Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Cattle Management on Oak Regeneration in Northern Californian Mediterranean Oak Woodlands

Oak woodlands of Mediterranean ecosystems, a major component of biodiversity hotspots in Europe and North America, have undergone significant land-use change in recent centuries, including an increase in grazing intensity due to the widespread presence of cattle. Simultaneously, a decrease in oak regeneration has been observed, suggesting a link between cattle grazing intensity and limited oak regeneration. In this study we examined the effect of cattle grazing on coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia Née) regeneration in San Francisco Bay Area, California. We studied seedling, sapling and adult density of coast live oak as well as vertebrate herbivory at 8 independent sites under two grazing conditions: with cattle and wildlife presence (n = 4) and only with wildlife (n = 4). The specific questions we addressed are: i) to what extent cattle management practices affect oak density, and ii) what is the effect of rangeland management on herbivory and size of young oak plants. In areas with cattle present, we found a 50% reduction in young oak density, and plant size was smaller, suggesting that survival and growth young plants in those areas are significantly limited. In addition, the presence of cattle raised the probability and intensity of herbivory (a 1.5 and 1.8-fold difference, respectively). These results strongly suggest that the presence of cattle significantly reduced the success of young Q. agrifolia through elevated herbivory. Given the potential impact of reduced recruitment on adult populations, modifying rangeland management practices to reduce cattle grazing pressure seems to be an important intervention to maintain Mediterranean oak woodlands.
Improving web search transparency by using a Venn diagram interface

The user interfaces of the most popular search engines are largely the same. Typically, users are presented with an ordered list of documents, which provide limited help if users are having trouble finding the information they need. This article presents an interface called the Venn Diagram Interface (VDI) that offers users improved search transparency. The VDI allows users to see how each term, or group of terms, in a query contributes to the entire result set of a search. Furthermore, it allows users to browse the result sets generated by each of these terms. In a test with 10 participants, the VDI was compared against a standard web search interface, Google. With the VDI, users were able to find more documents of higher relevance and were more inclined to continue searching. Their level of interactivity was higher, the quality of the answers they found was perceived to be better. Eight out of 10 users preferred the VDI.
Dephosphorylation of the Linker Regions of Smad1 and Smad2/3 by Small C-terminal Domain Phosphatases Has Distinct Outcomes for Bone Morphogenetic Protein and Transforming Growth Factor-β Pathways*

Smad proteins transduce bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) and transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) signals upon phosphorylation of their C-terminal SXS motif by receptor kinases. The activity of Smad1 in the BMP pathway and Smad2/3 in the TGFβ pathway is restricted by pathway cross-talk and feedback through protein kinases, including MAPK, CDK2/4, p38MAPK, JNK, and others. These kinases phosphorylate Smads 1-3 at the region that links the N-terminal DNA-binding domain and the C-terminal transcriptional domain. Phosphatases that dephosphorylate the linker region are therefore likely to play an integral part in the regulation of Smad activity. We reported previously that small C-terminal domain phosphatases 1, 2, and 3 (SCP1-3) dephosphorylate Smad1 C-terminal tail, thereby attenuating BMP signaling. Here we provide evidence that SCP1-3 also dephosphorylate the linker regions of Smad1 and Smad2/3 in vitro, in mammalian cells and in Xenopus embryos. Overexpression of SCP 1, 2, or 3 decreased linker phosphorylation of Smads 1, 2 and 3. Moreover, RNA interference-mediated knockdown of SCP1/2 increased the BMP-dependent phosphorylation of the Smad1 linker region as well as the C terminus. In contrast, SCP1/2 knockdown increased the TGFβ-dependent linker phosphorylation of Smad2/3 but not the C-terminal phosphorylation. Consequently, SCP1/2 knockdown inhibited TGFβ transcriptional responses, but it enhanced BMP transcriptional responses. Thus, by dephosphorylating Smad2/3 at the linker (inhibitory) but not the C-terminal (activating) site, the SCPs enhance TGFβ signaling, and by dephosphorylating Smad1 at both sites, the SCPs reset Smad1 to the basal unphosphorylated state.
Particle-free wafer cleaning and drying technology

It is reported that an NH/sub 4/OH-H/sub 2/O/sub 2/ solution is excellent for removing particulate contaminants from VLSI silicon wafers after chemical solution treatment. The ratio of NH/sub 4/OH in the solution can be reduced down to 1/10 of the standard ratio while keeping high removal efficiency. By decreasing the NH/sub 4/OH content, wafer damage which appears as a so-called haze during the NH/sub 4/OH-H/sub 2/O/sub 2/ treatment is reduced. To establish a particle-free wafer drying system, a particle-generation-free isopropanol (IPA) vapor drying system has been developed. By eliminating all possible particle generation sources from the drying system, ultraclean wafer drying equipment has been realized. A number of parameters to be controlled have been thoroughly investigated. Three were found to seriously influence surface cleanliness after drying: the water content in the IPA, temperature distribution around the wafers, and the IPA vapor velocity. The optimum drying conditions in which high quality of wafer surface cleanliness can be realized were confirmed experimentally. >
Multiwavelet Packet Entropy and its Application in Transmission Line Fault Recognition and Classification

Multiwavelets possess better properties than traditional wavelets. Multiwavelet packet transformation has more high-frequency information. Spectral entropy can be applied as an analysis index to the complexity or uncertainty of a signal. This paper tries to define four multiwavelet packet entropies to extract the features of different transmission line faults, and uses a radial basis function (RBF) neural network to recognize and classify 10 fault types of power transmission lines. First, the preprocessing and postprocessing problems of multiwavelets are presented. Shannon entropy and Tsallis entropy are introduced, and their difference is discussed. Second, multiwavelet packet energy entropy, time entropy, Shannon singular entropy, and Tsallis singular entropy are defined as the feature extraction methods of transmission line fault signals. Third, the plan of transmission line fault recognition using multiwavelet packet entropies and an RBF neural network is proposed. Finally, the experimental results show that the plan with the four multiwavelet packet energy entropies defined in this paper achieves better performance in fault recognition. The performance with SA4 (symmetric antisymmetric) multiwavelet packet Tsallis singular entropy is the best among the combinations of different multiwavelet packets and the four multiwavelet packet entropies.
New Approaches to Physiological Study by Telemetry Technology

Telemetry technology offers possibility to observe physiological activity of animals in a nature state. In this paper, 24 h physiologic signals of rats under different conditions were recorded. New indices for blood pressure evaluation were developed. Meanwhile, approaches to heart rate variability spectrum analysis, linear and non-linear analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) were developed to estimate the activity of autonomic nervous system and central nervous system, respectively. The results demonstrate that the new parameters extracted from telemetry data may reveal more efficient information of physiological activity, which is impossible by conventional methods. The results also provide the evidence that the activity of central nervous system relates closely to the sympathovagal balance and the sympathetic activity
Consent Processes for Mobile App Mediated Research: Systematic Review

Background Since the launch of ResearchKit on the iOS platform in March 2015 and ResearchStack on the Android platform in June 2016, many academic and commercial institutions around the world have adapted these frameworks to develop mobile app-based research studies. These studies cover a wide variety of subject areas including melanoma, cardiomyopathy, and autism. Additionally, these app-based studies target a variety of participant populations, including children and pregnant women. Objective The aim of this review was to document the variety of self-administered remote informed consent processes used in app-based research studies available between May and September 2016. Remote consent is defined as any consenting process with zero in-person steps, when a participant is able to join a study without ever seeing a member of the research team. This type of review has not been previously conducted. The research community would benefit from a rigorous interrogation of the types of consent taken as part of the seismic shift to entirely mobile meditated research studies. Methods This review examines both the process of information giving and specific content shared, with special attention to data privacy, aggregation, and sharing. Results Consistency across some elements of the app-based consent processes was found; for example, informing participants about how data will be curated from the phone. Variations in other elements were identified; for example, where specific information is shared and the level of detail disclosed. Additionally, several novel elements present in eConsent not typically seen in traditional consent for research were highlighted. Conclusions This review advocates the importance of participant informedness in a novel and largely unregulated research setting.
Titanium disilicide contact resistivity and its impact on 1-&#181;m CMOS circuit performance

A major feature of modern 1-µm CMOS technology is the use of TiSi2-clad diffusions with effective sheet resistances of typically 1 Ω /square. However, until now very little attention has been given to the contact resistance between the TiSi2and the underlying diffusions which form the source and drain of the active transistors. Our experimental results have shown that, depending on process conditions, the specific contact resistivity from silicide to n-diffusion varies by six orders of magnitude. In this work it is demonstrated that unless proper care is taken with respect to junction doping concentrations and post-silicide processing to minimize the silicide to diffusion contact resistance, the use of silicided diffusions actually can be detrimental to circuit performance instead of the intended performance enhancement. In this paper we will present: 1) a novel method to evaluate silicide to diffusion contact resistance using only two masks, 2) an outline of the process conditions that yield a minimum contact resistance, 3)circuit simulations showing the impact of this work on circuit performance, and 4) results showing that the modulation of the contact resistance at high current levels can distort the MOS linear region current-voltage characteristics.
The application of a novel flame retardant on viscose fiber

The paper is mainly about a novel organophosphorus flame‐retardant N‐1‐chloroisopropyl alcohol‐3‐dimethylphosphonopropionamide. Dimethyl phosphate, acrylamide and epichlorohydrin were used as raw materials. The mechanisms of synthesis and molecule structure of the flame retardant were discussed. The fiber was treated using the pad‐dry‐cure‐wash method. The limiting oxygen index value of the modified sample was 31%, higher than that of the sample treated with MDPA (Pyrovatex CP). After 50 laundry cycles, it still had some flame retardancy left. Thermogravimetry (TG) and Differentiate TG analyses confirmed that the flame retardant caused fiber to decompose below its ignition temperature and formed carbonaceous residue or char when exposed to fire. The treatment had an obvious effect on the denier of the fiber; the tensile strength of fiber slightly decreased, but that effect could be negligible. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DE-PACRR: Exploring Layers Inside the PACRR Model

Recent neural IR models have demonstrated deep learning's utility in ad-hoc information retrieval. However, deep models have a reputation for being black boxes, and the roles of a neural IR model's components may not be obvious at first glance. In this work, we attempt to shed light on the inner workings of a recently proposed neural IR model, namely the PACRR model, by visualizing the output of intermediate layers and by investigating the relationship between intermediate weights and the ultimate relevance score produced. We highlight several insights, hoping that such insights will be generally applicable.
Dynamic Screening with Limited Commitment

We examine a model of dynamic screening and price discrimination in which the seller has limited commitment power. Two cohorts of anonymous, patient, and risk-neutral buyers arrive over two periods. Buyers in the first cohort arrive in period one, are privately informed about the distribution of their values, and then privately learn the value realizations in period two. Buyers in the second cohort are “last-minute shoppers” that already know their values upon their arrival in period two. The seller can fully commit to a long-term contract with buyers in the first cohort, but cannot commit to the future contractual terms that will be offered to second-cohort buyers. The expected second-cohort contract serves as an endogenous type-dependent outside option for first-cohort buyers, reducing the seller's ability to extract rents via sequential contracts. We derive the seller-optimal equilibrium and show that, when the seller cannot condition on future contractual terms (either explicitly or implicitly), she endogenously generates a commitment to maintaining high future prices by manipulating the timing of contracting.
Preparation and characterization of poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanocomposites containing multiwalled carbon nanotubes

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanocomposites with different loadings of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) were prepared by melt-compounding technique. A homogeneous dispersion of MWNT throughout PVDF matrix was observed on the cryo-fractured surfaces by scanning electron microscopy. Thermogravimetric analysis results indicated that the thermal stability of neat PVDF was improved with the incorporation of MWNT. Dynamic mechanical analysis showed a significant improvement in the storage modulus over a temperature range from −125 to 75°C with the addition of MWNT. The melt-rheological studies illustrated that incorporating MWNT into PVDF matrix resulted in higher complex viscosities (|η*|), storage modulus (G′), loss modulus (G″), and lower loss factor (tan δ) than those of neat PVDF. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009
Recomputing by operand exchanging: a time-redundancy approach for fault-tolerant neural networks

The use of neural networks in mission-critical applications requires concurrent error detection and correction at architectural level to provide high consistency and reliability of system's outputs. Time redundancy allows for fault tolerance in digital realizations with low circuit complexity increase. In this paper, we propose the use of REcomputation with eXchanged Operands-an approach based on operands' rotation-to introduce concurrent error detection and correction, when timing constraints are not particularly strict. Different architectural approaches for neural design are considered to match the implementation constraints and to show the versatility of the proposed solutions.
Temporally coherent video matting

Existing video matting approaches determine the alpha matte sequence frame-by-frame, which lead to flickering near the boundary of the foreground region. We reduce this effect by considering video data as a spatio-temporal cube, and extending a robust matting algorithm to a 3D solver. Our results demonstrate consistent and visually pleasing alpha mattes, and tend to preserve temporal coherence better than previous techniques.
Transport of the Coumarin Metabolite 7-Hydroxycoumarin Glucuronide Is Mediated via Multidrug Resistance-Associated Proteins 3 and 4

Coumarin (1,2-benzopyrone) is a natural compound that has been used as a fragrance in the food and perfume industry and could have therapeutic usefulness in the treatment of lymphedema and different types of cancer. Several previous pharmacokinetic studies of coumarin have been performed in humans, which revealed extensive first-pass metabolism of the compound. 7-Hydroxycoumarin (7-HC) and its glucuronide (7-HC-G) are the main metabolites formed in humans, and via this route, 80 to 90% of the absorbed coumarin is excreted into urine, mainly as 7-HC-G. Active transport processes play a role in the urinary excretion of 7-HC-G; however, until now, the transporters involved remained to be elucidated. In this study, we investigated whether the efflux transporters multidrug resistance-associated proteins (MRP)1–4, breast cancer resistance protein, or P-glycoprotein play a role in 7-HC and 7-HC-G transport. For this purpose, we measured uptake of the metabolites into membrane vesicles overexpressing these transporters. Our results showed that 7-HC is not transported by any of the efflux transporters tested, whereas 7-HC-G was a substrate of MRP3 and MRP4. These results are in line with the pharmacokinetic profile of coumarin and suggest that MRP3 and MRP4 are the main transporters involved in the excretion of the coumarin metabolite 7-HC-G from liver and kidney.
The Structural and Functional Basis of Catalysis Mediated by NAD(P)H:acceptor Oxidoreductase (FerB) of Paracoccus denitrificans

FerB from Paracoccus denitrificans is a soluble cytoplasmic flavoprotein that accepts redox equivalents from NADH or NADPH and transfers them to various acceptors such as quinones, ferric complexes and chromate. The crystal structure and small-angle X-ray scattering measurements in solution reported here reveal a head-to-tail dimer with two flavin mononucleotide groups bound at the opposite sides of the subunit interface. The dimers tend to self-associate to a tetrameric form at higher protein concentrations. Amino acid residues important for the binding of FMN and NADH and for the catalytic activity are identified and verified by site-directed mutagenesis. In particular, we show that Glu77 anchors a conserved water molecule in close proximity to the O2 of FMN, with the probable role of facilitating flavin reduction. Hydride transfer is shown to occur from the 4-pro-S position of NADH to the solvent-accessible si side of the flavin ring. When using deuterated NADH, this process exhibits a kinetic isotope effect of about 6 just as does the NADH-dependent quinone reductase activity of FerB; the first, reductive half-reaction of flavin cofactor is thus rate-limiting. Replacing the bulky Arg95 in the vicinity of the active site with alanine substantially enhances the activity towards external flavins that obeys the standard bi-bi ping-pong reaction mechanism. The new evidence for a cryptic flavin reductase activity of FerB justifies the previous inclusion of this enzyme in the protein family of NADPH-dependent FMN reductases.
A Pavement Crack Detection Method Combining 2D with 3D Information Based on Dempster‐Shafer Theory

Pavement cracking is one of the main distresses presented in the road surface. Objective and accurate detection or evaluation for these cracks is an important task in the pavement maintenance and management. In this work, a new pavement crack detection method is proposed by combining two‐dimensional (2D) gray‐scale images and three‐dimensional (3D) laser scanning data based on Dempster‐Shafer (D‐S) theory. In this proposed method, 2D gray‐scale image and 3D laser scanning data are modeled as a mass function in evidence theory, and 2D and 3D detection results for pavement cracks are fused at decision‐making level. The experimental results show that the proposed method takes advantage of the respective merits of 2D images and 3D laser scanning data and therefore improves the pavement crack detection accuracy and reduces recognition error rate compared to 2D image intensity‐based methods.
A Capability Model for Knowledge Protection

Literature on knowledge protection strongly focuses on the applica- tion of measures, widely neglecting the abilities of individual firms. A capabil- ity view on firms could help to answer the question of how well they can utilize different measures for protecting knowledge. Drawing on the resource-based view, this paper proposes the concept of protection capabilities and discusses how they could help firms to protect knowledge. Protection capabilities are conceptualized as a capability model that mirrors the identification, assimila- tion, and application capabilities as defined in the model of absorptive capacity. As a result, firms need to develop three types of capabilities: (1) concealment to protect their resources, (2) ambiguity to protect their capabilities and (3) en- forcement to protect their business strategies. This paper discusses how each capability type reduces the risk of external organizations absorbing knowledge, and gives examples of what role IT plays in building each of the capability types.
Immediate/Early vs. Delayed Invasive Strategy for Patients with Non-ST-Segment Elevation Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Invasive coronary revascularization has been shown to improve prognoses in patients with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTE-ACS), but the optimal timing of intervention remains unclear. This meta-analysis is to evaluate the outcomes in immediate (<2 h), early (<24 h), and delayed invasive group and find out which is the optimal timing of intervention in NSTE-ACS patients. Studies were identified through electronic literature search of Medline, PubMed Central, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and CNKI. Data were extracted for populations, interventions, outcomes, and risk of bias. All-cause mortality was the pre-specified primary end point. The longest follow-up available in each study was chosen. The odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI was the effect measure. The fixed or random effect pooled measure was selected based on the heterogeneity test among studies. In the comparison between early and delayed intervention, we found that early intervention led to a statistical significant decrease in mortality rate (n = 6,624; OR 0.78, 95% CI: 0.61–0.99) and refractory ischemia (n = 6,127; OR 0.50, 95% CI: 0.40–0.62) and a non-significant decrease in myocardial infarction (MI), major bleeding and revascularization. In the analysis comparing immediate and delayed invasive approach, we found that immediate intervention significantly reduced major bleeding (n = 1,217; OR 0.46, 95% CI: 0.23–0.93) but led to a non-significant decrease in mortality rate, refractory ischemia and revascularization and a non-significant increase in MI. In conclusion, early invasive strategy may lead to a lower mortality rate and reduce the risk of refractory ischemia, while immediate invasive therapy shows a benefit in reducing the risk of major bleeding.
Signal denoising on graphs via graph filtering

Signal recovery from noisy measurements is an important task that arises in many areas of signal processing. In this paper, we consider this problem for signals represented with graphs using a recently developed framework of discrete signal processing on graphs. We formulate graph signal denoising as an optimization problem and derive an exact closed-form solution expressed by an inverse graph filter, as well as an approximate iterative solution expressed by a standard graph filter. We evaluate the obtained algorithms by applying them to measurement denoising for temperature sensors and opinion combination for multiple experts.