Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of regional water endowments, crop water productivity, and implications for intra-country virtual water trade in Iran

An exact knowledge of the internal renewable water resources of a country is a strategic information which is needed for long term planning of a nation’s water and food security, among many other needs. New modeling tools allow this quantification with high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study we used the program Soil and Water Assessment Tools (SWAT) in combination with the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting program (SUFI-2) to calibrate and validate a hydrologic model of Iran based on river discharges and wheat yield, taking into consideration dam operations and irrigation practices. Uncertainty analyses were also performed to assess the model performance. The results were quite satisfactory for most of the rivers across the country. We quantified all components of the water balance including blue water flow (water yield plus deep aquifer recharge), green water flow (actual and potential evapotranspiration), and green water storage (soil moisture) at sub-basin level with monthly time steps. The spatially aggregated water resources and simulated yield compared well with the existing data. The study period was 1990-2002 for calibration and 1980-1989 for validation. The results show that irrigation practices have a significant impact on the water balances of the provinces with irrigated agriculture. Concerning the staple food crop in the country, 55% of irrigated wheat and 57% of rain-fed wheat are produced every year in water scarce regions. The vulnerable situation of water resources availability has serious implications for the country’s food security, and the looming impact of climate change could only worsen the situation. This study provides a strong basis for further studies concerning the water and food security and the water resources management strategies in the country and a unified approach for the analysis of blue and green water in other arid and semi-arid countries. Modelling blue and green water 8
Blind separation of instantaneous mixture of sources based on order statistics

In this paper, we introduce a novel procedure for separating an instantaneous mixture of sources based on order statistics. The method is derived in a general context of independence component analysis, using a contrast function defined in term of the Kullback-Leibler divergence or of the mutual information. We introduce a discretized form of this contrast permitting its easy estimation through order statistics. We show that the local contrast property is preserved and derive a global contrast, exploiting only the information of the support of the distribution (in case this support is finite). Some simulations are given, illustrating the good performance of the method.
Health, drugs and service use among deprived single men: comparing (subgroups) of single male welfare recipients against employed single men in Amsterdam

Objectives To aid public health policy in preventing severe social exclusion (like homelessness) and promoting social inclusion (like labour market participation), we aimed to quantify (unmet) health needs of an expectedly vulnerable population on which little was known about: single male welfare recipients (SIM-welfare). One of the main policy questions was: is there need to promote access to healthcare for this specific group? Design A cross-sectional study incorporating peer-to-peer methodology to approach and survey SIM-welfare. Sociodemographics, prevalence of ill health, harmful drug use and healthcare utilisation for subgroups of SIM-welfare assessed with a different distance to the labour market and exposed to different reintegration policy were described and compared against single employed men (SIM-work). Setting Men between the age of 23 and 64, living in single person households in Amsterdam. Participants A random and representative sample of 472 SIM-welfare was surveyed during 2009–2010. A reference sample of 212 SIM-work was taken from the 2008 Amsterdam Health Survey. Outcome measures Standardised instruments were used to assess self-reported ill somatic and mental health, harmful drug use and service use. Results SIM-welfare are mostly long-term jobless, low educated, older men; 70% are excluded from re-employment policy due to multiple personal barriers. Health: 50% anxiety and depression; 47% harmful drug use; 41% multiple somatic illnesses. Health differences compared with SIM-work: (1) controlled for background characteristics, SIM-welfare report more mental (OR 4.0; 95% CI 2.1 to 4.7) and somatic illnesses (OR 3.1; 95% CI 2.7 to 6.0); (2) SIM-welfare assessed with the largest distance to the labour market report most combined health problems. Controlled for ill health, SIM-welfare are more likely to have service contacts than SIM-work. Conclusions SIM-welfare form a selection of men with disadvantaged human capital and health. Findings do not support a need to improve access to healthcare. The stratification of welfare clients distinguishes between health needs.
Multi-Approximation based Time-Parameterized moving objects R-tree

A moving polygonal object takes up large storage space in moving database, which incurs heavy disk I/O cost in querying process. Motivated by TPR-tree and MR-tree, Multiple-Approximation is advanced to be TPMA with Time-Parameterized technology to deal with indexing of moving polygonal objects. New indexing structure for moving polygonal objects based on TPMA, which is termed as MTPR-tree, is presented in this paper. MTPR-tree uses TPBR and TPMEC to approximate moving polygon, which can decrease number of candidate results in a query. A hash structure is introduced into MTPR-tree to reduce negative effect of TPMA. Advantage of MTPR-tree is not only deduced theoretically, but also verified by extensive experiments in our study.
Stimulus-Dependent State Transition between Synchronized Oscillation and Randomly Repetitive Burst in a Model Cerebellar Granular Layer

Information processing of the cerebellar granular layer composed of granule and Golgi cells is regarded as an important first step toward the cerebellar computation. Our previous theoretical studies have shown that granule cells can exhibit random alternation between burst and silent modes, which provides a basis of population representation of the passage-of-time (POT) from the onset of external input stimuli. On the other hand, another computational study has reported that granule cells can exhibit synchronized oscillation of activity, as consistent with observed oscillation in local field potential recorded from the granular layer while animals keep still. Here we have a question of whether an identical network model can explain these distinct dynamics. In the present study, we carried out computer simulations based on a spiking network model of the granular layer varying two parameters: the strength of a current injected to granule cells and the concentration of Mg2+ which controls the conductance of NMDA channels assumed on the Golgi cell dendrites. The simulations showed that cells in the granular layer can switch activity states between synchronized oscillation and random burst-silent alternation depending on the two parameters. For higher Mg2+ concentration and a weaker injected current, granule and Golgi cells elicited spikes synchronously (synchronized oscillation state). In contrast, for lower Mg2+ concentration and a stronger injected current, those cells showed the random burst-silent alternation (POT-representing state). It is suggested that NMDA channels on the Golgi cell dendrites play an important role for determining how the granular layer works in response to external input.
Oral vitamin D supplementation at five times the recommended allowance marginally affects serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in dogs

Abstract Little is known regarding optimal vitamin D status in adult dogs. To date no studies on vitamin D supplementation for improving vitamin D status have been reported for adult dogs. The aims of this study were to identify dogs with low vitamin D status and evaluate an oral dosage of cholecalciferol (D3) for effectiveness in increasing vitamin D status. For this, forty-six privately owned dogs were evaluated. Of the dogs, thirty-three (or 71·7 %) had serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations less than 100 ng/ml, a minimum previously suggested for vitamin D sufficiency in dogs. Subsequently, thirteen dogs were enrolled in a supplementation trial. Dogs were given either a D3 supplement (n 7; 2·3 µg/kg0·75) or olive oil placebo (n 6) daily with food. Serum concentrations of 25(OH)D were determined at weeks 1, 3 and 6, and at the trial end. Only at the trial end (weeks 9–10) was 25(OH)D significantly greater (P = 0·05) in supplemented v. placebo dogs. Serum concentrations of 24R,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol determined at the trial end were about 40 % of that of 25(OH)D3 and not significantly different between the groups. Concentrations of parathyroid hormone, ionised Ca, P and creatinine measured in initial and final serum samples indicated supplementation caused no toxicity. We conclude that vitamin D3 supplementation at a dosage near the National Research Council recommended safe-upper limit was not effective for rapidly raising serum 25(OH)D concentrations in healthy, adult dogs. Further work is needed in evaluating the metabolism of orally administered D3 in dogs before dosing recommendations can be made.
Ecological Acoustics Perspective for Content-Based Retrieval of Environmental Sounds

In this paper we present a method to search for environmental sounds in large unstructured databases of user-submitted audio, using a general sound events taxonomy from ecological acoustics. We discuss the use of Support Vector Machines to classify sound recordings according to the taxonomy and describe two use cases for the obtained classification models: a content-based web search interface for a large audio database and a method for segmenting field recordings to assist sound design.
Acute Plasma Volume Change With High-Intensity Sprint Exercise

Abstract Bloomer, RJ and Farney, TM. Acute plasma volume change with high-intensity sprint exercise. J Strength Cond Res 27(10): 2874–2878, 2013—When exercise is of long duration or of moderate to high intensity, a decrease in plasma volume can be observed. This has been noted for both aerobic and resistance exercise, but few data are available with regard to high-intensity sprint exercise. We measured plasma volume before and after 3 different bouts of acute exercise, of varying intensity, and/or duration. On different days, men (n = 12; 21–35 years) performed aerobic cycle exercise (60 minutes at 70% heart rate reserve) and 2 different bouts of cycle sprints (five 60-second sprints at 100% maximum wattage obtained during graded exercise testing (GXT) and ten 15-second sprints at 200% maximum wattage obtained during GXT). Blood was collected before and 0, 30, and 60 minutes postexercise and analyzed for hematocrit and hemoglobin and plasma volume was calculated. Plasma volume decreased significantly for all exercise bouts (p < 0.05), with the greatest decrease noted 0 minute postexercise for both sprint bouts (∼19%) compared with aerobic exercise bouts (∼11%). By 30 minutes postexercise, plasma volume approached pre-exercise values. We conclude that acute bouts of exercise, in particular high-intensity sprint exercise, significantly decrease plasma volume during the immediate postexercise period. It is unknown what, if any negative implications these transient changes may have on exercise performance. Strength and conditioning professionals may aim to rehydrate athletes appropriately after high-intensity exercise bouts.
Texture synthesis by Support Vector Machines

We introduce a simple texture synthesis method based on support vector machines (SVM). Although SVM has been effectively used for various pattern recognition tasks, there is no report available on directly applying SVM for texture synthesis. The advantage of using SVM is that the sample can be simply modeled by a linear model and is not required during the synthesis stage. In addition, the method can be further extended to synthesize 3D surface texture or bidirectional texture functions. Our experimental results show that the method can successfully model and synthesize semi or highly structured textures, which can be difficult subjects for previous texture synthesis methods based on parametric models.
Predicting Diabetes: Clinical, Biological, and Genetic Approaches

OBJECTIVE—To provide a simple clinical diabetes risk score and to identify characteristics that predict later diabetes using variables available in the clinic setting as well as biological variables and polymorphisms. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Incident diabetes was studied in 1,863 men and 1,954 women, 30–65 years of age at baseline, with diabetes defined by treatment or by fasting plasma glucose ≥7.0 mmol/l at 3-yearly examinations over 9 years. Sex-specific logistic regression equations were used to select variables for prediction. RESULTS—A total of 140 men and 63 women developed diabetes. The predictive clinical variables were waist circumference and hypertension in both sexes, smoking in men, and diabetes in the family in women. Discrimination, as measured by the area under the receiver operating curves (AROCs), were 0.713 for men and 0.827 for women, a little higher than for the Finish Diabetes Risk (FINDRISC) score, with fewer variables in the score. Combining clinical and biological variables, the predictive equation included fasting glucose, waist circumference, smoking, and γ-glutamyltransferase for men and fasting glucose, BMI, triglycerides, and diabetes in family for women. The number of TCF7L2 and IL6 deleterious alleles was predictive in both sexes, but after including the above clinical and biological variables, this variable was only predictive in women (P < 0.03) and the AROC statistics increased only marginally. CONCLUSIONS—The best clinical predictor of diabetes is adiposity, and baseline glucose is the best biological predictor. Clinical and biological predictors differed marginally between men and women. The genetic polymorphisms added little to the prediction of diabetes.
Digital elevation analysis for distributed hydrological modeling: Reducing scale dependence in effective hydraulic conductivity values

The recent widespread availability of digital terrain data has made automatic procedures for topographic analyses popular. Previous studies have shown that hydrological models and their effective parameter values are dependent on the resolution of the elevation grid. This paper examines the analysis of raster elevation data within the topography‐based model, TOPMODEL, framework. It is demonstrated that the algorithm used in processing channel pixels in calculating the topographic index k=ln(a/tanβ) can have a dramatic effect on the sensitivity of effective parameter values to the grid size. Suggestions are made for calculating the topographic index of channel pixels, consistent with the TOPMODEL assumptions, that strongly decrease the sensitivity of the calibrated effective hydraulic conductivity values to grid size.
Rate of solar insolation change and the glacial/interglacial transition

Climate changes are driven largely by variations in the distribution of solar insolation associated with changes in the Earth's orbital parameters. Here we define the rate of solar insolation change (RSIC) as a parameter to evaluate and quantify solar heating changes through time. We propose that RSIC may control the timing of transitions between warm and cold periods through its control on the rate of climate changes. Specifically, the glacial/interglacial transitions took place when the 65°N July insolation experienced the most rapid changes; interglacials start with a maximum positive RSIC and end with a maximum negative RISC. The RSIC curve thus provides a new astronomically tuned method for dating interglacials. The 65°N July RISC curves average a 4.7 ky lead compared to ice sheet changes as indicated by Bassinot et al. [1994] for the last 0.9 Ma, possibly implying a more rapid response of monsoonal climate to the insolation heating.
Flexible Direct Multi-Volume Rendering in Dynamic Scenes

In this paper we describe methods to efficiently visualize multiple intersecting volumetric objects. We introduce the concept of V-Objects. V-Objects represent abstract properties of an object connected to a volumetric data source. We present a method to perform direct volume rendering of a scene comprised of an arbitrary number of possibly intersecting V-Objects. The idea of our approach is to distinguish between regions of intersection, which need costly multi-volume processing, and regions containing only one V-Object, which can be processed using a highly efficient brick-wise volume traversal scheme. Using this method, we achieve significant performance gains for multi-volume rendering. We show possible medical applications, such as surgical planning, diagnosis, and education.
HIV-1 gp41 Core with Exposed Membrane-Proximal External Region Inducing Broad HIV-1 Neutralizing Antibodies

The membrane-proximal external region (MPER) of the HIV-1 gp41 consists of epitopes for the broadly cross-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies 2F5 and 4E10. However, antigens containing the linear sequence of these epitopes are unable to elicit potent and broad neutralizing antibody responses in vaccinated hosts, possibly because of inappropriate conformation of these epitopes. Here we designed a recombinant antigen, designated NCM, which comprises the N- and C-terminal heptad repeats that can form a six-helix bundle (6HB) core and the MPER domain of gp41. Two mutations (T569A and I675V) previously reported to expose the neutralization epitopes were introduced into NCM to generate mutants named NCM(TA), NCM(IV), and NCM(TAIV). Our results showed that NCM and its mutants could react with antibodies specific for 6HB and MPER of gp41, suggesting that these antigens are in the form of a trimer of heterodimer (i.e., 6HB) with three exposed MPER tails. Antigen with double mutations, NCM(TAIV), elicited much stronger antibody response in rabbits than immunogens with single mutation, NCM(TA) and NCM(IV), or no mutation, NCM. The purified MPER-specific antibodies induced by NCM(TAIV) exhibited broad neutralizing activity, while the purified 6HB-specific antibodies showed no detectable neutralizing activity. Our recombinant antigen design supported by an investigation of its underlying molecular mechanisms provides a strong scientific platform for the discovery of a gp41 MPER-based AIDS vaccine.
Algorithms for speech segmentation at syllable-level for text-to-speech synthesis system in Gujarati

Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizer has been an effective tool for many visually challenged people for reading through hearing feedback. TTS synthesizers build through the festival framework requires a large speech corpus. This corpus needs to be labeled. The labeling can be done at phoneme-level or at syllable-level. TTS systems are mostly available in English, however, it has been observed that people feel more comfortable in hearing their own native language. Keeping this point in mind, Gujarati TTS synthesizer has been built. As Indian languages are syllabic in nature, syllable is taken as the basic speech sound unit. In building the unit selection-based Gujarati TTS system, one requires large Gujarati labeled corpus. The task of labeling is manual, most time-consuming and tedious. Therefore, in this work, an attempt has been made to reduce these efforts by automatically generating almost accurate labeled speech corpus at syllable-level. To that effect, group delay-based segmentation, spectral transition measure (STM)-based and Gaussian filter-based methods are presented and their performances are compared. It has been observed that percentage of correctness of labeled data is around 83 % for both male and female voice as compared to 70 % for group delay-based labeling and 78 % for STM-based labeling. In addition, the systems built by labeled files generated from above methods were evaluated by a visually challenged subject. The word correctness rate is increased by 5 % (3 %) and 10 % (12 %) for Gaussian filter-based TTS system as compared to group delay-based TTS and Spectral Transition Measure (STM)-based system built on female (male) voice. Similarly, there is an overall reduction in the word error rate (WER) of Gaussian-based approach of 8% (2%) and 6% (-5%) as compared to group delay-based TTS and Spectral Transition Measure (STM)-based system built on female (male) voice.
Possibility of mutual verification between satellite products and climate model simulation results

In the Northern hemisphere, the CO2 concentration in the warm season indicated anomalously high values in 2003, and low values in 2004. To investigate the reasons of the interannual variation, a numerical simulation using a land biosphere – atmosphere full couple GCM was carried out. Relationship between interannual variations of CO2 and those of the land surface elements was investigated. In 2003, high surface temperature and low soil wetness conditions in the Eurasian Continent and in North America, and low downward short wave radiation condition in East Asia, occurred in the warm season. It is considered that these climate conditions in 2003 induced relatively low GPP and NEP values in the continental scale. Comparison of the simulation results of GCM with satellite data (MODIS and AMSR-E) was performed concerning the remarkable interannual changes from 2003 to 2004. Global distributions of the seasonal changes by the model almost agree with those by the satellite data regarding both the land surface temperature and the soil moisture. The interannual changes of land surface temperature by the model agree well with those by the MODIS data. As to the soil moisture, the regions exist where the interannual changes by the model disagree with those by the AMSR-E data especially in the warm season. The values of elements calculated by the model are physically and bioecologically consistent each other in the model. Therefore, the model results are useful as the relative information for the validation of the global scale or regional scale products of satellite data estimated separately by each algorithm.
Model free adaptive control under Sigmoid Function and newton method for estimation of the pseudo-partial-derivative in nonlinear systems

The Model Free Learning Adaptive Control (MFLAC) is based on the pseudo-partial-derivative (PPD) calculated from the input and output signals of the system to be controlled and also using a fixed penalty factor that weights the control energy to provide a good behavior to the feedback process. This paper presents two new adaptation algorithms to adjust the PPD, based on the Sigmoid Function (SF) and another on the Newton Method (NM). With these proposals, alternative control designs are obtained for the on-line tuning of the PPD, ensuring good stability and robustness for the closed-loop system. Simulations on a nonlinear coupled liquid-tank plant and a laboratory apparatus on a damped pendulum show the efficiency and superiority of the proposed adaptive controllers when using estimation mechanisms to adjust these parameter over the standard MFLAC. Performance indices are used to show the improvement of the behavior of the proposal control algorithms.
ServiceXplorer: a similarity-based web service search engine

Finding relevant Web services and composing them into value-added applications is becoming increasingly important in cloud and service based marketplaces. The key problem with current approaches to finding relevant Web services is that most of them only provide searches over a discrete set of features using exact keyword matching. We demonstrate in this paper that by utilizing well known indexing scheme such as inverted file and R-tree indexes over Web services attributes, the Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) algorithm can be used efficiently to find partial matches between a query and a database of Web services.