Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DeepGlobe 2018: A Challenge to Parse the Earth through Satellite Images

We present the DeepGlobe 2018 Satellite Image Understanding Challenge, which includes three public competitions for segmentation, detection, and classification tasks on satellite images (Figure 1). Similar to other challenges in computer vision domain such as DAVIS[21] and COCO[33], DeepGlobe proposes three datasets and corresponding evaluation methodologies, coherently bundled in three competitions with a dedicated workshop co-located with CVPR 2018. We observed that satellite imagery is a rich and structured source of information, yet it is less investigated than everyday images by computer vision researchers. However, bridging modern computer vision with remote sensing data analysis could have critical impact to the way we understand our environment and lead to major breakthroughs in global urban planning or climate change research. Keeping such bridging objective in mind, DeepGlobe aims to bring together researchers from different domains to raise awareness of remote sensing in the computer vision community and vice-versa. We aim to improve and evaluate state-of-the-art satellite image understanding approaches, which can hopefully serve as reference benchmarks for future research in the same topic. In this paper, we analyze characteristics of each dataset, define the evaluation criteria of the competitions, and provide baselines for each task.
An Examination of Genetic Improvement to Floret Number and Morphology of Maize (Zea mays L.)

An Examination of Genetic Improvement to Floret Number and Morphology of Maize (Zea mays L.) J. O. MacKenzie, Advisor: University of Guelph, 2015 Dr. E.A. Lee Plant density tolerance is primarily responsible for the grain yield (GY) improvement achieved during the hybrid era. Studies have not provided evidence for plant growth or resource availability as sole factors responsible for density tolerance. It is hypothesized that the genetic improvement of increased density tolerance is due to changes in floret development, notably improved floret morphology under increasing plant densities. Using three plant densities, potential and actual GY was evaluated in five Ontario ERA hybrids at one location for two years. The effects of plant density were more noticeable for kernel traits than for floret traits. Plant density did not have a strong influence on the morphology or the number of florets per ear initial. There is no evidence for genetic improvement to the number of florets or their respective morphology. These results contrast with reports of genetic improvement to source components of maize during the time period examined. iii Acknowledgements I would like to Dr. Lee for all of the support and guidance she has provided for me to complete this project. It was an amazing experience and I am grateful for her in providing me this opportunity to advance my education. I would like to also thank Byron Good for all of the assistance he has provided me in the field. Byron has also allowed me to gain valuable experience with a number of tasks required for small plot research, which will certainly assist me in the future. I thank my committee members, Dr. Colasanti and Dr. Swanton for their thorough review of my thesis and suggestions for improvement. I would like to also thank my friends for their assistance and support. Most importantly, I would like to thank my parents and family for their support during this important part of my life, none of this would be possible without you. Financial support for this project from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, and Grain Farmers of Ontario is acknowledged. iv Table of
Normally Off Vertical 3-D GaN Nanowire MOSFETs With Inverted  ${p}$ -GaN Channel

This paper reports on the normally off GaN vertical MOSFETs based on nanowires (NWs) with an inverted p-GaN channel and a wrap-around-gate structure for the first time. Both inductively coupled plasma dry reactive-ion etching and wet-chemical etching were employed to fabricate the vertically aligned GaN NWs from epitaxial thin films with a specified doping profile. During the wet etching, the influence of p-doping on the NW morphology was investigated, and the results could be explained by the proposed model. In comparison with other c-axis NW transistors, an enhancement-mode (E-mode) operation with a superior threshold voltage ( $V_{{\text {th}}}$ ) of 2.5 V has been reached in the fabricated GaN MOSFETs. Furthermore, a high driving-current density of 101 kA/cm2 as well as a high ON-/OFF-current ratio of 109 was obtained in the NWs, predicting a potential approach toward future GaN electronics with vertical and smart architecture.
Improving the safety of high‐dose methotrexate for children with hematologic cancers in settings without access to MTX levels using extended hydration and additional leucovorin

A lack of access to methotrexate levels is common in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC), relevant for 80% of children with cancer worldwide. We evaluated whether high‐dose methotrexate (HD‐MTX) can be administered safely with extended hydration and leucovorin rescue, with monitoring of serum creatinine and urine pH.
The Hurrider I Go the Behinder I Get: The Deteriorating International Ranking of U.S. Health Status

The health of societies can be measured by a range of mortality indicators, and comparisons of national parameters with those of other societies can be symbolic of health status and progress. Over the past century, health outcomes have been steadily improving almost every-where in the world, but the rates of improvements have varied. In the 1950s, the United States, having among the lowest mortality and other indicators of good health, ranked well among nations. Since then, the UnitedStateshasnotseenthescaleofimprovementsinhealthoutcomes enjoyed by most other developed countries, despite spending increasing amounts of its economy on health care services. Trends in personal health-related behaviors are only part of the explanation. Structural factors related to inequality and conditions of early life are important reasons for the relative stagnation in health. Reversing this relative decline would require a major national coordinated long-term effort to expose the problem and create the political will to address it.
Tax Evasion Revised: Surprising Experimental Evidence on the Role of Principal Witness Regulations and Differences in Gender Attitudes

This paper experimentally investigates indirect tax evasion that requires the cooperation of an intermediary. We explore the effectiveness of the introduction of a principal witness regulation as a means to facilitate tax compliance. Reactions show a significant drop in tax compliance that, surprisingly, is vastly different across gender with the effect being mainly driven by women. As a result, women decrease their tax compliance significantly reaching an even lower level than men who in turn do not react to the institutional change.
miR-142-5p regulates CD4+ T cells in human non-small cell lung cancer through PD-L1 expression via the PTEN pathway

The present study aimed to evaluate the function of microRNA (miR)-142-5p on cancer immunity to induce apoptosis in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its mechanism. miR-142-5p expression was upregulated, and CD4+ T cell levels were reduced in patients with NSCLC. Overexpression of miR-142-5p expression inhibited the cancer effects of CD4+ T cells on NSCLC cell lines, and downregulation of miR-142-5p increased the cancer effects of CD4+ T cells on NSCLC cell lines, compared with the control group. In addition, we found that overexpression of miR-142-5p suppressed PTEN protein expression and induced PI3K, p-Akt and PD-L1 protein expression in an in vitro model of NSCLC. Downregulation of miR-142-5p induced PTEN and PD-L1 protein expression and suppressed PI3K and p-Akt and protein expression in an in vitro model of NSCLC. The suppression of PD-L1 reduced the cancer effects of CD4+ T cells on NSCLC cell lines following miR-142-5p downregulation. The inhibition of PTEN also reduced the cancer effects of CD4+ T cells on NSCLC cell lines following miR-142-5p downregulation. Therefore, our study demonstrated that miR-142-5p regulated CD4+ T cells in human NSCLC through PD-L1 expression via the PTEN pathway.
Quantumf-divergences in von Neumann algebras. I. Standardf-divergences

We make a systematic study of standard $f$-divergences in general von Neumann algebras. An important ingredient of our study is to extend Kosaki's variational expression of the relative entropy to an arbitary standard $f$-divergence, from which most of the important properties of standard $f$-divergences follow immediately. In a similar manner we give a comprehensive exposition on the Renyi divergence in von Neumann algebra. Some results on relative hamiltonians formerly studied by Araki and Donald are improved as a by-product.
Exotic lagomorph may influence eagle abundances and breeding spatial aggregations: a field study and meta-analysis on the nearest neighbor distance

The introduction of alien species could be changing food source composition, ultimately restructuring demography and spatial distribution of native communities. In Argentine Patagonia, the exotic European hare has one of the highest numbers recorded worldwide and is now a widely consumed prey for many predators. We examine the potential relationship between abundance of this relatively new prey and the abundance and breeding spacing of one of its main consumers, the Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle (Geranoaetus melanoleucus). First we analyze the abundance of individuals of a raptor guild in relation to hare abundance through a correspondence analysis. We then estimated the Nearest Neighbor Distance (NND) of the Black-chested Buzzard-eagle abundances in the two areas with high hare abundances. Finally, we performed a meta-regression between the NND and the body masses of Accipitridae raptors, to evaluate if Black-chested Buzzard-eagle NND deviates from the expected according to their mass. We found that eagle abundance was highly associated with hare abundance, more than with any other raptor species in the study area. Their NND deviates from the value expected, which was significantly lower than expected for a raptor species of this size in two areas with high hare abundance. Our results support the hypothesis that high local abundance of prey leads to a reduction of the breeding spacing of its main predator, which could potentially alter other interspecific interactions, and thus the entire community.
Bag2 Is a Component of a Cytosolic Extraction Machinery That Promotes Membrane Penetration of a Nonenveloped Virus

ABSTRACT During entry, the nonenveloped polyomavirus (PyV) simian virus 40 (SV40) traffics from the cell surface to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where it penetrates the ER membrane to reach the cytosol; the virus is then transported into the nucleus to cause infection. Although a coherent understanding of SV40's host entry is emerging, how the virus is ejected from the ER into the cytosol remains mysterious. Our previous analyses revealed that the cytosolic Hsc70-SGTA-Hsp105 complex binds to SV40 and extracts it from the ER into the cytosol. We now report that the nucleotide exchange factor (NEF) Bag2 stimulates SV40 release from Hsc70, thereby enabling successful virus arrival at the cytosol, which leads to infection. Hsp105, another NEF of Hsc70, displays a function overlapping that of Bag2, underscoring the importance of this release reaction. Our findings identify a new component of an extraction machinery essential during membrane penetration of a nonenveloped virus and provide further mechanistic insights into this process. IMPORTANCE How a nonenveloped virus penetrates a biological membrane to cause infection is a mystery. For the nonenveloped polyomavirus SV40, transport across the ER membrane to reach the cytosol is an essential virus infection step. Here, we identify a novel component of a cytosolic Hsc70-dependent chaperone complex called Bag2 that extracts SV40 from the ER into the cytosol. Bag2 does this by triggering SV40 release from Hsc70, thus ensuring that the virus reaches the cytosol en route for productive infection.
Luminescence from Vacuum-Ultraviolet-irradiated Cosmic Ice Analogs and Residues

Here we report a study of the optical luminescent properties for a variety of vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV)-irradiated cosmic ice analogs and the complex organic residues produced. Detailed results are presented for the irradiated, mixed molecular ice: H2O : CH3OH : NH3 : CO (100 : 50 : 1 : 1), a realistic representation for an interstellar/precometary ice that reproduces all the salient infrared spectral features associated with interstellar ices. The irradiated ices and the room-temperature residues resulting from this energetic processing have remarkable photoluminescent properties in the visible (520-570 nm). The luminescence dependence on temperature, thermal cycling, and VUV exposure is described. It is suggested that this type of luminescent behavior might be applicable to solar system and interstellar observations and processes for various astronomical objects with an ice heritage. Some examples include grain temperature determination and vaporization rates, nebula radiation balance, albedo values, color analysis, and biomarker identification.
Modelagem de equações estruturais e satisfação do consumidor: uma investigação teórica e prática

This paper is the result of a quantitative research project that discusses the application of the multivariate technique structural equation modeling or path analysis, to the assessment of a theoretical customer satisfaction framework, using a sample of elderly consumers in Brazil. The authors discuss customer satisfaction and structural equation modeling, and present a literature review of both topics. The customer satisfaction model that was used in the modeling process is then shown. The main objective was to investigate what leads to customer satisfaction among the elderly, trying to identify which factors are the most relevant to the post-purchase response in this specific market segment. It was found that of the antecedents proposed by customer satisfaction theory, the ones that most contributed to the satisfaction response in this segment were: performance, disconfirmation, justice and emotions.
Landmark Image Retrieval by Jointing Feature Refinement and Multimodal Classifier Learning

Landmark retrieval is to return a set of images with their landmarks similar to those of the query images. Existing studies on landmark retrieval focus on exploiting the geometries of landmarks for visual similarity matches. However, the visual content of social images is of large diversity in many landmarks, and also some images share common patterns over different landmarks. On the other side, it has been observed that social images usually contain multimodal contents, i.e., visual content and text tags, and each landmark has the unique characteristic of both visual content and text content. Therefore, the approaches based on similarity matching may not be effective in this environment. In this paper, we investigate whether the geographical correlation among the visual content and the text content could be exploited for landmark retrieval. In particular, we propose an effective multimodal landmark classification paradigm to leverage the multimodal contents of social image for landmark retrieval, which integrates feature refinement and landmark classifier with multimodal contents by a joint model. The geo-tagged images are automatically labeled for classifier learning. Visual features are refined based on low rank matrix recovery, and multimodal classification combined with group sparse is learned from the automatically labeled images. Finally, candidate images are ranked by combining classification result and semantic consistence measuring between the visual content and text content. Experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach as compared to existing methods.
The Health-e Babies App for antenatal education: Feasibility for socially disadvantaged women

Background The use of mobile technology such as phone applications (apps) has been proposed as an efficient means of providing health and clinical information in a variety of healthcare settings. We developed the Health-e Babies app as an Android smart phone application for pregnant women attending a tertiary hospital in a low socio-economic community, with the objective of providing health information about early pregnancy that would increase maternal confidence and reduce anxiety. Based on our earlier research, this form of health communication was viewed as a preferred source of information for women of reproductive age. However, the pilot study had a poor participation rate with 76% (n = 94) not completing the study requirements. These initial findings raised some very important issues in relation to the difficulties of engaging women with a pregnancy app. This paper analyses the characteristics of the participants who did not complete the study requirements in an attempt to identify potential barriers associated with the implementation of a pregnancy app. Methods This retrospective review of quantitative and qualitative data collected at the commencement of the Health-e Babies App trial, related to the participant’s communication technology use, confidence in knowing where to seek help and mental health status, maternal-fetal attachment and parenting confidence. Engagement and use of the Health-e Babies App was measured by the completion of a questionnaire about the app and downloaded data from participant’s phones. Mental health status, confidence and self-efficacy were measured by questionnaires. Results All women were similar in terms of age, race, marital status and level of education. Of the 94 women (76%) who did not complete the trial, they were significantly more anxious as indicated by State Trait Anxiety Inventory (p = 0.001 Student T-test) and more likely to be unemployed (50% vs 31%, p = 0.012 Student T-Test). Conclusion This study provides important information about the challenges associated with the implementation of a pregnancy app in a socially disadvantaged community. The data suggests that factors including social and mental health issues, financial constraints and technological ability can affect women’s engagement with a mobile phone app.
A participatory integrated assessment approach for Natura 2000 network sites

Managing protected areas (PAs) requires dealing with complex social-ecological systems where multiple dimensions (i.e. social, institutional, economic and ecological) interact over time. Uni-dimensional and top-down approaches have been unable to capture this complexity. Instead, new integrated approaches that acknowledge the multidimensional nature of PAs and the diversity of social actors in the decision making process are required. In this paper we put forward a novel participatory assessment approach which integrates multiple methodologies to reflect value articulating institutions in the case of a Natura 2000 (N2000) network site in the Basque Country (Southern Europe). This novel approach is based on a social multi-criteria evaluation framework, that integrates (i) economic values derived from a choice experiment, (ii) ecological values by means of a spatial bio-geographic assessment, and (iii) a participatory process among diverse social actors. The case study shows that through the integration of diverse perspectives it is possible to achieve compromise solutions that foster the ecological values of PAs while enhancing other socio-economic benefits. Such co-benefits are important to enhance the acceptance and scope of N2000 and overcome undesirable social-ecological conflicts. We also show that the inclusion of all affected parties in a deliberative process is a key prerequisite to ensure ecologically effective and socially acceptable decisions that will lead to sustainable conservation policies.
Icebergs, sea ice, blue carbon and Antarctic climate feedbacks

Sea ice, including icebergs, has a complex relationship with the carbon held within animals (blue carbon) in the polar regions. Sea-ice losses around West Antarctica's continental shelf generate longer phytoplankton blooms but also make it a hotspot for coastal iceberg disturbance. This matters because in polar regions ice scour limits blue carbon storage ecosystem services, which work as a powerful negative feedback on climate change (less sea ice increases phytoplankton blooms, benthic growth, seabed carbon and sequestration). This resets benthic biota succession (maintaining regional biodiversity) and also fertilizes the ocean with nutrients, generating phytoplankton blooms, which cascade carbon capture into seabed storage and burial by benthos. Small icebergs scour coastal shallows, whereas giant icebergs ground deeper, offshore. Significant benthic communities establish where ice shelves have disintegrated (giant icebergs calving), and rapidly grow to accumulate blue carbon storage. When 5000 km2 giant icebergs calve, we estimate that they generate approximately 106 tonnes of immobilized zoobenthic carbon per year (t C yr−1). However, their collisions with the seabed crush and recycle vast benthic communities, costing an estimated 4 × 104 t C yr−1. We calculate that giant iceberg formation (ice shelf disintegration) has a net potential of approximately 106 t C yr−1 sequestration benefits as well as more widely known negative impacts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The marine system of the West Antarctic Peninsula: status and strategy for progress in a region of rapid change’.
Coping with shift work-related circadian disruption: A mixed-methods case study on napping and caffeine use in Australian nurses and midwives

ABSTRACT Introduction: Two of the most ubiquitous fatigue countermeasures used by shift-working nurses are napping and caffeine. This mixed-methods case study investigated the ways nurses and midwives utilised napping and caffeine countermeasures to cope with shift work, and associated sleep, physical health and psychological health outcomes. Materials and Methods: N = 130 Australian shift-working nurses and midwives (mean age = 44 years, range = 21–67, 115F, 15M) completed the Standard Shiftwork Index. A sub-set of 22 nurses and midwives completed an in-depth interview. Results: Nearly 70% of participants reported napping. Those who napped during night shifts had significantly less total sleep time before (F2,75 = 5.5, p < 0.01) and between days off (F2,82 = 3.9, p < 0.05). By the end of the night shift, average hours of time awake were significantly less for prophylactic and on-shift nappers compared to non-nappers (F2,85 = 97.2, p < 0.001). Since starting shift work, the percentage of high caffeine consumers (>400 mg/day) increased from 15% to 33% of the sample and an average of 4 (SD = 2) caffeinated beverages per day was reported. Increased caffeine consumption was associated with greater sleep disturbance (r = 0.26, p < 0.05), psychological distress (r = 0.37, p < 0.001), abdomen pain (r = 0.27, p < 0.05) and weight gain since starting shift work (r = 0.25, p < 0.05). Interviews confirmed these relationships and revealed that caffeine consumption on night shift was common, whereas napping on night shift was dependent on a number of factors including ability to sleep during the day. Conclusion: This study identified reasons shift workers chose to engage in or abstain from napping and consuming caffeine, and how these strategies related to poor sleep and health outcomes. Further research is required to help develop recommendations for shift workers regarding napping and caffeine consumption as fatigue countermeasures, whilst taking into account the associated hazards of each strategy.