Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nucleotide variability in Beta 2 Microglobulin (b2M) gene and its association with colostral IgG levels in buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis)

The present study was taken up to find out Beta 2 Microglobulin (b2M) gene variants and their association with IgG concentrations in colostrum of Murrah buffaloes. 40 newly parturated Murrah buffaloes dams were included in the present study. Polymerase chain reaction- single stranded conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) technique was used to explore the polymorphism in b2M gene of buffaloes. The PCR-SSCP analysis and sequencing of different patterns obtained by silver staining of fragments pertaining to exon 1 through 4 and partial introns 1 through 3, revealed 9 SNPs which were further used to prepare the haplotypes. 7 different haplotypes were observed. Indirect ELISA was done to estimate IgG concentrations in colostrum (collected 1 hour before first milking) obtained from buffaloes. IgG levels in colostrum ranged from 11.22 to 185.1 mg/ml with a mean IgG concentration of 51.71 ± 5.99 mg/ml. The effect of different haplotypes was evaluated on IgG concentrations. The least square analysis of variance could not exhibit a significant effect of buffalo dam haplotype on colostral IgG concentration.
A serious game for virtual rehabilitation: evaluation with patients and physiotherapists

Games can make training procedures more engaging for patients. Considering the complexity of the process for upper limb function rehabilitation, this paper presents the development and an initial evaluation of the AGaR – a serious game with virtual reality and natural interaction, both to aid patients to execute repetitive exercises and to aid physiotherapists to follow the rehabilitation process. Additionally, we obtain and analyze data about patients’ engagement as a differential in relation to others games developed for similar goals. In this game, the patient has to associate two different images with complementary meanings, using a movement sensor to drag the image to the target. We conducted an experiment with physiotherapists in order to evaluate the feasibility of applying the game in real therapies. We also conducted an initial experiment with patients. The results show that physiotherapists believe that the game is effective and might be used during therapies. From the experiments with patientss, we obtained that the number of wrong associations made by them varies according to patient, with no standard found. The engagement tends to increase during use of the game, throughout the rounds.
The Usage of Statistical Learning Methods on Wearable Devices and a Case Study: Activity Recognition on Smartwatches

The aim of this study is to explore the usage of statistical learning methods on wearable devices and realize an experimental study for recognition of human activities by using smartwatch sensor data. To achieve this objective, mobile applications that run on smart‐ watch and smartphone were developed to gain training data and detect human activity momentarily; 500 pattern data were obtained with 4‐second intervals for each activity (walking, typing, stationary, running, standing, writing on board, brushing teeth, clean‐ ing and writing). Created dataset was tested with five different statistical learning meth ‐ ods (Naive Bayes, k nearest neighbour (kNN), logistic regression, Bayesian network and multilayer perceptron) and their performances were compared.
Culturable bacterial diversity and hydrolytic enzymes from drass, a cold desert in India

Bacterial diversity of composite soil sample of drass was explored and screened for various hydrolytic enzymes. About 600 bacterial strains were isolated using six different growth media, that is, R2A, nutrient agar, King’s B media, tryptic soy agar, Luria-Bertani agar and minimal media (100 isolates picked randomly from each media). These bacterial isolates were further differentiated on the basis of colony/cell morphology analysis, pigmentation and growth patterns. The 99 selected strains were subjected to amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis and the representative isolates from each cluster were chosen for 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis led to the identification of 40 bacteria, grouped into three major phyla, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes differentiated into 17 different genera. These representatives were also investigated for hydrolases at low temperature (4-30°C). All the isolates secreted one or the other hydrolytic enzyme, that is, esterase (90%), lipase (80%), protease (32.5%), amylase (20%), cellulase (17.5%). These results indicate that culturable bacteria in soil of Drass could serve as an ideal candidate region for enzyme bioprospecting. Key words: Pigment, drass, cultivable bacteria, phylogenetic diversity, enzyme production, soil.
Taxonomy and DNA barcoding of Stenostola ferrea (Schrank, 1776) and S. dubia (Laicharting, 1784) (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Saperdini)

The aim of this paper is to complete the studies of the genus Stenostola in Northern Europe. Together with previous published studies the characters presented form a better basis for separation of S. ferrea and S. dubia both as imagines and as larvae. The presented paper consists of three parts: Studies of the genitalia, morphological characters for identification of the larvae and DNA barcoding of both Stenostola dubia (Laicharting, 1784) and S. ferrea (Shrank, 1776). Although very similar, the male genitalia have good characters for species separation. The easiest characters to use are the parameres and tips of sclerite 2. The posterior ends of the elongated median sclerites of S. ferrea are irregularly curved or “zigzag” shaped, while the posterior ends of the median sclerites of S. dubia are straight. The genitalia characters presented are not previously published. No single morphological character alone is enough to identify the larvae to species. However, when the characters are used together the mature larvae are usually identifiable. The younger the larvae are, the more difficult they are to identify. Barcoding analysis of mitochondrial COI gene shows that S. ferrea and S. dubia are genetically different. The genetic distance between the species is 10.3 %. These results, in addition to previous findings, show that despite the morphological similarities, they are clearly two different species.
DSGE Model-Based Estimation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

This paper surveys estimates of New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) parameters that have been obtained by fitting fully specified dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models to U.S. data. We examine various sources of identification in the context of a simple analytical model. DSGE model-based NKPC estimates tend to be fragile and sensitive to the model specification, in particular if marginal costs are treated as an unobserved variable. Estimates of the NKPC slope lie between 0 and 4. If the observations span the labor share, which is in most instances the model-implied measure of marginal costs, then the slope estimates fall into a much narrower range of 0.005 to 0.135. No consensus has emerged with respect to the importance of lagged inflation in the Phillips curve.
Volatility Interdependence in European Real Estate Securities Markets: Who is the Most Influential?

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the interdependence of daily conditional volatility in seven FTSE‐NAREIT‐EPRA European developed real estate securities markets – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, from January 1990 to December 2011.Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs the multivariate GARCH and the generalized VAR volatility spillover index methodologies.Findings – The author finds that each of the seven European developed real estate securities markets is relatively endogenous and interacts well with the other markets. In particular, the French real estate securities market has the most dominant volatility impact on other markets over the full sample period. The introduction and implementation of the euro is associated with a moderate increase of the total volatility spillovers around the three‐year (January 1999‐January 2002) period among the sample markets. Moreover, these markets have experienced an increase in their volatility cor.
An experimental study on convective drying of quince

A laboratory convective drying unit (LCDU) has been designed, constructed and equipped with an integrated measurement and control instrumentation, in order to evaluate the essential drying characteristics of various horticultural and agricultural products. The current paper presents experimental results from tests with quince slices. Drying kinetics was investigated as a function of drying conditions. Experiments were conducted at air flow temperatures of 40, 50 and 60 o C and average velocities of 1, 2 and 3 m/s. Temperature changes of the drying quince samples, the relative humidity and the temperature of the drying air were measured during the drying processes and finally the moisture ratio (MR) was calculated. The experimental MR data were fitted with three mathematical models available in the literature and a good agreement was observed. In the ranges measured, Fick’s 2 nd law of diffusion was used to fit the experimental data for the determination of the effective moisture diffusivity. The activation energy was determined, assuming an Arrhenius type temperature relationship with moisture diffusivity.
TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF POLISH FARMS: ESTIMATION ACCORDING TO SPECIALISATION AND LESSONS FROM CONFIDENCE INTERVALS

The technical and scale efficiency of Polish farms is analysed, using Data Envelopment Analysis. Efficiency differences are measured according to farm specialisation, in crop or livestock, at two points in time during transition, 1996 and 2000. The statistical variability of efficiency estimates is investigated. The efficiency results are reviewed in the light of confidence intervals provided by bootstrapping and of a summary measure introduced in this study 'the coefficient of separation'. The inference analysis suggests that farms might be less efficient than revealed by the point estimates alone, and that they might not be clearly different from each other.
A General Computation Scheme for a High-Order Asymptotic Expansion Method

This paper presents a new computational scheme for an asymptotic expansion method of an arbitrary order. The asymptotic expansion method in finance initiated by Kunitomo and Takahashi (1992), Yoshida (1992b) and Takahashi (1995, 1999) is a widely applicable methodology for an analytic approximation of expectation of a certain functional of diffusion processes. Hence, not only academic researchers but also many practitioners have used the methodology for a variety of financial issues such as pricing or hedging complex derivatives under high-dimensional underlying stochastic environments. In practical applications of the expansion, a crucial step is calculation of conditional expectations for a certain kind of Wiener functionals. Takahashi (1995, 1999) and Takahashi and Takehara (2007) provided explicit formulas for those conditional expectations necessary for the asymptotic expansion up to the third order. This paper presents the new method for computing an arbitrary-order expansion in a general diffusion-type stochastic environment, which is powerful especially for high-order expansions: We develops a new calculation algorithm for computing coefficients of the expansion through solving a system of ordinary differential equations that is equivalent to computing the conditional expectations directly. To demonstrate its effectiveness, the paper gives numerical examples of the approximation for a λ-SABR model up to the fifth order.
Description of Supply Openings in Numerical Models for Room Air Distribution

The velocity level in a room with jet ventilation is strongly influenced by the supply conditions. The momentum flow in the supply jets controls the air movement in the room, and it is, therefore, very important that the inlet conditions and the numerical method can produce a sufficient description of this momentum flow. This paper will discuss the following types of boundary conditions at supply openings: Direct description, where the boundary conditions are located at the surface of the air terminal device. Box method, where the boundary conditions are located at the surface of a box at some distance from the air terminal device. Prescribed velocity method, where some of the variables are described analytically inside a volume in front of the air terminal device and the rest of the variables are predicted by the numerical method. Computer-generated supply conditions, where the flow in the air terminal device is studied as a first step in the predictions of flow in the whole room. The paper includes new results from the /EA Annex 20 work.
TAPPING INTO SOCIOLOGICAL LEXICONS FOR SENTIMENT POLARITY CLASSIFICATION

Sentiment Analysis, or the extraction of emotional content from text, has been a prominent research topic for a decade. Numerous annotated lexicons have been created for identification and classification of emotions (or affect ) in text. This extraction of emotional content from text makes possible emotion-aware Information Retrieval, which is especially important with the growing popularity of user-generated content like blogs, tweets, and wikis. This paper introduces a new source of high quality manual annotations that can be used for sentiment extraction. A subfield of sociology symbolic interactionism, more precisely Affect Control Theory (ACT), measures the emotional meanings we associate with various concepts. Research in this field produces multi-dimensional manual annotations of words much like those used in Sentiment Analysis. We compare these annotations with SentiWordNet and WordNet-Affect, lexicons produced for Sentiment Analysis, in the task of text polarity classification and show that classifier trained on the ACT lexicon outperforms the other two.
Distance estimation using handheld devices

Abstract : The different capabilities mobile devices can offer in the field of distance estimation for military applications are explored in this thesis. Of particular interest is the potential for using computer vision techniques to estimate distance in an operational military environment. The methods used for this investigation include a review of past literature on computer vision techniques in this domain, as well as an exploration of the different capabilities mobile devices offer in terms of sensors and networking. We present two potential solutions. The first is a simulation of a distance estimation algorithm that gives the distance to the target using a pair of hyper stereo images. The second solution is a web-based mobile application prototype developed in HTML5. This prototype is intended for the use of untrained forward observers. It goes through the basic steps of a call for fire mission as required by a forward observer, with a focus on distance estimation.
On the distribution of lightning current among interconnected grounding systems in medium voltage grids

This paper presents the results of a first investigation on the effects of lightning stroke on medium voltage installations’ grounding systems, interconnected with the metal shields of the Medium Voltage (MV) distribution grid cables or with bare buried copper ropes. The study enables us to evaluate the distribution of the lightning current among interconnected ground electrodes in order to estimate if the interconnection, usually created to reduce ground potential rise during a single-line-to-ground fault, can give place to dangerous situations far from the installation hit by the lightning stroke. Four different case studies of direct lightning stroke are presented and discussed: (1) two secondary substations interconnected by the cables’ shields; (2) two secondary substations interconnected by a bare buried conductor; (3) a high voltage/medium voltage station connected with a secondary substation by the medium voltage cables’ shields; (4) a high voltage/medium voltage station connected with a secondary substation by a bare buried conductor. The results of the simulations show that a higher peak-lowering action on the lighting-stroke current occurs due to the use of bare conductors as interconnection elements in comparison to the cables’ shields.
Regulation of intracellular Ca 2+ concentration and meat quality in pigs

The meat quality of pigs is essentially dependent on the rate and intensity of energy metabolism after slaughter. The major cellular processes in muscle cells are regulated by the Ca 2+ concentration in the cytoplasm, stimulating different energy consuming ATPases. The most essential regulator of the Ca 2+ concentration is the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) with its membranes, the SR Ca 2+ ATPase (Ca 2+ pump), and the calcium release channel (CRC). Defects of one or more of these elements will be of influence on the metabolism and ultimately on the meat quality. This is widely investigated in pigs with a mutated CRC. However, pigs without a mutation in the CRC also show a wide variability in their meat quality, dependent on other factors e.g. stress or season of the year. The variability in meat quality in these “normal” pigs is at least partly a result of differences in SR Ca 2+
The impact of weather conditions on microclimate in storage facilities

The key to maintaining good qualitative parameters of stored grain on farms is to achieve and maintain suitable storage temperatures relative to the outside temperature. In the framework of this research, the main focus was on typical representatives of grain storage facilities used in the Czech agriculture. In the post-harvest period after the crops were stored in the chosen storage facilities, the temperature of the material was monitored at 15-minute intervals using an external temperature probe as well as the temperature and dew point of the outdoor air. A simple linear regression model was used for data analysis. The correlated temperature dependence of the stored grain varies considerably in the monitored storage facilities. The storage halls were characterized by a low dependence (r = 0.2208) of the temperature of the material on the outside air temperature in the first 4 months following the harvest when the grains were being stabilized by active aeration. In addition to the grain and the air temperature, the second focus was monitoring the dew point, i.e. assessing the risk of water vapour condensation on the surface in the upper layer of the stored grain, which is very undesirable for maintaining the quality of the stored grain. The results show that the monitored storage hall can be characterized by the ability to maintain the required climate due to outdoor climatic conditions. In general, this ability mainly depends on the type and design of the storage facility, the aeration system and also the storage capacity. Mainly during spring the dew point and water vapour condensation can often happen within the grain, therefore the need to focus on appropriate measures such as reduced aeration or increased grain mixing, and thus avoiding the formation of critical spots.
Convergence or divergence of educational disparities in mortality and morbidity? The evolution of life expectancy and health expectancy by educational attainment in Austria in 1981-2006

The continuous increase in life expectancy in developed countries is typically associated with an increase in the number of years in good health, whereas the number of years in bad health rather stagnates. At present relatively little is known about trends in educational disparities in mortality and particularly morbidity. By combining life tables from census follow-up with cross-sectional survey data on self-perceived health, we are able to estimate life expectancy as well as health expectancy differences between three educational groups in Austria in 1981-2006. All educational groups have substantially gained length and quality of life (both absolute and relative) during the last decades. Between medium and low educated females, we observe a significant decrease in the life expectancy difference, but a significant increase in the health expectancy difference. No significant changes in educational differences are found among males. The educational expansion of the population has shifted a large proportion of the population to lower-risk groups.
A study on risk assessment techniques in information systems

In today’s world, IT industry is rushing forward with an advancement of developing the advanced software. The Developers always try to develop the software projects without any errors or failures. Even though the developers take many measures to avoid software project failures, they are facing the failures that are occurred due to Risks that take place in the software projects. We cannot remove risk completely to the 100% extent, but we can try to minimize the risk in the projects by assessing the risks. So, in this paper we are providing a survey which overviews on different risk assessment techniques. This survey provides information about various risk assessment techniques which will be further useful for the software developers to minimize the risk and make the successful project.
Zinc Metal at a New ZnO Nanoparticles Modified Carbon Paste Electrode: A Cyclic Voltammetric Study

A new carbon paste electrode modified with ZnO nanoparticles was prepared and used to study the electro oxidation of zinc ions in solution by cyclic voltammetry (CV) method. The modified electrode displayed strong resolving function for the overlapping voltammetric response of zinc into one welldefined peak. The potential difference between Epa and Epc was > 200 mV, the range of which referred to the quasi-reversible mechanism. The kinetic of electrode was studied in the range of temperature 15-30 °C. The data of voltamograms showed the negative shift increased with increase of temperature, the result of which referred to the diffusion electron transfer in redox process of zinc oxidation. Diffusion coffining was calculated from Sevcik-Randles equation and thus equaled to 1.01×10. The rate constant was equal to 5.2×10 and 3.3×10 for oxidation and redaction respectively. And the peak current of zinc increased linearly with its concentration in the range of 2.020. 0 ppm.
Children's Reading Comprehension Difficulties

The goal of reading is to extract meaning from text, and this depends upon both decoding and language-comprehension skills. Recently there has been growing interest in children who can read accurately but have poor comprehension. Reading-comprehension impairment is relatively common, although it often goes unrecognized in the classroom. Children with reading-comprehension impairment have a range of oral-language weaknesses, which impede their comprehension of both written and spoken language. Recent studies indicate that these underlying oral-language difficulties can be ameliorated by school-based interventions, which can, in turn, improve both reading- and listening-comprehension skills. Early interventions to reduce such language-learning weaknesses potentially have very important educational, social, and economic implications.