Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emissions of methane from northern peatlands: a review of management impacts and implications for future management options

Abstract Northern peatlands constitute a significant source of atmospheric methane (CH 4). However, management of undisturbed peatlands, as well as the restoration of disturbed peatlands, will alter the exchange of CH 4 with the atmosphere. The aim of this systematic review and meta‐analysis was to collate and analyze published studies to improve our understanding of the factors that control CH 4 emissions and the impacts of management on the gas flux from northern (latitude 40° to 70°N) peatlands. The analysis includes a total of 87 studies reporting measurements of CH 4 emissions taken at 186 sites covering different countries, peatland types, and management systems. Results show that CH 4 emissions from natural northern peatlands are highly variable with a 95% CI of 7.6–15.7 g C m−2 year−1 for the mean and 3.3–6.3 g C m−2 year−1 for the median. The overall annual average (mean ± SD) is 12 ± 21 g C m−2 year−1 with the highest emissions from fen ecosystems. Methane emissions from natural peatlands are mainly controlled by water table (WT) depth, plant community composition, and soil pH. Although mean annual air temperature is not a good predictor of CH 4 emissions by itself, the interaction between temperature, plant community cover, WT depth, and soil pH is important. According to short‐term forecasts of climate change, these complex interactions will be the main determinant of CH 4 emissions from northern peatlands. Drainage significantly (p < .05) reduces CH 4 emissions to the atmosphere, on average by 84%. Restoration of drained peatlands by rewetting or vegetation/rewetting increases CH 4 emissions on average by 46% compared to the original premanagement CH 4 fluxes. However, to fully evaluate the net effect of management practice on the greenhouse gas balance from high latitude peatlands, both net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and carbon exports need to be considered.
FFT-SPA non-binary LDPC decoding on GPU

It is well known that non-binary LDPC codes outperform the BER performance of binary LDPC codes for the same code length. The superior BER performance of non-binary codes comes at the expense of more complex decoding algorithms that demand higher computational power. In this paper, we propose parallel signal processing algorithms for performing the FFT-SPA and the corresponding decoding of non-binary LDPC codes over GF(q). The constraints imposed by the complex nature of associated subsystems and kernels, in particular the Check Nodes, present computational challenges regarding multicore systems. Experimental results obtained on GPU for a variety of GF(q) show throughputs in the order of 2 Mbps, which is far above from the minimum throughput required, for example, for real-time video applications that can benefit from such error correcting capabilities.
V1 mechanisms and some figure-ground and border effects.

V1 neurons have been observed to respond more strongly to figure than background regions. Within a figure region, the responses are usually stronger near figure boundaries (the border effect), than further inside the boundaries. Sometimes the medial axes of the figures (e.g., the vertical midline of a vertical figure strip) induce secondary, intermediate, response peaks (the medial axis effect). Related is the physiologically elusive "cross-orientation facilitation", the observation that a cell's response to a grating patch can be facilitated by an orthogonally oriented grating in the surround. Higher center feedbacks have been suggested to cause these figure-ground effects. It has been shown, using a V1 model, that the causes could be intra-cortical interactions within V1 that serve pre-attentive visual segmentation, particularly, object boundary detection. Furthermore, whereas the border effect is robust, the figure-ground effects in the interior of a figure, in particular, the medial axis effect, are by-products of the border effect and are predicted to diminish to zero for larger figures. This model prediction (of the figure size dependence) was subsequently confirmed physiologically, and supported by findings that the response modulations by texture surround do not depend on feedbacks from V2. In addition, the model explains the "cross-orientation facilitation" as caused by a dis-inhibition, to the cell responding to the center of the central grating, by the background grating. Furthermore, the elusiveness of this phenomena was accounted for by the insight that it depends critically on the size of the figure grating. The model is applied to understand some figure-ground effects and segmentation in psychophysics: in particular, that contrast discrimination threshold is lower within and at the center of a closed contour than that in the background, and that a very briefly presented vernier target can perceptually shine through a subsequently presented large grating centered at the same location.
Time-Frequency Analysis for an Efficient Detection and Localization of Side-Coupled Cavities in Real Photonic Crystals

We propose and demonstrate here the high efficiency of concurrent time and frequency analysis to detect and unambiguously identify the coupled cavities in real photonic crystals containing imperfections and/or process-induced disorder. This procedure when applied to reflectograms recorded using phase-sensitive optical low-coherence reflectometry allows a straightforward and complete assessment of cavities (spectral and spatial localization in addition to photon lifetime) over a wide spectral range. Considering such a reflectogram (recorded in ~ 2 s), we show that this procedure greatly eases the evaluation of cavities under guiding conditions in real photonic crystals by discriminating their signature from the in-plane scattering induced by disorder.
Multi-Hop Relaying and MIMO Techniques in Cellular Systems - Throughput Achievable on Rayleigh/Ricean Channels

Two very important and active areas of wireless research are multi-hop relaying and multiple antenna techniques. Wireless multi-hop relaying, adopted in emerging standards such as 802.16j, can increase the data throughput and improve coverage of cellular systems by reducing path loss, mitigating shadowing, and enabling spatial reuse. On the other hand, multiple antenna techniques can take advantage of scattering in the wireless channel to achieve higher capacity. In this paper, we look at the combination of these two techniques in a cellular system, and show that they exhibit a fundamental tradeoff. In order to obtain results that are relevant to potential actual deployments, we use realistic system parameters and a system model appropriate for MIMO operating on dual Rayleigh/Ricean channels.
High-Performance Perovskite Solar Cells with a Non-doped Small Molecule Hole Transporting Layer

The use of solution-processed hole transporting layers (HTLs), without the need of added dopants, is important for the advancement of high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, a small molecule, N,N′-bis(naphthalen-1-yl)-N,N′-bis(phenyl)benzidine (NPB), is utilized as an efficient, dopant-free HTL in inverted PSCs to replace the commonly used poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS). A best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.96% is realized when using NPB as the HTL, along with a short circuit current density (JSC) of 22.92 mA/cm2, an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.11 V, and a fill factor (FF) of 78.4%. This VOC is one of the highest obtained values in CH3NH3PbI3-based inverted PSCs and is comparable to devices with regular structure. The use of NPB as the HTL produced perovskite films with larger grain size and higher crystallinity than obtained with PEDOT:PSS. As a result of this improved perovskite film quality, recombination loss decreased dramatically, .
Assessing Workflow Management Systems - A Quantitative Analysis of a Worfklow Evaluation Model

Despite the enormous interest in workflow management systems and their widespread adoption by industry, few research studies are available that empirically assess the effectiveness and acceptance of this technology. Our work exactly aims at providing such insights and this paper presents some of our preliminary quantitative findings. Using a theory-based workflow success model, we have studied the impact of operational workflow technologies on end-users in terms of perceived usefulness, end-user satisfaction and perceived organisational benefits. A survey instrument was used to gather a sample of 246 end-users from two different organizations. Our findings show that the considered workflow applications are generally accepted and positively evaluated. Using partial least squares analysis, the success model was well supported, making it a usefull instrument to evaluate future workflow projects.
How dilute are dilute solutions in extensional flows

We investigate the concentration dependence of the characteristic relaxation time of dilute polymer solutions in transient uniaxial elongational flow. A series of monodisperse polystyrene solutions of five different molecular weights (1.8×106⩽M⩽8.3×106g∕mol) with concentrations spanning five orders of magnitude were dissolved in two solvents of differing solvent quality (diethylphthalate and oligomeric styrene). Optical measurements with a capillary breakup extensional rheometer of the rate of filament thinning and the time to breakup in each fluid are used to determine the characteristic relaxation time. A criterion for a lower sensitivity limit is introduced, in the form of a minimum concentration cmin necessary for experimental resolution of the effects of polymeric viscoelasticity. This criterion is validated by experiment and comparison to numerical calculations with a multimode bead-spring dumbbell model. These calculations also rationalize previous paradoxical observations of extensional thinning i.
Efficient Tensor Voting with 3D tensorial harmonics

Tensor voting is a robust technique to extract low-level features in noisy images. The approach achieves its robustness by exploiting coherent orientations in local neighborhoods. In this paper we propose an efficient algorithm for dense tensor voting in 3D which makes use of steerable filters. Therefore, we propose steerable expansions of spherical tensor fields in terms of tensorial harmonics, which are their canonical representation. In this way it is possible to perform arbitrary rank tensor voting by linear-combinations of convolutions in an efficient way.
Contact hypersurfaces in uniruled symplectic manifolds always separate

We observe that non‐zero Gromov–Witten invariants with marked point constraints in a closed symplectic manifold imply restrictions on the homology classes that can be represented by contact hypersurfaces. As a special case, contact hypersurfaces must always separate if the symplectic manifold is uniruled. This removes a superfluous assumption in a result of Lu [Math. Res. Lett. 7 (2000) 383–387], thus implying that all contact manifolds that embed as contact‐type hypersurfaces into uniruled symplectic manifolds satisfy the Weinstein conjecture. We prove the main result using the Cieliebak–Mohnke approach to defining Gromov–Witten invariants via Donaldson hypersurfaces, thus no semipositivity or virtual moduli cycles are required.
A PTAS for k-means clustering based on weak coresets

Given a point set P ⊆ R<sup>d</sup> the k-means clustering problem is to find a set C=(c<sub>1</sub>,.,c<sub>k</sub>) of k points and a partition of P into k clusters C<sub>1</sub>,. ,C<sub>k</sub> such that the sum of squared errors ∑<sub>i=1</sub><sup>k</sup> ∑<sub>p ∈ C<sub>i</sub></sub> |p -c<sub>i</sub> |<sub>2</sub><sup>2</sup> is minimized. For given centers this cost function is minimized byassigning points to the nearest center.The k-means cost function is probably the most widely used cost function in the area of clustering.In this paper we show that every unweighted point set P has a weak (ε, k)-coreset of size Poly(k,1/ε) for the k-means clustering problem, i.e. its size is <i>independent</i> of the cardinality |P| of the point set and the dimension d of the Euclidean space R<sup>d</sup>. A weak coreset is a weighted set S ⊆ P together with a set T such that T contains a (1+ε)-approximation for the optimal cluster centers from P and for every set of kcenters from T the cost of the centers for S is a (1±ε)-approximation of the cost for P.We apply our weak coreset to obtain a PTAS for the k-means clustering problem with running time O(nkd + d · Poly(k/ε) + 2<sup>Õ</sup>(k/ε)).
Inhibition Failure is Mediated by a Disposition Toward Flexible Thinking

Conflict detection in dual process contexts is a widely studied phenomenon. However, only a small portion of the investigations has studied the role of individual differences in a typical conflict detection paradigm. In this study, participants completed a modified base-rate neglect task, as well as the Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT), and two Thinking Disposition Questionnaires. Results support an individual differences hypothesis in which the CRT prediction of accuracy on the base-rate conflict problems is mediated by the dispositional tendency to engage in flexible thinking.
Automatic review identification on the web using pattern recognition

In this paper we propose the Automatic Review Recognition and annOtation of Webpages method, which is capable of identifying and annotating user submitted reviews on a Web page. The method consists of six steps: data preparation, page‐level pattern identification, subjectivity analysis, container structure analysis, review properties identification, and review annotation. For the evaluation, we have implemented the method and tested it on various review websites. On the basis of the performed evaluation, we conclude that our method is capable of identifying and annotating the majority of reviews. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Turbulent Convection in Stellar Interiors. I. Hydrodynamic Simulation

We describe the results of 3D numerical simulations of oxygen shell burning and hydrogen core burning in a 23 M☉ stellar model. A detailed comparison is made to stellar mixing-length theory (MLT) for the shell-burning model. Simulations in 2D are significantly different from 3D, in terms of both flow morphology and velocity amplitude. Convective mixing regions are better predicted using a dynamic boundary condition based on the bulk Richardson number than by purely local, static criteria like Schwarzschild or Ledoux. MLT gives a good description of the velocity scale and temperature gradient for shell convection; however, there are other important effects that it does not capture, mostly related to the dynamical motion of the boundaries between convective and nonconvective regions. There is asymmetry between upflows and downflows, so the net kinetic energy flux is not zero. The motion of convective boundaries is a source of gravity waves; this is a necessary consequence of the deceleration of convective plumes. Convective "overshooting" is best described as an elastic response by the convective boundary, rather than ballistic penetration of the stable layers by turbulent eddies. The convective boundaries are rife with internal and interfacial wave motions, and a variety of instabilities arise that induce mixing through a process best described as turbulent entrainment. We find that the rate at which material entrainment proceeds at the boundaries is consistent with analogous laboratory experiments and simulation and observation of terrestrial atmospheric mixing. In particular, the normalized entrainment rate E = uE/σH is well described by a power-law dependence on the bulk Richardson number RiB = ΔbL/σ for the conditions studied, 20 ≲ RiB ≲ 420. We find E = ARi, with best-fit values log A = 0.027 ± 0.38 and n = 1.05 ± 0.21. We discuss the applicability of these results to stellar evolution calculations.
AdELE: A Framework for Adaptive E-Learning through Eye Tracking

In this paper we introduce AdELE, a framework for adaptive e-learning utilising both eye tracking and content tracking technology. The framework is based upon the combination of fine-grained real-time eye tracking with synchronous content tracking, a user profiler, an adaptive multimedia learning environment, and a dynamic background library. The framework ensures not only adaptivity to the users' preferences, knowledge level and the realtime tracking of their behaviour, but also ensures the relevance, accuracy and reliability of the knowledge provided.
Passage Relevancy Through Semantic Relatedness

Questions that require answers in the form of a list of entities and the identification of diverse biological entity classes present an interesting challenge that required new approaches not needed for the TREC 2006 Genomics track. We added some components to our automatic question answering system, including (i) a simple algorithm to select which keywords extracted from natural language questions should be treated as essential in the formation of queries, (ii) the use of different entity recognizers for various biological entity classes in the extraction of passages (iii) determining relevancy of candidate passages with the use of semantic relatedness based on MeSH and UMLS semantic network. We present here an overview of our approach, with preliminary analysis and insights as to the performance of our system.
Design and evaluation of gradual typing for python

Combining static and dynamic typing within the same language offers clear benefits to programmers. It provides dynamic typing in situations that require rapid prototyping, heterogeneous data structures, and reflection, while supporting static typing when safety, modularity, and efficiency are primary concerns. Siek and Taha (2006) introduced an approach to combining static and dynamic typing in a fine-grained manner through the notion of type consistency in the static semantics and run-time casts in the dynamic semantics. However, many open questions remain regarding the semantics of gradually typed languages. In this paper we present Reticulated Python, a system for experimenting with gradual-typed dialects of Python. The dialects are syntactically identical to Python 3 but give static and dynamic semantics to the type annotations already present in Python 3. Reticulated Python consists of a typechecker and a source-to-source translator from Reticulated Python to Python 3. Using Reticulated Python, we evaluate a gradual type system and three approaches to the dynamic semantics of mutable objects: the traditional semantics based on Siek and Taha (2007) and Herman et al. (2007) and two new designs. We evaluate these designs in the context of several third-party Python programs.
Analyses of evolutionary dynamics in viruses are hindered by a time-dependent bias in rate estimates

Time-scales of viral evolution and emergence have been studied widely, but are often poorly understood. Molecular analyses of viral evolutionary time-scales generally rely on estimates of rates of nucleotide substitution, which vary by several orders of magnitude depending on the timeframe of measurement. We analysed data from all major groups of viruses and found a strong negative relationship between estimates of nucleotide substitution rate and evolutionary timescale. Strikingly, this relationship was upheld both within and among diverse groups of viruses. A detailed case study of primate lentiviruses revealed that the combined effects of sequence saturation and purifying selection can explain this time-dependent pattern of rate variation. Therefore, our analyses show that studies of evolutionary time-scales in viruses require a reconsideration of substitution rates as a dynamic, rather than as a static, feature of molecular evolution. Improved modelling of viral evolutionary rates has the potential to change our understanding of virus origins.
Content-Based Copy Retrieval Using Distortion-Based Probabilistic Similarity Search

Content-based copy retrieval (CBCR) aims at retrieving in a database all the modified versions or the previous versions of a given candidate object. In this paper, we present a copy-retrieval scheme based on local features that can deal with very large databases both in terms of quality and speed. We first propose a new approximate similarity search technique in which the probabilistic selection of the feature space regions is not based on the distribution in the database but on the distribution of the features distortion. Since our CBCR framework is based on local features, the approximation can be strong and reduce drastically the amount of data to explore. Furthermore, we show how the discrimination of the global retrieval can be enhanced during its post-processing step, by considering only the geometrically consistent matches. This framework is applied to robust video copy retrieval and extensive experiments are presented to study the interactions between the approximate search and the retrieval efficiency. Largest used database contains more than 1 billion local features corresponding to 30000 h of video
Mass Spectral Characterization of an Endogenous Digitalislike Factor From Human Plasma

A sodium pump inhibitor has been isolated from human plasma and extensively purified. This material, endogenous digitalislike factor, was examined by a variety of mass spectrometric techniques. A low-resolution fast atom bombardment mass spectrometric analysis of a sample of purified endogenous digitalislike factor revealed a single unique molecular ion in the mass range 100-2,500. The accurate mass was determined to be 585.295 Da in a second highresolution fast atom bombardment mass spectrometric experiment Based on this accurate mass, the elemental composition of endogenous digitalislike factor was determined and found to be identical to the elemental composition of the known cardenolide ouabain. Direct comparison of ouabain and endogenous digitalislike factor by linked scan tandem mass spectrometry, derivatization with acetic anhydride coupled with fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry, and analytical high-performance liquid chromatography failed to reveal any differences. We conclude that the endogenous digitalislike factor isolated from human plasma is ouabain or a closely related isomer. (Hypertension 1991;17:930-935)
Layered Security and Ease of Installation for Devices on the Internet of Things

One of the major issues that must be addressed in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) is balancing the needs of security and reasonable installation and maintenance efforts. If the security infrastructure is not relatively easy to use, it will ultimately be compromised. This paper describes the industrial deployment experience of the EZConnect security infrastructure implemented by BECS Technology, Inc., a firm that provides water chemistry monitoring and control equipment to the aquatics market.
Onset of Action and Efficacy of Ibuprofen Liquigel as Compared to Solid Tablets: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

PURPOSE Ibuprofen liquigel has been believed to provide faster analgesic effect. However, comparative studies evaluating the efficacy of liquigel versus regular tablets are not available. Hence, we carried out a systematic review and a meta-analysis to compare the onset of action and efficacy of over-the-counter doses of ibuprofen liquigel (IBULG) vs ibuprofen tablets (IBUT). Methods. Published clinical trials of IBULG and IBUT were identified through a systematic search of various data bases up to October, 2015. RESULTS In total 18 eligible studies on IBUT and 4 on IBULG were found. There was no significant difference in the median time to the first perceptible pain relief or the proportion of patients with more than 50% pain relief between the two products. However, IBULG yielded significantly greater odd ratios in meaningful pain relief at 60, 90 and 120 min, but not at 30 min, as compared with IBUT. Conclusion. The available evidence, although not overwhelming, suggest a faster onset of analgesia for liquigel as compared with tablets. This article is open to POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW. Registered readers (see "For Readers") may comment by clicking on ABSTRACT on the issue's contents page.