Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficiency analysis of organic farming systems- a review of methods, topics, results, and conclusions

The article summarizes the literature on efficiency and productivity of organic farming. A short overview on theories and models is provided. We can distinguish between studies that concentrate of specific problems of the organic sector and studies that aim to compare conventional and organic farming systems. Sample selection is a major challenge for comparisons between organic and conventional farms, since the organic farms have a different farm-structure and are often represented by a relatively small number of observations. We find that conversion to organic farming is influenced by inefficiency. In three of four studies, organic farms have a lower productivity than conventional farms. Studies on environmental efficiency document that organic farming show a higher degree of efficiency if environmental variables (such as landscape elements and diversity in the croprotation) are taken into account. The impact of subsidies on farm efficiency is often found to be negative.
A Novel Method For Unsupervised Scanner-Invariance Using A Dual-Channel Auto-Encoder Model

Automated analysis of histopathology whole-slide images is impeded by the scanner-dependent variance introduced in the slide scanning process. This work presents a novel dual-channel auto-encoder based model with a multi-component loss which learns a scanner-invariant representation of histopathology images. The learned representation can be used for a number of histopathology-related applications where images are captured from different scanners such as nuclei detection and cancer segmentation. The approach is validated on a set of lung tissue sub-images extracted from whole slide images. This method achieves a 50% improvement in SSIM score on tissue masks derived from the learned representation compared to related methods. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the ﬁrst work which explicitly learns a scanner-invariant representation of histopathology images from multiple domains simultaneously without labelled data or expensive preprocessing techniques.
Effects of Carcass Washing Systems on Campylobacter Contamination in Large Broiler Processing Plants . ( Under the direction of

BASHOR, MICHAEL PAUL. Effects of Carcass Washing Systems on Campylobacter Contamination in Large Broiler Processing Plants. (Under the direction of Kevin M. Keener and Patricia A. Curtis.) Campylobacter, a major food borne pathogen found in poultry products, remains a serious problem facing poultry processors. Campylobacter research has primarily focused on detection methods, prevalence and detection on carcasses, with limited research conducted on intervention. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of carcass washing systems in four large broiler-processing plants in removing Campylobacter species. Washing systems evaluated included combinations of inside/outside carcass washers and homemade cabinet washers. Processing aids evaluated were trisodium phosphate (TSP) and acidified sodium chlorite (ASC). The washer systems consisted of 1 to 3 carcass washers and used from 0.57 to 2.57 gallons of water per carcass. The washer systems used chlorinated water with 25 to 35 ppm of total chlorine. These washer systems on average reduced Campylobacter populations log 0.5 cfu/ml from log 4.8 cfu/ml to log 4.3 cfu/ml. Washer systems with TSP or ASC reduced Campylobacter populations on average by an additional log 1.03 to log 1.26 respectively. Total average reductions in Campylobacter populations across the washer system and chill tank were log 0.76 cfu/ml. Washer systems that included antimicrobial systems had total average reductions in Campylobacter populations of log 1.53 cfu/ml. These results suggest that carcass washer systems consisting of multiple washers provide minimal reductions in Campylobacter populations found on poultry in processing plants. A more effective treatment for reducing Campylobacter populations is ASC or TSP treatments; however, these reductions, while significant, will not eliminate the organism from raw poultry. Effects of Carcass Washing Systems on Campylobacter Contamination in Large Broiler Processing Plants A Thesis Submitted To The Graduate Faculty Of North Carolina State University In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Masters of Science In DEPARTMENT OF FOOD SCIENCE
Patient Treatment in Emergency Department Hallways and Patient Perception of Clinician-Patient Communication

In the setting of high patient volumes and boarding times across many emergency departments (EDs), clinicians are increasingly tasked with the challenge of managing patients in non-conventional care areas. [1] The use of hallway care areas, locations where patients are in close proximity to one another with little or no structural partitions separating them, has increased. [2–3] Several negative consequences of ED hallway care have been noted, including patient perceptions of compromised care [4] and poor infection prevention practices among staff. [5] However, the impact of hallway care on clinician-patient communication has not been studied. Clinician-patient communication is an important aspect of care associated with decreased patient anxiety and patient satisfaction. [6] Clinician-patient communication may be particularly important for patients evaluated for potentially life threatening conditions such as acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Our study examined the association between hallway care during ED evaluation for ACS and patients’ perception of clinician-patient communication. We hypothesized that hallway care would be associated with poorer perception of clinician-patient communication compared to patients receiving care in curtained or divided rooms.
Measuring Learning from Interventions through Participatory Processes

There is an increasing use of models and games as interventions in participatory processes. Those interventions facilitate exploration and learning in a safe simulated environment. However, how do we measure if learning takes place, whether it results in behavioral change and whether it persists? We review the existing literature on social learning through participatory processes and how the impact of those interventions are measured. We identify a number of challenges and present a framework that aims to explicitly specify operational measurements into different levels of learning.
Precipitation of Ordered Dolomite via Simultaneous Dissolution of Calcite and Magnesite: New Experimental Insights into an Old Precipitation Enigma

In the present study, we demonstrate that ordered dolomite can be precipitated via simultaneous dissolution of calcite and magnesite under hydrothermal conditions (from 100 to 200 °C). The temperature and high-carbonate alkalinity have significantly copromoted the dolomite formation. For example, when high-purity water was initially used as interacting fluid, only a small proportion of disordered dolomite was identified at 200 °C from XRD patterns and FESEM observations. Conversely, a higher proportion of ordered dolomite, i.e., clear identification of superstructure ordering reflections in XRD patterns, was determined when high-carbonate alkalinity solution was initially used in our system at the same durations of reaction. For this latter case, the dolomite formation is favorable therefrom 100 °C and two kinetic steps were identified: (1) protodolomite formation after about 5 days of reaction, characterized by rounded submicrometric particles from FESEM observations and by the absence of superstructure .
Flavonols and antioxidant activity of Physalis peruviana L. fruit at two maturity stages - doi: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v35i2.13265

Since the characteristics of the fresh fruit of cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L.) are little known, its valorization and use are impaired. The fruit's bioactive compounds at two stages of maturity, start and end of maturity, are evaluated, with differentiating colors between green-yellow and orange for two sizes of the fruit. The ratio between sugars and acids increased from the beginning to the end of maturity. Quercetin was not found in the samples. Nevertheless, rutin was predominant in small and large size mature sample, followed by greenish yellow (start of maturity) color of the small size fruit, with values ranging between 6.904 and 6.761 μg g -1 and 5.891 to 4.465 μg g -1 , respectively. Myricetin rates ranged between 1.085 and 1.170 μg g -1 and 1.110 to 1.309 μg g -1 for greenish yellow and orange fruits, respectively. These results characterize the fruit of Physalis peruviana L. as a source of phenolic compounds in food. Antioxidant activity, influenced by the different stages of fruit ripening, is correlated to a higher content of the flavonols rutin and myricetin. Maturity degree and fruit size affect the fruit's chemical characteristics.
Primary extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma with adenofibroma of the breast : a case report and literatures review

Primary extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma (EMC) of the breast has been rarely reported. In the present study, the clinical feature, imaging result, pathology, treatment and prognosis of a patient with primary EMC and adenofibroma of the breast were analyzed. A 50-year-old menopausal woman presented at hospital with complaints of the masses in her breasts. Breast ultrasound revealed several masses were found in bilateral breasts. The largest one located at lower outer quadrant in right breast with a clear boundary, irregular shape, uneven echo and blood flow signals, which was 3.3 cm in diameter. Mammography showed multiple nodules were found in bilateral breasts, and most of the boundaries were clear. The largest mass located in the outer quadrant measured 3.0 cm × 3.1 cm in the right breast. After sufficient preparation, the patient received mastectomy in right breast and sentinel lymph node biopsy. Microscopic examination confirmed the largest tumor located in the lower outer quadrant of the right breast was EMC and the tumors in the right outer and upper quadrant were adenofibroma with calcification. The nipple and lymph nodes were not involved. Immunohistochemical staining indicated the EMC were positive for vimentin, S-100 protein, P53 (+80%), Ki67 (+40%), and focal positive for epithelial membrane antigen, cytokeratin, but negative for cytokeratin 5/6, cytokeratin-H, cytokeratin-L, P63, calponin, smooth muscle actin, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Post operation, the patient did not receive any other treatment and followed up for 18 months, no tumor recurrence and distant metastasis was found.
Improving Imitation Learning through Efficient Expert Querying

Learning from demonstration is an intuitive approach to encoding complex behaviors in autonomous agents. Learners have shown success in challenging tasks like autonomous driving, aerial obstacle avoidance, and information gathering, through observation and mimicry alone. State of the art algorithms like Dataset Aggregation (DAgger) have made significant advances over traditional behavior cloning, demonstrating strong theoretical and empirical results. However, these methods typically impose large sampling burdens on experts which may restrict the type of demonstrators or problems that can be addressed. In this work we propose a modified version of the DAgger algorithm aimed at reducing expert queries while maintaining learner performance. Randomly initialized policies typically have state distributions unlike those of the final policies, leading to wasted expert labeling especially early in training. By increasing the rate of policy updates we aim to collect more relevant labeled data with respect to the total number of queries. In addition, we implement several supervised active learning approaches as part of our query selection, allowing policy uncertainty to inform expert label queries. We demonstrate our algorithm on a variety of simulated robot manipulator and control tasks.
Impact of Alkali Pretreatment on the Chemical Component Distribution and Ultrastructure of Poplar Cell Walls

Alkali pretreatment is one of the leading pretreatment technologies for biofuel applications. The histochemical and structural characteristics of poplar cell walls were investigated before and after sodium hydroxide pretreatment (121 oC, 2%) to understand the alterations in biomass cellular structure, which were correlated with saccharification yield. Results showed that alkali pretreatment preferentially removed lignin from the S2 of fibers, which was similar to the behaviors of coniferyl alcohol and aldehyde (lignin-CAA), exhibiting a positive correlation between removal of the two structures. Additionally, the cellulose microfibril angle was enlarged as the residence time increased during pretreatment. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis further suggested that pretreatment caused ultrastructure changes in cell walls with cracks formation on cell wall surface, especially in the areas adjacent to the cell corner middle lamellar (CCML). Accordingly, the cellulose digestibility of residues increased from 32.1% for the raw material to 53.7% for the treated samples obtained in 72 h. It can be concluded that the changes in topochemistry and ultrastructure of poplar cell walls resulting from alkali pretreatment mediated the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis of residues.
Factors Affecting MOOC Usage by Students in Selected Ghanaian Universities

There has been widespread criticism about the rates of participation of students enrolled on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), more importantly, the percentage of students who actively consume course materials from beginning to the end. The current study sought to investigate this trend by examining the factors that influence MOOC adoption and use by students in selected Ghanaian universities. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was extended to develop a research model. A survey was conducted with 270 questionnaires administered to students who had been assigned MOOCs; 204 questionnaires were retrieved for analysis. Findings of the study show that MOOC usage intention is influenced by computer self-efficacy, performance expectancy, and system quality. Results also showed that MOOC usage is influenced by facilitating conditions, instructional quality, and MOOC usage intention. Social influence and effort expectancy were found not to have a significant influence on MOOC usage intention. The authors conclude that universities must have structures and resources in place to promote the use of MOOCs by students. Computer skills training should also be part of the educational curriculum at all levels. MOOC designers must ensure that the MOOCs have good instructional quality by using the right pedagogical approaches and also ensure that the sites and learning materials are of good quality.
Hypoglycemic and Hypolipidemic Effects of Cucumber, White Pumpkin and Ridge Gourd in Alloxan Induced Diabetic Rats

Ethanolic extracts of some fruits of Cucurbitaceae family such as Cucumis sativus (cucumber), Lagenaria siceraria (white pumpkin), Luffa acutangula (ridge gourd), Benincasa hispida (ash gourd), Citrullus lanatus (sweet melon) and Cucarbita maxima (pumpkin) have been studied for their hypoglycemic effects on alloxan induced diabetic rats (AIDRs). Screening results suggested that among the tested fruits the hypoglycemic potency follows: cucumber > white pumpkin > ridge gourd. These three fruit-extracts were further investigated for their hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic and glycogenesis effects. Cucumber, white pumpkin and ridge gourd extracts reduced blood glucose level by 67, 65 and 51%, respectively at 12 hours after single intraperitone al injection; while reduced the low density lipoprotein (LDL) level to 13, 28 and 86%, respecti vely in AIDRs. The maximum reduction 87% was observed by cucumber extract. Cucumber, white pumpkin and ridge gourd extracts reduced total cholesterol level to 29, 15 and 38%, respectively comparing with the diabetic control group. Here the maximum reduction of 85% was observed by white pumpkin extract. Cucumber, white pumpkin and ridge gourd also reduced triglyceride levels to 72, 68 and 80%, respectively. Maximum reduction of 32% was observed by white pumpkin. Significant improvement of glycogenesis was also observed by ridge gourd extracts in AIDRs.
Classifying Non-banking Monetary Systems using Web Data

This paper develops a new classification of non-banking currencies projects based on a lexical analysis from web data. The advantage of this method is to derive an endogenous typology of monetary projects, based on how currencies are depicted on the internet. Therefore, it allows to by-pass issues face for now in the literature to uncover a clear classification of non-banking currencies projects from exogenous elements. Our textual corpus consists in 320 web pages, corresponding to 1210 text pages. We first applied to our data a downward hierarchical clustering, which enables us to endogenously derive five different classes, allowing us to operate distinctions not only between non-banking currencies projects, but also between these latter and the standard monetary system. Then, we resorted to a similarity analysis and according to our results; all non-banking currencies projects define themselves in relation to the standard monetary system, with the exception of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETs).
Electrical resistivity and thermal properties of compatibilized multi-walled carbon nanotube/polypropylene composites

The electrical resistivity and thermal properties of multi-walled carbon nanotube/polypropylene (MWCNT/PP) composites have been investigated in the presence of coupling agents applied for improving the compatibility between the nanotubes and the polymer. A novel olefin-maleic-anhydride copolymer and an olefin-maleic-anhydride copolymer based derivative have been used as compatibilizers to achieve better dispersion of MWCNTs in the polymer matrix. The compos- ites have been produced by extrusion followed by injection moulding. They contained different amounts of MWCNTs (0.5, 2, 3 and 5 wt%) and coupling agent to enhance the interactions between the carbon nanotubes and the polymer. The electri- cal resistivity of the composites has been investigated by impedance spectroscopy, whereas their thermal properties have been determined using a thermal analyzer operating on the basis of the periodic thermal perturbation method. Rheological properties, BET-area and adsorption-desorption isotherms have been determined. Dispersion of MWCNTs in the polymer has been studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
A Tutorial on Software

Protecting a digital asset once it leaves the cyber trust boundary of its creator is a challenging security problem. The creator is an entity which can range from a single person to an entire organization. The trust boundary of an entity is represented by all the (virtual or physical) machines controlled by that entity. Digital assets range from media content to code, and include items such as: music, movies, computer games and premium software features. The business model of the creator implies sending digital assets to end-users – such that they can be consumed – in exchange for some form of compensation. A security threat in this context is represented by malicious end-users, who attack the confidentiality or integrity of digital assets, in detriment to digital asset creators and/or other end-users. Software obfuscation transformations have been proposed to protect digital assets against malicious end-users, also called Man-At-The-End (MATE) attackers. Obfuscation transforms a program into a functionally equivalent program which is harder for MATE to attack. However, obfuscation can be use both for benign and malicious purposes. Malware developers rely on obfuscation techniques to circumvent detection mechanisms and to prevent malware analysts from understanding the logic implemented by the malware. This chapter presents a tutorial of the most popular existing software obfuscation transformations and mentions published attacks against each transformation. We present a snapshot of the field of software obfuscation and indicate possible directions, which require more research.
Dealing with Empty and Overabundant Answers to Flexible Queries

In traditional database applications, queries intend to retrieve data satisfying precise conditions. As a result, thousands of data can be retrieved (overabundant answer) or, even worse, no data at all (empty answer). In both cases, the queries must be reformulated to produce more significant results and, typically, many related queries are submitted by a user before he can be finally satisfied. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a unified solution in the framework of flexible queries with fuzzy semantics. This solution, based on the concept of semantic proximity and implemented in a tool for flexible query answering, allows the automatic reformulation of queries with empty or overabundant answers.
orrelation between peripheral melatonin and general immune status f domestic goat , Capra hircus : A seasonal and sex dependent variation aushalendra

Caprine immune system has largely been neglected by ruminant researchers despite of its high economic importance in bioindustry. We made an attempt to note the annual/seasonal and gender dependent variation in immune status of the domestic goat, Capra hircus, Jamunapari breed and correlated with the concentration of peripheral gonadal hormones (testosterone, 17 -estradiol) and melatonin. Based on the data of general immune parameters such as total leukocyte count (TLC) and percent lymphocyte count (%LC) along with blastogenic response of splenocytes in terms of percent stimulation ratio (%SR), we found an annual variation in immune status of male, female and castrated male goats in a gender dependent manner. Female goats showed higher immune parameters than that of castrated as well as intact male goats. Testosterone in intact male goats was high throughout the year, which might be responsible for low immune status. However, in castrated male goats, plasma testosterone was undetectable and presented an immune status equivalent to that of female goats. We observed a high immune status during the winter season in all the groups of goats, which might be due to high circulatory concentration and longer duration of melatonin induced by short days. Being released by circulating lymphocytes, the concentration of interleukin-2 (IL-2) in blood plasma, showed an annual and seasonal variation being higher in female than castrated and intact male goats throughout the year, having a similar trend in plasma melatonin concentration. The higher immune status in female goats during the winter months might have helped them to overcome the winter bound stress, i.e. low temperature. Therefore, we may propose that testosterone acts as an immunosupressor while melatonin as an immunostimulator for goats as it showed a positive correlation with immune parameters noted. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.