Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local Level Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse: A Practical Solution to the Water Security Challenges Faced by Urban Trees

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) treatment devices are often used to restore natural drainage properties in developed catchments. WSUD can make positive contributions to the restoration of natural ecosystem processes, by supporting trees and habitats in urban areas without taking up limited urban space. This paper reports on the development and testing of a new WSUD device, the Wicking Tank. It is designed to supply sufficient volumes of water to urban trees through periods of drought via synthetic wicks from an underground storage tank to support adequate tree health. Relying on gravity fed stormwater, and the natural capillarity, adhesion, and cohesion properties of water and the process of hydraulic redistribution, water is transferred from the tank and into the rhizosphere of the tree. Water demand is controlled passively by the water potential differential across the root zone. Proof of concept testing of the Wicking Tank has shown the device to successfully draw water into soil to support the ongoing survival of a potted plant for over 20 weeks. Substantial differences are anticipated between this proof of concept test and an in-situ field trial. A field-based demonstration style version of the Wicking Tank is planned for construction and testing in 2015.
Assessing the Calibration of Actuarial Risk Scales

Assessing the predictive accuracy of actuarial risk assessment tools requires consideration of discrimination (the differences between recidivists and nonrecidivists) and calibration (the credibility of the recidivism rates associated with test scores or categories). Currently, there are no conventions for reporting calibration effect sizes for offender risk tools. This article explains one promising calibration effect size statistic (the Expected/Observed [E/O] index) and provides an illustrative example of how it can be calculated and interpreted. Briefly, the E/O index is the ratio of the expected number of recidivists to the observed number of recidivists. Guidance is provided for calculating the E/O index with fixed follow-up data as well as from survival data. This article also discusses alternative approaches to examining calibration and provides references to other studies using the E/O index to assess the calibration of offender risk scales.
Long-Term Follow-Up of Criminal Activity with Adjudicated Youth in Ontario: Identifying Offence Trajectories and Predictors/Correlates of Trajectory Group Membership

Cet article examine les cheminements menant à la criminalité ainsi que les prédicteurs (chez les enfants) et les corrélats (chez les adolescents) d’affiliation à un groupe de trajectoires chez 386 jeunes de l’Ontario qui ont fait l’objet d’une décision judiciaire. Les participants à l’étude ont purgé une peine à l’un des deux établissements de garde en milieu ouvert à Toronto entre 1986 et 1997. Les infractions criminelles, tirées sur le registre public, ont été suivies pendant une moyenne de 16,4 années (écart type = 4,1; portée = 9,8–28,7 années), de la fin de l’enfance/début de l’adolescence jusqu’au début de la trentaine. Les facteurs donnant des indications sur les enfants et les adolescents, leur famille, leurs pairs et leur école ont été extraits du dossier du client. Un modèle comprenant sept groupes convenait le mieux à l’échantillon. Les résultats d’analyses de régression multinomiale indiquent que des comportements antisociaux et de mauvais rendements scolaires chez les enfants ainsi que de mauvaises relations familiales, des soins non traditionnels et de mauvais rendements scolaires chez les adolescents différenciaient la trajectoire des renonciateurs (taux faible) des celles à taux modéré ou élevé. Cet article discute aussi des moyens d’identifier les enfants et les jeunes à risque de délinquance persistante (taux élevé) afin que les programmes de prévention et d’intervention précoce puissent les cibler.
Low frequency analysis of resting-state fMRI

Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) is a relatively new and an powerful method for evaluating regional interactions that occur when a participant is not performing an explicit task. Because of sensitiveness to time delay and length of time courses, respectively, traditional methods of correlation and coherence based on region of interest are not very suitable for rsfMRI. In this paper, we analyzed low frequency property of rsfMRI data. Firstly, we calculated the low frequency of resting-state Blood-Oxygenation-Level-Dependent(BOLD) signal on every voxel using Welch method, based on which we analyzed the statistical distribution cross subjects and voxels. The low frequency feature is proved by a series of experiments to be more robust and consistent comparing with coorelation in time domain and coherency in frequency domain. We found that the property of low frequency statistical distribution is dominant on narrow band, which is around 0.0137HZ.
The Pragmatics of Quantifier Scope: A Corpus Study

One of the most well-studied phenomena in natural language semantics has long been the question of what readings are possible in various types of sentences with multiple quantifiers. Semanticists have generally been concerned with developing theories to capture the range of possible readings for such sentences. This is what Higgins & Sadock (2003) have dubbed the problem of scope generation. To take a simple example like (1), then, the job of semantics is (i) to argue that the sentence is truly ambiguous, i.e., it has two possible readings depending on which quantifier ‘we think of first’ (the need to postulate ambiguity is not immediately obvious, particularly for example (1)), and (ii) to capture the ambiguity by providing adequate representations for those readings.
Discovering Hidden Blue Ocean Strategy with KeyGraph Machine

Researchers usually focused on using unstructured documents, such as news, scientific literatures, World Wide Web pages, business reports, as input documents of KeyGraph. But the unstructured documents might results in unclear keywords and meaningless keywords. Although traditional document preprocessing could dismiss some of the problems, generating complex and unreadable KeyGraph diagrams were not avoidance. In this research, we applied the concept of chance discovery and KeyGraph to discover hidden blue ocean strategy (BOS) for decision makers who not necessary familiar with the concerned domains. A preprocessing strategy, including develop an operational framework of BOS and design a sentence structure for representing BOS, was proposed to assure the necessary keywords be included in the required documents. Seventy-two documents concerning blue ocean firms were collected as sample cases for developing the operational framework. At last, three experiences were designed for confirming the performance of the proposed preprocessing strategy. Experimental results shown that the subjects were not consistently recognized BOS with traditional approach (used unstructured documents as input documents of KeyGraph). In contrast, the subjects could easily find explicit scenarios of BOS, and recognize a few of implicit scenarios appeared on KeyGraph diagrams with the proposed strategy.
Personalized Next-Track Music Recommendation with Multi-dimensional Long-Term Preference Signals

The automated generation of playlists given a user’s most recent listening history is a common feature of modern music streaming platforms. In the research literature, a number of algorithmic proposals for this “next-track recommendation” problem have been made in recent years. However, nearly all of them are based on the user’s most recent listening history, context, or location but do not consider the users’ long-term listening preferences or social network. In this work, we explore the value of long-term preferences for personalizing the playlist generation process and evaluate diﬀerent strategies of applying multi-dimensional user-speciﬁc preference signals. The results of an empirical evaluation on ﬁve diﬀerent datasets show that although the short-term listening history should generally govern the next-track selection process, long-term preferences can mea-surably help to increase the personalization quality.
A wideband high-linearity RF receiver front-end in CMOS

This paper presents a wideband high-linearity RF receiver-front-end, implemented in standard 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. The design employs a noise-canceling LNA in combination with two passive mixers, followed by lowpass-filtering and amplification at IF. The achieved bandwidth is >2 GHz, with a noise figure of 6.5 dB, +1 dBm IIP/sub 3/, +34.5 dBm IIP/sub 2/ and <50 kHz 1/f-noise corner frequency.
The Association of High Prevalence of Trophozoites in Peripheral Blood with Lower Antibody Response to P. falciparum Infected Erythrocytes among Asymptomatic Children in Sudan

Background. The most prominent variant surface antigens (VSAs) of Plasmodium falciparum are the var gene-encoded Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) family, which serves as a parasite-sequestering ligand to endothelial cells. In this study we have examined the antibody reactivity of autologous plasma from symptomatic and asymptomatic malaria infected children against the infected erythrocytes' surface antigens using flow cytometry. Methods. Ethidium-bromide-labelled erythrocytic mature forms of P. falciparum parasites obtained from symptomatic and asymptomatic children were sequentially incubated with autologous plasma and fluorescein isothiocyanate-conjugated (FITC) antihuman IgG. Plasma antibody reactivity was detected by flow cytometry. Results. Asymptomatic children had more prevalence of trophozoites in peripheral blood (66%) compared to symptomatic children (16%), p = 0.002. The mean percentage of infected RBCs reacting with autologous sera was 89.78 among symptomatic children compared to 79.62 among asymptomatic children (p = 0.09). Moreover, the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) in the asymptomatic was significantly higher compared to symptomatic children (p value = 0.040). Conclusion. Variant surface antigens on Plasmodium falciparum infected RBCs from symptomatic malaria children tend to be better recognized by IgG antibodies. This may suggest a role of some IgG antibodies in severity of malaria.
Application of the Wavelet Transform to Automated Detection of Clustered Microcalciications in Digital Mammograms

We are developing a computerized scheme based on image processing techniques for the automated detection of clustered microcalciications in digital mammograms. This scheme is part of an overall package for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), the purpose of which is to assist radiologists in detecting and diagnosing breast cancer. One important step in the computer detection scheme is to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of microcalciications in order to increase the sensitivity (fraction of the cancer cases correctly detected as cancers) and/or to reduce the false-positive rate (fraction of the normal cases incorrectly detected as cancers). To achieve this, we employ an approach using the wavelet transform in this paper. Digitized mammograms are decomposed by using the wavelet transform and then reconstructed from transform coeecients modiied at several levels in the transform space. Various types of wavelets are examined, and the Least Asymmetric Daubechies' wavelets are chosen to detect clustered microcalciications in mammograms. The images reconstructed from several diierent scales are subjected to our CAD scheme, and its performance is evaluated using 39 mammograms containing 41 clusters. Our results show a sensitivity of approximately 90% with a false-positive rate of 1.5 clusters per image.
fpocket: online tools for protein ensemble pocket detection and tracking

Computational small-molecule binding site detection has several important applications in the biomedical field. Notable interests are the identification of cavities for structure-based drug discovery or functional annotation of structures. fpocket is a small-molecule pocket detection program, relying on the geometric α-sphere theory. The fpocket web server allows: (i) candidate pocket detection—fpocket; (ii) pocket tracking during molecular dynamics, in order to provide insights into pocket dynamics—mdpocket; and (iii) a transposition of mdpocket to the combined analysis of homologous structures—hpocket. These complementary online tools allow to tackle various questions related to the identification and annotation of functional and allosteric sites, transient pockets and pocket preservation within evolution of structural families. The server and documentation are freely available at http://bioserv.rpbs. univ-paris-diderot.fr/fpocket.
Memantine Blocks α7* Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors More Potently Than N-Methyl-D-aspartate Receptors in Rat Hippocampal Neurons

The N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist memantine is an approved drug for treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Other such treatments are cholinesterase inhibitors and nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR)-sensitizing agents such as galantamine. The present study was designed to test whether memantine exerts any effect on the cholinergic system, in particular the Ca2+-conducting α7* nAChR, in cultured hippocampal neurons. Memantine caused a concentration-dependent reduction of the amplitudes of whole-cell currents evoked by the α7* nAChR-selective agonist choline (10 mM) or by N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) (50 μM) plus glycine (10 μM). It also inhibited tonically activated NMDA receptors. Memantine was more potent in inhibiting α7* nAChRs than NMDA receptors; at -60 mV, the IC50 values for memantine were 0.34 and 5.1 μM, respectively. Consistent with an open-channel blocking mechanism, memantine-induced NMDA receptor inhibition was voltage and use-dependent; the Hill coefficient (nH) was ∼1. Memantine-induced α7* nAChR inhibition had an nH < 1 and showed a variable voltage dependence; the effect was voltage-independent at 0.1 μM, becoming voltage-dependent at ≥1 μM. Thus, memantine interacts with more than one class of sites on the α7* nAChRs. One is voltage-sensitive and therefore likely to be within the receptor channel. The other is voltage-insensitive and therefore likely to be in the extracellular domain of the receptor. It is suggested that blockade of α7* nAChRs by memantine could decrease its effectiveness for treatment of AD, particularly at early stages when the degrees of nAChR dysfunction and of cognitive decline correlate well.
Climate Variability, Child Labour and Schooling: Evidence on the Intensive and Extensive Margin

How does future income uncertainty affect child labour and human capital accumulation? Using a unique panel dataset, we examine the effect of changes in climate variability on the allocation of time among child labour activities (the intensive margin) as well as participation in education and labour activities (the extensive margin). We find robust evidence that increased climate variability increases the number of hours spent on farming activities while reducing the number of hours spent on domestic chores, indicating a substitution of time across child labour activities. In addition, we find no evidence of climate variability on enrolment decisions or educational outcomes, suggesting that households may spread the burden of labour across children to minimize its impact on formal education.
Optimum power control over fading channels

We study optimal constant-rate coding schemes for a block-fading channel with strict transmission delay constraint, under the assumption that both the transmitter and the receiver have perfect channel-state information. We show that the information outage probability is minimized by concatenating a standard "Gaussian" code with an optimal power controller, which allocates the transmitted power dynamically to the transmitted symbols. We solve the minimum outage probability problem under different constraints on the transmitted power and we derive the corresponding power-allocation strategies. In addition, we propose an algorithm that approaches the optimal power allocation when the fading statistics are not known. Numerical examples for different fading channels are provided, and some applications discussed. In particular, we show that minimum outage probability and delay-limited capacity are closely related quantities, and we find a closed-form expression for the delay-limited capacity of the Rayleigh block-fading channel with transmission over two independent blocks. We also discuss repetition diversity and its relation with direct-sequence or multicarrier spread-spectrum transmission. The optimal power-allocation strategy in this case corresponds to selection diversity at the transmitter. From the single-user point of view considered in this paper, there exists an optimal repetition diversity order (or spreading factor) that minimizes the information outage probability for given rate, power, and fading statistics.
3D geometric and optical modeling of warped document images from scanners

When one scans a document page from a thick bound volume, the curvature of the page to be scanned results in two kinds of distortion in the scanned document images: i) shade along the 'spine' of the book; and ii) warping in the shade area. In this paper, we propose an efficient restoration method based on the discovery of the 3D shape of a book surface from the shading information in a scanned document image. We first build practical models namely a 3D geometric model and a 3D optical model for the practical scanning conditions to reconstruct the 3D shape of book surface. We next restore the scanned document image using this shape based on de-shading and de-warping models. Finally, we evaluate the restoration results by comparing the OCR (optical character recognition) performance on the original and restored document images. The experiments show that the geometric and photometric distortions are mostly removed and the OCR results are improved markedly.
Iterative Learning Control for Visual Servoing with Unknown Homography Matrix

An iterative learning control scheme for robot planar motion visual servo with an arbitrarily mounted camera is presented in the paper. In our previous work, it has been proved that, when the image plane and the motion plane are parallel with a constant but unknown image Jacobian matrix, an iterative learning control law with a Nussbaum learning gain can be applied to visual servoing for trajectory tracking without camera calibration. How to design a visual servoing controller for an arbitrarily mounted camera, in which the image Jacobian matrix is shown to be time varying, remains to be an open problem. By utilizing the features of planar homography, the time-varying image Jacobian can be factorized as a constant transformation matrix and a time varying depth. As the time varying depth is bounded, an iterative learning control with a Nussbaum gain is proved to be convergent for planar trajectory tracking under control of an arbitrarily mounted camera.
Change and institutional logic: overview and proposal of analysis of different institutionalist approaches

During the past two decades, institutionalists have raised questions about “how” and “why” institutions change. The explanation of the process of institutional change also has a set of conflicting views, assumptions and divergent voices of dissent (Scott, 2008). Mahoney and Thelen (2010) claim that the three dominant approaches to institutional theory, sociological, historical and rational, point to problems in the explanation of institutional change. Our main goal is to raise the discussion about the main currents that explain institutional change, and contribute by way of identify the challenges that the institutional approaches have. We believe that to understand the process of institutional change is necessary to understand the mechanisms underlying the processes by which institutional models prevailing in a social context (country or organization or field) also appear (or not) on another. Also, we propose the use of institutional logic for analysis of institutional change. Keywords: Institutional Change. Institutional Logics. Sociological Institutionalism. Rational Institutionalism. History Institutionalism. Resumo Nas ultimas decadas, institucionalistas tem levantado questoes sobre “como” e “por que” instituicoes se modificam. A explicacao sobre o processo de mudanca institucional possui ainda um conjunto de concepcoes conflituosas, pressupostos divergentes e vozes discordantes (SCOTT, 2008). Mahoney e Thelen (2010) afirmam que as tres abordagens dominantes da teoria institucional, sociologica, racional e historica apontam problemas na explicacao sobre a mudanca institucional. Nosso principal objetivo e suscitar a discussao acerca das principais correntes que explicam a mudanca institucional e contribuir por meio da identificacao dos desafios que as abordagens institucionalistas possuem em suas explicacoes. C onsideramos que para entender o processo de mudanca institucional e necessario compreender os mecanismos subjacentes aos processos pelos quais modelos institucionais predominantes em um contexto social (pais ou organizacao ou campo) tambem surgem (ou nao) em outro. Por fim, propoe-se o uso da perspectiva de logicas institucionais para analise da mudanca institucional. Palavras-chave: Mudanca Institucional. Logicas Institucionais. Institucionalismo Sociologico. Institucionalismo Racional. Institucionalismo Historico.
Deciphering the Dynamics of Non-Covalent Interactions Affecting Thermal Stability of a Protein: Molecular Dynamics Study on Point Mutant of Thermus thermophilus Isopropylmalate Dehydrogenase

Thermus thermophilius isopropylmalate dehydrogenase catalyzes oxidative decarboxylation and dehydrogenation of isopropylmalate. Substitution of leucine to alanine at position 172 enhances the thermal stability among the known point mutants. Exploring the dynamic properties of non-covalent interactions such as saltbridges, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions to explain thermal stability of a protein is interesting in its own right. In this study dynamic changes in the non-covalent interactions are studied to decipher the deterministic features of thermal stability of a protein considering a case study of a point mutant in Thermus thermophilus isopropylmalate dehydrogenase. A total of four molecular dynamic simulations of 0.2 μs were carried out on wild type and mutant’s functional dimers at 300 K and 337 K. Higher thermal stability of the mutant as compared to wild type is revealed by root mean square deviation, root mean square fluctuations and Cα-Cα distance with an increase in temperature from 300 K to 337 K. Most of the regions of wild type fluctuate higher than the corresponding regions of mutant with an increase in temperature. Cα-Cα distance analysis suggests that long distance networks are significantly affected in wild type as compared to the mutant. Short lived contacts are higher in wild type, while long lived contacts are lost at 337 K. The mutant forms less hydrogen bonds with water as compared to wild type at 337 K. In contrast to wild type, the mutant shows significant increase in unique saltbridges, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic contacts at 337 K. The current study indicates that there is a strong inter-dependence of thermal stability on the way in which non-covalent interactions reorganize, and it is rewarding to explore this connection in single mutant studies.
A new method of constructing SOM and its application in image compression

A new method to construct symmetric orthogonal multiwavelets (SOM) with odd harmonic property is introduced. Parameter expressions for the matrix coefficients of the multifilter banks that generate symmetric/antisymmetric scaling functions and multiwavelets supported in [0,3] are presented, its related balanced filters are constructed. Experimental results in image coding demonstrate that balanced SOM transform can perform better than the popular scalar wavelets such as Daubechiespsila biorthogonal 9/7 wavelets.