Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Preliminary study on bats in a Small-scale Mining Site in South central Mindanao, Philippines

Land-use change and its associated activities have been strongly linked to the decline of many bat species populations glob- ally. This study was conducted with a primary goal to document the bat diversity on a small scale mining site in Baranggay Kinayao, Bagumbayan, Sultan, Kudarat, Philippines. A total of 227 individuals were identified, representing two families (Pteropodidae and Hipposideridae), eight genera, and eight species of bats. Three species are endemic to the Philippines namely Haplonycteris fischeri, Ptenochirus jagori, and the Vulnerable Megaerops wetmorei. Pteropodid Cynopterus brachyotis were found to be the most dominant and tolerant species in the area compared to all species combined. In addition, a significant decrease in bat activity was noted during active blasting period, as evidenced by a low capture rate compared to non-blasting period. This preliminary finding suggests the need for further exploration of how human-induced noise increase the effects of the land-use change to bat diversity and population.
Coarse-grained potential for interaction with a spherical colloidal particle and planar wall

An effective coarse-grained interaction potential between a point particle and a sphericalcolloidal particle with continuously distributed inverse power-law interaction sites is de-rived. The potential covers all ranges of spherical particle size, from a point particle up to aninfinitely large particle forming a planar surface. In the small size limit, the point-to-pointinteraction is recovered, while in the limit of an infinitely large sphere the potential comesover to the known particle–wall potentials as, e.g., the 9–3 potential in the case of theLennard–Jones interaction. Correctness and usefulness of the derived potential is exempli-fied by its application to SPC/E water at a graphite sphere and wall.Keywords: Spherical colloidal particles; Surface interaction; Effective coarse-grained poten-tial; Molecular simulations; Water at graphite surface.
Mixed Higher Order Variational Model for Image Recovery

A novel mixed higher order regularizer involving the first and second degree image derivatives is proposed in this paper. Using spectral decomposition, we reformulate the new regularizer as a weighted L1-L2 mixed norm of image derivatives. Due to the equivalent formulation of the proposed regularizer, an efficient fast projected gradient algorithm combined with monotone fast iterative shrinkage thresholding, called, FPG-MFISTA, is designed to solve the resulting variational image recovery problems under majorization-minimization framework. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed regularization scheme by the experimental comparisons with total variation (TV) scheme, nonlocal TV scheme, and current second degree methods. Specifically, the proposed approach achieves better results than related state-of-the-art methods in terms of peak signal to ratio (PSNR) and restoration quality.
TOPOLOGÍA ALGEBRAICA: HOMOLOGÍA SINGULAR

In this paper we introduce the singular homology theory. First, we develop its main characteristics and properties. Then, we mainly focus on using its power to deduce some important results in topology such as the Brouwer fixed point theorem in arbitrary dimension, the Invariance of Dimension and Domain, or the Jordan-Brouwer separation theorem. We also give a rough idea about simplicial homology and compare it with the singular one. After computing the homology of the spheres, we briefly introduce the degree theory, presenting its main properties and using them to prove the non- existence of a continuous tangent vector field on S n and the uniqueness of Z2 as a nontrivial group acting freely on S n , both when n is even. As a final point, we present a generalization of the Jordan-Brouwer theorem that explains the dierence between homology and homotopy: the Alexander horned sphere shows that Schonflies theorem fails in dimension 3, but the failure is homotopic, not homologic.
Geocoding Tweets Based on Semantic Web and Ontologies

Human ability to understand approximate references to locations, disambiguated by means of context and reasoning about spatial relationships, is the key to describe spatial environments and to share information about them. In this paper, we propose an approach for geocoding that takes advantage of the spatial relationships contained in the text of tweets, using semantic web, ontologies and spatial analyses. Microblog text has special characteristics (e.g. slang, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.) and thus represents a special variation of natural language. The main objective of this work is to associate spatial relationships found in text with a spatial footprint, to determine the location of the event described in the tweet. The feasibility of the proposal is demonstrated using a corpus of 200,000 tweets posted in Spanish related with traffic events in Mexico City. Geocoding Tweets Based on Semantic Web and Ontologies
APPLICATION OF THE MICROSCOPIC METHOD IN CUTANEOUS LEISHMANIA DIAGNOSIS ZASTOSOWANIE METODY MIKROSKOPOWEJ W DIAGNOSTYCE SKÓRNEJ LEISZMANIOZY

Introduction: Cutaneous leishmania is spreading fast. This study aims at developing the microscopic method to achieve a full detection of all positive cases of leishmania. Methods: 50 human cases have been studied by applying microscopic smears stained with Wright stain. Microscopi c photos were taken for the presumed unfamiliar figures. Results: Mononuclear cells with tails are present at a rate of (98%). They are associated with Leishman Donovan (LD) bodies in 50% of the cases. The polygonal figures and the spherical forms are present at the same rate (60%) and are as sociated with LD bodies in 24% of the cases. The small promastigote like forms are se en at a rate of (76%) and are associated with LD bo dies in 26% of the cases. The giant promastigotes like forms are present in (80% of the cases) and are associated with LD bodies in 28% of the cases. Candle flame forms are present in (40% of the cases) and are associate d with the LD bodies in 21% of the cases. Discussion: It is applicable to use those discovered figures in diagnosing cutaneous leishmania.
Ultra-Sensitive Analysis of Microcystin LR Using Microchip Based Detection System

For the detection of cyanobacterial toxin, an Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was integrated into a PDMS microchip. The conjugates of microcystin-LR (MCLR) and keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) were adsorbed on the surface of polystyrene beads and these MCLR-KLH polystyrene beads were introduced into a microchamber. MCLR on the surface of polystyrene beads reacted with horseradish peroxides (HRP) conjugated anti-MCLR monoclonal antibody (mAb) which had a competitive reaction with MCLR in water sample. After the enzyme substrate 3,3,5,5-tetramethyl benzidine (TMB) was injected into the chamber and catalyzed by HRP, the color change was detected with a liquid-cord waveguide. This integration shortened the conventional ELISA analysis time from several hours to about 30 min with only 4.2 L MCLR sample consuming which was useful for the environmental analysis. More over, troublesome operations required for ELISA could be replaced by simple operations. The microchip based detection system showed a good sensitivity of 0.05 g/L and maintained good reliability through its quantitative range with low coefficients of variation (2.5-10.5%).
Physical and Human Capital over the Business Cycle

The available disaggregated capital data are across industries. What one needs inter alia when calibrating multi-sector neoclassical growth models, are not industries’ capital endowments but the ones used in producing commodities, particularly consumption and investment goods. To fill this gap, following the existing literature on capital measurement and input-output analysis, we have sequentially produced these estimates for the US economy over the period 1998-2007. We have then used our estimates to calibrate and solve numerically a three-sector optimal growth model of physical and human capital accumulation. Using the right capital shares and stocks has improved the ability of the three-sector model to explain business cycle fluctuations.
Improved Computer Network Protocol for Secondary Users’ Informatioin Exchanges in a Cognitive Radio

With the development of the communication network, the cognitive radio becomes good enough to provide the reliable spectrum resources and reliable communications for the secondary users (SUs). This paper considers improving a computer network protocol and then utilizing this computer protocol for secondary users' (SUs') information exchanges in cognitive radio. Energy detection is used to find the idle spectrum resource of the primary user (PU). The threshold value can be found outto guarantee that the energy detector can run in the optimal performance. Thus, the physical layer can be built in a good condition. Then the computer network protocol, i.e. UPD, can be utilized for information exchanges between SUs for better spectrum sensing. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate our proposed method.
Classification of Traversable Surfaces for Navigation Combining Multiple Cues Toward a Visual-Based Learning System

This paper describes a vision-based ground-plane classification system for autonomous indoor mobile-robot that takes advantage of the synergy in combining together multiple visual-cues. A priori knowledge of the environment is important in many biological systems, in parallel with their mutually beneficial reactive systems. As such, a learning model approach is taken here for the classification of the ground/object space, initialised through a new Distributed-Fusion (D-Fusion) method that captures colour and textural data using Superpixels. A Markov Random Field (MRF) network is then used to classify, regularise, employ a priori constraints, and merge additional ground/object information provided by other visual cues (such as motion) to improve classification images. The developed system can classify indoor test-set ground-plane surfaces with an average true-positive to false-positive rate of 90.92% to 7.78% respectively on test-set data. The system has been designed in mind to fuse a variety of different visual-cues. Consequently it can be customised to fit different situations and/or sensory architectures accordingly.
When rare species are not important: linking plot-based vegetation classifications and landscape-scale mapping in Australian savanna vegetation

Plant communities in extensive landscapes are often mapped remotely using detectable patterns based on vegetation structure and canopy species with a high relative cover. A plot-based classification which includes species with low relative canopy cover and ignores vegetation structure, may result in plant communities not easily reconcilable with the landscape patterns represented in mapping. In our study, we investigate the effects on classification outcomes if we (1) remove rare species based on canopy cover, and (2) incorporate vegetation structure by weighting species’ cover by different measures of vegetation height. Using a dataset of 101 plots of savanna vegetation in north-eastern Australia we investigated first, the effect of removing rare species using four cover thresholds (1, 5, 8 and 10% contribution to total cover) and second, weighting species by four height measures including actual height as well as continuous and categorical transformations. Using agglomerative hierarchical clustering we produced a classification for each dataset and compared them for differences in: patterns of plot similarity, clustering, species richness and evenness, and characteristic species. We estimated the ability of each classification to predict species cover using generalised linear models. We found removing rare species at any cover threshold produced characteristic species appearing to correspond to landscape scale changes and better predicted species cover in grasslands and shrublands. However, in woodlands it made no difference. Using actual height of vegetation layer maintained vegetation structure, emphasised canopy and then sub-canopy species in clustering, and predicted species cover best of the height-measures tested. Thus, removing rare species and weighting species by height are useful techniques for identifying plant communities from plot-based classifications which are conceptually consistent with those in landscape scale mapping. This increases the confidence of end-users in both the classifications and the maps, thus enhancing their use in land management decisions.
A comparison of rainfall measurements from multiple instruments

Simultaneous observations of rainfall collected by a tipping bucket rain gauge (TBRG), a weighing rain gauge (WRG), an optical rain gauge (ORG), a present weather detector (PWD), a Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer (JWD), and a 2-D video disdrometer (2DVD) during January to October 2012 were analyzed to evaluate how accurately they measure rainfall and drop size distributions (DSDs). For the longterm observations, there were different discrepancies in rain amounts from six instruments on the order of 0 % to 27.7 %. The TBRG, WRG, and ORG have a good agreement, while the PWD and 2DVD record higher and the JWD lower rain rates whenR > 20 mm h−1, the ORG agrees well with JWD and 2DVD, while the TBRG records higher and the WRG lower rain rates whenR > 20 mm h−1. Compared with the TBRG and WRG, optical and impact instruments can measure the rain rate accurately in the light rain. The overall DSDs of JWD and 2DVD agree well with each other, except for the small raindrops ( D < 1 mm). JWD can measure more moderate-size raindrops (0.3 mm < D < 1.5 mm) than 2DVD, but 2DVD can measure more small-size raindrops (D < 0.3 mm). 2DVD has a larger measurement range; more overall raindrops can be measured by 2DVD than by JWD in different rain rate regimes. But small raindrops might be underestimated by 2DVD when R > 15 mm h−1. The small raindrops tend to be omitted in the more large-size raindrops due to the shadow effect of light. Therefore, the measurement accuracy of small raindrops in the heavy rainfall from 2DVD should be handled carefully.
Efficacy of Various Strains of Infectious Bronchitis Vaccine against Nephropathogenic Infectious Bronchitis Virus Isolated from Chickens in Thailand

One hundred, 1 week old, female broiler chickens were divided into 5 groups, 20 chickens in each. Each group was vaccinated with a different strain of infectious bronchitis vaccine; Ma5, H120 and a local strain produced by the Department of Livestock Development for groups 3, 4 and 5, respectively. All the vaccinated chickens received intraocular vaccine at 1 week old. The chickens in groups 1 and 2 served as a negative control and a positive control group, respectively. All the chickens were weighed at 1, 4 and 6 weeks old and challenged at 4 weeks old with nephropathogenic infectious bronchitis virus isolate THA001. Clinical signs and mortality rates were observed for 2 weeks post-challenge. Serological responses were determined at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 weeks old. The results revealed that the body weight of chickens among the vaccinated groups was not significantly different (p>0.05) both before and after challenge but the body weight of chickens in the vaccinated group was significantly higher than the chickens in the positive control group (p<0.05). After challenge, the mortality rate of the chickens in groups 3, 4 and 5 was significantly lower than that of the positive control group (p<0.05). The serological response of chickens in the vaccinated groups at 2 weeks post-challenge was significantly higher than that of the positive control group (p<0.05).
Ship design optimization in the multimodal logistics framework

The significance of multimodal transportation systems has worldwide increased significantly over the past two decades. European Union, United States and Japan have increased their efforts in studying the dynamics of multimodal transportation networks. In the paper about recent research work on the optimization problem of the design of ferries and Ro-Ro cargo ships using pattern recognition techniques (Artificial Neural Networks), Multi-objective Genetic Algorithms (MOGA) and the know-how created through the EU FP6 Research Project LOGBASED. A case study on the transportation of agricultural goods from the Greek Island of Crete to the markets of Munich is presented. The results of this study prove useful for the assessment of viable solutions serving in a balanced way for the interests of shipyards, ship operators, cargo owners, banking and financial institutions, investors and government administrations in the framework of optimized transportation scenarios.
CLASSIFICATION OF MLS POINT CLOUDS IN URBAN SCENES USING DETRENDED GEOMETRIC FEATURES FROM SUPERVOXEL-BASED LOCAL CONTEXTS

Abstract. In this work, we propose a classification method designed for the labeling of MLS point clouds, with detrended geometric features extracted from the points of the supervoxel-based local context. To achieve the analysis of complex 3D urban scenes, acquired points of the scene should be tagged with individual labels of different classes. Thus, assigning a unique label to the points of an object that belong to the same category plays an essential role in the entire 3D scene analysis workflow. Although plenty of studies in this field have been reported, this work is still a challenging task. Specifically, in this work: 1) A novel geometric feature extraction method, detrending the redundant and in-salient information in the local context, is proposed, which is proved to be effective for extracting local geometric features from the 3D scene. 2) Instead of using individual point as basic element, the supervoxel-based local context is designed to encapsulate geometric characteristics of points, providing a flexible and robust solution for feature extraction. 3) Experiments using complex urban scene with manually labeled ground truth are conducted, and the performance of proposed method with respect to different methods is analyzed. With the testing dataset, we have obtained a result of 0.92 for overall accuracy for assigning eight semantic classes.
Mediating Indebtedness in South Africa

ABSTRACT When South Africa’s credit/debt landscape expanded during the 1990s, this was justified by some as a new form of inclusion but alleged by others to have intensified the power and profit of capitalism and acted to the detriment of householders, thus perpetuating ‘credit apartheid’. Yet, blame cannot be so easily assigned. Forces of state and market have intertwined to create a redistributive neoliberalism, enabling brokers – who have played a key role in establishing the current credit/debt landscape – to insert themselves into the interstices of the system, making money by adding interest at every point in the value chain. Apartheid’s spatial separations meant that traders – and later informal moneylenders – relied on agents to bridge the gap between themselves and the rural/township world of economic informality. Even attempts at credit reform have been complicated, and stalled, by the ongoing presence of intermediaries. The paper explores these dynamics, illustrating how difficult it is to separate bad from good protagonists or perpetrators from victims.
Hatching response to temperature along a latitudinal gradient by the fairy shrimp Branchinecta lindahli (Crustacea; Branchiopoda; Anostraca) in culture conditions

Branchinecta lindahli is a broadly distributed fairy shrimp, reported from a range of temporary wetland habitat types in arid western North America. This species’ eggs hatch after the habitat dries, refills from seasonal rain, and receives a strong cold shock during the winter low temperatures. I studied phenotypic variation in temperature responses in cultures collected from four populations across 8° of latitude with low average temperatures ranging from -8 to 8°C. Time to maturation, mature body size and first clutch size decreased, as temperature increased, with only minor body size variability at mortality, regardless of culture origin. No variation in individual egg size was observed, demonstrating that body size is sacrificed to produce at least a few normal eggs during unfavourable years. Latitudinal variation in hatching temperature demonstrated a pattern of adaptive significance, with some overlap between regional temperature hatching cues. Phenotypic hatching temperature and growth rate responses may cause genetic segregation, selecting one cohort for warmer, dryer years and one cohort for cooler, wetter years. Drier year selected cohorts can exploit habitats that have shorter hydroperiods even in wet years. This may lead to population specialisation and speciation by adapting to more extreme habitats
Providing Privacy For Sensitive Data In Relational Database With Imprecision Bounds

The perception of privacy-preservation for receptive data can necessitate the enforcement of privacy policies or the fortification against uniqueness revelation by rewarding some privacy requirements. In this paper we inspect privacy-preservation from the obscurity aspect. The sensitive information even later than the exclusion of identifying attributes is still disposed to linking attacks by the approved users. This predicament has been considered expansively in the area of micro data publishing and solitude definitions e.g., k-anonymity, l-diversity and variance diversity. Anonymization algorithms use repression and sweeping statement of records to please solitude needs with minimal bend of micro data. The secrecy methods can be used with an access control mechanism to make sure both safety and solitude of the sensitive information. The seclusion is attained at the cost of correctness and vagueness is introduced in the authorized information under an right of entry manage strategy.
Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering PORE BLOCKING MECHANISM FOR THE RECOVERY OF MILK SOLIDS FROM DAIRY WASTEWATER BY ULTRAFILTRATION

This paper evaluates the pore blocking mechanism of two ultrafiltration membranes with different geometries (tubular and spiral wound) when dairy wash water is filtered. The work evaluated the effect of transmembrane pressure and the cross-flow velocity with a 3 experimental design using classical Hermia’s models and the resistance-in-series model. The resistance-in-series analysis identified external fouling on the surface of both membranes, but the tubular membrane showed higher reversible fouling, while the reversible and irreversible resistances of the spiral wound membrane averaged 41% and 45%, respectively. Cake formation is the model that best represents ultrafiltration in the spiral wound membrane at all transmembrane pressures and cross-flow velocities. In the tubular membrane, at the lowest cross-flow velocity (0.79 m.s), the cake formation model fitted the experimental data best. However, at higher cross-flow velocities (1.42 and 2.23 m.s), the best fit of flux data was obtained with the complete pore blocking model. In addition, the tubular membrane apparently had a two-step pore blocking: “pore blocking” as the initial governing mechanism followed by “cake formation”.