Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Herbivory on the pedunculate oak along an urbanization gradient in Europe: Effects of impervious surface, local tree cover, and insect feeding guild

Abstract Urbanization is an important driver of the diversity and abundance of tree‐associated insect herbivores, but its consequences for insect herbivory are poorly understood. A likely source of variability among studies is the insufficient consideration of intra‐urban variability in forest cover. With the help of citizen scientists, we investigated the independent and interactive effects of local canopy cover and percentage of impervious surface on insect herbivory in the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) throughout most of its geographic range in Europe. We found that the damage caused by chewing insect herbivores as well as the incidence of leaf‐mining and gall‐inducing herbivores consistently decreased with increasing impervious surface around focal oaks. Herbivory by chewing herbivores increased with increasing forest cover, regardless of impervious surface. In contrast, an increase in local canopy cover buffered the negative effect of impervious surface on leaf miners and strengthened its effect on gall inducers. These results show that—just like in non‐urban areas—plant–herbivore interactions in cities are structured by a complex set of interacting factors. This highlights that local habitat characteristics within cities have the potential to attenuate or modify the effect of impervious surfaces on biotic interactions.
Framework for estimating renal function using magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract. Purpose: Nephrologists have empirically predicted renal function from renal morphology. In diagnosing a case of renal dysfunction of unknown course, acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease are diagnosed from blood tests and an imaging study including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and an examination/treatment policy is determined. A framework for the estimation of renal function from water images obtained using the Dixon method is proposed to provide information that helps clinicians reach a diagnosis by accurately estimating renal function on the basis of renal MRI. Approach: The proposed framework consists of four steps. First, the kidney area is extracted by MRI using the Dixon method with a U-net by deep learning. Second, the extracted renal region is registered with the target mask. Third, the kidney features are calculated based on the target mask classification information created by a specialist. Fourth, the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) representing the renal function is estimated using a regression support vector machine from the calculated features. Results: For the accuracy evaluation, we conducted an experiment to estimate the eGFR when MRI was performed and the eGFR slope, which is the annual rate of decline in eGFR. When the accuracy was evaluated for 165 subjects, the eGFR was estimated to have a root mean square error (RMSE) of 11.99 and a correlation coefficient of 0.83. Moreover, the eGFR slope was estimated to have an RMSE of 4.8 and a correlation coefficient of 0.5. Conclusions: Therefore, the proposed method shows the possibility of estimating the prognosis of renal function based on water images obtained by the Dixon method.
Association between Clinical Use of Colchicine and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus among Gouty Patients: A Nationwide Cohort Study

Background: Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in adults. Even though a link between gouty arthritis and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been reported, there is a limited understanding of the association between the anti-inflammatory agent colchicine and the risk of T2DM. This aim of this study was to assess the association between the use of colchicine and the risk of T2DM in an Asian cohort. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) in Taiwan from 2000 to 2013. The study cohorts comprised 3841 gouty patients using colchicine (the exposed cohort) and 7682 gouty patients not using colchicine (the unexposed -cohort). The primary outcome was incident DM. The hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) derived from a Cox proportional regression model were used to assess the association between colchicine use and the risk of diabetes. Results: The cumulative incidence of T2DM was significantly lower in the exposed cohort (18.8%) than in the unexposed cohort (25.0%). The risk of T2DM was significantly lower in colchicine users than in non-users (adjusted HR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.36–0.87). The inverse relationship between colchicine use and diabetes risk remained consistent across sex and age groups. Conclusions: This cohort study provides longitudinal evidence that the use of colchicine is associated with a reduced risk of T2DM. This conclusion, however, needs to be interpreted cautiously given the lack of body mass index data in the NHIRD. Further studies are needed to determine the clinical implications of this study.
BLP3-SP: A Bayesian Log-Pearson Type III Model with Spatial Priors for Reducing Uncertainty in Flood Frequency Analyses

Gauge stations have uneven lengths of discharge records owing to the historical hydrologic data collection efforts. For watersheds with limited water data length, the flood frequency model, such as the Log-Pearson Type III, will have large uncertainties. To improve the flood frequency prediction for these watersheds, we propose a Bayesian Log-Pearson Type III model with spatial priors (BLP3-SP), which uses a spatial regression model to estimate the prior distribution of the parameters from nearby stations with longer data records and environmental factors. A Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is used to estimate the posterior distribution and associated flood quantiles. The method is validated using a case study watershed with 15 streamflow gauge stations located in the San Jacinto River Basin in Texas, US. The result shows that the BLP3-SP outperforms other choices of the priors for the Bayesian Log-Pearson Type III model by significantly reducing the uncertainty in the flood frequency estimation for the station with short data length. The results have confirmed that the spatial prior knowledge can improve the Bayesian inference of the Log-Pearson Type III flood frequency model for watersheds with short gauge period.
The Role Of Innovation In Mediating The Effect Of Market Orientation And Learning Orientation On Competitive Advantage

In Denpasar City, the growth of small culinary businesses has resulted in increased competition. Because this growth does not correspond to an increase in turnover, today's small businesses must innovate to gain a competitive advantage and win market share to thrive in the future. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of market orientation and learning orientation on competitive advantage, as well as the impact of innovation on competitive advantage and the impact of mediating innovation on the relationship between market orientation and competitive advantage and the relationship between learning orientation and competitive advantage. Two exogenous variables, market orientation, and learning orientation, and two endogenous variables, innovation, and competitive advantage, are used in this study. The population in this study was a small culinary business that has been operating in Denpasar City for at least three years. A total of 166 small businesses were included in this study's sample. Purposive sampling was used as the sampling method. A questionnaire was used to collect information. SEM-PLS analysis with SmartPLS 3.0 was used to analyze the data. The results of the analysis showed that market orientation had a significant effect on competitive advantage and innovation. Likewise, learning orientation also had a significant effect on competitive advantage and innovation. A significant effect was also found on the relationship between innovation and competitive advantage. On the other hand, innovation did not mediate the relationship between market orientation and competitive advantage, but innovation partially mediated the relationship between learning orientation and competitive advantage. The implications of the research are expected to be used as reference material for further research with the basic theory of resourced based view oriented to the company's internal strengths, while the practical implications are expected to be additional information or references for small business actors in implementing market orientation and learning orientation which is the focus in developing innovation. to achieve a competitive advantage.
Forest cover lessens the impact of drought on streamflow in Puerto Rico

Tropical regions are experiencing high rates of forest cover loss coupled with changes in the volume and timing of rainfall. These shifts can compromise streamflow and water provision, highlighting the need to identify how forest cover influences streamflow generation under variable rainfall conditions. Although rainfall is the key driver of streamflow regimes, the role of forests is less clear, particularly in tropical regions where forest loss is an ongoing risk. Forest cover loss alters evapotranspiration, rainfall infiltration and storage, and may increase stream ecosystem vulnerability to rainfall extremes. Puerto Rico, an island with spatially heterogenous forest cover and a marked geographic rainfall gradient, is projected to experience more frequent droughts and flash flooding. Using 15‐min streamflow data collected between 2005 and 2016 from 20 US Geological Survey stream gages and 3‐hourly Multi‐Source Weighted‐Ensemble Precipitation rainfall estimates, we utilized flow‐duration curves and linear mixed regression models to examine the role of forest cover in regulating the timing and volume of streamflow. The mixed model approach helps to account for differences in watershed characteristics. We determined the effects of rainfall and forest cover on low and peak flows in Puerto Rican streams, then evaluated changes in these relationships under dry and wet antecedent rainfall conditions. Watersheds with high forest cover had consistently greater low and peak streamflow than deforested ones under all rainfall conditions, although the effect was more marked during wet antecedent conditions, suggesting that peak flow is largely the result of saturation excess overland flow. During dry antecedent rainfall conditions, highly forested watersheds had higher streamflow than deforested ones, suggesting greater hillslope storage and release may also be at play. Our results demonstrate that forest cover generated a net increase in hillslope infiltration and storage and may lessen drought impacts on streamflow in Puerto Rico. Resilience to prolonged drought may be limited by finite water storage potential in this steep, mountainous setting, highlighting maintenance of forest cover as an important water management strategy to increase infiltration.
A counterexample to the lights out problem

In this note we present a counterexample to the “lights out problem”, that is, for every odd prime p $p$ we construct a simple graph G $G$ with vertex set V ${\mathscr{V}}$ such that there does not exist elements x v ∈ F p ( v ∈ V ) ${x}_{v}\in {{\mathbb{F}}}_{p}(v\in {\mathscr{V}})$ such that ∑ u ∈ N [ v ] x u ≠ 0 ${\sum }_{u\in N[v]}{x}_{u}\ne 0$ for each v ∈ V $v\in {\mathscr{V}}$ . On the other hand, in the positive direction, we show that if a certain quadratic form Q $Q$ is associated to the graph and the prime p $p$ is positive definite, then the conjecture holds.
A summary on the wind tunnel test techniques for tilting-rotor aircraft

The survey on the wind tunnel test technique of the tilting-rotor airplane in the world is summed up in this paper,and the test devices and the aerodynamic test contents in wind tunnel are also introduced briefly.Further more,the current facilities and technical condition in our courtry are analysed to indicate the feasibility for the establishment of the special wind tunnel test stand system of the tilting-rotor airplane.
Effect of Distracting Factors on Driving Performance: A Review

The number of traffic accidents because of distracted driving is increasing rapidly worldwide. Hence, the main objective of the present study is to review the effects of different distracting factors on driving performance indicators. Distracting factors considered in this study are roadside advertisements (billboards), mobile use, in-built vehicle systems, and sleepiness; and driving performance indicators are lane deviation, reaction time, and speed variation. Studies from existing literature reveal that all the distracting factors distract drivers from forwarding roadways in many ways. The location and content displayed on the billboard and the use of mobile phones increase reaction time. However, the former decreases the driver’s ability to control the vehicle, and the latter increases the speed variation and reduces lane-keeping capacity. Lateral vehicle control and reaction time are compromised when drivers engage in searching for songs or videos on music players. When sleepiness occurs, drivers exhibit a higher standard deviation of speed and a decreased headway distance. Nevertheless, most of the studies in this area are carried out in developed countries like the USA and European countries. Therefore, a detailed study and further research in developing countries like India, where activities like installing billboards and mobile phone use are increasing day by day due to the rapid urbanization of major cities in the country, are quite essential. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-02-014 Full Text: PDF
Habitat Suitability Modeling for Wildlife Management Objectives by Using Maximum Entropy Method

Habitat suitability models are useful tools for a variety of wildlife management objectives. Distributions of wildlife species can be predicted for geographical areas that have not been extensively surveyed. The basis of these models' work is to minimize the relationship between species distribution and biotic and abiotic environments. For some species, there is information about presence and absence that allows the use of a variety of standard statistical methods. However, absence data is not available for most species. Nowadays, the methods that need presence-only data have been expanded. One of these methods is the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model. The purpose of this study is to model the habitat of Urial (Ovis orientalis arkal) in the Samelghan plain in the North East of Iran with the MaxEnt method. This algorithm uses the Jackknife plot and percent contribution values to determine the significance of the variables. The results showed that variables such as southern aspects, Juniperus-Acer, Artemisia-Perennial plants, slope 0-5%, and asphalt road were the most important factors affecting the species’ habitat selection. The area under the curve (AUC) Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) showed excellent model performance. Suitable habitat was classified based on the threshold value (0.0513) and the ROC, which, based on the results, 28% of the area was a suitable habitat for Urial. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2021-02-04-05 Full Text: PDF
Analysis and Design of Efficient Interleaved Bidirectional Converter With Winding Cross Coupled Inductors

This article presents a nonisolated bidirectional converter (BDC) with high voltage conversion ratio. The structure of winding-cross-coupled-inductors (WCCIs) is developed in the two-phase interleaved BDC to achieve the excellent features of current-ripple-cancellation, current sharing, and high voltage-gain. Furthermore, the proposed topology uses two active and passive clamp circuits to recover the coupled inductors’ leakage energy and to maintain the overall efficiency at a high level providing zero voltage switching (ZVS) in boost mode. A rearrangement is applied to high-voltage-side switches to avoid the interference of clamp circuits operation in boost and buck modes. Detailed analysis and design methodology of the proposed converter are provided and a high gain 500 W, 48 V/380 V prototype is implemented to verify the performance of the proposed converter. Peak efficiencies of 96% and 94.3% are measured for boost and buck modes, respectively.
Current Situation of FGD in China

The paper introduced the present situation of FGD in nonferrous metal smelting trade at home. Catalysis conversion process was adapted for sulf uric acid plants based on flue gas with high content of SO2. Flue gas of low con tent of SO2 was disposed by FGD devices from foreign country and simple installa tion of medium and small sized boilers with desulfurizing and dust-removing . Bu t, There are many problems such as FGD operational cost are very expensive ;the product have no outlet ; technology importing should be localization and so on . We ought to develop wet mode for FGD emphatically.
Time to Noise-Induced Hearing Loss among Different Type of Shift Work among Steel Workers: A Survival Study

Background: There have been few reports on relationships between Shift Work (SW) and time to Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). This research explores the relation between SW and time to NIHL among male workers. Methods: Between 1990 and 2015, this historical cohort study was conducted. Two different definitions events (Low Frequency Hearing (LFH) and High Frequency Hearing (HFH)) of NIHL An average pure-tone hearing threshold was thresholds at 1, 1.5 and 2 kHz for LFH(un-normal>20) and 4, 6 and 8 kHz for HFH (un-normal>20) for Air (AC) and Bone (BC) conduction, in both ears, respectively. In this study Kaplan–Meier and Multilevel Cox Model in addition R version 3.2. 1 and MLWiN software used to analysis data. P-values less than 0.05 are considered to be statistically significant Results: There were 6632 male workers in the research survey (mean age=35(±5)). Among these subjects, 2678 (40%),278 (4%) and 3676 (56%) were Day Workers (DW), Weekly Rotating Shift workers (WRS) and Routinely Rotating Shift workers (RRS), respectively. The result of this study showed more hazard risk of ear problem in LFH (Hazard=1.55 with 95% CI= (1.06–1.39)) and HFH (Hazard=1.08 with 95% CI= (1.04–1.13)) in RRS rather than day workers. In WRS group ear problem has been seen just in LFH (Hazard=1.55 with 95% CI= (1.2–2.0)). Conclusion: The findings of the 15-year historical cohort study generally support a relationship between SW and time to NIHL. Therefore, more actions in the field of noise control, greater use of safety devices as well as increased staff training on the use of safety devices recommended for shift worker.
The design and investigation of hydrogel-based metamaterials with ultra large negative hygroscopic expansion ratio

ABSTRACT A design strategy for a mechanical metamaterial with large negative hygroscopic expansion (NHE) was proposed in this paper. Different from the reported structures, the present metamaterial is designed by constructing repeated lattice microstructure consisting of curved ligaments incorporating hydrogel active layers and polymer support layers and straight polymer bars. When immersed in the solution environment, the swelling of hydrogel layer of such composite structure induces the reversed bending of the ligament, leading to the overall ultra-large shrink (negative expansion) deformation of the metamaterial. Through the new structural design, large NHE effects can be achieved. The theoretical investigation and finite element analysis (FEA) were conducted to demonstrate the large negative expansion effects of such metamaterial. The results showed that the effective NHE ratio of the metamaterial is dependent of the curvature of the curved ligament and the size of both the ligament and the connecting rod. The ultra-large NHE ratios about −80% for the 2D structure and −90% for the 3D version can be obtained by adopting the structural parameters. The newly designed metamaterials have potential applications in medical and other fields. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Pendampingan Kesehatan Aplikasi Case-Based Learning (CBL) dalam Peningkatan Efikasi Diri Pencegahan Perilaku Berisiko HIV Pada Mahasiswa Perguruan Tinggi Di Kota Bandung

Strategi dalam menurunkan risiko HIV dapat dilakukan dengan penguatan pengetahuan dan efikasi diri untuk menghindari berbagai perilaku berisiko HIV. Salah satu upaya pencegahan tersebut adalah dengan mengaplikasikan pendampingan kesehatan dengan metode case-based learning (CBL) kasus HIV. Pendampingan kesehatan ini melibatkan 20 orang mahasiswa yang berasal dari beberapa perguruan tinggi di Bandung. Kegiatan dilaksanakan sebanyak dua pertemuan, masing-masing selama 4 jam dengan menerapkan kasus HIV/AIDS sebagai pemicu pembelajaran. Hasil menunjukkan terdapat perubahan tingkat pengetahuan HIV sebesar 19,1% yaitu mahasiswa dengan pengetahuan baik pada awalnya sebanyak 71,4% dan meningkat menjadi 90,5% setelah pendampingan. Selain itu, terdapat peningkatan signifikan pada tingkat efikasi diri, dimana pada awal pendampingan kesehatan, mahasiswa yang memiliki efikasi diri tinggi sebesar 28,6% dan meningkat menjadi 80,9%. Penerapan case-based learning HIV dapat meningkatkan pengetahuan HIV yang lebih komprehensif sehingga berdampak terhadap peningkatan efikasi diri pencegahan perilaku berisiko HIV pada mahasiswa.
COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF INTERCITY BUS WITH IMPROVED AESTHETICS AND AERODYNAMIC PERFORMANCE

For buses which covers long distances in a single stretch, improved aerodynamic design with good aesthetics attracts customers besides saving fuel consumption. Ergonomic design of interiors for increased comfort of the passengers also plays a vital role. In the present work emphasis is given on the redesign of an intercity bus with enhanced exterior styling reduced aerodynamic drag and increased comfort for the passengers. Extensive product study and market study are carried out. Existing intercity bus is benchmarked and analyzed for styling, aerodynamic performance and comfort. Fluent, a CFD code is used to evaluate the aerodynamic performance. Principles of product design are used to analyze the styling and comfort. The benchmarked high- floor bus is redesigned with low - floor for reduced aerodynamic drag. The exterior of the chosen bus is redesigned with emphasis on improvised aerodynamic performance and appealing looks. The interior was modified to meet aspirations of the commuters. The results of the redesigned exterior body showed a reduction of Cd from 0.581 to 0.41 at a speed of 100 km/hr and overall aerodynamic drag reduction by about 30% due to combined effect of reduced C d and frontal area.