Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diversity of Tropical Tree Seedling Responses to Drought

Drought is an important seedling mortality agent in dry and moist tropical forests, and more severe and frequent droughts are predicted in the future. The effect of drought on leaf gas exchange and seedling survival was tested in a dry‐down experiment with four tree species from dry and moist forests in Bolivia. Seedlings were droughted and wilting stage and gas exchange were monitored. Drought led to a gradual reduction of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance over time, whereas respiration and photosynthetic water‐use efficiency initially increased with drought and then declined. Seedlings gradually went through the different wilting stages, until they eventually died, but the trajectory differed for the four species. The strong relationship between wilting stage and photosynthesis means that simple field observations can provide valuable information on plant physiological performance. Three different drought strategies were identified. Dry forest species Ceiba samauma shed its leaves and survived. The moist forest species Cariniana ianeirensis postponed drought stress by having low rates of transpiration and high water‐use efficiency. Dry forest Astronium urundeuva and moist forest Triplaris americana followed an opportunistic strategy; they are early successional species that can quickly grow to maturity but periodic drought can be lethal. Strikingly, dry and moist forest species did not differ clearly in their drought tolerance strategies.
Détection, classification et identification d'anomalies de trafic

Cet article presente un nouvel algorithme iteratif – NADA – qui detecte, classifie et identifie les anomalies d'un trafic. Cet algorithme a pour objectif de fournir, en plus de ce que font d'autres algorithmes, toutes les informations requises pour stopper la propagation des anomalies, en les localisant dans le temps, en identifiant leur classes (e.g. attaque de deni de service, scan reseau, ou n'importe quel autre type d'anomalies), et en determinant leurs attributs comme, par exemple, les adresses et ports sources et destinations impliques. Pour cela, NADA repose sur une approche tomographique generique, multi-echelles, multi-criteres et utilisant de multiples niveaux d'agregation. De plus, NADA utilise un ensemble exhaustif de signatures d'anomalies qui ont ete definies specifiquement pour permettre de classifier ces anomalies. Ces signatures representees sous forme graphique permettent une classification visuelle par les operateurs reseaux. NADA a ete valide en utilisant des traces de trafic contenant des anomalies connues et documentees comme celles collectees dans le cadre du projet MetroSec.
Adjusted likelihood-ratio test for variants with unknown genotypes

Association tests performed with the Likelihood-Ratio Test (LR Test) can be an alternative to [Formula: see text], which is often used in population genetics to find variants of interest. Because the LR Test has several properties that could make it preferable to [Formula: see text], we propose a novel approach for modeling unknown genotypes in highly-similar species. To show the effectiveness of this LR Test approach, we apply it to single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the recent speciation of the malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii and compare to [Formula: see text].
"If I choose history it is likely that I won't be able to leave for the cities to get a job": Rural learners and the choosing of history as a subject

In this paper we aim to understand and explain why rural learners in a South African school did not choose history as a school subject in Grade 10. Using a pen-and-paper test and focus group interviews we probed the views of 15-year-old rural learners who did not choose history. What the data revealed was that mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects, rather than history were favoured. The reasons for this centred on taking subjects that were viewed as leading potentially to decent jobs or funding to study and therefore being advantageous to the future prospects of the learners in an urban setting. This mind-set was reinforced by teachers, parents, older siblings, the state, and the formal economy. In the process, history was seen to be the preserve of learners who could not cope with mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects and were therefore not worthy of urbanisation and upward mobility. In short, studying history was equated with negative notions of rurality and choosing to study it was seen as likely to result in not making it to the better life that cities offered. However, with some irony, studying history was seen to be an urban endeavour which implied that at some time in the future, once the learners were urbanised and economically better off, the subject could possibly be studied again.
Histopathological pattern of abnormal uterine bleeding in endometrial biopsies in reproductive age group at tertiary SKIMS Trust hospital

Introduction: Abnormal uterine bleeding is a common presenting complaint in gynaecology out patient department. Histopathological evaluation of the endometrial samples plays a significant role in the diagnosis of abnormal uterine bleeding. It occurs in 9-14% of women between menarche and menopause, significantly impacting quality of life and imposing financial burden Aims and Objective: To ascertain types and frequencies of various types of histopathological changes of the endometrium in patients of reproductive age group with abnormal uterine bleeding attending OPD at SKIMS Trust hospital. Materials and Methods: In this prospective study [Jan 2016-jan 2017] a total number of 200 endometrial biopsies were obtained by dilatation and curettage from patients with abnormal uterine bleeding in age group 18-50 years attending SKIMS Trust hospital OPD. Results: out of 200 patients, 20 were in age group of 18-28,30 were in age group of 29-38 while as 150 were in age group of 39-50.Duration of symptoms was 0-2 months in 10 patients while it was 3-6 months in 140 patients and 7-12 months in 50 patients. PROLIFERATIVE type of histology was the most common [40%]. Conclusion: Anovulation is commonest cause of AUB in reproductive age group and study of histopathological changes of endometrium is very important in management of AUB.
Evolution in texture and its through-thickness variations in Al-Mg-Si-extrusions: experiments and modelling

The visual appearance and mechanical properties of aluminium alloy extrusions are strongly dependent on the microstructure and texture of the extruded profiles, where the desired microstructure and texture may depend on the specific applications. In the present work, the evolution of deformation, as well as recrystallization textures during extrusion of AA6xxx aluminium alloys, have been experimentally and numerically investigated. Extrusion trials were performed in a laboratory extrusion set-up, which enabled immediate water-quenching of the profiles at the exit of the die, and thus the possibility to capture the deformation texture prior to post-extrusion recrystallization. The textures and their through-thickness variations were experimentally measured by the electron back-scatter diffraction technique (EBSD, and the deformation textures numerically modelled by coupling FEM flow simulations and crystal plasticity (CP) simulations. Different CP models as well as different choices of model parameters were employed and evaluated for texture predictions. With an appropriate choice of crystal plasticity model and model parameters, the deformation texture can mainly be predicted, although the accurate intensities are hard to reproduce. The corresponding recrystallization textures, either generated through spontaneous recrystallization of the extruded profiles or through post-extrusion annealing, are far more challenging to reproduce with available recrystallization models.
Learning in Simulated Environments: A Comparison to Learning in a Physical Environments Using Video Data Analysis

Few studies that have evaluated the efficacy of learning in simulated environments have also examined differences in the processes that learners in the simulated environments employed to arrive at the outcomes being measured. In this video analysis study, the researchers sought to understand whether there were differences in the construction process used by participants who learned to construct circuits using a 2D simulation, a 3D simulation, or a physical breadboard and whether these differences subsequently impacted several learning outcomes. The researchers systematically reviewed 30 videos (10 videos per condition) of participants’ circuit construction to identify variations in their comprehension level and their construction procedures. The study found differences in the construction process, odds of successful construction, and construction time for participants in the three conditions that could be attributed to differences in fidelity. These findings provide valuable insights about how learning in simulated environments impact proficiency and learning and can help improve the design of simulated learning environments.
Solving PDEs on Deconstructed Domains

When ﬁnding analytical solutions to Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) becomes impossible, it is useful to approximate them via a discrete mesh of the domain. Sometimes a robust triangular (2D) or tetrahedral (3D) mesh of the whole domain is a hard thing to accomplish, and in those cases we advocate for breaking up the domain in various different subdomains with nontrivial intersection and to ﬁnd solutions for the equation in each of them individually. Although this approach solves one issue,it creates another, i.e. what constraints to impose on the separate solutions in a way that they converge to true solution on their union. We present a method that solves this problem for the most common second and fourth order equations in graphics.
Earthquake resistant design of underground structures and pipes

x, 1Jr-Z :coordinates Wn: n-th circular frequency u, tJ : displace~ents n: n-th mode e, 1: strains rn: participation factor of the n-th mode p : mass density D: damping ratio E: modulus of elasticity of the soil Dn: modal damping of the n-th mode G: modulus of shear of the soil 1§ J)B; bending stiffnes of the structure p.: Poisson's ratio of the soil Dn: average modal damping of the n-th mode ell : Shear wave velocity s. : the acceleration of the soil elements otick Cp: compressional wave velocity with the structure ). ; wave length L: characteristic length of the Winkler beam fn : n-th frequency t: length of the structure
Redrawing the future of travel agent: examining the existence of online travel agents among young consumers

Over the past decade, the rapid development of the internet has changed the business scope of many industrial sectors, including the tourism sector. The existence of the internet eases young travelers to choose tourist destinations, accommodation, and transportation that are used through Online Travel Agents (OTAs). Trust and price factors are two important things that are often taken into consideration by young consumers in evaluating purchases through OTA. Using survey techniques, this study aims to examine the factors that influence the purchase intention of young consumers toward OTA. Research data obtained from 256 teenage respondents and then processed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results of the analysis show that the purchase intention of young consumers towards OTA is influenced by perceived trust and perceived price through mediating perceived value of consumers. The level of consumer perception towards prices and trust in the OTA does not directly affect the consumer purchase intention.
Parallel database systems: The case for shared-something

Parallel database systems are becoming the primary application of multiprocessor computers. The reason for this is that they can provide high-performance and high-availability database support at a much lower price than do equivalent mainframe computers. The traditional shared-memory, shared-disk, and shared-nothing architectures of parallel database systems are compared, based on the following dimensions: simplicity, cost, performance, availability and extensibility. Based on these comparisons, the case is made for the shared-something architecture, which can provide a better trade-off between the various objectives. <<ETX>>
Expertise Retrieval

People have looked for experts since before the advent of computers. With advances in information retrieval technology and the large-scale availability of digital traces of knowledge-related activities, computer systems that can fully automate the process of locating expertise have become a reality. The past decade has witnessed tremendous interest, and a wealth of results, in expertise retrieval as an emerging subdiscipline in information retrieval. This survey highlights advances in models and algorithms relevant to this field. We draw connections among methods proposed in the literature and summarize them in five groups of basic approaches. These serve as the building blocks for more advanced models that arise when we consider a range of content-based factors that may impact the strength of association between a topic and a person. We also discuss practical aspects of building an expert search system and present applications of the technology in other domains, such as blog distillation and entity retrieval. The limitations of current approaches are also pointed out. We end our survey with a set of conjectures on what the future may hold for expertise retrieval research.
Resolution of a structural competition involving dimeric G-quadruplex and its C-rich complementary strand

The resolution of the dimeric intermolecular G-quadruplex/duplex competition of the telomeric DNA sequence 5′-TAG GGT TAG GGT-3′ and of its complementary 5′ ACC CTA ACC CTA-3′ is reported. To achieve this goal, melting experiments of both sequences and of the mixtures of these sequences were monitored by molecular absorption, molecular fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopies. Molecular fluorescence measurements were carried out using molecular beacons technology, in which the 5′-TAG GGT TAG GGT-3′ sequence was labelled with a fluorophore and a quencher at the ends of the strand. Mathematical analysis of experimental spectroscopic data was performed by means of multivariate curve resolution, allowing the calculation of concentration profiles and pure spectra of all resolved structures (dimeric antiparallel and parallel G-quadruplexes, Watson–Crick duplex and single strands) present in solution. Our results show that parallel G-quadruplex is more stable than antiparallel G-quadruplex. When the complementary C-rich strand is present, a mixture of both G-quadruplex structures and Watson–Crick duplex is observed, the duplex being the major species. In addition to melting temperatures, equilibrium constants for the parallel/antiparallel G-quadruplex equilibrium and for the G-quadruplex/duplex equilibrium were determined from the concentration profiles.
Mobile WiMAX: System performance on a vehicular multipath channel

One of the 4G broadband wireless access technologies that managed to impose, is mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) a technology developed according to the specifications of the IEEE 802.16 standard. It aims to deliver high data rates over wide areas, even in the case when the transmission takes place at vehicular speeds of up to 125 km/h. The current paper proposes to provide an optimum link adaptation of a fully compliant mobile WiMAX system operating at 2.3 GHz in a vehicular multipath fading channel (ITU-R M.1225 Veh.A). The evaluation of the system's performance was done starting from the quality of service (QoS) requirements imposed by certain types of applications. The results are expressed in terms of the most suited coding scheme, the achievable link throughput and operating range, the required receiver sensitivity as well as the adaptive modulation switching points.
Efficient algorithms for the minimum shortest path Steiner arborescence problem with applications to VLSI physical design

Given an undirected graph G=(V, E) with positive edge weights (lengths) /spl omega/: E/spl rarr//spl Rfr//sup +/, a set of terminals (sinks) N/spl sube/V, and a unique root node e/spl epsiv/N, a shortest path Steiner arborescence (hereafter an arborescence) is a Steiner tree rooted at, spanning all terminals in N such that every source-to-sink path is a shortest path in G. Given a triple (G, N, r), the minimum shortest path Steiner arborescence (MSPSA) problem seeks an arborescence with minimum weight. The MSPSA problem has various applications in the areas of physical design of very large-scale integrated circuits (VLSI), multicast network communication, and supercomputer message routing; various eases have been studied in the literature. In this paper, we propose several heuristics and exact algorithms for the MSPSA problem with applications to VLSI physical design. Experiments indicate that our heuristics generate near optimal results and achieve speedups of orders of magnitude over existing algorithms.
Fast Single Image Super-Resolution Using a New Analytical Solution for  $\ell _{2}$ – $\ell _{2}$  Problems

This paper addresses the problem of single image super-resolution (SR), which consists of recovering a high-resolution image from its blurred, decimated, and noisy version. The existing algorithms for single image SR use different strategies to handle the decimation and blurring operators. In addition to the traditional first-order gradient methods, recent techniques investigate splitting-based methods dividing the SR problem into up-sampling and deconvolution steps that can be easily solved. Instead of following this splitting strategy, we propose to deal with the decimation and blurring operators simultaneously by taking advantage of their particular properties in the frequency domain, leading to a new fast SR approach. Specifically, an analytical solution is derived and implemented efficiently for the Gaussian prior or any other regularization that can be formulated into an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-regularized quadratic model, i.e., an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>–<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> optimization problem. The flexibility of the proposed SR scheme is shown through the use of various priors/regularizations, ranging from generic image priors to learning-based approaches. In the case of non-Gaussian priors, we show how the analytical solution derived from the Gaussian case can be embedded into traditional splitting frameworks, allowing the computation cost of existing algorithms to be decreased significantly. Simulation results conducted on several images with different priors illustrate the effectiveness of our fast SR approach compared with existing techniques.
Structural Basis for Substrate Specificity in Human Monomeric Carbonyl Reductases

UNLABELLED Carbonyl reduction constitutes a phase I reaction for many xenobiotics and is carried out in mammals mainly by members of two protein families, namely aldo-keto reductases and short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases. In addition to their capacity to reduce xenobiotics, several of the enzymes act on endogenous compounds such as steroids or eicosanoids. One of the major carbonyl reducing enzymes found in humans is carbonyl reductase 1 (CBR1) with a very broad substrate spectrum. A paralog, carbonyl reductase 3 (CBR3) has about 70% sequence identity and has not been sufficiently characterized to date. Screening of a focused xenobiotic compound library revealed that CBR3 has narrower substrate specificity and acts on several orthoquinones, as well as isatin or the anticancer drug oracin. To further investigate structure-activity relationships between these enzymes we crystallized CBR3, performed substrate docking, site-directed mutagenesis and compared its kinetic features to CBR1. Despite high sequence similarities, the active sites differ in shape and surface properties. The data reveal that the differences in substrate specificity are largely due to a short segment of a substrate binding loop comprising critical residues Trp229/Pro230, Ala235/Asp236 as well as part of the active site formed by Met141/Gln142 in CBR1 and CBR3, respectively. The data suggest a minor role in xenobiotic metabolism for CBR3. ENHANCED VERSION This article can also be viewed as an enhanced version in which the text of the article is integrated with interactive 3D representations and animated transitions. Please note that a web plugin is required to access this enhanced functionality. Instructions for the installation and use of the web plugin are available in Text S1.
Type II Transmembrane Serine Proteases

Cell surface proteolysis has emerged as an important mechanism for the generation of biologically active proteins that mediate a diverse range of cellular functions. The proteolytic activities of membrane anchored proteins, such as a disintegrin-like and metalloproteinase containing proteins (ADAMs) and membrane-type matrix metalloproteinases (MT-MMPs), are thought to play central roles in these cell surface activating events.
Prevalence of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Districts of High and Low Endemicity in Mali

Historically the western sahelian dry regions of Mali are known to be highly endemic for cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) caused by Leishmania major, while cases are rarely reported from the Southern savanna forest of the country. Here, we report baseline prevalence of CL infection in 3 ecologically distinct districts of Mali (dry sahelian, north savanna and southern savanna forest areas). We screened 195 to 250 subjects from 50 to 60 randomly selected households in each of the 6 villages (four from the western sahelian district of Diema in Kayes region, one from the central district of Kolokani and one from the southern savanna district of Kolodieba, region of Sikasso). The screening consisted of: 1] A Leishmanin Skin Test (LST) for detection of exposure to Leishmania parasites; 2] clinical examination of suspected lesions, followed by validation with PCR and 3] finger prick blood sample to determine antibody levels to sand fly saliva. LST positivity was higher in the western district of Diema (49.9%) than in Kolokani (24.9%) and was much lower in Kolondieba (2.6%). LST positivity increased with age rising from 13.8% to 88% in Diema for age groups 2–5 years and 41–65 years, respectively. All eight PCR-confirmed L. major CL cases were diagnosed in subjects below 18 years of age and all were residents of the district of Diema. Exposure to sand fly bites, measured by anti-saliva antibody titers, was comparable in individuals living in all three districts. However, antibody titers were significantly higher in LST positive individuals (P<0.0001). In conclusion, CL transmission remains active in the western region of Mali where lesions were mainly prevalent among children under 18 years old. LST positivity correlated to higher levels of antibodies to sand fly salivary proteins, suggesting their potential as a risk marker for CL acquisition in Mali.