Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of control of brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) on condition of a southern rata/kamahi (Metrosideros umbellata/Weinmannia racemosa) forest canopy in Westland, New Zealand

Brushtail possums began colonising a rata/kamahi forest in the Taramakau catchment, Westland, about 1950 and by 1973 had caused widespread conspicuous canopy defoliation. They were poisoned in one block of this forest in 1970, at about the time they reached peak density, and again in 1974. In an adjacent block they were poisoned in 1974 only. A survey of forest canopy condition in 1985 showed that, in the block poisoned at peak density, 21% of the basal area of palatable trees had died compared with 47% in the block where poisoning was deferred for 4 years. This suggested that control at or before populations attain peak density is critically important for limiting canopy mortality. After the 1974 poisoning, possum numbers in both blocks recovered to within 20% of their pre-control level in 10 years, indicating that control should be carried out at about decade intervals. Defoliation indices and species condition patterns showed that canopy dieback was least evident on relatively unpalatable trees. Of the palatable trees, kamahi was in best overall condition with least canopy dieback, followed by cedar, southern rata, then Hall's totara.
Glycopyrrolate causes prolonged bronchoprotection and bronchodilatation in patients with asthma.

INTRODUCTION Inhaled anticholinergic drugs are effective bronchodilators in the treatment of COPD, and tiotropium bromide has recently been introduced as a once-daily bronchodilator for use as a maintenance treatment. Racemic glycopyrrolate is an anticholinergic drug that has been used orally to control gastric acidity, parenterally as an antisialogogue and to reverse neuromuscular blockade, and has been studied by inhalation for asthma and COPD. DESIGN AND OBJECTIVE We investigated the duration of protection against the constrictor effects of inhaled methacholine of a single dose of inhaled nebulized racemic glycopyrrolate (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg) compared with ipratropium bromide (0.5 mg) and placebo in 10 atopic asthmatic volunteers in a double-blind, five-way, crossover study. RESULTS Protection against methacholine-induced bronchospasm after administering glycopyrrolate was maintained to 30 h, the last time point measured. Both bronchodilatation and bronchoprotection were significantly longer with glycopyrrolate than after ipratropium bromide, and bronchoprotection was significant at all time points from 2 to 30 h compared to placebo. Dryness of the mouth and nose was described in 18% of patients after the highest dose of glycopyrrolate. CONCLUSIONS The prolonged bronchodilator response and the protection against methacholine-induced bronchospasm demonstrated in asthma suggests that inhaled racemic glycopyrrolate would be superior to ipratropium bromide for treatment of stable COPD.
Pseudopollen in Dendrobium unicum Seidenf. (Orchidaceae): reward or deception?

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In 1987, Kjellsson and Rasmussen described the labellar trichomes of Dendrobium unicum Seidenf. and proposed that these hairs function as pseudopollen. Pseudopollen is a mealy material that superficially resembles pollen, is usually laden with food substances and is formed when labellar hairs either fragment into individual cells or become detached from the labellum. However, the trichomes of D. unicum are very different from pseudopollen-forming hairs found in other orchid genera such as Maxillaria and Polystachya. Moreover, Kjellsson and Rasmussen were unable to demonstrate the presence of food substances within these trichomes and argued that even in the absence of food substances, the hairs, in that they superficially resemble pollen, can still attract insects by deceit. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the labellar trichomes of D. unicum contain food reserves and thus reward potential pollinators or whether they are devoid of foods and attract insects solely by mimicry. METHODS Light microscopy, histochemistry and transmission electron microscopy. KEY RESULTS Dendrobium unicum produces pseudopollen. Pseudopollen here, however, differs from that previously described for other orchid genera in that the pseudopollen-forming trichomes consist of a stalk cell and a 'head' of component cells that separate at maturity, in contrast to Maxillaria and some Polystachya spp. where pseudopollen is formed by the fragmentation of moniliform hairs. Moreover, the pseudopollen of Maxillaria and Polystachya largely contains protein, whereas in D. unicum the main food substance is starch. CONCLUSIONS Flowers of D. unicum, rather than attracting insects solely by deceit may also reward potential pollinators.
SUPERNOVA 2008bk AND ITS RED SUPERGIANT PROGENITOR

We have obtained limited photometric and spectroscopic data for supernova (SN) 2008bk in NGC 7793, primarily at ≳ 150 days after explosion. We find that it is a Type II-Plateau (II-P) SN that most closely resembles the low-luminosity SN 1999br in NGC 4900. Given the overall similarity between the observed light curves and colors of SNe 2008bk and 1999br, we infer that the total visual extinction to SN 2008bk (AV = 0.065 mag) must be almost entirely due to the Galactic foreground, similar to what has been assumed for SN 1999br. We confirm the identification of the putative red supergiant (RSG) progenitor star of the SN in high-quality g′r′i′ images we had obtained in 2007 at the Gemini-South 8 m telescope. Little ambiguity exists in this progenitor identification, qualifying it as the best example to date, next to the identification of the star Sk −69°202 as the progenitor of SN 1987A. From a combination of photometry of the Gemini images with that of archival, pre-SN, Very Large Telescope JHKs images, we derive an accurate observed spectral energy distribution (SED) for the progenitor. We find from nebular strong-intensity emission-line indices for several H ii regions near the SN that the metallicity in the environment is likely subsolar (Z ≈ 0.6 Z☉). The observed SED of the star agrees quite well with synthetic SEDs obtained from model RSG atmospheres with effective temperature Teff = 3600 ± 50 K. We find, therefore, that the star had a bolometric luminosity with respect to the Sun of log (Lbol/L☉) = 4.57 ± 0.06 and radius R⋆ = 496 ± 34 R☉ at ∼6 months prior to explosion. Comparing the progenitor's properties with theoretical massive-star evolutionary models, we conclude that the RSG progenitor had an initial mass in the range of 8–8.5 M☉. This mass is consistent with, albeit at the low end of, the inferred range of initial masses for SN II-P progenitors. It is also consistent with the estimated upper limit on the initial mass of the progenitor of SN 1999br, and it agrees with the low initial masses found for the RSG progenitors of other low-luminosity SNe II-P.
Bone mineral density decline in patients on stable antiretroviral therapy.

HIV infection is associated with low bone mineral density (BMD). The relationship between low BMD and HIV status is partly explained by an excess of traditional risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity, and low BMI [1,2]. In addition, a number of HIV factors may affect BMD, including (past) immunodeficiency [1], immune activation and inflammation [3], and exposure to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Notably, exposure to tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and ritonavirboosted protease inhibitors has been associated with lower BMD in cross-sectional studies and greater BMD decline in clinical trials [4–8]. Conversely, BMD improvements have been reported in patients who switched from TDF-containing to TDF-sparing ART [9,10] or, more recently, to tenofovir alafenamidecontaining ART [11–13]. The average bone loss associated with ART initiation is 2–4%, although reductions of more than 5% are not uncommon. These BMD reductions are most pronounced in the first 6–12 months after starting or switching ART, with subsequent stabilization [4–6].
Comparative Study of Sublingual and Vaginal Misoprostol in Second Trimester Induced Abortion

Background: To identify an effective misoprostol-only regime for the termination of second trimester pregnancy. Objectives: To compare the efficacy, safety and acceptability of sublingual and vaginal misoprostol for second trimester pregnancy termination. Methods: In a prospective randomized comparative study, over 138 pregnant women at 13 - 20 weeks (91 - 140 days) of gestation requiring medical abortion were randomly assigned to the sublingual or vaginal route for misoprostol administration with dose schedule of 400 mcg every 3 hours up to 5 doses within 24 hours. The course of misoprostol was repeated if the woman did not abort within 24 hours. Primary outcome was the efficacy of the treatment to terminate pregnancy completely at 24 and 48 hours. Secondary outcomes measured were induction-abortion interval, side effects, failure rate, and women’s perception to these treatments. Results: At 24 h, the complete abortion rate was 87.88% in the vaginal administration group and 79.41% in sublingual group (difference 8.5%, 95% CI: 3.8 to 13.2). No significant difference in the complete abortion rates was observed at 48 h(90.91% versus 88.24% difference: 2.7%, 95% CI: ? 0.04 to 5.4) when vaginal and sublingual groups were compared. Mean induction-abortion interval in sublingual and vaginal groups was 12.28 h (95% CI of mean 11.019 - 13.541 h) and 13.11 h (95% CI of mean 12.0301 - 14.1899 h) respectively; p = 0.485. The rates of side effects were similar in both groups except for fever, which was more common in vaginal group. Significantly more women in the sublingual group preferred the route as compared to vaginal administration (RR 1.618. 95% CI: 1.277 - 2.050; p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Both sublingual and vaginal routes of misoprostol are equally effective in medical termination of pregnancy in second trimester but sublingual route was preferred by the women.
Minkowski's Convex Body Theorem and Integer Programming

The paper presents an algorithm for solving Integer Programming problems whose running time depends on the number n of variables as nOn. This is done by reducing an n variable problem to 2n5i/2 problems in n-i variables for some i greater than zero chosen by the algorithm. The factor of On5/2 “per variable” improves the best previously known factor which is exponential in n. Minkowski's Convex Body theorem and other results from Geometry of Numbers play a crucial role in the algorithm. Several related algorithms for lattice problems are presented. The complexity of these problems with respect to polynomial-time reducibilities is studied.
Enhancing plant regeneration in tissue culture

Micropropagation is used for commercial purposes worldwide, but the capacity to undergo somatic organogenesis and plant regeneration varies greatly among species. The plant hormones auxin and cytokinin are critical for plant regeneration in tissue culture, with cytokinin playing an instrumental role in shoot organogenesis. Type-B response regulators govern the transcriptional output in response to cytokinin and are required for plant regeneration. In our paper published in Plant Physiology, we explored the functional redundancy among the 11 type-B Arabidopsis response regulators (ARRs). Interestingly, we discovered that the enhanced expression of one family member, ARR10, induced hypersensitivity to cytokinin in multiple assays, including callus greening and shoot induction of explants. Here we 1) discuss the hormone dependence for in vitro plant regeneration, 2) how manipulation of the cytokinin response has been used to enhance plant regeneration, and 3) the potential of the ARR10 transgene as a tool to increase the regeneration capacity of agriculturally important crop plants. The efficacy of ARR10 for enhancing plant regeneration likely arises from its ability to transcriptionally regulate key cytokinin responsive genes combined with an enhanced protein stability of ARR10 compared with other type-B ARRs. By increasing the capacity of key tissues and cell types to respond to cytokinin, ARR10, or other type-B response regulators with similar properties, could be used as a tool to combat the recalcitrance of some crop species to tissue culture techniques.
Interactive regret minimization

We study the notion of regret ratio proposed in [19] Nanongkai et al. [VLDB10] to deal with multi-criteria decision making in database systems. The regret minimization query proposed in [19] Nanongkai et al. was shown to have features of both skyline and top-k: it does not need information from the user but still controls the output size. While this approach is suitable for obtaining a reasonably small regret ratio, it is still open whether one can make the regret ratio arbitrarily small. Moreover, it remains open whether reasonable questions can be asked to the users in order to improve efficiency of the process. In this paper, we study the problem of minimizing regret ratio when the system is enhanced with interaction. We assume that when presented with a set of tuples the user can tell which tuple is most preferred. Under this assumption, we develop the problem of interactive regret minimization where we fix the number of questions and tuples per question that we can display, and aim at minimizing the regret ratio. We try to answer two questions in this paper: (1) How much does interaction help? That is, how much can we improve the regret ratio when there are interactions? (2) How efficient can interaction be? In particular, we measure how many questions we have to ask the user in order to make her regret ratio small enough. We answer both questions from both theoretical and practical standpoints. For the first question, we show that interaction can reduce the regret ratio almost exponentially. To do this, we prove a lower bound for the previous approach (thereby resolving an open problem from [19] Nanongkai et al.), and develop an almost-optimal upper bound that makes the regret ratio exponentially smaller. Our experiments also confirm that, in practice, interactions help in improving the regret ratio by many orders of magnitude. For the second question, we prove that when our algorithm shows a reasonable number of points per question, it only needs a few questions to make the regret ratio small. Thus, interactive regret minimization seems to be a necessary and sufficient way to deal with multi-criteria decision making in database systems.
The Relationship Between Extent of Thyroid Cancer Surgery and Use of Radioactive Iodine

By linking surgeon surveys to the National Cancer Database, we found that surgeons' tendency to perform more extensive thyroid resection is associated with greater use of radioactive iodine for stage I thyroid cancer. Objective: To determine the relationships between surgeon recommendations for extent of resection and radioactive iodine use in low-risk thyroid cancer. Background: There has been an increase in thyroid cancer treatment intensity; the relationship between extent of resection and medical treatment with radioactive iodine remains unknown. Methods: We randomly surveyed thyroid surgeons affiliated with 368 hospitals with Commission on Cancer-accredited cancer programs. Survey responses were linked to the National Cancer Database. The relationship between extent of resection and the proportion of the American Joint Committee on Cancer stage I well-differentiated thyroid cancer patients treated with radioactive iodine after total thyroidectomy was assessed with multivariable weighted regression, controlling for hospital and surgeon characteristics. Results: The survey response rate was 70% (560/804). Surgeons who recommend total thyroidectomy over lobectomy for subcentimeter unifocal thyroid cancer were significantly more likely to recommend prophylactic central lymph node dissection for thyroid cancer regardless of tumor size (P < 0.001). They were also more likely to favor radioactive iodine in patients with intrathyroidal unifocal cancer ⩽1 cm (P = 0.001), 1.1–2 cm (P = 0.004), as well as intrathyroidal multifocal cancer ⩽1 cm (P = 0.004). In multivariable analysis, high hospital case volume, fewer surgeon years of experience, general surgery specialty, and preference for more extensive resection were independently associated with greater hospital-level use of radioactive iodine for stage I disease. Conclusions: In addition to surgeon experience and specialty, surgeons’ tendency to perform more extensive thyroid resection is associated with greater use of radioactive iodine for stage I thyroid cancer.
Simulation for testing software agents - an exploration based on James

Agents are software systems aimed at working in dynamic environments. Simulation systems can be used to provide virtual environments for testing agents. The software to be tested, the objective of the simulation study, and the stage of the agent software development influences both: the environmental models used for testing and the mechanisms that synchronize the execution of agents and simulation. A clear distinction between model and simulation layer, and a modular design of the simulation system support the required flexibility. Based on the simulation system James (a Java based agent modeling environment for simulation) and two agent applications we will explore, how interfaces between virtual environments and software agents can be explicitly specified at the modeling level and suitable mechanisms for synchronization might be chosen on demand.
Cotranscription of genes encoding indoleacetic acid production in Pseudomonas syringae subsp. savastanoi

Indoleacetic acid (IAA) production by the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae subsp. savastanoi is essential for tumor formation on olive and oleander. The bacterium produces IAA from tryptophan in reactions catalyzed by tryptophan monooxygenase and indoleacetamide hydrolase. The genetic determinants are, respectively, iaaM and iaaH. In oleander isolates, the genes encoding the IAA biosynthetic enzymes are located on a plasmid; in olive isolates, the genes occur on the chromosome. The IAA genes from the oleander isolate strain EW2009 are located within a 4-kilobase (kb) segment of the 52-kb plasmid pIAA1. Escherichia coli strains harboring a recombinant plasmid, pCJP3, which contains this 4-kb fragment, excreted IAA into culture media, and crude cell extracts had both tryptophan monooxygenase and indoleacetamide hydrolase activity. In vitro coupled transcription-translation of pCJP3 demonstrated that this fragment coded for proteins of 62 and 47 kilodaltons which correspond to tryptophan monooxygenase and indoleacetamide hydrolase, respectively. Expression of these genes was dependent upon a vector promoter in pCJP3. However, in the absence of a vector promoter, E. coli containing recombinant plasmids with additional pIAA1 DNA in front of iaaM had high levels of tryptophan monooxygenase. Northern (RNA) hybridization experiments verified that iaaM and iaaH are cotranscribed as a portion of a ca. 4- to 5-kb transcript in vivo. Southern hybridization experiments with IAA plasmids from different oleander strains of P. syringae subsp. savastanoi revealed that all IAA plasmids contained a region of at least 10 kb of homology, with the IAA genes at one end. Repetitive DNA and a copy of IS51 were found at the end of this region of homology.
Spider Optimization: Probing the Systematics of a Large-Scale B-Mode Experiment

Spider is a long-duration, balloon-borne polarimeter designed to measure large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization with very high sensitivity and control of systematics. The instrument will map over half the sky with degree angular resolution in the I, Q, and U Stokes parameters in four frequency bands from 96 to 275 GHz. Spider’s ultimate goal is to detect the primordial gravity-wave signal imprinted on the CMB B-mode polarization. One of the challenges in achieving this goal is the minimization of the contamination of B-modes by systematic effects. This paper explores a number of instrument systematics and observing strategies in order to optimize B-mode sensitivity. This is done by injecting realistic-amplitude, time-varying systematics into a set of simulated time streams. Tests of the impact of detector noise characteristics, pointing jitter, payload pendulations, polarization angle offsets, beam systematics, and receiver gain drifts are shown. Spider’s default observing strategy is to spin continuously in azimuth, with polarization modulation achieved by either a rapidly spinning half-wave plate or a rapidly spinning gondola and a slowly stepped half-wave plate. Although the latter is more susceptible to systematics, the results shown here indicate that either mode of operation can be used by Spider.
Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP

In the investigation of orthographic representation of Chinese characters, one question that has stimulated much research is whether radicals (character components) are specified for spatial position in a character (e.g., Ding et al., 2004; Tsang and Chen, 2009). Differing from previous work, component or radical position information in this study is conceived in terms of relative frequency across different positions of characters containing it. A lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm focusing on radicals with preferred position of occurrence was conducted. A radical position that encompasses more characters than other positions was identified to be the preferred position of a particular radical. The prime that was exposed for 96 ms might share a radical with the target in the same or different positions. Moreover, the shared radical appeared either in its preferred or non-preferred position in the target. While response latencies only revealed the effect of graphical similarity, both effects of graphical similarity and radical position preference were found in the event-related potential (ERP) results. The former effect was reflected in greater positivity in occipital P1 and greater negativity in N400 for radicals in different positions in prime and target characters. The latter effect manifested as greater negativity in occipital N170 and greater positivity in frontal P200 in the same time window elicited by radicals in their non-preferred position. Equally interesting was the reversal of the effect of radical position preference in N400 with greater negativity associated with radicals in preferred position. These findings identify the early ERP components associated with activation of position-specific radical representations in the orthographic lexicon, and reveal the change in the nature of competition from processing at the radical level to the lexical level.
More Accurate Question Answering on Freebase

Real-world factoid or list questions often have a simple structure, yet are hard to match to facts in a given knowledge base due to high representational and linguistic variability. For example, to answer "who is the ceo of apple" on Freebase requires a match to an abstract "leadership" entity with three relations "role", "organization" and "person", and two other entities "apple inc" and "managing director". Recent years have seen a surge of research activity on learning-based solutions for this method. We further advance the state of the art by adopting learning-to-rank methodology and by fully addressing the inherent entity recognition problem, which was neglected in recent works. We evaluate our system, called Aqqu, on two standard benchmarks, Free917 and WebQuestions, improving the previous best result for each benchmark considerably. These two benchmarks exhibit quite different challenges, and many of the existing approaches were evaluated (and work well) only for one of them. We also consider efficiency aspects and take care that all questions can be answered interactively (that is, within a second). Materials for full reproducibility are available on our website: http://ad.informatik. uni-freiburg.de/publications.