bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Determinants of abundance and habitat association of mammals in Barandabhar Corridor Forest, Chitwan, Nepal
Authors: Adhikari Jagan Nath , Bhattarai Bishnu Prasad , Thapa Tej Bahadur 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Barandabhar Corridor Forest (BCF), the biologically functional corridor, is surrounded by the large human settlements that exploit the corridor where large mammals such as tigers, leopards and their prey such as ungulates, primates, and rhinoceros occur. This study aimed to evaluate major determinants that affect the distribution of large mammals in BCF, Chitwan, Nepal that connects the biologically significant Chitwan National Park with the Mahabharat range. The status and distribution of large mammals along the habitat and disturbance gradients were determined by using 29 line transects (mean length = 4.59 ± 0.38 km) that covered a linear distance of 133.13 km. The chital were the most abundant mammals (density per km2 (D) = 8.9095 ± 1.4570 and encounter rate per km (ER) = 1.49) followed by rhesus monkey (D = 38.896 ± 16.013, ER = 0.28), wild boar (D = 14.814 ± 3.57, ER = 0.62), northern red muntjac (D = 9.6566 ± 2.9514, ER = 0.62) and sambar (D = 5.392 ± 2.319, ER = 0.38). Similarly, the sign encounter rate of tiger and leopard was 0.435 and 0.503 respectively. Habitat types, human disturbances, and coverage of invasive and alien plant species (IAPs) played a key role in the distribution of large mammals. The occurrence of mammals was low nearer to the settlements and roads and coverage of IAPs and more nearer to the water resources. However, degradation of foraging grounds such as grasslands by succession and invasion of alien plant species added more threats to the survival of large mammals. Therefore, such a situation can be improved through the scientific management of forests and grasslands.
Effect of Three Half-Squat Protocols on the Tensiomyographic Twitch Response and Tissue Damage of the Rectus Femoris and the Biceps Femoris
Authors: Berzosa César , Sanz-López Fernando , Gonzalo-Skok Oliver , Valero-Campo Carlos , Luis Arjol-Serrano José , Piedrafita Eduardo , Aladrén Guillermo , Vanessa Bataller-Cervero A. 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
The aim of this study was to analyse the acute effects of a concentric exercise and two different eccentric overload exercises (EOEs) on blood markers of muscle damage (i.e. creatine kinase [CK], lactate dehydrogenase [LDH], myoglobin [Myo], and malondialdehyde [MDA]) and muscle contractile properties. Ten healthy, young (27 ± 1.5 years, 179 ± 6 cm, 78.7 ± 10.8 kg), physically active men (3.5 ± 1.9 h·w-1) randomly performed three training sessions using the following protocols: a half-squat (HS) as a concentric exercise, and exercises using Versapulley (VP) or YoYo isoinertial technology (YIT) as EOEs (4 x 7 repetitions with a 2 min rest interval between sets). Blood samples and tensiomyography measurements were obtained after each training session. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey test was used to detect differences between the four time points of each variable. The standardized difference or effect size (ES, 90% confidence limit) in the selected variables was calculated using the basal SD. After all exercises, a greater activity of CK, LDH, and concentration of Myo, and MDA were found compared to baseline values (p < 0.05). A substantially greater activity of CK, LDH, and Myo concentration, but not MDA, were found after EOEs when compared to the HS protocol. Substantially lower tensiomyography results in the rectus femoris (RF) were reported, irrespective of the exercise mode performed. Also, no substantial differences were obtained in the biceps femoris (BF) between EOEs and the HS protocol. Time of contraction (Tc) in the RF was possibly to very likely lower in the HS in comparison to EOEs. Additionally, muscular displacement (Dm) in the RF was substantially lower in the HS compared to EOEs. VP produced higher concentrations of damage markers than YIT and concentric exercise did. Furthermore, tensiomyography variables showed similar activation in both exercises, although higher specific fatigue (in the RF) was registered in the traditional HS.
Shoulder Muscle Imbalance as a Risk for Shoulder Injury in Elite Adolescent Swimmers: A Prospective Study
Authors: Drigny Joffrey , Gauthier Antoine , Reboursière Emmanuel , Guermont Henri , Gremeaux Vincent , Edouard Pascal 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Muscle strength imbalances between the internal and external rotators of the shoulder are frequent in swimmers, but their role in shoulder injury remains unknown. We aimed to evaluate the association of shoulder rotator strength and injury in elite adolescent swimmers. Eighteen adolescent swimmers performed preseason isokinetic tests of the internal and external rotator muscles in concentric (con) and eccentric (ecc) modes. Conventional (conER:conIR and eccER:eccIR) and functional ratios (eccER:conIR and eccIR:conER) were calculated. Thirteen swimmers completed a weekly questionnaire about swimming habits and shoulder injuries throughout the season. Preseason testing showed a significant negative association between the functional eccER:conIR ratio and years of practice (p < 0.05). Over the season, 46% of athletes experienced at least one shoulder injury. At the end of the season, peak torques increased for both internal and external rotator muscles strength, but only concentrically, resulting in a decrease in the eccER:conIR functional ratio (p < 0.05). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis highlighted good predictive power for the preseason functional eccER:conIR ratio, as values below 0.68 were associated with a 4.5-fold (95% CI 1.33-15.28, p < 0.05) increased risk of shoulder injuries during the season.
New Social and Legal Challenges Resulting from the Presence of Islam in 21st Century European Societies
Authors: Combalía Zoila 
Published: April 2021

Summary
One of the greatest challenges facing the European societies and legal systems arises from the rapid changes that have taken place in recent decades, from a certain level of cultural and religious uniformity towards a landscape of diversity in which Islam has made its presence felt. The viability of coexistence between the Islamic and Western cultures should rest on two foundations: firstly, the acceptance of a common minimum defined by respect for a person´s dignity, that is, an agreement on the question of human rights. Along with this consensus there is also a need for respect and the integration of diversity. This study sets out to analyse the challenges that both issues raise..
Limited Tendering – A Barrier to Get the Best Value for Money or Effective Solution for Extraordinary Situations?
Authors: Kováčiková Hana , Blažo Ondrej 
Published: April 2021

Summary
A public procurement should be an effective tool through which public authorities shall spend public finances sparingly. With modernisation of this area of law in 2014, a new concept of bids evaluation came forward – a value for money. Now it is more important than any time before to ensure fair tenders to be submitted during the procurement. It is a well-known fact, that only a true competition between the bidders decreases the prices and raises the quality of their bids. But how contracting authorities deal with these goals while procuring without competition? This article analyses limited tendering with focus on extreme urgency. Authors try to give an answer to the question, which attribute of this procedure prevails – its flexible use in extraordinary situations or its interfering effect to value for money achievement.which makes Slovakia open to severe criticism from international human rights bodies.
Sysyemic Lupus Erythematosus with Multiple Organ Damage
Authors: Nicola Andreea Alexandra , Dună Mădălina , Miler Ioana , Petre Nicoleta , Predeţeanu Denisa 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous rheumatic disease with various clinical manifestations and a multifactorial pathogenesis. Although the etiology of SLE is unknown, certain risk factors have been identified as promoters of an imbalance in the immune system with antibody formation and tissue damage secondary to the deposition of immune complexes. Women of childbearing age are predominantly affected, regardless of ethnicity.
SLE affects the kidneys in about 50% of patients, lupus nephritis (LN) being a major risk factor for overall morbidity and mortality. The lungs are commonly involved later in the course of the disease, pulmonary involvement in SLE being extremely varied. It includes along with pleuritis which is the most common manifestation, acute lupus pneumonitis, pulmonary vasculitis, pulmonary embolism, diffuse alveolar haemorrhage; opportunistic pulmonary infections or drug toxicity could be other pulmonary manifestations.
We present the case of a young woman with SLE complicated with lupus nephritis class V and pulmonary infarction due to thromobosis of a pulmonary artery. It is a case of SLE with multiple organ damage and life-threatening complications that require interdisciplinary management and appropriate treatment.
Carotid Atherosclerosis Assessment Using Ultrasonography – Making it an Easy and Valuable Tool for the General Practitioner
Authors: Popa Raluca , Stănescu Cristina , Stănescu Dan , Gurghean Adriana 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
The thromboembolism of an asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis (CAS) causes stroke in 10-15% cases and in Europe, stroke causes more than 1 million deaths a year. This important cause of mortality may be evaluated by duplex ultrasound (DUS).
In five decades of experience, carotid DUS has proven to be a risk -free procedure, being widely available, easy to use, inexpensive, painless and quite reproducible.
The purpose of this article was to try to extend the usual indications of DUS assessment of carotid atherosclerosis (CA) in order to offer a tool for less experienced ultrasonographers to gather useful information for optimizing patient’s management. We tried to review the literature and to provide a simple, easy to apply algorithm for estimating the presence and severity of CA.
Gender gaps in education: The long view1
Authors: Evans David K. , Akmal Maryam , Jakiela Pamela 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Many countries remain far from achieving gender equality in the classroom. Using data from 126 countries, we characterize the evolution of gender gaps in low- and middle-income countries between 1960 and 2010. We document five facts. First, women are more educated today than 50 years ago in every country in the world. Second, they remain less educated than men in the vast majority of countries. Third, in many countries with low levels of education for both men and women in 1960, gender gaps widened as more boys went to school, then narrowed as girls enrolled; thus, gender gaps got worse before they got better. Fourth, gender gaps rarely persist in countries where boys attain high levels of education. Most countries with large, current gender gaps in educational attainment have low levels of male educational attainment, and many also perform poorly on other measures of development such as life expectancy and GDP per capita. Fifth, in the youngest cohorts, women have more education than men in some regions of the world. Although gender gaps in educational attainment are diminishing in most countries, the empirical evidence does not support the hypothesis that reducing the gender gap in schooling consistently leads to smaller gender gaps in labor force participation.
A Survey on Multi-Agent Based Collaborative Intrusion Detection Systems
Authors: Bougueroua Nassima , Mazouzi Smaine , Belaoued Mohamed , Seddari Noureddine , Derhab Abdelouahid , Bouras Abdelghani 
Published: April 2021

AbstractMulti-Agent Systems (MAS) have been widely used in many areas like modeling and simulation of complex phenomena, and distributed problem solving. Likewise, MAS have been used in cyber-security, to build more efficient Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), namely Collaborative Intrusion Detection Systems (CIDS). This work presents a taxonomy for classifying the methods used to design intrusion detection systems, and how such methods were used alongside with MAS in order to build IDS that are deployed in distributed environments, resulting in the emergence of CIDS. The proposed taxonomy, consists of three parts: 1) general architecture of CIDS, 2) the used agent technology, and 3) decision techniques, in which used technologies are presented. The proposed taxonomy reviews and classifies the most relevant works in this topic and highlights open research issues in view of recent and emerging threats. Thus, this work provides a good insight regarding past, current, and future solutions for CIDS, and helps both researchers and professionals design more effective solutions.
An effective integration of the PM 16-QAM modulation in enhanced metropolitan networks with the EDFA amplification
Authors: Róka Rastislav , Šalík Pavol 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
This paper deals with the integration of polarization multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation format in optical metropolitan networks enhanced with the signal amplification. Before expensive experimental setup or practical testing and demonstration, we prefer creating of appropriate simulation platform for the optical transmission system. A novelty can be found in adjusting, optimizing and construction of the proposed optical system and functional parts for any modulation format used. So, such simulation platform is first introduced along with possibilities for numerical simulations of its optical components - laser and amplifier. By this way, essential noise tolerances for comparison with the data under real conditions are included. Subsequently, there are characterized implementations of terminal devices in detail with a possibility for upgrading to the dual-polarization mode operation. Finally, simulation results from the simulation platform are presented and a discussion about demands for effective exploitation of the polarization multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation in enhanced optical metropolitan networks concludes our contribution.
Design and optimization of 1 × 2
N
Y-branch optical splitters for telecommunication applications
Authors: Serečunová Stanislava , Seyringer Dana , Seyringer Heinz , Uherek František 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
This paper presents the design and optimization of 1 × 2
N
Y-branch optical splitters for telecom applications. A waveguide channel profile, used in the splitter design, is based on a standard silica-on-silicon material platform except for the lengths of the used Y-branches, design parameters such as port pitch between the waveguides and simulation parameters for all splitters were considered fixed. For every Y-branch splitter, insertion loss, non-uniformity, and background crosstalk are calculated. According to the minimum insertion loss and minimum non-uniformity, the optimum length for each Y-branch is determined. Finally, the individual Y-branches are cascade joined to design various Y-branch optical splitters, from 1 × 2 to 1 × 64.
The French Language Olympiad: Promoting language and culture learning
Authors: Meristo Merilyn 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to shed light on promoting teaching and learning the French language and culture through the Olympiad, initiated by a group of practitioners in a community of practice. What makes this Olympiad rather unique is its main focus on cultural knowledge combining it with linguistic aspects. The Olympiad takes place in four different categories taking into account students’ age and prior experience in learning French (e.g. first or second foreign language). In addition, the regional round is organised in Moodle enabling more participants to take part and the national one in situ, at the University of Tallinn. Since the first Olympiad in 2014, the number of competitors has increased and both, private and municipality funded (public) schools participate. The paper provides a detailed overview of the olympiad process: how it was initiated and how it is annually run as well as a description of challenges faced by the organisers.
Teacher beliefs and their manifestation in teaching from the perspective of pre-service teacher trainees
Authors: Součková Zuzana 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Teacher beliefs play an important role in addressing the issue of teacher training. Teaching philosophy has long been a question of great interest in a wide range of fields in teacher education. There is a growing body of literature that recognises the importance of what teacher trainees or teachers in general think, believe and do in teaching. Studies over the past two decades have provided important information on the possible factors that may impact the formation of teacher beliefs. The paper attempts to explore the relationship between previous school experience and the formation of teacher beliefs among teacher trainees who can provide viewpoints of a teacher and a student at the same time. Moreover, the paper examines teaching methods and techniques that the trainees apply in their teaching as a result of what they believe in as teachers. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews conducted with pre-service teacher trainees as a part of feedback sessions during teaching practice. By employing qualitative approach, the research contributes to a deeper understanding of the formation and manifestation of teacher beliefs in teaching.
Weighted Dirichlet Process Mixture Models to Accommodate Complex Sample Designs for Linear and Quantile Regression
Authors: Elliott Michael R. , Xia Xi 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Standard randomization-based inference conditions on the data in the population and makes inference with respect to the repeating sampling properties of the sampling indicators. In some settings these estimators can be quite unstable; Bayesian model-based approaches focus on the posterior predictive distribution of population quantities, potentially providing a better balance between bias correction and efficiency. Previous work in this area has focused on estimation of means and linear and generalized linear regression parameters; these methods do not allow for a general estimation of distributional functions such as quantile or quantile regression parameters. Here we adapt an extended Dirichlet Process Mixture model that allows the DP prior to be a mixture of DP random basis measures that are a function of covariates. These models allow many mixture components when necessary to accommodate the sample design, but can shrink to few components for more efficient estimation when the data allow. We provide an application to the estimation of relationships between serum dioxin levels and age in the US population, either at the mean level (via linear regression) or across the dioxin distribution (via quantile regression) using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Identifying Outliers in Response Quality Assessment by Using Multivariate Control Charts Based on Kernel Density Estimation
Authors: Jin Jiayun , Loosveldt Geert 
Published: April 2021

AbstractWhen monitoring industrial processes, a Statistical Process Control tool, such as a multivariate HotellingT2chart is frequently used to evaluate multiple quality characteristics. However, research into the use ofT2charts for survey fieldwork–essentially a production process in which data sets collected by means of interviews are produced–has been scant to date. In this study, using data from the eighth round of the European Social Survey in Belgium, we present a procedure for simultaneously monitoring six response quality indicators and identifying outliers: interviews with anomalous results. The procedure integrates Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) with aT2chart, so that historical “in-control” data or reference to the assumption of a parametric distribution of the indicators is not required. In total, 75 outliers (4.25%) are iteratively removed, resulting in an in-control data set containing 1,691 interviews. The outliers are mainly characterized by having longer sequences of identical answers, a greater number of extreme answers, and against expectation, a lower item nonresponse rate. The procedure is validated by means of ten-fold cross-validation and comparison with the minimum covariance determinant algorithm as the criterion. By providing a method of obtaining in-control data, the present findings go some way toward a way to monitor response quality, identify problems, and provide rapid feedbacksduringsurvey fieldwork.
Measuring and Modeling Food Losses
Authors: Mingione Marco , Fabi Carola , Lasinio Giovanna Jona 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Within the context of Sustainable Development Goals, progress towards Target 12.3 can be measured and monitored with the Food Loss Index. A major challenge is the lack of data, which dictated many methodology decisions. Therefore, the objective of this work is to present a possible improvement to the modeling approach used by the Food and Agricultural Organization in estimating the annual percentage of food losses by country and commodity. Our proposal combines robust statistical techniques with the strict adherence to the rules of the official statistics. In particular, the case study focuses on cereal crops, which currently have the highest (yet incomplete) data coverage and allow for more ambitious modeling choices. Cereal data is available in 66 countries and 14 different cereal commodities from 1991 to 2014. We use the annual food loss as response variable, expressed as percentage over production, by country and cereal commodity. The estimation work is twofold: it aims at selecting the most important factors explaining losses worldwide, comparing two Bayesian model selection approaches, and then at predicting losses with a Beta regression model in a fully Bayesian framework.
Generalised Regression Estimation Given Imperfectly Matched Auxiliary Data
Authors: Zhang Li-Chun 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Generalised regression estimation allows one to make use of available auxiliary information in survey sampling. We develop three types of generalised regression estimator when the auxiliary data cannot be matched perfectly to the sample units, so that the standard estimator is inapplicable. The inference remains design-based. Consistency of the proposed estimators is either given by construction or else can be tested given the observed sample and links. Mean square errors can be estimated. A simulation study is used to explore the potentials of the proposed estimators.