Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Canopy and physiological controls of GPP during drought and heat wave

Vegetation indices (VIs) derived from satellite reflectance measurements are often used as proxies of canopy activity to evaluate the impacts of drought and heat wave on gross primary production (GPP) through production efficiency models. However, GPP is also regulated by physiological processes that cannot be directly detected using reflectance measurements. This study analyzes the co‐limitation of canopy and plant physiology (represented by VIs and climate anomalies, respectively) on GPP during the 2003 European summer drought and heat wave for 15 Euroflux sites. During the entire drought period, spatial pattern of GPP anomalies can be quantified by relative changes in VIs. We also find that GPP sensitivity to relative canopy changes is higher for nonforest ecosystems (1.81 ± 0.32%GPP/%enhanced vegetation index), while GPP sensitivity to physiological changes is higher for forest ecosystems (−0.18 ± 0.05 g C m−2 d−1/hPa). A conceptual model is further built to better illustrate the canopy and physiological controls on GPP during drought periods.
Remote sensing of volumetric storage changes in lakes

Three‐dimensional remote sensing promises a giant leap forward for surface‐water hydrology in much the same way that radar altimetry transformed physical oceanography. However, the complex geometries of small terrestrial water bodies introduce difficulties, particularly with respect to trade‐offs between changing water depth and inundation area. We use in situ measurements of water‐surface stage (ΔH/dt) and remotely‐sensed area (A) to compute time varying storage changes (ΔS) in nine lakes of the Peace‐Athabasca Delta, Canada. Despite their identical geomorphic setting, regression slopes between ΔH and A vary significantly between lakes, primarily from a predictable ‘area‐effect’ but also small bathymetric variations between basins. On average, lateral contraction/expansion (versus stage adjustment) contributes as little as 7% (versus 93%) to as much as 76% (versus 24%) of overall storage change ΔS. We conclude that both surface‐area and ΔH/dt, rather than just either alone, must be measured to confidently estimate ΔS from space. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Systematic review of dementia prevalence 1994 to 2000

Ageing has occurred in all regions of the world, with impact on neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly dementia. However, previous meta-analysis and reviews have shown high variability in world dementia prevalence rates. Objective The aim of this study was to perform a wide-ranging review of the dementia prevalence studies published in recent years. Methods The search was made on Medline, Lilacs and Embase databases for research conducted between 1994 and 2000. The main inclusion criteria were: use of standard diagnostic criteria and investigation of community samples. Results The final selection included 42 papers, from all continents. The mean prevalence rate of dementia in subjects aged 65 years and older, for continents, ranged from 2.2% in Africa to 8.9% in Europe, and among countries, from 1.3% in India to 14.9% in Spain. However, there was a trend of clustering of the world prevalence rates with the majority of studies reporting rates between 4.2% and 7.2% (≥65 years). Age directly influenced the rates, with a mean prevalence rate of 1.2% (95% CI: 0.8.1.5) for the 65-69 years group and 39.9% (95% CI: 34.4.45.3) for the 90-94 year group, but showing less pronounced influence in the very elderly age group. The urban samples had higher rates, where no significant gender difference was evidenced. Conclusion The age influence over dementia rates apparently leveled off in the very elderly group while a trend toward similar dementia prevalence rates around the world was probably influenced by greater homogeneity in diagnostic criteria.
Probability Logic for Type Spaces

Type spaces in the sense of Harsanyi (1967/68) can be considered as the probabilistic analog of Kripke structures. By an infinitary propositional language with additional operators “individual i assigns probability at least α to” and infinitary inference rules, we axiomatize the class of (Harsanyi) type spaces. We show that our axiom system is strongly sound and strongly complete. To the best of our knowledge, this is the very first strong completeness theorem for a probability logic of the present kind. The result is proved by constructing a canonical type space. CORE, Universitė Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. E-mail: meier@core.ucl. ac.be Further acknowledgements see on page 38. This text presents research results of the Belgian Program on Interuniversity Poles of Attraction initiated by the Belgian State, Prime Minister’s Office, Science Policy Programming. The scientific responsibility is assumed by the author.
Eurographics/siggraph Symposium on Computer Animation (2003) Construction and Animation of Anatomically Based Human Hand Models

a) b) c) d) Construction and animation of the reference hand model: a) plaster cast of a human hand ready for 3D scanning; b) assembly of skin mesh and individual bone meshes; c) and d) skin tissue deformation during animation. Abstract The human hand is a masterpiece of mechanical complexity, able to perform fine motor manipulations and powerful work alike. Designing an animatable human hand model that features the abilities of the archetype created by Nature requires a great deal of anatomical detail to be modeled. In this paper, we present a human hand model with underlying anatomical structure. Animation of the hand model is controlled by muscle contraction values. We employ a physically based hybrid muscle model to convert these contraction values into movement of skin and bones. Pseudo muscles directly control the rotation of bones based on anatomical data and mechanical laws, while geometric muscles deform the skin tissue using a mass-spring system. Thus, resulting animations automatically exhibit anatomically and physically correct finger movements and skin deformations. In addition, we present a deformation technique to create individual hand models from photographs. A radial basis warping function is set up from the correspondence of feature points and applied to the complete structure of the reference hand model, making the deformed hand model instantly animatable.
Local Testing for Membership in Lattices

Motivated by the structural analogies between point lattices and linear error-correcting codes, and by the mature theory on locally testable codes, we initiate a systematic study of local testing for membership in lattices. Testing membership in lattices is also motivated in practice, by applications to integer programming, error detection in lattice-based communication, and cryptography. Apart from establishing the conceptual foundations of lattice testing, our results include the following: 1. We demonstrate upper and lower bounds on the query complexity of local testing for the well-known family of code formula lattices. Furthermore, we instantiate our results with code formula lattices constructed from Reed-Muller codes, and obtain nearly-tight bounds. 2. We show that in order to achieve low query complexity, it is sufficient to design one-sided non-adaptive canonical tests. This result is akin to, and based on an analogous result for error-correcting codes due to Ben-Sasson et al. (SIAM J. Computing 35(1) pp1-21).
Localizing compact set of genes involved in cancer diseases using an evolutionary connectionist approach

In this paper, we present a model capable of predicting cancerous and normal state associated to each biological situation using a hybrid system based on genetic algorithms and artificial neural networks. Carried out experiments have shown a very promising results in terms of predictive accuracy and generalization. Besides, the compact set provided by the model includes well known genes included in different cancer diseases.
Kernels for structured data

Learning from structured data is becoming increasingly important. However, most prior work on kernel methods has focused on learning from attribute-value data. Only recently have researchers started investigating kernels for structured data. This paper describes how kernel definitions can be simplified by identifying the structure of the data and how kernels can be defined on this structure. We propose a kernel for structured data, prove that it is positive definite, and show how it can be adapted in practical applications.
Differential Behavioral Responses to Water-Borne Cues to Predation in Two Container-Dwelling Mosquitoes

Abstract Larvae of the mosquito Toxorhynchites rutilus (Coquillett) prey upon other container-dwelling insects, including larvae of Aedes albopictus (Skuse), which is native to Asia but was introduced into the United States, and on the native tree hole mosquito Ochlerotatus triseriatus (Say). Previous work has established that O. triseriatus adopts low-risk behaviors in the presence of predation risk from T. rutilus. It is unknown whether introduced A. albopictus show a similar response to this predator. Behavior of fourth instars of A. albopictus or O. triseriatus was recorded in water that had held either A. albopictus or O. triseriatus larvae alone (control) and in water that had held T. rutilus larvae feeding on either A. albopictus or O. triseriatus (predation). Activity and position of larvae were recorded in 30-min instantaneous scan censuses. In response to water-borne cues to predation, O. triseriatus adopted low-risk behaviors (more resting, less feeding and movement), but A. albopictus did not change its behavior. We also tested the species specificity of the cues by recording the behavior of A. albopictus in water prepared using O. triseriatus and vice versa. O. triseriatus adopted low-risk behaviors even in predation water prepared by feeding T. rutilus with A. albopictus, but A. albopictus did not alter its behavior significantly between predation and control treatments prepared using O. triseriatus. Thus, A. albopictus does not seem to respond behaviorally to cues produced by this predator and may be more vulnerable to predation than is O. triseriatus.
Art-of-Living Training: Developing an Intervention for Students to Increase Art-of-Living.

BACKGROUND Art-of-living describes a mindful and self-determined way of dealing with one's self and way of life. It is related to measures of well-being. Art-of-living is based on strategies and attitudes which can be learned and therefore can be changed. Two types of training for students to increase art-of-living were developed and tested in two studies to determine the effects on art-of-living measures. METHODS Study 1 dealt with the initial examination of whether it is possible to enhance the art-of-living by training selected art-of-living strategies. Therefore, training with three conditions was developed and conducted with secondary school students (ages 16-19). In Study 2, a second art-of-living training was developed and conducted with children from primary school (ages 8-11). RESULTS In Study 1, the art-of-living measures increased significantly for the training conditions compared to a control group. In addition, Study 2 showed that higher levels of the art-of-living lead to a better quality of life. CONCLUSIONS In summary, the training successfully enhanced art-of-living. Limitations on and benefits of utilising the art-of-living training are discussed.
The Research about the III-Nitride Compounds Epitaxially Grown on Si Substrate

The III-nitride compounds epitaxially grown on Si substrate have attracted more and more attentions and some progress have been achieved. Many methods have been tried to tackle the issue which caused by the large lattice mismatch and thermal expansion coefficient mismatches between silicon substrate and the III-nitride compounds. This paper presents buffer layer technology, selective area and lateral epitaxial over growth technology, and presents the researches about the III-nitride devices. Semi polar and non-polar GaN films grown on Si (such as Si(110), Si(112), Si(001) et al.) also have been instructed. At the end of this paper, the development trend of epitaxial technology has been discussed.
Direct molding of dry adhesives with anisotropic peel strength using an offset lift-off photoresist mold

We demonstrate for the first time a wafer scale, directly molded anisotropic dry adhesive made of silicone that can be produced in a two-mask process. We demonstrate that the peel strength of this adhesive is dependent on the amount of overhang of a thin flexible cap on the top of each fiber. By precisely placing the center of this cap offset to the center of the supporting post, the peel strength of the adhesive can be altered when pulled off in different directions.
Joint recognition and segmentation using phonetically derived features and a hybrid phoneme model

This paper encompasses the approaches of segmental modelling and the use of dynamic features in addressing the constraints of the IID assumption in standard HMM. Phonetic features are introduced which capture the transitional dynamics across a phoneme unit via a DCT transformation of a variable length segment. Alongside this, the use of a hybrid phoneme model is proposed. Classification experiments demonstrate the potential of these features and this model to match the performance of standard HMM. The extension of these features to full recognition is explored and details of a novel recognition framework presented alongside preliminary results. Lattice rescoring based on these models and features is also explored. This reduces the set of segmentations considered allowing a more detailed exploration of the nature of the model and features and the challenges in using the proposed recognition strategy.
Serum Cystatin C Reflects the Progress of Albuminuria

Background Research on the relationship between urinary albumin excretion and serum cystatin C in diabetes is restricted to cross-sectional studies. In this study, we investigated how well serial measurements of serum cystatin C level reflect changes in the urinary albumin excretion rate. Methods We enrolled and retrospectively collected data on 1,058 participants with type 2 diabetes who were older than 18 years and who had more than 3 years of follow-up with serial measurements of albuminuria and serum cystatin C at an outpatient clinic. Results With the use of a linear mixed model, we found that the albuminuria level for each patient over time corresponded with the annual change in serum cystatin C-based estimated glomerular filtration rate (cysC-eGFR) but did not correspond with the creatinine-based eGFR calculated by the modification of diet in renal disease formula (MDRD-eGFR). The discrepancy in the direction of the trend was smaller with cysC-eGFR than with MDRD-eGFR. Conclusion Serum cystatin C level reflects the trend in albuminuria level more accurately than serum creatinine level in Korean type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.
QONCH : A System for Distributed Network Querying using Bounded Approximate Caching

As networks continue to grow in size and complexity, distributed network monitoring and resource querying are becoming increasingly difficult and costly. We have designed, built, and evaluated a scalable infrastructure for answering queries over distributed measurements, while reducing costs (in terms of both network traffic and query latency) and maximizing precision of results. In this infrastructure, each network node owns a set of numerical measurement values and actively maintains bounds on these values cached at other nodes. We can then answer queries approximately, using bounds from nearby caches to avoid contacting the owners directly. We argue that approximate results are acceptable for our target applications, as long as errors are quantified precisely and reported to the user, and there is a mechanism for the user to obtain results with a specified precision. We have designed, implemented, and evaluated two approaches: One, called QONCH-1, uses a recursive partitioning of the network space to place caches in a static, controlled manner, while the other, called QONCH-2, uses a locality-aware distributed hash table to place caches in a dynamic and decentralized manner. We use large-scale network emulation to demonstrate that our techniques are very effective in reducing query costs while generating an acceptable amount of background traffic. They are also able to exploit various forms of locality that are naturally present in queries, and adapt to volatility of measurements.
A Unigram Orientation Model for Statistical Machine Translation

In this paper, we present a unigram segmentation model for statistical machine translation where the segmentation units are blocks: pairs of phrases without internal structure. The segmentation model uses a novel orientation component to handle swapping of neighbor blocks. During training, we collect block unigram counts with orientation: we count how often a block occurs to the left or to the right of some predecessor block. The orientation model is shown to improve translation performance over two models: 1) no block re-ordering is used, and 2) the block swapping is controlled only by a language model. We show experimental results on a standard Arabic-English translation task.
Validity-guided (re)clustering with applications to image segmentation

When clustering algorithms are applied to image segmentation, the goal is to solve a classification problem. However, these algorithms do not directly optimize classification duality. As a result, they are susceptible to two problems: 1) the criterion they optimize may not be a good estimator of "true" classification quality, and 2) they often admit many (suboptimal) solutions. This paper introduces an algorithm that uses cluster validity to mitigate problems 1 and 2. The validity-guided (re)clustering (VGC) algorithm uses cluster-validity information to guide a fuzzy (re)clustering process toward better solutions. It starts with a partition generated by a soft or fuzzy clustering algorithm. Then it iteratively alters the partition by applying (novel) split-and-merge operations to the clusters. Partition modifications that result in improved partition validity are retained. VGC is tested on both synthetic and real-world data. For magnetic resonance image (MRI) segmentation, evaluations by radiologists show that VGC outperforms the (unsupervised) fuzzy c-means algorithm, and VGC's performance approaches that of the (supervised) k-nearest-neighbors algorithm.
Characterizing the Input-Output Function of the Olfactory-Limbic Pathway in the Guinea Pig

Nowadays the neuroscientific community is taking more and more advantage of the continuous interaction between engineers and computational neuroscientists in order to develop neuroprostheses aimed at replacing damaged brain areas with artificial devices. To this end, a technological effort is required to develop neural network models which can be fed with the recorded electrophysiological patterns to yield the correct brain stimulation to recover the desired functions. In this paper we present a machine learning approach to derive the input-output function of the olfactory-limbic pathway in the in vitro whole brain of guinea pig, less complex and more controllable than an in vivo system. We first experimentally characterized the neuronal pathway by delivering different sets of electrical stimuli from the lateral olfactory tract (LOT) and by recording the corresponding responses in the lateral entorhinal cortex (l-ERC). As a second step, we used information theory to evaluate how much information output features carry about the input. Finally we used the acquired data to learn the LOT-l-ERC “I/O function,” by means of the kernel regularized least squares method, able to predict l-ERC responses on the basis of LOT stimulation features. Our modeling approach can be further exploited for brain prostheses applications.
Constructivism and e-learning in the business theory

The author deals with e-learning at University of Hradec Králové on the Faculty of Informatics and Management in the Czech Republic. In the second and third part of the article there is the description of main tools in WebCT and ways of students' motivation in the course Business theory and the chosen elements of the constructivism. The fourth part summarizes and analyzes the evaluative questionnaire from the students. Data were collected at the end of the economic subject (business theory). The last part concentrates on the analysis of business games which are currently available for the new concept of an economic electronic game which will reflect students' needs.
Plant regeneration through somatic embryogenesis and polyamine levels in cultures of grasses of Thar Desert

Tissue culture methods for plant regeneration have been developed for Lasiurus scindicus, Sorghum halepense and Urochloa panicoides using basal portion of young inflorescence as new and a potential source(s) of explants. Highly embryogenic cultures were initiated on Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) medium supplemented with various concentrations of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2-4,D). The regenerative cultures were maintained by subculture on MS medium in the dark at 26+2 o C. Plants were regenerated via somatic embryogenesis from the competent cell cultures on hormone-free MS basal medium or MS medium with 1mgl -1 kinetin. Somatic seedlings were successfully transplanted to pots and grown to maturity in field. Polyamine levels were analyzed in embryogenic and non-embryogenic cultures. A correlation has been found between the individual polyamine levels and the ratio of putrescine to spermidine in the cultured tissues with plant regeneration ability via somatic embryogenesis.
The Economic Effects of Employment Protection: Evidence from International Industry-Level Data

This paper examines the economic effects of employment protection legislation in a sample of developed and developing countries. Implementing a difference-in-differences test lessens the potentially severe endogeneity and omitted variable problems associated with cross-country regressions. This test is based on the hypothesis that employment protection regulations are more binding in sectors of activity exposed to higher volatility in demand or supply shocks. The analysis indicates that more stringent legislation slows down job turnover by a significant amount, and that this effect is more pronounced in sectors that are intrinsically more volatile. The paper also finds that employment and value added decline in the most affected sectors, and employment and output effects are driven by a decline in the net entry of firms. In contrast, average employment per plant is not significantly affected.
In vivo micro-lesion of single dendrite with femtosecond laser pulses

Recently, two-photon microscopy has been used for high spatial resolution imaging of the intact neocortex in living rodents. In this work we used near-IR femtosecond laser pulses for a combination of two-photon microscopy and microdissection on fluorescently-labeled neuronal structures in living mice. Three-dimensional reconstructions of dendrites expressing the green fluorescence protein were made in the cortex of GFP-M and YFP-H transgenic mice. Afterwards, single dendrites were laser-dissected irradiating the structure with a high femtosecond laser energy dose. We report that laser dissection can be performed with micrometric precision and without any visible collateral damage of the surrounding neuronal structures. After laser irradiation, one part of the severed dendrite underwent degeneration and disappeared within 5 hours. Using a chronically implanted glass window, we performed long-term imaging in the area of the dissected dendrite. Images of the long-term morphological changes in the neuronal network after dendritic lesioning will be provided. Laser microdissection of selected structures of the neuronal branching in vivo represents a promising tool for neurobiological research.