Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Method for Analyzing Pick-Up/Drop-Off Distribution of Taxi Passengers' in Urban Areas Based on Dynamical Network View

To analyze taxi origin-destination (OD) trips data and understand passengers flow patterns from the pick-up/drop-off distribution, is beneficial to many applications in taxi dispatching systems. Mapping the pick-up/drop-off locations onto taxi zones maps, relations between zones would come into being when zones are geographical adjacent, or exchanging many passengers, or sharing similar pick-up/drop-off patterns. We categorize these relations between zones as geo-neighbor, complementary and homogenous respectively. An analytic method based on dynamical network view to detect communities of the latter two relations is proposed in this paper. It makes an analogy between zones and words and performs a distributed representation learning method, mapping zones to a dense low-dimensional vector space where closely related zones (complementary/homogenous) are close. Then, community detection is easily performed by using the cosine of two vectors as a measurement. With New York City taxi trips data as a case of study and making a comparison between workdays and weekends, experiments based on the proposed method show interesting results.
Confirmatory factor modeling on consumer buying behavior of rural credits in rural karnataka: theory of planned behavior as a reference

Many financial institutions including government institutions are grappling up to meet financial/banking demands. One of the hurdles could be lack of understanding consumer’s financial requirements by financial institutions. On the consumer side, many do not have sufficient financial literacy or formal education and lack experience in handling financial products. The result of this gap is leading to slower adaptation of financial products even though higher demand for financial products is a reality. The purpose of the research to explore various items of measurement pertaining to theory of planned behavior. Data was collected from target rural areas for this purpose. EFA was carried to on 27 indicator variables obtained from literature review. Three items were dropped, and six factors were extracted through EFA. Further reliability was established for six factors during EFA. In the next stage, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out to establish measurement model fit. Path analysis between item variables and factors was carried out to check for critical ratios. During CFA, reliability test was carried out again using cronbach’s alpha and maximum reliability (H). Followed by convergent and discriminate validity check. The researcher has found that banks need to focus on small borrowers as some of them have good capacity to repay loan with interest. It was observed that regional rural banks have excessive documentation work and also It was observed that rural borrowers still rely heavily on informal loan distributors. The researcher felt that problem of recovery can be resolved through adopting systematic loan applications screening . The researcher suggested based on observation that banks should not be required to furnish any security except personal security
Response of a desert shrub to past geological and climatic change: A phylogeographic study of Reaumuria soongarica (Tamaricaceae) in western China

Abstract Past geological and climatic events have promoted intraspecific divergence and range shifts in numerous plant species. This is particularly true for temperate species in climate‐sensitive regions. Few previous studies have examined whether such genetic footprints were also shaped in desert plants, which can survive in arid habitats and might be “static” under the past climatic oscillations. We therefore studied the phylogeographical history of Reaumuria soongarica, a shrub species that is widely distributed across the deserts of western China. We sequenced chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments of 27 natural populations across western China. Eight cpDNA haplotypes were identified, which clustered into three clades. The clades were located in the western (clade II) or eastern regions (clades I and III) of western China. Analysis of molecular variance also supported this major partitioning (∼67%) of the cpDNA variation between regions. However, within each region, genetic differentiation was low (29%–37%) and a single dominant haplotype was fixed; this indicated past regional range expansion. The deep divergence and regional range expansions of this species may have corresponded to the most recent uplift of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau and the development of desert ecosystems during the last glacial age in western China. This is the first study to show that the evolutionary history of plants in desert habitats has been seriously affected by past geological and climatic change.
A Danish nonsense word corpus for phoneme recognition measurements

(03/11/2019) A Danish nonsense word corpus for phoneme recognition measurements Signal processing algorithms intended to improve speech intelligibility are common, e.g. in hearing aids. Due to the spectral and temporal variations between speech segments, the effect of such processing is likely to vary across the signal. To facilitate the analysis of these varying effects, a Danish speech corpus for measuring the perception of individual phonemes was developed. More than 1150 nonsense words were created according to a common template and audio-visually recorded with two male and two female talkers. Carrier sentences were also recorded. The audio recordings of all words were presented to ten normal-hearing listeners to ensure that phoneme recognition scores under optimal conditions were close to 100%. Accepted words were compiled into test lists with different characteristics. These lists were evaluated with seven normal-hearing listeners to determine norm data and to investigate memory effects. The speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) of the test lists varied between −7 to −0.9 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) depending on list type and talker. The recognition score sensitivity to the SNR was 5.2 to 8.9%/dB. Memory effects were small and not significant. The presented speech materials seem well suited for measuring phoneme recognition scores and thus for assessing signal processing effects that vary across speech segments.
A Lightweight Cellular Automata Based Encryption Technique for IoT Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) devices are resource-constrained devices with limitations such as low computation power, low communication capabilities, low bandwidths, high latency, and short-lived power. Therefore, securing communication among these devices is a key challenge for various sensitive applications. However, the conventional encryption and decryption algorithms, known as ciphers, cannot be implemented because of their inherent complexities of implementation and power requirements. One of the promising options available is to implement light-weight ciphers for these resource-constrained devices. Moreover, the choice of lightweight encryption tool has a great dependency on the type of IoT devices being used in an application. In this paper, a lightweight cellular automata (CA)-based cipher, named as Lightweight CA Cipher (LCC), has been proposed for IoT applications. In the proposed method, encryption is done at the perception layer, where the sensor nodes are deployed and decryption is done at the network layer where gateway devices are installed. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient than some of the existing ciphers like DES, 3DES when randomness, execution time, and implementation simplicity are considered as prime requirements. This cipher passes the randomness tests as prescribed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and it also passes all the DIEHARD tests and it establishes the security feature of LCC. Though it is specially designed for resource-constrained environments, it can be scaled up for a large number of sensor nodes.
The Effects of COX and nNOS Inhibitors in the Hypoxia-Ischaemia Model of Brain Injury: Roles of Arachidonic Acid and L-Arginine Metabolism

ii ABSTRACT Ischaemic brain injury and neurodegenerative pathologies, including perinatal hypoxia-ischaemia (HI), involve a number of inflammatory and excitotoxic pathways associated with, and contributing to, apoptotic and necrotic cell death. A number of inflammatory enzymes are known to be involved including: cyclooxygenase (COX) metabolism of arachidonic acid and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) production of the free radical nitric oxide. Consistent with published data, we found, both COX-2 and inducible (i)NOS immunoreactive cells, located primarily within the periinfarct regions following HI, and identified these as non-neuronal in origin due to the lack of colocalization with the neuronal marker NeuN. This suggests that modulation of COX, and in particular COX-2, or NOS could have beneficial effects after HI. The non-selective COX inhibitor, aspirin, and the COX-2 selective antagonist, nimesulide, have previously been shown to afford significant protection in animal models of stroke. However, neither compound has been assessed using an HI model of brain injury, nor is there clear evidence as to the underlying protective mechanisms of these drugs. We initially hypothesised that both aspirin and nimesulide would provide significant protection against HI-induced neuronal injury. We also hypothesised that nimesulide would exert greater protection due to having a higher affinity for COX-2. Prophylactic treatment with aspirin (4mg/kg) reduced the infarct volume to 23.5±11.9mm (P<0.01) following HI-induced injury compared to saline treated controls (94.3±12.8mm). However, contrary to our hypothesis, nimesulide treatment (12mg/kg) failed to afford any significant neuroprotection when compared with vehicle-treated Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) controls. These results suggest that inhibition of COX-2 alone is unlikely to play a significant role in protection against cell death following HI. The neuroprotective effects of ARL 17477, a selective nNOS inhibitor, were also assessed following HI. Previous work by our group had shown ARL 17477 to be neuroprotective and that this protection was mediated, in part, via increased arginase activity (18±3.0μg urea/mg compared to 12±2.0μg urea/mg for HI+saline). Expanding on these findings, we found that ARL 17477 significantly reduced total NOS activity (500±2.0pM L-citrulline/min/mg compared to 760±4.0pM L-citrulline/min/mg for HI+saline); and significantly protected all the mitochondrial complexes against HI-induced damage. These data further confirm the involvement of NOS activity in the regulation of cell death and impairment of mitochondrial enzyme kinetics. This
A Semi-Quantitative Information Based Fault Diagnosis Method for the Running Gears System of High-Speed Trains

The proper operation of running gears of a high-speed train is one of the key factors to ensure its safety and reliability. The diagnosis of the state of running gears of a high-speed train is one of the effective ways to improve its reliability. It is difficult to diagnose the running gears of a high-speed train accurately because of the characteristics of its complex-analytic structure, multiple types of monitoring feature data, and lack of effective failure mode data. Therefore, this paper proposes a fault diagnosis method for the running gears of a high-speed train based on a semi-quantitative information model. The relation between the effective data and expert knowledge is studied, and the state of the running gears of a high-speed train is rigorously analyzed. To reduce the data dimension and the diagnostic calculation time of the running gears of a high-speed train, the principal component analysis (PCA) is used to screen its key monitoring features. Then, based on the change of the feature quantity in the working process of the running gears of a high-speed train, the semi-quantitative information model of belief-rule-base (BRB) fault diagnosis is established. In the diagnosis process, the initial model parameters of BRB are determined by expert knowledge and they have certain subjectivity. To improve the accuracy of the model, the constrained covariance matrix adaptive evolutionary strategy (CMA-ES) algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of the initial BRB model to improve the validity and accuracy of the diagnosis. Finally, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed semi-quantitative information model, a set of real data of the running gears of a high-speed train is used as case studies.
Characterization of the putative sulfate exporter family

The Putative Sulfate Exporter (PSE) family consists primarily of bacterial and some archael family members. It is not yet functionally characterized and is tentatively placed into this family based on its folds. PSE family members are predicted to have 11 transmembrane segments (TMSs). The phylogeny, topology, internal homology, and functionality of the PSE family were analyzed. Evidence suggests that the PSE encoding genes are located on mobile genetic elements, and a 6 + 1 + 6 or 7 x 2 TMS repeat is proposed based on the alignments from SSSearch and GAP. SEED analysis shows that it is likely a sulfate exporter
Environmental and human risks of pesticide use in Thailand and Sri Lanka; results of a preliminary risk assessment

Currently, a major difficulty facing the establishment of sustainable management plans in complex agricultural systems in the tropics is the lack of sufficient relevant information on important ecological, hydrological and land use processes that underpin the various values generated by natural resources. By applying baseline information from two study sites in Thailand and Sri Lanka, the MAMAS project aims at developing cost-effective tests and other environmental diagnostic tools that can ultimately be used in an integrated risk assessment model, leading to the development of policy guidelines for the management of agrochemical use in aquatic systems in Asian countries. The initial stage of the project involved a situation analysis which was followed by a preliminary risk assessment as described in this report. The preliminary risk assessment was aimed at gathering further information on the environmental characteristics of the study sites, in order to estimate potential risks (to both human health and the environment) through pesticide exposures. The information gathered within the MAMAS project was used to model the exposure concentration of the pesticides towards aquatic communities and residues present in food items. This exposure assessmentwas compared with estimated safe concentrations for the environment and human health. Both the environmental and the human health assessment indicated large potential risks. These risks were not only present for the farm channels located next to the cropbut also for larger aquatic systems such as cascade tanks present in Sri Lanka. The next phase of the project will consist of performing chemical measurements, bioassays and biomonitoring (the Triad approach). Data obtained will be used to validate the procedures used in the preliminary risk assessment.
THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF SUSTAINABILITY CONTROL SYSTEM ON REVERSE LOGISTICS INNOVATION AND CUSTOMER ENVIRONMENTAL COLLABORATION TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE

This paper analyses part of the viability of green supply chain management practices created for fisheries industry to implement sustainability control system adoption as mediating on reverse logistics innovation and customer environmental collaboration towards sustainability performance. It examines reverse logistics innovation and customer environmental collaboration adopted in the supply chain as a result of pressures from primary stakeholders. The resulting hypotheses are tested using fishery industries in Indonesia data of 262 samples utilizing primary and secondary data. Finding reveal, a phenomenon with sustainability control system adoption have significant effect to enhancing sustainability performance. Moreover, our results yield insights to green practices in optimizing their supply chain and sustainability performance.
Impacts of harmful algal blooms on physiological and cellular processes of bivalve molluscs

Hurmful algal blooms (HABs) are increasingly recognized as having profound effects upon economics of fisheries and aquaculture. Further, HABs are included in a list of concerns about changes in marine ecosystems that increase impacts of diseases and parasites on important resource species and the food webs that support them. This research assessed the interactions between HABs and bivalve molluscs. A number of specific HAB-bivalve interactions were studied, measuring fundamental physiological processes such as clearance and filtration rates of bivalves when exposed to pure cultures of HAB species or mixed benign and HAB cultures. Results indicate that clearance and filtration rates, as well as biodeposit production, were species specific. Further studies demonstrated the presence of intact HAB cells in the biodeposits with the ability to recover, suggesting potential risks for bivalves to be vectors of introduction of HABs into new environments. A simple method for mitigating this risk was demonstrated : keeping shellfish out of mater for 24 hr, or depurating at least 24 hr in quarantined seawater renders cells non-viable. Physiological responses of bivalve molluscs to HABs varied according to the algal/mollusc combination. This study further investigated whether these physiological
IL-12/IL-18-Dependent IFN-γ Release by Murine Dendritic Cells1

Dendritic cells (DC) develop in GM-CSF-stimulated cultures from murine bone marrow progenitors in serum-free (or low serum) medium. CD11c+ myeloid DC from 7-day cultures stimulated with TNF-α, IFN-α, IFN-γ, or LPS up-regulated surface expression of CD40 and CD86 costimulator and MHC class II molecules, did not up-regulate the low “spontaneous” release of IL-18, and did not release IFN-γ. Stimulation of in vitro-generated DC with exogenous IL-12 and IL-18 (but not with IL-4 or LPS plus IL-18) induced IFN-γ expression and release in 15–20% of the DC (detectable by FACS analyses or ELISA). Endogenous IL-12 p70 produced by DC in response to ligation of CD40 stimulated IFN-γ release when exogenous IL-18 was supplied. In vivo-generated, splenic CD8α+ and CD8α− DC (from immunocompetent and immunodeficient H-2d and H-2b mice) cultured with IL-12 and IL-18 released IFN-γ. The presence of LPS during the stimulation of DC with IL-18 plus endogenous (CD40 ligation) or exogenous IL-12 did not affect their IFN-γ release. In contrast, splenic DC pretreated in vitro or in vivo by LPS strikingly down-regulated IFN-γ release in response to stimulation by IL-18 and (endogenous or exogenous) IL-12. Hence, DC are a source of early IFN-γ generated in response to a cascade of cytokine- and/or cell-derived signals that can be positively and negatively regulated.
Review of the international consensus guidelines for the optimal use of the polymyxins

Polymyxins are often the only agents that remain in vitro active against extensively resistant bacterial pathogens. However, the use of polymyxins is compromised by the number of unresolved issues, including the technical aspects of antimicrobial susceptibility testing, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics parameters, optimal dosing regimens, and combined use with other antibiotics. All of the aspects of polymyxin use are discussed in detail in recently published «International consensus guidelines for the optimal use of the polymyxins», that was endorsed by the following professional societies: American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), International Society for Antiinfective Pharmacology (ISAP), Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), and Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP).
Extinction vulnerability in two small, chronically inbred populations of Chatham Island black robin Petroica traversi

New Zealand ecologists and wildlife managers have assumed traditionally that threatened insular endemic bird species are less susceptible to the predicted genetic consequences of declines and inbreeding. Conservation has relied on treating deterministic extinction pressures to trigger population recoveries, with few measures taken to minimise stochastic genetic threats to long-term viability. This study tested that assumption empirically by examining extinction vulnerability in two small, critically threatened Chatham Island black robin populations protected from external threats on habitat-restricted islands but not managed purposefully for genetic health. Analysis of the factors eliminating the species’s original island populations indicated loss through habitat change and mammalian predation within perhaps no more than two to three decades of human contact. Loss was undoubtedly hastened by intrinsic extinction-proneness (low reproductive output, forest-interior preference, sensitivity to habitat quality, intolerance of open spaces), greater in black robins than in other Petroica species in New Zealand and Australia. Low productivity in ancestral survivors prevented spontaneous recovery after translocation to better habitat, requiring intensively assisted breeding to raise population sizes quickly. Strong growth in response to management did not suggest a moribund species but post-management growth rates were significantly slower. Analysis of demographic data from 1980-81 to 2001-02 showed breeding effort to be comparable in all populations but breeding failures of varying severity at different life-history stages affected natural recovery in each. The worst affected suffered from briefer adult life-spans and more severe failure late in the breeding cycle. Generally colder sub-canopy air temperatures suggested adverse environmental pressure on this population. Extant populations are highly inbred and severely depleted genetically following successive bottlenecks (prolonged historically) and recovery from a single-pair
Voices from the ‘Holler’: Implementation and Analysis of an Advanced Advocacy Practice Course in Rural Appalachia

The availability of quality macro education is a critical determinant to policy engagement among social workers, especially for those in geographically isolated areas. This mixed methods, pilot study compares self-assessed CSWE policy competencies of graduating MSW students who completed an Advanced Advocacy Practice course with a comparison group. Student course reflections were also analyzed for common themes. Results indicate that students who completed the course rated themselves higher across policy competencies than graduating MSW students who had not completed the course. They were also more likely to see policy advocacy as a “primary skill” for social workers. Qualitative analysis suggests that participants gained greater confidence in their macro practice skills. This pilot study provides an important contribution to the limited research on best practices for social work policy education, especially for those in rural areas.
Sentiment Analysis of Tourism Reviews: An exploratory study based on CNNs built on LSTM model

This study is to develop a sentiment analysis system for customers’ review on a scenic site. It is based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) built on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models for text feature extraction under a deep learning framework. The CNNs built on LSTM models applies convolutional filters of CNNs repeatedly operate on the output matrix of LSTM to obtain robust text feature vector. In this study, the optimal parameter configurations for each component of CNNs and LSTM are given individually in the first place. Then, the entire optimal parameter configuration for the integration recognition frame of the system is identified around the optimum of each component. The results demonstrate that, by employing such a method, the accuracy for sentiment analysis with CNNs built on LSTM model, compared with a single CNNs or LSTM model, is improved by 3.13% and 1.71% respectively.