Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Economic growth, energy consumption and government expenditure:evidence from a nonlinear ARDL analysis

This study investigates the nonlinear asymmetric relationship between energy consumption and economic growth by incorporating government expenditure and oil prices into a production function using Nigerian economy from 1980-2014. The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach is applied to examine the asymmetric cointegration between the variables. An asymmetric causality test is also employed to examine the causal association between the considered variables. The results indicate cointegration between the variables in the presence of asymmetries. The asymmetric causality results show that negative shocks to energy consumption have impacts on economic growth. Likewise, negative shocks to government expenditure have impacts on economic growth. The implications of these results for growth policies in Nigeria are also examined.
orphological , physiological and dietary covariation in migratory and esident adult brown trout ( Salmo trutta )

The causes and consequences of trait relationships within and among the categories of physiology, morphology, and life-history remain poorly studied. Few studies cross the boundaries of these categories, and recent reviews have pointed out not only the dearth of evidence for among-category correlations but that trait relationships may change depending on the ecological conditions a population faces. We examined changes in mean values and correlations between traits in a partially migrant population of brown trout when migrant sea-run and resident stream forms were breeding sympatrically. Within each sex and life-history strategy group, we used carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to assess trophic level and habitat use; assessed morphology which reflects swimming and foraging ability; measured circulating cortisol as it is released in response to stressors and is involved in the transition from salt to freshwater; and determined oxidative status by measuring oxidative stress and antioxidants. We found that sea-run trout were larger and had higher values of stable isotopes, cortisol and oxidative stress compared to residents. Most groups showed some correlations between morphology and diet, indicating individual resource specialization was occurring, and we found consistent correlations between morphology and cortisol. Additionally, relationships differed between the sexes (cortisol and oxidative status were related in females but not males) and between life-history strategies (habitat use was related to oxidative status in male sea-run trout but not in either sex of residents). The differing patterns of covariation between the two life-history strategies and between the sexes suggest that the relationships among phenotypic traits are subjected to different selection pressures, illustrating the importance of integrating multiple phenotypic measures across different trait categories and contrasting life-history strategies. © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Predicting Visual Saliency : Where Do People Look ?

The ability to understand and predict where humans naturally fixate their eyes in images is a valuable component towards advancing computer vision systems. In recent years, the problem of predicting visual saliency has advanced from working with low-level hand-crafted features to data-driven approaches via neural networks, given their recent successful advances in capturing and understanding high-level information. Further, recent publications have made available saliency datasets that are sufficiently large enough to meaningful train and test end-to-end neural networks. This literature survey will first introduce and explore the visual saliency task, Then, we will survey some of the most relevant methods and datasets in the research area, including seminal methods from the early years as well as the most recent state-of-the-art.
Tutorial for Using Control Systems Engineering to Optimize Adaptive Mobile Health Interventions

Background Adaptive behavioral interventions are individualized interventions that vary support based on a person's evolving needs. Digital technologies enable these adaptive interventions to function at scale. Adaptive interventions show great promise for producing better results compared with static interventions related to health outcomes. Our central thesis is that adaptive interventions are more likely to succeed at helping individuals meet and maintain behavioral targets if its elements can be iteratively improved via data-driven testing (ie, optimization). Control systems engineering is a discipline focused on decision making in systems that change over time and has a wealth of methods that could be useful for optimizing adaptive interventions. Objective The purpose of this paper was to provide an introductory tutorial on when and what to do when using control systems engineering for designing and optimizing adaptive mobile health (mHealth) behavioral interventions. Overview We start with a review of the need for optimization, building on the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST). We then provide an overview of control systems engineering, followed by attributes of problems that are well matched to control engineering. Key steps in the development and optimization of an adaptive intervention from a control engineering perspective are then summarized, with a focus on why, what, and when to do subtasks in each step. Implications Control engineering offers exciting opportunities for optimizing individualization and adaptation elements of adaptive interventions. Arguably, the time is now for control systems engineers and behavioral and health scientists to partner to advance interventions that can be individualized, adaptive, and scalable. This tutorial should aid in creating the bridge between these communities.
Effects of hydrolysed yeasts on ruminal fermentation in the rumen simulation technique (Rusitec).

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of three different hydrolysed yeast products derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (hydrolysed whole yeast (HWY), less hydrolysed whole yeast (LHWY), and yeast cell wall (YCW)) on microbial fermentation characteristics using the rumen simulation technique (Rusitec) with three consecutive experiments. The Rusitec system consisted of six fermentation vessels. Each vessel received 5 g chopped meadow hay and 4 g concentrate (as-fed basis) daily for up to 22 days. Yeast products were added to the fermentation vessels at a concentration of 0.25 or 0.75 g/day. In most cases, ruminal microbial activ - ity was stimulated by HWY and YCW, particularly at the 0.75 g/day level. HWY resulted in a decrease (P < 0.05) in ruminal pH and an increase (P < 0.05) in total short-chain fatty acid (SCFA), acetate, propionate and methane productions, and an increase in NH 3 -N concentration when compared with the control values. Ruminal pH was not altered, but total SCFA, acetate, propionate, butyrate, and methane productions as well as NH 3 -N concentration increased (P < 0.05) in response to YCW treatment. Digestibility of organic matter was not significantly affected by either HWY or YCW. The effects of LHWY on ruminal fermentation characteristics were negligible. These results indicate that degree of hydrolysation (low or high) and composition of yeasts (whole cell or cell wall) have remarkable effects on ruminal microbial activity in the Rusitec system.
Integrating network analysis, sensor tags, and observation to understand shark ecology and behavior

Group living in animals is a well-studied phenomenon, having been documented extensively in a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species. Although social dynamics are complex across space and time, recent technological and analytical advances enable deeper understanding of their nature and ecological implications. While for some taxa, a great deal of information is known regarding the mechanistic underpinnings of these social processes, knowledge of these mechanisms in elasmobranchs is lacking. Here, we used an integrative and novel combination of direct observation, accelerometer biologgers, and recent advances in network analysis to better understand the mechanistic bases of individual-level differences in sociality (leadership, network attributes) and diel patterns of locomotor activity in a widespread marine predator, the lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris). We found that dynamic models of interaction based on Markov chains can accurately predict juvenile lemon shark social behavior and that lemon sharks did not occupy consistent positions within their network. Lemon sharks did however preferentially associate with specific group members, by sex as well as by similarity or nonsimilarity for a number of behavioral (nonsimilarity: leadership) and locomotor traits (similarity: proportion of time swimming "fast," mean swim duration; nonsimilarity: proportion of swimming bursts/transitions between activity states). Our study provides some of the first information on the mechanistic bases of group living and personality in sharks and further, a potential experimental approach for studying fine-scale differences in behavior and locomotor patterns in difficult-to-study organisms.
Evidence‐based restoration in the Anthropocene—from acting with purpose to acting for impact

The recognition that we are in the distinct new epoch of the Anthropocene suggests the necessity for ecological restoration to play a substantial role in repairing the Earth's damaged ecosystems. Moreover, the precious yet limited resources devoted to restoration need to be used wisely. To do so, we call for the ecological restoration community to embrace the concept of evidence‐based restoration. Evidence‐based restoration involves the use of rigorous, repeatable, and transparent methods (i.e. systematic reviews) to identify and amass relevant knowledge sources, critically evaluate the science, and synthesize the credible science to yield robust policy and/or management advice needed to restore the Earth's ecosystems. There are now several examples of restoration‐relevant systematic reviews that have identified instances where restoration is entirely ineffective. Systematic reviews also serve as a tool to identify the knowledge gaps and the type of science needed (e.g. repeatable, appropriate replication, use of controls) to improve the evidence base. The restoration community, including both scientists and practitioners, needs to make evidence‐based restoration a reality so that we can move from best intentions and acting with so‐called “purpose” to acting for meaningful impact. Doing so has the potential to serve as a rallying point for reframing the Anthropocene as a so‐called “good” epoch.
Adaptive Metareasoning for Bounded Rational Agents

In computational approaches to bounded rationality, metareasoning enables intelligent agents to optimize their own decision-making process in order to produce effective action in a timely manner. While there have been substantial efforts to develop effective meta-level control for anytime algorithms, existing techniques rely on extensive offline work, imposing several critical assumptions that diminish their effectiveness and limit their practical utility in the real world. In order to eliminate these assumptions, adaptive metareasoning enables intelligent agents to adapt to each individual instance of the problem at hand without the need for significant offline preprocessing. Building on our recent work, we first introduce a model-free approach to meta-level control based on reinforcement learning. We then present a meta-level control technique that uses temporal difference learning. Finally, we show empirically that our approach is effective on a common benchmark in meta-level control.
Effects of lactulose on growth, carcass characteristics, faecal microbiota, and blood constituents in broilers

Citation: Mohammadi Gheisar, M. , Nyachoti, C. M. , Hancock, J. D. , & Kim, I. H. (2016). Effects of lactulose on growth, carcass characteristics, faecal microbiota, and blood constituents in broilers. Veterinarni Medicina, 61(2), 90-96. doi:10.17221/8722-VETMED
Association between leptin and weight gain in patients receiving iron treatment

Amac: Bu calismanin amaci demir tedavisi alan hastalarda leptin ve kilo artisi arasindaki iliskiyi saptamaktir. Gerec ve Yontem: Toplamda 42 demir eksikligi anemisi tanisi konulan kadin hasta calismaya dahil edilmistir. Tani aninda ve tedavi baslandiktan 1 ay sonra tam kan sayimi, serum demir, ansature demir baglama kapasitesi ve ferritin seviyesi, tani aninda ve tedavi baslandiktan sonra 96. saatte serum hepsidin ve leptin seviyesi olculdu. Istahta meydana gelen degisiklikler ve vucut agirligi tani aninda ve tedavi baslandiktan 1 ay sonra degerlendirildi. Bulgular: Tani anindaki ve tedavi baslandiktan sonraki serum hepsidin ve leptin seviyeleri arasinda istatistiksel olarak anlamli fark bulunmadi. 22 (%52.4) hastada istah artisi oldugu tespit edildi. Tani aninda hastalarin ortalama agirligi 69.6±17.9 kg olarak tespit edilmis iken tedavi baslandiktan 1 ay sonra hastalarin agirligi 70.7±17.5 kg olarak bulunmustur ve degerler arasinda istatistiksel olarak anlamli fark tespit edilmistir. Sonuc: Calismamiz gozlemlerimiz ve hipotezimizle uyumlu olarak demir tedavisini takiben hastalarda istah artisi ve agirlik artisi meydana geldigi saptanmistir. Leptin duzeyleri ile kilo artisi arasinda bir iliski bulunmamistir.
Control system-plasma synchronization and naturally occurring edge localized modes in a tokamak

Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) naturally occur in tokamak plasmas in high confinement mode. We find in ASDEX Upgrade that the plasma can transition into a state in which the control system field coil currents, required to continually stabilize the plasma, continually oscillate with the plasma edge position and total MHD energy. These synchronous oscillations are one-to-one correlated with the occurrence of natural ELMs; the ELMs all occur when the control system coil current is around a specific phase. This suggests a phase synchronous state in which nonlinear feedback between plasma and control system is intrinsic to natural ELMing, and in which the occurrence time of a natural ELM is conditional on the phase of the control system field coil current.
Investigating Speech Features for Continuous Turn-Taking Prediction Using LSTMs

For spoken dialog systems to conduct fluid conversational interactions with users, the systems must be sensitive to turn-taking cues produced by a user. Models should be designed so that effective decisions can be made as to when it is appropriate, or not, for the system to speak. Traditional end-of-turn models, where decisions are made at utterance end-points, are limited in their ability to model fast turn-switches and overlap. A more flexible approach is to model turn-taking in a continuous manner using RNNs, where the system predicts speech probability scores for discrete frames within a future window. The continuous predictions represent generalized turn-taking behaviors observed in the training data and can be applied to make decisions that are not just limited to end-of-turn detection. In this paper, we investigate optimal speech-related feature sets for making predictions at pauses and overlaps in conversation. We find that while traditional acoustic features perform well, part-of-speech features generally perform worse than word features. We show that our current models outperform previously reported baselines.
MHD Modelling of Coronal Loops: Injection of High-Speed Chromospheric Flows

Context. Observations reveal a correspondence between chromospheric type II spicules and bright upward-moving fronts in the corona observed in the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) band. However, theoretical considerations suggest that these flows are probably not the main source of heating in coronal magnetic loops. Aims. We investigate the propagation of high-speed chromospheric flows into coronal magnetic flux tubes and the possible production of emission in the EUV band. Methods. We simulated the propagation of a dense 10 4 K chromospheric jet upward along a coronal loop by means of a 2D cylindrical MHD model that includes gravity, radiative losses, thermal conduction, and magnetic induction. The jet propagates in a complete atmosphere including the chromosphere and a tenuous cool (∼0.8 MK) corona, linked through a steep transition region. In our reference model, the jet initial speed is 70 km s −1 , its initial density is 10 11 cm −3 , and the ambient uniform magnetic field is 10 G. We also explored other values of jet speed and density in 1D and different magnetic field values in 2D, as well as the jet propagation in a hotter (∼1.5 MK) background loop. Results. While the initial speed of the jet does not allow it to reach the loop apex, a hot shock-front develops ahead of it and travels to the other extreme of the loop. The shock front compresses the coronal plasma and heats it to about 10 6 K. As a result, a bright moving front becomes visible in the 171 A channel of the SDO/AIA mission. This result generally applies to all the other explored cases, except for the propagation in the hotter loop. Conclusions. For a cool, low-density initial coronal loop, the post-shock plasma ahead of upward chromospheric flows might explain at least part of the observed correspondence between type II spicules and EUV emission excess.
An Exploration of Life Skills Programme on Pre-School Children in Embu West, Kenya

The Life Skills Programme, which is one of the newest programmes in the Kenya Preschool educational system was explored to establish the impact it had on the lives of preschool children in Embu West, Kenya. A primary school that is perceived as having well-disciplined children was purposively selected. The sample consisted of 39 students, 43 preschool teachers and 31 parents. The data collection methods included use of a questionnaire, interviews, observations and a documentary analysis. A content analysis was used to examine the data collected. A main finding was that, teachers and parents seemed to cherish the Life Skills Programme as a subject that enabled children to acquire relevant skills for their growth, development and survival. Another finding was an indication of a link between children who had mastered the life skills and academic performance. The study recommended the need to develop clear policy and supervisory guidelines to allow the effective implementation of the Life Skills Programme to benefit all children.
Integrated Assessment Models and the Social Cost of Carbon: A Review and Assessment of U.S. Experience

This article considers the role of integrated assessment models (IAMs) in estimating the social cost of carbon (SCC) for U.S. regulatory purposes. Our perspective is rooted in the needs of U.S. institutions responsible for designing and implementing climate policy, specifically regulatory agencies within the executive branch and Congress should it choose to take up climate legislation. We argue that policymakers need a numerical value for the SCC for policy evaluation and implementation and that producing a credible numerical value requires sophisticated computer models that incorporate climate and economic considerations, that is, IAMs. We also argue that whatever the true value of the SCC, it is not zero, although there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the current state of scientific knowledge about the costs of climate change. We conclude that the evolving nature of the science and the ultimate goal of informing first-best policy suggests that the official SCC used for regulatory analysis by the U.S. government should not be thought of as a single number or even a range of numbers; rather it should be thought of more broadly as a process that yields updated estimates of those numbers and ranges. The ultimate goal of the process is scientific credibility, public acceptance, and political and legal viability.
LoRa — A survey of recent research trends

Nowadays the Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most promising application areas in information technology for future products and services. Therefore, it is not surprising that new technologies arise, which are marketed as “the most useful technology” for applications in IoT devices. In this study, we focus on the new communication technology called LoRaWAN. Our aim is to evaluate the usefulness of LoRaWAN technology in the field of IoT, and especially in sensor network solutions. The research methodology is a literature survey and primary articles were selected by means of a systematic literature review. More than fifty suitable research papers were identified. From these, the following research questions were formulated: “How to categorize LoRa research papers? ” and “What are the application trends in LoRa? ” This study presents a way to categorize research papers with diverse themes. In addition, this survey reveals the most recent trends in research and practical applications of LoRa. Finally, this study will give recommendations for researchers and practitioners on how the advantages of LoRa-based technologies could be fully exploited in the development of IoT systems and solutions.
High-resolution ADCs design in sensors

This paper presents design considerations for high-resolution and high-linearity ADCs for biomedical imaging applications. The work discusses how to improve dynamic specifications such as Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) and Signal-to-Noise-and-Distortion Ratio (SNDR) in ultra-low power and high-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) including successive approximation register (SAR) for biomedical imaging application. The results show that with broad range of mismatch error, the SFDR is enhanced by about 10 dB with the proposed performance enhancement technique, which makes it suitable for high resolution image sensors sensing systems.
Attribute-Hiding Predicate Encryption With Equality Test in Cloud Computing

Public key encryption with equality test (PKE-ET) enables anyone to perform equivalence test between two messages encrypted under distinct public keys. Attribute-hiding predicate encryption is a paradigm for public key encryption that supports both attribute-hiding and fine-grained access control. In this paper, we first initialize the concept of attribute-hiding predicate encryption with equality test (AH-PE-ET) by incorporating the notions of PKE-ET and PE, and then propose a concrete AH-PE-ET scheme. Inheriting the merits of predicate encryption, versatile access control can be achieved such that the ciphertexts and the secret key are, respectively, associated with the descriptive attributes <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$x$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and the boolean functions <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and decryption can only be done if <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f(x)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> returns <italic>true</italic>. In the AH-PE-ET scheme, one data receiver can calculate a trapdoor using his/her private key and delivers this trapdoor to an untrusted cloud server, who in turn compares the ciphertexts from this receiver with other receivers’ ciphertexts. During the comparison, the information about the trapdoor as well as the attributes associated with the ciphertexts will not be disclosed to this cloud server. Furthermore, it is also proven to be selectively secure against the chosen plaintext attack in the standard model under the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption. Finally, the theoretical performance analysis and experimental simulation indicate the feasibility and practicability of our suggested scheme.