Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Applications of the microdosimetric function implemented in the macroscopic particle transport simulation code PHITS

Abstract Purpose: Microdosimetric quantities such as lineal energy are generally considered to be better indices than linear energy transfer (LET) for expressing the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of high charge and energy particles. To calculate their probability densities (PD) in macroscopic matter, it is necessary to integrate microdosimetric tools such as track-structure simulation codes with macroscopic particle transport simulation codes. Methods: As an integration approach, the mathematical model for calculating the PD of microdosimetric quantities developed based on track-structure simulations was incorporated into the macroscopic particle transport simulation code PHITS (Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System). The improved PHITS enables the PD in macroscopic matter to be calculated within a reasonable computation time, while taking their stochastic nature into account. Applications: The microdosimetric function of PHITS was applied to biological dose estimation for charged-particle therapy and risk estimation for astronauts. The former application was performed in combination with the microdosimetric kinetic model, while the latter employed the radiation quality factor expressed as a function of lineal energy. Conclusion: Owing to the unique features of the microdosimetric function, the improved PHITS has the potential to establish more sophisticated systems for radiological protection in space as well as for the treatment planning of charged-particle therapy.
Velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti Medik.) productivity in competitive conditions

Velvetleaf ( Abutilon theophrasti Medik.) is an invasive alien species in many countries and one of the major weeds in summer row crops worldwide. Weed-management techniques that reduce weed production need to be investigated to provide new approaches. The first step in this process is the determination of weed productivity in different competitive conditions. Field experiments were conducted in 2006 and 2008 in an experimental field in Padinska Skela to quantify growth and seed production of velvetleaf in maize, as well as in a velvetleaf monoculture. A density of velvetleaf ranging from 1 to 8 plants m -1 was artificially created. In a mixture with maize, velvetleaf was sown in crop rows. The growth of velvetleaf was estimated based on plant height, fresh aboveground biomass and leaf area index (LAI). Velvetleaf fecundity was determined as seed mass plant -1 and seed mass m -2 . Differences between years in plant production were very prominent. In general, velvetleaf productivity in maize depended on its density. Intraspecific competition had a major influence on growth and seed production when velvetleaf density was from 4 to 8 plants m -1 in maize rows. This information indicates that environmental conditions and weed density can promote/reduce inter- and intraspecific competition and help in the construction of population dynamics models to predict population density, seed bank and competitiveness of weeds and reduce inputs for weed management. DOI: 10.2298/ABS160212092V Received: February 12, 2016; Revised: April 11, 2016; Accepted: April 19, 2016; Published online: October 4, 2016 How to cite this article: Vrbnicanin S, Onc-Jovanovic E, Božic D, Saric-Krsmanovic M, Pavlovic D, Malidža G, Jaric S. Velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti medik.) productivity in competitive conditions. Arch Biol Sci. 2017;69(1):157-66.
A fast remote driver selection mechanism for remote-controlled driving systems

Present technology supports level three vehicle autonomy dubbed as “eyes off” where a person while driving can take attention off the vehicle for few minutes to text. Level four autonomy in which the driver can sleep while driving is yet a fiction. However, it can be turned into reality by utilizing existing technologies and a concept of remote driver. In remote driving system, a remote driver drives a vehicle utilizing network communications. Selecting limited number of nearby remote drivers, remote operation latency and the number of remote drivers handover can be easily minimized. Both of these factors play crucial role in enhancing the safety of passengers. In this paper, a heuristic remote driver selection algorithm is proposed. In order to test the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, we compare its performance with two baseline algorithms using simulations. The preliminary results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm performs similar to the optimal exhaustive search algorithm.
Vector-adaptive vector quantization with application to speech coding

A vector-adaptive vector quantization (VAVQ) scheme, which may be viewed as a generalization of gain-adaptive vector quantization, is described. The proposed scheme adjusts each component of the encoding signal vector according to a statistical estimate of the signal characteristics. The VAVQ scheme can cope with large input dynamic ranges. It can be used in either the time domain or the transform domain, and exhibits approximately 4 dB improvement in segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over the fixed VQ. >
Putative Role of Aquaporins in Variable Hydraulic Conductance of Leaves in Response to Light1

Molecular and physiological studies in walnut (Juglans regia) are combined to establish the putative role of leaf plasma membrane aquaporins in the response of leaf hydraulic conductance (Kleaf) to irradiance. The effects of light and temperature on Kleaf are described. Under dark conditions, Kleaf was low, but increased by 400% upon exposure to light. In contrast to dark conditions, Kleaf values of light-exposed leaves responded to temperature and 0.1 mm cycloheximide treatments. Furthermore, Kleaf was not related to stomatal aperture. Data of real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction showed that Kleaf dynamics were tightly correlated with the transcript abundance of two walnut aquaporins (JrPIP2,1 and JrPIP2,2). Low Kleaf in the dark was associated with down-regulation, whereas high Kleaf in the light was associated with up-regulation of JrPIP2. Light responses of Kleaf and aquaporin transcripts were reversible and inhibited by cycloheximide, indicating the importance of de novo protein biosynthesis in this process. Our results indicate that walnut leaves can rapidly change their hydraulic conductance and suggest that these changes can be explained by regulation of plasma membrane aquaporins. Model simulation suggests that variable leaf hydraulic conductance in walnut might enhance leaf gas exchanges while buffering leaf water status in response to ambient light fluctuations.
Generating Natural Language Adversarial Examples

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to adversarial examples, perturbations to correctly classified examples which can cause the model to misclassify. In the image domain, these perturbations can often be made virtually indistinguishable to human perception, causing humans and state-of-the-art models to disagree. However, in the natural language domain, small perturbations are clearly perceptible, and the replacement of a single word can drastically alter the semantics of the document. Given these challenges, we use a black-box population-based optimization algorithm to generate semantically and syntactically similar adversarial examples that fool well-trained sentiment analysis and textual entailment models with success rates of 97% and 70%, respectively. We additionally demonstrate that 92.3% of the successful sentiment analysis adversarial examples are classified to their original label by 20 human annotators, and that the examples are perceptibly quite similar. Finally, we discuss an attempt to use adversarial training as a defense, but fail to yield improvement, demonstrating the strength and diversity of our adversarial examples. We hope our findings encourage researchers to pursue improving the robustness of DNNs in the natural language domain.
Snow Dome: A Multi-Scale Interaction in Mixed Reality Remote Collaboration

We present Snow Dome, a Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration application that supports a multi-scale interaction for a Virtual Reality (VR) user. We share a local Augmented Reality (AR) user's reconstructed space with a remote VR user who has an ability to scale themselves up into a giant or down into a miniature for different perspectives and interaction at that scale within the shared space.
Lithographic mechanical break junctions for single-molecule measurements in vacuum: possibilities and limitations

We have investigated electrical transport through the molecular model systems benzenedithiol, benzenediamine, hexanedithiol and hexanediamine. Conductance histograms under different experimental conditions indicate that measurements using mechanically controllable break junctions in vacuum are limited by the surface density of molecules at the contact. Hexanedithiol histograms typically exhibit a broad peak around 7×10−4 G0. In contrast to recent results on scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) based break junctions in solution we find that the spread in single-molecule conductance is not reduced by amino anchoring groups. Histograms of hexanediamine exhibit a wide peak around 4×10−4 G0. For both benzenedithiol and benzenediamine we observe a large variability in low-bias conductance. We attribute these features to the slow breaking of the lithographic mechanically controllable break junctions and the absence of a solvent that may enable molecular readsorption after bond breaking. Nevertheless, we have been able to acquire reproducible current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of benzenediamine and benzenedithiol using a statistical measurement approach. Benzenedithiol measurements yield a conductance gap of about 0.9 V at room temperature and 0.6 V at 77 K. In contrast, the I–V characteristics of benzenediamine-junctions typically display conductance gaps of about 0.9 V at both temperatures.
Genetic structure of the world’s polar bear populations

We studied genetic structure in polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations by typing a sample of 473 individuals spanning the species distribution at 16 highly variable microsatellite loci. No genetic discontinuities were found that would be consistent with evolutionarily significant periods of isolation between groups. Direct comparison of movement data and genetic data from the Canadian Arctic revealed a highly significant correlation. Genetic data generally supported existing population (management unit) designations, although there were two cases where genetic data failed to differentiate between pairs of populations previously resolved by movement data. A sharp contrast was found between the minimal genetic structure observed among populations surrounding the polar basin and the presence of several marked genetic discontinuities in the Canadian Arctic. The discontinuities in the Canadian Arctic caused the appearance of four genetic clusters of polar bear populations. These clusters vary in total estimated population size from 100 to over 10 000, and the smallest may merit a relatively conservative management strategy in consideration of its apparent isolation. We suggest that the observed pattern of genetic discontinuities has developed in response to differences in the seasonal distribution and pattern of sea ice habitat and the effects of these differences on the distribution and abundance of seals.
Using Intersectionality to Enhance and Mitigate Group Threats

Much of the research studying stereotypes and prejudice focuses on a single social category (e.g., race or gender). Intersectionality research allows for multiple social categories to be evaluated together. The current work investigates whether emotions that are linked to outgroup threats (Cottrell and Neuberg, 2005) can be manipulated by intersecting different groups with one another. I proposed two hypotheses derived from a single theory. The Threat Enhancement Hypothesis of Intersectionality predicts that intersections comprised of categories that share a threat profile will be more threatening than either of the individual categories. The Threat Mitigation Hypothesis of Intersectionality predicts that intersections comprised of categories whose stereotypes counter one another will be less threatening than either of it’s individual categories. Additionally, these hypotheses predict that intersections with the same threat profile will be more (hypothesis 1) threatening than intersections comprised of groups with different threat profiles, and that intersections whose stereotypes counter one another (hypothesis 2) will be less threatening than intersections comprised of groups with different threat profiles. Results indicated social categories cannot be added (hypothesis 1), nor can they fully mitigate a threat below individual categories (hypothesis 2). However, threat-specific combinations better manipulate perceived threat levels.
Increased phosphatidylserine-exposing microparticles and their originating cells are associated with the coagulation process in patients with IgA nephropathy.

BACKGROUND Relatively little information is available about phosphatidylserine positive (PS(+)) microparticles (MPs) and their originating cells in IgA nephropathy (IgAN) despite well-established intraglomerular coagulation. Our objectives were to detect PS exposure on MP membranes and MP-origin cells and to evaluate its role in procoagulant activity (PCA) and fibrin formation and their association with pathological lesions in the disease. METHODS Patients with IgAN and healthy controls were studied. Lactadherin was used to quantify PS exposure on MPs and MP-origin cells. PCA of MPs and MP-origin cells was evaluated by clotting time and purified coagulation complex assays. Fibrin production was determined by turbidity. PS exposure, fibrin strands and FVa/Xa binding were observed on MPs/cells using confocal microscopy. RESULTS Using flow cytometry, we found that IgAN patients had high levels of PS(+) MPs derived from lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, platelets, erythrocytes and endothelial cells (ECs). The PS exposure on MP-origin cells also increased in these patients. MPs and MP-origin cells (leukocytes, platelets and erythrocytes) isolated from IgAN patients and ECs cultured with IgAN serum had a significantly shorter median coagulation time (P < 0.001), higher median intrinsic FXa (P < 0.001) and higher thrombin (P < 0.001) generation than controls. These coagulation functional assays were associated with the glomerular lesions. The lesions were also correlated with glomerular fibrin deposition (all P < 0.05). In the presence of patient MPs or their related cells, fibrin formation peaked faster with a higher maximum turbidity when compared with healthy controls. Blocking PS with lactadherin in the IgAN group prolonged coagulation time to control levels, inhibited the PCA up to 80% and markedly reduced fibrin formation. More importantly, we observed that fibrin strands formed on MPs and ECs in the same regions that bound lactadherin, similar to the FVa/Xa costaining. CONCLUSIONS We find that high levels of PS(+) MPs and the MP-origin cells are associated with the coagulation process in IgAN, and this may provide a previously unrecognized contribution to intraglomerular coagulation.
Effervescent heating: constraints from nearby cooling flow clusters observed with XMM-Newton

Aims. We have used deprojected radial density and temperature profiles of a sample of 16 nearby CF clusters observed with XMM-Newton to test whether the effervescent heating model can satisfactorily explain the dynamics of CF clusters. Methods. For each cluster we derived the required extra heating as a function of cluster-centric distance for various values of the unknown parameters M (mass deposition rate) and f c (conduction efficiency). We fitted the extra heating curve using the AGN effervescent heating function and derived the AGN parameters L (the time-averaged luminosity) and r 0 (the scale radius where the bubbles start rising in the ICM). Results. While we do not find any solution with the effervescent heating model for only one object, we do show that AGN and conduction heating are not cooperating effectively for half of the objects in our sample. For most of the clusters we find that, when a comparison is possible, the derived AGN scale radius r 0 and the observed AGN jet extension have the same order of magnitude. The AGN luminosities required to balance radiative losses are substantially lowered if the fact that the AGN deposits energy within a finite volume is taken into account. For the Virgo cluster, we find that the AGN power derived from the effervescent heating model is in good agreement with the observed jet power.
Creating A Flexible, Simulation-based Finite Scheduling Tool

Today's business climate for manufacturers requires low inventory, quick response systems that turn out a wide variety of products. Since many companies are reaching physical capacity constraints, finite scheduling is increasingly becoming an issue. If you are currently an engineer with simulation expertise, you may be asked to assist with an initiative to computerize your scheduling process. There are dozens of off-the-shelf scheduling tools available today, but their underlying capabilities may not meet the true needs of your system. This paper will discuss critical system characteristics that are often ignored in off-the-shelf packages yet can be accurately accommodated by creating your own simulation-based scheduler. We will review how to approach modeling and data structure issues that will commonly be encountered, while highlighting the differences from creating a standard simulation model used strictly for analysis.
The mind of plants: Thinking the unthinkable

ABSTRACT Across all species, individuals thrive in complex ecological systems, which they rarely have complete knowledge of. To cope with this uncertainty and still make good choices while avoiding costly errors, organisms have developed the ability to exploit key features associated with their environment. That through experience, humans and other animals are quick at learning to associate specific cues with particular places, events and circumstances has long been known; the idea that plants are also capable of learning by association had never been proven until now. Here I comment on the recent paper that experimentally demonstrated associative learning in plants, thus qualifying them as proper subjects of cognitive research. Additionally, I make the point that the current fundamental premise in cognitive science—that we must understanding the precise neural underpinning of a given cognitive feature in order to understand the evolution of cognition and behavior—needs to be reimagined.
Online induction heating for determination of isotope composition of woody stem water with laser spectrometry: a methods assessment

Application of stable isotopes of water to studies of plant–soil interactions often requires a substantial preparatory step of extracting water from samples without fractionating isotopes. Online heating is an emerging approach for this need, but is relatively untested and major questions of how to best deliver standards and assess interference by organics have not been evaluated. We examined these issues in our application of measuring woody stem xylem of sagebrush using a Picarro laser spectrometer with online induction heating. We determined (1) effects of cryogenic compared to induction-heating extraction, (2) effects of delivery of standards on filter media compared to on woody stem sections, and (3) spectral interference from organic compounds for these approaches (and developed a technique to do so). Our results suggest that matching sample and standard media improves accuracy, but that isotopic values differ with the extraction method in ways that are not due to spectral interference from organics.
Impact of Symptom and Social Support on Fertility Intention in Reproductive-Age Women With Breast Cancer

This study describes the fertility intention and explores factors related to fertility intention in reproductive-age women with breast cancer in Taiwan. In this cross-sectional study, women of childbearing age who had been diagnosed with breast cancer completed a face-to-face survey that included demographic, disease, and symptom-related data, and social support and fertility intention information. The mean fertility intention score among the 223 participants was “medium” (M ± SD = 41.18 ± 12.62). Higher symptom severity, especially for distress, was related to lower fertility intention. Instrumental support from families and friends was positively associated with fertility intention score. Younger women had better fertility intention scores than older women. The Sobel test showed that age mediated menopause and fertility intention. The findings offer the evidence of the needs to control symptoms and provide sufficient instrumental support regarding fertility after completing chemotherapy.
Do consumer‐mediated negative effects on plant establishment outweigh the positive effects of a nurse plant?

Abstract Many studies demonstrated the importance of facilitative effect by nurse plant on seedling establishment. Few studies evaluated the negative effects of consumers on plant establishment under nurse plants by dealing with them during multiple demographic processes. We investigated the balance between the facilitative effect and negative effects of consumers during multiple demographic processes in Malawi in southeastern Africa. We chose Ficus natalensis as a nurse plant and compared it with three other microsites in tropical woodlands: Brachystegia floribunda (a dominant woodland species), Uapaca kirkiana (a woodland species), and a treeless site. We quantified the seed rain, postdispersal seed predation, germination, and seedling survival of Syzygium guineense ssp. afromontanum (a common forest species). Within each microsite, we quantified the overall probability of recruitment. We also measured seedling abundance of S. guineense ssp. afromontanum. We found that Ficus natalensis exerted both positive and negative impacts on the establishment of S. guineense ssp. afromontanum. Ficus natalensis facilitated seed deposition, seed germination, and seedling survival. On the other hand, seed removal at postdispersal stage was highest under F. natalensis. Interestingly, B. floribunda also had positive effects on germination and seedling survival, but not on seed deposition. When we excluded the seed arrival stage from our estimation of the recruitment probability, the highest value was found under B. floribunda, not under F. natalensis. When we included the seed arrival stage, however, the order of recruitment probability between F. natalensis and B. floribunda was reversed. The probability was one order of magnitude higher under F. natalensis than under B. floribunda. Our estimation of the probability which included the seed arrival stage was consistent with natural patterns of S. guineense ssp. afromontanum establishment. Despite the presence of opposite effects, the net effects of F. natalensis on S. guineense ssp. afromontanum recruitment in tropical woodlands can be positive.