Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NEMA, a functional-structural model of nitrogen economy within wheat culms after flowering. II. Evaluation and sensitivity analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Simulating nitrogen economy in crop plants requires formalizing the interactions between soil nitrogen availability, root nitrogen acquisition, distribution between vegetative organs and remobilization towards grains. This study evaluates and analyses the functional-structural and mechanistic model of nitrogen economy, NEMA (Nitrogen Economy Model within plant Architecture), developed for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) after flowering. METHODS NEMA was calibrated for field plants under three nitrogen fertilization treatments at flowering. Model behaviour was investigated and sensitivity to parameter values was analysed. KEY RESULTS Nitrogen content of all photosynthetic organs and in particular nitrogen vertical distribution along the stem and remobilization patterns in response to fertilization were simulated accurately by the model, from Rubisco turnover modulated by light intercepted by the organ and a mobile nitrogen pool. This pool proved to be a reliable indicator of plant nitrogen status, allowing efficient regulation of nitrogen acquisition by roots, remobilization from vegetative organs and accumulation in grains in response to nitrogen treatments. In our simulations, root capacity to import carbon, rather than carbon availability, limited nitrogen acquisition and ultimately nitrogen accumulation in grains, while Rubisco turnover intensity mostly affected dry matter accumulation in grains. CONCLUSIONS NEMA enabled interpretation of several key patterns usually observed in field conditions and the identification of plausible processes limiting for grain yield, protein content and root nitrogen acquisition that could be targets for plant breeding; however, further understanding requires more mechanistic formalization of carbon metabolism. Its strong physiological basis and its realistic behaviour support its use to gain insights into nitrogen economy after flowering.
Towards Lead-Free Piezoceramics: Facing a Synthesis Challenge

The search for electroceramic materials with enhanced ferro-pyro-piezoelectric properties and revealing the perovskite type structure has been the objective of a significant number of manuscripts reported in the literature. This has been usually carried out by proposing the synthesis and processing of new compounds and solid solution series. In this work, several methods to obtain ferro-pyro-piezoelectric families of materials featuring the well-known ABO3 perovskite structure (or related) such as BaTiO3, Ba1–xCaxTi1–yZryO3, (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3, (K0.5Na0.5)NbO3 and their solid solutions with different cations either in the A or B positions, are presented. For this kind of materials, the challenge for obtaining a single phase compound with a specific grain size and morphology and, most importantly, with the adequate stoichiometry, will also be discussed. The results reviewed herein will be discussed in terms of the tendency of working with softer conditions, i.e., lower temperature and shorter reaction times, also referred to as soft-chemistry.
A critical evaluation of the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL)

With RPL - the “IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-power Lossy Networks” - emerging as a Proposed Standard “Request For Comment” (RFC) in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) after a ∼2-year development cycle, this paper presents a critical evaluation of the resulting protocol and its applicability and limits. The paper presents a selection of observations of the protocol characteristics, exposes experiences acquired when producing a prototype implementation of RPL, and presents results obtained from testing this protocol - both in a network simulator, and in real-world experiments on a wireless sensor network testbed. The paper aims at providing a better understanding of possible weaknesses and limits of RPL, notably the possible directions that further protocol developments should explore, in order to address these.
Scalable Vector Media-processors for Embedded Systems

Over the past twenty years, processor designers have concentrated on superscalar and VLIW architectures that exploit the instruction-level parallelism (ILP) available in engineering applications for workstation systems. Recently, however, the focus in computing has shifted from engineering to multimedia applications and from workstations to embedded systems. In this new computing environment, the performance, energy consumption, and development cost of ILP processors renders them ineffective despite their theoretical generality. This thesis focuses on the development of efficient architectures for embedded multimedia systems. We argue that it is possible to design processors that deliver high performance, have low energy consumption, and are simple to implement. The basis for the argument is the ability of vector architectures to exploit efficiently the data-level parallelism in multimedia applications. Furthermore, the increasing density of CMOS chips enables the design of cost-effective, on-chip, memory systems that can support the high bandwidth necessary for a vector processor. To test our hypothesis, we present VIRAM, a vector architecture for multimedia processing. We demonstrate that the vector instructions in VIRAM can capture the data-level parallelism in multimedia tasks and lead to smaller code size than RISC, CISC, and VLIW architectures. We also describe two scalable microarchitectures for vector media-processors: VIRAM-1 and CODE. VIRAM-1 integrates a simple, yet highly parallel, vector processor with an embedded DRAM memory system in a prototype chip with 120 million transistors. CODE uses a composite and decoupled organization for the vector processor in order to simplify the vector register file design, tolerate high memory latency, and allow for precise exceptions support. Both microarchitectures provide up to 10 times higher performance than alternative approaches without using out-of-order or wide instruction issue techniques that exacerbate energy consumption and design complexity.
Locally Adaptable Non-parametric Methods for Estimating Stand Characteristics for Wood Procurement Planning

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of the local adaptation of the non-parametric Most Similar Neighbour (MSN) method in estimating stand characteristics for wood procurement planning purposes. Local adaptation was performed in two different ways: 1) by selecting local data from a database with the MSN method and using that data as a database in the basic k-nearest neighbour (k-nn) MSN method, 2) by selecting a combination of neighbours from the neighbourhood where the average of the predictor variables was closest to the target stand predictor variables (Locally Adaptable Neighbourhood (LAN) MSN method). The study data used comprised 209 spruce dominated stands located in central Finland and was collected with harvesters. The accuracy of the methods was analysed by estimating the tree stock characteristics and the log length/diameter distribution produced by a bucking simulation. The local k-nn MSN method was not notably better than the k-nn MSN method, although it produced less biased estimates on the edges of the input space. The LAN MSN method was found to be a more accurate method than the k-nn methods.
Milk Products, Dietary Patterns and Blood Pressure Management

High blood pressure (BP) is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease. Inverse associations between dairy product consumption and systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) have been observed in cross-sectional studies; some studies, however, have reported an inverse association with only one BP parameter, predominantly SBP. Randomized clinical trials examining the effect of calcium and the combination of calcium, potassium and magnesium provide evidence for causality. In these studies, reductions in BP were generally modest (−1.27 to −4.6 mmHg for SBP, and −0.24 to −3.8 mmHg for DBP). Dairy nutrients, most notably calcium, potassium and magnesium, have been shown to have a blood pressure lowering effect. A low calcium intake increases intracellular calcium concentrations which increases 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 and parathyroid hormone (PTH), causing calcium influx into vascular smooth muscle cells, resulting in greater vascular resistance. New research indicates that dairy peptides may act as angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, thereby inhibiting the renin angiotensin system with consequent vasodilation. A growing evidence base shows that dairy product consumption is involved in the regulation of BP. Consequently, inclusion of dairy products in a heart healthy diet is an important focal point to attain BP benefits.
Effect of previous open renal surgery and failed extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy on the performance and outcomes of percutaneous nephrolithotomy.

PURPOSE We evaluated the effects of previous open renal surgery and unsuccessful extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) treatment on the performance and outcomes of percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL). PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 410 consecutive PCNL procedures for renal calculi were performed at our institution from November 2006 to March 2009. Of these 410 patients, 86 (20.9%) with a history of failed SWL on the same side were categorized as group I, and 132 (32.2%) who had previous open renal surgery (+/-SWL) on the same kidney were categorized as group II. The remaining 192 patients (46.9%) without a history of SWL or open renal surgery comprised group III. Patient demographics, stone characteristics, operative findings, including operative time, time to access the collecting system, flouroscopy time, success rate, need for auxiliary treatments, and complications were documented in detail and compared in each group. RESULTS There were no differences between the three groups in age, sex, weight, and stone laterality. In the post-SWL group, mean stone burden was significantly lower than in groups II and III. Mean operative time, time to access the collecting system, fluoroscopic screening time, complication rates, nephrostomy removal times, and hospitalization times were similar in the each groups (P > 0.05 for each parameter). The stone-free rates after PCNL were 89.5% in group I; 87.1% in group II; and 88.5% in group III. These rates increased to 98.8%, 96.2%, and 96.8%, in groups I, II and III, respectively, after a second intervention (PCNL, SWL, or ureterorenoscopy). CONCLUSIONS Our study clearly demonstrates that PCNL with standard technique can be performed safely in patients with a history of open nephrolithotomy or SWL without a higher risk of complications and with a success rate similar to that of PCNL in patients with no previous intervention.
Effects of motor and cognitive dual-task performance in depressive elderly, healthy older adults, and healthy young individuals

Impairments in dual-task performance can be observed in healthy older adults when motor and cognitive assignments are applied simultaneously. According to the hypofrontality hypothesis, there may be a reduction in frontal cognitive function during exercise. Objective The aim of the present study was to compare the performance changes on cognitive tests of depressive elderly (n=10), healthy older adults (n=10), and healthy young individuals (n=10) during cycle ergometer exercise. Methods The groups were submitted to a working memory test, a short memory test and a semantic memory test, before and during a 20-minute cycle ergometer exercise at 80% of their age-predicted maximal heart rate. Results Significant differences (p=0.04) were observed in scores on the digit backward test during exercise when young individuals were compared to healthy older adults. This result indicates that young subjects, as expected, had better performance than elderly. No significant differences were found among the groups for the digit forward subtest (p=0.40) or the vocabulary test (p=0.69). Conclusion Data from this study showed that healthy older adults had impaired performance on higher cognitive tasks when these assignments were applied together with motor tasks.
Human MicroRNA Targets

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) interact with target mRNAs at specific sites to induce cleavage of the message or inhibit translation. The specific function of most mammalian miRNAs is unknown. We have predicted target sites on the 3′ untranslated regions of human gene transcripts for all currently known 218 mammalian miRNAs to facilitate focused experiments. We report about 2,000 human genes with miRNA target sites conserved in mammals and about 250 human genes conserved as targets between mammals and fish. The prediction algorithm optimizes sequence complementarity using position-specific rules and relies on strict requirements of interspecies conservation. Experimental support for the validity of the method comes from known targets and from strong enrichment of predicted targets in mRNAs associated with the fragile X mental retardation protein in mammals. This is consistent with the hypothesis that miRNAs act as sequence-specific adaptors in the interaction of ribonuclear particles with translationally regulated messages. Overrepresented groups of targets include mRNAs coding for transcription factors, components of the miRNA machinery, and other proteins involved in translational regulation, as well as components of the ubiquitin machinery, representing novel feedback loops in gene regulation. Detailed information about target genes, target processes, and open-source software for target prediction (miRanda) is available at http://www.microrna. org. Our analysis suggests that miRNA genes, which are about 1% of all human genes, regulate protein production for 10% or more of all human genes.
Short Paper: Practically Unbounded One-Way Chains for Authentication with Backward Secrecy

One-way hash chains have been the preferred choice (over symmetric and asymmetric key cryptography) in security setups where efficiency mattered; despite the ephemeral confidentiality and authentication they assure. They only support forward secrecy and have limitations over the chain size (bounded). In this paper, we show how the use of chameleon functions leads to the generation of practically unbounded one-way chains with constant memory storage requirement, providing forward, and backward secrecy as well. Such a cryptographic tool appears to be a great enabler for a variety of applications that could not be efficiently realized earlier. From our experiments we observed that this new kind of one-way chain formation adds a slight computational burden, which is justifiable by the unique advantages provided under our construction. The basic unit of our construction, chameleon function, can be elegantly used to design trees or even simpler star-like constructs
Loss of LR11/SORLA Enhances Early Pathology in a Mouse Model of Amyloidosis: Evidence for a Proximal Role in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia, resulting in progressive neuronal death and debilitating damage to brain loci that mediate memory and higher cognitive function. While pathogenic genetic mutations have been implicated in ∼2% of AD cases, the proximal events that underlie the common, sporadic form of the disease are incompletely understood. Converging lines of evidence from human neuropathology, basic biology, and genetics have implicated loss of the multifunctional receptor LR11 (also known as SORLA and SORL1) in AD pathogenesis. Cell-based studies suggest that LR11 reduces the formation of β-amyloid (Aβ), the molecule believed to be a primary toxic species in AD. Recently, mutant mice deficient in LR11 were shown to upregulate murine Aβ in mouse brain. In the current study, LR11-deficient mice were crossed with transgenic mice expressing autosomal-dominant human AD genes, presenilin-1 (PS1ΔE9) and amyloid precursor protein (APPswe). Here, we show that LR11 deficiency in this AD mouse model significantly increases Aβ levels and exacerbates early amyloid pathology in brain, causing a forward shift in disease onset that is LR11 gene dose-dependent. Loss of LR11 increases the processing of the APP holo-molecule into α-, β-, and γ-secretase derived metabolites. We propose that LR11 regulates APP processing and Aβ accumulation in vivo and is of proximal importance to the cascade of pathological amyloidosis. The results of the current study support the hypothesis that control of LR11 expression may exert critical effects on Alzheimer's disease susceptibility in humans.
Changes in weight and physical activity over two years in Spanish alumni.

PURPOSE To investigate the relationship between baseline leisure-time physical activity and changes in leisure activity during follow-up on long-term weight changes. METHODS We evaluated prospectively 11,974 participants (university graduates) who participated in a dynamic cohort (Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra cohort) with an average follow-up of 27 months. Self-reported data from validated mailed questionnaires were used. Baseline leisure activity was assessed with a previously validated questionnaire. RESULTS After adjusting for age, hours sitting down, smoking status, snacking, fiber intake, and consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, fast food, and alcohol, participants who decreased their leisure activity during follow-up experienced a significant increase in body mass index (BMI; relative change): for men, 0.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.5-1.2%); for women, 1.0% (95% CI = 0.6-1.3%). Participants who increased their leisure activity during follow-up experienced a significant reduction (relative change) in BMI: for men, -0.8% (95% CI = -1.1% to -0.5%); for women, -0.6% (95% CI = -0.9% to -0.4%). This inverse association between changes in leisure activity and weight gain was significantly stronger for participants with a baseline BMI >or=25 kg x m(-2), but the absolute magnitude of this interaction effect was trivial. Baseline physical activity was not significantly associated with weight changes after 2-yr of follow-up. CONCLUSION Longitudinal changes in leisure activity during follow-up were inversely associated with changes in body weight. The true relationships between leisure activity and body weight are likely to have been larger than observed, owing to attenuation of effects by measurement error in self-reported data.
Dimensiones de los síntomas comunes a mujeres y hombres en la escala de síntomas somáticos revisada (ESS-R)

The aims of this study were to contrast a structure of 8 correlated factors for Sandin and Chorot’s Somatic Symptoms Scale Revised (Escala de Sintomas Somaticos Revisada, ESS-R; Sandin, 1999), to explore alternative models, to verify the high internal consistencies of the scale and its factors, furthermore to describe their distributions with the expectation of positive skewness. The ESS-R scale was applied to a random sample of 446 Mexican undergraduates. The data sustained the hypothesis, although a fit with adequate indexes required reducing the number of indicators per factor. We support the use of the scale in Mexico and its study in other samples and countries.
High rate soft output Viterbi decoder

This paper presents the architecture of a high rate soft output Viterbi decoder (100 Mb/s, 8 states, R=1/2), using the "radix" trellis method to speed up the rate of a decoder using the Viterbi algorithm and the a posteriori weighting algorithm. The size of this circuit is roughly twice that of the original soft output Viterbi decoder while the speed is increased by a factor of 2. Because of its performances, this circuit is very attractive for satellite digital communication systems and is at the root of "turbo-codes", which are a class of convolutional codes whose performances in terms of bit error rate, are close to the Shannon limit.
Statistical Machine Translation and Cross-Language IR: QMUL at CLEF 2006

In this year’s CLEF submissions we focus on using a state-of-the-art statistical machine translation approach for ad-hoc cross-language retrieval. Our machine translation approach is phrase-based as opposed to statistical word-based approaches that have been previously used for query translation in cross-language IR. The phrase translation probabilities were estimated by using the Europarl corpus. For query formulation, we also use the n-best lists of translation candidates to assign weights to query terms. Our results show that a statistical phrase-based approach is a competitive alternative to commercial, rule-based machine translation approaches in the context of cross-language IR.
The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition

Periods of great social change reveal a tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation. The twentieth century has witnessed both radical alteration and tenacious durability in social organization, politics, economics, and art. To comprehend these changes as history and as guideposts to the future, Peter F. Drucker has, over a lifetime, pursued a discipline that he terms social ecology. The writings brought together in The Ecological Vision define the discipline as a sustained inquiry into the man-made environment and an active effort at maintaining equilibrium between change and conservation. The chapters in this volume range over a wide array of disciplines and subject matter. They are linked by a common concern with the interaction of the individual and society, and a common perspective that views economics, technology, politics, and art as dimensions of social experience and expressions of social value. Included here are profiles of such figures as Henry Ford, John C. Calhoun, Soren Kierkegaard, and Thomas Watson; analyses of the economics of Keynes and Schumpeter;and explorations of the social functions of business, management, information, and technology. Drucker's chapters on Japan examine the dynamics of cultural and economic change and afford striking comparisons with similar processes in the West. In the concluding chapter, "Reflections of a Social Ecologist," Drucker traces the development of his discipline through such intellectual antecedents as Alexis de Tocqueville, Walter Bagehot, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. He illustrates the ecological vision, an active, practical, and moral approach to social questions. Peter Drucker summarizes a lifetime of work and exemplifies the communicative clarity that are requisites of all intellectual enterprises. His book will be of interest to economists, business people, foreign affairs specialists, and intellectual historians.
Worst Case Power/Ground Noise Estimation Using an Equivalent Transition Time for Resonance

The nonmonotonic behavior of power/ground noise with respect to the transition time tr is investigated for an inductive power distribution network with a decoupling capacitor. The worst case power/ground noise obtained with fast switching characteristics is shown to be significantly inaccurate. An equivalent transition time that corresponds to resonance is presented to accurately estimate the worst case power/ground noise in the time domain. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the ground noise to the decoupling capacitance Cd and parasitic inductance Lg is evaluated as a function of the transition time. Increasing the decoupling capacitance is shown to efficiently reduce the noise for transition times smaller than twice the LC time constant, tr les 2radic(LgCd). Alternatively, reducing the parasitic inductance Lg is shown to be effective for transition times greater than twice the LC time constant, tr ges 2radic(LgCd). The peak noise occurs when the transition time is approximately equal to twice the LC time constant, tr ap 2radic(LgCd) , referred to as the equivalent transition time for resonance.