Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estatística multivariada aplicada à diminuição do número de preditores no mapeamento digital do solo

The objective of this work was to assess the possibility of generating a smaller set of uncorrelated predictors, potentially applicable to digital soil mapping, by multivariate statistical analysis. The terrain attributes, elevation, slope, stream distance, planar curvature, profile curvature, relative available radiation, natural logarithm of the contributing area, topographic wetness index, and sediment transport capacity, were transformed by the Varimax method into the variables: altimetry, hydrology, and curvature. This transformation represented a variability concentration of 65.57% of the original data in the three new components. The new variables enable the use of a smaller amount of data set in prediction models, besides the fact that they are uncorrelated. Varimax rotation allows the relationship between environment and soil formation to be explicitly included in the prediction models.
Processing Unknown Words in HPSG

The lexical acquisition system presented in this paper increlnenlally updates linguistic properties of unknown words inferred lrom their surrounding conlexI by parsing senlences wilh an liPSG gramnmr for Gerlmm. We employ a gradual, infornmtionbased concept of "tlnknowntless" providing a uniform treatment for the range oi completely known to maximally unknown lexical entries. "Unknown" information is viewed as revisable inR)rmation, which is either generalizable or specializable. Updating takes place after parsing, which only requires a modified lexical lookup. Revisable pieces of informalion are idenlilied by grammar-specilied declaralions which provide access pmhs into lhe parse feature slructure. The updating nlechanism revises the c o l responding places in the lexical lcalure stmclures iff the conlext actually provides new information. For revising generalizable inlbrmalioi< (ype union is required. A worked-out example demonstrates the inIercntial capacily of our implemented system.
Influence of Varying Dry Matter and Molasses Levels on Berseem and Lucerne Silage Characteristics and Their In situ Digestion Kinetics in Nili Buffalo Bulls

Influences of forage DM and addition of cane molasses on silage characteristics of berseem (Trifolium alexandrium) and lucerne (Medicago sativa) and their ruminal digestion kinetics in Nili buffaloes were studied. Berseem and lucerne fodders (at one tenth bloom) were ensiled with wheat straw in laboratory silos to achieve 20, 30, 40% forage DM and without wheat straw (control); each forage DM level was supplemented with 2, 4 and 6% of cane molasses at ensiling. The pH and lactic acid contents of berseem and lucerne silages were affected by both forage DM and addition of molasses. Dry matter, CP and true protein (TP) of berseem and lucerne silages were affected by forage DM at ensiling but were not affected by the addition of cane molasses. Higher DM, CP and TP losses were observed when berseem and lucerne fodders were ensiled either without wheat straw or with wheat straw to achieve 20% and 40% forage DM at ensiling compared with 30% DM at ensiling. Fiber fractions (NDF, ADF, hemicellulose and cellulose) of berseem silage and lucerne silage were significantly increased with increasing forage DM at ensiling. Addition of cane molasses did not affect the DM, CP, TP and fiber fractions of both berseem and lucerne silages. Berseem and lucerne ensiled at 30% DM with 2% cane molasses were screened for comparative ruminal digestion kinetics with their respective fodders. Addition of wheat straw to berseem or lucerne fodder at ensiling depressed DM and NDF ruminal degradability. However, ruminal lag time, rate of degradation and extent of digestion of silages were similar to their respective fodders. In conclusion, berseem and lucerne could be ensiled with wheat straw to increase their DM to 30% along with 2% molasses for buffaloes.
Semi-Automatic Recognition of Noun Modifier Relationships

Semantic relationships among words and phrases are often marked by explicit syntactic or lexical clues that help recognize such rela~ tionships in texts. Within complex nominals, however, few overt clues are available. Systems that analyze such nominals must compensate for the lack of surface clues with other information. One way is to load the system with lexical semantics for nouns or adjectives. This merely shifts the problem elsewhere: how do we define the lexical semantics and build large semantic lexicons? Another way is to find constructions similar to a given complex nominal, for which the relationships are already known. This is the way we chose, but it too has drawbacks. Similarity is not easily assessed, similar analyzed constructions may not exist, and if they do exist, their analysis may not be appropriate for the current nominal. We present a semi-automatic system that identifies semantic relationships in noun phrases without using precoded noun or adjective semantics. Instead, partial matching on previously analyzed noun phrases leads to a tentative interpretation of a new input. Processing can start without prior analyses, but the early stage requires user interaction. As more noun phrases are analyzed, the system learns to find better interpretations and reduces its reliance on the user. In experiments on English technical texts the system correctly identiffed 60-70% of relationships automatically.
Taxonomic status of section Neuropogon in the genus Usnea elucidated by morphological comparisons and ITS rDNA sequences

The taxonomic position of the Neuropogon group, as inferred from the morphology of representative species of the group and ITS sequences from Usnea antarctica and U. sphacelata, is discussed. Morphological observations revealed that the Neuropogon group does not have annular-pseudocyphellae, which are characteristic of the subgenus Dolichousnea, or a fistulose axis, which is characteristic of the subgenus Eumitria. In addition, the hypothecium of Neuropogon is thin, and the iodine reaction in the axis is negative. These features are consistent with those of the subgenus Usnea. Within the subgenus Usnea, Neuropogon is morphologically distinct from sections Usnea and Ceratinae (i.e. having a sphacelata-type cortex, black pigmentation of the upper thallus and a dark brown apothecial disc). The molecular data suggest that U. antarctica and U. sphacelata are members of the subgenus Usnea and are less closely related to subgenera Dolichousnea and Eumitria. The morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis suggest that the Neuropogon group is a member of the subgenus Usnea at the level of a section, and the appropriate name for this group is subgenus Usnea section Neuropogon (Nees & Flot.) Mont.
Phylogenetic relationships and neotenic evolution of Metzgeriopsis (Lejeuneaceae) based on chloroplast DNA sequences and morphology

The systematic position of the enigmatic Asiatic liverwort Metzgeriopsis pusilla (Marchantiophyta), the single thalloid member of the largest family of leafy liverworts, Lejeuneaceae, was investigated based on sequences of the rbcL gene and the trnL-F region of chloroplast DNA, and morphology. Metzgeriopsis is not phylogenetically isolated from other taxa of Lejeuneaceae, as previously suggested, but is nested within Cololejeunea. The two genera share many morphological features, especially in the sporophyte generation, which is newly described. Metzgeriopsis and Cololejeunea are members of the Tuyamaella–Cololejeunea clade, characterized by neotenic features that probably evolved as adaptations to ephemeral habitats in tropical rain forests. Three different types of neoteny occur in this clade, which apparently originated by multiple heterochronic events. Within Lejeuneaceae, protonemal neoteny is unique to Metzgeriopsis and apparently resulted by evolution from a primary neotenic ancestor. The occurrence of protonemal neoteny in bryophytes is briefly reviewed and two types are recognized: species having a persistent thalloid protonema and species having a persistent filamentous protonema. The thalloid type is very rare and exclusive to epiphyllous liverworts, whereas the filamentous type is much more common and is characteristic of many terrestrial bryophytes, including the rare genus Protocephalozia. The new combination Cololejeunea metzgeriopsis (K.I.Goebel) comb. nov. is proposed. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 151, 293–308.
Geoparsing the historical Gazetteers of Scotland: accurately computing location in mass digitised texts

This paper describes work in progress on devising automatic and parallel methods for geoparsing large digital historical textual data by combining the strengths of three natural language processing (NLP) tools, the Edinburgh Geoparser, spaCy and defoe, and employing different tokenisation and named entity recognition (NER) techniques. We apply these tools to a large collection of nineteenth century Scottish geographical dictionaries, and describe preliminary results obtained when processing this data.
Optimisme Disposisional dan Pengukurannya pada Orang Usia Lanjut

The elderly as a vulnerable group of people in the community has various physical, psychological and social adversities in their life. In this age, someone who is of old age should have a positive attribute that could help the person to achieve a life with quality. Dispositional optimism is an individual’s positive attribute that could give a positive impact to elderly people. This paper reviewed theories related to dispositional optimism by reviewing existing literature. Indicators and measurement of dispositional optimism also discussed in this paper. Dispositional optimism theory was reviewed from the perspective of the initial founder of the theory and then further looked at its development in global application. Indicators of dispositional optimism were discussed to further understand the process of measurement of the concept itself. The measurement of dispositional optimism was often referred to as the Life Orientation Test scale, which was developed into various kinds of similar tests in order to use the test in other settings. The discussion in this paper hopefully could provide knowledge regarding dispositional optimism in elderly people especially future research in an Indonesian setting.
The CoNLL-2014 Shared Task on Grammatical Error Correction

The CoNLL-2014 shared task was devoted to grammatical error correction of all error types. In this paper, we give the task definition, present the data sets, and describe the evaluation metric and scorer used in the shared task. We also give an overview of the various approaches adopted by the participating teams, and present the evaluation results. Compared to the CoNLL2013 shared task, we have introduced the following changes in CoNLL-2014: (1) A participating system is expected to detect and correct grammatical errors of all types, instead of just the five error types in CoNLL-2013; (2) The evaluation metric was changed from F1 to F0.5, to emphasize precision over recall; and (3) We have two human annotators who independently annotated the test essays, compared to just one human annotator in CoNLL-2013.
Selection of membranes for puriﬁcation of fructooligosaccharides

The aim of this study was to purify fructooligosaccharides (FOS) present in a mixture of sugars, containing also glucose, fructose and sucrose through, nanoﬁltration membranes. Four membranes were used: NP010 and NP030 (Microdyn Nadir, Germany), Desal−5 DL and Desal−5 HL (GE Water & Process Technologies). Experimental assays were performed in a dead-end cell and tangential cell ﬁltration to select the most appropriate membrane. Then, with the membrane selected performed diaﬁ ltration in tangential cell ﬁ ltration up to a concentration about 80% FOS. In the dead-end ﬁltration cell experiments the NP010, NP030, HL and DL membranes were selected, since they performed the highest retentions of FOS, and lowest retention of glucose. The results showed that NP030 membrane performed the highest differences between the retention of FOS and sucrose, where the retentions of the different saccharides were: fructooligosaccharides (Robs = 0.66), glucose (R obs = 0.18), fructose (R obs = 0.15) and sucrose (R obs = 0.24).
Targeted proteomics to identify cadmium-induced protein modifications in Glomus mosseae-inoculated pea roots.

• Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) can increase plant tolerance to heavy metals. A targeted proteomic approach was used to determine the putative identity of some of the proteins induced/modulated by cadmium (Cd) and to analyse the impact of the mycorrhizal process. • The effect of Cd (100 mg Cd kg-1 substrate) applied either at planting or 15 d later on two pea (Pisum sativum) genotypes, differing in sensitivity to Cd inoculated or not with the AM fungus Glomus mosseae, was studied at three levels: plant biomass production, development of G. mosseae and root differential protein display with one- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (1-DE and 2-DE) analyses. • Cd-induced growth inhibition was significantly alleviated by mycorrhiza in the Cd-sensitive genotype. The AM symbiosis modulated the expression of several proteins, identified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, newly induced and upregulated or downregulated by Cd. • The protective effect of AM symbiosis towards Cd stress was observed in the Cd-sensitive genotype. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of proteomics to better understand the possible role of AM symbiosis in detoxification/response mechanisms towards Cd in pea plants.
Bat (Chiroptera) assemblages in three Cerrado fragments of Mato Grosso do Sul, southwestern Brazil

Despite its high species richness and large area, the Brazilian Cerrado is a generally undervalued and under-protected biome. There are relatively few published studies of bat assemblages in this area. We surveyed for bats using mist-nets from April–November 2013 within and around Campo Grande, Brazil in an urban fragment, an agricultural fragment, and a larger fragment of continuous forest. We captured 508 individuals from 21 species representing four families: Phyllostomidae (10), Molossidae (6), Vespertilionidae (4), and Noctilionidae (1). Phyllostomids accounted for 91.73% of captures. The most common species were Artibeus planirostris (27.76%), Artibeus lituratus (21.06%), and Sturnira lilium (11.61%). There was variation between the sites: richness and diversity was highest in the continuous forest and lowest in the urban fragment. Evenness was highest in the rural fragment. The least similar sites were the urban fragment and the continuous forest; similarity was greatest between the rural site and continuous forest.
Herbivore and neighbour effects on tundra plants depend on species identity, nutrient availability and local environmental conditions

1 I performed a factorial transplant experiment to test the roles of plant–plant interactions, herbivory by mammal grazers and resource availability for plant performance in two contrasting habitat types in a mountain tundra environment. 2 Three perennial dicot herbs, Solidago virgaurea, Erigeron uniflorus and Saussurea alpina, were used as target plants to study the effects of neighbour removal and grazer exclusion, and nutrient enrichment and liming on plant growth, survival and reproductive success. These treatments were replicated in two contrasting habitat types, infertile acidic and fertile non‐acidic tundra heaths. 3 The effects of plant–plant interactions on Saussurea varied from facilitation in infertile acidic habitats to competition in fertile non‐acidic habitats and in nutrient‐enriched conditions, while the overall performance of Saussurea was strongly negatively influenced by the presence of grazers, the effects being greater when plants were fertilized and in fertile non‐acidic heaths. Erigeron performed better under nutrient‐enriched conditions than in unfertilized plots, when neighbours had been removed. Solidago was negatively affected by grazing and this impact was greater in nutrient‐enriched plots and in non‐acidic heaths than in acidic heaths and for unfertilized controls. There were no interactions between neighbour removal and herbivory in any of the three species, indicating that these processes operated independently. 4 Grazer‐preferred tall plants are strongly limited by consumption by mammal herbivores in nutrient‐enriched conditions and in inherently fertile habitats. By contrast, arctic–alpine specialists and species of low stature experience increased competition with neighbouring vegetation in fertile habitats and in enriched nutrient conditions. 5 Synthesis. Overall, the results suggest that the strength and directions of plant–plant and plant–herbivore interactions depend on plant species identity and are modified by soil edaphic factors to govern vegetation processes in tundra plant communities. These findings have important implications for understanding the forces structuring vegetation in barren tundra ecosystems under a changing environment.
Genetic diversity of Puccinia striiformis from cereals in Alberta, Canada

Stripe rust of wheat caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici has recently become a production problem on wheat in Alberta, Canada, and stripe rust of barley caused by P. striiformis f. sp. hordei occurs regularly. A total of 261 isolates of P. striiformis were collected from wheat, barley, Hordeum jubatum and triticale plants in Alberta, Canada from 2007 to 2012, and compared to isolates from other provinces and the USA. The genetic diversity of the pathogen was assessed using 11 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and by examining a length polymorphism in the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) intergenic spacer 1 (IGS1) region. A total of 28 SSR genotypes were detected within Alberta. The 13 genotypes common on wheat (P. striiformis f. sp. tritici) were distinct from the 15 genotypes common on barley (P. striiformis f. sp. hordei). Four SSR genotypes, two within each forma specialis, represented 85% of the isolates recovered. Genotypic diversity was low, population genetic analysis indicated a clonal structure, and the genotypes were widely dispersed. In both formae speciales, the dominant genotype varied between years. The second most common P. striiformis f. sp. hordei genotype was found to be more closely related to older P. striiformis f. sp. tritici genotypes from the USA than to other P. striiformis f. sp. hordei genotypes.
Lipid-induced conformational transitions of β-lactoglobulin

Bovine β-lactoglobulin (βLG) provides an excellent model protein system for β-to-α conformational change, but its behavior varies when the change is induced by alcohols, surfactants, or lipid vesicles. Here the interaction and orientation of βLG in association with various artificial lipid vesicles at neutral and acidic pH have been studied by use of several complementary spectroscopic techniques. Circular dichroism (CD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra demonstrated that βLG acquires a non-native α-helical structure upon binding with anionic lipids, while zwitterionic lipids do not have a significant effect on its conformation. The degree of induced α-helix depends on the lipid concentration and is strongly affected by the charge of the protein and lipids as well as the ionic strength of the solution. Near-UV CD and Trp emission spectra revealed that the tertiary structure of lipid-bound βLG is highly expanded but not completely disrupted. Fluorescence quenching together with a Trp emission b.
Challenges of Applying Automatic Speech Recognition for Transcribing EU Parliament Committee Meetings: A Pilot Study

Challenges of Applying Automatic Speech Recognition for Transcribing EUParliament Committee Meetings: A Pilot StudyHugo de Vos and Suzan VerberneInstitute of Public Administration and Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden Universityh.p.de.vos@fgga.leidenuniv. nl, s.verberne@liacs.leidenuniv. nlAbstractWe tested the feasibility of automatically transcribing committee meetings of the European Union parliament with the use of AutomaticSpeech Recognition techniques. These committee meetings contain more valuable information for political science scholars than theplenary meetings since these meetings showcase actual debates opposed to the more formal plenary meetings. However, since there areno transcriptions of those meetings, they are a lot less accessible for research than the plenary meetings, of which multiple corpora exist.We explored a freely available ASR application and analysed the output in order to identify the weaknesses of an out-of-the box system.We followed up on those weaknesses by proposing directions for optimizing the ASR for our goals. We found that, despite showcasingacceptable results in terms of Word Error Rate, the model did not yet suffice for the purpose of generating a data set for use in PoliticalScience. The application was unable to successfully recognize domain specific terms and names. To overcome this issue, future researchwill be directed at using domain specific language models in combination with off-the-shelf acoustic models.
The effect of domain and text type on text prediction quality

Text prediction is the task of suggesting text while the user is typing. Its main aim is to reduce the number of keystrokes that are needed to type a text. In this paper, we address the influence of text type and domain differences on text prediction quality. By training and testing our text prediction algorithm on four different text types (Wikipedia, Twitter, transcriptions of conversational speech and FAQ) with equal corpus sizes, we found that there is a clear effect of text type on text prediction quality: training and testing on the same text type gave percentages of saved keystrokes between 27 and 34%; training on a different text type caused the scores to drop to percentages between 16 and 28%. In our case study, we compared a number of training corpora for a specific data set for which training data is sparse: questions about neurological issues. We found that both text type and topic domain play a role in text prediction quality. The best performing training corpus was a set of medical pages from Wikipedia. The second-best result was obtained by leave-one-out experiments on the test questions, even though this training corpus was much smaller (2,672 words) than the other corpora (1.5 Million words).
Determination of neutral sugars and hexosamines by high-performance liquid chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection

Procedures are described using high-performance liquid chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection for the measurement of neutral sugars and amino sugars released upon acid hydrolysis of non-starch polysaccharides. One procedure measures the neutral sugars with near-baseline separation in a 36 min run. The second procedure measures amino sugars and all neutral sugars except rhamnose and arabinose, which co-elute under the conditions described, in a 40 min run. Neutral sugars released from non-starch polysaccharides are ionized at high pH and separated by anion-exchange chromatography using NaOH as the eluent. When hexosamines or N-acetylhexosamines are present, as in mycoprotein and mushrooms or in ileostomy effluent, separation is achieved isocratically using 0.1 mmol dm–3 NaOH. The sulfate ions present in the hydrolysate are prevented from reaching the analytical column by a pre-column guard. Post-column addition of 300 mmol dm–3 NaOH increases the analytical signal and minimizes baseline drift. When only neutral sugars are present in the hydrolysate a single dilution step is required before analysis. When neutral sugars and hexosamines are present, a simple two-step neutralization and dilution are performed before injection.