Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An approach to calculate a Species Temperature Index for flora based on open data

To study the relation between changes in local plant communities and shifts in temperature, the temperature niches of the species need to be defined. We calculated the Species Temperature Index (STI) as a proxy for this niche. STI is defined as the mean annual temperature within the range of a species. In this paper, a method is described to calculate the STI for the European flora from open data provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and WorldClim global climate data, for 7254 taxa of European vascular plants, bryophytes, algae, and ascomycetes including lichens. The algorithm accounts for incomplete and unbalanced species distribution data. The Community Temperature Index (CTI) is defined as the weighted mean of the STIs of a species assemblage. A 1 × 1 km CTI grid map for the Netherlands is presented as an example of the use of STIs. Om de relatie tussen de veranderingen in lokale plantengemeenschappen en verschuivingen in de temperatuur te bestuderen is het nodig om de temperatuurniche van de individuele soort te kwantificeren. Wij berekenden de Species Temperature Index (STI) als een proxy voor deze niche. STI wordt gedefinieerd als de gemiddelde jaartemperatuur binnen het verspreidingsgebied van een soort. In dit artikel beschrijven we een methode om de STI voor de Europese flora te berekenen op basis van open data voor 7254 taxa van Europese vaatplanten, mossen, algen en korstmossen. De methode is ontworpen om te corrigeren voor incomplete of ruimtelijk ongelijk verdeelde verspreidingsgegevens. De Community Temperature Index (CTI) wordt gedefinieerd als het gewogen gemiddelde van STI’s voor gemeenschappen van soorten. Een 1 × 1 km CTI rasterkaart voor Nederland wordt gepresenteerd als voorbeeld van het gebruik van STI’s.
The Dark Side of Satisficing: Setting the Temperature of Creative Thinking

Effective creative work requires both "hot" (exploratory) and "cool" (exploitative) thinking. Unfortunately, many people (especially novices) under-explore, jumping to the "cool'' part too quickly, because they assume their current thinking "has to be" the path. This paper presents empirical results of how metaphorical problem framing scaffolds can influence creative performance. The task used De Bono's "Thinking Hats. " In a between-subjects experiment comparing exploratory to exploitative problem frames, the exploratory problem frame led to more original designs and more diverse ideas during brainstorming. This work provides an empirical baseline of how -- even for short tasks -- assigning people responsibility for broad thinking leads to better creative work.
Dara: A Chatbot to Help Indian Artists and Designers Discover International Opportunities

Many designers and artists in India, because of limited domestic patronage, are interested in international opportunities. However, they experience difficulties in discovering such opportunities. Finding relevant grants, funds, residencies, jobs, and collaborators takes significant time and effort. Typically, this is best done via a human matchmaker - someone who knows of opportunities and makes introductions. However, this person might be limited by their own social circles and knowledge. The few websites available are usually intimidating and not personalized. Our vision is to design and develop Dara, a conversational chatbot that asks a series of questions to its users and is able to suggest relevant opportunities. As a first step we built a Wizard-of-Oz prototype and interviewed 9 users about their experience. We then designed the personality, conversation flow and referral nomination system for our next-level prototype. We conducted a preliminary evaluation with 14 users in Bangalore, India. We discuss the implications for design of chatbots targeted at the creative community in the developing world.
Database Repairs and Consistent Query Answering: Origins and Further Developments

In this article we review the main concepts around database repairs and consistent query answering, with emphasis on tracing back the origin, motivation, and early developments. We also describe some research directions that has spun from those main concepts and the original line of research. We emphasize, in particular, fruitful and recent connections between repairs and causality in databases.
Optimizing key-value stores for hybrid storage environments

Optimizing Key-Value Stores For Hybrid Storage Environments Prashanth Menon Master of Applied Science Graduate Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto 2015 Modern write-intensive key-value stores have emerged as the prevailing data storage system for many big applications. However, these systems often sacrifice their read performance to cope with high data ingestion rates. Solid-state drives (SSD) can lend their help, but the volume of data and the peculiar characteristics of SSDs make their exclusive use uneconomical. Hence, hybrid storage environments with both SSDs and hard-disk drives (HDD) present interesting research opportunities for optimization. This thesis investigates how to design and optimize key-value stores for hybrid storage environments. We first modify and extend an existing key-value store to leverage the SSD as a cache. We next formulate an analytical cost model to predict the performance of a generic log-structured hybrid system. Finally, we use insights from our model to design and implement a new hybrid-optimized key-value store, LogStore. We demonstrate that LogStore is up to 7x faster than LevelDB, a state-of-the-art key-value store.
Hydrocracking of α-Cellulose Using Co, Ni, and Pd Supported on Mordenite Catalysts

Hydrocracking of α-cellulose has been conducted in a semi-batch reactor at 400, 450, and 500 °C with hydrogen flow (30 mL/min.) for 4 h. Mordenite (MOR) and Co, Ni and Pd metal supported on the MOR were used as solid catalysts. The catalysts were characterized using X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to evaluate the physical-chemical properties. Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) were used to analyze the amount of metal impregnated on the catalysts. The liquid product was analyzed using Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS). Thermal hydrocracking was also conducted at 450 °C with the amount of liquid product was 37.86 wt. %. The highest liquid conversion obtained by mordenite catalyst was 94.66 wt. % at 450 °C and the highest liquid conversion (98.08 wt.%) was reached by Pd/MOR catalyst at 400 °C.
Frequency Domain Wave Equation Inversion and Its Application on the Heterogeneous Reservoir Model Data

Seismic full waveform inversion seeks to make use of the full information based on full wave field modeling to extract quantitative information from seismograms. Its serious nonlinearity and high dependence on initial velocity model often results in unsatisfactory inversion results in paleo-karsts carbonate reservoir characterized by strong heterogeneity. The paper presents an improved strategy of multi-scale inversion to establish velocity field model of waveform tomography. the forward wave equation algorithm was derived in frequency domain, and then the Matrix formalism for the iterative inverse methods is derived by gradient methods to speed up calculation and to avoid convergence to local minimum value. After massive amount of frequencies tests, the appropriate bandwidth are extracted, and the velocity field calculated at low frequency is used as the input of the high frequency. After the iteration, the accurate velocity field is inverted. Finally, frequency domain wave equation full waveform inversion in mathematical and physical models is conducted in order to verify the inverse program. The method of selecting the inverse frequencies is proved to be effective.
The Brazilian sardine. Is there any room for modelling

Brazilian sardine (Sardinella brasiliensis) production has declined along the last 30 years, being today around 40 000 tons. The fleet, despite the reduction in number of boats still has an excessive fishing power when related to the stock size. It is probable that besides overfishing, climatic and oceanographic phenomena interfere with recruitment success. Several hypotheses were suggested and a few models implemented aiming at the correlation of recruitment and environmental variables. In almost all cases, in spite of environmental variation, the spawning stock biomass seemed to be a main factor for recruitment success. The state of overfishing prevailing in the international scenario has determined the proposal of more robust strategies for fisheries management, based in marine protected areas and in a sharp reduction of fishing effort. The management of the Brazilian sardine stock is set up in an inefficient system of special permissions granting and in the definition of closed seasons. The slight trend of catches recovery, in the latest years, impelled the fisheries authority to reduce the closed seasons, showing a misled policy intended to capitalize on any apparent stock increase or marginal fishing opportunity. In fact, modeling is always necessary to better understand and represent nature, but in the case of the sardine stock a sound management based on the preservation of the spawning stock size above a critical value through effective control of licensing and closed seasons deserves priority.
Low dietary diversity among older Japanese adults with impaired dentition

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the relationship of dentition status, defined by the number of occluding pairs of natural teeth (OPNT) and removable denture fit, to food diversity among older Japanese adults. The study participants were 268 Japanese (mean age: 81.7 years) classified into four groups: (i) good dentition (n = 91; ≥5 OPNT), (ii) compromised dentition (n = 43; <5 OPNT), (iii) well-fitting dentures (n = 104; self-reported), and (iv) ill-fitting denture (n = 30; self-reported). Food diversity was assessed as a measure of dietary quality using the 11-item Food Diversity Score Kyoto (FDSK-11), which evaluates frequency of consumption of 11 main food groups (grains, potatoes, beans and soybean products, meat, fish and shellfish, eggs, milk and dairy products, vegetables, seaweed, nuts and fruits). Multivariable analysis of the differences in FDSK-11 score ranging from 0 to 11, with a higher score indicating greater food diversity, among the four groups was conducted using linear regression models with robust standard errors. The compromised dentition and self-perceived ill-fitting denture groups had significantly lower FDSK-11 scores than the good dentition group after adjusting for confounders (P < 0.05). A less-varied diet, as indicated by low FDSK-11 score, was observed in participants with fewer OPNT or ill-fitting dentures. Impaired dentition was associated with poor diet quality among older Japanese. Key words: Epidemiology, elderly, diet, dental health.
How Do Alphas and Betas Move? Uncertainty, Learning and Time Variation in Risk Loadings

I employ a parsimonious model with learning but without conditioning information to extract time-varying measures of market-risk sensitivities, pricing errors and pricing uncertainty. Parameters estimated for U.S. equity portfolios show significant fluctuations, along patterns that change across size and book-to-market categories of stocks. Time-varying betas display superior predictive accuracy for portfolio returns against constant and rolling-window OLS estimates. I also study the relationship of betas with business-cycle variables, finding that those of high BE/ME stocks move pro-cyclically, unlike those of low BE/ME stocks. Investment growth, rather than consumption, predicts the betas of high BE/ME and small-firm portfolios.
Transit Equilibrium Assignment Based on Optimal Strategies: An Implementation in EMME/2

The standard transit assignment oered in EMME/2, which is based on optimal strategies, does not consider congestion eects due to limited vehicle capacity. This assignment model can be extended by taking into account the vehicle capacity by means of a volume-dependent transit time function, leading to the formulation of a transit equilibrium assignment model. In this note, we describe how the standard version of the EMME/2 Transportation Planning Software can be used to solve this assignment model. A macro has been written which implements a Frank-Wolfe descent algorithm, by combining the xed cost transit assignment module with the network and matrix calculator modules.
Formal Specification of Software Design Metrics

Given the significant interest in applying formal methods to object oriented paradigms, this paper presents a formal approach to define software design quality metrics upon a formal specification of the UML metamodel using the Z language. This multi-level formalization benefits greatly to design metrics as it allows a non ambiguous interpretation and a more rigorous definition, which, in turn, can assist the implementation of tools to measure the software design quality for industrial application. Our achievement gives precise meaning to software design metrics definitions in order to facilitate verification and validation. We, especially, applied our approach to one of the most well known set of metrics: the CK metrics. Keywords-formalization; UML metamodel; Z; CK metrics;
Hapke mixture modeling applied to VNIR spectra of mafic mineral mixtures and shergottites: Implications for quantitative analysis of satellite data

The mineralogy of Mars is well understood on a qualitative level at a global scale due to satellite data. Quantitative analysis of visible and near‐infrared (VNIR) satellite data is a desirable but nontrivial task, due partly to the nonlinearity of VNIR reflectance spectra from the mineral mixtures of the Martian surface. In this study, we investigated the use of the Hapke radiative transfer model to generate linearly mixed single scattering albedo data from nonlinearly mixed VNIR reflectance data and then quantitatively analyzed them using the linear spectral mixture model. Simplifications to the Hapke equation were tested accounting for variables that would be unknown when using satellite data. Mineral mixture spectra from the RELAB spectral library were degraded to test the robustness of the unmixing technique in the face of data that mimic some of the complexities of satellite spectral data collected at Mars. A final test was performed on spectra from shergottite meteorites to assess the technique against real Martian mineral mixtures. The simplified Hapke routine produced robust abundance estimates within 5–10% accuracy when applied to laboratory standard spectra from the synthetic mixtures of igneous minerals in agreement with previous studies. The results of tests involving degraded data to mimic the low spectral contrast of the Martian surface and the lack of a priori knowledge of the constituent mineral spectral endmembers, however, were less encouraging, with errors in abundance estimation greater than 25%. These results cast doubt on the utility of Hapke unmixing for the quantitative analysis of VNIR data of the surface of Mars.
Identifying Causal Effects

A variety of questions in causal inference can be represented as probability distributions over hypothetical worlds where idealized randomized experiments known as interventions have taken place. Some such questions are really questions of causal effect of a particular intervention, while others are counterfactual and consider results of interventions which violate the state of affairs actually observed. Randomized experiments are expensive and often illegal. It is therefore imperative to find ways of evaluating, or identifying causal effect and counterfactual questions from available information, and causal assumptions. In this paper, we review the state of the art in identification of causal effects and related counterfactual quantities in the framework of graphical causal models, a formalism where a causal domain of interest is represented by directed acyclic graphs with vertices representing variables of interest, and arrows representing direct causal influences.
In vitro Translation of Apple Chlorotic Leaf Spot Virus RNA

Summary Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV) RNA was translated in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate. Two major polypeptides of M r 105000 (105K) and 51K, and some less prominent polypeptides (88K, 66K, 28K and 23K) were produced. The 23K polypeptide was identified as the coat protein on the basis of its electrophoretic mobility and serological reaction to virus antiserum. Time course and immuno-precipitation experiments suggested that the 23K polypeptide might be generated from the 28K polypeptide by post-translational cleavage.
Effects of Chromium Supplementation on Growth Rate and Metabolism in Fattening Bulls

Pechova A. , J. Illek, M. ·indelafi, L. Pavlata:Effects of Chromium Supplementation on Growth Rate and Metabolism in Fattening Bulls. Acta Vet Brno 2002, 71: 535-541. Effects of chromium supplementation on growth rate and selected metabolic indexes including interactions with trace elements (zinc, copper) were investigated in 8-month-old bulls divided into one experimental (E, n= 8) and one control (C, n= 9) groups with mean live weights 284.9 ± 33.9 and 279.6 ± 27.0 kg, respectively. The experimental group was fed a diet supplemented with chromium-enriched yeasts (Co-Factor III Chromium Yeast, Alltech, 0.1% Cr 3+ ) at a dose corresponding to the intake of 5 mg of Cr per animal per day in the first phase (up to day 136) and 8 g per animal per day in the second phase (days 136 to 220) of the fattening period. The bulls were weighed and blood samples were collected on days 1, 136 and 220 of the experimental period. Favourable effects of chromium supplementation were evident from higher weight gains in the first fattening phase (1.04 ± 0.12 vs. 0.82 ± 0.12 kg; p ≤ 0.01). The between-group difference diminished and became now significant in the second phase of the fattening period (0.82 ± 0.12 vs. 0.74 ± 0.14 kg). Significantly higher concentration of protein (p ≤ 0.01) on days 136 and 220, total cholesterol (p ≤ 0.05) on day 136, copper (p ≤ 0.05) on days 136 and 220, and significantly lower concentration of magnesium (p ≤ 0.05) on day 220, phosphorus (p ≤ 0.05) on day 136 was found in experimental group. No effects of chromium supplementation on the concentrations of glucose, urea, sodium, potassium, zinc, AST, GMT, LD, ALP, and CK were observed.
Pedagogical Issues in Developing Mobile Assisted Language Learning Materials

This paper discusses the issues involved in developing mobile assisted language learning (MALL) materials based on the materials development process for a Leonardo da Vinci (LdV) Transfer of Innovation Project entitled Mobile Learning for Young People at Risk Groups (MLARG). The materials were developed for Grade 9 and 10 students in tourism vocational high schools in Turkey to be used as supplementary self-access materials supporting English learning at school. The paper provides a detailed account of the decisions taken to develop the materials as well as the pedagogical challenges that were faced during the development process.
Occupational Safety and Health in Highway Maintenance Yards: an Approach Suitable to Face Special Criticalities

On the request of Prosecutor Office, the Authors carried out a research work to define the extent of the Occupational Safety and Health - OS&H criticalities affecting the highway maintenance yards, in normal and special scenarios where hazardous freights are involved. The high number of work related accidents in maintenance/improvement yards, often characterized by dramatic Severity Rates, requires a special Risk Assessment and Management. The paper summarizes the results of a research leading to identify the main parameters directly or indirectly conditioning the design and safety of the highway maintenance yards. We developed a schematization of yard typologies and contexts, upon which a thorough Risk Assessment and Management becomes possible. Moreover, an original Accident Analysis Technique provided precious support to the study, filling the gaps of information on the Standards violations of some accident databases. Finally, the paper discusses some innovative Safety Control measures for different highway scenarios.
Work Orientation and Wives ’ Employment Careers : An Evaluation of Hakim ’ s Preference Theory

This article uses a nine-year period of work-life history data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991 – 1999) to examine married/cohabiting women’s work trajectories. In particular, it tests some major contentions of Hakim’s (2000) preference theory. Both supportive and opposing evidence for the theory has been found. First, concurring with Hakim’s arguments, women who have followed a home-career path hold consistently more home-centred attitudes over time than women who have been committed to their employment careers. Moreover, it is found that presence of dependent children has little or no negative effect on a work-centred woman’s chance of being engaged in full-time work. But the findings could not rule out the possibility that women’s employment careers are still constrained. The most work-centred women (as revealed in their gender role attitudes in the nine-year period), despite having been committed mostly to a full-time work, still have displayed a certain degree of discontinuity in their career pursuits. Finally, contrary to corollary of the preference theory, the relationship between gender role attitudes and women’s participation in labour market work is reciprocal rather than unidirectional. That is, women’s work orientation is endogenous to their labour market experiences.
Coaxing, Begging and Pleading for a Response: Reticence among Iranian EFL Students

Reticence is a complex multidimensional phenomenon which exists in foreign language classrooms causing a sense of passivity for the students and frustration for the teachers. This paper reports the causes of reticence among EFL students at Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. 190 students were randomly selected (2010) and were studies for their reticence reasons. To measure student's general tendency to avoid spoken communication, the 20-item Unwillingness to Communicate Scale (UCS) was used, which measures two dimensions of reticence: Approach Avoidance (AA) and Reward (R). Using a Likert scale, the obtained data were analyzed in SPSS and the results were reported using descriptive statistics. Based on the statistical analyses, we concluded that the participants were aware of the value of oral communication in the classrooms, and those who regarded themselves as more proficient in English were more cooperative and willing to talk and get into discussions in the classrooms. The participants were very reluctant to talk and apprehensive about speaking English in front of other students or teachers. (Zahra Hashemi, Maryam Hadavi, Nematullah Shomoossi, Mohsen Rezaeian. Coaxing, Begging and Pleading for a Response: Reticence among Iranian EFL Students. Life Sci J 2013;10(9s):367-373) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com . 51