Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated remote sensing and hydrological models for water balance in mountain watersheds

The evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the most important components of the water cycle in semi-arid Taihang Mountain region of North China. Due to significant changes in topography, the ET of this semi-arid region tends to vary dramatically both in time and space, which renders the accurate estimation of yearly or seasonal ET a difficult task. In current study, based on rGIS-ET v1.0, a regional ET model, by adding module of adjusting surface temperature in terrain, solar radiance terrain correction, and shaded relief, we improved the rGIS-ET a remote sensing model on ArcGIS platform for mapping ET distribution in such a semi-arid mountain area. With DEM of 30 meter and climate data, we run the model to estimate daily ET in mountain area using Landsat data. The ET distribution pattern estimated from Landsat data by rGIS-ET v2.0, was integrated into SWAT method to calculated daily ET at a high spatial resolution in the sub-watersheds. With input of the daily ET, SWAT simulated the annual flow of the component of water balance at sub-watersheds from 1995 to 2003. The variations of flows of annual ET were significant amount the sub-watersheds and the variations of ET flow may cause the variation of other components flow.
Tandem system adaptation using multiple linear feature transforms

Adaptation to speaker and environment changes is an essential part of current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. In recent years the use of multi-layer percpetrons (MLPs) has become increasingly common in ASR systems. A standard approach to handling speaker differences when using MLPs is to apply a global speaker-specific constrained MLLR (CMLLR) transform to the features prior to training or using the MLP. This paper considers the situation when there are both speaker and channel, communication link, differences in the data. A more powerful transform, front-end CMLLR (FE-CMLLR), is applied to the inputs to the MLP to represent the channel differences. Though global, these FE-CMLLR transforms vary from time-instance to time-instance. Experiments on a channel distorted dialect Arabic conversational speech recognition task indicates the usefulness of adapting MLP features using both CMLLR and FE-CMLLR transforms.
Recovery of hand function in virtual reality: Training hemiparetic hand and arm together or separately

This study describes a novel robotic system using haptic effects and objects, in rich, three- dimensional virtual environments (VEs) for the sensorimotor training of the hemiparetic hand. This system is used to compare effectiveness of two training paradigms, one using activities that train the hand and arm together (HAT) as a functional unit to training the hand and arm in similar conditions, separately (HAS). Four subjects practiced three hours/day for 8 days using (HAS) robotic simulations. Four subjects practiced same amount of time using HAT simulations. HAT group improved 23% in the Wolf Motor Function Test and 29% in the Jebsen Test of Hand Function, whereas HAS group only improved 14% and 8%. HAT group also demonstrated larger decreases in hand trajectory length in the VE-based training that involved reaching and object placing, indicating improved limb segment coordination, (40% HAT; 19% HAS). Both groups improved the smoothness of robotically measured hand trajectories 56%, suggesting improved motor control. During virtual piano training, subjects showed similar improvements in key press accuracy (17% HAT; 20% HAS) however, the HAT group demonstrated larger improvements in average time needed to press a key (151% HAT; 60% HAS). Our initial findings suggest that training the arm and hand as a unit following stroke may be more effective for improving upper extremity function than training the hand and arm in isolation.
Characteristics of stress waves recorded in small-scale field blast tests on a layered rock -soil site

A series of field blast tests was carried out in Singapore to study the properties of stress waves inside (free field) and on the surface of a granite site. The stress wave properties inside the granite mass and on the rock surface, such as the peak value and principal frequency, as well as their spatial variations, were reported in a previous paper. Before the blast test, a soil layer of 1·5 m thickness was backfilled and compacted on the quarry test site. Accelerometers were also placed on the surface of the backfilled soil layer, inside the soil mass and on the rock–soil interface. This paper presents the recorded data associated with the backfilled soil layer. The attenuation relations of the peak particle acceleration (PPA), peak particle velocity (PPV) and especially the principal frequency (PF) of the stress wave on the soil surface, inside the soil mass and on the rock–soil surface are derived. They are compared with those recorded inside the granite mass and on the rock surface. Based on the resu.
Medical Information Extracting System by Bootstrapping of NTTDRDH at NTCIR-10 MedNLP Task

We participated in a complaint and diagnosis task of MedNLP in NTCIR10. We extracted words of complaint/diagnosis by using a hybrid approach with bootstrapping and pattern matching with a medical term dictionary. It was possible that part of the complaint’s or diagnosis’s expressions are present in the extracted words. Therefore, our system concatenated the extracted words and their surrounding words by heuristic rules and determined the final complaint’s or diagnosis’s words. And our system estimated the modality attribute of the extracted complaint/diagnosis by heuristic rules also.
Improved statistical downscaling of daily precipitation using SDSM platform and data‐mining methods

In this paper, an extension of the statistical downscaling model (SDSM), namely data‐mining downscaling model (DMDM), has been developed. DMDM has the same platform as the most cited statistical downscaling models, namely SDSM and ASD. Multiple linear regression (MLR), ridge regression (RR), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and model tree (MT) constitute the mathematical core of DMDM. DMDM uses linear basis functions in MARS and linear regression rules in MT to keep the linear structure of SDSM; therefore, all of the SDSM assumptions are also valid in DMDM. These methods highlight the effect of data partitioning for meteorological predictors in the downscaling procedure. Inputs and output of the presented approaches are the same as SDSM and ASD. In the case study of this research, NCEP/NCAR databases have been used for calibration and validation. According to the inherent linearity of the methods, suitable predictor selection has been done with stepwise regression as a preprocessing stage. The results of DMDM have been compared with observed precipitation in 12 rain gauge stations that are scattered in different basins in Iran and represent different climate regimes. Comparison between the results of SDSM and DMDM has indicated that the presented approach can highly improve downscaling efficiency in terms of reproducing monthly standard deviation and skewness for both calibration and validation datasets. Among the proposed methods in DMDM, the results of the case study have shown that MT has provided better performances both in modelling occurrence and amount of precipitation. Also, MT is potentially recognized as a powerful diagnostic tool that could extract information in key atmospheric drivers affecting local weather. It also has fewer parameters during dry seasons, in which the number of historical precipitation events might not be enough for calibrating SDSM model in many arid and semi‐arid regions.
Accumulation of 1,2-propanediol and enhancement of aerobic stability in whole crop maize silage inoculated with Lactobacillus buchneri.

AIMS To assess the effects of inoculation of Lactobacillus buchneri on the ensiling properties and aerobic stability of maize silage. METHODS AND RESULTS Chopped whole crop maize was ensiled in 0.5 litre airtight polyethylene bottles (0.4 kg per bottle) and in double-layered, thin polyethylene bags (15 kg per bag), with or without inoculation of Lact. buchneri. The silos were stored for two to four months and the chemical composition, microbial numbers and aerobic stability were determined. Inoculation lowered lactic acid and yeasts, and increased acetic acid and pH value, resulting in improved aerobic stability of the silages. Inoculated silages produced 1,2-propanediol, the content of which increased as ensiling was prolonged, and nearly 50 g kg-1 dry matter had accumulated after four months of storage. The effects of inoculation, however, were much less pronounced in silages prepared in bags. Mannitol was found in all silages; the production was lowered by Lact. buchneri treatment and appeared to be unrelated to the accumulation of 1,2-propanediol. CONCLUSIONS Inoculation of Lact. buchneri occasionally causes accumulation of 1,2-propanediol in silages without further degradation into propionic acid and 1-propanol. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY Substantial amounts of 1,2-propanediol could be consumed by ruminants when fed on silages inoculated with Lact. buchneri. In addition to increasing acetic acid, attention needs to be paid to 1,2-propanediol because the two fermentation products might affect the intake and utilization of silage-based diets.
Combining GIS and stochastic simulation to estimate spatial patterns of variation for lead at the Lousal mine, Portugal

Lousal is one of the many massive sulphide deposits of the Iberian Pyrite Belt. The mine is closed at present, but the heavy metal enriched tailings remain at the surface in the open air. Applying geostatistics to the diagnosis of this potentially contaminated site we aim to assess the quality of the soil. The uncertainty attached to the unknown concentrations of the contaminant was first modelled by a non‐parametric predictor (indicator kriging), and then taken into account in the prediction of the concentrations at unsampled locations by a method of stochastic simulation (p‐field simulation). At each grid node, the N simulated values resulting from the N equi‐probable simulations were transformed into probabilities of exceeding a regulatory threshold, which allowed assessment of the quality of the soil. The probability maps were then used to identify contaminated areas within the mining field. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Type-Independent Correction of Sample Selection Bias via Structural Discovery and Re-balancing

Sample selection bias is a common problem in many real world applications, where training data are obtained under realistic constraints that make them follow a different distribution from the future testing data. For example, in the application of hospital clinical studies, it is common practice to build models from the eligible volunteers as the training data, and then apply the model to the entire populations. Because these volunteers are usually not selected at random, the training set may not be drawn from the same distribution as the test set. Thus, such a dataset suffers from “sample selection bias” or “covariate shift”. In the past few years, much work has been proposed to reduce sample selection bias, mainly by statically matching the distribution between training set and test set. But in this paper, we do not explore the different distributions directly. Instead, we propose to discover the natural structure of the target distribution, by which different types of sample selection biases can be evidently observed and then be reduced by generating a new sample set from the structure. In particular, unlabeled data are involved in the new sample set to enhance the ability to minimize sample selection bias. One main advantage of the proposed approach is that it can correct all types of sample selection biases, while most of the previously proposed approaches are designed for some specific types of biases. In experimental studies, we simulate all 3 types of sample selection biases on 17 different classification problems, thus 17×3 biased datasets are used to test the performance of the proposed algorithm. The baseline models include decision tree, naive Bayes, nearest neighbor, and logistic regression. Across all combinations, the increase in accuracy over noncorrected sample set is 30% on average using each baseline model.
Development of a Human Immunodeficiency Virus Vector-Based, Single-Cycle Assay for Evaluation of Anti-Integrase Compounds

ABSTRACT Therapeutic strategies aimed at inhibiting human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication employ a combination of drugs targeted to two viral enzymes (reverse transcriptase and protease) and to the viral entry/fusion step. However, the high propensity of HIV-1 to develop resistance makes the development of novel compounds targeting different steps of the HIV-1 life cycle essential. Among these, integrase (IN) inhibitors have successfully passed the early phases of clinical development. By preventing integration, IN inhibitors preclude viral replication while allowing production of extrachromosomal forms of viral DNA (E-DNA). Here, we describe an improved and standardized assay aimed at evaluating IN inhibitors by taking advantage of the transcriptional activity of E-DNA produced by HIV-derived vectors in the absence of replication-competent virus. In this context, the use of the firefly luciferase gene as a reporter gene provides a rapid and quantitative measure of viral-vector infectivity, thus making it a safe and cost-effective assay for evaluating novel IN inhibitors.
Generation of an EphA4 conditional allele in mice

Ephrins and Eph receptor tyrosine kinases are cell‐surface molecules that serve a multitude of functions in cell–cell communication in development, physiology, and disease. EphA4 is a promiscuous member of the EphA subclass of Eph receptors and can bind to both EphrinAs and EphrinBs. In addition to its well‐established roles in guiding the development of neuronal connectivity, EphA4 has been implicated for a role in synaptic plasticity, vascular formation, axon regeneration, and central nervous system repair following injury. However, the study of its role in the adult stage has been hampered by confounding developmental defects in EphA4 germline mutants. Here, we report the generation and molecular characterization of an EphA4 conditional allele along with a novel null allele with a knockin fluorescent reporter gene (mCFP). The conditional allele will be useful in ascertaining postdevelopmental and/or cell type‐specific function of EphA4 in physiology, injury, and disease. genesis 48:101–105, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Multiyear measurements of aerosol optical depth in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement and Quantitative Links programs

The U.S. Department of Energy funded the development of the multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR) as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. This seven-channel radiometer began operation at the first ARM site in 1992 and at the Department of Energy Quantitative Links (QL) sites in the fall of 1991; three of the QL sites continue to operate, although this program was discontinued after 1995. This paper describes the use of the MFRSR in acquiring aerosol optical depth data, including the in-field calibration procedure and a partial validation of this process. Multiyear measurements of aerosol optical depth from three of the sites indicate similar phasing of seasonal and interannual changes, but with notable differences in the magnitude of the aerosol optical depth. Published papers that use these aerosol data are highlighted, and public access to these and future data sets for scientific studies are explained.
A Real-Time Stereo Vision System for Obstacle Recognition and Motion Estimation

Abstract. Obstacle recognition and motion state estimation are important elements in autonomous navigation systems. In this research, a stereo vision system consisting of dual cameras was designed and efficient algorithms for obstacle recognition and motions estimation of obstacles are proposed. To satisfy the geometric constraints of ideal stereo vision theory, the dual cameras are mounted on a specially designed mechanism which makes the optical axes of cameras parallel. When the distortion of images due to camera lens is corrected by calibration, the disparity image can be estimated by the correspondence matching method; thus the distance and three-dimensional information of obstacles can be obtained in real-time. To detect and locate obstacles, the estimated three-dimensional information of each pixel in image plane is projected onto a non-linear top-view map, and the blob segmentation is used to define the obstacle candidates in top-view map. Then the pre-defined three-dimensional constraints are imposed to filter noisy blobs and thus to accurately detect obstacles. Following the detection of obstacles, an obstacle recognition strategy is applied. The obstacles are first separated into elongated and non-elongated shape obstacles by the geometrical feature which is the ratio of height and width. The elongated shape obstacle candidates include pedestrians and unknown objects, and the non-elongated shape candidates consist of small vehicles, large vehicles, and unknown objects. To recognize the obstacle types, histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) is applied to extract features from the obstacle images. Before support vector machine (SVM) is employed, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is used to reduce the complexity of HOG feature to simplify the feature dimension and speed up the recognition time. To track the obstacle appearing in different video frames, Bhattacharyya distance is used to be the matching index. When the obstacle is able to be tracked in different video frames, the motions of obstacles can also be estimated by using the Kalman filter. Moreover, the trajectories of obstacles are recorded. In our experiments, the developed stereo vision system operates at a speed of over 10 frames per second at a resolution of 640x480. The obstacle detection rate and the accuracy of obstacle recognition were all above 90% under various conditions. The error of motion estimation was about 50 cm.
Towards a tool for the Subjective Assessment of Speech System Interfaces (SASSI)

Applications of speech recognition are now widespread, but user-centred evaluation methods are necessary to ensure their success. Objective evaluation techniques are fairly well established, but previous subjective techniques have been unstructured and unproven. This paper reports on the first stage in the development of a questionnaire measure for the Subjective Assessment of Speech System Interfaces (SASSI). The aim of the research programme is to produce a valid, reliable and sensitive measure of users' subjective experiences with speech recognition systems. Such a technique could make an important contribution to theory and practice in the design and evaluation of speech recognition systems according to best human factors practice. A prototype questionnaire was designed, based on established measures for evaluating the usability of other kinds of user interface, and on a review of the research literature into speech system design. This consisted of 50 statements with which respondents rated their level of agreement. The questionnaire was given to users of four different speech applications, and Exploratory Factor Analysis of 214 completed questionnaires was conducted. This suggested the presence of six main factors in users' perceptions of speech systems: System Response Accuracy, Likeability, Cognitive Demand, Annoyance, Habitability and Speed. The six factors have face validity, and a reasonable level of statistical reliability. The findings form a useful theoretical and practical basis for the subjective evaluation of any speech recognition interface. However, further work is recommended, to establish the validity and sensitivity of the approach, before a final tool can be produced which warrants general use.
Spatially distributed hydrotope-based modelling of evapotranspiration and runoff in mountainous basins

River basins in mountainous regions are characterized by strong variations in topography, vegetation, soils, climatic conditions and snow cover conditions, and all are strongly related to altitude. The high spatial variation needs to be considered when modelling hydrological processes in such catchments. A complex hydrological model, with a great potential to account for spatial variability, was developed and applied for the hourly simulation of evapotranspiration, soil moisture, water balance and the runoff components for the period 1993 and 1994 in 12 subcatchments of the alpine/pre-alpine basin of the River Thur (area 1703 km2). The basin is located in the north-east of the Swiss part of the Rhine Basin and has an elevation range from 350 to 2500 m a.s. l. A considerable part of the Thur Basin is high mountain area, some of it above the tree-line and a great part of the basin is snow covered during the winter season. In the distributed hydrological model, the 12 sub-basins of the Thur catchment were spatially subdivided into sub-areas (hydrologically similar response units—HRUs or hydrotopes) using a GIS. Within the HRUs a hydrologically similar behaviour was assumed. Spatial interpolations of the meteorological input variables wereemployed for each altitudinal zone. The structure of the model components for snow accumulation and melt, interception, soil water storage and uptake by evapotranspiration, runoff generation and flow routing are briefly outlined. The results of the simulated potential evapotranspiration reflect the dominant role of altitudinal change in radiation and albedo of exposure, followed by the influence of slope. The actual evapotranspiration shows, in comparison with the potential evapotranspiration, a greater variability in the lower and medium altitudinal zones and a smaller variability in the upper elevation zones, which was associated with limitations of available moisture in soil and surface depression storages as well as with the evaporative demand of the local vegetation. The higher altitudinal dependency and variability of runoff results from the strong increase in precipitation and the decrease in evaporation with increased altitude. An increasing influence of snow cover on runoff as well as evapotranspiration with altitude is obvious. The computed actual evapotranspiration and runoff were evaluated against the observed values of a weighting lysimeter and against runoff hydrographs. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.