Search

The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of the fruit bats of the Old World (Pteropodidae). Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of this genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the distributon range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810). In this contribution, we present a revised review of records of this tick that were made in two periods, 1951–1966 (records from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Spain) and 2005–2019 (Cyprus, Iran, Oman), and additionally, we present notes, re-determinations, new records, and summary of hosts of this tick. Besides the primary host, the revised list of hosts comprises two bats (Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859) and the human (Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758). We also tried to identify pathogens in specimens of this tick collected from R. aegyptiacus in Oman. The DNA of the Mouse herpesvirus strain 68 (MHV-68), of two bacteria, Borellia burgdorferii sensu lato, and Ehrlichia sp. almost identical (98%) with Candidatus Ehrlichia shimanensis was detected in several larvae specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past millennia, Morocco has undergone a great number of socio-economic changes, its lands having been dominated or occupied in turn or at the same time by Berber, Phoenician, Punic, Mauri, Roman, Arab and Portuguese populations. As elsewhere in the Mediterranean, these socio-economic dynamics have been accompanied by agricultural changes of varying degrees, contributing to the introduction and spread of new plants and practices. From a chronologically and geographically unbalanced corpus of 13 archaeological sites, this paper proposes a general overview of the identified taxa, in order to set out our current knowledge of Moroccan agricultural productions from Antiquity to the early Modern period. A total of 47 cultivated/gathered species are attested by seeds and/or fruits, divided into 8 cereals, 7 pulses, 9 vegetables and condiments, 20 fruit trees, 3 oilseed and textile plants and 1 possibly cultivated grass plant. Greater taxonomic diversity is recorded during the medieval period, which is the most extensively researched. To complete this work, an overview of emerging approaches aimed at better characterizing diversity and agricultural practices (manuring, irrigation) is also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In software development, source code documents play essential role during program comprehension and software maintenance. Natural language descriptions and identifier names are the main parts of the source code document. Source code document generation spares the working hours of developers. Automatic source code documentation is a rapidly growing research area at the present time. Researchers have proposed various template based, IR based (information retrieval), and learning-based techniques for automatic source code documentation. There is not much work related to preprocessing and its effect on the automatic source code documentation. Tokenization is one of the essential steps in preprocessing. We found some important flaws in the basic tokenization steps that could affect automatic source code documentation performance. Therefore, we propose an updated tokenization approach to remove the flaws of basic tokenization steps. We performed method name prediction and comment generation studies to analyze the effect of updated tokenization approach. We found that the updated tokenization helped in improving the performance of the automatic source code documentation. Name prediction and comment generation performance improved by more than 2.5% and 3.5%, respectively, in terms of F1 score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical case for the value of scenario-based assessment (SBA) in the measurement of students' written argumentation skills. First, we frame the problem in terms of creating a reasonably efficient method of evaluating written argumentation skills, including for students at relatively low levels of competency. We next present a proposed solution in the form of an SBA and lay out the design for such an assessment. We then describe the results of prior research done within our group using this design. Fourth, we present the results of two new analyses of prior data that extend our previous results. These analyses concern whether the test items behave in ways consistent with the learning progressions underlying the design, how items measuring reading and writing component skills relate to essay performance, how measures of transcription fluency and proficiency in oral and academic language relate to writing skill, and whether the scenario-based design affects the fluency and vocabulary used in an essay. Results suggest that students can be differentiated by learning progression level, with variance in writing scores accounted for by a combination of performance on earlier tasks in the scenario and automated linguistic features measuring general literacy skills. The SBA structure, with preliminary tasks leading up to the final written performance, appears to result in more fluent (and also more efficient) writing behavior, compared to students' performances when they write an essay in isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual meeting of the American Society of Emergency Radiology (ASER) took place in Toronto, Canada, on September 6 through September 9, 2017. Attendees represented the USA as well as international emergency radiology communities, including those from academic, private practice, and teleradiology settings. There were several "members in training" in attendance as well. The meeting again featured the "Trauma Head to Toe" 2-day didactic course, highlighting various important topics on imaging of traumatic injuries. Scattered throughout the 4 days were several poster and case of the day presentations, scientific sessions, and self-assessment modules. The following is a summary of the educational posters and scientific papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a recognition that questions of climate change, environmental degradation, and our relations to the natural world are increasingly significant and requiring of a response not only as philosophers of education but also as citizens of the planet. As such the paper explores five of the key journals in philosophy of education in order to identify the extent, range, and content of current discussions related to the environment. It then organizes and summaries the articles that were located while seeking to identify the extent, possibilities, and limitations of current discussions relating to the environment in the philosophy of education community. The hope is that ultimately this work is an invitation to anyone, regardless of tradition, orientation, and expertise, to contribute to the expansion and deepening of both theory and practice in the face of this most serious of challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of 150 publications regarding text input for motor-impaired people and describes current state of the art. It focuses on common techniques of text entry including selection of keys, approaches to character layouts, use of language models, and interaction modalities. These aspects of text entry methods are further analyzed, and examples are given. The paper also focuses on an overview of reported evaluations by describing experiments, which can be conducted, to assess the performance of a text entry method. Following this overview, a summary of 61 text entry methods for motor-impaired people found in the related literature is presented, classifying those methods according to the aforementioned aspects and reported evaluation. This overview was assembled with the aim to provide a starting point to the new researchers in the field of accessible text entry. The text entry methods are also categorized according to the suitability for various conditions of the users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Introduction: Data classification is an important application in the domain of cognitive computation, which has various applications. In this paper, we use classification techniques to solve some key issues in answering range query over probabilistic data. The key of answering this query is to store the feature of each uncertain object in a lightweight structure and use these structures for pruning/validating. However, in these works, the costly integral calculation has to be carried out when dealing with objects that cannot be pruned/validated, and some of the structure construction algorithms are not general. Methods: In this paper, we employ ELM, a popular classification technique, to tackle the above issues. Our proposed methods are as follows: We firstly propose a new query called PDR (short for probabilistic degree range) query to substitute the traditional prob-range query, which helps us avoid the costly integral calculation. We propose an ELM-based 'adapter' to construct the lightweight structure for uncertain data in a more general manner. We design the GO-ELM algorithm for answering PDR query. It first avoids most of the integral calculation via using a group of bit vector-based filter. In addition, we propose an ELM-based classifier, which is designed to further avoid integral operations. Results: From the experiment results, we find that: (1) our ELM-based adapter is superior compared with both SVM-based and DNN-based adapter due to its better training efficiency and classification efficiency as well; (2) the performance of H-MRST is better than that of U-tree and UD-tree; and (3) ELM-filter could effectively avoid integral calculation. Conclusions: This paper studies the problem of PDR query over uncertain data. We firstly define PDR query and propose a general scheme to handle uncertain object if its PDF is discrete. We then design GO-ELM algorithm for answering PDR query. Our experiments faithfully demonstrated the efficiency of our indexing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work covers the use of solution-processed metal oxides as interface layers for organic solar cells. To study the interface properties, intrinsic and Al-doped ZnOx were chosen as reference systems. From the class of n-type metal oxides, ZnOx was chosen because it can be doped when it is solution processed. Furthermore, the influence of thin modification layers applied on top of the metal oxides is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments investigated the role of source information (i.e., who said what) in readers' comprehension of short informational texts. Based on the Discrepancy-Induced Source Comprehension assumption (Braasch, Rouet, Vibert, & Britt, 2012), we hypothesized that readers would be more likely to make use of source information when summarizing stories that included discrepant statements. Readers would also memorize source information more accurately. Experiments 1 and 2 found that American and French college students were more likely to refer to source information when they summarized news reports containing discrepant assertions. A detailed content analysis of the summaries also indicated that students use hedging and several other tactics to resolve contradictions. Experiment 3 replicated Braasch et al.'s finding that sources of discrepant stories were more likely to be recalled than sources of consistent stories. Experiment 3 also extended these findings using longer texts and a different reading task. Altogether the data support the Documents Model framework of multiple source comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine whether, as a result of collaborative-online reading of a chapter from a book of an academic nature, the quality of the collaborative summary that the readers would write would be higher than that written by readers who would both read the same chapter and write a summary in a face-to-face setting. In this study we examined the difference between the summaries written by participants from two groups, each group was divided into subgroups of 3 participants who had read collaboratively a chapter of a book, and collaborated on writing a summary. The participants of the experimental group read the chapter as it appeared in a website for collaborative reading built especially for this study and the participants were asked to summarize the chapter on a shared online digital document. The participants of the control group were asked to read the chapter face-to-face and to collaboratively summarize it in hand writing. The quality of the summaries was evaluated with a tool developed by Rivard (2001). This tool was developed to measure the quality of the summaries. In our study the main and secondary ideas that were supposed to be included in the participants' summaries were identified by three literature teachers using ten different criteria and the summaries were analyzed by two other judges based on these criteria. The findings indicated that there were significant differences in the majority of the writing indicators being measured with the tool. The findings indicated that collaborative-online reading and writing produce a summary of a higher quality than one read and hand written collaboratively face-to-face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to highlight and comment on the key findings emerging from the collective efforts of the special issue on leadership, ethics, and identity. Highlights include definitional advancements, processes comprising ethical leadership, as well as outcomes and moderating factors. In addition, I attempt to synthesize work across authors by identifying common themes as well as conflicting elements in the article. I conclude with a discussion on emerging areas in need of future research investigation in the leadership and ethics arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extremely low incidence of male breast cancer (MBC) leads to lack of prospective randomized phase III studies worldwide. Especially in China, all studies on Chinese patients with MBC were based on small sample size and single institute experience. The aim of this study was to provide overall view of characteristics of Chinese patients with MBC by means of summarizing all related papers published in Chinese journals. An online search was made in CBM, VIP, CNKI, and CBA databases to find all published articles of interest on Chinese patients with MBC. And eight subjects including the proportion of MBC in all breast cancer, age, tumor location, clinical stages, pathological subtypes, treatment modalities, ER/PR expression, and 5-year survival rate were selected to calculate the proportion and their 95% interval confidence. There were 122 papers with 2584 patients enrolled. The basic features of Chinese patients with MBC included: (1) MBC only with a proportion of 1.06% of all the breast cancer; (2) The mean age at diagnosis was 57.6 years old; (3) Tumor mainly located in the areolar region (74.83%) with obvious nipple and/or skin involvement; (4) Nearly 62.62% patients were in early stage before accepting treatment; (5) Infiltrating ductal carcinoma accounted for 79.05% of all pathological subtypes; (6) ER/PR expression rate was 65.86%; (7) Radical resection was up to 86.06% in all surgical modalities; (8) The 5-year survival rate was 57.33%. The results showed in this study were an overall view of Chinese patients with MBC whose characteristics were similar to that reported in the West. Though this study provided a little bit stronger confidence than a single study collected in this paper, studies with more powerful evidence are urgently demanding in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although providing feedback is commonly practiced in education, there is no general agreement regarding what type of feedback is most helpful and why it is helpful. This study examined the relationship between various types of feedback, potential internal mediators, and the likelihood of implementing feedback. Five main predictions were developed from the feedback literature in writing, specifically regarding feedback features (summarization, identifying problems, providing solutions, localization, explanations, scope, praise, and mitigating language) as they relate to potential causal mediators of problem or solution understanding and problem or solution agreement, leading to the final outcome of feedback implementation. To empirically test the proposed feedback model, 1,073 feedback segments from writing assessed by peers was analyzed. Feedback was collected using SWoRD, an online peer review system. Each segment was coded for each of the feedback features, implementation, agreement, and understanding. The correlations between the feedback features, levels of mediating variables, and implementation rates revealed several significant relationships. Understanding was the only significant mediator of implementation. Several feedback features were associated with understanding: including solutions, a summary of the performance, and the location of the problem were associated with increased understanding; and explanations of problems were associated with decreased understanding. Implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advance in intrasection and intersection cross breeding of poplars in China over the past 50 years is reviewed. Great progress has been made in Sections Leuce and Aigeiros, and satisfactory results of intersection hybridization have been achieved in the crossing between Sections Tacamahaca and Aigeiros. The modes of hybridization include single cross, double cross, triple cross, backcross, etc. It is known that using hybrids as parents to cross with other species or hybrids is an effective and easy way to obtain heterosis. Fast growth, cold and drought tolerance, pest and disease resistance, narrow crowns and rootage, etc. are breeding goals. The conventional artificial crossing is still a major breeding method, and a combination of the conventional artificial crossing with physical radiation and chemical induction can create new triploid individuals that possess higher yield potential. The super clones cultivated have already displayed enormous socioeconomic and ecological benefits in practice. Finally, the problems that investigators have to face at present are discussed as well as some strategies in poplar cross breeding in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dans une image, les visages des personnes présentes est la première information regardée. La détection des visages d’une vidéo permet de générer automatiquement des résumés « visage » en privilégiant dans le résumé les images caractéristiques où sont présentes des personnes. Les plans qui présentent une composition de scène similaire (même nombre de personnes, position et taille des visages proches) sont regroupés dans des agrégats de plans. In an image, the faces of the persons are the first information looked for. Performing face detection in a video, allows to obtain automatically « face » summaries by privileging in the summary the images where faces have been detected. Shots with a similar scene layout (same number of person, similar face position and size) are gathered within shot clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese scientists have undertaken numerous researches on aerosol, and made many achievements. This paper reviews the above researches on aerosols which mainly focus on the follow-ing three aspects: the characteristics of aerosols, the effects on climate, and dust aerosol research. Present in-ternational research plans in relation to aerosols are briefly introduced. The important fields and trends of atmospheric aerosol researches in the near future are also pointed out and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments, we attempted to analyze the effects of newspaper article headlines and summaries on final comprehension and recall. During the first experiment, the participants consisted of 117 high school students from the 9th grade, 68 from the 11th grade, 79 first year Psychology students from the Autonoma University of Madrid and 66 fifth year Journalism students from the Complutense University of Madrid. The subjects were randomly required to read a news report in one of the following experimental conditions: (1) the whole news article (headline, summary and text), (2) the headline and text, (3) the summary and text, and (4), the text only. The data from immediate and delayed free recall tasks were recorded. The results showed that the structure of the news article did not influence the recall and that there were differences among groups in the amount and quality of recall. The headline and the summary modified by the use of macrostructural criteria constituted additional elements introduced into the second experiment to provide a contrast with the original headline and summary. The results showed that an improvement in article recall did occur with the modified version in comparison with the original version. These two experiments have confirmed that the aims and criteria of journalists differ from those held by the authors of scientific texts and question whether the reading strategies applied are the same in both cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Summary of International Symposium on the Formation and Development of the Chinese Nation with Multi-ethnic Groups in order to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Publication of Fei Xiaotong’s Theory of the Chinese Nation with Multi-ethnic Groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is part of Subvolume A of Volume 45 'Physics of Solid Surfaces' of Landolt-Börnstein - Group III 'Condensed Matter'. It contains a summary of ion scattering techniques. Parent documents: SpringerMaterials Volume III/45A General introduction to Volume III/45A [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]