Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brush piles and mesh cages protect blue oak seedlings from animals

Oak tree branches piled over acorn-seeded blue oaks were tested as protection against cattle and deer. The piles remained in place and apparently free of cattle and deer for 8.5 years, until a wildfire destroyed the branches. Before the fire in 1996, seedlings in the brush had similar survival rates but grew significantly faster than seedlings with no brush. Seedling survival and growth rates declined sharply after the fire, although the surviving trees regained their prefire heights in 3 years. Cages made of aluminum window screening, as protection from small animals, significantly increased seedling survival and growth rates. Growth rates over the 12 years of the trial averaged only about 0.5 to 1 inch per year.
Strong-disorder renormalization group for periodically driven systems

Quenched randomness can lead to robust non-equilibrium phases of matter in periodically driven (Floquet) systems. Analyzing transitions between such dynamical phases requires a method capable of treating the twin complexities of disorder and discrete time-translation symmetry. We introduce a real-space renormalization group approach, asymptotically exact in the strong-disorder limit, and exemplify its use on the periodically driven interacting quantum Ising model. We analyze the universal physics near the critical lines and multicritical point of this model, and demonstrate the robustness of our results to the inclusion of weak interactions.
Changing inquiry practices and beliefs: The impact of an inquiry-based professional development programme on beginning and experienced secondary science teachers

This study explores how an inquiry-based demonstration classroom in-service programme impacted the beliefs and practices of 14 secondary science teachers. Both structured and semistructured interviews captured in-service programme participants' beliefs, while in-class observations of participants documented their instructional practices. An analysis of the data revealed that the in-service programme had an impact on the participants, but the impact varied among the six induction and eight experienced teachers: the induction teachers changed their beliefs more than their practices, whereas the experienced teachers demonstrated more change in their practices than their beliefs. Ultimately, the changing belief systems of beginning teachers may have resulted in the limited use of student-centred practices, whereas the established belief systems of experienced participants may have been conducive to studentcentred practices. On the basis of the findings of this study, implications for professional development programmes are discussed.
A Low Noise OPAMP with Chopper Stabilization for Biomedical Applications

Operational Amplifier plays a key role in Analog circuits of which is the key area in biomedical application. In the field of Bio Medicine the bio potential signals are one of the basic signals that are monitored. A CMOS (Complementary Metal oxide Semiconductor) design comprising fully differential Operational Amplifier circuit decreases the noise present in the measured input bio potential signals. Bio potential signals are low frequency, low amplitude range signals. Hence the noise present in the Operational Amplifier is mostly flicker noise. At lower frequencies flicker noise dominates other component frequencies, therefore flicker frequency filtering forms the crux in noise removal. The fully differential Operational Amplifier is drawn from single differential Operational Amplifier to get low noise levels. The innovation of our design lies in the modified architecture of Operational Amplifier. The circuit with fully differential Operational Amplifier helps in scaling down of noise to 0.3nv/√Hz with a corner frequency of 10 Hz and 1v of power supply which performs better than the Fully Differential Operational Amplifier [1]. The Modified design in this paper has been implemented in Cadence 90nm technology. IndexTerms flicker noise, Chopper, corner frequency ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Analysis of the EM Energy Absorption in Male And Female Body Due To Antenna

The interaction of electromagnetic waves with human body tissues, a human male and female model is developed in this paper. This model enables us to estimate the power dissipated inside a human models in the presence of an antenna located nearby simulating male and female head. The nature of an electromagnetic field is not the same outside and inside a biological subject. The design and analysis is presented of a low profile and dual frequency inverted L-F antenna, for WLAN and short range wireless communications. This antenna has been used as a mobile antenna; it placed near both male female head and comparing specific absorption rate in both cases.
Land-Use/Land-Cover Characterization Using an Object-Based Classifier for the Buffalo River Sub-Basin in North-Central Arkansas

Sensors for remote sensing have improved enormously over the past few years and now deliver high resolution multispectral data on an operational basis. Most Land-use/Land-cover (LULC) classifications of high spatial resolution imagery, however, still rely on basic image processing concepts (i.e., image classification using single pixel-based classifiers) developed in the 1970s. This study developed the methodology using an object-based classifier to characterize the LULC for the Buffalo River sub-basin and surrounding areas with a 0.81hectare (2-acre) minimum mapping unit (MMU). Base imagery for the 11-county classification was orthorectified color-infrared aerial photographs taken from 2000 to 2002 with a one-meter spatial resolution. The object-based classification was conducted using Feature Analyst, Imagine, and ArcGIS software. Feature Analyst employs hierarchical machinelearning techniques to extract the feature class information from the imagery using both spectral and inherent spatial relationships of objects. The methodology developed for the 7-class classification involved both automated and manual interpretation of objects. The overall accuracy of this LULC classification method, which identified more than 146,000 features, was 87.8% for the Buffalo River subbasin and surrounding areas.
ON REDUCTION OF LONGEST ACCESSIBILITY GAP IN LEO SUN-SYNCHRONOUS SATELLITE MISSIONS. doi: 10.5028/jatm.2011.03010211

Accessibility gaps are inherent properties of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) sun-synchronous satellite missions. Long accessibility gaps in satellite missions imply strict in-orbit autonomy requirement, met by expensive solutions. Thus, methods to shorten accessibility gaps in satellite missions are appreciated by space mission designers. For that purpose, in this paper, ground segment site location is employed as a mechanism to reduce the longest accessibility gaps in LEO sun-synchronous missions. For a given repeatability cycle, it is shown that longitude of the ground segment does not affect the access gaps. Simulation results show that increasing the latitude of ground segment reduces the longest accessibility gaps, especially in extreme latitudes near Polar Regions. To avoid polar ground segments due to their practical difficulties, mission architectures with two co-high-latitude ground segments are proposed. Selection of longitude distance between the two co- high-latitude ground segments is discussed to further reduce the longest accessibility gap in LEO sun-synchronous missions. To show the feasibility of the proposed approach, simulation results are included for illustration.
Faecal Coliforms (FC) and Faecal Streptococci (FS) Ratio as Tool for Assessment of Water Contamination: A Case Study of River Sokoto, Northwestern Nigeria

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) set limit of 200 faecal coliforms/ 100ml for bacterial contamination of surface water has frequently been exceeded due to agricultural runoff as nonpoint pollution. The study evaluated the effects of cattle rearers and or farmers, and cattle rearing on faecal contamination of water from River Sokoto. Water samples from six designated points on River Sokoto were assessed on monthly basis for faecal coliform and faecal streptococci from January to December, 2014 using faecal coliform/faecal streptococci ratio (FC/FS). The six points studied were namely P1, a point 5 metres away from farmland; P2, a point close to farmland; P3, a point close to residents along the riverside; P4, a point on stream drainage immediately from Sokoto Cement factory; P5, a point on the stream close to the river and P6, a point 5 metres away on the river. Very high mean concentrations of FC and FS were recorded at all sampling points with values exceeding surface water standards of 200 faecal coliform/100ml. While the highest mean FC value of 18,525 MPN/100ml (29.1%) was recorded at P3, the least value of 7,592 MPN/100ml (11.9%) was obtained at P2. Mean FS was recorded highest (2,350 MPN/100ml) at P5 (21.8%) and lowest (625 MPN/100ml) at P4 (5.8%). Mean FC/FS ratios of sampled water P1, P5 and P6 were 4 (11.53) indicating human contamination; P2 and P3 also had values > 4 (5.66 and 7.34 respectively) also pointing to human contamination. The FC/FS ratio identified domestic animal contamination sources but did not differentiate between domestic animal and human sources of contamination. Thus the limitatation of its use more as a regulatory tool than a diagnostic tool in identifying contamination sources.
Effectuation

Contents: Introduction Part I: The Empirical Journey - Entrepreneurial Expertise 1. What I Set Out to Study and Why 2. What I Found and How 3. Interpreting What I Found Part II: The Theoretical Journey - Effectuation 4. Understanding Effectuation - Problem Space and Solution Principles 5. Understanding Effectuation - Dynamics of the Effectual Process 6. Relating Effectuation to Performance Part III: Waypoint 7. Entrepreneurship as a Science of the Artificial 8. Competitive Advantages and Entrepreneurial Opportunities 9: Philosophy and Methodology of Effectual Economics 10: Markets in Human Hope Part IV: The Way Ahead 11. Teaching Effectuation 12: Research Works-in-Progress 13: New Research Ventures Index
Relationship between Attention and Choice

Choice experiments are often used to determine consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for product attributes. The design of choice experiments and its influence on measurement of consumer choices has received considerable attention. This study analyzes the influence of attention on the final choice by combining choice experiments with eye tracking. Furthermore, the role of choice set complexity on choice is investigated. Results show that in less complex designs the total gaze time, i.e., overall attention, influences the choice. In contrast, in more complex designs the time to first fixation, i.e., the first look at an attribute affects the choice.
Complex spaces of orphan care – a Russian therapeutic children's community

Institutions of orphan care are immensely complex spaces imbued with social and cultural norms, and can exhibit intricate power relations and particularly severe examples of surveillance. While there have been numerous excellent quantitative studies of these institutions, they reveal little of the complexity and heterogeneity of the spaces, and there remains a need for more qualitative and particularly ethnographic studies of spaces of orphan care to reveal their nuances. Drawing upon the author's reflections on a highly unusual space of orphan care, this article makes two major contributions to Children's Geographies: (1) it employs a sorely neglected aspect of Foucault's work in Children's Geographies, Mettray, in analysing surveillance and discipline in an institution providing care to orphaned children and (2) It highlights the heterogeneity of these spaces and provides an example of best practice in spaces of orphan care.
Evolution of red wines I. Ambient influences on colour composition during early maturation

Observations of changing colour composition and phenolic content of two new red wines were made during the 12-month -period after vintage. Spectral data were plotted with reference to two storage temperatures (3 and 25 °C), storage under nitrogen and under air headspace, pasteurised and non-pasteurised wines, cold-stabilised and non cold-stabilised wines. Progressive formation of polymeric pigments occurred under nitrogen headspace with much faster reaction rates at 25 °C. The presence of oxygen increased rate of change in colour composition, but data points were erratic. Pasteurisation had no influence on phenolic ageing reactions, nor did prior cold-stabilisation. Two types of phenolic condensation reactions during normal wine ageing are indicated. Interpretations suggest the feasibility of accelerating red wine maturation, while at the same time directing phenolic ageing reactions along controlled lines.
FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF FLUVOXAMINE CONTROLLED RELEASE TABLETS

A controlled drug delivery system is usually designed to deliver the drug at the particular rate. The performance of a drug presented as a controlled-release system depends upon its release from the formulation. Movement within the body during its passage to the site of action. The former depends upon the fabrication of the formulation and the physicochemical properties of the drug while the latter element is dependent upon pharmacokinetics of drug. In comparison to conventional dosage form where the rate-limiting step in drug availability is usually absorption through the biomembrane, the rate-determining step in the availability of a drug from controlled delivery system is the rate of release of drug from the dosage form which is much smaller than the intrinsic absorption rate for the drug. The objective of the development programme was to formulate a robust, stable formulation of Fluvoxamine controlled release tablets 100mg comparable to the reference product Fluvoxin CR 100mg(Luvox) in terms of in-vitro dissolution profile. Matrix tablets were compressed without any problem and do not require any change in ratio of excipients in formulation. Results of the present study demonstrated that hydrophilic polymers could be successfully employed for formulating controlled-release matrix tablet of fluvoxamine. Formulations containing polymer percentage 15% controlled the drug release for 12 h. The combination of drug Fluvoxamine, lubricant [SSF] and glidant[Aerosil] was showed high drug release profile. Wet granulation method was found to be better choice to extend the drug release for 12 h. Film coating of tablet is beneficial for protecting the drug. Keywords: Controlled release tablet, Orally controlled drugs, Rate determining step, Controlled drug delivery systems, Fluvoxamine.
Localisation d'objets pour les non-voyants : augmentation sensorielle et neuroprothèse

Les difficultes eprouvees par les non-voyants au quotidien peuvent etre classees dans quatre domaines principaux : l'acces a l'information ecrite, le deplacement, l'orientation et la reconnaissance/localisation d'objets. C'est sur la conception d'un systeme de suppleance permettant aux non-voyants de reconnaitre et de localiser des objets que porte cette these. L'etat de l'art des systemes de suppleance visuelle fait apparaitre deux categories de systemes: les systemes de substitution et d'augmentation sensorielle. Les premiers capturent une image basse resolution de la scene visuelle en la transformant pour etre restituee dans autre modalite sensorielle (tactile ou auditive). Ces systemes experimentaux ne sont aujourd'hui pas utilisables du fait de la difficulte d'interpretation du signal restitue. Les seconds augmentent un canal sensoriel (tactile ou auditif) en restituant une faible quantite d'information identifiee comme pertinente pour ameliorer l'autonomie des personnes non-voyantes. C'est cette derniere approche qui a ete developpee dans cette these en restituant une fonction du systeme visuel : la localisation d'objets. La restitution de cette information de position sur un objet a ete envisagee selon deux modes de restitution : " auditive " dans un systeme d'augmentation sensorielle et " visuelle " pour la simulation d'une neuroprothese corticale. Les perspectives de ces travaux permettent d'envisager un outil de suppleance pour l'aide a la navigation des non-voyants, en fusionnant un systeme de geolocalisation pour le positionnement, de vision artificielle pour reconnaitre des objets dans la scene visuelle et de sonification pour restituer ces informations.
Bioinformatic screening for candidate mutations underlying phenotypic traits in domestic animals

Domestic animals represent excellent model organisms for gene mapping and identification of mutations underlying phenotypic traits. Humans have selected spontaneous mutations in farm and companion animals since they were domesticated and this has resulted in large phenotypic variation among different breeds. In this thesis, we evaluate the candidate mutations in domesticated animals from NGS and SNP genotype data using bioinformatic analysis. Functional significance of coding sequence polymorphisms was assessed using both available bioinformatics resources and in-house pipelines. In consequence, pig and rabbit sequencing revealed major sweeps for genes (NR6A1, LCORL and PLAG1) for body length and increased number of vertebrae in domestic pigs and genes (GRIK2 and SOX2) affecting brain and neuronal development in rabbit domestication. Genome-wide association mapping for demodicosis disease in Staffordshire Bull Terrier dog show several preliminary candidate risk loci (CFA17, 18, 28 and 29) containing interesting candidate genes providing a good basis for further evaluation. Additionally, we also highlight some opportunities and pitfalls of whole genome resequencing using the Ion Proton platform and developed a tool DevRO (using deviant read paired orientation) for detection of large structural variants for NGS data from paired-end sequencing or mate pair. This method will be useful when large numbers of populations are resequenced as compared to traditional methods that can detect the structural variants in a pair wise manner.
Modeling of bacterial DNA patterns important in horizontal gene transfer using stochastic grammars

DNA contains genes which carry the blueprints for all processes necessary to maintain life. In addition to genes, DNA also contains a wide range of functional patterns, which governs many of these processes. These functional patterns have typically a high variability, both within and between species, which makes them hard to detect. Stochastic models, such as hidden Markov models and conditional random fields, offer flexible frameworks that can be used to describe these patterns, their variability and dependencies. In this thesis, we describe two such models for identification of attC sites, patterns necessary for the sharing of genes between bacteria, in a process known as horizontal gene transfer. Acquired genes causing bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics are often associated with attC sites, which make their identification highly relevant. In the first paper we develop a stochastic regular grammar defined by an eight-state generalized hidden Markov model that describes the sequence conservation and length distribution of the different parts of an attC site. The different model assumptions were evaluated and improved using cross-validation experiments, which resulted in a high sensitivity in detecting attC sites. The model was applied to a real dataset in the form of a well-studied plasmid and was able to find the majority of the present attC sites. In addition, six metagenomic samples from polluted and pristine environments were analysed. The model predicted a 15-fold higher abundance of attC sites in the polluted environments compared to the pristine ones. The model implementation, HattCI, was done in R and is freely available at http://bioinformatics.math.chalmers.se/HattCI. AttC sites fold into a three-dimensional structure that is crucial for the horizontal transfer of genes. In the second paper, we extend our previous model to include specific information about this folding. We develop a stochastic context-free grammar, which is suited to describe the nested dependencies induced by the structure. The grammar includes features that describe thermodynamic properties of the folding. The model is formulated in the framework of conditional random fields, with parameter estimation done numerically using structured support vector machines. A first implementation of the model has been completed; further experiments, such as evaluation of the performance using cross-validation is planned. This thesis demonstrates the flexibility of stochastic grammars for modelling the variability and dependencies in DNA patterns. It also emphasizes the value of the use of stochastic methods in the field of microbiology and infectious diseases.
Injury occurrence among residents in a semi-urban area in Sri Lanka; A community survey

Injuries were the leading cause of hospital admissions in Sri Lanka for the past two decades. Common causes for injuries in Sri Lanka are road traffic crashes, falls, animal bites, occupational accidents, violence and humanitarian crisis. However, community based data on injuries in Sri Lanka is scarce. Therefore, the objective of this study was to describe the occurrence of injuries and the associated factors in a semi-urban community in Central Sri Lanka. A community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Gangawatakorale administrative area among 696 households selected by cluster sampling which included 3110 household dwelling residents. The incidence of injuries among all age groups was 17.7 per 1000 population per six months (n=55, 95% CI: 12.2-24.6). Age of the participants with injuries ranged from 2-83 years (Mean=33.8, SD=21.8). The majority were less than 30 years (49.1%, n=27) and were of low income families (56.4%, n=31). More males (63.6%, n=35) were injured than females (36.4%, n=20) (p<0.05). The mechanism of injury were fall from height (38.2%, n=21), road traffic crashes (29.1%, n=16), animal bites (9.1%, n=5), sports injuries (7.3%, n= 4), cut injuries (7.3 %, n=4), poisoning (5.4%, n=3) and burns (3.6%, n=2). Lower limbs were the commonest affected site by injury (41.8 %, n=23). Considering the high prevalence of injuries related to falls from heights, road traffic crashes and animal bites across all age groups, interventions in the form of targeted injury prevention programs for different age and sex groups, based on local epidemiology are needed for this population.