Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Redacted for privacy

The U.S. Air Force models many naturally occurring phenomena. To validate such models, an automated data collection system is used. Since validation is dependent upon correct data, an inexpensive method to detect erroneous data was investigated. The method uses a Wiener filter to predict values one sample in advance. If the predicted value differs from the measured value by some constant, then erroneous data are detected. When applied
Visual Analytics for Sets over Time and Space (Dagstuhl Seminar 19192)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 19192 "Visual Analytics for Sets over Time and Space", which brought together 29 researchers working on visualization (i) from a theoretical point of view (graph drawing, computational geometry, and cognition), (ii) from a temporal point of view (visual analytics and information visualization over time, HCI), and (iii) from a space-time point of view (cartography, GIScience). The goal of the seminar was to identify specific theoretical and practical problems that need to be solved in order to create dynamic and interactive set visualizations that take into account time and space, and to begin working on these problems. The first 1.5 days were reserved for overview presentations from representatives of the different communities, for presenting open problems, and for forming interdisciplinary working groups that will focus on some of the identified open problems as a group. There were three survey talks, ten short talks, and one panel with three contributors. The remaining three days consisted of open mic sessions, working-group meetings, and progress reports. Five working groups were formed that investigated several of the open research questions. Abstracts of the talks and a report from each working group are included in this report.
Preclinical Evaluation Of Infrared Light Therapy In A Rat Model Of Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy

PRECLINICAL EVALUATION OF INFRARED LIGHT THERAPY IN A RAT MODEL OF NEONATAL HYPOXIC-ISCHEMIC ENCEPHALOPATHY by CHRISTIAN ANDREW REYNOLDS August 2015 Advisor: Drs. Karin Przyklenk and Thomas Sanderson Major: Physiology Degree: Doctor of Philosophy This work has provided two major technical contributions to the field of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. First, experiments in Chapter 3 have refined and provided biochemical characterization of the rat model of HIE. Second, Chapter 4 focused on the development of a method of characterizing membrane lipids directly from their native and intact biological membranes without prior lipid extraction using the MAI-MS technology pioneered in the Trimpin laboratory. While the current study used this new method exclusively to investigate alterations in the CL profile of brain mitochondria following cerebral hypoxia-ischemia, the approach can be employed in various membrane lipid research applications. Finally, consistent with results from previous IRL efficacy studies using a rat model of adult global brain ischemia, experiments in Chapter 5 establish that IRL treatment attenuated cerebral injury resulting from hypoxia-ischemia in the neonatal rat. Thus, and perhaps most importantly, this work contributes to the development of a potential novel therapeutic approach in the management of brain injuries arising as a result of perinatal asphyxia.
Speech acts meet tagging: NiceTag ontology

Current tag models do not fully take into account the rich and diverse nature of tags. Each model makes different partial assumptions as to the definition and attributes a tag should receive. In this paper we propose an ontology, NiceTag, whose primitives are “tag actions” modeled with RDF named graphs. This mechanism allows us to type, describe and thus ensure the traceability of each single act of tagging. Our named graphs contain at least a resource linked to a “sign”, which can be any resource reachable on the Web (an ontology concept, an image, etc.). The resource, the sign and the link between them are the three components of the acts of tagging that we want to explicitly represent as social actions, akin to speech acts. The purpose of our model is threefold. First, to be able to describe acts of tagging in a very precise and general manner, consistent with the principles behind the architecture of the Web. To reconcile and bridge existing tag models (Newman ontology, Tagont, ES, SCOT, SIOC, CommonTag, MOAT, NAO). And finally, to propose a viable way to reify and represent the intention behind an act of tagging and leverage its semantics.
ALTERED POLLINATION ECOLOGY OF A NATIVE PLANT SPECIES IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ATTRACTIVE NON-NATIVE PLANT SPECIES

ABSTRACT. Numerous plant species have been introduced to non-native environments across the globe. Daucus carota was introduced to North America from Europe. Its extensive presence on Nantucket, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, has been documented at least since the nineteenth century. To address whether the presence of D. carota affects the pollination of native species on Nantucket, we sought to answer three questions: 1) Does the presence of D. carota increase pollinator visits and diversity on Sericocarpus asteroides? 2) Does the removal of D. carota restore pollinator visits and diversities to those found in plots with only S. asteroides? and 3) Is there a relationship between the amount of heterospecific pollen and distance to the nearest D. carota population? To answer these questions, we determined that both species attract the same pollinators by first observing pollinator visits on D. carota, then performing the same observational study on S. asteroides. We recorded pollinator visitors in S. asteroides populations that were in allopatry and sympatry with D. carota. We followed this study with a manipulative experiment within sympatric plots in which we removed D. carota inflorescences and again recorded pollinator visits. In addition, we assayed S. asteroides inflorescences from a range of distances from D. carota for the presence of heterospecific pollen. Both species were generalist pollinated, and S. asteroides received more visits in the presence of D. carota. After the removal of D. carota inflorescences, the number and diversity of visitors declined. Finally, whereas populations of S. asteroides close to D. carota receive more overall pollen, there was no increase in heterospecific pollen.
Accreditation facilitation projects: Supporting high quality early childhood education and care

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) are linked to positive developmental outcomes for children. Systems have been created to define, measure and promote high-quality ECEC. National accreditation status is deemed the gold standard of a high-quality program, yet many centers are unable to achieve this without assistance. With the help of Accreditation Facilitation Projects (AFPs), many low-income centers are able to achieve accreditation. Centers collaborating with an AFP reap many benefits including financial support, ongoing training and mentoring, and guidance through the accreditation process. AFPs invest greatly in the centers they collaborate with and the longer the center takes to achieve accreditation, the more resources an AFP must expend. The purposes of this study were to understand if the educational level of center director, the total enrollment of a center, or the percentage of children receiving government subsidies could predict the time it takes for a center to complete the accreditation process while receiving assistance from an AFP, and to determine if there are differences in attitudes about program accreditation between center directors and early learning specialists who serve as accreditation mentors to the directors. Findings revealed that a) the higher educational level of program directors is associated with a quicker time to program accreditation, b) both the total enrollment of the center and the percentage of children receiving government subsidies do not predict time to accreditation, c) the number of total staff in a center is associated with a quicker time to accreditation, and d) there is no significant difference between the directors' attitudes and early learning specialists' attitudes toward accreditation and accreditation facilitation projects. AFPs looking to streamline their accreditation process and provide accountability to their stakeholders regarding their investments over time can use these findings to choose to collaborate with centers that have directors who have at least a bachelor's degree in order to shorten the time to accreditation.
Designing Statistical Model-based Discriminator for Identifying Computer-generated Graphics from Natural Images

The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between natural images (NI) acquired by digital cameras and computer-generated graphics (CG) created by computer graphics rendering software. The main contributions of this paper are threefold. First, we propose to utilize two different denoising filters for acquiring the first-order and second-order noise of the inspected image, and analyze its characteristics with assuming that residual noise follows the proposed statistical model. Second, under the framework of the hypothesis testing theory, the problem of identifying between NI and CG is smoothly transferred to the design of the likelihood ratio test (LRT) with knowing all the nuisance parameters, and meanwhile the performance of the LRT is theoretically investigated. Third, in the practical classification, using the estimated model parameters, we propose to establish a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). A large scale of experimental results on simulated and real data directly verify that our proposed test has the ability of identifying CG from NI with high detection performance, and show the comparable effectiveness with some prior arts. Besides, the robustness of the proposed classifier is verified with considering the attacks generated by some post-processing techniques.
Origin of horsetails and the role of whole-genome duplication in plant macroevolution

Whole-genome duplication (WGD) has occurred commonly in land plant evolution and it is often invoked as a causal agent in diversification, phenotypic and developmental innovation, as well as conferring extinction resistance. The ancient and iconic lineage of Equisetum is no exception, where WGD has been inferred to have occurred prior to the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary, coincident with WGD events in angiosperms. In the absence of high species diversity, WGD in Equisetum is interpreted to have facilitated the long-term survival of the lineage. However, this characterization remains uncertain as these analyses of the Equisetum WGD event have not accounted for fossil diversity. Here, we analyse additional available transcriptomes and summarize the fossil record. Our results confirm support for at least one WGD event shared among the majority of extant Equisetum species. Furthermore, we use improved dating methods to constrain the age of gene duplication in geological time and identify two successive Equisetum WGD events. The two WGD events occurred during the Carboniferous and Triassic, respectively, rather than in association with the K–Pg boundary. WGD events are believed to drive high rates of trait evolution and innovations, but analysed trends of morphological evolution across the historical diversity of Equisetum provide little evidence for further macroevolutionary consequences following WGD. WGD events cannot have conferred extinction resistance to the Equisetum lineage through the K–Pg boundary since the ploidy events occurred hundreds of millions of years before this mass extinction and we find evidence of extinction among fossil polyploid Equisetum lineages. Our findings precipitate the need for a review of the proposed roles of WGDs in biological innovation and extinction survival in angiosperm and non-angiosperm lineages alike.
Everything is not everywhere: can marine compartments shape phytoplankton assemblages?

The idea that ‘everything is everywhere, but the environment selects' has been seminal in microbial biogeography, and marine phytoplankton is one of the prototypical groups used to illustrate this. The typical argument has been that phytoplankton is ubiquitous, but that distinct assemblages form under environmental selection. It is well established that phytoplankton assemblages vary considerably between coastal ecosystems. However, the relative roles of compartmentalization of regional seas and site-specific environmental conditions in shaping assemblage structures have not been specifically examined. We collected data from coastal embayments that fall within two different water compartments within the same regional sea and are characterized by highly localized environmental pressures. We used principal coordinates of neighbour matrices (PCNM) and asymmetric eigenvector maps (AEM) models to partition the effects that spatial structures, environmental conditions and their overlap had on the variation in assemblage composition. Our models explained a high percentage of variation in assemblage composition (59–65%) and showed that spatial structure consistent with marine compartmentalization played a more important role than local environmental conditions. At least during the study period, surface currents connecting sites within the two compartments failed to generate sufficient dispersal to offset the impact of differences due to compartmentalization. In other words, our findings suggest that, even for a prototypical cosmopolitan group, everything is not everywhere.
Cardiac PI3Kα Signaling and K+ Channel Regulation in Cardiac Hypertrophy and Heart Failure

of the Dissertation . ii Acknowledgements . v Table of Content . vi List of Figures and Tables . viii List of Abbreviations . xii Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 1.1 Ionic basis of cardiac excitability and contractile function . 2 1.2 Multiple K currents determine myocardial action potential repolarization . 4 1.3 Molecular determinants of repolarizing K currents in ventricular myocytes . 8 1.4 Repolarizing K current remodeling in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure . 10 1.5 Physiological cardiac hypertrophy and PI3Kα signaling . 13 Chapter 2: Materials and Methods . 18 2.1 Experimental animals . 19 2.2 Chronic swim training and citrate synthase activity measurement . 20 2.3 Induction of pressure overload-induced pathological left ventricular hypertrophy . 21 2.4 Electrophysiological recordings . 21 2.5 Histology . 23 2.6 Quantitative transcript analyses . 24 2.7 Quantitative protein analyses . 26 2.8 Construction of barcoded short-read RNA libraries and sequencing . 27 2.9 Analyses of miRNA and RNA sequencing data . 29 2.10 Statistical analyses . 31 2.11 Principal contributions to the work as a whole . 31 Chapter 3: Enhanced PI3Kα Signaling Mediates Electrical Remodeling in Physiological Hypertrophy through an Akt-independent Mechanism . 32 3.1 Abstract . 33 3.2 Introduction . 35 3.3 Results . 37 3.4 Discussion . 67
Family-based Association Study of Killer Cell Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor Genes with Leukemia

Abstract NK cell function is controlled by the cell expression of killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) and their ligation with the corresponding HLA ligands. Various malignancies have been associated with certain KIRs surface cell expression and various KIR/HLA ligand combinations. Prior research using case/control study design demonstrates the role of KIR and KIR HLA ligands as genetic factor involved in tumor susceptibility. The objective of this study was to investigate the family-based association of KIRs, HLA class I ligands and KIR/ligand combinations with leukemia diagnosis in families having a leukemia diagnosed child. Sixty-seven families that met the index leukemia case criteria (acute lymphoblastic leukemia, ALL, n = 45; acute myeloid leukemia, AML, n = 13; chronic myeloid leukemia, CML, n = 9; first degree healthy relatives n = 159) were examined. Our study consisted of two phases. In Phase1 case-control study, we primarily compared patients to their healthy siblings to asses if a marker or genotype may be associated with leukemia, excluding the impact of the environment. Phase 2 consisted of a secondary family-based association study. KIR genotyping was performed by PCR-SSP method. KIR HLA ligands were defined by direct method using PCR-SSP method and/or indirect base on high resolution typing of HLA-A, -B, -C alleles. Results of phase 1 showed an increase in the frequency of KIR genotype (with a ratio = 0.57; higher frequency for inhibitory KIRs vs. activating KIRs) among leukemia patients compared to healthy siblings. Results of the phase 2 familial study observed an association between HLA-C1+/BBw4+/ABw4+ haplotype (a mediator of inhibitory signals) and leukemia. Also, we concluded that the absence of HLA-ABw4 alleles was related to leukemia development.
The Influence of Different Levels of Data Detail on Land use Change Analyses: A Case Study of Franciscan Cadastre for a Part of the Pannonian Hills, Slovenia

Abstract In several European countries, land use changes can be analysed on the basis of the Franciscan Cadastre. Present land use data is defined on the basis of orthophotos, but the historical data is available only at a parcel level. Therefore, a question arose as to how reliable results about land use changes can be. The main aim of the paper was to analyse land use dynamics with the Franciscan Cadastre and to test the compatibility of detailed and parcel level of modern data. The study was carried out by calculating land use structure and landscape metrics for a part of the Pannonian low-hills area in Slovenia. We have observed that the calculation of the land use type structure mostly provided similar results regardless of the level of detail. On the other hand, the results of landscape metrics analysis were highly affected by the level of detail. The analysis at the parcel level showed that the forest area expanded, and fields and vineyards areas diminished. In general, today’s landscape is made of less patches, but they are larger and of more irregular shapes. We can conclude that a comparison of modern data and historical data based on Franciscan Cadastre must include generalisation to a parcel level.
The spaces and places of Czech believers

Abstract Geographical aspects of contemporary Czech religiosity are discussed in this paper. The main objective is to understand and approximate the spaces and places of faith which Czech believers inhabit, construct and reconstruct. An original focus on young believers was broadened to include priests, preachers and older members of several churches in Brno city, and the Přerov and Ústí nad Labem regions. Concepts of space and place, sacred spaces, and the imagery of post-mortem spaces are treated within the context of so-called secularisation and related phenomena. The methodology is based on an inductive qualitative approach using the Grounded Theory of Strauss and Corbin. The data are presented, discussed and ordered following the main themes originating from the research, including: (i) spaces of regular activities (related to the faith); (ii) spaces of dissemination and evangelisation of the faith; (iii) personal places linked with faith; and (iv) an introduction to the imagery of post-mortem spaces. The results document a long-term shift in the attitudes of believers, the change from rather public spaces of community gathering to personal places, influenced by specific secularisation tendencies. Also, the results represent the typical places of faith which are constructed and reconstructed by current Czech believers, and the current imagery of post-mortem spaces.
Analogues of Gluskin–Hosszú and Malyshev theorems for strongly dependent n-ary operations

Abstract The paper contains an extension of Malyshev theorem for n-ary quasigroups with a right or left weak invertibility property to the case of strongly dependent n-ary operations. As a corollary a new proof of Gluskin–Hosszú theorem for strongly dependent n-ary semigroups is obtained.
Viticultural landscapes: Localised transformations over the past 150 years through an analysis of three case studies in Slovakia

Abstract The transformation of vineyard landscapes is evaluated in this article by assessing the changes in land cover and landscape diversity in selected study areas in two time periods – from 1867 to 1949, and from then to 2016. The study areas are characterised by a long history of viticulture and with important occurrences of old and new agrarian relief forms. Fine-scale land cover and landscape diversity analysis, as well as the study of historical and strategic documents, enabled an accurate interpretation of the viticultural landscape trajectories and their drivers. Landscape diversity was computed using the Shannon diversity index for each 625 square metre grid unit, and applying other metrics for the entire study area. Our research established that the study areas oscillated during this period between extensification and agricultural intensification, and the general trend confirmed the disappearance of traditional vineyards and a decline in modernised vineyard areas after socialism. Although extensification and intensification are seemingly contradictory processes, it is established that these both increase landscape diversity. In addition, landscape diversity changes in the second period are influenced more by changes in quantitative landscape pattern characteristics via edge density than qualitative patterns, e.g. patch richness, which reflect land use diversity.
Exclusion sets in the S-type eigenvalue localization sets for tensors

Abstract In this paper, we break the index set N into disjoint subsets S and its complement, and propose two S-type exclusion sets that all the eigenvalues do not belong to them. Furthermore, we establish new S-type eigenvalue inclusion sets, which can reduce computations and obtain more accurate numerical results. At the same time, we give two criteria for identifying nonsingular tensors. Finally, new S-type eigenvalue inclusion sets are shown to be sharper than existing results via two examples.
Effect of Planting Methods on the Quality of Three Egyptian Rice Varieties

Abstract In Egypt, the traditional transplanting method of rice planting is substituted by broadcasting and dibbling recently. This paper studies the effects and the changes occur in different rice varieties due to different methods on grain quality and amino acids of rice. Three Egyptian rice cultivars belonging to japonica, japonica/indica and indica subspecies were investigated for grain quality, protein and amino acid composition under three planting methods, i.e., broadcasting, seedling transplanting and dibbling. A strip plot design with three replications was used; the investigated three rice cultivars occupied the horizontal main plot, while three planting methods were devoted to the vertical main plot. The method of planting did not affect significantly the grain dimension, but it affected significantly the milling characters and the 1,000-grain weight. The highest milling characters and 1,000-grain weight came from transplanting, while the lowest one from the dibbling method. There was no significant difference between transplanting and broadcasting in milling characters and 1,000-grain weight. The chemical and cooking characters of grains showed no significant differences in moisture content and gelatinization temperature characters, while the differences in protein content and elongation were significant among the varieties and planting methods. The interaction between the planting method and rice had significant effect on the protein content. The most important essential amino acids according to the FAO/WHO pattern were not affected significantly by the different methods of planting. This means that the biological value of rice grains is not affected by different methods of planting.