nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Productive Performance, Feed Utilization Efficiency and Blood Profile of Male Zaraibi Goats Fed Rations Containing Sesame Seeds Unsuitable for Manufacturing As An Inexpensive and Untraditional Source of Protein.

This research work was carried out to investigate the effect of using Sesame seeds in goats rations on some rumen parameters, blood profile, feed utilization and growth performance of Zaraibi kids. Fifteen Zaraibi kids (17.53+ 0.24 kg live weight and 5 months old) were divided into 3 groups (5 kids each) The control group (G1) was fed a ration consisting of concentrate feed mixture (CFM) and corn silage (CS) according to NRC (1981) recommendation. Sesame seeds (SS) were used to replace 10 and 20% of total CP of rations for groups G2 and G3, respectively. The feeding trail lasted for 15 weeks. The obtained results showed that the daily DM intake tended to decrease (71.69, 67.24 and 68.01 g/kg w) as a result to substitution of CFM with SS in goat's rations (G1, G2 and G3, respectively) In the same time, the daily water consumption as ml/g/DM intake was slightly higher with increasing level of SS in the rations. Concerning ruminal parameters, the effect of the experimental rations on ruminal pH values and ammonia N concentration were not significant. But, ruminal total VFA's during 3 and 6 hrs post feeding were significant as higher (P<0.05) with G2 and G3, compared with G1. The obtained results indicated also that most tested blood profile parameters were not significantly affected by tested experimental rations. Daily body gain (DBG) recorded the highest value (76.67 g) with G2 followed by G3 (72.62 g) and lastly G1 (65.00 g) and the differences were significant. The DBG increased by 17.95 and 11.72% with G2 and G3, respectively compared with control groups (G1) The best feed utilization efficiency based on DM was recorded with G2 (8.67) followed by G3 (9.01) in comparison with G1 (10.40) Moreover, the improvement in feed efficiency, based on CP, was 15.20 and 10.40% with two tested groups (G2 and G3, respectively) compared with control (G1) Thus, the feed economic efficiency was noticeably better (by 24.07% as a result to using of SS at two tested levels 10 and 20% compared with control group.
Effect of lavender aromatherapy on menopause hot flushing: A crossover randomized clinical trial
Venue: Journal of the Chinese Medical Association JCMA

Flushing is generally considered to be the primary symptom of menopause and is typically the most common complaint in menopausal women. Although flushing poses no danger to a woman's health, it decreases the quality of life. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the effect of lavender aromatherapy on menopause flushing.  This double blinded crossover clinical trial included 100 menopausal women 45 55 years of age who were referred to various health centers in Ardabil, Iran in 2013 2014. Samples were blocked randomly and divided into two intervention (lavender) and control (diluted milk) groups. Lavender aroma was smelled for 20 minutes twice a day, over a 12 week period. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, and flushing numbers were duly recorded. Data analysis was performed by SPSS version 16 (SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL, USA) using the Chi square and t test.  The results of our investigation showed that both groups had no significant difference according to demographic characteristics (p 0.05) Additionally, the flushing number significantly decreased in the intervention group than in the control group (p 0.001)  This study indicated that the use of lavender aromatherapy reduced menopause flushing. Given the impact of stress on flushing and the undesirable effects of menopause symptoms on the quality of life, it would appear that this simple, noninvasive, safe, and effective method can be used by menopausal women with noticeable benefits.
Toward Modelling a Global Social Contract: Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke
Venue: Japanese Journal of Political Science

The paper attempts to construct a global model of a social contract using well known metaphors of two great philosophers: Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke. By modelling a global social contract, I mean the formulation of a social contract using two sets of data: one is global citizens' preferences about values and norms while the other is sovereign states' participation in multilateral treaties. Both Rousseau and Locke formulate their versions of social contract theories in the national context of eighteenth century Europe. This paper tries my hands on extending their theories to the global context. This paper attempts to link empirically the relationship between global citizens' preferences as gauged by the World Values Survey and sovereign states' participation in 120 multilateral treaties deposited to the United Nations. To see the link between citizens and treaties (quasi legislative outcomes, sort of) dimensional similarities of the cosmos of citizens' preference and the cosmos of sovereign states' willingness to join multilateral treaties are examined. Once done, all the sovereign states are located in each of the two cosmoses, citizens and states, and the correlation coefficients between them are measured. Based on these empirical results, the nature of the global quasi legislative process is clarified. Conclusions and implications are drawn.
Adaptive Multi scale Prognostics and Health Management for Smart Manufacturing Systems
Venue: International journal of prognostics and health management

The Adaptive Multi scale Prognostics and Health Management (AM PHM) is a methodology designed to enable PHM in smart manufacturing systems. In application, PHM information is not yet fully utilized in higher level decision making in manufacturing systems. AM PHM leverages and integrates lower level PHM information such as from a machine or component with hierarchical relationships across the component, machine, work cell, and assembly line levels in a manufacturing system. The AM PHM methodology enables the creation of actionable prognostic and diagnostic intelligence up and down the manufacturing process hierarchy. Decisions are then made with the knowledge of the current and projected health state of the system at decision points along the nodes of the hierarchical structure. To overcome the issue of exponential explosion of complexity associated with describing a large manufacturing system, the AM PHM methodology takes a hierarchical Markov Decision Process (MDP) approach into describing the system and solving for an optimized policy. A description of the AM PHM methodology is followed by a simulated industry inspired example to demonstrate the effectiveness of AM PHM.
Drone based reconstruction for 3D geospatial data processing
Venue: 2016 IEEE 3rd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF IoT)

Urban air quality affects health and well being of more than half of the world's population. Measurement, modeling and real time action on pollution sources can alleviate their impact. A preliminary study for drone based image acquisition and processing steps required for 3D reconstruction of potential pollution sources is presented. The 3D surface terrain models combined with sensor data are inputs into air pollution models for visualization, understanding and potential mitigation of methane plumes. Scaling these technologies across large areas requires the integration of big geospatial data with modeling, machine learning, and image processing.
Small scale Collembola community composition in a pine forest soil: Overdispersion in functional traits indicates the importance of species interactions

Soil communities are considered to be remarkably species rich and to have many generalist species with seemingly similar niche requirements. The composition of soil fauna communities is often highly variable even at the plot scale, and both the environment and the spatial configuration of microhabitats are regarded as important forces shaping the structure of local communities. However, to what extent these forces are important in different ecosystems is not clear. We examined the relative roles of environmental (abiotic) vegetation (biotic) and spatial variables (using Moran's eigenvector maps, MEM) for the small scale variation in springtail (Collembola) communities in a 100 m2 area of the forest floor of a mature Scots pine forest in central Sweden, with small variation in important environmental variables. We found that most of the small scale variation in community composition could be explained by spatial variables, either alone or jointly with the environmental variables. Spatial variability in community composition, in turn, could be related to shifts in functional traits of the component species. Within local communities (samples) species showed a higher diversity than expected by chance in almost all examined traits, indicating that differences in resource and micro habitat utilisation enable Collembola species to coexist. Competition between species is therefore likely to be important for structuring Collembola communities at this spatial scale. The results indicate that the spatial scale of study and heterogeneity of environmental factors influence soil fauna community assembly processes through effects on the relative importance of environmental filtering compared to filtering by limiting similarity or competitive exclusion.
New insight into the systematics of Tomoceridae (Hexapoda, Collembola) by integrating molecular and morphological evidence

Tomoceridae is common but among the most problematic groups of Collembola. Its position within Collembola and the relationships within the family remain obscure. This also extends to the generic division of the subfamily Tomocerinae that remains controversial. This study examines these issues by integrating both molecular and morphological evidence. Our molecular phylogeny based on rDNA sequences supports the monophyly of Tomoceridae and the sister relationship between Tomocerinae and Lepidophorellinae. Reconstructions and tree topology tests constraining monophyly did not resolve the relationships between Tomoceridae and other collembolan groups. We also examined the morphology of the first instar (primary) larvae, which has significant phylogenetic value among higher Collembola. Mapping primary chaetotaxy onto our molecular phylogeny provided further evidence for the unique position of Tomoceridae within Entomobryomorpha and Collembola. The monophyly and subfamilial classification within Tomoceridae were validated here, whereas its position among Collembola will need further studies in a broader consideration across the major collembolan orders. Within Tomocerinae, the monophyly of Pogonognathellus was demonstrated, but the status of Tomocerus and Tomocerina is still to be resolved.
Distributional patterns of cave Collembola (Hexapoda) in association with habitat conditions, geography and subterranean refugia in the Western Carpathians

During 2010 2012 the diversity and distribution patterns of Collembola were surveyed in 28 karst and pseudokarst caves of the Western Carpathians, Slovakia. In total 90 species were recorded, 18 of which were closely associated with caves (eutroglophiles) obligate cave forms (troglobionts) were represented by 13 species assigned to the genera Pseudosinella (5) Deuteraphorura (3) Megalothorax (2) Protaphorura (1) Pygmarrhopalites (1) and Neelus (1) Cave entrance elevation, internal air temperature and geographic location played an important role in the distribution of cave Collembola. Species diversity was positively correlated with internal air temperature and negatively with cave elevation and latitude. Non metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) cluster and indicator value (IndVal) analyses showed that communities of cave Collembola display a clear geographic pattern in the Western Carpathians. The Slovak and Aggtelek Karst and adjacent areas in the south eastern part of the Western Carpathians have higher species diversity and number of troglobionts in contrast with karst areas of the central part that have only a few obligate cave forms. Northern karst areas are obviously less diverse and troglomorphic taxa are absent there. The study supports the idea that southern and central karst units of the Western Carpathians might represent important glacial refugia for subterranean fauna.
A quantitative protocol for DNA metabarcoding of springtails (Collembola)
Venue: Genome

We developed a novel protocol with superior quantitative analysis results for DNA metabarcoding of Collembola, a major soil microarthropod order. Degenerate PCR primers were designed for conserved regions in the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (mtCOI) and 16S ribosomal RNA (mt16S) genes based on published collembolan mitogenomes. The best primer pair was selected based on its ability to amplify each gene, irrespective of the species. DNA was extracted from 10 natural communities sampled in a temperate forest (with typically 25 30 collembolan species per 10 soil samples) and 10 mock communities (with seven cultured collembolan species) The two gene regions were then amplified using the selected primers, ligated with adapters for 454 technology, and sequenced. Examination of the natural community samples showed that 32 and 36 operational taxonomic units (defined at a 90% sequence similarity threshold) were recovered from the mtCOI and mt16S data, respectively, which were comparable to the results of the microscopic identification of 25 morphospecies. Further, sequence abundances for each collembolan species from the mtCOI and mt16S data of the mock communities, after normalization by using a species as the internal control, showed good correlation with the number of individuals in the samples (R 0.91 0.99) although relative species abundances within a mock community sample estimated from sequences were skewed from community composition in terms of the number of individuals or biomass of the species. Thus, this protocol enables the comparison of collembolan communities in a quantitative manner by metabarcoding.
Trophic transfer of silver nanoparticles from earthworms disrupts the locomotion of springtails (Collembola)
Venue: Journal of hazardous materials

Understanding how nanomaterials are transferred through food chains and evaluating their resulting toxicity is important. However, limited research has been conducted on the toxic consequences of trophically transferred nanomaterials in terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we documented the adverse effects of trophically transferred silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in a soil earthworm (Eisenia andrei) Collembola (Lobella sokamensis) food chain. We exposed E. andrei to soil with AgNPs at concentrations of 50, 200, and 500mg AgNPs/g soil dry weight and assessed their survival after 7days. Trophic transfer containers were then prepared and E. andrei that survived the 7days test period were washed, killed in boiling water, and added to the containers with L. sokamensis. We noted negligible effects and low bioaccumulation at the lowest AgNP concentration (50mg AgNPs/g soil dry weight) in earthworms and the L. sokamensis that fed on them. The highest concentration of AgNPs (500mg AgNPs/g soil dry weight) resulted in juvenile earthworm mortality and increased transfer of AgNPs to Collembola, which subsequently inhibited their locomotion. To our knowledge, this is the first study to document the trophic transfer and adverse effects of AgNPs in a soil earthworm Collembola food chain, a common prey decomposer interaction in soil ecosystems.
Effects of imidacloprid on detoxifying enzyme glutathione S transferase on Folsomia candida (Collembola)
Venue: Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Chemical analyses of the environment can document contamination by various xenobiotics, but it is also important to understand the effect of pollutants on living organisms. Thus, in the present work, we investigated the effect of the pesticide imidacloprid on the detoxifying enzyme glutathione S transferase (GST) from Folsomia candida (Collembola) a standard test organism for estimating the effects of pesticides and environmental pollutants on non target soil arthropods. Test animals were treated with different concentrations of imidacloprid for 48 h. Changes in steady state levels of GST messenger RNA (mRNA) and GST enzyme activity were investigated. Extracted proteins were separated according to their sizes by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and the resolved protein bands were detected by silver staining. The size of the glutathione (GSH) pool in Collembola was also determined. A predicted protein sequence of putative GSTs was identified with animals from control group. A 3 fold up regulation of GST steady state mRNA levels was detected in the samples treated with 5.0 mg L 1 imidacloprid compared to the control, while a 2.5 and 2.0 fold up regulation was found in organisms treated with 2.5 and 7.5 mg L 1 imidacloprid, respectively. GST activity increased with increasing imidacloprid amounts from an initial activity of 0.11 mmol min 1 mg 1 protein in the control group up to 0.25 mmol min 1 mg 1 protein in the sample treated with the 5.0 mg L 1 of pesticide. By contrast, the total amount of GSH decreased with increasing imidacloprid concentration. The results suggest that the alteration of GST activity, steady state level of GST mRNA, and GSH level may be involved in the response of F. candida to the exposure of imidacloprid and can be used as biomarkers to monitor the toxic effects of imidacloprid and other environmental pollutants on Collembola.
Collembola Community Structure as a Tool to Assess Land Use Effects on Soil Quality

Collembolan species are differently affected by soil tillage (conventional, minimum tillage, and no tillage) and are known to modify plant growth. This study relies on the relationships between Collembola community structures and land use systems as a proxy for characterizing changes in soil quality. Thus, Collembola community structure (eco morphological groups edaphic, hemiedaphic and epigeic, and morphotypes) were examined in a no tillage system and crop livestock integration system to evaluate the discriminative power of the Collembola community structure and to determine which soil properties drives structural diversity. Thirty eight morphotypes of Collembola were recorded in this study, 11 belonging to the edaphic eco morphological group, 14 hemiedaphic, and 13 epigeic. The hemiedaphic and epigeic groups, in the no tillage system, were more influenced by changes in soil properties (total organic carbon, particulate organic carbon, total N, Ca, Mg, moisture, bulk density) and mycelium length than the groups in the crop livestock integration system (mycorrhizal inoculum potential, and soil properties as dehydrogenase, particulate organic carbon, Mg, sand) Collembola eco morphological groups were better predictors for ecosystem functioning than Collembola density and can be used to distinguish differences between soil uses, reducing laboratory analysis time.
Prevalence of Diabetes and Health Related Quality of Life among Rural to Urban Nong Zhuan Fei Migrants in an Urban Area of Northern China, 2013
Venue: Public health reports

In China's Nong Zhuan Fei (NZF) communities, farmers living in rural villages are uprooted and moved into newly constructed urban apartments when the government purchases their land for residential and commercial development. With their relocation from a traditional rural setting to a modern urban setting, residents of NZF communities face lifestyle based risk factors for diabetes and other chronic diseases. We reported estimates of diabetes prevalence, risk factors, and health related quality of life among adult Chinese NZF rural to urban migrants.  We conducted a descriptive cross sectional study through a U.S. China partnership with an NZF community of 3,184 residents. Health and disease history, risk factors, and sociodemographic information were collected by questionnaire. Participants completed a 24 hour diet recall, three day physical activity recall, a health related quality of life Short Form 36 (SF 36) health survey, the Beck Depression Inventory, and fasting blood glucose tests.  We gathered complete data from 1,150 of 1,772 eligible participants. The prevalence of diabetes was 11.6% (95% confidence interval 9.8, 13.6) Diabetes risk increased significantly with age, income, obesity, and hypertension. Based on SF 36 scores, residents aged =60 years with diabetes reported significantly greater physical (47.7 v. 70.2, p=0.001) and emotional (76.9 vs. 89.7, p=0.006) limitations, more bodily pain (79.7 vs. 84.9, p=0.021) and worse overall physical health (67.6 vs. 76.0, p=0.015) than those without diabetes.  The Chinese government hopes to integrate an additional 250 million people into city living by 2025. As the NZF population increases, so may the prevalence of diabetes associated with the change from a rural to an urban lifestyle. Action is needed now by public health professionals to prevent a possible diabetes crisis in NZF communities in the future.
Moral Dilemmas in Chinese Philosophy: A Case Study of the Lienu Zhuan

From classical antiquity to contemporary times, challenging situations of dilemmatic or paradoxical nature continue to fascinate both scholars and the casual reader. Although Western literature provides a fruitful source of philosophical discussion on the circumstances under which a morally competent agent faces incompatible moral requirements, Sinology has rarely accepted the idea of moral dilemmas in Chinese philosophy in general and Confucianism in particular. The present paper explores moral and morally motivated dilemmas in Liu Xiang's Liu Xiang Lienu Zhuan Lie Nu Chuan and the philosophical strategies employed for their resolution within the framework of the Confucian tradition, emphasizing similarities with Western traditions such as Greek tragedy or Thomistic philosophy.
A review of cyber security risk assessment methods for SCADA systems
Venue: Comput. Secur.

This paper reviews the state of the art in cyber security risk assessment of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. We select and in detail examine twenty four risk assessment methods developed for or applied in the context of a SCADA system. We describe the essence of the methods and then analyse them in terms of aim; application domain; the stages of risk management addressed; key risk management concepts covered; impact measurement; sources of probabilistic data; evaluation and tool support. Based on the analysis, we suggest an intuitive scheme for the categorisation of cyber security risk assessment methods for SCADA systems. We also outline five research challenges facing the domain and point out the approaches that might be taken.
Understanding convolutional neural networks with a mathematical model
Venue: J. Vis. Commun. Image Represent.

This work attempts to address two fundamental questions about the structure of the convolutional neural networks (CNN) (1) why a nonlinear activation function is essential at the filter output of all intermediate layers? (2) what is the advantage of the two layer cascade system over the one layer system? A mathematical model called the "REctified COrrelations on a Sphere" (RECOS) is proposed to answer these two questions. After the CNN training process, the converged filter weights define a set of anchor vectors in the RECOS model. Anchor vectors represent the frequently occurring patterns (or the spectral components) The necessity of rectification is explained using the RECOS model. Then, the behavior of a two layer RECOS system is analyzed and compared with its one layer counterpart. The LeNet 5 and the MNIST dataset are used to illustrate discussion points. Finally, the RECOS model is generalized to a multilayer system with the AlexNet as an example.