Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Searching for DNA barcodes in plants.

The utility of large scale standardized DNA sequencing and bioinformatics tools are now increasing in the area of plant systematics and evolution while a short DNA segment can be effectively used for the identification of species. However the consensus is still lacked about the precise DNA segments that are to be used for identification. DNA barcoding was proposed as a technique for recognizing and identifying a eukaryotic species through comparison of sequences of a standard short DNA fragment referred as a DNA barcode from an unknown specimen to a library of reference sequences from known species. An optimal DNA barcode region is a small fragment which is present in all representatives of the major taxonomic group which is accompanied by invariable nucleotide sequence in all members of the same species, but with enough variation to discriminate among the species. DNA barcoding is accomplished in animals in which Cytochrome c oxidase gene (CO1) is utilized as a barcode but finding a barcode in plants is proved to be a challenge. Several fragments of DNA (rbcL, matK, rpoB, rpoC, trnh-psbA etc) or combination of these segments have been proposed for identification of plants and systematic studies. Internal transcribed spacer region of nuclear ribosomal DNA are also evolving as a potential barcode for the major plant groups. With no doubts DNA barcoding will be reshaped in the future. The present review highlights the potential of DNA barcoding for the characterization of land plants and future prospects.
Perceived factors influencing information technology (IT) skills development in undergraduate accounting programme

This research attempts to understand the process of enhancing IT skills development in undergraduate accounting programme using grounded theory methodology. It aims to gain an insight into the research area from the perspectives of accounting practitioners, accounting educators and accounting students including alumni. The primary data collection methods are focus group, personal interviews, documents reviews and observations. This paper discusses the findings on main factors perceived to influence the development of IT skills in the programme. It suggests that university policy, employers’ expectation, other universities’ IT skills development, quality assurance review and professional examination exemption are the main external factors that influence the IT skills development. More to the point, the internal factors such as educators’ personal motivation and interest, perceived to be more influential in the decision to include and develop IT skills in the teaching process. Thus, it is evident that educators are the major actor influencing the IT skills development initiatives in teaching. These findings make significant contributions towards IT skills development and innovation in accounting education.
How Do Gifted Children of Various Ages Perceive Their Situation in Heterogeneous Classes and What Can Pre-Service Teachers Learn from Them?.

During their teaching program, pre-service teachers participated in a course concerning teaching in the heterogeneous classroom. As an introduction to the issue of "gifted children", the pre- service teachers were given an assignment: (1) to interview gifted children (identified as gifted by the Ministry of Education, according to IQ level) in their own classes or schools, about their situation in the heterogeneous class or school. (2) To write a personal reflection about what they learned from these interviews. These data provided the basis for the study of the unique needs of "gifted children" and the responses of pre-service teachers to these issues. The present study is based on the analysis of these collective results. On the one hand, it presents the picture obtained by the pre-service teachers from analysis of their interviews (Part I). On the other, the study presents the analysis of the pre-service teachers" responses to Part II of the assignment.
Nitroxide mediated and atom transfer radical graft polymerization of atactic polymers onto syndiotactic polystyrene

'Living' radical graft polymerization was employed to prepare graft copolymers with nitroxide-mediated arylated syndiotactic polystyrene as the backbone and polystyrene (PS), poly(p-methylstyrene) (PMS) and poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) as branches. A two-stage process has been developed to synthesize the macroinitiator. First, syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS) was modified by the Friedel-Crafts reaction to introduce chlorine; second, the chlorine groups were converted to nitroxide mediated groups by coupling with 1-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO-OH). The resulting macroinitiator (sPS-TEMPO) for 'living' free radical polymerization was then heated in the presence of styrene and p-methylstyrene to form graft and block copolymers. We used the obtained copolymer and N-bromosuccinimide as brominating agent to achieve polymers with bromine groups. This brominated copolymer was used as a macroinitiator for polymerizing methyl methacrylate in the presence of the CuBr/bpy catalyst system. The formation of the graft and block copolymers was confirmed by DSC, 1H NMR and FTIR spectroscopy. This approach using macroinitiators is an effective method for the preparation of new materials.
COCKPITS TO CLASSROOMS – THE UNIQUE CHALLENGES FACED BY POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS SERVING IN THE MILITARY

The University of Lincoln in the UK lies in close proximity to several military airbases. The School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln offers taught postgraduate programmes designed for serving military personnel, delivered in partnership with the education department at one of those airbases. Almost without exception, our military students require interruptions and/or extensions to their studies before they are able to complete their programme. Some students have been ‘on our books’ for a number of years and it is possible that some of them may never complete their studies. This paper examines some of the reasons why military students find it so difficult to complete their studies and how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) might improve the ways in which they support military students. The theoretical underpinning of the paper draws on several theories of motivation and also uses Schlossberg’s, [1], (2005) ideas of adult transitions and support to analyse the unique challenges faced by students in the military. This work is informed by the results of a survey of military students; questions in the survey were designed based on the Schlossberg 4S transition model. This survey was followed up with a number of semi-structured interviews conducted with selected respondents. The initial results of this research appear quite revealing. For example, military students are used to living and working in extremely disciplined environments where high standards and strict timescales must be strictly adhered to. Not doing so can, in many cases, risk life and limb. When presented with the more open environments that self-directed study in a HEI offer, these same students suffer a lack of focus and direction which has a detrimental impact on their engagement. By promoting independent learning and directing ownership of the process of study to the student, it may be that we inadvertently hinder them in their pursuit of higher qualifications. Respondents report that some semblance of ‘military discipline’ is preferred when it comes to things like hand-in dates and the maximum time allowed to complete the programme. Military students are justifiably proud of all that they have achieved in their military service. In some cases, however, this may lead them to the unrealistic belief that a Master’s degree will naturally follow or automatically become theirs by right. Some military students may not readily accept the discovery, early on in the programme, that working at Master’s level requires new and different skills. One challenge for programme providers, therefore, is to find ways to demonstrate the benefits that come from modifying ingrained ways of thinking. One way of doing this is by helping military students to develop and apply these new skills in the analysis of the real problems that they encounter in their military life. Keywords: Schlossberg, transition, military, postgraduate, United Kingdom.
Extreme value analysis for gridded data

The Risk & Impact Analysis Group of Geoscience Australia has been developing models to assess the hazard and risk produced by a number of natural phenomena. This paper describes a model to assess severe wind hazard over a region rather than at a recording station. The model integrates three sub-models: a statistical model that calculates return periods for the event using extreme value distributions; a model to extract and process wind speeds from a high-resolution (regional) climate model; and a Monte Carlo simulation model to generate wind gust speeds from mean wind speeds. Large scale high resolution gridded data requires a fast, efficient way to calculate wind hazard. A computer-based algorithm to achieve this aim is presented in this paper. To illustrate the methodology, wind hazard calculation over the Australian island state of Tasmania will be presented.
Three-Dimensional Target Tracking Based on Velocity Pursuit

This paper deals with a method for pursuer to track a moving target in the three-dimensional space. The method is based on the use of the geometrical rules combined with the kinematics equations of the pursuer and the target. The maneuvers of the target are not a priori known to the pursuer. In this paper, the velocity pursuit is proposed to implement tracking the moving target. Simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed control strategy. Keywords-tracking; three-dimensional space; velocity pursuit
Telomere length is a strong predictor of foraging behavior in a long‐lived seabird

Telomeres are an increasingly studied component of physiological ecology. However, in long-lived birds a large telomere loss with chronological age is not the norm. Telomeres are now regarded less as a chronological aging tool and more as an indicator of individual quality, residual lifespan, or biological age. If telomeres indicate biological aging processes, then they should also be associated with other variables that change with age, especially foraging and reproductive behaviors. This study compared telomere length to a suite of foraging parameters in Thick-billed Murres breeding on three colonies in the Bering Sea. Telomere length, environmental conditions at colonies, and sex played pivotal roles in determining foraging habitat selection. Spatial habitat use, foraging efficiency, and prey selection variables all changed with telomere length. The behavioral evidence indicates that despite losing telomeres, birds with short telomere length retain their ability to use the environment efficiently. This.
Ethno-Medicinal Plants in Five Sacred Groves in Cuddalore District, Tamilnadu, India

An ethno-medicinal plant survey was carried out in five sacred groves in Cuddalore district, Tamilnadu, for the express purpose of discovering the kinds of herbal remedies used by the local populations. It resulted in about 33 medicinal plants for the treatment of several diseases either in single or in combination with some other ingredients. The information on correct botanical identities with family, local name and traditional practice of 33 plant species belonging to 22 families are discussed here for the treatment of various illnesses.
2003 Professional Education Program

This study examines the effects of guanxi and audit independence on the corporate tax aggressiveness of Chinese firms. Based on a survey completed by 174 respondents in 2013, we find that two types of guanxi: favour-seeking guanxi and rentseeking guanxi are significantly associated with ethical judgments of corporate tax aggressiveness. Perceptions of audit independence in-fact are significantly negatively associated with these ethical judgments, whereas audit independence inappearance is positively associated with them. Further, significantly positive associations exist between perceptions that taxaggressive activities are good for the firm and its shareholders and favour-seeking guanxi and between these perceptions and stronger client-auditor relations. This study provides insights into the association between types of guanxi and the propensity of firm management to engage in corporate tax aggressiveness.
Automated Plan Generation for Alphasat Payload Operations

In 2013 the Alphasat spacecraft will be launched: in addition to its main commercial payload, four Technology Demonstration Payloads (TDPs) will fly on-board. The different payloads are provided by different research institutes, which will be able to define in-orbit demonstration tests of these new technologies. To optimize this opportunity, coordination of the different, possibly conflicting, payload operations is required. A software system to support the management of the TDP operations has been developed. While this system is intended to be completely automated (i.e., without any human intervention in the nominal case), it has been designed to keep all the different users (system and TDP operators) in the loop. This paper presents this system and in particular focuses on its core: the planning engine.
The Economic Crisis from a Neoclassical Perspective

This paper assesses the 2007-2009 recession using neoclassical business cycle theory. I find that the 2007-2009 U.S. recession differs substantially from other postwar U.S. recessions, and also from the 2008 recession in other countries, in that lower labor input accounts for virtually all of the decline in income and output in the United States, while lower productivity accounts for much of other U.S. recessions and the 2007-2009 recession in other countries. I also find that existing classes of models, including financial market imperfections models, do not explain the U.S. recession. This is because the 2007-2009 recession is almost exclusively related to what appear to be labor market distortions that drive a wedge between the marginal product of labor and the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure, a topic about which current classes of financial imperfection models are largely silent. I discuss future avenues for developing this class of models, and I consider alternative hypotheses for the recession, including the view of John Taylor and others that economic policies intended to help manage the crisis, actually deepened the recession by increasing uncertainty and distorting incentives.
Have bull and bear markets changed over time? Empirical evidence from the US-stock market

This contribution analyzes bull and bear markets from 1954:1-2011:2 in the US-stock index S&P 500. Thereby, a 2-State-Markov-Switching model is applied to figure out bull and bear market regimes within the latter period, whereby the estimated state probabilities are used to estimate a dummy variable model by employing operational criteria. A sample-split analysis, where the data set is divided into two samples of equal length, gives evidence for a structural break in the expectation of returns being associated with bull market regimes whereas no structural break can be ascertained concerning bear market regimes. This outcome has strong implications for modern asset allocation theory which takes the presence of regime switching into account as investors who expect a significant increase in stock returns would allocate a higher weight to stocks even though they would face bull market regimes at the time point when deciding on asset allocations.
Being Together: Factors That Unintentionally Undermine Motivation in Co-located Online Learning Environments

This paper reports on one aspect of a larger case study that explores the nature of motivation to learn in an online distance environment. The study adopts self-determination theory (SDT) as a theoretical framework and focuses particularly on the underlying concepts of autonomy and competence. These are used to investigate ways in which certain situational factors, that fail to accommodate the specific autonomy and competence needs of co-located learners, can undermine perceptions of personal agency and efficacy. This, in turn, has a detrimental effect on self-determined types of motivation including intrinsic motivation. Results from one collaborative group of learners, situated in a co-located blended learning context, are presented here. They suggest that the differing circumstances of students need to be accommodated to foster autonomous types of motivation among learners.
Anti Phishing Framework on Visual Cryptography

Phishing is an attempt by an individual or a group to thieve personal confidential information such as passwords, credit card information etc from unsuspecting victims for identity theft, financial gain and other fraudulent activities. In this paper we have proposed a new approach named as "A Novel Antiphishing framework based on visual cryptography" to solve the problem of phishing. Here an image based authentication using Visual Cryptography (vc) is used. The use of visual cryptography is explored to preserve the privacy of image captcha by decomposing the original image captcha into two shares that are stored in separate database servers such that the original image captcha can be revealed only when both are simultaneously available; the individual sheet images do not reveal the identity of the original image captcha. Once the original image captcha is revealed to the user it can be used as the password.
Gender in the Representations of an Armed Conflict: Female Kurdish Combatants in French and British Media

The Syrian civil war has been, without doubt, the war most widely covered by international media in this millennium. Having engaged in an armed combat against the Islamic State ( IS ), Kurdish military troops, especially the female battalion, have received considerable international media attention. This study examines the gender dimension of national media representations of female Kurdish combatants belonging to the Protection Units ( YPJ ) in Syria. How have the female combatants been framed in British and French media? To what extent are these representations gendered? The overall data consists of news articles from national media outlets in France and in the United Kingdom between 2014 and 2015, and is analyzed with frame analysis. The results show that the juxtaposition of female combatants with IS fighters allows the depiction of the participation of the former as exceptional and heroic and as one that deconstructs the masculinity of its adversary. The role of female combatants in the ongoing conflict is represented in the British and French media through the construction of sexualized and modern-day heroine figures that are largely glorified.
Bullying and Cyberbullying in Thailand: Coping Strategies and Relation to Age, Gender, Religion and Victim Status

Tanto el acoso tradicional (offline) como el ciberacoso (online) entre ninos y jovenes constituyen problemas graves a escala internacional, y tambien en Tailandia. La mayoria de los estudios acerca de estos fenomenos se han llevado a cabo en paises occidentales, siendo mucho menos comun la investigacion en paises asiaticos. Nosotros damos cuenta de un sondeo realizado entre 1.049 estudiantes (con un 42% de chicos y un 58% de chicas) de edades comprendidas entre los 12 y los 18 anos, en 12 centros educativos de 3 provincias del sur de Tailandia, sobre las experiencias relacionadas con haber sido victimas del acoso tradicional y el ciberacoso en los dos meses anteriores, y sobre las estrategias de afrontamiento mas recomendables. Decirselo a un docente o a uno de los padres era la estrategia que mas se aconsejaba en el caso de la victimizacion tradicional; esto no ocurria en la misma medida cuando se trataba de la cibervictimizacion, donde lo mas recomendado era bloquear mensajes/identidades o cambiar la direccion de correo electronico o el numero de telefono. Los alumnos mas mayores eran mas proclives a aconsejar denunciar ante la policia y llevar un registro de los incidentes de acoso. Existian grandes diferencias de genero, con las chicas recomendando que se contara y se denunciara mas, tanto para el acoso tradicional como para la cibervictimizacion. Las chicas tambien aconsejaban ignorar el acoso con mas frecuencia o bloquear los mensajes; mientras que los chicos recomendaban defenderse, pero tambien hacer nuevos amigos. Habia pocas diferencias por motivo de religion. Las victimas mostraban una mayor propension a recomendar estrategias pasivas tales como evitar a los acosadores, o estrategias arriesgadas como defenderse. Se analizan los hallazgos con respecto a la investigacion realizada anteriormente y las implicaciones para el trabajo anti-acoso en las escuelas.
Identification of quantitative trait loci associated with shoot sodium accumulation under low potassium conditions in rice plants

Sodium (Na) application has marked beneficial effects on plant growth when the potassium (K) supply is low. Under low K supply, three japonica rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars, Koshihikari, Nipponbare, and Sasanishiki, accumulated more Na than three indica cultivars, IR36, IR64, and Kasalath, and the effect of Na application on growth was greater in japonica Koshihikari plants than in indica IR64 plants. A quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis using a population of backcross inbred lines derived from japonica Koshihikari and indica Kasalath identified two significant loci associated with shoot Na concentration on chromosomes 3 and 6. The quantitative trait locus for shoot Na accumulation on chromosome 6 was confirmed in a population of chromosome segment substitution lines. The major QTL detected in this study could be useful for increasing crop productivity under low K input.
On Regularity of Acts

In this article we give a characterization of monoids for which torsion freeness, ((principal) weak, strong) flatness, equalizer flatness or Condition (E) of finitely generated and (mono) cyclic acts and Condition (P) of finitely generated and cyclic acts implies regularity. A characterization of monoids for which all (finitely generated, (mono) cyclic acts are regular will be given too. We also show that monoids for which all regular right acts are WPF, WKF, PWKF, TKF or satisfy Conditions (P), (WP) and (PWP) are the same as those for which all regular right acts are projective or strongly flat. Monoids S with E(S)ÍC(S) or those for which every element of E(S)\{1} is right zero will be characterized, when all (finitely generated, cyclic) right S-acts satisfying Conditions (PWP), (WP), (PE) or (P) are regular. Simple monoids for which all (finitely generated, cyclic) right acts with property U (U is a property of acts over monoids implied by Condition (P)) are regular will be characterized too.
High quality interpoly dielectrics deposited on the nitrided-polysilicon for nonvolatile memory devices

In this study, a NH/sub 3/ with RTA N/sub 2/O process to incorporate nitrogen at dielectric/polysilicon interface has demonstrated an improvement in the integrity of the polyoxide. The polyoxide deposited on these nitrided polysilicon films with the additional N/sub 2/O densification on TEOS exhibits a lower leakage current, higher electric breakdown field, higher electron barrier height, lower electron trapping rate, and much higher charge-to-breakdown than the as-deposited polyoxide. SIMS result shows the incorporation of nitrogen at the polyoxide/poly-1 interface, which improves electrical properties in return. Polyoxides formed by this method can achieve a high breakdown field up to 19 MV/cm and charge-to-breakdown more than 20 C/cm/sup 2/. This process appears to be a very attractive alternative for conventional polyoxides.