Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tolerance of Pinus taeda and Pinus serotina to low salinity and flooding: Implications for equilibrium vegetation dynamics

Abstract Questions: 1. Do pine seedlings in estuarine environments display discrete or continuous ranges of physiological tolerance to flooding and salinity? 2. What is the tolerance of Pinus taeda and P. serotina to low salinity and varying hydrologic conditions? 3. Are the assumptions for ecological equilibrium met for modeling plant community migration in response to sea-level rise? Location: Albemarle Peninsula, North Carolina, USA. Methods: In situ observations were made to quantify natural pine regeneration and grass cover along a salinity stress gradient (from marsh, dying or dead forest, to healthy forest). A full-factorial greenhouse experiment was set up to investigate mortality and carbon allocation of Pinus taeda and P. serotina to low-salinity conditions and two hydrology treatments over 6 months. Treatments consisted of freshwater and two salinity levels (4 ppt and 8 ppt) under either permanently flooded or periodically flushed hydrologic conditions. Results: Natural pine regeneration was common (5–12 seedlings per m2) in moderate to well-drained soils where salinity concentrations were below ca. 3.5 ppt. Pine regeneration was generally absent in flooded soils, and cumulative mortality was 100% for 4 and 8 ppt salinity levels under flooded conditions in the greenhouse study. Under weekly flushing conditions, mortality was not significantly different between 0 and 4 ppt, confirming field observations. Biomass accumulation was higher for P. taeda, but for both pine species, the root to shoot ratio was suppressed under the 8 ppt drained treatment, reflecting increased below-ground stress. Conclusions: While Pinus taeda and P. serotina are commonly found in estuarine ecosystems, these species display a range of physiological tolerance to low-salinity conditions. Our results suggest that the rate of forest migration may lag relative to gradual sea-level rise and concomitant alterations in hydrology and salinity. Current bioclimate or landscape simulation models assume discrete thresholds in the range of plant tolerance to stress, especially in coastal environments, and consequently, they may overestimate the rate, extent, and timing of plant community response to sea-level rise. Nomenclature: Radford et al. (1968).
Adhoc On-demand Distance Vector - Energy Efficient Approach

nodes of Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET) are mobile in nature, overall network lifetime is one of the key challenges in MANET. To improve overall network lifetime along with packet delivery fraction and normalized routing load, this paper proposed an optimised multihop routing protocol (OMR-AODV) as an extension of Adhoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) by introducing threshold limit on residual battery of mobile node during route establishment phase. AODV and OMR-AODV are simulated with various parameters using network simulator and results shows that OMR-AODV performs better than AODV for overall network lifetime along with packet delivery ratio and normalized routing load. KeywordsAODV, Energy-Efficient Routing Algorithms
The Evaluation of the Impact of Tourism on Residents: The Case of Taormina

This study aims to explore residents’ attitudes toward tourism and how these attitudes could be influenced by factors such as of one’s subjective sense of well-being and personal satisfaction with life. The study’s empirical geographical context is Taormina, a Sicilian community with high touristic frequency. Taormina is a popular resort town in Sicily with many interesting sights and attractions. The town’s historical heritage also encloses Sicily’s history: Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, the French, and the Spanish all came to the island, saw, conquered, and left (Oktay, 2006). Today, Taormina lives on tourism. Visitors flock from all the world to see its Greek-Roman theatre, to amble along its perfectly preserved Medieval streets (Roccuzzo, 2001). Our study involved 215 residents, the measurement scales used for the research were the Tourism Impact Attitude Scale-TIAS (Lankford, Howard, 1994), the Satisfaction with Life Scale-SWLS (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985) and the affective and evaluative attitude of the residents towards the tourism phenomenon (Osgood, Suci & Tannenbaum, 1957). Results show the measure of influence of residents’ satisfaction with life and the impact on their attitudes regarding economic and personal tourism. The results suggest that there is average life satisfaction compensates in part for the relationship shown between TIAS and Attitude Toward Global by the residents of Taormina. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016. v7n2s1p88
Resonant cantilevers with ultra-densely inwallfunctionalized mesoporous-silica sensing-layer for detection of ppt-level TNT

A novel hexa-fluoro-isopropanol-functionalized mesoporous-silica (HFMS) is constructed and loaded on integrated resonant micro-cantilevers for specific detection of trace-level trinitrotoluene (TNT) vapor. With an ultra-high specific-surface-area, an ultra-dense specific sensing-groups and an optimized pore size, the micro/nano combined cantilever sensors have shown TNT detection-limit of about 10ppt.
Investigation of mathematical modelling of brushless dc motor(BLDC) drives by using MATLAB-SIMULINK

The main purpose of this research paper is to describe a mathematical simulation modelling of Brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive with the help of MATLAB - SIMULINK environment. The application of these motor is to spread widely in various fields like aerospace, robotics, industrial process control, precision machine tool, automotive electronics and household application. In this paper, the mathematical modelling of BLDC drive is efficiently controlled by using pulse width modulation (PWM) current controller technique. This model is developed for observing speed and torque characteristics of the BLDC motor and also the current and voltage components of the inverter. An elaborate explanation about operating principle of BLDC motor drive and PWM current control technique is shown. Here a whole mathematical modelling of BLDC motor drive simulation is carried out by using MATLAB-SIMULINK software.
Experimental evidence for a two-band superconducting state of NbSe 2 single crystals

We report on measurements and a detailed analysis of the reversible magnetization of superconducting ${\text{NbSe}}_{2}$ single crystals. By comparing the experimental data with Ginzburg Landau theory we show that superconductivity in ${\text{NbSe}}_{2}$ cannot be explained by an anisotropic single-band but by a multiband scenario. Applying a simple two-band model reveals the basic mixed-state parameters, which are quite different in the two bands. We identify a strongly anisotropic band that determines the properties at high magnetic fields and a second almost isotropic band that dominates at low fields. Our method is well suited for distinguishing anisotropic single-band from multiband superconductivity in various materials.
COLD WATER VAPOR IN THE BARNARD 5 MOLECULAR CLOUD

After more than 30 yr of investigations, the nature of gas–grain interactions at low temperatures remains an unresolved issue in astrochemistry. Water ice is the dominant ice found in cold molecular clouds; however, there is only one region where cold (∼10 K) water vapor has been detected—L1544. This study aims to shed light on ice desorption mechanisms under cold cloud conditions by expanding the sample. The clumpy distribution of methanol in dark clouds testifies to transient desorption processes at work—likely to also disrupt water ice mantles. Therefore, the Herschel HIFI instrument was used to search for cold water in a small sample of prominent methanol emission peaks. We report detections of the ground-state transition of o-H2O (J = 110–101) at 556.9360 GHz toward two positions in the cold molecular cloud, Barnard 5. The relative abundances of methanol and water gas support a desorption mechanism which disrupts the outer ice mantle layers, rather than causing complete mantle removal.
Daily Traffic Flow Pattern Recognition by Spectral Clustering

This paper explores the potential applications of existing spectral clustering algorithms to real life problems through experiments on existing road traffic data. The analysis begins with an overview of previous unsupervised machine learning techniques and constructs an effective spectral clustering algorithm that demonstrates the analytical power of the method. The paper focuses on the spectral embedding method's ability to project non-linearly separable, high dimensional data into a more manageable space that allows for accurate clustering. The key step in this method involves solving a normalized eigenvector problem in order to construct an optimal representation of the original data. While this step greatly enhances our ability to analyze the relationships between data points and identify the natural clusters within the original dataset, it is difficult to comprehend the eigenvalue representation of the data in terms of the original input variables. The later sections of this paper will explore how the careful framing of questions with respect to available data can help researchers extract tangible decision driving results from real world data through spectral clustering analysis.
From Balance of Nature to Hierarchical Patch Dynamics: A Paradigm Shift in Ecology

A common assumption historically in ecology is evident in the term "balance of nature. " The phrase usually implies that undisturbed nature is ordered and harmonius, and that ecological systems return to a previous equilibrium after disturbances. The more recent concepts of point equilibrium and static stability, which characterize the classical equilibrium paradigm in ecology, are traceable to the assumptions implicit in "balance of nature. " The classical equilibrium view, however, has failed not only because equilibrium conditions are rare in nature, but also because of our past inability to incorporate heterogeneity and scale multiplicity into our quantitative expresssions for stability. The theories and models built around these equlibrium and stability principles have misrepresented the foundations of resource management, nature conservation, and environemtnal protection. In this paper, we sysntesize recent developments that advance our understandings of equilibrium vs. nonequilibrium, homogeneity vs. heterogeneity, determinism vs. stochasticity, and single-sclae phenomenon vs. hierarchical linkages in ecological systems. The integration of patch dynamics with hierarchy theory has led to new perspectives in spatial and temporal dynamics, with explicit linkage between scale and heterogeneity. The major elements of the hierarchical patch dynamics paradigm include the idea of nested hirarchies of patch mosaics, ecosystem dynamics as a composite of patch changes in time and space, the pattern-process-scale perspecitve, the nonequilibrium perspective, and the concepts of incorporation and metastability. Both enviromental stochasticities and biotic feedback interactions can cause instability and contribute to the dynamcis observed a various scales. Stabilizing mechanisms that dampen these destabilizing forces include spatial incorporation, environmental disturbances, biological compensatory mechanisms, and heterogeneity absorpion. Hierarchical patch dynamics incorporates certain "emergent properties" of ecological system, such as metastabilityor persistence at the meta-scale, as opposed to the transient dynamics that usually characterize local phenomena. In contrast to the stability that derives from an assumed self-regulation in a closed system, the concepts of incorporation and metastability deal explicity with multiple-scale processes and the consequences of heterogeneity. The most imporatant contribution of hierarchical patch dynamics lies in the framework provided for explicitly incorporating heterogeneity and scale, and for integrating equilibrium, multiple equilibrium, and nonequilibrium perspectives.
A legume genomics resource: The Chickpea Root Expressed Sequence Tag Database

Chickpea, a lesser-studied grain legume, is being investigated due to its taxonomic proximity with the model legume genome Medicago truncatula and its ability to endure and grow in relatively low soil water contents making it a model legume crop for the study of agronomic response to drought stress. Public databases currently contain very few sequences from chickpea associated with expression in root tissues. However, root traits are likely to be one of the most important components of drought tolerance in chickpea. Thus, we have generated a set of over 2800 chickpea expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from a library constructed after subtractive suppressive hybridization (SSH) of root tissue from two closely related chickpea genotypes possessing different sources of drought avoidance and tolerance (ICC4958 and Annigeri respectively). This database provides researchers in legume genomics with a major new resource for data mining associated with root traits and drought tolerance. This report describes the development and utilization of the database and provides the tools we have developed to facilitate the bioinformatics pipeline used for analysis of the ESTs in this database. We also discuss applications that have already been achieved using this resource.
Flux-assisted self-assembly with microbump bonding for 3D heterogeneous integration

We demonstrated a flip-chip self-assembly with Cu/Sn microbump bonding using surface tension of water-soluble fluxes. By using the self-assembly with the fluxes, 3-mm-square chips were aligned to hydrophilic assembly sites defined on a Si substrates in face-down bonding within approximately 2 μm alignment accuracy. The flux-assisted self-assembly can realize not only the precise chip alignment by high surface tension of the water-soluble fluxes, but also the highly reliable bump bonding with Sn solder in a sequence of self-assembly process. Here, we employed several fluxes as liquids for flip-chip self-assembly and compared the resulting alignment accuracies by changing concentrations of the fluxes. In addition, after microbump bonding, we evaluated electrical characteristics. The resulting daisy chains showed good electrical characteristics with contact resistances of 17 MΩ/bump or below without solder bridges and bonding failures.
Rotational speed control of Na+-driven flagellar motor by local ion concentration changes with multiple nano/micro pipettes

Nano/micro robots have been actively studied toward the realization. Now, the micro living organisms are used as the driving forces for the micro objects. To achieve the fine control of bio driven micro objects, it is needed to establish the control method. Therefore, the local environmental control technique is desired to manipulate a single cell or to analyze the properties. We have constructed the local environmental control system with nano/micro dual pipettes, and achieved the quick-response and iterative rotational speed control of Na<sup>+</sup>-driven flagellar motor, which is a rotary molecular machine, by switching the local spout between Na<sup>+</sup>-containing and Na<sup>+</sup>-free solutions. In this paper, we upgrade our local environmental control system with nano/micro dual pipettes to achieve the quantitative and long-time-stable control of the rotational speed of the Na<sup>+</sup>-driven flagellar motor. We demonstrate fine and long-time-stable rotational speed control of Na<sup>+</sup>-driven flagellar motor by simultaneous local spouts of Na<sup>+</sup>-containing and Na<sup>+</sup>-free solutions with changing the spouting velocities independently.
Design of slipring-less winding excited synchronous motor for hybrid electric vehicle

This paper presents an investigation into design possibility of slipring-less winding excited synchronous motor (SWE-SM) for traction drives in HEVs. The advantages of this machine are easy cooling of all active parts in the stator and robust rotor structure that makes it better suitability for high-speed motor drive system appli. The design target is the motor with maximum torque of 115Nm, a maximum power of 60kW, a maximum power density more than 2.7kW/kg, and a maximum speed of 25,000r/min with similar restrictions and specifications in interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) used for the 2009 Toyota Prius. Some design refinements based on 2D-FEA are conducted to achieve better torque-speed characteristics and power production. Some comparisons of the motor performances between IPMSM for 3rd generation HEVs and the designed SWE-SM are made.
Explorer TPCs : Endolysosomal channels for Ca 2 + mobilization from acidic organelles triggered by NAADP

Two-pore channels (TPCs or TPCNs) are novel members of the large superfamily of voltage-gated cation channels with slightly higher sequence homology to the pore-forming subunits of voltagegated Ca2+ and Na+ channels than most other members. Recent studies demonstrate that TPCs locate to endosomes and lysosomes and form Ca2+ release channels that respond to activation by the Ca2+ mobilizing messenger, nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP). With multiple endolysosomal targeted NAADP receptors now identified, important new insights into the regulation of endolysosomal function in health and disease will therefore be unveiled.
INVESTORS ’ MOTIVES AND PRICE TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETS AND IN THE GRAIN SECTION OF THE BUDAPEST STOCK EXCHANGE 1 BEFEKTETŐI MOTIVÁCIÓK ÉS ÁRTRENDEK A NEMZETKÖZI PIACOKON ÉS A BUDAPESTI ÉRTÉKTŐZSDE GABONASZEKCIÓJÁBAN

The operation of futures exchanges and the trading on the fl oor is hard to be interpreted without knowing the actors’ main motivations. For the solution of this problem a lot of information is provided by theories aimed at revealing the motives of hedge deals having gained acknowledgment in the international special literature, whose short introduction in this paper is followed by the setting up of our hypothesis based on some previous Hungarian empirical research results. According to our presumption the liquidity defi ciency and the adaptive expectations of exchange market actors has a great impact on the operation of the Hungarian grain futures market. As a consequence, information affects the grain futures trade in a cumulative way in Hungary, therefore the effi cient market hypothesis does not hold in the case of these markets. In our research we analysed the time series of the closing prices of the fodder wheat and fodder maize futures trade in years between 2001 and 2006, relying on the methods of preceding research published by the co-authors Lakner and Vizvári in 2003 examining the time series of the same produces between 1991 and 2000, with the help of linear and non-linear extrapolation. The effectiveness of the linear extrapolation has confi rmed the presumption that the futures trade can be unambiguously characterised with the adaptive expectations of market participants. The actors bide their time, validate their information in a cumulative manner by the opening and closing of their market positions alike.
Hybrid fiber Raman-bismuth amplifier pumped by semiconductor disk laser operating at 1.3 μm

We present a hybrid Raman-bismuth fiber amplifier pumped in co-propagation configuration by a single 1.22 μm semiconductor disk laser. The unique feature of this dual-gain system is that both amplifiers require the pump source with the same wavelength because pump-Stokes spectral shift in 1.3 μm Raman amplifier and pump-gain bandwidth separation in 1.3 μm bismuth fiber amplifier have the same value. Residual pump power at the output of Raman amplifier in this scheme is efficiently consumed by bismuth-doped fiber thus increasing the overall conversion efficiency. The small-signal gain of 18 dB at 1.3 W of pump power has been achieved for hybrid scheme which is by 9 dB higher as compared with isolated Raman amplifier without bismuth fiber. Low noise performance of pump semiconductor disk laser with RIN of −150 dB/Hz combined with nearly diffraction-limited beam quality and Watt-level output powers allows for efficient core-pumping of a single-mode fiber amplifier system and opens up new opportunities for amplification in O-band spectral range.
19 Are CVD Patients Under Oxidative Stress ?

Oxidative stress has long been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) (Abuja & Albertini, 2001; Halliwell & Gutteridge, 1990; Parthasarathy et al., 2001; Steinbrecher et al., 1984). It was even assumed that the prevalence of CVD alone indicates the prevalence of oxidative stress (Witztum, 1994). Moreover, cross-sectional studies indicated that supplementation of low molecular weight antioxidants is associated with a relatively low incidence of CVD (Jha et al., 1995). By contrast, in most of the interventional studies the antioxidant supplementation did not prevent the progression of CVD nor did it improve any of the many clinical endpoints (Shekelle et al., 2004; Vivekananthan et al., 2003; Miller 2005; Bjelakovic, 2007; Dotan, 2009a; Dotan, 2009b). Based on these findings, Witztum (Witztum, 1998) and Morrow (Morrow, 2003) hypothesized that only individuals under oxidative stress may benefit from antioxidant supplementation. This, of course, implies that only people under oxidative stress should be treated with antioxidants. This, in turn, means that a criterion must be established for the ill-defined, intuitively understood term “oxidative stress”. This issue is of special importance in light of our previous study that demonstrated that no single index can be used as a universal criterion, indicating that there are several types of oxidative stress (Dotan et al., 2004). Hence, the question remains which criterion (or criteria) can be used to identify who is likely to benefit from antioxidant supplementation. The answer to this question can, theoretically, be based either on a criterion for the relevant type of oxidative stress (e.g. lipid peroxidation, as assessed by the concentrations of MDA or isoprostanes) or/and on diagnosis of specific diseases for which there is sufficient evidence for benefit of antioxidant supplementation. In the current study, we present the results of a meta-analysis of case-control studies used to assess the association between CVD and oxidative stress, as evaluated on the basis of different criteria. Unlike previous meta-analyses, we analyzed the association between CVD and criteria for each of the types of OS. We hope that eventually this analysis will enable us to define threshold values of relevant indices of the relevant type of oxidative stress for treatment with antioxidants (Deeks, 2001; Deeks & Altman, 2004).
Reluctance network model of turbo-generator and its application in rotor winding inter-turn short circuit fault

The reluctance network model of non-salient pole generator is presented, and the generator status differential equations are developed, whose parameters are stator winding branch current, stator reluctance, rotor reluctance, air-gap reluctance, rotor magnetomotive force. Its main advantages are to take into the rotor movement and saturation effects, with a good compromise between calculation time and accuracy of results. Then the rotor winding inter-turn short circuit fault is analyzed based on the model, the results show that even harmonic current will emerge in the stator winding parallel branches when the fault has happened. Finally, practically acquires data on the spot of SDF-9 type generator, the results of verification show that the theory analysis is right
Few Mode Fiber-Based Microwave Photonic Finite Impulse Response Filters

Single-source few mode fiber-based microwave photonic finite – impulse response filters, which exploit the few mode fibers’ differential mode group delays as the separate optical delay lines of the filter, are experimentally demonstrated and compared to theoretical predictions. These microwave photonic filters exhibit excellent stability compared to equivalent conventional optical delay line filters in the coherent regime. The advantages and disadvantages of these robust photonic devices with extremely simple architectures are discussed.