Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling of the potential distribution of Limnoperna fortunei (Dunker, 1857) on a global scale.

Predictive modelling of species’ distributions is an important tool in biogeography, evolution, ecology, conservation, and invasive-species management. In this study we applied four different algorithms: Mahalanobis Distance, Domain, GARP and MAXENT, using them to predict the potential distribution of Limnoperna fortunei, a freshwater mussel native to Southeast Asia and a major fouling pest of water supply systems in Hong Kong, Japan, and South America. For model input, we compiled native and invaded occurrence data from Asia (71 points) and South America (248 points) from the literature and BIOCLIM’s environmental layers related to air temperature and precipitation. To evaluate model quality we used different “training” and “test” data sets. On the Mahalanobis Distance and Domain algorithms, three sets of training data were used: 1) Asia points; 2) South America points; 3) Asia and South America points. For MAXENT the combinations were: 1) South America points (25% test data/75% training data); 2) Asia points (25% test data/75% training data); 3) South America training data/Asia test data; 4) Asia training data/ South America test data; 5) Asia + South America points (25% test data/75% training data). Comparing the responses of the four types of algorithms used, it was found that MAXENT was the most conservative model (i.e. it produced a smaller area of suitable habitats) followed in order by GARP, Domain and Mahalanobis Distance, which proved to be the widest. In general, the best results corresponded to models in which the points of occurrence covered a greater environmental variability (Asia+South America 25% test data/75% training data). They showed better performance for predicting correctly the occurrence of regions already known to host the species. An ensemble map was produced based on the best scenarios for each algorithm. This tool performed well in assessing the potential global distribution of L. fortunei even though it was generated from climatic macro variables without the use of locale-specific abiotic variables, which are more difficult to obtain.
Analysis of exercise intensity and energy expenditure of women participating in the Curves exercise program.

Analysis of Exercise Intensity and Energy Expenditure of Women Participating in the Curves Exercise Program Gregory D. Farris, B.S.Ed., M.Ed. Committee Chairperson: Richard B. Kreider, Ph.D. The Curves program is designed to improve fitness. The purpose of this study was to identify exercise intensity, HR and energy expenditure in a group of women participating in the Curves program. Seventy-eight women (53.6 ± 7.09 yrs, 192.1 ± 30.43 pounds, 43.5 ± 4.52 % fat) performed the Curves workout on two occasions. Results show that mean HR was 119 ± 15 b/min which was equivalent to 79% max HR or 63 % HRR. Thirty-three women (52.7 ± 6.68 yrs, 193.1 ± 31.73 pounds, 1.8 ± 0.28 L/min VO2 max) performed the Curves 30-min workout on two occasions. Results show that the mean RER to perform the 30-min workout was 1.00 ± 0.07 and 0.98 ± 0.05 for the two sessions. Estimated caloric expenditure was 164.5 ± 25.19 kcals and 160.6 ± 28.36 kcals for the two sessions. Results indicate that the Curves program qualifies as moderate intensity exercise.
Swati Sahay1, Juwar Doley2, NateSaN Krithiga1, guNDallahalli Bayyappa MaNJuNatha reDDy1, SiDDaNNa SharaNgouDa patil1, BiBeK raNJaN ShoMe1, raJeSwari ShoMe1* Isolation and Characterization of Klebsiella pneumoniae from Respiratory Infection of Yak (Bos grunniens), India

| Yak (Bos grunniens) is multipurpose long haired ruminant reared by the poor tribal farmers for wool, milk, meat, etc in the high altitudes of Himalayan region of Indian Territory. There is a serious concern about increasing morbidity and mortality of yak due to respiratory diseases. Nasal swab sample was collected from pneumonic yak in Amies charcoal transport media from Arunachal Pradesh, India and processed for bacterial isolation and identification and direct PCR detection in 18h BHI enriched broth sample. Based on biochemical characteristics and multiplex PCR, the culture was identified as K. pneumoniae (isolate No. KP1) and in in-vitro antibiotic sensitivity test, the isolate was resistant to ampicillin. The 16S rRNA sequence analysis and 16S rRNA secondary structure prediction revealed close geographical relatedness to environmental K. pneumoniae PB12 from River Mahananda from East India and K. pneumoniae JPR 9 isolated from soil samples of Assam. This study describes pneumonia in yak due to K. pneumoniae from Arunachal Pradesh, India by direct PCR detection from enriched clinical sample, isolation, PCR and 16S rRNA sequence, phylogenetic and secondary structure relation studies.
Dialect MT: A Case Study between Cantonese and Mandarin

Machine Translation (MT) need not be confined to inter-language activities. In this paper, we discuss inter-dialect MT in general and Cantonese-Mandarin MT in particular. Mandarin and Cantonese are two most important dialects of Chinese. The former is the national lingua franca and the latter is the most influential dialect in South China, Hong Kong and overseas. The difference in between is such that mutual intelligibility is impossible. This paper presents, from a computational point of view, a comparative study of Mandarin and Cantonese at the three aspects of sound systems, grammar rules and vocabulary contents, followed by a discussion of the design and implementation of a dialect MT system between them.
Genetic variation of the hawthorn spider mite Amphitetranychus viennensis (Acari: Tetranychidae) in Korea

Amphitetranychus viennensis (Zacher) is a serious economic pest of various fruit trees. Due to its restricted geographic distribution in Asia and Europe, it is an important quarantine species in the North American countries. Despite its significance in agricultural damage and quarantine, the genetic diversity of this species has not been studied in detail. In this study, we determined the nucleotide sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene and internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region of the nuclear ribosomal DNA in A. viennensis collected from various regions of Korea. Variations in the COI and ITS2 sequences of the Korean samples ranged up to 6.92 and 4.02 %, respectively. A sequence comparison showed that the Korean samples were divided into two groups, one comprising the Geoje and Jinju samples, and the other comprising all samples except for the Geoje/Jinju samples. In most samples, except for the Geoje/Jinju samples, variations in both COI and ITS2 sequences were less than 1.04 and 0.99 %, respectively. However, the variations between two groups were 6.23–6.92 % and 3.02–4.02 %, respectively. In addition, the phylogenic analysis performed with sequences in the GenBank database showed that the samples from Geoje/Jinju, which are located in the southern region of Korea, were most similar to the Japanese samples, but the others were most similar to those of China and Taiwan. Thus, our study suggests that two genetically different groups of A. viennensis exist in Korea.
THE INSURANCE UTMOST GOOD FAITH PRINCIPLE: THE CASE OF MALTA

Amidst a world of change and development, the insurance industry is accustomed to adapting its products, services and practices to suit the needs of the customer. One practice which is in the limelight where insurance business is concerned is the disclosure of material facts truthfully, accurately and positively, given the asymmetric nature of an insurance contract. After several years of public outcry and disputes, the UK went through several attempts by the industry to self-regulate until legislators took the plunge to reform the century old principle in the year 2012. However, Malta, although being a commonwealth country that has traditionally been reliant on UK practice, has not yet followed suit. The Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 insurance reform, could potentially affect the indigenous insurance practice to the extent that the position taken by the UK could trigger the need for Malta to reform. Moreover, being an EU member state, Malta finds itself at another crossroad having to endorse EU Directives and Regulations. With this paper we therefore examine where Malta stands with respect to the duty of utmost good faith, which is a principle affecting the way insurers do business and how the respective claims will be treated by the courts. It also has an impact on the relationship with the customer and how the industry is being portrayed by the public on the perception scale. Although a small country, Malta holds excellent relationships with its international counterparts and significant business is made with international corporates to secure local and foreign risks. The importance of having practices that are in sync with those carried out internationally is paramount to ensure Malta remains competitive in the area of insurance. We herein also seek to establish a position of the state of affairs and shed light on whether Malta should reform this legislation, to follow the footsteps of the UK or wait for an EU initiative. Experts in the technical and legal field were interviewed with a view of obtaining a limpid picture of the current situation and its corresponding shortcomings leading to the establishment of the benefits of reform, if at all. Any decision taken by Malta might have a ripple effect on similar small countries and could see Cyprus, Hong Kong and Singapore adopting similar changes. Findings highlight that Malta is not insular and always has to network with other foreign market players to diversify and cross sell its services. To retain competitiveness and relevance in the international business, it is recommended that Malta changes its practices in line with changes in trends especially the ones dictated by the consumer. Most did admit that UK remains the Island’s greatest influencers and it is only a matter of time before the Maltese practice will mimic these changes in the British practices. However, experts note that Brexit adds complications, since any EU directive or regulation can have an overriding effect on UK practices.
Are Financial Stocks Driven by Substantive Factors or Virtual Factors? Comparing Taiwan and China Markets

Summary: This study employs information economics and the financial intermediary theory to explore the influences of private information in virtual communities and financial technology (fintech) derived from virtual currency on financial stocks. The paper conducts robust analyses on 67,166 data observations of the stock markets in China and Taiwan and finds that virtual currency development causes a structural change in the financial industry. The financial stocks in Taiwan are obviously driven by virtual factors, whereas those in China are subject to both pull from substantial factors and push from virtual factors. The research findings also suggest that the non-fundamental herding behavior driven by private information interferes with the value of financial stocks. However, financial innovations boost the competitiveness of the financial industry. It is advised to establish a policy to closely monitor the diffusion of private information and the exchange rate volatility between cryptocurrencies and home currencies to facilitate proactive financial risk management.
A Survey of Wireless Communication Technologies & Their Performance for High Speed Railways

High Speed Railway (HSR) provides its customers not only safety, security, comfort and on-time commuting, but also a fast transportation alternative to air travel or regular passenger rail services. Providing these benefits would not be possible without the tremendous growth and prevalence of wireless communication technologies. Due to advances in wireless communication systems, both trains and passengers are connected through high speed wireless networks to the Internet, data centers and railroad control centers. Railroad communities, academia, related industries and standards bodies, even the European Space Agency, are involved in advancing developments of HSR for highly connected train communication systems. The goal of these efforts is to provide the capabilities for uninterrupted high-speed fault-tolerant communication networks for all possible geographic, structural and weather conditions. This survey provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art and future trends for wireless technologies aiming to realize the concept of HSR communication services. Our goal is to highlight the challenges for these technologies, including GSM-R, Wi-Fi, WIMAX, LTE-R, RoF, LCX & Cognitive Radio, the offered solutions, their performance, and other related issues. Currently, providing HSR services is the goal of many countries across the globe. Europe, Japan & Taiwan, China, as well as North & South America have increased their efforts to advance HSR technologies to monitor and control not only the operations but also to deliver extensive broadband solutions to passengers. This survey determined a trend of the industry to transition control plane operations towards narrowband frequencies, i.e. LTE400/700, and to utilize concurrently other technologies for broadband access for passengers such that services of both user and train control systems are supported. With traditional technologies, a tradeoff was required and often favored train control services over passenger amenities. However, with the advances in communication systems, such as LTE-R and cognitive radios, it is becoming possible for system designers to offer rich services to passengers while also providing support for enhanced train control operations such as Positive Train Control.
Targeted Threat Index: Characterizing and Quantifying Politically-Motivated Targeted Malware

Targeted attacks on civil society and nongovernmental organizations have gone underreported despite the fact that these organizations have been shown to be frequent targets of these attacks. In this paper, we shed light on targeted malware attacks faced by these organizations by studying malicious e-mails received by 10 civil society organizations (the majority of which are from groups related to China and Tibet issues) over a period of 4 years. Our study highlights important properties of malware threats faced by these organizations with implications on how these organizations defend themselves and how we quantify these threats. We find that the technical sophistication of malware we observe is fairly low, with more effort placed on socially engineering the e-mail content. Based on this observation, we develop the Targeted Threat Index (TTI), a metric which incorporates both social engineering and technical sophistication when assessing the risk of malware threats. We demonstrate that this metric is more effective than simple technical sophistication for identifying malware threats with the highest potential to successfully compromise victims. We also discuss how education efforts focused on changing user behaviour can help prevent compromise. For two of the three Tibetan groups in our study simple steps such as avoiding the use of email attachments could cut document-based malware threats delivered through e-mail that we observed by up to 95%.
Dovepress Open Access to Scientific and Medical Research Open Access Full Text Article Etiology, Prevalence, and Treatment of Dry Eye Disease

Purpose: This review article examines the prevalence, etiology, and current therapies of dry eye disease, with special focus on postmenopausal women. Method: A systematic literature search utilizing MEDLINE was conducted to identify peer-reviewed articles related to dry eye published prior to September 2008. The terms " dry eye " and " women " were searched in combination with one or more of the following words or phrases: prevalence, postmenopausal, etiology, risk factors, therapy, medications, surgery, tear film, and quality of life. Articles were selected based on their direct applicability to the subject matter. A manual search was also conducted based on citations in the published literature. Results: Epidemiologic studies identified prevalence rates ranging from 7% in the United States to 33% in Taiwan and Japan. Risk factors include advanced age, female sex, smoking, extreme heat or cold weather conditions, low relative humidity, use of video display terminals, refractive surgery, contact lens wear, and certain medications. Conclusion: The last decade has brought about a better understanding of the etiology of dry eye disease. New therapies that can alleviate the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease and, consequently, improve the quality of life of dry eye patients are available in the market. Overview Dry eye disease (DED) is one of the most frequently encountered ocular morbidities. Twenty-five percent of patients who visit ophthalmic clinics report symptoms of dry eye, making it a growing public health problem and one of the most common conditions seen by eye care practitioners. 1 Historically, the term " Keratoconjunctivitis sicca " can be attributed to the Swedish ophthalmologist Henrik SC Sjögren. 2 He was the first to refer to the triad of Keratoconjunctivitis sicca, dry mouth, and joint pain, which occurs mainly in women (90% of the cases) (www.sjogrens.org/), and in 1950 Andrew De Roetth introduced the term " dry eye ". 3 For many decades, DED was thought to be limited to dryness of the eyes due to reduction of the aqueous phase of the tear film. In 1995, DED was defined as a complex multifaceted group of medical and ocular diseases that is due to decreased tear production and/or increased tear evaporation. 4 In 2007, the International Dry Eye Workshop (DEWS) revised the original definition and classification scheme of DED and developed a new definition, as well as a three-part classification of DED based on etiology, mechanism, and severity of the disease. 5 The …
Household coal use and lung cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies, with an emphasis on geographic variation.

BACKGROUND Emissions from household coal combustion associated with cooking and heating are an important public health issue, particularly in China where hundreds of millions of people are exposed. Although coal emissions are a known human carcinogen, there is still uncertainty about the level of risk for lung and other cancers. METHODS We performed a meta-analysis on 25 case-control studies (10,142 cases and 13,416 controls) to summarize the association between household coal use and lung cancer risk, and to explore the effect modification of this association by geographical location. RESULTS Using random-effects models, household coal use was found to be associated with lung cancer risk among all studies throughout the world [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.61-2.89, N(studies) = 25], and particularly among those studies carried out in mainland China and Taiwan (OR = 2.27; 95% CI = 1.65-3.12, N(studies) = 20). Stratification by regions of mainland China and Taiwan found a variation in effects across the regions, with south/southeastern (OR = 3.27; 95% CI = 1.27-8.42, N(studies) = 3) and southwestern China (OR = 2.98; 95% CI = 1.18-7.53, N(studies) = 3) experiencing the highest risk. The elevated risk associated with coal use throughout Asia was also observed when stratifying studies by gender, smoking status, sample size, design (population vs hospital case-control) and publication language. No significant publication bias was found (p(Begg's) = 0.15). CONCLUSIONS Our results provide evidence that although the carcinogenic effect of coal use varies by location, coals from many locations exhibit elevated lung cancer risks.
The Effect of Liberalization and Deregulation on Life Insurer Efficiency

With liberalization and deregulation, insurers will be subject to greater competition and, therefore, should become more efficient. We analyze the impact of liberalization and deregulation of four life insurance markets: Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. The first two countries undertook modest liberalization and deregulation efforts, whereas the latter two countries undertook modest liberalization efforts only. Using data envelopment analysis to measure cost efficiency, we find that liberalization and deregulation of the Korean and Philippine life insurance industries seem to have stimulated increases and improvements in productivity. Liberalization of the Taiwanese and Thai life insurance businesses, however, seems to have had little effect on increases and improvements in productivity. Our findings suggest liberalization and deregulation together promote competition. Further, our results are consistent with the view that, in a restrictive regulatory environment, welfare gains will be minimal if deregulation does not closely follow liberalization. Introduction Insurance markets worldwide continue to undertake pro-competitive reform predicated on the notion that competitive markets are better at enhancing consumer choice and welfare than are rigidly regulated, insular markets. As a consequence, dozens of countries have deregulated or liberalized their insurance markets. Deregulation denotes lessening of national regulation. Liberalization denotes a reduction of government or other barriers to market access, especially as relates to foreign insurers (Skipper, 1996). In some countries, liberalization efforts have been accompanied by deregulation wherein regulatory restrictions deemed less conducive to promoting competition have been removed or modified. For example, Korea and the Philippines undertook modest deregulation and liberalization efforts. In some other countries, such as Taiwan and Thailand, few changes in national regulation accompanied relaxation of market access restrictions.
Mutational Analysis of Burkholderia thailandensis Quorum Sensing and Self-Aggregation

ABSTRACT Acyl-homoserine lactone (acyl-HSL) quorum-sensing signaling is common to many Proteobacteria. Acyl-HSLs are synthesized by the LuxI family of synthases, and the signal response is mediated by members of the LuxR family of transcriptional regulators. Burkholderia thailandensis is a member of a closely related cluster of three species, including the animal pathogens Burkholderia mallei and Burkholderia pseudomallei. Members of this group have similar luxI and luxR homologs, and these genes contribute to B. pseudomallei and B. mallei virulence. B. thailandensis possesses three pairs of luxI-luxR homologs. One of these pairs, BtaI2-BtaR2, has been shown to produce and respond to 3OHC10-HSL and to control the synthesis of an antibiotic. By using a markerless-exhange method, we constructed an assortment of B. thailandensis quorum-sensing mutants, and we used these mutants to show that BtaI1 is responsible for C8-HSL production and BtaI3 is responsible for 3OHC8-HSL production. We also show that a strain incapable of acyl-HSL production is capable of growth on the same assortment of carbon and nitrogen sources as the wild type. Furthermore, this mutant shows no loss of virulence compared to the wild type in mice. However, the wild type self-aggregates in minimal medium, whereas the quorum-sensing mutant does not. The wild-type aggregation phenotype is recovered by addition of the BtaI1-R1 HSL signal C8-HSL. We propose that the key function of the BtaR1-BtaI1 quorum-sensing system is to cause cells to gather into aggregates once a sufficient population has been established.