Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Separating the chance effect from other diversity effects in the functioning of plant communities

The effect of plant species diversity on productivity and competitive ability was studied in an experiment carried out simultaneously in five European countries: Czech Republic (CZ), the Netherlands (NL), Sweden (SE), Spain (SP), and United Kingdom (UK). The aim was to separate the 'chance' or 'sampling effect' (increasing the number of sown species increases the probability that a species able 'to do a job' will be included) from the complementarity effect (species-rich communities are better able to exploit resources and to take care of ecosystem functions than species-poor communities). In the experiment, low diversity (LD) and high diversity (HD) mixtures of grassland species were sown into fields taken out of arable cultivation. The HD mixture consisted of five grass species, five legumes and five other forbs. The LD mixtures consisted of two grasses, one legume and one other forb, with different plant species combinations in each replicate block. The design of the experiment was constructed in such a way that the total number of seeds of each species over all the replications was exactly the same in HD and LD treatments, and the total number of grass seeds, leguminous seeds and other forb seeds were the same in both LD and HD. The responses measured were the total above-ground biomass las a measure of productivity) and the average number of naturally establishing species in a plot las a measure of the competitive ability of the mixture), both measured in the third year of the experiment. The results show that, on average, the HD plots performed better (i.e., attained higher biomass, had better weed suppression), but that the best LD mixture was as good as the best HD mixture. On the contrary, the worst LD mixture was always less successful than the worst HD replicate. The performance of particular species in the HD mixtures was a good predictor of the success of a certain species combination in a LD mixture (explaining 61% of variability between particular LD mixtures). In all sites, the LD mixture composed of species which were the most abundant in HD mixtures was as efficient in suppressing weeds as the HD mixture itself. It is argued that the performance of a species assemblage is influenced mostly by the identity of species and the diversity effect is mainly due to the 'chance' or 'sampling' effect with increasing number of species the probability that an important species will be included in the mixture increases. Caution is urged in interpreting experiments with manipulated diversity and the possible limitations of such experiments are discussed.
Understanding the Stability of Forest Reserve Boundaries in the West Mengo Region of Uganda

Despite heavy pressure and disturbance, state property regimes have stemmed deforestation within protected areas of the West Mengo region of Uganda for over 50 yr. In this manuscript, we reconstruct the process of creation and maintenance of forest reserve boundaries in the West Mengo region of Uganda to identify why these boundaries have largely remained stable over the long term under conditions in which they may be predicted to fail. The dramatic boundary stability in West Mengo we attribute to key aspects of institutional design and enforcement of boundaries.
Improvement of Wu et al.'s Three-Factor User Authentication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are widely used in many applications such as environmental monitoring, health care, smart grid and surveillance. Many security protocols have been proposed and intensively studied due to the inherent nature of wireless networks. In particular, Wu et al. proposed a promising authentication scheme which is sufficiently robust against various attacks. However, according to our analysis, Wu et al.'s scheme has two serious security weaknesses against malicious outsiders. First, their scheme can lead to user impersonation attacks. Second, user anonymity is not preserved in their scheme. In this paper, we present these vulnerabilities of Wu et al.'s scheme in detail. We also propose a new scheme by fixing such vulnerabilities and improving the performance of the protocol.
QUERY PROCESSING IN DISTRIBUTED DATA BASES

Abstract : This paper describes two new distributed query processing algorithms. The MST Algorithm minimizes the total communication costs associated with a query while the MDT Algorithm minimizes the response time. These two algorithms are easy to analyze and to implement, since they are based on the minimum spanning tree and the shortest path problems, for which numerous algorithms exist. In addition, these two algorithms can be implemented using distributed computation, i.e., each node using only information available from adjacent nodes. We also develop the 'artificial file node' technique to extend existing query processing algorithms which are designed for non-redundant databases to that for general, redundant databases. The two algorithms are illustrated by simple examples. (Author)
The Budgeting of Portuguese Public Museums: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach

In this paper, the first panel on sources of funding for Portuguese publicly owned museums is explored. There has been little work in this field worldwide, and none for Portugal. Evidence in this paper seems contrary to that relating to the UK and to the US. We find that incremental budgeting still plays a major role on the funding of Portuguese museums, allowing for inefficient management and moral hazard: the interests of museums’ management may diverge clearly from those of the authorities ruling them and from those of the general public. We also find that the ability to generate their own revenues plays no role in the funding allocated to museums every year. Budgeting is mainly determined by past operating costs. Policy changes seem to be advisable. The scarce relevance of museum patronage by the private sector makes a discussion of possible crowding out effects irrelevant in the current Portuguese context.
An FPGA based cyclic navigation Algorithm for mobile robots in the indoor environment

Guiding a mobile robot for within the time in an indoor environment has shown the way for the study and sophistication of navigation methods. In this paper, we developed robotic structure in the indoor and developed navigational algorithm that would be helpful to move from one point to another point. This paper concentrates on the design of mobile robot control mechanism that uses the ultrasonic array for sensing random maze environment like hospitals and actuate the motor modules accordingly to complete the service. As a part of the development, we simulated in Xilinx ISE 10.4 environment using Verilog HDL programming and also synthesized on FPGA part Spartan 3AN evaluation board by considering a random environment.
Similarity Learning in Many Core Architecture

A lot of recent research works have pointed out that metric learning is far better as compared to using default metrics such as Euclidean distance, cosine similarity, etc. Moreover, similarity learning based on cosine similarity has been proved to work better for many of the data sets, which are not necessarily textual in nature. Nevertheless, similarity learning in nearest neighbor algorithms has been inherently slow, owing to their O(d 3 ) complexity. This short-coming is addressed in this research and a similarity learning algorithm for many core architectures is proposed; whereby, Similarity Learning Algorithm (SiLA) is parallelized. The resulting algorithm is faster than the traditional one on many data sets because of its parallel nature. The results are confirmed on UCI data sets.
Molecular genetics and mechanisms of pigmentation and melanoma

Ever since man domesticated the first wild animals several thousand years ago, many species have been living in close relationship with humans, being objects for our requests and wishes about any kind of phenotypic traits. As a result, we have by selective breeding created a fascinating spectrum of phenotypes within most species we have domesticated. The broad aim of this thesis has been to investigate the molecular mechanisms causing different colour and pattern phenotypes in domestic animals. In more detail, the mutation causing Greying with age and melanoma in horses and the mutations leading to the Sex-linked barring feather pattern in the domestic chicken have been studied. Grey horses are born any colour, but gradually loose their hair pigmentation and usually become white by the age of 6-8 years. The pigmentation loss only affects the hair, and the skin stays dark throughout life. Melanomas and vitiligo-like depigmentation frequently occur among Grey horses, and it is claimed that 70-80% of Grey horses older than 15 years have melanocytic lesions. The Sex-linked barring pattern in chickens is characterized by black and white stripes on the feathers. Similar barring patterns are found among many bird species, such as the peregrine falcon and the zebra finch. The mutation causing Sex-linked barring has previously been mapped to the q arm of chromosome Z, which explains why the homogametic (ZZ) sex in chickens, males, develop a broader barring pattern. In this thesis, the mutations causing both traits are identified, and their functional properties are investigated. The mutation causing Greying with age and melanoma in horses was identified as a 4.6 kb intronic duplication in the gene STX17, not previously linked either to pigmentation or melanoma. Moreover, it could be shown that the mutation in STX17 has an elevated copy number in melanoma DNA, and that it contains a strong melanocyte specific activating regulatory element residing a MITF binding site. This finding sheds further light on the intriguing molecular processes of melanoma development. The mutations linked to Sex-linked barring could be mapped to the CDKN2A/B tumour suppressor locus, a genetic region commonly associated with familiar forms of melanoma and also implied in the molecular mechanisms of pigmentation regulation.
Spin domains in ground state of a trapped spin-1 condensate: a general study under Thomas–Fermi approximation

Investigation of ground state structures and phase separation under confinement is of great interest in spinor Bose–Einstein condensates. In this paper we show that, in general, within the Thomas–Fermi approximation, the phase separation scenario of stationary states can be obtained including all the mixed states on an equal footing for a spin-1 condensate under any confinement. According to the process used here, the density of each and every stationary states can be determined exactly in terms of the system parameters. This allows to write the expression for energy density of all states in a form which are not an explicit function of densities of those states. An energy density comparison therefore, among all the allowed stationary states can be done which will reveal domain structures depending on the system parameters. We study here, in details, a particular case of spherically symmetric harmonic confinement as an example and show a wide range of potential phase separation scenario for anti-ferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interactions.
Wavelength insensitive passive polarization converter fabricated by poled polymer waveguides

A passive TE to TM polarization mode converter is fabricated by using poled polymer waveguides. The optic axis of the poling induced waveguide is slowly rotated 90° by using a slowly varying structure of poling electrodes. Thus the polarization conversion is achieved as the guided mode propagates through the waveguide. TE to TM mode conversion is observed with a polarization extinction ratio higher than 30 dB, and the excess loss is less than 1 dB. The polarization conversion is relatively insensitive to wavelength since the device contains no periodic structures. These devices are easier to fabricate than others containing periodic structures.
Measuring Progress in Health through Deprivation Indexes

Progress in health is usually measured by means of indicators of health status such as premature mortality ratio or life expectancy. There is evidence that in more developed countries, despite general health improvement, inequalities in health among individuals are worsening. Most of these inequalities, however, could be avoided because they are due to socioeconomic conditions, depending on the relation between socioeconomic conditions and health largely proved in literature. The main conclusion is that measuring progress in health should not be limited to health status, but should also consider health inequalities. The suggested method to quantify them is to follow the deprivation index approach. The analysis is applied to a case study where the comparison between health statuses of two Census periods is completed by estimating also the variability in health inequalities, proxied by the gradients in Standard Mortality Ratios [SMRs] among small areas with different socioeconomic conditions. The latter are quantified by an index of material deprivation previously developed based on 1991 and 2001 Census data.
Comparison of fat and protein fractions of milk constituents in Montbeliarde and Polish Holstein-Friesian cows from one farm in Poland

The aim of this study was to determine the genetic effect of cow breed on the yield and quality of cow’s milk. On the selected dairy farm, cows of two different breeds Montbeliarde and Polish Holstein-Friesian between 45 th -100 th days of lactation, were managed under the same environmental conditions. Milk samples were collected twice (in May and June 2008) from 97 (n = 51 and 46 for Montbeliarde and Polish Holstein-Friesian, respectively) cows. Montbeliarde cow’s milk was characterized by significantly lower milk yield and somatic cell count. Higher level of C18: 2 cis-9 trans-11 and almost 2-fold C20:5 n-3 (P ≤ 0.01) was also recorded. However, Polish Holstein-Friesian cow’s milk had a better composition of protein fraction (higher concentration of lactoferrin, α-lactoalbumin and β-lactoglobulin) and higher concentrations of vitamins D and E. Moreover, milk of Polish Holstein-Friesian breed was characterized by more favorable fat fraction with significantly lower concentrations of saturated fatty acids (C14:0, C18:0) as well as lower atherogenic and thrombogenic indexes and higher concentration of C18:2 trans-10 cis-12, C20:3 n-6 and C 22:6 n-3. This study was the first one comparing biological quality of Polish Holstein-Friesian and Montbeliarde milk under the same environmental conditions in Polish production systems.
A case of hypocomplementaemic urticarial vasculitis in a child due to coxsackievirus type A9

Introduction: We present a rare case of hypocomplementaemic urticarial vasculitis in a 1‐year‐old girl with a coxsackievirus type A9 (CA9) infection. Case presentation: At first, we thought that the patient had Kawasaki disease, but a skin biopsy showed overriding evidence of urticarial vasculitis and serum complement levels were severely reduced. Treatment with prednisolone was effective. We isolated and confirmed CA9 from all samples (nasal fluid, serum and stool). We also analysed CA9 genetically. Conclusion: CA9 may induce systemic small‐vessel vasculitis resulting in transient decreases in complements.
Thread-parallel mesh generation and improvement using face-edge swapping and vertex insertion

The purpose of this thesis is three-fold. First, we devise a memory model for unstructured mesh data for efficient use of memory on parallel shared memory architectures with the purpose of lowering the synchronization overhead between threads and also excluding the probability of occurring race conditions. Second, we present a new thread-parallel edge and face swapping algorithm for two and three dimensional meshes using OpenMP for shared memory architectures. We show how removing the conflicts from the reconfiguration procedure by applying a vertex locking strategy can result in a near linear speed-up with parallel efficiency of close to one on two threads and 70% with sixteen threads on shared-memory processors. Finally, we derive a parallel mesh generation and refinement module for shared memory architectures based on pre-existing serial modules — GRUMMP — by implementing Chernikov and Chrisochoides’ parallel insertion algorithm along with the two above tools. Experiments show a worst case parallel efficiency of 60% for parallel refinement with 16 threads.
A TEST FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE USING A NULL MODEL APPROACH

Quantifying patterns of temporal or spatial change in community structure is critical for assessing the impact of disturbances on biological systems and the stability of ecosystems. Detecting change in communities can be problematic, however, because of the inherent variability of systems and limitations of commonly used methods, such as similarity indices and ordination that do not explicitly test a hypothesis. Here we present empirical data to show a strong relationship between species mean abundance and variability across three broad taxonomic groups (plants, zooplankton, and fish). These statistical re- lationships were then used to construct null models of expected community variability that were used to test against the observed temporal change of these communities. We evaluated the ability of this approach to detect significant temporal change above that associated with random variation with nine communities (three Midwestern stream fish, three north tem- perate zooplankton, and three tallgrass prairie plant), each having long-term data sets and different expected levels of change. Nonrandom change was detected in 21.3% of samples from the expected low-change communities, 52.6% in moderately changed communities, and 60.4% in high-change communities. Thus, this approach was effective in detecting change over time in those communities expected to change most. By using empirical re- lationships between species abundance and variability, this null model approach provides ecologists and resource managers an objective tool, which can be used along with existing community indices and statistical techniques to assess the type and magnitude of community change with limited data sets.
Effect of cold stratification, scarification and hormones on germination of dimorphic seeds of Atriplex centralasiatica under saline conditions

1 Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 286 Huaizhong Road, Shijiazhuang, 050021 P.R. of China (E-mail: W. Li: wqli@ms.sjziam.ac.cn; X. Liu: xjliu@ms.sjziam.ac.cn) 2 Plant Science Center, RIKEN, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan (E-mail: a-hanada@riken.jp) 3 Institute of Sustainable Halophyte Utilization, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan (E-mail: ajmalk@uok.net.pk)
Retrospective El Niño Forecasts Using an Improved Intermediate Coupled Model

Abstract A new intermediate coupled model (ICM) is presented and employed to make retrospective predictions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The ocean dynamics is an extension of the McCreary baroclinic modal model to include varying stratification and certain nonlinear effects. A standard configuration is chosen with 10 baroclinic modes plus two surface layers, which are governed by Ekman dynamics and simulate the combined effects of the higher baroclinic modes from 11 to 30. A nonlinear correction associated with vertical advection of zonal momentum is incorporated and applied (diagnostically) only within the two surface layers, forced by the linear part through nonlinear advection terms. As a result of these improvements, the model realistically simulates the mean equatorial circulation and its variability. The ocean thermodynamics include an SST anomaly model with an empirical parameterization for the temperature of subsurface water entrained into the mixed layer (Te), whic.
Perceptions on CPD Programs and Knowledge and Perception on Introducing a Process for Medical License Revalidation in Sri Lanka – A cross sectional study among medical professionals in Sri Lanka

CPD (CPD) is very important for medical professionals. It improves patient safety and other patient care outcomes. Revalidation is a process to ensure standard of practicing medical professionals. Sri Lanka currently does not have a proper CPD process or a revalidation system for medical professionals. In this descriptive cross sectional study, medical professionals were surveyed on perception to introducing CPD program. In addition, it is also surveyed on knowledge of revalidation and perception to introducing a revalidation process. A self-administered questionnaire was given to 422 medical professionals from teaching hospital in central province and full time general practitioners in the province. In addition, in-depth interviews with key stakeholder (SLMC, SLMA, GMOA, Ministry of Health, Professional colleges) were also held. On analysis, it was found that medical professional have very good perception on CPD program with average score of 85.95. Knowledge on revalidation programs were 64.24. However, perception to introducing a revalidation programs were comparatively low with a mean of 49.64. Significant differences on average scores observed among different categories of medical professionals. However, there were no significant differences based on other demographic characteristics. Based on the results, we recommend starting a formal CPD program in the country with collaboration of stakeholders. However, there is no place for revalidation at present context. Revalidation process should only be introduced only after establishment of sustainable CPD program in entire country.
AD-A 243 212 GIBBS SAMPLING FOR MARGINAL POSTERIOR EXPECTATIONS

In earlier work (Gelfand and Smith, 1990 and Gelfand et al, 1989) a sampling based approach using the Gibbs sampler was offered as a means for developing marginal posterior densities for a wide range of Bayesian problems several of which were previously inaccessible. Our purpose here is two-fold. First we flesh out the implementation of this approach for calculation of arbitrary expectations of interest. Secondly we offer comparison with perhaps the most prominent approach for calculating posterior expectations, analytic approximation involving application of the LaPlace method. Several illustrative examples are discussed as well. Clear advantages for the sampling based approach emerge.
Musical “learning styles” and “learning strategies” in the instrumental lesson: Some emergent findings from a pilot study

This article considers the concepts of “learning style” and “learning strategy”. The former connotes an inbuilt trait which tends to remain fundamental to the way an individual approaches learning. The latter refers to a set of consciously-acquired and applied approaches or tactics designed to achieve a learning task. The article relates these concepts to the field of instrumental music learning, particularly the activity of learning to play by ear. In a pilot study, 15 instrumental students aged 10 to 17, covering eight different instruments, learnt to play pieces by ear. The research strategies and pedagogic methods derive from earlier studies, particularly the adaption of popular musicians’ informal learning practices in classroom contexts. Through participant observation and other qualitative methods, it is suggested that four potential aural “learning styles” emerged: the “impulsive”, the “shot-in-the-dark”, the “practical” and the “theoretical” styles. These are illustrated with qualitative data from lesson transcripts and annotations. They are then distinguished from three further aspects of learning that were apparent: pitch-sense, rhythm-sense and “learning strategies”. I suggest why further research in this area may be beneficial, and finally put forward some reasons why the identification of possible learning styles in relation to music could be of pedagogical significance.