Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A list of productive vocabulary generated from second language learners' essays

Corpora for second language (L2) learning may contain a receptive vocabulary, i.e., vocabulary that is understandable by learners or productive vocabulary that L2 learners themselves are able to actively use. Corpora containing productive vocabulary could assist both students and teachers, e.g. tracking the actual learning progress, as well as language technologists who wish to analyse L2 learners' lan guage. While there exist productive vocabulary lists in other languages, such as the English Vocabulary Profile list, none have been made for Swedish. In this paper, we describe our project to create a Swedish vocabulary list generated from a learners' corpus, which consists of a number of second language (L2) learner essays collected into an electronic corpus. The list, named SweLL-list, contains normalised lemma and part-of-speech tag combinations and their frequency counts. We present the work that was done to create a part of this learner corpus and the list based on it. Fur thermore, we detail a normalisation algorithm, based on Levenshtein distance, used to correct L2 word level errors. We then proceed to describe our list in detail and analyse this resource through a compar ison to SVALex, a vocabulary list based on L2 reading comprehension materials. Finally we examine the results of the aforementioned normalisation algorithm. From examining the SweLL-list and comparing it to SVALex, we got some indications on the L2 students' progress. For example, we saw that while a great part of the vocabulary is taught at the intermediate levels, the students' productive vocabulary does not increase accordingly until the proficient levels. Our analysis of the performance of Levenshtein distance for correcting L2 word level errors showed promise, especially for longer words (more than 4 characters) and where only one spelling error had been made. In order to improve the normalisation for multiple errors and shorter words, more work is needed, possibly combining the Levenshtein distance with other language technology tools.
Performances of LAD Regression, M-Regression and Quantile Regression Methods in order to Investigate Stock Prices of the Banks in the BIST Bank Index

In this study, performances of LAD regression, M-regression, Q25 and Q75 quantile regression models as robust regression methods alternative to the classical LS method are compared in the case of violations from the normality assumption of the error terms and the presence of an outlier. By using these alternative regression methods, stock prices of the 12 commercial banks and 1 participation bank listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) bank index between 2012 and 2016 are investigated in terms of equity size and equity profitability. As a result of this study, M-regression is the most suitable robust regression model with the smallest value of the mean squared error (MSE) measure and the small values for the standard errors of the parameter estimates belonging to the equity size and equity profitability. The smaller the standard errors of the parameter estimates, the narrower the resulting confidence intervals are obtained in Mregression. The accuracy as a measure of closeness of parameter estimates to the true values of the parameters is also obtained higher in Mregression.
Explaining Welfare Benefits in the South: A Regional Analysis

This paper examines the choices made by states in the implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Commonly known as TANF, the legislation gives states substantial control over the choices of benefits and sanctions they impose on program recipients. Using the models and theoretical explanations offered by Soss et al. (2001) and tested in a 49-state model, we test the degree to which these explanations hold when applied to a regional analysis of southern states. We find that the southern states are similar to the rest of the country when it comes to setting TANF benefit choices, although social control explanations are more important for southern states than for the rest of the nation.
Metabolizable protein supply according to the nrc (2001) for dairy cows grazing elephant grass

Tropical pastures fertilized with nitrogen may have high crude protein (CP) contents with high rumen degradability. High crude protein concentrates offered to cows grazing these pastures may increase feed costs without positive effects on their performance. The objectives of this trial were to evaluate the effects of increasing metabolizable protein (MP) supply beyond the NRC (2001) recommendations for mid lactating dairy cows grazing elephant grass pasture (Pennisetum purpureum Schum. cv. Napier) managed with high stocking rates. Three concentrates (6.3 kg DM-1 cow-1 day-1) were evaluated: control (17%CP) was adjusted in relation to MP according to the NRC (2001); the other two contained extra soybean meal, to increase the CP content to 21.2% (CP) and 25.0% (CP). Twelve multiparous Holstein cows, averaging 150 days of milk production at a rate of 19.5 kg of milk day-1, were used in a 3 × 3 latin square design, replicated four times. Forage consumption was 11,270 kg DM ha-1 with 34% of green leaves and 12% CP. Milk production, corrected to 3.5% fat, milk fat, protein, lactose and total solids contents were not affected by treatments (P > 0.05). Milk urea nitrogen and plasma urea nitrogen increased linearly (P 0.05) body weight gain, body condition score, grazing time, ruminating time, resting time, rectal temperature and respiratory rate. Crude protein content in the concentrate formulated according to NRC (2001) is adequate for mid lactating cows grazing tropical pastures.
Three different extraction methods for detecting Roundup Ready soybean in processed food from the Italian market

European people are very anxious about genetically modified foods and do not trust them. Recently new genetically modified crops were approved and are now cultivated in Europe. Thus it is very important to develop appropriate DNA-based techniques capable of detecting genetically modified food. Crucial factors for the pre- PCR process are: homogeneity of the sample, performance of template isolation and purification in terms of yield and purity. In this study 50 food samples from the Italian market were tested with Real-Time PCR in order to establish whether or not they contained Roundup Ready ® soybean (RRS). Three different methods were used to isolate the DNA: CTAB; Kit Prepman tm Ultra; ABI PRISM 6100. The extracted DNA was amplified by Real- Time PCR using species and RRS specific detection protocols. The results indicate that all the methods were suitable to isolate the DNA from processed food and that in all the analysed samples the quantity of RRS was less than 0.9%.
Habitat niche community-level analysis of an amphibian assemblage at Lake Nabugabo, Uganda

Abstract. Community structure was studied across six different habitat types in an amphibian assemblage constituted by 24 species belonging to five families, from Lake Nabugabo, Uganda. We employed a suite of different statistical methods, including univariate, multivariate, and Monte Carlo procedures to investigate the randomness/nonrandomness and the seasonal effects (wet versus dry season) of the community assembly. We calculated for each species in each habitat type an index of relative abundance by using a time constrained counting technique, with 48 1-h counts for each habitat type. Co-occurrence was analysed by C score with 30 000 simulations; resource partitioning patterns by RA2 and RA3 algorithms with 30 000 simulations; and apparent dissimilarity among species in terms of habitat use by UPGMA dendrograms. After pooling data from wet and dry seasons, it resulted that the amphibian community was non-randomly assembled according to C-score analyses, but both RA2 and RA3 were unable to uncover any competitive structure for the dataset. Seasonal effects were evident, and although C score analyses confirmed a nonrandom structure for the community under study (particularly in wet season), RA3 showed that species with high relative abundance tended to significantly concentrate in one habitat type (swamp forest) rather than to partition the habitat resource. UPGMA dendrograms grouped the species differently in dry versus wet seasons. Overall, the comparative evidence of 1) non-random community structure according to C-score analysis, and 2) absence of resource partitioning according to niche overlap null models analysis, suggests that community organization in Lake Nabugabo amphibians is generated by habitat affinities rather than by interspecific competition.
Putting things in order. First and second order context models for the calculation of semantic similarity.

Recent years have seen an increase of interest in vector-based approaches to lexical semantics. These are inspired by the distributional hypothesis, which states that semantic similarity can be modelled by distributional similarity in a corpus. However, while there are a variety of ways to construct the vector models, it is an open question as to what type of semantic information these contain. In this paper, we investigate three popular ways of building such models. The first two are bag-of-word methods that rely on the (weighted) frequencies of the words that co-occur with the target word. One looks at the context words directly, the other uses second-order contexts. The third technique takes syntactic relations into account. Despite the popularity of these models, very little is known about the semantic information that they capture. For a start, our experiments show a low overlap between the results of the second-order model and the other two. Second-order information thus leads to a vector space clearly different from spaces that rely on first-order information. Secondly, the overall performance of the second-order model is clearly inferior to that of its first-order competitors, compared to a gold standard like EuroWordNet. Thirdly, an investigation of the types of semantic relations that the models find shows that syntactic information seems to favour strict semantic relations, while first-order bag-of-word information results in the discovery of more loose relations.
Tidal and Non-Tidal Frequencies Found in the Seismicity of California

The seismicity of California (ANCC catalogue) was tested for the possible tidal and/or non-tidal frequencies. The local maxima of tidal potential were computed as a comparative base using global elastic tidal model of Earth by WahrDehant-Zschau. The imperfect elasticity of the Earth mantle was used. Tidal cycles were defined by the analysis of quasi-periods of tidal potential maxima with comparable lengths. We found semi-diurnal, diurnal, fortnightly, monthly, semiannual, annual, 4.425-years up to 18.6-years long tidal cycles. Ocean tides were not considered. Results of the comparison of tidal cycles and seismicity show that tidal cycles with periods equal or longer than semi-diurnal were found in the catalogue and/or in the sub-catalogues. Besides the tidal diurnal cycle, the daily (24:00 hours) period was found. This wave has stronger influence on the seismicity than the tidal diurnal cycle. Its origin is connected probably with temperature cycles on the Earth’s surface. The combination of tidal diurnal cycle and daily (24:00 hours) wave leads to the superimposed wave. The 7-days and 3-months long periods were also found in the seismicity. They correspond to the half-size of tidal periods. In this case, maxima of seismicity or other seismic parameters coincide both with maxima and minima of tidal potential.
GA‐optimized FLC‐driven semi‐active control for phase‐II smart nonlinear base‐isolated benchmark building

An optimized fuzzy logic control (FLC) algorithm is developed for the phase‐II smart base‐isolated benchmark building with nonlinear isolation system. A restart genetic algorithm‐based optimization strategy has been used to change the fuzzy system properties like the fuzzy rule base, pre‐scale gains, membership function type and parameters at every simulation step. Acceleration and relative velocity responses at the damper location have been taken as inputs to the FLC system. Voltage required by the magneto‐rheological (MR) damper is obtained as an output from the FLC. The use of MR dampers in the benchmark study as a control device along with isolation bearings in the building renders the overall system nonlinear. The advantage of using a fuzzy rule base is its inherent ability to handle nonlinearities and uncertainties in structural behavior, input excitation, sensor, and actuator dynamics. As a consequence, FLC provides robustness to the control mechanism. Moreover, FLC‐driven MR damper voltage monitoring provides a gradual and smooth change of voltage. In the present study, the number of sensors and actuators and their locations have been kept unchanged as in the sample controller provided in the benchmark study. Simulation results for FLC, the adaptive rule and fixed rule base type, and results from the sample controller provided have been tabulated and compared. Results obtained indicate improvement using the proposed control approach without considering a multi‐objective nondominated solution, where the weight of objective functions can be varied. A stability test for the proposed adaptive rule base FLC has been shown. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Relating shell morphometrics and heterozygosity to byssogenesis, byssal thread attachment strength and motility in the blue mussel

Heterozygote deficiencies have been noted in both wild and farmed populations of Mytilus edulis Linnaeus 1758, yet the underlying causes for this deficit remain unclear. This is especially surprising considering that advantageous fitness traits (i.e., increased fecundity, reduced basal metabolism, higher growth rate in farmed mussels) as well as decreased mortality under environmental stressors (i.e., air exposure, increased water temperature) are positively correlated with heterozygosity in these mussels. The dislodgement hypothesis states that more heterozygous mussels are migrating to the periphery of a rope culture or mussel bed to gain an energetic advantage where they become more susceptible to drop-off. To test this hypothesis, wild and farmed blue mussels were assessed for motility, size, byssal thread attachment strength, byssogenesis, and heterozygosity. There was no correlation between heterozygosity and byssal thread attachment strength or motility in wild or farmed mussels. Consequently, the dislodgement hypothesis is rejected. Instead, shell size was significantly correlated with several byssal thread variables. Size had a positive effect on attachment strength; larger mussels were more firmly attached to the substrate. Smaller mussels abandoned more plaques and produced more byssal threads than large mussels in the wild and farmed populations. Farmed mussels exhibited greater heterozygosity than wild mussels, possibly due to differences in predation risk, population density and size class. Neither heterozygosity nor size had significant effects on motility in either population.
MACROSCOPIC POLARIZATION IN CRYSTALLINE DIELECTRICS : THE GEOMETRIC PHASE APPROACH

Macroscopic electric polarization is a fundamental concept in the physics of matter, upon which the phenomenological description of dielectrics is based (Landau and Lifshitz, 1984). Notwithstanding, this concept has long evaded even a precise microscopic definition. A typical incorrect statement — often found in textbooks — is that the macroscopic polarization of a solid is the dipole of a unit cell. It is easy to realize that such a quantity is neither measurable nor model-independent: the dipole of a periodic charge distribution is in fact ill defined (Martin, 1974), except in the extreme Clausius-Mossotti model, in which the total charge is unambiguously decomposed into an assembly of /ocalized and neutral charge distributions. One can adopt an alternative viewpoint by considering a macroscopic and finite piece of matter and defining its polarization P as the dipole per unit volume: 1
Effects of Etch Holes in Microelectromechanical Resonators

Micromachining processes such as surface machining of polysilicon microstructures or SOI based processes often require etch holes to be created in the structural layer for purposes of releasing the mechanical structures from the substrate. The present work examines the effect of the nature and density of etch holes on the resonant frequency of micromechanical resonators. Effects relating to geometry, dimension and arrangement of etch holes are considered. Two predictive analytical models for estimating resonant frequency are considered and the results compared with finite element simulations on beam structures incorporating etch holes. The results from using these models can be used to formulate design rules for the size and arrangement of etch holes in micromechanical resonators.
δ 13 C decreases in the upper western South Atlantic during Heinrich Stadials 3 and 2

Abstract. Abrupt millennial-scale climate change events of the last deglaciation (i.e. Heinrich Stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas) were accompanied by marked increases in atmospheric CO2 (CO2atm) and decreases in its stable carbon isotopic ratios (δ13C), i.e. δ13CO2atm, presumably due to outgassing from the ocean. However, information on the preceding Heinrich Stadials during the last glacial period is scarce. Here we present δ13C records from two species of planktonic foraminifera from the western South Atlantic that reveal major decreases (up to 1 ‰) during Heinrich Stadials 3 and 2. These δ13C decreases are most likely related to millennial-scale periods of weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the consequent increase (decrease) in CO2atm (δ13CO2atm). We hypothesise two mechanisms that could account for the decreases observed in our records, namely strengthening of Southern Ocean deep-water ventilation and weakening of the biological pump. Additionally, we suggest that air–sea gas exchange could have contributed to the observed δ13C decreases. Together with other lines of evidence, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that the CO2 added to the atmosphere during abrupt millennial-scale climate change events of the last glacial period also originated in the ocean and reached the atmosphere by outgassing. The temporal evolution of δ13C during Heinrich Stadials 3 and 2 in our records is characterized by two relative minima separated by a relative maximum. This w structure is also found in North Atlantic and South American records, further suggesting that such a structure is a pervasive feature of Heinrich Stadial 2 and, possibly, also Heinrich Stadial 3.
Production and Bromatological Composition of Black Oat Cultivated with Vetch When Submitted to Nitrogen Fertilization in Above Sowing in the Pasture of Tifton 85

The objective of this research was to evaluate the forage production, the bromatological composition of black oat in consortium with vetch when submitted to nitrogen fertilization in above sowing system in the Tifton 85 pasture. The experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana, Campus Toledo-PR. The experimental design used was random blocks with four treatments and five repetitions and the treatments consisted of: only oat, oat consorted with vetch, oat with nitrogen fertilization and oat consorted with vetch and nitrogen fertilization. Were evaluated the bromatological composition (CP, NDF, ADF, LIG, EE DM, MM) and the forage yield in the consortium of oat with vetch and/or nitrogen fertilization. The results obtained to the bromatological composition indicate that the application of nitrogen on the surface of the forage increased production with an average of 3.922 kg ha-1 in the second year. The nitrogen fertilization also influenced in the medium contents of crude protein (CP) with 18.56% in the first year. The increase of nitrogen in the parcels showed meaningful results for the first year (P < 0.05) in the contents of dry matter with average value of 18.95%. The introduction of black oat consorted with vetch and with a nitrogen fertilization in above sowing in the crop of tifton 85 during the winter period provides an increase in the yield kg ha-1 and when the vetch was used it happened an increase in the contents of crude protein and dry matter in the bromatological composition of the forage.
Effectiveness of Commercial Banks’ Strategies on the Frequency of Customers’ ATM Card Usage: A Case of Commercial Banks in Embu West District, Kenya

The emergence of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) has caused the greatest transformation in the banking industry. Its introduction significantly revolutionized the practice of banking by availing accessibility on a 24-hour day basis and reducing substantially the number of bank tellers. Despite this transformation and 23 years after the first ATM was introduced in Kenya, the ATMs have not achieved full adoption. The ATM usage stands at 13.4% nationally. This study therefore sought to explore the effectiveness of strategies applied by commercial banks in Kenya so as to achieve the full adoption of ATMs by customers. The exploratory research design was used in this study with a target population of 128,458 bank customers. Stratified random sampling was used to get a sample size of 384 bank customers and census survey was conducted for the 8 bank managers in the 8 commercial banks of Embu West district. Data collection was done using two sets of questionnaires; one for the bank managers and another one for the bank customers. The tools were pre-tested at Chuka town in Meru South district on 19 bank customers and 4 bank managers. The pre-test obtained a reliability coefficient of 0.7483 on customers’ questionnaire and 0.7128 on bank managers’ questionnaire. The two set of questionnaires were thus considered reliable because the reliability coefficient exceeded 0.70. Data analysis was done using the descriptive and inferential statistics. The results obtained from the study implied that commercial banks’ strategies of accessibility, security, cost reduction, advertising, added benefits and market segmentation were significant in influencing customer usage of ATM cards. These findings would be useful in strategy evaluation by bank managers in improving the management of the ATM delivery channels.