Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bombshell in Beltsville: the USDA and the challenge of "Silent spring."

One of the most provocative questions about the pesticide controversy that burst upon the summer of 1962 is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in general, and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in particular, were so unprepared for the political fallout from the bombshell delivered by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring? This political and scientific vulnerability persisted despite extended internal and external debate over the department's expanding use of toxins, despite well documented instances of harmful effects and questions of long term safety, despite a disastrous campaign to "eradicate" the southern fire ant, and despite the knowledge among some USDA scientists that Rachel Carson was writing a book on pesticides and the environment.
Capacity Optimization of High-speed Railway Train in Established Schedule Plan Based on Improved ACO Algorithm

In order to improve the transporting ability of high-speed trains, Gave the definition of the minimizing departure interval between trains, and the definition of the drawing compact diagram without considering overtaking conditions. After considering the matching coefficient of train operation, an 0-1 integer programming model was established to maximize capacity of trains and convert the problem into an asymmetric traveling salesman problem (ATSP). Then a improved algorithm-ant colony optimazition(ACO) algorithm is designed to solve the problem. The case of Shanghai to Beijing high-speed trains were taken as an example solving by programming. Computation results show that considering the matching coefficient of train operation, the optimized scheme can shorten the total time by 219 min (about 28.52%) than the existing scheme. Keywords—high-speed railway; carrying capacity; ATSP; ACO
How Much Guidance Students Need When Designing Experiments in a Computer-Supported Inquiry Learning Environment

The aim of this study was to identify an optimum way to support students when designing experiments in a computer-supported inquiry learning environment. For this purpose, we evaluated the impact of two different configurations of an experiment design tool on students’ content knowledge and inquiry skills in the context of electric circuits. The two configurations differed in the degree of guidance they offered to students. In the first condition the tool offered more structure during the design of the experiment by providing the variables at task, while in the second condition students were not provided any guidance in terms of the variables at hand. The sample of the study comprised of 41 ninth graders and the data were collected through the use of pre-and post-tests. The results showed that both conditions were conducive to student conceptual understanding; however, difference between conditions emerged for inquiry skills in favor of the second condition. 
Development of vehicle-cyclist interaction model for scenario generation/validation

The number of road accidents is increasing all over the world. When Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) are involved in an accident, they are prone to more serious injuries. Half of the fatalities around the world involve VRUs. One way of mitigating the severity and the number of VRU accidents is the introduction of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) functionalities. Such systems must be validated before being introduced on the market. Real-life tests for validating the system would imply driving around for millions of operational hours which would be very time consuming and therefore expensive. For this purpose, TNO has developed a scenario generation method and is currently extending it. The objective of this study was to develop a vehicle-cyclist interaction model which would then be used along the existing scenario generation method or for validating generated scenarios. The preceding literature study to this Master Thesis, from which the architecture of the models was developed and potential input parameters were defined, was used as a starting point. Based on the architecture, the interaction model was first developed with the help of a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). First, a sensitivity analysis was performed from which it was concluded that speed, acceleration, and steering angle are important parameters for a cyclist, whereas speed acceleration and yaw rate are important for a vehicle’s intent recognition. Furthermore, this analysis also indicated that distance to the center of the crossing is a very good interaction parameter. After selection of the parameters, the model was trained and cross-validated using data earlier recorded at TNO. The cross-validation results of the interaction model showed that the intent recognition is more constant for the whole observation sequence and an improved performance is seen for a prediction time of more than 2s compared to a HMM without interaction parameters. From this study, the kinematic input parameters for the cyclist and the vehicle, as well as the interaction parameters, were defined that need to be included in the vehicle-cyclist interaction model. However, the model developed in this study needs to be further validated using naturalistic vehicle-cyclist kinematic data, and for all type of vehicle-cyclist scenarios.
The lexical context in a style analysis: A word embeddings approach

Abstract This is a pilot study of usability of Context Specificity measure for stylometric purposes. Specifically, the word embedding Word2vec approach based on measuring lexical context similarity between lemmas is applied to the analysis of texts that belong to different styles. Three types of Czech texts are investigated: fiction, non-fiction, and journalism. Specifically, forty lemmas were observed (10 lemmas each for verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs). The aim of the present study is to introduce a concept of the Context Specificity and to test whether this measurement is sensitive to different styles. The results show that the proposed method Closest Context Specificity (CCS) is a corpus size independent method which has a promising potential in analyzing different styles.
Radical Interpretation Described using Terms from Biological Evolution.

A common method of improving how well understood a theory is, is by comparing it to another theory which has been better developed. Radical interpretation is a theory which attempts to explain how communication has meaning. Radical interpretation is treated as another time dependent theory and compared to the time dependent theory of biological evolution. Several similarities and differences are uncovered. Biological evolution can be gradual or punctuated. Whether radical interpretation is gradual or punctuated depends on how the question is framed: on the coarse-grained time scale it proceeds gradually, but on the fine-grained time scale it proceeds by punctuated equilibria. Biological evolution proceeds by natural selection, the counterpart to this is the increase in both correspondence and coherence. Exaption, mutations, and spandrels have counterparts metaphor, speech errors, and puns respectively. Homologous and analogs have direct counterparts in specific words. The most important differences originate from the existence of a unit of inheritance (the traditional gene) occurring in biological evolution - there is no such unit in language.
0 Biologically Inspired Processing for Lighting Robust Face Recognition

Due to its wide variety of real-life applications, ranging from user-authentication (access control, ATM) to video surveillance and law enforcements, face recognition has been one of the most active research topics in computer vision and pattern recognition. Also, it has obvious advantages over other biometric techniques, since it is natural, socially well accepted, and notably non-intrusive. In reality, several reliable biometrics authentication techniques are available and widely used nowadays (such as iris or fingerprint), but they mostly rely on an active participation of the user. On the contrary, facial biometric demands very little cooperation from the user; thanks to this user-friendly capability, face recognition is said to be non-intrusive. Over the last decades, significant progress has been achieved in face recognition area. Since the seminal work of Turk and Pentland (Turk & Pentland, 1991), where the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is proposed to apply to face images (Eigenfaces), more sophisticated techniques for face recognition appear, such as Fisherfaces (Belhumeur et al., 1997), based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA), Elastic Bunch Graph Matching (EBGM) (Wiskott et al., 1997), as well as approaches based upon Support Vector Machines (SVM) (Phillips, 1999), or Hidden Markov Models (HMM) (Nefian & III, 1998; Vu & Caplier, 2010b), etc. Nevertheless, face recognition, notably under uncontrolled scenarios, remains active and unsolved. Among many factors affecting the performance of face recognition systems, illumination is known to be one of the most significant. Indeed, it was proven, both theoretically (Moses et al., 1994) and experimentally (Adini et al., 1997) that image variation due to lighting changes is more significant than that due to different personal identities. In other words, the difference between two face images of the same individual taken under varying lighting conditions is larger than the difference between any two face images taken under the same lighting conditions, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Inspired by the great ability of human retina that enables the eyes to see objects in different lighting conditions, we present in this chapter a novel method of illumination normalization by simulating the performance of its two layers: the photoreceptors and the outer plexiform layer. Thus, we say the algorithm biologically inspired. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows: Section 2 briefly discusses the related work; Section 3 presents the model of retinal processing and its advantage. In Section 4, the 6
Towards Ecological, Embodied and User-Centric Design in Auditory Display

Auditory display research has been criticised over a perceived lack of progress in tackling key issues relating to usability and user-experience. However, emerging trends in design-thinking present new tools for addressing the usability concerns that have long beleaguered this field of inquiry. In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis on the emergence of design-based approaches in auditory display research by mapping out the progression of current research in the field. Through an ecological and embodied approach to perception and cognition, we then evaluate user-centric design strategies as tools for better understanding complex design spaces and improving usability. We then present a discussion to elucidate the benefits to auditory display research of employing usercentric design strategies for future projects.
ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Rising production costs in the US motion picture industry make overseas markets essential for movie studios' economic survival. However, movie marketers can rarely build on systematic research when attempting to customize movies or movie-related communications to different cultural settings. In this paper, we draw from cultural theory to develop a conceptual framework of US movies' success in foreign markets. Propositions are then developed that offer insight into the differing impact of a number of factors on movie success in the US and Germany. Marketing implications will be discussed.
Selected Topics : Prehospital Care A SUDDEN INCREASE IN PARTIAL PRESSURE END-TIDAL CARBON DIOXIDE ( PETCO 2 ) AT THE MOMENT OF RETURN OF SPONTANEOUS CIRCULATION

*Emergency Medical Service Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, †Department of Emergency Medicine, University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czech Republic, ‡Department of Pathophysiology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, §2nd Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Na Bulovce, Prague, Czech Republic, and Department of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation, Thomayer University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic Reprint Address: Milana Pokorná, MD, Emergency Medical Service Prague, Korunní 98, Prague 10100, Czech Republic
The typology and semantics of locative predication: Posturals, positionals and other beasts

This special issue is devoted to a relatively neglected topic in linguistics, namely the verbal component of locative statements. English tends, of course, to use a simple copula in utterances like ‘‘The cup is on the table’’, but many languages, perhaps as many as half of the world’s languages, have a set of alternate verbs, or alternate verbal a‰xes, which contrast in this slot.1 Often these are classificatory verbs of ‘sitting’, ‘standing’ and ‘lying’. For this reason, perhaps, Aristotle listed position among his basic (‘‘noncomposite’’) categories:
Arguments on the origin of the vertebrAte liver And the Amphioxus hepAtic diverticulum : A hypothesis on evolutionAry novelties *

© V.M. Subbotin, 2017 Morphologic changes in evolution imply that all organs must descend with modifications from homologous organs of a common ancestor (Homology Principle). However, unlike other visceral organs, e.g., heart, the anatomical features of the liver/portal system have been highly conserved in vertebrate lineage. Already in the basal vertebrates (Cyclostomata), the visceral post-capillary blood is collected into the portal vein and directed to the liver, where it breaks into the capillaries again, forming venous rete mirabila, the hallmark feature of the vertebrate liver. The anatomical stability of this complex arrangement in all vertebrates pleads for the search of the homologous precursor. Amphioxus possesses the midgut diverticulum, whose vascularization, developmental and topological characteristics are similar to those of the vertebrate liver/portal system. Experts have long suggested Amphioxus diverticulum as the homologous precursor of the vertebrate liver. The recent discovery of vertebrate liver-specific proteins in the Amphioxus diverticulum supports this hypothesis. However, the Homology Principle obligates us to ask the important question: What is the phylogenetic precursor of the complex Amphioxus diverticulum? There is no relevant evidence from putatively preceding forms (existing or fossil). However, recently discovered facts on Amphioxus’ diverticulum development (A.O. Kovalevsky and L.Z. Holland) and function, combined with yolk sac vascularization in Cyclostomata and fishes by venous visceral blood, reinforce the hypothesis that Amphioxus’ diverticulum evolved from a yolk sac of an advanced chordate ancestor, as suggested by A.S. Romer in his analysis on the transition from “visceral” to “somatic” animals in the evolution of chordates. Earlier, Charles Darwin, based on A.O. Kovalevsky’s observations, supported similar phylogeny of chordates.
Related Research 11 IV . Methodology 14 V . Data 19 VI . Test and Findings 23 VII . Discussion 42 VIII . Conclusion 48

Author: J.M. Wirokarto Student number: 298083 Thesis supervisor: Dr. Diego Salzman Finish date: 2013 The overconfidence bias among European open-end fund managers is rarely documented. By using a unique data sample of 186 European open-end funds, this research emphasizes its focus whether past good performances positively influence overconfident trading behavior. Besides, it tests the influence between the tracking error, which has never directly been used as an overconfidence proxy, and turnover ratio on excess return and fund return. The insignificant results suggest that European fund managers are indeed immune to the overconfidence bias. Although this conclusion has limited validity as the crisis has definitely a strong impact on the standard deviations. Strong suggestion is to examine the European open-end fund managers again during market upturns and when the general market prospects are positive.
J 1 . 2 POLAR-TROPICAL INTERACTIONS INVOLVING THE ROSS SEA SECTOR OF ANTARCTICA

Previous studies find a strong signal of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon in Antarctic climate (e.g., Smith and Stearns 1993). Moreover, researchers have looked to Southern Hemisphere (SH) fields for precursors to El Niño events (e.g., van Loon and Shea 1987). The Ross Sea is a region where the high southern latitude linkage to ENSO may be particularly large (Bromwich et al. 1998a,b; Bromwich et al. 2000). Recent work suggests that there is a corridor in the West Pacific region that allows latitudinal communication from the Antarctic to the Arctic (Hines et al. 2001). Teleconnections between Antarctic climate and tropical phenomena such as ENSO and intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) could occur through this corridor. Here we consider whether the strong ENSO signal in the Southern Ocean and Marie Byrd Land can be related to decadal ENSO change and precursors to ENSO events.
Fatty acid composition and change in Collembola fed differing diets : identification of trophic biomarkers

To assess the potential of fatty acid (FA) compositions to act as biomarkers in the soil food web, two species of Collembola, Folsomia candida and Proisotoma minuta, were switched to four possible diets: Cladosporium cladosporioides (a common soil fungus), Panagrellus redivivus (a bacteria feeding nematode), Zea mays (maize) and Alnus glutinosa (alder). The change in FA content of the Collembola was observed over the following 39 days. The four diets produced significant shifts in the FA compositions of the Collembola, with P. redivivus causing the most extreme changes; Collembola fed P. redivivus gained complex FA compositions similar to those of the nematode diet. Changes in the relative abundances of some FAs were found to follow negative exponential curves, as the components either accumulated in, or were removed from, the FA pool in the Collembola; abundance half-lives varied between 0.5 and 22.4 days, indicating that Collembolan FA compositions changed readily with the input of new exogenous components. The results demonstrate that Collembolan FA compositions are influenced by diet, and that the abundances of FAs such as i15:0, i17:0 and 18:1(n-7) may be used as biomarkers of nematode consumption by Collembola. In contrast, the C20 polyunsaturated FAs cannot be used as biomarkers for nematode predation as Collembola possess the ability to biosynthesise high abundances of these compounds when not provided by the diet. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Renewable Energy and Demand-Side Management : Micro-Grid Power Market Control Using Stackelberg Discounting

A volume discounting model in the micro-grid power market discussed in this paper. The Generator Companies’ (GenCo) discounting model and the special fares for Distribution Companies (DisCo) formulated. The concept of renewable energy intermittent electricity transmissions to certain storage devices in the distribution level presented as a novel contribution in the field. Considering the final unit price which GenCo proposes to Disco for different power consumption levels, GenCo tries to maximize its profit margin by controlling DisCos’ order behavior, in term of volumes per order, by using the discounting tool. Respectively DisCo tries to maximize its profit margin by considering the special fares offered by GenCo. In this model, the volume of electricity in the storage devises assumed to continuously drained over the time. The drained power volume assumed to be a fraction of stored power in the storage devices. This model formulated as a Stackelberg game between a micro-grid GenCo and DisCo considering renewable-energy concept as an artwork to reach an optimal discounting and pricing policy. This policy will maximize both parties’ profit margins per unit of time. Finally, the model credibility examined by using a numerical example to show benefits of the proposed formulation. Key-Words: Power Market, Demand-side Management, Discount Policy, Micro-Grid, Renewable Energy Resources, Profit Margin, Stackelberg Game
Title Correlation or causality between the built environment and travel behavior ? Evidence from Northern California Permalink

The sprawling patterns of land development common to metropolitan areas of the US have been blamed for high levels of automobile travel, and thus for air quality problems. In response, smart growth programs—designed to counter sprawl—have gained popularity in the US. Studies show that, all else equal, residents of neighborhoods with higher levels of density, land-use mix, transit accessibility, and pedestrian friendliness drive less than residents of neighborhoods with lower levels of these characteristics. These studies have shed little light, however, on the underlying direction of causality—in particular, whether neighborhood design influences travel behavior or whether travel preferences influence the choice of neighborhood. The evidence thus leaves a key question largely unanswered: if cities use land use policies to bring residents closer to destinations and provide viable alternatives to driving, will people drive less and thereby reduce emissions? Here a quasi-longitudinal design is used to investigate the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and travel behavior while taking into account the role of travel preferences and neighborhood preferences in explaining this relationship. A multivariate analysis of crosssectional data shows that differences in travel behavior between suburban and traditional neighborhoods are largely explained by attitudes. However, a quasi-longitudinal analysis of changes in travel behavior and changes in the built environment shows significant associations, even when attitudes have been accounted for, providing support for a causal relationship. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1361-9209/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.trd. 2005.05. 002 * Corresponding author. Tel. : +1 530 752 5878; fax: +1 530 752 3350. E-mail address: slhandy@ucdavis.edu (S. Handy). 428 S. Handy et al. / Transportation Research Part D 10 (2005) 427–444
O ct 2 01 5 Necessary Conditions for Tractability of Valued CSPs ∗

The connection between constraint languages and clone theory has been a fruitful line of research on the complexity of constraint satisfaction problems. In a recent result, Cohen et al. [SICOMP’13] have characterised a Galois connection between valued constraint languages and so-called weighted clones. In this paper, we study the structure of weighted clones. We extend the results of Creed and Živný from [CP’11/SICOMP’13] on types of weightings necessarily contained in every nontrivial weighted clone. This result has immediate computational complexity consequences as it provides necessary conditions for tractability of weighted clones and thus valued constraint languages. We demonstrate that some of the necessary conditions are also sufficient for tractability, while others are provably not.