Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Origin of the lichen–spruce woodland in the closed‐crown forest zone of eastern Canada

Aim We investigate the timing and factors responsible for the transformation of closed-crown forests into lichen‐spruce woodlands. Location The study area extends between 70 ° and 72 ° W in the closed-crown forest zone from its southern limit near 47 ° 30 ′ N to its northern limit at the contact with the lichen‐spruce woodland zone around 52 ° 10 ′ N. A total of 24 lichen‐spruce woodlands were selected. Methods Radiocarbon dating of charcoals at mineral soil contact and within the organic horizons allowed the principal factors causing the degradation of the closedcrown forest to be identified, i.e. light fires, successive fires and the occurrence of a spruce budworm epidemic followed by a fire. Results Charcoals dated in the organic horizon were less than 200 years old, suggesting a recent transformation of the closed-crown forest following surface fires. Before their transformation into lichen‐spruce woodlands, stands were occupied by old, dense forests that originated from fires dating back to 1000 yr bp . The radiocarbon dating of charcoals in the organic horizon indicated that several stands burned twice in less than 50 years, while others burned shortly after a spruce budworm epidemic. Light fires are frequent within the lichen‐spruce woodlands according to multiple charcoal layers found within the organic matter horizon. Main conclusions While closed-crown forests are predicted to expand under climate warming, compound disturbances diminish the natural regeneration of the closed-crown forests in the south and favour the expansion of lichen‐spruce woodlands. As black spruce germinates on mineral soils, surface fires accentuate the expansion of the lichen‐spruce woodlands southward. Under global warming, warmer springs will lead to earlier low-intensity fires that do not remove as much organic matter, and hence prevent conditions suitable for black spruce regeneration. Also, spruce budworm reduces seed production for a certain time. The occurrence of fire during this period is critical for regeneration of black spruce.
Aerial detection surveys in the United States

Summary Aerial detection survey, also known as aerial sketchmapping, involves observing forest change events from an aircraft and documenting them manually onto a map. Data from aerial surveys have become an important component of the Forest Health Monitoring program, a national program designed to determine the status, changes and trends in indicators of forest condition. Aerial surveys are an effective and economical means of monitoring and mapping common forest disturbances such as tree damage and tree mortality caused by insects and disease. Information from aerial surveys can be considered the first stage in a multi-stage or multi-phase sampling design. Aerial sketchmap surveys have been used in the United States since the 1940s. Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection, together with other federal, state and county cooperators conducts annual sketchmap surveys across all land ownerships. Between 2002 and 2006 an annual average of 1 800 000 km2 of forested lands were aerially surveyed within the United States alone. Traditionally, forest damage has been sketchmapped on United States Geological Survey paper-base maps. Recently, the USDA Forest Service's Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET) developed a digital aerial sketchmapping system that automates this process, allowing users to digitise polygons directly onto a touch-screen linked to a global positioning system (GPS) unit and computer or onto a tablet PC with an integrated GPS.
Efficient Fire Detection for Uncertain Surveillance Environment

Tactile Internet can combine multiple technologies by enabling intelligence via mobile edge computing and data transmission over a 5G network. Recently, several convolutional neural networks (CNN) based methods via edge intelligence are utilized for fire detection in certain environment with reasonable accuracy and running time. However, these methods fail to detect fire in uncertain Internet of Things (IoT) environment having smoke, fog, and snow. Furthermore, achieving good accuracy with reduced running time and model size is challenging for resource constrained devices. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an efficient CNN based system for fire detection in videos captured in uncertain surveillance scenarios. Our approach uses light-weight deep neural networks with no dense fully connected layers, making it computationally inexpensive. Experiments are conducted on benchmark fire datasets and the results reveal the better performance of our approach compared to state-of-the-art. Considering the accuracy, false alarms, size, and running time of our system, we believe that it is a suitable candidate for fire detection in uncertain IoT environment for mobile and embedded vision applications during surveillance.
Churn prediction and social neighbour influences for different types of user groups in virtual worlds

In virtual worlds (VWs), users have more VW games alternatives, whereas VW companies consequently suffer from high customer turnover rate and low customer loyalty. Therefore, building a churn prediction model to facilitate subsequent churn management and customer retention is important. The churn behaviours and the impact of social neighbour influences to customer churn may be different for different types of users. Accordingly, we segment users into stable, unstable, and solitary user groups according to their social contact behaviours in VWs. Novel segmentation‐based churn prediction approaches are proposed for churn prediction in VWs by building prediction models for each type of user groups and considering the effect of social neighbour influences for different user groups. The proposed approaches are evaluated by conducting experiments with a dataset collected from a VW platform. The experimental results show different churn prediction performances under different user groups. The segmentation‐based churn prediction approaches perform better than do general approaches without considering user groups. Moreover, the results also reveal that social neighbour influences have a positive impact on stable and unstable users. The proposed work contributes to investigating the social neighbour influences on churn prediction for different types of user groups in VWs.
Quantitative structure-activity relationship study of novel rhinacanthins and related naphthoquinone esters as anticancer agents

The anticancer activity of rhinacanthins and related naphthoquinone esters is quantitatively analyzed through Fujita-Ban and Hansch approaches. The analyses have helped to ascertain the role of different substituents in explaining the observed inhibitory actions of these compounds. From both approaches it appeared that naphthalene ring instead of benzene ring, dimethyl substitution at R1 and R2, and hydrogen-bond acceptor substituents at R3 (Figure Figure 1) are advantageous to improve the activity of a compound against KB cell lines. This in turn leads to the suggestion that the rhinacanthin-N scaffold is the structural entity that needs exploration for new potential compounds. Further, in the Fujita-Ban analysis, it is observed that the compounds bearing a OMe substitution, relative to H, at R4 have a slight positive contribution to pIC50 (KB) whereas the substituents H or OMe at R5, relative to OH, have negative contributions. In conformity with these findings, the Hansch approach revealed that a more hydrophobic group at R4 and a more hydrophilic group at R5 positions are beneficial in raising the activity. The two quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analyses, differing in parametric approach, therefore, provided the grounds for rationalizing the substituent selection to design more potent compounds of the series. Figure 1 Structures of rhinacanthin–M (1), –N (14), –Q (15) and related naphthoquinone esters (2–13, 16–42).
Combating Corruption through Corporate Transparency Using Enforcement Discretion to Improve Disclosure

This article builds on the increased attention given to corruption as an issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the increased enforcement of anti-bribery laws in the United States, to consider how enforcement activity can work to improve corporate transparency and support initiatives developed in the field of corporate social responsibility, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Although the GRI requires disclosure on anti-corruption matters, currently, few companies are providing disclosure on this issue and those that are disclosing rarely provide useful information to stakeholders. This article shows how recent trends in criminal and civil law enforcement can be modified slightly to provide strong incentives for companies to disclose information required by the GRI or other social reporting standards. The article then shows how the proposal can assist current enforcement practices directly, but also indirectly by supporting CSR initiatives designed to help combat the enabling environment that allows corruption to thrive.
“Bouncing ideas”: When participants use this phrase, what do they really mean?

In a qualitative study of the information behavior of early career academics transitioning from doctoral studies to their first continuing academic positions, participants used the phrase “bouncing ideas” with relative frequency to describe their interactions with colleagues. Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, interviews with 20 early career academics were analyzed and for themes and sub‐themes. “Bouncing ideas” emerged as a sub‐theme, related to collegial information exchange, an important way early career academics find workplace information. Despite its common usage, the term remained vague in participant discussions and unexamined in the information science literature. This poster will investigate the meaning of “bouncing ideas” as used by participants, exploring its potential constituent parts including: information seeking, information sharing, collaboration, and information creation. ASIS&T conference attendees will be encouraged to think about and actively engage in discussion about the phrase, in an attempt to answer the research question, What does “bouncing ideas” mean?
Security Analysis of Malicious Socialbots on the Web by Yazan

The open nature of the Web, online social networks (OSNs) in particular, makes it possible to design socialbots—automation software that controls fake accounts in a target OSN, and has the ability to perform basic activities similar to those of real users. In the wrong hands, socialbots can be used to infiltrate online communities, build up trust over time, and then engage in various malicious activities. This dissertation presents an in-depth security analysis of malicious socialbots on the Web, OSNs in particular. The analysis focuses on two main goals: (1) to characterize and analyze the vulnerability of OSNs to cyber attacks by malicious socialbots, social infiltration in particular, and (2) to design and evaluate a countermeasure to efficiently and effectively defend against socialbots. To achieve these goals, we first studied social infiltration as an organized campaign operated by a socialbot network (SbN)—a group of programmable socialbots that are coordinated by an attacker in a botnet-like fashion. We implemented a prototypical SbN consisting of 100 socialbots and operated it on Facebook for 8 weeks. Among various findings, we observed that some users are more likely to become victims than others, depending on factors related to their social structure. Moreover, we found that traditional OSN defenses are not effective at identifying automated fake accounts or their social infiltration campaigns. Based on these findings, we designed Íntegro—an infiltration-resilient defense system that helps OSNs detect automated fake accounts via a user ranking scheme. In particular, Íntegro relies on a novel approach that leverages victim classification for robust graph-based fake account detection, with provable security guarantees.
Phylogeny and biogeography in the evolution of migration: shorebirds of the Charadrius complex

Aim We explore whether molecular phylogeny and biogeography can complement evolutionary ecology in developing a method to address a long‐standing issue in the evolution of migration: have migrations between breeding and non‐breeding grounds, which may be on different continents, evolved through origins in the breeding grounds with successive shifts of the non‐breeding distribution or vice versa?
Two Distinct Ca2+-Dependent Signaling Pathways Regulate the Motor Output of Cochlear Outer Hair Cells

The outer hair cells (OHCs) of the cochlea have an electromotility mechanism, based on conformational changes of voltage-sensitive “motor” proteins in the lateral plasma membrane. The translocation of electrical charges across the membrane that accompanies electromotility imparts a voltage dependency to the membrane capacitance. We used capacitance measurements to investigate whether electromotility may be influenced by different manipulations known to affect intracellular Ca2+ or Ca2+-dependent protein phosphorylation. Application of acetylcholine (ACh) to the synaptic pole of isolated OHCs evoked a Ca2+-activated apamin-sensitive outward K+ current. It also enhanced electromotility, probably because of a phosphorylation-dependent decrease of the cell's axial stiffness. However, ACh did not change the voltage-dependent capacitance either in conventional whole-cell experiments or under perforated-patch conditions. The effects produced by the Ca2+ ionophore ionomycin mimicked those produced by ACh. Hyperpolarizing shifts of the voltage dependence of capacitance and electromotility were induced by okadaic acid, a promoter of protein phosphorylation, whereas trifluoperazine and W-7, antagonists of calmodulin, caused opposite depolarizing shifts. Components of the protein phosphorylation cascade—IP3receptors and calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type IV—were immunolocalized to the lateral wall of the OHC. Our results suggest that two different Ca2+-dependent pathways may control the OHC motor output. The first pathway modulates cytoskeletal stiffness and can be activated by ACh. The second pathway shifts the voltage sensitivity of the OHC electromotile mechanism and may be activated by the release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores located in the proximity of the lateral plasma membrane.
Characterizing and exploring users' task completion process at different stages in learning related tasks

This study explored user interactions when accomplishing learning related tasks from a new perspective, the process perspective, and examined three main types of user interactions: searching, reading and writing behaviors. The goal is to characterize how users' searching, reading, and writing interactions change at different stages, and explore what contextual factors are related to the task completion process. A user experiment with thirty‐two participants was conducted, and each participant was asked to work on two types of learning tasks: receptive tasks and critical tasks. For data analysis, we calculated the percentage of searching time, reading time and writing time during four stages, to characterize users' task completion process. Our results demonstrated that users' reading efforts were evenly distributed at four stages; half of their searching efforts were devoted at the first stage and writing efforts were mainly spent at the last stage. In addition, we also found task type and users' cognitive style had significant effects on users' searching, reading, writing process, and their writing efforts in the first stage were correlated to the quality of learning outcome. This study took the process perspective to characterize user interactions at different stages, and this perspective provides us a more comprehensive picture of user interactions and has implications for the design of search systems to fully support user interactions and their task completion process.
The Effect of Grid Connected Photovoltaic Location and Penetration Level on Total Harmonic Distortion

Connection a PV system to the grid needs a power electronics inverter, which injects harmonics into the grid. These harmonics prevail along the grid not only at the connection bus. So that, this paper presents a methodology to determine the best location to connect PV system to the grid in order to minimize the total harmonic distension (THD) within the grid. In addition, the methodology determines the permissible PV penetration level to keep the THD within limits, without using harmonics mitigation techniques, at all buses in the system according to IEEE standard. For penetration levels, which cause the THD out of the standard values, the paper uses shunt active filter (SAF) as mitigation technique for a large number of harmonics. Moreover, the paper studies the effect of load location variation and generation location variation on the best integration bus. The suggested methodology is applied on IEEE-9 bus as standard system. The system modeling and simulation are carried out using MATLAB/SIMULINK platform.
Overcoming chemoresistance using tumor mitochondria-targeted photodynamic therapy

Chemoresistance is a significant challenge in the treatment of patients with ovarian cancer. An important mechanism in resistance to cisplatin is increased drug efflux from tumor cells, potentially mediated by ATPdependent factors such as the ATPases, ATP7A/ATP7B, and the ATP binding cassette (ABC) family member, MRP2. Therefore, a promising strategy to overcome chemoresistance is targeted inhibition of ATP production in tumor cells. In this work, we developed a mitochondria-targeted photodynamic therapy (PDT) approach in ovarian tumors to overcome chemoresistance.
Astronomical relativistic reference systems and their application for astrometry.

The status of the relativistic model for microarcsecond astrometry is reviewed. Theoretical foundations of the model and its main components are elucidated. Difficulties of increasing the accuracy of the model from microto nanoarcseconds are discussed. Each effect included in the model can be used to test the theory predicting this effect. A brief overview of the possible relativistic tests with astrometric data is given. It is stressed that systematic errors in the observational data and in the auxiliary input parameters (e.g. orbit of the observer) must be taken very seriously when conceiving tests of fundamental physics
Business protocol adaptors for flexible business chain formation and enactment : Business protocol adaptors for flexible chain formation and enactment

Collaboration in business chains is essential for organizations to be competitive in modern markets. Business chains require the dynamic integration of specialized business activities between partners, using process outsourcing. Dynamic outsourcing of processes enables on-the-fly collaboration of partners through business protocols. Since the business protocols of each partner support its own way of working, the business protocols can easily mismatch. The business protocols are incompatible, and thus the organizations cannot form a business chain. Mismatches can be resolved by using protocol adaptors. A protocol adaptor ensures that the collaboration of two business protocols terminates properly by receiving and reordering a set of messages from a protocol such that the messages are delivered in the order that the other side expects. In this thesis, we present an efficient, automated method to build (if possible) a minimal adaptor for two business protocols, expressed in the BPEL standard, that have a behavioral mismatch. A minimal adaptor processes only those messages that cause the mismatch. Compared to an adaptor that processes all messages, a minimal adaptor has less message overhead and less process complexity. The minimal adaptor is compatible with the business protocols, i.e., it ensures that the messages are communicated in the right order, and thus the protocols can proceed exchanging messages and terminate properly without reaching deadlock. Both the input protocols and the constructed minimal adaptor can contain parallelism and loops. We show that our method for adaptor construction runs in polynomial time. More-over, we identify how protocol adaptation can be used to support the flexible formation of business chains, resolving protocol incompatibilities between partner organizations. For each business chain type, we describe how protocol adaptors can be used to enable flexible formation of such a chain. Next, we present for each flexible chain formation case a supporting software architecture. The software architectures include an adaptor factory component as a key element to support the flexible formation and enactment of business chains. We validate the work of this thesis by a concrete implementation of a software prototype in a case study in the healthcare domain. We show the feasibility of the approach using current technologies and standards, and the limitations of the approach.
PPi Formation by Reversal of the Tonoplast-bound H+-pyrophosphatase from `Valencia' Orange Juice Cells

ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. vacuole, fruit development, Citrus sinensis ABSTRACT. Tonoplast vesicles isolated from juice cells of mature 'Valencia' oranges ( Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck) showed similar tonoplast-bound vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase) and inorganic pyrophosphatase (V-PPiase) activity as measured by product formation. Both proton pumps were able to generate a similar pH gradient, although steady-state was reached faster with ATP as substrate. When a ΔpH of 3 units was imposed (vesicle lumen pH of 4.5 and incubation medium of 7.5), tonoplast-bound PPiase was not able to significantly amplify the existing ΔpH. Although not able to function as a H + pump, V-PPiase effectively synthesized PPi in the presence of inorganic phosphate (P i). Formation of PPi by V-PPiase was enhanced by ATP but inhibited by NaF, gramicidin, and by antibodies raised against V-PP iase from mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilcz. (Syn. Phaseolus aureus Roxb.)). Immunological analysis demonstrated an increase in V-PP iase protein with fruit maturity. Data indicate that under in vivo conditions, the V-PP iase of mature orange juice cells acts as a source of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) but not as a H + pump. We propose that synthesis of PPi provides a mechanism for recovery of stored energy in the form of the pH gradient across the vacuole during later stages of development and postharvest storage.
Phytochemical screening for antibacterial activity of potential Malaysian medicinal plants

Plants have been identified for their valuable properties for traditional medicine since thousands of years ago. The huge diversity of the Malaysian flora that has chemical diversity is one of the vital factors that make natural products outstanding candidates for any screening practice. In this study, the leaves of five local plants which are Centella asiatica (‘pegaga’), Ficus deltoidea (‘mas cotek’), Orthosiphon aristatus (‘misai kucing’), Polygonum minus (‘kesum’) and Psidium guajava (‘jambu batu’) were evaluated for their antibacterial properties with regards to the growth of Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli. Methanol, ethanol and distilled water were used as solvent to extract the plant samples. Preliminary screening showed that ethanol extract of P. guajava had the highest zone of inhibition against B. subtilis growth. Key words : Medicinal plants, screening, antibacterial properties, Psidium guajava.