Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interrelations between Microcystis and Cladocera in the highly Eutrophic Lake Kasumigaura, Japan

The zooplankton community in the highly eutrophic Lake Kasumigaura was investigated and its relation to a bloom of Microcystis was analyzed. The zooplankton community was dominated by small cladocerans, whose biomass and production became highest in summer, when Microcystis bloomed. The high cladoceran production is considered to depend on the production of colonial Microcystis, because the production of nannoplankton was apparently too low to ensure the cladoceran production. Microcystis cells were unsuitable as food for the cladocerans inhabiting Lake Kasumigaura, but became utilizable when decomposed. Decomposed Microcystis may be the main food for Cladocera in the lake in summer. High water temperatures occurring in summer probably promoted decomposition of the Microcystis, leading to increased production of the small cladocerans.
A simulation of a message passing protocol for a network of transputers

A SIMULATION OF A MESSAGE PASSING PROTOCOL FOR A NETWORK OF TRANSPUTERS by Janice R. Glowacki With decreasing cost and size of processors and more sophisticated demands of computer users, it is becoming popular to execute programs in parallel on a distributed network. Processors communicate through shared memory or hard-wired links depending on the hardware and topology of the system. Simulation is an appropriate tool for the investigation of system throughput, and the projection of system behavior under various workloads. In this paper is described the configuration and communication protocol of an INMOS Transputer network, and the construction, verification, and validation of a detailed simulation model for the network. Results obtained from the execution of the model, projecting system behavior under both heavy and moderate workloads, are presented. The most significant results obtained indicate that system throughput is severely degraded when increases are made to either message traffic distance or network buffer size. Several areas for further research are suggested, including an alternative topology for large networks. A SIMULATION OF A MESSAGE PASSING PROTOCOL FOR A NETWORK OF TRANSPUTERS
Recommender Systems and Scratch: An Integrated Approach for Enhancing Computer Programming Learning

Learning computer programming is a challenging process. Among the current approaches for overcoming this challenge, visual programming languages (VPLs), such as Scratch, have shown very promising results for beginners. Interestingly, some higher education institutions have started to use VPLs to introduce basic programming concepts, mainly in CS1 courses. However, an important issue regarding Scratchs usage in higher education environments is that students may feel unmotivated being confronted by programming exercises that do not fulfill their individual expectations. To try and overcome this barrier, we propose CARAMBA, a Scratch extension including an exercise recommender system. Based on features, such as taste and complexity, CARAMBA is able to personalize student learning with Scratch by suitably suggesting exercises for students. An in-depth evaluation was conducted about the effects of our proposal on both the learning of basic concepts of CS1 and the overall performance of students. We adopted an equivalent pretest-posttest design with 88 college students at an Ecuadorian university. Results confirm that recommending exercises in Scratch had a positive effect on students programming learning abilities in terms of pass rates. In totality, the pass rate achieved by our proposal was over 52%, which is 8% higher than the rate achieved during a previous experience using only Scratch (without recommendation) and 21% higher than the historical results of traditional teaching (without Scratch). Furthermore, we analyzed the degree of exploitation of CARAMBA by students to portray two facts: students actually used CARAMBA and there was a significant, positive correlation between the utilization of CARAMBA and the scores obtained by the students.
The role of glucocorticoid metabolism in bile acid homeostasis

iii LAY SUMMARY . ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . xi TABLE OF CONTENTS . xiv LIST OF FIGURES . xx LIST OF TABLES . xxiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . xxv CHAPTER 1 . 1 LITERATURE REVIEW . 1 1.
Fitorremediação de solos utilizando Crotalaria spectabilis para remoção de cádmio e chumbo

Phytoremediation is an important technique used in soil and water decontamination, as being used in the removal, containment and reduction of heavy metals and organic compounds. This essay aims to evaluate the efficiency of Crotalaria spectabilis on phytoremediation of soils contaminated by the toxic heavy metals Cd and Pb. The used borderline was completely randomized: five dosages with four repetitions. The treatments utilized were “control”, “prevention level Cd 1.3 mg kg -1” , “intervention level Cd 3.0 mg kg -1” , “prevention level Pb 72 mg kg -1” and “intervention level Pb 180 mg kg -1” . The plants were kept in soil for 90 days, and the quantification of Pb and Cd metal dosage in its dry biomass was made through spectrophotometry of atomic absorption, “flame” mode. The plants had high rate of survival in contaminated soil by Cd and Pb with reductions on growth and production of dry biomass. All the treatments have shown Pb contents in dry biomass of the plant aerial part. For Cd metal, dry biomass dosages were not found. It is concluded that C. spectabilis is able to store the heavy metal Pb in vegetable tissue of the aerial part, being potentially able to be used as phytoremediation of areas contaminated by these metals.
Some Properties of Chemical Cross-Linking Biohydrogel from Starch and Chitosan

Chemical cross-linking was developed to prepare starch and chitosan-based hydrogels. First, the precursor of starch was synthesized through the reaction of carboxymethylation with sodium monochloroacetate, and then chitosan was grafted by using methacrylic acid as cross-linker. In this research, sago and cassava starches were used and mixed with chitosan, and the effect of methacrylic acid concentration was investigated to determine the grafting parameters and hydrogel characteristics. Compared to native starch and carboxymethylated starch, hydrogels from both starches have high ability to swell and high capacity to absorb water and oil. The highest grafting yield, grafting efficiency, and monomer conversion were achieved by experiment using 0.550 g of methacrylic acid per g of CMS-chitosan mixture. These hydrogels have a good potency as biodegradable absorbents for pharmaceutical and industrial application.
Estimation of Stock Composition and Individual Identification of Sockeye Salmon on a Pacific Rim Basis Using Microsatellite and Major Histocompatibility Complex Variation

Abstract The variation at 14 microsatellite loci and one major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus was surveyed for over 48,000 sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka sampled from 299 localities ranging from the Columbia River to Japan. For the microsatellite loci, the number of alleles observed at a locus was related to the power of the locus in providing accurate estimates of stock composition of single-population mixtures. In an analysis of single-population mixtures where the Pacific Rim baseline was used for estimation of stock identification, 80% accuracy for the average population was achieved by employing approximately 80 alleles in the analysis. Increasing the accuracy of estimated stock compositions to 90% for the average population required approximately 400 microsatellite alleles. When all loci were used to estimate stock compositions, estimates were above 80% for all sampling sites or populations, above 90% for the lake of origin, and generally above 95% for the region of origin. Analysis of kn.
Classical Biological Control of Air Potato in Florida

Air potato was introduced to Florida in 1905. By the 1980s, its vines were growing in thickets, waste areas, and hedges or fencerows in many parts of south and central Florida. By 1999, it was recognized as transforming plant communities by displacing native species, changing community structure and disrupting ecological functions. The air potato leaf beetle is a rather large, orange-red Asian leaf beetle. It feeds and develops only on air potato. The USDA-ARS Invasive Plant laboratory in Fort Lauderdale acquired this beetle from China and has begun an ambitious release program aimed at controlling air potato. This 3-page fact sheet was written by T. D. Center and W. A. Overholt and published by the UF Department of Entomology and Nematology, October 2012. http://edis.ifas. ufl.edu/in957
Serpentine: The Evolution and Ecology of a Model System

As an undergraduate student, I was lucky enough to land a summer internship with Jonathon Shaw, a bryologist interested in evolutionary and ecological questions. We collected mosses from the vicinity of a zinc smelter in Pennsylvania, where the effluent leaving the smokestacks had reduced over 80 km of oak-hickory forest to a nearly barren wasteland. Our question was fairly simple: had populations of a cosmopolitan, weedy moss (Ceratodon purpureus) become genetically differentiated from populations found on ‘‘normal’’ soils not laced with heavy metals? That is, had the populations ‘‘adapted’’ via an evolutionary event? As I was to realize much later, we were continuing a long and wondrous history of research aimed at understanding how natural selection operates on harsh soils, where nutrients are limiting and heavy metals are found at toxic levels. Twenty-four years after that summer internship, I am still impressed that studies on harsh sites like mines and ‘‘serpentine,’’ both of which share the traits of low nutrient availability and high concentrations of metals, have played a pivotal role in our understanding of some basic biological concepts concerning the rate of evolutionary change and the spatial heterogeneity of genetic variation. Along with the work done by luminaries such as Turesson (1922) and Clausen et al. (1940), research on mining and serpentine soils has shown us how rapid and pervasive differentiation among plant populations can be, and also has informed several important arenas of science, including the evolution of endemism, the role of ecological productivity and plant competition, and even the theory of plate tectonics. As such, it is of no surprise that the new book by Susan Harrison and Nishanta Rajakaruna, Serpentine: The Evolution of a Model System, has important lessons that will be important not just for people who work on serpentine, but rather for anyone interested geology, evolution, and ecology. RHODORA, Vol. 113, No. 956, pp. 523–526, 2011 E Copyright 2011 by the New England Botanical Club
Presencia larval de Culex (Culex) interrogator (Dyar and Knab) (Diptera:Culicidae) en Cuba

Actualmente se conocen mas de 3 500 especies de mosquitos y cada dia se registran otras de importancia en la transmision de enfermedades al hombre y los animales. El objetivo de este trabajo es registrar por primera vez la presencia larval de Cx interrogator en la provincia de Santiago de Cuba y en Cuba. Para ello se realizaron los muestreos larvarios en sitios de cria naturales y artificiales con frecuencia semanal durante el 2013-2017, segun lo establecido por el Programa de Vigilancia y Control de otros culicidos para la provincia de Santiago de Cuba y adjunto al Programa de Control de Aedes aegypti y Aedes albopictus en Cuba. Las larvas se enviaron al Laboratorio Provincial de Entomologia de Santiago de Cuba para su clasificacion utilizando claves morfologicas. Posteriormente el material biologico fue enviado al Laboratorio de Referencia Nacional del Instituto de Medicina Tropical "Pedro Kouri" donde se verifico la identificacion taxonomica. Culex interrogator fue colectado en los municipios Palma Soriano y San Luis en el 2013 en Santiago de Cuba, y Songo la Maya y II Frente en 2015 y 2017, respectivamente, todos pertenecientes a la provincia Santiago de Cuba. Los sitios de cria correspondieron a fosas septicas, sotanos inundados debajo de edificios, lagunas de oxidacion, pomos plasticos, zanjas, charcos y canadas. Se encontro asociado en sitios de cria naturales con Culex nigripalpus , Culex quinquefasciatus y Anopheles albimanus . En conclusion , Cx interrogator constituye un nuevo registro para la entomofauna cubana, de ahi la importancia de ampliar los conocimientos sobre su distribucion, asociacion con otras especies de culicidos y posible rol en la transmision de enfermedades al hombre.
Determinants of Youth Engagement with Health Information on Social Media Platforms in United Arab Emirates

Since most social media platforms are accessible anytime and anywhere where Internet connections and smartphones are available, the invisibility of the reader raises questions about accuracy, appropriateness and comprehensibility of social media communication. This purposive sampling study of 120 participants aged 18 - 35 year in UAE was conducted between September and December 2017, and explored commonly used social media platforms, frequency of use of social media for accessing health related information, and approaches for assessing the trustworthiness of health information. Results indicate that Whats App (95%), Instagram (87%) and Youtube (82%) were the most commonly used social media platforms among respondents. Majority of respondents (81%) indicated that they regularly access social media to get health-associated information. About 55% of respondents with non-chronic health status relied on unsolicited messages to obtain health-related information. Doctors’ health blogs (21%) and social media sites of international healthcare organizations (20%) constitute the most trusted source of health information among respondents, with UAE government health agencies’ social media accounts trusted by 15% of respondents. Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and hypertension were the most commonly searched topics on social media (29%), followed by nutrition (20%) and skin care (16%). Majority of respondents (41%) rely on reliability of Google search results, 22% check for health information only from “reliable” social media sites, while 8% utilize “logic” to ascertain reliability of health information. Utilizing popular social media platforms for posting reader-friendly health information will achieve high coverage. Improving youth digital literacy will facilitate easier access to trustworthy information on the internet.
Adoption of Social Media by Fast-Growing Companies: Innovation Among the Inc. 500

This study examines familiarity, usage, and attitudes towards social media among the fastest growing small businesses in the US as represented by the Inc. 500. The results show that these innovators are increasingly making use of social media tools to communicate with their customers, partners and vendors. The latest data in a 4-year longitudinal study shows changes in which tools are used and how marketing managers view the role of social media in their strategic plans.
Can an infinitely long object fit in an expanding universe?

Abstract Does space stretch its contents as the universe expands? Usually, we say the answer is no—the stretching of space is not like the stretching of a rubber sheet that might drag things with it. In this paper, we explore a potential counterexample—namely, we show that it is impossible to make an arbitrarily long object in an expanding universe, because it is impossible to hold the distant end of the object ‘stationary’ with respect to us (as defined in the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric). We show that this does not mean that expanding space has a force associated with it, rather, some fictitious forces arise due to our choice of reference frame. By choosing our usual time slice (where all comoving observers agree on the age of the universe), we choose a global frame that does not correspond to the frame of any inertial observer. As a result, simple relativistic velocity transforms generate an apparent acceleration, even where no force exists. This effect is similar to the fictitious forces that arise in describing objects in rotating reference frames, as in the case of the Coriolis effect.
EFFECTS OF PLATELET MICROPARTICLES ON THE ACTIVATION OF B CELLS

Platelets are anucleated fragments derived from megakaryocytes. It has been demonstrated that platelets play a role in hemostasis and innate immunity. In addition, platelets have a CD40 ligand which is an important molecular marker in motivating immune cells. Thus, platelets also have a role in adaptive immunity as seen by their ability to activate B cells. Since human platelet microparticles (MPs) originate from platelets, we have chosen to examine the effects of MPs on B cell activation. Methods: Platelet MPs were isolated from platelet concentrates obtained from the Tehran Blood Transfusion Center. The MPs were co-cultured with B cells isolated from human whole blood with magnetic beads using negative selection. After seven days, the expression of activation markers CD27 and CD86, as well as IgD were evaluated by flow cytometry. Results: In a comparison between test (B cells/MPs) and control (B cells) cells we observed that the expression of activation markers CD27 and CD86 increased during the seven-day co-culture period. However, the expression of IgD antibody decreased. Conclusions: As with platelets, MPs can affect B cell activation during in vitro co- culture.
A Multi-Semantic Metapath Model for Large Scale Heterogeneous Network Representation Learning

Network Embedding has been widely studied to model and manage data in a variety of real-world applications. However, most existing works focus on networks with single-typed nodes or edges, with limited consideration of unbalanced distributions of nodes and edges. In real-world applications, networks usually consist of billions of various types of nodes and edges with abundant attributes. To tackle these challenges, in this paper we propose a multi-semantic metapath (MSM) model for large scale heterogeneous representation learning. Specifically, we generate multi-semantic metapath-based random walks to construct the heterogeneous neighborhood to handle the unbalanced distributions and propose a unified framework for the embedding learning. We conduct systematical evaluations for the proposed framework on two challenging datasets: Amazon and Alibaba. The results empirically demonstrate that MSM can achieve relatively significant gains over previous state-of-arts on link prediction.
An Adaptive Solver for Systems of Linear Equations

Computational implementations for solving systems of linear equations often rely on a one-size-fits-all approach based on LU decomposition of dense matrices stored in column-major format. Such solvers are typically implemented with the aid of the xGESV set of functions available in the low-level LAPACK software, with the aim of reducing development time by taking advantage of well-tested routines. However, this straight-forward approach does not take into account various matrix properties which can be exploited to reduce the computational effort and/or to increase numerical stability. Furthermore, direct use of LAPACK functions can be error-prone for non-expert users and results in source code that has little resemblance to originating mathematical expressions. We describe an adaptive solver that we have implemented inside recent versions of the high-level Armadillo C++ library for linear algebra. The solver automatically detects several common properties of a given system (banded, triangular, symmetric positive definite), followed by solving the system via mapping to a set of suitable LAPACK functions best matched to each property. The solver also detects poorly conditioned systems and automatically seeks a solution via singular value decomposition as a fallback. We show that the adaptive solver leads to notable speedups, while also freeing the user from using direct calls to cumbersome LAPACK functions.
Sharp results on sampling with derivatives in bandlimited functions

We discuss the problems of uniqueness, sampling and reconstruction with derivatives in the space of bandlimited functions. We prove that if X is sequence of real numbers such that the maximum gap between two consecutive samples is less than certain positive constant c, then bandlimited function of bandwidth {\sigma} can be reconstructed uniquely and stably from its nonuniform samples involving derivatives. We also prove that if the maximum gap is less than or equal to c, then X is a set of uniqueness for the space of bandlimited functions of bandwidth {\sigma} when the samples involving k-1 derivatives. As a by-product we obtain the sharp maximum gap condition for samples involving first derivatives.
Will Your Forthcoming Book be Successful? Predicting Book Success with CNN and Readability Scores

Predicting the potential success of a book in advance is vital in many applications. This could help both publishers and readers in their decision making process whether or not a book is worth publishing and reading, respectively. This prediction could also help authors decide whether a book draft is good enough to send to a publisher. We propose a model that leverages Convolutional Neural Networks along with readability indices. Unlike previous methods, our method includes no count-based, lexical, or syntactic hand-crafted features. Instead, we make use of a pre-trained sentence encoder to encode the book sentences. We highlight the connection between this task and book genre identification by showing that embeddings that are good at capturing the separability of book genres are better for the book success prediction task. We also show that only the first 1K sentences are good enough to predict the successability of books. Our proposed model outperforms strong baselines on this task by as large as 6.4% F1-score.
Ecological thresholds in European alpine lakes

SUMMARY 1. Species assemblages of diatoms, rotifers, chydorids, planktonic crustaceans and chironomids were studied in 235 alpine lakes in the Alps, Pyrenees, Tatras (Western Carpathians), Retezat (Southern Carpathians) and Rila Mountains (Balkans). 2. For all taxonomic groups we found a hierarchical structure in the community assemblage using distinct scales of lake clustering (number of k-means groups) based on species composition similarity (Hellinger distance). We determined the optimal partition in assemblage types (i.e. number of lake clusters) for each taxonomic group by maximising the sum of the taxon indicative value (IndVal) and performed discriminant analyses, using environmental variables not conditioned by geographical patterns. Relevant environmental variables differed among and within taxonomic groups. Therefore the assemblages respond to a complex environmental mosaic, with the exception of diatom assemblages, which followed an acid–base gradient. 3. The significant environmental variables could be grouped into four general factors: lake size, tropho-dynamic status, acid–base balance and ice-cover duration (i.e., altitudinal gradient). Lake size was significant for the highest number of assemblage types; however, the most significant factor differed among taxonomic groups: acid–base balance for diatoms, lake size for rotifers, ice-cover duration for chydorids and planktonic crustaceans and tropho-dynamic status for chironomids. No single environmental typology accounted for the assemblage structure of all taxonomic groups. 4. However, defining ecological thresholds as values within environmental gradients at which the rate of change in assemblages is accelerated relative to points distant from that