Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The neurocomputational mechanisms of human sequential decision making under uncertainty in a spatial search task

Sequential decision making under uncertainty is a ubiquitous aspect of human behaviour. For example, when trying to locate the source of radioactive decontamination, one will typically rely on a gamma counter, which signals the direction of the highest radiation with some associated observation noise. Similarly, humans often have to navigate abstract representational spaces, such as career paths, ﬁnancial investment schemes, or maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Across all these domains, in order to achieve a set goal, humans can only rely on cues that are inﬂicted with uncertainty and which provide only partial information about how to reach the goal in an ef-ﬁcient way. In the current project, we used a simulated spatial search task to study the cognitive-behavioural and neural underpinnings of such sequential decisions under uncertainty. By combining artiﬁcial agent models rooted in the theory of partially-observable Markov decision processes with behavioural experimentation and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we provide evidence for human decision strategies that share similarities with real-time dynamic programming and rely on the neural representation of task-speciﬁc belief states.
Diel and vertical movements of preflexion fish larvae assemblage associated with Posidonia oceanica beds

Habitat complexity is a strong determinant of fish assemblage structure. Enhanced food resources and protection from predators are generally considered the main benefits of vegetated areas. We investigated the diel and vertical movements of preflexion fish larvae within and above the leaf canopy of Posidonia oceanica to determine if it acts as an important habitat for larval stage fish. Samples were taken with moored plankton nets during the night and day at two depths (13 and 15 m) over five consecutive days in July 2000 in the Marine Protected Area off Tabarca Island (Spain, SW Mediterranean Sea). In total, 353 fish larvae were captured. The most abundant taxa were Sardinella aurita, Sparidae, Engraulis encrasicolus and Gobiidae. Sparidae were more abundant within the leaf canopy during the day but increased in waters 2 m above the canopy at night. In contrast, Sardinella aurita were present throughout the entire water column during both the day and night. We conclude that the P. oceanica leaf canopy is important as a transitional shelter for the early stage larvae of some demersal fish species.
User characteristics for customer involvement in innovation processes : deconstructing the Lead User-concept

Despite the growing evidence of the beneficial nature of customer and user involvement in new product or service development, research into user types and customer characteristics for innovation is still scarce. One notable exception can be found in the literature dealing with the so-called Lead User. Although there is a substantial research corpus dealing with Lead User innovation, the integration of Lead Users or Lead User-methods is definitely not common within most firms. We believe that disentangling the Lead Userconcept into more concrete user types and customer characteristics would benefit and optimize user involvement in innovation processes. Within this paper, we describe six user types based on five dimensions, associated with the Lead User-concept and abstracted from various literature streams. We further propose some guidelines for an optimal integration of these users within innovation methodologies and sketch out some lines for future research.
An Improved Phase-Locked-Loop Control with Alternative Damping Factors for VSC Connected to Weak AC System

The gains of phase-locked-loop PLL have significant impacts on the power transfer limits for the voltage source converter VSC connected to weak AC system. Therefore, in this paper, an improved PLL control, respectively, with alternative damping factors for rectifier and inverter is proposed. First, it is proved that the impedance angle of AC system has a great impact on the small-signal stability of the VSC system. With the same variation tendency of Thevenin equivalent resistance, the limits of power transmission are changing in opposite trends for rectifier and inverter. Second, the improved PLL with alternative damping factors is proposed based on the participation factor analysis. Third, the optimal damping factors of the improved PLL control for rectifier and inverter are calculated. Simulations and calculations validated the following three conclusions: 1 in rectifying operation, the equivalent system resistance has a negative impact on the stability of the system and this is not the case for inverting operation; 2 adding the alternative damping factors to PLL control shows similar results compared with changing the impedance angle of AC system; 3 the proposed optimal damping factors of PLL can effectively extend the power transfer limits under both rectifier and inverter modes.
A review of the biology and ecology of Florida beggarweed (Desmodium tortuosum)

Abstract Florida beggarweed is native to the Western Hemisphere but is naturalized around the world. During the last century, the mechanization of agriculture has transitioned Florida beggarweed from an important forage component to a weed of significance in the coastal plain of the southeast United States. This herbaceous annual is naturalized and found in fields and disturbed areas throughout the southern United States. The characteristics that made Florida beggarweed a good forage crop also make it a formidable weed. This review describes the importance of Florida beggarweed as a weed in the southern United States and the taxonomy of this species and details the distribution throughout the world and within the United States. The ecology of Florida beggarweed and its interactions with crop plants, insects, nematodes, and plant pathogens also are summarized. Finally, management of Florida beggarweed in agricultural systems using cultural practices and herbicides is reviewed. Nomenclature: Florida beggarweed, Desmodium tortuosum (Schwartz) DC. DEDTO.
Interacting with intelligent agents : key issues in agent-based decision support system design

Liu, Shenghua Interacting with Intelligent Agents Key Issues in Agent-based Decision Support System Design Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2010, 90 p. (+included articles) (Jyväskylä Studies in Computing ISSN 1456-5390) ISBN 978-951-39-3999-1 (PDF), 978-951-39-3986-1 (nid.) Finnish summary Diss. The wide variety of uses of software agents in user-oriented systems have brought up a series of design considerations and present a radical reorientation in thinking about future human-computer interaction (HCI). The advent of agent technology broadens the way in interaction design and opens a vast realm in which agent designers have the opportunity to empower human beings. However, bad design and possible abuse of agents may cause untold frustrations, inconvenience and misery to users who interact with agents. In order to eliminate the negative effects of agent use, new design approaches need investigate how agent technology can be designed in the most humane way, at the same time aiming at improving the holistic integration between human mental processes and technological progress. This new interaction paradigm, evolved from traditional HCI, can be referred to as human-agent interaction (HAI). My research tries to ascertain the principles for designing, implementing and evaluating intelligent agents and such agent-based interactive computing systems for human use, based on current HCI research. This dissertation describes a framework to incorporate agent technology with conventional HCI design approaches. An empirical study on the agent-based decision-making is conducted within this framework. Critical design issues of the intelligent HAI are expatiated, with the focus on agents’ impacts on the decision-making behavior of people. The goal is to provide a holistic view on future interaction design where the agent-based approaches are well organized to serve HCI research.
Reproductive Intentions: individual and contextual determinants

The importance of contextual effects in understanding demographic and particularly reproductive behaviour is widely known. Usually available Italian data do not allow examination of territorial details further than that on a municipal scale, so, forcing to consider little informative data about the context. In this paper, suitable data sources referring to sub -municipal detail, like that defined by 20 decentralised areas of an Italian metropolitan area (city of Milan), are used. So very informative contextual data are obtained. Throug h these types of data, how reproductive intentions are influenced also by contextual factors is examined. Results show that, besides the importance of individual preferences in reproductive choices, the effect of the context in which everyone lives must al so be taken into account.
A Video based Vehicle Detection, Counting and Classification System

Traffic Analysis has been a problem that city planners have dealt with for years. Smarter ways are being developed to analyze traffic and streamline the process. Analysis of traffic may account for the number of vehicles in an area per some arbitrary time period and the class of vehicles. People have designed such mechanism for decades now but most of them involve use of sensors to detect the vehicles i.e. a couple of proximity sensors to calculate the direction of the moving vehicle and to keep the vehicle count. Even though over the time these systems have matured and are highly effective, they are not very budget friendly. The problem is such systems require maintenance and periodic calibration. Therefore, this study has purposed a vision based vehicle counting and classification system. The system involves capturing of frames from the video to perform background subtraction in order detect and count the vehicles using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) background subtraction then it classifies the vehicles by comparing the contour areas to the assumed values. The substantial contribution of the work is the comparison of two classification methods. Classification has been implemented using Contour Comparison (CC) as well as Bag of Features (BoF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) method.
Testing Weak Form Market Efficiency for Emerging Economies: A Nonlinear Approach

In this paper, we address weak form stock market efficiency of Emerging Economies, by testing whether the price series of these markets contain unit root. Nonlinear behavior of stock prices is well documented in the literature, and thus linear unit root tests may not be appropriate in this case. For this purpose, we employ the nonlinear unit root test procedure recently developed by Kapetanios et al. (2003) and nonlinear panel unit root test Ucar and Omay (2009) that has a better power than standard unit root tests when series under consideration are characterized by a slower speed of mean reversion. Large power gains are achieved through combining cross-sectional information and nonlinear estimation techniques in computing unit root tests. The results of ADF and PP indicate that Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian and Turkish stock markets are weak form efficient, while the results of nonlinear unit root test implies that Russian, Romanian and Polish stock markets are not weak form efficient. Moreover, the linear panel unit root test suggest that this group as all efficient where as nonlinear panel unit root test suggest as a group they are not efficient.
Verification of parallelising transformations of KPN models

Parallelising transformations of Kahn process networks (KPNs) are important mechanisms for achieving speedup for deployment on heterogeneous multiprocessor systems particularly in the domain of signal processing applications. Correctness of such parallelising transformations is crucial for their reliable applications. In this study, verification frameworks for checking correctness of sequential to KPN behavioural transformation and KPN level transformations are presented. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these are the first such approaches for verification problems. The sequential behaviour and the KPN behaviours are both modelled as array data dependence graphs (ADDGs) and the verification problem is posed as the problem of checking of equivalence between the two ADDGs. The key aspect of the proposed scheme is to model a KPN behaviour as an ADDG. Correctness of KPN to ADDG construction method is proved. Experimental results supporting usability of this scheme are also provided.
Spectrophotometric determination of mercury using vortex-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction

A novel method for the determination of mercury(II) is suggested. The procedure is based on the formation of an ion associate between the bromide complex of Hg(II) and Astrazon Red 6B dye and vortex-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction of the ion associate formed, with subsequent spectrophotometric detection. The variables that affect the procedure, such as pH, the concentration of ligand and dye, the type and volume of extraction solvent, and the rate and time of vortex mixing, were optimized. Under optimum conditions (pH 2.0, 0.01 mol L$^{-1}$ KBr, 2 $\times $ 10$^{-4}$ mol L$^{-1}$ AR6B, 50 $\mu $L of the extraction mixture toluene:dichlorethane, 4:1, v:v, vortex mixing for 100 s~at 1600 rpm) the linear range was 8 to 200 $\mu $g L$^{-1}$ Hg(II), with the limit of detection at 1.5 $\mu $g L$^{-1}$. The method was applied to the determination of mercury in water samples.
IMPACT OF POVERTY ON THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX IN BULGARIA (FOR EXAMPLE OF SOUTH CENTRAL REGION)

The circle of issues, concerning the fixing, measurement and analysis of the relation: poverty of human development index, is outlined in this paper. The assumption that in the modern world poverty isn’t a concept associated with the shortage of income is grounded. At its core the poverty is an expression of lack of opportunities for the person.
Super unit cells in aperture-based metamaterials

An important class of electromagnetic metamaterials are aperture-based metasurfaces. Examples include extraordinary optical transmission arrays and double fishnets with negative refractive index. We analyze a generalization of such metamaterials where a simple aperture is now replaced by a compound object formed by superposition of two or more primitive objects (e.g., rectangles, circles, and ellipses). Thus obtained "super unit cell" shows far richer behavior than the subobjects that comprise it. We show that nonlocalities introduced by overlapping simple subobjects can be used to produce large deviations of spectral dispersion even for small additive modifications of the basic geometry. Technologically, some super cellsmay be fabricated by simple spatial shifting of the existing photolithographic masks. In our investigation we applied analytical calculations and ab initio finite element modeling to prove the possibility to tailor the dispersion including resonances for plasmonic nanocomposites by adjusting the local geometry and exploiting localized interactions at a subwavelength level. Any desired form could be defined using simple primitive objects, making the situation a geometrical analog of the case of series expansion of a function. Thus an additional degree of tunability of metamaterials is obtained. The obtained designer structures can be applied in different fields like waveguiding and sensing.
A Class of Stationary Electromagnetic Vacuum Fields

It is shown how a new class of stationary electromagnetic vacuum fields can be generated from solutions of Laplace's equation. These fields are a stationary generalization of the static electromagnetic vacuum fields of Weyl, Majumdar, and Papapetrou, and are plausibly interpreted as exterior fields of static or steadily moving distributions of charged dust having numerically equal charge and mass densities.
Sugar cane bagasse as feedstock for second generation ethanol production. Part I: Diluted acid pretreatment optimization

Tons of sugar cane bagasse are produced in Brazil as waste of the sugar and ethanol industries. This lignocellulosic material is a potential source for second-generation ethanol production. Diluted acid hydrolysis is one of the most efficient pretreatments for hemicellulosic solubilization. The hydrolysate obtained is rich in xylose, which can be converted to ethanol by Pichia stipitis. This work used a statistical approach and the severity factor to investigate the effects of factors associated with the diluted acid hydrolysis process (acid concentration, solid:liquid ratio and time of exposure) on various response variables (xylose concentration, hydrolysis yield, inhibitor concentration and hydrolysate fermentability). The severity factor had a strong influence on the generation of inhibitors. The statistical analysis was useful for determining the effects of the individual factors and their interactions on the response variables. An acid concentration of 1.09% (vv), an S:L ratio of 1:2.8 (g:ml), and an exposure time of 27 min were established and validated as the optimum pretreatment conditions for the generation of hydrolysates with high xylose concentration and low contents of inhibitors. In such conditions, hydrolysate with 50 g/l of xylose was obtained.
Impact of Operating and Financial Expenses on Sales Revenue: The Case of Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited

This paper is the first attempt to study the impact of operating and financial expenses on sales revenue of the Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited in Pakistan and to seek the nature as well as the strength of the relationship between sales and these expenses. The time series data for fourteen years covering 2002-2015 used were analyzed by using the Ordinary Least Square technique and a multiple regression model. These were supplemented with the elasticity and causality tests. The major findings established that there is a substantial relationship between operating expenses and sales revenue of the company, however; the relationship between financial expenses and sales revenue is not so strong comparatively. The results also confirmed that there is a significant increase in the sales revenue of the company caused by a unit change in operating expenses. It was suggested that the company should make aware the customers through advertising and general publicity on the uses and benefits of their multi-products produced. The more increase in expenses on operational aspects over the financial expenses was recommended in the future for the company in this study.
Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Scholars routinely make claims that presuppose the validity of the observations and measurements that operationalize their concepts. Yet, despite recent advances in political science methods, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to measurement validity. We address this gap by exploring four themes. First, we seek to establish a shared framework that allows quantitative and qualitative scholars to assess more effectively, and communicate about, issues of valid measurement. Second, we underscore the need to draw a clear distinction between measurement issues and disputes about concepts. Third, we discuss the contextual specificity of measurement claims, exploring a variety of measurement strategies that seek to combine generality and validity by devoting greater attention to context. Fourth, we address the proliferation of terms for alternative measurement validation procedures and offer an account of the three main types of validation most relevant to political scientists.
The Role of the Reflective Activity of Students in Individual Educational Trajectory

The current stage of higher education development implies a qualitative change in approaches to the definition of its content, as well as the methods and forms of determining educational outcomes of educational and cognitive activity of students. The ability to reflect is included in the number of compulsory academic abilities of high school for students to master. Despite the long-standing discussion of reflection categories in the philosophical, psychological and pedagogical literature, the shortage of scientific and practical knowledge of the methods and techniques of diagnosing and fixing the reflection of the students is recorded. The article presents a technique that is based on the reflective card, which is aimed at a comprehensive evaluation of educational outcomes on account of bringing to the evaluation of all participants in the educational process, to assess the skills of reflection (self-evaluation) formation of the results of students’ educational activities, which ultimately help to determine the degree of the discipline mastery. Results of the article are of great value for the organizers of professional training of educational psychologists, academics, as well as valuable in developing recommendations regarding policy-making in the field of supplementary education in “Practical Psychology in Education. ”
Sustainable Grassland Productivity 787 Will feeding high sugar grass reduce methane emission by grazing dairy cows ?

This study aimed at investigating the effect of feeding high sugar grasses to dairy cows on CH4 emission using modeling approaches. The dynamic mechanistic rumen model of Dijkstra et al. (1992) coupled with the CH4 module of Mills et al. (2001) was used. Data from 4 experiments in which high and low sugar grasses were fed to dairy cows was used as an input to the model. The differential magnitude in sugar content between high and low sugar grasses ranged from 24 to 66 g kg DM. Predicted CH4 production by dairy cows consuming high and low sugar grasses was not different. A hypothetical situation in which the difference in sugar content between the two grasses was inflated to 100 g kg DM on the expense of both protein and fiber that were reduced by 50 g kg DM each, while keeping other input parameters constant was simulated. In this situation CH4 production was 20.4 MJ d -1 (1.2 MJ kg DMI) for the high sugar scenario compared to 18.6 MJ d (1.1 MJ kg DMI) for the low sugar scenario. It was concluded that feeding high sugar grass to dairy cows may not reduce methane emission from dairy production systems.
GC/MS ANALYSIS OF RHEUM RIBES RHIZOMES

Objectives: Rheum ribes is a species of perennial and stout herbs that are distributed in southwest of Asia. Crude extracts of their rhizomes have different medicinal activities. Their pharmacological activity may due to their chemical compositions. Methods: This study was carrying out to determine the qualitative and quantitative analysis of chemical components of Rheum ribes rhizomes using two methods by GC-MS. The level of some elements and total protein was also determined. Result: The results of phytochemical screening showed the presence of sugar, flavonoids, glycosides and alkaloids. Nine compounds were identified using methods (1) while there were six different compounds when method (2) was used. Atomic Absorption Spectrometry determined the levels of Cu, Cd, Mn, K, Fe, Co and Ti. Nitrogen was determined by Macro Kjeldahl method. The amounts of them were (2.584, 3.513, 35.03, 0.0388, 126.85, 1, 0.02 and 0.59) percentage respectively. There were not neither phosphors nor Zinc in rhizomes of this plant. The level of total proteins were 3.688 %. Conclusion: The rhizomes R. ribes contain sixteen different components with different levels of more than eight elements.