Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences in early dynamics and effects of slope aspect between naturally regenerated and planted Pinus sylvestris woodland on inland dunes in Poland

Abstract: There is little knowledge of the effects of landform relief on early growth dynamics and competitive interactions of Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine) stands on inland dunes, which could potentially be substantial. The goal of this study was to examine and compare early dynamics (based on growth parameters and properties of the understorey vegetation) and the effects of slope aspect in naturally regenerated and pine-planted woodland on inland dunes in northern Poland. Growth parameters, tree density, and understorey vegetation were monitored on north- and south-facing slopes in a 26.3 ha post-fire area with natural secondary succession and eight even-aged pine-planted stands, 5-34 years old. Clear differences were detected between the woodland types, in both growth parameters of pines with similar ages and effects of slope aspect on the pines. In the natural regeneration area north-facing slopes provided favorable conditions for natural encroachment by pines. Tree density was higher, and the pines were taller and thicker, on north-facing than on south-facing slopes. In contrast, in the pine-planted area pines were larger on south-facing slopes, although growth conditions were less favorable than on north-facing slopes. However, in the pine-planted area the north-facing slopes had significantly higher herb cover, dominated by Deschampsia flexuosa, indicating that even the presence of a relatively low grass species can impede early growth of Scots pine. The understorey species composition differed in the natural regeneration area, being dominated by Calluna vulgaris on north-facing slopes and Corynephorus canescens on south-facing slopes. The results reveal that interactions between landform, natural dynamics, planting practices, and competitive interactions in woodlands on inland dunes are complex, and should be considered in efforts to manage them efficiently.
A Note on Targeted Maximum Likelihood and Right Censored Data

A popular way to estimate an unknown parameter is with substitution, or evaluating the parameter at a likelihood based fit of the data generating density. In many cases, such estimators have substantial bias and can fail to converge at the parametric rate. van der Laan and Rubin (2006) introduced targeted maximum likelihood learning, removing these shackles from substitution estimators, which were made in full agreement with the locally efficient estimating equation procedures as presented in Robins and Rotnitzsky (1992) and van der Laan and Robins (2003). This note illustrates how targeted maximum likelihood can be applied in right censored data structures. In particular, we show that when an initial substitution estimator is based on a Cox proportional hazards model, the targeted likelihood algorithm can be implemented by iteratively adding an appropriate timedependent covariate.
Phylogenic typing of Escherichia coli isolated from broilers with collibacillosis in Tabriz, North West of Iran

In this study, to know about the phylogeny of Escherichia coli isolated from broilers with collibacillosis in Tabriz, 70 E. coli isolates recovered from broilers with collibacillosis were characterized for phylogenetic group (A, B1, B2, D) by multiplex PCR. Of the all 70 samples, 35 (50%) isolates were classified as type A, 32 (45%) as type D, 2 (2.8%) as type B1 and 1 (2.8%) as type B2. This study demonstrates the high prevalence of E. coli types A and D in infected broilers. This shows that the collibacilosis-causing E. coli bacteria are typical commensals, type A alongside pathogenic type, D in Iran. It is possible that this type of E. coli could acquire virulence genes from pathogenic types. Of course, such a claim needs further study.
“Die siel van die mier”: Reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence

This essay traces two research programmes in broad strokes. Both programmes start from the same observation — the behaviour of an ant (or termite) colony and the ability of the ant colony to act in a collective manner to achieve goals that the individual ant cannot. For one programme such behaviour is indicative of intelligence; for the other it is indicative of (collective) instinct. The primary intention of the essay is not to assess the claims of intelligence found, but to consider the rationale of the researchers involved in the two programmes for doing such research. It is observed that virtue in one programme is understanding (with the concomitant ability to explain — and, hence, teach), while the primary virtue in the other programme is the utility — and ultimately efficiency — that this may add to human problem solving skills. The two programmes used as illustration are Eugene Marais’s study of termites in the first half of the 20th century and the emergence of artificial intelligence projects that are inspired by ant behaviour in the second half of the 20th century. The essay suggests that the current emphasis of inquiry at tertiary education institutions embraces utility to the extent that it displaces pure insight — and hence the ability to explain and, ultimately, the ability to teach.
Race-Ethnicity and Unhealthy Body Mass: A Quantile Regression Analysis*

This paper examines how race-ethnicity and other social factors stratify BMI among American men and women in 2005. Building on social stratification theory, we launch an investigation into the stratification at the CDC pre-set standards for malnourishment, overweight, obesity, and extreme obesity as well as the full distribution of BMI, applying quantile regression models to the 2005 NHIS data. Our study offers a few major findings. First, black men do not differ from white men in BMI whereas black women have a much higher BMI than white women throughout the full BMI distribution, with a stronger effect in the overweight and obese ranges. Second, being Hispanic increases BMI for both genders and over the full BMI distribution: Hispanic men are particularly heavier in the extreme obese range while Hispanic women are so in the overweight and obese ranges. Third, being Asian is protective but acts differently by gender and across BMI standards. Asian men are thinner than white men at the overweight and obese ranges whereas Asian women are thinner at the obese and extreme obese ranges. Fourth, not only does income act independently of race for men but confound with race for women, but also exerts the opposite effect for men vs. women. High income men tend to be overweight whereas high income women tend to less overweight and less obese. Finally, immigration variables play a consistent role for both men and women and systematically become stronger with higher BMI. Although acculturation to American lifestyle erodes the immigrant advantage, be it diets, cultures, or self-selection, acculturation does not completely take this advantage away within the first generation.
Development of a Yeast Transcription System Using a Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Enzyme Extract and a Drosophila Melanogaster Histidine tRNA Gene

This research problem is directed toward the isolation of an enzyme from the yeast Saccharomyces QQ.filbe which endonucleolytically processes the 3' terminus of transfer ribonucleic acids. Plasmids containing tRNA genes were a gift from Dieter Soll, Yale University Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. In order to provide increasing amounts of the cloned gene, the bacterium Escherichia coli HBlOl was transformed using standard trans~ormation procedures and methods. The transformed bacteria were cultured, and the plasmids amplified using chloramphenicol. These bacteria were then lysed and cesium chloride-ethidium bromide gradients were run to isolate plasmids containing the desired genes. The plasmids were then used in a transcription assay following the procedure of Klekamp and Weil (1). The ( purpose of this transcription was to synthesize precursor tRNA genes which would serve as substrates for the detection of ~ llQmbe processing nucleases. The syn.thesized [c<. 32P] labeled precursor tRNA's were purified using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Autoradiographic techniques were employed to identify the location of the precursor on the gel. The precursor was then eluted from the gel.
Impact of rotation on stochastic excitation of gravity and gravito-inertial waves in stars

Context. Gravity waves (or their signatures) are detected in stars thanks to helio- and asteroseismology, and they may play an important role in the evolution of stellar angular momentum. Moreover, a previous observational study of the CoRoT target HD 51452 demonstrated the potential strong impact of rotation on the stochastic excitation of gravito-inertial waves in stellar interiors.Aims. Our goal is to explore and unravel the action of rotation on the stochastic excitation of gravity and gravito-inertial waves in stars.Methods. The dynamics of gravito-inertial waves in stellar interiors in both radiation and in convection zones is described with a local non-traditional f-plane model. The coupling of these waves with convective turbulent flows, which leads to their stochastic excitation, is studied in this framework.Results. First, we find that in the super-inertial regime in which the wave frequency is twice as high as the rotation frequency (σ > 2Ω), the evanescence of gravito-inertial waves in convective regions decreases with decreasing wave frequency. Next, in the sub-inertial regime (σ < 2Ω), gravito-inertial waves become purely propagative inertial waves in convection zones. Simultaneously, turbulence in convective regions is modified by rotation. Indeed, the turbulent energy cascade towards small scales is slowed down, and in the case of rapid rotation, strongly anisotropic turbulent flows are obtained that can be understood as complex non-linear triadic interactions of propagative inertial waves. These different behaviours, due to the action of the Coriolis acceleration, strongly modify the wave coupling with turbulent flows. On one hand, turbulence weakly influenced by rotation is coupled with evanescent gravito-inertial waves. On the other hand, rapidly rotating turbulence is intrinsically and strongly coupled with sub-inertial waves. Finally, to study these mechanisms, the traditional approximation cannot be assumed because it does not properly treat the coupling between gravity and inertial waves in the sub-inertial regime.Conclusions. Our results demonstrate the action of rotation on stochastic excitation of gravity waves thanks to the Coriolis acceleration, which modifies their dynamics in rapidly rotating stars and turbulent flows. As the ratio 2Ω/σ increases, the couplings and thus the amplitude of stochastic gravity waves are amplified.
COMPARISON OF OXIDATION POWER SENSOR WITH COUPLED MULTIELECTRODE ARRAY SENSOR FOR MONITORING GENERAL CORROSION

A simple oxidation power sensor (OPS) that has only a single electrode was proposed for the measurements of the bounding corrosion rates of actual equipment components. The OPS electrode is made from a non-consumable noble metal and does not need frequent changes or maintenance. The electrode of the OPS is placed near and electrically coupled to the system components to be measured. A modified OPS that has multiple electrodes and provides a correction factor for the estimation of the corrosion rate from the bounding corrosion rate was also proposed. Verification tests were conducted in parallel with a coupled multielectrode array sensor for carbon steel in selected solutions. It was found that there was a good agreement between the trends of the bounding corrosion rates from the simple OPS and the localized corrosion rates from the CMAS probe. There was also an excellent agreement between the corrosion rate from the modified OPS in simulated sweater and the reported general corrosion rate obtained in long term-immersion tests in actual seawater.
Novel Short Tapered Leaky Wave Antennas with Complementary Split Ring Resonantor for Back Lobe Suppression

Two novel short tapered leaky wave antenna (LWA) designs with a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) structure are proposed in this paper. The CSRR structure is positioned at 1=4‚g away from the open-end edge of the LWA. For one of the antenna designs, the CSRR is placed at the ground plane; for the other one, the CSRR is placed on the antenna plane. The re∞ected wave caused by the open-end edge of the LWA is cancelled by the re∞ected wave caused by the CSRR, thus, the back lobe can be efiectively suppressed. The length of these two short tapered LWAs with CSRR design is only 1:2‚g at 4.3GHz. According to the measurement results, the impedance bandwidth is 650MHz for 7dB return loss, which covers the range from 4.3GHz to 4.95GHz. The back lobe can be suppressed efiectively about more than 12dB at the whole operating frequency band. The scanning range of the main beam is about 34 - , which cover the scanning angle from 10 - to 44 - .
Sunflower nested core collections for association studies and phenomics

In order to develop association studies and to improve the phenotypic description for abiotic and biotic stress related traits, nested core collections of 48, 96, 144 and 384 sunflower lines were built from a set of 752 diverse, public or private accessions. These 752 lines were genotyped with 51 SSR markers covering the genetic map (3 markers/linkage group). We then used MSTRAT software to construct 4 nested core collections as follows: we built a first core with 48 public lines and a kernel of 12 selected entries, accounting for 47% of the total diversity. This short core collection was then used as a kernel to define a second core with 96 public entries, accounting for 59% of the total diversity. Finally, the private entries were added to build a core collection of 144 and 384 entries, accounting for 78% and 100% of the total diversity, respectively. The INRA lines belonging to the "96" core collection are available for research to any public institution under a Material Transfer Agreement.
Control of a Non-Linear Distillation Column Using Type-2 Fuzzy Method Optimized by Genetic Algorithm

The distillation process is important process in the chemical industry and has wide application in industry. Distillation tower is used by chemical engineers as a popular tool to separate materials and is the most common method for separating materials. Keeping constant the product composition in the distillation column is very important from control perspective. Control of these complicated processes need intelligent methods to adopt the appropriate decision for control based on the behavior of the system. Between intelligent methods, fuzzy technique has superior response in complex systems control and so is used in this study. At first, a type-1fuzzy controller is designed for non-linear model of distillation tower. In design of this Fuzzy controller, genetic algorithm (GA) is used for optimization of fuzzy. It has been shown that the fuzzy controller is better than conventional PI one. Then the type-1 fuzzy controller has been replaced with type-2 fuzzy controller and to optimize the performance of fuzzy-2 control, its output gains is determined by GA and has been shown that the performance of type-2 is better than type-1 in various points of view. In this study, the MATLAB/SIMULINK software has been used for modeling and implementing the proposed methods.
Searching nearest neighbours in metric microbiome spaces using phylogeneticdistance measures

The deposition of metagenomic data in large scales bears great potential to understand universal mechanisms and environmental factors of microbial community assembly. Notable efforts are the Human Microbiome Project, the Earth Microbiome Project, IMNGS and Qiita/QiimeDB [1-4]. We have thus entered a new era, in which it is in principle possible to discover commonalities between microbial communities from entirely different ecosystems. E.g., samples from below the ocean floor were surprisingly similar to non-marine communities due to methanogens [5]. However, with the current data deluge from Next Generation Sequencing projects it is becoming increasingly difficult to perform manual exhaustive searches to find the most similar microbial communities. Suitable search algorithms for microbiomes are required and solutions for automated microbiome search are beginning to appear, e.g., Meta-Storms [6] and Visibiome [7].
Do family firms outperform non-family ones ? A panel data analysis of Western European corporations

This paper aims to analyze whether family control contributes to increase the market value of the firm, and to disentangle whether family businesses outperform their nonfamily counterparts in Western Europe. Interesting results are provided by using the Generalized Method of Moments to estimate our models. We find that family ownership concentration impacts positively on firm value, even when the general blockholder effect is controlled for. The better performance of family firms is mainly due to the presence of family members in the board of directors and the founder influence inside the company. The provided evidence furthermore shows that ownership concentration in the hands of a family can be an internal control mechanism that substitutes for the lack of external protection of minority shareholders’ rights. Overall, our results support a positive effect of family control on firm value consistent with the potential benefits associated to family owners.
Distinct CCN activation kinetics above the marine boundary layer along the California coast

The influence of aerosols on cloud properties remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in estimates of the anthropogenic component of climate change. Here we report the rate of cloud droplet formation on particles sampled at a site near the California coast that is typically above the marine boundary layer. We observed persistent bimodal diameter spectra which are better explained by kinetic limitations than by differences in equilibrium properties. The slowly‐growing mode contained 10–25% of the total cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and had apparent mass accommodation coefficients (α) 10–30 times smaller than that measured for ammonium sulfate. Cloud parcel modeling suggests that most of these slowly‐growing CCN will not form cloud droplets. The relatively small and narrow size distribution of the low‐α droplets suggest that a condensed film is a more likely cause of these limitations than slow dissolution.
Emerging Issues in Real Estate Appraisal: Market Premium for Building Sustainability

In international and metropolitan real estate markets, it has been detected, for the first time, the growing relevance of green buildings with respect to non-green building. Also, it has been singled out and then quantified through regression analysis a green premium, i.e. a differential in terms of price toward sold real estate units having ecological characteristics along with an energy value (more efficient behavior). The incipient international studies recommend to extend the analysis to unexplored middle-size non-metropolitan (marginal) real estate markets. One of this areas has been studied detecting the first sale of an apartment with energy certification belonging to class B in a building with ecological characteristics. The assessment analysis performed through Market Comparison Approach, MCA, made it possible to detect and then appraise the green premium that is in line with the outcomes of the first and pioneer international studies performed in metropolitan areas.
How Does Informal Employment Affect the Design of Unemployment Insurance and Employment Protection?

The authors use a simple model to study the optimal design of unemployment insurance and employment protection. Workers are risk averse and face the possibility of unemployment. Firms are risk neutral and face random shocks to productivity. Workers can participate in a shadow economy, or informal sector. The model yields several lessons. First, countries should encourage formal employment to address the issue of informal employment. In extreme cases, such encouragement translates into high severance payments and negative payroll taxes. Along these same lines, unemployment payments cannot be too large. In fact, when the risk of informality is extreme, the authors find that unemployment benefits should be negative, which is (in effect) a positive tax on the lack of formal employment.
Evaluation of Addition ABS and EPDM Effect on the Mechanical Properties of Ternary Polymer Blends

Polymer blends are capable of providing materials with extended useful properties beyond the range that can be obtained from single polymer. Blends of polystyrene (PS) and polypropylene (PP) with adding acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) or ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) are prepared in different ratios by melt blending technique which was carried out using a double screw extruder. The tensile, flexural, impact and hardness tests of all the prepared samples were study. The results from this work show that the elongation property and impact properties for blend system increase with increase PP content in polymer blend of (PS:PP), also increase value of these properties with increase the ratio of adding (ABS or EPDM) for polymer blend (PS:5%PP). The highest values of impact strength was (10.68Kj/m2) for ternary polymers blend (90%PS:5%PP:5%EPDM) and the high values of fracture toughness (6.125MPa√m ) for ternaty polymer blend (90%PS:5%PP:5%ABS).
Empirical study of user experience on mobile data collection for chronic low back pain

Design of mobile, personalised healthcare information systems facilitate a paradigm shift in management of chronic conditions. They provide an infrastructure for creating personalised treatment plans that are evidence based. This is especially important in chronic pain, which is a long-term condition and requires self-management by the patient. In this paper, we use a mobile accessible, web based system to collect daily reports on chronic low back pain. Based on this data a pain trajectory is generated to provide a report for patients to track their pain. We present an empirical study exploring the experiences of the participants, the usability, and issues that encompass frequent data collection using such systems in chronic low back pain.
A Hybrid Technique for Enhancing the Efficiency of Audio Steganography

Steganography is the art or science that is used in secret communication. It means that there is a secret message that is hidden within another cover media. The cover media may be image, video or audio and the secret message may be any type of digital message. The hidden message doesn't have any relationship with the cover media where the cover media is just to protect the secret message from hacking by unauthorized receiver. The audio cover is used in this paper because of the higher sensitivity of the human auditory system (HAS) than the human visual system (HVS). In this paper, we proposed a hybrid technique to audio steganography. This technique is based on a hybrid between two techniques of audio steganography. These techniques are Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique and modification of phase coding. The hybrid between them is for improving the performance of the phase coding where the performance of it is very low. Audio steganography performance is measured by several factors, the most important one of them is Signal to noise ratio (SNR) which is used to compare the performance of our technique with some known techniques.