Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytological And Molecular Identification Of Haemogregarina Stepanowi In Blood Samples Of The European Pond Turtle (Emys Orbicularis) From Quarantine At Belgrade Zoo

Abstract Blood smears stained with Diff Quick are the initial tool for cytological diagnosis of Haemogregarina spp. However, the development of sensitive and specific molecular methods enabled the detection and identification of parasites in the sample and to clarify the evolutionary relationships of adeleorinid parasites within the Apicomplexa. The current study was attempted in order to perform cytological investigation and molecular identification of the hemoparasites in thirty European pond turtles (Emys orbicularis) from the quarantine section at Belgrade Zoo, which have been found in poor health condition with massive skin hemorrhages, based on intraerythrocytic parasitic forms on hematological smears and 18S rDNA sequence, respectively. Different life cycle stages of the Haemogregarina sp. were noticed within the erythrocytes in the peripheral blood. Biochemical analysis indicated lower values of AST and iron in most of the infected turtles while hematological analysis showed a changed hematocrit value, a decrease in the number of red blood cells and low hemoglobin levels. Amplifications of the 18S rDNA sequence of Haemogregarina were detected in 30/30 (100%) turtles with clinical symptoms. The identity of PCR products was confirmed by direct DNA sequencing. Future research concerning H. stepanowi in Serbia should be applied to its definitive host-the leech.
The Ground State of the Hydrogen Molecule

The method used by Hylleraas in treating the He atom has been extended to the H2 molecule. The method consists of setting up a wave function as a series in the five variables required, electronic separation being introduced explicitly as one of the variables. The coefficients are then determined so as to produce the lowest energy. The energy found is within 0.03 v.e. of the most probable experimental value, while the form and location of the potential energy curve for various internuclear distances agree with those deduced from spectra to within similar limits. The value of the function is computed for several configurations of the electrons, and compared with other approximations. Application of the method to other problems is discussed. A method is given for the numerical solution of secular equations of high degree.
University of Groningen Efficient Structure-Aware Selection Techniques for 3 D Point Cloud Visualizations with 2 DOF

Data selection is a fundamental task in visualization because it serves as a pre-requisite to many follow-up interactions. Efficient spatial selection in 3D point cloud datasets consisting of thousands or millions of particles can be particularly challenging. We present two new techniques, TeddySelection and CloudLasso, that support the selection of subsets in large particle 3D datasets in an interactive and visually intuitive manner. Specifically, we describe how to spatially select a subset of a 3D particle cloud by simply encircling the target particles on screen using either the mouse or direct-touch input. Based on the drawn lasso, our techniques automatically determine a bounding selection surface around the encircled particles based on their density. This kind of selection technique can be applied to particle datasets in several application domains. TeddySelection and CloudLasso reduce, and in some cases even eliminate, the need for complex multi-step selection processes involving Boolean operations. This was confirmed in a formal, controlled user study in which we compared the more flexible CloudLasso technique to the standard cylinder-based selection technique. This study showed that the former is consistently more efficient than the latter—in several cases the CloudLasso selection time was half that of the corresponding cylinder-based selection.
Robust Networks to Cascading Failures

Nowadays, the ongoing progress of networking in essential utilities such as the Internet, the WWW, transportation networks, electrical power grid networks, etc., brings significant benefits to the quality of our life. However, networked systems hold a certain danger that a failure of a single node in the system may diffuse to all other nodes. This chain of failure is widely known as cascading failure. Examples of cascading failure include disease epidemics, traffic congestion, electrical power system blackouts, and so on. In these systems, if external shocks or excess loads at some nodes are propagated to other connected nodes due to failure, the domino effects often come with disastrous consequences. Thus, how to prevent cascading failures in complex networks becomes an important emergent issue. In this paper, we consider an overload-based cascading failure model and design a robust network structure against this type of cascading failure. Numerical simulations show that the proposed network, which consists of a complete cluster of connected hub nodes, and periphery nodes connecting one of hub nodes in the cluster, is least susceptible to cascading failures compared with other types of networks.
Exploring the utility of risk management as an integrating framework for the development and application of water resource planning tools

Impacts from overallocation and drought have caused a widespread decline in the ecological health of river systems within Australia and elsewhere. Within the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia, a whole-of-Basin Plan, as described in the Australian Government’s Water Act 2007, is being developed to redress issues of overallocation of water resources. The Act requires an identification of the risks to the condition, or continued availability, of the water resources within the Basin; and strategies to be adopted to manage, or address, these risks. This legal requirement to consider risk, while adding another dimension to what is already a very complex multi-layered process, provides us with the opportunity to explore its use as an overarching framework for water resource planning itself, and for the development and delivery of modelling and other decision support tools to support the planning process. Aspects that are of particular interest are – how does risk ‘scale up‘; how does risk fit with public policy processes? ; how do we quantify and communicate risk such that it improves, rather than confuses, decision processes? how do we measure different levels of risk? how do we develop tools that incorporate risk (and associated uncertainty) that are relevant to water resource planners? This paper explores some of these issues in its investigation of the utility of risk management frameworks to provide cohesion within the water planning sphere. While much of this exploration is theoretical in nature, the paper includes a case study of a set of Bayesian network tools developed to assess risks to water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin, as defined in the Act.
Role of the ENPP1 K121Q Polymorphism and Susceptibility to Type 2 Diabetes in North Indian Punjabi Population

In many worldwide populations, the K121Q variant of ENPP1 gene are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The objective of the present study was to investigate the association of K121Q variant of ENPP1 gene with T2DM in North Indian Punjabi populations. A total of 500 participants consisting 250 T2DM patients and 250 healthy unrelated subjects were recruited for this study. The PCR-RFLP method was used for genotyping of K121Q polymorphism. The minor allele Q was found to be significantly associated with increased risk of T2DM (OR: 1.44, 95% CI: 1.06-1.94, p=0.015). A significant difference in QQ genotype was observed between T2DM patients and control groups (OR: 2.04, 95% CI: 1.04-3.98, p=0.033). It is also observed that co-dominant model would be best fit to predict the susceptible gene effect (OR: 1.36, 95% CI: 1.04-1.80, p=0.026). This study confirmed the association of ENPP1 polymorphism with increased risk of T2DM.
Performance-based earthquake engineering applied to a bridge in liquefied and laterally spreading ground.

P ERFORMANCE -B ASED E ARTHQUAKE E NGINEERING A PPLIED TO A B RIDGE IN L IQUEFIED AND L ATERALLY S PREADING G ROUND Scott J. Brandenberg 1) , and Pirooz Kashighandi 2) 1) Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, United States 2) Graduate Student, Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, United States sjbrandenberg@ucla.edu, pirooz@ucla.edu Abstract: Fragility functions developed for liquefaction and lateral spreading against typical classes of bridges are integrated with a probabilistic lateral spreading ground displacement methodology in a performance-based earthquake engineering example problem. A site near UCLA is selected and a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is performed to obtain a hazard curve expressing mean annual rate of exceedance of peak ground acceleration. The disaggregation of the seismic hazard curve is also computed. A liquefiable soil profile is selected, and hazard curve expressing mean annual rate of non-exceedance of factor of safety against liquefaction is computed from the seismic hazard curve and disaggregation. A hazard curve expressing mean annual rate of exceedance of lateral spreading ground displacement is then computed using a semi-empirical probabilistic framework. The ground displacement hazard curve is compared with a typical approach wherein a probabilistic ground motion is selected and the engineering calculations are performed deterministically. Finally, the fragility functions are applied and a hazard curve is computed that expresses the mean annual rate of exceedance of various engineering demand parameters. This example problem shows how performance-based earthquake engineering can be applied to liquefaction problems to better communicate uncertainty and risk to decision- and policy- makers. 1. INTRODUCTION As of 2008, more than half of the earth's population lives in cities. Growth of our urban centers has placed a premium on sites with marginal or poor quality soils that had previously been considered inappropriate for development. This problem is particularly pertinent to geotechnical earthquake engineering because (1) a large fraction of the world's urban centers are in seismically active regions, (2) loose or soft soils have exhibited poor behavior due to cyclic failure and liquefaction in past earthquakes, causing death and billions of dollars in economic damages, and (3) our understanding of the seismic behavior of these soils is not well calibrated with meaningful experience because (thankfully) earthquakes are rare occurrences and few designers live to see how design-level shaking affects their projects. Geotechnical engineers strive to learn as much as possible from earthquakes as they occur around the world, but our evaluation procedures remain fraught with uncertainty. Considering how much uncertainty
CNN+RNN Depth and Skeleton based Dynamic Hand Gesture Recognition

Human activity and gesture recognition is an important component of rapidly growing domain of ambient intelligence, in particular in assisting living and smart homes. In this paper, we propose to combine the power of two deep learning techniques, the convolutional neural networks (CNN) and the recurrent neural networks (RNN), for automated hand gesture recognition using both depth and skeleton data. Each of these types of data can be used separately to train neural networks to recognize hand gestures. While RNN were reported previously to perform well in recognition of sequences of movement for each skeleton joint given the skeleton information only, this study aims at utilizing depth data and apply CNN to extract important spatial information from the depth images. Together, the tandem CNN+RNN is capable of recognizing a sequence of gestures more accurately. As well, various types of fusion are studied to combine both the skeleton and depth information in order to extract temporal-spatial information. An overall accuracy of 85.46% is achieved on the dynamic hand gesture-14/28 dataset.
Spadix Function in the Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum

Aroids are perennial herbs characterized by inflorescences consisting of a finger-like spadix surrounded by a vase-like spathe. A prominent aroid in Georgia is the Jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum. We assessed the role of the spadix in attracting insect visitors to Arisaema triphyllum. Two study sites near Dahlonega, Georgia, were chosen: one along an unnamed first-order stream and the other along third-order Cane Creek. Plants received either ablation of the distal appendix, removal of the spadix tip, or a sham ablation. Arthropod visitors were captured with a small sticky trap placed inside the spathe. Despite the treatment applied, the number of Diptera captured was not affected. In contrast, ablation reduced the number of Collembola captured to just 29 % of that of the other two treatments (interaction of taxon and treatment after square root transformation: F 10,480 = 2.761, P = 0.003). Pollination in A. triphyllum has previously been attributed to fungus gnats (Diptera) and Heterothrips arisaemae (Thysanoptera). Our results suggest that Collembola, which do not fly, may play a role in pollination, perhaps within clustered plants in which long-distance travel is not necessary.
Natal versus breeding dispersal: Evolution in a model system

Dispersal may be age-specific and is often biased towards juveniles. Some explanations for this pattern assume special social or genetic advantages for juveniles. Using a model, we studied the competition of individuals using different dispersal strategies characterized by the magnitude and mode of dispersal as well as the age class where dispersal occurs. We found that the evolution of natal versus breeding dispersal is influenced by the age structure of the population. Details of population regulation and environmental fluctuations are also important because they influence the distribution of age classes. Our model shows that natal dispersal can be favoured over a wide range of conditions, either as a pure strategy or in combination with breeding dispersal, even without assuming special advantages for dispersing juveniles.
Establishing the optimal conditions for fructose production from chicory inulin

In the present study, the Box-Behnken design was used to determine the optimal conditions for fructose production using the inulinase (enzyme) on chicory inulin (substrate). The inulinase concentration, pH, temperature and time of hydrolysis are the most important factors used to analyze the fructose production. Concentration of enzyme of 8-80 INU·g -1 , temperatures between 50 and 65°C, pH of 4.0-6.5 and hydrolysis time between 1 and 96 hours were studied to establish the optimal conditions for fructose production from chicory inulin. Enzyme concentration and hydrolysis time were the most important variables which have positive effects on enzymatic hydrolysis. For achieving high yields of fructose, for inulin hydrolysis, enzyme concentrations over 31.0 INU·g -1 and hydrolysis time over 50 hours were necessary. The maximum yield of enzymatic hydrolysis was 0.959 g of fructose/g of inulin for the following conditions of inulin hydrolysis: enzyme concentration of 44 INU·g -1 , reaction temperature of 65°C, pH of 5.25 and 96 hours of hydrolysis.
Comparison of photosynthetic responses in diploid and haploid life-cycle phases of Emiliania huxleyi (Prymnesiophyceae)

Emiliania huxleyi is a ubiquitous coccolithophore, capable of forming large blooms. This species presents a digenetic heteromorphic life cycle, the non-motile diploid phase typically bearing coccoliths and the flagellated haploid phase being non-calcified. Oxygen production rates at differ- ent irradiances of both phases were studied in mid-exponential and transitional growth phases in cul- tures grown under identical conditions. There were no significant differences in basic photosynthetic parameters (α chl a , maximum light utilization coefficient; P chl a max, the light-saturated maximal rate of photosynthesis; Ek, the light-saturation parameter) between the 2 life-cycle phases; however, whereas the diploid phase did not exhibit photoinhibition at irradiances up to 1000 μmol photons m -2 s -1 , photoinhibition was recorded in the haploid phase above 400 to 500 μmol photons m -2 s -1 and photosynthetic rate decreased to ca. 75% of Pmax at 1400 μmol photons m -2 s -1 . The 2 phases cultured under identical (non-saturating in terms of light) conditions did not present any significant dif- ferences in pigment content. These results are discussed in an ecological context. The lack of photoinhibition could confer a competitive advantage on the diploid stage, notably in a turbulent environment. For the haploid stage, the occurrence of photoinhibition may indicate niche separation (spatial and/or temporal) relative to the diploid phase.
New Media and Privacy the Privacy Paradox in the Digital World: I Will Not Disclose My Data. Actually, I Will ... It Depends

The inconsistency of privacy attitudes and privacy behavior is often referred to as the “privacy paradox”. In this study, we analyze the privacy paradox through a methodology that allows investigating user behavior in relation to transferring personal data or not in a real context. Our intention is to investigate privacy as a negotiation by verifying whether the incongruous consumer behavior known as the privacy paradox also occurs in a real and blind context, and how this is affected by the data commoditization trend.The classical methodology in these types of studies is based on questionnaires administered to participants in an experiment and the questions relate to their intention to disclose their personal information in different hypothetical scenarios. In all these types of research, the respondents know they are participating in an experiment without any real gains or losses as a result of their actions. To understand how users behave when facing the disclosure or otherwise of personal data in a real context, we analyzed ex-post data from different digital campaigns through one of the most frequently used data vault platforms. Via this platform, a company can configure a series of user actions by rewarding them for every action with a discount on a product. Through this platform, we therefore had the opportunity to investigate how real users in real contexts manage the exchange of personal data for discounts on one or more products.
Lightning detection in planetary atmospheres

Lightning in planetary atmospheres is now a well‐established concept. Here we discuss the available detection techniques for, and observations of, planetary lightning by spacecraft, planetary landers and, increasingly, sophisticated terrestrial radio telescopes. Future space missions carrying lightning‐related instrumentation are also summarised, specifically the European ExoMars mission and Japanese Akatsuki mission to Venus, which could both yield lightning observations in 2016.
Chemical constituents of Allium stipitatum regel (persian shallot) essential oil

A. stipitatum (Synonym: A. hirtifolium) or Persian shallot from Amaryllidaceae family with indigenous name of ‘‘Mooseer’’ is one of the important edible Alliums in Iran. It is native and endemic from northwestern to southern of Iran and grows as a wild plant in the Zagross Mountains at high elevations of different provinces with the climate of very cold to moderate cold. In this study, essential oil constituents of A. stipitatum were investigated through gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. After obtaining the chromatograms and mass spectra, the essential compounds of the essential oil were determined. As shown 1-Butene,1-(methylthio)-(Z) (18.21%), Methyl methylthiomethyl disulfide (8.41%), Dimethyl tetrasulfide (6.47%), Piperitenone oxide (4.55%) were the most abundant components and comprised 37.64% of the essential oil (Figure 1). While 2,5-Diethylthiophene (0.07%) and n-Nonanal (0.06%) were detected in lower amounts. The presence of compounds showed mono-sulfur (22.42%), disulfide (1.81%), tri-sulfur (13.57%) and tetra-sulfur compounds (6.47%). The results indicated that the highest amount of sulfur compounds is related to mono-sulfur compounds.
Cultural Filtrate of Rhizobium spp. and Arbuscular Mycorrhiza are Potential Biological Control Agents Against Root Rot Fungal Diseases of Faba Bean

3 Abstract: A field experiment was conducted in 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 to evaluate the potential antagonistic activity of the cultural filtrates of the three wild rhizobial isolates M. L (R1), L. C (R2), T. S (R3), 41 R. leguminosarum ICARDA 441 (R4) strain and arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi in the biocontrol of damping- off and root rot diseases of faba bean plants, when applied in individual or combined treatments, under naturally infested soil with pathogenic fungi: Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium spp. and F. solani. The bioassays of the rhizobia were tested. All treatments reduced the damping-off and infected plants as compared with untreated control. The combined treatment R2 + AM was the most effective treatment; it gave the lowest percentage of damping-off (6.67 and 8.89) and the highest percentage of healthy plants (86.58 and 83.33) in the two seasons, respectively. Beside the effect on disease control, seeds treatment with culture filtrates of the tested rhizobia or AM fungi in individual or combined treatments improved plant growth as indicated by the increased plant shoot height, root nodulation by native rhizobia, shoot dry weight and seeds yield of faba bean plants in the two trials, especially combined treatment R2 + AM. On the other hand the used rhizobia especially, isolate (L. C ), proved to be IAA, exopolysaccharides and chitinase producers. The soaking of faba bean seeds 4 in cultural filtrates of Rhizobium spp. individually or in combination with AM fungi acts as a bioprotection agents against faba bean plant root rot diseases, in addition to increasing plant growth and yield.
Observer Design for Triangular Systems Under Weak Observability Assumptions

This paper presents results on the solvability of the observer design problem for general nonlinear triangular systems with inputs, under weak observability assumptions. The local state estimation is exhibited by means of a delayed time-varying Luenberger-type system. In order to achieve the global estimation, a switching sequence of observers is designed.
Do Trade Agreements Reduce the Volatility of Agricultural Distortions

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which trade agreements affect agricultural trade policy volatility. Using a new panel database compiled as part of the World Bank's agricultural distortions research project, the author estimate the effect of regionalism on the volatility of price distortions measured by the absolute value of their first differences, averaged, for each country and year, over all agricultural goods. Using an instrumental-variable approach to correct for the endogeneity of regional trade agreements, (RTAs), the author fined that participation in RTAs has a significantly negative effect on agricultural trade-policy volatility. The author find that the World Trade Organization (WTO) agricultural agreement also contributed to reducing agricultural trade-policy volatility, in spite of the weak disciplines involved, but the effect is only weakly identified. The results are robust to a variety of robustness checks and hold, in particular, for the Latin American sub-sample.