Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating the E3SM land model version 0 (ELMv0) at a temperate forest site using flux and soil water measurements

Abstract. Accurate simulations of soil respiration and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes are critical to project global biogeochemical cycles and the magnitude of carbon–climate feedbacks in Earth system models (ESMs). Currently, soil respiration is not represented well in ESMs, and few studies have attempted to address this deficiency. In this study, we evaluated the simulation of soil respiration in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) land model version 0 (ELMv0) using long-term observations from the Missouri Ozark AmeriFlux (MOFLUX) forest site in the central US. Simulations using the default model parameters underestimated soil water potential (SWP) during peak growing seasons and overestimated SWP during non-growing seasons and consequently underestimated annual soil respiration and gross primary production (GPP). A site-specific soil water retention curve greatly improved model simulations of SWP, GPP, and soil respiration. However, the model continued to underestimate the seasonal and interannual variabilities and the impact of the extreme drought in 2012. Potential reasons may include inadequate representations of vegetation mortality, the soil moisture function, and the dynamics of microbial organisms and soil macroinvertebrates. Our results indicate that the simulations of mean annual GPP and soil respiration can be significantly improved by better model representations of the soil water retention curve.
Challenges in the New Roles of Physical Education as Liberal Education in Higher Education

ABSTRACT This article explores the current state and new roles of physical education as liberal education (PELE) in higher education. Recently, there has been growing discontent with PELE due to program redundancy and lack of educational power in higher education. However, little attention has been given to how to reconstruct PELE in higher education. To investigate this matter, this article examines (a) the origins and rationale of liberal education; (b) similarities and differences between liberal education, general education, and liberal arts; and (c) connections between liberal education and physical education. To conclude, two challenges of PELE in higher education are presented. These issues need to be overcome to bring PELE authentically into the world of colleges and universities.
Aspirin Promotes Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cell Proliferation and Differentiation after White Matter Lesion

Cerebral white matter lesion (WML) is one of the main causes for cognitive impairment and is often caused by chronic cerebral hypoperfusion. A line of evidence has shown that aspirin has neuroprotective effects and produces some benefits in long-term outcome and survival for ischemic stroke patients. However, whether aspirin exerts a protective effect against WML is still largely unknown. Here, we showed that aspirin could promote oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) proliferation and differentiation into oligodendrocytes after WML. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to permanent bilateral common carotid artery occlusion, a well-established model for WML. Four weeks later, Morris water maze test showed an impairment of learning and memory ability of rat while aspirin treatment improved behavioral performance. Low dose of aspirin (25 mg/kg) was found to elevate the number of OPCs while relatively high doses (100–200 mg/kg) increased that of oligodendrocytes, and ameliorated WML-induced the thinning of myelin, as revealed by the electron microscope. Similarly, our in vitro study also showed that relatively low and high doses of aspirin enhanced OPC proliferation and differentiation into oligodendrocytes, respectively. Furthermore, we revealed that aspirin enhanced extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) but inhibited RhoA activities. In summary, we provided the first evidence that aspirin can promote oligodendrogenesis and oligodendrocyte myelination after WML, which may involve ERK and RhoA pathways.
Leaning Against Boom-Bust Cycles in Credit and Housing Prices

This paper studies the potential gains of monetary and macro-prudential policies that lean against house-price and credit cycles. We rely on a model that features Borrowers and Savers and allows for over-borrowing induced by news-shock-driven cycles. We find that policy that responds to changes in financial variables is socially optimal. Considering the use of a single policy instrument, both types of agents are better off when the interest rate optimally responds to credit growth. When we allow for the implementation of both interest-rate and LTV policies, heterogeneity in the welfare implications is key in determining the optimal use of policy instruments. The optimal policy for the Borrowers is characterized by a LTV ratio that responds countercyclically to credit growth, which most effectively stabilizes credit relative to GDP. In contrast, the optimal policy for the Savers features a constant LTV ratio coupled with an interest-rate response to credit growth. News-shock-driven cycles account for most of the gains from a policy response to changes in financial variables.
Narrow identity resources for future students: the 21st century skills movement encounters the Norwegian education policy context

ABSTRACT 21st century skills is a global network of corporate and governmental influences that promotes competences suited to fit the future knowledge economy. Through a discourse analysis of an influential Official Norwegian Report, ‘The School of the Future. Renewal of Subjects and Competences’ (NOU 2015:8), this paper explores how ideas of 21st century skills are translated into the Norwegian education policy context. Firstly, the paper analyses the context-specific reasons for receptiveness by investigating discursive warrants. Secondly, the paper identifies how the policy document constructs a set of preferred subject positions that constitute an image of an ideal student. Thirdly, the paper investigates the discursive framing of these subject positions. We find that the policy document constructs an image of an ideal student who is creative, responsible, cooperative, engaged, self-regulated and in complete control of herself, her learning and her future. This image draws on more pronounced neo-liberal discourses, but also well-established discourses in the Norwegian context, such as social democratic progressivism. This intertwining of discourses shows how traits of homogeneity related to global ideas, as well as heterogeneity related to the Norwegian policy context, are both visible in the Norwegian translation of 21st century skills.
Learning Latinidad: The role of a Latino cultural center service-learning course in Latino identity inquiry and sociopolitical capacity

ABSTRACT College culture centers are safe havens for underrepresented students, yet we know little about them. Through a survey with open- and closed-ended questions, this exploratory study examined the experiences and learning of 9 out of 11 college students who completed an academic course offered through a Latino Cultural Center (LCC). Through analysis of open-ended responses, we found that these students (1) engaged in Latino identity inquiry; (2) developed critical consciousness; (3) developed sociopolitical capacity; and (4) viewed Latino faculty as valuable to their learning. Findings have implications for conceptualizing Latino identity inquiry and framing concepts for future LCC research.
Design and control of automated guided vehicle systems: A case study

In this paper, we study the design and control of automated guided vehicle (AGV) systems, with the focus on the quayside container transport in an automated container terminal. We first set up an event-driven model for an AGV system in the zone control framework. Then a number of layouts of the road network (guide-path) are carefully designed for the workspace of the AGVs in a container terminal. Based on our zone control model, a traffic control strategy is proposed, which decouples the motion conflict resolution among the AGVs from the routing problem. A routing algorithm is also constructed with the goal of minimizing the vehicle travel distances and the transportation time. The efficiency of the integrated design and control is demonstrated by computer simulations in terms of a set of defined measures of system performance. Lastly, we point out several possibilities towards improving our current results.
CAD Model to Predict the Effect of Radome on the Characteristics of Rectangular Patch Antenna

A simple CAD model based on cavity model analysis is proposed to compute accurately the resonant frequency, input impedance, and gain of radome loaded rectangular patch antenna. The computed values using present model for wide range of radome parameters are compared with different theoretical and experimental values available in open literature. To validate the present model, we have performed several sets of experiments. The present model shows very close agreements with the experiments compared to the other models. We have also used electromagnetic software (HFSS) to generate simulated data. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:2460–2468, 2013
Video Ladder Networks

We present the Video Ladder Network (VLN) for efficiently generating future video frames. VLN is a neural encoder-decoder model augmented at all layers by both recurrent and feedforward lateral connections. At each layer, these connections form a lateral recurrent residual block, where the feedforward connection represents a skip connection and the recurrent connection represents the residual. Thanks to the recurrent connections, the decoder can exploit temporal summaries generated from all layers of the encoder. This way, the top layer is relieved from the pressure of modeling lower-level spatial and temporal details. Furthermore, we extend the basic version of VLN to incorporate ResNet-style residual blocks in the encoder and decoder, which help improving the prediction results. VLN is trained in self-supervised regime on the Moving MNIST dataset, achieving competitive results while having very simple structure and providing fast inference.
The Spatial, Temporal, and Configurational Characteristics of Geographic Dispersion in Teams

As organizations operate across greater distances, scholars are increasingly interested in the work of geographically dispersed teams and the technologies that they use to communicate and coordinate their work. However, research has generally not specified the dimensions (spatial, temporal, and configurational) and degrees of team dispersion, nor has it articulated the theoretical connections between those dimensions and important team outcomes. Our Research Essay expands upon previous field and lab studies of dispersed teamwork by presenting a new conceptualization of dispersion as a continuous, multi-dimensional construct, in which each dimension is theoretically linked with different outcomes. We illustrate this new conceptualization with a series of examples from real dispersed teams and present implications for research regarding technology use.
Hybrid framework based on evidence theory for blood cell image segmentation

The segmentation of microscopic images is an important issue in biomedical image processing. Many works can be found in the literature; however, there is not a gold standard method that is able to provide good results for all kinds of microscopic images. Then, authors propose methods for a given kind of microscopic images. This paper deals with new segmentation framework based on evidence theory, called ESA (Evidential Segmentation Algorithm) to segment blood cell images. The proposed algorithm allows solving the segmentation problem of blood cell images. Herein, our goal is to extract the components of a given cell image by using evidence theory, that allows more flexibility to classify the pixels. The obtained results showed the efficiency of the proposed algorithm compared to other competing methods.
Metallicity of the Intergalactic Medium Using Pixel Statistics. IV. Oxygen

We have studied the abundance of oxygen in the IGM by analyzing O VI, C IV, Si IV, and H I pixel optical depths derived from a set of high-quality VLT and Keck spectra of 17 QSOs at 2.1≲ z≲ 3.6. Comparing ratios τO VI/τC IV(τC IV) to those in realistic, synthetic spectra drawn from a hydrodynamical simulation and comparing to existing constraints on [Si/C] places strong constraints on the ultraviolet background (UVB) model using weak priors on allowed values of [Si/O]: for example, a quasar-only background yields [ Si/O ] ≈ 1.4, which is highly inconsistent with the [ Si/O ] ≈ 0 expected from nucleosynthetic yields and with observations of metal-poor stars. Assuming a fiducial quasar+galaxy UVB consistent with these constraints yields a primary result that [ O/C ] = 0.66 ± 0.06 ± 0.2; this result pertains to gas with overdensity δ ≳ 2. Consistent results are obtained by similarly comparing τO VI/τH I(τH I) and τO VI/τSi IV(τSi IV) to simulation values, and also by directly ionization-correcting τO VI/τH I as a function of τH I into [O/H] as a function of density. Subdividing the sample reveals no evidence for evolution, but low- and high-τH I samples are inconsistent, suggesting either density dependence of [O/C] or—more likely—prevalence of collisionally ionized gas at high density.
Trade‐offs among Catch, Bycatch, and Landed Value in the American Samoa Longline Fishery

The interspecific preferences of fishes for different depths and habitats suggest fishers could avoid unwanted catches of some species while still effectively targeting other species. In pelagic longline fisheries, albacore (Thunnus alalunga) are often caught in relatively cooler, deeper water (>100 m) than many species of conservation concern (e.g., sea turtles, billfishes, and some sharks) that are caught in shallower water (<100 m). From 2007 to 2011, we examined the depth distributions of hooks for 1154 longline sets (3,406,946 hooks) and recorded captures by hook position on 2642 sets (7,829,498 hooks) in the American Samoa longline fishery. Twenty‐three percent of hooks had a settled depth <100 m. Individuals captured in the 3 shallowest hook positions accounted for 18.3% of all bycatch. We analyzed hypothetical impacts for 25 of the most abundant species caught in the fishery by eliminating the 3 shallowest hook positions under scenarios with and without redistribution of these hooks to deeper depths. Distributions varied by species: 45.5% (n = 10) of green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), 59.5% (n = 626) of shortbill spearfish (Tetrapturus angustirostris), 37.3% (n = 435) of silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis), and 42.6% (n = 150) of oceanic whitetip shark (C. longimanus) were caught on the 3 shallowest hooks. Eleven percent (n = 20,435) of all tuna and 8.5% (n = 10,374) of albacore were caught on the 3 shallowest hooks. Hook elimination reduced landed value by 1.6–9.2%, and redistribution of hooks increased average annual landed value relative to the status quo by 5–11.7%. Based on these scenarios, redistribution of hooks to deeper depths may provide an economically feasible modification to longline gear that could substantially reduce bycatch for a suite of vulnerable species. Our results suggest that this method may be applicable to deep‐set pelagic longline fisheries worldwide.
Relative Importance for Linear Regression in R: The Package relaimpo

Relative importance is a topic that has seen a lot of interest in recent years, particularly in applied work. The R package relaimpo implements six different metrics for assessing relative importance of regressors in the linear model, two of which are recommended - averaging over orderings of regressors and a newly proposed metric (Feldman 2005) called pmvd. Apart from delivering the metrics themselves, relaimpo also provides (exploratory) bootstrap confidence intervals. This paper offers a brief tutorial introduction to the package. The methods and relaimpo's functionality are illustrated using the data set swiss that is generally available in R. The paper targets readers who have a basic understanding of multiple linear regression. For the background of more advanced aspects, references are provided.
Development and Stem Cells Research Article

INTRODUCTION Owing to highly productive research efforts in recent years, Drosophila has emerged as a valuable organism for the discovery and analysis of genes controlling hematopoiesis (Evans et al. As in vertebrate animals, blood cell formation occurs in multiple spatiotemporal waves during Drosophila development. Transplantation experiments using single cells derived from blastoderm stage embryos have indicated that blood cell precursors arise from two distinct origins: cephalic mesoderm that generates embryonic hemocytes and a thoracic mesodermal region that will form lymph glands (Holz et al., 2003), the organ used for hematopoiesis during larval development (Lebestky et al., 2000). Differentiated hemocytes produced during both hematopoietic waves possess characteristics comparable to those found in vertebrate myeloid lineages (Meister and Langueux, 2003). Embryo-derived blood cells include plasmatocytes and crystal cells. Plasmatocytes constitute the major class, functioning as macrophage-like cells that mediate phagocytosis of bacterial pathogens and apoptotic bodies. Crystal cells make up the minor class, being involved in wound healing and large foreign body encapsulation. Together, they number ~700 cells by the end of embryogenesis and persist into
Crossover study of (99m)Tc-TRODAT-1 SPECT and (18)F-FDOPA PET in Parkinson's disease patients.

UNLABELLED 99mTc-TRODAT-1 ([2-[[2-[[[3-(4-chlorophenyl)-8-methyl-8-azabicyclo[3,2,1]oct-2-yl]methyl](2-mercaptoethyl)amino]ethyl]amino]ethanethiolato(3-)-N2,N2',S2,S2']oxo-[1R-(exo-exo)]) is a potential agent for dopamine transporter (DAT) SPECT, whereas 6-(18)F-fluoro-L-dopa ((18)F-FDOPA) PET has been used for the quantitative assessment of presynaptic nigrostriatal dopaminergic function. The current study investigated the relationship between the 2 imaging modalities in evaluating patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS Twenty patients in whom PD was diagnosed by generally accepted criteria were recruited. In addition to visual inspection, specific uptake ratios (SURs) of (99m)Tc-TRODAT-1 in the striatum and putamen were measured bilaterally. For PET, all patients received 100 mg of carbidopa 90 min before (18)F-FDOPA (300 MBq) injection. Images were acquired between 120 and 150 min after injection, using a whole-body PET scanner with settings identical to those for the SPECT studies. The SURs for PET were calculated similarly to those for SPECT. Individual SURs of the striatum or putamen from SPECT were correlated with the corresponding PET values using linear regression. RESULTS A consistent image pattern between SPECT and PET was achieved by visual inspection except for 3 cases. In 1 case (a patient with Hoehn and Yahr Scale I PD), the SPECT images were more compatible with the patient's clinical findings whereas PET showed nearly normal uptake. In the other 2 cases (both patients with Hoehn and Yahr Scale II PD), PET correlated better with the clinical findings. The caudate and putamen nuclei were more discernable on PET. An acceptable correlation of SUR, however, was found between SPECT and PET in both the striatum and the putamen (P < 0.01 for both). CONCLUSION The comparability of (99m)Tc-TRODAT-1 SPECT and (18)F-FDOPA PET suggests that (99m)Tc-TRODAT-1 SPECT may provide a reliable alternative to (18)F-FDOPA PET in the evaluation of clinical PD patients.
Observation of beam-induced changes in the polarization of Balmer- alpha radiation emitted following beam-tilted-foil transmission.

Measurements of the circular polarization of Balmer-{alpha} radiation emitted by excited hydrogen atoms, following the transmission of (20--50)-keV protons through thin, tilted amorphous carbon foils, exhibit markedly unexpected behavior as a function of exposure of the foil to the proton beam. Specifically, the circular polarization changes from an initially well understood tilt-angle dependence to a behavior which, for low tilt angles, gives the {ital opposite} {ital handedness} {ital of} {ital circular} {ital polarization} from that predicted. In addition, the degree of alignment, indicated by the linear Stokes parameter {ital M}/{ital I}, is enhanced also as a function of dose. These changes in the tilt-angle dependence of the Stokes parameters have been systematically correlated with beam-induced graphitization of the foil, which is observed to occur from Raman measurements.
Impact of burst errors on framing

There has been an emerging interest in using ATM for wireless transmissions. Because ATM is primarily designed for a rather benign error free environment, in the wireless context the sources of errors and their consequences must be thoroughly understood. While this concern is valid in any network, it takes on a new more central role in the mobile wireless environment, where error bursts are expected to be a very significant source of degradation. These concerns motivate this study of the impact of errors on ATM cell transfer in the wireless environment. In this paper, we examine the impact of burst errors on the direct transfer of ATM cells taking into account the cell framing format. We examine the consequences of interleaving as well as the impact of fading. We find that fragmenting the data in cells could result in a much higher error rate as seen by the higher layers relative to the bit error rate on the raw channel.
A weighted buddy method for dynamic storage allocation

An extension of the buddy method, called the weighted buddy method, for dynamic storage allocation is presented. The weighted buddy method allows block sizes of 2<supscrpt><italic>k</italic></supscrpt> and 3·2<supscrpt><italic>k</italic></supscrpt>, whereas the original buddy method allowed only block sizes of 2<supscrpt><italic>k</italic></supscrpt>. This extension is achieved at an additional cost of only two bits per block. Simulation results are presented which compare this method with the buddy method. These results indicate that, for a uniform request distribution, the buddy system has less total memory fragmentation than the weighted buddy algorithm. However, the total fragmentation is smaller for the weighted buddy method when the requests are for exponentially distributed block sizes.
Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences

Even though the provision of equal opportunities for men and women has been a priority in many countries, large gender differences prevail in competitive high-ranking positions. Suggested explanations include discrimination and differences in preferences and human capital. In this paper we present experimental evidence in support of an additional factor: women may be less effective than men in competitive environments, even if they are able to perform similarly in non-competitive environments. In a laboratory experiment we observe, as we increase the competitiveness of the environment, a significant increase in performance for men, but not for women. This results in a significant gender gap in performance in tournaments, while there is no gap when participants are paid according to piece rate. This effect is stronger when women have to compete against men than in single-sex competitive environments: this suggests that women may be able to perform in competitive environments per se.