Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decadal trends in global CO emissions as seen by MOPITT

Abstract. Negative trends of carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations are observed in the recent decade by both surface measurements and satellite retrievals over many regions of the globe, but they are not well explained by current emission inventories. Here, we analyse the observed CO concentration decline with an atmospheric inversion that simultaneously optimizes the two main CO sources (surface emissions and atmospheric hydrocarbon oxidations) and the main CO sink (atmospheric hydroxyl radical OH oxidation). Satellite CO column retrievals from Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), version 6, and surface observations of methane and methyl chloroform mole fractions are assimilated jointly for the period covering 2002–2011. Compared to the model simulation prescribed with prior emission inventories, trends in the optimized CO concentrations show better agreement with that of independent surface in situ measurements. At the global scale, the atmospheric inversion primarily interprets the CO concentration decline as a decrease in the CO emissions (−2.3 % yr−1), more than twice the negative trend estimated by the prior emission inventories (−1.0 % yr−1). The spatial distribution of the inferred decrease in CO emissions indicates contributions from western Europe (−4.0 % yr−1), the United States (−4.6 % yr−1) and East Asia (−1.2 % yr−1), where anthropogenic fuel combustion generally dominates the overall CO emissions, and also from Australia (−5.3 % yr−1), the Indo-China Peninsula (−5.6 % yr−1), Indonesia (−6.7 % y−1), and South America (−3 % yr−1), where CO emissions are mostly due to biomass burning. In contradiction with the bottom-up inventories that report an increase of 2 % yr−1 over China during the study period, a significant emission decrease of 1.1 % yr−1 is inferred by the inversion. A large decrease in CO emission factors due to technology improvements would outweigh the increase in carbon fuel combustions and may explain this decrease. Independent satellite formaldehyde (CH2O) column retrievals confirm the absence of large-scale trends in the atmospheric source of CO. However, it should be noted that the CH2O retrievals are not assimilated and OH concentrations are optimized at a very large scale in this study.
SUPPLY CHAIN RELATIONSHIP STRUCTURES AS SCENARIOS FOR SIMULATION

A supply chain can be defined as a set of relationships among suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers that facilitates the transformation of raw materials into final products. As such any examination of a supply chain system cannot be divorced from the consideration of the types of relationships that exist between the players in the chain. Such strategic analysis will also help supply chain members in deciding who to partner with and what type of relationship would be most useful for the player or the supply chain. Although supply chain management principles advocate close collaboration among all supply chain players this is far from the practice especially where resources and trust are scarce and the winner takes all attitude prevails. The question of whether to integrate or not to integrate and with whom can be discussed by investigating effects and trade-offs from such a venture. Other factors like the impact of the existence and position of a powerful player in the chain can also be investigated. This paper discusses the issues pertaining to the incorporation of buyer-supplier relationships in supply chain models and the representation of such relationships in the simulation of supply chains.
Space Velocities of Southern Globular Clusters. V. A Low Galactic Latitude Sample

We have measured the absolute proper motions of globular clusters NGC 2808, 3201, 4372, 4833, 5927, and 5986. The proper motions are on the Hipparcos system, and they are the first determinations ever made for these low Galactic latitude clusters. The proper-motion uncertainties range from 0.3 to 0.5 mas yr-1. The inferred orbits indicate that (1) the single metal-rich cluster in our sample, NGC 5927, dynamically belongs to the thick disk; (2) the remaining metal-poor clusters have rather low-energy orbits of high eccentricity, and among these there appear to be two "pairs" of dynamically associated clusters; (3) the most energetic cluster in our sample, NGC 3201, is on a highly retrograde orbit—which had already been surmised from radial velocity alone—with an apocentric distance of 22 kpc; and (4) none of the metal-poor clusters appear to be associated with the recently detected SDSS streams or with the Monoceros structure. These are the first results of the Southern Proper Motion program where the second-epoch observations are taken with the recent CCD camera system installed on the double astrograph at El Leoncito, Argentina.
Non-Equilibrium Solidification of Undercooled Metallic Melts

Abstract Undercooled melts are metastable with respect to the lower Gibb's free energy of the corresponding solid state and due to the activation barrier against nucleation. This gives access to direct solidification into metastable solid phases. Nucleation of metastable bcc phase in FeNi alloys has been demonstrated if undercoolings below its melting temperature are achieved and if the nucleation barrier is decreased by offering nucleation seeds of proper catalytic potency. Moreover, measurements of rapid dendrite growth velocities on containerlessly undercooled Ni-base alloys reveal deviations from local equilibrium at the solid-liquid interface. These are generated by a kinetic undercooling of the solidification front and solute trapping effects at high crystallisation velocities. The microgravity environment of space gives access to an extended degree of undercooling and thus to an enhanced range of metastable materials.
Peran Job Insecurity terhadap Stres Kerja dengan Moderator Religiusitas

Stress is one of the psychological reactions that can be in a work situation. Work situations may change at any time in different forms. An employee's psychological reaction to change also varies. Job insecurity arising from changing work situations increases job stress. A company certainly does not want employees to experience work stress that can impact on the decline in company performance. The level of employeereligiosity is expected to reduce the impact of job insecurity. This study aims to determine the role of job insecurity against work stress moderated by religiosity. Job stress as dependent variable, job insecurity as independent variable, and religiosity as moderator. Methods of data retrieval were performed using work stress scale, job insecurity scale, and scale of religiosity. The subjects of this study were 119 employees working in the State Forestry Corporation. The hypothesis proposed in this study is religiosity as a moderator in the relationship between job insecurity with work stress. Moderate and hypothesis testis done by moderate regression analysis. The research result shows religiosity not proved as moderator in relationship between job insecurity with work stress, but directly significant impact to work.
Raf-1 sets the threshold of Fas sensitivity by modulating Rok-α signaling

Ablation of the Raf-1 protein causes fetal liver apoptosis, embryonic lethality, and selective hypersensitivity to Fas-induced cell death. Furthermore, Raf-1–deficient cells show defective migration as a result of the deregulation of the Rho effector kinase Rok-α. In this study, we show that the kinase-independent modulation of Rok-α signaling is also the basis of the antiapoptotic function of Raf-1. Fas activation stimulates the formation of Raf-1–Rok-α complexes, and Rok-α signaling is up-regulated in Raf-1–deficient cells. This leads to increased clustering and membrane expression of Fas, which is rescued both by kinase-dead Raf-1 and by interfering with Rok-α or its substrate ezrin. Increased Fas clustering and membrane expression are also evident in the livers of Raf-1–deficient embryos, and genetically reducing Fas expression counteracts fetal liver apoptosis, embryonic lethality, and the apoptotic defects of embryonic fibroblasts. Thus, Raf-1 has an essential function in regulating Fas expression and setting the threshold of Fas sensitivity during embryonic life.
Dynamic perception-control coupling for anticipative road following on satellite-roadway-vehicle network

By invoking a cut of satellite image as an as-is representation of local terrain, roadway pattern can be segmented and extended towards possible destinations prior to physical arrival. Guided by the roadway pattern to be projected into associated scene image, in this paper, stochastic perception-control coupling is introduced for anticipative maneuvering through naturally complex scene. In this scheme, the perception process generates boundary probability and matches with fractal covering of object free space. Such a saccadic guidance signal is smoothed via Gaussian interpolation mechanism and transfered to the control process where trajectory of vehicle mechanism is regulated as a stochastic process subjected to human's unexpectable decision making. The validity of stochastic trajectory generation is verified via simulation studies.
Maternal effects on offspring size and number in mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki

Given a trade-off between offspring size and number, all mothers are predicted to produce the same optimal-sized offspring in a given environment. In many species, however, larger and/or older mothers produce bigger offspring. There are several hypotheses to explain this but they lack strong empirical support. In organisms with indeterminate growth, there is the additional problem that maternal size and age are positively correlated, so what are their relative roles in determining offspring size? To investigate this, we measured the natural relationship between maternal and offspring size in a wild population of Gambusia holbrooki (eastern mosquitofish), and experimentally disentangled the effects of maternal age and size on offspring size in the laboratory. In combination, our data indicate that the relationship between maternal and offspring size is nonlinear. Small mothers seem to produce larger than average offspring due to integer effects associated with very small broods. For extremely large mothers, which were only sampled in our wild data, these larger than average offspring may result from greater maternal resources or age effects. However, maternal age had no effect on offspring size or number in the laboratory experiment. Our results highlight the importance of sampling the full size–range of mothers when investigating maternal effects on offspring size. They also point to the difficulty of experimentally manipulating maternal size, because any change in size is invariably associated with a change in at least one factor affecting growth (be it temperature, food availability, or density) that might also have an indirect effect on offspring size.
Decentralized evolution of robotic behavior using finite state machines

Purpose – In evolutionary robotics (ER), robotic control systems are subject to a developmental process inspired by natural evolution. The purpose of this paper is to utilize a control system representation based on finite state machines (FSMs) to build a decentralized online‐evolutionary framework for swarms of mobile robots.Design/methodology/approach – A new recombination operator for multi‐parental generation of offspring is presented and a known mutation operator is extended to harden parts of genotypes involved in good behavior, thus narrowing down the dimensions of the search space. A storage called memory genome for archiving the best genomes of every robot introduces a decentralized elitist strategy. These operators are studied in a factorial set of experiments by evolving two different benchmark behaviors such as collision avoidance and gate passing on a simulated swarm of robots. A comparison with a related approach is provided.Findings – The framework is capable of robustly evolving the benchm.
Space and Time in the Parietal Cortex: fMRI Evidence for a Neural Asymmetry

How are space and time related in the brain? This study contrasts two proposals that make different predictions about the interaction between spatial and temporal magnitudes. Whereas ATOM implies that space and time are symmetrically related, Metaphor Theory claims they are asymmetrically related. Here we investigated whether space and time activate the same neural structures in the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and whether the activation is symmetric or asymmetric across domains. We measured participants’ neural activity while they made temporal and spatial judgments on the same visual stimuli. The behavioral results replicated earlier observations of a space-time asymmetry: Temporal judgments were more strongly influenced by irrelevant spatial information than vice versa. The BOLD fMRI data indicated that space and time activated overlapping clusters in the IPC and that, consistent with Metaphor Theory, this activation was asymmetric: The shared region of IPC was activated more strongly during temporal judgments than during spatial judgments. We consider three possible interpretations of this neural asymmetry, based on 3 possible functions of IPC.
‘You have to be like everyone else’: Support for students with vision impairment in mainstream secondary schools

The experiences of seven Australian senior secondary school students with vision impairment attending mainstream schools in Victoria were explored to gain an understanding of the support mechanisms operating to allow them access to an inclusive education. This qualitative study primarily used the in-depth interviews of students, augmented by brief interviews with Heads of Education Support, parents, aides and teachers. Students attributed difficulties to time available, accessing e-print and large format materials, assistive technology and access, and exclusion from classes of science, mathematics, and physical education in particular. In Australia, there is an expectation that legally mandated adjustments for students with disabilities will enable equitable, quality, and inclusive education. This was not evident in the experiences of the students in this study. Having aide support did not prevent exclusionary practices. Educators and support staff need to understand the perspectives of students with vision impairments to better facilitate successful teaching and learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
The Plk1 Inhibitor BI 2536 Temporarily Arrests Primary Cardiac Fibroblasts in Mitosis and Generates Aneuploidy In Vitro

BI 2536 is a new anti-mitotic drug that targets polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) and is currently under clinical development for cancer therapy. The effect of this drug on cancer cells has been extensively investigated, but information about the effects on primary dividing cells and differentiated non-dividing cells is scarce. We have investigated the effects of this drug on primary neonatal rat cardiac fibroblasts and on differentiated cardiomyocytes and explored the possibility to use this drug to enrich differentiated cell populations in vitro. BI 2536 had a profound effect on cardiac fibroblast proliferation in vitro and arrested these cells in mitosis with an IC50 of about 43 nM. Similar results were observed with primary human cells (HUVEC, IC50 = 30 nM), whereas the cancer cell line HeLa was more sensitive (IC50 of 9 nM). Further analysis revealed that prolonged mitotic arrest resulted in cell death for about 40% of cardiac fibroblasts. The remaining cells showed an interphase morphology with mostly multi- and micro-nucleated nuclei. This indicates that a significant number of primary fibroblasts are able to escape BI 2536 induced mitotic arrest and apparently become aneuploid. No effects were observed on cardiomyocytes and hypertrophic response (growth) upon endothelin-1 and phenylephrine stimulation was normal in the presence of BI 2536. This indicates that BI 2536 has no adverse effects on terminally differentiated cells and still allows proliferation independent growth induction in these cells. In conclusion, cardiomyocytes could be enriched using BI 2536, but the formation of aneuploidy in proliferating cells most likely limits this in vitro application and does not allow its use in putative cell based therapies.
Macro, industry and frailty effects in defaults: The 2008 credit crisis in perspective

We determine the magnitude and nature of systematic default risk using 1971{2009) default data from Moody's. We disentangle systematic risk factors due to business cycle effects, common default dynamics (frailty), and industry-specific dynamics (including contagion). To quantify the contribution of each of these factors to default rate volatility we introduce a new and flexible model class for factor structures on non-Gaussian (defaults) and Gaussian (macro factors) data simultaneously. We find that all three types of risk factors (macro, frailty, industry/contagion) are important for default risk. The systematic risk factors account for roughly one third of observed default risk variation. Half of this is captured by macro and financial market factors. The remainder is captured by frailty and industry effects (in roughly equal proportions). The frailty components are particularly relevant in times of stress. Models based only on macro variables may both under-estimate and over-estimate default activity during such times. This indicates that frailty factors do not simply capture missed non-linear responses of defaults to business cycle dynamics. We also find significant differences in the impact of crises on defaults at the sectoral level, implying frailty as well as contagion may play a role in systematic default clustering. Finally, we show that the contribution of frailty and industry factors on top of macro factors is economicallysignificant for assessing portfolio risk.
Size distributions of non-volatile particle residuals (D p <800 nm) at a rural site in Germany and relation to air mass origin

Atmospheric aerosol particle size distributions at a continental background site in Eastern Germany were ex- amined for a one-year period. Particles were classified us- ing a twin differential mobility particle sizer in a size range between 3 and 800 nm. As a novelty, every second mea- surement of this experiment involved the removal of volatile chemical compounds in a thermodenuder at 300 C. This con- cept allowed to quantify the number size distribution of non- volatile particle cores - primarily associated with elemental carbon, and to compare this to the original non-conditioned size distribution. As a byproduct of the volatility analysis, new particles originating from nucleation inside the thermod- enuder can be observed, however, overwhelmingly at diame- ters below 6 nm. Within the measurement uncertainty, every particle down to particle sizes of 15 nm is concluded to con- tain a non-volatile core. The volume fraction of non-volatile particulate matter (non-conditioned diameter 200 nm) contained more non-volatile compounds than smaller particles (<50 nm), thus indicating a significantly different chemical composition. Two alternative air mass classification schemes based on either, synoptic chart analy- sis (Berliner Wetterkarte) or back trajectories showed that the volume and number fraction of non-volatile cores depended less on air mass than the total particle number concentration. In all air masses, the non-volatile size distributions showed a more and a less volatile ("soot") mode, the latter being lo- cated at about 50 nm. During unstable conditions and in mar- itime air masses, smaller values were observed compared to stable or continental conditions. This reflects the significant emission of non-volatile material over the continent and, de- pending on atmospheric stratification, increased concentra- tions at ground level.
Prospective study of vaginal bacterial flora and other risk factors for vulvovaginal candidiasis.

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that vaginal colonization with lactobacilli may reduce the risk of vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), but supporting data are limited. Our objective was to determine the relationship between vaginal bacterial flora and VVC. METHODS We conducted a prospective cohort analysis that involved 151 Kenyan sex workers. At monthly follow-up visits, VVC was defined as the presence of yeast buds, pseudohyphae, or both on a wet preparation (including potassium hydroxide preparation) of vaginal secretions. Generalized estimating equations were used to identify correlates of VVC. RESULTS Participants returned for a median of 12 visits (interquartile range, 11-12 visits). VVC was identified at 162 visits, including 26 involving symptomatic VVC. Bacterial vaginosis was associated with fewer episodes of VVC (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.29 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.16-0.50]). After excluding women with concurrent bacterial vaginosis, another possible cause of vaginal symptoms, the likelihood of symptomatic VVC was higher among those who had had yeast identified on wet preparation of vaginal secretions during the past 60 days (aOR, 4.06 [95% CI, 1.12-14.74]) and those with concurrent vaginal Lactobacillus colonization (aOR, 3.75 [95% CI, 1.30-10.83]). CONCLUSIONS Contrary to the commonly posited hypothesis that vaginal Lactobacillus colonization has a protective effect, we found that such colonization was associated with a nearly 4-fold increase in the likelihood of symptomatic VVC.
Randomness and Nondeterminism are Incomparable for Read-Once Branching Programs

We extend the tools for proving lower bounds for randomized branching programs by presenting a new technique for the read-once case which is applicable to a large class of functions. This technique fills the gap between simple methods only applicable for OBDDs and the well-known “rectangle technique” of Borodin, Razborov and Smolensky which works for the quite general models of nondeterministic and randomized read-times branching programs, but which has the drawback that it could only be applied to very special functions so far. By an application of the new method, we resolve the remaining open problems concerning the relations of the most important probabilistic complexity classes for read-once branchings programs. We obtain that the analogues of the classes BPP and NP for read-once branching programs are incomparable and that RP is a proper subclass of NP.