Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Importance of changing CO 2 , temperature, precipitation, and ozone on carbon and water cycles of an upland-oak forest: incorporating experimental results into model simulations

Observed responses of upland-oak vegetation of the eastern deciduous hardwood forest to changing CO 2 , temperature, precipitation and tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) were derived from ﬁeld studies and interpreted with a stand-level model for an 11-year range of environmental variation upon which scenarios of future environmental change were imposed. Scenarios for the year 2100 included elevated [CO 2 ] and [O 3 ] ( 1 385 ppm and 1 20 ppb, respectively), warming ( 1 4 1 C), and increased winter precipitation ( 1 20% November–March). Simulations were run with and without adjustments for experimentally observed physiological and biomass adjustments. Initial simplistic model runs for single-factor changes in CO 2 and temperature predicted substantial increases ( 1 191% or 508 g C m (cid:1) 2 yr (cid:1) 1 ) or decreases ( (cid:1) 206% or (cid:1) 549 g C m (cid:1) 2 yr (cid:1) 1 ), respectively, in mean annual net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE a (cid:2) 266 (cid:3) 23 g C m (cid:1) 2 yr (cid:1) 1 from 1993 to 2003). Conversely, single-factor changes in precipitation or O 3 had comparatively small effects on NEE a (0% and (cid:1) 35%, respectively). The combined inﬂuence of all four environmental changes yielded a 29% reduction in mean annual NEE a . These results suggested that future CO 2 -induced enhancements of gross photosynthesis would be largely offset by temperature-induced increases in respiration, exacerbation of water deﬁcits, and O 3 -induced reductions in photosynthesis. However, when experimentally observed physiological adjustments were included in the simulations (e.g. acclimation of leaf respiration to warming), the combined inﬂuence of the year 2100 scenario resulted in a 20% increase in NEE a not a decrease. Consistent with the annual model’s predictions, simulations with a forest succession model run for gradually changing conditions from 2000 to 2100 indicated an 11% increase in stand wood biomass in the future compared with current conditions. These model-based analyses identify critical areas of uncertainty for multivariate predictions of future ecosystem response, and underscore the importance of long term ﬁeld experiments for the evaluation of acclimation and growth under complex environmental scenarios.
Rethinking the Political Economy of Decentralization: How Elections and Parties Shape the Provision of Local Public Goods

Decentralization is among the most important global trends of the new century, yet there is still no consensus on how to design political institutions to realize its benefits. In this paper, we investigate the political conditions under which decentralization will improve the delivery of public goods. We begin by incorporating insights from political science and economics into a rigorous and formal extension of the “decentralization theorem”. Our extension assumes inter-jurisdictional spillovers and suggests that the interaction of democratic decentralization (popularly elected sub-national governments) and party centralization (the power of national party leaders over subnational office-seekers) will produce the best outcomes for public service delivery. To test this argument empirically, we make use of a new dataset of sub-national political institutions created for this project. Our analyses, which allow us to examine educational outcomes in more than 125 countries across more than 25 years, provide support for our theoretical expectations.
GaBoDS: the Garching-Bonn Deep Survey. IX. A sample of 158 shear-selected mass concentration candidates

Aims. The aim of the present work is the construction of a mass-selected galaxy cluster sample based on weak gravitational lensing methods. This sample will be subject to spectroscopic follow-up observations. gravitational lensing Methods. We apply the mass aperture statistics (S-statistics) and a new derivative of it (the P-statistics) to 19 square degrees of high quality, single colour wide field imaging data obtained with the WFI@MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope. For the statistics a family of filter functions is used that approximates the expected tangential radial shear profile and thus allows for the efficient detection of mass concentrations. The exact performance of the P-statistics still needs to be evaluated by means of simulations. of mass Results. We find that the two samples of mass concentrations found with the P- and S-statistics have very similar properties. The overlap between them increases with the S/N of the detections made. In total, we present a combined list of 158 possible mass concentrations, which is the first time that such a large and blindly selected sample is published. 72 of the detections are associated with concentrations of bright galaxies. For about 22 of those we found spectra in the literature, indicating or proving that the galaxies seen are indeed spatially concentrated. 16 of those were previously known to be clusters or have meanwhile been secured as such. We currently follow-up a larger number of them spectroscopically to obtain deeper insight into their physical properties. The remaining 55% of the possible mass concentrations found are not associated with any optical light. We show that those "dark" detections are mostly due to noise, and appear preferentially in shallow data.
Identification of a polyphosphoinositide-modulated domain in gelsolin which binds to the sides of actin filaments

Gelsolin is a Ca2+- and polyphosphoinositide-modulated actin-binding protein which severs actin filaments, nucleates actin assembly, and caps the "barbed" end of actin filaments. Proteolytic cleavage analysis of human plasma gelsolin has shown that the NH2-terminal half of the molecule severs actin filaments almost as effectively as native gelsolin in a Ca2+-insensitive but polyphosphoinositide-inhibited manner. Further proteolysis of the NH2-terminal half generates two unique fragments (CT14N and CT28N), which have minimal severing activity. Under physiological salt conditions, CT14N binds monomeric actin coupled to Sepharose but CT28N does not. In this paper, we show that CT28N binds stoichiometrically and with high affinity to actin subunits in filaments, suggesting that it preferentially recognizes the conformation of polymerized actin. Analysis of the binding data shows that actin filaments have one class of CT28N binding sites with Kd = 2.0 X 10(-7) M, which saturates at a CT28N/actin subunit ratio of 0.8. Binding of CT28N to actin filaments is inhibited by phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate micelles. In contrast, neither CT14N nor another actin-binding domain located in the COOH-terminal half of gelsolin form stable stoichiometric complexes with actin along the filaments, and their binding to actin monomers is not inhibited by PIP2. Based on these observations, we propose that CT28N is the polyphosphoinositide-regulated actin-binding domain which allows gelsolin to bind to actin subunits within a filament before serving.
Analysis of the expected error performance of cooperative wireless networks employing distributed space-time codes

In this paper, typical uplink scenarios in a cellular system are considered, where two cooperating mobile stations (serving, for example, as mobile relays) are transmitting the some information to a base station by using a distributed space-time coding scheme. Due to the distributed nature of the system, the transmitted signals are typically subject to different average path losses. For fixed distances between the mobile stations and the base station, the error performance of the distributed space-time coding scheme is determined analytically. Then, based on considerations concerning the spatial distribution of the mobile stations, analytical expressions for the distribution of the average path losses are derived and verified by means of simulations. These results are then used in order to compute the expected error performance of the system. It is shown that in most scenarios the average performance loss compared to a conventional multiple-antenna system with colocated antennas is less than 2 dB at a bit error rate of 10/sup -3/. The most significant performance losses occur for a large path-loss exponent.
Tuning Escherichia coli for membrane protein overexpression

A simple generic method for optimizing membrane protein overexpression in Escherichia coli is still lacking. We have studied the physiological response of the widely used “Walker strains” C41(DE3) and C43(DE3), which are derived from BL21(DE3), to membrane protein overexpression. For unknown reasons, overexpression of many membrane proteins in these strains is hardly toxic, often resulting in high overexpression yields. By using a combination of physiological, proteomic, and genetic techniques we have shown that mutations in the lacUV5 promoter governing expression of T7 RNA polymerase are key to the improved membrane protein overexpression characteristics of the Walker strains. Based on this observation, we have engineered a derivative strain of E. coli BL21(DE3), termed Lemo21(DE3), in which the activity of the T7 RNA polymerase can be precisely controlled by its natural inhibitor T7 lysozyme (T7Lys). Lemo21(DE3) is tunable for membrane protein overexpression and conveniently allows optimizing overexpression of any given membrane protein by using only a single strain rather than a multitude of different strains. The generality and simplicity of our approach make it ideal for high-throughput applications.
Investment and Time to Plan: A Comparison of Structures vs. Equipment in a Panel of Italian Firms

"Time-to-build" models of investment expenditures play an important role in many traditional and modern theories of the business cycle, especially for explaining the dynamic propagation of shocks. We estimate the structural parameters of a time-to-build model using annual firm-level investment data on equipment and structures. For expenditures on equipment, we find no evidence of time-to-build effects beyond one year. For expenditures on structures, by contrast, there is clear evidence of such effects in the range of two to three years. The contrast between equipment and structures is intuitively reasonable and consistent with previous results. The estimates for structures also indicate that initial-period expenditures are low and increase as projects near completion. These results provide empirical support for including "time-to-plan" effects for investment in structures. More generally, these results suggest a potential source of specification error for Q models of investment and production-based asset pricing models that ignore the time required to plan, build, and install new capital. (JEL: D24, G31, C33, C34) (c) 2008 by the European Economic Association.
The Violent Legacy of Victimization: Post-Conflict Evidence on Asylum Seekers, Crimes and Public Policy in Switzerland

We study empirically how past exposure to conflict in origin countries makes migrants more violent prone in their host country, focusing on asylum seekers in Switzerland. We exploit a novel and unique dataset on all crimes reported in Switzerland by nationalities of perpetrators and victims over the period 2009-2012. Causal analysis relies on the fact that asylum seekers are exogenously allocated across the Swiss territory by the federal administration. Our baseline result is that cohorts exposed to civil conflicts/mass killings during childhood are on average 40 percent more prone to violent crimes than their co-nationals born after the conflict. The effect is stable through the lifecycle and is attenuated for women, for property crimes and for low-intensity conflicts. Further, a bilateral crime regression shows that conflict exposed cohorts have a higher propensity to target victims from their own nationality --a piece of evidence that we interpret as persistence in intra-national grievances. Last, we exploit cross-region heterogeneity in public policies within Switzerland to document which integration policies are able to mitigate the detrimental effect of past conflict exposure on violent criminality. In particular, we find that offering labor market access to asylum seekers eliminates all the effect.
Regulation of steroid hormone receptors and coregulators during the cell cycle highlights potential novel function in addition to roles as transcription factors

Cell cycle progression is tightly controlled by several kinase families including Cyclin-Dependent Kinases, Polo-Like Kinases, and Aurora Kinases. A large amount of data show that steroid hormone receptors and various components of the cell cycle, including cell cycle regulated kinases, interact, and this often results in altered transcriptional activity of the receptor. Furthermore, steroid hormones, through their receptors, can also regulate the transcriptional expression of genes that are required for cell cycle regulation. However, emerging data suggest that steroid hormone receptors may have roles in cell cycle progression independent of their transcriptional activity. The following is a review of how steroid receptors and their coregulators can regulate or be regulated by the cell cycle machinery, with a particular focus on roles independent of transcription in G2/M.
MicroRNA-99 Family Members Suppress Homeobox A1 Expression in Epithelial Cells

The miR-99 family is one of the evolutionarily most ancient microRNA families, and it plays a critical role in developmental timing and the maintenance of tissue identity. Recent studies, including reports from our group, suggested that the miR-99 family regulates various physiological processes in adult tissues, such as dermal wound healing, and a number of disease processes, including cancer. By combining 5 independent genome-wide expression profiling experiments, we identified a panel of 266 unique transcripts that were down-regulated in epithelial cells transfected with miR-99 family members. A comprehensive bioinformatics analysis using 12 different sequence-based microRNA target prediction algorithms revealed that 81 out of these 266 down-regulated transcripts are potential direct targets for the miR-99 family. Confirmation experiments and functional analyses were performed to further assess 6 selected miR-99 target genes, including mammalian Target of rapamycin (mTOR), Homeobox A1 (HOXA1), CTD small phosphatase-like (CTDSPL), N-myristoyltransferase 1 (NMT1), Transmembrane protein 30A (TMEM30A), and SWI/SNF-related matrix-associated actin-dependent regulator of chromatin subfamily A member 5 (SMARCA5). HOXA1 is a known proto-oncogene, and it also plays an important role in embryonic development. The direct targeting of the miR-99 family to two candidate binding sequences located in the HOXA1 mRNA was confirmed using a luciferase reporter gene assay and a ribonucleoprotein-immunoprecipitation (RIP-IP) assay. Ectopic transfection of miR-99 family reduced the expression of HOXA1, which, in consequence, down-regulated the expression of its downstream gene (i.e., Bcl-2) and led to reduced proliferation and cell migration, as well as enhanced apoptosis. In summary, we identified a number of high-confidence miR-99 family target genes, including proto-oncogene HOXA1, which may play an important role in regulating epithelial cell proliferation and migration during physiological disease processes, such as dermal wound healing and tumorigenesis.
Optimal Task Assignment in Sensor Networks

Typical wireless sensor networks are based on resource constrained devices with certain limitations in terms of available energy, data processing capabilities and sensing. In order to maximize their potential to support the execution of complex tasks efficiently, algorithmic solutions that minimize the total energy spent are needed. In this paper, we are dealing with the important problem of minimizing the overall energy required for the accomplishment of tasks in WSNs. We provide a modeling framework and we apply 0-1 Integer Linear Programming to solve the optimization problem optimally. Preliminary evaluation results are also provided to the reader.
CHAPTER 4 CNS myelination is dependent on astrocyte lipid metabolism

Myelination requires massive incorporation of lipids into the expanding glial cell membrane, yielding these cells very active in lipid metabolism. Whether myelin membrane formation fully relies on endogenous lipid synthesis or also requires uptake of extracellular lipids is not known. We recently reported that mice carrying a deletion of sterol regulatory binding-element (SREBP) cleavageactivating protein (SCAP) in astrocytes have compromised brain lipid composition accompanied by microcephaly and a set of neurological dysfunctions including progressive motor deficits and reduced sensorimotor gating. Here we show that in the brains of these mice myelinated fibers were reduced in number, had thinner myelin sheaths, and accordingly, had fewer fast conducting fibers. Interestingly, a high-fat diet, rich in cholesterol and mono-unsaturated fatty acids, rescued the impaired conduction velocity and CNS myelination. These data demonstrate for the first time that myelin membrane synthesis by oligodendrocytes is supported by extracellular lipids, supplied by astrocytes under healthy conditions, or derived from the circulation under conditions of compromised astrocyte lipid metabolism. The dependence of CNS myelination on astrocyte lipid metabolism and the ability of high fat diet to ameliorate myelination when this process is impaired may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of myelin pathologies that are associated with compromised brain lipid metabolism.
Are there any Type 2 QSOs? The case of AXJ0341.4–4453

The X-ray source AXJ0341.4–4453 was described by Boyle et al. as a Type 2 AGN at z = 0.672 based on the absence of broad emission lines in the observed wavelength range 4000–7000 u We obtained a new spectrum of AXJ0341.4–4453 extending to 9600 u which reveals broad Balmer lines and other characteristics of Seyfert 1 galaxies.
Action learning based on developmental body perception

The paper describes a framework for action learning in anthropomorphic robots. The key idea of the framework is that the robot voluntarily generates movements to identify its own body, and refers to the identified body in learning of fixation, reaching and grasping actions for object operation. Developmental body perception is critical to identify changing body parts in unknown or non-stationary environments. The consolidation of action learning with developmental body perception allows for continuous body awareness and anticipation of self-generated action's results. We evaluated the proposed framework in experiments with a real robot. In experiments, the robot achieved autonomous body identification, learning of fixation, reaching and gasping, and anticipation-based action planning as well as its execution in object operation tasks.
Measuring Mental Entrenchment of Phrases with Perceptual Identification, Familiarity Ratings, and Corpus Frequency Statistics

Word recognition is the Petri dish of the cognitive sciences. The processes hypothesized to govern naming, identifying and evaluating words have shaped this field since its origin in the 1970s. Techniques to measure lexical processing are not just the backbone of the typical experimental psychology laboratory, but are now routinely used by cognitive neuroscientists to study brain processing and increasingly by social and clinical psychologists (Eder, Hommel, and De Houwer 2007). Models developed to explain lexical processing have also aspired to be statements about the nature of human cognition (e.g., connectionist models, Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, and Patterson 1996). Words were convenient objects to study for cognitive psychologists because they are well-defined and their nature as alphabetic strings was a good fit to analysis with the computer programming languages of the 1970s and 1980s which excelled at string manipulation. But are words actually the privileged unit of mental representation and processing that all of this scientific attention makes them out to be? Like a growing number of other language researchers, our answer is no (see, e.g., (Bybee and Hopper 2001; Wray 2002). We propose that the mental representations for lexical structures form a continuum, from word combinations which have fossilized into single units (nightclub) to those that both exist as independent units and yet have bonds, varying in tightness, with the words with which they frequently co-occur (Harris 1998). The first line of support for this view is the simple observation that fluent speakers easily recognize the familiarity and cohesive quality of word combinations in their language. Examples in English include common noun compounds (last year, brand new), verb phrases (cut down, get a hold of, faced with) and other multi-word expressions such as common sayings and references to cultural concepts (saved by the bell, speed of light; Jackendoff 1995). These frequently co-occurring word sequences, referred to as collocations or multi-word sequences, have only recently been studied by psycholinguists, but several recentpublications have argued that language processing and human cognition need to be expanded (if not altered) to accommodate speakers' wide-ranging knowledge of common word combinations (e.g., Arnon and Snider 2010; Bannard and Matthews 2008). Speakers' demonstrable facility with multiword expressions may be uncomfortable for many linguists and psycholinguists because of these fields' historical allegiance to parsimony in representation, as exemplified by the words and rules approach to language (Pinker 1999). This approach proposes that the building blocks of language are …
The Relationship Between School Integration and Student Attitude Toward Residential Racial Integration

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Recommended Citation Johnson, David Allen, "The Relationship Between School Integration and Student Attitude Toward Residential Racial Integration" (1990). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1180.
An Assessment Of Plateau Environmental Protection And Sanitation Agency (Pepsa) As A Waste Management Institution In Jos City, Nigeria.

Municipal solid waste constitutes man’s unwanted materials that need to be discarded. It is consisting of substances, materials and objects considered as worthless or defective and of no value for human economic productive activities –at a point in time. Apart from constituting an eye sore to urban environment it constitute health hazards and threatens the health of man and animals in the city. This research attempts an assessment of the performance of Plateau Environmental agency, the research made use of both primary and secondary data. Data generated was analyzed using descriptive statistics, while inferential technique of chi-square was used to test the research hypothesis. Results obtained shows that majority of the respondents were traders (34.3%) with secondary education (36%). Forty-five percent (45%) of landuse type responsible for waste generation is residential that 42% of waste generated is mostly ashes. Majority of waste containers used are plastic (33%) and that 52% of respondents are aware of PEPSA activities in their locations. A focus group discussion (FGD) shaded more light on the prospect and limitations of PEPSA. The research concludes that there is the need to overhaul methods of municipal solid waste collection and disposal in metropolitan Jos. Relevant recommendations were made in respect of the study area.