Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cultivation of Planktonic Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation ( Anammox ) Bacteria Using Membrane Bioreactor

Enrichment cultures of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria as planktonic cell suspensions are essential for studying their ecophysiology and biochemistry, while their cultivation is still laborious. The present study aimed to cultivate two phylogenetically distinct anammox bacteria, “Candidatus Brocadia sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp. ” in the form of planktonic cells using membrane bioreactors (MBRs). The MBRs were continuously operated for more than 250 d with nitrogen loading rates of 0.48–1.02 and 0.004–0.09 kgN m d for “Ca. Brocadia sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp. ”, respectively. Planktonic anammox bacterial cells were successfully enriched (>90%) in the MBRs, which was confirmed by fluorescence in-situ hybridization and 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. The decay rate and half-saturation constant for NO2− of “Ca. Brocadia sinica” were determined to be 0.0029–0.0081 d and 0.47 mgN L, respectively, using enriched planktonic cells. The present study demonstrated that MBR enables the culture of planktonic anammox bacterial cells, which are suitable for studying their ecophysiology and biochemistry.
When an international disaster strikes close to home : Mayors ’ responses to the victimization of their community in trans-border crisis situations

This thesis replicates the “Crisis leadership by mayors: a qualitative content analysis of newspapers and social media on the MH17 disaster” study by W. Jong, M. L. A. Dückers and P.G. van der Velden (2016). Their study analysed how the behaviour and activities of the 54 Dutch mayors, whose communities were affected by the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 were evaluated by the public and media in newspapers and through social media sources. The objective of this thesis was to examine the activities and the behavior of the German mayors, whose communities were affected by the crash of GermanWings Flight 9525 and compare them to the findings of the research by W. Jong, M.L. A. Dückers and P.G. van der Velden (2016). This study analyses the meaning making of German mayors’ activities and performance as presented in social media and German newspapers. The main research question examined in the study was ‘which 4U9525-related activities – or absence of expected activities – of German mayors are mentioned in social media and German newspapers and if and how were they evaluated at different stages during the first year after this disaster? ’ An important aspect of this thesis is the relationship between media and politics, since the behaviour of political figures will be analysed through media outlets that have evaluated this behaviour or the absence of expected behaviour/activities. The relationship between politics and media outlets is highly important for political leaders. Recent studies conclude that media exposure can have a sizeable effect on political attitudes and voting behaviour, which are essential to a democratically elected politician (Besley & Burgess, 2002; Hamilton, 2004). Therefore close attention was paid to the critical evaluation of local political leader by the newspapers chosen for analysis.
Swarm-based optimization of final arrival segments considering the unmanned aircraft system integration into the non-segregated airspace.

In the past few years, there has been a growth in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) numbers in segregated airspace. However, although there is an interest in integrating large UAS into non-segregated airspace, the safety challenges on its integration arise from the inclusion of new ways of reaching unsafe states into the airspace. Furthermore, Air Tra c Controllers (ATCo) aim to o↵er appropriate levels of safety and e ciency and to solve issues present in complex situations. Although the UAS technology may be used in di↵erent situations and brings several advantages to the airspace (e.g. e ciency), it may bring uncertainties due to the fact that ATCos may not be familiar with them. Throughout the years, this impact may be lower then it is nowadays due to the fact that the present lack of familiarity in the relationship between UAS and ATCo contributes to higher workload levels. Furthermore, Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA), which composes the controlled airspace and in which the final sector in contained, is a critical control area normally established at the confluence of Air Tra c Service (ATS) routes in which the aircraft tend to be closer to each other. Thus, operations in this particular area are conducted carefully and, in order to achieve desirable levels of safety and e ciency, standard procedures are established. In some cases, however, standard procedures cannot be followed and the sequencing of the aircraft during the approach, which is a highly challenging task due to complex maneuvers constraints, must be performed by the ATCo in a manner to respect the minimum separation of aircraft and to avoid flights through cumulonimbus (CB). Finally, the main goal of defining a final arrival segment is to deliver the set of aircraft from the final sector of the TMA to the final phase of its landing procedure, i.e., the final approach, considering the operation e ciency and safety. The main objective of this research is to propose a parallel swarm-based method for optimizing final aircraft arrival segments design, i.e., routes that connects the final sector to the Initial Approach Fix (IAF), considering the UAS presence. This is conducted from two perspectives: ATCo workload, which is related to safety, and sequencing duration, which is related to e ciency. Furthermore, di↵erent phases of UAS integration are considered, i.e., from early stages of its integration to a mature stage of its operation by means of the Technology Maturity Level (TML) usage, which is a scale that measure the familiarity between the ATCo with the aircraft. Finally, the solutions consider airspace restrictions such as minimum separation between aircraft and bad weather conditions, i.e., the presence of cumulonimbus (CB). The experiments conducted show that this approach is able to build safe and e cient solution even in situations with a high number of aircraft.
Cervical Cancer in Khon Kaen, Thailand: Analysis of 1990-2014 Incidence Data and Prediction of Future Trends

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer of women in Thailand. There have been no reports of incidence and future in Khon Kaen, a province in northeastern Thailand, where the relatively high prevalence gives evaluation of cervical cancer screening a high priority. Objectives: To determine cervical cancer incidence rates in Khon Kaen for 1990–2014 and predict future trends until 2029. Methods: Cancer incidence data from the Khon Kaen population-based cancer registry were analyzed and age-standardized incidence rates (ASR) were estimated. Joinpoint analysis and age-period-cohort modeling were applied for data from 1990 to 2014 and the Nordpred package was employed to project trends from 2015 to 2029. Results: Between 1990 and 2014, a total of 3,258 cases were diagnosed with ICD-O code C53 (invasive cervical cancer). Before 2005, an annual percentage change (APC) varied widely, with outliers in 1993 and 1999. The APC computed with the Joinpoint software decreased at -2.8% (95% CI;-4.5 to -1.1) per year on average. After 2005, a rise was noted until 2008, after which a drop became apparent with an APC of -8.0% (95% CI; -14.5 to -1.1) per year on average. Both period and cohort effects played a role in shaping the decrease in incidence. The three projection method suggested that incidence rates would continue to decrease in the future. Conclusions: A decreasing trend in incidence of cervical cancer in Khon Kaen was noted from 1990 to 2014 with a prediction of continuous decrease until 2029. Maintenance and improvement of the screening program is advised.
Influence of stimulus complexity on the specificity of visual perceptual learning

Although the structure and function of the human visual system are determined in large part during early development, there is ample evidence for adult plasticity as well. Such plasticity has important consequences for restoring vision after cortical damage and for improving function in healthy people. Although these applications have shown promising results, they are often limited by pathological specificity: Improvements obtained through perceptual training fail to generalize beyond the trained stimulus feature or location. Efforts to reduce specificity have focused on the design of training tasks, but less is known about the effects of stimulus structure on the specificity of perceptual learning. Here, we leverage physiological findings from the dorsal visual pathway of the primate brain to explore the hypothesis that learning specificity is related to the complexity of the training stimulus. Specifically, because neurons in higher-level structures of the dorsal visual pathway exhibit little stimulus specificity, we reasoned that training with more complex stimuli would reduce the specificity of learning. We trained human observers on stimuli of varying complexity, ranging from simple sinewave gratings to complex optic flow fields. Our results show that training with more complex stimuli reduces specificity for spatial position and stimulus features. Such changes are associated with increased spatial integration. These findings were captured by a computational “reweighting” model that decoded the outputs of simulated neurons in areas MT and MST of the primate visual cortex. Our results suggest that the addition of more complex stimuli into perceptual learning paradigms provides a simple and effective way to minimize specificity in learning.
The Mediating Influence of Team Alignment on the Relationship between Plant Turnaround Maintenance Planning and Plant Turnaround Maintenance Performance

In the plant turnaround, the operating assets and machinery of the organization shut down for overhauling and some capital work. This activity is very expensive and the time allocated is very low. Therefore, a good management system is required for planning all the activities of the plant turnaround maintenance. As the number of people involved in the maintenance, process is high, so teamwork is required to carry the work of plant turnaround maintenance. The alignment of team with the goals and objectives of plant turnaround maintenance has been one of the concerns for the academics and researchers. In spite of the positive impact of the team alignment on the performance of the company, only some of the organizations consider themselves having high performance due to team alignment. The previous research finding suggests that the best turnaround methodology and tools do not guarantee turnaround success as due to many reasons. So therefore, the current study attempts to use mediating approach of alignment in Plant turnaround maintenance. The survey questionnaires distributed among the technological advance and capital-intensive organizations in Malaysia covering oil and gas, petrochemical plants, cement plants, palm oils and power plants with a 31 companies yielding a 31% response rate. The study found that there is a positive influence for team alignment mediating the relationship between plant turnaround maintenance planning and performance.
Improvement of productivity through improved design of workstation and fixture

Industrial workbenches are designed to hold up to 750kg. They are made to withstand all the heavy duty tools and machines that are used on daily basis. With maximum load capacity we will be able to complete daily manufacturing tasks safely and with zero-safety risks. Plant layout is the most effective physical arrangement, either existing or in the plans of industrial facilities i.e. arrangement of machines, processing equipment and service departments to achieve greatest coordination and efficiency of 4 M’s in a plant. In machining fixtures, minimizing work piece deformation due to clamping and cutting forces is essential to maintain the machining accuracy. Fixtures are required in various industries according to their application. Fixtures reduce operation time and increases productivity and high quality of operation is possible. Continuous improvement is the backbone of any company. In the present study, improvement work was carried on to standardize the rotation base workbench, lateral guide fixture, and introducing pokayoke devices wherever necessary. By observing the assembly operations, some changes in design were suggested for workbench, new designs for fixtures for which there were no fixtures, introduction of pokayoke devices to avoid mistakes and the outcome of those designs after implementation were also studied. It is observed that rate of production increased from 4 tables/quarter to 6 tables/quarter which improved the labour productivity as well as revenue for the organization. The fixture reduced the overall cycle time by 5 minutes to assemble one motor.
An Overcomplete Approach to Fitting Drift-Diffusion Decision Models to Trial-By-Trial Data

Drift-diffusion models or DDMs are becoming a standard in the field of computational neuroscience. They extend models from signal detection theory by proposing a simple mechanistic explanation for the observed relationship between decision outcomes and reaction times (RT). In brief, they assume that decisions are triggered once the accumulated evidence in favor of a particular alternative option has reached a predefined threshold. Fitting a DDM to empirical data then allows one to interpret observed group or condition differences in terms of a change in the underlying model parameters. However, current approaches only yield reliable parameter estimates in specific situations (c.f. fixed drift rates vs drift rates varying over trials). In addition, they become computationally unfeasible when more general DDM variants are considered (e.g., with collapsing bounds). In this note, we propose a fast and efficient approach to parameter estimation that relies on fitting a “self-consistency” equation that RT fulfill under the DDM. This effectively bypasses the computational bottleneck of standard DDM parameter estimation approaches, at the cost of estimating the trial-specific neural noise variables that perturb the underlying evidence accumulation process. For the purpose of behavioral data analysis, these act as nuisance variables and render the model “overcomplete”, which is finessed using a variational Bayesian system identification scheme. But for the purpose of neural data analysis, estimates of neural noise perturbation terms are a desirable (and unique) feature of the approach. Using numerical simulations, we show that this “overcomplete” approach matches the performance of current parameter estimation approaches for simple DDM variants, and outperforms them for more complex DDM variants. Finally, we demonstrate the added-value of the approach, when applied to a recent value-based decision making experiment.
Progression-free survival (PFS) as a measure of efficacy for anti-EGFR antibodies in recurrent/metastatic (R/M) squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN).

6078 Background: Anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibodies show promise in treatment of SCCHN. Since the approval of cetuximab as a first-line treatment in R/M settings, other EGFR inhibitors have failed to achieve FDA approval due to failures to achieve survival benefits, despite significant improvements in PFS. Methods: We analyzed aggregate data from all published phase III clinical trials using EGFR monoclonal antibodies as first-line treatment in R/M SCCHN, to investigate PFS as a surrogate endpoint to overall survival (OS). Results: The limited data indicate a linear relationship between PFS and OS with a constant difference between them of 5 months. This estimate has a confidence interval of variability about an estimated mean, and a prediction interval of variability around an estimate for a single patient. The meta-analyzed (fixed effect) estimate of the relative risk of mortality is 0.63 and the standard error is 0.094 and is statistically significant. Conclusions: Approval of cetu.
In Vitro Methods of Assessing Protein Quality for Poultry

Simple Summary Over the years, broiler chickens have been selected for rapid growth which makes them very efficient at depositing body protein in a short period of time. This is important since the broiler sector is expected to contribute to the growing global demand for poultry meat. In light of this, the quality of proteins fed to poultry is becoming more important. The concept of protein nutrition is based on the sequential process through which proteins are digested, and the amino acids are absorbed and become available for metabolic processes. The nutritional quality of protein ingredients for poultry is based on their amino acid bioavailability. Animal and plant ingredients are the main sources of protein used in poultry diets and they vary in digestibility and amino acid composition. Although in vivo digestibility assays for poultry are available, they are expensive and time consuming to conduct. In vivo digestibility assays are the optimum tools for characterizing protein sources to be used in commercial production, but it is not always practical to conduct these assays in commercial settings. Commercial production, therefore, relies on the use of other assays such as in vitro assays to evaluate the quality of protein sources. Abstract Protein quality assessment of feed ingredients for poultry is often achieved using in vitro or in vivo testing. In vivo methods can be expensive and time consuming. Protein quality can also be evaluated using less expensive and time consuming chemical methods, termed in vitro. These techniques are used to improve the user’s efficiency when dealing with large sample numbers, and some mimic the physiological and chemical characteristics of the animal digestive system to which the ingredient will be fed. The pepsin digestibility test is the in vitro method of choice for quick evaluation of protein sample during quality control and in most research settings. Even though the pepsin digestibility test uses enzymes to liberate the amino acids from the protein, it does not mimic normal in vivo digestive conditions. The results obtained with this method may be misleading if the samples tested contain fats or carbohydrates which they often do. Multi-enzyme tests have been proposed to overcome the problem encountered when using the pepsin digestibility test. These tests use a combination of enzymes in one or multiple steps customized to simulate the digestive process of the animal. Multi enzyme assays can predict animal digestibility, but any inherent biological properties of the ingredients on the animal digestive tract will be lost.
Species composition and dispersal of nuisance flies breeding on egg farms in southern Australia

The vectorial and dispersal capacities of flies make them a biosecurity and food safety risk on egg farms. The design of optimal control and biosecurity programs requires knowledge of species composition and patterns of abundance of the fly populations present. Although there have been many studies of flies breeding on egg farms in other countries there is little information available in Australia. We monitored numbers and species of flies breeding on cage egg farms in southern Australia and used mass marking with fluorescent resin dye to assess the dispersal of the major species from one of the farms. The main peak in fly numbers occurred in spring and early summer and was comprised predominantly of little house flies (Fannia canicularis). Significant numbers of false stable flies (Muscina stabulans) were trapped near accumulated manure, but relatively low numbers were present in bird housing areas. House flies (Musca domestica) were found in only low numbers or were absent at most times of the year. In the dispersal studies, 85% of marked F. canicularis and 67% of marked M. stabulans were trapped within 255 m of the layer sheds. The greatest distance from the farm at which marked F. canicularis flies were captured was 739 m for traps and 1.25 km for tapes whereas M. stabulans flies were trapped at all distances including in the most distant trap nearly 2 km from the farm. Modelling of trap catches by distance predicted maximum dispersal distances of 1.6 km for F. canicularis and 2.4 km for M. stabulans.
Assessing the effects of Carpobrotus invasion on coastal dune soils. Does the nature of the invaded habitat matter

We investigate the modifications of soil factors in Carpobrotus invaded sites by evaluating differences between non-invaded and highly invaded plots in three habitats of coastal dune ecosystems in Central Italy. Nitrogen content, organic matter content, pH and salinity were measured in three coastal habitats: shifting dunes along the shoreline with Ammophila arenaria, Crucianellion maritimae fixed beach dunes and fixed coastal dunes with Juniperus spp. Soil variables of the invaded plots were compared to non-invaded ones using two-way factorial ANOV As and post-hoc Tukey HSD tests. We found significant differences between invaded and non-invaded plots for nitrogen content, organic matter content and pH in both foredune habitats. On the other hand, no differences were revealed on fixed dunes. Thus, we found distinct responses of soil factors to Carpobrotus invasion depending on the habitat. Pioneer habitats with very poor soils are more sensitive to invasion probably because the production of litter by Carpobrotus is considerably higher than for native species. Therefore, for the establishment of efficient alien control programs of those habitats of conservation interest, it is imperative to take into account the relationship between invasive species presence and the top soil characteristics. For instance, particular attention is required in the foredune zone (pioneer habitats), where Carpobrotus invasion is more likely to affect the parameters of the soil.
Signals: Evolution, Learning, and Information

Introduction 1. Signals 2. Signals in Nature 3. The Flow of Information 4. Evolution 5. Evolution in Lewis Signaling Games 6. Deception 7. Learning 8. Learning in Lewis Signaling Games 9. Generalizing Signaling Games: Synonyms, Bottlenecks and Other Mismatches 10. Inventing New Signals 11. Networks I: Information Processing 12. Complex Signals and Compositionality 13. Networks II: Teamwork 14. Learning to Network
Improvement of Throughput using Dual Connectivity in Non-Standalone 5G NR Networks

Wireless communications are constantly evolving to facilitate better access to information for the improvement of business, education, and technology around the world. Hence to overcome the lack of spectrum new bands like millimeter wave (mmWave) bands are needed to be utilized. The mmWave bands offer a huge spectrum due to which substantial attention is being given to exploit this frequency range for deploying 5G cellular systems. 5G wireless technology is expected to deliver multi-Gbps data rates, vast network capacity, low latency, and more reliability. Despite the provision of the spectrum, the new mmWave bands are prone to blockages and obstacles. Hence, these bands must be deployed with the help of an architecture that can overcome this drawback and can prevent any disruption of service in case of blockage. This paper implements a non-standalone (NSA) architecture using modified dual connectivity of user equipment (UE) to Long Term Evolution (LTE) module and mmWave module of ns-3 for more robust deployment of 5G New Radio (NR) network. It also includes a detailed discussion upon the design and functioning of 5G NR in NSA mode with the help of a simulation setup. Finally, the performance of the 5G network in standalone (SA) and non-standalone modes are compared both graphically and numerically based on the throughput measurements.