Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Greenhouse Gas Removal

The 2015 Paris Agreement called for a balance between sources of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and their removal by 2100 to halt global temperature rise. This POSTnote explains why Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) techniques may be required to achieve this goal, outlines the benefits of and concerns about them, and considers policy options.
Evaluating rice germplasm for iron and zinc concentration in brown rice and seed dimensions

The lack of micronutrients such as Fe and Zn in staple food crops is a widespread nutrition and health problem in developing countries. Biofortification is one of the sustainable approaches, for improving the Fe and Zn content and their bioavailability in rice grain. Screening germplasm for Fe and Zn content is the initial step of biofortification. We analyzed brown rice of 126 accessions of rice genotypes for Fe and Zn concentration. Iron concentration ranged from 6.2 ppm to 71.6 ppm and zinc from 26.2 ppm to 67.3 ppm. Zn concentration and grain elongation (-0.25) was significantly correlated. The wild accessions had the highest Fe and Zn. Thus, wild species are a good source for biofortification of popular rice cultivars using conventional, acceptable, non transgenic methods.
Protein complex similarity based on 1 Weisfeiler-Lehman labeling

16 Being able to quantify the similarity between two protein complexes is essential for numerous applications. Prominent examples are database searches for known complexes with a given query complex, comparison of the output of different protein complex prediction algorithms, or summarizing and clustering protein complexes, e.g., for visualization. While the corresponding problems have received much attention on single proteins and protein families, the question about how to model and compute similarity between protein complexes has not yet been systematically studied. Because protein complexes can be naturally modeled as graphs, in principle general graph similarity measures may be used, but these are often computationally hard to obtain and do not take typical properties of protein complexes into account. Here we propose a parametric family of similarity measures based on Weisfeiler-Lehman labeling. We evaluate it on simulated complexes of the extended human integrin adhesome network. Because the connectivity (graph topology) of real complexes is often unknown and hard to obtain experimentally, we use both known protein-protein interaction networks and known interdependencies (constraints) between interactions to simulate more realistic complexes than from interaction networks alone. We empirically show that the defined family of similarity measures is in good agreement with edit similarity, a similarity measure derived from graph edit distance, but can be much more efficiently computed. It can therefore be used in large-scale studies and simulations and serve as a basis for further refinements of modeling protein complex similarity. 17
FINE MORPHOLOGY OF THE ANTENNAE OF DIASPIS ECHINOCACTI

FINE MORPHOLOGY OF THE ANTENNAE OF DIASPIS ECHINOCACTI (BOUCHÉ) 1833 (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE). The antennae in the Diaspididae are reduced to minute appendages composed of one antennomere called the “antennal tubercle”. Few or no setae can be found on the antennal tubercle, although some small pegs in cuticular invaginations can be seen. In Diaspis echinocacti, the single antennal seta arises from two fused sensilla at its base. The chemoreceptive (olfactory) function of these multiporous sensilla was demonstrated using crystal violet and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), while further information was obtained using light microscopy (LM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Some hypotheses on the possible function of these sensilla are discussed: (a) a feedback system to regulate the production of the female pheromone; (b) for detecting a male pheromone (postulated), or (c) for detecting a pheromone (postulated) produced by the crawlers. The possible evolutionary reduction in the number of antennal sensilla by fusion is evaluated. The lowest number of setae is accepted as the derived status for the character.
The Composition of the Output Layer Architecture in a Back-Propagation (BP) Neural Network for Remote Sensing Image Classification

A Neural Network is treated as a data transformer when used for mapping purposes. The objective in this case, is to associate the elements in one set of data with the elements in a second set. According to this principle, three encoding methods, namely, single output layer, binary encoding, and ortho-encoding, have been designed for the output layer of a Neural Network based on five criteria, and put into experiments for Remote Sensing classification by means of a series of images coordinated with incremental noise level, from 1% to 10%. At last, the experiment results are assessed from different perspectives such as, accuracy, convergence, mixture detection, and confidence of classification, comparing to three encoding methods respectively.
The Impact of Migration on the Cross‐Border M&A: Some Evidence for Japan

Japanese outbound M&A activity has been running at a record pace regardless of the exchange rate movements. This paper examines the determinants of Japanese outbound M&A activity and the link between the migrants, which refer to both immigrants and Japanese citizens residing abroad, and Japanese outbound cross-border M&A activity in order to investigate whether immigrants alleviate the informational problems and stimulate the cross-border M&A activity with their host countries. Our results suggest that both immigrant and Japanese citizens residing abroad increase the probability of acquiring the asset in a potential target country. Moreover, both stocks have also a positive effect on the number of outbound M&A deals and the value of outbound M&A deals.
A hybrid framework for heart disease prediction: review and analysis

According to WHO the mortality rates are higher in case of heart diseases in the world and it is increasing continuously. The main reasons suggested in the several research work are smoking, alcohol, obesity, diet and hereditary. In this paper we are analysing several methods of heart disease classification and prediction so that we can detect it in the earlier stages. As it can be cured if it is detected in the early stage. For this we have examined a few systems displayed till now and in view of the study introduced before recommending some future bits of knowledge which may be a superior structure for finding. Factors, Prevention and early discovery are additionally talked about here. The main objective of this study is to discuss on hybrid techniques specially data mining and optimization. So that better decision making and prediction framework will be designed.
The Critical Grid Size and Transmission Radius for Local-Minimum-Free Grid Routing in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Grid routing is a geographic-based routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks. In grid routing, the plane is tessellated into equal-sized square cells. Two cells are called neighbor cells if they share a common boundary, and two nodes are called neighbor nodes if they are located in neighboring cells and within each other's transmission range. In each hop excepting the last one, each packet is forwarded to a neighbor node which is in a cell closer to the cell containing the destination node. As a greedy local strategy, nodes using grid routing may not be able to forward packet when none of its one-hop neighbors lies in a neighboring cell that is closer to the destination; this phenomenon is called local minimum. To guarantee the deliverability, in this thesis, we investigated two vital parameters of grid routing, the grid size and the transmission radius. Assume nodes are represented by a Poisson point process with rate over a unit-area square, and let denote the grid size and denote the the transmission radius. First, we show that if β for some constant β and √5 , then β=1 is the threshold for deliverability. In other word, there almost surely don't exist local minima iii if β>1 and there almost surely exist local minima if β<1. Next, for any give β>1, we gave a sufficient and necessary condition to determine the critical transmission radius for deliverability. Then we showed that the minimum critical transmission radius is 2.09 which happens as 1.092. In addition, we derived the average hop-count between any source to destination and the average traffic flow through the cells. Finally, we conducted two simulations to verify our theoretical results.
Simplification of a dust emission scheme and comparison with data

[1] A simplification of a dust emission scheme is proposed, which takes into account of saltation bombardment and aggregates disintegration. The statement of the scheme is that dust emission is proportional to streamwise saltation flux, but the proportionality depends on soil texture and soil plastic pressure p. For small p values (loose soils), dust emission rate is proportional to u*4 (u* is friction velocity) but not necessarily so in general. The dust emission predictions using the scheme are compared with several data sets published in the literature. The comparison enables the estimate of a model parameter and soil plastic pressure for various soils. While more data are needed for further verification, a general guideline for choosing model parameters is recommended.
PROMOTING SELF-EFFICACY IN THE CLASSROOM: SELF-EFFICACY AND STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning” (Mahatma Gandhi). This article aims to shed light on the concept of self-efficacy in social cognitive theory, and will try to answer the question does academic self-efficacy affects learning motivation and achievements and vice versa.
UAV-borne coherent doppler lidar for marine atmospheric boundary layer observations

A compact UAV-borne Coherent Doppler Lidar (UCDL) has been developed at the Ocean University of China for the observation of wind profile and boundary layer structure in Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer (MABL). The design, specifications and motion-correction methodology of the UCDL are presented. Preliminary results of the first flight campaign in Hailing Island in December 2016 is discussed.
Field Evidence for Strong Chemical Separation of Contaminants in the Hanford Vadose Zone

Water and chemical transport from a point source within vadose zone sediments at the Hanford Site in Washington State were examined with a leak test consisting of five 3800‐L aliquots of water released at 4.5‐m depth every week over a 4‐wk period. The third aliquot contained bromide, D2O, and 87Sr. Movement of the tracers was monitored for 9 mo by measuring pore water compositions of samples from boreholes drilled 2 to 8 m from the injection point. Graded sedimentary layers acting as natural capillary barriers caused significant lateral spreading of the leak water. Shortly after injections were completed, D2O was found at the 9‐ to 11‐m depth at levels in excess of 50% of the tracer aliquot concentration, while sediment layers with elevated water content at the 6‐ to 7‐m depth had less than 3% of the D2O tracer concentration, suggesting deep penetration of the D2O tracer and limited mixing between different aliquots of leak fluids. Initially, high bromide concentrations decreased more rapidly over time than D2O, suggesting enhanced transport of bromide due to anion exclusion. No significant increase in 87Sr was detected in the sampled pore water, indicating strong retardation of Sr by the sediments. These results highlight some of the processes strongly affecting chemical transport in the vadose zone and demonstrate the significant separation of contaminant plumes that can occur.
SIFT Feature Extraction Algorithm for Image in DCT Domain

Image feature extraction is an important technology in image matching and retrieval. For the problem of high computational complexity of spatial domain image feature extraction using the SIFT algorithm, and by studying the relationship between DCT coefficient matrix and image, the paper designed the DCT coefficients reduced matrix of image and proposed the algorithm of SIFT feature extraction in DCT domain reduced image. Experiments showed that with the low loss of accuracy in image matching and retrieval, the method proposed can significantly improve the computational efficiency of feature extraction.
Model of Organization's Intellectual Capital Measurement

Intellectual capital theory has been active for two decades already. Despite that many unanswered questions in theory and business practice are still left. Issues of intellectual capital essence, structure, measurement and its impact on business performance are still being researched. Managers constantly look for the new solutions of recognizing, measuring and managing intellectual capital in order to maximise the value of knowledge, develop new forms of competitiveness and increase organization’s potential. Intellectual capital measurement has been identified as one of the most important issues for today’s business success. Plenty of intellectual capital measurement methods can be found in business literature. New methods appear within the intellectual capital theory continually. Some of them are implemented in business practice, others remain as theoretical suggestions important for further subject research. But despite that, a common view on intellectual capital measurement still does not exist. Results of the comparative analysis of intellectual capital measurement methods are discussed and the main bottlenecks of intellectual capital measurement methodology are revealed in this paper. Based on these results the model of organization’s intellectual capital measurement is proposed here. Intellectual capital measurement is specified as a multi-stage process of information accumulation and interpretation within the model proposed. Six stages of intellectual capital measurement process are formalized. The process starts with the situation analysis in which measurement problem reveals and the particular measurement target development. It continues with measurement possibilities assessment, measurement method selection and organization of its implementation. The process results in the decision making stage. Two alternative scenarios of the rational intellectual capital measurement process are briefly discussed in this paper and the particular measurement techniques are proposed for each scenario. The model proposed summarizes knowledge of intellectual capital measurement. It intends to help managers understand intellectual capital measurement process as a whole and implement intellectual capital measurement solutions purposefully and in series.
Seasonal water level fluctuations: Implications for reservoir limnology and management

With the purpose of finding out whether seasonal water level fluctuations could affect water quality in a reservoir subjected to those changes, trends in environmental variables and in phytoplankton and zooplankton assemblages were analysed. The reservoir’s hydrological cycle was characterized by three regimes. The maximum level phase lasted from January to the beginning of June, the emptying phase existed between mid-June to the beginning of September and the minimum level phase lasted from mid-September to the beginning of the first autumn/winter rain events. The highest values of total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus, nitrate, water colour and chlorophyll a were found during the minimum level phase. The phytoplankton assemblage was dominated by taxa typical of meso-eutrophic environments during the emptying and minimum level phases. However, during the maximum level phase, taxa generally found in more oligotrophic systems were observed here also. Similar to other disturbed systems, the zooplankton assemblage was dominated by Rotifera, except in summer and autumn when the cladoceran Ceriodaphnia quadrangula and/or the copepod Tropocyclops prasinus became dominant. Although those shifts seem to be related to water level variations, further research is needed to evaluate to what extent they might also be induced by other seasonal factors acting independently of water fluctuations. Based upon the obtained data, suggestions for reservoir management are proposed.
Utility of the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for land/canopy cover mapping in Khalkhal County (Iran)

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is commonly used for assessing and monitoring ecological variables such as vegetation cover, above-ground biomass and Leaf Area Index. This paper examines the utility of NDVI for mapping the land/canopy cover characteristics in Khalkhal County in north-west of Iran. Images were selected by considering seasonality and phenological patterns, and three images from three sensors including: Landsat TM (30/09/1987), ETM+ (29/07/2002), and IRS P6LISSIII (26/05/2008) were selected. Preporccessing stages including geometric and radiometric corrections and topographic normalization were conducted, and NDVI of those images were derived. Land / canopy cover of 270 sites using point intercept method were estimated and sample sites using GPS were recorded. Collected points transferred on image and using zonal-based attributes average of 16 pixels around the GPS points transferred to excel file and correlated with field collected data. Derived maps were evaluated for accuracy assessment and correlation analyses. Results showed that: although there is some considerable evidence that the results of the derived NDVI are acceptable, however by comparison of the derived maps with the field data, there are considerable differences. Accuracy assessment showed that the results are not acceptable. Finally, the correlation analyses between individual land/canopy covers showed that there are no significant (p>0.05) relationships between data extracted from images versus field collected data. Therefore, the use of NDVI in the routine procedure in the same regions of Khalkhal County is not suitable for canopy/land cover mapping. Results of this study suggest that further analysis are required to determine the usefulness of the NDVI calculated from course resolution satellite data for estimation of land/canopy cover when there is high heterogeneity exists on the study area.
A TRANS-IMPEDANCE GREEN'S FUNCTION FOR THE DIELECTRIC RING CIRCULATOR

An e-cient trans-impedance Green's function that describes the electromagnetic behavior of a ring circulator is presented. A rigorous derivation composed of an inflnite summation of modifled Bessel functions of the flrst and second kinds is included. As with more traditional circulator descriptions, the formulation herein contains a weak singularity when the measurement point is located near the impressed source point on the same radius. To accelerate convergence of the series, this singularity is extracted from the formulation and integrated analytically. To complete the formulation, two circulators are presented; the flrst with ports that emanate at equal angles from the outer radius, and the second with two ports associated with the outer radius and one port that connects to the inner radius. The computation time associated with the proposed analysis lasted approximately 0.25s, whereas an identical structure simulated via a common full-wave solver lasted approximately 10 hours. Comparison of impedance data between the proposed analysis and full-wave simulation is presented.
A Novel Polymer-Based Monolithic Capillary with Sulphated Î-Cyclodextrin Chiral for the Enantioselective Pharmaceutical Analysis by Nano-HPLC

Here we report the first encapsulation of sulphated β-cyclodextrin in organic polymer monolith in capillary columns. The columns were prepared, characterized and investigated for the enantioselective nano-liquid chromatographic separation of 37 racemic pharmaceutical drugs, namely, α- and β-blockers, catecholamines, sedative hypnotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, antifungal drugs, norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors, antihistaminics, anticancer drugs, antiarrhythmic drugs and miscellaneous drugs. Acceptable resolution was achieved for some drugs by using reversed phase chromatographic conditions while no separation observed by using normal phase conditions. The developed columns get more economical analysis under environmentally benign conditions.
Development of Formal and Informal Institutions in the Czech Republic and Other New EU Member States Before Their EU Entry: Did the EU Pressure Have Impact?

The paper compares the quality of the institutional framework of the Czech Republic with other new EU Member States and the EU 15 average using the World Bank data on Governance Indicators and argues that the pressure from the EU institutions during the accession negotiation period to reform the legal framework was not sufficient to improve significantly the business environment. Among factors that prevented the improvement of institutions the influence of strong interest groups, ineffective enforcement of legal rules and corruption are discussed and empirically illustrated using data on 'state capture'.
Why is the Middle East burning? An historical analysis of the economic causes of conflicts from 1963 to 1999

Violent conflicts have become one of the major concerns in the Middle East. In recent days, especially, the Middle East has experienced a dramatic surge in violent conflicts. We examine the dynamics of historical conflicts in the region to explain the factors that triggered and fuelled conflicts in the region by using a panel of conflict estimates for ten Middle Eastern nations for the period 1963-1999. On the basis of the historical estimates we hazard the risk of explaining the factors that possibly led to the current eruption of violent crises in the Middle East. The fixed effects model is applied to control for unobservable country-specific effects that result in a missing-variable bias in cross-sectional studies, which thereby investigates the factors that caused statistically significant changes in conflicts over time within the chosen group. On the basis of the panel data estimates, we offer insights in the roles of inequality, inflation, economic growth, military spending, foreign direct investment, immigration and remittances in the surge in conflicts in the Middle East.
Even Distribution Evaluation in Random Stimulus Generation

This paper has two contributions: First is to analyze the entropy evaluation for random stimulus generation in one paper of DATE 2008 [1]; second is to present better methods to evaluate the solutions’ even distribution for random stimulus generation. An evaluation strategy called min-distance-sum takes the solution space as a ring and calculates the adjacent solutions’ distances. Experimental results for SAT and circuit benchmarks showed that our method can evaluate the even degree better than entropy, and also prove that the XOR-based method can improve the distribution of solutions for random stimulus generation.
An Approach to UNIX Security Logging 1

Off-line intrusion detection systems rely on logged data. However, the logging mechanism may be complicated and time-consuming and the amount of logged data tends to be very large. To counter these problems we suggest a very simple and cheap logging method, light-weight logging. It can be easily implemented on a Unix system, particularly on the Solaris operating system from Sun. It is based on logging every invocation of the exec(2) system call together with its arguments. We use data from realistic intrusion experiments to show the benefits of the proposed logging and in particular that this logging method consumes as little system resources as comparable methods, while still being more effective.