Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Evolution of Plant Ecophysiological Traits: Recent Advances and Future Directions

lants exhibit enormous ecophysiological and functional diversity, which underlies variation in growth rates, productivity, population and community dynamics, and ecosystem function. The broad congruence of these variations with climatic and environmental conditions on local, regional, and global scales has fostered the concept that plant ecophysiological characteristics are well adapted to their local circumstances. For example, the repeated occurrence of plants with CAM (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism) photosynthesis and succulent leaves or stems in severely water-limited environments, and the independent evolution of these traits in numerous plant lineages, provides compelling evidence of the physiological evolution of these water-conserving traits under the influence of natural selection (Ehleringer and Monson 1993). Similarly, studies of the evolution of heavy metal tolerance confirm that natural selection may cause rapid ecophysiological evolution in just a few generations, leading to local adaptation in populations just a few meters apart (Antonovics et al. 1971). Many ecophysiological traits—considered here as all aspects of resource uptake and utilization, including biochemistry, metabolism, gas exchange, leaf structure and function, nutrient and biomass allocation, canopy structure, and growth—are likely to influence fitness and undergo adaptive evolution. Traits affecting the assimilation and use of resources such as carbon, water, and nutrients directly influence plant growth. Patterns of resource allocation to growth, reproduction, defense, and stress tolerance are also likely to be under strong selection. Phenotypic plasticity, the expression of different phenotypes by
Bottom-Up Tagset Design from Maximally Reduced Tagset

For highly in ectional languages, where the number of morpho-syntactic descriptions (MSD) is very high, the use of a reduced tagset is crucial for reasons of implementation problems as well as the problem of sparse data. The standard procedure is to start from the large set of MSDs incorporating all morphosyntactic features and design a reduced tagset by eliminating the attributes which play no role in disambiguation. This paper presents the opposite approach which using a greedy algorithm maximally reduces a tagset without loss of information, and instead of elimination, re-introduces features. This process can arrive at a very small tagset and result in accuracy comparable to that achieved with larger tagsets designed by elimination. The language model based on the reduced tagset needs fewer parameters and training time decreases signi cantly.
An econometric analysis of the forward freight market

The success or failure of a derivatives (futures or forward) contract is determined by its ability to perform its economic functions efficiently, and therefore, to provide benefits to economic agents, over and above the benefits they derive from the spot market. These economic functions are price discovery and risk management through hedging. A considerable amount of empirical research has been directed towards examining these functions in different financial and commodity derivatives markets. The evidence however, on the over-the-counter FFA market is very limited. This thesis therefore, by investigating these issues provides new evidence in the literature for a forward market with some unique characteristics such as the trading of a service. Our empirical results can be summarised as follows. First, the FFA contracts perform their price discovery function efficiently since forward prices contribute to the discovery of new information regarding both current and expected spot prices. Furthermore, most FFA contracts contribute in the volatility of the relevant spot rate, and therefore, further support the notion of price discovery. Second, the introduction of FFA contracts has not had a detrimental effect on the volatility of the underlying spot market. On the contrary, it appears that there has been an improvement in the way that news is transmitted into prices following the onset of FFA trading. Third, FFA prices fail to reduce market risk to the extent evidenced in other markets in the literature and, hence, the FFA market does not perform its risk management function satisfactorily; this is thought to be the result of the lack of the cost-of-carry arbitrage relationship of storable assets that keeps spot and derivatives prices close together. Fourth, there seems to be a positive relationship between bid-ask spreads and expected price volatility in most FFA trading routes. Finally, in the routes where the cointegrating vector is restricted to be the lagged basis, the VECM generates more accurate forecasts than the VAR model and in the routes where the cointegrating vector is not restricted to be the lagged basis the VAR generates more accurate forecasts than the VECM model.
Graphene bimetallic-like cantilevers: probing graphene/substrate interactions.

The remarkable mechanical properties of graphene, the thinnest, lightest, and strongest material in existence, are desirable in applications ranging from composite materials to sensors and actuators. Here, we demonstrate that these mechanical properties are strongly affected by the interaction with the substrate onto which graphene is deposited. By measuring the temperature-dependent deflection of graphene/substrate "bimetallic" cantilevers we determine strain, thermal expansion coefficient, and the adhesion force acting on graphene films attached to a substrate. Graphene deposited on silicon nitride (SiN(x)) is under much larger strain, ε(g) ∼ 1.5 × 10(-2), compared to graphene on gold (Au), ε(g) < 10(-3). The thermal expansion coefficient α(g) of graphene attached to SiN(x) is found to be negative, in the range from (- 5. - 1) × 10(-6)K(-1) and smaller in magnitude than α(g) of suspended graphene. We also estimate the interfacial shear strength of the graphene/SiN(x) interface to be ∼1 GPa at room temperature.
Computing Brain Change over Time

Glossary Diffeomorphism A smooth (technically differentiable) mapping, such as a spatial transformation, that has a smooth inverse. Jacobian (tensor/matrix and determinant) The matrix of all first-order partial derivatives of a mapping, or the determinant thereof, at a given point. The Jacobian determinant encodes the factor by which the mapping expands or shrinks space. Considering every point in space, the Jacobians form a tensor field. Probabilistic segmentation An image in which each voxel's value indicates the probability that it belongs to a particular region or tissue type. SPM Depending on context, either a statistical parametric map or the Statistical Parametric Mapping software – http:// Statistical parametric map An image in which each voxel is the result of a statistical test on a set of spatially aligned images. Tensor-based morphometry (TBM) Typically refers to SPM-like analysis of Jacobian tensor fields, for example, the Jacobian determinants following spatial normalization, such that the value of each voxel in the reference space equals the equivalent volume of the corresponding voxel in the original (unnormalized) images. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) Can be seen as a form of tissue-specific TBM. Using serial imaging to compute changes in the brain over time has important applications whenever an inherently longitudinal process is of interest. Such processes encompass growth and development during childhood (Giedd et al. or other disease-related change. Examples of neurological applications include Alzheimer's disease Longitudinal imaging is particularly powerful for the evaluation of response to treatment (Douaud et al., 2013; Fox et al., 2005; Jack et al., 2008); for example, Ridha et al. (2008) reported a fivefold reduction in the number of subjects required to power an AD treatment trial using a measure of brain volume change (the boundary shift integral, discussed in the succeeding text) compared to the change in minimental state examination. Serial MRI has proven capable of measuring preclinical brain change in AD and other dementias and has the potential to power a secondary prevention trial (Andrews et al., 2013). Serial data have major advantages for measuring changes over time compared to multiple cross-sectional samples at different stages, related to both increasing statistical power and reducing confounds (Cook & Ware, 1983). Longitudinal brain imaging data can dramatically improve sensitivity because the interindividual variability is typically much greater than the change over time. To give an example, based on Leung, Barnes, et al. (2010), the coefficient of variation (i.e., the standard deviation as a percentage of …
Eclipse SoaML: A Tool for Engineering Service Oriented Applications

Service-Oriented applications focus on the definition of selfcontained independent pieces of software called services providing specific functionality, being nowadays one of the most used implementations to support business process execution. Although languages, technologies and platforms supporting the service-oriented paradigm have evolved within the last decades, it is not the case of service modeling support. Service modeling is a key aspect for the design and specification of services and for automating the different stages following the model driven development vision. SoaML is a standard for service modeling which defines an UML profile and a metamodel extending the UML metamodel, defining explicitly concepts and elements for services specification. The Eclipse SoaML tool provides support for service modeling with UML using the SoaML standard, allowing importing and exporting models in XMI format to interoperate with other tools. From SoaML models the tool also generates the code needed to implement services in Java EE and Web Services.
Image analysis of Bi-discrete radial Cosine transform

Cosine transform seldom applies to pattern and object recognition due to its poor capabilities in describing image and calculating efficiency. In order to resolve these problems, a Bi-discrete radial cosine transform is proposed. The new cosine transform has two particular properties. First it takes Mukundan's square-to-circular transformation to project the square to the circle grids. Second different from classical radial orthogonal plane, a new discrete orthogonal polar plane is constructed by making the discrete cosine function orthogonal in radial direction to the discrete cosine function orthogonal in circumferential direction. Experimental results indicate that the proposed Cosine transform has good performance in image reconstruction and computing efficiency.
Women’s self-employment in Poland: A strategy for combining work and childcare?

The paper investigates whether self-employment, which generally offers greater flexibility with respect to the hours and place of work, is chosen by women in order to achieve a better balance between paid work and family. The empirical research on this topic has provided conflicting evidence. The shortcomings of previous studies are discussed and accounted for. First, we investigate women's self-employment choices in relationship with childbearing and childrearing, and we apply qualitative methodology to examine the motives that trigger these decisions. Second, in the quantitative part of the study, we investigate the direction of the relationship by analyzing whether self-employment encourages childbearing, or whether motherhood leads women to choose a more flexible form of employment. Finally, we account for the selection of mothers into the group of self-employed due to time-constant unobserved characteristics. Our results show that self-employment does not affect women's fertility decisions, but it can become an attractive option for women after they have children because of the flexibility it offers. Nevertheless, self-employment does not seem to be preferred to W&S contracts. Instead, it is seen as an alternative to being jobless or in a "bad job" (i.e., one that is inflexible, stressful, or demanding).
Sepiapterin reductase gene‐disrupted mice suffer from hypertension with fluctuation and bradycardia

(6R)‐l‐erythro‐5,6,7,8‐Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) is an essential cofactor for monoamine and nitric oxide (NO) production. Sepiapterin reductase (SPR) catalyzes the final step in BH4 biosynthesis. We analyzed the cardiovascular function of adult Spr gene‐disrupted (Spr−/−) mice for the first time. After weaning, Spr−/− mice suffered from hypertension with fluctuation and bradycardia, while the monoamine contents in these mice were less than 10% of those in the wild‐type mice as a result of BH4 depletion. Heart rate variability analysis indicated the sympathetic dominant state in Spr−/− mice. The endothelium‐dependent vascular relaxation in response to acetylcholine was significantly impaired in Spr−/− mice after sexual maturation (above 4 months old). Protein amounts of α1 adrenergic receptor and eNOS in the aorta were not altered. Spr−/− mice exhibited hypoglycemia and elevation of plasma renin activity. Our results suggest that the hypertension with fluctuation and bradycardia of Spr−/− mice would be caused by an imbalance of sympathetic and parasympathetic input and impaired nitric oxide production in endothelial cells. We suggest an important role of BH4 and SPR in age‐related hypertension and a possible relationship with the cardiovascular instabilities in autonomic diseases, including Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury.
Biometric Enabled Portable Trusted Computing Platform

Existing proposals to address trusted end-to-end communication tend to focus on attestation between client applications and their enterprise servers. These proposals have given little or no consideration to the vulnerabilities between client applications and their users, resulting in identity thefts or impersonator. To address this problem, we propose a biometric enabled portable Trusted Computing Platform (portable TCP). The proposed platform coordinates two stage authentication and subsequent integrity check to provide trusted pathways amongst users, applications, and enterprise servers. We describe the proposed solution and its implementation.
Exponential Distribution of Locomotion Activity in Cell Cultures

In vitro velocities of several cell types have been measured using computer controlled video microscopy, which allowed to record the cells' trajectories over several days. On the basis of our large data sets we show that the locomotion activity displays a universal exponential distribution. Thus, motion resulting from complex cellular processes can be well described by an unexpected, but very simple distribution function. A simple phenomenological model based on the interaction of various cellular processes and finite ATP production rate is proposed to explain these experimental results.
Selective Remanent Ambipolar Charge Transport in Polymeric Field‐Effect Transistors For High‐Performance Logic Circuits Fabricated in Ambient

Ambipolar polymeric field-effect transistors can be programmed into a p- or n-type mode by using the remanent polarization of a ferroelectric gate insulator. Due to the remanent polarity, the device architecture is suited as a building block in complementary logic circuits and in CMOS-compatible memory cells for non-destructive read-out operations.
HR is Business : Achieving competitive advantage through strategic talent management

All organizations, whether in the public or private sector, aim to achieve strategic objectives. This requires a clear understanding and linkage between these strategic goals and the key capabilities required for their achievement. To achieve sustainable competitive advantage organizations need two kinds of capabilities: • Non-contingent capabilities are those capabilities which every organization needs, in varying degrees, such as ‘effective financial management’. These are the basics that will enable an organization to be “just as good” as its competitors. • Differentiating capabilities are those that distinguish one organization from another and can provide real competitive advantage. Many HR activities (including standardized competency frameworks and talent processes) aim to develop non-contingent capabilities but these can only meet the basic requirements for future strategy and are often un-related to the strategy itself. As a result, very few HR plans address the real need to achieve competitive advantage through differentiating capabilities. In effect, most HR plans aim to develop people who are competent in the same areas as their competitors which clearly cannot enable competitive advantage. This may be the major reason why HR functions have generally failed to clearly link their activities to the achievement of business strategy. This paper first defines ‘strategic differentiating capabilities’ and then describes a process for identifying and creating such capabilities through effective talent management processes. This process provides the key link between strategy and talent management, allows HR practitioners to impact organizational strategy and demonstrates that ‘HR is business’.
Real-time target determination and tracking with an airborne video system

This paper investigates real-time target determination, recognition and tracking with an airborne video system. The visual navigation and target tracking in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are of great interest among scientists. To achieve real-time target determination and tracking, we have to accomplish two missions: to determine the “feature” of the target in real time, and to update the the “feature”. This paper develops an algorithm to define the feature of the target in real time. With experiment data, we also demonstrate the validity of our algorithms. Our algorithm is potentially applicable to airborne video tracking system in a UAV.
Alterations in the Aedes aegypti Transcriptome during Infection with West Nile, Dengue and Yellow Fever Viruses

West Nile (WNV), dengue (DENV) and yellow fever (YFV) viruses are (re)emerging, mosquito-borne flaviviruses that cause human disease and mortality worldwide. Alterations in mosquito gene expression common and unique to individual flaviviral infections are poorly understood. Here, we present a microarray analysis of the Aedes aegypti transcriptome over time during infection with DENV, WNV or YFV. We identified 203 mosquito genes that were ≥5-fold differentially up-regulated (DUR) and 202 genes that were ≥10-fold differentially down-regulated (DDR) during infection with one of the three flaviviruses. Comparative analysis revealed that the expression profile of 20 DUR genes and 15 DDR genes was quite similar between the three flaviviruses on D1 of infection, indicating a potentially conserved transcriptomic signature of flaviviral infection. Bioinformatics analysis revealed changes in expression of genes from diverse cellular processes, including ion binding, transport, metabolic processes and peptidase activity. We also demonstrate that virally-regulated gene expression is tissue-specific. The overexpression of several virally down-regulated genes decreased WNV infection in mosquito cells and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Among these, a pupal cuticle protein was shown to bind WNV envelope protein, leading to inhibition of infection in vitro and the prevention of lethal WNV encephalitis in mice. This work provides an extensive list of targets for controlling flaviviral infection in mosquitoes that may also be used to develop broad preventative and therapeutic measures for multiple flaviviruses.
Effects of Asymmetrical Distribution in the Left-right Visual Field on Inhibition of Return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a bias against returning attention to a location that has been recently attended. In the present study, the effects of asymmetrical distribution on IOR were explored in 2 experiments. Subjects were asked to detect respectively the target location in experiment 1. The results showed significant inhibition in the cued location and there was a main effect of the visual fields. In contrast, subjects only responded to the left or right visual field where the target appeared in experiment 2, and also obtained significant inhibition in the validity condition, but no main effect of the visual fields was found. The present studies indicated that IOR correlated nearly with the location distribution, especially to asymmetrical spatial distribution. It supposedly benefited the response to a target on asymmetrical distribution in the natural environment and accelerated visual search. Finally, we discussed the present results and proposed a novel viewpoint of resource redeployment on IOR. This viewpoint indicated sufficiency that there were flexibility and plasticity on IOR in visual search
Discrete-Choice-Experiments to elicit individuals' preferences for redistribution.

As in most industrialized countries, the inequality regarding the distribution of house-hold incomes in Germany has steadily increased. By collecting taxes and granting mon-etary transfers, the government tries to affect the personal distribution of incomes. Whereas the supply of redistribution is relatively easy to determine, it is rather difficult to identify the determinants of the citizens’ demand for redistribution. Most of the lit-erature concerning the individuals’ preferences for redistribution relies on survey based analysis. A shortcoming of these studies is the failure of imposing a budget con-straint. Discrete-Choice-Experiments (DCE) solve this problem by forcing individuals to take the consequences of their decisions with respect to their own income into ac-count. This study aims at developing a theory based approach to elicit individuals’ preferences for redistribution using DCEs. For the specific case of Germany, we show how to design and implement such a DCE. In particular, we discuss how the price at-tribute in a DCE should be specified and which levels adequately define the price an individual is willing to pay for redistribution. We are able to demonstrate that even for a highly complex topic such as redistribution a correctly applied DCE can provide au-thoritative results. This allows deriving policy implications on how to design redistribu-tive policies which are in line with citizens’ preferences.
Alcuin's Transportation Problems and Integer Programming

The need to solve {\it transportation problems\/} was and still is one of the driving forces behind the development of the mathematical disciplines of graph theory, optimization, and operations research. Transportation problems seem to occur for the first time in the literature in the form of the four ''River Crossing Problems'' in the book Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes. The {\it Propositiones\/} ---the oldest collection of mathematical problems written in Latin--- date back to the $8$th century A.D. and are attributed to Alcuin of York, one of the leading scholars of his time, a royal advisor to Charlemagne at his Frankish court. Alcuin's river crossing problems had no impact on the development of mathematics. However, they already display all the characteristics of today's large-scale real transportation problems. From our point of view, they could have been the starting point of combinatorics, optimization, and operations research. We show the potential of Alcuin's problems in this respect by investigating his problem~18 about a wolf, a goat and a bunch of cabbages with current mathematical methods. This way, we also provide the reader with a leisurely introduction into the modern theory of integer programming.