Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biodiversity influences plant productivity through niche–efficiency

Significance International society has made a commitment to mainstreaming biodiversity conservation into broader socioeconomic development, but an incomplete theoretical basis translates into a lack of practical applications, especially regarding how individual plant productivity changes in response to the overall species loss. In this study, we developed niche–efficiency theory to address two mechanisms behind the effects of biodiversity on individual plant productivity. Supported by empirical evidence at the individual plant level, our theory facilitates adaptive biodiversity management implementation, and the straightforward mathematical formula facilitates the integration of biological conservation in our campaign against pressing global issues. Based on this theory, we developed relative productivity and productivity impact index to provide function-based tools for prioritizing biological conservation efforts. The loss of biodiversity is threatening ecosystem productivity and services worldwide, spurring efforts to quantify its effects on the functioning of natural ecosystems. Previous research has focused on the positive role of biodiversity on resource acquisition (i.e., niche complementarity), but a lack of study on resource utilization efficiency, a link between resource and productivity, has rendered it difficult to quantify the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship. Here we demonstrate that biodiversity loss reduces plant productivity, other things held constant, through theory, empirical evidence, and simulations under gradually relaxed assumptions. We developed a theoretical model named niche–efficiency to integrate niche complementarity and a heretofore-ignored mechanism of diminishing marginal productivity in quantifying the effects of biodiversity loss on plant productivity. Based on niche–efficiency, we created a relative productivity metric and a productivity impact index (PII) to assist in biological conservation and resource management. Relative productivity provides a standardized measure of the influence of biodiversity on individual productivity, and PII is a functionally based taxonomic index to assess individual species’ inherent value in maintaining current ecosystem productivity. Empirical evidence from the Alaska boreal forest suggests that every 1% reduction in overall plant diversity could render an average of 0.23% decline in individual tree productivity. Out of the 283 plant species of the region, we found that large woody plants generally have greater PII values than other species. This theoretical model would facilitate the integration of biological conservation in the international campaign against several pressing global issues involving energy use, climate change, and poverty.
Co-primary inter-operator spectrum sharing using repeated games

Currently mobile network operators are allocated spectrum bands on an exclusive basis. While this approach facilitates interference control, it may also result in low spectrum utilization efficiency. Inter-operator spectrum sharing is a potential method to enhance spectrum utilization. In order to realize it, a protocol to coordinate the actions of operators is needed. In this paper, we propose a spectrum sharing protocol which is distributed in nature, does not require operator-specific information exchange, and incurs minimal communication overhead between the operators. Operators are free to decide whether they share spectrum or not as the protocol is based on a book keeping of spectrum usage favors asked and received by the operators. We show that operators can enhance their QoS in comparison with a scheme where no spectrum sharing is allowed while also maintaining reciprocity i.e. no operator benefits over the other in the long run. We demonstrate the usability of the proposed protocol in an indoor deployment scenario with frequent network load variations which are expected in small cell deployments.
Money Demand Functions : Cointegration and Long { Run Stability

This paper applies conventional tests (Johansen, 1995) and new tests (Chao and Phillips,1999) for cointegration to long{run money demand functions using Canadian data from 1872 to 1997. If cointegration is found, recently proposed tests by Quintos (1997) for stability of the cointegration rank are carried out. The paper focuses on two spans of data: one span starting in 1872, the other in 1957 or 1968. Annual data are used for the former span, and annual and quarterly data for the latter. The results show that the cointegration rank is not stable.
Diversification and Population Structure in Common Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Wild accessions of crops and landraces are valuable genetic resources for plant breeding and for conserving alleles and gene combinations in planta. The primary genepool of cultivated common beans includes wild accessions of Phaseolus vulgaris. These are of the same species as the domesticates and therefore are easily crossable with cultivated accessions. Molecular marker assessment of wild beans and landraces is important for the proper utilization and conservation of these important genetic resources. The goal of this research was to evaluate a collection of wild beans with fluorescent microsatellite or simple sequence repeat markers and to determine the population structure in combination with cultivated beans of all known races. Marker diversity in terms of average number of alleles per marker was high (13) for the combination of 36 markers and 104 wild genotypes that was similar to the average of 14 alleles per marker found for the 606 cultivated genotypes. Diversity in wild beans appears to be somewhat higher than in cultivated beans on a per genotype basis. Five populations or genepools were identified in structure analysis of the wild beans corresponding to segments of the geographical range, including Mesoamerican (Mexican), Guatemalan, Colombian, Ecuadorian-northern Peruvian and Andean (Argentina, Bolivia and Southern Peru). The combined analysis of wild and cultivated accessions showed that the first and last of these genepools were related to the cultivated genepools of the same names and the penultimate was found to be distinct but not ancestral to the others. The Guatemalan genepool was very novel and perhaps related to cultivars of race Guatemala, while the Colombian population was also distinct. Results suggest geographic isolation, founder effects or natural selection could have created the different semi-discrete populations of wild beans and that multiple domestications and introgression were involved in creating the diversity of cultivated beans.
Design of frequency reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna

Recent developments in the wireless communication industry continue to drive the requirements for small, compatible, and affordable reconfigurable antennas. To overcome the challenges of multi-frequency operation a new scheme of frequency reconfiguration is proposed. In the proposed design a rectangular patch antenna with slots at the centre frequency 10 GHz that can be reconfigured in the frequency range of 10–10.5 GHz. The reconfiguration is carried out by switching the diodes ON/OFF. The antenna is designed on FR4 substrate (εr= 4.54) of thickness (H) 1.50 mm. The proposed structure was simulated by using the electromagnetic (EM) simulation software. The simulated return loss for different configuration are less than −10dB at resonance frequencies. The simulated are very exciting and show the close agreement with proposed design.
Are beryllium abundances anomalous in stars with giant planets

In this paper we present beryllium (Be) abundances in a large sample of 41 extra-solar planet host stars, and for 29 stars without any known planetary-mass companion, spanning a large range of eff ective temperatures. The Be abun- dances were derived through spectral synthesis done in standard Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, using spectra obtained with various instruments. The results seem to confirm that overall, planet-host stars have "normal" Be abundances, although a small, but not significant, difference might be present. This result is discussed, and we show that this difference is probably not due to any stellar "pollution" events. In other words, our results support the idea that the high-metal content of planet-host stars has, overall, a "primordial" origin. However, we also find a small subset of planet-host late-F and early-G dwarfs that might have higher than average Be abundances. The reason for the offset is not clear, and might be related either to the engulfment of planetary material, to galactic chemical evolution effects, or to stellar-mass differences for stars of similar temperature.
Residual Stress Analysis Based on Acoustic and Optical Methods

Co-application of acoustoelasticity and optical interferometry to residual stress analysis is discussed. The underlying idea is to combine the advantages of both methods. Acoustoelasticity is capable of evaluating a residual stress absolutely but it is a single point measurement. Optical interferometry is able to measure deformation yielding two-dimensional, full-field data, but it is not suitable for absolute evaluation of residual stresses. By theoretically relating the deformation data to residual stresses, and calibrating it with absolute residual stress evaluated at a reference point, it is possible to measure residual stresses quantitatively, nondestructively and two-dimensionally. The feasibility of the idea has been tested with a butt-jointed dissimilar plate specimen. A steel plate 18.5 mm wide, 50 mm long and 3.37 mm thick is braze-jointed to a cemented carbide plate of the same dimension along the 18.5 mm-side. Acoustoelasticity evaluates the elastic modulus at reference points via acoustic velocity measurement. A tensile load is applied to the specimen at a constant pulling rate in a stress range substantially lower than the yield stress. Optical interferometry measures the resulting acceleration field. Based on the theory of harmonic oscillation, the acceleration field is correlated to compressive and tensile residual stresses qualitatively. The acoustic and optical results show reasonable agreement in the compressive and tensile residual stresses, indicating the feasibility of the idea.
Visual Loop Closure Detection with Scene Mutual Information for Mobile Robot

In this paper, an efficient approach is proposed for loop-closure detection in robot visual SLAM. The method uses mutual information to measure similarity between current view and key frames in an appearance map, and evaluates candidate loop-closure locations in particle filter framework. Specially, the implementation of particle filter is accelerated through updating a set of weight vector of particles, and three threshold indicators are used to select loop-closure candidates and verify loop-closure location. The comparative experiments on a popular dataset verify the high efficiency of our method which is more simple and accurate than the popular bag-of-words (BoW) for loop-closure detection.
Optimal Placement of Phasor Measurement Units Using Immunity Genetic Algorithm

This paper investigates the application of immunity genetic algorithm (IGA) for the problem of optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) in an electric power network. The problem is to determine the placement sites of the minimal set of PMUs which makes the system observable. Incorporating immune operator in the canonical genetic algorithm (GA), on the condition of preserving GA's advantages, utilizes some characteristics and knowledge of the problems for restraining the degenerative phenomena during evolution, so as to improve the algorithm efficiency. This type of prior knowledge about some parts of optimal solution exists in the PMU placement problem. So, the IGA is adopted in this paper to solve the problem. Also, a new effect which is preventing from familial reproduction is studied which shows an increase in converging speed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified via IEEE standard systems and a realistic large-scale power system.
Energy Efficiency in Agrarian Systems From an Agroecological Perspective

Energy analyses applied to agriculture should express something more than the “energy cost” of the net biomass produced for the benefit of society. They should also provide information about structural and functional changes in the agroecosystem which might affect the maintenance of the ecosystem services which the agroecosystem provides. With this aim, a methodological proposal has been developed to add agroecological EROIs (energy return on the investment) to the existing economic EROIs. This proposal has been applied to an agroecosystem which is representative of Mediterranean agro-climatic conditions at three key moments: one of balanced organic agriculture (1752), at the beginning of the use of chemical inputs (1904), and a time of agricultural production decoupled from its territory (1997). The results demonstrate the usefulness of the combination of both types of EROI in the detection of processes (agriculturalization vs. livestock farming, reforestation, generation of spatial heterogeneity, or the maintenance of biodiversity), which affect the “fund” elements of agroecosystems and their capacity to generate “flows” of ecosystem services.
release capacity in the striatum Genetic variation in COMT activity impacts learning and dopamine

References http://learnmem.cshlp. org/content/21/4/205.full. html#ref-list-1 This article cites 39 articles, 8 of which can be accessed free at: License Commons Creative . http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ as described at under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), ). After 12 months, it is available http://learnmem.cshlp. org/site/misc/terms.xhtml first 12 months after the full-issue publication date (see This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the
Genetic Determinants of Thrombin Generation and Their Relation to Venous Thrombosis: Results from the GAIT-2 Project

Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common disease where known genetic risk factors explain only a small portion of the genetic variance. Then, the analysis of intermediate phenotypes, such as thrombin generation assay, can be used to identify novel genetic risk factors that contribute to VTE. Objectives To investigate the genetic basis of distinct quantitative phenotypes of thrombin generation and its relationship to the risk of VTE. Patients/Methods Lag time, thrombin peak and endogenous thrombin potential (ETP) were measured in the families of the Genetic Analysis of Idiopathic Thrombophilia 2 (GAIT-2) Project. This sample consisted of 935 individuals in 35 extended families selected through a proband with idiopathic thrombophilia. We performed also genome wide association studies (GWAS) with thrombin generation phenotypes. Results The results showed that 67% of the variation in the risk of VTE is attributable to genetic factors. The heritabilities of lag time, thrombin peak and ETP were 49%, 54% and 52%, respectively. More importantly, we demonstrated also the existence of positive genetic correlations between thrombin peak or ETP and the risk of VTE. Moreover, the major genetic determinant of thrombin generation was the F2 gene. However, other suggestive signals were observed. Conclusions The thrombin generation phenotypes are strongly genetically determined. The thrombin peak and ETP are significantly genetically correlated with the risk of VTE. In addition, F2 was identified as a major determinant of thrombin generation. We reported suggestive signals that might increase our knowledge to explain the variability of this important phenotype. Validation and functional studies are required to confirm GWAS results.
Solution of large‐scale weighted least‐squares problems

A sequence of least‐squares problems of the form miny∥G1/2(AT y−h)∥2, where G is an n×n positive‐definite diagonal weight matrix, and A an m×n (m⩽n) sparse matrix with some dense columns; has many applications in linear programming, electrical networks, elliptic boundary value problems, and structural analysis. We suggest low‐rank correction preconditioners for such problems, and a mixed solver (a combination of a direct solver and an iterative solver). The numerical results show that our technique for selecting the low‐rank correction matrix is very effective. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Investigating contexts of use for the development of domestic healthcare technology: an ethnographic study

Current demographic and health trends mean it is becoming imperative to rethink healthcare provision worldwide. This paper introduces SPHERE, a large-scale Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration that aims to make a contribution to addressing this challenge. Specifically, SPHERE is developing a smart home system based on a common platform of non-medical/environmental sensors to address a variety of healthcare needs. In order to achieve its goal of widespread deployment, SPHERE technology must meet the requirements of its envisaged users. In this paper we present the rationale and methodology of an ethnographic study of people's experiences of health and technology. The aim of this study was to gather rich contextual data to inform the design of meaningful and inclusive healthcare technology.
Teen Childbearing and Human Capital: Does Timing Matter?

Building upon evidence that teenage childbearing adversely affects young mothers human capital accumulation the authors explore whether younger teen mothers have different outcomes than older teen mothers. Data are analyzed from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate the effects of early fertility at different ages upon education and work. The data indicate that adolescent fertility at any age substantially reduces years of formal education and early adult work experience for both Black and White women. The effects of early and later teen births are largely the same for both education and early adult work experience; there are no important racial differences in the effects. While having a first birth before reaching age 18 years substantially reduces teen work experience births at ages 18 and 19 have little impact upon teen work experience. Public policies which reduce teenage childbearing will most likely positively affect the economic well-being of many young mothers and their families.
Image De-blurring Using Shearlets

In this paper a deblurring algorithm is proposed that takes advantage of the properties of the shear let transform. Shear lets have mathematically been proven to be more efficient than traditional wavelets for representing distributed discontinuities such as edges. The proposed method extends the state of art Forward algorithm by incorporating shear lets. Experimental results show a significant improvement over some important deblurring algorithms found in the literature.
A Graph-Based Taxonomy of Recommendation Algorithms and Systems in LBSNs

Recently, location-based social networks (LBSNs) gave the opportunity to users to share geo-tagged information along with photos, videos, and SMSs. Recommender systems can exploit this geographic information to provide much more accurate and reliable recommendations to users. In this paper, we present and compare 16 real life LBSNs, bringing into surface their advantages/ disadvantages, their special functionalities, and their impact in the mobile social Web. Moreover, we describe and compare extensively 43 state-of-the-art recommendation algorithms for LBSNs. We categorize these algorithms according to: personalization type, recommendation type, data factors/features, problem modeling methodology, and data representation. In addition to the above categorizations which cannot cover all algorithms in an integrated way, we also propose a hybrid k-partite graph taxonomy to categorize them based on the number of the involved k-partite graphs. Finally, we compare the recommendation algorithms with respect to their evaluation methodology (i.e., datasets and metrics) and we highlight new perspectives for future work in LBSNs.
Mechanisms Explaining Nursery Habitat Association: How Do Juvenile Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) Benefit from Their Nursery Habitat?

Nursery habitats provide elevated survival and growth to the organisms that associate with them, and as such are a crucial early life-stage component for many fishes and invertebrates. The exact mechanisms by which these benefits are afforded to associated organisms, however, are often unclear. Here we assessed potential explanations of the nursery function of structurally complex habitats for post-settlement snapper, Chrysophrys auratus, in New Zealand. Specifically, we deployed Artificial Seagrass Units (ASUs) and used a combination of video observation, netting and diet analysis of associated post-settlement snapper as well describing potential prey within the micro-habitats surrounding ASUs. We did not observe any predation attempts and few potential predators, suggesting that for snapper the nursery value of structurally complex habitats is not as a predation refuge. The diet of post-settlement snapper mostly consisted of calanoid and cyclopoid copepods, which were most commonly sampled from within the water column. Nearly all suspected feeding events were also observed within the water column. When considering the velocity of water flow at each ASU, plankton sampling revealed a greater availability of copepods with increasing current strength, while netting and video observation demonstrated that the abundance of snapper was highest at sites with intermediate water velocity. This study highlights that the interaction between water flow and food availability may represent an important trade-off between energy expenditure and food intake for post-settlement snapper. Structurally complex habitats may mediate this relationship, allowing snapper to access sites with higher food availability while reducing swimming costs. This mechanism may have broader relevance, potentially explaining the importance of estuarine nursery habitats for other species.
Ultrastructural localization of the mannose 6-phosphate receptor in rat liver

An affinity-purified rabbit antibody against rat liver mannose 6- phosphate receptor (MP-R) was prepared. The antibody was directed against a 215 kd-polypeptide and it recognized both ligand-occupied and free receptor. Anti-MP-R was used for immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy of cryosections from rat liver. MP-R was demonstrated in all parenchymal liver cells, but not in endothelial lining cells. MP-R labeling was found at the entire plasma membrane, in coated pits and coated vesicles, in the compartment of uncoupling receptor and ligand, and in the Golgi complex. Lysosomes showed only scarce MP-R label. In double-labeling immunoelectron microscopy, MP-R co-localized with albumin in the Golgi cisternae and in secretory vesicles with lipoprotein particles. Cathepsin D was associated with MP- R in the Golgi cisternae. This finding indicates that MP-R/cathepsin D complexes traverse the Golgi complex on their way to the lysosomes. The possible involvement of CURL in lysosomal enzyme targeting is discussed.