Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Waterfalls as sources of small charged aerosol particles

In this study, we measured the mobility distribu- tions of cluster and intermediate ions with an ion spectrom- eter near a waterfall. We observed that the concentration of negative 1.5-10 nm ions was one-hundred fold higher than a reference point 100 m away from the waterfall. Also, the concentration of positive intermediate ions was found to be higher than that at the reference point by a factor of ten. This difference was observed only at the smallest sizes; above 10 nm the difference was insignificant.
How receptor diffusion influences gradient sensing

Chemotaxis, or directed motion in chemical gradients, is critical for various biological processes. Many eukaryotic cells perform spatial sensing, i.e. they detect gradients by comparing spatial differences in binding occupancy of chemosensory receptors across their membrane. In many theoretical models of spatial sensing, it is assumed, for the sake of simplicity, that the receptors concerned do not move. However, in reality, receptors undergo diverse modes of diffusion, and can traverse considerable distances in the time it takes such cells to turn in an external gradient. This sets a physical limit on the accuracy of spatial sensing, which we explore using a model in which receptors diffuse freely over the membrane. We find that the Fisher information carried in binding and unbinding events decreases monotonically with the diffusion constant of the receptors.
Mental maps in memory retrieval and comprehension

How do people use spatial information stored in maps? This question has been explored in a number of domains, such as memory and language comprehension, with differing results. Some studies of how experimentally learned maps are organised in memory, using primed recognition, have found temporal information to influence mental map organisation. In contrast, studies of narrative comprehension, using probe identification and anaphoric reading times, have observed spatial effects. This study combines these two research traditions and shows that the organisation observed in long-term memory differs from the organisation in narrative comprehension, even when both tasks refer to the same map.
Region-based color transfer from multi-reference with graph-theoretic region correspondence estimation

This paper proposes an automatic color transfer method based on multi-reference and graph-theoretic region correspondence estimation. When multiple high-quality reference images are available, our goal is to determine a set of best reference colors for transferring the color characteristics of the target image. Given a target image, we first employ content-based image retrieval technique to obtain a small number of relevant images as its multi-reference. Next, we represent each image in region level and determine the best-matched reference region for each target region. We propose to incorporate both region attribute and spatially adjacent relationships between regions into the region mapping criterion. Finally, we conduct color transfer between the best-matched region pairs in a de-correlated color space. Both subjective and objective measures of our experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods.
Hierarchical Organization via a Facilitation Cascade in Intertidal Cordgrass Bed Communities

It has recently been proposed that many communities are structured by a hierarchy of interactions in which facilitation by foundation species is of primary importance. We conducted the first explicit experimental test of this hypothesis by investigating the organization of positive interactions on New England cobblestone beaches. In this midintertidal community, wave‐generated substrate instability and solar stress largely limit marine organisms to the shelter of cordgrass beds. Cordgrass, which can establish and persist without the aid of other foundation species, facilitates a dense assemblage of inhabitants (e.g., mussels, snails, seaweeds) with roots/rhizomes that stabilize substrate and a dense canopy that baffles waves and provides shade. Within the cordgrass bed community, ribbed mussels further enhance physical conditions and densities of other species (e.g., amphipods, barnacles) by providing crevice space and hard substrate. We conclude that cordgrass bed communities are hierarchically organized: secondary interactions (e.g., facilitation by ribbed mussels) play a key role within an assemblage dependent on primary facilitation by the independently successful foundation species cordgrass. Our results identify emergent indirect positive interactions in the form of facilitation cascades, have broad implications for conservation, and help unify existing models of community organization that were developed without considering the fundamental role of positive interactions.
Distribution of acidic and neutral drugs in surface waters near sewage treatment plants in the lower Great Lakes, Canada

Prescription and nonprescription drugs have been detected in rivers and streams in Europe and the United States. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) are an important source of these contaminants, but few data exist on the spatial distribution of drugs in surface waters near STPs. Samples of surface water were collected in the summer and fall of 2000 at open‐water sites in the lower Great Lakes (Lake Ontario and Lake Erie), at sites near the two STPs for the city of Windsor (ON, Canada), and at sites in Hamilton Harbour (ON, Canada), an embayment of western Lake Ontario that receives discharges from several STPs. In a follow‐up study in the summer of 2002, samples of surface water and final effluent from adjacent STPs were collected from sites in Hamilton Harbour and Windsor. In addition, surface water and STP effluent samples were collected in Peterborough (ON, Canada). All samples of surface water and STP effluents were analyzed for selected acidic and neutral drugs. In the survey of Hamilton Harbour and Windsor conducted in 2000, acidic drugs and the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine were detected at ng/L concentrations at sites that were up to 500 m away from the STP, but the hydrological conditions of the receiving waters strongly influenced the spatial distribution of these compounds. Drugs were not detected at open‐water locations in western Lake Erie or in the Niagara River near the municipality of Niagara‐on‐the‐Lake (ON, Canada). However, clofibric acid, ketoprofen, fenoprofen, and carba‐mazepine were detected in samples collected in the summer of 2000 at sites in Lake Ontario and at a site in the Niagara River (Fort Erie, ON, Canada) that were relatively remote from STP discharges. Follow‐up studies in the summer of 2002 indicated that concentrations of acidic and neutral drugs in surface waters near the point of sewage discharge into the Little River (ON, Canada) STP were approximately equal to the concentrations in the final effluent from the STP. Caffeine and cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, were generally present in STP effluents and surface waters contaminated by drugs. The antidepressant fluoxetine and the antibiotic trimethoprom were also detected in most STP effluents and some surface water samples. For the first time, the lipid regulating drug atorvastatin was detected in samples of STP effluent and surface water.
Less is (sometimes) more in cognitive engineering: the role of automation technology in improving patient safety

There is a tendency to assume that medical error can be stamped out by automation. Technology may improve patient safety, but cognitive engineering research findings in several complex safety critical systems, including both aviation and health care, show that more is not always better. Less sophisticated technological systems can sometimes lead to better performance than more sophisticated systems. This “less is more” effect arises because safety critical systems are open systems where unanticipated events are bound to occur. In these contexts, decision support provided by a technological aid will be less than perfect because there will always be situations that the technology cannot accommodate. Designing sophisticated automation that suggests an uncertain course of action seems to encourage people to accept the imperfect advice, even though information to decide independently on a better course of action is available. It may be preferable to create more modest designs that merely provide feedback about the current state of affairs or that critique human generated solutions than to rush to automate by creating sophisticated technological systems that recommend (fallible) courses of action.
DeepContour: A deep convolutional feature learned by positive-sharing loss for contour detection

Contour detection serves as the basis of a variety of computer vision tasks such as image segmentation and object recognition. The mainstream works to address this problem focus on designing engineered gradient features. In this work, we show that contour detection accuracy can be improved by instead making the use of the deep features learned from convolutional neural networks (CNNs). While rather than using the networks as a blackbox feature extractor, we customize the training strategy by partitioning contour (positive) data into subclasses and fitting each subclass by different model parameters. A new loss function, named positive-sharing loss, in which each subclass shares the loss for the whole positive class, is proposed to learn the parameters. Compared to the sofmax loss function, the proposed one, introduces an extra regularizer to emphasizes the losses for the positive and negative classes, which facilitates to explore more discriminative features. Our experimental results demonstrate that learned deep features can achieve top performance on Berkeley Segmentation Dataset and Benchmark (BSDS500) and obtain competitive cross dataset generalization result on the NYUD dataset.
Investigation of cutting force and temperature of end-milling Ti–6Al–4V with different minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) parameters

Different parameters (air pressure, quantity of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) oil, position of nozzle, etc.) of an MQL system have different effects on the milling force and milling temperature. The cutting force and cutting temperature, which are closely related to lubrication and coolant, play significant roles in improving/reducing the cutting quality of a workpiece and extending/shortening the tool life. The present work investigates experimentally the effects of different MQL parameters (air pressure, quantity of oil consumed, and position of the nozzle) in end-milling titanium alloy (Ti–6Al–4V). The experimental results show that the penetrating ability of MQL oil mist has a significant effect on the milling forces and milling temperatures. When the values of air pressure and spraying distance were either too large or too small, it is not good for oil mist to penetrate into the contact zones. The spraying angle of the nozzle position has a minimal impact on the penetration ability. Conversely, the amount of oil delivery is the most important part of MQL application. The minimum quantity of oil consumption can be obtained. The results will help to select optimum MQL parameters in end-milling titanium alloy.
Human Population Density and Extinction Risk in the World's Carnivores

Understanding why some species are at high risk of extinction, while others remain relatively safe, is central to the development of a predictive conservation science. Recent studies have shown that a species' extinction risk may be determined by two types of factors: intrinsic biological traits and exposure to external anthropogenic threats. However, little is known about the relative and interacting effects of intrinsic and external variables on extinction risk. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that extinction risk in the mammal order Carnivora is predicted more strongly by biology than exposure to high-density human populations. However, biology interacts with human population density to determine extinction risk: biological traits explain 80% of variation in risk for carnivore species with high levels of exposure to human populations, compared to 45% for carnivores generally. The results suggest that biology will become a more critical determinant of risk as human populations expand. We demonstrate how a model predicting extinction risk from biology can be combined with projected human population density to identify species likely to move most rapidly towards extinction by the year 2030. African viverrid species are particularly likely to become threatened, even though most are currently considered relatively safe. We suggest that a preemptive approach to species conservation is needed to identify and protect species that may not be threatened at present but may become so in the near future.
On the structure of coated diamonds

Abstract A typical coated diamond has been examined by x-ray diffraction and absorption topography. At the commencement of the coat an abrupt change to fibrous, radial growth occurs. This radial mode of growth gives rise to the general spherical habit of thickly coated diamonds. In the specimen studied the range of misorientation in the fibrous coat was 0·43° about the fibre axis and 0·25° about a normal to the fibre axis. Fibre diameters ranged up to some tens of microns. X-ray absorption contrast produced by the more opaque layers in the coat indicated maximum local impurity concentrations of 0·7% MgO or SiO2, or a few tenths of 1% of a heavier element such as Zr; but the concentration of Fe was less than 0·03%.
Persistence pays off: follow-up methods for difficult-to-track longitudinal samples.

OBJECTIVE Evolving privacy and confidentiality regulations make achieving high completion rates in longitudinal studies challenging. Periodically reviewing the methods researchers use to retain participants throughout the follow-up period is important. We review the effectiveness of methods to maximize completion rates in a 1-year longitudinal study of repeat driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offenders. METHOD During the course of 21 months, we attempted to follow-up with 704 participants of a licensed residential treatment facility for repeat DUI offenders. High rates of lifetime Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, substance-use disorders (97.6%) and nonsubstance- or nongambling-related psychiatric disorders (44.5%) among the sample made tracking participants difficult. To locate participants and complete follow-up interviews, we obtained baseline information, contacted collaterals, sent mailed reminders, searched Internet databases, and gave a monetary incentive for completing study interviews. RESULTS We located 608 participants with active telephone numbers (87.4%) and completed interviews with 488 (70.1% of the entire eligible sample and 80.3% of those with active telephone numbers), after an average (SD) of 8.6 (9.1) calls (median = 5.0). Increasing the number of calls continued to yield additional completions at 10, 20, and 30 calls; at approximately 40 telephone calls, the potential return for additional calls did not justify the added effort. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that researchers need to (1) employ more than 10 telephone calls to adequately track difficult-to-follow substance-using populations, and (2) prepare for a subsample of participants who might require more extensive contact. These results highlight the importance of using empirical guidelines to plan estimates for the number of contacts needed to achieve an adequate follow-up completion rate.
Microsatellite loci for dreissenid mussels (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Dreissenidae) and relatives: markers for assessing exotic and native populations

We developed and tested 14 new polymorphic microsatellite loci for dreissenid mussels, including the two species that have invaded many freshwater habitats in Eurasia and North America, where they cause serious industrial fouling damage and ecological alterations. These new loci will aid our understanding of their genetic patterns in invasive populations as well as throughout their native Ponto‐Caspian distributions. Eight new loci for the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha polymorpha and six for the quagga mussel D. rostriformis bugensis were compared with new results from six previously published loci to generate a robust molecular toolkit for dreissenid mussels and their relatives. Taxa tested include D. p. polymorpha, D. r. bugensis, D. r. grimmi, D. presbensis, the ‘living fossil’Congeria kusceri, and the dark false mussel Mytilopsis leucophaeata (the latter also is invasive). Overall, most of the 24 zebra mussel (N = 583) and 13 quagga mussel (N = 269) population samples conformed to Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium expectations for the new loci following sequential Bonferroni correction. The 11 loci (eight new, three previously published) evaluated for D. p. polymorpha averaged 35.1 alleles and 0.72 mean observed heterozygosity per locus, and 25.3 and 0.75 for the nine loci (six new, three previously published) developed for D. r. bugensis. All but three of these loci successfully amplified the other species of Dreissena, and all but one also amplified Congeria and Mytilopsis. All species and populations tested were significantly divergent using the microsatellite data, with neighbour‐joining trees reflecting their evolutionary relationships; our results reveal broad utility for resolving their biogeographic, evolutionary, population and ecological patterns.
Effect of Iyengar Yoga on Mental Health of Incarcerated Women: A Feasibility Study

Background:Incarcerated women share a disproportionate burden of mental illness. Although psychotropic medications are available to women in prison, adjunctive treatment modalities, such as Iyengar yoga, may increase psychological well-being. Objectives:The purposes of this study were (a) to address the feasibility of providing a gender-responsive exercise intervention within a correctional institution and (b) to observe the effect of a group-format Iyengar yoga program that met two sessions a week for 12 weeks on levels of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and perceived stress among incarcerated women. Methods:A repeated measures design, in which each participant served as her own control, was used. Participants completed three self-administered instruments: the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Perceived Stress Scale before treatment (baseline) and during treatment (Weeks 4, 8, and 12). Linear mixed effects models were used to examine statistically significant changes in mental health measures over time, taking advantage of all available data. Results:Although 21 women initially participated in the intervention, 6 women completed the 12-week intervention. A significant linear decrease was demonstrated in symptoms of depression over time, with mean values changing from 24.90 at baseline to 5.67 at Week 12. There was a marginally significant decrease in anxiety over time (12.00 at baseline to 7.33 at Week 12) and a nonlinear change in stress over time, with decreases from baseline to Week 4 and subsequent increases to Week 12. Discussion:Women who participated in this program experienced fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety over time. Findings from this study may be used to improve future interventions focusing on the health outcomes of incarcerated women.
Aberrations and visual performance following standard laser vision correction.

PURPOSE To relate the change of ocular aberrations with the change of visual performance produced by standard laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) for myopia. METHODS Aberrations and visual performance were measured before and after surgery in 22 eyes. Total aberrations were measured using a laser ray tracing technique. Corneal aberrations were obtained using a commercial videokeratoscope and custom software. Visual performance was evaluated in terms of best spectacle-corrected contrast sensitivity and high-contrast visual acuity. RESULTS The amount of total and corneal aberrations increased with LASIK in all except two eyes. In general, the total and corneal aberration patterns were well-correlated after LASIK. However, the anterior corneal surface alone did not capture all the information (ie, possible changes induced on the posterior corneal surface or interactions between the different ocular components), which suggests that total aberrations are better predictors of visual performance. The decrease of the modulation transfer function (both in terms of area under the curve or as a function of spatial frequency) with LASIK accounted for most of the decrease in contrast sensitivity. High-resolution visual acuity was not very sensitive to the LASIK-induced changes in image quality. CONCLUSION Wavefront and total aberration measurements, and in particular a combination of the two techniques, provide useful information for understanding the optical changes induced by standard refractive surgery. Predictions of the change in modulation transfer function derived from wave aberrations matched measurements of change in contrast sensitivity.
Burst-Aware Dynamic Rate Control for H.264/AVC Video Streaming

The state-of-the-art video coding standard H.264 provides efficient compression and rate control for various video applications. However, by using the current rate control mechanism of H.264 for a video streaming, the output end users would experience a serious video distortion when a data burst happens in the input video. In order to ensure the output video quality and maintain a stable output bit stream, a new adaptive bit-allocation scheme is proposed in this paper. To be compatible with the widely used H.264, our adaptive bit allocation scheme incorporates a set of new allocation criteria in the rate control mechanism of H.264. Experimental results show that the proposed adaptive bit allocation scheme could produce a more stable output stream given a bursty video input stream.
Expert Survey on the Prevention and Treatment Situation of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Coronary Artery Disease

Objective: To grasp the current situation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on prevention and treatment for coronary artery disease (CAD) and the possible advantages and disadvantages. Method: Using a survey in the form of questionnaire among 60 cardiovascular disease experts, to grasp current situation of TCM on prevention and treatment of CAD and the possible advantages and disadvantages. Results: In most areas of China, CAD is common, and angina is the most common clinical type. More than 91% experts choose to integrate traditional and western medicine for treatment and prevention of CAD. TCM proprietary medicine, traditional herbal decoction and intravenous TCM are widely used in the clinical work. Clinical advantages of TCM in the prevention of CAD that are listed in the questionnaire include improving symptoms, enhancing quality of life, increasing exercise tolerance, improving cardiac function, relieving angina, secondary prevention of myocardial infarction, etc. The shortcomings include troublesome brewing of herbal medicine, unpleasant taste of decoction, minimal clinical evidence, slow onset of effects and non-standardized prescription of medicine, etc. Conclusion: The survey reflects the present situation of clinical diagnosis and treatment of TCM on prevention and treatment of CAD to a certain extent; more accurate conclusions need the broader, deeper and large-scale clinical survey.