Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aerosol-induced perturbation of surface fluxes over different landscapes in a tropical region

ABSTRACT Global picture of modification of land surface fluxes due to aerosol loading, especially over different landscapes, is not yet clear. The impact of aerosols on surface fluxes over Indo-Gangetic Basin, a highly polluted region, is studied by selecting four stations in the north Indian plains that are agriculturally heterogeneous in nature, viz., short crop area, industrial area, seasonal agricultural area, and permanent dense canopy area. Data from satellite (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)), model (Global Land Data Assimilation (GLDAS-NOAH), National Centre for Environmental Prediction/Oregon State University/Airforce/Hydrology Research Laboratory, and reanalysis (MERRA-Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications) as well as ground observations (AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) and Dibrugarh University measurements) on daily and monthly scales are used to validate and assess the aerosol-induced modification of surface fluxes. To ensure that satellite products are reasonably accurate, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and evapotranspiration (ET) from MODIS are validated against ground truth of AOD and ET from GLDAS-NOAH and found to have correlations of 0.90 and 0.76, respectively. Aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) was calculated as the difference between ‘clear sky’ and ‘clean clear sky’ of net radiation (R) at surface obtained from MERRA. Since surface fluxes are perturbed directly by ARF on a daily scale with maximum effect during ‘sunlit’ hours, change in fluxes is calculated on the daily scale. The impact of aerosols alone on latent heat flux (LE) is quantified by using the linear relation between R and LE along with the aerosol-induced reduction of net radiation. Latent heat flux and R from GLDAS-NOAH showed an excellent correlation between 0.75 and 0.97. The impact of aerosols on surface fluxes, represented as perturbed latent and sensible heat fluxes normalized by ARF, is found to be followed an asymptotic curve against Bowen ratio (B) which indicates aridity of the land surface. This study shows that the aerosols reduce LE by 60% of ARF over the permanent dense canopy with considerable soil moisture (B = 0.5), while the same amount of ARF reduces LE by 25% only over the semi-arid region (B = 2) over the north Indian plains for the period from October 2008 to May 2009.
Neuroimage: Clinical Neuroprotective Effects of Testosterone Treatment in Men with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system. While current medication reduces relapses and inflammatory activity, it has only a modest effect on long-term disability and gray matter atrophy. Here, we have characterized the potential neuroprotective effects of testosterone on cerebral gray matter in a pilot clinical trial. Ten men with relapsing–remitting MS were included in this open-label phase II trial. Subjects were observed without treatment for 6 months, followed by testosterone treatment for another 12 months. Focal gray matter loss as a marker for neurodegeneration was assessed using voxel-based morphometry. During the non-treatment phase, significant voxel-wise gray matter decreases were widespread (p ≤ 0.05 corrected). However, during testosterone treatment, gray matter loss was no longer evident. In fact, a significant gray matter increase in the right frontal cortex was observed (p ≤ 0.05 corrected). These observations support the potential of testosterone treatment to stall (and perhaps even reverse) neurodegeneration associated with MS. Furthermore, they warrant the investigation of testos-terone's neuroprotective effects in larger, placebo controlled MS trials as well as in other neurodegenerative diseases. This is the first report of gray matter increase as the result of treatment in MS.
Whom should I follow?: identifying relevant users during crises

Social media is gaining popularity as a medium of communication before, during, and after crises. In several recent disasters, it has become evident that social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are an important source of information, and in cases they have even assisted in relief efforts. We propose a novel approach to identify a subset of active users during a crisis who can be tracked for fast access to information. Using a Twitter dataset that consists of 12.9 million tweets from 5 countries that are part of the "Arab Spring" movement, we show how instant information access can be achieved by user identification along two dimensions: user's location and the user's affinity towards topics of discussion. Through evaluations, we demonstrate that users selected by our approach generate more information and the quality of the information is better than that of users identified using state-of-the-art techniques.
Risk factors of brain metastasis during the course of EGFR-TKIs therapy for patients with EGFR-mutated advanced lung adenocarcinoma

Controversial value of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) in NSCLC in terms of survival benefit prompted us to explore the possible risk factors for brain metastasis (BM) during the course of EGFR-TKIs therapy from EGFR-mutated advanced lung adenocarcinoma and identify the potential population most likely to benefit from PCI, because BM remains a therapeutically challenging issue. We retrospectively reviewed the records of 134 patients with EGFR-mutated advanced lung adenocarcinoma between 2008 and 2012. The cumulative incidence of BM was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to assess the independent risk factors for BM. Thirty-four patients (34/134, 25.4%) developed BM during the course of EGFR-TKIs therapy. Moreover, the Multivariate analysis indicated that age ≤ 53 years (HR: 2.751, 95 % CI: 1.326-5.707; p = 0.007), serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) ≥ 23 ng/mL (HR: 3.197, 95 % CI: 1.512-6.758; p = 0.002) and EGFR exon 21 point mutations (HR: 2.769, 95 % CI: 1.355-5.659; p= 0.005) were the independent high-risk factors for developing BM, which could offer important insights into the individualized treatment. Further studies are warranted to validate our findings.
Piezoresistive CMOS-MEMS pressure sensor with ring oscillator readout including /spl Delta/-/spl Sigma/ analog-to-digital converter on-chip

The application of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is currently growing, increasing the demands for efficient interfacing between the MEMS sensor and CMOS interfacing circuitry. This paper presents a fully integrated CMOS-MEMS pressure sensor, including a frequency-to-digital converter on the same CMOS die. The main purpose of this work is to explore the properties of monolithically integrated MEMS-sensors and CMOS circuitry. The expected features are reduced production cost and reduced noise sensitivity. The fully integrated sensor has been fabricated in a standard 0.6/spl mu/m CMOS process from Austria Micro Systems (AMS). Only one single post-processing step is required to form the pressure sensitive diaphragm. Theoretical discussions are presented along with measured results. The measured results confirm the theoretical discussions. The chip size is 13mm/sup 2/ and the power consumption is 30mW@3.0V.
Molecular photovoltaics and the optical activation of neural cells

This presentation will review recent progress on the optical control of cellular activity using nanoscale photovoltaic structures. We report the preparation and analysis of complex hybrid structures that are comprised of photosynthetic protein assemblies derived from green plants and inserted into mammalian cell membranes. We also report the spatial distribution of the electric potential from Photosystem I reaction centers in lipid vesicles.
The origin recognition core complex regulates dendrite and spine development in postmitotic neurons

The origin recognition complex (ORC) ensures exactly one round of genome replication per cell cycle through acting as a molecular switch that precisely controls the assembly, firing, and inactivation of the replication initiation machinery. Recent data indicate that it may also coordinate the processes of mitosis and cytokinesis and ensure the proper distribution of replicated genome to daughter cells. We have found that the ORC core subunits are highly expressed in the nervous system. They are selectively localized to the neuronal somatodendritic compartment and enriched in the membrane fraction. siRNA knockdown of ORC subunits dramatically reduced dendritic branch formation and severely impeded dendritic spine emergence. Expression of ORC ATPase motif mutants enhanced the branching of dendritic arbors. The ORC core complex thus appears to have a novel role in regulating dendrite and dendritic spine development in postmitotic neurons.
Media-based MIMO: Outperforming known limits in wireless

The idea of Media-based Modulation (MBM), introduced in [1] [2], is based on embedding information in the variations of the transmission media (channel states). MBM offers several advantages vs. legacy systems, including “additivity of information over multiple receive antennas”, and “inherent diversity over a static fading channel”. MBM is particularly suitable for transmitting high data rates using a single transmit and multiple receive antennas. However, complexity issues limit the amount of data that can be embedded in channel states using a single transmit unit. To address this shortcoming, the current article introduces the idea of Layered Multiple Input-Multiple Output Media-Based Modulation (LMIMO-MBM). LMIMO-MBM enables forming a high-rate constellation as superposition of constituent vectors due to separate transmit units. Relying on such a layered structure, LMIMO-MBM can significantly reduce both hardware and algorithmic complexities, as well as the training overhead. Simulation results show excellent performance in terms of Symbol Error Rate (SER) vs. Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). For example, a 4 × 16 LMIMO-MBM is capable of transmitting 32 bits of information per (complex) channel-use, with SER 10-5 at E /N0 ≃ -3.5dB (or SER 10-4 at E/N0 = -4.5dB). This performance is achieved using a single transmission (no extension in time/frequency), and without adding any redundancy for Forward-Error-Correction (FEC). Application of FEC can further improve the performance. For example, applying Reed-Solomon codes enables transmitting 30 bits of information per (complex) channel-use with a Frame Error Rate (FER) 10-5 at E/N0 ≃ -6dB. Under a set of mild conditions, by applying FEC with error correction capability t, the slope of the error rate vs. SNR (with hard decision decoding) will asymptotically increase by a factor of t +1.
Ostrowski-Like Method for the Inclusion of a Single Complex Polynomial Zero

A new iterative method of Ostrowski’s type for the inclusion of one isolated simple or multiple complex zero of a polynomial is established in circular complex arithmetic. Cubic convergence is proved and computationally veriable initial condition that guarantees the convergence of this inclusion method is stated. In order to demonstrate convergence behavior of the proposed method, two numerical examples are given.
Binocular Integration of Visual Information: A Model Study on Naturalistic Optic Flow Processing

The computation of visual information from both visual hemispheres is often of functional relevance when solving orientation and navigation tasks. The vCH-cell is a motion-sensitive wide-field neuron in the visual system of the blowfly Calliphora, a model system in the field of optic flow processing. The vCH-cell receives input from various other identified wide-field cells, the receptive fields of which are located in both the ipsilateral and the contralateral visual field. The relevance of this connectivity to the processing of naturalistic image sequences, with their peculiar dynamical characteristics, is still unresolved. To disentangle the contributions of the different input components to the cell's overall response, we used electrophysiologically determined responses of the vCH-cell and its various input elements to tune a model of the vCH-circuit. Their impact on the vCH-cell response could be distinguished by stimulating not only extended parts of the visual field of the fly, but also selected regions in the ipsi- and contralateral visual field with behaviorally generated optic flow. We show that a computational model of the vCH-circuit is able to account for the neuronal activities of the counterparts in the blowfly's visual system. Furthermore, we offer an insight into the dendritic integration of binocular visual input.
Knowledge Augmentation for Aligning Ontologies: An Evaluation in the Biomedical Domain

The objective of this study is to evaluate the cont ribution to semantic integration of the semantic relations extracted from concept names, representing augmented knowledge. Three augmentation methods ‐ based on linguistic phenomena ‐ are investigated (reification, nominal modification, an d prepositional attachment). The number of concepts aligned in two ontologies of anatomy before and after augmentation serves as the evaluation criterion. Among the 2353 concepts exhibiting lexical resemblance across systems, the number of concepts supported by structural evidence (i.e., share d hierarchical relations) increased from 71% before augmentation to 87% after augmentation. The relative contribution of each augmentation method to the alignment is presented. The limitations of this study and the generalization of augmentation methods are discussed.
Towards a platform for linearization grammars

A number of authors working in the HPSG paradigm (Reape, 1990, 1994, 1996; Richter and Sailer, 1995; Kathol, 1995; Muller, 1995, 1999a; Penn, 1999, and others) have argued on linguistic grounds that constituent structure should not be directly linked to word order properties. While the formal realizations of the proposals differ, all these so-called linearization approaches have in common that they allow constituents to be discontinuous, i.e., they do not cover a continuous stretch of phonological or graphemic material.1 On the computational side, some algorithms for parsing grammars licensing such discontinuous constituents have been proposed (Johnson, 1985; Reape, 1991; van Noord, 1991). A computational encoding of an HPSG linearization grammar for German is discussed in Muller (1996). The BABEL system described implements the HPSG linearization theory of Muller (1999a) in Prolog and uses a basic parser for discontinuous constituents for processing with this grammar.
Addendum to “Stöffler, D., Hamann, C., and Metzler, K., Shock metamorphism of planetary silicate rocks and sediments: Proposal for an updated classification system. Meteoritics & Planetary Science 53, 5–49, 2018”

With this addendum we provide some correction and additional information regarding the above cited publication. It addresses the following two topics. (1) Clarification for a correct application of the criteria for certain shock stages of chondrites, in particular stage C‐S6. (2) Correction of a printing error in the table that contains the shock classification system of chondrites.
Learning Temporal Sequences using Bags of Features Anonymous CVPR submission Paper ID 2388

This paper presents a novel method for learning classes of temporal sequences using a bag-of-features approach. We define a temporal sequence as a bag of temporal features and show how this representation can be used for the recognition and segmentation of temporal events. A codebook of temporal descriptors, representing the local temporal texture, is automatically constructed from a set of sample sequences at multiple time scales. Temporal sequences are then encoded using accumulated histograms of parts from this codebook. This representation, though simple, proves to be surprisingly powerful and able to implicitly learn the sequence dynamics. Based on this representation, a multiclass classifier, treating the bag of features as the feature vector, is applied to estimate the corresponding class of the temporal sequence. Finally, extensive experiments are performed on multiple datasets to compare our method against state-of-the-art algorithms. The results show that our algorithm performs better and requires less training data than competing techniques.
Risk Factors for Progression of Aortic Atheroma in Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack Patients

Background and Purpose— Aortic atheroma is an independent risk factor for stroke and undergoes temporal progression. Clinical and risk factor associations of such progression are unknown. Hyperhomocysteinemia has been linked with atherosclerosis, including that in the cerebral vasculature. This study investigated associations between elevated homocysteine levels and other stroke vascular risk factors and the risk of aortic atheroma progression in patients with cerebrovascular disease. Methods— Fifty-seven stroke and 21 transient ischemic attack patients underwent multiplanar transesophageal echocardiograms within 1 month of symptom onset and again at 9 months. Aortic atheroma was graded and stratified by use of existing criteria. Stroke risk factors; use of anticoagulant, antiplatelet, and hypolipidemic drugs; and clinical and etiological subtypes of stroke were recorded and compared in patients stratified for the presence or absence of aortic atheroma progression. Results— Of the 78, 29 (37%) progressed, 32 (41%) remained unchanged, and 17 (22%) regressed. Progression was most marked at the aortic arch (P =0.005), followed by the ascending segment (P <0.04). In nearly two thirds of the patients in whom aortic atheroma remained unchanged over 9 months, no atheroma was evident on baseline transesophageal echocardiogram. Only homocysteine levels ≥14.0 &mgr; mol/L (P =0.02), total anterior cerebral infarct (P =0.02), and large-artery atherosclerosis (P =0.005) significantly correlated with progression. Conclusions— Among vascular risk factors, elevated homocysteine levels are associated with aortic atheroma progression. Stroke and transient ischemic attack patients with aortic atheroma should undergo assessment of homocysteine levels, which, if elevated, may be treated with vitamins in an effort to arrest aortic atheroma progression.
On Analyzing and Developing Data Contracts in Cloud-Based Data Marketplaces

Currently, rich and diverse data types have been increasingly provided using the Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) model, a form of cloud computing services. However, data offered by DaaS are constrained by several data concerns that, if not automatically being reasoned properly, will lead to a wrong way of using them. In this paper, we support the assumption that data concerns should be explicitly modeled and specified in data contracts to support concern-aware data selection and utilization. Instead of relying on a specific definition of data contracts, we analyze contemporary data contracts and we present an abstract model for data contracts. Based on the abstract model, we propose several techniques for evaluating data contracts that can be integrated into data service selection and composition frameworks. We also illustrate our approach with some real world scenarios.
You Really Need A Good Ruler to Measure Caching Performance in Information-Centric Networks

Information-centric networks are an interesting new paradigm for distributing content on the Internet. They bring up many research challenges, such as addressing content by name, securing content, and wide-spread caching of content. Caching has caught a lot of attention in the research community, but a lot of the work suffers from a poor understanding of the different metrics with which caching performance can be measured. In this paper we not only present a comprehensive overview of different caching metrics that have been proposed for information-centric networks, but also propose the coupling factor as a new metric to capture the relation- ship between content popularity and network topology. As we show, many commonly used metrics have several failure modes which are largely ignored in literature. We identify these problems and propose remedies and new metrics to address these failures. Our work highlights the fundamental differences between information-centric caches and "traditional" cache networks and we demonstrate the need for a systematic understanding of the metrics for information- centric caching. We also discuss how experimental work should be done when evaluating networks of caches.
The early history of tumor virology: Rous, RIF, and RAV

One hundred years ago Peyton Rous recovered a virus, now known as the Rous sarcoma virus (RSV), from a chicken sarcoma, which reproduced all aspects of the tumor on injection into closely related chickens. There followed recovery of causal viruses of tumors of different morphology from 4 more of 60 chicken tumors. Subsequent studies in chickens of the biology of the first RSV isolated moved slowly for 45 y until an assay of ectodermal pocks of the chorioallantoic membrane of chicken embryos was introduced. The inadequacies of that assay were resolved with the production of transformed foci in cultures of chicken fibroblasts. There followed a productive period on the dynamics of RSV infection. An avian leukosis virus (ALV) was found in some chicken embryos and named resistance-inducing factor (RIF) because it interferes with RSV. Its epidemiology in chickens is described. Another ALV was found in stocks of RSV and called Rous-associated virus (RAV). Cells preinfected with RAV interfere with RSV infection, but RSV does not produce infectious virus unless RAV is added during or after RSV infection. Intracellular RAV provides the infectious coat for the otherwise defective RSV. The coat determines the antigenicity, host range, and maturation rate of RSV. RSV particles carry reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that converts their RNA into DNA and allows integration into the cell's DNA, where it functions as a cellular gene. This was the bridge that joined the biological era to the molecular era. Its relation to oncogenes and human cancer is discussed.
Inverse Monte Carlo in a multilayered tissue model: merging diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and laser Doppler flowmetry

Abstract. The tissue fraction of red blood cells (RBCs) and their oxygenation and speed-resolved perfusion are estimated in absolute units by combining diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF). The DRS spectra (450 to 850 nm) are assessed at two source–detector separations (0.4 and 1.2 mm), allowing for a relative calibration routine, whereas LDF spectra are assessed at 1.2 mm in the same fiber-optic probe. Data are analyzed using nonlinear optimization in an inverse Monte Carlo technique by applying an adaptive multilayered tissue model based on geometrical, scattering, and absorbing properties, as well as RBC flow-speed information. Simulations of 250 tissue-like models including up to 2000 individual blood vessels were used to evaluate the method. The absolute root mean square (RMS) deviation between estimated and true oxygenation was 4.1 percentage units, whereas the relative RMS deviations for the RBC tissue fraction and perfusion were 19% and 23%, respectively. Examples of in vivo measurements on forearm and foot during common provocations are presented. The method offers several advantages such as simultaneous quantification of RBC tissue fraction and oxygenation and perfusion from the same, predictable, sampling volume. The perfusion estimate is speed resolved, absolute (% RBC×mm/s), and more accurate due to the combination with DRS.