Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fate of epiphytes on phorophytes with different architectural characteristics along the perturbation gradient of Sabal mexicana forests in Veracruz, Mexico.

Question: Vascular epiphytes and hemiepiphytes (E/HE) in neotropical forests account for a large fraction of plant richness, but little is known of how the interplay between phorophyte architectural characteristics and habitat perturbation affect communities of E/HE. Location: Sabal mexicana forests in a coastal area of Veracruz, Mexico. Methods: We compared communities of E/HE on phorophytes with different architectural characteristics – the palm S. mexicana and non-palm phorophytes – in three environments: conserved sites, perturbed sites and small regenerated forest fragments. We combined traditional (abundance, species richness, similarity and complementarity indices) and more recent (phylogenetic diversity) metrics to describe the communities of E/HE. Results: Overall, we recorded 924 E/HE individuals (nine families, 16 genera and 21 species). The abundance and species richness of E/HE was higher on palms than on non-palm phorophytes. Abundance-based complementarities between phorophytes and sites were high. We detected clear changes in community structure of E/HE with habitat perturbation, but there were no effects on the phylogenetic diversity of the E/HE community. Palm phorophytes hosted a more phylogenetically diverse community of E/HE than did non-palm phorophytes. Conclusions: Palm phorophytes are key elements supporting the conservation of resilient communities of E/HE in S. mexicana forest. Habitat fragmentation has a strong effect on the structure of the E/HE community in S. mexicana forests. Ferns are the group of epiphytes most severely affected by habitat perturbation, but we detected no significant effect on the phylogenetic diversity of the community.
IMPACTS OF MARKETING AUTOMATION ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

The primary aim of this study is to investigate the impact of marketing automation on business performance by primarily focusing on the effect on sales and customer experience along with identifying the barriers that deter the successful implementation of this technology. Marketing automation allows businesses to compete effectively especially in the efforts to attract the customers’ attention. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that marketing automation places on strategies that can be used to increase consumer collaboration and coordination during the process of product development and enhancing their input and consequently increasing their experience. Marketing automation improves customer experience, saves time by relieving the daily tasks such as posting messages and sending emails, ensures consistency because same activities will generate the same results, leads to optimization of the marketing strategy and also yields a coordinate multi-channel campaign that allows companies to reach the customers with conditional content, smart and relevant segmentation. Despite the numerous benefit that lead to improvement of overall business performance, implementation of marketing automation in organizations encounters different several challenges that are highlighted as follows; lack the prerequisite laid guidelines to enhance the accomplishment of the marketing automation outcomes and inadequate data and inconsistency in the quality of information hinders the applicability of marketing automation in firms.
Competency Assessment of Final-Year Dental Students in Tunisia

Introduction. The educational program assessment has always been the main objective of quality improvement in all curricula. The aim of this study was to describe the levels of competency of final-year students of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of Monastir in Tunisia in the major skills needed for a new dentist. Methods. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 154 students filled out a questionnaire including 53 competencies, rated on a four-point Likert scale, broadly based on the competencies described in the profile and competences for the graduating dentist in Europe. Results. The response rate was 67% (145/230). For twenty items in the questionnaire, over 75% of the students reported being competent. The five items with the highest percentages were “undertaking supragingival and subgingival scaling-Item 22” (97.2%), “evaluating the periodontium, establishing a diagnosis and formulating a treatment plan-Item 2” (96.6%), “identify the location and degree of activity of dental caries-Item 24 (95.9%), “taking and interpreting dental radiographs-Item 12” (94.4%), “restoring damaged teeth-Item 25” (93.8%), and “managing primary oral health care-Item 16” (93.8%). For eighteen skills, more than 75% of students self-rated being not competent, demonstrating a need of more thorough training, notably in periodontal surgery and implantology, among these, five skills were found that demand in-depth acquisition according to the students. Conclusion. The general state of competency of the last-year dental students was described as fairly satisfactory based on the students’ self-reported responses. However, theoretical and practical backgrounds related to some subjects in the school need to be improved.
Focal Reduction of α E-catenin Causes Premature Differentiation and Reduction of β -catenin Signaling During Cortical Development

Cerebral cortical precursor cells reside in a neuroepithelial cell layer that regulates their proliferation and differentiation. Global disruptions in epithelial architecture induced by loss of the adherens junction component α E-catenin lead to hyperproliferation. Here we show that cell autonomous reduction of α E-catenin in the background of normal precursors in vivo causes cells to prematurely exit the cell cycle, differentiate into neurons, and migrate to the cortical plate, while normal neighboring precursors are unaffected. Mechanistically, α E-catenin likely regulates cortical precursor differentiation by maintaining β -catenin signaling, as reduction of α E-catenin leads to reduction of β -catenin signaling in vivo. These results demonstrate that, at the cellular level, α Ecatenin serves to maintain precursors in the proliferative ventricular zone, and suggest an unexpected function for α E-catenin in preserving β -catenin signaling during cortical development.
Face Size Detection using Deep Learning

Many deep learning approaches are studied for face detection in these days. However, there is still a performance problem to run efficiently on devices with limited resources. Our method can enhance the detection speed by decreasing the number of scaling for detection methods that use many different scaling per image to detect the different size of faces. Also, we keep our deep learning model easy to implement and small as possible. Moreover, it can be used for other special object detection problems but not only for face detection
Canstatin Acts on Endothelial and Tumor Cells via Mitochondrial Damage Initiated through Interaction with αvβ3 and αvβ5 Integrins

Canstatin, the noncollagenous domain of collagen type IV α-chains, belongs to a series of collagen-derived angiogenic inhibitors. We have elucidated the functional receptors and intracellular signaling induced by canstatin that explain its strong antitumor efficacy in vivo . For this purpose, we generated a canstatin-human serum albumin (CanHSA) fusion protein, employing the HSA moiety as an expression tag. We show that CanHSA triggers a crucial mitochondrial apoptotic mechanism through procaspase-9 cleavage in both endothelial and tumor cells, which is mediated through cross-talk between α v β 3 - and α v β 5 -integrin receptors. As a point of reference, we employed the first three kringle domains of angiostatin (K1-3), fused with HSA, which, in contrast to CanHSA, act only on endothelial cells through α v β 3 -integrin receptor–mediated activation of caspase-8 alone, without ensuing mitochondrial damage. Taken together, these results provide insights into how canstatin might exert its strong anticancer effect.
Does the Internet Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Evidence From Spain

In this paper, I empirically evaluate the effect of exposure to the Internet on Spanish attitudes towards immigrants. Exploiting a confidential, innovative survey dataset, I am able to identify a relationship between Internet access and attitudes towards immigrants at the micro (municipal) level. I address the endogeneity of Internet availability by looking at pre-existing voice telecommunication characteristics and using outcome variables before and after the arrival of the Internet. Results show that Internet availability between 2008 and 2012 is associated with a better knowledge of (national) immigration dynamics and that it leads to an overall improvement in attitudes towards immigrants. This result is particularly strong among young and urban individuals. Additionally, I find that access to the Internet reduces political support for the Partido Popular, Spain’s traditional right-wing party.
Cleistothecia and flag shoots : sources of primary inoculum for grape powdery mildew in the Western Cape Province, South Africa

Little is known about the mode of survival and sources of primary inoculum of Uncinula necator, the causal pathogen of grapevine powdery mildew, in vineyards in the Western Cape province. A study was therefore undertaken to determine whether cleistothecia and flag shoots are formed on vines in local vineyards. Flag shoots were found shortly after budbreak in September 1997 in a Carignane vineyard near Somerset West. Cleistothecia were first observed during April to May 1996 on severely infected leaves from three vineyards in the main grapegrowing areas of Stellenbosch. This was the first report of cleistothecia and flag shoot formation in vineyards in the Western Cape province. Cleistothecia occurred in small numbers on leaves (1 - 10 per leaf) and all were immature. Cleistothecia were dispersed by late summer and autumn rains from leaves to bark of grapevines, where they overwinter. No conclusion could be made regarding the viability of cleistothecia. However, the characteristics of the first symptoms that developed on leaves, namely separate, individual lesions formed at random on first-formed leaves growing in close proximity to the bark, provided circumstantial evidence that cleistothecia are dispersed to the bark. Weather conditions suitable for release of ascospores from overwintered cleistothecia occurred frequently between budbreak and bloom in all the areas.
Nutrient fluxes across reaches and impoundments in two southeastern Michigan watersheds

Abstract River systems with impoundments are expected to experience greater nutrient removal as a consequence of enhanced nitrogen (N) loss by denitrification, settling and burial of phosphorus (P), and longer residence times of water relative to a free-flowing river. We evaluated the magnitude of N and P removal across stream reaches and impoundments, including annual and seasonal trends, in two southeastern Michigan rivers that differ in their degree of impoundment and watershed land use patterns. All nutrient fraction concentrations remained statistically unchanged across stream reaches of 2–3 km in length, but dissolved oxygen and pH increased. Impoundment outlets exhibited increases in water temperature and decreases in conductivity, TP, TN, TDP, SRP, TDN, and NO3-N relative to inflowing water. A nutrient load mass balance showed that two connected impoundments removed 18 and 32% of the annual river loads of TN and TP, respectively. Removal rates were seasonably variable, with TP removal most pronounced during winter months when the impoundment received episodic high P loads. Conversely, TN removal was greatest during summer and autumn months when impoundments were stratified and water temperatures were elevated. Strong seasonal differences in N and P transport through the impoundments demonstrated the capacity of impoundments to dramatically alter the timing and stoichiometry of downstream nutrient export. These seasonal differences also highlight the need to consider the entire annual cycle when estimating surface water nutrient dynamics or designing management plans for nutrient abatement.
Automated Determination of the Limit Values of Navigation Parameters during Vessel Motion in the Conditions of River e-Navigation

The conducted studies are devoted to the development of ways to automate the operation of functional subsystems of the instrumental navigation method. These subsystems interact and provide navigation on the forecastplanned routes of electronic cartographic intellectualization in various emergency conditions. The navigation parameters for the tasks of stabilizing the vessel motion are determined. The artificial intelligence using fuzzy logic elements when using Inland ECDIS (Inland Electronic Chart Display and Information System) is applied. The stabilization task of the vessel motion, the process of measuring the deviation from the reference program line is considered on the programmed trajectories displayed on the SENC (System Electronic Navigational Chart). The algorithm of automated determination of limit values of navigation parameters during the vessel motion is offered. Possible variants of the position of the relative movement line on the SENC are applied. Mathematical models of vessel motion along the trajectory in different orthogonal coordinate systems are created. A complete expression is proposed for differential corrections to measured depths, which are indicated on the SENC. Thus, the uncertainty of the situational dynamics in the n-dimensional vessel motion space is eliminated. The proposed methods allow you to: increase the accuracy of navigation parameters by 10%; reduce the time for making decisions on ensuring the safety of navigation by the shift assistant of the captain by 10 times; increase the efficiency of navigation watch by 30%; increase the probability of safe navigation to 0.97. The practical value of the work is determined by the fact that its main results can be used by the developers of navigation information systems. These systems are designed for locally independent management of the navigation process on the inland waterways of Ukraine. KeywordsSafety of Navigation, River e-Navigation, Navigation Parameters, Relative Traffic Line, Inland ECDIS
Adventures in Crypto Dark Matter: Attacks, Fixes and Analysis for Weak Pseudorandom Function Candidates

A weak pseudorandom function (weak PRF) is one of the most important cryptographic primitives for its eﬃciency although it has lower security than a standard PRF. Recently, Boneh et al. (TCC’18) introduced two types of new weak PRF candidates, called a basic Mod-2/Mod-3 and alternative Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF. They both use the mixture of linear computations deﬁned on diﬀerent small moduli to satisfy conceptual simplicity, low complexity (depth-2 ACC 0 ) and MPC friendliness. In fact, the new candidates are conjectured to be exponentially secure against any adversary that allows exponentially many samples, and a basic Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF is the only candidate that satisﬁes all above features. However, none of direct attacks which focus on a basic and alternative Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRFs uses their own structures. In this paper, we investigate weak PRFs in three perspectives; attacks, ﬁxes, and a new analysis to support the hardness conjecture of weak PRFs. We ﬁrst propose direct attacks for an alternative Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF and a basic Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF when a circulant matrix is used as a secret key. For an alternative Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF, we prove that the adversary’s advantage is at least 2 − 0 . 105 n , where n is the size of input space of weak PRF. Similarly, we show that the advantage of our heuristic attack to the weak PRF with a circulant matrix key is larger than 2 − 0 . 21 n , which is contrary to previous expectation that ‘a structured secret key’ does not aﬀect the security of a weak PRF. Thus, for optimistic parameter choice n = 2 λ for the security parameter λ , parameters should be increased to preserve λ -bit security when an adversary obtains exponentially many samples. Next,we provide a simple method for repairing two weak PRFs aﬀected by our attack while preserving the depth-2 ACC 0 circuit complexity and parameters. Moreover,we provide an observation and a new analysis to support the exponential hardness conjecture of a basic Mod-2/Mod-3 weak PRF when a secret key is uniformly sampled from { 0 , 1 } m × n .
Gas-kinetic Theory Based Flux Splitting Method for Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics

A gas-kinetic solver is developed for the ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The new scheme is based on the direct splitting of the flux function of the MHD equations with the inclusion of "particle" collisions in the transport process. Consequently, the artificial dissipation in the new scheme is much reduced in comparison with the MHD Flux Vector Splitting Scheme. At the same time, the new scheme is compared with the well-developed Roe-type MHD solver. It is concluded that the kinetic MHD scheme is more robust and efficient than the Roe-type method, and the accuracy is competitive. In this paper the general principle of splitting the macroscopic flux hmction based on the gas-kinetic theory is presented. The flux construction strategy may shed some light on the possible modification of AUSMand CUSPtype schemes for the compressible Euler equations, as well as to the development of new schemes for a non-strictly hyperbolic system. Key words, magnetohydrodynamics, flux splitting, gas-kinetic scheme Subject classification. Applied Numerical Mathematics
Explanation of the Convolutional Neural Network Classifying Chest X-Ray Images Supporting Pneumonia Diagnosis

Medical images are valuable sources for disease diagnosis. Besides, advancements in deep learning in recent years have been supporting disease diagnosis methods based on images to obtain numerous achievements. However, deep learning algorithms still work as a black-box so it is difficult to interpret output from these algorithms. In this study, we propose a convolutional network architecture to classify Chest X-ray images as well as apply explanation approaches for trained models to support disease diagnosis. The proposed method provides insights in medical images to support Pneumonia diagnosis.
The diets of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) on the shelf and oceanic feeding grounds in the western North Pacific inferred from stable isotope analysis

Humpback whales feed on a variety of prey, but significant differences likely occur between regional feeding grounds. In this study, the diets of humpback whales were analyzed by comparing stable isotope ratios in animal tissues at three humpback whale feeding grounds in the Russian Far East: Karaginsky Gulf, Anadyr Gulf, and the Commander Islands. Anadyr Gulf is a neritic zone far from a shelf break, Karaginsky Gulf is a neritic zone close to a shelf break, and the Commander Islands represent an open oceanic ecosystem where whales feed off the shelf break. Samples
Screening of potential probiotic Bacillus for aquaculture industry

The objective of this study was to isolate probiotic Bacillus from intestinal contents of fishes and shrimps. 154 Bacilluslike bacteria were isolated and studied further based on probiotic characteristics. A total of 5 isolated bacteria was selected as they were not potential pathogenic bacteria. Besides, they exhibited antimicrobial activity against specific pathogens such as Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Pseudomonas aeroginosa and Bacillus cereus and tolerance to some antimicrobial substances. These isolates were identified by using the API 50 CHB identification kit and confirmed by using the 16S rRNA sequence. Results showed that the potential probiotic bacteria were Bacillus safensis, Bacillus subtilis and Brevibacillus agri.
AMPK negatively regulates tensin-dependent integrin activity

We found that the major metabolic sensor AMPK is an inhibitor of β 1-integrin activity. Loss of AMPK promotes Tight regulation of integrin activity is paramount for dynamic cellular functions such as cell matrix adhesion and mechanotransduction. Integrin activation is achieved through intracellular interactions at the integrin cytoplasmic tails and through integrin–ligand binding. In this study, we identify the metabolic sensor AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) as a β 1-integrin inhibitor in fibroblasts. Loss of AMPK promotes β 1-integrin activity, the formation of centrally located active β 1-integrin– and tensin-rich mature fibrillar adhesions, and cell spreading. Moreover, in the absence of AMPK, cells generate more mechanical stress and increase fibronectin fibrillogenesis. Mechanistically, we show that AMPK negatively regulates the expression of the integrin-binding proteins tensin1 and tensin3. Transient expression of tensins increases β 1-integrin activity, whereas tensin silencing reduces integrin activity in fibroblasts lacking AMPK. Accordingly, tensin silencing in AMPK-depleted fibroblasts impedes enhanced cell spreading, traction stress, and fibronectin fiber formation. Collectively, we show that the loss of AMPK up-regulates tensins, which bind β 1-integrins, supporting their activity and promoting fibrillar adhesion formation and integrin-dependent processes.
Identifying tactical asset allocation signals for US and European equities

Extensive research has been done to discover historically profitable tactical asset allocation strategies. Researchers have found a wide range of different market signals; valuation levels, company fundamentals, macroeconomic variables, sentiment indicators and seasonal patterns have been suggested to predict the market movements. However, it seems that most findings in published papers have been obtained with data-mining. Especially multiple tests have been performed without adjusting the significance level appropriately. In a typical journal article, predictors have also been tested only on in-sample periods, i.e., with the same data-set that was used for fitting the model. The thesis re-evaluates the forecasting ability of the most potential stock market predictors found in the tactical asset allocation and equity market timing literature. The out-of-sample test results show that the equity premium has not been predictable in real-time after the turn of the millennium. The thesis thereby recommends the passive "buy and hold" strategy for both private and professional investors. However, if investors still want to try to "time the stock market" or actively adjust the strategic asset allocation mix, the inflation rate and ETF fund flows seem to be the most potential signals to follow.