Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oak as a commercial crop in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Summary The main period of the exploitation of the Atlantic oakwoods lasted from around 1700 –1900, and was intense only from 1750–1850, though it had been preceded by a long period of anthropogenic interference of which medieval boatbuilding at least had the potential to alter the character of the woods. The Irish were pioneers when they began to search the coast from the Solway to the Great Glen for fresh supplies of oak bark for their tanning industry, and early in the 18th century this involved an attempt to buy large swathes of Argyll oakwoods, and also to create iron works at Glen Kinglas to utilise local charcoal. This failed, but by mid-century English ironmasters had followed them at Bunawe and Craleckan, works ambitious enough to draw fuel from most of the area within reach of the sea, and this led to greater care being taken of the woods involving the exclusion of stock, systematic rotational coppicing and apparently species selection in favour of oak. Management for tanbark by Scots to supply Scottish markets outpaced charcoaling before 1800, however, and affected areas like Loch Lomondside and Perthshire far from the sea, with similar consequences. A crisis developed when the tanbark and charcoal markets collapsed, notably after 1840, but it took another generation of owners to adapt. Before the end of the century, coppice was largely abandoned, though in places where there were pyroligneous acid works or opportunities to sell spoke wood, the practice lingered on. Generally, however, stock were readmitted, and the woods converted to high forest or game coverts.
Comprehensive Evaluation of Rutting of Warm-Mix Asphalt Utilizing Long-Term Pavement Performance Specific Pavement Studies

Warm-mix asphalt (WMA) technologies allow binder softening for compaction benefits. Lower production temperature also causes reduced short-term aging in WMA. Considering the long-term implication of the reduced aging and binder softening, WMA is being questioned about its rutting characteristics. As such, this study evaluates different WMA technologies for rutting characteristics in comparison to traditional hot-mix asphalt (HMA) through laboratory and field investigation. The study utilized the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) project in the state of New Mexico called Specific Pavement Study-10 (SPS-10), which was designed to evaluate the WMA performances. The LTPP SPS-10 section includes: (i) control HMA, (ii) foaming, (iii) Evotherm, (iv) Cecabase 1, and (v) Cecabase 2 mixtures. Cecabase 2 mixture consists of a polymer-modified binder (PG 70-28+), whereas other mixtures consist of PG 70-28 binder. The aggregate type, properties, and gradations are the same in all the sections. Laboratory evaluation of rutting was conducted through the Hamburg wheel tracking test. Long-term field rutting was evaluated through Mandli’s pavement profile scanner, a laser-based distress evaluation technology. The study found that WMA with foaming, Evotherm, or Cecabase shows slightly higher rutting compared with the control HMA; however, all the sections satisfied laboratory and field rutting criteria. The use of a polymer-modified binder in WMA significantly improves the rutting characteristics.
Parental investment and the control of sexual selection: can sperm competition affect the direction of sexual competition?

We investigate the effect of sperm competition on potential reproductive rates (PRRS) of the sexes for the case where there is just one mating per female reproductive cycle: there may be no sperm competition if all the sperm are used from the immediate prior mating, or sperm competition if ejaculates overlap temporally across several clutches. Sperm competition per se cannot affect male PRR, though adaptive adjustments to the male time budget because of sperm competition can change male PRR. The most obvious effect of increased sperm competition in a species would be a general increase in male time out of mate searching activity because of greater time expenditure on gamete replenishment, arising from the heavier sperm demand under sperm competition. This would act to reduce male PRR, but this may not be a large effect because time out for sperm replenishment is often a low fraction of total male time budget. Where there is paternal care, this may be reduced in species were there is high sperm competition risk, which in turn may generally increase male PRR. Variations in the levels of sperm competition experienced by males with different females within a species may also promote facultative optima for times out (spent in sperm replenishment or in paternal care) which may affect male PRR, though less obviously, because the mean PRR may not be greatly affected by adaptive variation.
An in vitro assessment of phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae Fitch) (Hom., Phylloxeridae) life cycle

Phylloxera single founder lineages were maintained in an aseptic, dual‐culture system to investigate the phylloxera life cycle, focusing on holocycle induction. Holocyclic morphs were developed on the grape rootstock 41B and they produced vital sexuales. The morphological development of sexual stages was studied and an assessment of genetic variation within a single founder lineage was performed. Twenty individual phylloxera of differing stages (apterous parthenogenetic, pre‐sexual nymphs, sexuparae and sexuals) were genetically fingerprinted using amplified fragment length polymorphism‐polymerase chain reaction technology. Four individuals displayed differing banding patterns, exhibiting three different independent genotypes. No influence of the morphal stage on these patterns could be detected. This study did not achieve phylloxera matings. However, the system could serve as a tool for future studies, performing controlled and systematic crosses and back‐crosses to examine Mendelian genetics.
New microsatellite markers for the snow crab Chionoecetes opilio (Brachyura: Majidae)

Five microsatellite markers were developed for the snow crab ( Chionoecetes opilio ) and polymerase chain reaction conditions and/or primer sequences of three previously developed microsatellites were adapted for fluorescent labelling analysis. All loci were analysed in 449 individuals from 11 sampling sites in the northwest Atlantic. The high degree of polymorphism exhibited by these microsatellites (mean of 34 alleles per locus and mean observed heterozygosity of 0.76) suggests that they will be suitable for spatial and temporal genetic analysis of C. opilio populations.
Heterogeneous Acceleration of HAR Applications

Human action recognition (HAR) is an important field of research that intercepts with areas such as image processing, computer vision, and the design of fast algorithms, among others. HAR has several important applications including healthcare monitoring, security and surveillance, assisted living, smart homes, and video search and indexing. Despite recent developments in the field, major challenges remain. For instance, HAR is computationally expensive. Tasks such as video preprocessing, feature extraction, feature quantization, and feature classification require the execution of millions of arithmetic operations for a video sequence lasting a few seconds. To address these problems, we propose a <italic>heterogeneous</italic> approach that is based on an extensive algorithmic and experimental analysis of the histogram of gradients application. We divide the application into four stages and evaluate each on the CPU, GPU, and FPGA platforms. Our heterogeneous design combines the strengths of both the FPGA and GPU platforms, and achieves a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.3X$ </tex-math></inline-formula> speedup compared with a state-of-the-art GPU while being <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.5X$ </tex-math></inline-formula> more energy efficient than other homogeneous solutions, including FPGA-based designs. Moreover, our heterogeneous HAR design using fixed-point arithmetic has comparable accuracy to those of HAR algorithms using single precision floating point arithmetic.
Ecological mechanisms and landscape ecology

Landscape ecology deals with the effects of the spatial configuration of mosaics on a wide variety of ecological phenomena. Because problems in many areas of conservation biology and resource management are related to landscape use, development of a rigorous theoretical and empirical foundation for landscape ecology is essential. We present an approach to research that focuses on how individual-level mechanisms operating in a heterogeneous mosaic produce ecological patterns that are spatially dependent. The theoretical framework that we develop considers the density and distribution of a population among patches as a function of (a) within-patch movement patterns of individuals; (b) emigration from patches as a function of population density, patch configuration, patch context, and within-patch movement; and (c) loss of individuals as they disperse through landscape elements
Effect of Exercise and Zoledronic Acid on Lipid Profile and Bone Remodeling in Ovariectomized Rats

Exercise (EXE) and amino-bisphosphonates (BP) are both considered as useful strategies in the prevention of post-menopausal bone loss. Exercise reduces lipid levels, and BP may induce increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). We hypothesized that combined effects of BP and exercise would produce a better improvement of lipid profile. (Dolléans, 2010) Non pharmacological prevention of osteoporosis fracture by physical activity and particularly regular exercises (EXE) characterized by impact or loading is currently recommended.The effect of regular exercise on the Lipid profile has been developed in a lot of studies It has been recently demonstrated that increasing steps walked may have beneficial effects on serum lipids and thus may decrease the cardio vascular disease risks. Conversely, physical activity, and more specifically mechanical stress, has been shown to induce an osteogenic effect mediated by osteocytes and osteoblasts. (Howe, 2011) Sixty 6-month old Wistar female rats were maintained under the standard environmental conditions of light and temperature, (12 h light: 12 h dark photoperiod, at 24 ±2 oC) with free access to water. They were divided into 3 groups according to methods of induction
Icatibant is not helpful for the treatment of ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema

<p>A critical appraisal and clinical application of Sinert R, Levy P, Bernstein JA, et al. Randomized trial of icatibant for angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor-induced upper airway angioedema. <em>J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract</em>. 2017; 5(5): 1402-1409. doi: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip. 2017.03. 003">10.1016/j.jaip. 2017.03. 003</a>. </p>
On a Class of Arrays Leading to Factorial Fractions II

Recently we (Adhikary and Das 1986) have introduced a class of arrays, called grouped arrays (GA) and analysed them as main-effect (m .e) plans. Here we have considered the analysis as genera I fractional factorial plans and have shown that the estimates obtained obey a generalised concept of orthogonility and balancedness.
A Flexible Power Control for PV-Battery Hybrid System Using Cascaded H-Bridge Converters

The cascaded H-bridge (CHB) is a good candidate to integrate multiple photovoltaic (PV) arrays into the power grid. However, due to the internal uncertain power supply of renewable sources, it is difficult to meet the power grid power command with only PV arrays. To overcome this limitation, a CHB converter with both PV arrays and energy storage units in the dc rails is proposed in this paper. First, a two-layer hierarchical control is developed for independent PQ control and power distribution among each CHB cell, while meeting with the grid PQ reference command at the same time (P represents “active power” and Q represents “reactive power”). Then, a modified power management method is developed to adaptively modify the current power points for PV panels from their maximum power points to solve the potential overmodulation problem caused by frequent battery charging and discharging. With the proposed approach, a good harvesting of PV power can be ensured in various situations. Verification results are provided to validate the performance of the proposed system.
Effects of Air Traffic Congestion Delays under Several Flow-Management Policies

Air traffic delays occur when demand for airports or airspace exceeds available capacity. Consequently, these delay effects can be lessened by increasing capacity or by modifying the air traffic demand. Increasing capacity is an important solution, but it is a long-range option involving major changes such as facility construction, fundamental procedural changes, and improvements in navigational equipment. For short-term decision making a tactical-optimization model can suggest alternative flight plans to reduce delays. However, a tactical-optimization model is extremely complex because of the uncertainty in airport-capacity forecasts, which primarily depend on weather. A practical implementation of a tactical-optimization model must therefore make approximations so that a solution may be computed quickly and be of good quality. A practical model framework for the congestion-delay problem is given; this model framework is a generalization of several other flow-management models. Congested situations are simulated, to compare the practical performance of this model to other air traffic management tactics.
miR-204-5p promotes diabetic retinopathy development via downregulation of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a chronic and progressive complication of diabetes mellitus. DR impairs sight due to neuronal and vascular dysfunction in the retina. It is critical to investigate the pathogenesis of DR to develop effective treatment. In the present study, a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rat model was constructed and the expression of microRNA (miR)-204-5p and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were determined. Immunohistochemistry, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and western blotting were employed to detect the effects of miR-204-5p on the expression of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3B). RT-qPCR analysis demonstrated that miR-204-5p and VEGF were significantly upregulated in the retina tissue of diabetic rats compared with the control group (P<0.01). Immunohistochemistry and western blotting revealed that the protein expression levels of LC3B-II and the ratio of LC3B-II/LC3B-I were significantly suppressed in the diabetes group compared with the control (P<0.01). In retinal tissues, anti-miR-204-5p treatment significantly enhanced the protein expression levels of LC3B-II and the ratio of LC3B-II/LC3B-I and these levels were significantly reduced in response to miR-204-5p mimic treatment compared with the negative miR control (P<0.01). In rat retinal endothelial cells isolated from diabetic rats, anti-miR-204-5p treatment increased the number of autophagic vacuoles, and significantly promoted LC3B-II expression and the LC3B-II/LC3B-I ratio compared with the negative control (P<0.01). The results of the present study revealed that miR-204-5p downregulated the expression of LC3B-II to inhibit autophagy in DR. Therefore, miR-204-5p may be considered as a novel effective therapeutic target during the development of DR.
Nutritional Evaluation of Bee Wax Residue Meal in the Diet of Lactating Goat

2 Abstract: Nine West African dwarf goats were used to investigate the effect of bee wax residue meal on the lactation performance, feed intake and weight gain. Goats were fed a diet with or without bee wax residue meal in a completely randomized design model for a 156 day period. The three diets were A (control), B (1%) bee wax residue meal inclusion) C (3% bee wax residue meal inclusion). Water and feeding were given ad libitum. Supplementing the diet with bee wax residue meal increased the crude protein intake from 47 g -d -d also increased butter fat, protein, calcium and phosphorus contents. The potassium sodium and iron contents were significantly (p 0.05). It could be concluded that bee wax residue meal could be used to supplement lactating West African goats diet in the tropical environment.
Toward a survey instrument for investigating customer knowledge management in software companies

This paper presents a method of developing an instrument for Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) in Enterprise Software (ES) development. Knowledge-Based View (KBV) and Theory of Technology in a Generic CKM framework were used to demonstrate the Organizational, Human, and Technological factors that enable the CKM process. Human, Organizational and Technological CKM enablers were identified from the literature. The weight and priority of these factors were determined by experts from the ES development companies. Based on the high priority factors, we hypothesized the constructs and develop measurement items to be validated. The measurement items are adopted from the previous validated sources. The instrument was evaluated using content validity and a pilot study. A Content Validity Index (CVI) approach was used to validate the instruments in term of relevancy and simplicity. During the content validity, the number of measurement items was reduced from 50 to 46. Moreover, the survey questionnaire of this study can be used as the foundation for the development of policy as well as strategy to enhance the probability of successful implementing the CKM.
Comparative Survival Rates of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Blood, Following Spray-drying and Freeze-drying

The effect of two dehydration technologies, spray-drying and freeze-drying, on the viability of 12 lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were compared. All LAB cultures had been previously isolated from porcine blood and were candidates to be used as biopreservatives in order to maintain the quality of porcine blood until further processing to obtain added-value blood derivatives is carried out. The residual viability and the reductions in microbial counts in dried LAB samples at 20 °C and 5 °C during 60-day storage were determined. Cellular damage due to freeze-drying was observed immediately after drying whereas cellular damage due to spray-drying did not become evident until the subsequent phase of storage. For most of the strains, the faster decrease in viability of spray-dried as compared to freeze-dried cultures was compensated by the higher percentage of viable cells obtained after dehydration, leading to comparable survival rates at the end of the storage period. Dehydration resulted in a good alternative to freezing at 80 °C for preservation purposes. Spray-drying has been shown to be as suitable as freeze-drying for preserving LAB strains during a 2-month storage period. Results suggest the possibility of achieving a good formulation system for the LAB strains with a high number of viable cells to be used for the industrial development of bioprotective cultures.
Infrastructure expansion in Brazilian Airports: a slack analysis using a distance friction minimization

The present paper uses DEA and a distance friction minimization (DFM) approach with fixed factors developed by Suzuki and Nijkamp (2011) to assess the fitting between expected demand for the next 25 years and the infrastructure expansion investments announced by Infraero (Brazilian Airport Authority) for Rio de Janeiro International Airport.
dtalink: Faster probabilistic record linking and deduplication methods in Stata for large data files

Stata users often need to link records from two or more data files, or find duplicates within data files. Probabilistic linking methods are often used when the file(s) do not have reliable or unique identifiers, causing deterministic linking methods (such as Stata's merge or duplicates commands) to fail. For example, one might need to link files that only include inconsistently spelled names, dates of birth with typos or missing data, and addresses that change over time. Probabilistic linkage methods score each potential pair of records on the probability the two records match, so that pairs with higher overall scores indicate a better match than pairs with lower scores. Two user-written Stata commands for probabilistic linking exist (reclink and reclink2), but they do not scale efficiently. dtalink is a new program that offers streamlined probabilistic linking methods implemented in parallelized Mata code. Significant speed improvements make it practical to implement probabilistic linking methods on large, administrative data files (files with many rows or matching variables) and new features offer more flexible scoring and many-to-many matching techniques. The presentation introduces dtalink, discusses useful tips and tricks, and provides an example of linking Medicaid and birth certificates data.
In silico Sequence Analysis of Ectoine Biosynthesis Genes From Bacillus halodurans

Ectoine, a cyclic tetrahydropyrimidine (2-methyl-1,4,5,6-tetrahydropyrimidine-4-carboxylic acid) is a natural compound, which serves as a protective substance in many bacterial cells. Ectoine biosynthesis genes ectA , B and C were PCR amplified from genomic DNA of Bacillus halodurans . The amplified genes were cloned and nucleotide sequences were determined. The sequencing results showed that ectA , B and C genes contain 570 bp, 1284 bp and 390 bp long ORF encoding 189, 427 and 129 amino acids respectively Computational sequence analysis of nucleotides and amino acids revealed that the ectA , B and C sequences of Bacillus halodurans were conserved in many eubacteria.
Towards a Fine-Grained Access Control Mechanism for Privacy Protection and Policy Conflict Resolution

Access control is a security technique that specifies access rights to resources in a computing environment. As information systems nowadays become more complex, it plays an important role in authenticating and authorizing users and preventing an attacker from targeting sensitive information. However, no proper consideration has been fully investigated so far in privacy protection. While many studies have acknowledged this issue, recent studies have not provided a fine-grained access control system for data privacy protection. As the data set becomes larger, we have to confront more privacy challenges. For example, the access control mechanism must be able to guarantee fine-grained access control, privacy protection, conflicts and redundancies between rules of the same policy or between different policies. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive framework for enforcing attribute-based security policies stored in the JSON document together with the feature of data privacy protection and incorporates a policy structure based on the prioritization of functions to resolve conflicts at a fine-grained level called “Privacy aware access control model for policy conflict resolution”. We also use Polish notation for modeling condi-tional expressions which are the combination of subject, action, resource, and environment attributes so that privacy policies are flexible, dynamic and fine-grained. Experiments are carried out to two aspects (i) illustrate the relationship between the processing time for access decision and the complexity of policies;(ii) illustrate the relationship between the processing time for the traditional approach (single policy, multi-policy without priority) and our approach (multi-policy with priority). Experimental results show that the evaluation performance satisfies the privacy requirements defined by the user.