Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Applying Behavioral-Ecological Theory to Plant Defense: Light-Dependent Movement in Mimosa pudica Suggests a Trade-Off between Predation Risk and Energetic Reward

Many animal species tolerate different amounts of predation risk based on environmental conditions and the individual’s own condition, often accepting greater risk when energetically stressed. We studied the sensitive plant Mimosa pudica to see whether it too accepts greater risk of predation when less light energy is available. This plant displays a defensive behavior of rapidly folding its leaves when stimulated by touch, thereby decreasing visibility to herbivores. Averting herbivory involves a trade-off because leaf closure results in a reduction in light foraging. We manipulated the light environment of individual M. pudica plants and recorded the time it took a plant to reopen its leaves following stimulation as a measure of tolerance of predation risk. As predicted by theory, avoidance behavior was sustained longer under high light conditions than under more light-limited conditions. These findings suggest this species balances the risk and reward of antiherbivore behavior in relation to current environmental conditions and that behavioral-ecological theory is a useful framework for understanding plant responses to predators.
VoroGame: A Hybrid P2P Architecture for Massively Multiplayer Games

Peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures have recently become very popular in massively multiplayer games (MMGs). While P2P gaming offers high scalability compared to client/server architectures, it introduces several major issues related to data distribution and game state consistency. In this paper, we report our initial version of VoroGame, a P2P architecture for MMGs that addresses these issues by combining a structured P2P overlay based on a distributed hash table (DHT) for data distribution, with a Voronoi diagram used for virtual game world decomposition and semantic overlay support. The resulting hybrid architecture enables a fully distributed management of data and state information, and ensures efficient dissemination of game state updates to relevant peers.
The Effects of Sample Storage Conditions on the Microbial Community Composition in Hydraulic Fracturing Produced Water

Abstract The petroleum industry has an increasing interest in understanding the microbial communities driving biofouling and biocorrosion in reservoirs, wells, and infrastructure. However, sampling of the relevant produced fluids from subsurface environments for microbiological analyses is often challenged by high liquid pressures, workplace regulations, operator liability concerns, and remote sampling locations. These challenges result in infrequent sampling opportunities and the need to store and preserve the collected samples for several days or weeks. Maintaining a representative microbial community structure from produced fluid samples throughout storage and handling is essential for accurate results of downstream microbial analyses. Currently, no sample handling or storage recommendations exist for microbiological analyses of produced fluid samples. We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to monitor the changes in microbial communities in hypersaline produced water stored at room temperature or at 4 °C for up to 7 days. We also analyzed storage at −80 °C across a 3-week period. The results suggest ideal handling methods would include placing the collected sample on ice as soon as possible, but at least within 24 h, followed by shipping the samples on ice over 2–3 days, and finally, long-term storage in the −20 °C or −80 °C freezer.
Smart structures for rotorcraft control (SSRC)

The Smart Structures for Rotor Control (SSRC) is a consortium under the overall Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Smart Structures program. The program is administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, with Boeing Seattle as the consortium administrator, and MIT, PSU and Boeing Helicopters as the other principal consortium members. The SSRC objectives are to research smart structure methods to achieve reduced rotorcraft vibration, reduced acoustic noise, and increased performance (i.e., payload). The SSRC program includes dynamic piezoelectric actuation of flaps on each rotor, distributed dynamic piezo actuation of the rotor twist, and quasi-static rotor twist control using shape memory alloys. Supporting these actuation approaches are system studies, rotorcraft structural and aero-elastic analyses, piezoelectric materials development, electronics development, and health monitoring studies.
Leptogenesis from reheating after inflation and cosmic string decay

Cosmic strings form at the end of standard supersymmetric hybrid inflation, and both inflation and strings contribute to the CMB anisotropies. If the symmetry which is broken at the end of inflation is gauged B–L, there is a mixed scenario for leptogenesis. Right-handed neutrinos can be produced non-thermally during reheating via inflaton decay as well as via cosmic string decay. We show that the parameter space consistent with CMB data can accommodate either or both scenarios depending on the mass of the right-handed neutrinos.
Unsupervised Co-Segmentation of a Set of Shapes via Descriptor-Space Spectral Clustering : Supplementary Material

(a) [Golovinskiy and Funkhouser 2009] (b) Our co-segmentation method Figure 1: Comparison of an approach based on alignment (a), to our approach based on descriptor-space clustering (b). By contrasting these co-segmentation results, we observe that the results in (a) are less meaningful for sets of shapes that have greater part variability.
Tests for Single Snapshot Multiple Target Detection

In this work, we explore the problem of detecting multiple sources from single snapshot measurements in the context of the direction of arrival (DoA) estimation problem. We use the principles of sparse signal recovery for performing the detection. The problem reduces to estimating the optimal sparsity threshold parameter of the lasso estimator for achieving the required probability of correct detection. We propose one asymptotic test statistics and two finite sample test statistics for achieving the required probability of correct detection of DoAs at moderate to high signal to noise ratios.
Balanced Combinations of Solutions in Multi-Objective Optimization

For every list of integers x_1, . , x_m there is some j such that x_1 + . + x_j - x_{j+1} - . - x_m \approx 0. So the list can be nearly balanced and for this we only need one alternation between addition and subtraction. But what if the x_i are k-dimensional integer vectors? Using results from topological degree theory we show that balancing is still possible, now with k alternations. This result is useful in multi-objective optimization, as it allows a polynomial-time computable balance of two alternatives with conflicting costs. The application to two multi-objective optimization problems yields the following results: - A randomized 1/2-approximation for multi-objective maximum asymmetric traveling salesman, which improves and simplifies the best known approximation for this problem. - A deterministic 1/2-approximation for multi-objective maximum weighted satisfiability.
Culture and development: The popular theatre approach in Africa

"The Popular Theatre movement in Africa is a response to a history that has undermined people's genuine participation in the development process. " With these words Penina Mlama opens the exciting survey in this book of different attempts at creating a truly Popular Theatre in the third World in general, and in Africa in particular. The author who is a writer and academic in Tanzania draws heavily on her own involvement in this cultural-political movement.
Deletion of Microsomal Prostaglandin E Synthase-1 Increases Sensitivity to Salt Loading and Angiotensin II Infusion

Microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1 (mPGES-1), a membrane-associated protein, is critically involved in the inflammatory response and may be involved in physiological processes as well. The present study examined the role of mPGES-1 in regulation of sodium balance and blood pressure in the settings of salt loading and angiotensin II infusion. mPGES-1 −/− mice developed severe and progressive hypertension associated with an inappropriate increase in sodium balance when fed a high-salt diet. These mice exhibited a significantly impaired ability to excrete an acute enteral load of NaCl. Under these 2 settings of salt loading, urinary excretion of prostaglandin E2 and nitrate/nitrite were remarkably increased in wild-type animals but not in mPGES-1 −/− mice. The changes of urinary cGMP paralleled that of urinary nitrate/nitrite. mPGES-1 −/− mice exhibited a remarkable inhibition of high salt–induced increase in gene expression of all 3 NO synthase isoforms, whereas these mice had upregulated expression of NO synthase III but not NO synthase I and NO synthase II at basal state. Chronic salt loading remarkably induced mPGES-1 protein expression exclusively in the distal nephron. In primary cultures of CD cells, mPGES-1 expression was significantly increased following exposure to hypertonic NaCl, in parallel with increased prostaglandin E2 release. These findings have revealed a mPGES-1/prostaglandin E2/NO/cGMP pathway that appears to be critically important for salt adaptation. In addition, we provide evidence that mPGES-1 deficiency sensitized the hypertensive effect of angiotensin II. Overall, this study has characterized the natriuretic and antihypertensive role of mPGES-1 that likely contributes to blood pressure homeostasis.
On the Combination of Two Decompositive Multi-Label Classification Methods

In this paper, we compare and combine two approaches for multi-label classification that both decompose the initial problem into sets of smaller problems. The Calibrated Label Ranking approach is based on interpreting the multi-label problem as a preference learning problem and decomposes it into a quadratic number of binary classifiers. The HOMER approach reduces the original problem into a hierarchy of considerably simpler multi-label problems. Experimental results indicate that the use of HOMER is beneficial for the pairwise preference-based approach in terms of computational cost and quality of prediction.
Functional comparison of protein domains within aPKCs involved in nucleocytoplasmic shuttling

Summary The atypical protein kinases C (PKC) isoforms &igr; and &zgr; play crucial roles in regulation of signaling pathways related to proliferation, differentiation and cell survival. Over the years several interaction partners and phosphorylation targets have been identified. However, little is known about the regulation of atypical aPKC isoforms. To address this question, we performed a comparative analysis of atypical aPKC&igr;/&lgr; and &zgr; in MDCK cells. By using green fluorescence protein (GFP) fusion proteins containing the full-length or truncated proteins, we were able to recognize differences in subcellular localization and nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of both isoforms. We show, that an earlier described nuclear localization sequence (NLS), plays a role in the regulation of atypical aPKC&zgr; but not in aPKC&igr;, despite the fact that it is present in both isoforms. Leptomycin B treatment induces accumulation of GFP-fusion protein of both isoforms in the nucleus. Regardless, the loss of the NLS only decreases shuttling of aPKC&zgr;, while aPKC&igr; remains unaffected. In addition, we identified the hinge region as a potential regulator of localization of atypical PKCs. With a set of chimeric proteins we show that the hinge region of aPKC&igr; mediates nuclear localization. In contrast, the hinge region of aPKC&zgr; causes exclusion from the nucleus, indicating two different mechanisms leading to isoform specific regulation. Taken together, we show for the first time, that the atypical isoforms aPKC&igr; and &zgr; underly different mechanisms regarding their regulation of subcellular localization and translocation into the nucleus in MDCK cells.
Analyzing effect of noise on LMS-type approaches to blind estimation of simo channels: Robustness issue

An analysis of the noise effect on the convergence characteristic of the least-mean-squares (LMS) type adaptive algorithms for blind channel identification is presented. It is shown that the adaptive blind algorithms misconverge in the presence of noise. A novel technique for ameliorating such misconvergence characteristic, using a frequency domain energy constraint in the adaptation rule, is proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that the robustness of the blind adaptive algorithms can be significantly improved using such constraints.
Impact of Molecular Diagnostics for Tuberculosis on Patient-Important Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Study Methodologies

Background Several reviews on the accuracy of Tuberculosis (TB) Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (NAATs) have been performed but the evidence on their impact on patient-important outcomes has not been systematically reviewed. Given the recent increase in research evaluating such outcomes and the growing list of TB NAATs that will reach the market over the coming years, there is a need to bring together the existing evidence on impact, rather than accuracy. We aimed to assess the approaches that have been employed to measure the impact of TB NAATs on patient-important outcomes in adults with possible pulmonary TB and/or drug-resistant TB. Methods We first develop a conceptual framework to clarify through which mechanisms the improved technical performance of a novel TB test may lead to improved patient outcomes and outline which designs may be used to measure them. We then systematically review the literature on studies attempting to assess the impact of molecular TB diagnostics on such outcomes and provide a narrative synthesis of designs used, outcomes assessed and risk of bias across different study designs. Results We found 25 eligible studies that assessed a wide range of outcomes and utilized a variety of experimental and observational study designs. Many potentially strong design options have never been used. We found that much of the available evidence on patient-important outcomes comes from a small number of settings with particular epidemiological and operational context and that confounding, time trends and incomplete outcome data receive insufficient attention. Conclusions A broader range of designs should be considered when designing studies to assess the impact of TB diagnostics on patient outcomes and more attention needs to be paid to the analysis as concerns about confounding and selection bias become relevant in addition to those on measurement that are of greatest concern in accuracy studies.
1-D Signal Prediction Using Wavelets

This paper presents a novel methodology for improving 1-D signal prediction performance of MultiLayer Perceptrons (MLPs) by incorporating wavelet based features in their input vectors. In addition, the wavelet basis providing the best such input features is extensively experimentally investigated. To this end, the generalization and learning convergence properties of MLPs trained with patterns extracted by involving the 1-D DWT transform with Haar, Daubechies, Symmlet, Coiflet and Vaidyanathan bases are compared, when these MLPs are applied to 1-D irregular signals. It is shown that, although all the above wavelet bases result in the extraction of input features leading to the design of MLPs with enhanced signal prediction properties, 1-D Daubechies DWT demonstrates the best performance.
Hindsight: Revealing the evolution of dependencies to developers

Software systems are inherently complex and this is because of the interactions between their constituent entities. These affect refactoring efforts and therefore numerous tools that reveal dependencies between software artefacts have been proposed. However, existing tools only take into account the current version of a system, while the evolution of dependencies can hold clues that can help developers with their refactoring decisions.
Influences of protein to energy ratios in breakfast on mood, alertness and attention in the healthy undergraduate students

Background: The high protein (HP) breakfast reduced gastric emptying and the most satiat-ing macronutrient appears to be dietary protein. Few studies have investigated the effects of protein to energy ratio in breakfast on mood, alertness and attention. Objective: This study was designed to investigate whether the HP breakfast is more beneficial to mood, alertness and attention of the healthy undergraduate student than adequate-protein (AP) breakfast through the rising body temperature and re-maining stable blood glucose or through other physiologic processes. Methods: Thirteen healthy male undergraduate students (18 - 23 y) were studied in a double-blind, randomized crossover design. Blood samples, body tem-perature, satiety, mood and Continuous Per-formance Test (CPT) were assessed after the consumption of two isocaloric breakfasts that differed in their protein and carbohydrate con-tent: an HP breakfast (50%, 30%, and 20% of energy from protein, carbohydrate, and fat, re-spectively) or an AP breakfast (10%, 70%, and 20% of energy from protein, carbohydrate, and fat, respectively). Results: Consumption of an HP breakfast resulted in more steady glucose and insulin than AP breakfast consumption (p < 0.05). Satiety scores and body temperature were higher after HP breakfast consumption (p < 0.05). And most important, the positive mood and CPT scores were higher after HP breakfast than after AP breakfast intake (p < 0.05). Conclusion: HP breakfast can effectively stabilize postprandial serum glucose concentration and elevate post-prandial temperature of healthy male under-graduate students. Our present findings dem-onstrate the relationship between HP breakfast and mood, alertness and attention. This study indicated that HP breakfast may enhance human performance probably by increasing the thermic effect of a food and elevating body temperature.
SBM protocol for providing real-time QoS in Ethernet LANs

This paper deals with the performance evaluation of LAN-Integrated Service protocol called SBM (Subnetwork Bandwidth Manager), a solution to handle QoS requirements over Local Area Networks. SBM is an RSVP-based protocol, which consists in electing a manager over a LAN segment to map RSVP-flows into an appropriate class of service and handles admission control and bandwidth reservation operations for such flows. To show how SBM is useful for guaranteeing requested quality of service for real-time admitted flows, we simulated the bandwidth reservation and message scheduling in an Ethernet switch for different input flows sharing a same output trunk link. DSBM election has also been simulated in order to evaluate time for DSBM failure recovery over switched and shared LAN topology.
Marinobacter salarius sp. nov. and Marinobacter similis sp. nov., Isolated from Sea Water

Two non-pigmented, motile, Gram-negative marine bacteria designated R9SW1T and A3d10T were isolated from sea water samples collected from Chazhma Bay, Gulf of Peter the Great, Sea of Japan, Pacific Ocean, Russia and St. Kilda Beach, Port Phillip Bay, the Tasman Sea, Pacific Ocean, respectively. Both organisms were found to grow between 4°C and 40°C, between pH 6 to 9, and are moderately halophilic, tolerating up to 20% (w/v) NaCl. Both strains were found to be able to degrade Tween 40 and 80, but only strain R9SW1T was found to be able to degrade starch. The major fatty acids were characteristic for the genus Marinobacter including C16:0, C16:1 ω7c, C18:1 ω9c and C18:1 ω7c. The G+C content of the DNA for strains R9SW1T and A3d10T were determined to be 57.1 mol% and 57.6 mol%, respectively. The two new strains share 97.6% of their 16S rRNA gene sequences, with 82.3% similarity in the average nucleotide identity (ANI), 19.8% similarity in the in silico genome-to-genome distance (GGD), 68.1% similarity in the average amino acid identity (AAI) of all conserved protein-coding genes, and 31 of the Karlin's genomic signature dissimilarity. A phylogenetic analysis showed that R9SW1T clusters with M. algicola DG893T sharing 99.40%, and A3d10T clusters with M. sediminum R65T sharing 99.53% of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities. The results of the genomic and polyphasic taxonomic study, including genomic, genetic, phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA, gyrB and rpoD gene sequence similarities, the analysis of the protein profiles generated using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, and DNA-DNA relatedness data, indicated that strains R9SW1T and A3d10T represent two novel species of the genus Marinobacter. The names Marinobacter salarius sp. nov., with the type strain R9SW1T ( = LMG 27497T = JCM 19399T = CIP 110588T = KMM 7502T) and Marinobacter similis sp. nov., with the type strain A3d10T ( = JCM 19398T = CIP 110589T = KMM 7501T), are proposed.
Environmental Factors Related to Pulmonary Tuberculosis in HIV-Infected Patients in the Combined Antiretroviral Therapy (cART) Era

The aim of our study was to evaluate the seasonal variations and whether short-term exposure to environmental risk factors, such as climate and air pollution, is associated with PTB-related hospital admissions in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients in Spain during the era of combined antiretroviral therapy (cART). A retrospective study was carried out using data from the Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS) and the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) of Spain. The primary outcome variable was hospital admissions with PTB diagnosis. The environmental risk factors evaluated were season, temperature, humidity, NO2, SO2, O3, PM10, and CO. Overall, HIV-infected patients had a lower frequency of PTB-related hospital admissions in summer (22.8%) and autumn (22.4%), but higher values in winter (26.6%) and spring (28.2%). Using a Bayesian temporal model, PTB-related hospital admissions were less frequent in summer-autumn and more abundant in winter-spring during the first years of follow-up. During the later years of follow-up, the seasonal trends continued resulting in the lowest values in autumn and the highest in spring. When considering short-term exposure to environmental risk factors, lower temperatures at 1 week (odds ratio (OR) = 1.03; p = 0.008), 1.5 weeks (OR = 1.03; p<0.001), 2 weeks (OR = 1.04; p<0.001), and 3 weeks (OR = 1.03; p<0.001) prior to PTB admission. In addition, higher concentration of NO2 at the time of admission were significantly associated with higher likelihoods of PTB-related hospital admission in HIV-infected patients when 1.5 weeks (OR = 1.1; p = 0.044) and 2 weeks (OR = 1.21; p<0.001) were used as controls. Finally, higher concentration of SO2 at 1.5 weeks prior to PTB admission was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of PTB-related hospital admissions (OR = 0.92; p = 0.029). In conclusion, our data suggest an apparent seasonal variation in hospital admissions of HIV-infected patients with a PTB diagnosis (summer/autumn vs. winter/spring), as well as a link to short-term exposure to environmental risk factors, such as temperature and ambient NO2 and SO2.