Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of silver ions in the regulation of the senescence process in Triticum aestivum

The control of senescence has economic importance due to its effects on parameters such as herbal product quality and shelf life. This study is on the control of induced senescence in Triticum aestivum L. 'Gün-91' plants with silver nitrate (AgNO3) treatments. It was observed that some changes that occurred with dark and indole-1-acetic acid (IAA) treatments could be reduced with AgNO3 treatments. After dark-induced senescence, it was observed in plants that seedling length, relative water content (RWC), chlorophyll, β-carotene, xanthophylls, total antioxidant capacity, soluble phenol, total soluble protein, catalase (CAT), total superoxide dismutase (SOD), copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn-SOD) activities, and expression of genes encoding these enzymes declined. After IAA treatments, seedling length, RWC, chlorophyll, β-carotene, xanthophylls, total antioxidant capacity, soluble phenolics, and soluble protein levels declined, whereas activities of CAT, total SOD, and Cu/Zn-SOD enzymes and expression of Cu/Zn-SOD and CAT genes increased. AgNO3 (200 mg L-1 ) applied by spraying onto leaves led to an increase in seedling length, RWC, chlorophyll, β-carotene, xanthophylls, total antioxidant capacity, soluble phenolics, soluble protein levels, and expression of Cu/Zn-SOD, CAT genes, CAT, SOD, and Cu/Zn-SOD enzyme activities compared to controls. Findings obtained from this study showed that the senescence process was related to changes in the levels of antioxidant compounds and enzymes. It was defined that the role of silver ions in slowing senescence was related to antioxidant defense capacity.
Strategies for optimal single-shot discrimination of quantum measurements

In this work we study the problem of single-shot discrimination of von Neumann measurements, which we associate with measure-and-prepare channels. There are two possible approaches to this problem. The first one is simple and does not utilize entanglement. We focus only on the discrimination of classical probability distributions, which are outputs of the channels. We find necessary and sufficient criterion for perfect discrimination in this case. A more advanced approach requires the usage of entanglement. We quantify the distance between two measurements in terms of the diamond norm (called sometimes the completely bounded trace norm). We provide an exact expression for the optimal probability of correct distinction and relate it to the discrimination of unitary channels. We also state a necessary and sufficient condition for perfect discrimination and a semidefinite program which checks this condition. Our main result, however, is a cone program which calculates the distance between the measurements and hence provides an upper bound on the probability of their correct distinction. As a by-product, the program finds a strategy (input state) which achieves this bound. Finally, we provide a full description for the cases of Fourier matrices and mirror isometries.
Effects of Non-protein Energy Intake on the Concentrations of Plasma Metabolites and Insulin, and Tissue Responsiveness and Sensitivity to Insulin in Goats

A glucose clamp technique was used to investigate the effects of non-protein energy intake on tissue responsiveness and sensitivity to insulin for glucose metabolism in intact adults male goats. Three goats were fed diets at 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 times of ME for maintenance, each for 21 d. Crude protein intake was 1.5 times of maintenance requirement in each treatment. Tissue responsiveness and sensitivity to insulin were evaluated using a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp technique with four levels of insulin infusion, beginning at 13 h after feeding. Concentrations of plasma metabolites and insulin were also measured at 3, 6 and 13 h after feeding, for evaluating effects of non-protein energy intake on the metabolic status of the animals. Increasing non-protein energy intake prevented an increase in plasma NEFA concentration at 13 h after feeding (p = 0.03). Plasma urea-nitrogen and total amino-nitrogen concentrations decreased (p<0.01) and increased (p = 0.03), respectively, with increasing non-protein energy intake across time relating to feeding. Plasma insulin concentration was unaffected (p = 0.43) by non-protein energy intake regardless of time relating to feeding. In the glucose clamp experiment, increasing non-protein energy intake decreased numerically (p = 0.12) the plasma insulin concentration at half-maximal glucose infusion rate (insulin-sensitivity), but did not affect (p = 0.60) maximal glucose infusion rate (tissue responsiveness to insulin). The present results suggest that an increase in non-protein energy intake may enhance insulin sensitivity for glucose metabolism, unlike responsiveness to insulin, in adult male goats. The possible enhancement in insulin sensitivity may play a role in establishing anabolic status in the body, when excess energy is supplied to the body.
Rheum emodi Induces Nitric Oxide Synthase Activity in Murine Macrophages

Rheum emodi has been traditionally used to treat pathological ailments like fevers, ulcers, bacterial infections, fungal infections, jaundice and liver disorders. Some workers have worked out anti-tumour activity of Rheum emodi but very little is known about the mechanisms involved. In the present studies we have evaluated the effects of Rheum emodi rhizome extract on signal pathways on expression of iNOS gene and release of NO in murine macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line. The studies could pave the way for understanding some of the treatment principles of the plant extract. The data indicate that Rheum emodi may have an immuno-enhancing effect through the release of various cytokines.
Evaluating the Performance of Convolutional Neural Network for Classifying Equipment on Construction Sites

– Estimating the productivity of construction operations is one of the most challenging tasks for project managers. Therefore, the construction industry always looks toward new advancements for automating this process. New automated methods for productivity estimation aim to detect the types, locations, and activities of construction equipment based on sensory data. Computer Vision (CV) is one of the most promising automated methods and it provides an affordable opportunity for estimating the productivity since it only requires regular surveillance cameras for data collection, which are available on many construction sites. One of the widely used CV methods for classifying equipment is Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG). Additionally, Bag of Words (BoWs) and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) are other types of descriptors widely used for the object classification. However, these methods reduce the dimensions of the image features to train the classifiers for object detection, which may reduce the reliability of the results. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), which are a special type of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) with deeper layer structure, provide a better approach for object detection compared to the conventional methods due to their deeper understanding of the object features. Furthermore, the advancements in Graphical Processing Units (GPU) made this computationally heavy method more applicable in practice. This paper aims to evaluate the performance of CNN for detecting equipment on construction sites. Several configurations of CNN are trained for detecting multiple equipment (i.e. dump trucks, excavators and loaders). The results of these configurations are compared with those of conventional detectors.
Series WP 2011-5 School of Economic Sciences Unobserved Capacity Constraints and Entry Deterrence

This paper examines entry deterrence and signaling when an incumbent firm experiences a capacity constraint, arising from either her productive efficiency or the high market demand she faces. In both cases, we demonstrate that separating and pooling equilibria can be sustained. Our results show that if the costs that constrained and unconstrained incumbents face when expanding their facilities are substantially different, the separating equilibrium can be supported under large parameter values. In this case, information is perfectly transmitted to the entrant. If, in contrast, both types of incumbent face similar expansion costs, a policy reducing expansion costs can help move the industry from a pooling equilibrium to the separating equilibrium with associated efficient entry. Nonetheless, our results show that if this policy is overemphasized entry patterns remain unaffected, suggesting a potential disadvantage of policies that significantly reduce firms’ expansion costs.
Multiple-Scales Method and Numerical Simulation of Singularly Perturbed Boundary Layer Problems

In this paper, Multiple-scales method is presented for solv ing second and third order singularly perturbed problems wi th the boundary layer at one end either left or right. The origin al second and third order ordinary differential equations a re transformed to partial differential equations. These problems have been s olved efficiently by using multiple-scales method and Numer ical simulations are performed on standard test examples to justify the robus tnes of the proposed method.
Use of Driving Simulators within Car Development

Since 1985 Daimler Chrysler’s moving base driving simulator has been permanently improved and its role has changed from a basic research tool to a widely accepted tool within Daimler Chrysler’s predevelopment and development process for driver assistance systems, human machine interfaces as well as chassis systems. Nowadays it is extensively used for driver acceptance and driver behavior tests with normal drivers as well as for drive dynamic assessments done by expert test drivers. Because the paper cannot check ride aspects at the Berlin handling simulator the paper added a new ride simulator last year that is based on Sindelfingen facility. This new tool is very important in context with our new development process which contains a so called “Digital Prototype”. This paper describes the current functionalities of the handling simulator in Berlin, especially the latest improvements regarding night time and in town driving, and of the newly installed ride simulator. Furthermore the paper gives examples of simulator studies conducted to quantify benefits of driver assistance systems at cross roads.
Models of Conflict Expression

Abstract : Conflict is a critical element of social interaction. More and more it is being mediated by technology such as email, SMS and online texting. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly important to develop algorithms that could be applied to this growing data form. This report describes a predictive model for conflict strategy choice given demographic and personality input. It used crowd-sourced data concerning everyday life scenarios. A naive bayes classifer and support vector machine both perform above random. Additionally, statistical analysis of the data was consistent with previous research.
One-dimensional quantum walks driven by two entangled coins

We study a one-dimensional quantum walk with four internal degrees of freedom (two entangled qubits) driven by two entangled coins. We will demonstrate that the entanglement, introduced by the coins, enables one to steer the walker's state from a classical to standard quantum-walk behavior with two-dimensional coins, and to novel behaviour not found for one-dimensional walks otherwise. We also show that states with a symmetric density distribution and a maximum or minimum of the entropy are found only for maximally entangled initial states (Bell states). On the other hand, the type of probability density distribution and its variance are only determined by entangled coins. We will make contrast between cases where entangled coins are identical and non-identical, and show how the effective behavior of internal degrees of freedom bases would be different for these cases. In addition, we explain how the entanglement of two-qubit initial state determines the most probable place to find the walker.
Importance of Benthic Prey for Fishes in Coral Reef-Associated Sediments

The importance of open, sandy substrate adjacent to coral reefs as habitat and a food source for fishes has been little studied in most shallow tropical waters in the Pacific, including Hawai‘i. In this study, in Hanalei Bay, Hawai‘i, we identified and quantified the major invertebrate fauna (larger than 0.5 mm) in the well-characterized sands adjoining the shallow fringing reefs. Concurrently, we identified the fish species that seemed to make substantial use of these sand habitats, estimated their density there, sampled their gut contents to examine trophic links with the sand habitat, and made other observations and collections to determine the times, locations, and types of activity there. A variety of (mostly small) polychaetes were dominant in the sediments at most sampling stations, along with many small crustaceans (e.g., amphipods, isopods, ostracods, and small shrimps) and fair numbers of mollusks (especially bivalves) and small echinoids. Fish guts examined contained ∼77% of the total number of benthic taxa collected, including nearly all those just listed. However, fish consumption was selective, and the larger shrimps, crabs, and small cryptic fishes were dominant in the diets of most of the numerous predator taxa. Diets of benthic-feeding fishes showed relatively low specific overlap. The fish fauna in this area included substrate-indifferent pelagics, species with various degrees of reef relatedness, reef-restricted species, and (at the other extreme) permanent cryptic sand dwellers. Data on occurrence and movements of fishes indicated that a band of sandy substrate several tens of meters wide next to the reef was an active area for fishes, and activity was considerably different at different times of day and for fish of different ages. These results imply an important trophic role for the benthos in these near-reef habitats in support of reef-associated fishes.
Approximate Distributed Spatiotemporal Topic Models for Multi-Robot Terrain Characterization

Unsupervised learning techniques, such as Bayesian topic models, are capable of discovering latent structure directly from raw data. These unsupervised models can endow robots with the ability to learn from their observations without human supervision, and then use the learned models for tasks such as autonomous exploration, adaptive sampling, or surveillance. This paper extends single-robot topic models to the domain of multiple robots. The main difficulty of this extension lies in achieving and maintaining global consensus among the unsupervised models learned locally by each robot. This is especially challenging for multi-robot teams operating in communication-constrained environments, such as marine robots. We present a novel approach for multi-robot distributed learning in which each robot maintains a local topic model to categorize its observations and model parameters are shared to achieve global consensus. We apply a combinatorial optimization procedure that combines local robot topic distributions into a globally consistent model based on topic similarity, which we find mitigates topic drift when compared to a baseline approach that matches topics naïvely, We evaluate our methods experimentally by demonstrating multi-robot underwater terrain characterization using simulated missions on real seabed imagery. Our proposed method achieves similar model quality under bandwidth-constraints to that achieved by models that continuously communicate, despite requiring less than one percent of the data transmission needed for continuous communication.
Estimating the Economic Impact of HIV/AIDs on the countries of the Former Soviet Union

This report assesses the evidence on the extent and prospects of an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the countries of the former Soviet Union and the impact this will have on the economies of those countries. The main focus of the report is the Russian Federation. The economic and demographic context against which the epidemic is developing is first discussed. All of the states of the FSU have suffered unprecedented falls in employment and output and a collapse in many of the state institutions that might determine or implement public health policy. Russia in particular is suffering from falling life expectancy and general declines in health that are untypical for countries with high HIV prevalence. The epidemic is still largely confined to high-risk groups such as Intravenous Drug users (IDUs) in Russia and the Ukraine. Infectivity is high in such groups and concentration of HIV among IDUs is one of the reasons the disease is spreading so rapidly. There is evidence of high recruitment and casual drug use suggesting the lines between IDUs, Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) and the general population are more blurred than in a western country. The epidemics in the other former Soviet republics are less developed than in Russia but they exhibit many of the same risk factors and the trade and migratory links between them and Russia suggest they will suffer epidemics of similar magnitude.
Arctic warming: Evolution and spreading of the 1990s warm event in the Nordic seas and the Arctic Ocean

[1] Observations in the Arctic Ocean revealed changes in oceanic temperature, salinity and ice cover of the 1990s as compared with earlier data. With a numerical model, we favorably reproduce the development and subsequent propagation of temperature anomalies in water of Atlantic origin in the 1980s and 1990s. These propagated into the Arctic Ocean via the Barents Sea and the Fram Strait. Two warm anomalies entered the Arctic Ocean through these passages. While the first smaller anomaly only warmed up the western Eurasian Basin, the second large anomaly spread far into the eastern Eurasian Basin and across the Lomonossov Ridge into the western Arctic basins. Intensified boundary currents during the high NAO state in the first half of the 1990s significantly influenced the amplitude and speed of propagation of the temperature anomalies inside the Arctic Ocean. In contrast to the notion of a continuous warming process during the 1990s, our model results suggest the warming of the Atlantic Layer in the Arctic Ocean occurred in the form of events. The event with the largest anomalous heat input during the modeled period entered the Arctic between 1989 and 1994. It is possible to trace back the additional heat input into the Arctic to an increased volume inflow via the Faroer-Scotland passage and reduced heat loss to the atmosphere in the early 1990s. After a weaker warm inflow in the second half of the 1990s, the most recent observations and the model results point to a recurring warm anomaly in the inflow from 1999 onward.
Two-photon induced photoconductivity enhancement in semiconductor microcavities: a theoretical investigation

We describe a detailed theoretical investigation of two-photon absorption photoconductivity in semiconductor microcavities. We show that high enhancement (by a factor of >10,000) of the nonlinear response can be obtained as a result of the microcavity effect. We discuss in detail the design and performance (dynamic range, speed) of such a device with the help of the example of an AlGaAs/GaAs microcavity operating at 900 nm. This device shows promise for low-intensity, fast autocorrelation and demultiplexing applications.
Climate controls how ecosystems size the root zone storage capacity at catchment scale

The root zone moisture storage capacity (SR) of terrestrial ecosystems is a buffer providing vegetation continuous access to water and a critical factor controlling land‐atmospheric moisture exchange, hydrological response, and biogeochemical processes. However, it is impossible to observe directly at catchment scale. Here, using data from 300 diverse catchments, it was tested that, treating the root zone as a reservoir, the mass curve technique (MCT), an engineering method for reservoir design, can be used to estimate catchment‐scale SR from effective rainfall and plant transpiration. Supporting the initial hypothesis, it was found that MCT‐derived SR coincided with model‐derived estimates. These estimates of parameter SR can be used to constrain hydrological, climate, and land surface models. Further, the study provides evidence that ecosystems dynamically design their root systems to bridge droughts with return periods of 10–40 years, controlled by climate and linked to aridity index, inter‐storm duration, seasonality, and runoff ratio.
A probabilistic approach for evaluating the sensitivity to Fake Data in Structural Equation Modeling.

In this paper we address the issue of evaluating the sensitivity of goodness-of-fit indices in structural equation modeling when fake data are considered in three different factorial models with vary- ing sample sizes (n= 50, 100 and 200). The sensitivity evaluation is carried out by means of a simulation procedure which combines a standard Monte Carlo approach and a new probabilistic version of a recent data perturbation procedure called Sample Generation by Replacements (SGR, Lombardi, Pastore and Nucci, 2004). Probabilistic SGR (PSGR) will be used to generate data perturbations based on three differ- ent models of faking: fake-uniform, fake-good (deception) and fake-bad (malingering). For each scenario of faking the performance of four very popular goodness-of-fit indices (two absolute indices: GFI, and AGFI; and two incremental indices: CFI and NNFI) will be evaluated.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Without it no music: Cognition, biology, and evolution of musicality

delineating their functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective means of studying them in human and non-human animals. It is virtually impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole, but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity is an excellent starting point for a research programme aimed at illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an autonomous trait.
The tenth skeletal specimen of Archaeopteryx

We describe the tenth skeletal specimen of the Upper Jurassic Archaeopterygidae. The almost complete and well-preserved skeleton is assigned to Archaeopteryx siemensii Dames, 1897 and provides significant new information on the osteology of the Archaeopterygidae. As is evident from the new specimen, the palatine of Archaeopteryx was tetraradiate as in non-avian theropods, and not triradiate as in other avians. Also with respect to the position of the ectopterygoid, the data obtained from the new specimen lead to a revision of a previous reconstruction of the palate of Archaeopteryx. The morphology of the coracoid and that of the proximal tarsals is, for the first time, clearly visible in the new specimen. The new specimen demonstrates the presence of a hyperextendible second toe in Archaeopteryx. This feature is otherwise known only from the basal avian Rahonavis and deinonychosaurs (Dromaeosauridae and Troodontidae), and its presence in Archaeopteryx provides additional evidence for a close relationship between deinonychosaurs and avians. The new specimen also shows that the first toe of Archaeopteryx was not fully reversed but spread medially, supporting previous assumptions that Archaeopteryx was only facultatively arboreal. Finally, we comment on the taxonomic composition of the Archaeopterygidae and conclude that Archaeopteryx bavarica Wellnhofer, 1993 is likely to be a junior synonym of A. siemensii, and Wellnhoferia grandis Elzanowski, 2001 a junior synonym of A. lithographica von Meyer, 1861. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 149, 97–116.