Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling bat distributions and diversity in a mountain landscape using focal predictors in ensemble of small models

Bats are important components of mammalian biodiversity and strong bioindicators, but their fine‐scale distributions often remain less known than other taxa (e.g., plants, birds). Yet as highly mobile species with multiple needs in the landscape, bats impose serious modelling challenges, such as advanced use of neighbourhood analyses. The aims of this study were to test the use of a designed sampling of bats for biodiversity and conservation assessments, and to find appropriate modelling solutions for providing nature practitioners with reliable potential bat distribution maps in a mountain area of high conservation interest.
Are School Counselors Sufficiently Prepared to Serve Students with Disabilities

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory single-case study was to examine how school counselors from a master’s level counselor education program are trained to work with PreK-12 students with disabilities. Transcripts from semi-structured interviews with nine school counselors-in-training and course syllabi were analyzed using embedded analysis and pattern matching analysis techniques. A key finding was that school counselor trainees drew on prior knowledge and experiences rather than education to work with PreK-12 students with disabilities. Recommendations for school counselor training focused on better serving PreK-12 students with disabilities are provided.
Model-Free Tracking Control of Continuum Manipulators With Global Stability and Assigned Accuracy

This article investigates the problem of model-free tracking control for a class of continuum manipulators. A new type of robust control strategy is provided to address the problem, which primarily consists of two parts. First, to achieve output tracking with the desired accuracy, an error transformation scheme is constructed. Moreover, because of the robustness of the error transformation scheme against model uncertainties, no knowledge of the manipulator model is required, leading to a model-free control solution. Then, a tuning function is used to modify certain error variables to relax the requirements on the initial conditions of the error transformation scheme. In this way, the global stability of the closed-loop system can be guaranteed. Finally, both simulation and experimental results validate the expected performance of the presented control method.
Modulation of Peripheral Taste Function by Glial-like Taste Cells

of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Nirupa Chaudhari. No. of pages in text. (147) Taste is detected by cells of taste buds in the oral cavity. Mammalian taste buds contain three types of cells: receptor, presynaptic, and glial-like. Of these three, glial-like cells are the least studied. Their only known function is that they clear neurotransmitters from the extracellular space. The present work describes two previously undocumented properties of glial-like cells. First, Oxytocin receptor (OXTR) mRNA was detected by RT-PCR in taste tissue of mice. In the taste buds of Oxtr-YFP knockin mice, YFP was seen in glial-like taste cells and other cells immediately outside the taste bud, but no other cells in oral epithelium. Oxytocin (OXT) elicited Ca responses from cells that resemble glial-like taste cells (by criteria including gene expression and lack of excitability). The EC50 for OXT in these cells was 33 nM, and responses saturated at 1 μM. 500 nM L-371,257 (an OXTR antagonist) significantly inhihited the responses to OXT. In a semi-intact preparation of lingual slices, OXT did not alter bitter tastant-evoked Ca responses. Further, in behavioral studies, OXT (10 mg/kg i.p.) did not alter the responses of mice to aversive salty (NaCl), bitter (quinine), or sour (citric acid) solutions. In contrast, OXT (0.1 mg/kg i.p.) significantly decreased taste behavioral responses to low-to-intermediate concentrations of sucrose. My data suggest that OXT may modulate sweet taste sensitivity in vivo by acting on glial-like cells in taste buds. Second, Renal Outer Medullary K channel (ROMK) mRNA was also detected by RT-PCR in taste buds . Immunostaining revealed that ROMK is localized to the apical tips of glial-like taste cells. In the kidney, ROMK, apically localized in nephron epithelium facilitates a unidirectional flow (i.e. excretion) of K. I suggest that, analogous to glia in the central nervous system, glial-like taste cells homeostatically redistribute extracellular [K ] within taste buds to maintain their sensitivity. The results of this study reveal that glial-like taste cells resemble nervous system glia in more ways than simply clearing neurotransmitters. They may also modulate the sensory output of the taste bud and buffer the extracellular [K]. A more active role for glial-like cells in the functioning of the taste bud should be investigated.
Improve content extraction in web pages for browser reader modes

Web content extraction is the process of extracting specific information on websites with the help of an algorithm. It is used for a variety of different applications. Search engines use it to find the relevant information on a website to help index the website. Browser read modes improve the user experience by only showing the main content of the website to the user and removing all the noise like advertisements and navigational elements. The problem with main content extraction is that there is no perfect solution to it. Algorithms try to guess the important content of a website and not always succeed with that. The most used main content extraction algorithms today work by analyzing the underlying HTML structure of the website based on hand tuned heuristics such as word count and the used HTML tags. They do not consider other aspects such as position and size of elements. In this work we try to improve the accuracy of main content extraction algorithms currently used with the help of visual features such as position and size of elements. To evaluate the results we implemented two versions of a main content extraction algorithm as a plugin for the Chromium web browser. The first version only used heuristics based on features from the website that can be read directly from the HTML source file. The second algorithm additionally takes the styling of the website into account which requires parsing the HTML and CSS files of the website. Based on our measurements the visual based algorithm had a higher accuracy than the normal algorithm (80,1% instead of 73,2%).
Power Amplifiers With Frequency-Selective Matching Networks

In this article, we demonstrate a method for codesign of filtering matching networks for power amplifiers (PAs) with the desired frequency response, improved efficiency, and reduced footprint. The microwave transistor operates with high efficiency with a specific complex-impedance load, and this requires the development of a theory for filter matching network design with arbitrary complex-impedance ports. The formulation is first developed and then applied to a simple second-order filter and a fourth-order filter with cross couplings and transmission zeros and verified in the experiment. A single-stage high-efficiency 4.7-GHz, 4-W hybrid GaN filter-PA (FPA) within a sub-6-GHz 5G band is designed, built, and characterized. The port impedances are determined by load– and source–pull for an efficiency–power tradeoff. The measured performance shows a gain of 15 dB, PAE = 55% with 9% fractional bandwidth, and 10-dB rejection at 4.5 and 5 GHz. Comparison with a cascaded PA-filter circuit shows a 25% lower loss with the same rejection and a reduced footprint with the same rejection. A GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) FPA at 28 GHz (millimeter-wave 5G FR2 band) is also designed and measured with a second-order output matching filter, demonstrating 8-dB gain, 200 mW of output power, and PAE = 30% with a rejection of 8 dB at 26.5 and 29.6 GHz.
CAN SCHOOL DISCIPLINE PREDICT ADOLESCENT STUDENTS PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT? LESSONS FROM BUI DIVISION, NORTH WEST REGION OF CAMEROON

This study intended to find out the influence of school discipline on the personality development of students. Specifically, it sought to examine how corporal punishment influences students’ personality development; investigate whether suspension as concerns school discipline has an influence on students’ personality development; and ascertain if students’ expulsion from school influences their personality development. Three hypotheses were formulated as follows: corporal punishment has no significant influence on students’ personality development; there exist no significant relationship between suspension of students from school and their personality development; and expulsion of students from school significantly affects their personality development. The study adopted a descriptive survey on a population of 1,592 students. A sample of 388 were selected using the simple randomly sampling and subsequently the convenient sampling techniques. The instrument used for data collection was a 20-items closed ended questionnaire. The chi-square was used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that at a 0.05 level of significance and 6df, there is a significant relationship between corporal punishment and regulations and students’ personality development with calculated x^2(91. 821) is far greater than the critical value (21.026); there is a significant relationship between school suspension from school and students’ personality development with calculated x^2(51.791) is far greater than the critical value (21.026); and that there is a significant relationship between expulsion of students from school and students’ personality development with calculated x^2(161. 917) is far greater than the critical value (21.026). It was then recommended that the government should provide teachers and school administrators with lots of resources necessary to develop safe and effective methods for encouraging positive students’ behaviour.
Semantic Boundary Detection With Reinforcement Learning for Continuous Sign Language Recognition

Sign language recognition (SLR) is a significant and promising technique to facilitate the communication for the hearing-impaired people. In this paper, we are dedicated to weakly supervised continuous SLR, where for each sign video, there are only ordered gloss labels without temporal boundary along frames. To explicitly align video frames to the sign words in a sign video, we propose a novel semantic boundary detection method based on reinforcement learning for accurate continuous SLR. In our approach, we first propose a multi-scale perception scheme to learn discriminative representation for video clips. Then, we formulate the semantic boundary detection as a reinforcement learning problem. We define the state as the feature representation of a video segment, and the action as the determination of the semantic boundary’s location. The reward is computed by the quantitative performance metric between the prediction sentence and the ground truth sentence. The policy network is trained with a policy gradient algorithm. Extensive experiments are conducted on CSL Split II and RWTH-PHOENIX-Weather 2014 datasets, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of our method.
Biology of pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) on stored black gram, Vigna mungo (L.)

The biology of pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) on black gram, Vigna mungo (L.)” was studied during July – December, 2019 under laboratory conditions at the Department of Entomology, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur. The study revealed that the mean hatching period of pulse beetle eggs was 4.10 days. The mean larval and pupal period was 26.57 days. The mean pre-oviposition, oviposition and post-oviposition period of female pulse beetle were 5.83, 4.77 and 1.77 days, respectively. The mean male and female longevity were 8.43 and 12.37 days, respectively. Total life cycle of male and female pulse beetle were completed in 39.03 and 42.97 days, respectively. The mean fecundity of female was 89.30 eggs and ranged from 81 to 97 eggs.
Young Consumers' Purchase Intention of Organic Personal Care Products

Ethical products take social justice and the environment into consideration. The study investigated the predictors of the purchase intention of organic personal care products (OPCP) by young consumers in South Africa by extending the TPB. Two personal factors (moral norms and ethical self-identity) were added as predictors of purchase intention. The study adopted the quantitative research design and the cross-sectional survey method was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (PLS SEM) were used for data analysis. The findings indicated significant positive relationships between attitude, perceived behavioural control, moral norms and ethical self-identity and the purchase intention of OPCP. Recommendations to help businesses to promote the purchase of OPCP are suggested.
Hydrogeology and groundwater geochemistry of two glacigenic aquitard/aquifer systems in north-central and south-central Minnesota

Buried glacial aquifers in Minnesota contribute drinking water to many communities throughout the state. Vertical leakage through overlying till aquitards is largely unknown, causing uncertainty in predicting aquifer sustainability. As part of a study of confined aquifer sustainability, the U.S. Geological Survey, Iowa State University, and Minnesota agencies have investigated vertical leakage through till aquitards deposited by glacial advances in Minnesota. Although estimating leakage involves assessment of aquitard hydraulic properties, previous studies show that groundwater geochemistry data in till aquitards can corroborate estimated vertical travel times. In Phase II (2017-2019) of the study, a rotary-sonic rig was used to install 12 smalldiameter piezometers in nests at the town of Olivia, MN (depths from 13 to 210 ft) and at the MN Hydrogeology Field Camp (HFC; depths from 115 to 200 ft) near Akeley, MN. Transducers were emplaced to gather evidence of hydraulic head fluctuations, and groundwater samples and pore water samples from till cores were analyzed for major and trace elements, anions, nutrients, enriched 3H, δ18O, and δ2H. Slug tests were performed to estimate Kh in the till and aquifer tests were performed to estimate the bulk Kv of the aquitards. Hydraulic data at both sites suggest that groundwater flow is vertically downward. Geometric mean Kh values from slug tests were 4x10-3 ft/d in till at Olivia and 3x10-2 ft/d in till at HFC. The aquifer test analyses of HFC estimated a minimum Kv of 1x10-2 ft/d and a maximum of 3x10-2 ft/d, while the Olivia site aquifer tests were not able to be analyzed due to
Three-Dimensional Laser Imaging Based on a Photon-Counting Avalanche Photodiode Array

Photon-counting detector array is very desired for high-resolution laser imaging based on direct time-of-flight measurement. Such systems have potential applications in remote sensing with long distances. We will perform three-dimensional imaging using a large InGaAs Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode array which has single-photon sensitivity. To improve the image quality with only a few photon detections, the photon counting imaging process is analyzed and a regularization method based on pixel spatial correlation is employed for image reconstruction. The performance of the method is compared with that of conventional maximum likelihood estimation on intensity and range image reconstructions of a building about six hundred meters away.
LiveSSD: A Low-Interference RAID Scheme for Hardware Virtualized SSDs

Hardware virtualization has been increasingly used to provide performance isolation between multiple tenants sharing an SSD. It exploits the SSD’s highly parallel architecture by allocating dedicated flash dies to each tenant. On the other hand, intra-SSD RAID, which stripes data and parity across flash dies, is essential to enhance storage reliability, such as protecting data against die failures and read errors. However, parity updates introduce I/O interference, degrading tenants’ performance significantly, and violating performance isolation. To solve this problem, we propose a low-interference RAID scheme for hardware virtualized SSDs, called LiveSSD. Flash pages with the same offset across dies constitute a stripe in a RAID-4 manner. High-speed NVRAM is employed as parity storage. Thus, LiveSSD allows each tenant to read/write its flash die(s) independently and avoids parity updates being a performance bottleneck. Nonetheless, parity updates introduce I/O interference during garbage collection, i.e., extra reads of invalid flash pages. LiveSSD actively conducts parity updates in advance by utilizing both page access feature of flash memory and idle time in workloads. Extensive simulation results show that LiveSSD enables RAID protection in a hardware-virtualized SSD with minimum I/O interference caused by parity updates.
Alcohol Modulation of Amyloid Precursor Protein in Alzheimer's Disease

Heavy alcohol use increases the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD); however, the underlying mechanisms are not addressed. The key chemical of alcohol beverages is ethanol (EtOH), and acetaldehyde is its key toxic metabolite. QIAGEN Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) bioinformatics tool was used to investigate and compare the holistic impact of EtOH and acetaldehyde on AD. An extensively researched biomarker of AD pathologies is amyloid-beta of which the precursor is amyloid precursor protein (APP). Molecules associated with APP or EtOH were collected from the QIAGEN Knowledge Base, and 313 molecules were overlapping between the molecule sets. Using the “Pathway Explorer” tool, 40 of the 313 molecules were found to change due to EtOH exposure and influence APP and were compared with acetaldehyde-mediated molecule expression changes. A pathway analysis of the findings related to these 40 molecules showed that EtOH increases APP expression at a confidence of p = 0.056 (z-score = 1.91, two-tailed). Among the top 10 IPA canonical pathways, ranked by the Benjamini-Hochberg corrected Fisher’s Exact Test, identified through the “Core Expression Analysis” feature of IPA, revealed that neuroinflammation was associated at the highest confidence (p=5.97E-73). Our study suggests involvement of the neuroinflammation pathw
Candida albicans isolated from denture-related stomatitis in elderly patients: Antifungal susceptibility and production of virulence attributes

Abstract Denture-related stomatitis caused by Candida spp. affects elderly individuals using partial/total prosthesis, provoking several discomforts including burning sensation and altered taste. Herein, we have studied 52 denture-wearing individuals (>60 years-old), attended at the dentistry clinic of UNIVALE, aiming to isolate Candida spp. directly from the stomatitis lesions and to evaluate their potential to produce virulence attributes. A low prevalence of denture-related stomatitis was reported in these patients (4/52; 7.7%). Candida albicans was isolated in the 4 selected patients, with the ability to form biofilm over a polystyrene surface and to produce aspartic protease, esterase and hemolysin. However, neither phospholipase nor caseinase activities were detected. Planktonic-growing yeasts were susceptible to amphotericin B and caspofungin, while the susceptibility to azoles (fluconazol, itraconazole and voriconazole) varied depending on either the isolate or antifungal. Relevantly, biofilm-forming C. albicans cells exhibited resistance to all studied antifungals. So, new effective drugs against resistant C. albicans isolates causing denture-related stomatitis are urgently required.
Host preference variation cannot explain microhabitat differentiation among sympatric Pieris napi and Pieris rapae butterflies

1. Often, closely related insect species feed on different host plant species, and the tremendous diversity of phytophagous insects is therefore attributed to host plant‐driven speciation. However, for most taxa, host use information comes from field observations of egg‐laying females or feeding caterpillars, which means that the underlying reason for a particular host‐affiliation is not easily determined.
History, current status and prospects of sturgeon aquaculture in Russia

Since natural sturgeon populations have drastically declined, aquaculture of these valuable fish is important to meet the ever‐increasing demand for meat and caviar, thereby reducing the pressure on natural sturgeon resources. There are two directions in sturgeon aquaculture: controlled propagation for release and commercial farming. The controlled propagation supports the conservation of natural fish populations, while the commercial cultivation of sturgeons supplies the needs of the consumer market with the delicacy production of caviar (mainly). This review deals with the current status of the controlled propagation and stocking in the Volga‐Caspian basin and the commercial farming of sturgeons in Russia. The article also investigates the management of farmed broodstocks of sturgeons, which are used for obtaining seedlings and caviar. It is for sure that the active and continuous development of the two directions of sturgeon aquaculture will allow preserving these unique ancient fish on our planet until natural populations can be re‐established by self‐sustaining populations.
Spatial ecology of Nassau Grouper at home reef sites: using acoustic telemetry to track a large, long-lived epinephelid across multiple years (2005-2008)

Characterizing the behavior of coral reef fishes at home reef sites can provide insight into the mechanisms of spatial ecology and provide a framework for spatial resource management. In the Caribbean, populations of Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus have declined due to fishing impacts on spawning aggregations. Despite local and regional efforts by fisheries managers to implement regulations protecting spawning aggregations, few Nassau grouper populations appear to be recovering. In order to improve management strategies for this critically endangered species, it is necessary to understand the spatial ecology of the species across seasons and years. In the Cayman Islands, we used a multi-year, presence/absence, depth-coded acoustic tagging dataset of Nassau grouper to characterize patterns in the species’ behavior and vertical habitat use at home reef sites. Twenty acoustically tagged individuals (56−84 cm, 70.01 ± 7.40 cm; total length, mean ± SD) maintained consistent home reef sites, although some fish regularly shifted activity centers within the home site, often following a seasonal spawning migration. Seven fish with depth-coded tags showed a higher probability of vertical movement in the hours immediately following dawn and preceding dusk. We found evidence of a positive relationship between the fish condition factor and depth of home reef site. The finding of persistent home reef sites across years suggests that properly sized spatial reserves at home reef sites can be a useful complement to spawning aggregation protection when considering management strategies for Nassau grouper.