Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A study on UV‐protection property of poly(vinyl alcohol)‐montmorillonite composite nanofibers

The aim of this research is to investigate the possibility of barrier effect of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/montmorillonite (MMT) nanofiber, against the UV radiation in different electrospinning situations. For this purpose, nanofibers with different weight ratio of PVA and nanoclay (MMT) were electrospun under different circumstances, and the amount of protect that is created by the nanofiber web against UV radiation by examining the rate of degradation of methylene blue dye that was protected by the same web was estimated. The UV‐vis spectrometry was used for the analysis of methylene blue color. In order to investigate the morphology and miscibility of PVA‐MMT composite nanofiber, X‐ray diffraction, scanning election microscope, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer have been used. Thermal gravimetric analysis is used to investigate and explore how nanofibers behave against heat.
Political Polarization on the Digital Sphere: A Cross-platform, Over-time Analysis of Interactional, Positional, and Affective Polarization on Social Media

ABSTRACT Political polarization on the digital sphere poses a real challenge to many democracies around the world. Although the issue has received some scholarly attention, there is a need to improve the conceptual precision in the increasingly blurry debate. The use of computational communication science approaches allows us to track political conversations in a fine-grained manner within their natural settings – the realm of interactive social media. The present study combines different algorithmic approaches to studying social media data in order to capture both the interactional structure and content of dynamic political talk online. We conducted an analysis of political polarization across social media platforms (analyzing Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp) over 16 months, with close to a quarter million online contributions regarding a political controversy in Israel. Our comprehensive measurement of interactive political talk enables us to address three key aspects of political polarization: (1) interactional polarization – homophilic versus heterophilic user interactions; (2) positional polarization – the positions expressed, and (3) affective polarization – the emotions and attitudes expressed. Our findings indicate that political polarization on social media cannot be conceptualized as a unified phenomenon, as there are significant cross-platform differences. While interactions on Twitter largely conform to established expectations (homophilic interaction patterns, aggravating positional polarization, pronounced inter-group hostility), on WhatsApp, de-polarization occurred over time. Surprisingly, Facebook was found to be the least homophilic platform in terms of interactions, positions, and emotions expressed. Our analysis points to key conceptual distinctions and raises important questions about the drivers and dynamics of political polarization online.
Temporal variation in the population of bulbuls (Family Pycnonotidae) in lower montane forest, Northern Thailand

Ponpituk Y, Siri S, Safoowong M, Suksavate W, Marod D, Duengkae P. 2020. Temporal variation in the population of bulbuls (Family Pycnonotidae) in lower montane forest, Northern Thailand. Biodiversitas 21: 3644-3649. Temporal variations in the population of bulbuls (Family Pycnonotidae) were studied over the course of four years in a 16-ha lower montane permanent plot, Northern Thailand. This study aimed to determine the relationship of the temporal variation of forest gaps with the population size of the bulbul, which plays a crucial role in seed dispersal and insect control in tropical forest ecosystems. This long-term monitoring study in a permanent plot was conducted monthly from January 2016 through October 2019. Data were collected using the mist-netting method for the capture-recapture protocol with individual bird banding. A total of 33,120 traps hour for 46 months,180 traps hour per day and 720 traps hour per month were recorded. The banding of a total of 94 individual bulbuls resulted in their classification into 5 species, consisting of Puff-throated Bulbul (Alophoixus pallidus), Mountain Bulbul (Ixos mcclellandii), Black-crested Bulbul (Pycnonotus flaviventris), Ashy Bulbul (Hemixos flavala) and Flavescent Bulbul (Iole virescens). The annual average density of bulbul for four years tended to decrease, but the difference was not significant. The highest average population occurred in 2016 and the lowest in 2018 with the changes being attributable to forest gap. Over time, monthly detection of bulbuls decreased gradually under closed canopy conditions, while in forest gaps, bird detection remained constant. As gap conditions so did detection probabilities. Our findings suggest that natural forest gaps can play an essential role as a temporal inhibitor to the rapid bird population decrease in the lower montane forest. This study will be useful for bird conservation and in balancing ecosystems for sustainability and providing interest in conservation initiatives requiring spatially explicit estimates of density.
Mental body rotation with egocentric and object-based transformations in different postures: sitting vs. standing

BACKGROUND: A detail of previous studies on mental rotation, which has not received any attention so far, relates to the testing situation of the participants. In nearly every study, participants were tested in a sitting posture (and not standing). However, when considering embodied cognition approaches on mental processes, participants may not be able to fully exploit these processes when performing mental rotation tasks in a sitting posture. AIM: Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine the potential influence of two different postures (sitting vs. standing), when solving mental body rotation tasks. METHOD: Sixteen participants (6 females) were tested in two mental body-rotation tasks (MBRT), requiring either an object-based spatial transformation (based on a same-different judgment) or an egocentric transformation (based on a left-right judgment) in a sitting and in a standing posture. Reaction times and response errors were analyzed in two three-way ANOVAs, with the factors orientation, task, and posture. RESULTS: Results revealed an effect of orientation and task, indicating that participants performed better for egocentric than for object-based transformations. However, there was no effect of posture. CONCLUSION: The different dynamics of postural control during sitting and standing do not induce different embodiment effects on mental rotation.
Moisture absorption and drying alter nonadditive litter flammability in a mixed conifer forest

Moisture content is a strong determinant of forest fuel flammability. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which species‐specific litter traits influence litter moisture absorption and retention. Characterizing how litter fuels retain moisture through time and how fuels from multiple species interact are key steps to adding taxon‐specific information to fire behaviour prediction. To fill these gaps in knowledge, we determined moisture absorption and retention characteristics of the litter from multiple tree species, investigated what litter traits influenced these processes and tested for nonadditive moisture dynamics and nonadditive flammability in multi‐species mixtures. The litter from eight tree species of a mixed conifer forest was saturated and allowed to dry to determine moisture absorption capacity and drying rates. Burn trials were performed in litter beds of single species and of mixtures to establish flammability response to the dry‐down process and to species interactions. Litter mixtures exhibited nonadditivity in flame spread rate and in fuel consumption. This nonadditivity became more positive with fuel drying. Moisture dynamics varied across species with higher specific leaf area being associated with higher maximum absorption and lower litter bulk density being associated with faster drying rates. We found that these differing moisture dynamics resulted in time since wetting having strongly differing effects on flammability across the major litter types typified by different tree taxa. Synthesis. This study is the first to examine ecologically relevant drying rates and their interaction with nonadditive mixture effects on flammability. We find that taxon specific patterns of moisture absorption and drying change flammability rankings under moist compared with dry fuels because traits that increase flame spread rate increase water absorption. Litter mixtures generally burn with fire behaviour more similar to that of the most flammable constituent species and this effect increases as fuels dry.
Design and performance analysis of L-shaped ground and radiator antenna with a metallic reflector for WBAN

ABSTRACT Wireless body area network (WBAN) is a progressive field of research that allows the transmission of biological signals from user’s body to an off-body control device. Compact antennas with stable on-body behaviour are achieving interest for WBAN. Here, a CPW fed antenna with L-shaped ground and radiator is investigated for dual-band operation at 2.45/5.8 GHz Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands. A metallic plate is added below the antenna to tune the impedance for dual bad operation as well as it improves antenna gain and efficiency on body-tissue. Proposed structure is analysed to work in the close region of body by using a rectangular three-layered tissue phantom while simulation and on pork loin while measurement. Measured |S11| of −20 dB is achieved for both the operating bands. Wide bandwidth of 310 MHz at lower band and 330 MHz at upper and makes antenna suitable to cover the desired operating bands even after structural deformation. Antenna has maximum radiation efficiency of 50% and 32%, directivity of 6.15dBi and 8.5dBi, broadside and unidirectional radiation characteristics at 2.45/5.8 GHz, respectively.
Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells: Insight into Ternary Blends from a Characterization of the Intermolecular Packing and Electronic Properties in the Corresponding Binary Blends

While adding a third component to a binary blend in the active layer of an organic solar cell is a promising approach to improve device performance, the control of active-layer morphology also becomes more complex. Here, we use a combination of molecular dynamics simulations and long-range corrected density functional theory calculations to examine the intermolecular packing and electronic properties in two polymer donor/small-molecule acceptor binary blends, D/A1 (donor/acceptor1) and D/A2 (donor/acceptor2), in order to gain insight into the D/A1/A2 ternary blend. We focus on the blends of the PTFB-O polymer donor with the ITIC-Th and IEIC-Th acceptors. The intermolecular packings and extent of mixing between the polymer donor and the acceptor in both binary blends are found to be similar, which is consistent with the well-mixed nature of the ITIC-Th:IEIC-Th phase and the quasi-linear evolution of open-circuit voltage as a function of ITIC-Th concentration in the PTFB-O:ITIC-Th:IEIC-Th ternary blend. The intermolecular packing patterns and electron-transfer rates among the acceptors are explored to rationalize the higher electron mobility found in the PTFB-O:ITIC-Th blend. The energetic distribution of the charge-transfer electronic states and non-radiative recombination rates are also evaluated to understand the difference in voltage losses between the binary blends.
Liquidity Picking and Fund Performance

Using global mutual fund and ADR data, we test if funds strategically trade cross-listed firms’ equity in the most liquid location – the United States or the domestic market. Funds that show such liquidity picking behaviour outperform those that do not. This result is robust to various performance tests, driven by superior stock-picking ability of both cross-listed and non-cross-listed stocks, and stronger for high active share funds. Liquidity picking mitigates funds’ capacity constraints and creates $41.7 million in value-added for funds in the top tertile. Our tests provide direct evidence in favour of theories of informed trading in a multi-market setting.
Decoupled structure and function of leaf-associated microorganisms under anthropogenic pressure: Potential hurdles for environmental monitoring

Legal frameworks that assess stream ecological integrity rely mostly on structural metrics and implicitly assume that good structure will result in good function. This assumption may, however, be challenged. The results of our literature screening show that the structure and function of leaf-associated microbial assemblages can be decoupled, meaning that structure and function are not similarly affected by anthropogenic pressures. This decoupling can be characterized by microbially-mediated leaf litter decomposition remaining stable, increasing, or exhibiting a U-shaped response as structural metrics (e.g., taxonomic diversity) change gradually. When these types of decoupling occur, stream ecological integrity may be misinterpreted when solely based on structural metrics. This misinterpretation may be driven by a structurally-simplified microbial assemblage (e.g., fewer taxa) effectively decomposing leaf litter, which may limit the contribution of structurally-simplified assemblages to further ecosystem level processes (e.g., nutrition of food webs). At the same time, structurally-simplified microbial assemblages may exhibit reduced ecological resilience against pressures. Therefore, we suggest that incorporating both structural and functional metrics will improve stream biomonitoring by increasing our ability to determine the consequences of anthropogenic pressures. Additional use of molecular biological methods and information on microbial traits should improve the assessment of stream ecological integrity.
Stable Portfolio Selection Strategy for Mean-Variance-CVaR Model under High-Dimensional Scenarios

This paper aims to study stable portfolios with mean-variance-CVaR criteria for high-dimensional data. Combining different estimators of covariance matrix, computational methods of CVaR, and regularization methods, we construct five progressive optimization problems with short selling allowed. The impacts of different methods on out-of-sample performance of portfolios are compared. Results show that the optimization model with well-conditioned and sparse covariance estimator, quantile regression computational method for CVaR, and reweighted L1 norm performs best, which serves for stabilizing the out-of-sample performance of the solution and also encourages a sparse portfolio.
Development of a re‐aeration equation for the simulation of dissolved oxygen in degraded streams

Discharge of domestic and industrial wastewater into the water bodies is the prime source of degradation of the freshwater ecosystem. Re‐aeration of the river allows the rejuvenation of river water quality by absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere at the air‐water interface. An accurate estimation of the re‐aeration coefficient helps to determine the assimilative capacity of streams and wastewater management also. This paper aims to develop the re‐aeration equation and its validation by modelling dissolved oxygen of the Yamuna River. Predictive re‐aeration equations are used to identify their applicability to the study area and the new equation is designed using multivariate statistical regression techniques. QUAL2Kw model is used to validate the equation by modelling dissolved oxygen. Results indicate that the developed equation performs better than the predictive re‐aeration equations for the prediction of water quality.
Pragmatic Uses of Negation in Chipileño Spanish (Mexico)

This paper discusses two negation types (standard negation (SN), negative doubling (ND)) in Chipileño Spanish, a variety that has emerged as a result of contact between Spanish and Veneto (an Italo-Romance language) in Mexico. In Veneto, negation can be formed in two ways: preverbally (SN) and as a negative doubling (ND). Based on sporadic observation, bilingual speakers of Spanish and Veneto transfer a final no while speaking Spanish, a language that does not allow repetition of the same negator in the postverbal position. Using both a spontaneous and a controlled tasks, the results show two possibilities: preverbal negation only (no vino ‘[S/he] did not come’) and sentence final (no me gusta no ‘I do not like’) in both tasks. This study compares the findings from Chipileño Spanish to the other Romance varieties that exhibit similar cases of negation, while discussing its scope and relevance to discourse-pragmatic factors.
Key Ingredients for Improving Process Quality at High-Level Cyber-Physical Robot Grinding Systems

Industrial robots have been applied in labor-intensive and high-risk jobs such as grinding, polishing, deburring, etc. However, traditional robotic manufacturing systems require skillful experts to advise the robot programming for controlling manufacturing efficiency and quality. Based on the level of automation, an advanced cyber-physical robot grinding system has been developed to increase efficiency, improve quality, and save human effort. The proposed system consists of robot trajectory generation and optimization, force-based trajectory modification, vision-based grinding machine localization, and acoustic emission based abrasive belt wear-life analysis. Compared with traditional robot tuning processes, the process quality of the proposed system is better than that, and the tuning time is shortened from 14 days to 1-2 days.
A Hybrid Voronoi Tessellation/Genetic Algorithm Approach for the Deployment of Drone-Based Nodes of a Self-Organizing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) in Unknown and GPS Denied Environments

Using autonomously operating mobile sensor nodes to form adaptive wireless sensor networks has great potential for monitoring applications in the real world. Especially in, e.g., disaster response scenarios—that is, when the environment is potentially unsafe and unknown—drones can offer fast access and provide crucial intelligence to rescue forces due the fact that they—unlike humans—are expendable and can operate in 3D space, often allowing them to ignore rubble and blocked passages. Among the practical issues faced are the optimizing of device–device communication, the deployment process and the limited power supply for the devices and the hardware they carry. To address these challenges a host of literature is available, proposing, e.g., the use of nature-inspired approaches. In this field, our own work (bio-inspired self-organizing network, BISON, which uses Voronoi tessellations) achieved promising results. In our previous approach the wireless sensors network (WSN) nodes were using knowledge about their coverage areas center of gravity, something which a drone would not automatically know. To address this, we augment BISON with a genetic algorithm (GA), which has the benefit of further improving network deployment time and overall coverage. Our evaluations show, unsurprisingly, an increase in energy cost. Two variations of our proposed GA-BISON deployment strategies are presented and compared, along with the impact of the GA. Counter-intuitively, performance and robustness increase in the presence of noise.
Complete mitochondrial genome of melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Diptera:Tephritidae) from Kunming, Southwest China and the phylogeny within subfamily Dacinae

Abstract The melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Diptera:Tephritidae) is an important invasive pest and distributed throughout tropical, subtropical countries and areas. In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of the fly with 15, 685 base pair in length, which includes 37 genes (the large and small ribosomal RNA subunits, 22 transfer RNA genes, 13 genes encoding mitochondrial proteins) and a non-coding A + T-rich control region. Molecular phylogeny indicated that there was a high bootstrap value supported among Z. cucurbitae and Z. tau belonging to the Z. tau complex.
Black-Box Adversarial Attack against Deep Neural Network Classifier Utilizing Quantized Probability Output

Black­Box Adversarial Attack against Deep Neural Network Classifier Utilizing Quantized Probability Output Haruki Masuda1, Tsunato Nakai1,2, Kota Yoshida1, Takaya Kubota1, Mitsuru Shiozaki1 and Takeshi Fujino1 1 Ritsumeikan University, 1­1­1 Noji­Higashi, Kusatsu­shi, Shiga 525­8577, Japan E­mail: ri0068rr@ed.ritsumei. ac.jp, fujino@se.ritsumei. ac.jp 2 Mitsubishi Electric Corp., 5­1­1 Ofuna, Kamakura, Kanagawa 247­8501, Japan Abstract Deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to welldesigned input samples, known as adversarial examples. In particular, an attack involving the generation of adversarial examples is called a black-box attack when an adversary attacks without any internal knowledge of the target network. In a simple black-box attack, adversarial perturbations are selected on the basis of changes in output probability when the input to the DNN is slightly changed. Output probability quantization has been proposed as a countermeasure against the simple black-box attack. In this work, we quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of this protection method by using the image degradation index and propose a new black-box attack that can overcome the output probability quantization. We conducted experiments to generate adversarial examples using the MNIST public dataset. In the conventional method, if the fourth digit after the decimal point of the output probability is truncated, perturbations that can easily be recognized by humans appear in the adversarial example, and the attack ability decreases. With the new attack method, we find that adversarial examples can be generated with a sufficiently small degradation even if the output probability is truncated after the second decimal place. This demonstrates that the output probability quantization countermeasure against the simple black-box attack is not effective.
Ulinastatin alleviates cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats by activating the Nrf-2/HO-1 signaling pathway

Background Ulinastatin, a urinary trypsin inhibitor, is one of the widely used auxiliary drugs in the rescue of acute circulatory failure. This study aims to explore the protective mechanisms of ulinastatin on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Methods A cerebral MCAO was established with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. Western blotting was employed to show protein expression. Oxidative stress markers [reactive oxygen species (ROS), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and glutathione (GSH)] and inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β, and IL-18) were analyzed to show oxidative stress and inflammation. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) and triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining were applied to show brain injury. Results HE, TUNEL and TTC staining indicated that ulinastatin significantly ameliorated cerebral I/R injury and reduced apoptotic cells in the MCAO brain tissue. Ulinastatin also reduced the MCAO-induced expression of intercellular adhesion molecule 1(ICAM-1)/caspase-3. Additionally, the highly expressed ROS, MDA and inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β and IL-18) were significantly suppressed, and the inhibited SOD and GSH were recovered with ulinastatin treatment. Consequently, the expression of nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)/heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) (which was significantly inhibited by MCAO) was re-activated by ulinastatin and/or TBHQ (an Nrf-2 activator), and treatment with ML-385 (an Nrf-2 inhibitor) blocked the inhibition of apoptosis, inflammation, and oxidative stress by ulinastatin. Our results indicate that the Nrf-2/HO-1 signaling pathway may be involved in the pharmacological mechanism of ulinastatin in cerebral I/R injury. Conclusions Ulinastatin protected against inflammation and oxidative stress in cerebral I/R injuries via activation of the Nrf-2/HO-1 signaling pathway.