Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of the auxiliary spiral on the capture spiral in Araneus diadematus Clerck (Araneidae)

Summary T he relationship between direction of coiling and shape of the auxiliary spiral and that of the capture spiral in orb webs of Araneus diadematus Clerck (Araneidae) was investigated. In m ost w ebs, the two spirals had the same d irection of coiling a nd a similar shape, indicating that the auxiliary spiral serves as a guide during c onstruction of the capture spiral. Possible causes and mechanisms are discussed.
Evaluation of cytotoxicity assays and a high-througput variant of the alkaline Comet assay in mouse lymphoma L5178Y cells

In the pharmaceutical industry, there is an increasing demand for rapid screening assays with a good predictivity for the regulatory tests. The Comet assay, or Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis Assay, is a fast, easy and relatively inexpensive method to visualize and measure DNA strand breaks in individual cells. In the early drug development, when the amount of the test substance is limited, the Comet assay must fulfil several criteria. Since DNA damage is associated with cell death, cytotoxicity measurements should be evaluated concurrently with each Comet experiment. The purpose of the present study was to find a suitable cytotoxicity test in mouse lymphoma L5178Y (ML) cells and evaluate a high-throughput variant of the alkaline Comet assay (HT-ACA) in the same cell line. A modified protocol for the Comet assay, with inclusion of commercially available multi-well object slides was tested. The HT-ACA experiments were performed with four alkylating agents and the obtained results were then compared to Comet assay data previously obtained by the standard HT-ACA protocol of Comet Assay, currently in use at Safety Assessment, AstraZeneca. Based on the results from experiments with different cytotoxicity tests, measurement of ATP levels was chosen as a suitable test in ML cells. The observed LOELs obtained from the modified HT-ACA were in good accordance with the standard HT-ACA protocol, albeit some differences were revealed. For instance, the modified version detected positive genotoxicity in concentrations two to five times lower than earlier had been found with the standard HT-ACA protocol. Even though the Comet assay has the potential to become a powerful complement to other genotoxicity tests, there are some bottlenecks in its performance, which need to be addressed.
Tagetes erecta mediated phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles: an eco- friendly approach

Dhuldhaj UP, Deshmukh SD, Gade AK, Yashpal M, Rai MK. 2012. Tagetes erecta mediated phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles: an eco-friendly approach. Nusantara Bioscience 4: 109-112. Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary field having applications in the various fields like medicine, pharmacy, engineering and biotechnology. An important step in nanotechnology is to develop simple and eco-friendly method for the nanomaterial synthesis. Here we describe simple and eco -friendly method for synthesis of silver nanoparticles by extract of Tagetes erecta plant leaves. The phytosynthesis (synthesis by plant) of silver nanoparticles was detected by color change from light-green to dark-brown. Synthesis of silver nanoparticles was confirmed by UV -Vis spectrophotometry, further characterization includes nanoparticle tracking analysis system (NTA) (LM20) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). TEM analysis confirms the synthesis of the polydispersed spherical silver nanoparticles of 20 -50 nm, with the average size of 30 nm.
Pricing Sovereign Contingent Convertible Debt

We develop a pricing model for Sovereign Contingent Convertible bonds (S-CoCo) with payment standstills triggered by a sovereign’s Credit Default Swap (CDS) spread. We model CDS spread regime switching, which is prevalent during crises, as a hidden Markov process, coupled with a mean-reverting stochastic process of spread levels under fixed regimes, in order to obtain S-CoCo prices through simulation. The paper uses the pricing model in a Longstaff–Schwartz American option pricing framework to compute future state contingent S-CoCo prices for risk management. Dual trigger pricing is also discussed using the idiosyncratic CDS spread for the sovereign debt together with a broad market index. Numerical results are reported using S-CoCo designs for Greece, Italy and Germany with both the pricing and contingent pricing models.
IMAGE ANNOTATION BASED ON BAG OF VISUAL WORDS AND OPTIMIZED SEMI-SUPERVISED LEARNING METHOD

This paper proposes a new approach to annotate image. First, in order to precisely model training data, shape context features of each image is represented as a bag of visual words. Then, we specifically design a novel optimized graph-based semi-supervised learning for image annotation, in which we maximize the average weighed distance between the different semantic objects, and minimize the average weighed distance between the same semantic objects. Training data insufficiency and lack of generalization of learning method can be resolved through OGSSL with significantly improved image semantic annotation performance. This approach is compared with several other approaches. The experimental results show that this approach performs more effectively and accurately.
Small-Sized Parabolic Trough Collector System for Solar Dehumidification Application: Design, Development, and Potential Assessment

The current study presents a numerical and real-time performance analysis of a parabolic trough collector (PTC) system designed for solar air-conditioning applications. Initially, a thermodynamic model of PTC is developed using engineering equation solver (EES) having a capacity of around 3 kW. Then, an experimental PTC system setup is established with a concentration ratio of 9.93 using evacuated tube receivers. The experimental study is conducted under the climate of Taxila, Pakistan in accordance with ASHRAE 93-1986 standard. Furthermore, PTC system is integrated with a solid desiccant dehumidifier (SDD) to study the effect of various operating parameters such as direct solar radiation and inlet fluid temperature and its impact on dehumidification share. The experimental maximum temperature gain is around 5.2°C, with the peak efficiency of 62% on a sunny day. Similarly, maximum thermal energy gain on sunny and cloudy days is 3.07 kW and 2.33 kW, respectively. Afterwards, same comprehensive EES model of PTC with some modifications is used for annual transient analysis in TRNSYS for five different climates of Pakistan. Quetta revealed peak solar insolation of 656 W/m2 and peak thermal energy 1139 MJ with 46% efficiency. The comparison shows good agreement between simulated and experimental results with root mean square error of around 9%.
Brascamp-Lieb inequality and quantitative versions of Helly's theorem

We provide a number of new quantitative versions of Helly's theorem. For example, we show that for every family $\{P_i:i\in I\}$ of closed half-spaces $$P_i=\{x\in {\mathbb R}^n:\langle x,w_i\rangle \leq 1\}$$ in ${\mathbb R}^n$ such that $P=\bigcap_{i\in I}P_i$ has positive volume, there exist $s\leq \alpha n$ and $i_1,\ldots, i_s\in I$ such that $$|P_{i_1}\cap\cdots\cap P_{i_s}|\leq (Cn)^n\,|P|,$$ where $\alpha, C>0$ are absolute constants. These results complement and improve previous work of B\'ar\'any-Katchalski-Pach and Nasz\'odi. Our method combines the work of Srivastava on approximate John's decompositions with few vectors, a new estimate on the corresponding constant in the Brascamp-Lieb inequality and an appropriate variant of Ball's proof of the reverse isoperimetric inequality.
Sex differences in egocentric spatial ability and the effects of priming

It is widely accepted that there are gender differences within visual-spatial abilities. The gender difference debate regarding social and biological factors has been ongoing. The aim of this study was to investigate the controversy surrounding gender differences within spatial ability. Generally there is a perception that men tend to perform better than women on several spatial tasks, particularly tests involving mentally rotating an image. Women tend to perform better than men in tasks that require object location. The foremost objective of the present study was to investigate whether priming half of the participants to the opposite perceptions would diminish the effect of gender. Forty University students (20 males, 20 females equal numbers in each group) participated in an experiment that comprised two computerized spatial recognition tasks that were presented through Super Lab. Participants completed a 20 item mental rotation and object location task, which measured correct responses and reaction times. Participants were treated in accordance to the ethical code of conduct. The results revealed that priming improved the performance of females in terms to reaction time and accuracy in the mental rotation task. Without priming female performance was poorer. Males had the greatest performance rate overall. Priming was less effective for males and females in the object location task. This research has shown that performance expectations can be positively influenced by priming.
Interest rates and the timing of new production

This article studies the relation between IPO investment and the rate of interest. The 1950s and early 1960s, especially, were periods of very low real interest rates, and IPO investment was very low, with firms delaying their IPOs significantly. The authors find a qualitative difference between investment of IPO-ing firms and the investment of incumbent firms. The latter is decreasing in the interest rate, as neoclassical theory predicts. On the other hand, very low interest rates tend to discourage IPOs, and this may be why the 1950s and 1960s contained few IPOs.
Qu’est-ce que la littérature ?

Cet article est un compte-rendu du livre : José-Luis Diaz, L’Homme et l’œuvre, Paris : Presses universitaires de France, coll. « Les Littéraires », 2011, 243 p., EAN 9782130585022.
Numerical simulations of extratropical tropopause‐penetrating convection: Sensitivities to grid resolution

Deep extratropical convection that penetrates and overshoots the altitude of the tropopause has important implications both for chemistry‐climate interactions through stratosphere‐troposphere exchange and for hazardous weather at the Earth's surface. In this study, the sensitivity of tropopause structure and cross‐tropopause transport to the choice of numerical model resolution in simulations with explicitly resolved convection (i.e., no convective parameterization) is examined. For an observed case of overshooting convection, the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (ARW‐WRF) model is run for all possible combinations of three horizontal (3 km, 1 km, and 333.33 m) and vertical (600 m, 300 m, and 150 m) grid resolutions. Although ARW‐WRF is successful in producing tropopause‐penetrating convection in each case, the depth of overshooting and cross‐tropopause transport are found to increase with refinement in the horizontal dimension and decrease with refinement in the vertical dimension. These results are related to changes in storm intensity and the sharpness of the tropopause, where the former is found to increase with refinement in the horizontal dimension and the latter is found to increase with refinement in the vertical dimension. Comparisons of simulated storm altitudes with those observed from ground‐based radar reveal large positive biases in simulations where the horizontal resolution is fine and the vertical resolution is coarse.
STAR FORMATION ACROSS THE W3 COMPLEX

We present a multi-wavelength analysis of the history of star formation in the W3 complex. Using deep, near-infrared ground-based images combined with images obtained with Spitzer and Chandra observatories, we identified and classified young embedded sources. We identified the principal clusters in the complex and determined their structure and extension. We constructed extinction-limited samples for five principal clusters and constructed K-band luminosity functions that we compare with those of artificial clusters with varying ages. This analysis provided mean ages and possible age spreads for the clusters. We found that IC 1795, the centermost cluster of the complex, still hosts a large fraction of young sources with circumstellar disks. This indicates that star formation was active in IC 1795 as recently as 2 Myr ago, simultaneous to the star-forming activity in the flanking embedded clusters, W3-Main and W3(OH). A comparison with carbon monoxide emission maps indicates strong velocity gradients in the gas clumps hosting W3-Main and W3(OH) and shows small receding clumps of gas at IC 1795, suggestive of rapid gas removal (faster than the T Tauri timescale) in the cluster-forming regions. We discuss one possible scenario for the progression of cluster formation in the W3 complex. We propose that early processes of gas collapse in the main structure of the complex could have defined the progression of cluster formation across the complex with relatively small age differences from one group to another. However, triggering effects could act as catalysts for enhanced efficiency of formation at a local level, in agreement with previous studies.
Creative Osmosis: Teacher Perspectives of Artist Involvement in Professional Development

This inquiry examined the impact of a professional development program in the arts for teachers offered in partnership with Canada’s cultural institutions and the involvement of artists over a three-year period. The research focused on the teachers’ personal growth and professional practice by employing a multiple-perspectives methodology entitled Integrated Inquiry. Findings indicate that it was the inspirational settings in cultural settings, the creative learning activities with artists, and the opportunities to discuss and reflect on their personal perspectives that promoted the teachers personal growth and professional practice. Participation in a wide variety of creative arts activities in cultural settings increased the participants’ willingness to teach the arts in their own classrooms. These experiences enhanced their tolerance for ambiguity and sensitivity to different learning styles. The reflective journal was a powerful tool for making the practical theoretical. It enabled them to relate arts experiences to learning theory and to develop and nurture new ideas. Major obstacles to implementing the arts in schools are inadequate resources, limited peer support, insufficient expertise to assess student achievement effectively, and lack of time. Teachers could overcome these obstacles by engaging in arts advocacy, developing cross-curricular arts themes, enrolling in upgrading courses in evaluation, and adopting an integrated approach to curriculum delivery, respectively.
The Use of Species Accumulation Functions for the Prediction of Species Richness

We develop a stochastic theory of the accumulation of new species in faunistic or floristic inventories. Differential equations for the expected list size and its variance as a function of the time spent collecting are presented and solved for particular cases. These particular cases correspond to different models of how the probability of adding a new species changes with time, the size of the list, the complexity of the area sampled, and other parameters. Examples using field data from butterflies and mammals are discussed, and it is argued that the equations relating sampling effort with size of the list may be useful for conservation purposes because they should lend formality to comparisons among lists and because they may have predictive power by extrapolating the asymptotic size of the lists. The suitability of different models to a variety of field situations is also discussed. Se presenta una teoria estocastica de la acumulacion de especies nuevas en inventarios floristicos o faunisticos. Se obtienen y resuelven casos particulares de las ecuaciones diferenciales que relacionan el tamano esperado de las listas y su variancia con el tiempo dedicado a la colecta. Los casos particulares corresponden a diferentes modelos de como la probabilidad de anadir una especie nueva a la lista cambia con el tiempo, el tamano de la lista, la complejidad del area y otros parametros. Se discuten ejemplos con datos de campo de mariposas y mamiferos y se argumenta que el contar con ecuaciones que relacionen el esfuerzo de colecta con el tamano del inventorio puede ser util para propositos conservacionistas porque se podran formalizar las comparaciones entre inventorios y porque tales ecuaciones pueden tener un valor predictivo al extrapolar para obtener los valores asintoticos de las listas. Tambien se discute la conveniencia de los diferentes modelos a distintas situaciones de campo.
Sorption of lead on variable charged soils as affected by temperature and time in three Provinces of China

Effect of temperature and time on Lead (Pb) adsorption and affinity of the adsorbed Pb was evaluated in three acidic soils from China. The distribution coefficient increased slightly with increasing temperature up to 35 0C and then decreased at 450C.The increase of temperature was not favorable to sorption. The heat of reaction (△H) was positive (endothermic) at lower temperatures, while it was negative (exothermic) at higher temperatures. It was observed that there was an increase in the percent adsorption of Pb2+ within the first 8 min of the reaction and a decrease within 20 min of the reaction. The equilibrium was reached after 40min with 95.8 %, 87.4 % and 83.8 % for the Yellow brown soil (YBS), Latosol soil (LS) and Lateritic red soil (LRS) respectively. The analysis of images obtained by scanning electron microscope (SEM) with adsorbed Pb showed coverage of the surface with white layer (molecular cloud).
Voltammetry of Suspensions of Polyaniline-coated Graphene Composites

Flaky particles of polyaniline (PANI)-graphene (GN) with rectangular size of 1.0-1.5 mm are dispersed in aqueous solution so that their suspension is stable for one day without aggregation. The weight fraction of PANI in the particle is 75 %, which is independent of the loaded fraction of PANI in the synthesis. The PANI-GN film made of the suspension forms a self-standing, elastic, conductive film. The PANI-GN suspension exhibits both the reduction and the oxidation waves at potentials similar to those of PANI adsorbed on an electrode, whereas the PANI-GO suspension shows only the voltammetric reduction wave. The redox peak currents are controlled by diffusion of PANI-GN flakes. The PANI-GN film cast on the electrode shows voltammetric peaks for PANI, of which redox charge is larger than that of the electrochemically polymerized PANI film with the common weight of PANI. This fact can be explained in terms of the electrochemically exhaustive oxidation of PANI through the electric conduction of GN.
Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithm Based on Knowledge Graph

To solve the problem that collaborative filtering algorithm only uses the user-item rating matrix and does not consider semantic information, we proposed a novel collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm based on knowledge graph. Using the knowledge graph representation learning method, this method embeds the existing semantic data into a low-dimensional vector space. It integrates the semantic information of items into the collaborative filtering recommendation by calculating the semantic similarity between items. The shortcoming of collaborative filtering algorithm which does not consider the semantic information of items is overcome, and therefore the effect of collaborative filtering recommendation is improved on the semantic level. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can get higher values on precision, recall, and F-measure for collaborative filtering recommendation.
Characterisation of metal/mould interface on investment casting of γ-TiAl

Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of different refractory compounds – SiO2, ZrO2 and Y2O3 – as face coats of investment casting shells for γ-TiAl. The effect of the different refractories on the metal–mould interaction is studied in different aspects. Experimental results include characterisation of the constituents present at the metal/mould interface, the segregation profiles of residual elements, namely oxygen, from the interface to the inner part of the samples, the extension and microhardness of the samples external hard case and the samples surface finishing.
The Apparent Digestibility of Corn By-products for Growing-finishing Pigs In vivo and In vitro

Two trials in vivo and in vitro were conducted, in vivo to determine the apparent digestibility of gross energy, crude protein, dry matter, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber and apparent digestible energy in 10 corn by-products. In vivo the diets included one basal corn diet, four corn gluten meal diets, four corn distillers dried grains with solubles diets and two corn distillers dried grains diets using the different methods, 12 crossbred barrows weigh 40±1.6 kg were allocated into individual metabolic crate, according to a 6×6 Latin square design. In vitro using flask technique, filter bag technique and dialysis tubing technique, the digestibilities of gross energy, crude protein and dry matter in corn gluten meal and corn distillers dried grains with solubles were investigated. Pepsin, pancreatin, intestinal fluid, rumen fluid and cellulase were used in incubation. The results showed that correlation coefficient was 0.73 in corn distillers dried grains with solubles between the digestibility of crude protein and acid detergent fiber in vivo (p<0.01); and correlation coefficient was 0.68 in corn distillers dried grains with solubles between the digestibility of gross energy and neutral detergent fiber in vivo (p<0.01). Apparent digestible energy (DE) of corn by-products in pig total tract was predicted by the percentage of crude protein (CP) and the content of gross energy (GE) in feedstuff. The equation: DE=5,601.09+26.69×CP %-0.5904×GE, (R 2 =0.72). In vitro, filter bag technique was more convenient; furthermore, the digestibility for the treatments (pepsin+pancreatin+rumen fluid and pepsin+pancreatin+cellulase) was better. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2004. Vol 17, No. 3 : 379-385)
SIBYLS — a SAXS and Protein Crystallography Beamline at the ALS

The new Structurally Integrated BiologY for Life Sciences (SIBYLS) beamline at the Advanced Light Source will be dedicated to Macromolecular Crystallography (PX) and Small Angle X‐ray Scattering (SAXS). SAXS will provide structural information of macromolecules in solutions and will complement high resolution PX studies on the same systems but in a crystalline state. The x‐ray source is one of the 5 Tesla superbend dipoles recently installed at the ALS that allows for a hard x‐ray program to be developed on the relatively low energy Advanced Light Source (ALS) ring (1.9 GeV). The beamline is equipped with fast interchangeable monochromator elements, consisting of either a pair of single Si(111) crystals for crystallography, or a pair of multilayers for the SAXS mode data collection (E/ΔE∼1/110). Flux rates with Si(111) crystals for PX are measured as 2×1011 hv/sec through a 100μm pinhole at 12.4KeV. For SAXS the flux is up to 3×1013photons/sec at 10KeV with all apertures open when using the multilayer mon.