Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
First Life Cycle Assessment of Milk Production from New Zealand Dairy Farm Systems

A first picture of the total environmental performance of milk production from a typical NZ dairy farm system, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was produced and compare to European LCA studies. Five potential impacts have been assessed. Results were expressed per kg of milk produced at the farm gate and per ha of land use. In this first assessment, compared to Swedish and German conventional dairy farm systems, the NZ system had three fold lower eutrophication potential and acidification potential per kg of milk, two fold lower energy use and land use, and 50% to 80% lower global warming potential. Even compared to Swedish and German organic farm systems, its potential impacts per kg of milk were similar or most often lower. This can be explained by a farming system almost entirely based on high-producing perennial pastures and all-year grazing compared to European farming systems with high supplementary feed use.
A comparison of different stability models for genotype × environment interaction in pearl millet.

Twenty four genotypes (hybrids) of pearl millet were tested under eight environments in Gujarat. The models of Eberhart and Russell (1966), Perkins and Jinks (1968) and Freeman and Perkins (1971) applied to study genotype x environment interaction and were compared for their efficiency empirically. The genotypes GHB-788, GHB-832 and GHB-840 were observed as most stable and widely adapted over environments in all three models. On the basis of simplicity and computational convenience, Eberhart and Russell (1966) model was recommended.
Batik Jambi as a Reflection of Local Wisdom

Indonesia has a variety of batik repertoire, then many areas in this country have batik with its each characteristic. Jambi as one of the provinces in Indonesia also has its own batik tradition. The richness and diversity of its flora and fauna color the variety of batik Jambi motifs. As Javanese batik filled with content of philosophical meaning, Batik Jambi also contains noble values as a reflection of the local wisdom of its people. This research tries to reveal the local wisdom contained in Batik Jambi.This research employs descriptive qualitative method. The method was conducted by describing the object of the study in detail and depth. The simplicity of Batik Jambi motifs in the form of separated paintings (ceplok-ceplok) and uncomplicated reflects a simple, egalitarian and open society to outside cultures. Local wisdom contained in Batik Jambi involves various aspects of life, including the relationship of human with God, human relationships with each other, noble behavior, how best to do something to achieve results, and the importance of welfare in the inner life. Batik Jambi is not only a cloth with a beautiful motive, but also a medium to preserve and conserve the local wisdom of its people.
Exploiting satellite altimetry in coastal ocean through the ALTICORE project

Altimeter-derived information on sea level and sea state could be extremely important for resolving the complex dynamics of the coastal ocean. Satellite altimetry was not originally conceived with coastal ocean in mind, but future missions (AltiKa and CryoSat-2) promise much improved nearshore capabilities. A current priority is to analyze the existing, under-exploited, 15-year global archive of coastal altimeter data to draw recommendations for these missions. There are intrinsic difficulties in processing and interpretation of the data, e.g.: the proximity of land, control by the seabed, and rapid variations due to tides and atmospheric effects. But there are also unexploited possibilities, including higher along track data rates and multi-altimetry scenarios that need to be explored. There are also difficulties of accessing and manipulating data from multiple sources, many of which undergo regular revision and enhancement. In response to these needs, the ALTICORE (ALTImetry for COastal REgions - www.alticore.eu) project started in December 2006, funded for two-years by the European INTAS scheme (www.intas.be). The overall aim of ALTICORE is to build up capacity for provision of altimeter-based information in support of coastal ocean studies in some European Seas (Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, White and Barents). ALTICORE will also contribute to improved cooperation between Europe and Eastern countries and enhance networking of capacity in the area of satellite altimetry. This paper discusses the approach, summarizes the planned work and shows how the coastal community should eventually benefit from better access to improved altimeter-derived information.
Title Auditory Mismatch Negativity in Response to Changes ofCounter-Balanced Interaural Time and Level Differences

Right © 2017 Altmann, Ueda, Furukawa, Kashino, Mima and Fukuyama. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Type Journal Article
Poly(Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Methyl Ether Methacrylate) Grafted Chitosan for Dye Removal from Water

As the demand for textile products and synthetic dyes increases with the growing global population, textile dye wastewater is becoming one of the most significant water pollution contributors. Azo dyes represent 70% of dyes used worldwide, and are hence a significant contributor to textile waste. In this work, the removal of a reactive azo dye (Reactive Orange 16) from water by adsorption with chitosan grafted poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (CTS-GMA-g-PPEGMA) was investigated. The chitosan (CTS) was first functionalized with glycidyl methacrylate and then grafted with poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) using a nitroxide-mediated polymerization grafting to approach. Equilibrium adsorption experiments were carried out at different initial dye concentrations and were successfully fitted to the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models. Adsorption isotherms showed maximum adsorption capacities of CTS-g-GMA-PPEGMA and chitosan of 200 mg/g and 150 mg/g, respectively, while the Langmuir equations estimated 232 mg/g and 194 mg/g, respectively. The fundamental assumptions underlying the Langmuir model may not be applicable for azo dye adsorption, which could explain the difference. The Freundlich isotherm parameters, n and K, were determined to be 2.18 and 17.7 for CTS-g-GMA-PPEGMA and 0.14 and 2.11 for chitosan, respectively. An “n” value between one and ten generally indicates favorable adsorption. The adsorption capacities of a chitosan-PPEGMA 50/50 physical mixture and pure PPEGMA were also investigated, and both exhibited significantly lower adsorption capacities than pure chitosan. In this work, CTS-g-GMA-PPEGMA proved to be more effective than its parent chitosan, with a 33% increase in adsorption capacity.
IDENTIFYING USER STRATEGIES FOR INTERACTION WITH IN–VEHICLE INFORMATION SYSTEMS WHILE DRIVING IN A SIMULATOR

The study analyzes the efficiency of different strategies for interaction with in-vehicle information systems. N=24 drivers completed a test course in a motion-base driving simulator containing different critical situations. At predetermined points of the route an additional menu navigation task was offered to the driver. The driver could decide whether the actual situation was suitable to execute a task and when to interrupt it. The results show that drivers are able to adapt their secondary task behaviour to the situational demands. The anticipation of potential conflicts could be shown both in secondary task behaviour (complete task rejection or task delay in critical situations) as well as in driving behaviour (e.g. lower approaching speed in front of demanding situations). These strategies were successful to maintain driving safety. Adequate situational assessment prior to the start of the task and adequate monitoring of situational development during secondary task execution are identified as relevant processes for Situation Awareness in this context.
Welding of Infrared Transmissive Thermoplastic Polymers using Diode Laser Systems

ClearweldTM technology is a tool, which is readily employed for transmission laser welding of thermoplastic polymers using near infrared diode lasers. This process is accomplished through the use of specialized material systems uniquely chosen and targeted to absorb the laser light at the intended laser weld joint in order to rapidly effectuate a weld. Data will be presented showing actual weld strengths, critical process parameters, and quantification of residual stresses in a variety of thermoplastic materials.
Energy use of buildings at urban scale: A case study of london school buildings

The diversity of non-domestic buildings at urban scale poses a number of difficulties to develop building stock models. This research proposes an engineering-based bottom-up stock model in a probabilistic manner to address these issues. School buildings are used for illustrating the application of this probabilistic method. Two sampling-based global sensitivity methods are used to identify key factors affecting building energy performance. The sensitivity analysis methods can also create statistical regression models for inverse analysis, which are us ed to estimate input information for building stock energy models. The effects of different energy saving measures are analysed by changing these building stock input distributions.
Design of a mechanical player system for fatigue-life evaluation of woodwind reeds

Research into synthetic replacements for woodwind reeds requires the consideration of several factors. Todate, comparisons between synthetic and natural cane reeds have mostly been limited to evaluations of their initial properties in an “unplayed” state. One important mechanical aspect of reed-life and durability is fatigue behaviour. Fatigue is primarily concerned with the degradation of mechanical stiffness over the lifespan of a reed and is important for understanding changing vibrational behaviour, for comparing differences between cane and synthetic materials, and for evaluating the return on investment for (relatively) expensive synthetic reeds. In this work an artificial player system is developed as the initial phase of a study to evaluate the long-term mechanical behaviour of cane and synthetic alto saxophone reeds. The artificial player will be used to “play” reeds on the system with control over playing time, input pressure and playing frequency. Using this setup, reeds can then be compared via several control parameters, including stiffness, mouthpiece pressure and mouthpiece spectral components during the course of the fatigue study, thus evaluating mechanical degradation rates between cane and synthetic reeds. Results will aid in understanding the importance of playing time and frequency on reed lifespan, fatigue-life differences between cane and synthetic reeds and the average return on investment (ROI) for synthetic reeds.
Statistical techniques for prediction using semi-quantitative data from micro-arrays Categorical regression compared to Random Forests

The data used for this thesis are data about Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) and they have some special characteristics. The numerical values are semi-quantitative, the response is categorical (BV negative, intermediate and BV positive) and the data are high-dimensional. Categorical regression (CATREG) is a method that can be used to analyze these data. To determine how CATREG performs in predicting future outcomes from these data it will be compared to Random Forests, one of the golden standards in statistical learning. The dataset was randomly divided in a training and test set. The training set was used for variable selection and determining the values of the regularization parameters, and the test set was used for estimating the prediction accuracy. Based on the training set a Random Forests model and a CATREG model were chosen and used for prediction. Random Forests and CATREG both classify 68% of the outcomes correctly, but the models are not able to distinguish well between intermediate and BV positive women. When the intermediate and BV positive women are taken together, the percentages of correctly classified women increases to 95% and 97% for Random Forest and CATREG, respectively. Overall this analysis showed that CATREG performs as well as Random Forests in the prediction and therefore it can be considered as a worthwhile alternative.
Schur Complement-based Substructuring of Stiff Multibody Systems with Contact

Substructuring permits parallelization of physics simulation on multi-core CPUs. We present a new substructuring approach for solving stiff multibody systems containing both bilateral and unilateral constraints. Our approach is based on non-overlapping domain decomposition with the Schur complement method, which we extend to systems involving contact formulated as a mixed bounds linear complementarity problem. At each time step, we alternate between solving the subsystem and interface constraint impulses, which leads to the identification of the active constraints. By using the active constraints to compute the effective mass of subsystems within the interface solve, we obtain an exact solution. We demonstrate that our simulations have preferable behavior compared to standard iterative solvers and substructuring techniques based on the exchange of forces at interface bodies. We observe considerable speedups for structured simulations where a user-defined partitioning can be applied, and moderate speedups for unstructured simulations, such as piles of bodies. In the latter case, we propose an automatic partitioning strategy based on the degree of bodies in the constraint graph. Because our method makes use of direct solvers, we are able to achieve interactive and real-time frame rates for a number of challenging scenarios involving large mass ratios, redundant constraints, and ill-conditioned systems.
Interdependency Theory and the Two Approaches to the Global War on Terror

The purpose of this article is to review some of the most pertinent literature in each of the two general approaches on the global war of terror, namely the analysis of American empire, imperial power or colonialism on the one hand, and the ‘state of exception’ on the other. Both approaches present unique understandings of the global war on terror, although neither can present a comprehensive account on their own. As such, an attempt will be made to capture the pertinent points of both approaches through the unique theory of Peter Fitzpatrick and Richard Joyce on the interdependence of law, sovereignty, democracy and empire. This theoretical framework not only presents the critical linkage between the two general approaches, but it also provides an opportunity to consider the war on terror as a telling case in understanding the nature of these four foundational principles.
Habitat preferences of great bustard Otis
 tarda
 flocks in the arable steppes of central Spain: are potentially suitable areas unoccupied?

Summary 1. Great bustards Otis tarda are globally endangered and 50% of the world population now occurs in agro-steppe habitats in Spain. An understanding of the relationship between land use and the species’ habitat requirements is necessary to predict the consequences of land-use change on this declining species. 2. A 2-year study of great bustard substrate preferences was conducted in a large region in central Spain where most cereals are still cultivated in a traditional 2-year rotation. 3. Great bustards showed year-round selection of stubble fields, but avoided ploughed and uncultivated areas. Other substrate types were variously selected, avoided or used in proportion to availability depending on season. Patterns were consistent over 2 years. 4. Human artefacts such as roads, tracks and powerlines were avoided. 5. Variables correlating with flock locations could not discriminate between occupied and unoccupied but apparently suitable areas of traditionally managed cereal steppe. This suggests that great bustard distribution in central Spain is not limited by inappropriate land use in steppe areas. 6. The evidence suggests that great bustards show fidelity to sites regardless of the availability of suitable habitat elsewhere. Settlement patterns are probably determined by the presence of conspecifics rather than habitat cues. This result demonstrates the value of integrating observations of habitat use with knowledge of species’ behaviour in order to understand distribution more fully. 7. We propose that conservation efforts should be directed towards securing traditional lek sites and we make three recommendations: first all great bustard lek sites should be identified; secondly, existing European Union legislation should be used to protect these and to ensure that compatible land management practices are applied or maintained; and finally, research programmes should be conducted that aim to enhance the conservation value of stubble fields rather than simply demonstrate their selection.
Mathematical Model and Stability Analysis of Inverter-Based Distributed Generator

This paper presents a mathematical (small-signal) model of an electronically interfaced distributed generator (DG) by considering the effect of voltage and frequency variations of the prime source. Dynamic equations are found by linearization about an operating point. In this study, the dynamic of DC part of the interface is included in the model. The stability analysis shows with proper selection of system parameters; the system is stable during steady-state and dynamic situations, and oscillatory modes are well damped. The proposed model is useful to study stability analysis of a standalone DG or a Microgrid.
Optimal Virtual Registration Area Design for a Software Defined Netwoking Architecture for 5G Wireless Systems

The utilization of Software Defined Networking offers a radical paradigm shift in the architecture of next generation wireless systems and heterogeneous networks. SDN can offer flexibility to the networks and can provide efficient and low-cost solutions to multiple challenges being faced by the proposed 5G wireless systems. In this manuscript we offer a software defined viewpoint of mobility management in 5G wireless systems and demonstrate how it can be utilised to come up with minimum cost location management via Virtual Registration Areas.
Opposition-Based Animal Migration Optimization

AMO is a simple and efficient optimization algorithm which is inspired by animal migration behavior. However, as most optimization algorithms, it suffers from premature convergence and often falls into local optima. This paper presents an opposition-based AMO algorithm. It employs opposition-based learning for population initialization and evolution to enlarge the search space, accelerate convergence rate, and improve search ability. A set of well-known benchmark functions is employed for experimental verification, and the results show clearly that opposition-based learning can improve the performance of AMO.
Explorer MADE : Masked Autoencoder for Distribution Estimation

There has been a lot of recent interest in designing neural network models to estimate a distribution from a set of examples. We introduce a simple modification for autoencoder neural networks that yields powerful generative models. Our method masks the autoencoder’s parameters to respect autoregressive constraints: each input is reconstructed only from previous inputs in a given ordering. Constrained this way, the autoencoder outputs can be interpreted as a set of conditional probabilities, and their product, the full joint probability. We can also train a single network that can decompose the joint probability in multiple different orderings. Our simple framework can be applied to multiple architectures, including deep ones. Vectorized implementations, such as on GPUs, are simple and fast. Experiments demonstrate that this approach is competitive with stateof-the-art tractable distribution estimators. At test time, the method is significantly faster and scales better than other autoregressive estimators.
Isolation and Identification of Burkholderia mallei and its Susceptibility to Anethum graveolens Extracts

In the present study, 13 (4.06%) isolates of Burkholderia mallei were obtained from hands of 320 workers in veterinary laboratories in Erbil Province- Iraq. All isolates identified depending on conventional assays, VITEK 2 compact system, and further confirmed by PCR using 23 rDNA gen. The results of PCR product showed that the expected size (526bp) was obtained for all local isolates and for B. mallei ATCC 15310. Also the effect of 10 antimicrobials against isolated bacteria were studied and the results showed that isolated B. mallei were absolutely resistant to norfloxacin, and 100% sensitive to imipenem and ceftazidime. The antibacterial activity of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Anethum graveolens against B. mallei was studied. The results of MIC by using broth dilution method revealed that the alcohol and aqueous extracts exhibited inhibition of B. mallei growth and the MIC was 800, 1000 µg/ml, respectively. On molecular study, the SubMIC (750, 950 µg/ml) for both extracts against plasmid DNA profile of most resistant isolate of B. mallei was studied. The results showed three plasmid DNA band exist in local isolate of B. mallei and stander strain of B. mallei ATCC 15310 before treating with A. graveolens extracts. While it was decreased from three to two in the local isolate and the standard strain ATCC 15310 when treated with A. graveolens extracts. The inhibitory effect of the above mentioned extracts against total protein was studied by SDS-PAGE binding pattern. The results showed that there were differences in the protein banding pattern among the tested isolates and induction of some new protein bands when treated with plant extracts.
Co-management of protected areas to alleviate conservation conflicts: Experiences in Norway

This paper addresses the perceptions of actors of protected areas in Norway about a co-management regime at the local level. The analysis is based on quantitative data from surveys of actors of eight protected areas in northern Norway. The results show that the two strongest determinants that explain actors' initial support of the governance change as a means to alleviate conflict are (i) the relationship of actors to the protected areas in terms of knowledge of the protected areas and mental modes on conservation and (ii) the economic relevance of the areas for them. Traditionally, other sociocultural variables such as indigenous background (Sami), age, and gender have been considered relevant and were also identified as significant attributes that define preferences for conservation management alternatives. We build on the quantitative findings on actors’ perceptions to develop a broader discussion on the relationship of the new management model for protected areas implemented and conflict resolution on land conservation in the country.