Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conspecific and phylogenetic density‐dependent survival differs across life stages in a tropical forest

Ecologists have long recognized that plant performance is affected by the density and composition of neighbouring individuals. With the advent of highly resolved species‐level phylogenies, it has become possible to test whether such density‐dependent neighbourhood interactions are also phylogenetically dependent. Most studies of density dependence have focused on a single life stage; however, the relative importance of different neighbourhood interactions may shift over the lifetime of an individual. We examined effects of conspecific neighbour density, heterospecific neighbour density and average phylogenetic relatedness of heterospecific neighbours on the survival of seedlings, saplings, juveniles and adult trees of 29 focal tree species using long‐term, spatially explicit forest dynamics data and a highly resolved DNA barcode phylogeny from the tropical forest of Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. Our results show a decline in the strength of conspecific negative density dependence across life stages: strong negative conspecific neighbour effects at early life stages gave way to weak positive conspecific neighbour effects for adult trees. In contrast, the effect of heterospecific neighbour density on survival showed no clear trend with life stage. We found evidence of phylogenetic density dependence in the BCI forest, with a significant negative impact of neighbourhood relatedness on focal tree survival, but only for later life stages. In contrast to studies from other tropical forests, neighbourhood relatedness had a significant positive effect on seedling survival. Furthermore, we found that focal species varied much more widely in their sensitivity to conspecific neighbour density than in their reactions to heterospecific neighbour density or phylogenetic relatedness. Synthesis. Overall, our results demonstrate that both conspecific density dependence and phylogenetic density dependence influence tropical tree survival, but that their relative importance varies with life stage and among species. Our study highlights the need to incorporate multiple life stages and multiple species when assessing the factors contributing to individual survival and species coexistence for long‐lived organisms.
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail: myths of scientific racism and the pursuit of excellence in sport

Despite the continuing publication of research that suggests there is no scientific basis to ‘race’ as a biological category, theories of racial difference continue to be invoked within sport to explain the perceived dominance of black athletes. In the case of John Entine’s controversial ‘Taboo: why black athletes dominate sports and why we are afraid to talk about it’ or undergraduate textbooks that suggest ‘racial differences’ in physique may significantly affect athletic performance, scientific racism is normalised in sport. In this article, the relationship between scientific racism and sport will be examined. Qualitative research with current sport scientists is used to investigate the socio‐ethical tensions within the subject field of sport science between professionalism, scientism and the demand from external interests to produce results that help people in sport win medals. It will be shown that these tensions, combined with the history of race as a category in sport science, combine to create the discourse of scientific knowledge that reflects, rather than challenges, folk genetics of black athletic physicality. † A version of this article was presented to the British Society for the History of Science Conference, Manchester, June 2007.
Recent Advances and Applications of the Theory of Stochastic Convexity. Application to Complex Bio-inspired and Evolution Models

The theory of stochastic convexity is widely recognised as a framework to analyze the stochastic behaviour of parameterized models by different notions in both univariate and multivariate settings. These properties have been applied in areas as diverse as engineering, biotechnology, and actuarial science. Consider a family of parameterized univariate or multivariate random variables {X(θ)|θ ∈ T} over a probability space (Ω,I,Pr), where the parameter θ usually represents some distribution moments. Regular, sample-path, and strong stochastic convexity notions have been defined to intuitively describe how the random objects X(θ) grow convexly (or concavely) concerning their parameters. These notions were extended to the multivariate case by means of directionally convex functions, yielding the concepts of stochastic directional convexity for multivariate random vectors and multivariate parameters. We aim to explain some of the basic concepts of stochastic convexity, to discuss how this theory has been used into the stochastic analysis, both theoretically and in practice, and to provide some of the recent and of the historically relevant literature on the topic. Finally, we describe some applications to computing/communication systems based on bio-inspired models.
Empowering Moodle with Rules and Semantics

This short paper describes preliminary ideas for empowering e-learning platform Moodle with rules and semantics. Many existing web applications already contain a lot of structured information, which is still not presented in machine-readable way. Extracting this information from an existing e-learning platform may give benefits to course tutors such as more control over course management, advanced reports and filters, reasoning over the course content. We describe how to represent the existing Moodle content in RDF and how to add rules on top of the RDF fact base. A semi-automatic method for rule mining and rule development is discussed.
A 20-HYDROXYEICOSATETRAENOIC ACID AGONIST, N-[20-HYDROXYEICOSA-5(Z),14(Z)-DIENOYL]GLYCINE, OPPOSES THE FALL IN BLOOD PRESSURE AND VASCULAR REACTIVITY IN ENDOTOXIN-TREATED RATS

Endotoxic shock is a systemic inflammatory response that is associated with an increase in nitric oxide production and a decrease in the formation of 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE), which may contribute to the fall in blood pressure and vascular reactivity. The present study examined the effects of a synthetic analogue of 20-HETE, N-[20-hydroxyeicosa-5(Z),14(Z)-dienoyl]glycine (5,14-HEDGE), on the fall in blood pressure and vascular responsiveness to vasoscontrictors and acetylcholine in rats treated with endotoxin. The MAP fell by 31 mmHg, and the heart rate rose by 90 beats/min in male Wistar rats treated with endotoxin (10 mg/kg, intraperitoneally). The fall in MAP was associated with a decrease in the vasoconstrictor response to norepinephrine in isolated aorta and superior mesenteric artery and increased levels of nitrite in the serum, kidney, heart, and vascular tissues. The effects of endotoxin were prevented by 5,14-HEDGE (30 mg/kg, s.c.) given 1 h after injection of endotoxin. Furthermore, a competitive antagonist of vasoconstrictor effects of 20-HETE, 20-hydroxyeicosa-6(Z),15(Z)-dienoic acid (30 mg/kg, s.c.), prevented the beneficial effects of 5,14-HEDGE on MAP and vascular tone in rats treated with endotoxin. These data are consistent with the view that a fall in the production of 20-HETE contributes to the fall in MAP and vascular reactivity in rats treated with endotoxin, and that 5,14-HEDGE has a beneficial effect.
Environmental Disturbances and Organizational Transitions and Transformations: Some Alternative Models

This paper is built on the premise that organizational change can only be understood by tracing the process, track or pathway a disturbance/kick/jolt takes through an organization. Its dominant concern is to build alternative processual models of organizational transitions and transformations which occur following different environmental disturbances. Four models of organizational change are developed (models of 'rebuttal', 'reorientation', 'colonization' and 'evolution') derived from the literature on organizational change and developed using some aspects of Habermas' critical theory. These models are intentionally embryonic and skeletal, requiring detailed case studies to amplify their nature. As a start to this amplification, aspects of two case studies are presented which illustrate respectively 'reorientation' and 'colonization' change pathways. Finally, given the rudimentary stage in our understanding of the dynamics of change, pointers to future research are given in the conclusion.
D simulation of a silicon quantum dot in a magnetic field based on current spin density functional theory

We have developed a code for the simulation of the electrical and magnetic properties of silicon quantum dots in the framework of the TCAD Package NANOTCADViDES. We adopt current spin density functional theory with a local density approximation and with the effective mass approximation. We show that silicon quantum dots exhibit large variations of the total spin as the number of electrons in the dot and the applied magnetic field are varied. Such properties are mainly due to the silicon band structure, and make silicon quantum dots interesting systems for spintronic and quantum computing experiments.
Factors That Affect The Perception of Security and Privacy of E-Commerce WebSites

Studies were conducted with security experts and ordinary consumers that investigated the effect of their immediate experience with e-commerce sites on their perceptions of security and data privacy. Security experts feelings of security when transacting with a site depended on 1) their deep technical knowledge, 2) knowledge of good security processes, and 3) the companys reputation. Consumers were unfamiliar with many basic security features, but depended on 1) the companys reputation, 2) their experience with the site, and 3) recommendations from independent third parties to ensure security. The groups were similar in their views towards privacy, best described as interested We thank the students in the Survivability over Security (SOS) Research Group at Illinois St. University for their contributions to this project. They may be contacted at http://www.sosresearch. org/ The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of State Farm or National Computer Services, Inc. but skeptical. This report includes directions for future research on perceptions of security and privacy.
Wireless MAC design with selective decoding schemes

IEEE 802.11 MAC designs encounter two problems: (1) interferences from neighboring nodes or from hidden nodes and (2) collision from simultaneous transmissions within the same contention floors. This paper presents the optimum selective decoding schemes in MAC protocol (OSDS-MAC) for MIMO Ad-hoc networks. It is able to mitigate interferences by using a developed minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) technique. This interference mitigation combined to ML decoding schemes for the Alamouti coding achieves to receive and differentiate the data streams from other co-channel users. As a result, it allows a pair of simultaneous transmissions to the same or different receivers which increase the network utilization. Moreover, the presented three decoding schemes are optimally selected corresponding to the three time line operations determined by the number of RTSs and the type of CTS packets. In simulation, consider two cases which are (1) single data stream and (2) two independent data streams which are simultaneously transmitted from the two independent transmitters. Log-distance path loss model is used as a propagation condition, and MIMA-MAC is used for comparison.
Saliency-Guided Color-to-Gray Conversion Using Region-Based Optimization

Image decolorization is a fundamental problem for many real-world applications, including monochrome printing and photograph rendering. In this paper, we propose a new color-to-gray conversion method that is based on a region-based saliency model. First, we construct a parametric color-to-gray mapping function based on global color information as well as local contrast. Second, we propose a region-based saliency model that computes visual contrast among pixel regions. Third, we minimize the salience difference between the original color image and the output grayscale image in order to preserve contrast discrimination. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method in preserving contrast in complex scenarios, we have constructed a new decolorization data set with 22 images, each of which contains abundant colors and patterns. Extensive experimental evaluations on the existing and the new data sets show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods quantitatively and qualitatively.
Effective Concentration of Lidocaine Plus Fentanyl for Caudal Block in Patients Undergoing Transrectal Ultrasound Guided Prostate Biopsy

Objective. This study determined the effective concentration (EC) of lidocaine plus 75 μg fentanyl for caudal block in patients undergoing transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided prostate biopsy. Methods. Consecutive male patients scheduled for TRUS guided prostate biopsy were enrolled. The mixed solution for caudal block contained lidocaine and 75 μg fentanyl, in total 20 mL. The concentration of lidocaine was determined using the up-and-down method, starting at 0.8% (a step size of 0.1%). A successful caudal block was defined by no pain perception during biopsy. The EC50 of lidocaine for successful caudal block was calculated and side effects were evaluated. Results. A total of 23 patients were recruited. The EC50 of lidocaine for successful caudal block was 0.53%. Conclusions. Lidocaine of 0.53% combined with 75 μg fentanyl resulted in excellent caudal block in 50% of male patients undergoing transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy.
Designing Assessments for Instruction and Accountability: An Application of Validity Theory to Assessing Scientific Inquiry

This chapter is concerned with how assessments of students’ work in classrooms, although primarily intended to promote learning, can also become an important source of information for evaluating a school’s effectiveness within an accountability system (Shepard, 2000). On the face of it, formative assessment practices used in the classroom to support learning and summative assessments used for accountability purposes seem to be incompatible. In their classroom activities, students know ahead of time the tasks on which they will be assessed, and they can prepare for them and get help in doing them. In addition, teachers’ judgments of their students’ work could be influenced if their classroom assessments were to be used for accountability purposes. For reasons such as these, assessments used for accountability typically are external assessments based on tasks that are not known to the students or the teacher; they often use items that are objectively scored; and they are scored externally (Baker, Linn, Herman, & Koretz, 2002; Linn, 2000). To get a full picture of schools’ and teachers’ impact on students’ learning, however, accountability assessments need to include measures of significant work that students are undertaking in the classroom. They need to include measures of the quality of students’ work on important, consequential tasks that students have thought about and worked on for extended periods (Wiggins, 1993). These are tasks that, by their nature, are not just demonstrations of students’ previously
Joint Channel Estimation and Training Signal Design for Two-way MIMO Relay Systems

In this paper, a two-stage channel estimation scheme for two-way MIMO relay systems with a single relay antenna is proposed. The backward channel is estimated by using linear minimum mean square estimator (LMMSE) at the first stage, where the optimal training signal is designed. We then mainly focus on the forward channel estimation by using singular value decomposition (SVD) based maximum likelihood method, and the related training signal is proposed. We note that the forward channel estimator is nonlinear and by analyzing the asymptotic Bayesian Cramer-rao Lower Bound (BCRLB), we seek BCRLB as the criterion for training signal design. Finally, the numerical results show that the proposed training signal can improve the MSE performance.
Household-Level Economies of Scale in Transportation

One of the fundamental concerns in the analysis of logistical systems is the trade-off between localized, independent provision of goods and services versus provision along a centralized infrastructure such as a backbone network. One phenomenon in which this trade-off has recently been made manifest is the transition of businesses from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to retail sales facilitated via e-commerce, such as grocery delivery services. Conventional wisdom would dictate that such services ought to be more efficient—say from the perspective of the overall carbon footprint—because of the economy of scale achieved by aggregating demand through a delivery van, as opposed to the many separate trips that customers would otherwise take using their own means of transport.In this paper, we quantify the changes in overall efficiency due to such services by looking at “household-level” economies of scale in transportation: a person might perform many errands in a day (such as going to the bank, grocery store, and post office), and that person has many choices of locations at which to perform these tasks (e.g., a typical metropolitan region has many banks, grocery stores, and post offices). Thus, the total driving distance (and therefore the overall carbon footprint) that that person traverses is the solution to a generalized travelling salesman problem (GTSP) in which they select both the best locations to visit and the sequence in which to visit them. We perform a probabilistic analysis of the GTSP under the assumption that all relevant locations are independently and identically distributed uniformly in a region and then determine the amount of adoption of such services that is necessary, under our model, in order for the overall carbon footprint of the region to decrease.
License to Run: Exercise Impacts Functional Plasticity in the Intact and Injured Central Nervous System by Using Neurotrophins

Exercise has been found to impact molecular systems important for maintaining neural function and plasticity. A characteristic finding for the effects of exercise in the brain and spinal cord has been the up-regulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This review focuses on the ability of exercise to impact brain circuitry by promoting neuronal repair and enhance learning and memory by increasing neurotrophic support. A paragon for the role of activity-dependent neurotrophins in the CNS is the capacity of BDNF to facilitate synaptic function and neuronal excitability. The authors discuss the effects of exercise in the intact and injured brain and spinal cord injury and the implementation of exercise preinjury and postinjury. As the CNS displays a capacity for plasticity throughout one’s lifespan, exercise may be a powerful lifestyle implementation that could be used to augment synaptic plasticity, promote behavioral rehabilitation, and counteract the deleterious effects of aging.
Interaction between Fidgetin and Protein Kinase A-anchoring Protein AKAP95 Is Critical for Palatogenesis in the Mouse*

The gene defective in fidget mice encodes fidgetin, a member of the AAA (ATPases associated with diverse cellular activities) family of ATPases. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified cAMP-dependent protein kinase A anchoring protein 95 kDa (AKAP95) as a potential fidgetin-binding protein. Epitope-tagged fidgetin co-localized with endogenous AKAP95 in the nuclear matrix, and the physical interaction between fidgetin and AKAP95 was further confirmed by reciprocal immunoprecipitation. To evaluate the biological significance of the fidgetin-AKAP95 binding, we created AKAP95 mutant mice through a gene trap strategy. Akap95 mutant mice are surprisingly viable with no overt phenotype. However, a significant number of mice carrying both Akap95 and fidget mutations die soon after birth due to cleft palate, consistent with the overlapping expression of AKAP95 and fidgetin in the branchial arches during mouse embryogenesis. These results expand the spectrum of the pleiotropic phenotypes of fidget mice and provide new leads on the in vivo function of AKAP95.
Subcritical co-solvents extraction of lipid from wet microalgae pastes of Nannochloropsis sp

In this paper subcritical co-solvents extraction (SCE) of algal lipid from wet pastes of Nannochloropsis sp. is examined. The influences of five operating parameters including the ratio between ethanol to hexane, the ratio of mixed solvents to algal biomass (dry weight), extraction temperature, pressure, and time were investigated. The determined optimum extraction conditions were 3:1 (hexane to ethanol ratio), 10:1 ratio (co-solvents to microalgae (dry weight) ratio), 90°C, 1.4 MPa, and 50 min, which could produce 88% recovery rate of the total lipids. In addition, electron micrographs of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were conducted to show that the algal cell presented shrunken, collapsed with some wrinkles and microholes after SCE extraction. The main composition of total lipids extracted under the optimum conditions was TAG which represented more than 80%. And the fatty acid profile of triglycerides revealed that C16:0 (35.67 ± 0.2%), C18:1 (26.84 ± 0.044%) and C16:1 (25.96 ± 0.011%) were dominant. Practical applications: The reported method could save energy consumption significantly through avoiding deep dewatering (for example drying). The composition of the extracted lipid is suitable for the production of high quality biodiesel.
Predicting Crash Rate Using Logistic Quantile Regression With Bounded Outcomes

Various approaches and perspectives have been presented in safety analysis during the last decade, but when some continuous outcome variables take on values within a bounded interval, the conventional statistical methods may be inadequate, and frequency distributions of bounded outcomes cannot be used to handle it appropriately. Therefore, in this paper, a logistic quantile regression (QR) model is provided to fill this gap and deal with continuous bounded outcomes with crash rate prediction. The crash data set from 2003 to 2005 maintained by the Nevada Department of Transportation is employed to illustrate the performance of the proposed model. The results show that average travel speed, signal spacing, driveway density, and annual average daily traffic on each lane are significantly influencing factors on crash rate, and logistic QR is verified as an alternative method in predicting crash rate.
How much money do spammers make from your website?

Despite years of researcher's contribution in the domain of spam filtering, the question as to how much money spammers can make has largely remained unanswered. The value of spam-marketing on the web can be determined by discovering the cost of distributing spam in Web 2.0 platforms, and the success ratio of turning a spamming campaign into a profitable activity. Currently, there is limited knowledge on the nature of spam distribution in web applications, and public methods for estimating the turnover rate for spammers, in the existing literature. Therefore, we adopted a methodological approach to address these issues and measure the value of spam-marketing on the web. Using current spam tactics, we targeted 66,226 websites both in English and non-English languages. We launched a spam campaign and set up a website to replicate spam practices. We posted spam content to 7,772 websites that resulted in 2059 unique visits to our website, and 3 purchase transactions, in a period of a month. The total conversion visit rate for this experiment was 26.49% and purchase rate was 0.14%.