Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Humpback Whale Song on the Southern Ocean Feeding Grounds: Implications for Cultural Transmission

Male humpback whales produce a long, complex, and stereotyped song on low-latitude breeding grounds; they also sing while migrating to and from these locations, and occasionally in high-latitude summer feeding areas. All males in a population sing the current version of the constantly evolving display and, within an ocean basin, populations sing similar songs; however, this sharing can be complex. In the western and central South Pacific region there is repeated cultural transmission of song types from eastern Australia to other populations eastward. Song sharing is hypothesized to occur through several possible mechanisms. Here, we present the first example of feeding ground song from the Southern Ocean Antarctic Area V and compare it to song from the two closest breeding populations. The early 2010 song contained at least four distinct themes; these matched four themes from the eastern Australian 2009 song, and the same four themes from the New Caledonian 2010 song recorded later in the year. This provides evidence for at least one of the hypothesized mechanisms of song transmission between these two populations, singing while on shared summer feeding grounds. In addition, the feeding grounds may provide a point of acoustic contact to allow the rapid horizontal cultural transmission of song within the western and central South Pacific region and the wider Southern Ocean.
Molecular evidence of clonal Vibrio parahaemolyticus pandemic strains.

The upsurge in worldwide incidence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection in the last 5 years has been attributed to the recent appearance of three serotypes with pandemic potential: O3:K6, O4:K68, and O1:K untypeable (KUT). Thirty-five strains of these serotypes, isolated from different countries over 4 years, were characterized by ribotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis to determine their origin. The ribotypes of the strains of these serotypes were indistinguishable, except for a Japanese tdh- negative O3:K6 strain and a U.S. clinical O3:K6 isolate, which had slightly different profiles. The migration patterns of the NotI-digest of the total DNA of the strains were similar, and only slight variations were observed between the serotypes. By contrast, the O3:K6 and O1:KUT strains isolated before 1995 and strains of other serotypes had markedly different profiles. The O4:K68 and O1:KUT strains most likely originated from the pandemic O3:K6 clone.
Integrating GOMS models and logging methods into a single tool for evaluating the usability of intelligent systems

Usability evaluation methods can be classified as heuristic methods, subjective methods and empirical methods. This study looks at the integration of heuristic evaluation methods (GOMS) and empirical validation methods (jogging). The integration of these two methods allows us to obtain information which could not otherwise be obtained using the techniques separately, such as the results of a comparison of a priori predictions with real a posteriori data. The application described in this study has been integrated into the VISNU project, which aims to develop a tool to assist knowledge engineers in evaluating the validation and usability of intelligent systems.
Stackelberg Model for investment behavior of local government

The paper explores the characters of investment behavior between local governments and central government with different power allocations. The Leader-follower Decision-making of Stachelberg model is established and the case study on Chinese transition is demonstrated to simulate the conclusions of theory. It is believed each hierarchy of government would be mutually affected on investment money and capacity by different administration diffuse power of bureaucrat organization.
Nutritional Challenges in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) represent a heterogeneous group of acquired or inherited conditions. Nutritional complications are frequent in NMDs, but they are sometimes underestimated. With the prolongation of survival in patients with NMDs, there are several nutritional aspects that are important to consider, including the deleterious effects of overnutrition on glucose metabolism, mobility, and respiratory and cardiologic functions; the impact of hyponutrition on muscle and ventilatory function; constipation and other gastrointestinal complications; chewing/swallowing difficulties with an increased risk of aspiration that predisposes to infectious diseases and respiratory complications; as well as osteoporosis with an associated increased risk of fractures. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the nutritional aspects and complications that can start in children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and increase with ageing. These aspects should be considered in the transition from paediatric clinics to adult services. It is shown that appropriate nutritional care can help to improve the quality of life of DMD patients, and a multidisciplinary team is needed to support nutrition challenges in DMD patients. However, studies on the prevalence of overnutrition and undernutrition, gastrointestinal complications, infectious diseases, dysphagia, and reduced bone mass in the different types of NMDs are needed, and appropriate percentiles of weight, height, body mass index, and body composition appear to be extremely important to improve the management of patients with NMD.
Southern extensions for Holocene records of Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) and New Zealand musk duck (Biziura delautouri) in New Zealand

The distributions of birds in New Zealand immediately before human colonisation are derived from bones recovered from Holocene and archaeological sites. Bones from several extinct species and extirpated populations were identified during examination of a natural deposit of bones of Holocene age found on intertidal sand flats at Harwood (45� 46’S, 170� 40’E), Otago Harbour, south-eastern South Island, New Zealand. Most were species, such as moa (Dinornithiformes), South Island adzebill (Aptornis defossor) and black swan (Cygnus atratus), known from other coastal assemblages from south-eastern South Island. Here we record bones from 2 species that were unexpected in that area—2 bones from an Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus Temminck, 1824) and 1 bone from a New Zealand musk duck (Biziura delautouri Forbes, 1892). The 3 bones are now registered with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (hereafter referred to as "Te Papa"), with catalogue numbers designated with the prefix NMNZ. Pelican bones have been reported previously from 8 sites in New Zealand (Fig. 1), with at least 10 individuals represented (Gill & Tennyson 2002). The material was previously referred to an extinct, endemic species larger than the Australian species (Rich & van Tets 1981). Subsequent comparisons showed that they are indistinguishable from bones of Australian pelicans, so they are now referred to as P. conspicillatus (Worthy 1998; Gill & Tennyson Notornis, 2014, Vol. 61: 106-108 0029-4470 © The Ornithological Society of New Zealand Inc.
Globular Clusters in 19 Northern

We use the method developed by Blakeslee & Tonry (1995) to study the globular cluster (GC) populations of 21 giant elliptical galaxies in 19 Abell clusters. This method, applied here primarily in the R band, is based on the surface brightness fluctuations technique of extragalactic distance measurement. The sample galaxies range in redshift from 5000 to 10,000 km s−1, and were selected primarily from the Lauer & Postman (1994) survey of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). We find a tight correlation between the GC specific frequency SN of the central bright galaxy in the cluster and the cluster velocity dispersion. SN also correlates well with the cluster X-ray temperature and with the number of bright neighboring galaxies, less well with the galaxy profile, and only marginally with galaxy luminosity and overall cluster richness. It does not correlate with cluster morphology class. Thus, unlike galaxy luminosity, SN is determined by the cluster mass, or density. To account for this situation, we propose that the GCs formed early and in proportion to the available mass, while the luminosity growth of the galaxy was later halted, yielding the observed correlations of SN with density. We introduce a quantity called ηGC , the number of GCs per unit local cluster mass. For a simple cluster mass model, η GC is found to be constant, indicating a uniform GC production rate per unit available mass. A measurement of the Gaussian width σ of the GC luminosity function (GCLF) is one of the byproducts of our analysis. In the cosmic microwave background frame, the mean width for this sample is 〈σ〉= 1.43 mag, virtually identical to the HST value for M87, the galaxy used to calibrate the mean of the GCLF in this analysis. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters: general — galaxies: distances and redshifts — galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD — galaxies: star clusters — globular clusters: general Observations conducted at the Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory Current address: Palomar Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125; jpb@astro.caltech. edu, mrm@astro.caltech. edu Current address: Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HA 96822; jt@avidya.ifa. hawaii.edu
Response of Soil Microorganisms to Oilfield Wastewater

Environmental pollution resulting from oil exploitation and exploration has impacted negatively on the biodiversity of the affected areas. Therefore, this study investigated the response of soil microorganisms to oilfield wastewater. The oilfield wastewater and soil samples were collected from an onshore oil producing platform fortnightly for a period of three months and microbiological analyses were performed using standard methods. Soil around pond average counts for THB and HUB (Log10 CFU/g) were 7.32 to 7.35 and 4.16 to 4.22 respectively. Soil 80 m away from pond average range for THB and HUB were 7.38 to 7.40 and 3.32 to 3.34 respectively. For TF and HUF, Soil around the pond mean recorded 4.65 to 4.85 and 4.12 to 4.16 (Log10 CFU/g) respectively. Mean monthly counts for soil 80m away TF and HUF (Log10 CFU/g) were 5.03 to 5.05 and 3.26 to 3.34 respectively. Soil around the pond recorded lower total heterotrophic bacteria count and total fungi count but higher hydrocarbon utilizing bacteria and hydrocarbon utilizing fungi than soil 80 m away. There was significant difference (P<0.05) between the THB and HUB in the various samples. For the fungi count there was no significant difference (P>0.05) between TF and HUF in all the samples except in sample obtained from soil 80 m away from pond. Bacteria species isolated from the study include: Bacillus, Aeromonas, Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, Chryseomonas, Proteus, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella. Apart from Aeromonas and Chryseomonas the rest of the isolate were identified also as hydrocarbon utilizing bacteria. While fungi species isolated includes: Aspergillus fumigates, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Geotricum, Trichoderma, Fusarium and Penicillium. Hydrocarbon utilizing fungi that occurred includes: Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Fusarium, Penicillium and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The response of these microorganisms in the oil polluted environment suggests that the isolated bacteria and fungi could utilize the oil as energy and carbon source and could be effective in the cleanup of the polluted sites.
Pulse oximetry for children with pneumonia treated as outpatients in rural Malawi

Abstract Objective To investigate implementation of outpatient pulse oximetry among children with pneumonia, in Malawi. Methods In 2011, 72 health-care providers at 18 rural health centres and 38 community health workers received training in the use of pulse oximetry to measure haemoglobin oxygen saturations. Data collected, between 1 January 2012 and 30 June 2014 by the trained individuals, on children aged 2–59 months with clinically diagnosed pneumonia were analysed. Findings Of the 14 092 children included in the analysis, 13 266 (94.1%) were successfully checked by oximetry. Among the children with chest indrawing and/or danger signs, those with a measured oxygen saturation below 90% were more than twice as likely to have been referred as those with higher saturations (84.3% [385/457] vs 41.5% [871/2099]; P < 0.001). The availability of oximetry appeared to have increased the referral rate for severely hypoxaemic children without chest indrawing or danger signs from 0% to 27.2% (P < 0.001). In the absence of oximetry, if the relevant World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines published in 2014 had been applied, 390/568 (68.7%) severely hypoxaemic children at study health centres and 52/84 (61.9%) severely hypoxaemic children seen by community health workers would have been considered ineligible for referral. Conclusion Implementation of pulse oximetry by our trainees substantially increased the referrals of Malawian children with severe hypoxaemic pneumonia. When data from oximetry were excluded, retrospective application of the guidelines published by WHO in 2014 failed to identify a considerable proportion of severely hypoxaemic children eligible only via oximetry.
CodeCity: 3D visualization of large-scale software

CodeCity is a language-independent interactive 3D visualization tool for the analysis of large software systems. Based on a city metaphor, it depicts classes as buildings and packages as districts of a "software city". By offering consistent locality and solid orientation points we keep the viewer oriented during the exploration of a city. We applied our tool on several large-scale industrial systems.
Reliability mechanisms for very large storage systems

Reliability and availability are increasingly important in large-scale storage systems built from thousands of individual storage devices. Large systems must survive the failure of individual components; in systems with thousands of disks, even infrequent failures are likely in some device. We focus on two types of errors: nonrecoverable read errors and drive failures. We discuss mechanisms for detecting and recovering from such errors, introducing improved techniques for detecting errors in disk reads and fast recovery from disk failure. We show that simple RAID cannot guarantee sufficient reliability; our analysis examines the tradeoffs among other schemes between system availability and storage efficiency. Based on our data, we believe that two-way mirroring should be sufficient for most large storage systems. For those that need very high reliability, we recommend either three-way mirroring or mirroring combined with RAID.
ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF SEWAGE SLUDGE TREATMENT PROCESSES APPLICATION IN EGYPT

The sewage sludge production in Egypt is rapidly increasing resulting from the continuous increase of population, urban planning and industrial developments. This sludge needs to be adequately treated and environmentally managed to reduce the negative impacts of its application or disposal. Therefore, the main currently pressing needs are to find/develop more efficient, economical and sustainable technologies for sludge treatment. The main objectives of this study are to evaluate and compare the application of aerobic/anaerobic digestion, natural/mechanical dewatering and composting processes in sewage sludge treatment options in Egypt with respect to various parameters including energy balance, environmental impacts, sludge capacities and economic aspects. Moreover, the area of application of each treatment process, according to the Egyptian conditions, is evaluated. The Life cycle assessment methodology was applied to assess and compare the environmental impacts of the treatment processes to find out the environmental critical points and to provide a technical and scientific support to the municipal authorities for the environmental optimization of sludge management. The study shows that the application of anaerobic digestion process with energy recovery is proven to be a promising option for sewage sludge stabilization in Egypt. It has the lowest costs and environmental impacts due to the energy recovery. The using of rice straw as a bulking agent in the windrow composting of sewage sludge could help to some extent in reducing the environmental problems arising from the disposal of this agricultural residue. The application of anaerobic digestion process becomes more cost effective for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) capacities greater than 40,000 inhabitants (8000 m 3 /day). Whereas, the drying beds process was more cost effective with WWTPs capacities less than 90,000 inhabitants under Egyptian conditions. Keyword: Anaerobic digestion, aerobic digestion, windrow composting, environmental impacts, economic aspects, area of application, life cycle assessment.
Structure and Novel Functional Mechanism of Drosophila SNF in Sex-Lethal Splicing

Sans-fille (SNF) is the Drosophila homologue of mammalian general splicing factors U1A and U2B″, and it is essential in Drosophila sex determination. We found that, besides its ability to bind U1 snRNA, SNF can also bind polyuridine RNA tracts flanking the male-specific exon of the master switch gene Sex-lethal (Sxl) pre-mRNA specifically, similar to Sex-lethal protein (SXL). The polyuridine RNA binding enables SNF directly inhibit Sxl exon 3 splicing, as the dominant negative mutant SNF1621 binds U1 snRNA but not polyuridine RNA. Unlike U1A, both RNA recognition motifs (RRMs) of SNF can recognize polyuridine RNA tracts independently, even though SNF and U1A share very high sequence identity and overall structure similarity. As SNF RRM1 tends to self-associate on the opposite side of the RNA binding surface, it is possible for SNF to bridge the formation of super-complexes between two introns flanking Sxl exon 3 or between a intron and U1 snRNP, which serves the molecular basis for SNF to directly regulate Sxl splicing. Taken together, a new functional model for SNF in Drosophila sex determination is proposed. The key of the new model is that SXL and SNF function similarly in promoting Sxl male-specific exon skipping with SNF being an auxiliary or backup to SXL, and it is the combined dose of SXL and SNF governs Drosophila sex determination.
Cooperative control with haptic visualization in shared virtual environments

A distributed PHANToM-based system for collaborative haptic visualization of a VR crank is presented. Physical IDOF crank model providing realistic kinaesthetic sensations of inertia and viscosity is described. Theoretical and experimental kinematic trajectory patterns are compared for the case of cooperative two-arm human movements. Nonvisual visualization applications of the system are discussed.
Use of Method for Elicitation, Documentation, and Validation of Software User Requirements (MEDoV) in Agile Software Development Projects

Agile and lean software development methodologies appear as a popular alternative to plan-driven methodologies, but these methodologies have no structure in the process of user requirements specification. This paper shows how Method for Elicitation, Documentation and Validation of Software User Requirements (MEDoV) supports agile and lean software development methodologies. The MEDoV helps stakeholders in their everyday work with minimal impact on agility. The method also ensures an active role of business users, a wide-picture what usually is the problem for agile development, and definition of non-functional requirements, what the even bigger problem is. The MEDoV ensures that no unnecessary features are produced so that no extra code is created, and maintenance is easier, as well as code correction and improvement. Using models enables agility in product maintenance, especially for integrated systems where one change can have multiple impacts on different parts of system.
The Exploitation of Data from Remote and Human Sensors for Environment Monitoring in the SMAT Project

In this paper, we outline the functionalities of a system that integrates and controls a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs have a set of payload sensors employed for territorial surveillance, whose outputs are stored in the system and analysed by the data exploitation functions at different levels. In particular, we detail the second level data exploitation function whose aim is to improve the sensors data interpretation in the post-mission activities. It is concerned with the mosaicking of the aerial images and the cartography enrichment by human sensors—the social media users. We also describe the software architecture for the development of a mash-up (the integration of information and functionalities coming from the Web) and the possibility of using human sensors in the monitoring of the territory, a field in which, traditionally, the involved sensors were only the hardware ones.
Response of VEGF expression to amino acid deprivation and inducers of endoplasmic reticulum stress.

PURPOSE Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays an important role in initiation of the angiogenesis that leads to proliferative retinopathy. Several environmental conditions and chemical agents that influence the expression of VEGF can also cause endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. The hypothesis for the current study was that expression of VEGF is responsive to conditions that cause ER stress, including amino acid deprivation. METHODS Confluent cultures of a human retinal pigmented epithelial cell line (ARPE-19) were deprived of amino acids or treated with chemical inducers of ER stress. Treatment with cobalt was used to mimic hypoxia-induced expression of VEGF. Northern blot analysis was used to measure intracellular VEGF mRNA, and ELISA was used to measure secreted VEGF protein. Glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) mRNA levels were compared with those of VEGF. Glyceraldehyde-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) mRNA was used as a control. RESULTS Conditions and chemical agents known to activate ER stress response (ERSR) pathways also induced the expression of VEGF. Deprivation of amino acids in the culture medium increased VEGF mRNA expression by 1.3- to 6-fold. Glucose deprivation or treatment of ARPE-19 cells with tunicamycin, brefeldin A, the calcium ionophore A23187, or thapsigargin increased the expression of VEGF mRNA in these cells by 8- to 10-fold. Expression of GRP78 mRNA was well correlated with that of VEGF mRNA under all conditions. These treatments also increased the secretion of VEGF protein by up to twofold. The increase in VEGF mRNA level in response to glutamine deprivation was rapid (greater than 10-fold) and was observed in a physiologically relevant range of glutamine concentrations. The half-life of VEGF mRNA was increased 2.5-fold by glutamine starvation. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that VEGF is an ER stress-responsive gene and suggest that cells can respond to nutrient deprivation by increasing VEGF expression through both transcriptional and posttranscriptional mechanisms.
Chapter 4 Electrical Properties of Graphene Wrinkles and Nanoribbons

Graphene refers to a monolayer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb lattice. The discovery of graphene in an isolated state 3 has generated widespread research interest. The linear dispersion spectrum of graphene causes its charge carriers to behave like massless Dirac fermions, leading to various novel electrical properties that are of fundamental interest. Meanwhile, the unique structure of graphene, in which all atoms are surface atoms, makes its electronic band structure and hence electrical properties extremely sensitive to size effects, surface curvatures, as well as environmental interactions.