatin . They unambiguously showed that rosuvastatin is not effective in secondary prevention, while the results are highly debatable in primary prevention. Because of the striking clinical heterogeneity and the inconsistency of the published data in certain RCTs, meta-analysis was not feasible. We then examined the most recent RCTs comparing statins to each other: all showed that no statin is more effective than any other, including rosuvastatin . Furthermore, recent RCTs clearly indicate that intense cholesterol-lowering (including those with statins) does not protect high-risk patients any better than less-intense statin regimens. As for specific patient subgroups, statins appear ineffective in chronic heart failure and chronic kidney failure patients. We also conducted a MEDLINE search to identify all the RCTs testing a statin against a placebo in diabetic patients, and we found that once secondary analyses and subgroup analyses are excluded, statins do not appear to protect diabetics. As for the safety of statin treatment – a major issue for medical doctors – it is quite worrisome to realize that it took 30 years to bring to light the triggering effect of statins on new-onset diabetes, manifestly reflecting a high level of bias in reporting harmful outcomes in commercial trials, as has been admitted by the recent confession of prominent experts in statin treatment. In conclusion, this review strongly suggests that statins are not effective for cardiovascular prevention. The studies published before 2005/2006 were probably flawed, and this concerned in particular the safety issue. A complete reassessment is mandatory. Until then, physicians should be aware that the present claims about the efficacy and safety of statins are not evidence based. Supplementary files: The supplementary files of this article are found under 'Article Tools' at the right side bar.