Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation of Global Land Surface Conditions from 1948 to 2004. Part I: Forcing Data and Evaluations

Abstract Because of a lack of observations, historical simulations of land surface conditions using land surface models are needed for studying variability and changes in the continental water cycle and for providing initial conditions for seasonal climate predictions. Atmospheric forcing datasets are also needed for land surface model development. The quality of atmospheric forcing data greatly affects the ability of land surface models to realistically simulate land surface conditions. Here a carefully constructed global forcing dataset for 1948–2004 with 3-hourly and T62 (∼1.875°) resolution is described, and historical simulations using the latest version of the Community Land Model version 3.0 (CLM3) are evaluated using available observations of streamflow, continental freshwater discharge, surface runoff, and soil moisture. The forcing dataset was derived by combining observation-based analyses of monthly precipitation and surface air temperature with intramonthly variations from the National Center.
Targeting Teaching at Children's Use of Time: Perspectives on Preschoolers' Engagement

Many teachers have at least a vague notion of the meaning of engagement, but they may underestimate its significance. We have designed this Special Focus section to provide some of the most recent information on child engagement and how it can influence early childhood special education. Engagement is a construct related to children's behavior over time. A common mistake is to think of engagement as brief periods of paying attention or active activity. In fact, engagement is concerned with sustained behavior or the total duration of its occurrence (i.e., the cumulative total time of the identified behaviors). One working definition of engagement is the amount of time a child spends in developmentally and contextually appropriate behavior. In some instructional tasks, this is called on task engagement. The engaged child is involved with the environment in a manner 'that matches the expectations for a: child of that developmental status and for that situation. For example, a 4-year-old with speech delays who sits at a table banging a toy would not be considered engaged. On the other hand, a 4-year-old with severe mental retardation and cerebral palsy who displays the same behavior would be considered engaged. Aspecific behavior might also be appropriate (en. gaged) in one setting but inappropriate
Meaning and Intonation: the Cases of Contrastive Accent and Meta-linguistic Negation

In this article we outline a methodological approach to the study of meaning and intonation. This approach focusses both on what speakers can produce (using production experiments) and on what hearers can perceive (using perception experiments). We show that such an experimental paradigm may yield interesting results from a semantical point of view by discussing two speciic cases: contrastive accent and meta-linguistic negation. Concerning contrastive accents, we argue against the existence of a separately identiiable accent with a contrastive interpretation, though a contrastive intonation contour does appear to exist. We argue that this contour triggers a presupposition, which may be resolved using van der Sandt's anaphoric theory of presuppositions. We also present empirical evidence for the existence of a set of prosodic diierences between meta-linguistic negations and descriptive negations, a distinction which is the subject of considerable debate in presupposition theory. Finally, we argue that prosody gives rise to soft constraints , and point out that an optimality theoretic framework may be suitable to model the relation between prosody and meaning. In the discussion we outline some problems and prospects for such an account.
Marine antifouling laboratory bioassays: an overview of their diversity

In aquatic environments, biofouling is a natural process of colonization of submerged surfaces, either living or artificial, involving a wide range of organisms from bacteria to invertebrates. Antifouling can be defined as preventing the attachment of organisms onto surfaces. This article reviews the laboratory bioassays that have been developed for studying the control of algae and invertebrates by epibiosis (chemical ecology) and the screening of new active compounds (natural products and biocides) to inhibit settlement or adhesion, ie fouling-release coatings. The assays utilize a range of organisms (mainly marine bacteria, diatoms, algae, barnacles). The main attributes of assays for micro- and macroorganisms are described in terms of their main characteristics and depending on the biological process assessed (growth, adhesion, toxicity, behavior). The validation of bioassays is also discussed.
Constructing Age Structures of Asian Elephant Populations: A Comparison of Two Field Methods of Age Estimation

Construction of age structures of populations is central to studies of demography of large vertebrates (Caughley 1977). Unlike in the case of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), there are few published age structures of wild Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations (Sukumar 1989, 2003). On the other hand, age/sex structures for several Asian elephant populations are available in reports, especially in governmental records pertaining to population censuses. Assessments of the dynamics of such populations based on the reported age structures are only as good as the fi eld methods used for estimating the age of individuals.
A Simulation Model for Low-Pathogenicity Avian Influenza Viruses in Dabbling Ducks in Europe

Abstract Anseriformes are the reservoir of low-pathogenicity avian influenza viruses (LPAIV). Studies have shown a high LPAIV prevalence associated with low antibody detection in a wild duck population in northern European countries, whereas in winter areas (Mediterranean basin), low viral detection and high seroprevalence were observed. In order to gain insight into the role played by both population recruitment and migration on AIV persistence, an epidemiological model was developed. A susceptible, infectious and removed (immune or dead)–individuals model coupling population and infection dynamics was developed to simulate LPAIV circulation in dabbling ducks throughout the entire year. The transmission coefficient (β) was calculated using the original dataset of published works, whereas dabbling duck demographic parameters were obtained from the literature. The estimated host density threshold for virus persistence is 380 susceptible individuals per day whereas the critical community size needed for maintaining the virus throughout the winter has been estimated to be about 1200 individuals. The model showed peaks of viral prevalence after nesting and during the moult period because of population recruitment and high host density, respectively. During the winter and spring periods, the viruses reach the minimal endemic level and local extinction is highly probable because of stochastic phenomena, respectively 80% and 90% of probabilities. The most sensitive parameters of the model are the recruitment rate of young susceptible animals and the duration of virus shedding.
The general prioritization framework

This paper proposes the general prioritization framework f test case prioritization during regression testing. Regressio n testing (RT) is done to ensure that modifications have not created new faul ts or that modifications fulfilled their intended purpose by correctly altering software functionality. Being performed multiple times, RT can have a profound effect on the software budget. The test case priori tization orders test cases for execution to reach a certain objective. U sually, such an objective is to detect faults as early as possible during t he testing process. Many prioritization techniques have been develop ed that successfully reach this objective. However, most of these tech niques were developed and studied independently from each other despit e the fact that they have many similarities. This article presents the framework that allows to represent known prioritization techniques. Thus, it helps to improve existing and devise new techniques. Also, it allo ws to implement a single tool that emulates any prioritization tech nique by just setting the correct parameters. The proposed framework inc ludes the combination/condensation (CC) structure and the structur e f nctions includingelement combination functions , condensation functions , and a super-group combination function . By defining two such structures together with the corresponding structure functions, one f r computing award values and one for their update, any known prioritizat on technique can be expressed. A general prioritization algorithm s presented that can express any known prioritization technique.
An approach to evaluate the performance of a user affective agent

When developing agents aimed at interacting with human users, one should consider not only the specific goal that the agent was created for, but also the quality of the interaction that it offers. To achieve a specific task in a specific area, the agent needs reasoning and learning capabilities, while for offering a good, pleasant interaction, an agent has to show believable behavior and social abilities. Eventually, the performance of the agent must be evaluated. Usually this is done by collecting feedback from participants interacting with the agent, which is highly subjective. Of course, the entire experience is a subjective one, but objective measures should also exist. The goal of this paper is to define metrics for evaluating an affective agent when it performs in a human-agent interaction setting and to show how these metrics can be used on a virtual museum scenario.
Users' Attitudes, Perception, and Concerns in the Era of Whole Genome Sequencing

Advances in Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) will soon allow most individuals in developed countries to have access to their sequenced genome, potentially yielding revolutionary medical and societal implications. However, WGS also comes with the risk of amplifying a number of ethical and privacy concerns. In this talk, we begin to assess the perception of genetic tests, the attitude toward different WGS programs, as well as the perception of privacy and ethical issues with WGS. We report on a series of semi-structured interviews, involving 16 participants, and analyze the results both quantitatively and qualitatively. Our preliminary study yields some interesting findings and highlights the need for more ethnographic studies in the field.
Children of depressed parents : mechanisms of risk and implications for treatment

An exploration of the mechanisms and moderators for depression and other disorders in children of depressed parents. Among the most common of mental disorders, depression is a highly heritable and recurrent disorder that may be especially prevalent among women with young children. These factors converge to suggest that a high percentage of children are exposed to depression and are therefore at great risk for developing the disorder. The authors of this volume look at mechanisms that may help to transmit risk for developing depression and also at moderators that may help alleviate possible risk. The work brings together diverse perspectives on interventions and risk factors, focusing not on one particular age group, but taking a developmental approach that examines children at various ages. The editors propose an integrative framework for understanding the risks for developing depression. Working from an empirical foundation, the contributors provide clinical implications and suggested applications of the findings they discuss.
A Critique of the American Jewish Day School.

Israel hardly seems to be the location from which to launch a critique of the Jewish day school in America. Yet, Israel provides a unique perspective on the subject. Israel houses five post-high school institutions which cater exclusively to the American Jewish day school graduate, as well as a number of other post-high school in stitutions with special programs for day school graduates. In one classroom in Jerusalem, it is possible to see a cross section of day school alumni from the better and the mediocre day schools in America on the West Coast, the East Coast, and in many cities in between. The critique offered here does not stem from a scientific, con trolled study, but from extensive personal observation as well as from discussions with deans and teachers in four of the five post-high school institutions for day school graduates. My observations dovetail with those of my colleagues (though I alone am responsible for the statements in this article). There is general agreement on the nature and the depth of the problems of the Jewish day school in America as measured by the quality of its graduates who study in Israel. Though I touch on some of the causes which beset the day school, my purpose here is to describe the problems themselves, to refer to causes and cures (a large topic beyond the scope of this ar ticle1) only insofar as they illustrate the problems. The disastrous educational results described below do not apply universally. There is a consensus that the following critique, based on data gathered from institutions which deal only with males, applies to about 75 percent of the students, a figure which can vary from one year to the next. The day school graduates who study in Israel are generally highly motivated and sincere. These students are not
Soft versus hard cooperative energy detection under low SNR

Amidst conflicting views about whether soft cooperative energy detection scheme (SCEDS) outperforms hard cooperative energy detection scheme (HCEDS) greatly in cognitive radio, we establish the bridge that mathematically connects SCEDS and HCEDS by closed approximations. Through this bridge, it is demonstrate that, if the number of detectors of HCEDS is 1.6 times as that of SCEDS, they have nearly the same performance which is confirmed by numerical simulations, enabling a quantitative evaluation of the relation between them and an elucidation of the conflicting views.
Postprandial dyslipidemia in men with visceral obesity: an effect of reduced LDL receptor expression?

Postprandial lipemia after an oral fat challenge was studied in middle-aged men with visceral obesity. The two groups had similar plasma cholesterol levels, but obese subjects had higher levels of plasma triglyceride and reduced amounts of high-density cholesterol. Fasting plasma insulin was fourfold greater in obese subjects because of concomitant insulin resistance, with a calculated HOMA score of 3.1 +/- 0.6 vs. 0.8 +/- 0.2, respectively. Plasma apolipoprotein B(48) (apoB(48)) and retinyl palmitate (RP) after an oral fat challenge were used to monitor chylomicron metabolism. Compared with lean subjects, the fasting concentration of apoB(48) was more than twofold greater in obese individuals, suggestive of an accumulation of posthydrolyzed particles. After the oral lipid load, the incremental areas under the apoB(48) and RP curves (IAUC) were both significantly greater in obese subjects (apoB(48): 97 +/- 17 vs. 44 +/- 12 microg.ml(-1). h; RP: 3,120 +/- 511 vs. 1,308 +/- 177 U. ml(-1). h, respectively). A delay in the conversion of chylomicrons to remnants probably contributed to postprandial dyslipidemia in viscerally obese subjects. The triglyceride IAUC was 68% greater in obese subjects (4.7 +/- 0.6 vs. 2.8 +/- 0.8 mM. h, P < 0.06). Moreover, peak postprandial triglyceride was delayed by approximately 2 h in obese subjects. The reduction in triglyceride lipolysis in vivo did not appear to reflect changes in hydrolytic enzyme activities. Postheparin plasma lipase rates were found to be similar for lean and obese subjects. In this study, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor expression on monunuclear cells was used as a surrogate marker of hepatic activity. We found that, in obese subjects, the binding of LDL was reduced by one-half compared with lean controls (70.9 +/- 15.07 vs. 38.9 +/- 4.6 ng LDL bound/microg cell protein, P = 0.02). Because the LDL receptor is involved in the removal of proatherogenic chylomicron remnants, we suggest that the hepatic clearance of these particles might be compromised in insulin-resistant obese subjects. Premature and accelerated atherogenesis in viscerally obese, insulin-resistant subjects may in part reflect delayed clearance of postprandial lipoprotein remnants.
Suppression of Metal-Insulator Transition in VO2 by Electric Field–Induced Oxygen Vacancy Formation

Mind the Vacancies Varying the carrier density of solid-state systems to manipulate their electrical properties usually involves chemical doping, which can lead to disorder. Recently, ionic liquids have been used to form an electronic double layer on the surface of a material, tuning its carrier density by the application of an electric field. Jeong et al. (p. 1402) used liquid gating on VO2, which undergoes a metal-insulator transition close to room temperature. The liquid gating suppressed the transition to lower and lower temperatures; however, the material remained in the metallic state, even when the gating fluid was washed off. It appears that, instead of a simple electrostatic effect, the properties of VO2 are modulated by the introduction of oxygen vacancies, an electrochemical consequence of high electric fields. The results imply that careful interpretation of liquid gating experiments in condensed matter physics is needed. Electrochemistry plays a role in the ionic liquid gating of a strongly correlated oxide. Electrolyte gating with ionic liquids is a powerful tool for inducing novel conducting phases in correlated insulators. An archetypal correlated material is vanadium dioxide (VO2), which is insulating only at temperatures below a characteristic phase transition temperature. We show that electrolyte gating of epitaxial thin films of VO2 suppresses the metal-to-insulator transition and stabilizes the metallic phase to temperatures below 5 kelvin, even after the ionic liquid is completely removed. We found that electrolyte gating of VO2 leads not to electrostatically induced carriers but instead to the electric field–induced creation of oxygen vacancies, with consequent migration of oxygen from the oxide film into the ionic liquid. This mechanism should be taken into account in the interpretation of ionic liquid gating experiments.
A flexible framework for context-aware recommendations in the social commerce domain

Identifying the products to suggest to the target customer in order to best fit his profile of interests is a challenging task in the Social Commerce domain. In this paper we investigate the application of different model-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) techniques and we propose a framework able to provide different suggestions to the customers. The framework is aimed at expanding the customer suggestions in order to guarantee a serendipitous discovery of wished products and at the same time, it is aimed at assisting merchants in discovering potential interests of their customers. We compare several approaches by means of Epinions, MovieLens and Poste Italiane dataset (with real customers). Experimental results show an increased value of coverage of the recommendations provided by our approach without affecting recommendation quality. Moreover, personalized strategy guarantees a high level recommendation for different user navigation behaviors.
Automatic face naming with caption-based supervision

We consider two scenarios of naming people in databases of news photos with captions: (i) finding faces of a single person, and (ii) assigning names to all faces. We combine an initial text-based step, that restricts the name assigned to a face to the set of names appearing in the caption, with a second step that analyzes visual features of faces. By searching for groups of highly similar faces that can be associated with a name, the results of purely text-based search can be greatly ameliorated. We improve a recent graph-based approach, in which nodes correspond to faces and edges connect highly similar faces. We introduce constraints when optimizing the objective function, and propose improvements in the low-level methods used to construct the graphs. Furthermore, we generalize the graph-based approach to face naming in the full data set. In this multi-person naming case the optimization quickly becomes computationally demanding, and we present an important speed-up using graph-flows to compute the optimal name assignments in documents. Generative models have previously been proposed to solve the multi-person naming task. We compare the generative and graph-based methods in both scenarios, and find significantly better performance using the graph-based methods in both cases.
Genetic Structure and Natal Origins of Immature Hawksbill Turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) in Brazilian Waters

Understanding the connections between sea turtle populations is fundamental for their effective conservation. Brazil hosts important hawksbill feeding areas, but few studies have focused on how they connect with nesting populations in the Atlantic. Here, we (1) characterized mitochondrial DNA control region haplotypes of immature hawksbills feeding along the coast of Brazil (five areas ranging from equatorial to temperate latitudes, 157 skin samples), (2) analyzed genetic structure among Atlantic hawksbill feeding populations, and (3) inferred natal origins of hawksbills in Brazilian waters using genetic, oceanographic, and population size information. We report ten haplotypes for the sampled Brazilian sites, most of which were previously observed at other Atlantic feeding grounds and rookeries. Genetic profiles of Brazilian feeding areas were significantly different from those in other regions (Caribbean and Africa), and a significant structure was observed between Brazilian feeding grounds grouped into areas influenced by the South Equatorial/North Brazil Current and those influenced by the Brazil Current. Our genetic analysis estimates that the studied Brazilian feeding aggregations are mostly composed of animals originating from the domestic rookeries Bahia and Pipa, but some contributions from African and Caribbean rookeries were also observed. Oceanographic data corroborated the local origins, but showed higher connection with West Africa and none with the Caribbean. High correlation was observed between origins estimated through genetics/rookery size and oceanographic/rookery size data, demonstrating that ocean currents and population sizes influence haplotype distribution of Brazil's hawksbill populations. The information presented here highlights the importance of national conservation strategies and international cooperation for the recovery of endangered hawksbill turtle populations.
A collaborative constraint-based meta-level recommender

Recommender Systems (RS) have become popular for their ability to make useful suggestions to online shoppers. Knowledge-based RS represent one branch of these types of applications that employ means-end knowledge to map abstract user requirements to product characteristics. Before setting up such a system, the knowledge has to be acquired from domain experts and formalized using constraints or a comparable representation mechanism. However, the initial acquisition of the knowledge base and its maintenance are effort intensive tasks. Here, we propose a system that learns rule-based preferences from successful interactions in historic transaction data. It is realized as a meta-level hybrid that employs collaborative filtering to derive preferences from a user's nearest neighbors that are processed by a knowledge-based RS to derive recommendations. An evaluation using a commercial dataset showed that this approach outperforms the prediction accuracy of a knowledge base provided by domain experts. In addition, the approach is applicable for supporting domain experts in the maintenance and validation tasks associated with providing personalization knowledge bases.