Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in seasonal snow water equivalent distribution in High Mountain Asia (1987 to 2009)

Changes (1987 to 2009) in snow-water storage in High Mountain Asia are highly spatially and seasonally heterogeneous. Snow meltwaters account for most of the yearly water budgets of many catchments in High Mountain Asia (HMA). We examine trends in snow water equivalent (SWE) using passive microwave data (1987 to 2009). We find an overall decrease in SWE in HMA, despite regions of increased SWE in the Pamir, Kunlun Shan, Eastern Himalaya, and Eastern Tien Shan. Although the average decline in annual SWE across HMA (contributing area, 2641 × 103 km2) is low (average, −0.3%), annual SWE losses conceal distinct seasonal and spatial heterogeneities across the study region. For example, the Tien Shan has seen both strong increases in winter SWE and sharp declines in spring and summer SWE. In the majority of catchments, the most negative SWE trends are found in mid-elevation zones, which often correspond to the regions of highest snow-water storage and are somewhat distinct from glaciated areas. Negative changes in SWE storage in these mid-elevation zones have strong implications for downstream water availability.
Implicit Incompressible SPH

We propose a novel formulation of the projection method for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). We combine a symmetric SPH pressure force and an SPH discretization of the continuity equation to obtain a discretized form of the pressure Poisson equation (PPE). In contrast to previous projection schemes, our system does consider the actual computation of the pressure force. This incorporation improves the convergence rate of the solver. Furthermore, we propose to compute the density deviation based on velocities instead of positions as this formulation improves the robustness of the time-integration scheme. We show that our novel formulation outperforms previous projection schemes and state-of-the-art SPH methods. Large time steps and small density deviations of down to 0.01 percent can be handled in typical scenarios. The practical relevance of the approach is illustrated by scenarios with up to 40 million SPH particles.
Localization services in hybrid self-organizing networks

In this paper we present a localization technique for tracking and positioning services in self-organizing hybrid networks, where both indoor and outdoor scenarios coexist. In the proposed framework, outdoor anchor nodes act as reference nodes for estimating the position of mobile nodes, which are moving in a neighboring indoor region. The mobile nodes share some location information for estimating their own position by using flooding communication scheme. Communications between mobile nodes are allowed by IEEE 802.16e technology. The outdoor reference nodes are equipped with Global Positioning Service network interface card. The cooperation among mobile and reference nodes, and the self-organizing network behavior guarantee fast positioning estimate. The accuracy of localization measurement - in terms of position and speed uncertainty - is assessed through the Dilution of Precision factor. Moreover, to minimize position and speed estimation errors of each node, an Extended Kalman Filtering technique is adopted. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Innovative capacity in European peripheral regions: Determinants and empirical evidence

The paper aims to study the drivers of innovative capacity of European peripheral regions, whose innovative behaviour has received less attention in the literature than successful regions. To achieve this objective, we apply the Furman et al. (2002) model in order to test if this model is applicable at regional level. Regarding to this point, it constitutes the second objective of the paper. We empirically study the drivers of innovative capacity in European peripheral regions by providing econometric analysis of panel data methodology based on data taken from the Eurostat for the period 1996-2007. The empirical results highlight the importance of the common innovation infrastructure and the cluster- specific environment as main determinants of regional innovative capacity. However, the statistical results suggest that for the European peripheral case the role of quality of linkages is limited and that in this kind of regions there is a little interaction.
DNA Variations in Oculocutaneous Albinism: An Updated Mutation List and Current Outstanding Issues in Molecular Diagnostics

Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is a rare genetic disorder of melanin synthesis that results in hypopigmented hair, skin, and eyes. There are four types of OCA caused by mutations in TYR (OCA‐1), OCA2 (OCA‐2), TYRP1 (OCA‐3), or SLC45A2 (OCA‐4). Here we report 22 novel mutations in the OCA genes; 14 from a cohort of 61 patients seen as part of the NIH OCA Natural History Study and eight from a prior study at the University of Minnesota. We also include a comprehensive list of almost 600 previously reported OCA mutations along with ethnicity information, carrier frequencies, and in silico pathogenicity predictions as a supplement. In addition to discussing the clinical and molecular features of OCA, we address the cases of apparent missing heritability. In our cohort, 26% of patients did not have two mutations in a single OCA gene. We demonstrate the utility of multiple detection methods to reveal mutations missed by Sanger sequencing. Finally, we review the TYR p.R402Q temperature‐sensitive variant and confirm its association with cases of albinism with only one identifiable TYR mutation.
Modular implicits

We present modular implicits, an extension to the OCaml language for ad-hoc polymorphism inspired by Scala implicits and modular type classes. Modular implicits are based on type-directed implicit module parameters, and elaborate straightforwardly into OCaml's first-class functors. Basing the design on OCaml's modules leads to a system that naturally supports many features from other languages with systematic ad-hoc overloading, including inheritance, instance constraints, constructor classes and associated types.
Design and implementation of reliable multi-layer service network

This paper describes the design and implementation of the new Japanese academic backbone network, called SINET4, which started full operation in April 2011. The network was designed to serve as a higher-speed and more reliable infrastructure than the previous network, SINET3, as well as to provide a variety of multilayer network services. The network was subjected to the disastrous March 11 earthquake during the migration from SINET3 to SINET4 but did not suffer serious damage thanks to the new network design. We present the network design concept, networking technologies applied, and effects of the earthquake.
Analyzing and Adjusting for Nonresponse to the AFRP Spouse Survey

Abstract : This report presents a detailed analysis of the reasons for failure to respond to the AFRP Spouse Survey and describes the procedures used to minimize the biasing effects of nonresponse. The report summarizes the selection and implementation of the AFRP Soldier and Spouse Surveys, describes the opportunities for spouse nonparticipation, and presents the models developed to predict the probability of spouse participation. It also presents details of the nonresponse adjustments made to the spouse sampling weights.
Propolis Standardized Extract (EPP-AF®), an Innovative Chemically and Biologically Reproducible Pharmaceutical Compound for Treating Wounds

The aim of this study was to develop a formulation, containing the propolis standardized extract (EPP-AF®), which can assist in the healing of skin lesions. To achieve this objective the antimicrobial activity and chemical composition of the propolis extract was determined. The final product was subjected to in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical evaluation. The broth macrodilution method was used to determine the antimicrobial activity of the extracts and formulations against the microorganisms most commonly found in burns, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis. Wistar rats with puncture wounded skin were used to evaluate the wound healing properties of propolis. The results of chemical and biological characterization demonstrated the batch-to-batch reproducibility of the standardized extract which is an unprecedented result. The antimicrobial and wound healing activity of the pharmaceutical studied showed the best results when samples contain 3.6% propolis, suggesting that this is the most promising composition.
Efficient EMD-based similarity search in multimedia databases via flexible dimensionality reduction

The Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) was developed in computer vision as a flexible similarity model that utilizes similarities in feature space to define a high quality similarity measure in feature representation space. It has been successfully adopted in a multitude of applications with low to medium dimensionality. However, multimedia applications commonly exhibit high-dimensional feature representations for which the computational complexity of the EMD hinders its adoption. An efficient query processing approach that mitigates and overcomes this effect is crucial. We propose novel dimensionality reduction techniques for the EMD in a filter-and-refine architecture for efficient lossless retrieval. Thorough experimental evaluation on real world data sets demonstrates a substantial reduction of the number of expensive high-dimensional EMD computations and thus remarkably faster response times. Our techniques are fully flexible in the number of reduced dimensions, which is a novel feature in approximation techniques for the EMD.
Trunk Muscularity in Throwers

Abstract This study aimed to examine and compare the trunk muscularity of track and field throwers and non-athletes, and its predictive value to the physical performance of the athletes. Using a magnetic resonance imaging method, the skeletal muscle volume (SMV) of the trunk (SMVtrunk) was determined in 19 strength trained athletes and 18 non-athletes. Also, the SMV of upper, middle and lower regions of the trunk was calculated in every 33% of the trunk length. For the athletes, the maximum weight (1RM) of squat, high clean, and deadlift, and shot forward throwing score were measured. The SMVtrunk in the athletes was 10% greater than that of non-athletes, with a larger difference in the upper region of the trunk. Step-wise multiple regression analysis indicated that the SMV of the lower region was a significant contributor for predicting the 1RM values of the 3 tasks, as well as the shot forward throwing score. The current results indicate that, while the muscularity of the trunk in track and field throwers is characterized by predominant development in the upper region, the muscularity in the lower region is a determinant factor for the 1RM values of the squat, high clean, and deadlift and shot forward throwing score.
Robust Nonlinear Regulation: Continuous-Time Internal Models and Hybrid Identifiers

The paper deals with the problem of robust output regulation for minimum-phase nonlinear systems in a semiglobal setting. We present a different perspective to the problem of adaptive regulation in which prediction error identification methods, which are routinely used in other control contexts, can be adopted to design robust nonlinear regulators. The proposed control structure combines continuous-time dynamics and “hybrid identifiers”, the latter specifically designed to estimate the actual steady-state control law. The proposed framework encompasses existing frameworks proposed so far in the nonlinear continuous-time literature.
Sequential maximum mutual information linear discriminant analysis for speech recognition

Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a simple and effective feature transformation technique that aims to improve discriminability by maximizing the ratio of the between-class variance to the within-class variance. However, LDA does not explicitly consider the sequential discriminative criterion which consists in directly reducing the errors of a speech recognizer. This paper proposes a simple extension of LDA that is called sequential LDA (sLDA) based on a sequential discriminative criterion computed from the Gaussian statistics, which are obtained from sequential maximum mutual information (MMI) training. Although the objective function of the proposed LDA can be regarded as a special case of various discriminative feature transformation techniques (for example, f-MPE or the bottom layer of a neural network), the transformation matrix can be obtained as the closed-form solution to a generalized eigenvalue problem, in contrast to the gradient-descent-based optimization methods usually used in these techniques. Experiments on large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese) and noisy speech recognition task (2nd CHiME challenge) show consistent improvements from standard LDA due to the sequential discriminative training. In addition, the proposed method, despite its simple and fast computation, improved the performance in combination with discriminative feature transformation (f-bMMI), perhaps by providing a good initialization to f-bMMI.
Fault tolerant steer-by-wire road wheel control system

This paper describes a fault tolerant steer-by-wire road wheel control system. With dual motor, dual microcontroller architecture this system has the capability to tolerate single point failure without degrading the control system performance. The arbitration bus, mechanical arrangement of motors, and the developed control algorithm allow the system to reconfigure itself automatically in the event of a single point fault, and assure a smooth reconfiguration procedure. The experimental result illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed system.
Resistance exercise training and in vitro skeletal muscle oxidative capacity in older adults

Whether resistance exercise training (RET) improves skeletal muscle substrate oxidative capacity and reduces mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species in older adults remains unclear. To address this, 19 older males (≥60 years) were randomized to a RET (n = 11) or to a waitlist control group (n = 8) that remained sedentary for 12 weeks. RET was comprised of three upper body and four lower body movements on resistance machines. One set of 8–12 repetitions to failure of each movement was performed on three nonconsecutive days/week. Improvements in chest press and leg press strength were assessed using a three‐repetition maximum (3 RM). Body composition was assessed via dual energy X‐ray absorptiometry. Muscle biopsies were obtained from the vastus lateralis muscle at baseline and at both 3 weeks and 12 weeks. Palmitate and pyruvate oxidation rates were measured from the 14CO2 produced from [1‐14C] palmitic acid and [U‐14C] pyruvate, respectively, during incubation of muscle homogenates. PGC‐1α, TFAM, and PPARδ levels were quantified using qRT‐PCR. Citrate synthase (CS) and β‐HAD activities were determined spectrophotometrically. Mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were assessed using the Amplex Red Hydrogen Peroxide/Peroxidase assay. There were no significant changes in body weight or body composition following the intervention. Chest press and leg press strength (3RM) increased ~34% (both P < 0.01) with RET. There were no significant changes in pyruvate or fatty acid oxidation or in the expression of target genes with the intervention. There was a modest increase (P < 0.05) in βHAD activity with RET at 12 weeks but the change in CS enzyme activity was not significant. In addition, there were no significant changes in ROS production in either group following RET. Taken together, the findings of this study suggest that 12 weeks of low volume RET does not increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity or reduce ROS production in older adults.
Fast and waveform independent characterization of current source models

A fast characterization method for current source models (CSM) is proposed. It analyses the given transistor netlist of CMOS logic cells to determine both static and dynamic CSM parameters in the same DC simulation. To account for the influence of parasitic elements in large logic cells, an additional low pass filter is inserted to the CSMs. AC analysis is employed to efficiently define its parameters. The characterization is therefore independent of user specified input waveforms. CSMs of industrial gates have been integrated into a standard SPICE simulator, showing high accuracy also for noisy input waveforms. Used in path based timing analysis of ISCAS85 circuits, average errors of 3% have been observed while simulation times could be reduced by a factor of 100.
Using Webcrawling of Publicly Available Websites to Assess E-commerce Relationships

We investigate e-commerce success factors concerning their impact on the success of commerce transactions between businesses companies. In scientific literature, many e-commerce success factors are introduced. Most of them are focused on companies' website quality. They are evaluated concerning companies' success in the business-to- consumer (B2C) environment where consumers choose their preferred e-commerce websites based on these success factors e.g. website content quality, website interaction, and website customization. In contrast to previous work, this research focuses on the usage of existing e-commerce success factors for predicting successfulness of business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce. The introduced methodology is based on the identification of semantic textual patterns representing success factors from the websites of B2B companies. The successfulness of the identified success factors in B2B ecommerce is evaluated by regression modeling. As a result, it is shown that some B2C e-commerce success factors also enable the predicting of B2B e-commerce success while others do not. This contributes to the existing literature concerning ecommerce success factors. Further, these findings are valuable for B2B e-commerce websites creation.
Turning Web Text and Search Queries into Factual Knowledge: Hierarchical Class Attribute Extraction

A seed-based framework for textual information extraction allows for weakly supervised acquisition of open-domain class attributes over conceptual hierarchies, from a combination of Web documents and query logs. Automatically-extracted labeled classes, consisting of a label (e.g., painkillers) and an associated set of instances (e.g., vicodin, oxycontin), are linked under existing conceptual hierarchies (e.g., brain disorders and skin diseases are linked under the concepts BrainDisorder and SkinDisease respectively). Attributes extracted for the labeled classes are propagated upwards in the hierarchy, to determine the attributes of hierarchy concepts (e.g., Disease) from the attributes of their subconcepts (e.g., BrainDisorder and SkinDisease).
Targeting Aerobic Glycolysis and HIF-1α Expression Enhance Imiquimod-induced Apoptosis in Cancer Cells

Tumor cells rely on aerobic glycolysis to maintain unconstrained cell growth and proliferation. Imiquimod (IMQ), a synthetic Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7/8 ligand, exerts anti-tumor effects directly by inducing cell death in cancer cells and/or indirectly by activating cellular immune responses against tumor cells. However, whether IMQ modulates glucose metabolism pathways remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that IMQ can enhance aerobic glycolysis by up-regulating HIF-1α expression at the transcriptional and translational levels via ROS mediated STAT3- and Akt-dependent pathways, independent of TLR7/8 signaling. The genetic silencing of HIF-1α not only repressed IMQ-induced aerobic glycolysis but also sensitized cells to IMQ-induced apoptosis due to faster ATP and Mcl-1 depletion. Moreover, the glucose analog 2-DG and the Hsp90 inhibitor 17-AAG, which destabilizes the HIF-1α protein, synergized with IMQ to induce tumor cell apoptosis in vitro and significantly inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Thus, we hypothesize that the IMQ-induced up-regulation of HIF-1α and aerobic glycolysis is a protective response to the metabolic stress generated by IMQ treatment, and thus, co-treatment with inhibitors of HIF-1α and/or glycolysis may be a useful therapeutic strategy to enhance the anti-tumor effects of IMQ in clinical settings.
Experiments on acquisition and processing of video for free-viewpoint television

The paper describes an experimental multiview video production, processing and delivery chain developed at Poznan University of Technology for research on free-viewpoint television. The multiview-video acquisition system consists of HD camera units with wireless synchronization, wireless control, video storage and power supply units. Therefore no cabling is needed in the system, which is important for shooting real-world events. The system is mostly used for nearly circular setup of cameras but the locations of cameras are arbitrary, and the procedures for system calibration and multiview video correction are consid-ered. The paper deals also with adoption for circular camera arrangement of the techniques implemented in Depth Estimation Reference Software and View Synthesis Reference Software.
V-support Vector Classification with Uncertainty Based on Expert Advices

Support vector techniques have been successfully applied to many real-world problems, but it is difficult to select the parameter C. The v-support vector classification (v-SVC) has the advantage of a parameter v on controlling the number of support vectors. However, it is required that every input must be exactly assigned to one of these two classes without any uncertainty. A new v-SVM technique is proposed which is able to deal with training data with uncertainty based on expert advices. Firstly the meaning of the uncertainty is defined. Based on this meaning of uncertainty, the algorithm has been derived. This technique extends the application horizon of v-SVM greatly. As an application, the problem about early warning of grain production is solved by our algorithm.
Modifying Effects of Vitamin E on Chlorpyrifos Toxicity in Atlantic Salmon

The aim of this study was to elucidate how vitamin E (alpha tocopherol) may ameliorate the toxicity of the pesticide chlorpyrifos in Atlantic salmon. Freshly isolated hepatocytes were exposed to vitamin E, chlorpyrifos or a combination of vitamin E and chlorpyrifos (all 100 μM). Transcriptomics (RNA-seq) and metabolomics were used to screen for effects of vitamin E and chlorpyrifos. By introducing vitamin E, the number of upregulated transcripts induced by chlorpyrifos exposure was reduced from 941 to 626, while the number of downregulated transcripts was reduced from 901 to 742 compared to the control. Adding only vitamin E had no effect on the transcriptome. Jak-STAT signaling was the most significantly affected pathway by chlorpyrifos treatment according to the transcriptomics data. The metabolomics data showed that accumulation of multiple long chain fatty acids and dipeptides and amino acids in chlorpyrifos treated cells was partially alleviated by vitamin E treatment. Significant interaction effects between chlorpyrifos and vitamin E were seen for 15 metabolites, including 12 dipeptides. The antioxidant had relatively modest effects on chlorpyrifos-induced oxidative stress. By combining the two data sets, the study suggests that vitamin E supplementation prevents uptake and accumulation of fatty acids, and counteracts inhibited carbohydrate metabolism. Overall, this study shows that vitamin E only to a moderate degree modifies chlorpyrifos toxicity in Atlantic salmon liver cells.