Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct Perturbation Analysis for Better Conservation

Only demographic studies can link in a quantitative way observed trends in population growth rate to parts of the life cycle. Population growth rate has been used for some time to assess the overall status of populations in conservation management. More recently there has been an increasing interest in elaborating methods that can assess the relative importance of different life-cycle phases for observed population growth trends (Silvertown et al. 1993, 1996; Caswell 1996a; Royama 1996). This kind of information is essential to identifying critical life-cycle stages and concentrating management efforts on them. One tool that has become widely used to extract information from demographic data is population projection matrices (Caswell 1978, 1989a; van Groenendael et al. 1988; Silvertown et al. 1993, 1996; Schemske et al. 1994). Silvertown et al. (1996) discuss elasticity matrices as a way to identify such critical life-cycle stages and as an aid to constructing rules of thumb useful in plant conservation. They warn against a naive interpretation of elasticities and argue that the state of the populationits rate of increase-must be taken into account. We want to focus attention on some additional problems with the use of elasticity values for identifying key phases of the life cycle and to propose an alternative method that reduces these problems. The rate of increase of a population (X) depends on ageor stage-specific vital rates such as survival, growth, and reproduction. Sensitivity analysis explores this dependence by calculating the effects on X of infinitely small absolute changes to matrix element aij, which represents particular transitions in the life cycle (Caswell 1978, 1989a). Hence, the sensitivity sii of a matrix element aii is
Efficient and High-quality Sparse Graph Coloring on the GPU

Graph coloring has been broadly used to discover concurrency in parallel computing. To speedup graph coloring for large-scale datasets, parallel algorithms have been proposed to leverage modern GPUs. Existing GPU implementations either have limited performance or yield unsatisfactory coloring quality (too many colors assigned). We present a work-efficient parallel graph coloring implementation on GPUs with good coloring quality. Our approach employs the speculative greedy scheme which inherently yields better quality than the method of finding maximal independent set. In order to achieve high performance on GPUs, we refine the algorithm to leverage efficient operators and alleviate conflicts. We also incorporate common optimization techniques to further improve performance. Our method is evaluated with both synthetic and real-world sparse graphs on the NVIDIA GPU. Experimental results show that our proposed implementation achieves averaged 4.1x (up to 8.9x) speedup over the serial implementation. It also outperforms the existing GPU implementation from the NVIDIA CUSPARSE library (2.2x average speedup), while yielding much better coloring quality than CUSPARSE.
TouchPass: towards behavior-irrelevant on-touch user authentication on smartphones leveraging vibrations

With increasing private and sensitive data stored in mobile devices, secure and effective mobile-based user authentication schemes are desired. As the most natural way to contact with mobile devices, finger touches have shown potentials for user authentication. Most existing approaches utilize finger touches as behavioral biometrics for identifying individuals, which are vulnerable to spoofer attacks. To resist attacks for on-touch user authentication on mobile devices, this paper exploits physical characters of touching fingers by investigating active vibration signal transmission through fingers, and we find that physical characters of touching fingers present unique patterns on active vibration signals for different individuals. Based on the observation, we propose a behavior-irrelevant on-touch user authentication system, TouchPass, which leverages active vibration signals on smartphones to extract only physical characters of touching fingers for user identification. TouchPass first extracts features that mix physical characters of touching fingers and behavior biometrics of touching behaviors from vibration signals generated and received by smartphones. Then, we design a Siamese network-based architecture with a specific training sample selection strategy to reconstruct the extracted signal features to behavior-irrelevant features and further build a behavior-irrelevant on-touch user authentication scheme leveraging knowledge distillation. Our extensive experiments validate that TouchPass can accurately authenticate users and defend various attacks.
Experience: aging or glitching? why does android stop responding and what can we do about it?

Almost every Android user has unsatisfying experiences regarding responsiveness, in particular Application Not Responding (ANR) and System Not Responding (SNR) that directly disrupt user experience. Unfortunately, the community have limited understanding of the prevalence, characteristics, and root causes of unresponsiveness. In this paper, we make an in-depth study of ANR and SNR at scale based on fine-grained system-level traces crowdsourced from 30,000 Android systems. We find that ANR and SNR occur prevalently on all the studied 15 hardware models, and better hardware does not seem to relieve the problem. Moreover, as Android evolves from version 7.0 to 9.0, there are fewer ANR events but more SNR events. Most importantly, we uncover multifold root causes of ANR and SNR and pinpoint the largest inefficiency which roots in Android's flawed implementation of Write Amplification Mitigation (WAM). We design a practical approach to eliminating this largest root cause; after large-scale deployment, it reduces almost all (>99%) ANR and SNR caused by WAM while only decreasing 3% of the data write speed. In addition, we document important lessons we have learned from this study, and have also released our measurement code/data to the research community.
Comparative study of statistical features to detect the target event during disaster

: Microblogs, such as facebook and twitter, have much attention among the users and organizations. Nowadays, twitter is more popular because of its real-time nature. People often interacted with real-time events such as earthquakes and ﬂoods through twitter. During a disaster, the number of posts or tweets is drastically increased in twitter. At the time of the disaster, detecting a target event is a challenging task. In this paper, a framework is proposed for observing the tweets and to detect the target event. For detecting the target event, a classiﬁer is devised based on different combinations of statistical features such as the position of the keyword in a tweet, length of a tweet, the frequency of hashtag, and frequency of user mentions and the URL. From the result, it is evident that the combination of frequency of hashtag and position of keyword features provides good classiﬁcation results than the other combinations of features. Hence, usage of two features, namely, frequency of hashtag and position of the earthquake keyword reduces the event’s detection time. And also these two features are further helpful for detecting the sub-events which are used for ﬁltering the tweets related to the disaster. Additionally, different classiﬁers such as Artiﬁcial Neural Networks (ANN), decision tree, and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) are compared by using these two features. However, Support Vector Machine (SVM) with linear kernel by using the combination of position of earthquake keyword and frequency of hashtag outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Therefore, SVM (linear kernel) with proposed features is applied for detecting the earthquake during disaster. The proposed algorithm is tested on Nepal earthquake and landslide datasets, 2015.
Mass Prediction in Theropod Dinosaurs

Body size is a crucial life history parameter for an organism. Therefore, mass estimation for fossil species is important for many kinds of analyses. Several attempts have been made to yield equations applicable to dinosaurs. In this paper, we offer bi- and multivariate equations based on log transformed appendicular skeleton data from a sample of 16 theropods which were known from reasonably complete skeletal remains, and spanning a wide size range. Body masses of the included taxa had been found by displacement methods of scale models, based on measurements taken directly on the mounted skeletons. Seven of the bivariate regression analyses resulted in correlation coefficients equal to or above 0.975 and femoral length was the best available measurement (r=0.995; standard error of the estimate (%SEE)=19.26; percent prediction error (). Also, 32 multivariate analyses yielded equations with high correlation coefficients (r>0.990) and low standard errors.
Na¨ıve Bayes in Sentiment Classiﬁcation

In this report, I will present and discuss the work by Pak and Paroubek (2010). To do so, I will present the ﬁeld of Sentiment Analysis , the speciﬁcs of Nai¨ve Bayes Classiﬁers and the application of this approach by Pak and Paroubek (2010). I will then discuss the results and problems arising from this application. In particular, I will identify the exclusion of ngrams by Salience as an promising preprocessing technique suggested by the authors. Finally, I will point out further research that could help to further advance and generalize these ﬁndings.
Misturas de agrotóxicos em tanque nas propriedades agrícolas do Brasil

As infestacoes de plantas daninhas, pragas e doencas, muitas vezes, ocorrem simultaneamente em uma mesma area agricola. Nesse caso, a alternativa de controle mais economica e, por isso, mais comumente adotada pelos produtores e a pulverizacao de mistura de agrotoxicos em tanque. Nesta pesquisa, a fim de subsidiar as discussoes tecnicas, sao descritas e quantificadas as praticas de campo adotadas em relacao as misturas em tanque de agrotoxicos em propriedades agricolas do Brasil. Para isso, foi elaborado um questionario e enviado aos profissionais que lidam cotidianamente com tratamentos fitossanitarios em diferentes regioes do Pais. Constatou-se que 97% dos entrevistados utilizam misturas em tanque, 95% das vezes variando de dois a cinco produtos. Na maioria das vezes, utilizam a dose cheia, isto e, as maiores doses constantes nos rotulos dos agrotoxicos. As aplicacoes de glyphosate em soja 86% das vezes sao realizadas simultaneamente com inseticidas, fungicidas e outros herbicidas. A maioria dos participantes (72%) afirmou desconhecer ou considera insuficientes as informacoes sobre misturas, e 99% deles demonstraram interesse em recebe-las. Considerando que a mistura em tanque de agrotoxicos e pratica comum entre os agricultores, mas pode apresentar vantagens e desvantagens, conclui-se que o tema deve ser discutido com urgencia entre os orgaos governamentais competentes e os demais segmentos das cadeias produtivas.
Effect of probiotic (Lactobacillus sporogenes) feeding on egg production and quality, yolk cholesterol and humoral immune response of White Leghorn layer breeders

The effect of probiotic (Lactobacillus sporogenes) feeding on egg production and quality, yolk cholesterol and humoral immune response of White Leghorn (WL) layer breeders was studied. WL layer breeders (24 weeks) were randomly distributed into three groups of 28 each and were housed in individual California type cages. Considering one bird (individual feeding) as a replicate, 28 such replicates were randomly allotted to one of the three dietary treatments: basal (control) or basal with probiotic supplementation at a rate of 100 or 150 mg kg−1 feed. The probiotic used in the study was a commercial preparation containing L. sporogenes with 6000 million spores g−1 of the product. Dietary supplementation of L. sporogenes at 100 mg (6 × 108 spore) kg−1 diet significantly increased egg production and feed efficiency. However, body weight gain, feed intake, egg weight, specific gravity and Haugh unit was not influenced by probiotic feeding. The eggshell breaking strength, shell weight and shell thickness increased significantly by feeding 100 mg probiotic kg−1 diet. The serum concentration of calcium and protein increased, and that of cholesterol decreased by L. sporogenes supplementation. The yolk cholesterol followed the same trend of serum cholesterol. Feeding of L. sporogenes significantly enhanced antibody production. No difference in antibody production could, however, noticed between the levels (100 or 150 mg) of probiotic. It is concluded that feeding of L. sporogenes at 100 mg (6 × 108 spore) kg−1 diet significantly enhanced the egg production, shell quality and humoral immune response of WL layer breeders during 25–40 weeks of age. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry
Food resources and intestinal parasites as limiting factors for boreal vole populations during winter

Processes limiting the growth of cyclic vole populations have stimulated considerable research and debate over several decades. In Fennoscandia, the peak density of cyclic vole populations occurs in fall, and is followed by a severe winter decline. Food availability and intestinal parasites have been demonstrated to independently and synergistically limit wildlife populations. The purpose of this study was to directly compare competing food and parasite hypotheses on the limitation of overwintering high-density vole populations. Moreover, we evaluated the ability of food limitation and nematode infection to interact and thereby intensify population declines. A two-factor experiment with food supplementation and antihelminthic medication was conducted on replicated, enclosed field vole (Microtus agrestis) populations in central Finland over one full boreal winter. Population abundance, survival, and demographic attributes were monitored through live trapping. Vole feces were concurrently examined for the eggs of Heligmosomidae nemadotes and oocysts of eimerian coccidians. We found that vole density declined in all treatment groups throughout winter. However, food supplementation mitigated this decline through positive effects on reproduction, and voles in food-supplemented populations were generally in better physiological condition than non-supplemented voles. Food supplementation and antihelminthic treatment reduced the prevalence of Heligmosomidae nematodes, while neither food nor medication affected the prevalence of eimerians, or infection intensity of either parasite group. Although food supplementation and antihelminthic medication aided in the clearance of Heligmosomidae nematodes, their prevalence did not influence vole population growth, and this parasite group is therefore unlikely to contribute to the cyclic winter decline of boreal vole populations. Instead food resources acting alone were the primary factor limiting vole population growth.
Physiological and biochemical studies on Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici race 2 for its biocontrol by nonpathogenic fungi

Abstract The self-degradation of the phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici race 2 (F. oxysporum l. 2), which reached an autolysis degree of 72% after 60 days of incubation in stationary culture, occurred principally during the first 14 days of incubation, when considerable β-(1,3)-glucanase, pectinase, xylanase and chitinase activities were detected in the culture fluids. The levels of β-(1,3)-glucanase, pectinase, cellulase, chitinase and xylanase activities increased in the culture fluids of this fungus, when the culture medium was supplemented with different inducers. The vegetable juice (V8) that contained tomato juice, was the best inducer for most of these activities. Chitosan, glucosamine oligomers and Mucor rouxii mycelium extract were found to have an inhibitory effect on F. oxysporum l. 2 growth. When incubating cell walls from young mycelia of F. oxysporum l. 2 with enzymic precipitates obtained from autolyzed cultures of Mucor rouxii, Aspergillus nidulans, Penicillin oxalicum and Penicillium purpurogenum, degradations of 45%, 22%, 21% and 12%, respectively, were detected.
Association Mapping of Resistance to Yellow Rust in Winter Wheat Cultivars and Elite Genotypes

Yellow (stripe) rust, caused by Puccinia striifor - mis f.sp. tritici (Pst), is a destructive disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) all over the world, particularly in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region. Host plant resis - tance is the most economical and environment friendly approach to combating wheat rusts through the deployment of resistant cultivars. In this study, we report findings from an associa - tion mapping (AM) study of resistance to Pst in 167 facultative/winter elite wheat genotypes. The genotypes were evaluated for resistance to yel - low rust (Yr) at the adult plant stage and other agronomic traits for 2 yr (2011-2012) at ICA rDA field station, Tel Hadya, Syria. The same geno - types were genotyped using 3051 diversity array technology (DArT) markers of which 1586 were of known chromosome positions. o ut of the 167
Y-box-binding Protein YB-1 Mediates Transcriptional Repression of Human α2(I) Collagen Gene Expression by Interferon-γ*

We have demonstrated previously that a proximal element within the human α2(I) collagen gene (COL1A2) promoter mediates transcriptional repression by interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and designated this region the IFN-γ response element (IgRE). Screening of a human fibroblast cDNA expression library with a radiolabeled IgRE probe exclusively yielded clones with a sequence identical to that of the transcription factor YB-1. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) using various IgRE-derived oligonucleotide probes containing serial two-base mutations showed that YB-1 protein was preferentially bound to the pyrimidine-rich sequence within the IgRE. This region is located immediately downstream of and partly overlaps the previously reported Sp1/Sp3 binding site. Overexpression of YB-1 in human dermal fibroblasts decreased steady state levels of COL1A2 mRNA and repressedCOL1A2 promoter activity in a dose-dependent manner. This inhibitory effect of YB-1 on COL1A2 expression was abolished by mutations of the IgRE shown to prevent YB-1 binding in EMSA. In addition, these mutations also abolished the inhibitory effect of IFN-γ, suggesting that YB-1 mediates the inhibitory action of IFN-γ on COL1A2 promoter through its binding to the IgRE. Also, overexpression of a deletion mutant YB-1, which lacks the carboxyl-terminal domain, abrogated the repression ofCOL1A2 transcription by IFN-γ. A functional correlation between IFN-γ and YB-1 was further supported by luciferase assays using four tandem repeats of the Y-box consensus oligonucleotide linked to a minimal promoter. EMSA and Western blot analysis using cytoplasmic and nuclear proteins implied that IFN-γ promotes the nuclear translocation of YB-1. Direct evidence for the nuclear translocation of YB-1 by IFN-γ was further provided by using a YB-1-green fluorescent protein expression plasmid transfected into human fibroblasts. Altogether, this study represents the definitive identification of the transcription factor responsible for IFN-γ-elicited inhibition of COL1A2 expression, namely YB-1.
Genetic diversity of radish (Raphanus sativus) germplasms and relationships among worldwide accessions analyzed with AFLP markers

Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) is a useful vegetable with diverse features and worldwide distribution; however, the diversification and domestication history of cultivated radish has not been well documented. In order to understand genetic relationships among radishes around the world and the resulting diversity, we analyzed 65 accessions of cultivated radish collected from 21 Eurasian and North African countries using 221 amplified fragment-length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. These accessions formed four groups according to their provenance (Europe, Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia) in a neighbor-joining (NJ) tree. Despite geographical barriers, there might thus be a frequent exchange of germplasms within each region. The average genetic diversity did not differ significantly among the groups, ranging from 0.267 (Middle East) to 0.297 (East Asia), indicating that no obvious bottleneck effect in each region has occurred during the spread of this species.
Influence of environmental conditions on dispersal of Botrytis cinerea conidia and on post‐harvest infection of gerbera flowers grown under glass

Dispersal of Botrytis cinerea in a gerbera crop grown in two glasshouses 30 km apart was studied over a period of 18 months, in 1988 and 1989. Conidia were caught in spore traps consisting of agar in petri dishes exposed at different heights in the crop in each glasshouse. No seasonal patterns could be identified in the spore catches, assessed as colonies on the agar traps after incubation. The number of lesions caused by conidial infection of gerbera flowers following incubation, however, showed a distinct pattern. In spring and early summer few lesions were recorded whereas at other times of the year many lesions appeared. In linear regression analysis, variation in numbers of colonies (spore catches) could not be explained by environmental factors recorded during the experiments. Linear regression accounted for 77% and 81% of the variation in the number of lesions on flowers in the two glasshouses, in terms of relative humidity (postively correlated), global radiation outside the glasshouse (negatively correlated) and age of the crop (positively correlated). Despite differences in the systems by which the gerbera crop was produced and in the spore catches, the numbers of lesions on gerbera flowers in the two glasshouses were significantly correlated though not significantly different from each other.
INTRODUCTION

This introductory essay considers how we might forge a critical language to discuss an emerging constellation of cultural production in South Africa: that which focuses on the work of ‘intimate exposure’ in order to shape a public–private sphere, which in turn forges forms of citizenship unavailable, or submerged by, a history of segregation. We ask the two following questions in order to better understand the dynamics of desegregation and re-racialization in twenty-first century South Africa: what is at stake in the dynamics of private exposure, particularly, but not limited to, the work of contemporary artists, be it exposure of the self or exposure of the lives of others – out of aggression or tenderness, as a gesture of ordinariness or excess, in relation to strangeness or love? Moreover, how do new dramas of secrecy, confession and exposure map onto or circumvent the staging of these issues during the apartheid years, which, itself layering over the scars of the colonial period, provide the subterranean foundation across which recent events play out? Addressing these and other questions takes us through a series of debates animating the current global and South African cultural studies.
Can artificial nest-cavities be used as a management tool to assist the control of Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)?

Abstract Invasive species represent the second greatest threat to biodiversity after habitat loss, and significantly affect agriculture worldwide. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the world's worst invasive species and has established pest populations across the globe, with low-density, highly persecuted populations in Western Australia (WA) since the 1970s. This study examines the ongoing control of low-density populations of Common Starlings in WA. From May 2006 to June 2009 we monitored use by Common Starlings of 180 artificial nest-cavities of three designs, across three habitat types; the artificial cavities were standard wooden nest-boxes, and terracotta pipes orientated vertically or horizontally. During the trial, Common Starlings nested exclusively in wooden nest-boxes in swamps containing predominantly dead trees; they did not nest in the terracotta pipes. Wooden nest-boxes may have helped concentrate breeding Common Starlings in a defined area, thereby assisting control efforts.