Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Glues for Harmonic Radar Tag Attachment on Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) and Their Impact on Adult Survivorship and Mobility

ABSTRACT We evaluated the effectiveness of three cyanoacrylate glues (trade names: Krazy [Elmer's Products Inc., Westerville, OH], Loctite [Henkel Corporation, Rocky Hill, CT], and FSA [Barnes Distribution, Cleveland, OH]) to attach harmonic radar tags securely on adult Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) and quantified the effect of the radar tag attachment on insect survivorship and mobility. In the laboratory, the strength of the glue bond between the radar tag and H. halys pronotum was significantly increased when the pronotum was sanded to remove cuticular waxes. The adhesive bond of the radar tag to the sanded pronotum of H. halys had strength of 160–190-g force and there was no significant difference among the three types of glue tested. The three glues had no measurable effect on the survivorship of radar-tagged H. halys over 7 d, compared with untagged insects. Over a 7-d period in the laboratory, horizontal distance traveled, horizontal walking velocity, and vertical climbing distance were all unaffected by the presence of the tags regardless of glue. A field experiment was conducted to compare the free flight behavior of untagged and radar-tagged H. halys. Adults were released on a vertical dowel and their flights were tracked visually up to ≈200 m from the release point. There was no significant difference in take-off time or in flight distance, time, or speed between untagged and radar-tagged individuals. In addition, prevailing flight direction was not significantly different between untagged and radar-tagged individuals. The absence of measurable impact of the radar tag attachment on H. halys survivorship or mobility validates the use of harmonic radar tags to study the dispersal ecology of this insect in field conditions.
Can sexual selection theory inform genetic management of captive populations? A review

Captive breeding for conservation purposes presents a serious practical challenge because several conflicting genetic processes (i.e., inbreeding depression, random genetic drift and genetic adaptation to captivity) need to be managed in concert to maximize captive population persistence and reintroduction success probability. Because current genetic management is often only partly successful in achieving these goals, it has been suggested that management insights may be found in sexual selection theory (in particular, female mate choice). We review the theoretical and empirical literature and consider how female mate choice might influence captive breeding in the context of current genetic guidelines for different sexual selection theories (i.e., direct benefits, good genes, compatible genes, sexy sons). We show that while mate choice shows promise as a tool in captive breeding under certain conditions, for most species, there is currently too little theoretical and empirical evidence to provide any clear guidelines that would guarantee positive fitness outcomes and avoid conflicts with other genetic goals. The application of female mate choice to captive breeding is in its infancy and requires a goal‐oriented framework based on the needs of captive species management, so researchers can make honest assessments of the costs and benefits of such an approach, using simulations, model species and captive animal data.
A simple empirical N-body potential for transition metals

Abstract A simple form of multi-ion interaction has been constructed for the purpose of atomistic simulation of transition metals. The model energy consists of a bonding term, which is the square-root of a site density ρi, summed over atoms i, and a repulsive pairwise term of the form The site density ρi is defined as sum over neighbouring sites j of a cohesive potential (R ij). Both V and are assumed to be short-ranged and are parameterized to fit the lattice constant, cohesive energy and elastic moduli of the seven body-centred-cubic (b.c.c.) transition metals. The result is a simple model which, unlike a pair-potential model, can account for experimental vacancy-formation energies and does not require an externally applied pressure to balance the “Cauchy pressure”.
A Distributed Information System for Health Care Facilities in Nigeria: A Web-based Spatial Approach

Today, the Internet has further improved the functionalities of computers. A computer and Internet based technology offering a radically different way to manage spatial data is the GIS. Its useful digital maps are needful and very useful in managing healthcare related affairs and communities as well as industry base issues. Therefore, we describe a distributive information system that uses a web-based GIS spatial approach to aid the distribution of tertiary health facilities in Nigeria. The system would assist its users to identify where health care facilities are concentrated, and how and where to locate them anytime. Some of the resources employed in the system’s development include: Macromedia dreamweaver, Java Scripting, PHP, MYSQL; the WAMP server; while the UML was used for the system’s design. Implementing the system showed that stakeholders were able to visualize the distribution of tertiary hospitals in Nigeria, and make useful inferential decisions with ease. Conclusively, we believe the system will aid in locating the nearest tertiary hospital, as well as help stakeholders make more informed decisions.
Nitric Oxide / Cyclic Nucleotide Regulation of Globin Genes in Erythropoiesis

Vladan P. Cokic1, Bojana B. Beleslin-Cokic2, Gordana Jovcic1, Raj K. Puri3 and Alan N. Schechter4 1Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Institute for Medical Research, Belgrade, 2Clinic of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Diseases of Metabolism, School of Medicine, University Clinical Center, Belgrade, 3Division of Cellular and Gene Therapies, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Bethesda, 4Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, 1,2Serbia 3,4USA
Stabilizing Augmented Reality Overlays of Hinged and Curved Planar Regions

Most Augmented Reality (AR) applications require modelto-scene feature point correspondences to estimate the graphical mapping transformation. This paper introduces a shape-based algorithm that allows registration of structures that do not have stable feature points, such as with curved regions. The technique uses a variation of the Iterated Closest Point algorithm to achieve projective (as compared to Euclidean) registration. With this technique, we show that directly registering 2D AR overlays has greater registration stability than the usual technique of estimating the 3D position of the overlay and then applying pinhole projection, which can produce noticeable frame-rate jitter of the graphical objects. Finally, we extend the technique to projectively register rigid and hinged 3D shapes projectively by using constrained 2D projective mappings. These three techniques enhance the repertoire of methods for producing high-detail, stable augmentation of video.
PlantRGS: A Web Server for the Identification of Most Suitable Candidate Reference Genes for Quantitative Gene Expression Studies in Plants

Normalization of quantitative gene expression data with a suitable reference gene is essential for accurate and reliable results. However, the availability and choice of most suitable reference gene(s) showing uniform expression across all the experimental conditions remain a drawback. We have developed a web server, PlantRGS (http://www.nipgr.res.in/PlantRGS), for the identification of most suitable candidate reference gene(s) at the whole-genome level using microarray data for quantitative gene expression studies in plants. Microarray data from more than 11 000 tissue samples for nine plant species have been included in the PlantRGS for meta-analysis. The web server provides a user-friendly graphical user interface-based analysis tool for the identification of most suitable reference genes in the selected plant species under user-defined experimental conditions. Various parameter options and output formats will help users to investigate desired number of most suitable reference genes with wide range of expression levels. Validation of results revealed that novel reference genes identified by the PlantRGS outperforms the traditionally used reference genes in terms of expression stability. We anticipate that the PlantRGS will provide a platform for the identification of most suitable reference gene(s) under given experimental conditions and facilitate quantitative gene expression studies in plants.
Kinematic Morphing Networks for Manipulation Skill Transfer

The transfer of a robot skill between different geometric environments is non-trivial since a wide variety of environments exists, sensor observations as well as robot motions are high-dimensional, and the environment might only be partially observed. We consider the problem of extracting a low-dimensional description of the manipulated environment in form of a kinematic model. This allows us to transfer a skill by defining a policy on a prototype model and morphing the observed environment to this prototype. A deep neural network is used to map depth image observations of the environment to morphing parameter, which include transformations and configurations of the prototype model. Using the concatenation property of affine transformations and the ability to convert point clouds to depth images allows to apply the network in an iterative manner. The network is trained on data generated in a simulator and on augmented data that is created with its own predictions. The algorithm is evaluated on different tasks, where it is shown that iterative predictions lead to a higher accuracy than one-step predictions.
FEMTI: creating and using a framework for MT evaluation

This paper presents FEMTI, a web-based Framework for the Evaluation of Machine Translation in ISLE. FEMTI offers structured descriptions of potential user needs, linked to an overview of technical characteristics of MT systems. The description of possible systems is mainly articulated around the quality characteristics for software product set out in ISO/IEC standard 9126. Following the philosophy set out there and in the related 14598 series of standards, each quality characteristic bottoms out in metrics which may be applied to a particular instance of a system in order to judge how satisfactory the system is with respect to that characteristic. An evaluator can use the description of user needs to help identify the specific needs of his evaluation and the relations between them. He can then follow the pointers to system description to determine what metrics should be applied and how. In the current state of the framework, emphasis is on being exhaustive, including as much as possible of the information available in the literature on machine translation evaluation. Future work will aim at being more analytic, looking at characteristics and metrics to see how they relate to one another, validating metrics and investigating the correlation between particular metrics and human judgement.
Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation Induce Angiogenesis After Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy is one of the most used approaches to treat cancer. It is known that ionizing radiation (IR) has the potential to induce DNA damage in cells and lead to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Therapeutic doses of IR delivered inside the tumor volume during radiotherapy block cancer cell proliferation and induce cancer cell death. However, during radiotherapy, not only the tumor area is exposed to IR, but also the tissues surrounding the tumor are exposed to doses of IR lower than the therapeutic dose. These low doses of IR may affect several types of stromal cells, including endothelial cells (ECs), and they have the potential to modulate the microenvironment that surrounds the tumor. In vitro, it was shown that low doses of IR do not decrease survival or proliferation of ECs and increase the migration of these cells by activating VEGFR2. Therefore, these low doses of IR activate VEGFR2 in a VEGF independent manner by promoting the auto-phosphorylation of this receptor tyrosine kinase. In both Zebrafish and mice models, it was demonstrated that low doses of IR enhance embryonic and adult angiogenesis. In a tumor context, using two different mice tumor models, these low doses of IR promote tumor growth and metastasis in a VEGFR dependent manner. In addition, by an in vitro microarray study, S. Constantino’s unpublished results show that low doses of IR modulate the expression of several genes. From 28,869 genes represented on the array, 4,042 significantly changed with low dose IR, including several genes encoding angiogenic factors. These results were confirmed in vitro using microvascular lung EC targets. Our data suggest that the expression of several proangiogenic targets is upregulated 4 hours after IR exposure, followed by a decrease to levels similar to those found in non-irradiated cells. Our aim is to now validate these data in humans and evaluate if angiogenesis is promoted in tissues exposed to low doses of IR from patients with rectal cancer that received neoadjuvant radiotherapy. Our results show that ECs removed from specimens irradiated with low doses of IR present an overexpression of several pro-angiogenic factors 8 weeks after the end of the radiotherapy, when compared to the levels found in ECs removed from non-irradiated tissues. According to the clinical guidelines, the surgery should be done at the 8 week post-radiotherapy, preventing us from obtaining biopsies at earlier or later time-points. Taken together our results suggest that ECs exposed to low doses of IR have their angiogenic balance skewed toward a proangiogenic phenotype. This shift represents a mark that those ECs were submitted to a stimulus that led to an angiogenic response. These results have the potential to provide new contributions to understand the pro-metastatic effect of IR, leading to significant breakthroughs and advancing the state of the art in the field. Our findings will be of utmost importance to improve current oncology protocols.
IT: Machine Independent Programming on Hierarchically Nested Machines

APA Citation: Yanhaona, M & Grimshaw, A. (2016). IT: Machine Independent Programming on Hierarchically Nested Machines. University of Virginia Dept. of Computer Science Tech Report. Retrieved from http://libra.virginia. edu/catalog/libra-oa:10931 Accessed: November 11, 2017 Permanent URL: http://libra.virginia. edu/catalog/libra-oa:10931
GeneCensus: genome comparisons in terms of metabolic pathway activity and protein family sharing.

We present a prototype of a new database tool, GeneCensus, which focuses on comparing genomes globally, in terms of the collective properties of many genes, rather than in terms of the attributes of a single gene (e.g. sequence similarity for a particular ortholog). The comparisons are presented in a visual fashion over the web at GeneCensus.org. The system concentrates on two types of comparisons: (i) trees based on the sharing of generalized protein families between genomes, and (ii) whole pathway analysis in terms of activity levels. For the trees, we have developed a module (TreeViewer) that clusters genomes in terms of the folds, superfamilies or orthologs--all can be considered as generalized 'families' or 'protein parts'--they share, and compares the resulting trees side-by-side with those built from sequence similarity of individual genes (e.g. a traditional tree built on ribosomal similarity). We also include comparisons to trees built on whole-genome dinucleotide or codon composition. For pathway comparisons, we have implemented a module (PathwayPainter) that graphically depicts, in selected metabolic pathways, the fluxes or expression levels of the associated enzymes (i.e. generalized 'activities'). One can, consequently, compare organisms (and organism states) in terms of representations of these systemic quantities. Develop ment of this module involved compiling, calculating and standardizing flux and expression information from many different sources. We illustrate pathway analysis for enzymes involved in central metabolism. We are able to show that, to some degree, flux and expression fluctuations have characteristic values in different sections of the central metabolism and that control points in this system (e.g. hexokinase, pyruvate kinase, phosphofructokinase, isocitrate dehydrogenase and citric synthase) tend to be especially variable in flux and expression. Both the TreeViewer and PathwayPainter modules connect to other information sources related to individual-gene or organism properties (e.g. a single-gene structural annotation viewer).
Analyzing large-scale spiking neural data with HRLAnalysis™

The additional capabilities provided by high-performance neural simulation environments and modern computing hardware has allowed for the modeling of increasingly larger spiking neural networks. This is important for exploring more anatomically detailed networks but the corresponding accumulation in data can make analyzing the results of these simulations difficult. This is further compounded by the fact that many existing analysis packages were not developed with large spiking data sets in mind. Presented here is a software suite developed to not only process the increased amount of spike-train data in a reasonable amount of time, but also provide a user friendly Python interface. We describe the design considerations, implementation and features of the HRLAnalysis™ suite. In addition, performance benchmarks demonstrating the speedup of this design compared to a published Python implementation are also presented. The result is a high-performance analysis toolkit that is not only usable and readily extensible, but also straightforward to interface with existing Python modules.
A new damage detection indicator for beams based on mode shape data

In this paper, a new damage indicator based on mode shape data is introduced to identify damage in beam structures. In order to construct the indicator proposed, the mode shape, mode shape slope and mode shape curvature of a beam before and after damage are utilized. Mode shape data of the beam are first obtained here using a finite element modeling and then the slope and curvature of mode shape are evaluated via the central finite difference method. In order to assess the robustness of the proposed indicator, two test examples including a simply supported beam and a two-span beam are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that using the proposed indicator, the location of single and multiple damage cases having different characteristics can be accurately determined. Moreover, the indicator shows a better performance when compared with a well-known indicator found in the literature.
Stemming via Distribution-Based Word Segregation for Classification and Retrieval

A novel corpus-based method for stemmer refinement, which can provide improvement in both classification and retrieval, is described. The method models the given words as generated from a multinomial distribution over the topics available in the corpus and includes a procedurelike sequential hypothesis testing that enables grouping together distributionally similar words. The system can refine any stemmer, and its strength can be controlled with parameters that reflect the amount of tolerance to be allowed in computing the similarity between the distributions of two words. Although obtaining the morphological roots of the given words is not the primary objective, the algorithm automatically does that to some extent. Despite a huge reduction in dictionary size, classification accuracies are seen to improve significantly when the proposed system is applied on some existing stemmers for classifying 20 Newsgroups and WebKB data. The refinements obtained are also suitable for cross-corpus stemming. Regarding retrieval, its superiority is extensively demonstrated with respect to four existing methods
Machine learning — Based classification in manufacturing system

This paper shows the application of inductive learning for acquisition of knowledge in manufacturing system. The software of this models, allows us to analyze the process construction rules for many variants reflecting a variety of combinations other factors. A sets of attributes selected for generating the necessary training examples for the machine learning algorithm have been used. Experiments indicate that these methods are well suited to do the classification of manufacturing problems.
Piezoresistivity of Graphite Modified Asphalt-Based Composites

Asphalt and its composites are electrical insulating materia ls, whose resitivity ranges from 10~10 . The conductive performance of the asphalt-based composite can be mark dly improved with the addition of conductive materials such as graphite. The electrically modified asphalt composites exhibit self-sensing ability to strain, defects , and temperature. Conductive asphalt-based composite would have a profound effect on pavement deicing, dam age testing, highway traffic monitoring and so on. Materials such as Koch AH-70, basalt aggregate, limestone powder and graphite particles were used to prepare a conductive aspha lt-based composite in this study. Special attention was placed to its conductive behavior and piezor esistivity. The results show that when the graphite content in asphalt-based composite increases to a critical content, the resistivity declines rapidly. Beyond the critical content, the r ate of resistivity varying with the graphite content becomes smooth. Temperature has a remarkable eff ect on the electrical conduction of the asphalt-based composites. There is a turning point of resisti vity with the increase of temperature. Dynamic and static compressive loadings also affec t the resistance obviously. The reasons may involve the proximity effect, microcracks and the sta ggered arrangements of conductive pass-ways.
Three-dimensional imaging of vasculature and parenchyma in intact rodent organs with X-ray micro-CT.

A microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) scanner, which generates three-dimensional (3-D) images consisting of up to a billion cubic voxels, each 5-25 micron on a side, and which has isotropic spatial resolution, is described. Its main components are a spectroscopic X-ray source that produces selectable primary emission peaks at approximately 9, 18, or 25 keV and a fluorescing thin crystal plate that is imaged (at selectable magnification) with a lens onto a 2.5 x 2.5-cm, 1,024 x 1,024-pixel, charge-coupled device (CCD) detector array. The specimen is positioned close to the crystal and is rotated in 721 equiangular steps around 360 degrees between each X-ray exposure and its CCD recording. Tomographic reconstruction algorithms, applied to these recorded images, are used to generate 3-D images of the specimen. The system is used to scan isolated, intact, fixed rodent organs (e.g., heart or kidney) with the image contrast of vessel lumens enhanced with contrast medium. 3-D image display and analysis are used to address physiological questions about the internal structure-to-function relationships of the organs.