Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Urban Heat Island and its spatial scale dependent impact on survival and development in butterflies of different thermal sensitivity

Abstract Climate alteration is one of the most cited ecological consequences of urbanization. However, the magnitude of this impact is likely to vary with spatial scale. We investigated how this alteration affects the biological fitness of insects, which are especially sensitive to ambient conditions and well‐suited organisms to study urbanization‐related changes in phenotypic traits. We monitored temperature and relative air humidity in wooded sites characterized by different levels of urbanization in the surroundings. Using a split‐brood design experiment, we investigated the effect of urbanization at the local (i.e., 200 × 200 m) and landscape (i.e., 3 × 3 km) scale on two key traits of biological fitness in two closely related butterfly species that differ in thermal sensitivity. In line with the Urban Heat Island concept, urbanization led to a 1°C increase in daytime temperature and an 8% decrease in daytime relative humidity at the local scale. The thermophilous species Lasiommata megera responded at the local scale: larval survival increased twofold in urban compared to rural sites. Urbanized sites tended to produce bigger adults, although this was the case for males only. In the woodland species Pararge aegeria, which has recently expanded its ecological niche, we did not observe such a response, neither at the local, nor at the landscape scale. These results demonstrate interspecific differences in urbanization‐related phenotypic plasticity and larval survival. We discuss larval pre‐adaptations in species of different ecological profiles to urban conditions. Our results also highlight the significance of considering fine‐grained spatial scales in urban ecology.
Descriptive complexity for pictures languages (extended abstract)

This paper deals with descriptive complexity of picture languages of any dimension by syntactical fragments of existential second-order logic. - We uniformly generalize to any dimension the characterization by Giammarresi et al. \cite{GRST96} of the class of \emph{recognizable} picture languages in existential monadic second-order logic. - We state several logical characterizations of the class of picture languages recognized in linear time on nondeterministic cellular automata of any dimension. They are the first machine-independent characterizations of complexity classes of cellular automata. Our characterizations are essentially deduced from normalization results we prove for first-order and existential second-order logics over pictures. They are obtained in a general and uniform framework that allows to extend them to other "regular" structures. Finally, we describe some hierarchy results that show the optimality of our logical characterizations and delineate their limits.
Biophysical principles of vascular diagnosis

Visual inspection of the spectral composition of the Doppler signal as a function of time (sonogram) has been very helpful in detecting the presence of stenoses with substantial lumen narrowing causing abnormal flow patterns. Attempts to grade a stenosis based on the spectral width at peak systole were less successful because of the obscuring effects of the ultrasound beam width with respect to lumen diameter, dimensions of the sample volume, angle of observation, and spectral broadening due to vessel branching and bends. The introduction of color flow imaging has put emphasis on the width of the velocity distribution and the consistency of flow patterns within the region of interest. This technique requires a high resolution in space, velocity, and time necessitating the development of new velocity estimation algorithms. The observed flow patterns can be related to the echogenicity and local wall thickness of peripheral vessels. In addition, the displacement behavior of arterial walls over time provides information about the elasticity of the wall. Knowing the instantaneous velocity of arterial walls, it becomes possible to suppress selectively and adaptively the arterial wall contribution, allowing for the assessment of low blood flow velocities close to the wall and, hence, of wall shear rate. The latter development enables the study of the interaction of blood velocities and the metabolism and structure of the walls, providing possible clues for atherogenesis. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Anonymous Biometric Access Control

Access control systems using the latest biometric technologies can offer a higher level of security than conventional password-based systems. Their widespread deployments, however, can severely undermine individuals' rights of privacy. Biometric signals are immutable and can be exploited to associate individuals' identities to sensitive personal records across disparate databases. In this paper, we propose the Anonymous Biometric Access Control (ABAC) system to protect user anonymity. The ABAC system uses novel Homomorphic Encryption (HE) based protocols to verify membership of a user without knowing his/her true identity. To make HE-based protocols scalable to large biometric databases, we propose the -Anonymous Quantization (kAQ) framework that provides an effective and secure tradeoff of privacy and complexity. kAQ limits server's knowledge of the user to maximally dissimilar candidates in the database, where k controls the amount of complexity-privacy tradeoff. kAQ is realized by a constant-time table lookup to identity the candidates followed by a HE-based matching protocol applied only on these candidates. The maximal dissimilarity protects privacy by destroying any similarity patterns among the returned candidates. Experimental results on iris biometrics demonstrate the validity of our framework and illustrate a practical implementation of an anonymous biometric system.
A spectral autocorrelation method for measurement of the fundamental frequency of noise-corrupted speech

A method for measurement of the fundamental frequency of a voiced speech signal corrupted by high levels of additive white Gaussian noise is described. The method is based on flattening the spectrum of the signal by a bank of bandpass lifters and extracting the pitch frequency from autocorrelation functions calculated at the output of the lifters. A smoothing modified median filter is applied to the calculated pitch frequency contour to result in an improvement in the accuracy of the method. A byproduct of the pitch tracker is a voiced/ unvoiced classifier. The maximum and the variance of the autocorrelation function maxima, over the bank of lifters, serve as the basis for voiced/unvoiced classification by making use of a two-dimensional, nearest-neighbor pattern recognition approach. Results are presented for fundamental frequency measurement and voiced/unvoiced classification for several signal-to-noise ratios.
An Outer Bound for the Multi-Terminal Rate-Distortion Region

The multi-terminal rate-distortion problem has been studied extensively. Notably, among these, Tung and House-wright have provided the best known inner and outer bounds for the rate region under certain distortion constraints. In this paper, we first propose an outer bound for the rate region, and show that it is tighter than the outer bound of Tung and Housewright. Our outer bound involves some n-letter Markov chain constraints, which cause computational difficulties. We utilize a necessary condition for the Markov chain constraints to obtain another outer bound, which is represented in terms of some single-letter mutual information expressions evaluated over probability distributions that satisfy some single-letter conditions
Impact in the Library

Figure 1 illustrates an evolutionary view of the problem, taken from the perspective of the traditional library. Here we point the Internet as the most recent relevant factor in the evolution of the “library”, in the following of a series of others. From those we stress the generic introduction of the computer in the library, which had an impact in the digital catalogue and in the definition of the first standards for bibliographic description. That was followed by the first data communication services (X.25, TELNET, BBS Bulletin Board Systems, etc.), providing remote access to the catalogue and to other common library’s services. In the late 80's we had the emerging of the personal computer and the CD-ROM, which brought the digitized library providing now access to also the contents. Finally, and finally we had the Internet and the World Wide Web, with which we are working today.
NO to small mothers against decapentaplegic (Smad).

See related article, pages 1115–1123 Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) is the prototype of a superfamily of multifunctional proteins which includes activins and bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). TGF-β is involved in the regulation of diverse cellular processes such as cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and migration, as well as moderating cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions. It plays a pivotal role in embryonic development, and perturbations of TGF-β signaling may have profound pathological consequences in a wide variety of diseases. (For general reviews on TGF-β actions, please see Massague1 and Kim et al.2) Cellular responses to TGF-β are complex and, depending on cell type and conditions, it can induce stimulatory or inhibitory effects. In the heart, TGF-β stimulates hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes and proliferation of fibroblasts, contributing to myocardial fibrosis and dysfunction.3 In the blood vessel wall, TGF-β inhibits proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells, and defective signaling can lead to pathological vascular remodeling.4 TGF-β is also a potent suppressor of leukocyte activation, and under some conditions can exert a protective immunomodulatory role in atherosclerosis.5,6 TGF-β can act as an inhibitor or a stimulator of endothelial proliferation, impacting on different stages of angiogenesis.7,8 Despite the diversity in actions, a recurring theme for TGF-β in the cardiovascular system is the stimulation of increased matrix production and tissue remodeling. Amplification of the TGF-β response is also commonly observed, attributable to autoinduction of the TGF-β gene.9 Because TGF-β is involved in such a vast diversity of regulation of cellular events, it is therefore not surprising that its signaling is characterized by a remarkable degree of complexity and subtlety. Members of the TGF-β superfamily interact with 2 classes of serine/threonine receptors. TGF-β binds avidly to its type II receptor (TβR-II), and the receptor–ligand complex then recruits TβR-I (ALK5). …
Climatic and associated cryospheric, biospheric, and hydrological changes on the Tibetan Plateau: a review

We review recent climate changes over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and associated responses of cryospheric, biospheric, and hydrological variables. We focused on surface air temperature, precipitation, seasonal snow cover, mountain glaciers, permafrost, freshwater ice cover, lakes, streamflow, and biological system changes. TP is getting warmer and wetter, and air temperature has increased significantly, particularly since the 1980s. Most significant warming trends have occurred in the northern TP. Slight increases in precipitation have occurred over the entire TP with clear spatial variability. Intensification of surface air temperature is associated with variation in precipitation and decreases in snow cover depth, spatial extent, and persistence. Rising surface temperatures have caused recession of glaciers, permafrost thawing, and thickening of the active layers over the permafrost. Changing temperatures, precipitation, and other climate system components have also affected the TP biological system. In addition, elevation‐dependent changes in air temperature, wind speed, and summer precipitation have occurred in the TP and its surroundings in the past three decades. Before projecting multifaceted interactions and process responses to future climate change, further quantitative analysis and understanding of the change mechanisms is required.
Supplementary Information Supplementary Figure Legends Supplementary Figure 1. Tir-palm of Tsnares on the Plasma Membrane

a Sequential frames of a single molecule of PACherry labelled SNAP-25 on the plasma membrane demonstrating the quantal activation and bleaching characteristic of single fluorescent molecules (upper panel). Each frame is a 300 ms integration with fluorophore activation by brief 405 nm illumination preceding the first frame. Frames containing detectable fluorescence were averaged and are displayed as an intensity profile plot for the region (lower panel). The peak in fluorescence equates to the size of the point spread function of the microscope. b Intensity plot over time for single molecule activation and bleaching events. The 405 nm activation pulse immediately preceded the first time point. The delay after activation to the generation of a functional fluorophore, the number of photons yielded from the fluorophore and the duration before bleaching exhibited variation due to the stochastic nature of these processes. c TIRF-PALM of PACherry labeled SNAP-25 showing a non-uniform distribution on the plasma membrane. A summed TIRFM image derived from the entire raw PALM dataset displayed characteristic SNAP-25 clusters on the plasma membrane (upper left panel). The region highlighted by the yellow box is shown expanded (upper right panel) as a summed, diffraction limited TIRFM image. The same region is shown as a PALM rendered image containing 5,114 molecules in this region (in total 173,475 molecules were localized for the whole cell footprint). d TIRF-PALM of PACherry labeled syntaxin on the plasma membrane. As in c. , the summed TIRFM image was derived from the entire raw PALM dataset (upper left panel). The region highlighted by the yellow box is shown expanded (upper right panel) as a
MLL2 and KDM6A mutations in patients with Kabuki syndrome

Kabuki syndrome is a congenital anomaly syndrome characterized by developmental delay, intellectual disability, specific facial features including long palpebral fissures and ectropion of the lateral third of the lower eyelids, prominent digit pads, and skeletal and visceral abnormalities. Mutations in MLL2 and KDM6A cause Kabuki syndrome. We screened 81 individuals with Kabuki syndrome for mutations in these genes by conventional methods (n = 58) and/or targeted resequencing (n = 45) or whole exome sequencing (n = 5). We identified a mutation in MLL2 or KDM6A in 50 (61.7%) and 5 (6.2%) cases, respectively. Thirty‐five MLL2 mutations and two KDM6A mutations were novel. Non‐protein truncating‐type MLL2 mutations were mainly located around functional domains, while truncating‐type mutations were scattered through the entire coding region. The facial features of patients in the MLL2 truncating‐type mutation group were typical based on those of the 10 originally reported patients with Kabuki syndrome; those of the other groups were less typical. High arched eyebrows, short fifth finger, and hypotonia in infancy were more frequent in the MLL2 mutation group than in the KDM6A mutation group. Short stature and postnatal growth retardation were observed in all individuals with KDM6A mutations, but in only half of the group with MLL2 mutations. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Nature inspired optimization of large problems

Large optimization problems that involve either a large number of decision variables or many objectives pose great challenges to nature inspired optimization algorithms. On the one hand, nature inspired optimization algorithms suffer from the curse of dimensionality in the decision space. With an exponentially increased volume of the decision space as well as the complexity of the search landscape, it is challenging for nature inspired optimization algorithms to perform efficient search within limited execution time, in particular when the decision variables are non-separable due to the interactions between them. On the other hand, nature inspired optimization algorithms suffer from the curse of dimensionality in the objective space. In high-dimensional objective space, due to the sparse distribution of the candidate solutions, efficient population diversity management and convergence pressure preservation become particularly important. In this thesis, we present several pieces of work to address the above challenges. Firstly, we present two variants of the particle swarm optimization algorithm to tackle single-objective large problems. By enhancing the swarm diversity, the two algorithms are capable of handling problems with as large as 5000 decision variables. Secondly, we present an inverse model based evolutionary algorithm to tackle multi-objective large problems. By building inverse models that map candidate solutions from the objective space to the decision space, the algorithm is able to enhance the computational efficiency in the optimization of bi- or three-objective problems with a large number of decision variables. Thirdly, we present a reference vector guided evolutionary algorithm to tackle optimization problems with many objectives. By decomposing the high-dimensional objective space into subspaces using a set of reference vectors, the algorithm is able to handle problems with as many as 10 objectives. Finally, we present a benchmark test suite which can be used to assess the performance of nature inspired optimization algorithms on problems with both a large number of decision variables and many objectives. The performance of all proposed algorithms have been verified on widely used benchmark problems in comparison with some other state-of-the-art algorithms. Moreover, the proposed reference vector guided evolutionary algorithm has been successfully applied to the optimization of a seven-objective hybrid electric vehicle controller model designed at the Honda Research Institute Europe.
Electromigration dispersion in a capillary in the presence of electro-osmotic flow

Abstract The differential migration of ions in an applied electric field is the basis for the separation of chemical species by capillary electrophoresis. Axial diffusion of the concentration peak limits the separation efficiency. Electromigration dispersion is observed when the concentration of sample ions is comparable to that of the background ions. Under such conditions, the local electrical conductivity is significantly altered in the sample zone making the electric field, and, therefore, the ion migration velocity, concentration dependent. The resulting nonlinear wave exhibits shock-like features and, under certain simplifying assumptions, is described by Burgers’ equation (Ghosal & Chen Bull. Math. Biol., vol. 72, 2010, p. 2047). In this paper, we consider the more general situation where the walls of the separation channel may have a non-zero zeta potential and are therefore able to sustain an electro-osmotic bulk flow. The main result is a one-dimensional nonlinear advection diffusion equation for the area averaged concentration. This homogenized equation accounts for the Taylor–Aris dispersion resulting from the variation in the electro-osmotic slip velocity along the wall. It is shown that in a certain range of parameters, the electro-osmotic flow can actually reduce the total dispersion by delaying the formation of a concentration shock. However, if the electro-osmotic flow is sufficiently high, the total dispersion is increased because of the Taylor–Aris contribution.
Hebbian motor control in a robot-embedded model of habituation

Two experiments using a mobile robot examine the performance of a neural network model of habituation. The input to the network is the video feed from the robot's camera, preprocessed to model the visual system. Images, after retinal processing, are translated in the frequency domain and Gabor-filtered. The output of the network controls the robot's motors and thus where it looks. In one condition, network output directly controls the motors. In a second condition, network outputs are connected to control units via weights that are modified with simple Hebbian learning. In both cases, the robot's behavior reproduces the important familiarity-to-novelty shift observed in human infants. Hebbian learning, however, helps to increase and stabilize novelty preference.
Cardiac Fiber Unfolding by Semidefinite Programming

Diffusion-tensor imaging allows noninvasive assessment of the myocardial fiber architecture, which is fundamental in understanding the mechanics of the heart. In this context, tractography techniques are often used for representing and visualizing cardiac fibers, but their output is only qualitative. We introduce here a new framework toward a more quantitative description of the cardiac fiber architecture from tractography results. The proposed approach consists in taking three-dimensional (3-D) fiber tracts as inputs, and then unfolding these fibers in the Euclidean plane under local isometry constraints using semidefinite programming. The solution of the unfolding problem takes the form of a Gram matrix which defines the two-dimensional (2-D) embedding of the fibers and whose spectrum provides quantitative information on their organization. Experiments on synthetic and real data show that unfolding makes it easier to observe and to study the cardiac fiber architecture. Our conclusion is that 2-D embedding of cardiac fibers is a promising approach to supplement 3-D rendering for understanding the functioning of the heart.
Score-Informed Sparseness for Source Separation

Audio source separation is a useful preprocessing step for remixing or transcription of music. It can be shown, that the separation quality increases, if the separation algorithm gets additional side information, e.g. the score of the current mixture [5]. In many cases the score of a musical piece is not available and has to be extracted by a professional musician or an automatic music transcription algorithm. To avoid both necessities, we will propose a source separation algorithm, which utilizes only the temporal activity (TA) of each instrument in the mixture. Compared to the whole score, this TA can be evaluated with much less experience in music transcription. To improve separation quality, the TA controls the sparsity of a non-negative tensor factorization. We will show, that for certain mixtures, this TA is a sufficient information for source separation. If TA is not sufficient, it can be utilized as a preprocessing step for further blind source separation algorithms.
A Square T-Type (ST-Type) Module for Asymmetrical Multilevel Inverters

This paper introduces a new module for asymmetrical multilevel inverters with a low number of components. The module is a square combination of two back-to-back T-type inverters and some other switches. A square T-type module produces 17 levels by 12 switches and 4 unequal dc sources (two 3VDC and two 1V DC). Also, it can be extended as a cascade connection in two strategies to achieve more levels. The module and its cascade connection are suitable for the applications in several dc sources systems such as photovoltaic farms, which lead to a modular topology with more voltage levels at higher voltages. Inherent creation of the negative voltage levels without any additional circuit (such as H-bridge circuit) is one of the main features of the proposed module. The low total harmonic distortion of the output voltage/current and low number of semiconductors are among the other advantages of the proposed module. A nearest level control method as a switching technique is used to produce high quality output voltage with lower harmonic contents. Simulations have been performed in MATLAB/Simulink and a prototype is implemented in the Power Electronics Laboratory; both the simulation and experimental results show a good performance.