Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Tropical managed Forests Observatory: a research network addressing the future of tropical logged forests

While attention on logging in the tropics has been increasing, studies on the long-term effects of silviculture on forest dynamics and ecology remain scare and spatially limited. Indeed, most of our knowledge on tropical forests arises from studies carried out in undisturbed tropical forests. This bias is problematic given that logged and disturbed tropical forests are now covering a larger area than the so-called primary forests. A new network of permanent sample plots in logged forests, the Tropical managed Forests Observatory (TmFO), aims to fill this gap by providing unprecedented opportunities to examine long-term data on the resilience of logged tropical forests at regional and global scales. TmFO currently includes 24 experimental sites distributed across three tropical regions, with a total of 490 permanent plots and 921 ha of forest inventories.
BLACK HOLES RADIATE BUT DO NOT EVAPORATE

During the black hole radiation, the interior contains all the matter of the initial black hole, together with the negative energy quanta entangled with the exterior Hawking radiation. Neither the initial matter nor the negative energy quanta evaporate from the black hole interior. Therefore, the information is not lost during the radiation. The black hole mass eventually drops to zero in semiclassical gravity, but this semiclassical state has an infinite temperature and still contains all the initial matter together with the negative energy entangled with the exterior radiation.
Interactive Local Terrain Deformation Inspired by Hand-painted Panoramas

Abstract Painters of panoramic landscape maps use specific manual techniques to solve problems of occlusion, foreshortening and unfavourable orientation of landscape elements to the map viewer. Using digital means, the painters’ techniques may be translated into geometry deformation algorithms for digital panorama creation. This article explores the advantages and the suitability of applying local geometry deformation to digital panoramas and reviews existing methods to perform such terrain editing with digital means. A new algorithmic solution based on inverse distance interpolation and moving least squares and specifically designed for regular 2·5D elevation models is presented. It allows the user to position and drag control handles on a 3D representation of the model to interactively deform the terrain.
Lost Sex 1 The Evolutionary Biology of Parthenogenesis 2

22 23 There is a general consensus among biologists that species are real and important units of 24 biological diversity, and understanding the mechanisms of speciation is a hot research 25 topic (Coyne and Orr 2004). Nearly all of that work is focused on species and speciation 26 in animals and plants that reproduce sexually. But it is also critically important to 27 understand species and their origins in asexual organisms such as parthenogenetic 28 animals and plants. A substantial part of the earth's biological diversity consists of 29 organisms that reproduce only asexually so far as we know, or reproduce sexually very 30 rarely or with extreme inbreeding so that they are effectively asexual or clonal. Asexual 31 organisms include not only the parthenogenetic animals and plants that are the subject of 32 this book, but also many fungi; some green algae, including the large and ancient genus 33 Chlorella; and many other eukaryotic protists, including possibly all of the members of 34 one of the five major groups of eukaryotes, the Excavates. In addition to eukaryotes, 35 many bacteria are largely asexual, although levels of homologous recombination vary and 36 may be high enough to confer evolutionary advantages of sex in many groups (Cohan 37 2004; Ochman, Lerat et al. 2005). Many asexual eukaryotes and prokaryotes are 38
Upponurkka: An Inexpensive Immersive Display for Public VR Installations

Upponurkka is an inexpensive immersive display system for public virtual reality installations. It is designed for public places to be robust, wireless, and light-weight. The system consists of two passive stereo screens and optical tracking. In this paper the hardware and software of Upponurkka are briefly presented. In addition, experiences of using the system in a public art exhibition are reported.
Experimental Simulation Study of Uni-directional and Bi-directional Pedestrian Flows Based on PTSim

Simulation is an effective means to study pedestrian flow, and PTSim is a pedestrian simulation package developed by the authors. In this study, the authors constructed unidirectional and bidirectional flow simulation experiments in PTSim. Based on the collected data, capacity and Volume-Density-Speed relationships were analyzed for unidirectional situation. Meanwhile, capacity considering LOS for bidirectional flow was also collected; besides, the Lane-Formation phenomenon reappeared in PTSim. The experimental results are useful for pedestrian studies.
Formal verification of avionics self adaptive software: A case study

We model avionics self-adaptive software as a multi-agent system using the BDI (Belief Desire Intention) model of agency. Such a model sufficiently represents several properties of avionics self-adaptive software. We illustrate formal verification of functional requirements related to safety of such software using Boolean predicate abstractions and model checking. Our proposed approach is illustrated using a case study involving BDI model of a flight management system with a proto-type involving appropriate tools.
Impact of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on miRNA Profiles of Monocytes/Macrophages and Endothelial Cells—A Pilot Study

Alteration of miRNAs and dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) underlies vascular inflammation. PUFAs are known to be incorporated into the cell membrane of monocytes/macrophages or endothelial cells, the major cellular players of vascular diseases, thereby affecting cellular signal transduction. Nevertheless, there are no investigations concerning the PUFA impact on miRNA expression by these cells. With regard to the key role miRNAs play for overall cellular functionality, this study aims to elucidate whether PUFAs affect miRNA expression profiles. To this end, the monocyte/macrophage cell line RAW264.7 and the endothelial cell line TIME were enriched with either docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; n3-PUFA) or arachidonic acid (AA; n6-PUFA) until reaching a stable incorporation into the plasma membrane and, at least in part, exposed to an inflammatory milieu. Expressed miRNAs were determined by deep sequencing, and compared to unsupplemented/unstimulated controls. Data gained clearly show that PUFAs in fact modulate miRNA expression of both cell types analyzed regardless the presence/absence of an inflammatory stimulator. Moreover, certain miRNAs already linked to vascular inflammation were found to be affected by cellular PUFA enrichment. Hence, vascular inflammation appears to be influenced by dietary fatty acids, inter alia, via PUFA-mediated modulation of the type and amount of miRNAs synthesized by cells involved in the inflammatory process.
Dual averaging for distributed optimization

The focus of this paper is the development and analysis of distributed algorithms for solving convex optimization problems that are defined over networks. Such network structured optimization problems arise in a variety of application domains within the information sciences and engineering. For instance, problems such as multi-agent coordination, distributed tracking and localization, estimation problems in sensor networks and packet routing are all naturally cast as distributed convex minimization.
Portal recovery of short-chain fatty acids infused into the temporarily-isolated and washed reticulo-rumen of sheep

The present study was undertaken to study the metabolism of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) by the reticulo-ruminal epithelium and the portal-drained viscera (PDV) under in vivo conditions with no interference from the metabolism of the rumen microbes. The technique of temporary isolation of the reticulo-rumen was applied to wethers implanted with catheters in a mesenteric artery, the hepatic portal vein and the right ruminal vein. Portal blood flow was measured by downstream dilution of p-aminohippuric acid; the PDV uptake of arterial acetate, as well as the whole-body irreversible loss rate (ILR) of acetate, was estimated by [2-13C] acetate infusion into the right ruminal vein. The sheep were maintained with a bicarbonate-buffered solution of SCFA in the reticulo-rumen along with continuous intraruminal infusion of SCFA for 4 h. The portal appearance of SCFA of non-reticulo-ruminal origin was estimated before and after the infusion protocol. Of the acetate absorbed by the sheep, 89 (SE 5), 109 (se 7) and 101 (se 7) % was recovered as portal net appearance of acetate, portal net appearance of acetate corrected for PDV uptake of arterial acetate and increase in the ILR of acetate respectively. Of the propionate, isobutyrate, butyrate, isovalerate and valerate absorbed by the sheep, 95 (se 7), 102 (se 9), 23 (se 3), 48 (se 5) and 32 (se 4) % respectively was recovered as portal net appearance. In contrast to current concepts, the present study showed that the reticulo-ruminal epithelium metabolizes none (or only a small proportion) of the acetate and propionate absorbed from the rumen. This observation could lead to the more efficient use of results obtained with multi-catheterized animals to quantify the net metabolite output of the rumen microbes.
Latent sentiment detection in Online Social Networks: A communications-oriented view

In this paper, we consider the problem of latent sentiment detection in Online Social Networks such as Twitter. Modeling the underlying social network as an Ising prior, we demonstrate the effect that the underlying social network structure has on the performance of a trivial sentiment detector. In doing so, we introduce a novel communications-oriented framework for characterizing the probability of error and the associated error exponent, based on information theoretic analysis. We study the variation of the calculated error exponent for several stylized network topologies such as the complete network, the star network and the closed-chain network, and show the importance of the network structure in determining detection performance.
Children’s online risks and opportunities: comparative findings from EU Kids Online and Net Children Go Mobile

 Children’s online risks and opportunities: comparative findings from EU Kids Online and Net Children Go Mobile  This report highlights the latest findings on children’s online access and use; activities; social networking; digital skills; risks and harm; parental mediation and recommendations.  It includes a wealth of graphs comparing the findings from the EU Kids Online and Net Children Go Mobile surveys, focusing on seven European countries.  As the ICT Coalition for the Safer Use of Connected Devices and Online Services by Children and Young People in the EU meets in Brussels this Tuesday, our findings show that more European children are encountering risk online, with especially sharp rises in some countries.  The report thus offers urgent recommendations for industry, government, educators and awareness-raisers and families.
Hypertension and Insulin Resistance Are Not Directly Related in Obese Dogs

Abstract—In dogs fed a high-fat diet, we determined whether there was a direct relation between obesity-induced insulin resistance and obesity-induced hypertension. Thirty-six adult mongrel dogs were chronically instrumented and assigned to receive either a high-fat diet alone (n=7) or a high-fat diet combined with a low-sodium diet plus furosemide (n=6), prazosin plus atenolol (n=7), clonidine (n=10), or aspirin (n=6). Blood pressure, heart rate, and body weight were measured daily. Insulin resistance was assessed with a single-dose euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp (2 mU · kg−1 · min−1) before and after 1, 3, and 6 weeks of the high-fat diet. The low-salt diet plus furosemide, prazosin plus atenolol, and clonidine treatments prevented the hypertension associated with feeding the dogs a high-fat diet. Only clonidine treatment totally prevented the development of insulin resistance, and high-dose aspirin, known to prevent insulin resistance by inhibition of the activity of IκB kinase-β, decreased the degree of insulin resistance by almost 70%. However, aspirin had no effect on the development of hypertension. We conclude that obesity-induced hypertension and obesity-induced insulin resistance are not directly related. In addition, there is a suggestion that insulin resistance in this experimental model is mediated through the central and or peripheral &agr;2-adrenoceptors, whereas hypertension is mediated through the &agr;1- and or β-adrenoceptors.
Development of Infrastructue for Residential Load to Reduce Peak Demand and Cost of Energy in Smart Grid

The renewable energy sources like solar and wind power will be economical in future due to upward pressure in fossil fuel prices, progress in renewable technologies as well as economy scale resulting from large scale production of renewable energy sources. As the usage of renewable energy sources will increase, decentralized supply and demand side management will be used instead of conventional centralized supply side management in future smart grids. Smart meters offer solution to this by allowing more sophisticated measurement of consumption and the implementation of real time pricing. Using power scheduling of appliances we not only reduce the peak demand but operate the appliances when price is low. In this paper real time price based demand response management for residential appliances using intelligent metering and billing system using smart meter is described. Next generation meters will use Automated Meter Reading (AMR) and provide more sophisticated services to the customers. Here architecture of smart grid that is capable of automated reading, alert management (for various events like exceeding peak demand, exceeding monthly target bill etc.) and web dash board to view and control the consumption of various appliances is introduced.
Research on Evaluation Method of Equipment Fault in Electric Power Communication Network

The research on reliability of electric power communication network originates from the research on equipment fault in it, which is fully significant. In this paper, the equipment fault cases are classified by K-means clustering method, the neural network is trained for fault cases classification based on radial basis function (RBF), the network inputs dimension is reduced by rough set method before training, and the fault cases level are determined through the comprehensive indexes which could reflect it. Finally, a practical problem is resolved by this method to demonstrate its advantage that avoiding subjective interference effectively.
Fast and Accurate Content-based Semantic Search in 100M Internet Videos

Large-scale content-based semantic search in video is an interesting and fundamental problem in multimedia analysis and retrieval. Existing methods index a video by the raw concept detection score that is dense and inconsistent, and thus cannot scale to "big data" that are readily available on the Internet. This paper proposes a scalable solution. The key is a novel step called concept adjustment that represents a video by a few salient and consistent concepts that can be efficiently indexed by the modified inverted index. The proposed adjustment model relies on a concise optimization framework with interpretations. The proposed index leverages the text-based inverted index for video retrieval. Experimental results validate the efficacy and the efficiency of the proposed method. The results show that our method can scale up the semantic search while maintaining state-of-the-art search performance. Specifically, the proposed method (with reranking) achieves the best result on the challenging TRECVID Multimedia Event Detection (MED) zero-example task. It only takes 0.2 second on a single CPU core to search a collection of 100 million Internet videos.
Some Critical Issues for the "Equation-Free" Approach to Multiscale Modeling

The "equation-free'' approach has been proposed in recent years as a general framework for developing multiscale methods to efficiently capture the macroscale behavior of a system using only the microscale models. In this paper, we take a close look at some of the algorithms proposed under the "equation-free'' umbrella, the projective integrators and the patch dynamics. We discuss some very simple examples in the context of the "equation-free'' approach. These examples seem to indicate that while its general philosophy is quite attractive and indeed similar to many other approaches in concurrent multiscale modeling, there are severe limitations to the specific implementation proposed by the equation-free approach.
New Criteria on Lagrange Stability of Cellular Neural Network with Mixed Delays

In this paper, the problem on globally exponentially stability in the Lagrange sense for cellular neural networks (CNNs) with both mixed delays and general activation functions is dealt with. Here, the mixed delays consist of time-varying delays and finite distribute delays. Based on assuming that the activation functions are neither bounded nor monotonous or differentiable, several algebra criteria for the globally exponentially stability in the Lagrange sense of CNNs are obtained by virtue of Lyapunov functional, Halanay delay differential inequality and linear matrix inequality. Meanwhile, the detailed estimations of the globally exponentially attractive sets are also given out. The results derived here are more general than that of the existing reference. Finally, a numerical examples is given and analyzed to demonstrate the theoretical results.
Differential Consequences of Unilateral Nasal Air-Puff Stimulation on Breathing Pattern and Respiratory System Mechanics in Tracheotomized Rats

Objective(s): Reflexes that rose from mechanoreceptors in nasal cavities have extensive neuro-regulatory effects on respiratory system. Because of side specific geometry and dual innervations of the nasal mucosa, we investigated the consequences of unilateral nasal stimulations on respiratory mechanics and breathing patterns. Materials and Methods: Unilateral nasal air-puff stimulation (30 min) in the presence of propranolol (25 mg/kg) and atropine (5 mg/kg) were applied on tracheotomized spontaneously breathing rats. Breathing rate and pattern monitored. Peak inspiratory pressure (PIP) and flow (PIF) were exploited for calculation of resistance, dynamic compliance (Cdyn), and estimation of respiratory system impedance (Zrs). Results: During right-side stimulation, in propranolol (P<0.05) and atropine groups (P<0.01) PIP significantly decreased in comparison to the control group. Alternatively, it significantly increased in left-side and propranolol-left groups (P<0.05) than control group. Mean Cdyn following left-side stimulation and propranolol, revealed significant decrements (P<0.05) than control group. In the case of atropine-right and atropine-left groups, mean Cdyn had significantly decreased in comparison with atropine alone (P<0.05). Airway resistance (R) did not reveal significant difference during nasal stimulations whereas least square approximation revealed a significant side-specific frequency dependent deviation of imaginary part of impedance (X). An inverse correlation was determined for Cdyn versus frequency following right side (R=-0.76) and left side (R=-0.53) stimulations. Conclusion: For the reason that lower airways mechanics changed in a way independent from smooth muscle, it may be concluded from our data that unilateral nasal stimulations exert their different controls through higher regulatory centers.
3.3 Disparity Component Matching for Visual Correspondence 3.3.2 Disparity Component Matching

Note: These lecture notes are identical to a paper Many problems in early vision are ill-posed, i.e. cannot be uniquely solved without additional constraints. Scene geometry can provide constraints that make these problems well-posed 6]. In this paper we describe an approach to early vision which exploits scene geometry in a novel manner. We assume that images consist of a number of connected sets of pixels with the same disparity, which we call disparity components. Note that the boundaries of a disparity component are discontinuities, by deenition. A disparity component may be rectangular, or of any other shape. Our method rst computes for every pixel a small set of plausible disparities, which are disparities more likely to be the pixel's true disparity than not given the observed intensities. Then for each disparity we compute connected components among those pixels for which that disparity is plausible. Finally, for each pixel we select the plausible disparity with the largest connected component. In section 3.3. 2 we describe our approach. In section 3.3.3 we show empirical results from our method, on both real and synthetic data. We conclude by discussing the relationship between our work and previous methods, and proposing a number of extensions. Let P be a pixel, I(P) its intensity in one image and I 0 (P) its intensity in the other image. We will denote a disparity by d, and the set of possible disparities by D. In stereo, disparities are typically restricted to lie along a scanline, while motion involves 2D disparities. We will write the statement that pixel P has disparity d by P d. If P d holds, then where is the measurement error, which includes such unmodeled phenomena as analog noise and changes in viewing angle and illumination. If S is a connected set of pixels, we deene S d = ^ P 2S P d : (2) We will call S d a disparity component hypothesis, or a component hypothesis for brevity. The number of component hypotheses is, of course, exponential. However, almost all hypotheses can be pruned by a maximum likelihood argument. Deene P d to be plausible if the likelihood of P d is greater than the likelihood of :P d for the observed data. A component hypothesis S d is plausible when P d is plausible for all P in S. Section 3.3. 2 gives the precise deenition of plausibility, along with a simple …
Active content fingerprinting: A marriage of digital watermarking and content fingerprinting

Content fingerprinting and digital watermarking are techniques that are used for the content protection and distribution monitoring. Nowadays, both techniques are well studied and their shortcomings are understood. In this paper, we introduce a new framework named as active content fingerprinting that takes the best from two worlds of content fingerprinting and digital watermarking to overcome some of fundamental restrictions of these techniques in terms of performance and complexity. The proposed framework extends the encoding of conventional content fingerprinting in the way similar to digital watermarking thus allowing to extract the fingerprints from the modified cover data. We consider several encoding strategies, examine the performance of the proposed schemes in terms of bit error rate and compare it with those of conventional fingerprinting and digital watermarking.