ethicalabs/Research-Intent-Collab huggingface dataset:
Effects of land use practices on steppe plant biodiversity implications for in situ conservation

ABSTRACT EFFECTS OF LAND USE PRACTICES ON STEPPE PLANT BIODIVERSITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR IN SUV CONSERVATION ZEYDANLLUğur M.S. Department of Biology Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Zeki Kaya Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sertaç Önde September 1998, 92 pages. Central Anatolia is one of the important area in respect to plant biodiversity. This importance can be attributed to high species number, richness in the community structure, and important crop species and their wild relatives. However, intense human activities have seriously threaten this high biodiversity. In this study, five sites around Ankara having steppe characteristic with different natural structure and land use practices, were chosen and community analysis was carried out. This analysis was made by laying quadrats in the selected msites and then estimating the frequencies and abundance of the plant species. By comparison of the sites, by using the results of community structure analysis some suggestions for the better conservation of the steppe plant biodiversity in the central Anatolia steppe were made. Results of the present study showed that plant biodiversity is not effected too much by grazing, given the grazing is not so intense. However, the reproductive biology of valuable fodder species which are preferred by the livestock was disturbed and density of plants in heavily grazed sites was reduced. Also, the cover of the vegetation requires careful management for the erosion control as it is the most effected unit of the community by the livestock grazing. Another important point is that there is the slow down trend in the succession. Considering the 40 years of land use differences, community structure did not change so much among sampled sites. Eventhough the studied sites had different land use history, community structure of sites seem to be similar. The major conclusion can be drawn from the study are; 1) Introduction of `park forest` system in afforestation of steppe lands to create patchiness in the habitat, 2) A sustainable management system for grazing steppe ecosystem is essential 3) To conserve the biodiversity in central Anatolia steppes, new protected areas with rich plant biodiversity should be declared soon. Key Words: Plant ecology, steppe, plant biodiversity, in situ conservation, land use practices. IV
Ferroelastic and ferroelectric phase transition in a molecular crystal : tanane - 3. — From ab initio computation of the intermolecular forces to statistical mechanics of the transition

On the basis of structural data of the disordered tetragonal phase of tanane, the Van der Waals intermolecular forces are computed for the 16 nearest neighbours of a given molecule. Considering first the molecular ordering in a « rigid » tetragonal lattice, the pair energies between neighbouring molecules are analysed within a pseudo-spin formalism which shows that the main ordering interactions define linear chains of molecules along the ferroelectric Z-axis. As there is no exact procedure for a statistical treatment of the 3-d Ising Hamiltonian, we just calculate the transition temperature To in the mean-field approximation. The predicted result : T0 ~ 200 K is in good agreement with the ordering temperature in the « rigid » lattice deduced from experimental investigations : To = 235 K. In a second step, we consider the « piezo-electric-like » coupling between the molecular ordering and the uxy shear of the lattice. Using a « Bragg-Williams-like » treatment of the strain-dependent Ising Hamiltonian, we build a free energy expansion whose bilinear terms agree well with those determined from experiments (shear modulus C66 and « piezo-electric-like » coefficient D), and which yields for the predicted transition temperature : T c ~ 240 K (actual value : Tc = 287 K). This analysis also reveals an important biquadratic coupling term which is supposed to enhance the instability of the structure in the vicinity of T c.
Integrated community development/conflict resolution strategies as ‘peace building potential’ in South Africa and Northern Ireland

This paper argues that integrated community development and conflict resolution strategies could help to sustain peace in post-settlement contexts. The conceptual background to this argument is unfolded through the tracking of key concepts such as convergence, post-settlement contexts, civil society, community development, conflict resolution, peace building, and multi-track approaches to peace building. Empirical evidence for convergences at the practice level is presented through excerpts from two case studies, one from Northern Ireland and the other from South Africa. Some of the key issues around which community development/conflict resolution strategies coalesce relate to addressing human needs, encouraging people participation, and building democracy. These are critical peace building tasks. Despite the positive potential of such integrated strategies, both South Africa and Northern Ireland face crucial challenges.
DFVEdit: Conditional Delta Flow Vector for Zero-shot Video Editing

The advent of Video Diffusion Transformers (Video DiTs) marks a milestone in video generation. However, directly applying existing video editing methods to Video DiTs often incurs substantial computational overhead, due to resource-intensive attention modification or finetuning. To alleviate this problem, we present DFVEdit, an efficient zero-shot video editing method tailored for Video DiTs. DFVEdit eliminates the need for both attention modification and fine-tuning by directly operating on clean latents via flow transformation. To be more specific, we observe that editing and sampling can be unified under the continuous flow perspective. Building upon this foundation, we propose the Conditional Delta Flow Vector (CDFV) -- a theoretically unbiased estimation of DFV -- and integrate Implicit Cross Attention (ICA) guidance as well as Embedding Reinforcement (ER) to further enhance editing quality. DFVEdit excels in practical efficiency, offering at least 20x inference speed-up and 85% memory reduction on Video DiTs compared to attention-engineering-based editing methods. Extensive quantitative and qualitative experiments demonstrate that DFVEdit can be seamlessly applied to popular Video DiTs (e.g., CogVideoX and Wan2.1), attaining state-of-the-art performance on structural fidelity, spatial-temporal consistency, and editing quality.
Research on the Reconstruction and Communication Effect of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Communication Content: A Semiotic Perspective

Generative artificial intelligence, as an important transformative force in contemporary communication technology, is profoundly changing the generation mechanism of communication content and the implementation path of communication effects. From a semiotic perspective, this article explores how AI technology can reconstruct the symbolic construction logic, content form, and discourse power structure in communication content, and further analyzes its impact on audience perception, information reception, and feedback mechanisms, communication controllability, and uncertainty at the level of communication effectiveness. Research has found that the deep intervention of AI has led to structured, programmatic, and mimetic dissemination of content. The decoding path of the audience is becoming increasingly complex, and the feedback is more immediate but lacks depth. At the same time, it also brings potential risks such as unclear ethical responsibilities and decreased information authenticity. At the end of the article, a thinking path for future communication research and practice is proposed from four dimensions: ethical regulation, platform responsibility, human-machine collaboration, and disciplinary integration, aiming to provide a theoretical reference for building a more rational, standardized, and human-oriented AI communication environment.
A unified accretion-ejection paradigm for black hole X-ray binaries

Context. X-ray binaries display cycles of strong activity during which their luminosity varies across several orders of magnitude. The rising phase is characterized by a hard X-ray spectrum and radio emission due to jets (hard state), whereas the declining phase displays a soft X-ray spectrum and no jet signature (soft state). The origin of these correlated accretion-ejection and spectral hysteresis cycles is still under investigation. Aims. We elaborate on the previously described paradigm, where the increase and decrease in the disk accretion rate is accompanied by a modification of the disk magnetization μ, which in turn determines the dominant torque allowing accretion. For μ greater than some threshold, the accretion flow produces jets that vertically carry away the disk angular momentum (jet-emitting disk, or JED mode), whereas for smaller μ, the turbulence transfers the disk angular momentum outward in the radial direction (standard accretion disk, or SAD mode). The goal of this paper is to investigate the spectral signatures of the JED configurations. Methods. We have developed a two-temperature plasma code that computes the disk local thermal equilibria, taking into account the advection of energy in an iterative way. Our code addresses optically thin/thick transitions, both radiation and gas supported regimes, and computes in a consistent way the emitted spectrum from a steady-state disk. The optically thin emission is obtained using the BELM code, which provides accurate spectra for bremsstrahlung and synchrotron emission processes as well as for their local Comptonization. Results. For a range in radius and accretion rates, JEDs exhibit three thermal equilibria, one thermally unstable and two stable: a cold (optically thick and geometrically thin) and a hot (optically thin and geometrically thick) equilibrium. From the two thermally stable solutions, a hysteresis cycle is naturally obtained. However, standard outbursting X-ray binary cycles cannot be reproduced. Another striking feature of JEDs is their ability to reproduce luminous hard states. At high accretion rates, JEDs become slim, where the main cooling is advection. Conclusions. When the loss of angular momentum and power in jets is consistently taken into account (JED mode), accretion disks have spectral signatures that are consistent with hard states, up to high luminosities. When no jet is present (SAD mode), the spectral signature is consistent with the soft state. These two canonical spectral states of black hole binaries can be explained in terms of two completely different dynamical solutions, namely JED and SAD. The observed spectral cycles can therefore be directly understood in terms of dynamical transitions from one accretion mode to another. These transitions must involve states where some regions emit jets and others do not, however, which argues for hybrid disk configurations.
"CBDCs mean Evolution, not Revolution": Central Bank Digital Currencies in the Time of COVID

International audience
DEVELOPMENT OF A METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING REGIONAL LOGISTICS ROUTES BASED ON A GRAVITY MODEL FOR MANAGING URBAN TRANSPORT HUBS

This article discusses the optimization of logistics routes, starting with the identification of key points of regional economic development. The proposed structure includes the principles of the theory of spatial interaction, in particular, the methodology for optimizing regional logistics networks based on the gravitational model. This approach uses economic zones as a contextual background to demonstrate the practical applicability and feasibility of the model. The integration of data on economic zones provides a real context that allows you to verify the results of the model and ensure the practical significance of the developed optimization strategies. Logistics, functioning as an independent sector of the economy, is also a key element of the regional economy. Thus, research on the optimization of logistics routes aimed at stimulating the future growth of the logistics industry has theoretical significance and practical applicability.
Use and Abuse of Rights Issues. Do they really Protect Minorities?

This paper discusses the use of rights issues when interest conflicts between controlling shareholders and minorities arise due to the existence of private benefits that the former can extract from the value of a listed company. While the literature considers the issue of pre-emptive rights as an essential tool to protect minorities from expropriation, we propose a model where rights are used to enforce the subscription of seasoned equity issues, even at negative conditions for investor’s value. We define an abuse condition allowing a controlling shareholder to choose discretionally an issuing price, granting a discount with respect to the market price, so that minorities either undertake the issue or sell the rights, minimizing an exit cost that greater than zero in all cases. As the rights issue never fails under these condition, we define this phenomenon as "enforced subscription". This model fits the Italian legal framework, and many other international contexts where rights issues are dominant. We report the case of Alitalia’s rights issue in 2005 as a typical example of "enforcement at work". As rights issues at a high discount often involve an abuse of power by the controlling shareholder, we argue that their use should be carefully regulated.
Investigating Knowledge of Antibiotics, Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Stewardship Concepts Among Final Year Undergraduate Pharmacy Students in Northern Nigeria

Samirah N Abdu-Aguye,1,&ast; Kromdi G Barde,1,&ast; Hadiza Yusuf,2,&ast; Basira Kankia Lawal,3,&ast; Aishatu Shehu,4,&ast; Elijah Mohammed5,&ast; 1Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacy Practice, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria; 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacy Administration, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Nigeria; 3Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacy Management, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria; 4Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria; 5Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Samirah N Abdu-Aguye, Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, Tel +234 803 201 9135, Email sn.abduaguye@gmail.comIntroduction: Well trained, knowledgeable and competent pharmacists are indispensable in the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is a current global public health problem. The aim of this work was to assess knowledge of antibiotics, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship of fifth year pharmacy students at three universities in Northern Nigeria.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study that used a paper-based questionnaire to collect data from July to September 2021 was conducted. The questionnaire was self-administered and divided into four sections. The first section collected information about the demographic data of respondents, while section B explored their knowledge of antibiotics and AMR. Section C contained six questions assessing knowledge of various aspects of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), while the final part assessed respondents’ preparedness to work with antibiotics and perceptions of their current knowledge of these concepts. Descriptive statistics were used to report the results obtained.Results: A total of 164 questionnaires were retrieved. Majority of respondents were male (58.3%) and aged between 21 and 25 years (53.4%). Most of them had some knowledge of antibiotics and AMR, however several misconceptions with respect to these concepts were identified. Only 80 (48.8%) of respondents indicated that they knew what AMS was, although most of these students were correctly knowledgeable about the goals and scope of AMS and composition of the AMS team. Generally, less than half of respondents agreed that their current knowledge of antibiotics, AMR or AMS was adequate for their future careers, and over 90% of them agreed that they would like more education about these topics.Conclusion: Many of the study’s’ respondents were somewhat knowledgeable about these concepts, although several knowledge gaps were also observed. Improving undergraduate pharmacy education with respect to these concepts is recommended.Keywords: antibacterial agents, antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial stewardship, Nigeria, pharmacy students
Additional file 3 of Photovoltaics in agricultural landscapes: “Industrial land use” or a “real compromise” between renewable energy and biodiversity? Perspectives of German nature conservation associations

Additional file 3: Interview guiding questions.
Accelerating Quantum Reinforcement Learning with a Quantum Natural Policy Gradient Based Approach

We address the problem of quantum reinforcement learning (QRL) under model-free settings with quantum oracle access to the Markov Decision Process (MDP). This paper introduces a Quantum Natural Policy Gradient (QNPG) algorithm, which replaces the random sampling used in classical Natural Policy Gradient (NPG) estimators with a deterministic gradient estimation approach, enabling seamless integration into quantum systems. While this modification introduces a bounded bias in the estimator, the bias decays exponentially with increasing truncation levels. This paper demonstrates that the proposed QNPG algorithm achieves a sample complexity of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-1.5})$ for queries to the quantum oracle, significantly improving the classical lower bound of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-2})$ for queries to the MDP.
Concerns in a primary care population about genetic discrimination by insurers

Fear of genetic discrimination might deter participation in research or therapy. This is a major impetus for laws limiting insurers' use of genetic information, yet there is little information about the extent of this fear in the general population and how it varies by social factors.This study measures concern about insurance problems relating to genetic testing, as part of primary-care screening for hereditary hemochromatosis (iron overload). Data come from a multiethnic, primary care-based survey of 86,859 adults in five field centers in the United States (AL, CA, DC, HI, OR), and one in Canada (Ontario). Logistic regression was used to model the probability of agreeing to the question "Genetic testing is not a good idea because you might have trouble getting or keeping your insurance."Overall, 40.0% of participants agreed. Adjusting for other characteristics, African Americans and Asians were much less likely (OR = 0.52 and 0.39), and Hispanics were more likely (OR = 1.124), than Caucasians to express concern about insurance discrimination. Participants under 65 years old, US residents, and those without a high school diploma were substantially more likely to be concerned (ORs ranging from 1.4-1.6), as were participants with lower mental health scores. Education showed a nonlinear relationship, with significantly higher concern among both those with less than a high school education and those with a college degree, compared to high school graduates.Concern about genetic discrimination varies substantially by race and other demographic factors and by nationality. One possible explanation for lower concern about Canadians and by people over 64 is that both groups are covered by social insurance for health care (Medicare). However, US residents in states with some legal protections against genetic discrimination had more, not less, concern than either Canadians or US residents in states with no legal protections.
Cosmic ray nonlinear processes in the outer Heliosphere and expected properties of solar wind and CR modulation

Influence of cosmic ray pressure and kinetic stream instability on space plasma dynamics and magnetic structure in the Heliosphere are considered as additional effects to well known effects of solar wind interaction with interstellar medium. It is shown that in the outer Heliosphere are important dynamics effects of galactic cosmic ray pressure on solar wind and interplanetary shock wave propagation as well as on the formation of terminal shock wave of the Heliosphere and subsonic region between Heliosphere and interstellar medium. We determined the behavior of solar wind’s Mach number with taking into account cosmic ray nonlinear processes and show that the transition from supersonic to subsonic region can be gradual or shock wave transition in dependence of cosmic ray pressure gradient in the outer Heliosphere. Investigation of cosmic ray convection-diffusion and drift anisotropies shows that kinetic stream instability effects must be especially important on distances more than 40–60 AU from the Sun: fo...
Optimising Inter-Function Communication in Serverless Computing through Network-Aware Adaptive Data Compression

Serverless computing has emerged as a popular cloud computing paradigm for offering scalability, cost-effectiveness and abstracting away the complexities of infrastructure management. However, its wide-spread adoption for mainstream and mission-critical applications is limited by critical challenges like inter-function communication latency. This research proposes adaptive data compression which dynamically compresses data based on payload characteristics and runtime metrics as a potential solution to improve inter-function communication latency. The efficacy of the proposed solution was thoroughly validated through extensive simulations and a real-world deployment. Findings showed substantial reductions in key workflow execution metrics within simulations and significant boosts in responsiveness and resilience were observed under peak load in the real-world scenario, proving its practical viability. This research thus sets the stage for building holistic strategies to further unlock the potential of serverless computing. The positive results open exciting new possibilities for enhancing performance across serverless architectures via adaptive data transformations.
Submucosal Microbiome in Peri‐Implantitis: A Comparative Metagenomic Analysis

Through metagenomic sequencing, this study reveals significant microbial and functional differences between peri-implant health and peri-implantitis, identifying pathogenic species, virulence genes, and antibiotic resistance markers that may contribute to disease progression.
Bistability of Sequestration Networks

We solve a conjecture on multiple nondegenerate steady states, and prove bistability for sequestration networks. More specifically, we prove that for any odd number of species, and for any production factor, the fully open extension of a sequestration network admits three nondegenerate positive steady states, two of which are locally asymptotically stable. In addition, we provide a non-empty open set in the parameter space where a sequestration network admits bistability.