Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Supplementary material to "Soil salinization risk assessment owing to poor water quality drip irrigation: A case study from an olive plantation at the arid to semi-arid Beit She'an Valley, Israel"

Abstract. Salinization causes soil degradation and soil fertility reduction. The main reasons for soil salinization are poor irrigation water quality and incorrect irrigation management. Soil salinization is accelerated owing to irrigation with treated wastewater with elevated salt concentration. The study area is located in the Beit She'an Valley, one of the most important agricultural regions in Israel. The combination of soil salinization and poor drainage conditions impedes plant development and is manifested in economic damage to crops. Without clear irrigation criteria, an increase in soil salinity and steady damage to soil fertility might occur. The study objective was to provide an assessment of soil salting processes as a result of low-quality irrigation water at the Kibbutz Meirav olive plantation. This study combined various research methods, including soil salinity monitoring, field experiments, remote sensing (FDEM), and unsaturated soil profile saline water movement modeling. The assessment included the salinization processes of chalky soil under drip irrigation by water with various qualities. With a drip irrigation regime of water with a dissolved salt content of 3.13 dS/m, the salinization process is characterized by salts accumulation in the upper root zone of the trees. The modeling results showed that there is a soil salinization danger in using brackish water and that irrigation with potable water helps to reduce soil salinization.
Do Upper-Limb Loss and Prosthesis Use Affect Lower-Limb Gait Dynamics?

ABSTRACT Introduction Intentional interruption of upper-limb and lower-limb coordination of able-bodied subjects alters their gait biomechanics. However, the effect of upper-limb loss (ULL) on lower-limb gait biomechanics is not fully understood. The aim of this secondary study was to perform a follow-up analysis of a previous dataset to characterize the spatiotemporal parameters and lower-limb kinematics and kinetics of gait for persons with ULL when wearing and not wearing an upper-limb prosthesis (ULP). We were particularly interested in quantifying the effects of matching the mass and inertia of the prosthetic limb to the sound limb. Materials and Methods Ten persons with unilateral ULL walked at a self-selected speed under three randomly presented conditions: 1) not wearing a prosthesis; 2) wearing their customary prosthesis; and 3) wearing a mock prosthesis that can be adjusted to match the length, mass, and inertial properties of each subject's sound limb. Walkway-embedded force plates and a 12-camera digital motion capture system recorded ground reaction forces (GRFs) and retroreflective marker position data, respectively. Average spatiotemporal (walking speed, cadence, stance time, swing time, step length, double support time), lower-limb kinematic (joint angles), and lower-limb kinetic (ground forces, joint moments and powers) data were processed, and their statistical significance values were analyzed. Result Walking speed for each condition was nearly equivalent (1.20 ± 0.01 m/s), and differences between condition were nonsignificant (P = 0.769). The interaction effect (side × prosthesis) was significant for peak hip extension (P = 0.01) and second peak (propulsive) vertical GRF (P = 0.028), but separate follow-up analyses of both main effects were not significant (P ≥ 0.099). All other main effect comparisons were not significant (P ≥ 0.102). Conclusions Although the sample cohort was small and heterogeneous, the results of this study suggest that persons with unilateral ULL did not display significant limb side asymmetry in lower-limb gait spatiotemporal, kinetic, and kinematic parameters, regardless of ULP use.
Monosulfonated Azo Dyes: A Crystallographic Study of the Molecular Structures of the Free Acid, Anionic and Dianionic Forms

Crystallographic studies of monosulfonated azo dyes have concentrated on the salt forms that contain the azo anion. Here we present a study that compares the structures of these anions with protonated free acid forms and with doubly deprotonated dianion forms. To this end, the new single crystal diffraction structures of 13 systematically related free acid forms of monosulfonated azo dyes are presented, together with three new structures of doubly deprotonated forms and two new structures of Na salt forms of azo anions. No structures of dideprotonated monosulfonated azo dyes have previously been reported and this paper also reports the first crystal structure of an azo dye with a hydronium cation. The geometries of the free acid, anion and dianion forms are compared to literature equivalents. It is shown that protonation of the azo bond gives predictable bond lengthening and shortening, which is of a greater magnitude than similar effects caused by azo-hydrazone tautomerisation, or the smaller again effects caused by the resonance electron donation from O or N based substituents. The dianion containing structures have twisted dianion geometries that can be understood based on the resonance effects of the phenoxide groups and upon the needs to bond to a relatively high number of metal cations.
An Automatic Question Answering Method for Small-Scale Corpus

It is a growing trend for automatic question answering system to be prominent in the development process of society. There are many methods trying to address this problem, but with deficiencies—relatively developed methods based on template matching need a lot of manual work writing templates, and machine learning based methods need plenty of work collecting a large number of corpus, bring huge burden on small-scale scenery. Facing these problems, we propose an automatic question answering methods meeting the needs of small-scale corpus. This method consists of combining an improved text similarity calculation algorithm and an intention recognition method based on slot filling. We conduct experiments on the problem sets of related fields, and it shows a good performance of the proposed automatic question answering method. Our methods make small scene applications for dialog systems more practical.
Divergent correlations between autism traits and multiplicative noise in fine and coarse motion discrimination tasks

Abstract People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display abnormalities in motion processing. Motion perception abnormalities in ASD have been linked to high levels of internal noise (unreliable neuronal fluctuations), and deficits in motion pooling (integrating local motion into a global percept). However, the literature overall is equivocal. Traditionally, internal noise in ASD has been investigated through additive internal noise, comparing ASD and control groups. To date, multiplicative internal noise has not been investigated in ASD, and neither type of internal noise has been investigated in relation to traits of autism in the typically-developing population. Here, we investigate how additive and multiplicative internal noise and motion pooling vary across number of autistic traits in typically developed adults. We employed a visual motion integration task with a typically developed population, measuring autistic traits with the Autism Spectrum Questionnaire (AQ). Additive and multiplicative internal noise and motion pooling were calculated from task accuracy and consistency across a range of external noise levels, using a double-pass paradigm. We found that multiplicative noise (but not additive noise, or motion pooling) correlated with AQ. Specifically, multiplicative noise increased with AQ in a coarse motion discrimination task, while it decreased with AQ in a fine motion discrimination task. We suggest that the differences in multiplicative noise may be indicative of decision-variable fluctuations, which are smaller in individuals with a higher number of autistic traits, i.e., they are more focused. Our findings indicate that looking beyond additive noise and incorporating multiplicative noise estimation paradigms can help establish whether there are differences in internal noise levels between individuals with ASD and those without.
Home Production and Leisure during the COVID-19 Recession

Abstract Between the months of February and April of 2020, average weekly market hours in the U.S. dropped by 6.25, meanwhile 36% of workers reported switching to remote work arrangements. In this paper, we examine implications of these changes for the time allocation of different households, and on aggregate. We estimate that home production activity increased by 2.65 h a week, or 42.4% of lost market hours, due to the drop in market work and rise in remote work. The monthly value of home production increased by $39.65 billion – that is 13.55% of the concurrent $292.61 billion drop in monthly GDP. Although market hours declined the most for single, less educated individuals, the lost market hours were absorbed into home production the most by married individuals with children. Adding on the impact of school closures, our estimate of weekly home production hours increases by as much as 4.92 h. The increase in the value of monthly home production between February and April updates to $73.57 billion. We also report the estimated impact of labor markets and telecommuting on home production for each month in 2020.
Virtual Reality for Smart Urban Lighting Design: Review, Applications and Opportunities

More and more cities are evolving into smart cities, increasing their attractiveness, energy efficiency, and users’ satisfaction. Lighting systems play an important role in the evolution process, thanks to their ability to affect city life at night along with people’s mood and behaviour. In this scenario, advanced lighting design methods such as virtual reality (VR) became essential to assess lighting systems from different points of view, especially those linked with the city users’ expectations. Initially, the review highlights a list of objective and subjective parameters to be considered for the lighting design of three main city areas/applications: roads, green areas and buildings. Besides, the state-of-art in using VR for outdoor lighting design is established. Finally, the Unreal game engine is used to analyse the ability of VR to take into account the lighting parameters, not yet investigated in current literature and to highlight the VR potential for augmenting lighting design. The results confirm the benefit of using VR in lighting design, even if further investigations are needed to establish its reliability, especially from the photometrical point of view.
Diffusion tensor tractography of brainstem fibers and its application in pain

Evaluation of brainstem pathways with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and tractography may provide insights into pathophysiologies associated with dysfunction of key brainstem circuits. However, identification of these tracts has been elusive, with relatively few in vivo human studies to date. In this paper we proposed an automated approach for reconstructing nine brainstem fiber trajectories of pathways that might be involved in pain modulation. We first performed native-space manual tractography of these fibers in a small normative cohort of participants and confirmed the anatomical precision of the results using existing anatomical literature. Second, region-of-interest pairs were manually defined at each extracted fiber’s termini and nonlinearly warped to a standard anatomical brain template to create an atlas of the region-of-interest pairs. The resulting atlas was then transformed non-linearly into the native space of 17 veteran patients’ brains for automated brainstem tractography. Lastly, we assessed the relationships between the integrity levels of the obtained fiber bundles and pain severity levels. Fractional anisotropy (FA) measures derived using automated tractography reflected the respective tracts’ FA levels obtained via manual tractography. A significant inverse relationship between FA and pain levels was detected within the automatically derived dorsal and medial longitudinal fasciculi of the brainstem. This study demonstrates the utility of DTI in exploring brainstem circuitries involved in pain processing. In this context, the described automated approach is a viable alternative to the time-consuming manual tractography. The physiological and functional relevance of the measures derived from automated tractography is evidenced by their relationships with individual pain severities.
Platinum Group Elements Mineralogy, Beneficiation, and Extraction Practices – An Overview

ABSTRACT Platinum group elements have become imperative to many modern industrial applications (automobiles, jewelry, pharmaceuticals, electronics, fuel cells, etc.) but are mined in only a few places. Characterization followed by beneficiation and extraction of these elements has many challenges for the applied mineralogist and mineral engineers due to its ultratrace concentration (2–4 ppm), small grain size (1–50 µm), and multiple associations (sulfides, tellurides, arsenides, antimonides, chromites, silicates, etc.). The important platinum minerals identified in different areas are sperrylite, sudburyite, braggite, hollingworthite, cooperite, laurite, geversite, kotulskite, michenerite, etc. This review critically discusses and gives an update on the classification and mineralogy of platinum group element ores around the world and also assesses the beneficiation practices and developed process flowsheets for recovery of platinum group element values. The extraction process routes to recover high purity of platinum group elements are also reviewed. The classification briefly describes the different types of ore deposits. The mineralogical analysis gives a general idea about the distribution and behavior of the platinum group element ores; also it helps to choose the beneficiation techniques. A brief summary of the different beneficiation and extraction techniques practiced at different places are discussed in detail. Flotation and enhanced gravity separation techniques used in some of the major platinum group metal producing plants for recovery of the platinum group of elements are also highlighted and conclusions are presented.
Overexpression of SP6 Correlates with Osteosarcoma Metastasis and Poor Prognosis

Background: SP6 (Specificity protein 6) has been explored as a prospective biomarker in several cancers. In this research, the prognostic value of SP6 expression in osteosarcoma was predicted by bioinformatics analysis. Data were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Methods: Gene expression data and clinical materials were downloaded from the GSE21257 dataset. The mRNA expression of SP6 was compared between metastatic and non-metastatic tissues with the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and the relationship between SP6 and clinicopathological characters was analysed using logistic regression. In addition, the correlation between SP6 and survival rate was assessed using KaplanMeier and Cox regression. Moreover, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to determine the prognostic merit of SP6 for osteosarcoma. The biological functions of SP6 were annotated and evaluated through gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and gene set variation analysis (GSVA). Results: SP6 was significantly highly expressed in metastatic osteosarcoma tissues (p = 0.002). High SP6 expression showed a positive correlation with Huvos grade (OR = 6.60 for I vs. II, p = 0.028). The overall survival (OS) of the patients with high SP6 expression was significantly poorer than the low SP6 expression group (p = 0.027). The multivariate analysis revealed that SP6 expression (p = 0.002, HR = 15.40 (95% CI [2.84–83.44])) was independently correlated with OS. GSEA and GSVA showed that "spliceosome" and "base excision repair" were significantly upregulated in the high expression group of SP6. Conclusion: SP6 may serve an independent prognostic biomarker in osteosarcoma.
Erratum: Online information on chia seeds – A systematic content analysis

There has been a recent increase in interest in chia seeds as a growing number of people try to observe a healthy lifestyle, particularly healthy eating habits. Given the increasing popularity of chia seeds in Hungary as well, we performed a study to examine what information on chia seeds is available on Hungarian websites.We conducted a systematic, qualitative content analysis to examine the first 200 Hungarian results of a Google search on “chia seeds”. We identified five main topics: 1. general information, 2. effects/side-effects, 3. modes of preparation, 4. target audience, and 5. tone of the article. Sometimes information (especially on the effects) was presented in a sensationalist manner, and some claims were not scientifically well-founded, but rather based on subjective opinion.In the online media, chia seed consumption was mainly recommended for those who are trying to lose weight and for diabetics, even though there is currently no proof that it can improve the condition of such people. Further studies are needed to demonstrate and confirm claims related to the beneficial effects of the chia seed. Until this has been done, readers of Google-search results – especially those who have a health condition – should be cautious about certain statements published on non-scientific websites.
Proof of the Ability of Hedge Funds’ Activists to Restructure Target Firms

We study the ability of hedge funds to restructure target firms. A purchase of at least 3% of a target firm’s stake is subject to a 13D SEC Filing in the US. We use these filings to investigate the impact of such transactions in the period 2009–2020. Our method of choice is the event study approach. We set the event on the date of the transaction and compute cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) within a specified event window. Based on accounting metrics, such as return on equity and return on assets, we study how restructuring impacts target company’s capital structure. Based on SEC Section 13G filings, we are further able to distinguish between acquisitions with active and passive aims. We find that firms targeted for active purposes achieve higher abnormal returns and overall higher performance. We further look on the impact of the overall stock-market cycle on abnormal returns. We find that the level of abnormal returns for actively targeted companies remains higher with no regard to the market cycle. Based on these findings, we draw conclusions on the overall impact of hedge fund activism.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of News Management Software’s: A Study of Pakistan News Channels

Technological innovations and its implementation in different organizations has been one of the prime interest of academicians as well as practitioners. The diffusion and implementation of information systems invited researchers to check effectiveness of the systems. The current study is using the Delone and Mclean as theoretical framework in context of media organizations. Sample data has been collected from top 15 news channels employees who are using news management software. A sample of 1000 was selected from these channels with the help of stratified sampling technique. Data were analysed by using the structural equation modelling. The results show that employees perceive that service quality, system quality and information quality are significant contributor to news flow and individual performance. Moreover, news flow is directly and indirectly affecting the individual performance. In addition to this, individual performance is significant predictor of process performance, satisfaction and organizational performance. The result strongly supports the integration of news flow and satisfaction in Delone and Mclean model. The results also support the mediating role of news flow, process performance and satisfaction. The paper offers a snapshot that how quality indicators and user satisfaction from news management system can increase the effectiveness of media organization. The research would be a great value to practitioners and media organizations.
Structural Safety Assessment of Connection between Sloshing Tank and 6-DOF Platform Using Co-Simulation of Fluid and Multi-Flexible-Body Dynamics

Prediction of sloshing loads, which is one of the most important issues in the design of LNG carriers, has usually been carried out by experiments. When designing a 6-DOF platform equipment used for sloshing experiments, it should target a system containing a fluid, not a solid, thereby making it difficult to predict precisely the dynamic load due to the changes of a center of mass according to the tank’s movement. In the present study, two-way co-simulation technology between DualSPHysics and RecurDyn has been developed to analyze the mechanical behavior in multi-body system coupled with fluid motion; in which DualSPHysics is an open-source code based on particle method for fluid analysis and RecurDyn a commercial software for multi-flexible-body dynamics (MFBD). The developed technology was applied to the sloshing problem inside a tank connected to an upper plate on a 6-DOF platform. The simulation results were verified through comparison with the experiments conducted for this study independently, such as snapshots of flow motion, pressure on the cargo hold, and force applied to the tank-platform connection. Finally, to investigate the effects of fluid dynamic load on structural safety assessment, a two-way co-simulation between fluid-MFBD analysis was performed for two cases filling partially with fluid and solid. As a result, it was concluded that the sloshing experiment system used in this study was quite safe, and the feasibility of using the present co-simulation technology for structural safety assessment was confirmed.
Organizational and Individual Innovation Decisions in an Interorganizational System: Social Influence and Decision-Making Authority

This study examines the processes of complex innovation adoption in an interorganizational system. It distinguishes the innovation adoption mechanisms of organizational-decision-makers (ODMs), who make authority adoption decisions on behalf of an organization, from individual-decision-makers (IDMs), who make optional innovation decisions in their own work practice. Drawing on the Theory of Reasoned Action and Social Information Processing Theory, we propose and test a theoretical model of interorganizational social influence. We surveyed government health-care workers, whose advice networks mostly span organizational boundaries, across 1,849 state health agencies in Bihar, India. The collective attitudes of coworkers and advice network members influence health-care workers’ attitudes and perceptions of social norms toward four types of innovations. However, individuals’ decision-making authority moderates these relationships; advisors’ attitudes have a greater influence on ODMs, while perceptions of social norms only influence IDMs. Notably, heterogeneity of advisors’ and coworkers’ attitudes negatively influence IDMs’ evaluations of innovations but not ODMs’.