Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-model climate impact assessment and intercomparison for three large-scale river basins on three continents

Abstract. Climate change impacts on hydrological processes should be simulated for river basins using validated models and multiple climate scenarios in order to provide reliable results for stakeholders. In the last 10–15 years, climate impact assessment has been performed for many river basins worldwide using different climate scenarios and models. However, their results are hardly comparable, and do not allow one to create a full picture of impacts and uncertainties. Therefore, a systematic intercomparison of impacts is suggested, which should be done for representative regions using state-of-the-art models. Only a few such studies have been available until now with the global-scale hydrological models, and our study is intended as a step in this direction by applying the regional-scale models. The impact assessment presented here was performed for three river basins on three continents: the Rhine in Europe, the Upper Niger in Africa and the Upper Yellow in Asia. For that, climate scenarios from five general circulation models (GCMs) and three hydrological models, HBV, SWIM and VIC, were used. Four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) covering a range of emissions and land-use change projections were included. The objectives were to analyze and compare climate impacts on future river discharge and to evaluate uncertainties from different sources. The results allow one to draw some robust conclusions, but uncertainties are large and shared differently between sources in the studied basins. Robust results in terms of trend direction and slope and changes in seasonal dynamics could be found for the Rhine basin regardless of which hydrological model or forcing GCM is used. For the Niger River, scenarios from climate models are the largest uncertainty source, providing large discrepancies in precipitation, and therefore clear projections are difficult to do. For the Upper Yellow basin, both the hydrological models and climate models contribute to uncertainty in the impacts, though an increase in high flows in the future is a robust outcome ensured by all three hydrological models.
Interslice leakage artifact reduction technique for simultaneous multislice acquisitions

Controlled aliasing techniques for simultaneously acquired echo‐planar imaging slices have been shown to significantly increase the temporal efficiency for both diffusion‐weighted imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. The “slice‐GRAPPA” (SG) method has been widely used to reconstruct such data. We investigate robust optimization techniques for SG to ensure image reconstruction accuracy through a reduction of leakage artifacts.
Behavior-Based Latent Variable Model for Learner Engagement

We propose a new model for learning that relates video-watching behavior and engagement to quiz performance. In our model, a learner’s knowledge gain from watching a lecture video is treated as proportional to their latent engagement level, and the learner’s engagement is in turn dictated by a set of behavioral features we propose that quantify the learner’s interaction with the lecture video. A learner’s latent concept knowledge is assumed to dictate their observed performance on in-video quiz questions. One of the advantages of our method for determining engagement is that it can be done entirely within standard online learning platforms, serving as a more universal and less invasive alternative to existing measures of engagement that require the use of external devices. We evaluate our method on a real-world massive open online course (MOOC) dataset, from which we ﬁnd that it achieves high quality in terms of predicting unobserved ﬁrst-attempt quiz responses, outperforming two state-of-the-art baseline algorithms on all metrics and dataset partitions tested. We also ﬁnd that our model enables the identiﬁcation of key behavioral features (e.g., larger numbers of pauses and rewinds, and smaller numbers of fast forwards) that are correlated with higher learner engagement.
Estimation of the Optimal Futures Hedge

Standard approaches to designing a futures hedge often suffer from two major problems. First, they focus only on minimizing risk, so no account is taken of the impact on expected return. Second , in estima ting the hedge ratio, no allowance is made for time variation in the distribution of cash and futures price changes. This paper describes a technique for estimating the optimal futures hedge that corrects these problems and illustrates its use in hedging Treasury bonds with T-bond futures. Copyright 1988 by MIT Press.
Superoxide anion production and some sperm‐specific enzyme activities in infertile men

Summary The relationship between superoxide anion production and the activities of sperm specific NADH‐diaphorase and isozyme LDH‐C4 has been investigated in 25 normozoospermic and 17 oligozoospermic semen samples. The samples were separated into high and low density sperm populations on discontinuous, two step (40%:80%) Percoll gradients prior to analysis. Superoxide anion generation was significantly higher (P<0.001) and diaphorase activity significantly increased (P<0.01) in both low and high density sperm fractions from oligozoospermic patients compared to the values found in normozoospermic men. A significant positive correlation (P<0.01) between diaphorase activity and superoxide anion production was established in the oligozoospermic samples of low density sperm fraction. A tendency of statistically insignificant increase in LDH‐C4 isozyme activity was observed in the oligozoospermic samples. The activity of this isozyme appears to have no association with superoxide anion generation or diaphorase activity. These findings seem to suggest that excessive superoxide anion production along with increased diaphorase activity point to biochemical abnormalities which may affect the functional status of sperms. Hence, determination of these parameters may provide useful data in male infertility of unknown etiology.
Effect Size Estimation and Misclassification Rate Based Variable Selection in Linear Discriminant Analysis

Supervised classifying of biological samples based on genetic information, (e.g. gene expression profiles) is an important problem in biostatistics. In order to find both accurate and interpretable classification rules variable selection is indispensable. This article explores how an assessment of the individual importance of variables (effect size estimation) can be used to perform variable selection. I review recent effect size estimation approaches in the context of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and propose a new conceptually simple effect size estimation method which is at the same time computationally efficient. I then show how to use effect sizes to perform variable selection based on the misclassification rate which is the data independent expectation of the prediction error. Simulation studies and real data analyses illustrate that the proposed effect size estimation and variable selection methods are competitive. Particularly, they lead to both compact and interpretable feature sets.
Realtime Object Occlusion In Augmented Reality Environments.

—In the world of augmented reality, the real world is purely a background and the virtual objects are superimposed as the foreground objects of this world. These virtual objects appear in front of any real-world object when rendered as they don’t have any sense of depth. For a more realistic augmentation of objects you want them to interact with the real-world object, cast shadows just like the real-world object and reflect light like the real-world objects. This project deals with the problem of occlusion by making virtual objects closely resemble the real objects by using the depth and color information in the scene to clip the virtual object to create a sense of occlusion between the objects.
Nitrogen washout slope in poorly controlled asthma

Short‐term control of asthma is often lacking even though forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) remains above normal value. Small airways are a potential key site of persistent inflammation and structural modification. Noninvasive assessment of small airways was found to be difficult, but the computerized single breath nitrogen washout test (SBNT) has been recently successfully reintroduced with this aim. Twenty‐four asthmatics (13 females) of various severity but with normal FEV1 were compared with 24 healthy volunteers (13 females) and studied at steady‐state after bronchodilatation (400 μg salbutamol). Spirometric values, plethysmographic data, phase III (slope of phase III of the SBNT, dN2) and IV [closing volume (CV), with closing capacity (CC) = CV + residual volume (RV)] of the SBNT were checked. Asthma severity, recent control, exacerbation rate, and therapy requirements were assessed on the basis of validated questionnaires (ACQ) and international guidelines. Patients were prospectively pooled into two equal groups according to their exacerbation rate. The reproducibility of the measurements obtained on 2 following days was assessed. All plethysmographic values, except total lung capacity (TLC), differentiated asthmatic patients from controls. The CC/TLC [124 (117–148) vs 117 (112–123), P = 0.04] and dN2 [110 (99–190) vs 94 (75–111), P = 0.02] were increased in asthma. The dN2 was significantly increased in patients with frequent exacerbations [100 (83–105) vs 195 (141–212), P = 0.0005]. A correlation was obtained between dN2 and recent asthma control (ρ: 0.62; P = 0.003), number of exacerbations (ρ: 0.71, P = 0.0008), and RV/TLC (ρ: 0.49, P = 0.026). This study demonstrated that ventilation inequalities assessed by dN2 represent an important indicator of poor asthma control and high exacerbation rate in high symptom perceivers. New therapies focused on small airways should now be developed.
Energy harvesting cooperative communications

In this paper, we propose a new cooperative wireless transmission in a scenario where the source salvages the energy during the relay's transmission considering the fact that the source does not need to retrieve the transmitted message. We also evaluate a direct wireless transmission with wireless energy transfer as a reference. We analyze the performance of these transmission techniques in terms of outage probability. Our analytical results reveal the advantage of energy salvage in combination with spatial diversity over the direct transmission even if the energy transfer efficiency is considerably low.
Dynamic Resource Allocation for MapReduce with Partitioning Skew

MapReduce has become a prevalent programming model for building data processing applications in the cloud. While being widely used, existing MapReduce schedulers still suffer from an issue known as partitioning skew, where the output of map tasks is unevenly distributed among reduce tasks. Existing solutions follow a similar principle that repartitions workload among reduce tasks. However, those approaches often incur high performance overhead due to the partition size prediction and repartitioning. In this paper, we present DREAMS, a framework that provides run-time partitioning skew mitigation. Instead of repartitioning workload among reduce tasks, we cope with the partitioning skew problem by controlling the amount of resources allocated to each reduce task. Our approach completely eliminates the repartitioning overhead, yet is simple to implement. Experiments using both real and synthetic workloads running on a 21-node Hadoop cluster demonstrate that DREAMS can effectively mitigate the negative impact of partitioning skew, thereby improving the job completion time by up to a factor of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $2.29$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="liu-ieq1-2532860.gif"/></alternatives> </inline-formula> over the native Hadoop YARN. Compared to the state-of-the-art solution, DREAMS can improve the job completion time by a factor of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.65$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="liu-ieq2-2532860.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>.
NuMWVC: A Novel Local Search for Minimum Weighted Vertex Cover Problem

The minimum weighted vertex cover (MWVC) problem is a well known combinatorial optimization problem with important applications. This paper introduces a novel local search algorithm called NuMWVC for MWVC based on three ideas. First, four reduction rules are introduced during the initial construction phase. Second, the configuration checking with aspiration is proposed to reduce cycling problem. Moreover, a self-adaptive vertex removing strategy is proposed to save time.
(Z)-2-Hydroxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)acrylic acid

In the structure of the title compound, C10H10O4, inversion dimers linked by pairs of O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the carboxylic acid groups. Further O—H⋯O links cross-link the dimers into sheets running along the b-axis direction.
Investigational drugs for hyperuricemia, an update on recent developments

ABSTRACT Introduction: The significant proportion of gout patients not reaching serum urate levels below 6.0 mg/dL and the debated pathogenicity of hyperuricemia (HU) itself motivate investigators to develop new drugs to decrease uricemia. Areas covered: This review discusses the drugs considered to be in active development from pre-clinical to phase III studies. This review covers 11 drugs in development, including a xanthine oxidase inhibitor (topiroxostat), uricosurics (verinurad, arhalofenate, UR-1102, tranilast), dual inhibitors (RLBN1001, KUX-1151), a uricase (pergsiticase), an inhibitor of hypoxanthine production (ulodesine), and drugs with yet-to-explain mechanisms of action (levotofisopam, tuna extracts). Expert opinion: Drugs well advanced in their development – particularly arhalofenate, verinurad and topiroxostat – open the prospect of patient-comorbidity-tailored HU management. Development of novel therapies provides new insight into our understanding of gout and HU, particularly potential pathogenicity. Apart from potency to decrease serum urate levels and good tolerance profiles, novel therapies will need to focus on administration modalities facilitating treatment adherence.
Bioequivalence study of an extemporaneously prepared oral solution of amlodipine suitable for use in pediatric patients compared to commercial tablets.

OBJECTIVE Amlodipine, a long-acting dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker, is frequently prescribed to pediatric patients. To date, no suitable pediatric formulation has been available. In this study, an amlodipine oral solution was developed and tested for bioequivalence to tablets in healthy adult volunteers. METHODS This study was designed as an open-label, single-dose, twosequence, two-period, crossover trial to assess the bioequivalence of a newly developed amlodipine besylate oral solution 0.5 mg/mL compared to Norvasc® 5 mg tablets. 13 adult subjects (mean [standard deviation] age of 23.2 [3.6] years, weight 71.5 [7.7] kg) were included and blood samples were collected for 72 hours. Amlodipine plasma levels were determined using a validated UPLC-MS/MS assay. Non-compartmental pharmacokinetic parameters were compared between the formulations according to European Medicines Agency (EMA) bioequivalence guidelines. RESULTS The 90% confidence intervals of the test/reference ratios of the geometric means for the primary pharmacokinetic parameters AUC(0-72) (88.24 - 104.37%) and C(max) (99.00 - 121.40%) were within the acceptance range of 80.00 - 125.00% for bioequivalence. Mean (SD) AUC(0-72) was 102.7 (26.8) (26.8) μg × h/L for the solution and 108.2 (30.6) μg × h/L for the tablet. Mean (SD) Cmax of the solution was 3.11(1.06) μg/L with a median (IQR) t(max) of 4.0 (2.6 - 7.5) hours. Mean (SD) C(max) of the tablet was 2.91 (0.84) μg/L with a median (IQR) tmax of 6.0 (4.0 - 14.0) hours. Intrasubject coefficients of variation were 10.2% (AUC(0-72)) and 12.4% (C(max)). CONCLUSIONS The formulations are bioequivalent according to EMA guidelines. This warrants further study of our novel amlodipine oral solution in pediatric patients.
Local-gated single-walled carbon nanotube field effect transistors assembled by AC dielectrophoresis

We present a simple and scalable technique for the fabrication of solution processed and local-gated carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNT-FETs). The approach is based on the directed assembly of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes from dichloroethane via AC dielectrophoresis (DEP) onto pre-patterned source and drain electrodes with a local aluminum gate in the middle. Local-gated CNT-FET devices display superior performance compared to a global back gate with on–off ratios >104 and maximum subthreshold swings of 170 mV/dec. The local bottom-gated DEP-assembled CNT-FETs will facilitate large-scale fabrication of complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) compatible nanoelectronic devices.
Rapid Identification of Mycobacteria from Smear-Positive Sputum Samples by Nested PCR-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis

ABSTRACT The rapid identification of mycobacteria from smear-positive sputum samples is an important clinical issue. Furthermore, the availability of a cheap, technically simple, and accurate method also would benefit mycobacterial laboratories in developing countries. In the present study, we aimed to develop an assay allowing the identification of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and other frequently isolated nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) directly from smear-positive sputum samples. A nested PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (nested-PRA) assay that focuses on the analysis of the hsp65 gene was developed and evaluated for its efficiency compared to that of traditional culture methods and 16S rRNA gene sequencing identification. A total of 204 smear-positive and culture-positive sputum specimens were prospectively collected for analysis between November 2005 and May 2006. The samples were classified according to an acid-fast bacillus (AFB) staining scale as rare/1+, 2+, or 3+. The results of the nested-PRA showed that the identification rate for AFB 3+, AFB 2+, and AFB rare/1+ samples was 100, 95, and 53%, respectively, and that the overall identification rate was 89%. All positive results by the nested-PRA method agreed with the results by culture and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. The nested-PRA appears to have clinical applicability when used for the direct identification of mycobacterial organisms (both MTBC and NTM) that are present in smear-positive sputum samples, especially for countries in which MTBC is endemic.
Background modeling and foreground extraction scheme for HD traffic bayonet

In a HD traffic bayonet, HD camera captures a few images once the vehicles drive cross the underground sensing coils. Time interval between two adjacent images is usually uncertain. In this paper, a background modeling and foreground extraction scheme is proposed for these images captured in the bayonet. The proposed scheme contains three modules: initial background modeling, foreground extraction and background update. It can quickly extract the foregrounds appear in the scene, including people, vehicles or other objects, which benefits to the classification, identification analysis, and storage of the data. The experiments prove that the scheme is efficient, with good universality, and not need training in advance.
Path dependence and local innovation systems in city-regions

Abstract In this paper we argue that evolutionary economic geography and particularly the concept of path dependence provide a theoretical framework within which to understand the different historical economic trajectories followed by different cities. Within this framework we identify four phases of path dependent development of new technologies or industrial sectors within urban economies. The particular characteristics of each of these phases depend on the nature and interactions of a city’s local innovation system combined with the capacity to absorb new knowledge.
Reproducibility and Repeatability in Ecology

T quantitative synthesis of research results is of fundamental importance in seeking to develop ecological generalities and construct refutable theories. It is thus critical that published studies contain sufficient detail to allow their methods to be replicated and their results compared. In response to this need, growing attention is being paid to the publication and presentation of analytical results in ecology. Our recent experience has been that journal referees (and editors) increasingly express the opinion that results need to be accompanied by general access to the primary data on which they are based. Here we argue that the legitimate aims of formal scientific inquiry (including the publication and validation of results) do not need to infringe the intellectual property rights of publishing ecologists.
Comparative Study of Agricultural Extension Systems

An increasing volume of literature deals with different meanings of the term ‘extension’ due to the many different agricultural extension systems (AESs) in use. Acknowledging the diversity of AESs, the authors recognize that there is usually a bias towards some specific aspect of these interventions that indicates a need to consider a systemic framework for comparative studies. The main purpose of this contribution is therefore to identify such a systemic view, which could be applied to comparative studies of AESs. Three levels of analysis should be scrutinized for considering a systemic view: micro (institutional), meso (national) and macro (international). At the most basic level, all AESs are involved in both intra-actions and interactions of the extension institution. For this reason, the aim of many studies has been to evaluate the institutional functions of extension practices. The functions at this lowest level are used to predict not only how extension professionals think and act, but how they react to their different target groups. The main question at the micro level is therefore to understand how a country can reach its agri-rural development goals through extension institutions and what institutional arrangements and funding trends help to achieve those goals. At the meso level, the most important considerations are national expectations, which lead to governmental support for or restrictions on the extension institution. Socioeconomic conditions and their consequences largely determine what the extension tasks should be. The main question at this level is why a country needs extension services, which define the different missions for them in different countries. Finally, at the macro level of analysis, it is important first to consider international components and their impact on the level of socioeconomic development of particular countries and, then, the extension missions. The main issue at this level is therefore to understand what international forces and considerations affect the present situation of a country and hence create new expectations of the extension system.