Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutrient Addition Modifies Phosphatase Activities along an Altitudinal Gradient in a Tropical Montane Forest in Southern Ecuador

Atmospheric nutrient deposition and climate change are expected to endanger the diversity of tropical forest ecosystems. Nitrogen (N) deposition might influence nutrient fluxes beyond the N cycle by a concomitant increased demand for other nutritional elements such as phosphorus (P). Organisms might respond to the increased P demand by enhanced activity of enzymes involved in releasing inorganic P from organic matter (OM). Our aims were to assess the effect of i) climate shifts (approximated by an altitudinal gradient), and ii) nutrient addition (N, P, N+P) on phosphatase activity (PA) in organic layer and mineral soil of a tropical montane rainforest in Southern Ecuador. A nutrient manipulation experiment (NUMEX) was set up along an altitudinal gradient (1000, 2000, and 3000 m a.s.l.). We determined PA and inorganic and total P concentrations. PA at 1000 m was significantly lower (mean ± standard error: 48 ± 20 µmol p-NP g-1 dm h-1) as compared to 2000 m and 3000 m (119 ± 11 and 137 ± 19, respectively). One explanation might be that very rapid decomposition of OM at 1000 m results in very thin organic layers reducing the stabilization of enzymes and thus, resulting in leaching loss of enzymes under the humid tropical climate. We found no effect of N addition on PA neither in the organic layer nor in mineral soil, probably because of the low nutrient addition rates that showed ambiguous results so far on productivity measures as a proxy for P demand. In the organic layers of P and N+P treatments, we found decreased PA and increased concentrations of inorganic P. This indicates that the surplus of inorganic P reduced the biosynthesis of phosphatase enzymes. PA in megadiverse montane rainforests is likely to be unaffected by increased atmospheric N deposition but reduced upon atmospheric P deposition.
PHIGS: A Standard, Dynamic, Interactive Graphics Interface

The Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) is a draft standard for computer graphics programming. PHIGS is useful for applications that manipulate complex displays of 2D or 3D data in a highly interactive environment. This is done through the hierarchical data organization and flexible editing capabilities provided in PHIGS. This article describes the goals and underlying model of PHIGS, reviews its capabilities, and provides some brief application examples. The similarities and differences of PHIGS and GKS are discussed.
Dynamic gesture recognition using 3D trajectory

In this paper, we proposed an effective method which can recognize dynamic hand gesture by analyzing the information of motion trajectory captured by leap motion in three-dimension space. A simple gesture spotting is tried. And the orientation characteristics are quantified and coded as the feature after pre-processing the data. Then an improved discrete HMM algorithm is utilized to model and classify gestures. Experimental results on a self-built database of dynamic hand gestures (numbers 0-9) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Fast mean shift based traffic image filtering algorithm

This paper describes a novel fast mean shift algorithm based on an accelerated iteration strategy. This new method focuses on solving the problem of high calculation complexity when high data dimension or large data sets are involved in mean shift. By predicting the mean shift vector, improved method reduces the number of iteration and speed up the calculation. The application of traffic image filtering is provided also. Experiment results of traffic image filtering demonstrate the efficiency of the fast mean shift algorithm.
Cross-lingual Dutch to English alignment using EuroWordNet and Dutch Wikipedia

This paper describes a system for linking the thesaurus of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision to English WordNet and dbpedia. We used EuroWordNet, a multilingual wordnet, and Dutch Wikipedia as intermediaries for the two alignments. EuroWordNet covers most of the subject terms in the thesaurus, but the organization of the cross-lingual links makes selection of the most appropriate English target term almost impossible. Using page titles, redirects, disambiguation pages, and anchor text harvested from Dutch Wikipedia gives reasonable performance on subject terms and geographical terms. Many person and organization names in the thesaurus could not be located in (Dutch or English) Wikipedia.
Metamodelling a formal method : applying MDE to abstract state machines

This paper presents the AsmM, a metamodel for Abstract State Machines developed by following the guidelines of the Model Driven Engineering. The AsmM represents concepts and constructs of the ASM formal method in an abstract way, it is endowed with a standard visual notation, and it is intended easy to learn and understand by practitioners and students. From the AsmM a concrete syntax is also proposed and a standard interchange format for a systematic integration of a number of loosely-coupled ASM tools is derived. The metamodelling advantages for tool interoperability are shown by referring to the experience in making the ATGT, an existing tool supporting test case generation for ASMs, compliant to the AsmM.
The Mechanosensory Lateral Line System Mediates Activation of Socially-Relevant Brain Regions during Territorial Interactions

Animals use multiple senses during social interactions and must integrate this information in the brain to make context-dependent behavioral decisions. For fishes, the largest group of vertebrates, the mechanosensory lateral line system provides crucial hydrodynamic information for survival behaviors, but little is known about its function in social communication. Our previous work using the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, provided the first empirical evidence that fish use their lateral line system to detect water movements from conspecifics for mutual assessment and behavioral choices. It is unknown, however, where this socially-relevant mechanosensory information is processed in the brain to elicit adaptive behavioral responses. To examine for the first time in any fish species which brain regions receive contextual mechanosensory information, we quantified expression of the immediate early gene cfos as a proxy for neural activation in sensory and socially-relevant brain nuclei from lateral line-intact and -ablated fish following territorial interactions. Our in situ hybridization results indicate that in addition to known lateral line processing regions, socially-relevant mechanosensory information is processed in the ATn (ventromedial hypothalamus homolog), Dl (putative hippocampus homolog), and Vs (putative medial extended amygdala homolog). In addition, we identified a functional network within the conserved social decision-making network (SDMN) whose co-activity corresponds with mutual assessment and behavioral choice. Lateral line-intact and –ablated fight winners had different patterns of co-activity of these function networks and group identity could be determined solely by activation patterns, indicating the importance of mechanoreception to co-activity of the SDMN. These data show for the first time that the mechanosensory lateral line system provides relevant information to conserved decision-making centers of the brain during territorial interactions to mediate crucial behavioral choices such as whether or not to engage in a territorial fight. To our knowledge, this is also the first evidence of a subpallial nucleus receiving mechanosensory input, providing important information for elucidating homologies of decision-making circuits across vertebrates. These novel results highlight the importance of considering multimodal sensory input in mediating context-appropriate behaviors that will provide broad insights on the evolution of decision-making networks across all taxa.
A Semantic Category Matching Approach to Ontology Alignment

We applied our semantic category matching (SCM) approach to the EON ontology alignment contest problems. Our approach found pairs of semantically corresponding categories from two different classification hierarchies such as Yahoo, based on natural language processing, similarity searching of huge vector spaces, and structural consistency analysis. The EON Contest’s random name problems (#201, #202) could not be solved using conventional character string resemblance techniques. However, when we applied SCM to these problems, the results showed that SCM had improved the accuracy as compared to the conventional method (F-measure: 0.021=>0.949, 0.021=>0.580). Moreover, SCM exceeded the accuracy average in all problem areas by over 10 % as compared to conventional methods. 1 Semantic Category Matching
Automatic Solar Cavity Detection Using Haar Cascade Classifier

Solar physicists have recently been focusing on the examination of solar cavities, circular structures appearing on the sun's upper atmosphere. The high volume of continuously received solar data from observing spacecraft make it difficult to find and identify solar cavities. In this study, we developed a computer model for automated detection of solar cavities using Haar cascade classifiers. Our preliminary experimental results using data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) show great promise towards the reliable automated detection of solar cavities.
Cookies Along Trust-Boundaries (CAT): Accurate and Deployable Flood Protection

Packet floods targeting a victim's incoming bandwidth are notoriously difficult to defend against. While a number of solutions have been proposed, such as network capabilities, third-party traffic scrubbing, and overlay-based protection, most suffer from drawbacks that limit their applicability in practice. We propose CAT, a new network-based flood protection scheme. In CAT, all flows must perform a three-way handshake with an in-network element to obtain permission to send data. The three-way handshake dissuades source spoofing and establishes a unique handle for the flow, which can then be used for revocation by the receiver. CAT offers the protection qualities of network capabilities, and yet does not require major architectural changes.
Cultural and behavioral differences: tour guides gazing at tourists

ABSTRACT The aim of this exploratory study is to describe, examine, and analyze the manner in which tour guides in Israel gaze at the groups of foreign tourists they lead, in light of their close familiarity and cumulative experience with them. How do Israeli tour guides view different types of tourists, tourist behaviors, and tourist worldviews? The concept of ‘gaze’ refers to the manner in which people view the world around them. When a gaze is focused, it may include both visual and nonvisual elements. The study methodology is based on a grounded theory approach and on in-depth interviews with Israeli tour guides regarding their attitudes toward and perceptions and images of the tourists in their groups. The study proposes a model of five complementary gazes that develop over time, which depicts the processes and elements that help shape how hosts understand the tourists with whom they come in contact. Although the model was based on findings generated by interviews with Israeli tour guides, who are professional hosts, it may also be applicable to other kinds of hosts in different contexts.
Covey’s Professional Habits in Czech Elementary and LowerSecondary Novice Teachers

The text deals with elementary and lower secondary novice teachers in the Czech Republic, Liberec County, in the context of Covey’s professional habits of successful people. The habits were operationalized into measurable factors and expert-driven validation and Cronbach item reliability performed. The correlations confirmed our assumptions of the interrelatedness of the habits on the one hand and on the other hand their uniqueness. The final questionnaire can serve to evaluate the level oo mastering Covey´s habits in novice teachers. The adapted version of the questionnaire will prospectively serve as an evaluation tool of effectiveness of educational programmes focused on personal and professional student teacher growth.
Biophysical Characterization of the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus p24 Capsid Protein Conformation and In Vitro Capsid Assembly

The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) capsid protein p24 oligomerizes to form a closed capsid that protects the viral genome. Because of its crucial role in the virion, FIV p24 is an interesting target for the development of therapeutic strategies, although little is known about its structure and assembly. We defined and optimized a protocol to overexpress recombinant FIV capsid protein in a bacterial system. Circular dichroism and isothermal titration calorimetry experiments showed that the structure of the purified FIV p24 protein was comprised mainly of α-helices. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and cross-linking experiments demonstrated that p24 was monomeric at low concentration and dimeric at high concentration. We developed a protocol for the in vitro assembly of the FIV capsid. As with HIV, an increased ionic strength resulted in FIV p24 assembly in vitro. Assembly appeared to be dependent on temperature, salt concentration, and protein concentration. The FIV p24 assembly kinetics was monitored by DLS. A limit end-point diameter suggested assembly into objects of definite shapes. This was confirmed by electron microscopy, where FIV p24 assembled into spherical particles. Comparison of FIV p24 with other retroviral capsid proteins showed that FIV assembly is particular and requires further specific study.
Frequent Itemset Mining of Distributed Uncertain Data under User-Defined Constraints

Many existing distributed data mining algorithms do not allow users to express the patterns to be mined according to their intention via the use of constraints. Consequently, these unconstrained mining algorithms can yield numerous patterns that are not interesting to users. Moreover, due to inherited measurement inaccuracies and/or network latencies, data are often riddled with uncertainty. These call for constrained mining and uncertain data mining. In this paper, we propose a tree-based system for mining frequent itemsets that satisfy user-defined constraints from a distributed environment such as a wireless sensor network of uncertain data.
Sparse distance preservers and additive spanners

For an unweighted graph <i>G</i> = (<i>V, E</i>), G′ = (<i>V</i>, <i>E</i>′) is a subgraph if E′ ⊆ <i>E</i>, and G″ = (<i>V</i>″, E″, ω) is a Steiner graph if <i>V</i> ⊆ V″, and for any pair of vertices <i>u</i>, <i>w</i> ∈ <i>V</i>, the distance bet-ween them in G″(denoted <i>d<inf>G″</inf></i>, (<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>)) is at least the distance between them in <i>G</i> (denoted <i>d</i><inf>a</inf>(<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>)). In this paperwe introduce the notion of distance preserver. A subgraph (resp., Steiner graph) G′ of a graph <i>G</i> is a subgraph (resp., Steiner) <i>D-preserver</i> of <i>G</i> if for every pair of vertices <i>u</i>, <i>w</i> ∈ <i>V</i> with <i>d<inf>G</inf></i>(<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>) ≥ <i>D</i>, <i>d<inf>G′</inf></i>, (<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>) = <i>d</i><inf>G</inf>(<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>). We show that anygraph (resp., digraph) has a <i>subgraph D</i>-preserver with at most <i>O</i>(<i>n</i><sup>2</sup>/<i>D</i>) edges (resp., arcs), and there are graphs and digraphs for which any <i>undirected Steiner D</i>-preserver contains Ω(<i>n</i><sup>2</sup>/<i>D</i>) edges. However, we show that if one allows a <i>directed Steiner</i> (or, shortly, <i>diS-teiner</i>) <i>D</i>-preserver, then these bounds can be improved. Specifically, we show that for any graph or digraph there exists a diSteiner <i>D</i>-preserver with <i>O</i>(<i>n</i><sup>2</sup>.log <i>D</i>/<i>D</i>.log <i>n</i> arcs, and that this result is tight up to a constant factor.We also study <i>D</i>-preserving distance labeling schemes, that are labeling schemes that guarantee precise calculation ofdistances between pairs of vertices that are at distance at least <i>D</i> one from another. We show that there exists a <i>D</i>-preserving labeling scheme with labels of size <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/<i>D</i>log<sup>2</sup> <i>n</i>), and that labels of size Ω(<i>n</i>/<i>D</i> log <i>D</i>) are required for any <i>D</i>-preserving labeling scheme.Finally, we study <i>additive</i> spanners. A subgraph G′ of an undirected graph <i>G</i> = (<i>V</i>, <i>E</i>) is its additive β-spanner if for any pair of vertices <i>u</i>, <i>w</i> ∈ <i>V</i>, <i>d<inf>G′</inf></i>, (<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>) ≤ <i>d<inf>G</inf></i>(<i>u</i>, <i>w</i>)+β. It is known that for any <i>n</i>-vertex graph there exists an additive 2-spanner with <i>O</i>(<i>n</i><sup>3/2</sup>) edges, and an additive Steiner 4-spanner with <i>O</i>(<i>n</i><sup>4/3</sup>) edges. However, no construction of additive spanners with <i>o</i>(<i>n</i><sup>3/2</sup>) edges or Steiner additive spanners with <i>o</i>(<i>n</i><sup>4/3</sup>) edges are known so far. We devise a construction of additive <i>O</i>(2<sup>1/Δ</sup><i>n</i><sup>(1-Δ)</sup>[1/Δ]--2/[1/Δ]--1)-spanner with <i>O</i>(<i>n</i><sup>1+Δ</sup>) edges for any graph and any Δ < 0.
Fast Color Quantization of JPEG

The JPEG image compression scheme is the standard method for compressing true color images. Since most computer systems have a clut-oriented graphic device, a color quantization process is required for displaying true color images on such systems. Unfortunately, the general color quantization problem is NP-hard and is therefore solved by suboptimal heuristic approaches with reduced visual quality. In this paper, we present a new coding scheme which reduces the color quantization process for JPEG images to a linear-time mapping procedure. Our proposal is based on performing some of the required computations as a preprocessing step before the compression and storing their results as part of the compressed image data. By applying this new method, the time for the visualization process becomes independent of the chosen quantization quality.
Contribution of Gut Bacteria to Liver Pathobiology

Emerging evidence suggests a strong interaction between the gut microbiota and health and disease. The interactions of the gut microbiota and the liver have only recently been investigated in detail. Receiving approximately 70% of its blood supply from the intestinal venous outflow, the liver represents the first line of defense against gut-derived antigens and is equipped with a broad array of immune cells (i.e., macrophages, lymphocytes, natural killer cells, and dendritic cells) to accomplish this function. In the setting of tissue injury, whereby the liver is otherwise damaged (e.g., viral infection, toxin exposure, ischemic tissue damage, etc.), these same immune cell populations and their interactions with the infiltrating gut bacteria likely contribute to and promote these pathologies. The following paper will highlight recent studies investigating the relationship between the gut microbiota, liver biology, and pathobiology. Defining these connections will likely provide new targets for therapy or prevention of a wide variety of acute and chronic liver pathologies.
Pathophysiology of acute graft‐versus‐host disease

Graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD) has been the primary limitation to the wider application of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The pathophysiology of acute GVHD is complex and can be conceptualized to be a three‐step process based on murine studies. In step 1, the conditioning regimen leads to the damage and activation of host tissues and induces the secretion of inflammatory cytokines. As a consequence, the expression of MHC antigens and adhesion molecules is increased enhancing the recognition of host alloantigens by donor T cells. Donor T‐cell activation in step 2 is characterized by donor T cell interaction with host APCs and subsequent proliferation, differentiation and secretion of cytokines. Cytokines such as IL‐2 and IFN‐γ enhance T‐cell expansion, induce cytotoxic T cells (CTL) and natural killer (NK) cell responses and prime additional mononuclear phagocytes to produce TNF‐α and IL‐1. These inflammatory cytokines in turn stimulate production of inflammatory chemokines, thus recruiting effector cells into target organs. In step 3, effector functions of mononuclear phagocytes are triggered via a secondary signal provided by lipopolysaccaride (LPS) that leaks through the intestinal mucosa damaged during step 1. This mechanism may result in the amplification of local tissue injury and further promotion of an inflammatory response, which, together with the CTL and NK components, leads to target tissue destruction in the transplant host. The following review discusses the three‐step process of the pathophysiology of experimental acute GVHD. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Time Reversibility, Correlation Decay and the Steady State Fluctuation Relation for Dissipation

Steady state fluctuation relations for nonequilibrium systems are under intense investigation because of their important practical implications in nanotechnology and biology. However the precise conditions under which they hold need clarification. Using the dissipation function, which is related to the entropy production of linear irreversible thermodynamics, we show time reversibility, ergodic consistency and a recently introduced form of correlation decay, called T-mixing, are sufficient conditions for steady state fluctuation relations to hold. Our results are not restricted to a particular model and show that the steady state fluctuation relation for the dissipation function holds near or far from equilibrium subject to these conditions. The dissipation function thus plays a comparable role in nonequilibrium systems to thermodynamic potentials in equilibrium systems.
DOCO: An Efficient Event Matching Algorithm in Content-Based Publish/Subscribe Systems

The content-based publish/subscribe systems are attracting more and more attention in Internet applications due to their intrinsic time, space, and synchronization decoupling properties. With the increase in system scale, the efficiency of event matching becomes more critical for system performance. However, most existing methods suffer significant performance degradation when the system has large volumes of subscriptions. This paper presents DOCO (DOuble COmbination event matching algorithm) to improve the efficiency of event matching in content-based publish/subscribe systems. Via assembling the attributes in the attribute space by pairs, a novel index structure is built up for classification of the subscriptions. On the arrival of an event, the event matching process is only carried out on some related units of the index structure, thus, the number of subscriptions that involved in the event matching process is reduced. A series of experiments are designed to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, and a comparison with other event matching algorithms is also carried out. The experimental results show that DOCO can improve the efficiency of event matching in content-based publish/subscribe systems.
Dynamics and chemistry of marine stratocumulus - DYCOMS II

The second Dynamics and Chemistry of Marine Stratocumulus (DYCOMS-II) field study is described. The field program consisted of nine flights in marine stratocumulus west-southwest of San Diego, California. The objective of the program was to better understand the physics a n d dynamics of marine stratocumulus. Toward this end special flight strategies, including predominantly nocturnal flights, were employed to optimize estimates of entrainment velocities at cloud-top, large-scale divergence within the boundary layer, drizzle processes in the cloud, cloud microstructure, and aerosol–cloud interactions. Cloud conditions during DYCOMS-II were excellent with almost every flight having uniformly overcast clouds topping a well-mixed boundary layer. Although the emphasis of the manuscript is on the goals and methodologies of DYCOMS-II, some preliminary findings are also presented—the most significant being that the cloud layers appear to entrain less and drizzle more than previous theoretical work led investigat.