Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fine root responses of mature deciduous forest trees to free air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE)

Summary 1. Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentrations have often been reported to increase carbon allocation below-ground, particularly to fine root production. However, for trees these responses have primarily been studied in young expanding systems while the evidence for late successional systems that have reached steady state above- and below-ground is very limited. 2. At the Swiss Canopy Crane (SCC) experimental site, we assessed whether elevated CO 2 affects fine root biomass, fine root expansion and fine root C and N concentration under mature deciduous trees ( c . 100 years) exposed to 7 years of free air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) in a typical near-natural central European forest. 3. After 5 and 6 years of CO 2 enrichment, both, the soil core and ingrowth core method yielded similar reductions in biomass of c . ‐30% under elevated CO 2 for live fine roots < 1 mm diameter. In year 7 of the experiment, when fine root biomass was re-assessed at peak season, there was no significant CO 2 -effect detectable. C and N concentrations in newly produced fine roots remained unaffected by elevated CO 2 . Soil moisture under CO 2 -exposed trees was significantly increased during rainless periods. 4. The isotopic label introduced into the system by canopy enrichment with 13 C-depleted CO 2 allowed us to trace the newly assimilated carbon. After 6 years of growth at 550 ppm CO 2 , recent fine roots (< 1 mm, ingrowth cores) of CO 2 -enriched trees consisted of 51% new carbon, suggesting a rather slow root turnover and/or slow mixing of old and new carbon in these trees. 5. Reduced tree water consumption under elevated CO 2 and resultant soil water savings might cause these trees to reduce their fine root investments in a future CO 2 -enriched atmosphere. 6. Our findings and those from other multi-year experiments indicate that fine root mass in late successional systems may also be unaffected or even suppressed instead of being stimulated by elevated CO 2 .
An Automatic Subject Specific Intrinsic Mode Function Selection for Enhancing Two-Class EEG-Based Motor Imagery-Brain Computer Interface

The electroencephalogram (EEG) signals tend to have poor time-frequency localization when analysis techniques involve a fixed set of basis functions such as in short-time Fourier transform and wavelet transform. These signals also exhibit highly non-stationary characteristics and suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). As a result, there is often poor task detection accuracy and high error rates in designed brain-computer interfacing (BCI) systems. In this paper, a novel preprocessing method is proposed to automatically reconstruct the EEG signal by selecting the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) based on a median frequency measure. Multivariate empirical mode decomposition is used to decompose the EEG signals into a set of IMFs. The reconstructed EEG signal has high SNR and contains only information correlated to a specific motor imagery task. The common spatial pattern is used to extract features from the reconstructed EEG signals. The linear discriminant analysis and support vector machine have been utilized in order to classify the features into left hand motor imagery and right hand motor imagery tasks. Our experimental results on the BCI competition IV dataset 2A show that the proposed method with fifteen channels outperforms bandpass filtering with 22 channels (>1%) and by >9 % <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(p = 0.0078)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with raw EEG signals, >13% <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(p = 0.0039)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with empirical mode decomposition-based filtering and >17 % <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(p = 0.0039)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with discrete wavelet transform-based filtering.
Querying Time Series Data Based on Similarity

We study similarity queries for time series data where similarity is defined, in a fairly general way, in terms of a distance function and a set of affine transformations on the Fourier series representation of a sequence. We identify a safe set of transformations supporting a wide variety of comparisons and show that this set is rich enough to formulate operations such as moving average and time scaling. We also show that queries expressed using safe transformations can efficiently be computed without prior knowledge of the transformations. We present a query processing algorithm that uses the underlying multidimensional index built over the data set to efficiently answer similarity queries. Our experiments show that the performance of this algorithm is competitive to that of processing ordinary (exact match) queries using the index, and much faster than sequential scanning. We propose a generalization of this algorithm for simultaneously handling multiple transformations at a time, and give experimental results on the performance of the generalized algorithm.
A case study of pyro-convection using transport model and remote sensing data

Summer 2004 saw severe forest fires in Alaska and the Yukon Territory that were mostly triggered by light- ning strikes. The area burned (>2.7◊10 6 ha) in the year 2004 was the highest on record to date in Alaska. Pollutant emis- sions from the fires lead to violation of federal standards for air quality in Fairbanks. This paper studies deep convection events that occurred in the burning regions at the end of June 2004. The con- vection was likely enhanced by the strong forest fire activ- ity (so-called pyro-convection) and penetrated into the lower stratosphere, up to about 3 km above the tropopause. Emis- sions from the fires did not only perturb the UT/LS locally, but also regionally. POAM data at the approximate loca- tion of Edmonton (53.5 N, 113.5 W) show that the UT/LS aerosol extinction was enhanced by a factor of 4 relative to unperturbed conditions. Simulations with the particle disper- sion model FLEXPART with the deep convective transport scheme turned on showed transport of forest fire emissions into the stratosphere, in qualitatively good agreement with the enhancements seen in the POAM data. A correspond- ing simulation with the deep convection scheme turned off did not result in such deep vertical transport. Lidar mea- surements at Wisconsin on 30 June also show the presence of substantial aerosol loading in the UT/LS, up to about 13 km. In fact, the FLEXPART results suggest that this aerosol plume originated from the Yukon Territory on 25 June.
Psychological factors in precognitive dream experiences:: The role of paranormal belief, selective recall and propensity to find correspondences.

We report two studies into psychological factors that have been proposed to contribute to the experience of having had a precognitive dream. Study 1 investigated the role of selective recall in precognitive dream experiences. Participants read two diaries, one purporting to be a dream diary, and one purporting to be a diary of events in the dreamer's life. The events either confirmed or disconfirmed the reported dreams. As predicted, a significantly greater number of confirmed than disconfirmed dream-event pairs were recalled. Study 1 also investigated whether paranormal belief moderated the selective recall effect, but no relationship was found. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that paranormal beliefs may in part arise from a propensity to associate unrelated events. Participants undertook two tasks. For the 'contextual' task, participants were asked to find correspondences between randomly-paired news articles and dream reports. The 'neutral' task invited participants to produce a noun that would provide an associative connection between two unrelated nouns. As predicted, paranormal belief and precognitive dream belief were found to correlate significantly with ability to find correspondences between dreams and news event pairs. Contrary to prediction, no relationship was found between belief and performance on the neutral association task. Together, these studies illustrate the operation of mechanisms that, when present in individuals having dreams and experiencing subsequent events, would tend to lead to an increase in the number of experiences of a seeming coincidence between dreams and events that can be interpreted as precognitive.
Exercise: a “new drug” for elderly patients with chronic heart failure

Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) experience progressive deterioration of functional capacity and quality of life (QoL). This prospective, randomized, controlled trial assesses the effect of exercise training (ET) protocol on functional capacity, rehospitalization, and QoL in CHF patients older than 70 years compared with a control group. A total of 343 elderly patients with stable CHF (age, 76.90±5.67, men, 195, 56.9%) were randomized to ET (TCG, n=170) or usual care (UCG, n=173). The ET protocol involved supervised training sessions for 3 months in the hospital followed by home-telemonitored sessions for 3 months. Assessments, performed at baseline and at 3 and 6 months, included: ECG, resting echocardiography, NT-proBNP, 6-minute walk test (6MWT), Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire, and comprehensive geriatric assessment with the InterRAI-HC instrument. As compared to UCG, ET patients at 6 months showed: i) significantly increased 6MWT distance (450±83 vs. 290±97 m, p<0.001); ii) increased ADL scores (5.00±2.49 vs. 6.94±5.66, p=0.037); iii) 40% reduced risk of rehospitalisation (hazard ratio=0.558, 95%CI, 0.326-0.954, p=0.033); and iv) significantly improved perceived QoL (28.6±12.3 vs. 44.5±12.3, p<0.001). In hospital and home-based telemonitored exercise confer significant benefits on the oldest CHF patients, improving functional capacity and subjective QoL and reducing risk of rehospitalisation.
Strategies for Wheat Stripe Rust Pathogenicity Identified by Transcriptome Sequencing

Stripe rust caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst) is a major constraint to wheat production worldwide. The molecular events that underlie Pst pathogenicity are largely unknown. Like all rusts, Pst creates a specialized cellular structure within host cells called the haustorium to obtain nutrients from wheat, and to secrete pathogenicity factors called effector proteins. We purified Pst haustoria and used next-generation sequencing platforms to assemble the haustorial transcriptome as well as the transcriptome of germinated spores. 12,282 transcripts were assembled from 454-pyrosequencing data and used as reference for digital gene expression analysis to compare the germinated uredinospores and haustoria transcriptomes based on Illumina RNAseq data. More than 400 genes encoding secreted proteins which constitute candidate effectors were identified from the haustorial transcriptome, with two thirds of these up-regulated in this tissue compared to germinated spores. RT-PCR analysis confirmed the expression patterns of 94 effector candidates. The analysis also revealed that spores rely mainly on stored energy reserves for growth and development, while haustoria take up host nutrients for massive energy production for biosynthetic pathways and the ultimate production of spores. Together, these studies substantially increase our knowledge of potential Pst effectors and provide new insights into the pathogenic strategies of this important organism.
Association Analysis of Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) Markers with Agronomic Traits in Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.)

Tall fescue is widely used in temperate regions throughout the world as a dominant forage grass as well as a turfgrass, in pastoral and turf industry. However, the utilization of tall fescue was limited because of its leaf roughness, poor regeneration ability and poor stress resistance. New cultivars were desirable in modern pastoral industries exceed the potential of existing cultivars. Therefore, well understanding the agronomic traits and describing germplasms would help to overcome these constraints, and morphological evaluation of tall fescue germplasm is the key component in selecting rational parents for hybridization breeding. However, describing the morphological traits of tall fescue germplasm is costly and time-consuming. Fortunately, biotechnology approaches can supplement conventional breeding efforts for tall fescue improvement. Association mapping, as a powerful approach to identify association between agronomic traits and molecular markers has been widely used for enhancing the utilization, conservation and management of the tall fescue germplasms. Therefore, in the present research, 115 tall fescue accessions from different origins (25 accessions are cultivars; 31 accessions from America; 32 accessions from European; 7 accessions from Africa; 20 accessions from Asia), were evaluated for agronomic traits and genetic diversity with 90 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The panel displayed significant variation in spike count per plant (SCP) and spike weight (SW). However, BCS performed the lowest CV among all the observed agronomic traits. Three subpopulations were identified within the collections but no obvious relative kinship (K) was found. The GLM model was used to describe the association between SSR and agronomic traits. Fifty-one SSR markers associated with agronomic traits were observed. Twelve single-associated markers were associated with PH; six single-associated markers were associated with BCS; eight single-associated markers were associated with SW; five single-associated markers were associated with SC; seven single-associated markers were associated with SCP; three single-associated markers were associated with SL. Especially, we observed that the genetic variation of SW was explained 11.6 % by M37 marker. It is interesting to observe that nine markers (M1, M2, M35, M54 marker was associated with both BCS and SC; M3, M4 markers were associated with BCS, SW, and SC; M19 marker was associated with both pH and PD, M40 marker was associated with both SCP and SW; and M193 marker was associated with both PH and SL) were associated with more than two agronomic traits. Notably, Branch count per spike (BCS) was explained by four markers (M1, M2, M3, and M4) exceeding 10 %. These identified marker alleles associated with agronomic traits could provide important information and markers for molecular-assisted breeding that facilitate the breeding process in tall fescue.
Principle B , DRT and Plural Pronouns

2. Counterexamples to Disjoint Reference . 7 2.1. Sentence Internal Split Antecedents . 7 2.2. Intersentential Split Antecedents . 11 2.3. Inclusive Reference . 13 2.4. Conclusion . 14
Detection, classification and visualization of place-triggered geotagged tweets

This paper proposes and evaluates a method to detect and classify tweets that are triggered by places where users locate. Recently, many related works address to detect real world events from social media such as Twitter. However, geotagged tweets often contain noise, which means tweets which are not content-wise related to users' location. This noise is problem for detecting real world events. To address and solve the problem, we define the Place-Triggered Geotagged Tweet, meaning tweets which have both geotag and content-based relation to users' location. We designed and implemented a keyword-based matching technique to detect and classify place-triggered geotagged tweets. We evaluated the performance of our method against a ground truth provided by 18 human classifiers, and achieved 82% accuracy. Additionally, we also present two example applications for visualizing place-triggered geotagged tweets.
Conflict Management and Employees Performance in Julius Berger Nigeria PLC

The paper discussed conflict management and employees performance in Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. Bonny Island. It views organizational conflict as a dispute that occurs when interests, goals or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible with each other. It assumes that integration of all stakeholders’ interests will go a long way in reducing conflicts in organizations and enhancing employees’ performance. It is based on the democratic conflict management strategy. The research question addressed the extent of the relationship between conflict management strategies and employees’ performance and employees/management perception of the effectiveness of conflict management strategies in Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. Bonny Island. The place of study is Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. Bonny Island while the duration of study is between August, 2012 and September, 2013. A descriptive research design was used in executing the study using 50 purposively selected sample respondents consisting of 25 managerial employees and 25 non-managerial employees of Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. Bonny Island. The core aspect of the study is the use of cross sectional survey research design in generating the required primary data. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results from the data analysis indicated that significant relationship exists between conflict management strategies and employees’ performance and no differences exist between managerial and non-managerial employees’ perception of the effectiveness of conflict management strategies. The research therefore recommends among others: promotion of industrial democracy, regular management/employees meetings, and strict implementation of collective agreements and regular review of personnel policies.
Sporotrichosis: The Story of an Endemic Region in Peru over 28 Years (1985 to 2012)

Background Abancay province is a long-standing geographical focus of sporotrichosis in the south central highlands of Peru. Therefore, we examined the features of 36 newly identified cases of sporotrichosis from two hospital centers in Abancay province. We also performed a literature review of studies conducted in this endemic geographical focus over a period of 28 years (1998 to 2012), and analyzed the demographic, clinical and epidemiological features of sporotrichosis in the cases reported in these studies. Methodology We examined the features of 36 new cases of sporotrichosis identified from two hospital centers in Abancay. Furthermore, we searched for relevant studies of cases of sporotrichosis in the endemic region using healthcare databases and literature sources. We analyzed a detailed subset of data on cases collected in Abancay, neighboring provinces, and other regions of Peru. Results A total of nine studies were identified, with 1467 cases included in the final analysis. We also analyzed 36 new cases found in the two hospital centers. Therefore, the combined total of cases analyzed was 1503. Of this total, 58% were male, and approximately 62% were aged ≤14 years. As expected, most cases were from Abancay province (88%), although 12% were from neighboring provinces and other regions of Peru. The lymphocutaneous form (939 cases) was the commonest. The face was the most commonly affected region (647 cases). A total of 1224 patients (81.4%) received treatment: 95.8% received potassium iodide, 2.6% ketoconazole and 1.6% itraconazole. The overall success rates were 60.7% with potassium iodide, 32.2% with ketoconazole and 85% with itraconazole. Conclusions The epidemic of sporotrichosis has been occurring for three decades in the province of Abancay in Peru. This mycosis affects primarily the pediatric population, with predominantly the lymphocutaneous form in the facial region. Although treatment with potassium iodide is safe and effective, response and adherence to treatment are influenced by its duration, cost, accessibility, and side effects.
The SUMO-specific isopeptidase SENP2 associates dynamically with nuclear pore complexes through interactions with karyopherins and the Nup107-160 nucleoporin subcomplex

We determined that the small, ubiquitin-related modifier–specific isopeptidase, SENP2, is dynamically associated with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs). This association is determined by the activities of three N-terminal signals in SENP2: a high-affinity nuclear localization sequence, an Nup107-160–binding element, and a nuclear export signal. NPC association, and its potential regulation, affects SENP2 accessibility to substrates.
Mathematics Anxiety: What Have We Learned in 60 Years?

The construct of mathematics anxiety has been an important topic of study at least since the concept of “number anxiety” was introduced by Dreger and Aiken (1957), and has received increasing attention in recent years. This paper focuses on what research has revealed about mathematics anxiety in the last 60 years, and what still remains to be learned. We discuss what mathematics anxiety is; how distinct it is from other forms of anxiety; and how it relates to attitudes to mathematics. We discuss the relationships between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance. We describe ways in which mathematics anxiety is measured, both by questionnaires, and by physiological measures. We discuss some possible factors in mathematics anxiety, including genetics, gender, age, and culture. Finally, we describe some research on treatment. We conclude with a brief discussion of what still needs to be learned.
NoC-enabled multicore architectures for stochastic analysis of biomolecular reactions

Recent medical challenges such as cancer, drug-resistant microbes or diabetes crucially affect human health. To tackle these, modern medicine must analyze molecular interactions and rely on powerful computational platforms for the design and performance evaluation of medical therapies. Towards this end, we propose a Network-on-Chip (NoC)-based multicore platform enabling the efficient analysis of stochastic molecular interactions among biological entities. Our in-depth analysis of the stochastic interactions among biological components and the characterization of their computational and communication requirements allows us to design a high-performance NoC architecture sustaining a throughput of over 1.36E5 events/ms, while consuming only 15 mJ per 1E5 stochastic events. Our proposed NoC-based multicore can offer a throughput improvement of 23% over a regular mesh-based NoC, while consuming 20% less energy.
Using the Semantic Differential Technique to Assess Stereotypes toward Individuals with Disabilities: The Relevance of Warmth and Competence

This study analyzes social perceptions towards groups with different types of disability, as well as the relationship between the judgments towards these groups, oneself and other significant individuals. The assessment was carried out using a Semantic Differential scale completed by181 participants. Results supported the Stereotype Content Model, as the different groups with disabilities were perceived in a more uniform way than those who did not share this label, and people with intellectual disability elicited paternalistic feelings. The results also support a two-factor model to explore the content of the stereotypes. Understanding the factors that contribute to the formation of social judgments is key to the implementation of actions that modify stereotypes and prejudices and promote equity.