Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Interpolation of DEMs From Lidar-Derived Elevation Data

Light detection and ranging (lidar)-derived elevation data are commonly subjected to outliers due to the boundaries of occlusions, physical imperfections of sensors, and surface reflectance. Outliers have a serious negative effect on the accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs). To decrease the impact of outliers on DEM construction, we propose a robust interpolation algorithm of multiquadric (MQ) based on a regularized least absolute deviation (LAD) technique. The objective function of the proposed method includes a regularization-based smoothing term and an LAD-based fitting term, respectively, used to smooth noisy samples and resist the influence of outliers. To solve the objective function of the proposed method, we develop a simple scheme based on the split-Bregman iteration algorithm. Results from simulated data sets indicate that when sample points are noisy or contaminated by outliers, the proposed method is more accurate than the classical MQ and two recently developed robust algorithms of MQ for surface modeling. Real-world examples of interpolating 1 private and 11 publicly available airborne lidar-derived data sets demonstrate that the proposed method averagely produces better results than two promising interpolation methods including regularized spline with tension (RST) and gridded data-based robust thin plate spline (RTPS). Specifically, the image of RTPS is too smooth to retain terrain details. Although RST can keep subtle terrain features, it is distorted by some misclassified object points (i.e., pseudooutliers). The proposed method obtains a good tradeoff between resisting the effect of outliers and preserving terrain features. Overall, the proposed method can be considered as an alternative for interpolating lidar-derived data sets potentially including outliers.
An assessment of safety climate, job satisfaction and turnover intention relationships using a national sample of workers from the USA

The association between safety climate, job satisfaction and turnover intention has not been thoroughly researched. This research is needed so that safety researchers and practitioners can begin to delineate the impact of safety on organizational and business outcomes. A path analysis was completed using data from a national sample of workers from the USA (n = 1525). The overall fit of the model was excellent and analyses determined that both training and resource adequacy positively affected safety climate and job satisfaction. Safety climate also positively influenced job satisfaction. Both safety climate and job satisfaction were negatively associated with respondents’ turnover intention. In the study, the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention is reiterated in a sample of workers across many industries. This study is novel because it is one of the first studies to confirm that turnover intention is reduced with increased safety climate in a diverse sample of workers.
Ecological Features of Large Neotropical Reservoirs and Its Relation to Health of Cage Reared Fish

Environmental Brazilian legislation allow the implementation of cage culture fish farm enterprises in large public reservoirs (Ayroza et. al., 2006), aiming a qualitative and quantitative increase of inland aquaculture, regarding concerns with environmental, economic and social sustainability (Costa-Pierce, 2002; Valente, 2000). Fish farming is an important activity for animal protein production, and if well planned, is benefic to the economic development of the country. However, it is necessary continuous assistance of appropriate expertise and scientific support in order to organize and improve fishery and aquaculture (Agostinho et al., 2007). Due to low productivity of inland native fish stocks, Brazilian government aquaculture programs initially focused on change artisanal fisher to fish farmers, assuming that this could improve their economic situation. This is a mistaken philosophy, since the extrativist way of life contradicts the planned life of a modern aquaculturist. This is especially applicable for Brazilian Southeastern region, where this activity is basically maintained by intensive culture of tilapia (Furlaneto et al., 2006) by capitalized stakeholders. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] (2010) and Rojas & Wadsworth (2007) highlight that aquaculture annual growth rate surpasses other zootechnical activities. Currently, annual fish yield in Brazil, by means of aquaculture and extractive fishing, has accomplished a 1,240,000 metric tons/year baseline, of which approximately 10% are related to tilapias (Ministerio da Pesca [MPA], 2010), predominantly Oreochromis niloticus and derived hibrids Lovshin, 1982). Within this context, Brazil has been showing vigorous growth (over 25% per year) in this decade, however this growth is still modest considering the prodigious potential of water resources and suitable weather that Brazil offers (Godinho, 2007; MPA, 2010). It is evident that Brazilian aquaculture production is behind its potential comparing to Chinese fish yield, that produces approximately 47.5 millions of metric tons/year (FAO, 2010). Fitzsimmons (2006) highlights Brazil as a prominent country that could compete with China as biggest fish producer in the world. The Parana River is the second largest catchment in South America, with 3,780 km of extension, and is the main River of La Plata
The VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz Large Project: Cosmic star formation history since z ~ 5

We make use of the deep Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) COSMOS radio observations at 3 GHz to infer radio luminosity functions of star-forming galaxies up to redshifts of z ~ 5 based on approximately 6000 detections with reliable optical counterparts. This is currently the largest radio-selected sample available out to z ~ 5 across an area of 2 square degrees with a sensitivity of rms ≈ 2.3 μJy beam^(-1). By fixing the faint and bright end shape of the radio luminosity function to the local values, we find a strong redshift trend that can be fitted with a pure luminosity evolution L_(1.4 GHz) ∝ (1 + z)^((3.16 ± 0.2)−(0.32 ± 0.07)z). We estimate star formation rates (SFRs) from our radio luminosities using an infrared (IR)-radio correlation that is redshift dependent. By integrating the parametric fits of the evolved luminosity function we calculate the cosmic SFR density (SFRD) history since z ~ 5. Our data suggest that the SFRD history peaks between 2 1000 M⊙ yr^(-1)) contribute an additional ≲2% in the entire observed redshift range. We find evidence of a potential underestimation of SFRD based on ultraviolet (UV) rest-frame observations of Lyman break galaxies at high redshifts (z ≳ 4) on the order of 15–20%, owing to appreciable star formation in highly dust-obscured galaxies, which might remain undetected in such UV observations.
Plasmacytoid dendritic cells protect from viral bronchiolitis and asthma through semaphorin 4a–mediated T reg expansion

Respiratory syncytial virus–bronchiolitis is a major independent risk factor for subsequent asthma, but the causal mechanisms remain obscure. We identified that transient plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) depletion during primary Pneumovirus infection alone predisposed to severe bronchiolitis in early life and subsequent asthma in later life after reinfection. pDC depletion ablated interferon production and increased viral load; however, the heightened immunopathology and susceptibility to subsequent asthma stemmed from a failure to expand functional neuropilin-1+ regulatory T (T reg) cells in the absence of pDC-derived semaphorin 4a (Sema4a). In adult mice, pDC depletion predisposed to severe bronchiolitis only after antibiotic treatment. Consistent with a protective role for the microbiome, treatment of pDC-depleted neonates with the microbial-derived metabolite propionate promoted Sema4a-dependent T reg cell expansion, ameliorating both diseases. In children with viral bronchiolitis, nasal propionate levels were decreased and correlated with an IL-6high/IL-10low microenvironment. We highlight a common but age-related Sema4a-mediated pathway by which pDCs and microbial colonization induce T reg cell expansion to protect against severe bronchiolitis and subsequent asthma.
Efficient Compression of Encrypted Binary Images Using the Markov Random Field

Similar to conventional compression with the original, unencrypted image as the input, the recently emerged compression on encrypted images generally exploits statistical correlation of natural images to improve compression efficiency. Most of these compression schemes in the literature leverage statistical correlation at the content-owner or service-provider side, which would either increase the computational burden on the content-owner or disclose statistical distributions to the service-provider and thus probably hinder their practical applications. Through analysis on properties of the compression system for encrypted data, we believe that it is more preferable to exploit statistical correlation of natural images at the receiver side with both encryption key and sufficient computational capability, which in turn would improve compression efficiency while achieving low computational complexity and sufficient security for the content owner and the service provider. In light of this, we use the Markov random field (MRF) to characterize binary images in the spatial domain and represent it with a factor graph. The constructed MRF representation of the binary image in the factor graph is then integrated seamlessly with the factor graph for low-density parity check (LDPC)-based decompression, yielding a joint factor graph for binary image reconstruction. By deriving message update equations for the joint factor graph, we develop a new lossless compression scheme for encrypted binary images, which involves stream-cipher-based encryption, LDPC-based compression, and factor-graph-based image reconstruction. Preferable parameters for the proposed scheme are first determined numerically on a specific binary image and then applied to other binary images. Extensive simulations show that significant improvements in terms of compression bit rate over the state of the art are achieved, demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Habitat Association Predicts Genetic Diversity and Population Divergence in Amazonian Birds

The ecological traits of organisms may predict their genetic diversity and population genetic structure and mediate the action of evolutionary processes important for speciation and adaptation. Making these ecological-evolutionary links is difficult because it requires comparable genetic estimates from many species with differing ecologies. In Amazonian birds, habitat association is an important component of ecological diversity. Here, we examine the link between habitat association and genetic parameters using 20 pairs of closely related Amazonian bird species in which one member of the pair occurs primarily in forest edge and floodplains and the other occurs in upland forest interior. We use standardized geographic sampling and data from 2,416 genomic markers to estimate genetic diversity, population genetic structure, and statistics reflecting demographic and evolutionary processes. We find that species of upland forest have greater genetic diversity and divergence across the landscape as well as signatures of older histories and less gene flow than floodplain species. Our results reveal that species ecology in the form of habitat association is an important predictor of genetic diversity and population divergence and suggest that differences in diversity between floodplain and upland avifaunas in the Amazon may be driven by differences in the demographic and evolutionary processes at work in the two habitats.
Somatic mosaic deletions involving SCN1A cause Dravet syndrome

Somatic mosaicism in single nucleotide variants of SCN1A is known to occur in a subset of parents of children with Dravet syndrome (DS). Here, we report recurrent somatic mosaic microdeletions involving SCN1A in children diagnosed with DS. Through the evaluation of 237 affected individuals with DS who did not show SCN1A or PCHD19 mutations in prior sequencing analyzes, we identified two children with mosaic microdeletions covering the entire SCN1A region. The allele frequency of the mosaic deletions estimated by multiplex ligation‐dependent probe amplification and array comparative genomic hybridization was 25–40%, which was comparable to the mosaic ratio in lymphocytes and buccal mucosa cells observed by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis. The minimal prevalence of SCN1A mosaic deletion is estimated to be 0.9% (95% confidence level: 0.11–3.11%) of DS with negative for SCN1A and PCDH19 mutations. This study reinforces the importance of somatic mosaicism caused by copy number variations in disease‐causing genes, and provides an alternative spectrum of SCN1A mutations causative of DS. Somatic deletions in SCN1A should be considered in cases with DS when standard screenings for SCN1A mutations are apparently negative for mutations.
Performance analysis of the closed-loop transmit antenna diversity system over Rayleigh fading channels

As a diversity technique, transmit antenna diversity (TAD) recently has been considered for third-generation (3G) code-division multiple-access systems. There are two different types of TAD techniques: closed loop and open loop. In this correspondence, the performance of the closed-loop TAD system equipped with multiple transmit and receive antennas is analyzed using bounds of the pairwise error probability (PEP) under a flat fading channel environment. In addition, the cutoff rate from the Chernoff bound has been considered to understand the overall performance, which may include channel coding.
Graph Attention Networks

We present graph attention networks (GATs), novel neural network architectures that operate on graph-structured data, leveraging masked self-attentional layers to address the shortcomings of prior methods based on graph convolutions or their approximations. By stacking layers in which nodes are able to attend over their neighborhoods' features, we enable (implicitly) specifying different weights to different nodes in a neighborhood, without requiring any kind of costly matrix operation (such as inversion) or depending on knowing the graph structure upfront. In this way, we address several key challenges of spectral-based graph neural networks simultaneously, and make our model readily applicable to inductive as well as transductive problems. Our GAT models have achieved or matched state-of-the-art results across four established transductive and inductive graph benchmarks: the Cora, Citeseer and Pubmed citation network datasets, as well as a protein-protein interaction dataset (wherein test graphs remain unseen during training).
The effect of surface roughness and crystallinity on the light scattering of polyethylene tubular blown films

An experimental study of the effect of surface roughness and crystallinity on the light scattering of polyethylene tubular blown films is reported. Several films were prepared by varying the raw polyethylenes and the extrusion temperature. Other processing variables were maintained constant. We have made a statistical analysis of data and we have obtained multiple regressions between light scattering for a given wavelength of incident light and a given film thickness (30 μm, 50 μm, and 70 μm) and the independent variables average surface roughness and degree of crystallinity. It was demonstrated that, for the polymeric films studied, the surface texture evaluates better than crystallinity the variation of light scattering, but crystallinity has also some importance.
Spatial and Other Social Engagement Cues in a Child-Robot Interaction: Effects of a Sidekick

In this study, we explored the impact of a co-located sidekick on child-robot interaction. We examined child behaviors while interacting with an expressive furniture robot and his robot lamp sidekick. The results showed that the presence of a sidekick did not alter child proximity, but did increase attention to spoken elements of the interaction. This suggests the addition of a co-located sidekick has potential to increase engagement but may not alter subtle physical interactions associated with personal space and group spatial arrangements. The findings also reinforce existing research by the community on proxemics and anthropomorphism.
Social brain volume is associated with in-degree social network size among older adults

The social brain hypothesis proposes that large neocortex size evolved to support cognitively demanding social interactions. Accordingly, previous studies have observed that larger orbitofrontal and amygdala structures predict the size of an individual's social network. However, it remains uncertain how an individual's social connectedness reported by other people is associated with the social brain volume. In this study, we found that a greater in-degree network size, a measure of social ties identified by a subject's social connections rather than by the subject, significantly correlated with a larger regional volume of the orbitofrontal cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and lingual gyrus. By contrast, out-degree size, which is based on an individual's self-perceived connectedness, showed no associations. Meta-analytic reverse inference further revealed that regional volume pattern of in-degree size was specifically involved in social inference ability. These findings were possible because our dataset contained the social networks of an entire village, i.e. a global network. The results suggest that the in-degree aspect of social network size not only confirms the previously reported brain correlates of the social network but also shows an association in brain regions involved in the ability to infer other people's minds. This study provides insight into understanding how the social brain is uniquely associated with sociocentric measures derived from a global network.
Lessons Learned from 20 Years of Diabetes Self-Management Research With Mexican Americans in Starr County, Texas

Purpose The purpose is to provide an overview of a 20-year research program aimed at testing diabetes self-management education interventions culturally tailored for Mexican Americans residing in an impoverished rural community on the Texas-Mexico border. Methods The research program involved focus group interviews to obtain community input, pilot testing to refine instruments and interventions, and community-based randomized controlled trials to examine intervention effects. Here the authors summarize lessons learned related to the (1) overall effects of culturally tailored diabetes self-management education; (2) impact of culture on study design, intervention development, health outcomes, and community acceptance; (3) benefits of and findings from multiple focus groups held over time in the community; and (4) personal and cultural motivators for behavioral change that were evident among study participants. Results Postintervention reductions in A1C ranged from 1.4 to 1.7 percentage points. Individuals who attended ≥ 50% of intervention sessions achieved a 6–percentage point reduction in A1C. Intervention teams included bilingual Mexican American nurses, dietitians, and promotoras, all recruited from the local community. Focus group interviews indicated that a traditional promotora model was not acceptable to the participants who wanted knowledgeable health professionals, or perceived authority figures, to lead intervention sessions while promotoras provided logistical support. Free glucometers and strips, family participation, and interpersonal dynamics within intervention groups motivated individuals to make healthier lifestyle choices. Conclusions Culturally tailored diabetes interventions are effective in improving the health of socially disadvantaged minorities who bear a disproportional burden of type 2 diabetes, and these interventions are cost-effective.
Numerical modelling of plastic multislip in metal crystals of f.c.c. type

Abstract The plastic slip process in crystals is described by a continuum mechanics technique using models for the behaviour of dislocations. Some new models are established for the mean glide path distance of dislocations during single slip and multiple slips and comparisons are made for the strain-hardening characteristics accompanying those models. The spontaneous transition in the deformation curve of single crystals from stage I to stage II is naturally introduced through models of the mean glide path distance.
Effect of bariatric surgery on diabetic nephropathy in obese type 2 diabetes patients in a retrospective 2-year study: A local pilot

Purpose: To determine the effects of bariatric surgery on albuminuria in obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods: Retrospective analyses of clinical records of obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who had either micro- or macroalbuminuria and had undergone various bariatric surgery were retrieved from a local hospital database. Their clinical data from follow-up appointments including albuminuria were analysed. Results: Of the 46 subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 15 subjects had diabetic nephropathy and had pre- and post-bariatric surgery urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio or urine protein-to-creatinine ratio data available for analysis; 13 out of the 15 subjects (86.7%) showed improvement of urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio or urine protein-to-creatinine ratio after surgery; 2 showed equivocal results; 9 of 13 subjects (69.2%) showed remission of diabetic nephropathy; 7 of these 9 patients had microalbuminuria before surgery, 2 had macroalbuminuria before surgery. There were significant improvements to glycosylated haemoglobin, fasting plasma glucose, blood pressure and body weight post surgery. The usage of insulin and oral medications dropped significantly post surgery for all subjects. Conclusion: This study shows that bariatric surgery significantly improves diabetic nephropathy in obese type 2 diabetes mellitus subjects. The results suggest that in our local type 2 diabetes mellitus patients, it is possible not only to improve metabolic parameters, but also to reverse what may be considered established microvascular complications by means of bariatric surgery.