Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic classification of fruit defects based on co-occurrence matrix and neural networks

Nowadays the effective and fast detection of fruit defects is one of the main concerns for fruit selling companies. This paper presents a new approach that classifies fruit surface defects in color and texture using Radial Basis Probabilistic Neural Networks (RBPNN). The texture and gray features of defect area are extracted by computing a gray level co-occurrence matrix and then defect areas are classified by the applied RBPNN solution.
Clustering of Sedentary Behaviors and Physical Activity Among Youth: A Cross-National Study

Few studies have attempted to describe patterns of sedentary behavior among children and examine how these relate to patterns of physical activity. A group of 2,494 youth aged 11–15 years from the USA and UK completed a physical activity checklist. Low intercorrelations between sedentary behaviors suggest youth sedentariness is multifaceted and cannot be represented accurately by any one behavior such as TV viewing. Cluster analysis identified three groups of young people, differentiated by the level and type of sedentary behavior and physical activity. Physical activity and sedentary behavior are not two sides of the same coin. Further study should examine the health-related outcomes associated with sedentary behavior and the modifiable determinants of these behaviors among young people.
Self-adaptive software: Landscape and research challenges

Software systems dealing with distributed applications in changing environments normally require human supervision to continue operation in all conditions. These (re-)configuring, troubleshooting, and in general maintenance tasks lead to costly and time-consuming procedures during the operating phase. These problems are primarily due to the open-loop structure often followed in software development. Therefore, there is a high demand for management complexity reduction, management automation, robustness, and achieving all of the desired quality requirements within a reasonable cost and time range during operation. Self-adaptive software is a response to these demands; it is a closed-loop system with a feedback loop aiming to adjust itself to changes during its operation. These changes may stem from the software system's self (internal causes, e.g., failure) or context (external events, e.g., increasing requests from users). Such a system is required to monitor itself and its context, detect significant changes, decide how to react, and act to execute such decisions. These processes depend on adaptation properties (called self-* properties), domain characteristics (context information or models), and preferences of stakeholders. Noting these requirements, it is widely believed that new models and frameworks are needed to design self-adaptive software. This survey article presents a taxonomy, based on concerns of adaptation, that is, how, what, when and where, towards providing a unified view of this emerging area. Moreover, as adaptive systems are encountered in many disciplines, it is imperative to learn from the theories and models developed in these other areas. This survey article presents a landscape of research in self-adaptive software by highlighting relevant disciplines and some prominent research projects. This landscape helps to identify the underlying research gaps and elaborates on the corresponding challenges.
Oxygen safety margins set thermal limits in an insect model system

ABSTRACT A mismatch between oxygen availability and metabolic demand may constrain thermal tolerance. While considerable support for this idea has been found in marine organisms, results from insects are equivocal and raise the possibility that mode of gas exchange, oxygen safety margins and the physico-chemical properties of the gas medium influence heat tolerance estimates. Here, we examined critical thermal maximum (CTmax) and aerobic scope under altered oxygen supply and in two life stages that varied in metabolic demand in Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae). We also systematically examined the influence of changes in gas properties on CTmax. Larvae have a lower oxygen safety margin (higher critical oxygen partial pressure at which metabolism is suppressed relative to metabolic demand) and significantly higher CTmax under normoxia than pupae (53°C vs 50°C). Larvae, but not pupae, were oxygen limited with hypoxia (2.5 kPa) decreasing CTmax significantly from 53 to 51°C. Humidifying hypoxic air relieved the oxygen limitation effect on CTmax in larvae, whereas variation in other gas properties did not affect CTmax. Our data suggest that oxygen safety margins set thermal limits in air-breathing invertebrates and the magnitude of this effect potentially reconciles differences in oxygen limitation effects on thermal tolerance found among diverse taxa to date. Highlighted Article: Larval but not pupal Bombyx mori are oxygen limited, with hypoxia significantly decreasing CTmax, suggesting that oxygen safety margins set thermal limits in air-breathing invertebrates.
Intra-specific variation in wing morphology and its impact on take-off performance in blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) during escape flights

ABSTRACT Diurnal and seasonal increases in body mass and seasonal reductions in wing area may compromise a bird's ability to escape, as less of the power available from the flight muscles can be used to accelerate and elevate the animal's centre of mass. Here, we investigated the effects of intra-specific variation in wing morphology on escape take-off performance in blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). Flights were recorded using synchronised high-speed video cameras and take-off performance was quantified as the sum of the rates of change of the kinetic and potential energies of the centre of mass. Individuals with a lower wing loading, WL (WL=body weight/wing area) had higher escape take-off performance, consistent with the increase in lift production expected from relatively larger wings. Unexpectedly, it was found that the total power available from the flight muscles (estimated using an aerodynamic analysis) was inversely related to WL. This could simply be because birds with a higher WL have relatively smaller flight muscles. Alternatively or additionally, variation in the aerodynamic load on the wing resulting from differences in wing morphology will affect the mechanical performance of the flight muscles via effects on the muscle's length trajectory. Consistent with this hypothesis is the observation that wing beat frequency and relative downstroke duration increase with decreasing WL; both are factors that are expected to increase muscle power output. Understanding how wing morphology influences take-off performance gives insight into the potential risks associated with feather loss and seasonal and diurnal fluctuations in body mass. Summary: Blue tits with relatively larger wings have higher escape take-off performance, indicating that moult could increase the risk of predation.
The temperature dependence of electrical excitability in fish hearts

ABSTRACT Environmental temperature has pervasive effects on the rate of life processes in ectothermic animals. Animal performance is affected by temperature, but there are finite thermal limits for vital body functions, including contraction of the heart. This Review discusses the electrical excitation that initiates and controls the rate and rhythm of fish cardiac contraction and is therefore a central factor in the temperature-dependent modulation of fish cardiac function. The control of cardiac electrical excitability should be sensitive enough to respond to temperature changes but simultaneously robust enough to protect against cardiac arrhythmia; therefore, the thermal resilience and plasticity of electrical excitation are physiological qualities that may affect the ability of fishes to adjust to climate change. Acute changes in temperature alter the frequency of the heartbeat and the duration of atrial and ventricular action potentials (APs). Prolonged exposure to new thermal conditions induces compensatory changes in ion channel expression and function, which usually partially alleviate the direct effects of temperature on cardiac APs and heart rate. The most heat-sensitive molecular components contributing to the electrical excitation of the fish heart seem to be Na+ channels, which may set the upper thermal limit for the cardiac excitability by compromising the initiation of the cardiac AP at high temperatures. In cardiac and other excitable cells, the different temperature dependencies of the outward K+ current and inward Na+ current may compromise electrical excitability at temperature extremes, a hypothesis termed the temperature-dependent depression of electrical excitation. Summary: At the extremes of environmental temperature, electrical excitability of the heart and other excitable tissues may set limits to temperature tolerance of fishes and other ectotherms.
Sequential steps of macroautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy are involved in the irreversible process of posterior silk gland histolysis during metamorphosis of Bombyx mori

ABSTRACT To elucidate the degradation process of the posterior silk gland during metamorphosis of the silkworm Bombyx mori, tissues collected on the 6th day after entering the 5th instar (V6), prior to spinning (PS), during spinning (SP) and after cocoon formation (CO) were used to analyze macroautophagy, chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) and the adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-dependent ubiquitin proteasome. Immediately after entering metamorphosis stage PS, the levels of ATP and phosphorylated p70S6 kinase protein decreased spontaneously and continued to decline at SP, followed by a notable restoration at CO. In contrast, phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase α (AMPKα) showed increases at SP and CO. Most of the Atg8 protein was converted to form II at all stages. The levels of ubiquitinated proteins were high at SP and CO, and low at PS. The proteasome activity was high at V6 and PS but low at SP and CO. In the isolated lysosome fractions, levels of Hsc70/Hsp70 protein began to increase at PS and continued to rise at SP and CO. The lysosomal cathepsin B/L activity showed a dramatic increase at CO. Our results clearly demonstrate that macroautophagy occurs before entering the metamorphosis stage and strongly suggest that the CMA pathway may play an important role in the histolysis of the posterior silk gland during metamorphosis. Summary: Macroautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy occur in a sequential manner during the posterior silk gland histolysis of Bombyx mori.
Parental thermal environment alters offspring sex ratio and fitness in an oviparous lizard

ABSTRACT The environment experienced by parents can impact the phenotype of their offspring (parental effects), a critical component of organismal ecology and evolution in variable or changing environments. Although temperature is a central feature of the environment for ectotherms, its role in parental effects has been little explored until recently. Here, parental basking opportunity was manipulated in an oviparous lizard with temperature-dependent sex determination, the jacky dragon (Amphibolurus muricatus). Eggs were incubated at a temperature that typically produces a 50:50 sex ratio, and hatchlings were reared in a standard thermal environment. Offspring of parents in short bask conditions appeared to have better fitness outcomes in captive conditions than those of parents in long bask conditions – they had greater growth and survival as a function of their mass. In addition, the sex of offspring (male or female) depended on the interaction between parental treatment and egg mass, and treatment impacted whether sons or daughters grew larger in their first season. The interactive effects of treatment on offspring sex and growth are consistent with adaptive explanations for the existence of temperature-dependent sex determination in this species. Moreover, the greater performance recorded in short bask offspring may represent an anticipatory parental effect to aid offspring in predicted conditions of restricted thermal opportunity. Together, these responses constitute a crucial component of the population response to spatial or temporal variation in temperature. Summary: The thermal environment experienced by parents influences the phenotype of their offspring.
Stackelberg game for utility-based cooperative cognitiveradio networks

With the development of cognitive radio technologies, dynamic spectrum access becomes a promising approach to increase the efficiency of spectrum utilization and solve spectrum scarcity problem. Under dynamic spectrum access, unlicensed wireless users (secondary users) can dynamically access the licensed bands from legacy spectrum holders (primary users) on an opportunistic basis. While most primary users in existing works assume secondary transmissions as negative interference and don't actively involve them into the primary transmission, in this paper, motivated by the idea of cooperative communication, we propose a cooperative cognitive radio framework, where primary users, aware of the existence of secondary users, may select some of them to be the cooperative relay, and in return lease portion of the channel access time to them for their own data transmission. Secondary users cooperating with primary transmissions have the right to decide their payment made for primary user in order to achieve a proportional access time to the wireless media. Both primary and secondary users target at maximizing their utilities in terms of their transmission rate and revenue/payment. This model is formulated as a Stackelberg game and a unique Nash Equilibrium point is achieved in analytical format. Based on the analysis we discuss the condition under which cooperation will increase the performance of the whole system. Both analytical result and numerical result show that the cooperative cognitive radio framework is a promising framework under which the utility of both primary and secondary system are maximized.
Physical unclonable function and true random number generator: a compact and scalable implementation

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) and True Random Number Generators (TRNG) are two very useful components in secure system design. PUFs can be used to extract chip-unique signatures and volatile secret keys, whereas TRNGs are used for generating random padding bits, initialization vectors and nonces in cryptographic protocols. This paper proposes a scalable design technique to implement both a delay-based PUF and a jitter-based TRNG using ring oscillators. By sharing and reusing a significant amount of hardware resources, we achieve nearly 50% area reduction as compared to discrete implementations. We also propose and demonstrate a co-processor-based design that renders the circuit portable across various embedded processor platforms on FPGAs. Multiple scaled designs using 32 to 128 ring oscillators have been implemented and verified on Xilinx Spartan3S500E FPGA. A representative design uses 32 3-inverter ring oscillators, 64 flip-flops/latches, 31 2-input XOR gates and control circuitry giving a 3.2Mbps truly random stream and 31-bit unique device signature.
High prevalence of NDM metallo-β-lactamase among ESBL-producing Escherichia coli İsolates.

Resistance to β-lactams in Enterobacteriaceae has been increasing worldwide. This study aimed to determine the frequency of β-lactamase genes and antibiotic resistance rates of 140 extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli isolates obtained from urinary tract infection in Ordu Province, Turkey. Isolates were identified by classic methods and by automated system. ESBL production was confirmed by double disk synergy test and antimicrobial susceptibility was investigated by disk diffusion method. All isolates were screened for β-lactamase coding genes from three groups (A, B, and D) by polymerase chain reaction. The highest rate of susceptible isolates was observed for imipenem (IPM, 99.3%) and ertapenem (ETP, 97.9%), and the highest rate of resistant isolates was observed for cefuroxime (97.9%), ceftriaxone (97.2%), and cefazolin (90.7%). In our study, blaCTX-M1-like group was the most prevalent β-lactamase (n = 109), followed by blaTEM (n = 68), blaCTX-M2 (n = 22), and blaSHV (n = 2). By contrast to low resistance rate to IPM and ETP, we determined blaNDM in 31 isolates (22.1%). In co-prevalence of blaNDM-1 and ESBL-coding genes, a low carbapenem resistance was determined. We can confirm that blaCTX-M1-types are still the most frequent β-lactamase coding gene in Turkey. Our study showed the highest prevalence of blaNDM-1 metallo-β-lactamase coding gene in ESBL-producing E. coli.
Interactive GPU-based procedural heightfield brushes

Virtual outdoor terrain used for games is generally created by a level designer, using a variety of tools. These tools are currently based either on local interactive brush-based terrain sculpting or on global, parameterized algorithmic synthesis/adaptation of complete heightfields. Both tool types have largely complementary benefits and drawbacks. In this paper, we present procedural brushes, which combine the strengths of both tool types, offering a seamless transition from local control to fully automated generation, depending on the brush size. To optimize the execution speed of the computationally-intensive procedural algorithms, we propose to use the huge processing power of today's graphics hardware. For this, the procedural algorithms have been translated to shaders, and are used as part of a pipeline to render changes on a heightfield in video memory. We present a GPU brush editing pipeline for graphics hardware supporting Shader Model 3.0, coping with hardware restrictions regarding blend modes, precision and texture size. Several implemented procedural algorithms are described as well, two of which are novel. Experiments showed that the implemented system resulted in a speedup of roughly one order of magnitude over a reference CPU pipeline implementation. This made it possible for users to apply both trivial and complex procedural brushes at interactive rates, thus leading to a more efficient creation of complex virtual worlds.
Carotenoids buffer the acute phase response on fever, sickness behavior and rapid bill color change in zebra finches

ABSTRACT Carotenoids are finite resources that animals can allocate to self-maintenance, attractiveness or reproduction. Here we test how carotenoids affect the acute phase response (APR), an intense rapid systemic response characterized by fever, sickness behavior and production of acute phase proteins, which serves to reduce pathogen persistence. We conducted a 2×2 factorial design experiment in captive adult male and female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to determine the effects of carotenoid supplementation on the intensity of the APR. We measured changes in feeding rate, activity level and body temperature of the birds. We found that, relative to unsupplemented controls, carotenoid-supplemented birds exhibited less severe reductions in feeding and activity, smaller increases in body temperature and lower circulating levels of haptoglobin (an acute phase protein) 24 h after inducing an APR. Among supplemented individuals, those with higher blood carotenoid levels exhibited a lower reduction in activity rate after 24 h. Forty-eight hours after APR induction, birds exhibited a significant decrease in plasma carotenoid levels and a decrease in bill hue, with less reduction in hue in carotenoid-supplemented individuals. These results demonstrate that carotenoids can alleviate several important behavioral and physiological effects of an APR and that bill color can change rapidly following induction of the costly APR immune defense. In particular, immune activation may have caused birds to preferentially draw down carotenoids from the bloodstream, ostensibly for use in health. Rapid bill color changes over a 48-h period support growing evidence that bills may serve as short-term signals of health and condition. Summary: Carotenoids are colorful pigments traded off between display and health. When we induced a strong immune response, zebra finches supplemented with carotenoids were able to buffer the negative effects of sickness.
Psychosocial Status, Depression, and Stress Symptoms in Patients with Lumbar Disc Herniation and the Relation with Disability, Pain, and Occupational Handicap

Twenty female patients with lumbar disc herniation were assessed in order to evaluate their depression, psychosocial status, and stress symptoms and to analyze the relation with activities of daily living, stair activity and walking speed, agility, disability, and occupational handicap. In addition, depression and stress symptoms were also assessed in 20 healthy female subjects. Statistically positive correlations were obtained. Depression was correlated positively with disability, functional limitation, stair activity and walking speed, social isolation, and stress symptoms; psychosocial status was correlated with disability, functional limitation, and pain.
Problem gambling and family violence: Findings from a population-representative study

Background and aims Few studies have investigated the association between problem gambling (PG) and violence extending into the family beyond intimate partners. This study aimed to explore the association between PG and family violence (FV) in a population-representative sample. It was hypothesized that: (a) PG would be positively associated with FV, even after adjusting for sociodemographic variables and comorbidities and (b) these relationships would be significantly exacerbated by substance use and psychological distress. A secondary aim was to explore whether gender moderated these relationships. Methods Computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted with a population-representative sample of 4,153 Australian adults. Results Moderate-risk (MR)/problem gamblers had a 2.73-fold increase in the odds of experiencing FV victimization (21.3%; 95% CI: 13.1–29.4) relative to non-problem gamblers (9.4%; 95% CI: 8.5–10.4). They also had a 2.56-fold increase in the odds of experiencing FV perpetration (19.7%; 95% CI: 11.8–27.7) relative to non-problem gamblers (9.0%; 95% CI: 8.0–10.0). Low-risk gamblers also had over a twofold increase in the odds of experiencing FV victimization (20.0%; 95% CI: 14.0–26.0) and perpetration (19.3%; 95% CI: 13.5–25.1). These relationships remained robust for low-risk gamblers, but were attenuated for MR/problem gamblers, after adjustment for substance use and psychological distress. MR/problem gamblers had a greater probability of FV victimization, if they reported hazardous alcohol use; and low-risk gamblers had a greater probability of FV perpetration if they were female. Discussion and conclusion These findings provide further support for routine screening, highlight the need for prevention and intervention programs, and suggest that reducing alcohol use may be important in these efforts.