Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of stand size on the accuracy of remote sensing-based forest inventory

The comparison of results of different forest studies is extremely difficult due to differences in test sites and studied stand characteristics, validation procedures, parameters used as an evaluation criteria, selection of stands, and the number of predictors used to name but a few. All these account for a large variation of the obtained accuracy. Additionally, in most reports inadequate information is given to convert statistically results from one study to the other. Since very few studies, such as Hyyppa/spl uml/ et al. (2000), exist where various remote sensing data sources and methods are verified in the same test site, much of the knowledge of the applicability of various data sources and methods for forest inventory has to be obtained by studies carried out in different tests sites. However, there is a single parameter, stand size, affecting strongly comparisons of forestry inventory results. The effect of stand size on the accuracy of remote sensing-based standwise forest inventory has not been reported extensively. The most dramatic changes occur at the level where stands are small. Not surprisingly, stand size has been successfully utilized as an auxiliary parameter in some studies. This paper describes how the accuracy of estimation is influenced by the stand size. Both spaceborne and airborne data are used in order to show that the effect is not just based on large pixel sizes or the effects of border pixels in spaceborne data. The accuracy of the following remote sensing data, SPOT Pan and XS, Landsat TM, ERS-1/2 SAR PRI and SLC, and airborne data from imaging spectrometer (AISA) is verified as a function of stand size in the range 1 to 20 ha. The paper presents curves that assist in converting results from one stand size to another and compares results of some studies in different test sites. Stand size seems to explain most of the variability of the results; however, for detailed comparison, more carefully described results are needed. Recommendations to design future forest studies are given in order to help the statistical conversion of results from one study to another.
Subgenotype Analysis of Cryptosporidium Isolates from Humans, Cattle, and Zoo Ruminants in Portugal

ABSTRACT Cryptosporidium parvum and Cryptosporidium hominis isolates from human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients, cattle, and wild ruminants were characterized by PCR and DNA sequencing analysis of the 60-kDa glycoprotein gene. Seven alleles were identified, three corresponding to C. hominis and four corresponding to C. parvum. One new allele was found (IId), and one (IIb) had only been found in Portugal. Isolates from cattle and wild ruminants clustered in two alleles. In contrast, human isolates clustered in seven alleles, showing extensive allelic diversity.
The Roles of Pol and Env in the Assembly Pathway of Human Foamy Virus

ABSTRACT Human foamy virus (HFV) is the prototype of theSpumavirus genus of retroviruses. These viruses have a genomic organization close to that of other complex retroviruses but have similarities to hepadnaviruses such as human hepatitis B virus (HBV). Both HFV and HBV express their Pol protein independently of their structural proteins. Retroviruses and hepadnaviruses differ in their requirements for particle assembly and genome packaging. Assembly of retroviral particles containing RNA genomes requires only the Gag structural protein. The Pol protein is not required for capsid assembly, and the Env surface glycoprotein is not required for release of virions from the cell. In contrast, assembly of extracellular HBV particles containing DNA requires core structural protein and polymerase (P protein) for assembly of nucleocapsids and requires surface glycoproteins for release from the cell. We investigated the requirements for synthesis of extracellular HFV particles by constructing mutants with either the pol or envgene deleted. We found that the Pol protein is dispensable for production of extracellular particles containing viral nucleic acid. In the absence of Env, intracellular particles are synthesized but few or no extracellular particles could be detected. Thus, foamy virus assembly is distinct from that of other reverse transcriptase-encoding mammalian viruses.
A review of influence of environment and process parameters on glucosinolate-myrosinase system from Brassica

Article history: The family Brassicaceae has been very studied due to the pharmacologic properties of the glucosinolates (GLS) and their hydrolysis products, which are associated with the action of an endogenous thioglucosidase myrosinase. Factors such as climate, soil, genotype, seasonal variation, processing, extraction quantification can affect the enzyme activity and stability, leading to increase or decrease the hydrolysis of GLS. Based on this aspect, the main objective of this work is present a review concerning the glucosinolate-myrosinase system, influence of climate and genotype to seasonal variation in the glucosinolate-myrosinase system, effect of thermal and high hydrostatic pressure treatments on the GLS content, as well as, the isolation and quantification of GLS from Brassica.
Study on Immunized Ant Colony Optimization

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a new natural computation method from mimic the behaviors of ant colony.It is a very good combination optimization method. To extend the ant colony optimization, some continuous ant colony optimizations have been proposed. To improve the searching performance, the principles of evolutionary algorithm and artificial immune algorithm have been combined with the typical continuous ant colony optimization, and one new immunized ant colony optimization is proposed here. In this new algorithm, the ant individual is transformed by adaptive Cauchi mutation and thickness selection. To verify the new algorithm, the typical functions, such as Schaffer function and "needle-in-a-haystack" function, are all used. And then, the results of immunized ant colony optimization are compared with that of continuous ant colony optimization. The results show that, the convergent speed and computing precision of new algorithm are all very good.
CrowdStory

Event summarization based on crowdsourced microblog data is a promising research area, and several researchers have recently focused on this field. However, these previous works fail to characterize the fine-grained evolution of an event and the rich correlations among posts. The semantic associations among the multi-modal data in posts are also not investigated as a means to enhance the summarization performance. To address these issues, this study presents CrowdStory, which aims to characterize an event as a fine-grained, evolutionary, and correlation-rich storyline. A crowd-powered event model and a generic event storyline generation framework are first proposed, based on which a multi-clue--based approach to fine-grained event summarization is presented. The implicit human intelligence (HI) extracted from visual contents and community interactions is then used to identify inter-clue associations. Finally, a cross-media mining approach to selective visual story presentation is proposed. The experiment results indicate that, compared with the state-of-the-art methods, CrowdStory enables fine-grained event summarization (e.g., dynamic evolution) and correctly identifies up to 60% strong correlations (e.g., causality) of clues. The cross-media approach shows diversity and relevancy in visual data selection.
Two Distinct Types of Repression Domain in Engrailed: One Interacts with the Groucho Corepressor and Is Preferentially Active on Integrated Target Genes

ABSTRACT Active transcriptional repression has been characterized as a function of many regulatory factors. It facilitates combinatorial regulation of gene expression by allowing repressors to be dominant over activators under certain conditions. Here, we show that the Engrailed protein uses two distinct mechanisms to repress transcription. One activity is predominant under normal transient transfection assay conditions in cultured cells. A second activity is predominant in an in vivo active repression assay. The domain mediating the in vivo activity (eh1) is highly conserved throughout several classes of homeoproteins and interacts specifically with the Groucho corepressor. While eh1 shows only weak activity in transient transfections, much stronger activity is seen in culture when an integrated target gene is used. In this assay, the relative activities of different repression domains closely parallel those seen in vivo, with eh1 showing the predominant activity. Reducing the amounts of repressor and target gene in a transient transfection assay also increases the sensitivity of the assay to the Groucho interaction domain, albeit to a lesser extent. This suggests that it utilizes rate-limiting components that are relatively low in abundance. Since Groucho itself is abundant in these cells, the results suggest that a limiting component is recruited effectively by the repressor-corepressor complex only on integrated target genes.
De Chinese gemeenschap van Batavia, 1843-1865 : een onderzoek naar het Kong Koan-archief

This dissertation is primarily based on the administrative documents of “the Kong Koan te Batavia” (吧城公馆, the Chinese Council of Batavia) and presents new insights into various aspects of the 19th century Chinese society of this city. It focuses on the Kong Koan as an informal, collaborative semi-governmental organ during the chairmanship of Tan Eng Goan, the first Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia, between 1843 and 1865. The crucial purpose of the research is to fill the existing gap within the historiography of the Chinese community in Batavia.
CharaParser+EQ: Performance evaluation without gold standard

To make phenotypic characters of organisms widely useful for computerized biology research, biocurators manually convert character descriptions to a structured format, for example the Entity‐Quality (EQ) format. The manual approach is time consuming and affected by inter‐curator variations. In this paper we report a software application, CharaParser+EQ, to our knowledge the first software that produces EQ statements from textual character descriptions. We report a recent experiment that evaluates the performance of the software against three experienced biocurators. While the software is still far from being able to compete with biocurators on this highly intellectual task, the results show (1) CharaParser+EQ's performance (precision and recall) is greatly improved compared to a previous version, (2) the completeness of the ontologies used in the process has significant impact both on the software's EQ generation performance and on the agreement among curators, and (3) unlimited access to external knowledge (published papers, books) by curators has no significant impact on inter‐curator agreements. A detailed error analysis that compares machine and curator generated EQs is included.
Höheres Beschäftigungswachstum durch Venture Capital

Aufgrund der geringen Eigenkapitalausstattung junger Unternehmen und erheblicher Unsicherheiten hinsichtlich des Erfolgs der geplanten Investitionen, scheidet eine Finanzierung mittels Fremdkapital oftmals aus oder erfolgt nicht in dem Umfang, den die Unternehmen nachfragen. In deren Folge konnen Unternehmen ihre Investitionen nicht durchfuhren und sind in ihrem Wachstum gehemmt. Mit dem Zufuhren von zusatzlichem, externem Eigenkapital (Beteiligungsfinanzierung) kann die Eigenkapitalausstattung von Unternehmen jedoch gestarkt werden. Diese Starkung impliziert zugleich einen besseren Zugang zu zusatzlichem Fremdkapital. Die hohere Eigen- und Fremdkapitalbasis fuhrt schlieslich zur Beseitigung des Finanzierungsengpasses als Wachstumshemmnis. Eine zentrale Fragestellung ist, ob junge Unternehmen durch die Inanspruchnahme einer Beteiligungsfinanzierung (Untersuchungsgruppe) tatsachlich eine bessere unternehmerische Performance erzielen konnen im Vergleich zu einer "reprasentativen" Menge von nicht mit Beteiligungskapital finanzierten Unternehmen (Kontrollgruppe). Da sich Beteiligungskapitalgeber bei ihren Investments an den zu erwartenden Wachstumsaussichten der Unternehmen orientieren, kann mit der zufalligen Auswahl von Unternehmen ohne Beteiligungsfinanzierung keine geeignete Kontrollgruppe gebildet werden. In der Mehrzahl der Studien wurden bisher nur wenige oder keine Determinanten berucksichtigt, um eine adaquate Kontrollgruppe auszuwahlen. Eine Verzerrung des ausgewiesenen Beitrages der Beteiligungsfinanzierung zum unternehmerischen Wachstum ist daher nicht auszuschliesen. In der vorliegenden Studie wird ein statistisches Evaluationsverfahren eingesetzt, um eine Kontrollgruppe zu bestimmen, welche in deutlich mehr beobachtbaren Charakteristika eine hinreichende Ahnlichkeit mit der Untersuchungsgruppe aufweist.
ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES OF SOME WILD VEGETABLES OF NORTH-EASTERN REGION IN INDIA AND EFFECT OF SOLVENT EXTRACTION SYSTEM TAPAN SEAL

The antioxidant activities of seven wild edible plants e.g. Allium schoenoprasum, Carica papaya, Neptunia oleracea, Eurya acuminata, Hodgsonia heteroclita, Brassica nigra and Flacourtia jangomas collected from Meghalaya state in India were studied by assessing 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, reducing power ability, estimation of total phenolic content, flavonoid content and flavonol content, using different solvent extraction system. The solvents used for extracting active components from plant were benzene, chloroform, acetone and methanol. The different levels of antioxidant activities were found in the solvent systems used. The results indicate that these wild edible vegetables can be utilized as natural antioxidant. These findings are also important for providing evidence that the studied plants might be the potential sources of nutritional and medicinal agents.
Simplification of the new Bethesda 2001 classification system.

In 1989, a National Cancer Institute workshop resulted in the development of the Bethesda System for cytologic reporting of Papanicolaou smears. In the Bethesda III System (2001), potentially premalignant squamous lesions fall into 3 categories: Atypical squamous cells (ASC), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LGSIL), and high-grade intraepithelial lesions (HGSIL). The ASC category is subdivided into 2 categories: Those of unknown significance (ASC-US) and those in which high-grade lesions must be excluded (ASC-H). Further revision included the elimination of the category "benign cellular changes," which is now referred to as "negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy. " The revision also refined the criteria for abnormal glandular epithelium, including atypical glandular cells (AGC). The principal modification in the updated system is the revision of the ASC category, which was done to facilitate triage of women for more intense screening when a true suspicion of a high-grade lesion was present.
The TGV t rans g enic v ectors for single-copy gene expression from the Escherichia coli chromosome

Plasmid-based cloning and expression of genes in Escherichia coli can have several problems: plasmid destabilization; toxicity of gene products; inability to achieve complete repression of gene expression; non-physiological overexpression of the cloned gene; titration of regulatory proteins; and the requirement for antibiotic selection. We describe a simple system for cloning and expression of genes in single copy in the E. coli chromosome, using a non-antibiotic selection for transgene insertion. The transgene is inserted into a vector containing homology to the chromosomal region ̄anking the attachment site for phage lambda. This vector is then linearized and introduced into a recombination-pro®cient E. coli strain carrying a temperature-sensitive lambda prophage. Selection for replacement of the prophage with the transgene is performed at high temperature. Once in the chromosome, transgenes can be moved into other lysogenic E. coli strains using standard phage-mediated transduction techniques, selecting against a resident prophage. Additional vector constructs provide an arabinoseinducible promoter (PBAD), PBAD plus a translation-initiation sequence, and optional chloramphenicol-, tetracycline-, or kanamycin-resistance cassettes. These Transgenic E. coli Vectors (TGV) allow drug-free, single-copy expression of genes from the E. coli chromosome, and are useful for genetic studies of gene function. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Revealing the moonlighting role of NADP in the structure of a flavin-containing monooxygenase

Flavin-containing monooxygenases (FMOs) are, after cytochromes P450, the most important monooxygenase system in humans and are involved in xenobiotics metabolism and variability in drug response. The x-ray structure of a soluble prokaryotic FMO from Methylophaga sp. strain SK1 has been solved at 2.6-Å resolution and is now the protein of known structure with the highest sequence similarity to human FMOs. The structure possesses a two-domain architecture, with both FAD and NADP+ well defined by the electron density maps. Biochemical analysis shows that the prokaryotic enzyme shares many functional properties with mammalian FMOs, including substrate specificity and the ability to stabilize the hydroperoxyflavin intermediate that is crucial in substrate oxygenation. On the basis of their location in the structure, the nicotinamide ring and the adjacent ribose of NADP+ turn out to be an integral part of the catalytic site being actively engaged in the stabilization of the oxygenating intermediate. This feature suggests that NADP(H) has a moonlighting role, in that it adopts two binding modes that allow it to function in both flavin reduction and oxygen reactivity modulation, respectively. We hypothesize that a relative domain rotation is needed to bring NADP(H) to these distinct positions inside the active site. Localization of mutations in human FMO3 that are known to cause trimethylaminuria (fish-odor syndrome) in the elucidated FMO structure provides a structural explanation for their biological effects.
Expression of gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor and effect of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue on proliferation of cultured gastric smooth muscle cells of rats.

AIM To investigate the expression of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor and the effects of GnRH analog (alarelin) on proliferation of cultured gastric smooth muscle cells (GSMC) of rats. METHODS Immunohistochemical ABC methods and in situ hybridization methods were used to dectect protein and mRNA expression of GnRH receptor in GSMC, respectively. Techniques of cell culture, OD value of MTT test, measure of (3)H-TdR incorporation, average fluorescent values of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and flow cytometric DNA analysis were used in the experiment. RESULTS The cultured GSMC of rats showed immunoreactivity for GnRH receptor; positive staining was located in cytoplasm. GnRH receptor mRNA hybridized signals were also detected in cytoplasm. When alarelin (10(-9), 10(-7), 10(-5) mol/L) was administered into the medium and incubated for 24 h, OD value of MTT, (3)H-TdR incorporation and average fluorescent values of PCNA all decreased significantly as compared with the control group (P<0.05). The maximum inhibitory effect on cell proliferation was achieved a concentration of 10(-5) mol/L and it acted in a dose-dependent manner. Flow cytometric DNA analysis revealed that alarelin could significantly enhance ratio of G(1) phase and decrease ratio of S phase of GSMC of rats (P<0.05). The maximum inhibitory effect on ratio of S phase was at the concentration of 10(-5) mol/L and also acted in a dose-dependent manner. CONCLUSION Our data suggest that GnRH receptor can be expressed by GSMC of rats. GnRH analogue can directly inhibit proliferation and DNA synthesis of rat GSMC through GnRH receptors.
Reinfusion of autologous lymphocytes with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor induces rapid recovery of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells after high-dose chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer.

PURPOSE Repeated high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) followed by peripheral-blood progenitor cell (PBPC) transplantation can induce a complete remission in patients with metastatic breast cancer sensitive to standard chemotherapy (CT), but the majority of patients relapse within 1 to 2 years. The immune system is seriously compromised after HDCT, which precludes the development of effective immunotherapy. We investigated whether autologous lymphocytes, reinfused after HDCT, could induce a rapid recovery of T cells. PATIENTS AND METHODS Three patients were monitored for immune recovery without reinfusion of lymphocytes. In the next 11 patients, stem cells were harvested after CT + granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and lymphocytes were harvested after CT + granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin-2. These patients received stem cells and G-CSF after the first HDCT; stem cells, G-CSF, and lymphocytes after the second; and stem cells, GM-CSF, and lymphocytes after the third HDCT. RESULTS Patients not receiving lymphocyte reinfusion had a very slow recovery of lymphocytes. In particular, CD4 counts remained low (< 200/microL for 9 months). Lymphocyte reinfusion had a significant effect on the recovery of lymphocytes, T cells, and CD8+ T cells (normalized on day 25). Recovery of CD4+ T cells was significantly accelerated by lymphocyte reinfusion and GM-CSF, leading to counts of 500/microL at 25 days. CONCLUSION Lymphocyte reinfusion with G-CSF had a significant effect on the recovery of CD8+ T cells, whereas rapid recovery of CD4+ T cells required lymphocyte reinfusion and GM-CSF, which possibly acts as a survival factor through activation of antigen presenting cells. Whether the rapid recovery of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells prevents or delays relapse of the disease should be further investigated.
Ensemble of Diverse Decorate Classifier with Neural Network

Challenging problem in data mining is to classify data sets that suffer from imbalanced Class distributions. In machine learning, the ensemble of classifiers are known to increase the accuracy of single classifiers by combining all of them, but none of these learning techniques alone solve the imbalance problem, to deal with this problem the ensemble algorithms have to be designed specifically. DECORATE is ensemble learning techniques, that directly constructs diverse hypotheses using additional artificially-constructed training examples. ANN is very flexible with respect to missing, incomplete and noisy data and also makes the data to use for dynamic environment. In this paper, we present a method of generating the diversity of the classifier data set from UCI repository by neural networks and learning by DECORATE for optimum accuracy.