Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Individual variation and seasonality drive bird feeder use during winter in a Mediterranean climate

Abstract Purposeful provisioning of food to wild animals is a widespread and growing activity that has the potential to impact populations and communities. Nevertheless, studies assessing use of recreational feeders by free‐living birds during winter are surprisingly rare and largely limited to regions with continental climates characterized by freezing temperatures and snow cover. In contrast, there is little information available regarding bird use of feeders within warmer climates during winter, despite widespread recreational feeding in these areas. In this study, we quantified visitation patterns to bird feeders in a Mediterranean climate to evaluate the relationship between feeder use and several environmental variables known to influence supplemental feeder use in continental climates. We established a network of bird feeders in Corvallis, Oregon, USA, that were filled with black oil sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seeds and equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) data loggers that recorded >315,000 visits by 70 individual Black‐capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) across a 5‐month period (October 2016–March 2017). We found extensive variation in feeder use, with individuals averaging 1–406 feeder visits/day and using 1–9 of the 21 feeders that were available; individual variability was largely consistent during the course of our study. At the population level, we found that feeder use decreased from the start of our study, and this decline continued through the period when foraging was most limited by daylight, including the winter solstice. In contrast to theoretical predictions and empirical work in continental climates, we found that weather variables did not drive feeder use and that feeder visits peaked at mid‐day and gradually decreased until sunset. Our study indicates that individual‐level differences combined with seasonality to drive feeder use patterns, and we conclude that use of supplemental feeders during winter in Mediterranean climates appears to differ notably from feeder use in continental climates.
Editorial: Neuromechanics and Control of Physical Behavior: From Experimental and Computational Formulations to Bio-inspired Technologies

The motivation behind this research topic was to cut across conventional boundaries that separate movement neuroscience, biomechanics, and robotics. The aim was to underscore that brain and body collaborate to produce behavior in biological organisms. While this is a simple idea, compartmentalization in education and science has often artificially separated brain from body. We also bring forward research paradigms to investigate physical behavior at the interface between humans and interacting robots. Understanding human-robot physical interaction requires the understanding of the complex interplay between brain, body, and the external environment. This could be achieved by employing a neuro-mechanical approach to the study of human and robot movement. Within the context of a neuromechanical approach, we aimed to collate a research corpus that included work on experimental and neurophysiological analysis, computational modeling, and applications in rehabilitation and bio-inspired robotics. The 22 contributions to this research topic provide a wide range of perspectives and methodologies. The high-caliber contributions to this research topic also highlight the existence of a significant community of researchers interested in an interdisciplinary view toward the study of brain-body and human-robot interactions.
High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity Model Does Not Promote Endothelial Dysfunction via Increasing Leptin/Akt/eNOS Signaling

Experimental studies show that the unsaturated high-fat diet-induced obesity promotes vascular alterations characterized by improving the endothelial L-arginine/Nitric Oxide (NO) pathway. Leptin seems to be involved in this process, promoting vasodilation via increasing NO bioavailability. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that unsaturated high-fat diet-induced obesity does not generate endothelial dysfunction via increasing the vascular leptin/Akt/eNOS signaling. Thirty-day-old male Wistar rats were randomized into two groups: control (C) and obese (Ob). Group C was fed a standard diet, while group Ob was fed an unsaturated high-fat diet for 27 weeks. Adiposity, hormonal and biochemical parameters, and systolic blood pressure were observed. Concentration response curves were performed for leptin or acetylcholine in the presence or absence of Akt and NOS inhibitor. Our results showed that an unsaturated high-fat diet promoted a greater feed efficiency (FE), elevation of body weight and body fat (BF), and an adiposity index, characterizing a model of obesity. However, comorbidities frequently associated with experimental obesity were not visualized, such as glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia and hypertension. The evaluation of the endothelium-dependent relaxation with acetylcholine showed no differences between the C and Ob rats. After NOS inhibition, the response was completely abolished in the Ob group, but not in the C group. Furthermore, Akt inhibition completely blunted vascular relaxation in the C group, but not in the Ob group, which was more sensitive to leptin-induced vascular relaxation. L-NAME incubation abolished the relaxation in both groups at the same level. Although Akt inhibitor pre-incubation reduced the leptin response, group C was more sensitive to its effect. In conclusion, the high-unsaturated fat diet-induced obesity improved the vascular reactivity to leptin and does not generate endothelial dysfunction, possibly by the increase in the vascular sensitivity to leptin and increasing NO bioavailability. Moreover, our results suggest that the increase in NO production occurs through the increase in NOS activation by leptin and is partially mediated by the Akt pathway.
Relationship between spatial heterogeneity and wavelength in multisensor airborne images

Variogram has been utilized to exploring the spatial heterogeneity of remote sensing images, especially its association with spatial resolution. However, very few attentions have been drawn on evaluating the spatial heterogeneity of multisensor airborne imagery and its relationship with spectral wavelength. Therefore, an investigation was carried out on multisensor airborne images to determine the relation between spatial heterogeneity and spectral wavelength for woodland, grass, and urban landscapes by applying variogram modeling. The airborne thematic mapper (ATM), compact airborne spectrographic imager (CASI), and Specim AISA Eagle airborne images at Harwood Forest, Monks wood, Cambridge, and River Frome areas, UK, were utilized. Results revealed that (1) the red band contained greater spatial variability than near-infrared wavelengths and other visible wavebands; (2) there was a steep gradient at the red edge in reference to its spatial variability of multisensor airborne images; (3) only for natural landscape such as woodland and grass, near-infrared waveband contains greater within-scene variations than the blue and green bands; (4) compared with the discrepancy of spatial resolution introduced by multisensor images (ATM, CASI, and Eagle), the specific landscape and spectral bands were more important in determining heterogeneity by means of original visible, near-infrared bands, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). These findings remained us to be caution when combining and interpreting spatial variability and spatial structures derived from airborne images with different spatial resolution and spectral wavelength. Additionally, the outcomes of this study also have considerable implications in terms of designing and choosing suitable images for different applications.
Multi-criteria land evaluation for suitability analysis of wheat: a case study of a watershed in eastern plateau region, India

Improper land use results in land degradation as well as decline in agricultural productivity. To obtain optimum benefit from the land, proper utilization of its resources is necessary. Land suitability analysis is the evaluation and grouping of specific areas of land in terms of their suitability for a defined use, which is a precondition for sustainable land use planning. This study investigated the applicability of Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques in combination with multi-criteria land evaluation for analysing land suitability. The study used the weighted overlay technique for multi-criteria evaluation with GIS for the assessment of suitability of wheat cultivation in Beko watershed (Purulia, India). The watershed area is moderately suitable for wheat crop production, with constraints like imperfect drainage and poor soil depth.
Acute Effects of L-Arginine Supplementation on Oxygen Consumption Kinetics and Muscle Oxyhemoglobin and Deoxyhemoglobin during Treadmill Running in Male Adults

L-arginine is used as a nitric oxide related supplement intended to improve sports performance, and to enhance muscular recovery during exercise. However, the literature is inconclusive. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of acute oral L-arginine supplementation on O2 consumption kinetics and local muscle blood volume and oxygenation during treadmill running at two different intensities. Using a double-blind, crossover and placebo-controlled design, 11 young healthy male adults were randomly assigned to 6 g of L-arginine (ARG) or placebo (PLA) supplementation that was ingested 60 min before the exercise test. Tests consisted of treadmill run at two different intensities (5 min each; moderate, 90% of ventilatory threshold, VT; and heavy, 50% of the difference between VT and VO2peak) interspersed by 1-min walking. Respiratory gas exchange variables were measured continuously with an automated metabolic cart. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to continuously monitor muscle oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin. Blood samples were collected before supplementation and 6 min after exercise. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA did not show differences in plasma nitrite concentrations between ARG or PLA conditions during the running tests. No significant differences were observed between ARG and PLA conditions for O2 kinetics as well as for NIRS variables. ARG supplementation does not improve physiological responses associated with oxygen cost and NIRS variables during running treadmill tests. Hence, our results do not support the use of L-arginine as an ergogenic aid for running performance in young healthy males.
The GWmodel R package: further topics for exploring spatial heterogeneity using geographically weighted models

In this study, we present a collection of local models, termed geographically weighted (GW) models, which can be found within the GWmodel R package. A GW model suits situations when spatial data are poorly described by the global form, and for some regions the localized fit provides a better description. The approach uses a moving window weighting technique, where a collection of local models are estimated at target locations. Commonly, model parameters or outputs are mapped so that the nature of spatial heterogeneity can be explored and assessed. In particular, we present case studies using: (i) GW summary statistics and a GW principal components analysis; (ii) advanced GW regression fits and diagnostics; (iii) associated Monte Carlo significance tests for non-stationarity; (iv) a GW discriminant analysis; and (v) enhanced kernel bandwidth selection procedures. General Election data-sets from the Republic of Ireland and US are used for demonstration. This study is designed to complement a companion GWmodel study, which focuses on basic and robust GW models.
From the Edge to the Cloud: Model Serving in ML.NET

As Machine Learning (ML) is becoming ubiquitously used within applications, developers need effective solutions to build and deploy their ML models across a large set of scenarios, from IoT devices to the cloud. Unfortunately, the current state of the art in model serving suggests to deliver predictions by running models in containers. While this solution eases the operationalization of models, we observed that it is not ﬂexible enough to address the variety of ML scenarios encountered in large companies such as Microsoft. In this paper, we will overview ML.NET—a recently open sourced ML pipeline framework— and describe how ML models written in ML.NET can be seamlessly integrated into applications. Finally, we will discuss how model serving can be cast to a database problem, and provide insights on our recent experience in building a database optimizer for ML.NET pipelines.
A machine learning approach for plagiarism detection

3 Acknowledgment . 5 List of Figures . 10 List of Tables . 12 Abbreviations . 14 Chapter1: Introdution . 16 Background . 16 1.1 Problem Statement and Motivation . 19 1.2 Aim and Objectives . 22 1.3 Research Methodology . 23 1.4 Research Scope . 25 1.5 Research Contribution . 26 1.6 Structure of the Thesis . 27 1.7 Chapter 2 : Literature Review . 30 Introduction . 30 2.1 A Brief History of Plagiarism Detection Approaches . 33 2.2 Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Methods for Plagiarism Detection . 34 2.3 Extrinsic Methods for Plagiarism Detection . 35 2.4 2.4. 1 Text Matching Approaches . 38 2.4. 2 Semantic Detection Approaches . 39 Intrinsic Methods for Plagiarism Detection . 44 2.5 2.5. 1 Lexical Features Related Studies . 52 2.5. 2 Syntactic Features Related Studies . 55 Summary . 57 2.6
RESTCONF Extensions to Support the Network Management Datastore Architecture

This document extends the RESTCONF protocol defined in RFC 8040 in order to support the Network Management Datastore Architecture defined in RFC 8342 . This document updates RFC 8040 by introducing new datastore resources, adding a new query parameter, and requiring the usage of I-D.ietf-netconf-rfc7895bis by RESTCONF servers implementing the Network Management Datastore Architecture. RFC Ed.: Please replace "I-D.ietf-netconf-rfc7895bis" above with its final RFC assignment and remove this note. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 . Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current InternetDrafts is at http://datatracker.ietf. org/drafts/current/ . Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress. " This Internet-Draft will expire on October 22, 2018. Bjorklund, et al. Expires October 22, 2018 [Page 1] Internet-Draft April 2018
Intermittent Pneumatic Compression Boot Use Elevates Blood Lactate During Subsequent Exercise

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) boot use between submaximal cycling trials on heart rate (HR) and blood lactate concentrations. Ten healthy participants (9M; 1F) performed two consecutive 60 minute rides at 60% of functional threshold power with a 30 minute rest between rides. The rest period was spent in a supine position using IPC boots (BOOT) or sitting in a similar position without boots (CON). HRs were collected every 15 minutes during cycling rides, and lactate was measured at the 30-minute mark during both rides. An identical trial was performed 7 days later with conditions (BOOT or CON) crossed. There were no between-trial differences (p > 0.05) in HR; between-trial differences were found for lactate concentrations during the second ride (3.9 ± 1.0 mmol/L BOOT vs. 2.7 ± 1.5 mmol/L CON, p < 0.05). The use of IPC boots between cycling trials as compared to laying in a supine position did not affect heart rate responses but did stimulate higher lactate concentrations during subsequent exercise.
Accelerating the Machine Learning Lifecycle with MLflow

Machine learning development creates multiple new challenges that are not present in a traditional software development lifecycle. These include keeping track of the myriad inputs to an ML application (e.g., data versions, code and tuning parameters), reproducing results, and production deployment. In this paper, we summarize these challenges from our experience with Databricks customers, and describe MLﬂow, an open source platform we recently launched to streamline the machine learning lifecycle. MLﬂow covers three key challenges: experimentation, reproducibility, and model deployment, using generic APIs that work with any ML library, algorithm and programming language. The project has a rapidly growing open source community, with over 50 contributors since its launch in June 2018.
Validity and Reliability of the Polar A300's Fitness Test Feature to Predict VO2max

The Polar A300 fitness watch includes a feature termed the 5-minute fitness test. This feature claims to estimate maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) in healthy adults. The purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Polar A300 “Fitness Test” VO2max estimation feature. Nineteen recreationally active young adult males (n=9) and females (n=10) completed a Bruce protocol treadmill protocol to assess VO2max, followed by two separate 5-minute Polar Fitness Test (VO2max estimation) trials. A Pearson’s r test was used to determine the relationship between VO2max from the Bruce Test to each Polar watch VO2max estimate, as well as to a non-exercise VO2max prediction equation. Additionally, a One Way ANOVA assessed differences in absolute group means of the Polar results to the Bruce Test, and non-exercise prediction model. There was a statistically significant, moderate-strong relationship between the Polar and the criterion Bruce VO2max estimations with the first Polar Test (n=19; r=.635; p<.05), as well as the second (n=19; r=.645; p<.05). The average VO2max of the two Polar tests and the Bruce test show greatest positive correlation (n=19; r=0.655; p<0.001). The reliability of the Polar watch indicated significance between the test-retest results (n=19; r=.907; p<.05). Lastly, the positive correlation between the non-exercise predicted model and the Bruce Test was weaker than the polar predictions (n=19; r=.522; p<.05). Preliminary results conclude that the Polar A300 Fitness watch is a valid tool for estimation of VO2max.
Optimistic Lock Coupling: A Scalable and Efficient General-Purpose Synchronization Method

As the number of cores on commodity processors continues to increase, scalability becomes more and more crucial for overall performance. Scalable and efﬁcient concurrent data structures are particularly important, as these are often the building blocks of parallel algorithms. Unfortunately, traditional synchronization techniques based on ﬁne-grained locking have been shown to be unscalable on modern multi-core CPUs. Lock-free data structures, on the other hand, are extremely difﬁcult to design and often incur signiﬁcant overhead. In this work, we make the case for Optimistic Lock Coupling as a practical alternative to both traditional locking and the lock-free approach. We show that Optimistic Lock Coupling is highly scalable and almost as simple to implement as traditional lock coupling. Another important advantage is that it is easily applicable to most tree-like data structures. We therefore argue that Optimistic Lock Coupling, rather than a complex and error-prone custom synchronization protocol, should be the default choice for performance-critical data structures.
Designing from listening: embodied experience and sonic interactions

An understanding of the richness of people’s sonic experience can lead to the creation of novel methods for informing design practices. One of the challenges in Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is to deal with the complexity of the “sonic”: its phenomenon, the interactions it creates, its social and cultural contexts. To tackle this challenge, this thesis investigates how we can draw upon people’s everyday sonic experience, particularly listening and remembering sound, to design interactions using body movement, digital sound processing and embodied technologies. Firstly, the research analyses how sound has been studied in its phenomenological, cultural and social aspects in fields such as Sound Studies and Embodied Sound Cognition. Secondly, it involves users in the process of designing sonic interactions, with a user study about gestural-sound relationships during active control of digital sound, and a series of participatory design workshops which draws upon people’s sonic experience for imagining interactions with sound. The thesis provides four main contributions. The first is Retro-Active Listening, a concept which draws attention to sounds heard in the past by remembering listening to them. The second is the Sonic Incident, a technique for SID workshops, which allows designers to explore participants’ past experiences of listening. The third is the Gestural Sound Toolkit, which enables designers to rapidly prototype interactive sound mappings based on human movement. The final contribution is three models for designing embodied sonic interactions. These comprise (1) Substitution, in which users’ movements substitute the cause of the sound, (2) Conduction, where users’ movements have a semantic relationship with the sound, and (3) Manipulation, in which users’ movements manipulate the sound. These contributions help to build a framework for design that addresses lesser-explored matters in SID, such as embodiment and contextual aspects of sound, which are potentially relevant for users.