Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wildlife Population Change in Africa from the Eyes of the Public—The Case of Mara Enoonkishu Conservancy in Southern Kenya

The aims of the study were to: 1) determine the wildlife population trends in the Mara Enoonkishu Conservancy from the eyes and minds of the public, 2) assess the recent trends in wildlife populations based on actual scientific counts, and 3) compare the two patterns and establish whether they are similar or not. The solicitation of public views was based on household surveys using a standard questionnaire which was administered to 115 randomly selected respondents. The dominant wildlife species according to 39% of the respondents was the elephant followed by the zebra with 35%. 40% of the respondents indicated that the rhino population had declined followed by wild dogs (7%) and cheetah (6%). The actual counts showed that the herbivores with increasing populations included the rhino (r2 = 0.9992), impala (r2 = 0.9824), Thomson’s gazelle (r2 = 0.6965), Grant’s gazelle (r2 = 0.7052), elephant (r2 = 0.5798), and topi (r2 = 0.4426) while the increasing predators included the lion (r2 = 1.000), cheetah (r2 = 0.9093) and hyena (r2 = 0.8462). The actual wildlife counts appeared to tally with the public views only for the elephant and zebra. The actual counts contradicted the public views in terms of the rhino, lion and gazelles whose numbers were on the increase but the people did not appear to notice. Based on this, it was concluded that the public view on the wildlife population trend was not similar to the actual wildlife population status on the ground based on scientific monitoring.
Monitoring of carbon dioxide uptake in accelerated carbonation processes applied to air pollution control residues

The application of Accelerated Carbonation Technology (ACT) has potential for the sequestration of carbon in waste and geological materials. ACT also has potential to be supported by carbon credit mechanisms based upon the amount of carbon sequestered from industrial emissions. For this to happen, the routine monitoring of CO2 sequestered into the solid phase is required for the planning and operation of any accelerated carbonation plant. The present paper reports the preliminary results from an assessment of existing methods for measuring CO2 imbibed into a solid by an accelerated carbonation processes. Laboratory-scale experiments were carried out to evaluate the accuracy of methodologies for measuring mineralised carbon including: loss on ignition, acid digestion and total carbon analysis. The CO2 reactivity of several wastes from municipal incineration known as Air Pollution Control residues (APCr) were also included in the study. A detailed characterisation of the materials being carbonated, using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and ion chromatography was carried out. The results of this study showed that monitoring CO2 during accelerated carbonation is made difficult by the complex mineralogy of materials such as APCrs. As such, the presence of calcium bearing species and polymorphs of calcium carbonate formed varied between the materials investigated. The use of an acid digestion technique was not subject to interference from the chemistry or mineralogy of an ash. Among the investigated methods, acid digestion gives the most promising results as it provided robust data on the amount of carbon imbibed during processing.
Investigation of the Sediment Movement along the Tenryu–Enshunada Fluvial System Based on Feldspar Thermoluminescence Properties

Abstract The thermoluminescence (TL) properties of feldspar were used to investigate the sediment movement processes in a fluvial–coastal system. Field samples were collected at various locations along the Tenryu River and the Enshunada Coast in Japan. After a series of pretests, an appropriate TL measuring sequence was proposed for this study. Applying this approach, the natural TL intensity of feldspar grains was measured. Owing to the young age of the research area, it was assumed that the natural TL difference was ascribed to the sample depositional environment under which different possibilities of sunlight exposure exist. Surface sediment particles in the target area were classified into three groups in terms of TL intensities, i.e., river sand with large TL signals, coastal sand with medium TL signals, and dune sand with small TL signals. Stratified configuration of the Nakatajima Coastal Dune was observed from the underground-sample TL glow curves with a top, windblown, dune-sand layer; a bottom, wave-induced, coastal sand layer; and a mixing layer in between. A rather complex sediment-movement pattern in front of the Tenryu River mouth was revealed after investigation of the underwater samples. Because of the seawater influence, acting as an ultraviolet filter to sunlight, underwater samples present a larger, high-temperature TL peak than the low-temperature peak; whereas these two are almost the same for ground samples.
Dairy farming and Newt habitat: How shocks in milk prices influence the optimal design of water retention policies

Floods and droughts are expected to occur more frequently due to climate change. Regional water boards in the Netherlands are anticipating water level variations in streams in rural areas. To moderate adverse effects of those variations, they seek for opportunities to enhance retention of rainfall runoff on agricultural land in the stream valleys. This can be done by contracting farmers to apply agri-environmental measures. We focus on this small-scale and flexible (in space and time) rainfall runoff retention by farmers. Farmers can decide to (temporarily) allocate parts of their land to apply agri-environmental measures, depending on shocks of various nature, e.g. shocks due to increased price fluctuation for agricultural products. These patches of land may then serve as water retention areas and can be temporarily habitat to certain species, and the configuration of the habitat patches is highly dynamic. Spatiotemporal habitat dynamics can have strong effects on species’ viability. This paper develops an index as a proxy to express the persistence of species in the complex socioecological system, depending on crucial – but dynamic – factors landscape history and proximity of habitat. The development of such a “dynamic landscape”-index is scientifically innovative. We aim to support water boards by offering a simulation model to evaluate potential effects of alternative agri-environmental policies and to test the robustness of policies to shocks in the socioeconomic environment. This model contains a spatially explicit agent-based model and a population dynamics model. The agent-based model simulates the allocation of agri-environmental measures by the water board and farmers’ land use decisions. To check whether the landscape index indeed promotes species’ persistence, the population dynamics of indicator species are simulated in the dynamic landscapes generated by the agent-based model, using the population-dynamic model METAPOP.
Influence of Cry1Ab Protein and Hybrid Genotype on Fumonisin Contamination and Fusarium Ear Rot of Corn

Fusarium ear rot of corn (Zea mays L.) is associated with feeding damage from the European corn borer (ECB), Ostrinia nubilalis Hubner, and the corn earworm (CEW), Helicoverpa zea Boddie. Specific transformation events encoding for Cry1Ab protein from Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) may reduce Fusarium ear rot and fumonisin concentration in grain by minimizing damage from certain insects. The objective of this study was to determine if effects from Cry1Ab protein in kernels and silks on fumonisin concentration in grain vary depending on the genotype of the hybrid or the predominant insect species. Four Bt corn hybrids and their corresponding nontransgenic, near-isogenic hybrids were compared for ear rot severity and fumonisin concentration in grain in four environments. Treatments included inoculation with F. verticillioides (Sacc.) Nirenb. (Syn = F. moniliforme J. Sheld.) and F. proliferatum (Matsushima) Nirenb. , infestation with ECB larvae, infestation with CEW larvae, and controls. Cry1Ab protein from the Mon810 transformation event was associated with reduced ear rot severity when hybrids were not inoculated with Fusarium spp. , regardless of whether hybrids were infested or not infested with insects. Cry1Ab protein was associated with reduced fumonisin concentration in grain when ECB was the predominant insect, but not when CEW was the predominant insect. Cry1Ab protein was not associated with reduced fumonisin concentration in grain for the most resistant hybrid pair in this study. Results suggest that Bt hybrids can reduce fumonisin concentration in grain during seasons when ECB is favored, but not during seasons when CEW is favored. Hybrid genotype was an important factor in reducing fumonisin concentration in grain.
Improvement of colored thread algorithm for network reachability test

Colored thread algorithm, suggested to be used for the label switching network, needs to be modified for the packet switching network. In this paper, it is recommended to add a merged state, besides the 3 states - null, colored and transparent - which are resulted from the behaviors of extend, rewind, stall, withdraw and merge events. The original colored thread algorithm is designed to generate a new thread and extend it to the downstream direction with unknown hop count when the thread has revisited the node that was visited. It also suggested rewinding the thread to the downstream direction by the source node, instead of rewinding it upstream direction by the revisited node. If a node received multiple threads which had a same forward equivalent class, then it checks first whether the hop counts are ascending or not. If it is in ascending order, then threads are merged. Otherwise the later thread is stalled until the former thread's color is to be changed to transparent or it is removed. This idea removes the effort of generating a new thread with unknown hop count.
Detecting structural breaks in seasonal time series by regularized optimization

Real-world systems are often complex, dynamic, and nonlinear. Understanding the dynamics of a system from its observed time series is key to the prediction and control of the system's behavior. While most existing techniques tacitly assume some form of stationarity or continuity, abrupt changes, which are often due to external disturbances or sudden changes in the intrinsic dynamics, are common in time series. Structural breaks, which are time points at which the statistical patterns of a time series change, pose considerable challenges to data analysis. Without identification of such break points, the same dynamic rule would be applied to the whole period of observation, whereas false identification of structural breaks may lead to overfitting. In this paper, we cast the problem of decomposing a time series into its trend and seasonal components as an optimization problem. This problem is ill-posed due to the arbitrariness in the number of parameters. To overcome this difficulty, we propose the addition of a penalty function (i.e., a regularization term) that accounts for the number of parameters. Our approach simultaneously identifies seasonality and trend without the need of iterations, and allows the reliable detection of structural breaks. The method is applied to recorded data on fish populations and sea surface temperature, where it detects structural breaks that would have been neglected otherwise. This suggests that our method can lead to a general approach for the monitoring, prediction, and prevention of structural changes in real systems.
STUDY OF IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITIZING THE AFFECTING FACTORS ON BANK BRAND CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Today, customer loyalty is the key to business success. By increased customers’ loyalty, market share and profitability level of enterprises will rise. Market perception along with planning and adopting appropriate strategies for making customers loyal and enhancing their rate of loyalty leads to long-term benefits for the enterprises. Given the importance of the issue, the goal of this study was to identify and prioritize the factors affecting loyalty to a banking brand from perspective of Keshavarzi (Agricultural) Bank customers in Shahin Dej, Iran. This was an applied research based on a survey approach. The statistical population incorporated all Keshavarzi Bank customers of Shahin Dej in 2017, and given the limitation of the research population, only 382 people were selected as the sample. The results suggested that customer satisfaction, transfer cost, and organizational image affected the loyalty of Keshavarzi Bank customers. Furthermore, customer satisfaction impacted the organizational image, service quality impacted customer satisfaction, and service quality exerted an effect on the perceived value. Article visualizations:
Substituição Entre Alimentos Orgânicos E Convencionais No Brasil: O Papel Dos Preços E Do Dispêndio

This article seeks to analyze the demand‟s sensibility for organic food and their conventional counterparts to variations in prices and expenditure in Brazilian households. We estimated an aggregate demand system for fourteen categories (seven organics and seven conventional) using the microdata from the Brazilian Household Budget Survey (POF/IBGE) 2008/2009. Results showed that Brazilian consumers are more sensitive to variations in prices and expenditure of organic than conventional food. Moreover, there is asymmetry in substitution/complementarity relations between the two types of food. These results suggest that it is relatively difficult to induce consumers that are used to purchase organic products to "revert" their spending habits changing organic products to conventional ones. Furthermore, results showed that consumers do not view organic food as a substitute for conventional food in most cases. Examining the expenditure elasticities, we can conclude that organic foods can be classified as luxury goods.
Diffusion inélastique des neutrons sur les aimants moléculaires

Les materiaux magnetiques sont le plus souvent des metaux, des oxydes metalliques, des reseaux ioniques, ou des materiaux moleculaires organiques. Chacune de ces grandes familles de materiaux permet l’etude de systemes magnetiques extremement varies que ce soit en considerant la connectivite magnetique, la force et la symetrie des interactions ou la nature des elements constitutifs. Dans ce cadre, les materiaux moleculaires magnetiques presentent l’avantage de permettre une extraordinaire variete de formes et de topologies. Les aimants moleculaires sont, en effet, des materiaux cristallins composes d’ions magnetiques pouvant former des systemes de dimensionnalite differentes [68]. La “dimensionnalite magnetique” du materiau est controlee par les interaction d’echange entre spins du reseau ou entre “spins collectifs” des agregats. Selon la dimensionnalite magnetique, on a alors affaire a une physique a 3D (approches perturbatives ou “de champ moyen”, ordre a longue distance), a 2D (supraconducteurs haut-Tc, certains manganites a effet GMR) ou 1D (chaines et echelles de spins [48]) ou, donc, 0D (agregats, molecules). A 1D, en particulier, le confinement topologique est tres marque, amenant a des comportements totalement nouveaux par le biais d’un processus de domination-renforcement des fluctuations quantiques destabilisant les etats fondamentaux “classiques”1 comme l’etat de Neel dans les antiferromagnetiques (cf theoreme de Mermin-Wagner [80]) ou qui conduisent a des etats qualitativement differents selon la valeur du spin2 (Haldane [62]). La problematique est quasi-identique3 dans les “echelles de spins” (chaines couplees) [8,47,48,72] ou les chaines de spin-1/2 dimerisees (echanges alternes permanents ou dimerisation en presence d’une transition spin-Peierls). L’application d’un parametre exterieur (champ magnetique, pression) permet de sonder, dans tous ces systemes, les phenomenes de transitions de phase quantique (i.e. a T = 0) entre un etat singulet non magnetique et un etat triplet magnetique voire un etat ordonne a longue distance [35,36,128].
PII: S1385-8947(99)00135-7

Complex resistivity may provide valuable information about the structural and hydraulic nature of porous media and fluids contained within such media. The environmental value of such a property is obvious. To date most environmental applications of complex resistivity have focussed on relatively crude data analysis methods and restrictive electrode configurations. New tomographic methods are becoming available that will allow complex resistivity to be employed with arbitrary electrode arrangements. Laboratory trials of our extensions of electrical resistivity tomography to a complex form are reported. The inversion procedure is presented and demonstrated for a range of targets, with resistive and reactive characteristics. The approach is shown to provide useful magnitude and phase images, giving spectral information about the region of interest. Cole–Cole analysis of the inversion results reveals specific material relaxation characteristics. The usefulness of imaging complex resistivity is evident when compared with more conventional resistivity tomography, in particular when examined over a range of input frequencies. ©2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
Resilient State Estimation for Control Systems Using Multiple Observers and Median Operation

This paper addresses the problem of state estimation for linear dynamic systems that is resilient against malicious attacks on sensors. By “resiliency” we mean the capability of correctly estimating the state despite external attacks. We propose a state estimation with a bank of observers combined through median operations and show that the proposed method is resilient in the sense that estimated states asymptotically converge to the true state despite attacks on sensors. In addition, the effect of sensor noise and process disturbance is also considered. For bounded sensor noise and process disturbance, the proposed method eliminates the effect of attack and achieves state estimation error within a bound proportional to those of sensor noise and disturbance. While existing methods are computationally heavy because online solution of nonconvex optimization is needed, the proposed approach is computationally efficient by using median operation in the place of the optimization. It should be pointed out that the proposed method requires the system states being observable with every sensor, which is not a necessary condition for the existing methods. From resilient system design point of view, however, this fact may not be critical because sensors can be chosen for resiliency in the design stage. The gained computational efficiency helps real-time implementation in practice.
Technology analysis of artificial intelligence using Bayesian inference for neural networks

At present, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is receiving much attention and applied in each field of society. AI is one of the key technologies to lead the fourth industrial revolution along with the internet of things and big data. Therefore, many companies and research institutes are trying to systematically analyze AI technology in order to understand the AI itself correctly. In this paper, we also study on a method to analyze AI technology based on quantitative approach. We correct the patent documents related to AI technology, and analyze them using statistical modelling. We use Bayesian inference for neural networks to build our proposed method. To verify the validity of our research, we carry out a case study using the AI patent documents.
Gut function and dysfunction in young pigs: physiology

The post-weaning period in pigs is characterized by an immediate but transient drop in feed intake resulting in severe undernutrition and growth check. This in turn affects various aspects of small intestinal architecture and function leading to gut-associated disorders and often diarrhea. Among these, villus atrophy and digestive enzyme activity depression have been documented. More recent investigations clearly demonstrate early signs of local inflammation including immune cell infiltration and increased pro-inflammatory cytokine gene expression, signs of cytoprotection through up-regulation of so-called heat shock proteins, indications of tissue alterations by proteases (stromelysin) and finally epithelial functional disorders in mineral absorption/secretion and perme- ability. This is followed by a regenerative phase, probably stimulated by feed intake resumption, resulting in down-regulation of many intestinal indicators. However, some of them then display new spatio-temporal adult-type adaptive patterns of maturation. A limited number of substances, partic- ularly nitrogenous compounds and complex preparations of animal origin (colostrum, plasma) have proven to be successful, at least partly, in minimizing post-weaning intestinal disturbances. Thus further research in intestinal physiology, in association with microbiology and immunology, is war- ranted to strengthen our understanding of the mechanisms of gut disorders in order to provide a better rational basis for designing suitable alternatives to in-feed antibiotics for pigs.
Effect of micro-organism and particle size on fermentation of sorghum and maize for poultry feed

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of particle size and micro-organism on fermentation of sorghum and maize for poultry feed. Sorghum ( Sorghum bicolour L. Moench) and maize were milled in a hammer mill and separated into coarse, medium, fine and very fine particles sizes with a stack of sieves of apertures 2.5 mm, 850 μm and 500 μm, from the first to the last sieve and ending in a pan with the very fine particles. Samples were weighed into 100 g sachets and irradiated using 60 Co at 25 kGy γ-radiation. Grains were fermented with sterile distilled water for 24 h at a ratio of 1 feed:1.4 water and inoculated with 0.01 ml of an overnight culture of De Man, Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) broth containing Pediococcus acidilactici (PA1) or Lactobacillus plantarum (SLP) (ca 10 9 cfu/ml). The medium was incubated at 30°C simultaneously with a control treatment without lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Subsamples were collected aseptically at the beginning of the fermentation (0 h) and at 4, 8, 24 h after fermentation for pH, sugar and organic acids analysis. Significant reductions in the pH of maize and sorghum for LAB treatments (PA1 and SLP) were evident after 8 hours of fermentation. Twenty four hour lactic acid concentrations from coarse particle size fermentations were not significantly different from concentrations in the medium and fine particle size fermentations. The choice of LAB did not affect the concentration of lactic acid for any particle size. However, acetic acid production from fermentation with PA1 was significantly higher (P<0.01) than the concentration obtained with SLP. Results suggest that moderate grain processing may be enough to permit production of biosafe levels of lactic acid in fermented feed for poultry birds. Keywords : Fermentation, lactic acid bacteria, maize, particle size, sorghum African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(26), pp. 4147-4157