Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon decomposition increased with mean carbon residence time: Field incubation and data assimilation

Temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition is one of the major uncertainties in predicting climate‐carbon (C) cycle feedback. Results from previous studies are highly contradictory with old soil C decomposition being more, similarly, or less sensitive to temperature than decomposition of young fractions. The contradictory results are partly from difficulties in distinguishing old from young SOC and their changes over time in the experiments with or without isotopic techniques. In this study, we have conducted a long‐term field incubation experiment with deep soil collars (0–70 cm in depth, 10 cm in diameter of PVC tubes) for excluding root C input to examine apparent temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition under ambient and warming treatments from 2002 to 2008. The data from the experiment were infused into a multi‐pool soil C model to estimate intrinsic temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition and C residence times of three SOC fractions (i.e., active, slow, and passive) using a data assimilation (DA) technique. As active SOC with the short C residence time was progressively depleted in the deep soil collars under both ambient and warming treatments, the residences times of the whole SOC became longer over time. Concomitantly, the estimated apparent and intrinsic temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition also became gradually higher over time as more than 50% of active SOC was depleted. Thus, the temperature sensitivity of soil C decomposition in deep soil collars was positively correlated with the mean C residence times. However, the regression slope of the temperature sensitivity against the residence time was lower under the warming treatment than under ambient temperature, indicating that other processes also regulated temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition. These results indicate that old SOC decomposition is more sensitive to temperature than young components, making the old C more vulnerable to future warmer climate.
Fine scale modeling of wintertime aerosol mass, number, and size distributions in central California

[1] In light of nonattainment of PM2.5 in central California, the CMAQ-MADRID 1 model is applied to simulate PM2.5 mass, number, and size distributions observed during the California Regional PM10/PM2.5 Air Quality Study (CRPAQS) winter episode of 25–31 December 2000. The simulations with 12 and 24 size sections at a horizontal grid resolution of 4 km reproduce well the 24 h average mass concentrations of PM2.5 (with normalized mean biases (NMBs) of −6.2% to 0.5%), but with larger biases for organic matter, nitrate, and elemental carbon (with NMBs of −67% to 40.2%) and a weaker capability of replicating temporal variation of PM2.5 and its components. The coagulation process leads to a 40%–91% reduction in simulated PM2.5 number concentrations. The 24 section simulation with coagulation shows the best agreement with the observed PM number and size distributions (with an NMB of −13.9%), indicating the importance of coagulation for predicting particle number and the merits of using a fine particle size resolution. Accurately simulating PM2.5 number and size distributions continue to be a major challenge, due to inaccuracies in model inputs (e.g., meteorological fields, precursor emissions, and the initial size distribution of PM emissions and concentrations), uncertainties in model formulations (e.g., heterogeneous chemistry and aerosol formation, growth, and removal processes), as well as inconsistencies and uncertainties in observations obtained with different methods.
Significance of Tissue Fragments in Voided Urine Specimens

OBJECTIVE To determine the diagnostic significance of tissue fragments in voided urine specimens. STUDY DESIGN We reviewed all the voided urine specimens collected and processed by the Millipore filter technique (Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.) at our institution between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 1998, and the corresponding biopsies obtained within 120 days after urine examination. The type and number of tissue fragments were correlated with the histologic diagnosis and clinical features; the results were compared to those from a recently published study. RESULTS Of the 2,553 voided urine specimens examined, 174 (7%) had corresponding biopsies. Cell groups (tissue fragments) consisting of either flat sheets or three-dimensional structures were significantly more common (57%) (chi 2 P < .005) in urine specimens with biopsies revealing urothelial malignancies than in negative biopsies (6%). Three-dimensional groups were also statistically more common in cases with invasive transitional cell carcinoma. Proper identification of tissue fragments was highly significant and correlated with urothelial neoplastic changes. CONCLUSION The results of the present investigation using the Millipore filter technique for voided urine cytology processing, differed from those of a recently published study that employed cytocentrifugation. Tissue fragments, to be differentiated from groups, clumps or clusters that often result from centrifugation and other concentration artifacts, were strongly associated with urothelial neoplasia, uncommonly with nonneoplastic disease processes affecting the urinary tract but always with urothelial disease.
A new hypothesis for foregut and heart tube formation based on differential growth and actomyosin contraction

For decades, it was commonly thought that the bilateral heart fields in the early embryo fold directly towards the midline, where they meet and fuse to create the primitive heart tube. Recent studies have challenged this view, however, suggesting that the heart fields fold diagonally. As early foregut and heart tube morphogenesis are intimately related, this finding also raises questions concerning the traditional view of foregut formation. Here, we combine experiments on chick embryos with computational modeling to explore a new hypothesis for the physical mechanisms of heart tube and foregut formation. According to our hypothesis, differential anisotropic growth between mesoderm and endoderm drives diagonal folding. Then, active contraction along the anterior intestinal portal generates tension to elongate the foregut and heart tube. We test this hypothesis using biochemical perturbations of cell proliferation and contractility, as well as computational modeling based on nonlinear elasticity theory including growth and contraction. The present results generally support the view that differential growth and actomyosin contraction drive formation of the foregut and heart tube in the early chick embryo. Highlighted article: Experiments using chick embryos and computational models reveal the biophysical mechanisms that create the foregut and heart tube in the early embryo.
A Secure Sharding Protocol For Open Blockchains

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and 250 similar alt-coins, embody at their core a blockchain protocol --- a mechanism for a distributed network of computational nodes to periodically agree on a set of new transactions. Designing a secure blockchain protocol relies on an open challenge in security, that of designing a highly-scalable agreement protocol open to manipulation by byzantine or arbitrarily malicious nodes. Bitcoin's blockchain agreement protocol exhibits security, but does not scale: it processes 3--7 transactions per second at present, irrespective of the available computation capacity at hand. In this paper, we propose a new distributed agreement protocol for permission-less blockchains called ELASTICO. ELASTICO scales transaction rates almost linearly with available computation for mining: the more the computation power in the network, the higher the number of transaction blocks selected per unit time. ELASTICO is efficient in its network messages and tolerates byzantine adversaries of up to one-fourth of the total computational power. Technically, ELASTICO uniformly partitions or parallelizes the mining network (securely) into smaller committees, each of which processes a disjoint set of transactions (or "shards"). While sharding is common in non-byzantine settings, ELASTICO is the first candidate for a secure sharding protocol with presence of byzantine adversaries. Our scalability experiments on Amazon EC2 with up to $1, 600$ nodes confirm ELASTICO's theoretical scaling properties.
Combining Electromyography and Tactile Myography to Improve Hand and Wrist Activity Detection in Prostheses

Despite recent advances in prosthetics and assistive robotics in general, robust simultaneous and proportional control of dexterous prosthetic devices remains an unsolved problem, mainly because of inadequate sensorization. In this paper, we study the application of regression to muscle activity, detected using a flexible tactile sensor recording muscle bulging in the forearm (tactile myography—TMG). The sensor is made of 320 highly sensitive cells organized in an array forming a bracelet. We propose the use of Gaussian process regression to improve the prediction of wrist, hand and single-finger activation, using TMG, surface electromyography (sEMG; the traditional approach in the field), and a combination of the two. We prove the effectiveness of the approach for different levels of activations in a real-time goal-reaching experiment using tactile data. Furthermore, we performed a batch comparison between the different forms of sensorization, using a Gaussian process with different kernel distances.
The functional role of all postsynaptic potentials examined from a first-person frame of reference

Abstract When assigning a central role to the neuronal firing, a large number of incoming postsynaptic potentials not utilized during both supra- and subthreshold neuronal activations are not given any functional significance. Local synaptic potentials at the apical dendrites get attenuated as they arrive at the soma to nearly a twentieth of what a synapse proximal to the soma produces. Conservation of these functions necessitates searching for their functional roles. Potentials induced at the postsynapses of neurons of all the neuronal orders activated by sensory inputs carry small bits of sensory information. The activation of these postsynapses by any means other than the activation from their corresponding presynaptic terminals, that also contribute to oscillating potentials, induce the semblance of the arrival of activity from their presynaptic terminals. This is a candidate mechanism for inducing the first-person internal sensory elements of various higher brain functions as a systems property. They also contribute to the firing of subthreshold-activated neurons, including motor neurons. Operational mechanism of inter-postsynaptic functional LINKs can provide necessary structural requirements for these functions. The functional independence of the distal dendritic compartment and recent evidence for in vivo dendritic spikes indicate their independent role in the formation of internal sensory elements. In these contexts, a neuronal soma is flanked by a large number of quasi-functional internal sensory processing units operated using very little energy, even when a neuron is not firing. A large number of possible combinations of internal sensory units explains the corresponding number of specific memory retrievals by the system in response to various cue stimuli.
Correlation of gas permeation and free volume in new and used high free volume thin film composite membranes

Polymeric gas separation membranes frequently undergo the phenomenon of aging, that is, performance parameters like permeability decrease with storage or usage time. Here, we report on a new approach of reducing aging by incorporation of functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes into a polymer of intrinsic microporosity. Free volume and permeability measurements clearly show a reduced aging with incorporation of the carbon nantubes. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015, 53, 213–217
False recognition in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease: rescue with sensory restriction and memantine

Alzheimer’s disease is commonly regarded as a loss of memory for past events. However, patients with Alzheimer’s disease seem not only to forget events but also to express false confidence in remembering events that have never happened. How and why false recognition occurs in such patients is currently unknown, and treatments targeting this specific mnemonic abnormality have not been attempted. Here, we used a modified object recognition paradigm to show that the tgCRND8 mouse—which overexpresses amyloid β and develops amyloid plaques similar to those in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease—exhibits false recognition. Furthermore, we found that false recognition did not occur when tgCRND8 mice were kept in a dark, quiet chamber during the delay, paralleling previous findings in patients with mild cognitive impairment, which is often considered to be prodromal Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, false recognition did not occur when mice were treated with the partial N-methyl-d-aspartic acid receptor antagonist memantine. In a subsequent experiment, we found abnormally enhanced N-methyl-d-aspartic acid receptor-dependent long-term depression in these mice, which could be normalized by treatment with memantine. We suggest that Alzheimer’s disease typical amyloid β pathology leads to aberrant synaptic plasticity, thereby making memory representations more susceptible to interfering sensory input, thus increasing the likelihood of false recognition. Parallels between these findings and those from the literature on Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment suggest a mechanism underlying false recognition in these patients. The false recognition phenomenon may provide a novel paradigm for the discovery of potential therapies to treat the mnemonic dysfunction characteristic of this disease.
Admission Scheduling for Services with Customer Preferences

We study web and mobile applications that are used to schedule advance service, from medical appointments to restaurant reservations. We model them as online weighted bipartite matching problems with non-stationary arrivals. We propose new algorithms with performance guarantees for this class of problems. Specifically, we show that the expected performance of our algorithms is bounded below by 1− √ 2 π 1 √ k +O( 1 k ) times that of an optimal offline algorithm, which knows all future information upfront, where k is the minimum capacity of a resource. This is the tightest known lower bound. This performance analysis holds for any Poisson arrival process. Our algorithms can also be applied to a number of related problems, including display ad allocation problems and revenue management problems for opaque products. We test the empirical performance of our algorithms against several well-known heuristics by using appointment scheduling data from a major academic hospital system in New York City. The results show that the algorithms exhibit the best performance among all the tested policies. In particular, our algorithms are 21% more effective than the actual scheduling strategy used in the hospital system according to our performance metric.
Disney's Aladdin: first steps toward storytelling in virtual reality

Disney Imagineering has developed a high-fidelity virtual reality (VR) attraction where guests fly a magic carpet through a virtual world based on the animated film “Aladdin. ” Unlike most existing work on VR, which has focused on hardware and systems software, we assumed high fidelity and focused on using VR as a new medium to tell stories. We fielded our system at EPCOT Center for a period of fourteen months and conducted controlled experiments, observing the reactions of over 45,000 guests. contact author: Randy Pausch, Computer Science Department, Thornton Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Pausch@virginia.edu, 804/982-2211 Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work or personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to st on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior sion and/or a fee. -89791-746-4/96/008. $3.50 193 Riders filled out an exit survey after the experience, and with select groups we used a number of other data-gathering techniques, including interviews and mechanically logging where guests looked and flew. Our major finding is that in a high fidelity VR experience, men and women of all ages suspend disbelief and accept the illusion that they are in a different place. We have found that in VR, as in all media, content matters. Novices are unimpressed with the technology for its own sake; they care about what there is to do in the virtual world. We can improve the experience by telling a pre-immersion “background story” and by giving the guest a concrete goal to perform in the virtual environment. Our eventual goal is to develop the lexicon for this new storytelling medium: the set of communication techniques shared between directors and the audience. We conclude with a discussion of our second version of the Aladdin project, which contains a large number of synthetic characters and a narrative story line. Figure 1: A Guest’s View of the Virtual Environment
IN-SITU MONITORING OF RESIDUAL STRESS DEVELOPMENT DURING E-BEAM PROCESSING

In order to further the understanding of the electron beam (EB) processing of polymers and composites it is necessary to better understand the development of residual stresses during processing. The measurement of residual stress development during EB processing is a challenging task. The instrumentation has to be adequately shielded from the high-energy electron beam. In this work, a special fixture was designed specifically to measure the warpage of a specimen during the EB process. The specimen consisted of a thin layer of Tactix 123 (DGEBA) epoxy resin imbedded in a layer of fiberglass shim, sandwiched between layers of steel and aluminum. The warpage of the specimens was monitored during and after irradiation at different constant dose rates. The results confirmed that the experimental instrumentation was not affected by the EB exposure and that it was possible the monitor the specimen warpage during the EB process. The results show that the EB cured specimens have lower stress free temperature than equivalent thermally cured specimens. It was also shown that an increase in dose rate (kGy/min) increased the level of residual stresses. Finally, a cure kinetic model for Tactix 123 was used to predict the degree of cure at onset of residual stress development and results were compared to parallel plate rheology tests where gelation of the resin was determined.
Occupancy Modeling and Prediction for Building Energy Management

Heating, cooling and ventilation accounts for 35% energy usage in the United States. Currently, most modern buildings still condition rooms assuming maximum occupancy rather than actual usage. As a result, rooms are often over-conditioned needlessly. Thus, in order to achieve efficient conditioning, we require knowledge of occupancy. This article shows how real time occupancy data from a wireless sensor network can be used to create occupancy models, which in turn can be integrated into building conditioning system for usage-based demand control conditioning strategies. Using strategies based on sensor network occupancy model predictions, we show that it is possible to achieve 42% annual energy savings while still maintaining American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) comfort standards.
Interobserver Reliability of the Young-Burgess and Tile Classification Systems for Fractures of the Pelvic Ring

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to measure interobserver reliability of 2 classification systems of pelvic ring fractures and to determine whether computed tomography (CT) improves reliability. The reliability of several radiographic findings was also tested. Methods: Thirty patients taken from a database at a Level I trauma facility were reviewed. For each patient, 3 radiographs (AP pelvis, inlet, and outlet) and CT scans were available. Six different reviewers (pelvic and acetabular specialist, orthopaedic traumatologist, or orthopaedic trainee) classified the injury according to Young-Burgess and Tile classification systems after reviewing plain radiographs and then after CT scans. The Kappa coefficient was used to determine interobserver reliability of these classification systems before and after CT scan. Results: For plain radiographs, overall Kappa values for the Young-Burgess and Tile classification systems were 0.72 and 0.30, respectively. For CT scan and plain radiographs, the overall Kappa values for the Young-Burgess and Tile classification systems were 0.63 and 0.33, respectively. The pelvis/acetabular surgeons demonstrated the highest level of agreement using both classification systems. For individual questions, the addition of CT did significantly improve reviewer interpretation of fracture stability. The pre-CT and post-CT Kappa values for fracture stability were 0.59 and 0.93, respectively. Conclusions: The CT scan can improve the reliability of assessment of pelvic stability because of its ability to identify anatomical features of injury. The Young-Burgess system may be optimal for the learning surgeon. The Tile classification system is more beneficial for specialists in pelvic and acetabular surgery.
Near-Optimal Edge Evaluation in Explicit Generalized Binomial Graphs

Robotic motion-planning problems, such as a UAV flying fast in a partially-known environment or a robot arm moving around cluttered objects, require finding collision-free paths quickly. Typically, this is solved by constructing a graph, where vertices represent robot configurations and edges represent potentially valid movements of the robot between these configurations. The main computational bottlenecks are expensive edge evaluations to check for collisions. State of the art planning methods do not reason about the optimal sequence of edges to evaluate in order to find a collision free path quickly. In this paper, we do so by drawing a novel equivalence between motion planning and the Bayesian active learning paradigm of decision region determination (DRD). Unfortunately, a straight application of existing methods requires computation exponential in the number of edges in a graph. We present BISECT, an efficient and near-optimal algorithm to solve the DRD problem when edges are independent Bernoulli random variables. By leveraging this property, we are able to significantly reduce computational complexity from exponential to linear in the number of edges. We show that BISECT outperforms several state of the art algorithms on a spectrum of planning problems for mobile robots, manipulators, and real flight data collected from a full scale helicopter.
Development and assessment of a cutaneous tissue stretch device as a novel scar therapy

1Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, QC H3G 1B3, Canada. 2Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada. 3McGill Medical School, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3G 2M1, Canada. 4Division of General Surgery, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada. 5Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. 6Biomedical Engineering Department, Artificial Cells and Organs Research Centre, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.