Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Characterization of a Gene in Sedum alfredii Hance Resembling Rubber Elongation Factor Endowed with Functions Associated with Cadmium Tolerance

Cadmium is a major toxic heavy-metal pollutant considering their bioaccumulation potential and persistence in the environment. The hyperaccumulating ecotype of Sedum alfredii Hance is a Zn/Cd co-hyperaccumulator inhabiting in a region of China with soils rich in Pb/Zn. Investigations into the underlying molecular regulatory mechanisms of Cd tolerance are of substantial interest. Here, library screening for genes related to cadmium tolerance identified a gene resembling the rubber elongation factor gene designated as SaREFl. The heterologous expression of SaREFl rescued the growth of a transformed Cd-sensitive strain (ycf1). Furthermore, SaREFl-expressing Arabidopsis plants were more tolerant to cadmium stress compared with wild type by measuring parameters of root length, fresh weight and physiological indexes. When under four different heavy metal treatments, we found that SaREFl responded most strongly to Cd and the root was the plant organ most sensitive to this heavy metal. Yeast two-hybrid screening of SaREFl as a bait led to the identification of five possible interacting targets in Sedum alfredii Hance. Among them, a gene annotated as prenylated Rab acceptor 1 (PRA1) domain protein was detected with a high frequency. Moreover, subcellular localization of SaREF1-GFP fusion protein revealed some patchy spots in cytosol suggesting potential association with organelles for its cellular functions. Our findings would further enrich the connotation of REF-like genes and provide theoretical assistance for the application in breeding heavy metal-tolerant plants.
Profiling Systems Using the Defining Characteristics of Systems of Systems (SoS)

Abstract : The concept of a system of systems (SoS) has become very popular over the last decade, resulting in books, conferences, technical papers, and reports. However, there is no consensus as to exactly what the term means, and it has been given many different, though re-lated, definitions. This technical note identifies and describes the characteristics that have been used in various definitions of the term system of systems. These SoS characteristics vary along corresponding scales and can form the basis of corresponding ? meters? that serve as indicators of where a system lies along the associated scale. This technical note also discusses two other classes of system characteristics: quality characteristics and programmatic characteristics and how similar meters can be used to describe where systems lie along the scales associated with these two additional sets of system characteristics. Finally, this technical note discusses the various benefits of using these system of systems characteristics to profile systems.
Sensorless control of AC motor — Where are we now?

In the AC machine drives, the rotor position information is the crucial information for high performance drive system. There have been more than 30 years of researches to get the rotor position information without explicit position sensors such as encoders and resolvers. Some research results are commercialized and applied to industrial field. However, still the performance of sensorless drive is limited. In this paper, the overview of the sensorless drive techniques, especially regarding Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (IPMSM), are described. Some research topics for future study are suggested.
Error-Driven Adaptive Language Modeling for Chinese Pinyin-to-Character Conversion

The performance of Chinese Pinyin-to-Character conversion is severely affected when the characteristics of the training and conversion data differ. As natural language is highly variable and uncertain, it is impossible to build a complete and general language model to suit all the tasks. The traditional adaptive MAP models mix the task independent data with task dependent data using a mixture coefficient but we never can predict what style of language users have and what new domain will appear. This paper presents a statistical error-driven adaptive language modeling approach to Chinese Pinyin input system. This model can be incrementally adapted when an error occurs during Pinyin-to-Character converting time. It significantly improves Pinyin-to-Character conversion rate.
Dos and Donts Integrated System Based on GPS and Cloud Technologies for Pilgrims

All over the world, the crowd management is a big challenge facing the organizations of any event with large number of people. It is clear that this task is becoming more difficult and complicated when the event is larger. In the recent few years, the there are many new technologies developed that can be utilized in crowed management. Among these new technologies is wireless communications, cloud computing, GPS services and many others. Moreover, the wide spread of smart phones and there useful applications made it easier to benefit directly from these technologies. One of the largest worldwide people gathering event is the Pilgrim. Every year, millions of people visit the holy city of Makkah from different countries of the world with different languages and cultural backgrounds. Pilgrim includes certain doings at certain times at certain locations which emphasizes the complexity of crowd management task of the biggest event worldwide. Besides the transportation, housing, and feeding management, there is the dos and donts management of this huge event since it is being a timed and location-based worship. In this research, we utilize the advanced technologies to develop a mobile application to guide the visitors of Makkah (including the elders and those of hearing disability) to perform the correct worship doings and to avoid the worship donts at the holy place of Makkah. The application detects the GPS location of the visitor and sends notifications if he/she commits any donts at that location using a cloud-based decision system. The notifications can be sent as text, image, and video (with deaf sign language integrated). More features of our application, and given that the diversity of Pilgrim, it supports three main languages; Arabic, English, and Urdu, and it is compatible with iOS and Android. The application development process followed the best practices in software engineering that is shown in this paper. To test the application efficiency and functionality, real testing experiments and demos were conducted and presented.
Human Rights and the Global Economy: A Response to Meyer

While few scholars and officials today believe the simplistic notion that economic progress automatically brings about political and civil freedom, many think that such progress will automatically enlarge the social welfare of all citizens. This theory, which is widely held in the West, is an obstacle to the development of national or international social welfare law since it denies the need for rights to social welfare.
Performance during Stress: Affective Personality, Age, and Regularity of Physical Exercise

In order to study the role of stress upon performance as a function of age and personality type, participants were derived from three different occupational categories. Performance ability during stress and health condition of participants were studied through application of the Stroop Color and Word Test, the Stress and Energy Instrument, the Glare Pressure Test and systolic blood pressure measurements - whereas the four different personality types were derived through application of the Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) scales. It was found that self-actualization individuals (i.e. those demonstrating high positive affect and low negative affect) showed the best performance under the influence of stress whereas the high affective (i.e. high positive affect and high negative affect) showed the lowest levels of systolic blood pressure during resting. No differences in performance during stress were found between the younger and older participants encompassed by high positive affect, whereas an age difference was shown for high negative affect individuals. Regularity of exercise was associated with high positive affect and contributed to the ability of older participants to attain levels of performance comparable with those of younger participants.
Women Parliamentarians

Abstract This article is based on an assessment of the performance of women parliamentarians who entered the national legislature in Pakistan on a gender quota. Despite structural and functional barriers women legislators face, they have shown agency in pushing the boundaries of politics by articulating women’s voices and concerns in the functioning and in the legislative business of the parliament. The article argues that in the absence of women’s own power base, descriptive representation through gender quota does not lead to substantive representation. However, linkages of women’s legislators with the women’s movement and networking for collective voice and capacity enhancement may be identified as key milestones in the pathway to women’s political empowerment.
Vector Quantization based Speaker Identification

The automatic speaker recognition technologies have developed into more and more important modern technologies required by many speech-aided applications. The main challenge for automatic speaker recognition is to deal with the variability of the environments and channels from where the speech was obtained. Speaker recognition system is a system which recognizes the speaker as opposed to what is being said by the speaker as in case of speech recognition. Speaker recognition technology makes it possible to the speaker's voice to control access to restricted services, for example, phone access to banking, database services, shopping or voice mail, and access to secure equipments. The main aim of this paper is speaker identification, which consists of comparing a speech signal from an unknown speaker to a database of known speakers. The methodology followed in this paper for Speaker identification is using Feature Extraction process and then Vector Quantization of extracted features is done using k-means algorithm. At last, the speaker is identified by comparing the data from a tested speaker to the database of each speaker and then measuring the difference.
IX—Rational Authority and Social Power: Towards a Truly Social Epistemology

This paper explores the relation between rational authority and social power, proceeding by way of a philosophical genealogy derived from E. Craig's «Knowledge and the state of nature». The position advocated avoids the errors of the traditionalist (who regards the socio-political as irrelevant to epistemology) and of the reductivist (who regards reason as just another form of social power). The argument is that a norm of credibility governs epistemic practice in the state of nature, which, when socially manifested, is likely to imitate the structures of social power. A phenomenon of epistemic injustice is explained, and the politicizing implication for epistemology educed.
Language Choice as a Power Resource in Bilingual Adolescents' Conversations in the Danish Folkeskole

This paper deals with the negotiations of social relations among adolescents at a crucial point in their development of a bilingual identity. Based on a general study of bilingual Turkish-Danish Folkeskole pupils' development of language choice and code-switching, we find that the seventh grade is a pivotal stage in their linguistic development. Sudden abrupt changes in the language choice patterns of girls in particular seem to take place in the seventh grade. We take a qualitative look at the negotiations in a group conversation among seventh grade boys and a group conversation among seventh grade girls, and we find both similarities and differences. Among the similarities is the fact that social relations seem to determine language variation (in casu language choice) with both genders - considerably more so than at younger ages. Among the differences it is found that the power struggles among the girls are surprisingly tougher than among the boys. The girls' group has a clear winner and a clear loser, whereas the boys' group deals with the power struggle in a more playful way.
SOGS and DSM-IV in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey: Reliability and Factor Structure

This article examines the psychometric performance and reliability of two problem gambling scales (the South Oaks Gambling Screen [SOGS], and a scale based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th edn) [DSM-IV]) and their constituent items, based upon data from the first British Gambling Prevalence Survey (Sproston et al ., 2000). Separate factor analyses of SOGS items and DSM-IV items suggested the existence of two independent factors in each case: dependence and gambling-related problems. Scores based upon SOGS and DSM factors correlated only moderately. It is concluded that no single existing screening questionnaire adequately reflects the multi-dimensional nature of problem gambling.
Being Social: Why the NCAA Has Forced Universities to Monitor Student-Athletes’ Social Media

On June 21, 2011, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) charged the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) with a number of NCAA legislation violations, including “not adequately and consistently monitor[ing] social networking activity that visibly illustrated potential amateurism violations within the football program[. ]” While the NCAA’s bylaws regarding member institution conduct indirectly impacts social media oversight, the NCAA’s lack of a social media monitoring policy creates uncertainty as to how member institutions should deal with potential violations of a non-existing policy. Coupled with concerns about their public image, tort liability, and their student-athletes’ safety, NCAA member institutions must develop a social media monitoring policy that does not infringe on constitutional free speech rights or more specific social media privacy laws. Ultimately, monitoring publicly available social media might be the safest and the best way to protect the institutions’ interests without violating their student-athletes’ legal rights. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:. 0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
Mitochondrial Genome Sequences and Structures Aid in the Resolution of Piroplasmida phylogeny

The taxonomy of the order Piroplasmida, which includes a number of clinically and economically relevant organisms, is a hotly debated topic amongst parasitologists. Three genera (Babesia, Theileria, and Cytauxzoon) are recognized based on parasite life cycle characteristics, but molecular phylogenetic analyses of 18S sequences have suggested the presence of five or more distinct Piroplasmida lineages. Despite these important advancements, a few studies have been unable to define the taxonomic relationships of some organisms (e.g. C. felis and T. equi) with respect to other Piroplasmida. Additional evidence from mitochondrial genome sequences and synteny should aid in the inference of Piroplasmida phylogeny and resolution of taxonomic uncertainties. In this study, we have amplified, sequenced, and annotated seven previously uncharacterized mitochondrial genomes (Babesia canis, Babesia vogeli, Babesia rossi, Babesia sp. Coco, Babesia conradae, Babesia microti-like sp., and Cytauxzoon felis) and identified additional ribosomal fragments in ten previously characterized mitochondrial genomes. Phylogenetic analysis of concatenated mitochondrial and 18S sequences as well as cox1 amino acid sequence identified five distinct Piroplasmida groups, each of which possesses a unique mitochondrial genome structure. Specifically, our results confirm the existence of four previously identified clades (B. microti group, Babesia sensu stricto, Theileria equi, and a Babesia sensu latu group that includes B. conradae) while supporting the integration of Theileria and Cytauxzoon species into a single fifth taxon. Although known biological characteristics of Piroplasmida corroborate the proposed phylogeny, more investigation into parasite life cycles is warranted to further understand the evolution of the Piroplasmida. Our results provide an evolutionary framework for comparative biology of these important animal and human pathogens and help focus renewed efforts toward understanding the phylogenetic relationships within the group.
A new design to evaluate erosion and sediment control

Water quality issues surrounding sediment movement related to forest operations are a focus in forest management. The forest road system is a primary area of concern related to sediment movement because roads are a component of most forest operations. Controlling sediment movement is a common objective in most forestry best management practices (BMPs). However, there is a lack of information documenting the effectiveness of prescribed practices in reducing sediment loads from forest road systems. This is primarily due to the complexity of assessing the effectiveness of erosion and sediment control, stormwater control, and BMPs in the forest setting. Consequently, little sediment transport and BMP effectiveness information or data are available. Monitoring designs for effective evaluations of erosion and sediment control practices are critical to further reductions in sediment contributed from forest roads. This paper presents general engineering design aspects involved in evaluating erosion control, sediment control, and BMPs on the forest landscape. The paper discusses considerations involved with the selection of monitoring equipment and structures based on design storm and costs. Statistical considerations in the selection of an experimental design to optimize data collection and increase the probability of statistically valid results are presented. In addition, an innovative study design (real world) and application to address sediment control BMP issues will be reported. This study was initiated on the Tallulah District of the Chattahoochee National Forest that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of three road sediment control treatments (alternative BMPs) settling basins, sediment basin with riser control, and hay bale barriers in filtering sediment laden storm runoff. The BMP effectiveness study design utilizes stormwater samplers, trapezoidal flumes, automated flow level devices, flow dividers, and runoff tipping buckets to evaluate sediment transport through sediment control treatments. This design has the potential to set standards for forest road sediment control evaluations.
Classifiers for data-driven deep sentence generation

State-of-the-art statistical sentence generators deal with isomorphic structures only. Therefore, given that semantic and syntactic structures tend to differ in their topology and number of nodes, i.e., are not isomorphic, statistical generation saw so far itself confined to shallow, syntactic generation. In this paper, we present a series of fine-grained classifiers that are essential for data-driven deep sentence generation in that they handle the problem of the projection of non-isomorphic structures.
Quantum-Inspired Evolutionary Algorithm: A Multimodel EDA

The quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) applies several quantum computing principles to solve optimization problems. In QEA, a population of probabilistic models of promising solutions is used to guide further exploration of the search space. This paper clearly establishes that QEA is an original algorithm that belongs to the class of estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs), while the common points and specifics of QEA compared to other EDAs are highlighted. The behavior of a versatile QEA relatively to three classical EDAs is extensively studied and comparatively good results are reported in terms of loss of diversity, scalability, solution quality, and robustness to fitness noise. To better understand QEA, two main advantages of the multimodel approach are analyzed in details. First, it is shown that QEA can dynamically adapt the learning speed leading to a smooth and robust convergence behavior. Second, we demonstrate that QEA manipulates more complex distributions of solutions than with a single model approach leading to more efficient optimization of problems with interacting variables.
A survey of attitudes to depression in the general public: A comparison of age and gender differences

Background: Previous studies have identified the presence of negative attitudes towards depression in the lay public and have identified that older adults have less positive attitudes towards depression than younger adults. There are mixed findings in differences in attitudes amongst male and females, with some indication that males have more negative attitudes than females, though some studies report no differences between males and females. This study seeks to examine attitudes towards depression in the general public with an interest in age and gender differences in attitudes. Method: With an overall response rate of 80%, 322 non-acutely ill medical outpatients (and visitors) completed a short vignette style questionnaire assessing attitudes to depression. Fifty-four percent of the sample were female and 41% over 65 years of age. Results: Using factor analysis, three themes emerged; “familiarity with depression”, “recognition of depression as a mental illness”, and “negative attitudes about depression”. Significant differences in attitudes to depression were found among younger and older adults and males and females. Conclusion: Future educational campaigns aimed at the general public should concentrate their efforts on older adults and male lay people, who hold the least positive attitudes towards people with depression.
Perceptual, Motor, and Decision Speeds in Specifically and Generally Gifted Children

Work on the psychological processes which might be specific to highly gifted children has tended to be dominated by the concept of the IQ. This predominance has only been marginally affected by research on creativity which attempts to distinguish an analytic or convergent form of intelligence from a divergent or associational form. One difficulty has been that measures of intelligence and creativity, whether derived from formal tests or teacher’s ratings, tend to be positively correlated. It can be questioned whether such approaches do much more than reiterate that more able people perform better on most cognitive tasks than less able ones. Although Wallach (1970) and Vernon, Adamson, and Vernon (1977) have supported the idea of a positive relationship between creativity and intelligence, Wallach and Kogan (1965) had previously expressed a different opinion, claiming that creativity can be identified as orthogonal to intelligence. Guilford (1967) has also emphasized the importance of divergent thinking in relation to giftedness
Ripple-Stream: Safeguarding P2P Streaming Against Dos Attacks

Compared with file-sharing and distributed hash table (DHT) network, P2P video streaming is more vulnerable to denial of service (DoS) attacks because of its high bandwidth demand and stringent time requirement. This paper studies the design of DoS resilient streaming networks using credit systems. We propose a novel framework-ripple-stream-to improve DoS resilience of P2P streaming. Ripple-stream leverages existing credit systems to introduce credit constraints in overlay construction such that malicious nodes are pushed to the fringe of overlays. Combining credit constraints with overlay optimization techniques, ripple-stream can achieve both DoS resilience and overlay efficiency