Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simultaneous estimation of relative permeabilities and capillary pressure

In this paper, an automatic numerical method is proposed for simultaneous determination of relative permeabilities and capillary pressure from the results of a single two-phase flow experiment in a range of velocities representative of field flow conditions. The experiment is a standard imbibition or drainage displacement with an imposed difference of pressure or flow rate. The experimental data used are the outlet production, the pressure drop between the two faces, and local saturation profiles at different times along the core. Relative permeabilities and capillary pressure are estimated with a least-square technique. Use of a high-order numerical scheme significantly reduces the numerical diffusion. The optimal control theory is used to solve the minimization problem. The corresponding FORTRAN code is generated by a symbolic program. The validity of the method first is demonstrated with simulated data, then is tested in tow laboratory experiments: one imbibition and one drainage. Good agreement is obtained for both situations.
Saccades Influence the Visibility of Targets in Rapid Stimulus Sequences: The Roles of Mislocalization, Retinal Distance and Remapping

Briefly presented targets around the time of a saccade are mislocalized towards the saccadic landing point. This has been taken as evidence for a remapping mechanism that accompanies each eye movement, helping maintain visual stability across large retinal shifts. Previous studies have shown that spatial mislocalization is greatly diminished when trains of brief stimuli are presented at a high frequency rate, which might help to explain why mislocalization is rarely perceived in everyday viewing. Studies in the laboratory have shown that mislocalization can reduce metacontrast masking by causing target stimuli in a masking sequence to be perceived as shifted in space towards the saccadic target and thus more easily discriminated. We investigated the influence of saccades on target discrimination when target and masks were presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), as well as with forward masking and with backward masking. In a series of experiments, we found that performance was influenced by the retinal displacement caused by the saccade itself but that an additional component of un-masking occurred even when the retinal location of target and mask was matched. These results speak in favor of a remapping mechanism that begins before the eyes start moving and continues well beyond saccadic termination.
Realistic Modeling of Borehole Georadar Antenna Radiation

High-frequency electromagnetic wave propagation phenomena associated with borehole georadar experiments are complex. To improve our understanding of the governing physical processes, we present a suitable finitedifference time-domain (FDTD) solution of Maxwell’s equations in cylindrical coordinates. An important feature of this algorithm is the use of a powerful grid refinement technique that enables us to account efficiently for detailed design aspects of georadar antennas as well as materials with very high dielectric permittivities. This type of modeling provides the basis for improving the ray-based inversion of the first-cycle amplitudes and/or for performing the full-waveform inversion of crosshole georadar data. We first validate the accuracy of the algorithm with respect to the solutions for an infinitesimal electric dipole source as well as a wire-type dipole antenna and then apply it to explore the radiative properties of realistic antenna designs used in borehole georadar.
Evaluation of Transgenic Soybean Exhibiting High Expression of a Synthetic Bacillus thuringiensis cry1A Transgene for Suppressing Lepidopteran Population Densities and Crop Injury

ABSTRACT Several transgenic lines of soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr. , expressing a synthetic cry1A gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), were examined in replicated field trials in 2003–2007 for suppression of naturally occurring population densities of lepidopteran pests and the resultant crop injury that they caused. Bt soybean and negative controls (isogenic segregants and parental lines) were evaluated against velvetbean caterpillar, Anticarsia gemmatalis (Hübner); soybean looper, Pseudoplusia includens (Walker); and green cloverworm, Hypena scabra (F.). Population densities of these lepidopteran species were essentially absent in each of the Bt soybean entries evaluated throughout the growing season in every year of the study compared with moderate (5–10 larvae per row-m) to large (20–30 larvae per row-m) peak population densities in the negative control soybean entries. These lepidopteran populations caused significant plant injury in the non-Bt soybean plots, ranging from 53% defoliation in 2003 to 17.5% in 2007, compared with <1.5% defoliation (mostly 0.0% defoliation) in the Bt soybean plots. When two or three foliar insecticides were applied in August or September, as lepidopteran populations approached or exceeded economic threshold levels, pest populations were suppressed and defoliation was minimal in the treated non-Bt entries similar to results in Bt soybean. Soybean 100-seed weights and harvested yields were similar between the Bt and non-Bt entries each year of this study. It seems that Bt transgenic soybean provides excellent season-long control of lepidopteran pests and have yields equal to the standard cultivars examined in this study. Once available to producers, this Bt technology has the potential to provide an effective insect pest management option similar to that being used in Bt cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L. , and Bt corn, Zea mays L. , and enhance the sustainability and profitability of soybean production in the southern region where lepidopteran pests cause annual economic losses to the crop.
Design Space Characterization in MicroArchitecture Design and Implementation

Modern VLSI designs contain both microarchitecture parameters and implementation parameters. These can be used to facilitate verification and relaxed design specifications. We concentrate on extending prior work in understanding design parameterization and using those design knobs to make global optimizations. This paper discusses the application of machine learning techniques to improve the efficiency and quality of the design space characterization and optimization. Specifically, we propose improvements to the circuit energy vs delay characterization.
Short-chain fatty acids and ketones directly regulate sympathetic nervous system via GPR 41

The maintenance of energy homeostasis is essential for life, and its dysregulation leads to a variety of metabolic disorders. Under a fed condition, mammals utilize glucose as the main metabolic fuel, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced by the colonic bacterial fermentation of dietary fiber also contribute a significant proportion of daily energy requirement. Under ketogenic conditions such as starvation and diabetes, ketone bodies produced in the liver from fatty acids are utilized as the main energy sources. In order to balance the energy intake, dietary excess and starvation triggers an increase or a decrease in energy expenditure, respectively, by regulating activity of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The regulation of metabolic homeostasis by glucose is well recognized; however, the roles of SCFAs and ketone bodies in maintaining energy balance remain unclear. Here, we show that SCFAs and ketone bodies directly regulate SNS activity via GPR41, a Gi/o protein-coupled receptor for SCFAs, at the level of sympathetic ganglion. GPR41 was most abundantly expressed in sympathetic ganglia in mouse and human. SCFA, propionate promoted sympathetic outflow via GPR41. On the other hand, a ketone body, -hydroxybutyrate, produced during starvation or diabetes, suppressed SNS activity by antagonizing GPR41. Pharmacological and siRNA experiments indicated that GPR41-mediated activation of sympathetic neurons involves G-PLC-MAPK signaling. Sympathetic regulation by SCFAs and ketone bodies correlated well with their respective effects upon energy consumption. These findings establish that SCFAs and ketone bodies directly regulate GPR41-mediated SNS activity, and thereby control body energy expenditure in maintaining metabolic homeostasis.
A Visual Analytics of Geometric Distances between Amino Acids and Surface Pockets of Proteins

Protein is the major component of the organism. It has a unique three-dimensional structure determined by its amino acid sequence. A concave (pocket) on the surface of a protein is known to be the best target for a drug to react. We started analyzing how" drug ability" of proteins related to the location of amino acids in a pocket. For as tarter of the study, this paper presents a visualization tool for distance analysis between pockets and the amino acid residue. Provided that a protein surface is described by a triangular mesh, this tool first identifies pockets on the protein surface, specifies the deepest point and outer loops of the pocket, and calculates distances between atoms of an amino acid residue and the deepest point or the outer loops of the pocket. The tool then visualizes the statistics of the distance calculation results by poly line charts and the distribution by scatter plots. This paper proposes a biological interpretation of the visualization results.
Benchmarking the 2 D Lattice Boltzmann BGK Model

A 2D Lattice Boltzmann BGK (LBGK) model on a D2Q9 lattice was constructed and tested for accuracy in different physical situations. An introduction to the LBGK method is given followed by a detailed outline of the computer model construction. Due to the fact that LBGK models are restricted to low Reynolds numbers only laminar fluid flow is examined here. The model was tested for accuracy by comparing model output to the analytical solution of flow lines past a right circular cylinder. Next, plane Poiseuille flow through a 2D channel is compared to the analytical fluid flow and pressure solutions.
Relationship Between Surface‐Based Brain Morphometric Measures and Intelligence in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Influence of History of Language Delay

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a group of conditions that show abnormalities in the neuroanatomy of multiple brain regions. The variability in the development of intelligence and language among individuals on the autism spectrum has long been acknowledged, but it remains unknown whether these differences impact on the neuropathology of ASD. In this study, we aimed to compare associations between surface‐based regional brain measures and general intelligence (IQ) scores in ASD individuals with and without a history of language delay. We included 64 ASD adults of normal intelligence (37 without a history of language delay and 27 with a history of language delay and 80 neurotypicals). Regions with a significant association between verbal and nonverbal IQ and measures of cortical thickness (CT), surface area, and cortical volume were first identified in the combined sample of individuals with ASD and controls. Thicker dorsal frontal and temporal cortices, and thinner lateral orbital frontal and parieto‐occipital cortices were associated with greater and lower verbal IQ scores, respectively. Correlations between cortical volume and verbal IQ were observed in similar regions as revealed by the CT analysis. A significant difference between ASD individuals with and without a history of language delay in the association between CT and verbal IQ was evident in the parieto‐occipital region. These results indicate that ASD subgroups defined on the basis of differential language trajectories in childhood can have different associations between verbal IQ and brain measures in adulthood despite achieving similar levels of cognitive performance. Autism Res 2015, 8: 556–566. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Green rust as a precursor for magnetite: an in situ synchrotron based study

Abstract In this study, direct evidence for the formation of magnetite via a green rust intermediate is reported. The Fe(II) induced transformation of ferrihydrite, was quantified in situ and under O2-free conditions using synchrotron-based time-resolved energy dispersive X-ray diffraction. At pH 9 and Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratios of 0.5 and 1, rapid growth (6 min) of sulphate green rust and its subsequent transformation to magnetite was observed. Electron microscopy confirmed these results, showing the initial rapid formation of hexagonal sulphate green rust particles, followed by the corrosion of the green rust as magnetite growth occurred, indicating that the reaction proceeds via a dissolution-reprecipitation mechanism. At pH 7 and Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratio of 0.5, sulphate green rust was the stable phase, with no transformation to magnetite.
Extended wavelets for multiple measures

While work in recent years has demonstrated that wavelets can be efficiently used to compress large quantities of data and provide fast and fairly accurate answers to queries, little emphasis has been placed on using wavelets in approximating datasets containing multiple measures. Existing decomposition approaches will either operate on each measure individually, or treat all measures as a vector of values and process them simultaneously. We show in this paper that the resulting individual or combined storage approaches for the wavelet coefficients of different measures that stem from these existing algorithms may lead to suboptimal storage utilization, which results to reduced accuracy to queries. To alleviate this problem, we introduce in this work the notion of an extended wavelet coefficient as a flexible storage method for the wavelet coefficients, and propose novel algorithms for selecting which extended wavelet coefficients to retain under a given storage constraint. Experimental results with both real and synthetic datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves improved accuracy to queries when compared to existing techniques.
Disengagement Detection in Online Learning: Validation Studies and Perspectives

Learning environments aim to deliver efficacious instruction, but rarely take into consideration the motivational factors involved in the learning process. However, motivational aspects like engagement play an important role in effective learning-engaged learners gain more. E-Learning systems could be improved by tracking students' disengagement that, in turn, would allow personalized interventions at appropriate times in order to reengage students. This idea has been exploited several times for Intelligent Tutoring Systems, but not yet in other types of learning environments that are less structured. To address this gap, our research looks at online learning-content-delivery systems using educational data mining techniques. Previously, several attributes relevant for disengagement prediction were identified by means of log-file analysis on HTML-Tutor, a web-based learning environment. In this paper, we investigate the extendibility of our approach to other systems by studying the relevance of these attributes for predicting disengagement in a different e-learning system. To this end, two validation studies were conducted indicating that the previously identified attributes are pertinent for disengagement prediction, and two new meta-attributes derived from log-data observations improve prediction and may potentially be used for automatic log-file annotation.
Antarctic glacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum: an overview of the record on land

This overview examines available circum-Antarctic glacial history archives on land, related to developments after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). It considers the glacial-stratigraphic and morphologic records and also biostratigraphical information from moss banks, lake sediments and penguin rookeries, with some reference to relevant glacial marine records. It is concluded that Holocene environmental development in Antarctica differed from that in the Northern Hemisphere. The initial deglaciation of the shelf areas surrounding Antarctica took place before 10 000 14C yrs before present(BP), and was controlled by rising global sea level. This was followed by the deglaciation of some presently ice-free inner shelf and land areas between 10 000 and 8000 yr BP. Continued deglaciation occurred gradually between 8000 yr BP and 5000 yr BP. Mid-Holocene glacial readvances are recorded from various sites around Antarctica. There are strong indications of a circum-Antarctic climate warmer than today 4700–2000 yr BP. The best dated records from the Antarctic Peninsula and coastal Victoria Land suggest climatic optimums there from 4000–3000 yr BP and 3600–2600 yr BP, respectively. Thereafter Neoglacial readvances are recorded. Relatively limited glacial expansions in Antarctica during the past few hundred years correlate with the Little Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere.
A comparison of methods for construction of fetal reference charts

Reference charts for fetal measures are used for early detection of pregnancies that should be monitored closely. Construction of reference charts corresponds to estimation of quantiles of a distribution as a function of gestational age. Existing methods have been developed under various modeling assumptions, typically by fitting a polynomial regression to certain functionals of the distributions (e.g., mean, standard deviation, and quantiles). We use a large dataset to compare various existing methods for construction of reference charts. We also relax the assumptions of a parametric polynomial link between the distribution parameters and age and consider cubic splines and discretization of age in order to compare charts based on more flexible and simpler models, respectively. We compare the different methods using various tools and demonstrate the importance of considering performance measures calculated from age‐stratified data. We also examine the question of sample size. We compare our charts to similar charts that have been recently published and emphasize that the source of an apparent heterogeneity should be investigated. We conclude that the choice of which method to use for construction of reference charts should take the following into account: available sample size, validity of normality assumption, and results of various performance measures. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Discrimination of atherosclerotic plaque constituents based on local measurements of optical attenuation coefficents by OCT

Imaging of human autopsy samples was performed from the luminal side with a high (3.5 μm axial and 7 μm lateral) resolution OCT system (around 800 nm) or a regular (15-20 μm axial and 20 μm lateral resolution) OCT system (around 1300 nm). For each sample, dimensions were measured by histomorphometry and OCT and the optical attenuation was measured. Quantitative analysis showed a strong and significant correlation between OCT and histology cap thickness measurements for both OCT systems. For both systems, the measured attenuation coefficients of diffuse intimal thickening and lipid-rich regions differed significantly from media and calcifications. Both the high and regular resolution OCT systems can precisely image the atherosclerotic plaques. Quantitative analysis of the OCT signals allowed in situ determination of the intrinsic optical attenuation coefficient of atherosclerotic tissue components within regions of interest, which can further help to discriminate the plaque and arterial wall components.
Apparent Velocity from Dipping Interface Reflections

When a seismic reflector is a dipping plane and the subsurface can be approximated by a single bed, the velocity needed to stack CDP data is higher than the velocity with which the energy travels in the subsurface. The ratio of the stacking velocity to the energy‐travel velocity increases from unity for strike lines to the secant of the dip angle for dip lines. Although the reflection points are not common, reflections stack even for steep dips. Stacking velocities for multiple reflections increase with the order of the multiple, but multiple reflections may also be stacked. To convert from reflection time to depth requires knowledge not given by the stacking velocity. In theory, a split‐spread procedure can furnish the needed information.
A Microfiber Half Coupler for Refractive Index Sensing

We report a reflection mode based microfiber half coupler probe for refractive index (RI) sensing. The probe was made by cleaving a fused 2 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$ </tex-math></inline-formula> 2 optical fiber coupler at the center of the tapered region. When used for RI sensing, the reflection spectrum blueshifted as the surrounding RI increased. The sensing capability of the probe was tested using sucrose solutions with different concentrations. The relations between the RI sensitivity and the taper waist diameter as well as the RI range were investigated. The RI sensitivity increased quickly as the taper diameter decreased.
A tentative model for dimensionless phoneme distance from binary distinctive features

This work proposes a tentative model for the calculation of dimensionless distances between phonemes; sounds are described with binary distinctive features and distances show linear consistency in terms of such features. The model can be used as a scoring function for local and global pairwise alignment of phoneme sequences, and the distances can be used as prior probabilities for Bayesian analyses on the phylogenetic relationship between languages, particularly for cognate identification in cases where no empirical prior probability is available.
FEELTRACE: an instrument for recording perceived emotion in real time

FEELTRACE is an instrument developed to let observers track the emotional content of a stimulus as they perceive it over time, allowing the emotional dynamics of speech episodes to be examined. It is based on activation-evaluation space, a representation derived from psychology. The activation dimension measures how dynamic the emotional state is; the evaluation dimension is a global measure of the positive or negative feeling associated with the state. Research suggests that the space is naturally circular, i.e. states which are at the limit of emotional intensity define a circle, with alert neutrality at the centre. To turn those ideas into a recording tool, the space was represented by a circle on a computer screen, and observers described perceived emotional state by moving a pointer (in the form of a disc) to the appropriate point in the circle, using a mouse. Prototypes were tested, and in the light of results, refinements were made to ensure that outputs were as consistent and meaningful as possible. They include colour coding the pointer in a way that users readily associate with the relevant emotional state; presenting key emotion words as ‘landmarks’ at the strategic points in the space; and developing an induction procedure to introduce observers to the system. An experiment assessed the reliability of the developed system. Stimuli were 16 clips from TV programs, two showing relatively strong emotions in each quadrant of activationevaluation space, each paired with one of the same person in a relatively neural state. 24 raters took part. Differences between clips chosen to contrast were statistically robust. Results were plotted in activation-evaluation space as ellipses, each with its centre at the mean co-ordinates for the clip, and its width proportional to standard deviation across raters. The size of the ellipses meant that about 25 could be fitted into the space, i.e. FEELTRACE has resolving power comparable to an emotion vocabulary of 20 non-overlapping words, with the advantage of allowing intermediate ratings, and above all, the ability to track impressions continuously.