Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Transcriptomics of Sijung and Jumli Marshi Rice during Early Chilling Stress Imply Multiple Protective Mechanisms

Introduction Low temperature is one of the major environmental factors that adversely affect plant growth and yield. Many cereal crops from tropical regions, such as rice, are chilling sensitive and, therefore, are affected already at <10°C. Interestingly, it has been demonstrated that chilling susceptibility varies greatly among rice varieties, which indicates differences in the underlying molecular responses. Understanding these differences is vital for continued development of rational breeding and transgenic strategies for more tolerant varieties. Thus, in this study, we conducted a comparative global gene expression profiling analysis of the chilling tolerant varieties Sijung and Jumli Marshi (spp. Japonica) during early chilling stress (<24 h, 10°C). Methods and Results Global gene expression experiments were conducted with Agilent Rice Gene Expression Microarray 4x44K. The analysed results showed that there was a relatively low (percentage or number) overlap in differentially expressed genes in the two varieties and that substantially more genes were up-regulated in Jumli Marshi than in Sijung but the number of down-regulated genes were higher in Sijung. In broad GO annotation terms, the activated response pathways in Sijung and Jumli Marshi were coherent, as a majority of the genes belonged to the catalytic, transcription regulator or transporter activity categories. However, a more detailed analysis revealed essential differences. For example, in Sijung, activation of calcium and phosphorylation signaling pathways, as well as of lipid transporters and exocytosis-related proteins take place very early in the stress response. Such responses can be coupled to processes aimed at strengthening the cell wall and plasma membrane against disruption. On the contrary, in Jumli Marshi, sugar production, detoxification, ROS scavenging, protection of chloroplast translation, and plausibly the activation of the jasmonic acid pathway were the very first response activities. These can instead be coupled to detoxification processes. Conclusions Based on the results inferred from this study, we conclude that different, but overlapping, strategies are undertaken by the two varieties to cope with the chilling stress; in Sijung the initial molecular responses seem to be mainly targeted at strengthening the cell wall and plasma membrane, whereas in Jumli Marshi the protection of chloroplast translation and detoxification is prioritized.
Optimal Pricing and Energy Scheduling for Hybrid Energy Trading Market in Future Smart Grid

Future smart grid (SG) has been considered a complex and advanced power system, where energy consumers are connected not only to the traditional energy retailers (e.g., the utility companies), but also to some local energy networks for bidirectional energy trading opportunities. This paper aims to investigate a hybrid energy trading market that is comprised of an external utility company and a local trading market managed by a local trading center (LTC). The existence of local energy market provides new opportunities for the energy consumers and the distributed energy sellers to perform the local energy trading in a cooperative manner such that they all can benefit. This paper first quantifies the respective benefits of the energy consumers and the sellers from the local trading and then investigates how they can optimize their benefits by controlling their energy scheduling in response to the LTC's pricing. Two different types of the LTC are considered: 1) the nonprofit-oriented LTC, which solely aims at benefiting the energy consumers and the sellers; and 2) the profit-oriented LTC, which aims at maximizing its own profit while guaranteeing the required benefit for each consumer and seller. For each type of the LTC, the optimal trading problem is formulated and the associated algorithm is further proposed to efficiently find the LTC's optimal price, as well as the optimal energy scheduling for each consumer and seller. Numerical results are provided to validate the benefits of the hybrid energy trading market and the performance of the proposed algorithms.
Distinct Deep Short-Axon Cell Subtypes of the Main Olfactory Bulb Provide Novel Intrabulbar and Extrabulbar GABAergic Connections

A universal feature of neuronal microcircuits is the presence of GABAergic interneurons that control the activity of glutamatergic principal cells and each other. In the rat main olfactory bulb (MOB), GABAergic granule and periglomerular cells innervate mitral and tufted cells, but the source of their own inhibition remains elusive. Here, we used a combined electrophysiological and morphological approach to investigate a rather mysterious cell population of the MOB. Deep short-axon cells (dSACs) of the inframitral layers are GABAergic and have extensive and characteristic axonal ramifications in various layers of the bulb, based on which unsupervised cluster analysis revealed three distinct subtypes. Each dSAC subtype exhibits different electrical properties but receives similar GABAergic and glutamatergic inputs. The local axon terminals of all dSAC subtypes selectively innervate GABAergic granule and periglomerular cells and evoke GABAA receptor-mediated IPSCs. One subpopulation of dSACs (GL-dSACs) creates a novel intrabulbar projection from deep to superficial layers. Another subpopulation (GCL-dSACs) is labeled by retrogradely transported fluorescent microspheres injected into higher olfactory areas, constituting a novel projection-cell population of the MOB. Our results reveal multiple dSAC subtypes, each specialized to influence MOB activity by selectively innervating GABAergic interneurons, and provide direct evidence for novel intrabulbar and extrabulbar GABAergic projections.
Active and tunable metamaterials

Metamaterial research is an extremely important global activity that promises to change our lives in many different ways. These include making objects invisible and the dramatic impact of metamaterials upon the energy and medical sectors of society. Behind all of the applications, however, lies the business of creating metamaterials that are not going to be crippled by the kind of loss that is naturally heralded by use of resonant responses in their construction. This review sets out some solutions to the management of loss and gain, coupled to controlled and nonlinear behavior, and discusses some critical consequences concerning stability. Under the general heading of active and tunable metamaterials, an international spectrum of authors collaborates here to present a set of solutions that addresses these issues in several directions. As will be appreciated, the range of possible solutions is really fascinating, and it is hoped that these discussions will act as a further stimulus to the field.
An automatic essay correction for an active learning environment

In this paper, we describe and test a part of an active learning environment that is being used to engage and empower students' learning in a undergraduate engineering course. We developed a survey system, called Milsa, in order to insert questions and template answers, and to automatically correct the questions based on template answers. In Milsa, the students insert multiple questions and template answers, the questions aleatory distributed to multiple responses. Milsa was used as an assessment in a gamified discipline [1]. After the automatic correction of the questions, the students evaluate the responses. The correction algorithm in Milsa is based on LSA [2], on STASIS [3] and on Michalski's genetic algoritm [4]. The template answer is a tagged text: hyperonymy, hyponymy, meronymy and synonymy are marked. By the end the tests on are showed and evaluated.
Non-Uniform Blind Deblurring with a Spatially-Adaptive Sparse Prior

Typical blur from camera shake often deviates from the standard uniform convolutional script, in part because of problematic rotations which create greater blurring away from some unknown center point. Consequently, successful blind deconvolution requires the estimation of a spatially-varying or non-uniform blur operator. Using ideas from Bayesian inference and convex analysis, this paper derives a non-uniform blind deblurring algorithm with several desirable, yet previously-unexplored attributes. The underlying objective function includes a spatially adaptive penalty which couples the latent sharp image, non-uniform blur operator, and noise level together. This coupling allows the penalty to automatically adjust its shape based on the estimated degree of local blur and image structure such that regions with large blur or few prominent edges are discounted. Remaining regions with modest blur and revealing edges therefore dominate the overall estimation process without explicitly incorporating structure-selection heuristics. The algorithm can be implemented using a majorization-minimization strategy that is virtually parameter free. Detailed theoretical analysis and empirical validation on real images serve to validate the proposed method.
VOLUNTARY ASSURANCE OF VOLUNTARY CSR

We study a firm’s decisions to engage in socially responsible activities, voluntarily report on them and purchase external assurance of the report. In our signaling model, neither firm type nor the level of activity is observed. We show that if voluntary assurance is not too expensive, the firm that engages in more socially responsible activities purchases external assurance and thus “selects” a separating equilibrium. As a result, CSR reports can be used to infer the level of activity and this causes all firms to engage in more socially responsible activity. Further, when voluntary assurance is required to support a separating equilibrium, greater monitoring by social activists increases the chosen quality of voluntary assurance—voluntary assurance and monitoring by social activists are complements, not substitutes.
Autosteve: Automated Electrical Design Analysis

AutoSteve performs automated electrical design analysis based on qualitative simulation and functional abstraction. It is the first commercial product capable of performing these tasks for complex automotive systems. It has been deployed at automotive manufacturers for several years, and produces FMEA and sneak circuit analysis reports much more quickly and consistently than they could be produced without its assistance.
Calcineurin functions in Ca(2+)-activated cell death in mammalian cells

Calcineurin is a calcium-dependent protein phosphatase that functions in T cell activation. We present evidence that calcineurin functions more generally in calcium-triggered apoptosis in mammalian cells deprived of growth factors. Specifically, expression of epitope-tagged calcineurin A induces rapid cell death upon calcium signaling in the absence of growth factors. We show that this apoptosis does not require new protein synthesis and therefore calcineurin must operate through existing substrates. Co-expression of the Bcl-2 protooncogene efficiently blocks calcineurin-induced cell death. Significantly, we demonstrate that a calcium-independent calcineurin mutant induces apoptosis in the absence of calcium, and that this apoptotic response is a direct consequence of calcineurin's phosphatase activity. These data suggest that calcineurin plays an important role in mediating the upstream events in calcium-activated cell death.
Application-specific instruction processor for extracting local binary patterns

Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is texture operator used in preprocessing for object detection, tracking, face recognition and fingerprint matching. Many of these applications are performed on embedded devices, which poses limitations on the implementation complexity and power consumption. As LBP features are computed pixelwise, high performance is required for real time extraction of LBP features from high resolution video. This paper presents an application-specific instruction processor for LBP extraction. The compact, yet powerful processor is capable of extracting LBP features from 1280 × 720p (30 fps) video with a reasonable 304 MHz clock rate. With a low power consumption and an area of less than 16k gates the processor is suitable for embedded devices. Experiments present resource and power consumption measured on an FPGA board, along with processor synthesis results. In terms of latency, our processor requires 17.5 × less clock cycles per LBP feature than a workstation implementation and only 2.0 × more than a hardwired ASIC.
Microbial Communities in Methane- and Short Chain Alkane-Rich Hydrothermal Sediments of Guaymas Basin

The hydrothermal sediments of Guaymas Basin, an active spreading center in the Gulf of California (Mexico), are rich in porewater methane, short-chain alkanes, sulfate and sulfide, and provide a model system to explore habitat preferences of microorganisms, including sulfate-dependent, methane- and short chain alkane-oxidizing microbial communities. In this study, hot sediments (above 60°C) covered with sulfur-oxidizing microbial mats surrounding a hydrothermal mound (termed “Mat Mound”) were characterized by porewater geochemistry of methane, C2–C6 short-chain alkanes, sulfate, sulfide, sulfate reduction rate measurements, in situ temperature gradients, bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and V6 tag pyrosequencing. The most abundantly detected groups in the Mat mound sediments include anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea of the ANME-1 lineage and its sister clade ANME-1Guaymas, the uncultured bacterial groups SEEP-SRB2 within the Deltaproteobacteria and the separately branching HotSeep-1 Group; these uncultured bacteria are candidates for sulfate-reducing alkane oxidation and for sulfate-reducing syntrophy with ANME archaea. The archaeal dataset indicates distinct habitat preferences for ANME-1, ANME-1-Guaymas, and ANME-2 archaea in Guaymas Basin hydrothermal sediments. The bacterial groups SEEP-SRB2 and HotSeep-1 co-occur with ANME-1 and ANME-1Guaymas in hydrothermally active sediments underneath microbial mats in Guaymas Basin. We propose the working hypothesis that this mixed bacterial and archaeal community catalyzes the oxidation of both methane and short-chain alkanes, and constitutes a microbial community signature that is characteristic for hydrothermal and/or cold seep sediments containing both substrates.
Mobile application testing — Challenges and solution approach through automation

By the time this paper has been presented, the mobile app landscape will have changed. New OS versions will have been released. A bunch of new devices will have hit the market. And mobile application testing will have become that much more complex and challenging for all of us. There is no doubt that mobile applications need specific testing approaches. This paper wants to investigate new directions in research on the type of testing and skills required on mobile app testing by answering the following three research questions: (RQ1) How mobile applications testing are so different from traditional web applications, that require specialized testing skills and techniques? , (RQ2) What are the new challenges and future trends in mobile application testing, and (RQ3) How far automation effective in testing mobile application? We answer those questions by analyzing the current trends in mobile application development and testing, and by proposing my view on the topic.
Locally controllable stylized shading

Recent progress in non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) has led to many stylized shading techniques that efficiently convey visual information about the objects depicted. Another crucial goal of NPR is to give artists simple and direct ways to express the abstract ideas born of their imaginations. In particular, the ability to add intentional, but often unrealistic, shading effects is indispensable for many applications. We propose a set of simple stylized shading algorithms that allow the user to freely add localized light and shade to a model in a manner that is consistent and seamlessly integrated with conventional lighting techniques. The algorithms provide an intuitive, direct manipulation method based on a paint-brush metaphor, to control and edit the light and shade locally as desired. Our prototype system demonstrates how our method can enhance both the quality and range of applicability of conventional stylized shading for offline animation and interactive applications.
Online Multi-Modal Robust Non-Negative Dictionary Learning for Visual Tracking

Dictionary learning is a method of acquiring a collection of atoms for subsequent signal representation. Due to its excellent representation ability, dictionary learning has been widely applied in multimedia and computer vision. However, conventional dictionary learning algorithms fail to deal with multi-modal datasets. In this paper, we propose an online multi-modal robust non-negative dictionary learning (OMRNDL) algorithm to overcome this deficiency. Notably, OMRNDL casts visual tracking as a dictionary learning problem under the particle filter framework and captures the intrinsic knowledge about the target from multiple visual modalities, e.g., pixel intensity and texture information. To this end, OMRNDL adaptively learns an individual dictionary, i.e., template, for each modality from available frames, and then represents new particles over all the learned dictionaries by minimizing the fitting loss of data based on M-estimation. The resultant representation coefficient can be viewed as the common semantic representation of particles across multiple modalities, and can be utilized to track the target. OMRNDL incrementally learns the dictionary and the coefficient of each particle by using multiplicative update rules to respectively guarantee their non-negativity constraints. Experimental results on a popular challenging video benchmark validate the effectiveness of OMRNDL for visual tracking in both quantity and quality.
Functional imaging of dolphin brain metabolism and blood flow

SUMMARY This report documents the first use of magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of living dolphins to register functional brain scans, allowing for the exploration of potential mechanisms of unihemispheric sleep. Diazepam has been shown to induce unihemispheric slow waves (USW), therefore we used functional imaging of dolphins with and without diazepam to observe hemispheric differences in brain metabolism and blood flow. MRIs were used to register functional brain scans with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) in trained dolphins. Scans using SPECT revealed unihemispheric blood flow reduction following diazepam doses greater than 0.55 mg kg-1 for these 180-200 kg animals. Scans using PET revealed hemispheric differences in brain glucose consumption when scans with and without diazepam were compared. The findings suggest that unihemispheric reduction in blood flow and glucose metabolism in the hemisphere showing USW are important features of unihemispheric sleep. Functional scans may also help to elucidate the degree of hemispheric laterality of sensory and motor systems as well as in neurotransmitter or molecular mechanisms of unihemispheric sleep in delphinoid cetaceans. The findings also demonstrate the potential value of functional scans to explore other aspects of dolphin brain physiology as well as pathology.
Social interactions around cross-system bug fixings: the case of FreeBSD and OpenBSD

Cross-system bug fixing propagation is frequent among systems having similar characteristics, using a common framework, or, in general, systems with cloned source code fragments. While previous studies showed that clones tend to be properly maintained within a single system, very little is known about cross-system bug management. This paper describes an approach to mine explicitly documented cross-system bug fixings, and to relate their occurrences to social characteristics of contributors discussing through the project mailing lists--e.g., degree, betweenness, and brokerage--as well as to the contributors' activity on source code. The paper reports results of an empirical study carried out on FreeBSD and OpenBSD kernels. The study shows that the phenomenon of cross-system bug fixing between these two projects occurs often, despite the limited overlap of contributors. The study also shows that cross-system bug fixings mainly involve contributors with the highest degree, betweenness and brokerage level, as well as contributors that change the source code more than others.
On2broker: Semantic-Based Access to Information Sources at the WWW

On2broker provides brokering services to improve access to heterogeneous, distributed and semistructured information sources as they are presented in the World Wide Web. It relies on the use of ontologies to make explicit the semantics of web pages. In the paper we will discuss the general architecture and main components of On2broker and provide some application scenarios.
USE OF SIMULATION IN A FACTORY FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING

Companies can suffer significant losses as a result of unanticipated business disruptions caused by natural disasters or outbreaks of disease. In order to restore the organization’s critical functions and minimize the impacts of a disruption, it is important to establish business continuity planning and recovery planning. First the risks in the external environment surrounding the companies and business continuity planning were described. Then, how the computer-based simulation technique could be utilized to establish the business continuity planning was examined under a pandemic environment. In this study, an approach of examining the operation rates and the plant-utilization rates was proposed for a factory, by applying simulation. The proposed approach was applied to a real manufacturer especially under a pandemic flu environment in order to confirm its effectiveness. (Received in July 2010, accepted in November 2010. This paper was with the authors 1 month for 1 revision.)
Perfused Gills Reveal Fundamental Principles of pH Regulation and Ammonia Homeostasis in the Cephalopod Octopus vulgaris

In contrast to terrestrial animals most aquatic species can be characterized by relatively higher blood NH4+ concentrations despite its potential toxicity to the central nervous system. Although many aquatic species excrete NH4+ via specialized epithelia little information is available regarding the mechanistic basis for NH3/NH4+ homeostasis in molluscs. Using perfused gills of Octopus vulgaris we studied acid-base regulation and ammonia excretion pathways in this cephalopod species. The octopus gill is capable of regulating ammonia (NH3/NH4+) homeostasis by the accumulation of ammonia at low blood levels (<260 μM) and secretion at blood ammonia concentrations exceeding in vivo levels of 300 μM. NH4+ transport is sensitive to the adenylyl cyclase inhibitor KH7 indicating that this process is mediated through cAMP-dependent pathways. The perfused octopus gill has substantial pH regulatory abilities during an acidosis, accompanied by an increased secretion of NH4+. Immunohistochemical and qPCR analyses revealed tissue specific expression and localization of Na+/K+-ATPase, V-type H+-ATPase, Na+/H+-exchanger 3, and Rhesus protein in the gill. Using the octopus gill as a molluscan model, our results highlight the coupling of acid-base regulation and nitrogen excretion, which may represent a conserved pH regulatory mechanism across many marine taxa.