Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Moving a Bootcamp-Style Computer Science Programme Online: An Experience Report

The Postgraduage Certificate in Information Technology at the University of Auckland is a bootcamp-style transition programme for students without prior programming experience. The programme's part-time variant, designed for working professionals, has traditionally been offered with intensive evening classes, with extensive tutor and instructor support. Spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, our University has moved this part-time variant fully online. Benefits of the online offering include a wider, more inclusive audience and flexibility of student learning schedules. However, it has introduced several pedagogical challenges, including but not limited to how instructors can continue to provide meaningful support, feedback, and student engagement in an online environment. In this paper, we reflect on our experience, analyse qualitative and quantitative feedback such as student evaluations and grades, and provide recommendations for those wishing to undertake a similar transformation in the future.
Responses by Hector's dolphins to boats and swimmers in Porpoise bay, New Zealand

Theodolite tracking (61 d; 251 h) was used to quantify dolphin reactions to boats and swimmers in the austral summers of 1995-1996 and 1996-1997. Dolphins were accompanied by swimmers (within 200 m) for 11.2% of the total observation time, whereas boats accounted for an additional 12.4%. Dolphins were not displaced by either of these activities. Swimmers caused only weak, non-significant effects, perhaps because dolphins could very easily avoid them. Reactions to the dolphin-watching boat were stronger. Analyses of relative orientation indicate that dolphins tended to approach the vessel in the initial stages of an encounter but became less interested as the encounter progressed. By 70 min into an encounter dolphins were either actively avoiding the boat or equivocal towards it, approaching significantly less often than would be expected by chance. Analyses of group dispersion indicate that dolphins were significantly more tightly bunched when a boat was in the bay.
Evolution of Efficiencies and Strategies of Resource Exploitation

A logistic model generalized to multiple resources as well as species was used to test ideas about the conditions under which particular efficiencies and strategies of resource use ought to evolve. I hypothesize that obligate generalization and specialization, respectively, are the optimal strategies when the mean ratio of population size to environmental carrying capacity is constantly large or small, but that facultative specialization is optimal when this ratio is variable. Facultative strategists specialize (i.e., use some subset of available resources) when their population sizes are small relative to the environmental carrying capacity, but generalize progressively as this ratio increases. These ideas were evaluated by simulating competition among otherwise identical species with different efficiencies and strategies of resource use, in environments whose resource abundances or rates of supply had coefficients of variation of 0, 1, 10, and 100%. The results confirm expectations in general (e.g., facultative strategists fare better than obligate ones only in variable environments), suggesting that consumers whose resources fluctuate in availability relative to their requirements for them should be facultative. A particularly well-studied resource-consumer interaction permits estimation of model parameters, but the dynamic observations needed to distinguish obligate from facultative strategies are anecdotal. Hence, this theory remains to be evaluated empirically.
Estimating Site Occupancy and Detection Probability Parameters for Meso- And Large Mammals in a Coastal Ecosystem

Abstract Large-scale, multispecies monitoring programs are widely used to assess changes in wildlife populations but they often assume constant detectability when documenting species occurrence. This assumption is rarely met in practice because animal populations vary across time and space. As a result, detectability of a species can be influenced by a number of physical, biological, or anthropogenic factors (e.g., weather, seasonality, topography, biological rhythms, sampling methods). To evaluate some of these influences, we estimated site occupancy rates using species-specific detection probabilities for meso- and large terrestrial mammal species on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA. We used model selection to assess the influence of different sampling methods and major environmental factors on our ability to detect individual species. Remote cameras detected the most species (9), followed by cubby boxes (7) and hair traps (4) over a 13-month period. Estimated site occupancy rates were similar among sampling methods for most species when detection probabilities exceeded 0.15, but we question estimates obtained from methods with detection probabilities between 0.05 and 0.15, and we consider methods with lower probabilities unacceptable for occupancy estimation and inference. Estimated detection probabilities can be used to accommodate variation in sampling methods, which allows for comparison of monitoring programs using different protocols. Vegetation and seasonality produced species-specific differences in detectability and occupancy, but differences were not consistent within or among species, which suggests that our results should be considered in the context of local habitat features and life history traits for the target species. We believe that site occupancy is a useful state variable and suggest that monitoring programs for mammals using occupancy data consider detectability prior to making inferences about species distributions or population change.
Antimicrobial activities and usage in folkloric medicine of some Lamiaceae species growing in Mugla, Turkey

In this study; 23 selected plant species belonging to the Lamiaceae family, used in traditional treatments, were collected from different localities of Mugla, dried and extracted with ethanol using the soxhlet extraction apparatus. The antimicrobial activities of the plant extracts on the various test microorganisms, including multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria, were investigated. Antimicrobial activities of the extracts were determined by the disc diffusion method. Test microorganisms were; 7 Gram positive, 7 Gram negative bacteria and Candida albicans. Also different standart antibiotic discs were used for comparison for the inhibition zones. The antimicrobial activities of the ethanolic extracts of Salvia verbenaca, Teucrium chamaedrys ssp. lydium, Teucrium divaricatum ssp. villosum, Teucrium polium, Stachys annua ssp. annua var. annua, Sideritis albiflora, Sideritis leptoclada and Prunella vulgaris demonstrated the inhibition effects against Gram positive bacteria including multiple antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus strains. The ethanolic extract of S. leptoclada was the most effective extract. On the contrary, all of the ethanolic extracts were not effective on Gram negative bacteria and C. albicans. The ethanolic extracts of the plants, which inhibited the bacteria, mostly inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, MU 38, MU 44 and Staphylococcus epidermidis. Even the inhibition zone of S. leptoclada on S. aureus ATCC 25923 was greater than the inhibition zone of oxacillin on the same bacteria.
Real-Time Ventricular Cancellation in Unipolar Atrial Fibrillation Electrograms

Unipolar atrial fibrillation (AF) electrograms (EGMs) require far-field ventricle cancellation to recover hidden atrial activations. Current methods cannot achieve real-time cancellation because of the temporal delay they introduce. We propose a new real-time ventricular cancellation (RVC) method based on causal implementation optimized for real-time functioning. The method is similar to the classical average beat subtraction (ABS) method but it computes the ventricular contribution before the ventricular activation finishes. We compare the proposed method to the ABS on synthetic and real EGM databases for the time and frequency domains. All parameters and their optimal values are analyzed and validated. The RVC method provides a good reconstruction of the unipolar EGMs and a better local activation time detection than the classical approach with average F1scores 0.7307 and 0.7125, respectively. The spectral analysis shows that the average power after ventricular cancellation is reduced for frequency bands between 3 and 5.5 Hz, demonstrating that the proposed method removes the ventricular component present in the unipolar EGM signals compared to the ABS method. The phase mapping analysis on the RVC method presented lower error when comparing the annotated EGM cycles with the phase inversion intervals. In terms of performance ABS and RVC behave similarly, but the real-time capability of the latter justifies its preference over the offline implementations. In the clinical environment other online investigations, e.g., rotational activity assessment, dominant frequency or local activation time mapping, might benefit from the real-time potential of the proposed cancellation method.
NITRATE REDUCTASE (NR1) SEQUENCE AND EXPRESSION IN THE HARMFUL ALGA HETEROSIGMA AKASHIWO (RAPHIDOPHYCEAE) 1

Heterosigma akashiwo (Hada) Hada ex Y. Hara et Chihara is a bloom‐forming alga that has been associated with fish kills in coastal regions worldwide. Dense blooms of this species occur annually in Delaware’s inland bays, USA. Under static laboratory conditions, however, H. akashiwo is a poor competitor compared to other algal species. Instead, Heterosigma may proliferate under dynamic conditions due to its ability to respond quickly to nutrient input. The objectives of this investigation were to examine changes in transcriptional expression of nitrate reductase (NR) as a proxy for nitrate assimilation in Heterosigma. Here, the gene sequence for H. akashiwo nitrate reductase (NR1) was amplified by PCR, and the full‐length gene sequence was obtained and characterized. Using quantitative reverse transcriptase real‐time PCR (QRT‐PCR), changes in NR1 expression were evaluated in relation to temperature and nitrogen status. Expression of NR1 was not significantly different for cultures acclimated to temperatures ranging from 18°C to 28°C. Results also demonstrated that NR1 was expressed constitutively, even in the absence of nitrate and in the presence of ammonium. An apparent biphasic expression of NR1 was observed upon addition of nitrate to N‐starved cultures, with significant increases at 15 and 60 min after addition. In contrast, addition of nitrate to nitrate‐replete cultures resulted in a significant decrease in NR1 transcript abundance, likely due to repression by downstream products of nitrate assimilation. These results suggest that Heterosigma responds rapidly to changes in the environment by up‐ or down‐regulating the NR transcript pool in relation to the nitrogen status of the cell.
Modelling and Control of Tensegrity Structures

This thesis contains new results with respect to several aspects within tensegrity research. Tensegrity structures are prestressable mechanical truss structures with simple dedicated elements, that is rods in compression and strings in tension. The study of tensegrity structures is a new field of research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and our alliance with the strong research community on tensegrity structures at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) has been necessary to make the scientific progress presented in this thesis. Our motivation for starting tensegrity research was initially the need for new structural concepts within aquaculture having the potential of being wave compliant. Also the potential benefits from controlling geometry of large and/or interconnected structures with respect to environmental loading and fish welfare were foreseen. When initiating research on this relatively young discipline we discovered several aspects that deserved closer examination. In order to evaluate the potential of these structures in our engineering applications, we entered into modelling and control, and found several interesting and challenging topics for research. To date, most contributions with respect to control of tensegrity structures have used a minimal number of system coordinates and ordinary differential equations (ODEs) of motion. These equations have some inherent drawbacks, such as singularities in the coordinate representation, and recent developments therefore used a non-minimal number of system coordinates and differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) of motion to avoid this problem. This work presents two general formulations, both DAEs and ODEs, which have the ability to choose the position on rods the translational coordinates should point to, and further constrain some, or all of these coordinates depending on how the structural system should appear. The DAE formulation deduced for tensegrity structures has been extended in order to simulate the dynamics of relatively long and heavy cables. A rigid bar cable (RBC) model is created by interconnecting a finite number of inextensible thin rods into a chain system. The main contribution lies in the mathemati-
Modeling and Analysis of American Chestnut Populations Subject to Various Stages of Infection

Abstract American chestnuts, Castanea dentata, were once a dominant tree in eastern deciduous forests of the United States before the chestnut blight fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica, was introduced unintentionally in the early 1900s in New York. This fungus rapidly devastated American chestnut populations until a hypovirus infection of the fungus began to reduce pathogen virulence on chestnut trees. The subsequent reappearance of large reproducing chestnut trees, associated with a large proportion of blight-infected isolates being parasitized by this hypovirus, is currently taken to indicate recovery of American chestnut populations. We explore, using previously-established matrix population models, the dynamics of healthy, fungus-infected, and hypovirus-infected American chestnut populations to test the efficacy of this recovery. Our main result is that populations transitioning from being fungus-infected to hypovirus-infected are predicted to show large transient amplifications as a result of demographic transitions, only to decline asymptotically to zero, and this result is robust to uncertainty in fecundity values. Our results suggest that the current recovery of the American chestnut population may be a transient phenomenon and that more conservation efforts may be necessary to ensure its long-term persistence.
Host limitation of the thick‐shelled river mussel: identifying the threats to declining affiliate species

The conservation of endangered affiliate species, which are critically dependent on the presence of another species, is often hindered by a poor understanding of the relationships between the interacting partners. The parasitic stage of endangered unionid bivalves constitutes a tight host–affiliate linkage between the mussels and their host fishes. However, the threats resulting from potential shortages of the host species are rarely sufficiently quantified and incorporated into conservation strategies. In this paper, we integrated both host quality and availability analyses to assess the potential threats to the endangered thick‐shelled river mussel Unio crassus that result from the impairment of its host resources in Central Europe. The experimental determination of the compatibility of U. crassus parasitic larvae (glochidia) with its potential host fishes revealed an intermediate level of host specificity. At least, some glochidia successfully developed on 14 of the 27 potential hosts that were evaluated. Nevertheless, only three fish species (Scardinius erythrophthalmus, Phoxinus phoxinus and Cottus gobio) enabled the majority of the attached glochidia to transform successfully. Subsequently, our analysis of host availability at sites inhabited by living or extirpated populations of U. crassus showed that the local extirpations of U. crassus are likely associated with an impaired status of the fish assemblage and with the absence of the primary host fishes. These results indicate that the availability of host fish resources may have played at least an additive role in the present pan‐European decline of U. crassus and that the evaluation of host limitation without precise data on the host compatibility or host abundance may be ineffective for identifying the threats to particular species. It demonstrates a strong need for more thorough incorporation of host limitation issues into conservation strategies for U. crassus and probably also for other species of freshwater mussels that were previously considered safe from host limitation.
Proxy responses to ICECAP-A: Exploring variation across multiple proxy assessments of capability well-being for the same individuals

Background The ICECAP capability measures are increasingly being used to capture the impact of health and social care interventions on well-being. In cases where the recipient of an intervention is highly vulnerable, proxy completion may be necessary. This study adds to the limited existing evidence on proxy completion of ICECAP-A specifically and adopts the novel approach of investigating multiple proxy responses for the same four (hypothetical) individuals. Methods 62 members of the public who were participating in a series of one day deliberative workshops on public health and social care completed ICECAP-A on behalf of four hypothetical individuals, described in vignettes. Quantitative analysis explored the range of proxy responses for each of the four hypothetical individuals, and any possible correlation between participants’ own characteristics and their proxy responses. Participants discussed their proxy responses after completing the task; this discussion was audio recorded and analysed using Framework Analysis. Results Wide variation in ICECAP-A scores was observed across proxy respondents for each hypothetical individual. Participants’ demographic characteristics and own well-being do not appear to have systematically influenced proxy responses. Qualitative analysis suggests two principal approaches (or perspectives) were adopted by participants: Empathetic (adopting the perspective of the ‘subject’) and factual (a factual assessment of the subject’s well-being). Participants also drew on their own experiences to varying degrees. There were differing interpretations of the Independence attribute on ICECAP-A and some evidence that participants’ ideas of what constituted achievement were context (including life-stage and condition/health) specific. Conclusions The factual versus empathetic approaches identified from qualitative analysis in this study match to the concept of a proxy-proxy versus proxy-patient perspective, previously outlined in the literature. Researchers should consider specifying which perspective proxy raters should adopt. Findings also suggest proxy responses can be influenced by external points of reference and interpretation of measure attributes.
Nuevos registros para la herpetofauna del departamento de Lima, descripción del renacuajo de Telmatobius rimac Schmidt, 1954 (Anura: Ceratophrydae) y una clave de los anfibios

The tadpole of Telmatobius rimac is described and eight species of amphibians and reptiles are reported for the first time in Departamento de Lima. New amphibians records are Gastrotheca peruana and Pleurodema marmorata. New reptile records are the lizards Phyllodactylus gerrophygus and Ameiva edracantha, and the snakes Leptotyphlops tricolor, Philodryas tachymenoides, Sibynomorphus vagus and Tantilla capistrata. With this study, the herpetofauna of Lima is composed of 7 amphibians and 33 reptiles. An identification key for amphibians and an updated list of the herpetofauna for Departamento de Lima is provided.
Effects of fire frequency on species composition in a Mediterranean shrubland

Abstract The effect of high fire frequency on the species composition of Mediterranean-type plant communities is reported on the basis of shrubland stands located in Catalonia (Spain) that have experienced from 1 to 5 fires over the last 31 years. We focused on changes in the abundance of species, grouped according to post-fire regenerative traits (resprouting and seed germination) and life form (shrubs, herbaceous graminoids, and herbaceous non-graminoids). High fire frequency was related to a low abundance of obligate resprouter and obligate seeder shrubs. In the latter group, Cistus sp. disappeared in stands with high fire frequency and showed a maximum abundance in stands with low fire frequency. The abundance of facultative resprouter shrubs did not change with fire frequency. This group thus became dominant in the shrub layer at high fire frequency due to the low abundance of obligate resprouter and obligate seeder shrubs. These changes in the abundance of shrub species involve changes in the patterns of relative dominance of regenerative syndromes, in line with fire frequency. An examination of life forms revealed that the abundance of herbaceous non-graminoids and herbaceous graminoids was higher in stands with high fire frequency and the graminoid Brachypodium retusum was dominant at all fire frequencies. These results suggest a loss in the resilience of shrubs after frequent fires, leading to a simplification of vegetation structure, with a shift from shrubland to grassland-type communities, thereby probably enhancing a potential positive herb–fire feedback. Nomenclature: Bolós et al., 1990.
Toxicological evaluation of polar and nonpolar components of Isodon coetsa (Lamiaceae)

Isodon coetsa (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) Kudo, a perennial herb used in traditional Chinese folk medicines as an antibacterial, antiinflammatory, and antitumour agent, was subjected to toxicity analysis. Cytotoxic screening using the Allium L. assay was done with extracts containing polar and nonpolar compounds as well as with polar compounds alone. Root tips were treated with different concentrations of both the extracts, 0.005%, 0.01%, 0.05%, and 0.1%, for varying time durations (30 min, 1 h, 2 h, and 3 h). Extremely significant levels of chromosome abnormality (P < 0.001) were observed with the extracts when compared with the positive control (0.01% methyl parathion), but the extract with polar and nonpolar compounds showed higher abnormality percentage. Not much variation was observed in the mitotic index when compared to the negative control (distilled water). Studies revealed many clastogenic and nonclastogenic abnormalities. The major abnormalities included chromosome fragments, stickiness, ring chromosomes, chromosome bridges, pulverization, binucleate cell, micronucleus, ball metaphase, chromosome laggards, and shift in microtubule organizing center. The results showed that the nonpolar components possessed more clastogenic activity, which can be specifically targeted in order to destroy cancer cells. The toxic activity of extracts also suggests the need of judicious use of I. coetsa in folk medicines.