Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Basin and Range Province as a Composite Extensional Domain

The Basin and Range province is a composite Cenozoic taphrogen with a present configuration and internal geometry derived from superimposed multiple phases of extensional deformation driven by varied geodynamic impulses. Different components of the composite taphrogen derive from: (a) post-orogenic Late Paleocene to Middle Miocene slab rollback beneath overthickened crust of the Sevier-Laramide orogen, to induce migratory arc magmatism, tectonic denudation of Cordilleran metamorphic core complexes within associated domains of crustal extension, and belts of backarc rifting including pre-Middle Miocene phases of the Rio Grande rift; (b) Eocene transrotational tectonism that pivoted and displaced crustal elements of the Paleogene forearc in the Pacific Northwest; (c) late Early Miocene and younger crustal extension in the northwestern Basin and Range province (Numic subtraphrogen including segments in the Great Basin, Southeast Oregon Plateau, and Idaho-Montana border regions) as structural accompaniment to northward migration of the Mendocino triple junction; and (d) late Middle Miocene and younger crustal extension in the southeastern Basin and Range province (Piman subtaphrogen including the Gulf of California extensional province, interior Meseta Central province, and post-mid-Miocene Rio Grande rift) succeeding the rapid southward migration of the Rivera triple junction. A transtaphrogen bridge spanning the Mojave block, Eastern Transverse Ranges, and a broad region in southeastern California and southwestern Arizona experienced only limited post-mid-Miocene extensional deformation during evolution of the active Numic and Piman subtaphrogens lying to the northwest and southeast. The compound evolutionary history of the Basin and Range province renders moot any unitary theories for its geodynamic behavior.
Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Wild and Farmed Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

The likely health risks developed as a result of human contamination by heavy metal through fish consumption was assessed in this study. The analysis of wild and farmed fish for heavy metals was determined and an assessment of the risk limits was evaluated through daily intake of metal and health risk index. Heavy metals accumulations varied in concentrations in the various tissues/organs (skin, muscle, gills, liver, intestine, kidneys, brain, and bones) across the groups of farmed and wild fish species (Clarias gariepinus). A post-hoc multi-comparison (Duncan Multiple Range Test) showed that there were significant differences ( Hg>Pb>Cd>Ni and were all below the recommended safety limits outlined by FAO/WHO. Furthermore, the consumer’s health risk with the consumption of fish muscles tissues shows that there are very negligible tendencies for cadmium, lead, and mercury exposure. Also the ingestion of Clarias gariepinus with heavy metal concentrations indicated in this study is within the FAO/WHO safety daily intake limits (also specified in the study) and would not result in accumulation of heavy metals at intolerable concentrations, thus health complications arising from accumulation of heavy metals are rare
WST 50.6-085 corr

The sustainable anaerobic nitrogen removal and microbial granulation were investigated by using a laboratory anaerobic granular sludge bed reactor, treating synthetic (inorganic and organic) wastewater and piggery waste. From inorganic synthetic wastewater, lithoautotrophic ammonium oxidation to nitrite/nitrate was observed by an addition of hydroxylamine. Also, the results revealed that the Anammox intermediates (particularly, hydrazine) contents in the substrate would be one of the important parameters for success of the anaerobic nitrogen removal process. The results from organic synthetic wastewater show that if the Anammox organism were not great enough in the startup of the process, denitritation and anaerobic ammonification would be a process prior to the Anammox reaction. The anaerobic ammonium removal from the piggery waste was performed successfully, probably due to the Anammox intermediates contained in the substrate. This reactor shows a complex performance including the Anammox reaction and HAP crystallization, as well as having partial denitritation occurring simultaneously. From the activity test, the maximum specific N conversion rate was 0.1 g NH4-N/g VSS/day (0.77 g T-N/g VSS/day), indicating that potential denitritation is quite high. The NO2-N/NH4-N ratio to Anammox is 1.17. The colour of the biomass treating the piggery waste changed from black to dark red. It was also observed that the red-colored granular sludge had a diameter of 1–2 mm. The settleability assessment of the granular sludge revealed that the granular sludge had a good settleability even though it was worse than that of seed granular sludge.
A periodic H2 state feedback controller for a rotor-blade system

Many engineering applications have as their main component rotor-blade systems whose dynamics can be represented by a linear time-varying model. Since rotor-blade systems exhibit periodic dynamics, standard linear time-invariant analysis and synthesis techniques cannot be directly used and are not able to guarantee closed-loop stability and performance. Although there exist many results for periodic systems, the design of controllers for such systems is, in general, a difficult task. Its practical application is challenging, from the computational and experimental aspects. This paper presents the application of a periodic H2 control problem in a rotor-blade system in order to attenuate the tip vibration. The proposed control design is based on a periodic Riccati differential equation (PRDE). The Floquet-Lyapunov theory is used to represent the dynamics in an adequate coordinate system, so that the PRDE can be efficiently solved. A robustness analysis is also perfomed. Numerical experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Matching Algorithm Design in E-Commerce: Harnessing the Power of Machine Learning via Stochastic Optimization

Title of dissertation: Matching Algorithm Design in E-Commerce: Harnessing the Power of Machine Learning via Stochastic Optimization Pan Xu, Doctor of Philosophy, 2019 Dissertation directed by: John Dickerson and Aravind Srinivasan Department of Computer Science Internet-based matching markets have gained great attention during the last decade, such as Internet advertising (matching keywords and advertisers), ridesharing platforms (pairing riders and drivers), crowdsourcing markets (assigning tasks to workers), online dating (pairing romantically attracted partners), etc. A fundamental challenge is the presence of uncertainty, which manifests in the following two ways. The first is on the arrival of agents in the system, e.g., drivers and riders in ridesharing services, keywords in the Internet advertising, and online workers in crowdsourcing markets. The second is on the outcome of interaction. For example, two users may like or dislike each other after a dating arranged by a match-making firm, a user may click or not click the link of an advertisement shown by an Ad company, to name a few. We are now living in the era of big data, fortunately. Thus, by applying powerful machine learning techniques to huge volumes of historical data, we can often get very accurate estimates of the uncertainty in the system as described above. Given this, the question then is as follows: How can we exploit estimates for our benefits as a matching-policy designer? This dissertation aims to address this question. We have built an AI toolbox, which takes as input the estimates over uncertainty in the system, appropriate objectives (e.g., maximization of the total profit, maximization of fairness, etc.), and outputs a matching policy which works well both theoretically and experimentally on those pre-specified targets. The key ingredients are two matching models: stochastic matching and online matching. We have made several foundational algorithmic progress for these two models. Additionally, we have successfully utilized these two models to harness estimates from powerful machine learning algorithms, and designed improved matching policies for various real matching markets including ridesharing, crowdsourcing, and online recommendation applications. Matching Algorithm Design in E-Commerce: Harnessing the Power of Machine Learning via Stochastic Optimization
EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVE CONTOUR MODELS FOR REAL{TIME OBJECT TRACKING

In the past six years many algorithms and models for active contours (snakes) have been presented. Some of the work has been applied to static image analysis, some other to image sequence processing. Despite of the fact that snakes can be used for object tracking, no comparative study of the performance for real{time object tracking is known up to now. In this paper we compare several active contour models presented earlier in the literature for object tracking: the \Greedy" algorithm, the dynamic programming approach, and the rst work of Kass, based on the variational calculus. We discuss and compare the various active contour models with respect to the quality of contour extraction, the computation time and robustness. All evaluation is done using sequences, grabbed during closed{loop real{time experiments.
An incomplete ignorance state in repeated-play decision making: A note on Bayesian decision-theoretical framework

There has been much reported on decisions from experience, also referred to as decisions in a complete ignorance fashion. This note lays out a Bayesian decision-theoretical framework that provides a computable account for decisions from experience. To make the framework more tractable, this note sets up and examines decisions in a incomplete ignorance fashion. The current discussion asserts that well-known behavioural effects, such as the hot stove effect, and the Bayesian framework may lead to different predictions.
FORMULATION OF KETOCONAZOLE LOADED NANO DISPERSIVE GEL USING SWOLLEN MICELLES TECHNIQUE AND ITS IN VITRO CHARACTERIZATION

Objective: The objective of the present work was to formulate and characterize nano dispersive gel (NDG) for topical delivery of water-insoluble antifungal agent ketoconazole in order to enhance its solubility, penetration through the skin and antifungal activity. Methods: Nano dispersion of the drug was first prepared by swollen micelles technique (SMT) using tween 80 and chloroform which is then incorporated into the gel using carbopol 934. Ten formulations of ketoconazole loaded NDG was prepared and characterized for different physicochemical parameters like homogeneity, pH, spreadability, extrudability, practical yield, drug content, in vitro drug release, ex vivo permeation study, and biological parameter antifungal activity. Results: The formulated topical preparation exhibit pH in the range of 6.5 to 7.4, and unveiled excellent homogeneity, spreadability and extrudability. Out of 10 formulations, formulation F4 showed maximum drug content of 95.56±1.13% and practical yield of 97.23±0.51%. The in vitro drug release studies were performed using pH 7.4 phosphate buffer. Formulation F4 showed best in vitro drug release 96.52±0.52% at the end of 24 h of study. Ex vivo permeation study of formulation F4 carried out using franz diffusion cell, also manifested good permeation and flux of drug across the chicken skin. Antifungal activity test of formulation F4 was carried out by the cup plate method using Aspergillus niger strain against marketed ketoconazole unveiled higher antifungal activity than marketed one. Conclusion: The study confirmed formulation F4 to be an optimized and promising formulation for the effective treatment of topical fungal infections with enhanced solubility and penetration through the skin.
Serum homocysteine level in patients with acute cerebral infarction and its correlation with inflammatory factors, nerve factors and NO metabolism

Serum homocysteine level in patients with acute cerebral infarction and its correlation with inflammatory factors, nerve factors and NO metabolism Zhi-Guo Li, Xia Zhou, Gui-Bin Wen 1. Department of Neurology, Zigong Third People's Hospital in Sichuan Province, Zigong, Sichuan Province, 643020 2. Department of Neurology, Zigong Fourth People's Hospital in Sichuan Province, Zigong, Sichuan Province, 643000 Journal of Hainan Medical University
Domain Adaptation in Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning is a powerful mechanism for training artificial and real-world agents to perform tasks. Typically, one can define a task for an agent by simply specifying rewards that reflect the agent’s performance. However, each time the task changes, one must develop a new reward specification. Our work aims to remove the necessity of designing rewards in tasks consisting of visual inputs. When humans are learning to complete tasks, we often look to other sources for inspiration or instruction. Even if the representation is different from our own, we can adapt our own representation to the task representation. This motivates our own work, where we present tasks to an agent that are from an environment different than its own. We compare the cross-domain goal representation with the agents representation to form Cross-Domain Perceptual Reward (CDPR) functions and show that these enable the agent to successfully complete its task.
Individual distinctiveness in the mobbing call of a cooperative bird, the noisy miner Manorina melanocephala

Individual differentiation is usually advantageous in maximising the fitness benefits of interactions with conspecifics. In social species, where intraspecific interactions are frequent, this is likely to be particularly important. Indeed, some form of differentiation underpins most hypotheses proposed to account for cooperative behaviour in birds. The auditory modality is a likely candidate for this function, particularly for species where individuals are widely spaced and in dense vegetation. In this study, we examined the acoustic structure of a distinctive mobbing signal, the ‘chur’ call, of the cooperatively breeding noisy miner Manorina melanocephala. Using 250 calls from 25 individuals, a combination of spectrographic-based measurement of call parameters, cross-correlation and multi-dimensional scaling was used to test for systematic individual differences in call structure. Strong differences between individuals were observed in all measures, indicating that this call encodes sufficient information to facilitate individual differentiation. We then conducted a series of field playbacks to test the effect of the behaviour on conspecifics. Results demonstrated that the call, in isolation, has a clear attractant effect. Given that chur calls are synonymous with the characteristic cooperative mobbing behaviour of this species, these findings suggest they are likely to have an important function in coordinating complex social behaviour.
Conservation and trade of wild edible mushrooms of Serbia – history, state of the art and perspectives

Wild edible mushrooms have received significant scientific and socio-economic attention in the last few decades, since they have become the subject of a booming trade business. Through last decades, Serbia, a small country positioned in the South East of Europe, has become a source country for extensive export of commercially important species of wild mushrooms. The data used for international analyses of national policy on mushroom protection and trade are cited usually from personal communications and therefore are not really reliable. Extensive investigations into diversity or ecology of macro fungi in Serbia have never been undertaken. The forestry sector, which is managing all forests in the country, has absolutely neglected its role in ecosystems while habitats of macro fungi have been permanently destroyed. There are only two legal acts that refer to mushroom protection directly and none aims to protect their habitats or diversity in practice. In this contribution, a comprehensive review of official data on research, conservation, socio-economic importance and legislation on wild edible mushrooms and truffles in Serbia was provided. Additionally, the application of existing legal acts on conservation of macro fungi and data on wild mushroom trade in the period between 1993–2016, during which time the trade control has been initiated was analysed. The currently valid system of conservation and trade control are discussed in the frame of protection of wild mushroom species and their habitats and measures for upgrading this system in order to meet the requirements of the sustainable use of natural resources in the socio-economic conditions of Serbia are proposed.
INDIRECT NETWORK EFFECTS AND TRADE LIBERALIZATION By KAZUMICHI IWASA AND TORU KIKUCHI

Indirect network effects exist when the utility of consumers is increasing in the variety of complementary products available for use with an electronic hardware device. In this paper, we examine how trade liberalization affects production structure in the presence of indirect network effects. For this purpose we construct a simple two-country model of trade with incompatible countryspecific hardware technologies. It is shown that, given that both countries’ hardware devices remain in the trading equilibrium, both countries gain from trade liberalization. It is also shown that if only one country’s hardware remains in the integrated market, the other country may lose from trade liberalization.
AUTOMATIC EYE TRACKING AND INTERMEDIATE VIEW RECONSTRUCTION FOR 3D IMAGING SYSTEMS

AUTOMATIC EYE TRACKING AND INTERMEDIATE VIEW RECONSTRUCTION FOR 3D IMAGING SYSTEMS Bediz, Yusuf M.S., Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gözde Bozdağı Akar July 2006, 76 pages In recent years, the utilization of 3D display systems became popular in many application areas. One of the most important issues in the utilization of these systems is to render the correct view to the observer based on his/her position. In this thesis, we propose and implement a single user view rendering system for autostereoscopic/stereoscopic displays. The system can easily be installed on a standard PC together with an autostereoscopic display or stereoscopic glasses (shutter, polarized, pulfrich, and anaglyph) with appropriate video card. Proposed system composes of three main blocks: view point detection, view point tracking and intermediate view reconstruction. Haar object detection method, which is based on boosted cascade of simple feature classifiers, is utilized as the view point detection method. After detection, feature points are found on the detected region and accordingly they are fed to the feature tracker. View point of the observer is calculated by using the tracked position of the observer on the image. Correct stereoscopic view is, then, rendered on the display. A 3D warpingbased method is utilized in the system as the intermediate view reconstruction method. System is implemented on a computer with Pentium IV 3.0 GHz processor using E-D 3D shutter glasses and Creative NX Webcam. iv
Pavement Images Denoising with Cracks Detection and Classification Using 2D Discrete Wavelet Transform and Savitzky-Golay Filters

Image processing has gained an increased usage and impact in modern pavement networks automatic distress severity classification (DSC). DSC defines priorities and maintenance resources optimum allocation in order to achieve a cost-effective rehabilitation process. This paper presents a novel computer vision algorithm having the ability to process, isolate and evaluate the distress severity level of a pavement. A pavement color image is converted to grayscale and then processed for image denoising of the granularity and complex texture that represent and artifact in cracks edge detection. The processing is achieved by a 2D dual-tree double density wavelet transform filter banks that significantly reduces the granularity noise while preserving the pavement cracks for edge detection. The 2D wavelet FIR filters perform analysis, soft thresholding then a synthesis of the image. The second step is then an edge detection process followed by morphological filtering and labeled components size-histogram filter to isolate false edges as residuals of denoising. A final step is performed by two Savitzky-Golay filters for the detection of longitudinal and transverse alligator cracks projections. A weighted score function with multiple parameters is used for DSC.
Is Index Performance Achievable? An Analysis of Australian Equity Index Funds

This article examines the performance of index equity funds in Australia. Despite the significant growth in index funds since 1976, when the first index mutual fund was launched in the U.S., research on their performance is sparse in the U.S. and non-existent in Australia. This study documents the existence of significant tracking error for Australian index funds. For example, the magnitude of the difference between index fund returns and index returns averages between 7.4 and 22.3 basis points per month across index funds operating for more than five years. However, there is little evidence of bias in tracking error implying that these funds neither systematically outperform nor underperform their benchmark on a before cost basis. Further analysis provides evidence that the magnitude of tracking error is related to fund cash flows, market volatility, transaction costs and index replication strategies used by the manager.
Two centuries-long dendroclimatic reconstruction based on Low Arctic Betula pubescens from Tromsø Region, Northern Norway

This study presents the results of dendrochronological and dendroclimatological research of Betula pubescens from four sites in northern Norway (Kvaløya Island, Tromsøya Island and Storelva Valley), which provided a 193-year chronology. Our results highlight the importance of the site selection in dendroclimatological studies. We demonstrated that activity of geomorphic processes connected with local topography could led to reduced strength of climatic signal embedded in tree-ring data. Negative pointer years, triggered mainly by unfavourable climatic conditions and insect outbreaks, were common for all site chronologies in 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1986, 2004. However, some site-specific differences were also distinguished. Response function analysis confirmed that June, July and August temperatures were positively correlated with tree-ring widths. This climate-growth relationship was stable throughout the years 1925–2000. From summer temperature reconstruction back to AD 1820, two colder (c. 1835–1850 and 1890–1920) and two warmer (c. 1825–1835 and 1920–1940) periods were identified. The tree-ring record from the Tromsø Region, well correlated between series, sites and climate variables, is an important element of a large-scale reconstruction of pre-instrumental climate variation in the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean. Our dendroclimatic reconstruction corresponds well with other climate proxy data, like fluctuations of mountain glaciers in Scandinavia or sea ice extent.
Deformations of symmetric spaces of compact type to their noncompact duals Dedicated to Professor

where ƒÊC:TMTpM is a homothetic transformation defined by ƒÊC(X)=•ãcX. It can be also defined on c_? _0 in the following manner: Let G be the identity component of the group of all isometries of (M,g) and K the isotropy subgroup of G at p• ̧M. Then we have the canonical decomposition g=l+m of the Lie algebra g of G, where t is the Lie algebra of K and m is the (-1)-eigen space of the canonical involution ƒÐ of G. The tangent space TpM at p• ̧M is canonically identified with m. We denote by exp:gG the exponential map of G. Using the formula (See Helgason [2; p. 215]):for