Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large spatial variations in the flux balance along the front of a Greenland tidewater glacier

Abstract. The frontal flux balance of a medium-sized tidewater glacier in western Greenland in the summer is assessed by quantifying the individual components (ice flux, retreat, calving, and submarine melting) through a combination of data and models. Ice flux and retreat are obtained from satellite data. Submarine melting is derived using a high-resolution ocean model informed by near-ice observations, and calving is estimated using a record of calving events along the ice front. All terms exhibit large spatial variability along the ∼5 km wide ice front. It is found that submarine melting accounts for much of the frontal ablation in small regions where two subglacial discharge plumes emerge at the ice front. Away from the subglacial plumes, the estimated melting accounts for a small fraction of frontal ablation. Glacier-wide, these estimates suggest that mass loss is largely controlled by calving. This result, however, is at odds with the limited presence of icebergs at this calving front – suggesting that melt rates in regions outside of the subglacial plumes may be underestimated. Finally, we argue that localized melt incisions into the glacier front can be significant drivers of calving. Our results suggest a complex interplay of melting and calving marked by high spatial variability along the glacier front.
Organic Residues and Ammonium Effects on CO2 Emissions and Soil Quality Indicators in Limed Acid Tropical Soils

Aglime (agricultural lime), commonly applied to acid soils to increase the soil pH and productivity, may lead to the release of CO2 into the atmosphere or to carbon (C) sequestration, although the processes involved are not fully understood. As large acreages of arable land are limed annually, exploring soil management practices that reduce aglime-induced CO2 emissions from acid soils while maintaining or improving the soil quality is paramount to mitigating the effects of global climate change. This study, therefore, assessed the effects of organic residues and ammonium on CO2 emissions and soil quality indicators in two limed soils. Two contrasting acid soils (Nariva series, Mollic Fluvaquents and Piarco series, Typic Kanhaplaquults) were amended with varying combinations of aglime (0% and 0.2% w/w CaCO3), organic residue (0% and 5% w/w biochar or poultry litter), and NH4-N (0% and 0.02% w/w) and were incubated in 300 mL glass jars for 31 days. The sampling for CO2 was performed on 11 occasions over the course of the incubation, while soil sampling was conducted at the end. The results indicate that aglime application significantly (p < 0.05) increased the cumulative CO2 emissions in all cases except with the addition of poultry litter. Alternatively, ammonium did not regulate the effect of aglime on CO2 emissions, which was l because of the low rate at which it was applied in comparison to aglime. The results also showed that poultry litter significantly (p < 0.05) increased the soil electrical conductivity (EC), available nitrogen (N), and pH, especially in the Piarco soil, while the hardwood biochar had little to no effect on the soil properties. Our findings indicate the potential for utilizing poultry litter to reduce the impact of aglime on CO2 emissions while improving the soil quality. Further studies utilizing 13C to trace aglime CO2 emissions are, however, required to identify the mechanism(s) that contributed to this reduction in the emissions.
Memory-efficient state lookups with fast updates

Routers must do a best matching prefix lookup for every packet; solutions for Gigabit speeds are well known. As Internet link speeds higher, we seek a scalable solution whose speed scales with memory speeds while allowing large prefix databases. In this paper we show that providing such a solution requires careful attention to memory allocation and pipelining. This is because fast lookups require on-chip or off-chip SRAM which is limited by either expense or manufacturing process. We show that doing so while providing guarantees on the number of prefixes supported requires new algorithms and the breaking down of traditional abstraction boundaries between hardware and software. We introduce new problem-specific memory allocators that have provable memory utilization guarantees that can reach 100%; this is contrast to all standard allocators that can only guarantee 20% utilization when the requests can come in the range [1 . 32]. An optimal version of our algorithm requires a new (but feasible) SRAM memory design that allows shifted access in addition to normal word access. Our techniques generalize to other IP lookup schemes and to other state lookups besides prefix lookup.
Self-Defeating Personality and Attachment Revisited

The present study showed for 98 adult men and 104 adult women that those who described their adult romantic attachments as secure were significantly less likely to have characteristics of the self-defeating personality than those who described their adult attachments as avoidant (p < .001) or anxious-ambivalent. The present results were consistent with those of two earlier studies with college-age subjects.
Emotional expressions beyond facial muscle actions. A call for studying autonomic signals and their impact on social perception

Humans are well adapted to quickly recognize and adequately respond to another’s emotions. Different theories propose that mimicry of emotional expressions (facial or otherwise) mechanistically underlies, or at least facilitates, these swift adaptive reactions. When people unconsciously mimic their interaction partner’s expressions of emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions’ emotions, which in turn influence the observer’s own emotional and empathic behavior. The majority of research has focused on facial actions as expressions of emotion. However, the fact that emotions are not just expressed by facial muscles alone is often still ignored in emotion perception research. In this article, I therefore argue for a broader exploration of emotion signals from sources beyond the face muscles that are more automatic and difficult to control. Specifically, I will focus on the perception of implicit sources such as gaze and tears and autonomic responses such as pupil-dilation, eyeblinks and blushing that are subtle yet visible to observers and because they can hardly be controlled or regulated by the sender, provide important “veridical” information. Recently, more research is emerging about the mimicry of these subtle affective signals including pupil-mimicry. I will here review this literature and suggest avenues for future research that will eventually lead to a better comprehension of how these signals help in making social judgments and understand each other’s emotions.
Compound 21 Induces Vasorelaxation via an Endothelium- and Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor-Independent Mechanism

Angiotensin II type 2 (AT2) receptor stimulation has been linked to vasodilation. Yet, AT2 receptor-independent hypertension and hypotension (or no effect on blood pressure) have been observed in vivo after application of the AT2 receptor agonist compound 21 (C21). We, therefore, studied its effects in vitro, using preparations known to display AT2 receptor-mediated responses. Hearts of Wistar rats, spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs), C57Bl/6 mice, and AT2 receptor knockout mice were perfused according to Langendorff. Mesenteric and iliac arteries of these animals, as well as coronary microarteries from human donor hearts, were mounted in Mulvany myographs. In the coronary vascular bed of Wistar rats, C57Bl/6 mice, and AT2 receptor knockout mice, C21 induced constriction followed by dilation. SHR hearts displayed enhanced constriction and no dilation. Irbesartan (angiotensin II type 1 receptor blocker) abolished the constriction and enhanced or (in SHRs) reintroduced dilation, and PD123319 (AT2 receptor blocker) did not block the latter. C21 relaxed preconstricted vessels of all species, and this did not depend on angiotensin II receptors, the endothelium, or the NO-guanylyl cyclase-cGMP pathway. C21 constricted SHR iliac arteries but none of the other vessels, and irbesartan prevented this. C21 shifted the concentration-response curves to U46619 (thromboxane A2 analog) and phenylephrine (&agr;-adrenoceptor agonist) but not ionomycine (calcium ionophore) to the right. In conclusion, C21 did not cause AT2 receptor-mediated vasodilation. Yet, it did induce vasodilation by blocking calcium transport into the cell and constriction via angiotensin II type 1 receptor stimulation. The latter effect is enhanced in SHRs. These data may explain the varying effects of C21 on blood pressure in vivo.
Robust Model-Based 3D Torso Pose Estimation in RGB-D Sequences

Free-form Human Robot Interaction (HRI) in naturalistic environments remains a challenging computer vision task. In this context, the extraction of human-body pose information is of utmost importance. Although the emergence of real-time depth cameras greatly facilitated this task, issues which limit the performance of existing methods in relevant HRI applications still exist. Applicability of current state-of-the art approaches is constrained by their inherent requirement of an initialization phase prior to deriving body pose information, which in complex, realistic scenarios, is often hard, if not impossible. In this work we present a data-driven model-based method for 3D torso pose estimation from RGB-D image sequences, eliminating the requirement of an initialization phase. The detected face of the user steers the initiation of shoulder areas hypotheses, based on illumination, scale and pose invariant features on the RGB silhouette. Depth point cloud information is subsequently utilized to approximate the shoulder joints and model the human torso based on a set of 3D geometric primitives and the estimation of the 3D torso pose is derived via a global optimization scheme. Experimental results in various environments, as well as using ground truth data and comparing to OpenNI User generator middleware results, validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
The Combined Effect of High Hydrostatic Pressure and Calcium Salts on the Stability, Solubility and Gel Formation of β-Lactoglobulin

Stability, aggregation and gelation of β-Lactoglobulin are affected by high pressure and salts of the Hofmeister series. Little is known about their combined effects on structure formation processes of β-Lactoglobulin, mainly because many salts of the series are not suitable for use in food. Here, we investigate the effect of calcium salts on the strength of pressure-induced gels, inspired by the fact that high pressure and salts change the water structure in a similar way. We find that the larger the applied pressures, the higher the strength of the gels. In addition to pressure, there is a significant influence by the type of anions and the amount of added calcium salts. Gel strength increases in the order CaCl2 < Ca (NO3)2 < CaI2. This trend correlates with the position of the salts in the Hofmeister series. The results are explained by analogy with the thermal aggregate formation by taking reaction rates for unfolding and aggregation, as well as specific/non-specific salts effect into consideration.
Dual Principal Component Pursuit

We consider the problem of outlier rejection in single subspace learning. Classical approaches work directly with a low-dimensional representation of the subspace. Our approach works with a dual representation of the subspace and hence aims to find its orthogonal complement. We pose this problem as an l1-minimization problem on the sphere and show that, under certain conditions on the distribution of the data, any global minimizer of this non-convex problem gives a vector orthogonal to the subspace. Moreover, we show that such a vector can still be found by relaxing the non-convex problem with a sequence of linear programs. Experiments on synthetic and real data show that the proposed approach, which we call Dual Principal Component Pursuit (DPCP), outperforms state-of-the art methods, especially in the case of high-dimensional subspaces.
Indirect DNA Readout by an H-NS Related Protein: Structure of the DNA Complex of the C-Terminal Domain of Ler

Ler, a member of the H-NS protein family, is the master regulator of the LEE pathogenicity island in virulent Escherichia coli strains. Here, we determined the structure of a complex between the DNA-binding domain of Ler (CT-Ler) and a 15-mer DNA duplex. CT-Ler recognizes a preexisting structural pattern in the DNA minor groove formed by two consecutive regions which are narrower and wider, respectively, compared with standard B-DNA. The compressed region, associated with an AT-tract, is sensed by the side chain of Arg90, whose mutation abolishes the capacity of Ler to bind DNA. The expanded groove allows the approach of the loop in which Arg90 is located. This is the first report of an experimental structure of a DNA complex that includes a protein belonging to the H-NS family. The indirect readout mechanism not only explains the capacity of H-NS and other H-NS family members to modulate the expression of a large number of genes but also the origin of the specificity displayed by Ler. Our results point to a general mechanism by which horizontally acquired genes may be specifically recognized by members of the H-NS family.
Change of guard in Eurosurveillance.

Rapid communications First detection of Echinococcus multilocularis in Sweden, February to March 2011 4 by E Osterman Lind, M Juremalm, D Christensson, S Widgren, G Hallgren, EO Ågren, H Uhlhorn, A Lindberg, M Cedersmyg, H Wahlström Gonorrhoea treatment failures to cefixime and azithromycin in England, 2010 7 by CA Ison, J Hussey, KN Sankar, J Evans, S Alexander Outbreak of rotavirus gastroenteritis in a nursing home, Slovenia, December 2010 11 by A Trop Skaza, L Beskovnik, T Zohar Cretnik
MEASURING COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR IN CONTEMPORARY MULTIPLAYER GAMES

Social aspects of multiplayer games are well known as contributors to game success, with online friendships and socialization expected to expand and strengthen a player-base. Understanding the nature of social behavior and determining the impact of cooperation on gameplay is thus important to game design. In this work, we make use of data exposed through in-game and web-based API’s of two contemporary multiplayer games, World of Warcraft and Halo: Reach. We use this data to investigate the extent of cooperation among players and the effect on individual player behavior. We moreover show how the quantitative assessment of cooperative behavior can be used to isolate potential problem areas in games which may require additional balancing. We first monitor group health and position to measure the pacing of a cooperative scenario in World of Warcraft. We measure a scenario’s pacing as the temporal progression of its difficulty, which directly reflects the required level of cohesion and coordination among the players in a group. Our results verify the informal perception that statically designed content becomes increasingly trivial as players obtain stronger stats, thus reducing the need for cohesion. Direct quantification of this behavior, as enabled by designs such as ours, allows for online, adaptive pacing that should better foster player community by consistently emphasizing the need for communication. The benefits of actual group behavior also has a reverse impact on game design. In our experiment involving Halo: Reach, our results demonstrate that
Belfast Mobility: Extracting Route Information from GPS Tracks

Within highly segregated North Belfast 233 volunteers were recruited and using an app installed on their GPS enabled smart phones were asked to record their movements for a two week period. This created a unique and valuable dataset. Processing these data is however non-trial with over 25million track points recorded across a wide variety of devices. This paper presents how these recorded track points were subsequently cleaned, separated into tracks and assigned travel mode. Once prepared these data can be used investigate the impact of segregation on individual’s movements and use of space, and be useful for informing local policy aimed at opening up more shared spaces.
Treatment and Clinical Outcomes of Transcatheter Heart Valve Thrombosis

Background—Valve thrombosis has yet to be fully evaluated after transcatheter aortic valve implantation. This study aimed to report the prevalence, timing, and treatment of transcatheter heart valve (THV) thrombosis. Methods and Results—THV thrombosis was defined as follows (1) THV dysfunction secondary to thrombosis diagnosed based on response to anticoagulation therapy, imaging modality or histopathology findings, or (2) mobile mass detected on THV suspicious of thrombus, irrespective of dysfunction and in absence of infection. Between January 2008 and September 2013, 26 (0.61%) THV thromboses were reported out of 4266 patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation in 12 centers. Of the 26 cases detected, 20 were detected in the Edwards Sapien/Sapien XT cohort and 6 in the Medtronic CoreValve cohort. In patients diagnosed with THV thrombosis, the median time to THV thrombosis post–transcatheter aortic valve implantation was 181 days (interquartile range, 45–313). The most common clinical presentation was exertional dyspnea (n=17; 65%), whereas 8 (31%) patients had no worsening symptoms. Echocardiographic findings included a markedly elevated mean aortic valve pressure gradient (40.5±14.0 mm Hg), presence of thickened leaflets or thrombotic apposition of leaflets in 20 (77%) and a thrombotic mass on the leaflets in the remaining 6 (23%) patients. In 23 (88%) patients, anticoagulation resulted in a significant decrease of the aortic valve pressure gradient within 2 months. Conclusions—THV thrombosis is a rare phenomenon that was detected within the first 2 years after transcatheter aortic valve implantation and usually presented with dyspnea and increased gradients. Anticoagulation seems to have been effective and should be considered even in patients without visible thrombus on echocardiography.
Myxomycetes of the Taimyr Peninsula (north-central Siberia)

Fifty-six species of myxomycetes representing 26 genera were identified from 371 collections that originated almost exclusively from 270 moist chamber cultures prepared with samples of decaying plant material collected on the Taimyr Peninsula (Russia, north-central Siberia) and in the adjacent Putorana Plateau. Species numbers decrease progressively from northern taiga and forest-tundra over southern tundra to the typical tundra subzone. Forty species in 18 genera were recorded in the northern taiga subzone, 40 species in 19 genera in forest -tundra, and 25 species in 17 genera in the tundra subzones. A taxonomic specificity or community endemism of myxomycete assemblages in tundra as compared to those of northern taiga communities was not found. In general, the myxomycete biota of the tundra zone of the Taimyr Peninsula can be considered as an impoverished biota of the northern taiga subzone. Ten ubiquitous species were recorded from at least one half of all studied localities. The aYerage number of species per genus (2.1) calculated in our study indicates a rather low species diversity for high latitudes, contrary to the biotas of temperate and tropical zones where this ratio ranges from 2.2 to 4.6. Values for coefficient of community, calculated for all pairwise combinations of different study areas in the Arctic, ranged from 0.45 to 0.63 , thus indicating fairly high levels of similarity among arctic and subarctic myxomycete biotas.
Flexible ACT & Resource-group ACT: Different Working Procedures Which Can Supplement and Strengthen Each Other. A Response#

This article is a response to Nordén and Norlander’s ‘Absence of Positive Results for Flexible Assertive Community Treatment. What is the next approach? ’[1], in which they assert that ‘at present [there is] no evidence for Flexible ACT and… that RACT might be able to provide new impulses and new vitality to the treatment mode of ACT’. We question their analyses and conclusions. We clarify Flexible ACT, referring to the Flexible Assertive Community Treatment Manual (van Veldhuizen, 2013) [2] to rectify misconceptions. We discuss Nordén and Norlander’s interpretation of research on Flexible ACT. The fact that too little research has been done and that there are insufficient positive results cannot serve as a reason to propagate RACT. However, the Resource Group method does provide inspiration for working with clients to involve their networks more effectively in Flexible ACT.
Global effects of soil and climate on leaf photosynthetic traits and rates

Aim The influence of soil properties on photosynthetic traits in higher plants is poorly quantified in comparison with that of climate. We address this situation by quantifying the unique and joint contributions to global leaf-trait variation from soils and climate. Location Terrestrial ecosystems world-wide. Methods Using a trait dataset comprising 1509 species from 288 sites, with climate and soil data derived from global datasets, we quantified the effects of 20 soil and 26 climate variables on light-saturated photosynthetic rate (Aarea), stomatal conductance (gs), leaf nitrogen and phosphorus (Narea and Parea) and specific leaf area (SLA) using mixed regression models and multivariate analyses. Results Soil variables were stronger predictors of leaf traits than climatic variables, except for SLA. On average, Narea, Parea and Aarea increased and SLA decreased with increasing soil pH and with increasing site aridity. gs declined and Parea increased with soil available P (Pavail). Narea was unrelated to total soil N. Joint effects of soil and climate dominated over their unique effects on Narea and Parea, while unique effects of soils dominated for Aarea and gs. Path analysis indicated that variation in Aarea reflected the combined independent influences of Narea and gs, the former promoted by high pH and aridity and the latter by low Pavail. Main conclusions Three environmental variables were key for explaining variation in leaf traits: soil pH and Pavail, and the climatic moisture index (the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration). Although the reliability of global soil datasets lags behind that of climate datasets, our results nonetheless provide compelling evidence that both can be jointly used in broad-scale analyses, and that effects uniquely attributable to soil properties are important determinants of leaf photosynthetic traits and rates. A significant future challenge is to better disentangle the covarying physiological, ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that underpin trait–environment relationships.