Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concilier la conservation des métallophytes et la phytoremédiation des sols pollués par les éléments traces métalliques

La conservation de la biodiversité est devenue un challenge social, politique et économique au niveau mondial. 12 Etant donné que certaines régions du monde sont fortement soumises à l’anthropisation et à ses impacts, il est 13 indispensable de modifier notre perception et notre réflexion en ce qui concerne la conservation de la 14 biodiversité et la restauration écologique. Ce chapitre explore les possibilités existantes et les adapte pour 15 associer la conservation des espèces végétales d’intérêt avec la phytoremédiation des sols pollués. Cette nouvelle 16 stratégie semble encourageante pour conserver le lien entre la société et l’environnement. En utilisant la diversité 17 végétale locale, il est possible de créer de nouvelles communautés végétales afin de réhabiliter des sols pollués 18 par les éléments traces métalliques. Le cas de la ville de Lubumbashi et de la flore de l’Arc Cuprifère Katangais 19 en est un exemple marquant qui a été récemment testé avec succès. Cependant, d’autres études sur les 20 métallophytes sont essentielles pour les utiliser de manière appropriée. 21
Wavelet Energy and Wavelet Coherence as EEG Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease-Related Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can coexist in severely affected; elderly patients. Since they have different pathological causes and lesions and consequently require different treatments; it is critical to distinguish PD-related dementia (PD-D) from AD. Conventional electroencephalograph (EEG) analysis has produced poor results. This study investigated the possibility of using relative wavelet energy (RWE) and wavelet coherence (WC) analysis to distinguish between PD-D patients; AD patients and healthy elderly subjects. In EEG signals; we found that low-frequency wavelet energy increased and high-frequency wavelet energy decreased in PD-D patients and AD patients relative to healthy subjects. This result suggests that cognitive decline in both diseases is potentially related to slow EEG activity; which is consistent with previous studies. More importantly; WC values were lower in AD patients and higher in PD-D patients compared with healthy subjects. In particular; AD patients exhibited decreased WC primarily in the γ band and in links related to frontal regions; while PD-D patients exhibited increased WC primarily in the α and β bands and in temporo-parietal links. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) of RWE produced a maximum accuracy of 79.18% for diagnosing PD-D and 81.25% for diagnosing AD. The discriminant accuracy was 73.40% with 78.78% sensitivity and 69.47% specificity. In distinguishing between the two diseases; the maximum performance of LDA using WC was 80.19%. We suggest that using a wavelet approach to evaluate EEG results may facilitate discrimination between PD-D and AD. In particular; RWE is useful for differentiating individuals with and without dementia and WC is useful for differentiating between PD-D and AD.
Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same region.
Distributed Detection in the Presence of Byzantine Attack in Large Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are vulnerable to Byzantine attacks in which a fraction of sensors are tampered. The intruder can reprogram the compromised sensors, making them behave as if they are authentic nodes. We consider the problem of distributed detection in wireless sensor networks in the presence of Byzantine attacks where the compromised sensors collaboratively send fictitious observations to the fusion center. We define the power of the attacker as the fraction of the sensors that have been compromised for the attack. We present the optimal attacking strategy for any given attacking power. We show that there is a critical power level above which the fusion center is completely "blinded" in the sense that the optimal detection performs no better than a coin flip independent of collected data. We also present a robust detector to counter the presence of Byzantine attacks
Towards an Ontology Mapping Approach for Security Management

In the past decade, ontology has been actively researched in various domains. The different ontological tasks range from simple language modeling in the linguistic domain, to semantic integration in the semantic web, and recently to application-specific tasks such as financial fraud management. We follow the trend and attempt to tackle some of the ontological problems in security management. The most complicated problem out of all is the semantic interoperability problem that is evident in the existence of various types of security elements such as IDS, firewall and virus scanner. Another problem is related to the semantic modeling tasks required for autonomous and intelligent reasoning. Semantic modeling of security events is essential for automatic and intelligent event correlation tasks that analyze semantically the different sources of security information to more accurately present the holistic network security status. We present in this paper a novel and formal ontology mapping approach and security ontology for the supporting and possibly resolution of these problems.
Towards a sustainable, participatory and inclusive wild meat sector

The meat of wild species, referred to in this report as ‘wild meat’, is an essential source of protein and a generator of income for millions of forest-living communities in tropical and subtropical regions. However, unsustainable harvest rates currently endanger the integrity of ecosystems and threaten the livelihoods of many vulnerable households. This report, produced in response to a call from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is a technical tool to help users guide actions towards a more sustainable wild meat sector. Here, we present an extensive compilation of the current knowledge on wild meat use, drivers and impacts, and provide recommendations on how to improve wild meat governance and management.In all tropical and subtropical regions, greater wildlife offtakes are being enabled by advances in hunting technologies, as well as the increased penetration of new lands by infrastructure, logging, mining and agriculture. Consumers in fast-growing urban centers largely drive demand for wild meat, where it is eaten as a luxury item rather than as a food staple. This greater pressure from large towns and cities has had significant impacts on wildlife populations and ecosystem integrity. In turn, this jeopardizes the financial ‘safety nets’ and food security of remote rural and indigenous communities, for whom wild meat can account for much of their dietary protein, as well as an important source of other nutrients.Key to the success of sustainable management is ensuring that wild meat use is considered a cross-sectoral issue; firmly incorporated in national resource and land-use planning. The success of management strategies will depend on an enabling environment at the national level. In many countries a key first step will be the revision of national hunting laws and land tenure governance systems in consultation with multiple stakeholders. Research efforts must focus on producing science-based evidence that governments, communities, NGOs and industries can use to improve management policies and practices.The creation of a sustainable wild meat sector requires interconnected interventions along the entire value chain – focused on local hunting communities, urban consumers and wider society. Well-designed, participatory approaches can enable sustainable management of wild meat supply for local communities, but only if this is strongly complemented by approaches that aim to reduce urban demand
Hybridization kinetics is different inside cells

It is generally expected that the kinetics of reactions inside living cells differs from the situation in bulk solutions. Macromolecular crowding and specific binding interactions could change the diffusion properties and the availability of free molecules. Their impact on reaction kinetics in the relevant context of living cells is still elusive, mainly because the difficulty of capturing fast kinetics in vivo. This article shows spatially resolved measurements of DNA hybridization kinetics in single living cells. HeLa cells were transfected with a FRET-labeled dsDNA probe by lipofection. We characterized the hybridization reaction kinetics with a kinetic range of 10 μs to 1 s by a combination of laser-driven temperature oscillations and stroboscopic fluorescence imaging. The time constant of the hybridization depended on DNA concentration within individual cells and between cells. A quantitative analysis of the concentration dependence revealed several-fold accelerated kinetics as compared with free solution for a 16-bp probe and decelerated kinetics for a 12-bp probe. We did not find significant effects of crowding agents on the hybridization kinetics in vitro. Our results suggest that the reaction rates in vivo are specifically modulated by binding interactions for the two probes, possibly triggered by their different lengths. In general, the presented imaging modality of temperature oscillation optical lock-in microscopy allows to probe biomolecular interactions in different cell compartments in living cells for systems biology.
Carbon Accounting Tools for Sustainable Land Management

Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector is unique among economic sectors because its mitigation potential derives from both an enhancement of removals of GHGs and a reduction of emissions through management of land and livestock. The AFOLU sector is responsible for just under a quarter (approximately 10–12 GtCO2eq per year) of global anthropogenic GHG emissions, mainly due to deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil, and nutrient management. AFOLU emissions could change substantially in transformational pathways, given the high mitigation potential from agriculture, forestry, and bioenergy. Mitigation options in the AFOLU sector, therefore, need to be assessed, as far as possible, for their potential impact on all other services generated by land.
Characterization of the Equilibrium Strategy of Fuzzy Bimatrix Games Based on L-R Fuzzy Variables

This paper deals with bimatrix games in uncertainty environment based on several types of ordering, which Maeda proposed. But Maeda’s models was just made based on symmetrical triangle fuzzy variable. In this paper, we generalized Maeda’s model to the non-symmetrical environment. In other words, we investigated the fuzzy bimatrix games based on nonsymmetrical L-R fuzzy variables. Then the pseudoinverse of a nonconstant monotone function was given and the concept of crisp parametric bimatrix games was introduced. At last, the existence condition
On what scale should inflationary observables be constrained

We examine the choice of scale at which constraints on inflationary observables are presented. We describe an implementation of the hierarchy of inflationary consistency equations which ensures that they remain enforced on different scales, and then seek to optimize the scale for presentation of constraints on marginalized inflationary parameters from WMAP3 data. For models with spectral index running, we find a strong variation of the constraints through the range of observational scales available, and optimize by finding the scale which decorrelates constraints on the spectral index n{sub S} and the running. This scale is k=0.017 Mpc{sup -1}, and gives a reduction by a factor of more than four in the allowed parameter area in the n{sub S}-r plane (r being the tensor-to-scalar ratio) relative to k=0.002 Mpc{sup -1}. These optimized constraints are similar to those obtained in the no-running case. We also extend the analysis to a larger compilation of data, finding essentially the same conclusions.
Biogenetic explanations and public acceptance of mental illness: Systematic review of population studies

Background Biological or genetic models of mental illness are commonly expected to increase tolerance towards people with mental illness, by reducing notions of responsibility and blame. Aims To investigate whether biogenetic causal attributions of mental illness among the general public are associated with more tolerant attitudes, whether such attributions are related to lower perceptions of guilt and responsibility, to what extent notions of responsibility are associated with rejection of people who are mentally ill, and how prevalent notions of responsibility are among the general public with regard to different mental disorders. Method A systematic review was conducted of representative population studies examining attitudes towards people with mental illness and beliefs about such disorders. Results We identified 33 studies relevant to this review. Generally, biogenetic causal attributions were not associated with more tolerant attitudes; they were related to stronger rejection in most studies examining schizophrenia. No published study reported on associations of biogenetic causal attributions and perceived responsibility. The stereotype of self-responsibility was unrelated to rejection in most studies. Public images of mental disorder are generally dominated by the stereotypes of unpredictability and dangerousness, whereas responsibility is less relevant. Conclusions Biogenetic causal models are an inappropriate means of reducing rejection of people with mental illness.
Diet dynamics of the adult piscivorous fish community in Spirit Lake, Iowa, USA

Diets of adults of six important piscivorous fish species, black crappie Pomoxis nigromaculatus, largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides, northern pike Esox lucius, smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieui, walleye Stizostedion vitreum, and yellow perch Perca flavescens were quantified in Spirit Lake, Iowa, USA from May to October in 1995-1997. Forty-one prey taxa were found in the diets of these species, including 19 species of fish. The most important prey taxa overall were yellow perch, amphipods and dipterans. Diets of northern pike and walleye were dominated by yellow perch. Largemouth bass diets included large percentages of both yellow perch and black bullhead Ameiurus melas. Smallmouth bass diets included large percentages of both yellow perch and crayfish. Black crappie and yellow perch diets were dominated by invertebrates, primarily amphipods and dipterans. There were pronounced differences in diets among species, among size classes within species and over time. Most of the dominant prey taxa we documented in the diets of piscivorous species were in accordance with previous studies, but a few deviated significantly from expectations. Many of the temporal diet changes were asynchronous among piscivorous species and size classes, suggesting different responses to common prey resources over time.
Visualization of Bibliographic Networks with a Reshaped Landscape Metaphor

We describe a novel approach to visualize bibliographic networks that facilitates the simultaneous identification of clusters (e.g., topic areas) and prominent entities (e.g., surveys or landmark papers). While employing the landscape metaphor proposed in several earlier works, we introduce new means to determine relevant parameters of the landscape. Moreover, we are able to compute prominent entities, clustering of entities, and the landscape's surface in a surprisingly simple and uniform way. The effectiveness of our network visualizations is illustrated on data from the graph drawing literature.
A framework for improving routing configurations using multi-objective optimization mechanisms

IP networks are nowadays well established technologies being used to support a myriad of applications and services, thus assuming a crucial role in todays telecommunication systems. Nevertheless, such infrastructures usually require network administrators to perform a wide set of complex planning and management tasks trying to attain adequate network configurations. Many of such management tasks can be mathematically formulated as NP-hard optimization problems, sometimes involving several objective functions. In this context, this work explores and demonstrates the potential of using computational intelligence methods as optimization engines to tackle complex network optimization problems. In particular, Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) are used to attain near-optimal link state routing configurations robust to distinct operational conditions. As result, network administrators will be provided with a set of alternative routing configurations representing distinct tradeoffs between the considered optimization goals. The robustness of the proposed methods is illustrated by presenting several multiobjective optimization examples able to improve the performance and resilience levels of a network infrastructure. In this perspective, this work presents a contribution for this research area by proposing specific MOEAs based optimization methods able to improve network routing configurations. Furthermore, the devised methods are also integrated in a freely available Traffic Engineering optimization framework able to be used by network administrators interested in improving the routing configurations of their network infrastructures.
Ankle and Toe-Brachial Pressure Index after Exercise in Patients on Maintenance Hemodialysis

In patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD), the incidence of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is high, leading to a severe condition; therefore, examinations that facilitate early diagnosis are necessary. The diagnostic accuracy of the ankle brachial pressure index (ABI) after walking, of which the cut-off value was corrected for HD patients, is higher than that of the ABI or toe brachial pressure index (TBI) at rest. Furthermore, the TBI after walking transiently induces marked perfusion disorder of the toes. The two procedures are useful for the early diagnosis of latent PAD in HD patients.
Energy-Aware Mobile Learning:Opportunities and Challenges

As mobile devices are becoming more powerful and affordable they are increasingly used for mobile learning activities. By enabling learners' access to educational content anywhere and anytime, mobile learning has both the potential to provide online learners with new opportunities, and to reach less privileged categories of learners that lack access to traditional e-learning services. Among the many challenges with mobile learning, the battery-powered nature of mobile devices and in particular their limited battery life, stands out as one issue that can significantly limit learners' access to educational content while on the move. Adaptation and personalisation solutions have widely been considered for overcoming the differences between learners and between the characteristics of their mobile devices. However, while various energy saving solutions have been proposed in order to provide mobile users with extended device usage time, the areas of adaptive mobile learning and energy conservation in wireless communications failed to meet under the same umbrella. This paper bridges the two areas by presenting an overview of adaptive mobile learning systems as well as how these can be extended to make them energy-aware. Furthermore, the paper surveys various approaches for energy measurement, modelling and adaptation, three major aspects that have to be considered in order to deploy energy-aware mobile learning systems. Discussions on the applicability and limitations of these approaches for mobile learning are also provided.
Local optical characterization of biological tissues in vitro and in vivo

Two methods for measuring the optical properties of tissue, i.e. reduced scattering and absorption coefficient, were developed. The first one was designed for in vitro investigations. It is based on the measurement of the spatially resolved transmittance through a tissue slab (typically 5 mm thick). The second one was designed for local in vivo investigations. It is based on the measurement of the spatially-resolved diffuse reflectance, close to the source (< 2 mm). A sterilizable probe, of diameter of 2.2 mm was realized for measurements in clinic, during surgery or endoscopy. A model of the light propagation in turbid media was developed based on Monte Carlo simulations. It allows us to establish the correspondence between the optical coefficients to the experimental data (spatially-resolved transmittance or reflectance). The influence of the scattering phase function on the reflectance and transmittance was carefully studied. In particular, the role of the first and the second moment of the phase function were shown for short distances measurements (close to one transport mean free path). Similarity relations, taking into account the first and second moment of the phase function were proposed and assessed. The model was tested extensively by measurements on tissue-like phantoms, with known optical properties. Further assessments of the model were performed by comparison with time-resolved measurements. Investigations on human brain, breast and cervix tissues were performed. Tissue structure (i.e. heterogeneities not taken into account by the model) were found to play a significant role in the light propagation. Normal and malignant brain tissue were investigated in vitro, and in vivo during surgery. Significant differences were found between different type of tissues, and were explained in terms of chromophore content (hemoglobin, water) and specific features of scattering properties.