Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Production, Cost, and Soil Compaction Estimates for Two Western Juniper Extraction Systems

Harvesting trials were performed during the winter and spring of 2003–2004 in central Oregon to compare the costs, production rates, and soil compaction impacts of two systems for harvesting western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis). The two systems compared were a conventional system consisting of manual felling, delimbing, and bucking using a chainsaw and skidding logs with a rubber-tired grapple skidder and a mechanical system that used a feller-buncher, a rubber-tired grapple skidder to skid whole trees, and a stroke-boom delimber. Stump to deck harvesting costs ranged from $32.15 to $49.48/ton for the conventional system and from $60.07 to $63.11/ton for the mechanical system. A limited trial was conducted with the mechanical system that merchandized fence posts as well as sawlogs. When fence posts were produced also, stump to deck costs were reduced to $31.56/ton. Soil compaction was measured preand postharvest using a soil penetrometer. Paired t-tests showed a statistically significant difference between harvested sites and nonharvested sites at depths of 2 and 4 in. (P 0.032 and 0.001, respectively) but no difference between harvest systems. West. J. Appl. For. 21(4):185–194.
Automated Reasoning for Conditional Logics: the Theorem Prover Condlean 3.1

In this paper we present CondLean 3.1, a theorem prover for some standard conditional logics, namely CK, CK+ID, CK+MP, CK+CS, CK+CEM, and some of their combinations. CondLean 3.1 implements some sequent calculi for these logics, called SeqS, recently introduced. CondLean 3.1 also comprises a graphical user interface written in Java. 1
AN ADAPTIVE VIDEO EVENT MINING SYSTEM FOR AN AUTONOMOUS UNDERWATER VEHICLE

This paper presents the results obtained in the development of an adaptive architecture for automated event discovery in sub-sea recorded video footage. The Video Marking System that has been built is the first step of the development of a vision system for an autonomous underwater vehicle. The principal aim of our work is to build an adaptive architecture that provides the vision system with the intelligence and robustness required to deal with the great variability found in underwater video. Different image processing techniques are embedded within the adaptive architecture; all of them running in parallel, adaptively parameterized, and assigned a confidence level by a voting system. Utilizing a simplified world model, the various outputs from the active image processing approaches are combined into an improved event description.
Interference analysis for user equipment in LTE-Advanced system with carrier aggregation

Carrier aggregation (CA) is one of the most distinct techniques of Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-Advanced) system because of its capability to support wide bandwidth while guaranteeing backward compatibility. In this paper, adjacent channel interference at user equipment (UE) in LTE-A system with CA is investigated. Due to the characteristics of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), slight variation of the frequency spacing between component carriers (CCs) and the adjacent channel interferer (ACI) results in different interference levels. This paper analyzed the impact of frequency spacing between CA signal and the ACI on the interference level. Moreover, utilizing the frequency response model of the Chebyshev filter, the relationship between the interference-resistance capability of LTE/LTE-A UE and the bandwidth of the receiver filter is studied. With the practical LTE-A system parameters, link level simulation results and the theoretical analysis match pretty well, and the analysis provide some guidelines for the UE design and standardization study of LTE-A.
A comparison between tinnitus retraining therapy and a simplified version in treatment of tinnitus in adults

Background and Aim: Tinnitus retraining th erapy ( TRT) comprises comprehensive edu cational counseling and sound therapy. The aim of this study was to compare the eff ectiveness of TRT relative to a simplified version of TRT (sTRT). Simplified TRT is different from TRT in the duration and type of the ed ucational counseling (shorter) but is similar to TRT in the application of sound therapy. Method s : This was a retrospective service eva luation survey and the data were collected from 12 consecutive patients who received TRT and 12 patients who received s TRT. The average duration of tinnitus was six years (SD=7.9) with a range between one month and 30 years. All patients received between three and six months of treatment, which typically involved three to four appointments. Results: The results showed that scores on the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the visual analog sca le of tinnitus loudness, annoyance and effect on life declined sig nificantly (improved) for both TRT and sTRT groups ( p <0.05). 75% of the patients receiving TRT and 83% of patient s receiving sTRT exhibited a decline of 25 or more in THI score. The mean decline in the THI scores was 34 (SD=14) for the TRT group , and 41 (SD=21) for the sTRT group, and the difference in means was not statistically significant (p=0.34). Conclusion: The results suggest that the dura tion and type of counseling does not play a critical role in treatment outcome and sTRT may be used when time constraints do not allow the full treatment.
Developmental differences in the effects of phonological, lexical and semantic variables on word learning by infants*

ABSTRACT The influence of phonological (i.e. individual sounds), lexical (i.e. whole-word forms) and semantic (i.e. meaning) characteristics on the words known by infants age 1 ; 4 to 2 ; 6 was examined, using an existing database (Dale & Fenson, 1996). For each noun, word frequency, two phonological (i.e. positional segment average, biphone average), two lexical (i.e. neighborhood density, word length) and four semantic variables (i.e. semantic set size, connectivity, probability resonance, resonance strength) were computed. Regression analyses showed that more infants knew (1) words composed of low-probability sounds and sound pairs, (2) shorter words with high neighborhood density, and (3) words that were semantically related to other words, both in terms of the number and strength of semantic connections. Moreover, the effect of phonological variables was constant across age, whereas the effect of lexical and semantic variables changed across age.
Behavioral / Systems / Cognitive cAMP Response Element-Binding Protein Is Required for Stress But Not Cocaine-Induced Reinstatement

Reinstatement of previously extinguished conditioned place preference (CPP) is precipitated by stress or drug exposure. Here, we show that acute exposure to forced swim stress (FS), in a context distinct from conditioning, induces reinstatement of cocaine CPP in wild-type mice. This behavior is accompanied by a pattern of phosphorylated cAMP response element-binding protein (pCREB) activation in discrete brain regions that is distinct from the pattern observed after cocaine-induced reinstatement. For example, previous cocaine conditioning increases pCREB levels in the amygdala, and acute exposure to FS, but not to cocaine, further augments these changes. In contrast, previous cocaine conditioning does not alter levels of pCREB in the nucleus accumbens, but acute exposure to FS increases pCREB levels in this region on reinstatement day. Furthermore, to determine whether these alterations of CREB are necessary in FS or cocaine-induced reinstatement, we examined the effect of these stimuli on reinstatement behavior in mice deficient in and isoforms of CREB. The CREB mutant mice show deficits in FS-induced reinstatement of conditioned place preference. In contrast, they show robust cocaine-induced reinstatement. This deficit in stress but not drug-induced reinstatement indicates a specific requirement for CREB in stress-induced behavioral responses to drugs of abuse.
Linking Forest Cover to Water Quality: A Multivariate Analysis of Large Monitoring Datasets

Forested catchments are generally assumed to provide higher quality water. However, this hypothesis must be validated in various contexts as interactions between multiple land use and land cover (LULC) types, ecological variables and water quality variables render this relationship highly complex. This paper applies a straightforward multivariate approach on a typical large monitoring dataset of a highly managed and densely populated area (Wallonia, Belgium; 10-year dataset), quantifying forest cover effects on nine physico-chemical water quality variables. Results show that forest cover explains about one third of the variability of water quality and is positively correlated with higher quality water. When controlling for spatial autocorrelation, forest cover still explains 9% of water quality. Unlike needle-leaved forest cover, broad-leaved forest cover presents an independent effect from ecological variables and explains independently 4.8% of water quality variability while it shares 5.8% with cropland cover. This study demonstrates clear independent effects of forest cover on water quality, and presents a method to tease out independent LULC effects from typical large multivariate monitoring datasets. Further research on explanatory variables, spatial distribution effects and water quality datasets could lead to effective strategies to mitigate pollution and reach legal targets.
Deletion of HIF-1α partially rescues the abnormal hyaloid vascular system in Cited2 conditional knockout mouse eyes

Purpose Cited2 (CBP/p300-interacting transactivators with glutamic acid (E) and aspartic acid (D)-rich tail 2) is a member of a new family of transcriptional modulators. Cited2 null embryos exhibit hyaloid hypercellularity consisting of aberrant vasculature in the eye. The purpose of the study is to address whether abnormal lenticular development is a primary defect of Cited2 deletion and whether deletion of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)-1α or an HIF-1α target gene, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), could rescue abnormal hyaloid vascular system (HVS) in Cited2 deficient adult eyes. Methods Le-Cre specific Cited2 knockout (Cited2CKO) mice with or without deletion of HIF-1α or VEGF were generated by standard Cre-Lox methods. Eyes collected from six-eight weeks old mice were characterized by Real Time PCR and immunohistological staining. Results Cited2CKO mice had smaller lenses, abnormal lens stalk formation, and failed regression of the HVS in the adult eye. The eye phenotype had features similar to persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous (PHPV), a human congenital eye disorder leading to abnormal lenticular development. Deletion of HIF-1α or VEGF in Cited2 knockout eyes partially rescued the abnormal HVS but had no effect on the smaller lens and abnormal lens stalk differentiation. Intravitreal injection of Topotecan (TPT), a compound that inhibits HIF-1α expression, partially eliminated HVS defects in Cited2CKO lenses. Conclusions Abnormal HVS is a primary defect in Cited2 knockout mice, resulting in part from dysregulated functions of HIF-1 and VEGF. The Cited2CKO mouse line could be used as a novel disease model for PHPV and as an in vivo model for testing potential HIF-1 inhibitors.
Improving energy efficiency in dual-hop cooperative PLC relaying systems

Energy efficiency (EE) in multi-hop cooperative communication systems, both wireless and wired, is increasingly becoming more and more critical. This has recently been extended to include power line communications (PLC). In this respect, we propose in this paper to enhance the EE of a dual-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative relaying PLC system by considering energy-harvesting (EH) at the relay node. The energy harvester exploits the high noisy PLC channel feature as well as the transmitted signal power to forward the source information. In light of this, we derive an analytical expression for the EE and verify it with Monte Carlo simulations. The performance of the conventional relaying system, i.e. without any EH, is also considered to clearly quantify the achievable gains. The results show that the proposed system can considerably improve the EE of PLC systems and that increasing the channel variance will always make the proposed system more energy-efficient.
HDR Enhancement Based on Bi-curve Mapping for Image Sequences

In this study, a video enhancement method based on high dynamic range processing was proposed. This method can enhance images that have backlighting problems and are underexposed or overexposed to improve visibility. The proposed method comprises pre-processing, illumination judgment, tone mapping, and color restoration. Initially, a small segment of an image is used to calculate an average luminance value. Next, the average luminance of each segment of the image and the reference average previously calculated are used to judge and classify the illumination of the image to facilitate the subsequent selection and setting of a tone mapping curve. Finally, these classification results are used for tone mapping to restore color and increase visibility. The main feature of this method is that two equations are used to form an S-curve function for enhancing images. This advantage enables new tone mapping curves to replace conventional exponential and logarithmic operations. Therefore, computational complexity can be substantially reduced, rendering this method appropriate for real-time digital video recording systems.
Integrated electronic and optoelectronic circuits and devices for pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinding

The main focus of this work concerned with the development of integrated electronic and optoelectronic circuits and devices for pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinding is on the construction of the receiver channel, system level integration aimed at realisation of the laser radar module and in integration of all the receiver functions of laser radar on one chip. Since the timing discriminator is a very important part of a pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinder, two timing discrimination methods are presented and verified by means of circuit implementations, a leading edge discriminator and a high-pass timing discriminator. The walk error of the high-pass timing discriminator is ±4 mm in a dynamic range of 1:620 and the uncompensatable walk error of the leading edge discriminator is ±30 mm in a dynamic range of 1:4000. Additionally a new way of combining the timing discriminator with time interval measurement is presented which achieves a walk error of ±0.5 mm in a dynamic range of 1:21. The usability of the receiver channel chip is verified by constructing three prototypes of pulsed TOF laser radar module. The laser radar achieves mm-level accuracy in a measurement range from 4 m to 34 m with non-cooperative targets. This performance is similar to that of earlier realisations using discrete components or even better and has markedly reduced power consumption and size. The integration level has been increased further by implementing a photodetector on the same chip as the rest of the receiver electronics. The responsivity of the photodetector is about 0.3 A/W at 850 nm wavelength and the noise of the receiver is reduced by a factor of about two relative to realisations using an external photodetector, because of the absence of parasitic capacitances and inductances caused by packages, PCB wiring, bond wires and ESD and I/O cell structures. The functionality of a multi-channel pulsed TOF laser radar chip is demonstrated using the photodiode structure investigated here. The chip includes four photodetectors with receiver channels and a three-channel time-to-digital converter. The chip together with external optics and a laser pulse transmitter enables distances to be measured in three directions with a single optical pulse, thus showing the feasibility of implementing all the receiver functions of a pulsed time-of-flight imager on a single chip using a current semiconductor process.
Dynamic density functional theory with hydrodynamic interactions and fluctuations.

We derive a closed equation for the empirical concentration of colloidal particles in the presence of both hydrodynamic and direct interactions. The ensemble average of our functional Langevin equation reproduces known deterministic Dynamic Density Functional Theory (DDFT) [M. Rex and H. Löwen, "Dynamical density functional theory with hydrodynamic interactions and colloids in unstable traps," Phys. Rev. Lett. 101(14), 148302 (2008)], and, at the same time, it also describes the microscopic fluctuations around the mean behavior. We suggest separating the ideal (non-interacting) contribution from additional corrections due to pairwise interactions. We find that, for an incompressible fluid and in the absence of direct interactions, the mean concentration follows Fick's law just as for uncorrelated walkers. At the same time, the nature of the stochastic terms in fluctuating DDFT is shown to be distinctly different for hydrodynamically-correlated and uncorrelated walkers. This leads to striking differences in the behavior of the fluctuations around Fick's law, even in the absence of pairwise interactions. We connect our own prior work [A. Donev, T. G. Fai, and E. Vanden-Eijnden, "A reversible mesoscopic model of diffusion in liquids: from giant fluctuations to Fick's law," J. Stat. Mech. : Theory Exp. (2014) P04004] on fluctuating hydrodynamics of diffusion in liquids to the DDFT literature, and demonstrate that the fluid cannot easily be eliminated from consideration if one wants to describe the collective diffusion in colloidal suspensions.
Annotating Article Errors in Spanish Learner Texts: Design and Evaluation of an Annotation Scheme

Annotating a corpus with error information is a challenging task. This paper describes the design, evaluation and refinement of an annotation scheme for Spanish article errors in learner data, so that future work on corpus annotation and automatic article error detection can progress. To evaluate reliability, 300 noun phrases with definite, indefinite and zero article have been tagged by four annotators. We analysed different types of disagreement, presented suggestions to increase reliability and applied the refined annotation scheme to create a gold-standard annotation.
The public budget balance - fiscal indicators and cyclical sensitivity in the Nordic countries *

This paper analyzes the relationship between the budget balance and the cyclical situation of the economy. There are two main purposes. In the first analysis, we develop a method for economic policy, and induced changes that arise due to changes in the economy. The discretionary component of the change in the budget balance measure changes in fiscal stance and can be used as a fiscal policy indicator. As a measure of changes in fiscal policy, the proposed indicator has two advantages over existing indicators used by international organizations. First, the adjustment of changes in the economy is attached to important tax bases, rather than to the GDP, leading to higher accuracy when tax bases are not perfectly component does not include the effect on the budget balance of structural changes in the economy (as measured by potential output), that are not directly related to fiscal policy. The induced change component can be used to evaluate the cyclical sensitivity of public finances with respect to changes in the economy, when fiscal policy is unchanged. We also suggest how a decomposition of the level of the primary budget balance into a structural and cyclical component can be conducted. The second main purpose of the study is to empirically investigate the cyclical sensitivity of public finances in the Nordic countries. The analysis focuses on the peroid 1980 to 1997. We use three different methods for evaluating the sensitivity of public finances. Overall, public finances in all the Nordic countries are sensitive to cyclical changes in the economy. The estimated sensitivity of the budget balance as a share of GDP with respect to GDP growth is 0.6-0.8 for Sweden, 0.5-0.75 for Denmark, 0.4-0.6 for Finland and Norway and 0.2-0.6 for Iceland, given constant fiscal policy. It is likely, however, that our estimates are biased downward as data problems lead us to underestimate the sensitivity while countercyclical fiscal policy may lead to even more sensitive public finances. In the empirical analysis we also study how different types of shocks affect public finances. The result show that a domestic savings shock has the strongest effect on public finances, while an aggregate demand shock affects public finances less and en export shock has the smallest effect on public finances. We conclude the paper by discussing the problems associated with analysing the effect of fiscal policy on the economy by use of simple indicators, as well as a few brief remarks on the normative question of how sensitive the budget should be to economic fluctuations.
Effect of Whey Supplementation on Circulating C-Reactive Protein: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Whey supplementation is beneficial for human health, possibly by reducing the circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) level, a sensitive marker of inflammation. Thus, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was conducted to evaluate their relationship. A systematic literature search was conducted in July, 2014, to identify eligible studies. Either a fixed-effects model or a random-effects model was used to calculate pooled effects. The meta-analysis results of nine trials showed a slight, but no significant, reduction of 0.42 mg/L (95% CI −0.96, 0.13) in CRP level with the supplementation of whey protein and its derivates. Relatively high heterogeneity across studies was observed. Subgroup analyses showed that whey significantly lowered CRP by 0.72 mg/L (95% CI −0.97, −0.47) among trials with a daily whey dose ≥20 g/day and by 0.67 mg/L (95% CI −1.21, −0.14) among trials with baseline CRP ≥3 mg/L. Meta-regression analysis revealed that the baseline CRP level was a potential effect modifier of whey supplementation in reducing CRP. In conclusion, our meta-analysis did not find sufficient evidence that whey and its derivates elicited a beneficial effect in reducing circulating CRP. However, they may significantly reduce CRP among participants with highly supplemental doses or increased baseline CRP levels.
MULTI-VIEW TECHNIQUE FOR 3D POLYHEDRAL OBJECT RECOGNITION USING SURFACE REPRESENTATION

This work proposes a 3D object recognition method based on the matching of geometric attributes extracted from polyhedral models. 3D attributes are determined by crossing data obtained from three 2D views of the object. The recog- nition method matches global, local and relational attributes, in order to make possible the identification and positioning of both, the models present in the scene and the visible surfaces in the views.
Towards customized emotional design: an explorative study of user personality and user interface skin preferences

Two key elements in the area of cognitive ergonomics are user-system performance and the user similarity. However, with the introduction of skinnable user interfaces, a technology that gives the user interface a chameleon-like ability, elements such as aesthetic, fun, and especially user individuality and identity become more important. This paper presents two explorative studies on user personality in relation to skin preferences. In the studies participants were asked to rate their preference of a set of Windows Media Player skins and to complete the BIS/BAS and the IPIP-NEO personality inventories. The results of the first study suggest colour and similarity-attraction as two possible underlying factors for the correlations found between personality traits and skin preferences. The results of the second study partly confirm these findings, however not for similar personality traits and skin types correlations.