Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is precipitation a trigger for the onset of xylogenesis in Juniperus przewalskii on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau?

BACKGROUND AND AIMS A series of studies have shown that temperature triggers the onset of xylogenesis of trees after winter dormancy. However, little is known about whether and how moisture availability influences xylogenesis in spring in drought-prone areas. METHODS Xylogenesis was monitored in five mature Qilian junipers (Juniperus przewalskii) by microcore sampling from 2009 to 2011 in a semi-arid area of the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau. A simple physical model of xylem cell production was developed and its sensitivity was analysed. The relationship between climate and growth was then evaluated, using weekly wood production data and climatic data from the study site. KEY RESULTS Delayed onset of xylogenesis in 2010 corresponded to a negative standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) value and a continuous period without rainfall in early May. The main period of wood formation was in June and July, and drier conditions from May to July led to a smaller number of xylem cells. Dry conditions in July could cause early cessation of xylem differentiation. The final number of xylem cells was mainly determined by the average production rate rather than the duration of new cell production. Xylem growth showed a positive and significant response to precipitation, but not to temperature. CONCLUSIONS Precipitation in late spring and summer can play a critical role in the onset of xylogenesis and xylem cell production. The delay in the initiation of xylogenesis under extremely dry conditions seems to be a stress-avoidance strategy against hydraulic failure. These findings could thus demonstrate an evolutionary adaptation of Qilian juniper to the extremely dry conditions of the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau.
Combining sceptical epistemic reasoning with credulous practical reasoning

This paper proposes an argument-based semantics for combined epistemic and practical reasoning, taking seriously the idea that in certain contexts epistemic reasoning is sceptical while practical reasoning is credulous. The new semantics combines grounded and preferred semantics. A dialectical proof theory is defined which is sound and complete with respect to this semantics and which combines existing argument games for sceptical reasoning in grounded semantics and credulous reasoning with preferred semantics.
Future Generation Computer Systems ( ) – Future Generation Computer Systems towards Adaptive Synchronization Measurement of Large-scale Non-stationary Non-linear Data

• We designed an approach to measure the synchronization strength of non-stationary nonlinear data against phase differences. • We demonstrated that the synchronization analysis was an effective indicator of an epileptic focus location. • We developed a parallelized approach with general-purpose computing on the graphics processing unit (GPGPU), and it largely improved the scalability of data processing. a b s t r a c t Synchronization measurement of non-stationary nonlinear data is an ongoing problem in the study of complex systems, e.g., neuroscience. Existing methods are largely based on Fourier transform and wavelet transform, and there is a lack of methods capable of (1) measuring the synchronization strength of multivariate data by adapting to non-stationary, non-linear dynamics, and (2) meeting the needs of sophisticated scientific or engineering applications. This study proposes an approach that measures the synchronization strength of bivariate non-stationary nonlinear data against phase differences. The approach (briefed as AD-PDSA) relies on adaptive algorithms for data decomposition. A parallelized approach was also developed with general-purpose computing on the graphics processing unit (GPGPU), which largely improved the scalability of data processing, namely, GAD-PDSA. We developed a model on the basis of GAD-PDSA to verify its effectiveness in analyzing multi-channel, event-related potential (ERP) recordings against Daubechies (DB) wavelet with reference to the Morlet wavelet transform (MWT). GAD-PDSA was applied to an EEG dataset obtained from epilepsy patients, and the synchronization analysis manifested an effective indicator of epileptic focus localization.
Stiff Mutant Genes of Phycomyces Affect Turgor Pressure and Wall Mechanical Properties to Regulate Elongation Growth Rate

Regulation of cell growth is paramount to all living organisms. In plants, algae and fungi, regulation of expansive growth of cells is required for development and morphogenesis. Also, many sensory responses of stage IVb sporangiophores of Phycomyces blakesleeanus are produced by regulating elongation growth rate (growth responses) and differential elongation growth rate (tropic responses). “Stiff” mutant sporangiophores exhibit diminished tropic responses and are found to be defective in at least five genes; madD, E, F, G, and J. Prior experimental research suggests that the defective genes affect growth regulation, but this was not verified. All the growth of the single-celled stalk of the stage IVb sporangiophore occurs in a short region termed the “growth zone. ” Prior experimental and theoretical research indicates that elongation growth rate of the stage IVb sporangiophore can be regulated by controlling the cell wall mechanical properties within the growth zone and the magnitude of the turgor pressure. A quantitative biophysical model for elongation growth rate is required to elucidate the relationship between wall mechanical properties and turgor pressure during growth regulation. In this study, it is hypothesized that the mechanical properties of the wall within the growth zone of stiff mutant sporangiophores are different compared to wild type (WT). A biophysical equation for elongation growth rate is derived for fungal and plant cells with a growth zone. Two strains of stiff mutants are studied, C149 madD120 (−) and C216 geo- (−). Experimental results demonstrate that turgor pressure is larger but irreversible wall deformation rates within the growth zone and growth zone length are smaller for stiff mutant sporangiophores compared to WT. These findings can explain the diminished tropic responses of the stiff mutant sporangiophores. It is speculated that the defective genes affect the amount of wall-building material delivered to the inner cell wall.
Paying for productivity : a look at the evidence

Will higher pay provide an incentive for better work? Can productivity be increased by changing the way workers are compensated? In response to the urgent need to improve productivity performance in American industry, leading economists examine alternative compensation schemes to assess their efficiency in raising productivity.Over the years a number of suggestions have been made for improving labor productivity by changing the manner in which laborers are compensated for their efforts. The ideas presented and analyzed in this volume have all been put into practice, in modified form or on a small scale, in the United States or elsewhere. Some are new; others quite old.David I. Levine and Laura D'Andrea Tyson consider the effects of employee participation in decisionmaking on firm performance, and Martin L. Weitzman and Douglas L. Kruse discuss the implications of profit sharing and related forms of pay for group performance. Michael A. Conte and Jan Svejnar analyze employee stock ownership plans in the United States and other forms of worker ownership in Europe; Masanore Hashimoto uses a transaction-cost perspective to assess Japanese employment and wage systems. Daniel J. B. Mitchell, David Lewin, and Edward E. Lawler III give an overall analysis of traditional and alternative pay systems, their history, development, and curent use, and recommend further experimentation with alternative compensation plans to ensure more adaptability on the part of U.S. firms. Blinder provides an overview of the findings and conclusions.
Robotic framework for affordance learning Supplement to the research progress report 4

I intend to create a semi-autonomous artificial cognitive system which will be capable to master (to some extent) its own toy world (see [9]). Where the toy world is thought to be a close world (and in some sense complete) because of a restricted diversity, i.e. kinds/types of possible objects, actions, static and dynamic relations between objects, physical laws involved. The toy world is tuned in such a way, that the system embedded in this world can optimally act and learn while capturing some of the most important aspects of the real world complexity. Naturally, the criteria of optimality will depend on scientific goals, the whole project stage, and on the available equipment. In fact, they determined that the basic experiments are likely to be limited only to pushing rigid objects, similarly to those described in [9]. “Mastering the toy world” will in general involve the following problem-groups:
Dynamic NFC-Displays as a Prototyping Platform for Direct Mobile Interactions with Public Displays

Mobile interaction with public displays is usually indirect and depends on the limited input features of mobile devices. Dynamic NFC-displays combine the simplicity and directness of mobile interaction with NFC-tagged, physical objects and the visual output capabilities of public displays. In this paper, we explore this technology as a prototyping platform for the development of more direct and personal mobile interactions with public displays for Ubiquitous and Urban Computing. We present use case scenarios, discuss the basic technology and report our experiences with two applications for information exchange and gaming. Author
Choosing the Right Green Marketing Strategy

Green marketing has not lived up to the hopes and dreams of many managers and activists. Although public opinion polls consistently show that consumers would prefer to choose a green product over one that is less friendly to the environment when all other things are equal, those "other things" are rarely equal in the minds of consumers. For example, when consumers are forced to make trade-offs between product attributes or helping the environment, the environment almost never wins. And hopes for green products also have been hurt by the perception that such products are of lower quality or don't really deliver on their environmental promises. And yet the news isn't all bad, as the growing number of people willing to pay a premium for green products ? from organic foods to energy-efficient appliances ? attests. How, then, should companies handle the dilemmas associated with green marketing? They must always keep in mind that consumers are unlikely to compromise on traditional product attributes, such as convenience, availability, price, quality and performance. It's even more important to realize, however, that there is no single green-marketing strategy that is right for every company. The authors suggest that companies should follow one of four strategies, depending on market and competitive conditions, from the relatively passive and silent "lean green" approach to the more aggressive and visible "extreme green" approach ? with "defensive green" and "shaded green" in between. Managers who understand these strategies and the underlying reasoning behind them will be better prepared to help their companies benefit from an environmentally friendly approach to marketing.
An empirical analysis of R&D expenditure in the Nordic countries

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Peter Pedroni (Indiana University, US) who kindlysupplied us with the RATS codes for the computation of the critical values and thus made possiblethe panel cointegration tests and to Jesper Overgard for collecting the dataset. The paper waspresented at the IAES Meeting, Montreal, October 1999. We thank participants, discussants and inaddition colleagues from Department of Economics at The Aarhus School of Business for usefulcomments on an earlier versions of this paper.
Threats to Health Information Security

The purpose of this paper is to identify the threats that exist in Healthcare Information Systems (HIS). The study has been carried out in three different departments namely, Information Technology Department (ITD), Medical Record Department (MRD) and X-Ray Department in one of the leading government supported hospital in Malaysia. The hospital was equipped with Total Hospital Information System (THIS) environment. The data were collected using in-depth structured interviews. The study identified 22 types of threats according to major threat categories based on ISO/IEC 27002 (ISO 27799:2008). The result shows the most critical threat for the THIS is the power failure. In addition, acts of human error or failure threat also show high frequency of occurrence. The contribution of the paper will be categorization of threats in HIS and can be used to design and implement effective security systems and policies in healthcare setting.
Computational Virtual Screening of Sulfonylurea chalcones as New Class of 5-Lipoxygenase Inhibitors by Molecular Docking Studies

Molecular docking study was performed on a series of 25 sulfonylureachalcones VS1-VS25 as potential 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) inhibitors. The docking technique was applied to dock a set of representative compounds within the active site region of 3V99 (5-LO) using Molegro Virtual Docker v 4.0. For these compounds, the binding free energy (kcal/mol) was determined. The docking simulation clearly predicted the binding mode that is nearly similar to the crystallographic binding mode with 1.17A RMSD. Based on the validations and hydrogen bond interactions made by R substituents were considered for evaluation. The results avail to understand the type of interactions that occur between designed ligands with 3V99 binding site region and explain the importance of R substitution on sulfonylureachalcone basic nucleus.
Rotation-invariant object recognition using edge profile clusters

This paper introduces a new method to recognize objects at any rotation using clusters that represent edge profiles. These clusters are calculated from the Interlevel Product (ILP) of complex wavelets whose phases represent the level of “edginess” vs “ridginess” of a feature, a quantity that is invariant to basic affine transformations. These clusters represent areas where ILP coefficients are large and of similar phase; these are two properties which indicate that a stable, coarse-level feature with a consistent edge profile exists at the indicated locations. We calculate these clusters for a small target image, and then seek these clusters within a larger search image, regardless of their rotation angle. We compare our method against SIFT for the task of rotation-invariant matching in the presence of heavy Gaussian noise, where our method is shown to be more noise-robust. This improvement is a direct result of our new edge-profile clusters' broad spatial support and stable relationship to coarse-level image content.
An E-band very low noise amplifier with variable gain control on 100 nm GaAs pHEMT technology

Design methodology and measurements of an E-band very low noise amplifier (LNA) are presented in this paper. This four stages MMIC is manufactured on UMS 4 inch 100 nm GaAs pHEMT technology with BCB coating. The chip size is 3.35 × 1.12 mm2. On-wafer measurements, close to simulation results, exhibit a gain of 22 dB associated to 4 dB noise figure in the 71-86 GHz frequency band (less than 3.5 dB in the 76-86 GHz sub-band). An output power of 10 dBm at 1 dB compression at maximum gain and 12 dB gain control dynamic range are also demonstrated in the entire frequency band by tuning the gate voltage from -3 to -2 V. To our knowledge, these performances are among the best reported up to now for an E-band LNA.
Genetic Linkage Map Construction and QTL Mapping of Salt Tolerance Traits in Zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica)

Zoysiagrass (Zoysia Willd.) is an important warm season turfgrass that is grown in many parts of the world. Salt tolerance is an important trait in zoysiagrass breeding programs. In this study, a genetic linkage map was constructed using sequence-related amplified polymorphism markers and random amplified polymorphic DNA markers based on an F1 population comprising 120 progeny derived from a cross between Zoysia japonica Z105 (salt-tolerant accession) and Z061 (salt-sensitive accession). The linkage map covered 1211 cM with an average marker distance of 5.0 cM and contained 24 linkage groups with 242 marker loci (217 sequence-related amplified polymorphism markers and 25 random amplified polymorphic DNA markers). Quantitative trait loci affecting the salt tolerance of zoysiagrass were identified using the constructed genetic linkage map. Two significant quantitative trait loci (qLF-1 and qLF-2) for leaf firing percentage were detected; qLF-1 at 36.3 cM on linkage group LG4 with a logarithm of odds value of 3.27, which explained 13.1% of the total variation of leaf firing and qLF-2 at 42.3 cM on LG5 with a logarithm of odds value of 2.88, which explained 29.7% of the total variation of leaf firing. A significant quantitative trait locus (qSCW-1) for reduced percentage of dry shoot clipping weight was detected at 44.1 cM on LG5 with a logarithm of odds value of 4.0, which explained 65.6% of the total variation. This study provides important information for further functional analysis of salt-tolerance genes in zoysiagrass. Molecular markers linked with quantitative trait loci for salt tolerance will be useful in zoysiagrass breeding programs using marker-assisted selection.
The molecular basis of asbestos induced lung injury

Asbestos causes progressive pulmonary fibrosis (asbestosis), pleural disease (effusion and pleural plaques), and malignancies such as bronchogenic carcinoma and malignant mesothelioma.1-3 Asbestos is a generic term for a group of naturally occurring hydrated silicate fibres whose tensile strength and resilient structural and chemical properties are ideally suited for various construction and insulating purposes. The toxic effects of asbestos depend upon the cumulative dose and the time since the first exposure. Asbestos related diseases typically occur after a 15–40 year latency period following initial fibre exposure. The two classes of asbestos fibres, serpentine and amphibole fibres, can each cause pulmonary disease. Serpentine fibres, of which chrysotile is the principal commercial variety, are curly-stranded structures whereas amphiboles (crocidolite, amosite, tremolite and others) are straight, rod-like fibres. Chrysotile accounts for over 95% of world asbestos consumption.4 Asbestos induced pulmonary diseases remain a significant health concern. In the United States over 30 million tons of asbestos have been mined, processed and applied since the early 1900s.1 Moreover, non-occupational asbestos exposure may originate from existing buildings that contain enormous amounts of the fibres.5 Finally, it is estimated that the cumulative total number of asbestos associated deaths in the United States may exceed 200 000 by the year 2030.6 Extensive investigations over the last two decades have revealed some of the pathogenic mechanisms of asbestos pulmonary diseases. A further benefit of these studies is that asbestos induced pulmonary toxicity is an excellent paradigm to explore the mechanisms underlying other common causes of pulmonary fibrosis and malignancy. Asbestos is an established genotoxic agent that can induce DNA damage, gene transcription, and protein expression important in modulating cell proliferation, cell death, and inflammation.1 2 7-9 Recent comprehensive reviews have described in detail the histopathological and clinical features of asbestos related diseases1-3 9 …
Face recognition based on adaptive weighting and fuzzy fusion with single training sample

In order to solve the robustness issues for single training sample face recognition under occlusion conditions, this paper presents a recognition method based on adaptive weighting and fuzzy fusion. In our method, the information entropy expansion mode is introduced in sub-mode method and via adaptively assigning the weights corresponding to each sub-model can reduce the impact of occluded region. In addition, through summing the similar blocks in face images can make up for the defect of the sub-model which ignores the integrity of face. Finally, the method based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is utilized for decision-level fusion to the outputs by these two ways of classification. Experimental results on AR face database show that this method has state-of-the-art classification accuracy and also robustness to occlusion.
Carbon star populations in systems with different metallicities: statistics in Local Group galaxies

We present evolutionary population synthesis models for the study of the cool and luminous intermediate age stellar populations in resolved galaxies with particular emphasis on carbon star populations. We study the effects of the star formation history, the age and the metallicity on the populations of intermediate mass stars. In the case of instantaneous bursts, we confirm that lower metallicity results in higher contributions of carbon stars to the total star number, and in higher number ratios of carbon stars to late-type M stars. Chemically consistent models are used to study the effect of the star formation history on the relations between carbon star population properties and global parameters of the parent galaxy (age, metallicity). Our models are able to account, for the first time, for those correlations, as observed in the galaxies of the Local Group. For stellar populations older than about 1 Gyr, the properties of carbon star populations are linked to the current metallicity in a way that is quite independent of the star formation scenario. The number ratio of carbon stars to late-type M stars forms a metallicity sequence along which stellar populations with very different star formation histories are found. For the same populations, we find that both the mean bolometric luminosity of carbon stars and their normalized number to the luminosity of the parent galaxy are quite independent of metallicity over a large range in metallicity. This is in good agreement with the observational constraints. The observed statistics of carbon star populations can be interpreted by two principal effects: (i) the carbon star formation efficiency is higher in metal-poor systems, (ii) the typical star formation time-scale along the Hubble sequence of galaxies is much longer than the typical time-scale for the production of carbon stars at any metallicity.