Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Egg Size Variation and Breeding Characteristics of the Black-Winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus in a Saharan Oasis

Abstract. Different aspects of the breeding biology of the Black-winged Stilt were studied in a natural oasis wetland area in the Sahara Desert, the Chott of Aïn El Beïda, near Ouargla, E Algeria in 2004–2007. In this wetland the water level is independent of rainfall and Stilts start egg laying when average daily temperature increases to ca. 15°C, mostly in April-May, with no significant differences between years. Complete clutches usually consist of 4 eggs but 3 egg clutches happen with low frequency (2.9–5.6%). Egg size traits (mass, length, breadth and volume) tended to decrease from 2004 to 2007, probably due to deteriorating hydrological conditions of the wetland. Within-clutch variability showed both significant repeatability and laying-sequence-dependent differences among eggs, with the final egg being smaller than the clutch mean value. We found that all egg traits studied showed a negative correlation with the date of laying, which seems to be a phenomenon analogous to the seasonal decrease in clutch size, typical of birds with more variable clutch sizes. Hatching tended to be asynchronous, with average clutch hatching time being 1.84 days. The small final egg and hatching asynchrony are typical components of the adaptive brood reduction, the phenomenon not being recorded so far and remaining for future studies on the Black-winged Stilt. These are the first published data on breeding characteristics for any N African population of the Black-winged stilt.
THE CREATION OF ALTERNATIVE STABLE STATES IN THE SOUTHERN BOREAL FOREST, QUÉBEC, CANADA

The southernmost spruce-lichen woodlands in the Parc des Grands-Jardins, Quebec, Canada, are situated 500 km south of their usual range in the northern lichen woodland zone. Their co-occurrence within a spruce-moss forest matrix suggests the ex- istence of alternative stable states. We investigate the possibility of these spruce-lichen woodlands as an alternative stable state along with the factors contributing to their origin and spatiotemporal distribution. Analysis of plant macrofossils, charcoal, head capsules of defoliating insects, and pollen were used along with vegetation surveys to reconstruct the past and present disturbance dynamics along an east-west transect, corresponding to a precipitation and fire frequency gradient. At each site, spruce budworm head capsules were found preceding the charcoal layer delineating the shift to spruce-lichen woodland, dem- onstrating the compound disturbance (insect-fire) origin of the lichen woodlands. Moss forests previously occupied all lichen woodland sites, with the oldest record starting ca. 8300-9400 yr BP. A change to a higher fire frequency around 2500 yr BP was evident in the lichen woodland zone of the park. A lower fire frequency west of the lichen woodland zone likely is a result of orographic precipitation. While the spruce budworm affects the entire region, lichen woodlands are found exclusively within an increased fire frequency zone. Thus, it is the superimposition of these two disturbance factors that is responsible both for their creation and spatial distribution. Lichen woodland inception dates range between 580 and 1440 yr BP, demonstrating that these lichen woodlands have maintained their open structure with time and have not transformed into closed forests. Their persis- tence, along with their previous moss forest histories and current occurrence adjacent to closed moss forests, indicate that they are an alternative stable state to the spruce-moss forests and not a successional stage. In contrast to other examples of reported alternative stable states, this one is a result of natural disturbances inherent to the system and not anthropogenic impacts.
COMPACT FINITE DIFFERENCE SCHEMES OF THE TIME FRACTIONAL BLACK-SCHOLES MODEL

In this paper, three compact difference schemes for the time-fractional Black-Scholes model governing European option pricing are presented. Firstly, in order to obtain the fourth-order accuracy in space by applying the Padé approximation, we eliminate the convection term of the B-S equation by an exponential transformation. Then the time fractional derivative is approximated by L1 formula, L2− 1σ formula and L1− 2 formula respectively, and three compact difference schemes with oders O(∆t2−α +h), O(∆t +h) and O(∆t3−α + h) are constructed. Finally, numerical example is carried out to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of proposed methods, and the comparisons of various schemes are given. The paper also provides numerical studies including the effect of fractional orders and the effect of different parameters on option price in time-fractional B-S model.
Prospective Music Teacher Training: Factors Contributing to Creation of Positive State in the Process of Vocal Education

In their study process prospective music teachers have to acquire core knowledge, abilities and skills of vocal education as well as to develop not only subject-specific but also general competences. A future music teacher links her/his identity with the role of both a teacher and a music performer, seeking a harmony between these roles. Thus, while pursuing full-fledged education, emotional experiences of prospective teachers and their positive emotional state in the process of vocal education become of utmost importance. The aim of the study is to reveal the factors contributing to creation of positive state in the process of vocal education. Theoretical research methods: analysis of scholarly literature sources. Empirical research methods: quantitative (prospective teachers’ written questionnaire consisting of close-ended questions) and qualitative (prospective teachers’ written questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions, semi-structured interview). The collected research data were processed employing quantitative (calculation of percentage frequencies) and qualitative (content analysis of responses) analysis. The research results reveal that preparation for classes, students’ mood, physical condition, quality of repertoire and teacher’s guidance are seen as the factors that have the strongest impact on future music teachers’ positive state during their vocal education. Striving for a positive state of future music teachers in the process of vocal education, it is necessary to identify and analyse these factors to find the best ways to improve this state in vocal education.
A 0.7-mW V-Band Transformer-Based Positive- Feedback Receiver Front-End in a 65-nm CMOS

In this letter, we propose an ultralow-power transformer-based V-band receiver front-end using a 65-nm CMOS technology. Forward-body-bias and transformer-based positive-feedback topologies are utilized to enable its operation at a low drain bias of 0.3 V, while still ensuring its gain performance. A resistive ring mixer, with its advantage of zero-dc-power consumption, serves as the frequency down-converter of the system. The proposed receiver front-end demonstrates an 8.5-dB conversion gain and possesses the power-saving ability to use only 0.7 mW of dc-power consumption.
Rules and Mechanism of Inhibition and Correlation in the Regeneration of Bryophyllum calycinum

In the phenomena of regeneration the problem of correlation appears, that is, the influence of the whole on the part. A part cut out from a whole organism may regenerate, while no such regeneration will occur so long as the part is not separated from the whole. What are the forces inherent in the whole which exercise the control over the part resulting in the prevention of regeneration ? We cannot form a definite idea of this inhibitory mechanism until we know the laws or rules underlying this prevention of regeneration or growth in the normal plant. Only if we succeed in finding such rules and if they are sufficiently simple can we with any hope of success begin to draw conclusions concerning the nature of the mechanism underlying these phenomena of inhibition and correlation. The reason why it is difficult o find such laws lies in the fact that the phenomena of regeneration in most organisms are too complicated or too indeterminate for such a purpose, and we are compelled to look for an organism which is especially favorable for such a purpose. The tropical plant Bryophyllum calycinum is apparently such an organism, and the writer has succeeded in finding some rules governing the phenomena of inhibition and
The Biomechanics of the Anterolateral Ligament

The anterolateral ligament (ALatL) of the knee is an under investigated soft tissue structure of the knee with its existence within the body mostly unknown to the layperson. It was determined that the ALatL has a femoral origin which is either anterior and distal, or posterior and proximal to the origin of the lateral collateral ligament, varying depending on the specimen being investigated. While there have been several studies recently conducted investigating the function of the ALatL of the knee through analysing a number of different factors including origin and insertion along with both physical and mechanical properties, there is still much mystery surrounding this ligament. Hence, further research should be conducted to accurately quantify the importance of the anterolateral ligament to internal tibial rotation stability, and the effect that a damaged anterolateral ligament can have on the stresses experienced by surrounding soft tissue structures of the knee.
Virulence and molecular polymorphism in Puccinia recondita f. sp. tritici in Canada

Sixty-four representative single-uredinial isolates or Puccinia recondita f. sp. tritici collected from wheat in the eastern (Ontario and Quebec), prairie (Manitoba and Saskatchewan), and Pacific (Alberta and British Columbia) regions of Canada were analyzed for virulence polymorphism on 19 near-isogenic wheat differential lines and for randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) using 10 arbitrary decamer primers. Thirty-seven phenotypes or P. r. tritici were distinguished by the 19 host differential lines. Fifteen molecular phenotypes were distinguished by the 10 primers in the RAPD analysis. Forty-five unique phenotypes or P. r. tritici were distinguished by combined virulence and RAPD data. Molecular variation was greatest between isolates or different virulence phenotypes. There was some molecular variation among isolates with identical virulences. Virulence and RAPD data were used separately and combined in cluster analyses. Two major clusters were distinguished with the combined data sets. The first cluster consisted or isolates virulent or avirulent to both resistance genes Lr2a and Lr2c, and the second cluster consisted or isolates avirulent to Lr2a and virulent to Lr2c. The molecular polymorphisms were more effective in distinguishing between the major clusters or P. r. tritici compared to the virulence polymorphisms. However, virulence polymorphisms were more effective in distinguishing between isolates within the major clusters compared to the molecular polymorphisms. There was a correlation or 0,58 between the virulence and molecular dissimilarity matrices. The cluster analyses indicated a general relationship between virulence and molecular polymorphism in P. r. tritici in Canada. There are currently two major groups or P. r. tritici in Canada. One group consists or isolates round in the prairie and eastern regions. Isolates in this group have limited molecular polymorphisms and consist or many virulence phenotypes that are either virulent or avirulent to both Lr2a and Lr2c. Isolates in the second group are round in eastern Canada and in the Pacific region. These isolates are avirulent to Lr2a and virulent to Lr2c and have molecular phenotypes distinct from isolates in the first group. The molecular data support conclusions from virulence survey data that distinct geographic populations or P. r. tritici exist in Canada and that new virulences arise and increase in the prairie population by mutations from preexisting phenotypes
TOCF Based Control for Optimum Operation of a Grid Tied Solar PV System

In this work, a third order complex filter (TOCF) based control technique is used for a double stage grid tied solar photovoltaic (PV) system. The PV array generates the real power and provides it to the load connected and remaining to the utility. The voltage source converter functions as a distribution static compensator and improves power quality of the grid by mitigating harmonics, balancing of the grid currents with unity power factor. It also performs well under weak grid scenario like voltage distortion, grid faults, DC offset, voltage unbalances and swell/sag. The main objective of this work is positive sequence components extraction from unbalanced voltages for unit templates estimation and TOCF algorithm extracts the fundamental component of the load currents. A PV power term is applied for improved system performance. This work demonstrates the effectiveness of control algorithm at various dynamic conditions by simulating the behavior of the system in MATLAB. Tests are conducted on an experimental setup realized in the laboratory at different abnormal situations like load unbalancing, voltage unbalance, voltage distortions, voltage swell/sag, insolation change, DSTATCOM-PV mode and PV-DSTATCOM mode etc. The system operation is found satisfactory and distortion levels in grid currents are found in bounds, as suggested in IEEE standard-519.
Do Current Standards of Practice in Canada Measure What is Relevant to Human Exposure at Contaminated Sites? I: A Discussion of Soil Particle Size and Contaminant Partitioning in Soil

ABSTRACT Human health risk estimates for sites with contaminated soils are often based on the assumption that the bulk concentration of substances in outdoor soil samples is a reasonable predictor of exposures via incidental soil ingestion, soil particle inhalation, and dermal absorption. Most underlying conceptual models are grossly simplistic, however, when considered in light of (i) biases in the distribution of contaminants across soil particle sizes, (ii) the size range of particles in soils and dusts that is environmentally available, and (iii) factors that influence desorption from particles and uptake into humans. The available studies indicate that contaminant distribution across soil particle size fractions varies widely between different soil types and contaminant delivery mechanisms, and it cannot be assumed that higher masses of contaminants per unit mass of soil are correlated with smaller particles sizes. Soil data gathered in support of detailed human health risk assessments, therefore, should allow for the examination of distribution across particle sizes of contaminants of concern, and consider those size fractions most critical to human exposure. Soil evaluations for health risk assessments of metals/metalloids should also consider mineralogical characterization.
Temporal association rule mining: An overview considering the time variable as an integral or implied component

Association rules are commonly used to provide decision‐makers with knowledge that helps them to make good decisions. Most of the published proposals mine association rules without paying particular attention to temporal information. However, in real‐life applications data usually change over time or presenting different temporal situations. Therefore, the extracted knowledge may not be useful, since we may not know whether the rules are currently applicable or whether they will be applicable in the future. For this reason, in recent years, many methods have been proposed in the literature for mining temporal association rules, which introduce a greater predictive and descriptive power providing an additional degree of interestingness. One of the main problems in this research field is the lack of visibility most works suffer since there is no standard terminology to refer to it, making it difficult to find and compare proposals and studies in the field. This contribution attempts to offer a well‐defined framework that allows researchers both to easily locate the previous proposals and to propose well‐grounded methods in the future. To accomplish both objectives, a two‐level taxonomy is proposed according to whether the time variable is considered to provide order to the data collection and to locate some temporal constraints, or whether it is considered as an attribute within the learning process. Some recent applications, available software tools, and a bibliographical analysis in accordance with the Web of Science are also shown. Finally, some critical considerations and potential further directions are discussed.
Feature-Level Fusion of Finger Vein and Fingerprint Based on a Single Finger Image: The Use of Incompletely Closed Near-Infrared Equipment

Due to its portability, convenience, and low cost, incompletely closed near-infrared (ICNIR) imaging equipment (mixed light reflection imaging) is used for ultra thin sensor modules and have good application prospects. However, equipment with incompletely closed structure also brings some problems. Some finger vein images are not clear and there are sparse or even missing veins, which results in poor recognition performance. For these poor quality ICNIR images, however, there is additional fingerprint information in the image. The analysis of ICNIR images reveals that the fingerprint and finger vein in a single ICNIR image can be enhanced and separated. We propose a feature-level fusion recognition algorithm using a single ICNIR finger image. Firstly, we propose contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and grayscale normalization to enhance fingerprint and finger vein texture, respectively. Then we propose an adaptive radius local binary pattern (ADLBP) feature combined with uniform pattern to extract the features of fingerprint and finger vein. It solves the problem that traditional local binary pattern (LBP) is unable to describe the texture features of different sizes in ICNIR images. Finally, we fuse the feature vectors of ADLBP block histogram for a fingerprint and finger vein, and realize feature-layer fusion recognition by a threshold decision support vector machine (T-SVM). The experimentation results showed that the performance of the proposed algorithm was noticeably better than that of the single model recognition algorithm.
Real-time thermal infrared moving target detection and recognition using deep learned features

Surveillance applications demand round the clock monitoring of regions in constrained illumination conditions. Thermal infrared cameras which capture the heat emitted by the objects present in the scene appear as a suitable sensor technology for such applications. However, developing of AI techniques for automatic detection of targets for monitoring applications is challenging due to high variability of targets within a class, variations in pose of targets, widely varying environmental conditions, etc. This paper presents a real-time framework to detect and classify targets in a forest landscape. The system comprises of two main stages: the moving target detection and detected target classification. For the first stage, Mixture of Gaussians (MoG) background subtraction is used for detection of Region of Interest (ROI) from individual frames of the IR video sequence. For the second stage, a pre-trained Deep Convolutional Neural Network with additional custom layers has been used for the feature extraction and classification. A challenging thermal dataset created by using both experimentally generated thermal infrared images and from publically available FLIR Thermal Dataset. This dataset is used for training and validating the proposed deep learning framework. The model demonstrated a preliminary testing accuracy of 95%. The real-time deployment of the framework is done on embedded platform having an 8-core ARM v8.2 64-bit CPU and 512-core Volta GPU with Tensor Cores. The moving target detection and recognition framework achieved a frame rate of approximately 23 fps on this embedded computing platform, making it suitable for deployment in resource constrained environments.
Spawning of tarakihi (Pisces: Cheilodaetylidae) in New Zealand waters

Abstract Tarakihi Cheilodactylus macropterus eggs are 0.90–1.00 mm in diameter and have a single oil droplet of 0.18–0.23 mm diameter. Eggs in surface plankton samples indicated spawning areas near East Cape, Kaikoura, and Fiordland. Hatching took 70 h at 18.5–20°c. Observations on rate of ascent and age of eggs suggested spawning occurs in midwater at night.
Nitrogen fixation (C2H2‐reduction) in birch litter

Nitrogen fixation (C2H2) by free‐living heterotrophic microorganisms in the upper part of the forest soil (0–3 cm) was, on average, twenty times higher below birch than below pine or spruce. The highest fixation that occurred was 1.4 kg Nha−1 during the growth period. In most cases the fixation of nitrogen was concentrated to older leaf litter. No activity could be detected in green leaves taken from the canopy or in recently fallen yellow leaves. Relatively low activities in the soil were obtained at sites in the southern part of Sweden, which corresponded to elevated concentrations of lead and copper in the green birch leaves.
Red and Silver Maples in the Neogene of Western North America: Fossil Leaves and Samaras of Acer Section Rubra

Premise of research. Acer leaf and samara fossils are abundant and readily recognized in the Cenozoic of western North America. Inferences as to which of the fossil leaves and samaras are conspecific require data on site co-occurrence and on the morphological similarities of these organs to extant species for which the linkage of leaves and samaras is known. Accurate assignment of these fossils will be helpful for our understanding of the biodiversity and biogeographic history of the genus through geologic time. Here we reinvestigated Miocene fossils attributed to section Rubra Pax. s.l. , including leaves of A. chaneyi Knowlton and the associated fruits of A. gigas Knowlton, in comparison with extant and other fossil representatives of this section. Methodology. Fossil and extant samaras were studied by reflected light supplemented by micro–computed tomography scanning to reveal some endocarp and seed characters difficult to document by traditional methods. Fossil leaves were studied by reflected light, and cleared leaf slides of extant species were studied on the light table. Pivotal results. Fruits and leaves of the extant species, A. rubrum L. , A. saccharinum L. , A. pycnanthum K. Koch, and A. laurinum Hassk. , show characters supporting the previously recommended merger of sections Rubra Pax. s.s. and Hyptiocarpa Fang. Acer gigas samaras, commonly considered to represent the same plant as A. chaneyi, show some morphological differences from extant A. saccharinum, although the A. chaneyi leaves greatly resemble those of that extant species. These and other fossils from western North America, Europe, and Asia indicate a previously wide distribution of section Rubra. Conclusions. New characters of fruit morphology support the subsuming of section Hyptiocarpa within Rubra s.l. We retain the name A. gigas for samara fossils, associated with the leaf fossils of A. chaneyi, and provide emended descriptions for them.