Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personality Traits and Vitamin D3 Supplementation Affect Mood State 12 h Before 100 km Ultramarathon Run

Background: Participation in extreme endurance sports is becoming an increasingly popular activity, and thus more and more people are getting involved in it. Taking part in a 100 km run is associated with great physiological and psychological stress, which can affect one’s mood state. Thus, the goal of this study was to determine if personality, experience, and motives for participation are related to a runner’s mood and its changes as well as to investigate whether vitamin D3 supplementation influences mood 12 h before and 12 h after the run. Method: The study group consisted of 20 experienced marathon and ultramarathon runners taking part in a 100 km track run. All participants were males aged between 31 and 50 (M = 40.75, SD = 7.15). The group was divided in two equal subgroups: the placebo group and the group supplemented with vitamin D3. Personality traits were assessed using the Polish version of Eysenck’s EPQ-R 106 and mood states were measured twice (12 h before and after the run) using the Polish version of the UMACL by Mathews, Chamberlain, and Jones. Motives for participation in ultramarathons were measured with the IPAO by Lipowski and Zaleski. Results: Levels of vitamin D3 correlated very strongly with energetic arousal (EA) (rs = 0.80; p < 0.05) and strongly hedonic tone (HT) (rs = 0.74; p < 0.05) 12 h before the run. There were no significant correlations between levels of vitamin D3 and mood states after the run. Moreover, extraversion correlated moderately with tense arousal (TA) (rs = -0.48; p < 0.05) and EA (rs = 0.47; p < 0.05) while neuroticism correlated moderately with TA (rs = 0.53; p < 0.05) and HT (rs = -0.57; p < 0.05). Conclusion: Both personality and vitamin D3 supplementation are related to runners’ pre-run mood. These effects are nullified when it comes to post-run mood states.
Energy-efficient Computing on Distributed GPUs using Dynamic Parallelism and GPU-controlled Communication

GPUs are widely used in high performance computing, due to their high computational power and high performance per Watt. Still, one of the main bottlenecks of GPU-accelerated cluster computing is the data transfer between distributed GPUs. This not only affects performance, but also power consumption. The most common way to utilize a GPU cluster is a hybrid model, in which the GPU is used to accelerate the computation while the CPU is responsible for the communication. This approach always requires an dedicated CPU thread, which consumes additional CPU cycles and therefore increases the power consumption of the complete application. In recent work we have shown that the GPU is able to control the communication independently of the CPU. Still, there are several problems with GPU-controlled communication. The main problem is intra-GPU synchronization, since GPU blocks are nonpreemptive. Therefore, the use of communication requests within a GPU can easily result in a deadlock. In this work we show how Dynamic Parallelism solves this problem. GPU-controlled communication in combination with Dynamic Parallelism allows keeping the control flow of multi-GPU applications on the GPU and bypassing the CPU completely. Although the performance of applications using GPU-controlled communication is still slightly worse than the performance of hybrid applications, we will show that performance per Watt increases by up to 10% while still using commodity hardware.
Curative Effect of Ethanolic Plant Extractives Against Beauveria bassiana Infection in Silkworm , Bombyx mori L . : Histopathological Observations on Midgut

Beauveria bassiana is causative pathogen of white muscardine disease in silkworm Bombyx mori. Occasionally it is responsible for heavy losses to silk industry in many parts of the world. Scrutiny of herbal extracts in the disease management of silkworm, Curcuma longa, Argimone mexicana and Clerodendrum multiflorum showed antifungal activities and these plants were selected for testing their antifungal activities and their doses at 100μl/larva of 6000-ppm concentration were given on calibrated piece of leaf to the B. bassiana inoculated and starved larvae for three consecutive days. Observations on mortality and histopathology of midgut reveals that ethanolic extractive of C. longa has greater potential to check the infection of fungus B. bassiana than the extractive of A. mexicana and C. multiflorum. After making a suitable formulation and evolving farmer friendly strategy of applications, these plant products could be utilized successfully in the management of white muscardine disease in silkworm.
Quality and accessibility of visual working memory during cognitive control of attentional guidance: A Bayesian model comparison approach

Working memory (WM) can guide visual attention toward memory-matching objects. This influence of WM on attention can be modulated by cognitive control, such that attentional guidance is strategically suppressed or enhanced depending on whether WM contents are reliably hurtful or helpful for the current task. Cognitive control over memory-based guidance has been hypothesized to operate via some modulation of the WM representation itself, but it is unclear whether this modulation affects representational quality (i.e., how precise is it? ) or accessibility of WM content (i.e., how easily is it remembered or forgotten? ). Using probabilistic model fitting and Bayesian model comparison techniques, we show that cognitive control over memory-based guidance impacts the probability of remembering, but not the precision of, items in WM. These findings suggest that the WM-attention interaction may depend on distinct functional states in WM, which are in turn characterized by how easily an item is remembered or forgotten.
A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF SPANISH L2 MISPRONUNCIATIONS BY JAPANESE SPEAKERS

In a companion paper (Carranza et al.) submitted to this conference we discuss the importance of collecting specific L1-L2 speech corpora for the sake of developing effective Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) programs. In this paper we examine this point more deeply by reporting on a study that was aimed at compiling and analysing such a corpus to draw up an inventory of recurrent pronunciation errors to be addressed in a CAPT application that makes use of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). In particular we discuss some of the results obtained in the analyses of this corpus and some of the methodological issues we had to deal with. The corpus features 8.9 hours of spontaneous, semi-spontaneous and read speech recorded from 20 Japanese students of Spanish L2. The speech data was segmented and transcribed at the orthographic, canonical-phonemic and narrow-phonetic level using Praat software [1]. We adopted the SAMPA phonemic inventory for the phonemic transcription adapted to Spanish [2] and added 11 new symbols and 7 diacritics taken from X-SAMPA [3] for the narrow-phonetic transcription. Non linguistic phenomena and incidents were also annotated with XML tags in independent tiers. Standards for transcribing and annotating non-native spontaneous speech ([4], [5]), as well as the error encoding system used in the project will be addressed. Up to 13410 errors were segmented, aligned with the canonical-phonemic tier and the narrow-phonetic tier, and annotated following an encoding system that specifies the type of error (substitutions, insertion and deletion), the affected phone and the preceding and following phonemic contexts where the error occurred. We then carried out additional analyses to check the accuracy of the transcriptions by asking two other annotators to transcribe a subset of the speech material. We calculated intertranscriber agreement coefficients. The data was automatically recovered by Praat scripts and statistically analyzed with R. The resulting frequency ratios obtained for the most frequent errors and the most frequent contexts of appearance were statistically tested to determine their significance values. We report on the analyses of the combined annotations and draw up an inventory of errors that should be addressed in the training. We then consider how ASR can be employed to properly detect these errors. Furthermore, we suggest possible exercises that may be included in the training to improve the errors identified.
The Anomalous Merging of the African and North Atlantic Jet Streams during the Northern Hemisphere Winter of 2010

The North Atlantic jet stream during winter 2010 was unusually zonal, so the typically separated Atlantic and African jets were merged into one zonal jet. Moreover, the latitude‐height structure and temporal variabilityofthe NorthAtlanticjet duringthis winterweremore characteristic ofthe NorthPacific.This work examinesthe possibility of aflow regime changefrom an eddy-driven to a mixed eddy‐thermally drivenjet. A monthly jet zonality index is defined, which shows that a persistent merged jet state has occurred in the past, both at the end of the 1960s and during a few sporadic months. The anomalously zonal jet is found to be associated with anomalous tropical Pacific diabatic heating and eddy anomalies similar to those found during a negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) state. A Lagrangian back-trajectory diagnosis of eight winters suggests the tropical Pacific is a source of momentum to the Atlantic and African jets and that this source was stronger during the winter of 2010. The results suggest that the combination of weak eddy variance and fluxes in the North Atlantic, along with strong tropical heating, act to push the jet toward a merged eddy‐thermally driven state. The authors also find significant SST anomalies in the North Atlantic, which reinforce the anomalous zonal winds, particularly in the eastern Atlantic.
Active Learning With Drifted Data Streams Using Time-related Weight Classifier Ensemble Framework

In learning to classify data streams, labeling all data is considered expensive and impractical. Active learning focuses on labeling a small portion of data for learning a model to predict future instances as accurately as possible. Active learning over streaming data poses additional challenges for its increasing volumes and concept drifts. We propose a new weighted classifier ensemble framework for active learning with drifted data streams using combination labeling strategies. The ensemble classifier consists of a long stable classifier built since beginning and several recent base classifiers built from recent chunks. According to a combination strategy of uncertainty strategy and random strategy, instances in the chunk are selected to be labeled for the updating of the stable classifier and the newest base classifier. When dealing the new chunk, base classifiers update their weights based on the time stamp and the prediction accuracy for new labeled instances. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world data demonstrate the performance of the proposed work in comparison with other approaches.
On Transcribing Russian with a Highly Mismatched Indian Crowd

We present early results on the possibility of transcribing non-Indian languages using a rural Indian crowd that types in vernacular scripts. Here, we present results for transcribing Russian in Gujarati, Marathi and Telugu scripts without having any understanding of Russian. We observe that this highly mismatched crowd is able to achieve non-trivial accuracy. We show that one can effectively combine crowd work across four non-native languages to get a word recognition rate of ~55% and 4-best list recognition of ~71%
On the origin of pine sawflies caught in pheromone traps

This study investigated behaviour of male European pine sawflies, Neodiprion sertifer Geoffr. (Hym., Diprionidae), that were released downwind from pheromone traps. Releases were done at three distances; either at 5 m from one trap, or at 50 m or 200 m from five traps, placed in a line perpendicular to the current wind direction. As a control, males were released identically but without any pheromone source present. The behaviour of the males prior to take-off was studied on a release platform. The following different types of behaviour were recorded: grooming, wing fanning, orientating and take-off. The frequency of grooming was significantly higher in the pheromone treatments compared to the control, whereas the frequency of wing fanning and orientating increased, although not significantly. The direction in which the males displayed the various types of behaviour was more concentrated towards the wind when pheromone was present than during the control experiment. By colour marking of Ecology, Lund University, d travel speed could be calculated. The minimum recorded time from take-off to landing was 1 min, 6 min and 45 min for the 5 m, 50 m and 200 m experiments, respectively. The stimulation and attraction range of the trap was at least 200 m, and the sampling range after 24 hr was calculated to approximately 400 m (c.i. 140–1600 m). (Less)
Influence of Ross Sea Bottom Water changes on the warming and freshening of the Antarctic Bottom Water in the Australian-Antarctic Basin

Abstract. Changes to the properties of Antarctic Bottom Water in the Australian-Antarctic Basin (AA-AABW) between the 1990s and 2000s are documented using data from the WOCE Hydrographic Program (WHP) and repeated hydrographic surveys. Strong cooling and freshening are observed on isopycnal layers denser than γn = 28.30 kg m−3. Changes in the average salinity and potential temperature below this isopycnal correspond to a basin-wide warming of 1300 ± 200 GW and freshening of 24 ± 3 Gt year−1. Recent changes to dense shelf water in the source regions in the Ross Sea and George V Land can explain the freshening of AA-AABW but not its extensive warming. An alternative mechanism for this warming is a decrease in the supply of AABW from the Ross Sea (RSBW). Hydrographic profiles between the western Ross Sea and George V Land (171–158° E) were analyzed with a simple advective-diffusive model to assess the causes of the observed changes. The model suggests that the warming of RSBW observed between the 1970s and 2000s can be explained by a 21 ± 23% reduction in RSBW transport and the enhancement of the vertical diffusion of heat resulting from a 30 ± 7% weakening of the abyssal stratification. The documented freshening of Ross Sea dense shelf water leads to a reduction in both salinity and density stratification. Therefore the direct freshening of RSBW at its source also produces an indirect warming of the RSBW. A simple box model suggests that the changes in RSBW properties and volume transport (a decrease of 6.7% is assumed between the year 1995 and 2005) can explain 51 ± 6% of the warming and 84 ± 10% of the freshening observed in AA-AABW.
The Influence of Forensic Evidence on the Case Outcomes of Rape Incidents

The study focuses on the influence of forensic evidence on the processing of rape incidents. It utilizes a prospective analysis of official record data that followed cases from the time of police report to final criminal disposition. The results indicate that forensic evidence is auxiliary, occasional, and non-determinative in the majority of rape cases. Victim willingness to testify and injuries to the victim are the strongest predictors of case outcomes. Additionally, the study finds that the relationship between the victim and suspect does not affect the likelihood of charging or conviction.
Exploring BSP styles of computing for near-data processing and processing-in-memory

Given current technology constraints and the implications of the end of Dennard scaling, it seems mandatory to explore computing concepts that minimize the distance between processor and memory for several reasons: first, an increasing distance contributes to an increasing latency due to the limited signal propagation speed. Second, and less obvious, an increasing distance generally results in a linear increase of energy consumption (with some exceptions that increase consumption like dielectric loss, skin effect, and issues with signal-to-noise ratio due to amplification). Otherwise, energy would grow exponentially with distance, which in practice usually happens as soon as a certain distance is reached. Third, technology constraints like pin count increasingly limit throughput when traversing component boundaries like die-to-package or package-to-board. Near-data processing (NDP) and processing-in-memory (PIM) provide promising directions for reducing processormemory distance. These new archictures are also amenable for use with Bulk-Synchronous Parallel (BSP) styles of computing for data intensive problems, in which parallel slackness is exploited to tolerate latency by scheduling and pipelining. This work shortly summarizes our motivation and current observations.
Reproductive effort and oxidative stress: effects of offspring sex and number on the physiological state of a long‐lived bird

Summary 1.Individuals must trade-off between energetically costly activities to maximise their fitness. However, the underlying physiological mechanism remains elusive. Oxidative stress, the imbalance between reactive oxygen species production and antioxidant and/or repair activities, has been suggested to underlie life-history trade-offs: greater investment in reproduction supposedly generating higher oxidative damage, thus reducing lifespan. 2.While most studies used natural or experimental variation in offspring number to examine how reproduction affects oxidative stress, none studied the impact of offspring sex, although it could influence physiological costs and fitness, if the sexes differ in terms of energetic cost. 3.Here, we aim at further understanding how reproduction (in terms of offspring sex, experimentally manipulated, and number, not manipulated) influences oxidative stress in a wild seabird, where sons are energetically costlier than daughters. We did so by conducting a chick fostering experiment (to disentangle foster and produced sex-ratio) and using four oxidative stress markers plus baseline corticosterone. 4.First, the results suggest that individual physiological state before laying modulates upcoming reproductive effort. Individuals with higher pre-laying baseline corticosterone and lower antioxidant activity, estimated by their superoxide dismutase activity, subsequently invested more in reproduction, estimated by the cumulative number of days spent rearing chicks. Hence, it seems that only individuals that could afford to invest heavily in reproduction did so. 5.Then, we examined the effects of reproductive effort on individual physiological state at the end of the breeding season. Higher reproductive effort seemed to imply higher physiological costs. Oxidative stress, estimated by the ratio of oxidised over reduced glutathione, increased with more male-biased foster sex-ratio among mothers but not among fathers, whereas baseline corticosterone did so in both sexes. Similarly, lipid oxidative damage to red blood cells increased with increasing cumulative number of days spent rearing chicks. 6.Our study provides the first evidence that brood sex-ratio variation can affect oxidative balance, potentially in a sex-specific way, although more studies are needed to understand whether the observed physiological costs could lead to fitness costs. It also highlights the need to consider sex-ratio in future studies investigating the role of oxidative stress in life-history trade-offs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
PLANT REGENERATION FROM IRRADIATED EMBRYOGENIC CALLUS OF SUGARCANE

Three sugarcane clones viz., NIA-98, NIA-0819 and BL4 were used for induction of genetic variability through In-vitro mutagenesis. Apical meristametic region was used for callus induction on 4mg/l 2,4-D. Actively growing callus was treated with four different doses of gamma rays (10Gy, 20Gy, 30Gy and 40Gy). Maximum callus, proliferation and plantlets regeneration growth was observed in control and minimum at 40Gy. Maximum chlorophyll mutation frequency was recorded in 30 and 40 Gy. Maximum number of roots was observed in control followed by 10Gy. The maximum root length (10.3cm) was obtained in control at 2 mg/l IBA. The maximum number of tiller in the irradiated population was observed in 10Gy. The treatments 30Gy and 40Gy exhibited negative impact on the tillering potential of the plant.
Darwin's Hypotheses on the Origin of Domestic Animals and the History of German Shepherd Dogs

Charles Darwin devoted the first chapter of his book On the Origin of Species (1859) to the principles and products of artificial selection and concluded that this process is analogous to natural selection in the wild. With respect to the origin of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris ), Darwin suggested that several canid species provided ancient founder populations for this phenotypically diverse mammal. In contrast to Darwin, the geologist Charles Lyell argued in 1859, with reference to the work of the zoologist Thomas Bell, that all breeds of the domestic dog are derived from one species, the grey wolf ( Canis lupus ). In this article we show that Darwin's analogy between artificial and natural selection was correct: domestication involves large, heritable phenotypic changes in an animal species over many subsequent generations and hence represents a rapid evolutionary process. We deduce the "Bell-Lyell" hypothesis and document that the grey wolf is indeed the immediate ancestor of the domestic dog. In his book on the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , Darwin (1872) described the behaviour of a half-bred German Shepherd. Based on these observations, we summarize the history of this new breed of dog that originated in 1899. We conclude that quantitative data on body mass and other parameters, documented in a series of breeding records published between 1922 and 2002, may yield insights into the dynamics of this ongoing microevolutionary process.
Can DFT and ab initio methods describe all aspects of the potential energy surface of cycloreversion reactions?

Abstract We introduce a representative benchmark database of 20 cycloreversion reaction energies obtained by means of the high-level W1 thermochemical protocol. We use these benchmark values to assess the performance of a variety of contemporary DFT, double-hybrid DFT (DHDFT), standard ab initio, and compound thermochemistry methods. We show that this set of reaction energies provides an extremely challenging test for nearly all of the considered DFT and DHDFT methods. For example, about 80% of the considered functionals result in root-mean-square deviations (RMSDs) above 10 kJ mol−1. The best DFT and DHDFT procedures are ωB97X and DSD-PBEP86-D3, with RMSDs of 4.7 and 7.9 kJ mol−1, respectively. Coupled with the fact that the barrier heights for these reactions also pose a significant challenge for many DFT methods, this work shows that only a handful of functionals can quantitatively describe all aspects of the potential energy surface of this important class of reactions. In addition, this work shows that London dispersion effects are particularly large for this class of reactions. For example, empirical D3 dispersion corrections reduce the RMSDs for the DFT and DHDFT procedures by amounts ranging from 3.5 (PBE and B2K-PLYP) to 22.0 (BLYP) kJ mol−1. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
A new Integer Linear Program for the Steiner Tree Problem with Revenues, Budget and Hop Constraints

The Steiner tree problem with revenues, budgets and hop constraints (STPRBH) is a variant of the classical Steiner tree problem. This problem asks for a subtree in a given graph with maximum revenues corresponding to its nodes, where its total edge costs respect the given budget, and the number of edges between each node and its root does not exceed the hop limit. We introduce a new binary linear program with polynomial size based on partial-ordering, which (up to our knowledge) for the first time solves all STPRBH instances from the DIMACS benchmark set to optimality. The set contains graphs with up to 500 nodes and 12500 edges.