Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of wetland structural characteristics between created and natural salt marshes in southwest Louisiana, USA

The use of dredge material is a well-known technique for creating or restoring salt marshes that is expected to become more common along the Gulf of Mexico coast in the future. However, the effectiveness of this restoration method is still questioned. Wetland structural characteristics were compared between four created and three natural salt marshes in southwest Louisiana, USA. The created marshes, formed by the pumping of dredge material into formerly open water areas, represent a chronosequence, ranging in age from 3 to 19 years. Vegetation and soil structural factors were compared to determine whether the created marshes become more similar over time to the natural salt marshes. Vegetation surveys were conducted in 1997, 2000, and 2002 using the line-intercept technique. Site elevations were measured in 2000. Organic matter (OM) was measured in 1996 and 2002, while bulk density and soil particle-size distribution were determined in 2002 only. The natural marshes were dominated by Spartina alterniflora, as were the oldest created marshes; these marshes had the lowest mean site elevations (<30 cm NGVD). The six-year-old created marsh (formed in 1996) was higher in elevation (> 35 cm NGVD) and became dominated by high marsh (S. patens, Distichlis spicata) and shrub (Baccharis halimifolia, Iva frutescens) species. The higher elevation marsh seems to be following a different plant successional trajectory than the other marshes, indicating a relationship between marsh elevation and species composition. The soils in both the created and natural marshes contain high levels of clays (30–65 %), with sand comprising < 1 % of the soil distribution. OM was significantly greater and bulk density significantly lower in two of the natural marshes when compared to the created marshes. The oldest created marsh had significantly greater OM than the younger created marshes, but it may still take several decades before equivalency is reached with the natural marshes. Vegetation structural characteristics in the created marshes take only a few years to become similar to those in the natural marshes, just so long as the marshes are formed at a proper elevation. This agrees with other studies from North Carolina and Texas. However, it will take several decades for the soil characteristics to reach equivalency with the natural marshes, if they ever will.
Methods of Impact Absorption When Landing from a Jump

The vertical reaction force was measured during impact landings following a vertical jump. It was observed that variations between subjects occurred in the magnitude of the peak force over the first 150-200 ms after impact. This period of the landing is termed the impact absorption phase. Two extreme cases of impact landings are taken for analysis. These are referred to as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ landings, describing the magnitude of the vertical force peak during impact absorption. These differences are produced as a result of the interactions which occur between the individual segments of the human body. The segmental contribution to the total force curve was derived by film analysis techniques. The specific influence of each segment on the total force curve was isolated and made comparable with other segments by using the relative acceleration of the segment mass centre to the lower joint about which it rotates. By using this variable to compare hard and soft landings, it was established that a soft landing .
Incidence of recurrent wheezing in under 5-year-old human bocavirus infection during one year follow-up.

BACKGROUND Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a newly identified virus that can cause acute wheezing in young children. The present study aimed to evaluate the incidence and factors associated with recurrent wheezing during 1 year after HBoV lower respiratory tract infection (LRI). MATERIAL AND METHOD Children younger than 5 years old who were admitted to King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital between February 1, 2006 and September 30, 2008 due to LRI were recruited. Their nasopharyngeal aspirates were evaluated for respiratory virus by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Those who had positive PCR for HBoV and had no underlying diseases were studied. Their clinical presentations were evaluated and their clinical data about recurrent wheezing as well as pulmonary function tests were followed-up for 1 year. RESULTS Fifteen patients with HBoV-LRI were regularly followed-up. Seven patients (47%) had co-infection with other respiratory viruses. Generalized wheezing was the most common lung sign detected in 73% of cases (11 cases) and 36% (4 cases) of them responded well to bronchodilators. During one year follow-up, serial pulmonary function tests were normal in all cases and most patients were doing well. However 27% of HBoV infected patients (4 cases) developed recurrent wheezing associated with respiratory tract infections. Two of them had to be re-hospitalized. Compared to patients without recurrent wheezing, eosinophil count tended to be higher in those with recurrent wheezing and isolated HBoV infected patients tended to develop recurrent wheezing more than those with co-infection. CONCLUSION Acute wheezing is a common presenting lung sign in HBo V-LRI. Although the pulmonary function tests of all patients were normal, more than a quarter of patients suffered from recurrent wheezing during one-year follow-up.
Automatic image annotation with continuous PLSA

Automatic image annotation has become an important and challenging problem due to the existence of semantic gap. In this paper, we firstly extend probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) to model continuous quantity. In addition, corresponding Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is derived to determine the model parameters. Furthermore, in order to deal with the data of different modalities in terms of their characteristics, we present a semantic annotation model which employs continuous PLSA and standard PLSA to model visual features and textual words respectively. The model learns the correlation between these two modalities by an asymmetric learning approach and then it can predict semantic annotation for unseen images. We compare our approach with several state-of-the-art approaches on a standard Corel dataset. The experiment results show that our approach performs more effectively and accurately.
SCARECROW-LIKE 3 promotes gibberellin signaling by antagonizing master growth repressor DELLA in Arabidopsis

The diterpenoid phytohormone gibberellin (GA) controls diverse developmental processes throughout the plant life cycle. DELLA proteins are master growth repressors that function immediately downstream of the GA receptor to inhibit GA signaling. By doing so, DELLAs also play pivotal roles as integrators of internal developmental signals from multiple hormone pathways and external cues. DELLAs are likely nuclear transcriptional regulators, which interact with other transcription factors to modulate expression of GA-responsive genes. DELLAs are also involved in maintaining GA homeostasis through feedback up-regulating expression of GA biosynthesis and receptor genes. However, the molecular mechanisms by which DELLAs restrict growth and development are largely unknown. This study reveals an important step of the mechanism. Previous microarray studies identified SCARECROW-LIKE 3 (SCL3) as a direct target gene of DELLA in Arabidopsis seedlings. SCL3 expression is induced by DELLA and repressed by GA. Unexpectedly, a scl3 null mutant displays reduced GA responses and elevated expression of GA biosynthesis genes during seed germination and seedling growth, indicating that SCL3 functions as a positive regulator of GA signaling. SCL3 seems to act as an attenuator of DELLA proteins. Transient expression, ChIP, and co-IP studies show that SCL3 autoregulates its own transcription by directly interacting with DELLA. Our data further show that SCL3 and DELLA antagonize each other in controlling both downstream GA responses and upstream GA biosynthetic genes. This work is beginning to shed light on how this complex regulatory network achieves GA homeostasis and controls GA-mediated growth and development in the plant.
Microstructure, Mechanical Properties and Wear Resistance of WC/Co Nanocomposites

The microstructure, mechanical properties, abrasion and wear resistance of WC-Co nanocomposites synthesized by the spray conversion technique by McCaundlish, Kear and Kim have been investigated. The binder phase of WC-Co nanocomposites is enriched in W and C, compared to conventional cermets. Small amorphous regions exist in the binder despite the slow cooling after liquid phase sintering. Few dislocations are found in the WC grains. The increased WC content and the amorphous regions modify (i.e. strengthen) the binder phase of the composites. Vickers indentation measurements show a hardness of the nanocomposites reaching 2,310 kg/mm{sup 2}. While the toughness of conventional cermets decreases with increasing hardness, the toughness does not decrease further as the WC grain size decreases from 0.7 to 0.07 {micro}m but remains constant at 8 MPam{sup 1/2}. Scratches caused by a diamond indenter are small, commensurate with their hardness. These scratches are ductile, devoid of the grain fracture that is observed with conventional materials. The abrasions resistance of nanocomposites is about double that of conventional materials, although their hardness is larger by 23% only. This is due to the lack of WC grain fragmentation and removal which takes place in conventional cermets. Sliding wear resistance of WC/Co is proportionalmore » to their hardness; no additional benefit of nanostructure is obtained. This results from the very small size of adhesive wear events in even large WC grains. « less
MRPSIM: A TLM based simulation tool for MPSOCS targeting dynamically reconfigurable processors

As multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) approaches become popular in embedded system designs, simulation tools for modelling these systems are highly in demand for evaluating the performance and cost at both hardware design stage and software development phase. This paper presents a fast, flexible, and cycle-accurate simulation tool for MPSoCs targeting emerging dynamically reconfigurable processors. Based on a complex embedded application - WiMAX, a range of test benches have been implemented on the proposed simulation tool for evaluating the impact on simulation speed of a variety of architectural parameters and task mapping strategies. Experimental results demonstrate that up to 60K cycles per second can be achieved.
Ad-hoc leadership in agile software development environments

Leadership is the ability to influence people, leading them to behave in a certain way in order to achieve the group's goals. Leadership is independent of job titles and descriptions. Usually, however, in order to lead, leaders need the power derived from their organizational positions. There are different leadership styles, like task-oriented versus people-oriented, directive versus permissive, autocrat versus democrat. In this paper, we examine the leadership concept in software development environments and focus on leadership in transition processes to agile software development. Specifically, based on our comprehensive research on agile software development, we suggest a leadership style - ad-hoc leadership - that usually emerges in such change processes. We present the characteristics, dynamic and uniqueness of this leadership style and illustrate its usefulness for the analysis of representative scenarios.
Determination of empowerment score in type 2 diabetes patients and its related factors.

OBJECTIVES To assess empowerment score in type 2 diabetic patients. METHODS A descriptive - correlation study was performed for a period of four months in 2011. Study population was type 2 diabetic patients referred to Omolbanin, Diabetic Center in Isfahan, cultural capital of Iran. Hundred and sixty diabetic patients met the inclusion criteria and were all included in the study. Patient's empowerment was measured by DES (Diabetes Empowerment Scale) self-report scale with subscales reflecting three areas including Managing the psychosocial aspect of diabetes (9 items), Assessing dissatisfaction and readiness to change (9 items) and Setting and achieving diabetes goal (10 items). Collected data was analyzed by using SPSS software version 11.5. RESULTS Participants were between the ages of 38 and 78 with a mean of 48.67 +/- 7.99 years. There were 49.4% males, 87.5% were married, and 44.9% had education of diploma and higher. Mean duration of diabetes was 5.62 +/- 3.81 years. In all 46.9% participants had borderline metabolic control according to World Health Organization criteria. Using Diabetes Empowerment Scale, three conceptual domains of 'Managing the psychosocial aspect of diabetes', 'Assessing dissatisfaction and readiness to change' and 'Setting and achieving diabetes goal' were measured and scored for each patient. The average score of each domain was 27.15 +/- 8.20), (29.03 +/- 10.40), (31.95 +/- 11.70) respectively. 'Setting and achieving diabetes goal' was considered as the most important domain in measuring diabetes self-management. Diabetes empowerment level showed a significant relationship between variables such as educational level (p<0.001), gender (0.007), age (p<0.001), and duration of diabetes (p<0.001). Pearson correlation coefficient also revealed that empowerment of type 2 diabetic patients has a reverse relationship with HbA1c (r = - 0.75, p 0.001). Furthermore, ordinal regression test revealed that having diploma and higher education (p=0.005), and optimal and borderline HbA1c (p<0.001) were effective factors in empowering diabetic patients. CONCLUSION Empowerment is psychosocial self-efficacy. Healthcare professionals and researches have introduced 'self-empowerment' as a key element in managing chronic diseases. When it comes to diabetes, empowerment implies an approach that attempts to enhance the ability of patients to actively understand and influence their own lives and health status. It seems that patients with diabetes can be empowered to manage their chronic disease if they are actively informed and educated.
System design, implementation and applications of a pervasive-space platform

In this paper, we describe a platform for pervasive space systems which allows fast, accurate and robust realization of indoor smart-environment projects. The platform is designed following Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) with three main modules: environment modeling module, visualization and management module and services module. These modules function together with additional services specific for each project as we prioritize a generic design. With help from this platform, the effort in deployment of a pervasive system will be reduced significantly. Apart from enhancing the deployment process, we also provide tools for monitoring and managing the targeted environment. These tools will be supported by services such as path finding, localization service and other smart location-based service to enable user interaction with system. The platform is tested and validated in a real pervasive system of our laboratory building.
Proinflammatory Cytokines in Peritonitis

Rationale: We performed this study with the purpose of revealing different aspects of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome in peritonitis. Objectives: The aim of the presentation was to make a research on some of the immune response mediators in secondary peritonitis and to observe their capacity to anticipate the evolution towards septic complications. Methods and Results: We have undertaken a study on a group of 100 patients with acute diffuse peritonitis, between 2009 and 2011, in which we have accomplished the dosage of IL–1 beta, IL–6 and TNF alpha cytokines in the serum of patients, in dynamics, for 7 days by using the Elisa method. Subsequently, we have compared the results to the ones of a control group. The data obtained indicated high levels of proinflammatory cytokines in the patients who subsequently suffered an unfavorable evolution towards septic complications. Discussion: The study of IL–1 beta, IL–6 and TNF alpha blood dynamics, offers valuable information about the severity of a systemic inflammatory response syndrome in peritonitis. They can be valuable biomarkers in establishing the unfavorable evolution of patients, helping the physician to establish a sustained and specific treatment, even from the early phases of the illness.
Aggregation versus Heterogeneity in Cross-Country Growth Empirics ∗

The cross-country growth literature commonly uses aggregate economy datasets such as the Penn World Table (PWT) to estimate homogeneous production function or convergence regression models. Against the background of a dual economy framework this paper investigates the potential bias arising when aggregate economy data instead of sectoral data is adopted in macro production function regressions. Using a unique World Bank dataset we estimate production functions in agriculture and manufacturing for a panel of 41 developing and developed countries (1963-1992). We employ novel empirical methods which can accommodate technology heterogeneity, variable nonstationarity and the breakdown of the standard cross-section independence assumption. We then investigate the potential for biased estimates due to aggregation and empirical misspecification, relying on both theory and Monte Carlo simulations. We confirm substantial bias in the technology coefficients using data for a stylised aggregate economy made up of agricultural and manufacturing sectors and a matched PWT dataset.
Rethinking the Use of Ontologies in Learning

This paper investigates the use of ontologies in processes of collabo- rative learning and knowledge generation. The creation and use of ontologies is analysed from an activity theoretical perspective in order to understand proc- esses of shared conceptualization as well as the role of ontologies in processes of change and transformation. Scenarios of ontology-based collaborative learning and knowledge-creation are presented. This work is based on the cultural-historical activity theory, providing a theoretical framework (1) for understanding processes of knowledge-creation which take place when generating and using ontologies and (2) to investigate the dynamic relationship (coupling) between individual learning and the transformation of a community.
Predictors of Mortality Within 6 Weeks After Treatment of Gastric Variceal Bleeding in Cirrhotic Patients

AbstractAcute gastric variceal bleeding (GVB) is a catastrophic problem and accounts for one of the major causes of death in cirrhotic patients. Although, N-butyl cyanoacrylate (NBC) has been shown to control bleeding effectively, it still carries up high mortality rate. This study aimed to find the predictors of mortality within 6 weeks after emergent endoscopic treatment with NBC injection.This retrospective study recruited patients with acute GVB after emergent endoscopic NBC injection between January 2011 and June 2013 in Linkou Medical Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, Taiwan. Logistic regression analysis was applied for predictors of mortality within 6 weeks. Statistical significance was set as P < 0.05. There were 132 patients with acute GVB (83.3% men, median age 51.3 years) with endoscopic NBC injection treatments recruited. Mortality within 6 weeks was noted in 16.7% patients. By multivariate analysis, renal function impairment (odds ratio [OR]: 21.1, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.06–146.0, P = 0.002), higher Child–Turcotte–Pugh (CTP) score (OR: 2.49, 95% CI: 1.41–4.38, P = 0.002), higher model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score (OR: 1.18, 95% CI: 1.03–1.35, P = 0.013), rebleeding within 5 days (OR: 16.4, 95% CI: 3.36–79.7, P = 0.001), and acute on chronic liver failure (ACLF) (OR: 4.67, 95% CI: 1.62–13.33, P = 0.004) were independent predictors of mortality within 6 weeks. A MELD score of ≥18 was associated with Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) of 0.79 (P < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.69–0.90) and a CTP score of ≥9 with AUROC of 0.85 (P < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.76–0.94) for determining 6 weeks mortality.Impaired renal function, deteriorated liver function with CTP score ≥ 9 as well as MELD score ≥18, rebleeding within 5 days, and ACLF are independent predictors of mortality.
Feature fatigue analysis based on behavioral decision making

Feature fatigue represents the phenomenon that customers prefer to choose high-feature products at the purchasing moment (before use); but once they start using the products (after use), they become overwhelmed by the complexity of these high-capability products and annoyed by the features they realize they don't want or need. Feature fatigue will decrease customer satisfaction and negatively impact manufacturer's long-term profit. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on behavioral decision making theory to analyze feature fatigue. We adopt six-dimensional perceived value model to analyze the effect of adding features on customer's perceived value before and after use. Further, we propose an analysis model to analyze feature fatigue quantitatively.
Analysis of New Phenomenon Regarding Effects of Humidity on Flashover Characteristics for Long Air Gaps

Tests on the humidity characteristics for a positive polarity 10-m rod-plane gap using four different switching impulse wavefronts were performed. As a result, a new phenomenon was found which was not reported in previously published data. That is, it was ob¬ served that as absolute humidity increased the flashover voltage decreased for switching impulses having a relatively short wavefront. Fig. 1 shows the relationship between the 50 percent flashover voltage as corrected by the conventional atmospheric correction method and absolute humidity Hc. This phenomenon is believed to occur because with long air gap of 10m time characteristic of the flashover phenomenon changes according to absolute humidity. Based on the four curves shown in Fig. 1, Fig. 2 shows several U-curves with absolute humidity as a parameter. The curves are mutually in a relationship of a relatively fixed ratio overtime. Thus, a secondary humidity correction method is investigated as a function of absolute humidity. That is, in addition to conventional atmos¬ pheric correction, by performing "wavefront correction" depending on the absolute humidity, the flashover characteristics shown in Fig. 2 are corrected to those shown in Fig. 3. The wavefront correction factor F for a 10-m rod-plane gap was approximated by the following formula:
Ketone body therapy: from the ketogenic diet to the oral administration of ketone ester

Ketone bodies (KBs), acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate (βHB), were considered harmful metabolic by-products when discovered in the mid-19th century in the urine of patients with diabetic ketoacidosis. It took physicians many years to realize that KBs are normal metabolites synthesized by the liver and exported into the systemic circulation to serve as an energy source for most extrahepatic tissues. Studies have shown that the brain (which normally uses glucose for energy) can readily utilize KBs as an alternative fuel. Even when there is diminished glucose utilization in cognition-critical brain areas, as may occur early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), there is preliminary evidence that these same areas remain capable of metabolizing KBs. Because the ketogenic diet (KD) is difficult to prepare and follow, and effectiveness of KB treatment in certain patients may be enhanced by raising plasma KB levels to ≥2 mM, KB esters, such as 1,3-butanediol monoester of βHB and glyceryl-tris-3-hydroxybutyrate, have been devised. When administered orally in controlled dosages, these esters can produce plasma KB levels comparable to those achieved by the most rigorous KD, thus providing a safe, convenient, and versatile new approach to the study and potential treatment of a variety of diseases, including epilepsy, AD, and Parkinson’s disease.