Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maize seed coatings and seedling sprayings with chitosan and hydrogen peroxide: their influence on some phenological and biochemical behaviors

To evaluate the effect of chitosan (CH) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) seed coatings and seedling sprinklings on two different maize varieties by measuring their phenology, the H2O2 presence, the catalase (CAT) activity, and the protein quantity. Seven groups of ten seeds for each maize variety were treated with CH (2% (20 g/L) and 0.2% (2 g/L)) or H2O2 (8 mmol/L) by coating, sprinkling, or both. Germination and seedling growth were measured. One month after germination, the presence of H2O2 in seedlings in the coated seed treatments was evaluated. Protein content and CAT activity were determined under all treatments. H2O2 seed coating enhanced the germination rate and increased seedling and stem length in the quality protein maize (QPM) variety. Seedlings had a higher emergence velocity under this treatment in both varieties. CH and H2O2 sprinklings did not have an effect on seedling phenology. Exogenous application of H2O2 promoted an increase of endogenous H2O2. CH and H2O2 seedling sprinkling increased the protein content in both maize varieties, while there was no significant effect on the CAT activity of treated seeds and seedlings. CH and H2O2 enhance some phenological and biochemical features of maize depending on their method of application.
Hedgehog signal transduction by Smoothened: Pharmacologic evidence for a 2-step activation process

The Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway controls growth, cell fate decisions, and morphogenesis during development. Damage to Hh transduction machinery can lead to birth defects and cancer. The transmembrane protein Smoothened (Smo) relays the Hh signal and is an important drug target in cancer. Smo enrichment in primary cilia is thought to drive activation of target genes. Using small-molecule agonists and antagonists to dissect Smo function, we find that Smo enrichment in cilia is not sufficient for signaling and a distinct second step is required for full activation. This 2-step mechanism—localization followed by activation—has direct implications for the design and use of anticancer therapeutics targeted against Smo.
Uncertainty Quanti(cid:28)cation in the Ensemble Kalman Filter

The ensemble Kalman (cid:28)lter (EnKF) provides an approximate, sequential Monte Carlo solution to the recursive data assimilation algorithm for hidden Markov chains. The challenging conditioning step is approximated by a linear updating, and the updating weights, termed Kalman weights, are inferred from the ensemble members. The EnKF scheme is known to provide unstable predictions and to underestimate the prediction intervals, and even sometimes to diverge. The underlying cause for these shortcomings is poorly understood. We (cid:28)nd that the ensemble members couple in the conditioning procedure, and that the coupling increase multiplicatively in the recursive conditioning steps. Under reasonable Gauss-independence assumptions exact expressions for this correlation are developed. Moreover, expressions for the precision of the predictions and the downward bias in the empirical variance introduced in one conditioning step are found. These results are con(cid:28)rmed by a Gauss-linear simulation study. In order to improve on the EnKF, complementary shrinkage, transformation and resampling schemes are de(cid:28)ned, and quantitatively evaluated under the same Gauss-independent assumptions. The Gauss-linear simulation study is further used to empirically evaluate these complementary schemes. Shrinkage provides signi(cid:28)cant improvements of the EnKF, and additional use of transformation or resampling may also be bene(cid:28)cial.
Energy Drink Administration in Combination with Alcohol Causes an Inflammatory Response and Oxidative Stress in the Hippocampus and Temporal Cortex of Rats

Energy drinks (EDs) are often consumed in combination with alcohol because they reduce the depressant effects of alcohol. However, different researches suggest that chronic use of these psychoactive substances in combination with alcohol can trigger an oxidative and inflammatory response. These processes are regulated by both a reactive astrogliosis and an increase of proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β, TNF-α, and iNOS, causing cell death (apoptosis) at the central and peripheral nervous systems. Currently, mechanisms of toxicity caused by mixing alcohol and ED in the brain are not well known. In this study, we evaluated the effect of chronic alcohol consumption in combination with ED on inflammatory response and oxidative stress in the temporal cortex (TCx) and hippocampus (Hp) of adult rats (90 days old). Our results demonstrated that consuming a mixture of alcohol and ED for 60 days induced an increase in reactive gliosis, IL-1β, TNF-α, iNOS, reactive oxygen species, lipid peroxidation, and nitric oxide, in the TCx and Hp. We also found immunoreactivity to caspase-3 and a decrease of synaptophysin in the same brain regions. The results suggested that chronic consumption of alcohol in combination with ED causes an inflammatory response and oxidative stress, which induced cell death via apoptosis in the TCx and Hp of the adult rats.
Anthropogenic CO2 in the Atlantic Ocean

The anthropogenic CO2 in the Atlantic Ocean is separated from the large natural variability of dissolved inorganic carbon using the method developed by Gruber et al. [1996]. Surface concentrations of anthropogenic CO2 are found to be highest in the tropical to subtropical regions and to decrease toward the high latitudes. They are very close to what is expected from thermodynamic considerations assuming that the surface ocean followed the atmospheric CO2 perturbation. Highest specific inventories (inventory per square meter) of anthropogenic CO2 occur in the subtropical convergence zones. Large differences exist between the North and South Atlantic high latitudes: In the North Atlantic, anthropogenic CO2 has already invaded deeply into the interior; north of 50°N it has even reached the bottom. By contrast, waters south of 50°S contain relatively little anthropogenic CO2, and hence specific inventories are very low. An anthropogenic CO2 inventory of about 22 ± 5 Gt C is estimated for the Atlantic north of the equator for 1982, and 18 ± 4 Gt C is estimated for the Atlantic south of the equator for 1989. The Princeton ocean biogeochemistry model predicts anthropogenic CO2 inventories of 20.0 Gt C (North Atlantic, 1982) and 17.7 Gt C (South Atlantic, 1989) for the same regions in good agreement with the observed inventories. Important differences exist on a more regional scale, associated with known deficiencies of the model.
Visuomotor Adaptation: How Forgetting Keeps Us Conservative

Even when provided with feedback after every movement, adaptation levels off before biases are completely removed. Incomplete adaptation has recently been attributed to forgetting: the adaptation is already partially forgotten by the time the next movement is made. Here we test whether this idea is correct. If so, the final level of adaptation is determined by a balance between learning and forgetting. Because we learn from perceived errors, scaling these errors by a magnification factor has the same effect as subjects increasing the amount by which they learn from each error. In contrast, there is no reason to expect scaling the errors to affect forgetting. The magnification factor should therefore influence the balance between learning and forgetting, and thereby the final level of adaptation. We found that adaptation was indeed more complete for larger magnification factors. This supports the idea that incomplete adaptation is caused by part of what has been learnt quickly being forgotten.
Evaluation of transform performance when using shape-adaptive partitioning in video coding

When combining non-rectangular (shape-adaptive) partitioning of inter pictures with a rectangular block transform, some of the transforms will be applied to a residual signal which originates from two different predictions. This is a condition that is never encountered in any of the existing video coding standards, and the impact of this on the performance of the transform coder has not been investigated. In this paper we investigate the effect of these mixed-signal blocks on the coding gain for various transforms, and we compare these against the optimal KLT gain. We find that, despite the transformed residual block being composed of two parts that were predicted from different areas of the reference picture, correlation within mixed blocks is very similar to that of normal blocks. The DCT is only marginally suboptimal w.r. t. KLT. KLT has practical issues that will reduce its coding gain or increase the signaling overhead: transform bases need to be quantized and transmitted, or a number of fixed bases needs to be chosen offline. Therefore we recommend DCT be used for all types of blocks.
EUV emission lines and diagnostics observed with Hinode/EIS

Quiet Sun and active region spectra from the Hinode/EIS instrument are presented, and the strongest lines from different temperature regions discussed. A list of emission lines recommended to be included in EIS observation studies is presented based on analysis of blending and diagnostic potential using the CHIANTI atomic database. In addition we identify the most useful density diagnostics from the ions covered by EIS.
Morbidity and mortality among older individuals with undiagnosed celiac disease.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Outcomes of undiagnosed celiac disease (CD) are unclear. We evaluated the morbidity and mortality of undiagnosed CD in a population-based sample of individuals 50 years of age and older. METHODS Stored sera from a population-based sample of 16,886 Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents 50 years of age and older were tested for CD based on analysis of tissue transglutaminase and endomysial antibodies. A nested case-control study compared serologically defined subjects with CD with age- and sex-matched, seronegative controls. Medical records were reviewed for comorbid conditions. RESULTS We identified 129 (0.8%) subjects with undiagnosed CD in a cohort of 16,847 older adults. A total of 127 undiagnosed cases (49% men; median age, 63.0 y) and 254 matched controls were included in a systematic evaluation for more than 100 potentially coexisting conditions. Subjects with undiagnosed CD had increased rates of osteoporosis and hypothyroidism, as well as lower body mass index and levels of cholesterol and ferritin. Overall survival was not associated with CD status. During a median follow-up period of 10.3 years after serum samples were collected, 20 cases but no controls were diagnosed with CD (15.2% Kaplan-Meier estimate at 10 years). CONCLUSIONS With the exception of reduced bone health, older adults with undiagnosed CD had limited comorbidity and no increase in mortality compared with controls. Some subjects were diagnosed with CD within a decade of serum collection, indicating that although most cases of undiagnosed CD are clinically silent, some result in symptoms. Undiagnosed CD can confer benefits and liabilities to older individuals.
Cooperation and conflict resolution via negotiation among autonomous agents in noncooperative domains

The authors present a theoretical negotiation model for rational agents in general noncooperative domains. Necessary and sufficient conditions for cooperation are outlined. By redefining the concept of utility, it is possible to enlarge the number of situations that have a cooperative solution. An approach is offered for conflict resolution, and it is shown that even in a conflict situation, partial cooperative steps can be taken by interacting agents. A unified negotiation protocol is developed that can be used in all cases. It is shown that in certain borderline cooperative situations, a partial cooperative agreement might be preferred by all agents, even though there exists a rational agreement that would achieve all their goals. A deal hierarchy is presented that captures the partial order among various kinds of deals between agents. The multiplan deal, which involves negotiating over a pair of joint plans simultaneously, allows cooperative agreement and conflict resolution in both fixed goal and flexible goal domains. >
Development of Satellite-Based Emission Inventories and Indoor Exposure Prediction Models for PM2.5

Epidemiological studies have documented significant relationships between outdoor particle exposure and adverse health effects whilst indoor residential PM2.5 exposure is found to be the most influential on total PM2.5 exposure as people spend more than 80% of their time indoors. Accurate exposure assessments for ambient and indoor environments are therefore of equal importance. In this dissertation, we aim to develop methodologies that enhance our ability to quantify fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure in both macro and micro perspective. With advanced remote sensing technologies becoming more prevalent and less expensive, there is great potential in employing satellite date to analyze and illustrate ambient air quality in real-time over large geographic areas. In Chapter 1, we introduced a top down approach to construct PM2.5 emission inventory through the integration of mass balance and satellite retrieved daily Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 1km x 1km resolution. The satellite-based inventory provides spatiallyand temporally-resolved emission estimates as opposed to the conventional source-oriented inventory that has time lag issues with limited spatial variability to the extent of its data source (usually ground monitoring network). Subsequently in Chapter 2, we quantified the temporal and spatial trends of PM2.5 emission in the North East U.S. using the satellite-based emission inventory. Satellite-based emission trends are in agreement with that of the sourceoriented inventories released by the US EPA, showing major reductions achieved in urban areas
Protective factors relating to decreased risks of adolescent suicidal behaviour.

BACKGROUND Suicide has been identified as one of the three leading causes of death in adolescents and young adults. No previous study in China has tested the association between protective factors and urban adolescents' suicidal behaviours. In this study we tested the hypothesis that suicidal behaviours would be associated with multiple protective factors. METHODS A stratified random of 9015 students from 100 junior middle schools in Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Urumqi completed the Chinese version of Global School-Based Student Health Survey. RESULTS Overall, 17.4% of students had seriously considered attempting suicide, and 8.1% had made a specific plan to attempt suicide during the 12 months preceding the survey. The students in Wuhan (18.7%) and Urumqi (20.8%) cities were significantly more likely than students in Beijing (14.4%) and Hangzhou (14.4%) to have suicidal ideation (chi2 = 45.9, P < 0.001). Female students were significantly more likely than male students to have suicidal ideation and have made suicide attempts [odds ratio (OR) = 1.4, P < 0.001]. Results indicated that the rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts increased with age (OR = 1.44, P < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression models showed that suicide risk tended to decrease significantly when 'days of missed classes or school without permission were less than one', and when students thought students in their school were kind and helpful most of the time or always', 'parents or guardians checked to see if homework was done most of the time or always', 'parents or guardians understood their problems and worries most of the time or always' and 'parents or guardians really know what they are doing with their free time most of the time or always'. CONCLUSIONS Adolescent suicide behaviour should be a serious problem. Measures can be taken to prevent suicide by observing the factors significantly linked to suicidal behaviour. Steps can then be taken to identify adolescents who have serious suicidal ideation so that intervention can be taken to reduce the suicidal rate.
What’s behind a P600? Integration Operations during Irony Processing

The combined knowledge of word meanings and grammatical rules does not allow a listener to grasp the intended meaning of a speaker’s utterance. Pragmatic inferences on the part of the listener are also required. The present work focuses on the processing of ironic utterances (imagine a slow day being described as “really productive”) because these clearly require the listener to go beyond the linguistic code. Such utterances are advantageous experimentally because they can serve as their own controls in the form of literal sentences (now imagine an active day being described as “really productive”) as we employ techniques from electrophysiology (EEG). Importantly, the results confirm previous ERP findings showing that irony processing elicits an enhancement of the P600 component (Regel et al., 2011). More original are the findings drawn from Time Frequency Analysis (TFA) and especially the increase of power in the gamma band in the 280–400 time-window, which points to an integration among different streams of information relatively early in the comprehension of an irony. This represents a departure from traditional accounts of language processing which generally view pragmatic inferences as late-arriving. We propose that these results indicate that unification operations between the linguistic code and contextual information play a critical role throughout the course of irony processing and earlier than previously thought.
Quadtree-structured recursive plane decomposition coding of images

The approximation of two-dimensional highly correlated grey value functions can be performed using a linear model of the type f(x, y)=a+bx+cy. The set of plane parameters (PPs) (a, b, c) can be determined in the least squares sense for a block of size N*N pixels, for example. Starting with a block size of 2*2 pixels, it is shown that the PPs obey a recursive law such that the PPs of a 2N*2N block can be computed recursively when only the PPs of the four adjacent subblocks of size N*N in the lower decomposition level are known. This concept of recursive plane decomposition (RPD) is embedded in a quadtree data structure to obtain a new variable block size image coding algorithm that offers a high performance at a low computational cost. Extensive comparisons to other state-of-the-art image coding algorithms are reported. >
Identifying decision strategies in a consumer choice situation

In two studies on mobile phone purchase decisions, we investigated consumers’ decision strategies with a newly developed process tracing tool called InterActive Process Tracing (IAPT). This tool is a combination of several process tracing techniques (Active Information Search, Mouselab, and retrospective verbal protocol). After repeatedly choosing one of four mobile phones, participants formalized their strategy so that it could be used to make choices for them. The choices made by the identified strategies correctly predicted the observed choices in 73% (Experiment 1) and 67% (Experiment 2) of the cases. Moreover, in Experiment 2 we directly compared Mouselab and eye tracking with respect to their impact on information search and strategy description. We found only minor differences between these two methods. We conclude that IAPT is a useful research tool to identify choice strategies, and that using eye tracking technology did not increase its validity beyond that gained with Mouselab.
Orthogonal Striping and Mirroring in Distributed RAID for I/O-Centric Cluster Computing

This paper presents a new distributed disk-array architecture for achieving high I/O performance in scalable cluster computing. In a serverless cluster of computers, all distributed local disks can be integrated as a distributed-software redundant array of independent disks (ds-RAID) with a single I/O space. We report the new RAID-x design and its benchmark performance results. The advantage of RAID-x comes mainly from its orthogonal striping and mirroring (OSM) architecture. The bandwidth is enhanced with distributed striping across local and remote disks, while the reliability comes from orthogonal mirroring on local disks at the background. Our RAID-x design is experimentally compared with the RAID-5, RAID-10, and chained-declustering RAID through benchmarking on a research Linux cluster at USC. Andrew and Bonnie benchmark results are reported on all four disk-array architectures. Cooperative disk drivers and Linux extensions are developed to enable not only the single I/O space, but also the shared virtual memory and global file hierarchy. We reveal the effects of traffic rate and stripe unit size on I/O performance. Through scalability and overhead analysis, we find the strength of RAID-x in three areas: 1) improved aggregate I/O bandwidth especially for parallel writes, 2) orthogonal mirroring with low software overhead, and 3) enhanced scalability in cluster I/O processing. Architectural strengths and weakness of all four ds-RAID architectures are evaluated comparatively. The optimal choice among them depends on parallel read/write performance desired, the level of fault tolerance required, and the cost-effectiveness in specific I/O processing applications.
Passively mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk laser with active multipass geometry

german) Für viele wirtschaftlich-technischen Anwendungen aber auch auf dem Gebiet der Grundlagenforschung sind ultrakurze Laserimpulse mit Energien im MikrojouleBereich von großer Bedeutung. Entsprechende Impulsenergien wurden bisher in der Regel mit Hilfe externer Verstärkungssysteme erzeugt. Verglichen mit solchen Verstärkern sind Oszillatoren als hochenergetische Ultrakurzimpuls-Quelle aufgrund ihrer Einfachheit und Kompaktheit sehr attraktiv. Beim Verstärkungsmedium solcher Oszillatoren bietet die Scheiben-Geometrie entscheidene Vorteile, denn durch diese lassen sich neben den hohen Impulsenergien auch hohe mittlere Ausgangsleistungen gewährleisten. Mit einem Scheibenlaser ist eine Leistungsskalierbarkeit durch Vergrößerung des Strahlbündeldurchmessers unter Ausnutzung der exzellenten Kühleigenschaften der Scheibe möglich. Bis zu einem gewissem Grad kann die Impulsenergie von einem Scheibenlaseroszillator durch Cavity-Dumping oder mithilfe von passiv verlängerten Resonatoren vergrößert werden. Die höchsten Impulsenergien, die bisher direkt mit einem solchen in Umgebungsluft betriebenen Oszillators andernorts erzeugt wurden, liegen unterhalb von 2 μJ, im wesentlichen beschränkt durch die starke Selbstphasenmodulation der Luft. Größere Impulsenergien von bis zu 11 μJ und bei Pikosekundenimpulslängen konnten außerhalb der vorliegenden Arbeit nur in mit Helium-gefluteten Kavitäten erzeugt werden. Um den Einfluß der Selbstphasenmodulation der Luft auf die Modenkopplungsdynamik zu verkleinern, kann man größere Auskoppelgrade in Kombination mit einem Lasermedium höherer Kleinsignalverstärkung verwenden. Um dies aber mit den Vorteilen eines Scheibenlasersystems zu erreichen, muss der geringe Verstärkungsgrad der Scheibe umgangen werden. Thema dieser Dissertation war die Konzeption und Erforschung eines neuartigen modengekoppelten Scheibenlaseroszillators mit vergrößerter Kleinsignalumlaufverstärkung. Durch eine sich selbst abbildende Vielfachübergangsgeometrie konnten erstmalig von einem Oszillator direkt erzeugte Impulsenergien von bis zu 25.9 μJ demonstriert werden. Die dabei generierten Impulse hatten eine Länge von 928 fs. Der in Umgebungsluft betriebene Laser hatte eine mittlere Ausgangleistung von 76 W bei einer Impulswiederholrate von 2.93 MHz und einer Auskoppelrate von 78%. Selbststartendes passives Modenkoppeln wurde mithilfe eines sättigbaren Absorberspiegels (SESAM) erreicht. Für ein besseres Verständnis der Modenkopplungsdynamik und insbesondere der Rolle des SESAMs wurden Experimente mit verschiedenen makroskopisch gut charakterisierten SESAMs durchgeführt. Darüber hinaus wurden verschiedene Resonatorgeometrien, Pumpfleckgrößen und Scheibendicken in ihrer Anwendung im Laserresonator untersucht. Die verschiedenen Aufbauten werden beschrieben und