Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey of wild food plants for human consumption in villages of Çatak (Van-Turkey)

This study aims to record accumulation of knowledge on plants which are used as food by native people of Catak (Van, Turkey) that has a rich culture and a very natural environment. In addition, the medical uses of these plants were compiled from the literature. Study area was located on the East of Anatolian diagonal, in the Eastern Anatolia Region. Field study was carried out over a period of approximately two years (2010-2012). During this period, 82 vascular plant taxa were collected. The plants were pressed in the field and prepared for identification. A total of 82 food plants belonging to 28 families were identified in the region. In the study being conducted, use of wild plants as food points out interest of people in Catak in wild plants. The fact that a large proportion of edible plants are also being used for medicinal purposes indicates that the use of wild plants has a high potential in the region. The present study shows that further ethnobotanical investigations are worthy to be carried out in Turkey, where most of knowledge on popular food plants are still to discover. In Turkey, the number of ethnobotanic studies is ever-increasing. However, traditional uses of many wild plants have not been recorded yet. In terms of food safety, the adverse effects that may arise due to the use of wild plants without sufficient knowledge must be reported to the native people.
Novel Iris Recognition Algorithm without Normalization Phase

Background: The study of biometrics deals with identifying the individuals perfectly for security reasons. Out of various biometric traits, this proposed method deals with iris recognition for user identification and verification. This paper presents the novel iris recognition algorithm by extricating the iris localization and normalization phase. Objective: After identifying the pupil boundary, iris regions around the pupil region are segmented with the aid of specially designed two wedges. Due to the presence of two special wedges, uniform dimensional iris strip is segmented even in the absence of normalization process. After the feature extraction process, classification of individual is carried out. Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix is used for feature extraction and Knearest neighbor is used for classification processes. Results: This proposed method is tested on CUHK Iris Image Dataset. Implementation of two special wedges for segmenting the iris region of 60 x 30 pixels size without the normalization process greatly reduces the computational complexity in this proposed iris recognition system. When tested with thirty classes of individuals with seven samples for each, almost all the individuals are identified correctly. Out of seven samples, four samples are used for training and three samples are used for testing purposes. Conclusion: When compared with the various existing iris recognition algorithms, this proposed iris recognition system results in robust iris recognition accuracy in the absence of iris localization phase and normalization phase. Moreover, the pupil localization phase is done accurately irrespective of its shape. With the help of tiny iris strip of 60 x 30 pixels size itself, this proposed method exactly authenticates an individual as an authorized or unauthorized individual.
Soil salinity assessment by some destructive and non destructive methods in calcareous soils

Salinity is a major problem limiting plant growth throughout the world. Various methods have been used to measure soil salinity. The destructive (standard) method involves soil sampling followed by laboratory measurement of electrical conductivity (EC) in saturated paste extracts, + : +, and + : / soil and water suspensions. Whereas, a non destructive (Sigma probe) method give a direct measurement of soil pore water salinity. Various methods for measuring salinity are commonly correlated in similar soils. The objective of this study was to determine the relationships between salinity readings obtained from standard methods and Sigma probe in calcareous soils of di#erent texture and salinity. Results from the laboratory methods (saturated paste extracts, + : +, and + : / soil/water ratios) were generally highly correlated (R *.32). Moreover, present of many salts in the soil were a#ecting linearity of the relationship between saturated paste extracts and + : / ratio in which the best correlation was found when the EC of saturated paste extract was less than ,*dSm . Sigma probe was successfully correlated with standard methods. Its readings were relatively a#ected by soil salts and water content, in which the best correlation was found between Sigma probe reading and EC measured at saturated paste extracts values, at low water content with EC less than +*dSm . Many salts (ex. Na , Ca , Mg etc.) were interfering the correlation equations between methods and as soil water increased more salts were dissolved and gave weak correlation factor (R). Using Sigma probe removes the need for soil sampling prior to salinity measurements and should allow in situ soil salinity measurements to be taken that could be related to standard methods. Moreover, readings of Sigma probe at low water content, which is around field capacity considered as the best measuring conditions. However, more researches with gradient increase in soil salinity and water content need to be done. Finally, soil properties and measuring conditions should be considered before applying any published method or equation for soil and water salinity evaluation. However, if the equations found in this study are suitable for certain soils, salinity measurements could be done in short time by Sigma probe and related to the standard methods.
CQChecker: A Tool to Check Ontologies in OWL-DL using Competency Questions written in Controlled Natural Language

Competency Questions (CQs) play an important role in ontology development lifecycles as they represent functional ontology requirements. One of the main problems that hamper their proper use lies in the lack of tools that assist users to check if CQs are being fulfilled by the ontology being defined, particularly when these ontologies are defined in OWL (Ontology Web Language) under Description Logic formalism. Recently there has been a trend in checking CQs against ontologies using the RDF query engine SPARQL. Naturally, this language, being created for the formalism of Semantic Networks, is clearly not expressive enough, and, thus, inadequate to check the fulfillment of OWL CQs. As SPARQL queries can be performed only at the assertional level (instances), or at most the schema level, they are not shaped to entail an answer which may be deduced by the ontology using a subsumption not explicit in the ontology. The tool takes advantage of the WordNet lexical to deal with synonyms and adjectives stated in the CQs. In some cases, the tool shows an explanation of why the CQ being treated is considered valid with regard to the ontology. We present the tool’s architecture, capabilities and test examples against a number of controlled natural language CQs. Keywordscompetency questions, checking, ontology.
Collaborative Educational Multimedia Design by Children: Do All Learners Benefit Equally?.

This paper presents and discusses the results of a project in which seven teams of elementary school students were involved in designing and implementing interactive multimedia resources in science for younger children. During a period of 3 months, students in grades 5 and 6 were divided into teams and met regularly to program the multimedia applications. Findings indicated that students improved significantly in their science understanding and programming skills. The benefits and problems of integrating science content with multimedia design are discussed, as well as reasons why the quality of dynamic and interactive components in students' multimedia productions proved to be a better indicator of students' learning than the quantity of multimedia produced. Insights gained from these analyses will contribute to the design of multimedia tools and environments in which young designers create software for their own learning. (AEF) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** file:///DVNECC/PROCEEDS/KAFAI/PROCEED.HTM Paper Session Collaborative Educational Multimedia Design by Children: Do All Learners Benefit Equally? Yasmin Kafai KIDS-Kids Interactive Design Studios University of California-Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies 2331 Moore Hall, Mailbox 951521 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521 310.206. 8150 kafaigseis.ucla. edu Sue Marshall KIDS-Kids Interactive Design Studios University of California-Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies 2331 Moore Hall, Mailbox 951521 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521 310.371. 8371 suemucla.edu Cynthia Carter Ching KIDS-Kids Interactive Design Studios University of California-Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies 2331 Moore Hall, Mailbox 951521 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521 310.794. 9503 cchinqucla.edu U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC). "
CHARACTERIZATION OF WC-Co THERMAL SPRAY COATINGS BASED ON THE COMPOSITE POWDERS

The article gives an overview of methods suitable for describing WC-Co powder granules and coatings for thermal spray powder development and production. Composite powder particles and microstructure grains vary from a few nanometres to hundreds of micrometers. It is therefore necessary to combine different analysis methods. In the granule and particle size analysis, laser diffraction, sieve analysis, image analysis and the BET method were used. To describe the microstructure and porosity of the thermal spray coating and composite powder granules, computer analysis was used. As a result, a good numeric database was obtained that enables us to compare the characteristics of the coating with new experimental coatings and to analyze the resistance of the coating to the abrasive wear.
Antecedents of Trust in B 2 B Buying Process A Literature

It is known that trust has a considerable power in maintaining a long-term relationship between the partners, which in the end can be beneficial for both parties. While it is not unfamiliar to discuss the importance of trust, yet some organizations are still chaotic with the concept of trust and the antecedents of trust itself. The purpose of this research is to give a clear view to organizations as well as managers regarding the concept of trust and the antecedents in creating or forming trust with other partners. This work covers a critical literature review of wellestablished theories in this research field, analysis them and come up with applicable frameworks. Based on the review, two frameworks regarding antecedents of trust were made. The first framework separates between the antecedents of interpersonal and inter-organizational trust, while the second one distinguishes between the antecedents of initial and gradual trust. As this paper focuses on b2b buying process, hence only the antecedents from inter-organizational level were taken into account. Afterwards, based on the antecedents of interorganizational trust, the classification between initial and gradual trust were made. It is argued that initial trust happens before the first-hand experience while gradual trust happens after repeated interaction, hence the examples of the antecedents of initial trust consists of firm’s size, brand, reputation, power, while the antecedents of gradual trust are willingness to customize, length of relationship, perceived quality. However, the frameworks proposed are still subject to be tested by empirical research. Supervisors: ir J.W. L van Benthem; Drs. P. Bliek
A Study on Benefit Evaluation of Recreational Resource by Developing Ecotourism in Tropical Islands

Although sustainable ecotourism has been developing for years, most people still travel purely for sightseeing, not ecotourism. The study applied Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to analyze the non-use economical benefits of the ecological resource on the Lanyu from the very first of this research, and then applied the SWOT analysis to develop the strategies on Ecotourism. Finally, the research applied the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate the strategies and provide the basis of the priority actions to policymaker. The results of this study included: (1) the research indicated that the visitors were willing to pay 785.558 NT dollars per year per person for the resource conservation on Lanyu. The total economical benefits are 45,051,751 NT dollars and this datum also could regard as the funds of ecological conservation applying from the government. (2) The strategies of ecotourism in the future are in sequence: (i) invite the professionals to set up the plans of conservation and integration on Lanyu; (ii) set up the visitor center, offer the interpreter and exhibit the agricultural products; (iii) proceed the control of carrying capacity for the sustainable development on ecology industry; (iv) build the exclusive exhibition and website to display the database of ecological conservation; (v) found the authority institution.
THERMAL STUDY OF A SUPERIOR LITHIUM ION POLYMER BATTERY

This paper presents a thermal behavior analysis of a Li-ion polymer battery that is more often used in automotive domain due to its high energy and power density. The thermal behavior of battery consists in describing the temperature distribution using different configuration of thermocouples and a thermographic analysis. It was shown that using different configuration of thermocouples reveals the distribution of battery temperature and the influence which this may have on its performance.
The materiality of dung: the manipulation of dung in Neolithic Mediterranean caves

This paper discusses the formation of layers of burnt herbivore dung in Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Age Mediterranean caves. While these layers are clearly connected with transhumant pastoralism and the practice of keeping herds in the caves, their formation should not be seen as the result of purely practical and ‘rational’ reasons. In this paper, I develop an argument that they are remnants of a complex manipulation of substances which includes burning dung to make white ash. Thus instead of seeing dung as a culturally neutral refuse which has to be disposed of, we might see its burning and deposition as the cultural manipulation of potent substance.
A Multilevel Analysis of European Democracies

The relationship between trust in representative political institutions and extra-representational protest behavior is contested. For some time, scholars have assumed that distrust is a major source of protest behavior. However, another interpretation highlights that protest has become normalized over time. Thus far, empirical studies have yielded mixed and inconclusive results. This working paper contributes to the debate by linking it to recent studies on how contextual factors both affect the amount of protest and interact with individual-level predictors. More specifically, we consider the institutional and cultural openness of political systems as a key contextual factor. With a multilevel analysis of 21 European countries, we show that citizens who distrust the national parliament, a key institution of representative democracy, are indeed more likely to take part in protest activities. Moreover, in open political contexts, citizens are more likely to protest, and we find a stronger negative micro-level association between political trust and protest behavior.
Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction II

Reviews Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction II by Talmy Givon. Philadelphia: John Benjamins 1990. Reviewed by Howard Williams University of California, Los Angeles Syntax: Volume II volume morphological and the second book in Givon's two- syntactic survey of language from a functional perspective. (For a review of the first volume, see Heath, is 1986) As a functionally-oriented grammarian, Givon concerns himself not with formal syntax but with the systematic uses to which constructions are put. Syntax is for him functional in a strong sense: the form of language is claimed to be a direct reflection of users' communicative needs at all levels of analysis. While the heavily English-oriented second volume may be read independently of the first, some grounding is in order. For Givon, the levels of analysis appropriate to syntax are the discourse-pragmatic, the propositional-semantic, the lexical-semantic and the phrasal- semantic; the four have individual requirements which occasionally conflict. To understand syntax is to understand these levels and the conflicts among them. Knowledge of diachronic change is also essential to a proper understanding of structure. Chapter 12, the opening chapter, deals with the coherence of noun phrases (NPs). The order of pre- and post-nominal modifiers is held to be determined on a scale of relevance as in Bybee (1985); there is a partial parallel to the placement of complements and adjuncts in formal approaches. Elements of NPs tend to be contiguous rather than scattered through a clause for iconic reasons, to preserve functional unity. Conjunction of NPs is limited to NPs of equal thematic status with similar case roles. Separate events will tend to be encoded by separate clauses (p. 488); a fairly detailed section illustrates the pragmatic-cognitive difficulties of this phenomenon. In a section on nominalization of clauses, a scalar order of nominal-like phrases is presented, with/ clauses at the bottom and the enemy's destruction of the c/fy-type nominals at the top. Exactly what this would mean in syntactic terms (e.g., the inability of infinitives to serve well as the subjects of yes-no questions) is not addressed. Chapter 13 deals with verbal complementation, investigating the semantic nature of the relationship between main and embedded
A Simple Model of Capital Imports

Following Ramsey (1928) theoretical framework, this paper develops a dynamic model where a community is assumed to be importing two forms of foreign capital: external debt and foreign direct investment (FDI). The community is assumed to derive utility from consumption of goods and positive externalities of FDI, while deriving disutility from negative externalities of external borrowing. Results suggest that: first, a higher disutility of debt implies a higher shadow interest rate.1 The higher the utility derived from FDI, however, the lower the shadow interest rate. Second, external borrowing will be attractive as long as the relevant interest rate is less or equal to the net marginal product of capital. Third, the study of the social optimum shows that the externalities that arise from foreign capital do not affect the steady state which is always a saddle point.
Bitcoin Price: Is it really that New Round of Volatility can be on way?

To the mass public, Bitcoin is well known since its creation by its extreme volatility. However, Bitcoin’s declining fluctuations since the start 2015 has revived our attention to assess whether there is a coming Bitcoin market phase. Using an optimal GARCH model on daily data, we show that the volatility of Bitcoin price decreases notably when comparing the periods [December 2010-June 2015] and [January 2015-June 2015]. During the first interval, the Threshold- GARCH estimates reveal that there is a great duration of persistence and thus tends to follow a long memory process. For the second period, the chosen specification (Exponential-GARCH) displays less volatility persistence. Despite this remarkable volatility’s decrease, we cannot argue that Bitcoin market is mature, since the degree of asymmetry remains strong; Specifically, Bitcoin is likely to be driven by negative rather than positive shocks.
Improving control of Duponchelia fovealis (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) by rooting media related strategies.

Soil-dwelling predatory mites can be very effective as biological control agents against larvae of the lepidopteral pest Duponchelia fovealis. Some growing media were reported to have natural high level and stable populations of predatory mite. The objective of this experiment was to define conditions to establish stable predatory mite populations in the rooting medium and to assess the direct effect of the rooting media on pest development. Eight rooting media were prepared, including a range of degradabilities as measured with the Oxygen Uptake Rate method (OUR). The OUR range was created by mixing peat products, coir dust, bark, perlite, compost and wood fiber. Each treatment was split: half with and half without a commercially used mulch to create a drier top layer. Kalanchoes were grown on these rooting media. After one week soil-dwelling predatory mites (Hypoaspis miles) were added. Adults of the pest Duponchelia fovealis were released during a number of weeks. Both populations were counted. Results show that the OUR range was successfully achieved. The commercial mulch, a cork based fine granulate, reduced the numbers of Duponchelia by 32%. The number of predatory mites was related to the oxygen uptake of the rooting media (R2=0.87). The predatory mite reduced the numbers of Duponchelia larvae on average by 58%. Thus, biological control by soil-dwelling predatory mites can be improved by offering rooting media with an increased degradability as measured by the oxygen uptake rate. The combined effects of using predatory mite and mulch layers are discussed.
Impact of Cash Grants on Multidimensional Poverty in South Africa

South Africa is estimated to allocate approximately US $12 billion for the 2014/15 fiscal year for social grants (Bhorat and Cassim, 2014). With an extensive coverage and budget, it is one of the most progressive social security schemes among low and even middle income countries. It helps mitigate income poverty and inequality, and has been shown to have a positive effect on household socioeconomic outcomes such as health and education, employment and other demographic outcomes. However, no study has thus far examined the impact of these grants on the overall or associative deprivation across households. This paper uses the National Income Dynamics Survey (NIDS) to derive the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (CSPI) for South Africa, and then estimate the impact that social assistance grants have on both of these composite indices of poverty measurement. The results show that increases in the income from a cash grant, leads to lower multidimensional poverty level in households. Another meaningful result is that cash grants seem to have reduced the multidimensional inequality as well. Using an instrument and a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to account for the issue of endogeneity in child and old age grants respectively, health and standard of living are found to be the major channels through which these grants work in reducing multidimensional poverty and inequality.