LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Green leaf area index estimation in maize and soybean: Combining vegetation indices to achieve maximal sensitivity

Published in Agron. J. 104:1336–1347 (2012) Posted online 29 June 2012 doi:10.2134/agronj2012.0065 Copyright © 2012 by the American Society of Agronomy, 5585 Guilford Road, Madison, WI 53711. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. T leaf area index (LAI), the ratio of leaf area to ground area, typically reported as square meters per square meter, is a commonly used biophysical characteristic of vegetation (Watson, 1947). The LAI can be subdivided into photosynthetically active and photosynthetically inactive components. The former, the gLAI, is a metric commonly used in climate (e.g., Buermann et al., 2001), ecological (e.g., Bulcock and Jewitt, 2010), and crop yield (e.g., Fang et al., 2011) models. Because of its wide use and applicability to modeling, there is a need for a nondestructive remote estimation of gLAI across large geographic areas. Various techniques based on remotely sensed data have been utilized for assessing gLAI (see reviews by Pinter et al., 2003; Hatfield et al., 2004, 2008; Doraiswamy et al., 2003; le Maire et al., 2008, and references therein). Vegetation indices, particularly the NDVI (Rouse et al., 1974) and SR (Jordan, 1969), are the most widely used. The NDVI, however, is prone to saturation at moderate to high gLAI values (Kanemasu, 1974; Curran and Steven, 1983; Asrar et al., 1984; Huete et al., 2002; Gitelson, 2004; Wu et al., 2007; González-Sanpedro et al., 2008) and requires reparameterization for different crops and species. The saturation of NDVI has been attributed to insensitivity of reflectance in the red region at moderate to high gLAI values due to the high absorption coefficient of chlorophyll. For gLAI below 3 m2/m2, total absorption by a canopy in the red range reaches 90 to 95%, and further increases in gLAI do not bring additional changes in absorption and reflectance (Hatfield et al., 2008; Gitelson, 2011). Another reason for the decrease in the sensitivity of NDVI to moderate to high gLAI values is the mathematical formulation of that index. At moderate to high gLAI, the NDVI is dominated by nearinfrared (NIR) reflectance. Because scattering by the cellular or leaf structure causes the NIR reflectance to be high and the absorption by chlorophyll causes the red reflectance to be low, NIR reflectance is considerably greater than red reflectance: e.g., for gLAI >3 m2/m2, NIR reflectance is >40% while red reflectance is <5%. Thus, NDVI becomes insensitive to changes in both red and NIR reflectance. Other commonly used VIs include the Enhanced Vegetation Index, EVI (Liu and Huete, 1995; Huete et al., 1997, 2002), its ABStrAct
Detection of linear features using a localized Radon transform

The Radon transform accentuates linear features and has been applied to detection and enhancement problems in images with linear features. However, several difficulties occur when the Radon transform is applied to images which have features with some curvature or features which do not cover the entire extent of the image. A localized Radon transform was established in Copeland et al. (1995) which successfully enhanced line segments and slightly curved features. In this paper an alternate derivation of the localized Radon transform to that of Copeland et al. is provided. Several properties not considered in in that paper are derived and a detection scheme for line segments is developed.
Fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c in cardiovascular risk prediction: a sex-specific comparison in individuals without diabetes mellitus

This study aimed to assess the cardiovascular risk of individuals with fasting plasma glucose (FPG)- and/or HbA1c-defined prediabetes (5.6–6.9 mmol/l and 39–47 mmol/mol [5.7–6.4%], respectively) or manifest diabetes mellitus and to evaluate whether FPG or HbA1c can improve risk prediction beyond that estimated by the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) chart in individuals without diabetes mellitus. Cox regression was employed to estimate HRs for primary incident cardiovascular events (CVEs) in a cohort of 8,365 individuals aged 50–74 years. Furthermore, HbA1c and FPG were added individually to the variables of the SCORE and measures of model discrimination and reclassification were assessed. During 8 years of follow-up, 702 individuals had a primary CVE. After adjusting for conventional cardiovascular risk factors, HRs were attenuated close to one for the prediabetes groups (especially for women), whereas a 1.7- and a 1.9-fold increased risk persisted for men and women with diabetes, respectively. Extension of the SCORE variables by either FPG or HbA1c did not improve its predictive abilities in individuals without diabetes. There was a non-significant net reclassification improvement for men when HbA1c was added (2.2%, p = 0.16). The increased cardiovascular risk of individuals with FPG- or HbA1c-defined prediabetes can mainly be explained by other cardiovascular risk factors. Adding FPG or HbA1c did not significantly improve CVE risk prediction by the SCORE variables in individuals without diabetes mellitus.
Wellbeing and resilience: mechanisms of transmission of health and risk in parents with complex mental health problems and their offspring—The WARM Study

UNLABELLED
The WARM study is a longitudinal cohort study following infants of mothers with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and control from pregnancy to infant 1 year of age.


BACKGROUND
Children of parents diagnosed with complex mental health problems including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, are at increased risk of developing mental health problems compared to the general population. Little is known regarding the early developmental trajectories of infants who are at ultra-high risk and in particular the balance of risk and protective factors expressed in the quality of early caregiver-interaction.


METHODS/DESIGN
We are establishing a cohort of pregnant women with a lifetime diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and a non-psychiatric control group. Factors in the parents, the infant and the social environment will be evaluated at 1, 4, 16 and 52 weeks in terms of evolution of very early indicators of developmental risk and resilience focusing on three possible environmental transmission mechanisms: stress, maternal caregiver representation, and caregiver-infant interaction.


DISCUSSION
The study will provide data on very early risk developmental status and associated psychosocial risk factors, which will be important for developing targeted preventive interventions for infants of parents with severe mental disorder.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
NCT02306551, date of registration November 12, 2014.
Calcium Absorption from Fortified Ice Cream Formulations Compared with Calcium Absorption from Milk

OBJECTIVE
Optimal bone mass in early adulthood is achieved through appropriate diet and lifestyle, thereby protecting against osteoporosis and risk of bone fracture in later life. Calcium and vitamin D are essential to build adequate bones, but calcium intakes of many population groups do not meet dietary reference values. In addition, changes in dietary patterns are exacerbating the problem, thereby emphasizing the important role of calcium-rich food products. We have designed a calcium-fortified ice cream formulation that is lower in fat than regular ice cream and could provide a useful source of additional dietary calcium. Calcium absorption from two different ice cream formulations was determined in young adults and compared with milk.


SUBJECTS/SETTING
Sixteen healthy volunteers (25 to 45 years of age), recruited from the general public of The Netherlands, participated in a randomized, reference-controlled, double-blind cross-over study in which two test products and milk were consumed with a light standard breakfast on three separate occasions: a standard portion of ice cream (60 g) fortified with milk minerals and containing a low level (3%) of butter fat, ice cream (60 g) fortified with milk minerals and containing a typical level (9%) of coconut oil, and reduced-fat milk (1.7% milk fat) (200 mL). Calcium absorption was measured by the dual-label stable isotope technique.


STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Effects on calcium absorption were evaluated by analysis of variance.


RESULTS
Fractional absorption of calcium from the 3% butterfat ice cream, 9% coconut oil ice cream, and milk was 26%+/-8%, 28%+/-5%, and 31%+/-9%, respectively, and did not differ significantly (P=0.159).


CONCLUSIONS
Results indicate that calcium bioavailability in the two calcium-fortified ice cream formulations used in this study is as high as milk, indicating that ice cream may be a good vehicle for delivery of calcium.
Skeletal structure with artificial perspiration for cooling by latent heat for musculoskeletal humanoid Kengoro

In this paper we propose a novel method to utilize the skeletal structure not only for supporting force but for releasing heat by latent heat.
The effective reduction of tourniquet application time after minor modification of the CLSI H03-A6 blood collection procedure

INTRODUCTION
The phlebotomists' procedures are a still source of laboratory variability. The aim of this study was to verify the efficacy of minor modification in procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture from CLSI H03-A6 document is able to reduce the tourniquet application time.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty phlebotomists were invited to participate. Each phlebotomist was trained individually to perform the new venipuncture procedure that shortens the time of tourniquet release and removal. The phlebotomy training program was delivered over 8h. After training, all phlebotomists were monitored for 20 working days, to guarantee the adoption of the correct new procedures for collection of diagnostic blood specimens. After this time frame the phlebotomists were evaluated to verify whether the new procedure for blood collection derived from CLSI H03-A6 document was effective to improve the quality process by decrease in tourniquet application time. We compared the tourniquet application time and qualitative difference of phlebotomy procedures between laboratories before and after phlebotomy training.


RESULTS
The overall mean +/- SD tourniquet application time before and afterthis intervention were 118 +/- 1 s and 30 +/- 1 s respectively. Minor modifications in procedure for blood collection were able to reduce significantly the tourniquet application time (-88 s, P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The minor modifications in procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture from CLSI H03-A6 document were able to reduce the tourniquet application time. Now the proposed new procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture could be considered usefulness and should be put into practice by all quality laboratory managers and/or phlebotomy coordinators to avoid preanalytical errors regard venous stasis and guarantee patient safety.
The Impact of Explicit Instruction of Metadiscourse Markers on EFL Learners' Writing Performance

The current study is an attempt to investigate the impact of explicit instruction of metadiscourse markers on advanced, intermediate, and elementary EFL learners’ writing performance. The participants of the study were 94 undergraduate students majoring in English Literature at the University of Isfahan. To elicit the relevant data, participants were given a pretest of writing ability to check their initial knowledge and unprompted use of metadiscourse markers. All the three groups were then exposed to explicit instruction of metadiscourse markers for six successive sessions. Finally, a post test measuring their writing ability with metadiscourse markers in focus was administered. The findings indicated generally that explicit instruction of metadiscourse markers significantly improves EFL learners’ writing ability. It was however unpredictably revealed that learners at the intermediate level improved significantly greater than those at the advanced and elementary levels. These findings firstly call practitioners to pay more serious attention to metadiscourse markers in making EFL curricula. Secondly, they ask for the reinforcement of metadiscourse markers through explicit instruction in EFL courses for the improvement of the learners' writing ability. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Received: 09/17/2009 Accepted: 02/27/2010 * Corresponding author The Journal of Teaching Language Skills (JTLS) 156
A pilot study of home-based smoking cessation programs for rural, appalachian, pregnant smokers.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate a web-based contingency management program (CM) and a phone-delivered cessation counseling program (Smoking Cessation for Healthy Births [SCHB]) with pregnant smokers in rural Appalachia who were ≤12 weeks gestation at enrollment.


DESIGN
Two group randomized design.


SETTING
Home-based cessation programs in rural Appalachia Ohio and Kentucky.


PARTICIPANTS
A community sample of pregnant smokers (N = 17).


METHODS
Participants completed demographic and smoking-related questionnaires and were assigned to CM (n = 7) or SCHB (n = 10) conditions. Smoking status was assessed monthly using breath carbon monoxide and urinary cotinine.


RESULTS
For CM, two of seven (28.57%) of the participants achieved abstinence, and three of 10 (30%) of those enrolled in SCHB were abstinent by late in pregnancy. Participants in CM attained abstinence more rapidly than those in SCHB. However, those in SCHB experienced less relapse to smoking, and a greater percentage of these participants reduced their smoking by at least 50%.


CONCLUSION
Based on this initial evaluation, the web-based CM and SCHB programs appeared to be feasible for use with rural pregnant smokers with acceptable program adherence for both approaches. Future researchers could explore combining these programs to capitalize on the strengths of each, for example, rapid smoking cessation based on CM incentives and better sustained cessation or reductions in smoking facilitated by the counseling support of SCHB.
Use of sodium valproate in violent and aggressive behaviors: a critical review.

BACKGROUND
Valproate was initially introduced as an antiepileptic agent in 1967, but has been used over the years to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders. Its use in the treatment of patients exhibiting aggressive and violent behaviors has been reported in the literature as far back as 1988. However, these reports are uncontrolled, which is in marked contrast to the actual wide and established use of valproate for the treatment of aggressive behaviors. The aim of this report is to critically review the available data on valproate's use in nonbipolar patients with aggressive and violent behaviors.


DATA SOURCES
The MEDLINE and PsycLIT databases were searched for all reports published from 1987-1998 containing the keywords valproate, the names of all commercial preparations, aggression, and violence.


STUDY FINDINGS
Seventeen reports with a total of 164 patients were located. Ten of these were case reports with a total of 31 patients. Three were retrospective chart reviews with 83 patients, and 3 were open-label prospective studies with a total of 34 patients. No double-blind, placebo-controlled study could be found. An overall response rate of 77.1% was calculated when response was defined as a 50% reduction of target behavior. Most frequent diagnoses recorded were dementia, organic brain syndromes, and mental retardation. The antiaggressive response usually occurred in conjunction with other psychotropic medication. The dose and plasma valproate level required for response appeared to be the same as in the treatment of seizure disorders.


DISCUSSION
While valproate's general antiaggressive effect is promising, in the absence of controlled data, conclusions are limited at this time. Specific recommendations for study design are given to obtain interpretable data for this indication.
Luna: A Dashboard for Teachers Using Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) generate a wealth of finegrained student interaction data. Although it seems likely that teachers could benefit from access to advanced analytics generated from these data, ITSs do not typically come with dashboards designed for teachers’ needs. In this project, we follow a user-centered design approach to create a dashboard for teachers using ITSs.
A Sparse Matrix Arithmetic based on H-Matrices . Part I : Introduction to H-Matrices ∗

A class of matrices (H-matrices) is introduced which have the following properties. (i) They are sparse in the sense that only few data are needed for their representation. (ii) The matrix-vector multiplication is of almost linear complexity. (iii) In general, sums and products of these matrices are no longer in the same set, but their truncations to the H-matrix format are again of almost linear complexity. (iv) The same statement holds for the inverse of an H-matrix. This paper is the first of a series and is devoted to the first introduction of the H-matrix concept. Two concret formats are described. The first one is the simplest possible. Nevertheless, it allows the exact inversion of tridiagonal matrices. The second one is able to approximate discrete integral operators. AMS Subject Classifications: 65F05, 65F30, 65F50.
Visual Speech Recognition: A Solution from Feature Extraction to Words Classification

Audio-visual Speech Recognition has been an active area of research lately. A bit, and yet unsolved, part of this problem is the visual only recognition, or lip reading. Considering an image sequence of a person pronouncing a word, a full image analysis solution would have to segment the mouth area, extract relevant features, and use them to be able to classify the word from those visual features. In this paper we approach this problem by proposing a segmentation technique for the lips contours together with a set of features based on the extracted contours which is able to perform lip reading with promising results. We have collected visual speech sequences in our lab and show the results here for a set of ten words in Brazilian Portuguese, spoken by different speakers in more than 150 samples. The approach can be extended and applied to other spoken languages as well.
A compact antenna-in-package 60-GHz SiGe BiCMOS radio

A small form-factor 60-GHz SiGe BiCMOS radio with two antennas-in-package is presented. The fully-integrated feature-rich transceiver provides a complete RF solution for mobile WiGig/IEEE 802.11ad applications.
A V-model framework for the certification against the Annex R of IEC 60335-1: Class B appliances

Motivated by challenges in safety certification, this paper presents a framework that facilitates the organization of safety evidence regarding the Annex R of IEC 60335-1, i.e. the safety standard for household and similar electrical appliances. Based on the argumentation-induced evidence structure, safety evidence is systematically formulated by making safety claims, providing arguments, and identifying corresponding documents. Using the V-model development process as basis, three groups of safety evidence and their mapping to document samples are proposed as the mean to constitute required information.
IPSRI I s P Corruption , Democracy , and Economic Growth

Scholars have long suspected that political processes such as democracy and corruption are important factors in determining economic growth. Studies show, however, that democracy has only indirect effects on growth, while corruption is generally accepted by scholars as having a direct and negative impact on economic perfor mance. We argue that one of democracy's indirect benefits is its ability to mitigate the detrimental effect of corruption on economic growth. Although corruption certainly occurs in democracies, the electoral mechanism inhibits politicians from engaging in corrupt acts that damage overall economic performance and thereby jeopardize their political survival. Using time-series cross-section data for more than 100 countries from 1982-97, we show that corruption has no significant effect on economic growth in democracies, while non-democracies suffer significant economic harm from corruption.
Video Object Segmentation with Language Referring Expressions

Most state-of-the-art semi-supervised video object segmentation methods rely on a pixel-accurate mask of a target object provided for the first frame of a video. However, obtaining a detailed segmentation mask is expensive and time-consuming. In this work we explore an alternative way of identifying a target object, namely by employing language referring expressions. Besides being a more practical and natural way of pointing out a target object, using language specifications can help to avoid drift as well as make the system more robust to complex dynamics and appearance variations. Leveraging recent advances of language grounding models designed for images, we propose an approach to extend them to video data, ensuring temporally coherent predictions. To evaluate our approach we augment the popular video object segmentation benchmarks, DAVIS16 and DAVIS17 with language descriptions of target objects. We show that our language-supervised approach performs on par with the methods which have access to a pixel-level mask of the target object on DAVIS16 and is competitive to methods using scribbles on the challenging DAVIS17 dataset. Query: "A man in a red sweatshirt performing breakdance" Figure 1: Examples of the proposed approach. Classical semi-supervised video object segmentation relies on an expensive pixel-level mask annotation of a target object in the first frame of a video. We explore a more natural and more practical way of pointing out a target object by providing a language referring expression.
Meigs' syndrome with elevated CA 125: case report.

CONTEXT
Meigs' syndrome consists of a benign ovarian tumor accompanied by ascites and hydrothorax. Elevated serum CA 125 levels in postmenopausal women with solid adnexal masses, ascites and pleural effusion are highly suggestive for malignant ovarian tumor. However, patients with Meigs' syndrome can also have elevated serum CA 125 levels. The authors report a case of Meigs' syndrome with elevated CA 125 level.


OBJECTIVE
This is a case report of Meigs' syndrome with elevated CA 125 level.


CASE REPORT
A 65-year-old Brazilian woman had presented progressive dyspnea, weight loss and decline in general condition over the 7 months preceding admission to our service. In another hospital, the patient had been submitted to thoracic drainage due to pleural effusion. With recurrence of the pleural effusion and increase in abdominal volume due to ascites and a pelvic mass, the patient sought our service. Transvaginal ultrasound showed an extensive adnexal solid mass of 16.4 x 10.8 cm located in the pelvis without exact limits, and the serum CA 125 level was elevated. With a preoperative diagnosis of ovarian carcinoma, the patient was submitted to exploratory laparotomy, which revealed a left ovarian tumor. The frozen section diagnosis was thecoma. Total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy was performed. The histology of the specimen confirmed the diagnosis of thecoma. The patient was asymptomatic with a normal serum CA 125 level 20 months after the operation.