Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing Forest Disturbance Regimes and Risk Perceptions in Homer, Alaska

Forest disturbances caused by insects can lead to other disturbances, risks, and changes across landscapes. Evaluating the human dimensions of such disturbances furthers understanding of integrated changes in natural and social systems. This article examines the effects of changing forest disturbance regimes on local risk perceptions and attitudes in Homer, Alaska. Homer experienced a spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) outbreak with large‐scale tree mortality and a 5,000‐acre fire in 2005. Qualitative interviews and quantitative analysis of mail surveys are used to examine community risk perception and relationships with land managers pre‐ and post‐fire. Results show a decrease in the saliency of the spruce bark beetle as a community issue, a coalescence of community risk perceptions about fire, and conflicting findings about satisfaction with land managers and its relationship with risk perception.
The 1976 modular acoustic processor (MAP) : Signal analysis and phonemic segmentation

The problems involved in automatic recognition of continuous speech are generally considered very difficult. In an attempt to solve these problems an acoustic processing system has been under development which has stages dedicated to signal analysis, spectral classification, phonemic segmentation, phonemic (steady state) classification, phoneme boundary placement, diadic (transitional) classification, and final phoneme string consolidation. This paper presents the concepts of and some details concerning the first five stages, through phoneme boundary placement. Performance results are also presented.
Research on dynamic response about adjustment of industry structure to international trade in China

Based on the time-series data from 1978 to 2008 in China, the paper develops a VAR models and analyzes the long-terms equilibrium relation through co-integration test, Granger causality test and impulse response function From the view of export and import, product categories and trade patterns. The results show that: The first industry improve the primary products trade; the secondary industry increase the trade of primary products and manufactured goods, it not only promoted the growth of general trade, but also processing trade.
The Effect of the Addition of Adenine and Nucleosides at the Beginning of Storage on the Concentrations of Phosphates of Human Erythrocytes during Storage in Acid‐Citrate‐Dextrose and Citrate‐Phosphate‐Dextrose

Bloods collected in ACD and CPD preservatives, supplemented with varying amounts of adenine, inosine, adenosine, and guanosine, were stored anaerobically and aerobically at 4 C for six weeks. At two‐week intervals, phosphorylated carbohydrate intermediates of washed red cells were assayed by ion‐exchange chromatography. The 2,3‐diphospho‐glycerate values were higher in the CPD or CPD‐supplemented than in the ACD bloods which were at lower pH levels. Generally, the ATP and the sum of adenylate (ΣAd) concentrations were maintained at higher levels for longer periods when bloods were collected in more acidic solutions. The highest ATP and ΣAd levels were observed in ACD‐adenine (.075, 0.10 and 0.25 mmole/100 ml blood) and in CPD‐adenine (0.5 mmole) anaerobically‐stored bloods. Relatively high ATP and ΣAd levels were maintained in blood collected in ACD‐inosine ‐+ adenine + guanosine and in inosine‐adenine preservatives. Lower values were obtained with ACD‐inosine, ACD‐adenosine and ACD‐adeno‐sine + adenine, in the order listed. The ADP values remained relatively constant during storage. An appreciable increase in AMP concentration was observed only in the adenine‐supplemented bloods. The IMP concentration increased in all stored bloods and was particularly marked in the presence of adenosine and least in the adenine‐supplemented bloods.
Multifiber Shared-Per-Wavelength All-Optical Switching: Architectures, Control, and Performance

A new wavelength converter sharing strategy for multifiber optical switches, namely shared-per-wavelength (SPW), which employs wavelength converters with fixed input wavelengths is presented. The aim is to reduce switch costs by using simpler optical components and low complexity space switching matrices. Practical implementations of both the well-known shared-per-node (SPN) and the new SPW schemes are presented, as well as the related scheduling algorithms to manage optical packet forwarding in synchronous scenario. An analytical model to evaluate blocking performance of the SPN architecture is also provided. Results show the accuracy of the model in the range of interest for switch design. The proposed architectures are compared in terms of performance and number of optical components employed. The SPW approach is shown to save a large number of semiconductor optical amplifier gates with respect to the SPN one when the number of fibers per interface is suitably not too high. In these cases, the SPW architecture requires a number of wavelength converters higher than the SPN, but simpler, being their inputs tuned on a single wavelength.
Precise Scalable Static Analysis for Application-Specific Security Guarantees

This dissertation presents Pidgin, a static program analysis and understanding tool that enables the specification and enforcement of precise application-specific information security guarantees. Pidgin also allows developers to interactively explore the information flows in their applications to develop policies and investigate counter-examples. Pidgin combines program dependence graphs (PDGs), which precisely capture the information flows in awhole application, with a customPDGquery language. Queries express properties about the paths in the PDG; because paths in the PDG correspond to information flows in the application, queries can be used to specify global security policies. The effectiveness of Pidgin depends on the precision of the static analyses used to produce program dependence graphs. In particular it depends on the precision of a points-to analysis. Points-to analysis is a foundational static analysis that estimates the memory locations pointer expressions can refer to at runtime. Points-to information is used by clients ranging from compiler optimizations to security tools like Pidgin.The precision of these client analyses relies on the precision of the points-to analysis. In this dissertation we investigate points-to analysis performance/precision trade-offs, including a novel points-to analysis for object-oriented languages designed to help establish object invariants. This dissertation describes the design and implementation of Pidgin and the points-to analyses that allowPidginandother static analyses to scale to large applications.We report on using Pidgin: (1) to explore information security guarantees in legacy programs; (2) to develop and modify security policies concurrently with application development; and (3) to develop policies based on known vulnerabilities.
Semi-Supervised Half-Quadratic Nonnegative Matrix Factorization for Face Recognition

Face recognition is a challenging problem in computer vision. Difficulties such as slight differences between similar faces of different people, changes in facial expressions, light and illumination condition, and pose variations add extra complications to the face recognition research. Many algorithms are devoted to solving the face recognition problem, among which the family of nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) algorithms has been widely used as a compact data representation method. Different versions of NMF have been proposed. Wang et al. proposed the graph-based semi-supervised nonnegative learning (S2N2L) algorithm that uses labeled data in constructing intrinsic and penalty graph to enforce separability of labeled data, which leads to a greater discriminating power. Moreover the geometrical structure of labeled and unlabeled data is preserved through using the smoothness assumption by creating a similarity graph that conserves the neighboring information for all labeled and unlabeled data. However, S2N2L is sensitive to light changes, illumination, and partial occlusion. In this thesis, we propose a Semi-Supervised Half-Quadratic NMF (SSHQNMF) algorithm that combines the benefits of S2N2L and the robust NMF by the halfquadratic minimization (HQNMF) algorithm.Our algorithm improves upon the S2N2L algorithm by replacing the Frobenius norm with a robust M-Estimator loss function. A multiplicative update solution for our SSHQNMF algorithmis driven using the half4 quadratic (HQ) theory. Extensive experiments on ORL, Yale-A and a subset of the PIE data sets for nine M-estimator loss functions for both SSHQNMF and HQNMF algorithms are investigated, and compared with several state-of-the-art supervised and unsupervised algorithms, along with the original S2N2L algorithm in the context of classification, clustering, and robustness against partial occlusion. The proposed algorithm outperformed the other algorithms. Furthermore, SSHQNMF with Maximum Correntropy (MC) loss function obtained the best results for most test cases.
Angiotensin II AT1 receptors regulate ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) expression in the aorta of spontaneously hypertensive rats.

When increased in vascular tissues, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a carboxypeptidase that hydrolyzes angiotensin II to angiotensin-(1-7), may augment the growth inhibitory and vasodilatory effects of the heptapeptide. We investigated the regulation of ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) expression in aortas and carotid arteries of 12-wk-old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) by determining the effect of sustained angiotensin type 1 (AT(1)) receptor blockade with olmesartan (10 mg.kg(-1). day(-1), n = 13) compared with those that received atenolol (30 mg.kg(-1). day(-1), n = 13), hydralazine (10 mg.kg(-1). day(-1), n = 13), or vehicle (n = 21). Systolic blood pressures were approximately 30% lower (P < 0.05) in rats treated for 2 wk with olmesartan compared with vehicle-treated rats. Both atenolol and hydralazine produced similar decreases in systolic blood pressure. ACE2 mRNA in the thoracic aorta of olmesartan-treated rats (n = 8) was fivefold greater (P < 0.05) than that in vehicle-treated rats (n = 16), whereas atenolol (n = 8) or hydralazine (n = 8) had no effect. Immunostaining intensities in rats treated with olmesartan (n = 5) were also associated with increased (P < 0.05) ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) in thoracic aorta media compared with vehicle-treated rats. In contrast, immunostaining intensities for both ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) were not different from vehicle (n = 5) in carotid arteries of SHR medicated with either atenolol (n = 5) or hydralazine (n = 5). A comparison of vessel wall dimensions showed that olmesartan selectively reduced the thoracic aorta media-to-lumen ratio (P < 0.05) and media thickness (P < 0.05) without an effect on carotid artery morphometry. Compared with vehicle-treated SHR, vascular hypertrophy determined from media and lumen measurements was not changed in SHR given either atenolol or hydralazine. These data represent the first report of ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) expression in the aorta and carotid arteries of SHR. Increased ACE2 and angiotensin-(1-7) in association with altered dimensions of the thoracic aorta but not carotid arteries in response to olmesartan treatment provides evidence that this pathway is regulated by AT(1) receptors and may be important in mediating the pressure-independent vascular remodeling effects of angiotensin peptides.
Resonances from two universal extra dimensions

Standard model gauge bosons propagating in two universal extra dimensions give rise to heavy spin-1 and spin-0 particles. The lightest of these, carrying Kaluza-Klein numbers (1,0), may be produced only in pairs at colliders, whereas the (1,1) modes, which are heavier by a factor of {radical}(2), may be singly produced. We show that the cascade decays of (1,1) particles generate a series of closely-spaced narrow resonances in the tt invariant mass distribution. At the Tevatron, s-channel production of (1,1) gluons and electroweak bosons will be sensitive to tt resonances up to masses in the 0.5-0.7 TeV range. Searches at the LHC for resonances originating from several higher-level modes will further test the existence of two universal extra dimensions.
Transcriptional Profiling of the Hematopoietic Support of Interleukin-Stimulated Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs)

Endothelial cells can be successfully used to maintain or increase the number of hematopoietic stem cells in vitro. Previously we identified hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) expansion or survival benefit induced by IL-1β-, IL-3-, and IL-6-stimulated human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) supernatants. In order to identify molecular mechanisms that support hematopoiesis, we examined the time-dependent expression profiles of IL-1β-, IL-3-, and IL-6-stimulated HUVECs via microarray. Here, we present 24 common upregulated elements and three common downregulated elements of IL-1β- and IL-3-stimulated HUVECs, with these factors exhibiting great potential for the observed HPC expansion. Furthermore, metabolic pathway analysis resulted in the identification of nonproteinogenic factors such as prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and nitric oxide (NO) and determined their HPC expansion potential via delta, methylcellulose, and cobblestone assays. We confirmed PGE2 and spermine as hematopoietic expansion factors. Furthermore, we identified several factors such as SSAT, extracellular matrix components, microRNA21, and a microvesicle-mediated cross-talk between the endothelium and HPCs that may play a crucial role in determining stem cell fate. Our results suggest that microarray in combination with functional annotations is a convenient method to identify novel factors with great impact on HPC proliferation and differentiation.
The Headache Impact Test®1 and the Short Pain Inventory©

AbstractBackground: The psychometric properties of the Headache Impact Test® (HIT) were compared with the 17-item Short Pain Inventory© (SPI) in 75 primary-care patients presenting with headache. A specialist neurologist made formal diagnoses consistent with the International Headache Society classification. We compared the severity of the headaches and the diagnostic labels with the ability of the SPI and the HIT to discriminate severity and diagnosis. Aim: To compare and contrast the psychometrics of the HIT and the SPI in headache patients in relation to pain severity and diagnosis. Methods: The dynamic version of the computerized HIT (HIT-DYNHA®) was used via the Internet. Patients were given a total of 7 days’ supply of the SPI to use from the start of their next headache and to continue over the following week. Neither the HIT nor the SPI claim to be diagnostic tests, but both claim to be reliable and valid outcome measures of headache. Both tests were compared by screening samples identified by: no pain, mild, moderate, severe or extreme pain. They were further stratified into: chronic daily headache, migraine and acute tension-type headache. This tests the power to resolve small differences in severity for each type of headache. Results: The HIT correlated 0.283 with the severity of the headaches whereas the SPI correlated 0.768 on Total Pain Disturbance. The correlations of the HIT and the SPI mood scales with pain severity never rose above 0.26 whereas the correlations of the SPI were typically 0.7. The SPI produced highly significant discriminability of the severity intervals (no pain, mild, moderate, severe, extreme) with Student t-test values of 2–20. The HIT scores were far less powerful at discriminating severity with t-test values from 2–5. The SPI has far better discrimination than the HIT at resolving the fine detail of severity. HIT scores at screening produced significant discrimination of the diagnoses with the resolution between tension-type headache and chronic daily headache reaching 1/100 million. The SPI summary scores and subscales did not discriminate between diagnoses. Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out including headache diagnosis, SPI and HIT variables. Various Quartimax and Varimax analyses strikingly gave the same two factors of severity and diagnosis. The first factor’s major correlation loading was the SPI ‘total pain disturbance’ (0.97) and loading highly on all SPI subscales (0.852–0.92) and severity (0.77). The HIT loading was −0.17 and diagnosis loaded 0.16. The second factor was identified and loaded as ‘diagnosis’ (0.94) with HIT loading t−0.80. The SPI and severity subscales were correlation loaded 0–0.12 and severity 0.2. The HIT and the SPI clearly measure different things. Conclusion: The HIT was poorly related to the severity of the pain but very closely related to the diagnostic label. In contrast, the SPI was very closely related to pain severity but not related to diagnoses.
Complete Genomic Sequence of Bluetongue Virus Serotype 16 from China

ABSTRACT We report here the complete genomic sequence of the Chinese bluetongue virus serotype 16 (BTV16) strain BN96/16. This work is the first to document the complete genomic sequence (segments 1 to 10) of a BTV16 strain. The sequence information provided herein will help determine the geographic origin of BTV16 and define the phylogenetic relationship of BTV16 to other BTV strains.
Histological Description of the Testis, Epididymis and Ductus Deferens of the Northern Great Grey Kangaroo ( Macropus giganteus giganteus )

The Tunica albuginea surrounding the testis of the great grey kangaroo was thick and there were large number of Leydig cells present in between the seminiferous tubules. These findings were the striking features among other histological findings of an 18 year old kangaroo which was kept in captivity in Los Angeles zoo all his life. Eighteen year old great grey kangaroo testes, epididymis and ductus deferens were collected and processed using standard histologic techniques. The animal was kept all his life in captivity in LA zoo. Two different stains were used to differentiate tissues and cells. Histological characteristics of all organs under study were found to be similar to other animal species of younger age with few striking exceptions. The Tunica albuginea was very thick and large number of Leydig cells was present between the seminiferous tubules. Animals in captivity with excellent care and veterinary services will continue to be fertile and actively producing sperms when compared to animals of the same age live in the wild.
Centrin 2 Stimulates Nucleotide Excision Repair by Interacting with Xeroderma Pigmentosum Group C Protein

ABSTRACT Xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XPC) protein plays a key role in DNA damage recognition in global genome nucleotide excision repair (NER). The protein forms in vivo a heterotrimeric complex involving one of the two human homologs of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad23p and centrin 2, a centrosomal protein. Because centrin 2 is dispensable for the cell-free NER reaction, its role in NER has been unclear. Binding experiments with a series of truncated XPC proteins allowed the centrin 2 binding domain to be mapped to a presumed α-helical region near the C terminus, and three amino acid substitutions in this domain abrogated interaction with centrin 2. Human cell lines stably expressing the mutant XPC protein exhibited a significant reduction in global genome NER activity. Furthermore, centrin 2 enhanced the cell-free NER dual incision and damaged DNA binding activities of XPC, which likely require physical interaction between XPC and centrin 2. These results reveal a novel vital function for centrin 2 in NER, the potentiation of damage recognition by XPC.
Wireless charging system of mobile handset using metamaterial-based cavity resonator

A metamterial-based cavity resonator using artificial magnetic conductor surfaces is presented and applied to realize a wireless charging system of mobile handset. This wireless charging system demonstrates the advantages of broad bandwidth, small size, long transmitting range, high transferring efficiency and EMI-free feature. The holistic architecture of wireless charging system for a smartphone is established to experimentally validate the usefulness of the metamaterial cavity resonator.
Claw-free graphs with equal 2-domination and domination numbers

For a graph $G$ a subset $D$ of the vertex set of $G$ is a {\it $k$-dominating set} if every vertex not in $D$ has at least $k$ neighbors in $D$. The {\it $k$-domination number} $\gamma_k(G)$ is the minimum cardinality among the $k$-dominating sets of $G$. Note that the 1-domination number $\gamma_1(G)$ is the usual {\it domination number} $\gamma(G)$. Fink and Jacobson showed in 1985 that the inequality $\gamma_k(G) \ge \gamma(G) + k - 2$ is valid for every connected graph $G$. In this paper, we concentrate on the case $k=2$, where $\gamma_k$ can be equal to $\gamma$, and we characterize all claw-free graphs and all line graphs $G$ with $\gamma(G) = \gamma_2(G)$.
A Lean Enterprise Architecture for Business Process Re-engineering and Re-marketing

An agile enterprise is an organization that rapidly adapts to market and environmental changes in the most productive and cost-effective ways. To be agile, an enterprise should utilize the key principles of enterprise architecting enabled by the most recent developments in information and communication technologies and lean principles and. This paper describes a Lean Enterprise Architecture (LEA) to organize the activities for the transformation of the enterprise to agility. It is the application of systems architecting methods to design, develop, produce, construct, integrate, validate, and implement a lean enterprise using information engineering and systems engineering methods and practices. LEA is a comprehensive framework used to align an organization's information technology assets, people, operations, and projects with its operational characteristics. The architecture defines how information and technology support the business operations and provide benefit for its stakeholders.The architecting process incorporates lean attributes and values as design requirements in creating the enterprise. The application of the LEA is less resource intensive and disruptive to the organization than the traditional lean enterprise transformation methods and practices. Thus, it is essential that the merits of this process are re-marketed (communicated) to the stakeholders to encourage its acceptance.
Induction of Programmed Cell Death in Aging Prorocentrum donghaiense Cells as was Evidenced Preliminarily by the Identification of Associated Transcripts

Prorocentrum donghaiense caused large-scale red tides off Chinese coast in recent years. Expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis was carried out for this dinoflagellate in order to identify the genes involved in its proliferation and death. A cDNA library was constructed for P. donghaiense at late exponential growth phase, and 308 groups of EST were generated, which include 36 contigs and 272 singletons. Among 22 groups showed homologies with known genes, 2 matched significantly with caspase and proliferating cell nuclear antigen. Caspase and proliferating cell nuclear antigen are 2 key proteins involved in programmed cell death. Their identification evidenced preliminarily the induction of PCD in aging P. donghaiense. The identified included also calmodulin and protein phosphatase, two proteins involved in diverse cell processes including PCD by binding to or modifying others.