Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Songbird use of interior and edge floodplain forest sites along the Upper Mississippi River, USA, during spring migration and breeding seasons

ABSTRACT Floodplain forests of large rivers in the midwestern United States are naturally fragmented by sloughs, backwaters, wetlands, and shrub carr. On the highly altered Upper Mississippi River (UMR), resource managers want to protect and manage floodplain forests to benefit forest “interior” bird species. To discover bird relations with interior and edge floodplain forest, we characterized bird assemblages during spring migration and breeding season in 3 forest types: habitat in the interior of forest areas > 100 m from an edge, edges associated with interior areas, and other areas of forest not associated with an interior area (random sites) on the UMR between Hastings and Red Wing, Minnesota. The random sites represent the majority of UMR floodplain forest area because only a small percentage of forest occurs >100 m from edge. Estimated habitat characteristics did not differ among interior, edge, and random sites. Bird relative abundance, species richness, diversity, assemblage composition, and detections of all but one species (in spring) did not differ among interior, edge, and random sites during both seasons. Our results suggest a homogeneous bird assemblage across UMR floodplain forest in the study area during spring migration and the breeding season, and that individual forest bird species do not seem to be more abundant in interior or edge areas as we defined them.
BENDING AND COMPRESSION PERFORMANCE OF COMPOSITE TUBE REINFORCED FOAM CORE SANDWICH STRUCTURES

In some applications such as walls and roofs, it is important to supply low thermal conductivity and high bending stiffness to structures. Generally, foam materials are preferred, which have low thermal conductivity. However, bending stiffness and compression properties of foam materials are low. In this study, composite tubes were inserted to the foam core material to improve the compression and bending properties of the structure. Vacuum infusion method was used to manufacture the sandwich structures. To measure the bending stiffness, shear properties, and compression properties of the structure, three-point bending and compression tests were conducted according to ASTM standards, respectively. The manufacture procedure is very easy and can be applied large panels. The bending performance of the structure was compared to the foam core structure which does not include composite tubes. A parametric analysis was done to investigate the effect of the tube spacing and the diameter of the tubes on bending stiffness of the structure. According to the test results, the samples including tubes gave higher bending stiffness as compared to the samples without tubes.
Recognition of Dance Posture Using Motion Captured Images

: Country / western dance, also known as country and western dance, contains many traditional country-western music dance forms and styles that are stylistically aligned with American country and western traditions. Many of these dances were "tried and true" steps of dance that had been "aside" for many years and became popular under the names of "country-western", "cowboy" or "country". National dance in Texas is known as kicker dance. In this paper, the techniques introduced in recognizing dance types is based on motion-captured human skeleton data. In particular, the goal is to identify poses which are characteristic for each dance step performed, based on information on body joints. Here we propose to recognize the dance pose using Spatio Temporal Interest Points (STIP) and classify the same using a KNN classifier.
Production of β-Galactosidase Enzyme From lactobacillus acidophilus RK Isolated from Different Sources of Milk and Dairy Products

In this paper lactic acid bacteria were isolated from sheep milk, yoghurt, human milk, pasteurized milk and labneh . The isolate bacterial cells were purified , identified and screened to determine their capability for their production of β-galactosidase. Lacobacillus acidophilus RK was the best producer. In a trial to optimize the cultural conditions for maximum â-galactosidase production, different carbon source (glucose was the most suitable carbon source for both intracellular and extracellular enzyme production), acidifying activity (from 0.4 to 0.8). Compare the enzyme production between using free cells and immobilized cells . the immobilized cells were achieved higher production (1.901 U/ml) compared to the enzyme production by free cells (1.192 U/ml) . Studying the physiological and biochemical parameters that increase the production of â-galactosidase by the immobilized organism , 48h. was the best incubation period for both intracellular and extracellular enzymes respectively (1.724 , 1.562 Unit/ml) . The maximum production for the intera crude enzyme obtained from bacterial cells was at pH 4.8 (1.792 U/ml) , the incubation temperature at 40°C was the most suitable temperature for the production of both intra and extra-cellular â-galactosidase production from immobilized cell of lactobacillus acidophilus RK. (1.886 and 1.271 U/ml ). Key wards: Isolation, Lactic acid bacteria, 16S rDNA and â-D-galactosidase.
Robust Integrated Airline Scheduling with Chance Constraints

During planning and execution of their flights, airlines face complex decision-making processes: The operation of all aircraft according to a minimum-cost plan poses tremendous difficulties even for medium-sized airlines. Accordingly, the airline scheduling problem is historically decomposed into a collection of four subproblems: Schedule design, fleet assignment, aircraft routing, and crew pairing problems. The decomposition into subproblems reduces the required computational costs; the airline performance, however, often greatly deteriorates, given the sub-optimality of the solution or, in the worst case, infeasible solutions. With the incorporation of robustness into scheduling, solving the problem becomes further intractable. In this study, we design an integrated robust scheduling problem, which integrates the first three steps into a complex optimization problem, while considering chance constraints to ensure the overall on-time performance. An exact column generation-based algorithm and a fast hybrid algorithm that combines variable neighborhood search with column generation are developed to efficiently solve the problem. Based on a real schedule from a Chinese airline, the benefits of this fully integrated robust model and computation results are presented and validated. Our results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid algorithm can quickly derive high quality solution within an optimality gap of no more than 0.7%. Keywords—Airline scheduling, Robustness, Chance constraints
TAXATION AND FDI STRATEGIES: EVIDENCE FROM US CROSS- BORDER ACQUISITIONS

In spite of a large body of empirical research documenting the negative effect of taxation on foreign direct investment (FDI), there is scant evidence on the extent to which this differs according to the investment strategies pursued by multinational firms. This paper addresses this issue by focussing on the effect of taxation on horizontal and vertical FDI. Thereto, we use US cross-border acquisitions data between 1995 and 2005. The results show that tax deductions are crucial in determining how the impact of taxes differ between investment strategies. In particular, regardless whether the investment strategy is horizontal or vertical, the broadly advocated negative effect of direct corporate taxes disappears when accounting for the deductions (tax credits) stipulated in US double tax treaties. Conversely, it is shown that there is considerable heterogeneity of the impact of sales taxes, which affect horizontal but not vertical investment, where plants are set up for exporting rather than local sales and sales taxes are, hence, deductible. Finally, a high administrative burden to comply with taxation always reduces a country’s appeal as target for FDI.
Sahel Analyst: ISSN 1117-4668 Page 116 FOREIGN AID-DOMESTIC SAVINGS NEXUS: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA

The paper seeks to examine the nexus between foreign aid and domestic savings, focusing on Nigeria. Johansen Co-integration and error correction were applied to time series data for the period 1980-2015. The finding reveals that foreign aid complements (that is, crowd-in) domestic savings in Nigeria; suggesting that the problem of low savings in the economy may most probably be associated with other factors, not foreign aid. Also, results show that strong growth in gross domestic product positively and significantly influence domestic savings, while growth in per capita income fail to significantly promote aggregate national savings due, perhaps, to its subsistence level. Arising from the findings, the study recommends, amongst others, that government policies (such as privatization and other macroeconomic reforms) that could directly or indirectly boost the inflow of foreign aid to Nigeria should be accorded priority in development policy measures. On the domestic front, government could enhance per capita income growth through improvement in education and training as better educated persons earn more income on average compared to persons with little or no education.
Investigating Effect of Ca Content on Electrostatic Potential Energy (EP), Critical Temperature and Structure Parameters on Superconductor

In this paper the effect of Ca content in and the relation between electrostatic potential energy, critical temperature lattice parameters , volume lattice parameter , orthorhombicity, and the hole concentration is investigated by applying the ionic model to calculate the change in the electrostatic potential due to increasing the Ca content in the compound in . It is found that Ca 2+ substitution for Y 3+ leads to increase EP caused by increased ion volume and decrease of charge, this explains changes of superconducting structure parameters such as: lattice parameter ,volume lattice parameter , orthorhombicity. Furthermore decreases with increasing Ca content due to increase of EP which leads to change of the crystal structure and thus decreasing oxygen content and as a result decreasing of Finally considering all above effects the increase of EP will increase the superconducting current.
Copy move forgery detection in digital images using Discrete Cosine Transform and Singular Value Decomposition

: There is a strong demand for robust authentication methods that can discern whether an image is forged or not. In this work, a hybrid approach based on discrete cosine transform and singular value decomposition (SVD) to efficiently detect and localize the copy-move forged region is proposed. In order to reduce the computational complexity of the classification procedure, we propose to arrange image blocks in a descending ordered sorted matrix based on the mean values of intensity of blocks. Further edge detection is applied to find the dominant edge pixels in the image by using horizontally and vertically derived sobel edge filter. For matching process, edge pixel blocks are taken from the sorted matrix and matching is carried out for those edge blocks only which have similar mean values. This reduces computation time of the algorithm as very few edge blocks need to be compared. Pair of blocks within each segment has been compared using singular values of DCT coefficients of the blocks, to find regions that exhibit maximum resemblance. Further morphological operation has been applied for the detected forged edge pixels which results in dilation of region in between these pixels. Re-matching is applied in similar manner to extract the actual forged regions in the image. The experimental results has been evaluated using standard copy move forgery CoMoFoD database and quality metrics i.e. sensitivity, specificity and accuracy show how effectively the method identifies the duplicated region as approx. 99% forged pixels has been truly detected as forged on whole database. Furthermore it also detects multiple copy-move forgery within the image.
Performance-Aware Data Placement Policy for Hadoop Distributed File System

Apache Hadoop is an open-source software framework for distributed storage and distributed processing of very large data sets on computer clusters built from commodity hardware. The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is the underlying file system of a Hadoop cluster. The default HDFS data placement strategy works well in homogeneous cluster. But it performs poorly in heterogeneous clusters because of the heterogeneity of the nodes capabilities. It may cause overload in some computing nodes and reduce Hadoop performance. Therefore, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) has to rely on load balancing utility to balance data distribution. As a result, data can be placed evenly across the Hadoop cluster. But it may cause the overhead of transferring unprocessed data from slow nodes to fast nodes because each node has different computing capacity in heterogeneous Hadoop cluster. In order to solve these problems, a data/replica placement policy based on storage utilization and computing capacity of each data node in heterogeneous Hadoop Cluster is proposed. The proposed policy tends to reduce the overload of some computing nodes as well as reduce overhead of data transmission between different computing nodes.
Staying ahead of invaders: using species distribution modeling to predict alien species’ potential niche shifts

Early detection and rapid response are essential to prevent invasive species from thriving in marine environments following their introduction. Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to predict the potential distribution of invasive species, providing excellent tools for the design of strategies to prevent or mitigate impacts of non-native species. Niche shifts are among the major drawbacks in the use of SDMs, leading scientists to formulate inaccurate predictions. In this work, we tested the performance of 3 different SDMs (Bioclim, Mahalanobis distance and Maxent) to predict the distribution of a niche-shifting invasive species using native data only. As a model organism, we used the neurotoxic sea-slug Pleurobranchaea maculata, which was re cently introduced into the southwestern Atlantic, where it has undergone a niche shift. Our results show that Maxent outperforms the other modeling techniques in predicting the invasive distribution, but that Bioclim provides the most accurate outputs, minimizing overand underpredictions. Our study strongly suggests that niche decomposition can provide important evidence for the underlying causes of niche shifts, aiding our understanding of why they occur and how they can be addressed by SDMs. This approach will improve the interpretation of SDMs in order to predict the potential spread of invasive species worldwide.
Reducing reputational risk

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish how executive managers in a South African organisation prioritise and manage reputational risks arising from stakeholder claims. The authors establish how corporate reputation and reputational risk fits into their decision making when considering stakeholder claims. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted in-depth interviews with the top management of a South African paint manufacture. They identified eight stakeholder claims and discussed how they assessed and addressed each one. Findings – Respondents identified highly, moderate, and low salient claims. They reported on how they dealt with these different claims in terms of the attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency. Originality/value – This is an empirical theory-testing study of how managers deal with stakeholder claims. The authors establish how corporate reputation and reputational risk fits into their decision making when considering stakeholder claims. The authors suggest that managers must not only understand who their stakeholders are, but need to evaluate the impact of stakeholder claims in order to manage reputational risk.
Effective Bezout identities in Q [ Zl

The explicit resolution of the B ezout equation (1.1) consists in giving an algorithm to find such polynomials q~ . qm. One such algorithm is due to G. Hermann [18] and Seidenberg [33]; another one, very effective, has been developed by Buchberger [12]. Masser-Wiistholz [28] used Hermann's method to estimate the degree and the size of the polynomials q. /, and the size of b. Denote by h(P) the logarithmic size of a polynomial P E Z[z], i.e., h(P)=the logarithm of the modulus of the coefficient of P of largest absolute value. They showed that using the Hermann algorithm one could find qt . qm satisfying:
DYNAMICS AND SOLIDIFICATION BEHAVIOR OF THE METALLIC MELT LEVITATED BY SIMULTANIOUS IMPOSITION OF ALTERNATING AND STATIC MAGNETIC FIELDS

A levitation method using the static and the alternating magnetic fields has been developed. Intensity of the convection and the oscillation can be controlled by changing the static magnetic field. Only the oscillation of the single mode was observed at an optimum magnetic field, while several oscillation modes were observed in the conventional method. The convection was hardly observed at the static magnetic fields exceeding 1 T. By using the present method, the effect of the melt flow on the solidified structure during the undercooled melt solidification is also examined. In the lower undercooling region, the melt flow significantly contributed to the formation of the equiaxed grains.
Model Selection & Information Criteria: Akaike Information Criterion

In data analysis the statistical characterization of a data sample is usually performed through a parametric probability distribution (or mass function), where we use a distribution to fit our data. The reason that we want to fit a distribution to our data is that it is easier to work with a model rather than data, and it is also more general. There are a lot of types of distributions for different types of data. Examples include, Normal, exponential, Poisson, Gamma, etc. A distribution is completely characterized by a set of parameters which we denote in vector form as θ = (θ1, ., θk), where k is the number of parameters. The goal is to estimate the distribution parameters in order to fit our data as best as it is possible. For instance, the method of least squares is a simple example that estimates the parameter set θ, but this is a method for a specific model. A more general and powerful method to find the optimal way to fit a distribution to data is Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE). This is the topic discussed in this section. We can understand the idea of MLE through a simple example. We assume that we have a set of observations shown with the red circles in Fig. 1. We observe that most of the observations are arranged around a center, so we intuitively suggest the Normal distribution to fit this dataset (red curve in Fig. 1). The normal distribution is characterized by two parameters: the mean μ and the standard deviation σ, where, θ = (μ, σ). The
What is the relationship between validated frailty scores and mortality for adults with COVID-19 in acute hospital care? A systematic review

Background & aim The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact upon older people; the frailty construct has been used to assess risk of poor outcomes in many settings. The aim of this systematic review was to quantify the association between frailty and COVID-19 in relation to mortality in hospitalised patients. Methods Medline, Embase and the grey literature were searched for papers from inception to 10th September 2020. Screening (and grading) was undertaken by two reviewers according to pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Met-analysis was not possible so the result were summarised narratively. Results 2276 papers were screened resulting in 16 being included in the review. All studies were from Europe, mostly the UK; the median sample size was 308.5, mean age of participants 78.7 and 42% were female. 15/16 used the Clinical Frailty Scale; reported mortality ranged from 19 to 65%. Most, but not all studies showed an association between increasing frailty and a greater risk of dying. Two studies indicated a sub-additive relationship between frailty, COVID-19 and death, and one study showed no increase in dying. Conclusions This review showed that whilst many studies have shown an association between an increased risk of COVID-19 related death with increasing frailty, other studies demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of frailty and outcomes in COVID-19 is needed. Clinicians should exert caution in placing too much emphasis on the influence of frailty alone when discussing likely prognosis in older people with COVID-19 infection.
High SARS-CoV-2 viral load is associated with a worse clinical outcome of COVID-19 disease

COVID-19 severity and progression are determined by several host and virological factors that may influence the final outcome of SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. The objective of this work is to determine a possible association between the viral load, obtained from nasopharyngeal swabs, and the severity of the infection in a cohort of 448 SARS-CoV-2-infected patients from a hospital in Madrid during the first outbreak of the pandemic in Spain. To perform this, we have clinically classified patients as mild, moderate and severe COVID-19 according to a number of clinical parameters such as hospitalization requirement, need of oxygen therapy, admission to intensive care units and/or exitus. Here we report a statistically significant correlation between viral load and disease severity, being high viral load associated with worse clinical prognosis, independently of several previously identified risk factors such as age, sex, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and lung disease (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). The data presented here reinforce the viral load as a potential biomarker for predicting disease severity in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. It is also an important parameter in viral evolution since it relates to the numbers and types of variant genomes present in a viral population, a potential determinant of disease progression.
SEM-EDX Analysis of Aerosol Particles in the Atmosphere and on the Leaf Surfaces

To clarify the existence of elements that can neutralize acid rain on the leaf surfaces of several tree species, a SEM-EDX analysis of aerosol particles in the atmosphere and on leaf surfaces was conducted in the summer and fall seasons of 2002. Our results indicated that almost all the aerosol particles collected from the atmosphere predominantly contained a high frequency of the element Si and then of the element Al. Similarly, particles collected from the leaves of several kinds of trees contained mainly Si and Al elements. However, the frequen cies of these particles on the leaf surfaces were not at levels that could effectively neutralize acid rain. In contrast, particles that were collected from leaf surfaces during rainfall contained a 40 ~ 60 percent frequency of the element K. Based on these findings and our previous works, we consider that the element K exuded from the leaves to neutralize acid rain.