Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Giant eucalypts - globally unique fire-adapted rain-forest trees?

CONTENTS: Summary 1 I. Introduction 1 II. Giant eucalypts in a global context 2 III. Giant eucalypts - taxonomy and distribution 4 IV. Growth of giant eucalypts 6 V. Fire and regeneration of giant eucalypts 8 VI. Are giant eucalypts different from other rain-forest trees? 9 VII. Conclusions 10 Acknowledgements 11 References 11 SUMMARY: Tree species exceeding 70 m in height are rare globally. Giant gymnosperms are concentrated near the Pacific coast of the USA, while the tallest angiosperms are eucalypts (Eucalyptus spp.) in southern and eastern Australia. Giant eucalypts co-occur with rain-forest trees in eastern Australia, creating unique vegetation communities comprising fire-dependent trees above fire-intolerant rain-forest. However, giant eucalypts can also tower over shrubby understoreys (e.g. in Western Australia). The local abundance of giant eucalypts is controlled by interactions between fire activity and landscape setting. Giant eucalypts have features that increase flammability (e.g. oil-rich foliage and open crowns) relative to other rain-forest trees but it is debatable if these features are adaptations. Probable drivers of eucalypt gigantism are intense intra-specific competition following severe fires, and inter-specific competition among adult trees. However, we suggest that this was made possible by a general capacity of eucalypts for 'hyper-emergence'. We argue that, because giant eucalypts occur in rain-forest climates and share traits with rain-forest pioneers, they should be regarded as long-lived rain-forest pioneers, albeit with a particular dependence on fire for regeneration. These unique ecosystems are of high conservation value, following substantial clearing and logging over 150 yr.
Relationship between erectile dysfunction and silent myocardial ischemia in type 2 diabetic patients with no known macrovascular complications.

INTRODUCTION Erectile dysfunction (ED) is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) because it is highly prevalent among those with cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs). Moreover, it precedes the development of CVD and is considered a subrogate marker of subclinical CVD. AIM The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of ED among patients with type 2 diabetes (DM2) without macroangiopathy, and to assess the association between ED and other CVRFs, chronic diabetes complications, silent myocardial ischemia (SMI), and peripheral arterial disease (PAD). METHODS One hundred fifty-four male patients with DM2 and without clinical evidence of CVD were included in the study. The presence of ED, PAD, SMI, chronic diabetic complications, and other CVRFs was evaluated in these patients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES PAD; SMI; ED; 24-hour blood pressure Holter; lipid profile; insulin resistance; testosterone; chronic inflammation; nephropathy; retinopathy; neuropathy. RESULTS Prevalence of ED was 68.2%. Patients with ED were older and characterized by DM2, systolic blood pressure (BP), retinopathy, and insulin treatment of longer duration than patients without ED, even when adjusting for age was performed. Adjusting for duration of diabetic condition revealed significant differences in age and systolic BP. Independent factors for ED were age (57.7±7.5 years, relative risks [RR 1.1], P=0.003) and duration of diabetes (9[3-15] years, RR 1.1, P=0.006). SMI was detected in 13.6% of patients (18.1% in patients with ED vs. 4.1% in patients without ED). Asymptomatic PAD was detected in 13.2% of subjects (14.4% in patients with ED vs. 10.4% in patients without). CONCLUSIONS ED is highly prevalent in DM2, and is associated with the presence of SMI, higher systolic BP and chronic microvascular diabetic complications.
Precision grinding of tungsten carbide mold insert for molding of sub-millimeter glass aspheric lenses

As the demand for precision optical components with sub-millimeter feature size steadily increasing, numerous efforts have been made in developing new techniques and in improving the existing approaches to efficiently and economically produce those components. Glass molding process (GMP) is one of these methods to enable mass production of precision glass optical components in recent years. One of the key issues in GMP is precision mold insert fabrication. Since the mould are normally made of hard and brittle materials such as tungsten carbide (WC) and silicon carbide (SiC), precision diamond grinding is by far the principal choice used to machine the GMP mould. As the feature size of optical component gets smaller, the size of mould and grinding wheel used to fabricate the mould gets smaller too. This makes the grinding process a very time consuming and expensive task. This research aimed to improve the small mold fabrication processes by developing an effective way of producing small diamond wheels and in-process monitoring wheel profile. Diamond wheels of around 0.2mm to 0.5mm in diameter after truing and WC aspheric mold insert of form accuracy around 0. 47μm were successfully produced in this research.
Compensation of mutual coupling in an antenna array for direction of arrival estimation

In this paper, we propose a stable estimation method of direction of arrival (DOA) using an antenna array with mutual coupling. In a real antenna array, the mutual coupling between elements distorts the array output signal and degrades the performance of DOA estimation. Because the coupling effect is symmetric about each element, the mid-array of which the elements are affected equally is insensitive to the mutual coupling. We estimate the coupling coefficients by using this property, compensated the array output using them, and estimate the DOA using the compensated signal. The mutual coupling coefficients are gradually updated in an adaptive manner to guarantee convergence. As a result, we can get more stable or more accurate DOA estimate.
Optimal approximation for submodular and supermodular optimization with bounded curvature

We design new approximation algorithms for the problems of optimizing submodular and supermodular functions subject to a single matroid constraint. Specifically, we consider the case in which we wish to maximize a nondecreasing submodular function or minimize a nonincreasing supermodular function in the setting of bounded total curvature c. In the case of submodular maximization with curvature c, we obtain a (1 − c/e)-approximation --- the first improvement over the greedy (1 − e--c)/c-approximation of Conforti and Cornuejols from 1984, which holds for a cardinality constraint, as well as recent approaches that hold for an arbitrary matroid constraint. Our approach is based on modifications of the continuous greedy algorithm and non-oblivious local search, and allows us to approximately maximize the sum of a nonnegative, nondecreasing submodular function and a (possibly negative) linear function. We show how to reduce both submodular maximization and supermodular minimization to this general problem when the objective function has bounded total curvature. We prove that the approximation results we obtain are the best possible in the value oracle model, even in the case of a cardinality constraint. Finally, we give two concrete applications of our results in the settings of maximum entropy sampling, and the column-subset selection problem.
Fuzzy class rescoring: a part-of-speech language model

Current speech recognition systems usually use word-based trigram language models. More elaborate models are applied to word lattices or N best lists in a rescoring pass following the acoustic decoding process. In this paper we consider techniques for dealing with class-based language models in the lattice rescoring framework of our JANUS large vocabulary speech recognizer. We demonstrate how to interpolate with a Part-of-Speech (POS) tag-based language model as example of a class-based model, where a word can be member of many di(cid:11)erent classes. Here the actual class membership of a word in the lattice becomes a hidden event of the A (cid:3) algorithm used for rescoring. A forward type of algo-rithm is de(cid:12)ned as extension of the lattice rescorer to handle these hidden events in a mathematically sound fashion. Applying the mixture of viterbi and forward kind of rescoring procedure to the German Spontaneous Scheduling Task (GSST) yields some improvement in word accuracy. Above all, the rescoring procedure enables usage of any fuzzy/stochastic class de(cid:12)nition for recognition units that might be determined through automatic clustering algorithms in the future.
Temporal interaction between an artificial orchestra conductor and human musicians

The Virtual Conductor project concerns the development of the first properly interactive virtual orchestra conductor—a Virtual Human that can conduct a piece of music through interaction with musicians, leading and following them while they are playing. This article describes our motivation for developing such a system; related work in the areas of ambient entertainment and coordinated timing, automatic music processing, virtual humans, and conducting; the design, implementation, and evaluation of the Virtual Conductor, and, finally, contains a discussion of the resulting system and expected developments in the (still ongoing) Virtual Conductor project.
The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility

Over the last 10 years, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has identified a base set of findings. These findings are taken almost as assumptions within the field. In summary, they argue that human activity is highly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized and that computational entities such as information sharing, roles, and social norms need to be similarly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized. However, current systems cannot fully support the social world uncovered by these findings. In this article I argue that there is an inherent gap between the social requirements of CSCW and its technical mechanisms. The social-technical gap is the divide between what we know we must support socially and what we can support technically. Exploring, understanding, and hopefully ameliorating this social-technical gap is the central challenge for CSCW as a field and one of the central problems for human-computer interaction. Indeed, merely attesting the continued centrality of this gap could be one of the important intellectual contributions of CSCW. I also argue that the challenge of the social-technical gap creates an opportunity to refocus CSCW.
Registration of region of interest for object tracking applications in wide area motion imagery

Image registration or stabilization is a task that has been focused on in many fields in image processing. Many methods are available for registering two images, but when dealing with wide area motion imagery, registration of the full scene can be taxing computationally. The proposed algorithm is an application utilizing two existing registration methods to stabilize a specific region of interest in an aerial image database. The registration tools implemented during this application are a phase correlation method and the efficient second-order minimization method. The combination of both registration functions act as a coarse-to-fine image registration algorithm. The goal of this application is to output a set of registered smaller sized images from the larger dataset for the use in detection and tracking of objects in wide area imagery. Experiments performed on several image streams show that the proposed technique is effective and gives high registration accuracy.
Cross-Document Coreference Resolution: A Key Technology for Learning by Reading

Automatic knowledge base population from text is an important technology for a broad range of approaches to learning by reading. Effective automated knowledge base population depends critically upon coreference resolution of entities across sources. Use of a wide range of features, both those that capture evidence for entity merging and those that argue against merging, can significantly improve machine learning-based cross-document coreference resolution. Results from the Global Entity Detection and Recognition task of the NIST Automated Content Extraction (ACE) 2008 evaluation support this conclusion.
Switched capacitor DC-DC converter with switch conductance modulation and Pesudo-fixed frequency control

A switched capacitor dc-dc converter with frequency-planned control is presented. By splitting the output stage switches in eight segments the output voltage can be regulated with a combination of switching frequency and switch conductance. This allows for switching at predetermined frequencies, 31.25 kHz, 250 kHz, 500 kHz, and 1 MHz, while maintaining regulation of the output voltage. The controller is implemented in 180 CMOS with a 1/3 series-parallel output stage designed for 3.6–4.2 V input, 1.2 V output, and 1–40 mA load current. The proposed controller is compared with a co-integrated pulse skipping controller and yields a 84.8% reduction in worst-case low-load output ripple voltage and a 1.5% increase in peak efficiency reaching 92.5%, while also providing a predictable spectrum of the switching noise, reducing the risk of interfering with other sensitive circuits.
Molecular Mechanism of Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA)-induced Target Organ Toxicity in Sprague-Dawley Male Rats

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are present in many consumer products ranging from fabrics to plastics and electronics. Wide use of flame retardants can pose an environmental hazard, which makes it important to determine the mechanism of their toxicity. In the present study, dose-dependent toxicity of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a flame retardant, was examined in male prepubertal rats (postnatal day 18) treated orally with TBBPA at 0, 125, 250 or 500 mg/kg for 30 days. There were no differences in body weight gain between the control and TBBPA-treated groups. However, absolute and relative liver weights were significantly increased in high dose of TBBPA-treated groups. TBBPA treatment led to significant induction of CYP2B1 and constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) expression in the liver. In addition, serum thyroxin (T4) concentration was significantly reduced in the TBBPA treated group. These results indicate that repeated exposure to TBBPA induces drug-metabolising enzymes in rats through the CAR signaling pathway. In particular, TBBPA efficiently produced reactive oxygen species (ROS) through CYP2B1 induction in rats. We measured 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), a biomarker of DNA oxidative damage, in the kidney, liver and testes of rats following TBBPA treatment. As expected, TBBPA strongly induced the production of 8-OHdG in the testis and kidney. These observations suggest that TBBPA-induced target organ toxicity may be due to ROS produced by metabolism of TBBPA in Sprague-Dawley rats.
Generation of multi-view video plus depth content using mixed narrow and wide baseline setup

Content production for stereoscopic 3D-TV displays has become mature in the past years. The content is usually shot using two cameras as the glasses-based target devices require two views as input. Beside stereoscopic 3D-TVs, huge progress has also been achieved in the improvement of the image quality of glasses-free auto-stereoscopic displays and light-field displays. Concerning the latter two display families, the content production workflow is less elaborated and more complex, as the number of required views differs considerably and is likely to increase in the near future. As a co-existence of all 3D display families can be expected for the next years, one aims to establish an efficient content production workflow which yields to high quality content for all 3D-TV displays. Against this background, we present a content production workflow which uses as acquisition device a four camera rig involving a central narrow baseline and a wide baseline with two satellite cameras and propose a multi-view video plus depth generation workflow optimized for the four-camera setup.
Adaptation of Lowe's camera pose recovery algorithm to mobile robot self-localisation

This paper presents an adaptation of Lowe's numerical model-based camera localisation algorithm to the domain of indoor mobile robotics. While the original method is straightforward and even elegant, it nonetheless exhibits certain weaknesses. First, due to an affine approximation, the method is not consistent with perspective projection especially when the dimensions of objects seen are large in comparison with their distances to the camera. Next, the non-linearity of equations makes convergence properties sensitive both to the initial solution estimate and to noise. By taking the specificity and exigency of the mobile robotics domain into account, a new formulation of this method is proposed in order to improve efficiency, accuracy and robustness in the presence of noisy data and variable initial conditions. According to this formulation, line correspondences are used rather than points, the number of degrees of freedom is reduced, the affine approximation is removed and rotation is uncoupled from translation. Test results with both synthetic and real images illustrate the improvements expected from theoretical modifications.
Do Investors Care About Credit Ratings? An Analysis Through the Cycle

We investigate how the credit cycle affects the link between bond spreads and credit ratings. Using a simple model of the credit assessment process, we show that when the debt market is more opaque, the information content of ratings deteriorates, creating an incentive for investors to increase the amount spent on private information. We test this hypothesis empirically. Results show that when market opaqueness (proxied by the spread between Aaa- and Baa-rated bonds) increases, the explanatory power of ratings and other control variables deteriorates as investors increasingly price in non-public information.
Anti-Inflammatory and Neuroprotective Effects of Co-UltraPEALut in a Mouse Model of Vascular Dementia

Vascular dementia (VaD), the second most common cause of cognitive impairment in the population, is a disease that results from reduction in regional cerebral blood flow and involves oxidative stress and inflammation. Co-ultramicronized PEALut (co-ultra PEALut) is a new compound with beneficial effects, which include anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Recently, co-ultraPEALut has been shown to exhibit neuroprotective effects in models of Parkinson’s disease, cerebral ischemia and Alzheimer’s disease. However, its effects on VaD remain unknown. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to highlight the potential neuroprotective actions of co-ultraPEALut containing N-palmitoylethanolamine (PEA) and the antioxidant flavonoid luteolin (Lut) (10:1 by mass) in a mouse model of VaD induced by bilateral carotid arteries occlusion. At 24 h after VaD induction, mice were orally treated with 1 mg/kg co-ultraPEALut daily for 15 days. On the 15th day, brain tissues were processed for histological, immunohistochemical, Western blot, and immunofluorescent analysis. Our results clearly demonstrate that co-ultraPEALut improved learning, memory ability, locomotor activity, and the reciprocal social interaction. In addition, the mice subjected to VaD and treated with the co-ultraPEALut showed a reorganization of CA1 and CA3 regions of the hippocampus and restored the number of hippocampal neurons as evidenced by NeuN expression, a specific marker of neurons. Furthermore following carotid arteries ligation, mice treated with co-ultraPEALut showed a modification of proinflammatory, proapoptotic proteins and of oxidative stress as evidenced by the expression of IκB-α, NF-κB p65, Bax, Bcl-2, inducible nitric oxide synthase, and cyclooxygenase-2. In order, co-ultraPEALut treatment restored VaD-induced loss of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and neurotrophins 3 (NT-3) expression in mice. These results confirmed that the neuroprotective effects of co-ultraPEALut were associated with its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Methodological and Statistical Issues in Diagnostic Research

Siamak Sabour1,2* 1Department of Clinical Epidemiology, School of Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran 2Safety Promotions and Injury Prevention Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Iran *Corresponding author: Siamak Sabour, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, School of Health, Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR, Chamran Highway, Velenjak, Daneshjoo Blvd, Iran, Tel: +98-2122421814; E-mail: s.sabour@sbmu.ac. ir
Factorial Experiment Study on Deposition Parameter Dependence of the Energy Bandgap of a-SiGe: H Thin Film Prepared by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

The energy bandgap (Eg) of a-SiGe:H thin film prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is greatly dependent on the deposition conditions. By controlling the flow rates of the supplied gas sources, the total gas pressure, the plasma power, the substrate temperature and so on, Eg can be adjusted. Although the influence of the above deposition factors has been investigated individually, which factor is the most important is still not clear. Here, a 6-factor 5-level factorial experiment was designed to investigate the influence of the deposition factors comprehensively. By making the main effect analysis to Eg, not only the influence of each deposition factor was deduced, but also the most critical factors were selected out. It was found that the flow rates of SiH4 and GeH4, and the total gas pressure played the important roles for the Eg adjustment of a-SiGe:H thin film. So much attention can be only paid to optimize such critical factors with other factors as some default values according to the experience. Thus, the work load can be reduced greatly.
Angular Spectrum Decomposition Analysis of Second Harmonic Ultrasound Propagation and its Relation to Tissue Harmonic Imaging

An angular spectrum decomposition method (ASM) for calculating second-harmonic propagation in fluid-like media is discussed. This method is based on a perturbation solution of Westervelt’s equation, which can be augmented to take into account inhomogeneity of the medium. ASM can be applied to the analysis of tissue harmonic imaging (THI), a diagnostic method that utilizes second harmonics for imaging. One of the advantages of THI is the second harmonic’s ability to improve image quality by reducing aberration caused by inhomogeneity in the body wall. The body wall aberration can be modeled as a localized phase screen in the wave propagation path. The results show that the interactions of angular spectrum components of the fundamental field generate a second-harmonic field that is relatively immune to the aberration. An experiment was performed to demonstrate this phenomenon by using a phase screen created from low density Polyethylene material. The measurements were in close agreement with calculations using ASM.
Design and Fabrication of Suspended Indium Phosphide Waveguides for MEMS-Actuated Optical Buffering

We present the design and fabrication of suspended optical waveguides on indium phosphide platform for use in an optical buffer device with MEMS actuation, in which the optical delay can be achieved by changing the spacing of the waveguides by electrostatic actuation. The optical and mechanical properties of the waveguides and pillar supports are modeled, and different MEMS actuation schemes are simulated. We also present fabrication and characterization results of the epitaxially grown sample structure and of the suspended waveguide device, exhibiting two parallel waveguides with submicron dimensions separated by a 400-nm air gap, and suspended at 40-μm intervals by S-shaped supports.