Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The testing of some organic supports for yeasts immobilization technology used in sparkling wine production

Various support and immobilization techniques have been proposed and tested for application in alcoholic beverage production. Methods of yeast immobilization included various supports: inorganic supports, organic supports and natural supports. In this paper are presented data obtained with three immobilized preparations using a selected yeast strain and three organic supports which two are synthetic supports, cross-linked, macromolecule, form of beads (AS-68, AS-80) and gellan gum, polysaccharide produced by fermentation. Aim of this work was to obtain preparations of yeasts immobilized in order to exclude the operation of riddling of sparkling wine production technology. Yeasts immobilized on acrylic supports, in the second fermentation in bottles, have led to the production of sparkling wines that requiring riddling operation, because they were separated from the beads. Yeasts immobilized on a support of gellan gum remained included in beads, which led to the production of clear sparkling wine, eliminating riddling stages.
Semi-supervised Kernel Metric Learning Using Relative Comparisons

We consider the problem of metric learning subject to a set of constraints on relative-distance comparisons between the data items. Such constraints are meant to reflect side-information that is not expressed directly in the feature vectors of the data items. The relative-distance constraints used in this work are particularly effective in expressing structures at finer level of detail than must-link (ML) and cannot-link (CL) constraints, which are most commonly used for semi-supervised clustering. Relative-distance constraints are thus useful in settings where providing an ML or a CL constraint is difficult because the granularity of the true clustering is unknown. Our main contribution is an efficient algorithm for learning a kernel matrix using the log determinant divergence --- a variant of the Bregman divergence --- subject to a set of relative-distance constraints. The learned kernel matrix can then be employed by many different kernel methods in a wide range of applications. In our experimental evaluations, we consider a semi-supervised clustering setting and show empirically that kernels found by our algorithm yield clusterings of higher quality than existing approaches that either use ML/CL constraints or a different means to implement the supervision using relative comparisons.
The Causes and Consequences of Arms Races

This chapter reviews the literature on causes of arms races, their consequences, and when a state should build up arms and engage in an arms race if necessary. The literature tends to equate external causes with threats; the chapter argues for a broader understanding that includes all causes of rational arming behavior. Internal causes of arms races are then understood to be factors within the state that lead it to adopt suboptimal policies. Although the causes and consequences of arms races are usually dealt with separately, in fact they are closely connected. When a state engages in an arms race because this is its best option, the state is acting rationally, the causes of the arms race are external, and the arms race has no consequences of its own. In contrast, when a state arms because domestic interests have distorted its policy, the arms race produces negative consequences. Research on the consequences of arms races has been hindered by the lack of a fully developed theory of when a state shouldrace.
Hardness and Tensile Behavior of Al2219-TiC Metal Matrix Composites

The work is carried out to investigate and study the mechanical properties of TiC reinforced Al2219 alloy metal matrix composites. In the present work Al2219 alloy was taken as the base matrix and TiC particulates as reinforcement material to prepare metal matrix composites by stir casting method. For metal matrix composites the reinforcement material was varied from 0 to 6 wt. % in steps of 2 wt. %. For each composite, the reinforcement particulates were preheated to a temperature of 600oC and dispersed into a vortex of molten Al2219 alloy. The microstructural characterization was done using scanning electron microscope. Mechanical properties like hardness, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and percentage elongation were evaluated as per ASTM standards. Further, scanning electron microphotographs revealed that there was uniform distribution of TiC particulates in Al2219 alloy matrix. Hardness, ultimate tensile strength and yield strength increased as wt. % of TiC increased in the base matrix. Results also indicated that as wt. % of reinforcement increases, there was decrease in ductility.
The thrill of the chase: uncovering illegal sport hunting in Brazil through YouTube™ posts

The impacts of unregulated sport hunting can severely affect populations of target game species. Because hunting in Brazil is limited by law, obtaining data on illegal sport hunting in this country is challenging. We used an unusual online resource, YouTube™, to detect the occurrence of sport hunting in Brazil, measure the impacts of the activity on the main Brazilian game species and biomes, evaluate the opinions of hunters and internet users on sport hunting, and discuss the need for policy interventions in wildlife conservation in this country. We found 383 videos related to Brazilian sport hunting on YouTube™, accounting for more than 15 million views. Most videos were produced in the Cerrado (Brazilian savannah) and approximately 70% of them depicted events of pursuit and killing of wild animals, especially lowland pacas (Cuniculus paca) and armadillos (Family Dasypodidae). Videos were posted primarily in July and December, coinciding with the two main Brazilian vacation periods. Furthermore, the shotguns identified on videos show that sport hunters expend large sums of money to undertake their hunts. These results indicate that Brazilian sport hunters are possibly wealthier urban residents who travel to rural areas to hunt, contrasting with previous hunting studies in the country. Most viewers declared themselves in favor of sport hunting in comments (n = 2893) and ratings (n = 36,570) of the videos. Discussions generated by comments suggest that Brazilian sport hunters employ several informal management strategies to maintain game species stocks for future hunting and intensely question the restrictions of Brazilian environmental policies. Our results demonstrate that solutions are needed for the regulation of sport hunting in Brazil. Government actions, whether to increase surveillance or legalize hunting programs, should take into account the opinions of sport hunters and their perceptions on hunting dynamics to support effective policy decisions on wildlife conservation in Brazil.
Older Adult Spouses with Multiple Chronic Conditions: Challenges, Rewards, and Coping Strategies

RÉSUMÉ Un manque de recherche explore comment les conjoints des personnes âgées avec de multiples affections chroniques confèrent un sense à leur expérience de la prestation de soins. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous avons posé la question suivante: Quelle est l’expérience des aidants naturels pour les personnes atteintes de maladies chroniques multiples? Nous avons appliqué l’approche descriptive interprétative de Thorne, en interviewant 18 conjoints qui ont fourni une riche description de leurs expériences de soins; les entrevues ont été transcrites textuellement et analysées thématiquement. Les thèmes ont été catégorisés en fonction des difficultés rencontrées, des récompenses obtenues et des stratégies de soutien employées par les participants à la prestation de soins pour les conjoints souffrant de maladies chroniques multiples. Les résultats uniques portent sur les défis inhérents à la prise de décision dans le contexte de maladies chroniques multiples. Cet article commence à combler l’écart dans la littérature sur l’expérience des soins dans le contexte de multiples maladies chroniques. ABSTRACT There is a paucity of research exploring how spouses to older adults with multiple chronic conditions make meaning of their caregiving experience. For this study, we asked: What is the experience of spousal caregivers to persons with multiple chronic conditions? We applied Thorne’s interpretive description approach, interviewing 18 spouses who provided a rich description of their caregiving experience; interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. Themes were categorized according to challenges encountered, rewards gleaned, and sustaining strategies employed by participants in caregiving to their spouse with multiple chronic conditions. Unique findings relate to the challenges inherent in decision-making within the context of multiple chronic conditions. This article begins to address the gap in the literature regarding the caregiving experience within the context of multiple chronic conditions.
Making Sense of (Ultra) Low-Cost Flights Vertical Differentiation in Two-Sided Markets

The business model of low-cost carriers is now well established and accounts for a large share of Western civil aviation, particularly in Europe. To understand why it has proven so successful, we develop a theoretical model that exploits the two-sided nature of flights as connectors of supply and demand for goods and services other than traveling itself across physical space. Carriers offer flights of different quality and may sign agreements with suppliers of goods and services at the destination so as to subsidize and foster demand from the carriers’ travelers as in standard two-sided markets. Customers/travelers care about home and destination consumption and about the flight’s quality. Hence, beyond the thickness of the connected sides of the market, the quality of the airline platform has an intrinsic value to travelers. We show that only low-income travelers fly with low-cost airlines, while no-frills carriers are more likely to act as a platform than legacy airlines. We study how the degree of subs.
The b‐bibranching problem: TDI system, packing, and discrete convexity

In this article, we introduce the b‐bibranching problem in digraphs, which is a common generalization of the bibranching and b‐branching problems. The bibranching problem, introduced by Schrijver, is a common generalization of the branching and bipartite edge cover problems. Previous results on bibranchings include polynomial algorithms, a linear programming formulation with total dual integrality, a packing theorem, and an M‐convex submodular flow formulation. The b‐branching problem, recently introduced by Kakimura, Kamiyama, and Takazawa, is a generalization of the branching problem admitting higher indegree, that is, each vertex v can have indegree at most b(v). For b‐branchings, a combinatorial algorithm, a linear programming formulation with total dual integrality, and a packing theorem for branchings are extended. A main contribution of this article is to extend those previous results on bibranchings and b‐branchings to b‐bibranchings. That is, we present a linear programming formulation with total dual integrality, a packing theorem, and an M‐convex submodular flow formulation for b‐bibranchings. In particular, the linear program and M‐convex submodular flow formulations, respectively, imply polynomial algorithms for finding a shortest b‐bibranching.
High-Degree Neurons Feed Cortical Computations

Recent work has shown that functional connectivity among cortical neurons is highly varied, with a small percentage of neurons having many more connections than others. Also, recent theoretical developments now make it possible to quantify how neurons modify information from the connections they receive. Therefore, it is now possible to investigate how information modification, or computation, depends on the number of connections a neuron receives (in-degree) or sends out (out-degree). To do this, we recorded the simultaneous spiking activity of hundreds of neurons in cortico-hippocampal slice cultures using a high-density 512-electrode array. This preparation and recording method combination produced large numbers of neurons recorded at temporal and spatial resolutions that are not currently available in any in vivo recording system. We utilized transfer entropy (a well-established method for detecting linear and nonlinear interactions in time series) and the partial information decomposition (a powerful, recently developed tool for dissecting multivariate information processing into distinct parts) to quantify computation between neurons where information flows converged. We found that computations did not occur equally in all neurons throughout the networks. Surprisingly, neurons that computed large amounts of information tended to receive connections from high out-degree neurons. However, the in-degree of a neuron was not related to the amount of information it computed. To gain insight into these findings, we developed a simple feedforward network model. We found that a degree-modified Hebbian wiring rule best reproduced the pattern of computation and degree correlation results seen in the real data. Interestingly, this rule also maximized signal propagation in the presence of network-wide correlations, suggesting a mechanism by which cortex could deal with common random background input. These are the first results to show that the extent to which a neuron modifies incoming information streams depends on its topological location in the surrounding functional network.
First Order Generative Adversarial Networks

GANs excel at learning high dimensional distributions, but they can update generator parameters in directions that do not correspond to the steepest descent direction of the objective. Prominent examples of problematic update directions include those used in both Goodfellow's original GAN and the WGAN-GP. To formally describe an optimal update direction, we introduce a theoretical framework which allows the derivation of requirements on both the divergence and corresponding method for determining an update direction, with these requirements guaranteeing unbiased mini-batch updates in the direction of steepest descent. We propose a novel divergence which approximates the Wasserstein distance while regularizing the critic's first order information. Together with an accompanying update direction, this divergence fulfills the requirements for unbiased steepest descent updates. We verify our method, the First Order GAN, with image generation on CelebA, LSUN and CIFAR-10 and set a new state of the art on the One Billion Word language generation task. Code to reproduce experiments is available.
Phytochemical Composition, Antioxidant, Antimicrobial and in Vivo Anti-inflammatory Activity of Traditionally Used Romanian Ajuga laxmannii (Murray) Benth. (“Nobleman’s Beard” – Barba Împăratului)

In the Romanian folk medicine, aerial parts of Ajuga laxmannii (“nobleman’s beard,” Romanian – “barba boierului” or “avrămească” or “creştinească”) are traditionally used as galactagogue and anti-inflammatory agents. The present study aimed to evaluate the chemical composition (polyphenols, iridoids, and phytosterols), antioxidant, antimicrobial and in vivo anti-inflammatory activity of different extracts of A. laxmannii aerial parts. The major identified bioactive compounds were rutin, 8-O-acetylharpagide and β-sitosterol. The antioxidant activity of A. laxmannii extracts was evaluated using several methods, and the results showed good antiradical effects. Moreover, the antimicrobial evaluation showed a potent antifungal activity against C. albicans and P. funiculosum. Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory effect was determined by monitoring some parameters involved in the inflammatory process. The results obtained showed differences between the analyzed extracts; and therefore the importance of choosing the best solvent in order to extract the appropriate amount of bioactive compounds. A. laxmannii ethanol extract showed an anti-inflammatory effect by reducing total leukocytes, PMN, phagocytosis, and oxidative stress. Compared to diclofenac, only the 50 mg/mL A. laxmannii extract had better anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative stress effects, and this could justify the importance of a correlation between the activity and the used concentration. These findings strongly suggest that A. laxmannii could be considered as a valuable source of bioactive compounds, which could be further valued as anti-inflammatory agents in the composition of several herbal drugs.
A fed-batch fermentation process for poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) production by Yangia sp. ND199 using molasses as substrate

: A locally isolated halophilic bacterium, Yangia sp. ND199 was able to use molasses as substrate for copolymers poly(3-hydroxybutyrate- co -3-hydroxyvalerate) [P(3HB-co-3HV)] production. Cell dry weight (CDW) of 6.37 g/l, P(3HB-co-3HV) content of 43.1 wt% and P(3HB-co-3HV) concentration of 2.75 g/l were obtained by Yangia sp. after 60 h of cultivation in flask. In a batch cultivation mode in a fermentor, the CDW was increased to 9.1 g/l but P(3HB-co-3HV) content was decreased to 37 wt%. Fed-batch fermentation with two different nutrient feeding strategies was used. High CDW of 54.8 g/l was obtained after 54 h of cultivation but P(3HB-co-3HV) content was still low (39.8 wt%). Two-step fed-batch fermentation with two different nutrient feeding strategies was then designed. High CDW of 50 g/l and P(3HB-co-3HV) content of 52.9 wt% were obtained after 54 h of cultivation. The two-step fed-batch process designed here for the production of P(3HB-co-3HV) by Yangia sp. ND199 can be developed and used for further studies.
Path restoration in source routed software defined networks

Software defined networks have a central controller and central view of the network, allowing for source routing to be used as a scalable routing technique instead of the traditional destination based forwarding. However, with source routing the switches are reduced to simple forwarding devices, incapable of finding alternate paths in the event of link failures. In this paper we look at techniques to provide resiliency when packets are in transit and a network link failure occurs. Path restoration is one such mechanism wherein we use a bypass path for the failed link. Such bypass paths are stored locally on each of the switches, for all of its outgoing links. This mechanism ensures that the recovery mechanism is scalable since it avoids contacting the controller and takes local corrective measures. We have proposed two approaches for storing the bypass paths. In the first method we store the bypass path between all pairs of nodes. In the second method we store the bypass paths between few selected nodes. These node are the two hop neighbors, chosen using either the two colorable graph approach or the vertex cover approach. Our analysis shows that the second method, using the vertex cover approach reduces the total number of bypass paths stored, without compromising the resiliency. Also our solutions are topology dependent and not path dependent, allowing for most of the computations to be done proactively.
Study on catalytic pyrolysis and efficient gasification of cellulose as biomass samples

Fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal will be exhaustible energy resources in the near future. From the point of view of the depletion of fossil resources, the development of renewable resources is required for a future sustainable society. Therefore, in recent years, renewable biomass, which is ubiquitous throughout the world, has attracted attention. Many studies on the application of waste woody biomass have been focused on non-edible biomass. Pyrolysis and gasification technologies have been known as the effective energy conversion technologies of biomass because of the various gases production such as synthesis fuel gases and chemical basic compounds. In the pyrolysis process, gases, condensable hydrocarbons so-called “tar” and solid carbon contents namely “char” will be produced. During the subsequent gasification process, char will usually react with the gasifying agents at a high temperature of above 900°C to produce the synthesis gases. However, there are many problems caused from generated tar during the pyrolysis process such as clogging of the piping and corrosion in the reactor. In order to perform efficient pyrolysis and gasification, there is still less information about the catalytic method although it has been widely used. In this study, we investigated the influence of iron and potassium as the catalysts on the pyrolysis process and the gasification process using an impregnation method to introduce these catalysts into the cellulose samples which is the major component of woody biomass. From the pyrolytic results, it was shown that the production of char and yields of gases were increased with the tar decrease in the presence of the catalytic metal species. Potassium catalyst seemed to especially increase the char yields. It may be caused by the decrease of crystal characteristics of the cellulose in the presence of catalytic metal species. According to the results of the gasification, a lower temperature for gasification from 800°C was found when an iron catalyst was introduced into the cellulose samples, whereas the higher temperature for gasification above 900°C was determined using the potassium catalyst introduced into the cellulose samples. Furthermore, with the help of the introduction of both potassium and iron catalysts, efficient pyrolysis and gasification were performed.
At-speed built-in self-repair analyzer for embedded word-oriented memories

CRESTA is a built-in self-repair analyzer (BISRA) used for repair of bit-oriented memories, which can repair all repairable bit-oriented memories with available spare resource. This paper enhances CRESTA to support embedded word-oriented memories. Within each read cycle of at-speed memory BIST, the analyzer is able to handle multiple-bit failure in a word-oriented memory. Furthermore, to reduce area overhead, the proposed analyzer is reconfigurable to process all repair strategies in serial. To cover all repair strategies efficiently, we propose a branch and bound algorithm to select repair strategies.
Effect of fructooligosaccharide on Salmonella colonization of the chicken intestine.

The influence of fructooligosaccharide (FOS) on the ability of Salmonella typhimurium to grow and colonize the gut of chickens was investigated. In vitro studies showed that Salmonella did not grow when FOS was the sole carbon source. When FOS was fed to chicks at the . 375% level, little influence on Salmonella colonization was observed. At the . 75% level, 12% fewer FOS-fed birds were colonized with Salmonella compared with control birds. When chicks given a partially protective competitive exclusion (CE) culture were fed diets supplemented with . 75% FOS, only 4 of 21 (19%) chickens challenged with 10(9) Salmonella cells on Day 7 became colonized as compared with 14 of 23 (61%) chickens given CE alone. When chickens were stressed by feed and water deprivation on Day 13 and challenged with 10(9) Salmonella on Day 14, 33 of 36 (92%) chickens fed a control diet were colonized compared with only 9 of 36 (25%) chickens fed a . 75% FOS diet. Chickens treated with FOS had a fourfold reduction in the level of Salmonella present in the ceca. Feeding FOS in the diet of chickens may lead to a shift in the intestinal gut microflora, and under some circumstances may result in reduced susceptibility to Salmonella colonization.