Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limits to selection for production efficiency in New Zealand dairy cattle

The breeding goals of most dairying countries have traditionally focussed on milk production traits, New Zealand has been unique in focusing on selection for production efficiency over the last ten years. This has been achieved through implementing a selection index (Breeding Worth) fundamentally composed of income minus costs, expressed per kg DM. The rate of genetic gain in yield of fat plus protein has increased by around 25% compared to the preceding 10 years. If genomic selection methods are successfully applied in dairy cattle breeding, there may be even greater rates of genetic gain in the future, so it is relevant to ask what the limits to selection for production efficiency might be? Exhausting genetic variation seems unlikely in the near future, but it is a long-term risk and depends on the number of genes affecting production efficiency. More immediate limits to production efficiency are likely to be either physical, due to inability to satisfy energetic demands through a limit to feed intake capacity, or due to unfavourable correlated responses in body condition score, fertility and health. Selection for production efficiency may mean that to meet energy requirements a greater reliance on mobilisation of body tissue is needed. However, body tissue mobilisation patterns in New Zealand differ from those in other countries, favouring animals that maintain body reserves to sustain late lactation in the dry summer months. Fertility has been a limiting factor in genetic progress in dairy cattle around the world. The decline in fertility has not been as dramatic in New Zealand as other countries, because the seasonal nature of the majority of production systems requires cows to calve annually, so fertility has been selected for indirectly.
Language planning and policy in the Pacific

Series Overview 1. Language Policy and Planning in Fiji, The Philippines and VanuatuRichard B. Baldauf Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan 2. The Consequences of Vernacular (II)literacy in the PacificTerry Crowley (University of Waikato) 3. The Language Planning Situation in the PhilippinesAndrew Gonzalez ( De La Salle University, Philippines) 4. The Language Situation in FijiFrancis Mangubhai (University of Southern Queensland) and France Mugler (University of the South Pacific, Fiji Islands)Bibliographical Notes on the Contributors
Late Cretaceous biota and the Cretaceous-Paleogene （K-Pg） Boundary in Jiayin of Heilongjiang, China

An international cooperative study of the Late Cretaceous biota and non-marine strata including the Cretaceous-Paleogene ( K--Pg) boundary in Jiayin near the Heilongjiang River,China during 2002-2010,is summarized in this paper. The strata includes the Upper Cretaceous Yong'ancun-,Taipinglinchang-,Yuliang- zi-,and Furao formations,and the Paleocence Wuyun Formation consisting of Baoshantou Member and a Coal- bearing Member. Seven palynological assemblages from Santonian to Paleocene are recognized,which is used for definition of the K--Pg boundary. Through the palynological analysis of three drilled boreholes ( XHY-2005, 2006,2008) in Xiaoheyan of western Jiayin,the K--Pg boundary is defined within 20. 00-20. 05 m in the bore- hole XHY-2006 ( as a standard boundary) which is just between the top of Furao Formation ( late Maasterich- tian) and the base of Baishantou Member ( early Danian) . These new research results are supported by paleo- magnetic,geochemical and other analyses,also. On the other hand,the presence of eight taxa of Maasterich- tian dinosaurs ( mostly hadrosaurids) have been recognized by the authors; and two mega-plant assemblages from the Yong'ancun Fm ( Santonian) to Taipinglinchang Fm ( Campanian) are confirmed. These research a-chievements indicate that the Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene in Jiayin can be well correlated to the strata in the neighboring Zeya-Bureja basin,Russia. The K--Pg boundary definited in Jiayin is the first well documented non-marine K--Pg boundary in China. Also the related paleoclimate,paleoenvironment and the mass extinctions in this area during the Cretaceous-Paleocene transition are also discussed.
Cloud-Edge–Terminal Collaboration-Enabled Device-Free Sensing Under Class-Imbalance Conditions

With the rapid development of cloud-edge–terminal (CET) technology, ubiquitous sensing devices are able to collaborate with edge terminals, enabling real-time, intelligent environmental awareness. For device-free sensing systems, the number of each human gesture category may vary (class imbalance), which makes previously distributed device-free sensing algorithms ineffective. In this article, we propose a novel monitoring scheme for device-free human action sensing for CET collaboration under class-imbalance conditions. Specifically, the body-coordinated velocity profile (BVP) features of wireless fidelity (WiFi) signals are used to detect human actions. To recognize human gestures, we develop a convolutional neural network (CNN) using a monitor to detect gradient changes under class imbalance. To mitigate the effects of class imbalance, a corresponding correction is applied to the loss function. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we conduct numerical experiments under class-imbalance conditions. Different parameter settings and proportions of participating nodes are explored for their effects on experimental results. Additionally, numerical experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method improves recognition accuracy by 3.85%–34.1% compared to baseline algorithms. Overall, the proposed method addresses the challenge of distributed device-free sensing under class-imbalance conditions and achieves superior recognition accuracy performance.
Site-specific performance on the streets: (In)visible Dancing

According to Patrice Pavis(1998, pp. 337-8), "The key to a site-specific performance is the search for a venue that is often unconventional but has a historical significance and characteristic atmosphere, such as: a freight yard, an abandoned factory, a city block, a courtyard or a suite", in which a classical or contemporary text is incorporated and where the new framework will give the performance with a special charm and unexpected energy. " In 2019 I participated as a dancer in a site-specific performance project—— (in)visible Dancing on a street in the city of London, which took place in London's Woolwich Town Centre, in the form of performers bursting onto the high street, crossroads and squares in seemingly improvised, site-specific dance, culminating in a performance by the performers, live musicians. The performance ends with a massive finale featuring the performers, live musicians and passers-by who have learned the steps. The aim of the project was to bring together different sections of the community, from apprentices to local performers and ordinary people, reconnecting them with their shopping streets and each other. This essay may use (in)visible Dancing as an example to analyze the relationship between site-specific performance and society and the city, and also the potential engagement of theatre with geography in the context of the expansion of site-specific performance.
High-performance raw biosorbent derived from Algerian Zean oak sawdust for removing methylene blue from aqueous environments

This work aimed to use Algerian Zean oak (AZO) sawdust in its raw state, without undergoing any physico-chemical treatment, to estimate its efficiency for removing methylene blue (MB), a cationic dye widely used in the textile industry. The physico-chemical properties of the biomaterial were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, and Brunauer–Emmet–Teller for measuring its specific surface area. The chemical characteristics of the AZO sawdust surface were further examined by the zero-charge point (pH PZC ), iodine, MB numbers, and Boehm titration tests. The batch study was performed by varying parameters such as contact time, particle size, pH, temperature, adsorbent dose, and initial dye concentration. By optimizing these parameters, an adsorption capacity of 52.376 mg/g was attained, at pH = 7 and room temperature, using a dose of 1 g/L AZO at C 0 = 20 mg/L for an equilibrium time of 45 min. The adsorption capacity of the MB is enhanced by increasing the initial dye concentration and the biosorbent dose. The kinetic data were modeled using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Elovich, and intraparticle diffusion models. The results reveal that the pseudo-second-order model better describes the experimental data. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherms well follow the Sips and Langmuir models. The thermodynamic study revealed that the adsorption process of MB on AZO sawdust is a spontaneous, exothermic, and favorable phenomenon. Therefore, AZO sawdust could be considered an efficient biosorbent and a preferred alternative to activated carbon to remove MB.
The Effect of Mutagenesis on the Production of Mycelia Growth of Auricularia Species in Nigeria

Auricularia species is a jelly-like edible mushroom belonging to the class Basidiomycete, Family Auriculariacea. It has many medicinal properties and is widely consumed in Nigeria. Not much research effort appears to have been conducted on its domestication and commercial production in Nigeria. This study evaluated the use of sawdust and rice bran as potential substrates for its cultivation. Two strains of Auricularia species were collected from the wild and identified as Auricularia polytricha and Auricularia subglabra by genetic DNA extraction. Pure cultures of the species were screened for strain improvement by mutagenesis using UV light and ethyl methyl sulfonate mutagens. Spawn of the wild species and the mutants were produced using sorghum grain. The produced spawn was used for the production of the mushroom fruit bodies using sawdust supplemented with rice bran. The biological efficiencies of both wild and mutant were 197% and 90% respectively. A combination of sawdust and rice bran supported the growth of both species of Auricularia. The Rate of spawn running during spawn production was also negatively affected by mutagenesis in mutants.
Non-syndromic enlarged vestibular aqueduct caused by novel compound mutations of the SLC26A4 gene: a case report and literature review

Enlarged vestibular aqueduct is an autosomal genetic disease mainly caused by mutations in the SLC26A4 gene and includes non-syndromic and syndromic types. This study aimed to identify genetic defects in a Chinese patient with non-syndromic enlarged vestibular aqueduct (NSEVA) and to investigate the impact of variants on the severity of non-syndromic enlarged vestibular aqueduct. A male patient with NSEVA, aged approximately 6 years, was recruited for this study. The clinical characteristics and results of auxiliary examinations, including laboratory and imaging examinations, were collected, and 127 common hereditary deafness genes were detected by chip capture high-throughput sequencing. Protein structure predictions, the potential impact of mutations, and multiple sequence alignments were analyzed in silico. Compound heterozygote mutations c. 1523_1528delinsAC (p.Thr508Asnfs*3) and c.422T>C (p.Phe141Ser) in the SLC26A4 gene were identified. The novel frameshift mutation c. 1523_1528delinsAC produces a severely truncated pendrin protein, and c.422T>C has been suggested to be a disease-causing mutation. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the novel mutation c. 1523_1528delinsAC in compound heterozygosity with c.422T>C in the SLC26A4 gene is likely to be the cause of NSEVA. Cochlear implants are the preferred treatment modality for patients with NSEVA and severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss Genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis are essential for early diagnosis. These findings expand the mutational spectrum of SLC26A4 and improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying NSEVA.
Joint modeling of playing time and purchase propensity in massively multiplayer online role-playing games using crossed random effects

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) oﬀer a unique blend of a personalized gaming experience and a platform for forging social connections. Managers of these digital products usually rely on predictions of key player responses, such as playing time and purchase propensity, to design timely interventions for promoting, engaging and monetizing their playing base. However, the longitudinal data associated with these MMORPGs not only exhibit a large set of potential predictors to choose from but often present several other distinctive characteristics that pose signiﬁcant challenges in developing ﬂexible statistical algorithms that can generate eﬃcient predictions of future player activities. For instance, the existence of virtual communities or guilds in these games complicate prediction since players who are part of the same guild have correlated behaviors and the guilds themselves evolve over time and, thus, have a dynamic eﬀect on the future playing behavior of its members. In this paper, we develop a Crossed Random Eﬀects Joint Modeling (CREJM) framework for analyzing correlated player responses in MMORPGs. Contrary to existing methods that assume player independence, CREJM is ﬂexible enough to incorporate both player dependence as well as time varying guild eﬀects on the future playing behavior of the guild members. On a large-scale data from a popular MMORPG, CREJM conducts simultaneous selection of ﬁxed and random eﬀects in high-dimensional penalized multivariate mixed models. We study the asymptotic properties of the variable selection procedure in CREJM and establish its selection consistency. Besides providing superior predictions of daily playing time and purchase propensity over competing methods, CREJM also predicts player correlations within each guild which are valuable for optimizing future promotional and reward policies for these virtual communities.
Optimization of The Machine Learning Approach using Optuna in Heart Disease Prediction

Heart disease prediction is a critical area in healthcare, as early identification and accurate assessment of cardiovascular risks can lead to improved patient outcomes. This study explores the application of machine learning techniques for predicting heart disease. Various data attributes, including medical history, clinical measurements, and lifestyle factors, are utilized to develop predictive models. A comprehensive analysis of different machine learning algorithms is conducted to determine their efficacy in classification tasks. The dataset used for experimentation is sourced from a diverse patient population, enhancing the generalizability of the findings. Through rigorous evaluation and validation, the study aims to identify the most suitable machine learning approach for effectively predicting heart disease. The results highlight the potential of machine learning as a valuable tool in assisting healthcare professionals in making informed decisions and providing personalized care to individuals at risk of heart disease
Multi-Scale Transformer-Based Matching Network for Generalizable Person Re-Identification

Recently some researches have focused on the Domain-Generalization (DG) Re-ID problem that training and testing are not in the same domain distribution. To fit the unseen complex scenes, recently deep feature matching-based methods for DG Re-ID have been developed and achieved the state-of-the-arts. However, they ignored some cases in which the accuracy of key region matching is unstable at a single scale, and the bad impact of style variations for feature representations. To address the issues, we propose a novel deep image matching model named Multi-scale Transformer-based Matching Network (MTMN) for DG Re-ID problem. MTMN matches two images with multi-scale local respondence instead of fixed representations. Specifically, the Transformer is carefully modified to formulate efficient local interactions between query and gallery images in multiple scales. Moreover, the style normalization is introduced to filter out identity-irrelated features to promote the matching results. Comprehensive experiments on several DG Re-ID tasks demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method compared with the state-of-the-arts, e.g., 5.4<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and 2.6<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> gains in Rank-1 and mAP on Market-1501<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\rightarrow$</tex-math></inline-formula>MSMT17(V1) task.
A Balanced Filtering Antenna Array With High Gain, Steep Selectivity, and Multiradiation Nulls Parallel-Fed by Differential Broadband Network

In this communication, a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2\times2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> balanced filtering antenna array parallel-fed by a differential broadband network is presented. The array has four identical stacked filtering antenna elements, each of which consists of a main patch etched with a folded U-shaped slot, a pair of ear-shaped parasitic patches, a stacked patch, and a folded T-shaped strip. The conceived antenna topology can enhance the gain flatness, improve selectivity, and increase the number of radiation nulls. Meanwhile, by introducing a novel ring-shaped transition structure (RSTS) to the balanced-to-single-ended (BTSE) four-way feeding network, a broad bandwidth, low insertion losses, low phase difference errors, and high common-mode (CM) suppression are realized. To validate the method, an integrated antenna array with a center frequency of 2.5 GHz is fabricated and measured. Experimental results exhibit a boresight gain of 13.7 dBi, four radiation nulls, and a square factor (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$SF_{10}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 1.21.
Continuing Professional Development of Physicians in Uruguay: Lessons from a Countrywide Experience

Uruguay is a small country located in the southern cone of South America, between Argentina and Brazil, on the Atlantic Ocean and the River Plate. Nearly 3.5 million people live in Uruguay, half of them in Montevideo, the capital. Life expectancy is 76 years. The country has one of the highest percentages of elderly adults in Latin America. The literacy rate is 98%. 1 Over 10% of the gross national product is devoted to health care. There are over 13,000 physicians in Uruguay, all of whom graduated from the public Faculty of Medicine (Facultad de Medicina—Universidad de la República). The physicians work in both the public and private sectors. Twothirds of them hold a specialist degree, and one-third work as generalists. As is the case elsewhere in the world, rising costs, increasing complexity in health care, and higher social and patient expectations have affected Uruguay. There is a need to improve efficiency while ensuring access to care, preventive medicine, better management of chronic conditions, and treatment of new and reemerging conditions. These challenges have led health care managers and government officials worldwide to undertake new strategies, including restructuring of health care systems, continuous quality improvement initiatives, new approaches to management, and the promotion of evidence-based medicine. In addition, with concern expressed about how effectively change management can occur, the efficacy of educational strategies has been questioned,2 and studies have been commissioned to identify how change can be effected more quickly.3 In this article, we describe the actions taken, as well as lessons learned from our work, to improve and coordinate continuing professional development (CPD). The main theoretical foundations and developments are described elsewhere in Spanish.4 Our findings may help others working at a national level to enhance CPD.
A Devastating Floating Aortic Thrombus and Ketosis-Prone Diabetes

This article reports a case study of a middle-aged patient diagnosed with Ketosis-Prone Diabetes (KPD) and diabetic ketoacidosis who had a mobile thrombus in the distal aortic arch with catastrophic complications from thrombus embolization. The pathogenesis of the mobile aortic thrombus is currently under investigation, with many risk factors having been found. Based on the patient's limited manifestation of atherosclerosis and the absence of any indications of thrombophilia, KPD and inflammation from uncontrolled hyperglycemia likely played a significant role in the formation of the thrombus. KPD is a subtype of diabetes characterized by the abrupt onset of severe hyperglycemia and ketoacidosis. The inflammation caused by uncontrolled hyperglycemia in KPD patients can lead to endothelial dysfunction and the activation of prothrombotic pathways. There is a lack of consensus regarding the optimal approach for managing a mobile aortic thrombus. The main strategies under consideration are conservative care, including anticoagulation alone, invasive removal of the thrombus, or endovascular intervention.
The Effect of Functionalized SEBS on the Properties of PP/SEBS Blends

Styrene (St) was used as comonomer and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) as grafting monomer to prepare SEBS-g-(GMA-co-St) graft copolymers via melt grafting. Then, the graft copolymers were employed as a compatibilizer for melt blending polypropylene (PP) and hydrogenated styrene-butadiene-styrene (SEBS) triblock copolymers. The effects of the amount of GMA in the graft copolymers on thermal properties, rheology, crystallization, optical and mechanical properties, and microstructure of the blends were investigated. The results show that GMA and St were successfully grafted onto SEBS. The GMA amount in the graft copolymer significantly influenced the comprehensive properties of PP/SEBS/SEBS-g-(GMA-co-St) blends. The epoxy groups of GMA reacted with PP and SEBS, forming interfacial chemical bonds, thereby enhancing the compatibility between PP and SEBS to varying extents. After introducing SEBS-g-(GMA-co-St) into PP/SEBS blends, crystallinity decreased, crystal size increased while transmittance remained above 91% with rising GMA amount in the graft copolymers, indicating excellent optical properties. Notched impact strength and elongation at break of the blends showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with increased amounts of GMA in the graft copolymers. When the amount of GMA in the graft copolymers was 3 wt%, the blends exhibited optimal toughness with notched impact strength and elongation at break of 30,165.82 J/m2 and 1445.40%, respectively. This was attributed to the tightest dispersion interface adhesion and maximum matrix plastic deformation, consistent with the mechanical performance results.
Red biases sex categorization of human bodies

Color is associated with gender information (e.g., red-female). However, little has been known on the effect of color on sex recognition of human bodies. This study aimed to investigate whether the color red could influence the categorization of human bodies by sex, and the effect of contextual information. Visual stimuli were created using body silhouettes varying along the waist-to-hip ratio from female to male shapes. These stimuli were presented in conjunction with red, green, and gray colors, which were used either as body color (Experiment 1) or background color (Experiment 2). Participants were instructed to categorize the sex of the body stimuli as either male or female by pressing labeled keys. The results showed that when red was used as a body color, it induced a bias toward feminine body perception, while when used as a background color, it induced a bias toward masculine body perception. Thus, the color red influenced the sex categorization of human bodies, which being modulated by contextual information. These findings provided novel insights into the effect of contextual color cues in sex recognition of human bodies.