Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure, Productivity and Carbon Storage of Primeval European Beech Forests

A major part of the potential natural vegetation of central Europe consists of European beech forests (Fagus sylvatica L.). Beech is one of the most important broadleaf tree species for forestry within its distribution range and of outstanding value for biodiversity conservation. Despite their geographic confinedness, the last remnants of primeval beech forests are due to their variability well suited to study relationships between ecosystem functioning and stand structure. Through comparative study, effects of production forestry on forest functioning can be assessed. The present work focuses on (1) the effect of age-class forestry and (2) influences of the natural development cycle on stand and canopy structure, aboveground biomass stocks, and net primary production (ANPP). Parameters describing the stand structure and biomass budget were inventoried in three primeval beech forests in eastern Slovakia and in three close-by production forests. Canopy density and canopy structural diversity were quantified via the leaf area index (LAI; mean and dispersion of multiple measurements per plot with a LAI-2000 system). Live- and dead biomass stocks were calculated with allometric equations and the ANPP (woody biomass and litter production) was derived from seasonal diameter-increments of trees and with litter trapping. Additionally, a complete inventory of two large plots in primeval beech forests in Albania was used to test the hypothesis that an unsupervised classification algorithm is suitable to detect naturally existing thresholds within multivariate stand structural datasets of primeval forests, which mark transitions between forest development stages. Linear regression models show that canopy density is greater by 1.6 m2^m-2 in the Slovakian primeval forests compared to the production forests. Canopy structural diversity is as well considerably greater in the primeval forests. Wood mass stocks (live and dead) are 39 % larger in the primeval forests, while ANPP is approximately equal in both systems. Canopy structural diversity is identified as a key promoting factor of \ANPP{} responsible for an increase of approximately 1 Mg ha^-1 yr^-1. The multivariate structural data of the Albanian primeval forests is rather homogeneously distributed, no natural thresholds are present. This confirms the practicability of current methods to discriminate between forest development stages. The presented results may provide insights for the advancement of silvicultural techniques to ensure the maintenance of the full set of ecosystem services provided by beech forests.
Analysis and Modeling of Planar Concentric Windings Forming Adaptable-Diameter Burners for Induction Heating Appliances

Adaptable-diameter inductors are being implemented in domestic induction hobs in order to increase the range of suitable pot diameters and to achieve the better use of the rated power electronics. Such inductors are arranged by means of several concentric planar windings, usually up to three units, each one of them comprising several litz-wire turns. Currently, one resonant inverter is dedicated to supplying each winding. In this paper, a characterization of these inductors in terms of their impedance matrix is derived. The self-impedance of each winding and those caused by the coupling between them are analyzed. The contribution of this paper lies in the understanding and analysis of the coupling between concentric windings. Unlike transformers, where ideally the magnetic path consists of a lossless material, in domestic induction heating, the vessel is part of the flux path. Consequently, the off-diagonal terms of the impedance matrix have been generalized because they have a resistive component in addition to the classical mutual-inductance component. The analysis presented in this paper also includes the losses in the litz wires generated by the currents in each winding as well as the losses produced by the windings over their concentric neighbors.
Decreased force enhancement in skeletal muscle sarcomeres with a deletion in titin

ABSTRACT In the cross-bridge theory, contractile force is produced by cross-bridges that form between actin and myosin filaments. However, when a contracting muscle is stretched, its active force vastly exceeds the force that can be attributed to cross-bridges. This unexplained, enhanced force has been thought to originate in the giant protein titin, which becomes stiffer in actively compared with passively stretched sarcomeres by an unknown mechanism. We investigated this mechanism using a genetic mutation (mdm) with a small but crucial deletion in the titin protein. Myofibrils from normal and mdm mice were stretched from sarcomere lengths of 2.5 to 6.0 μm. Actively stretched myofibrils from normal mice were stiffer and generated more force than passively stretched myofibrils at all sarcomere lengths. No increase in stiffness and just a small increase in force were observed in actively compared with passively stretched mdm myofibrils. These results are in agreement with the idea that titin force enhancement stiffens and stabilizes the sarcomere during contraction and that this mechanism is lost with the mdm mutation. Summary: Force enhancement is absent in sarcomeres where amino acids in N2A and PEVK titin are deleted, indicating these specific regions are paramount in increasing titin stiffness in an active sarcomere.
Perioperative myocardial infarction in patients undergoing myocardial revascularization surgery

Introduction Perioperative myocardial infarction adversely affects the prognosis of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft and its diagnosis was hampered by numerous difficulties, because the pathophysiology is different from the traditional instability atherosclerotic and the clinical difficulty to be characterized. Objective To identify the frequency of perioperative myocardial infarction and its outcome in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft. Methods Retrospective cohort study performed in a tertiary hospital specialized in cardiology, from May 01, 2011 to April 30, 2012, which included all records containing coronary artery bypass graft records. To confirm the diagnosis of perioperative myocardial infarction criteria, the Third Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction was used. Results We analyzed 116 cases. Perioperative myocardial infarction was diagnosed in 28 patients (24.1%). Number of grafts and use and cardiopulmonary bypass time were associated with this diagnosis and the mean age was significantly higher in this group. The diagnostic criteria elevated troponin I, which was positive in 99.1% of cases regardless of diagnosis of perioperative myocardial infarction. No significant difference was found between length of hospital stay and intensive care unit in patients with and without this complication, however patients with perioperative myocardial infarction progressed with worse left ventricular function and more death cases. Conclusion The frequency of perioperative myocardial infarction found in this study was considered high and as a consequence the same observed average higher troponin I, more cases of worsening left ventricular function and death.
Targeting the SIN3A-PF1 interaction inhibits epithelial to mesenchymal transition and maintenance of a stem cell phenotype in triple negative breast cancer

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by a poorly differentiated phenotype and limited treatment options. Aberrant epigenetics in this subtype represent a potential therapeutic opportunity, but a better understanding of the mechanisms contributing to the TNBC pathogenesis is required. The SIN3 molecular scaffold performs a critical role in multiple cellular processes, including epigenetic regulation, and has been identified as a potential therapeutic target. Using a competitive peptide corresponding to the SIN3 interaction domain of MAD (Tat-SID), we investigated the functional consequences of selectively blocking the paired amphipathic α-helix (PAH2) domain of SIN3. Here, we report the identification of the SID-containing adaptor PF1 as a factor required for maintenance of the TNBC stem cell phenotype and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Tat-SID peptide blocked the interaction between SIN3A and PF1, leading to epigenetic modulation and transcriptional downregulation of TNBC stem cell and EMT markers. Importantly, Tat-SID treatment also led to a reduction in primary tumor growth and disseminated metastatic disease in vivo. In support of these findings, knockdown of PF1 expression phenocopied treatment with Tat-SID both in vitro and in vivo. These results demonstrate a critical role for a complex containing SIN3A and PF1 in TNBC and provide a rational for its therapeutic targeting.
An interactive fuzzy satisficing method through particle swarm optimization for multiobjective nonlinear programming problems

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) was proposed by Kennedy et al. as a general approximate solution method for nonlinear programming problems. Its efficiency has been shown, but there have been left some shortcomings of the method. Thus, the authors proposed a revised PSO (rPSO) method incorporating the homomorphous mapping and the multiple stretching in order to cope with these shortcomings. In this paper, we construct an interactive fuzzy satisficing method for multiobjective nonlinear programming problems based on the rPSO. Furthermore, in order to obtain better solutions in consideration of the property of multiobjective programming problems, we incorporate the direction to nondominated solutions into the rPSO. Finally, we show the efficiency of the proposed method by applying it to numerical examples
Boron Delta-Doping Dependence on Si/SiGe Resonant Interband Tunneling Diodes Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition

Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diodes (RITD) were fabricated using CVD on 200-mm silicon wafers. The RITD devices consist of a p+-i-n+ structure with δ-doped quantum wells providing resonant interband tunneling through a nominally intrinsic Si/SiGe region. The vapor-phase doping technique was used to obtain abrupt degenerate doping profiles. The boron doping in the δ-doped region was varied, and its effect on peak current density Jp and peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) was studied. As the flow rate is reduced, Jp was found to reduce while the PVCR initially increases and then decreases. Device simulations were performed using the ATLAS simulator developed by SILVACO to interpret the results. A maximum PVCR of 2.95 was obtained, and the highest Jp recorded was 600 A/cm2. This is the highest reported PVCR for any CVD-grown Si/SiGe RITD.
Notice of RetractionN-Doped TiO2 from NH4Cl for Photodecomposition of Rhodamine B under Sunlight Irradiation

N-doped titanium dioxide photocatalysts were prepared by a sol-gel process using tetrabutyl titanate as titanium source and ammonium chloride as nitrogen source. X ray powder diffraction shows that N-doped TiO2 catalysts exhibit high thermal stability and highly resistant to the phase transformation process from anatase phase to rutile phase. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy indicated nitrogen were effectively doped into TiO2 particles and nitrogen species in the form of N Ti-O and Ti-O-N. The results of the photodecomposition of Rhodamine B under visible-light irradiation suggest the photocatalytic activity of the N-doped TiO2 was greatly improved when compared with that of the undoped TiO2 photocatalyst. Calcination temperature and N/Ti molar ratio percent can affect the degradation ratio of RhB. The optimal activity of the N-doped TiO2 calcined at 350°C was observed for the 3 molar ratio percent of N:Ti, and the ratio of photodecomposition has achieved 90.31%.
Neural algorithms for cell placement in VLSI design

The authors present a modified Tank and Hopfield neural network for solving the problem of cell placement in integrated circuits, a constrained optimization problem that is NP-complete. The neural network is composed of two mutually interconnected subcircuits. One determines the configuration of cells on the plane for which the bounding box area and connections reach a minimum, whereas the other satisfies the nonoverlapping constraints among cells. The global-local minima issue is addressed and solved in two steps. First, the initial X-Y condition from which the system is permitted to evolve toward minima is determined by solving a relaxed problem that has global minima located in regions of the state space close to those of the original problem. Second, the initial orientation of blocks is determined by a more detailed analysis of connectivity requirements. The proposed neural network paradigm has been simulated and tested for small and medium-sized integrated circuits. <<ETX>>
SmartAds: bringing contextual ads to mobile apps

A recent study showed that while US consumers spent 30% more time on mobile apps than on traditional web, advertisers spent 1600% less money on mobile ads. One key reason is that unlike most web ad providers, today's mobile ads are not contextual---they do not take into account the content of the page they are displayed on. Thus, most mobile ads are irrelevant to what the user is interested in. For example, it is not uncommon to see gambling ads being displayed in a Bible app. This irrelevance results in low clickthrough rates, and hence advertisers shy away from the mobile platform. Using data from top 1200 apps in Windows Phone marketplace, and a one-week trace of ad keywords from Microsoft's ad network, we show that content displayed by mobile apps is a potential goldmine of keywords that advertisers are interested in. However, unlike web pages, which can be crawled and indexed offline for contextual advertising, content shown on mobile apps is often either generated dynamically, or is embedded in the apps themselves; and hence cannot be crawled. The only solution is to scrape the content at runtime, extract keywords and fetch contextually relevant ads. The challenge is to do this without excessive overhead and without violating user privacy. In this paper, we describe a system called SmartAds to address this challenge. We have built a prototype of SmartAds for Windows Phone apps. In a large user study with over 5000 ad impressions, we found that SmartAds nearly doubles the relevance score, while consuming minimal additional resources and preserving user privacy.
Economic Burden Analysis of Parkinson's Disease Patients in China

Background and Objective Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, which is prevalent in people over 65 years old. PD reduces patients' quality of life and exerts a heavy economic burden on patients and their families. The purpose of this research is to identify the costs of PD and to evaluate the economic distribution of medical care for PD patients in China. Methods A professional survey was administered to 116 patients with PD. Records of medical cost were reviewed. Direct and indirect costs were analyzed. The main cost-driving factors of PD were identified using multivariate regression analysis. Results The average annual cost per PD patient in China is $3,225.94, with direct and indirect costs accounting for $2,503.46 and $722.48, respectively. Direct costs consist of $556.27 for surgery, $44.67 for appointment fees, $605.67 for prescription medication, $460.29 for hospitalization, $71.03 for auxiliary examination, $35.64 for transportation, $10.39 for special equipment, and $719.50 for formal care. The total cost is closely related to surgical treatment, dopamine agonist, and levodopa costs. Conclusion The cost of PD patients in China is considerable and exceeds average economic capacity, especially antiparkinson medication and caring costs. This study may provide a reference for PD healthcare optimization in the future.
Temporal consistent depth map upscaling for 3DTV

The ongoing success of three-dimensional (3D) cinema fuels increasing efforts to spread the commercial success of 3D to new markets. The possibilities of a convincing 3D experience at home, such as three-dimensional television (3DTV), has generated a great deal of interest within the research and standardization community. A central issue for 3DTV is the creation and representation of 3D content. Acquiring scene depth information is a fundamental task in computer vision, yet complex and error-prone. Dedicated range sensors, such as the Time of-Flight camera (ToF), can simplify the scene depth capture process and overcome shortcomings of traditional solutions, such as active or passive stereo analysis. Admittedly, currently available ToF sensors deliver only a limited spatial resolution. However, sophisticated depth upscaling approaches use texture information to match depth and video resolution. At Electronic Imaging 2012 we proposed an upscaling routine based on error energy minimization, weighted with edge information from an accompanying video source. In this article we develop our algorithm further. By adding temporal consistency constraints to the upscaling process, we reduce disturbing depth jumps and flickering artifacts in the final 3DTV content. Temporal consistency in depth maps enhances the 3D experience, leading to a wider acceptance of 3D media content. More content in better quality can boost the commercial success of 3DTV.
Surveillance of antibiotic resistance in Taiwan, 1998.

For the first national surveillance of antibiotic resistance in Taiwan, we collected in 1998 from 22 hospitals (6 medical centers, 15 regional hospitals, and 1 local hospital) 3,211 isolates in all parts of the country. Besides 50 random successive isolates from inpatients, each hospital was requested to collect 25 isolates each from positive blood cultures, hospital-acquired infections, outpatients and the pediatric department. We re-speciated all the submitted specimens and determined their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. The most common isolates were Enterobacteriaceae (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae), Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Among hospital-acquired infections, Acinetobacter spp. were among those which accounted for over 10% of the isolates. The oxacillin resistance of S. aureus was 82% in isolates from hospital-acquired infections, and 40% from outpatients. Among Enterococcus spp. , 85% were either E. faecalis or E. faecium. They were 14% resistant to vancomycin. Among gram-negative bacteria, K. pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumanii were hospital-acquired isolates that were most clearly more resistant than community acquired isolates. This difference was less apparent in the case of Enterobacter cloacae, Serratia marcescens, and P. aeruginosa. These bacteria were generally more resistant from all sources. Fifty-one percent of Salmonella were resistant to ampicillin; however, these were all sensitive to ciprofloxacin. Isolates from the East were least resistant. Plotting the disc zone diameters of antibiotics within the susceptible range, we identified subpopulations with smaller diameters in the case of vancomycin against S. aureus, ciprofloxacin against E. coli, and ciprofloxacin against Salmonella spp. These findings represent one of the purposes of this surveillance as they may portend developing resistances which bear careful watching in the future.
Preliminary evaluation of simultaneous data and power transmission in the same frequency channel

Combining wireless transmission of data and power signals enables us to use wireless devices without charging batteries. To improve the utilization of wireless resources, a sender could simultaneously transmit data and power signals in the same frequency channel. A disadvantage of simultaneous transmission is that it induces interference between data and power signals. To minimize the effect of interference, we propose a new frequency-sharing system. The proposed system makes two contributions. The first contribution is interference cancellation of the power signal to receive data from the collided signal using a combination of digital and analog interference cancellation techniques. The second contribution is a media access control protocol to receive the transmitted power effectively by varying the sleep time. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system, we built an experimental apparatus using software-defined radio. Evaluations show that it is feasible to transmit data and power simultaneously using the proposed system.
Low-Density Lipoprotein and Intracerebral Hematoma Expansion in Daily Alcohol Users

Background: Epidemiological studies suggest that the intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) rate correlates with alcohol consumption. Alcohol leads to elevated blood pressure (BP) and inhibition of platelet aggregation. These factors could promote excessive bleeding. To our knowledge, in the setting of normal liver function tests, there are no studies that have systematically evaluated the relationship between daily alcohol use and hematoma expansion. The aim of this study is to compare the baseline ICH characteristics, frequency of hematoma expansion, and outcomes in patients with ICH who are daily alcohol users with those who are not daily alcohol users. Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed on consecutive patients who presented from July 2008 to July 2013 to the Tulane University Hospital in New Orleans, La. , USA, with a spontaneous ICH. Ninety-nine patients who met these criteria were admitted. Patients who underwent hematoma evacuation were excluded. Hemorrhage volumes were calculated based on the ABC/2 method. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) was dichotomized into low (<100 mg/dl) and high (≥100 mg/dl) values. Comparisons were made using t tests, χ2 and nonparametric equivalents where appropriate. ICH growth in 24 h and LDL were evaluated using linear regression. Results: Of the 226 patients who met inclusion criteria, 20.4% had a history of daily alcohol use. The average age was 61 years (range 19-94), 55.6% of the patients were males, and 67.1% were of African American origin. Daily alcohol use was associated with male gender, lower rate of home antihypertensive, higher presenting BP, and lower platelet counts, but there was no difference in ICH characteristics, ICH growth, or clinical outcome. Daily alcohol use in patients with a low LDL level was associated with supratentorial location and trends for lower baseline Glasgow Coma Scale score, higher ICH score, and follow-up ICH volume, but no significant difference in significant hematoma expansion or clinical outcome except for a trend for higher mortality was found (25 vs. 9.5%, p = 0.1311) compared to patients with high LDL values. Conclusions: Our data suggest that neither chronic daily alcohol use nor a low LDL level in combination with daily alcohol use can be used to predict ICH growth. Daily alcohol use was associated with untreated hypertension and higher BP on presentation. A low LDL level in combination with daily alcohol use may be linked with larger and more severe ICH, but we were unable to demonstrate a relationship with hematoma expansion or poor clinical outcome. The role of LDL in vessel fragility and clot stabilization needs to be further explored before concluding that a low LDL level confers risk of bleeding.
Integrating grid with intrusion detection

In recent years, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and denial-of-service (DoS) are the most dreadful network threats. Single-node IDS often suffers from losing its detection effectiveness and capability when processing enormous network traffic. To solve the drawbacks, we propose grid-based IDS, called grid intrusion detection system (GIDS), which uses grid computing resources to detect intrusion packets. For balancing detection load, score subtraction approach (SSA) and score addition approach (SAA) are deployed. Furthermore, to effectively detect intrusions, a two-phase packet detection process is proposed. The first phase detects logical and momentary attacks. Chronic attacks are detected in the second phase. Experiments are also performed and the results show that GIDS is truly an outstanding system in detecting attacks.