Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental Assessment of the Performance of Two Marine Coatings to Curb Biofilm Formation of Microfoulers

Biofilms formed on submerged marine surfaces play a critical role in the fouling process, causing increased fuel consumption, corrosion, and high maintenance costs. Thus, marine biofouling is a major issue and motivates the development of antifouling coatings. In this study, the performance of two commercial marine coatings, a foul-release silicone-based paint (SilRef) and an epoxy resin (EpoRef), was evaluated regarding their abilities to prevent biofilm formation by Cyanobium sp. and Pseudoalteromonas tunicata (common microfoulers). Biofilms were developed under defined hydrodynamic conditions to simulate marine settings, and the number of biofilm cells, wet weight, and thickness were monitored for 7 weeks. The biofilm structure was analyzed by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) at the end-point. Results demonstrated that EpoRef surfaces were effective in inhibiting biofilm formation at initial stages (until day 28), while SilRef surfaces showed high efficacy in decreasing biofilm formation during maturation (from day 35 onwards). Wet weight and thickness analysis, as well as CLSM data, indicate that SilRef surfaces were less prone to biofilm formation than EpoRef surfaces. Furthermore, the efficacy of SilRef surfaces may be dependent on the fouling microorganism, while the performance of EpoRef was strongly influenced by a combined effect of surface and microorganism.
A New Classifier Using Layered Genetic Programming

This paper proposes a novel method called layered genetic programming (LAGEP), which is a new architecture for multipopulation GP. LAGEP consists of a number of layers. Each layer is composed of a number of populations and can be viewed as an implementation of isolated multipopulation GP. The solution generated by LAGEP is a classification function composed by functions generated from layers. Many experiments based on medical classification problems with different parameters are conducted to illustrate the behavior of LAGEP. Experimental results prove that accuracy of LAGEP is higher than that of isolated MGP and single population GP.
Investigation of Aerosol Climatology, Optical Characteristics and Variability over Egypt Based on Satellite Observations and In-Situ Measurements

Egypt experiences high rates of air pollution, which is a major threat to human health and the eco-environment and therefore needs to be tackled by defining major causes to hinder or mitigate their impacts. The major driving forces of air pollution are either of local and/or regional origin. In addition, seasonal aerosols may be natural, such as dust particles transported from the western desert, or anthropogenic aerosols which are transported from industrial areas and smoke particles from seasonal biomass burning. Monitoring the optical properties of aerosols and their pattern in the atmosphere on a daily basis requires a robust source of information and professional analytical tools. This research explored the potential of using time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data to comprehensively investigate the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and variability for the period 2012–2018 on a daily basis. The data show that spring, summer and autumn seasons experienced the highest anomaly originating from regional and national sources. The high AOD in spring associated with a low Angstrom exponent (AE) indicates the presence of coarse particles which naturally originate from desert dust or sea spray. In contrast, the high AE in summer and autumn demonstrated the dominance of fine anthropogenic aerosols such as smoke particles from local biomass burning. The observation of a high number of fire incidents over Egypt in October and November 2018, during the months of rice crop harvesting, showed that these incidents contribute to the presence of autumn aerosols across the country. In-situ measurements of Particulate Matter (PM10) from local stations from an environmental based network as well as the AERONET AOD were used to validate the MODIS AOD, providing a high correlation coefficient of r = 0.73.
Learning Skill Hierarchies from Predicate Descriptions and Self-Supervision

We consider the problem of learning skills — lifted, goal-conditioned policies and associated STRIPS operators — for deterministic domains where states are represented as sets of ﬂuents. The agent is equipped with a STRIPS planner and a set of primitive actions , but is not given models of these actions to use for planning. Its objective is to learn a set of policies and operators with which it can efﬁciently solve a variety of tasks presented only at test time. Previous works have examined the problems of learning operators and learning hierarchical, compositional policies in isolation; our focus here is to have one agent learn both. We approach this problem in two phases. First, we use inductive logic programming to learn primitive operators — preconditions and effects for each primitive action — from interactions with the world. Next, we use self-supervision to learn both higher-level lifted policies built on these primitives and their associated operators . We demonstrate the utility of our approach in two domains: Rearrangement and Minecraft . We evaluate the extent to which our learned policies generalize and compose to solve new, harder tasks at test time. Our work illustrates that a rich, structured library of skills can be derived from limited interactions with a predicate-based environment.
Geographical variation in Common Redstart calls

C Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus occurs in two subspecies. Nominate P p phoe nicurus (hereafter phoenicurus) breeds across most of the species’ range, from Morocco, Spain and Britain in the west to lake Baikal, Russia, in the east. The other subspecies, Ehren­ berg’s Redstart P p samamisicus (hereafter sama­ misicus), has a south­easterly distribution. Its oc­ currence stretches from eastern Anatolia, Turkey, the southern Caucasus and the Middle East to south­western central Asia (Glutz von Blotzheim & Bauer 1988, Clement & Rose 2015). However, some authors include the whole of Turkey and central Asia in the breeding distribution range of samamisicus (Roselaar 1995, Kirwan et al 2008, Shirihai & Svensson 2018). Birds in the Balkan, Crimea and the northern Cau ca sus may show a mix of features and some consider these to be in­ tergrades between the two subspecies (Glutz von Blotzheim & Bauer 1988, Svensson 1992, Kirwan et al 2008, Martinez 2010, Clement & Rose 2015); more research is needed. Adult males of both sub­ species are identified by the presence (samamisi­ cus) or absence (phoenicurus) of a white wing patch. Given good views, most first-winter males can be identified on other plumage characters, too (Small 2009). Identification of females based on plumage features is only tentative (Small 2009, Clement & Rose 2015, Shirihai & Svensson 2018). Addition ally, contact calls were thought to be a reliable identification feature for some time (Bergmann et al 2008, Small 2009, Ayé et al 2012, Svensson et al 2015): phoenicurus was meant to invariably utter a rising, slightly dissylabilic, huid, whereas the analogous call of samamisicus was described as a heed with constant frequency. It was generally assumed that phoenicurus shows the huid call across its whole range, until pheno­ typic phoenicurus with heed calls were observed in the east of its breeding range (Ayé et al 2014). In this study, we analysed calls of Common Redstarts from most parts of its breeding range to get more information about the distribution of the different calls.
Correlated ecophysiological and growth related leaf traits among Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes

Across plant taxa there are large-scale correlations among ecophysiological leaf traits: Specific leaf area (SLA), maximum photosynthetic rate (Amax), Leaf nitrogen content (NL), and leaf lifespan (LL). Suite syndromes of leaf traits are associated among r and K-selected species and Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes exhibit groth syndromes similar to the r and K-selection theory and range from a wide variety of latitudes of origin. The purpose of this study was to determine if the ecoyphysiological leaf traits: SLA, Amax, Nl, LL and other growth-rleated traits were correlated across A. thaliana ecotypes from a wide range of latitudes of origin. Fifteen A. thaliana ecotypes were grown in an experimental growth chamber to determine if these ecophysiological and other growth-related leaf traits such as leaf initiation rate and bolting time were correlated across the ecytpes. Results indicate that SLA, Amax and NL were correlated across the ecotypes as consistent with global trends while LL was not significantly correlated. The life history trait, bolting time, was correlated with leaf tratis. There was a wide range of leaf age and change in longevity among the leaves, making leaf lifespan difficult to determine. The results from this study indicate that A. thaliana will be a good model in order to understand the developmental and genetic links with these correlations.
The Determinants of GCC’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment

Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) significantly impacts the economy of a country. This study aims to investigate the determinants of OFDI through the evaluation of outward investments for the panel of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects and random effects regression analysis were applied to test the model and hypotheses. The data was collected from the year 1960 to 2018 from the databases of the World Bank and Bloomberg. GDPP (0.120, p > 0.10) has insignificant relationship with OFDI, whereas EX (-0.138, p > 0.10) has insignificant relationship with OFDI. However, INFRA (-0.001, p > 0.10) has insignificant impact on OFDI. In addition, ER (3.048, p < 0.01), has been found statistically significant at 99% confidence interval. The study revealed that FDI significantly impacts the economic performance of home and host countries. The rate of outward foreign direct investment has increased significantly over the past few years. It has been observed that the outflow has been on the rise from the developing states, where the factor has been identified as a strong influential element in the transition of economy.
Stability Analysis of Neutral-Type Hopfield Neural Networks with Discrete Delays

Bu arastirma makalesi, noron durumlarinin ayrik zaman gecikmeleri ve noron durumlarinin turevlerinin ayrik notral gecikmeler icerdigi notral-tip Hopfiled yapay sinir aglarinin kararlilik problemi ile ilgilenmektedir. Yeni ve uygun bir Lyapunov fonksiyonu kullanilarak, bu tip Hopfield yapay sinir aglarinin kararliligi icin, yeni ve kolayca dogrulanabilir cebirsel olarak ifade edilen bir kosul sunulmaktadir. Bu kararlilik kosulu kesinlikle hem ayrik zaman gecikmeleri hem de ayrik notral gecikmelerinden bagimsizdir. Elde edilen kararlilik kosulunun uygulanabilirligini gostermek icin ogretici bir sayisal ornek verilmistir.
MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION AND CYTOPATHOLOGICAL STUDIES OF OLIVE LATENT VIRUS 1 (OLV-1) AND OLIVE LATENT VIRUS 2 1Om-Hashem

In a preliminary study for the assessment of the sanitary status of olive trees in Egypt during April and May in the two successive season 2014 symptomatic and asymptomatic ten olive cultivars from three diff Marsa Matrouh and Beheira. RNA was extracted and used directly for one step RT primer for each virus. Electron microscopy of sap extracts from olive infected leaves with the two viruses most commonly showed isometric particles consistent to Oleavirus Chenopodium quinoa of chloroplast membrane, deformation of chloroplast, tubular like structural, crossing the all wall and deformation and lysis of the nucleus. Nucleotide sequenc from the coat protein gene of OLV OLV-2 showed homology ranged from 98% to 94 % with Italy and Poland Isolates for OLV % to 94 % with USA and under study were identified as an isolates of OLV
Soil concentrations and soil-atmosphere exchange of 1 alky l amines in a boreal Scots pine forest 2

17 Alkylamines are important precursors in secondary aerosol formation in the boreal forest 18 atmosphere. To better understand the behaviour and sources of two alkylamines, 19 dimethylamine (DMA) and diethylamine (DEA), we estimated the magnitudes of soil20 atmosphere fluxes of DMA and DEA using a gradient-diffusion approximation based on 21 measured concentrations in soil solution and in the canopy air space. To compute the amine 22 fluxes, we first estimated the soil air space concentration from the measured soil solution 23 amine concentration using soil physical (temperature, soil water content) and chemical (pH) 24 state variables. Then, we used the resistance analogy to account for gas transport mechanisms 25 in the soil, in soil boundary layer and in the canopy air space. The resulting flux estimates 26 revealed that the boreal forest soil with a typical long-term mean pH 5.3 is a possible source 27 of DMA (170 ±51 nmol m d) and a sink of DEA (-1.2 ±1.2 nmol m d). We also 28 investigated the potential role of fungi as a reservoir for alkylamines in boreal forest soil. We 29 Biogeosciences Discuss. , doi:10.5194/bg-2016-363, 2016 Manuscript under review for journal Biogeosciences Published: 5 September 2016 c © Author(s) 2016. CC-BY 3.0 License.
Quantitative Culture of Bronchoalveolar Lavage in Diagnosis of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is one of the most common hospital-acquired infections in patients hospitalized in intensive care unit (ICU). The aims of this study were to evaluate quantitative culture of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in the diagnosis of VAP comparing with clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS), and to determine positive and negative predictive values of the test. Methods: A total of 209 samples were taken from the patients hospitalized in ICU with clinical suspicion on VAP, along with the CPIS. As the cut-off value of test, quantity of 104 colony-forming unit (CFU)/mL was taken, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations. Results: Positive culture has been found in 142 patients (68%). The most common isolates were Acinetobacter baumanii in 49 (34.5%) patients, Klebisella pneumoniae in 31 (21.8%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 14 (9.9%), Staphylococcus aureus in eight (5.6%), Serratia marcensens in seven (4.9%), Escherichia coli in four (2.8%), other Enterobacteriaceae in five (3.5%), Pseudomonas spp in three (2.2%), Candida albicans in two (1.4%), and mixed infection in 19 patients (13.4%). In our study, sensitivity of the quantitative culture of BAL was 91%, specificity was 70%, positive predictive value was 80% and negative predictive value was 85%. Conclusions: Quantitative culture of BAL can be useful in VAP diagnosis in patients hospitalized in the ICU, helping in the discrimination between colonization and the infection.
Molecular Docking Evaluation of Some Indonesian’s Popular Herbals for a Possible COVID-19 Treatment

Indonesia’s rich tropical biodiversity offers many possible options for fighting the unprecedented outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) In this paper, we evaluate the in silico (molecular docking) performance of some popular herbal supplements and natural remedies, which are usually consumed by Indonesian people and compare them to the docking performance of the control ligand (N3 inhibitor) and some protease-inhibitor drugs The tested active compounds were grouped based on their popularity in the market, i e , honey, black seed (Nigella sativa), Javanese turmeric (Curcuma xanthorriza roxb), and mangosteen, which usually served in the form of encapsulated oil or powder The results show that most of the tested active compounds perform better than N3 inhibitor and protease inhibitor drugs (lopinavir and darunavir) in inhibiting the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 virus of COVID-19 (C19MP) Based on the combined scores of binding affinity, the similarity of active sites (SAS), and the drug-likeness properties of the ligand, gamma mangostin turns out to be the best possible C19MP inhibitor as compared to other ligands The active site analysis also reveals that His41, Met49, Leu141, and Asn142 are among the most important amino acids that play a significant role in the protein-ligand binding due to their frequent occurrence in the docking simulation © 2020 by the authors
The Impact of Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction on Customer Retention in the Indian Banking Industry: An empirical analysis

Previous banking studies on customer retention focused narrowly on service quality and customer satisfaction without attempting to link them in a model to further explore or explain customer retention. If retention strategy is not planned than customers will defect, irrespective of the efforts put in by banks. This study empirically examines the potential constructs in customer retention by investigating the effects of service quality and customer satisfaction. Customer‟s levels of satisfaction, perception about service quality and loyalty are constructs that influence the customer to retain with the present bank. It is assumed that when the customer is completely satisfied, then loyalty towards the bank is strengthened. This study was designed to examine the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction and customer‟s retention with a bank in the Indian Banking industry. The respondents were 398 banking customers who completed the self-administered questionnaire. Pearson Correlation analysis indicated that service quality and customer satisfaction had a direct positive effect on customer‟s retention intentions. Multiple Linear Regression highlighted customer satisfaction as a stronger predictor of customer retention intentions compared to service quality. Possible interpretations, limitations, and implications for marketing professionals are discussed.
A 30-m scale modeling of extreme gusts during Hurricane Irma (2017) landfall on very small mountainous islands in the Lesser Antilles

Abstract. In view of the high vulnerability of the Lesser Antilles small islands to cyclonic hazards, realistic very fine scale numerical simulation of hurricane-induced winds is essential to prevent and manage risks. The present innovative modeling aims at combining the most realistic simulated strongest gusts driven by tornado-scale vortices within the eyewall and the most realistic complex terrain effects. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with the Nonlinear Backscatter and Anisotropy (NBA) Large Eddy Simulation (LES) configuration was used to reconstruct the devastating landfall of category 5 Hurricane Irma (2017) on Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin islands. The results pointed out that the 30-m scale seems necessary to simulate intense 400-m scale vortices leading to extreme peak gusts like 132 m s−1 over sea. Risk areas associated with terrain gust speed-up factors greater than one have been identified for the two islands. The comparison between the simulated gusts and the remote sensing building damages highlighted the major role of structure strength linked with the socio-economic development of the territory. The present modeling method could be easily extended to other small mountainous islands to improve the understanding of observed past damages and to develop safer urban management and appropriate building standards.
Detecting Health-Related Rumors on Twitter using Machine Learning Methods

Nowadays, the huge usage of internet leads to tremendous information growth as a result of our daily activities that deal with different sources such as news articles, forums, websites, emails and social media. Social media is a rich source of information that deeply affect users by its useful content. However, there are a lot of rumors in these social media platforms which can cause critical consequences to the people’s lives, especially if it is related to the health-related information. Several studies focused on automatically detecting rumors from social media by applying machine learning and intelligent methods. However, few studies concerned about health-related rumors in Arabic language. Therefore, this paper is dealing with detecting health-related rumors focusing on cancer treatment information that are spread over social media using Arabic language. In addition, it presents the process of creating a dataset that is called Health-Related Rumors Dataset (HRRD) which will be available and beneficial for further studies in health-related research. Furthermore, an experiment has been conducted to investigate the performance of several machine learning methods to detect the health-related rumors on social media for Arabic language. The experimental results showed the rumors can be detected with an accuracy of 83.50%.
Impact of overwintering cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) on springtail(Hexapoda: Collembola) communities of the Azov and Black Sea coastal forests

Nesting water bird colonies may act as important drivers of aquatic-terrestrial nutrient turnover in coastal ecosystems. By depositing a large amount of guano, they induce changes in the structure of soils, flora, and fauna. However, little is known about how nesting water bird colonies influence soil fauna, especially in a Mediterranean type of coastal landscape. In this study, focus was placed on how time had elapsed since the last overwintering activity of cormorant colonies, as a factor that affects the structure of springtail communities and edaphic parameters in the Black and Azov Sea coastal forest ecosystems. Black Sea coastal forests with active overwintering cormorant colonies have been characterized by a decreased total abundance, genus richness, and an abundance of certain functional groups of springtails. In contrast, in the coastal forests of the Azov Sea, where the last cormorant overwintering activity was observed 8 years ago, the total abundance of collembolans, and particularly epiedaphic species, had increased in comparison with the control sites. It was concluded that the overwintering activity of cormorants had a negative effect on springtails in previously undisturbed areas within the Mediterranean coastal forests. Nevertheless, the long-term absence of cormorant colonies may lead to the recovery of collembolan total abundance and genus richness in the previously affected areas.
Systematic Review on Spices and HerbsUsed in Food Industry

The narration of herbs and spices is as long as the narration of human beings. People have used these plants since ancient times. Edible spices and herbs serve many advantages in food products. Their primary advantages are to enhance flavor, aroma, texture, and color of food. Spices and herbs also provide secondary effects, such as preservative, nutritional, and health functions. Use of spices, their extracts or active components in different forms for controlling microbial growth or their toxin metabolites in food constitutes is an unconventional approach to chemical additives. The naturally occurring phenolic compounds (phenolic diterpenes, diphenolic diterpenes) in spices are effective against oxidative rancidity of fats and antimicrobial property. Phenolic compounds are the primary antioxidants present in spices and there is a linear relationship between the total phenolic content and the antioxidant properties of spices.