Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring and understanding agricultural producers' adoption of nutrient best management practices

Effective nutrient management has the potential to be instrumental in reducing agricultural nonpoint source pollution. Relatively few agricultural producers, however, have voluntarily adopted nutrient management conservation practices, and many users do not follow each recommendation or implement practices on all of their applicable land. Most existing research has used a binary measure of adoption, meaning the ability to accurately predict and understand adoption levels of conservation practices is limited. A statewide survey of 1,320 agricultural landowners and producers in Indiana was conducted in early 2014 to collect information about awareness and usage of nutrient management practices. We use this data to explore the determinants of farmers' usage of four nutrient best management practices and test whether a more precise measurement of practice adoption results in better model fit. We find that while there is relatively high uptake of soil testing (85%), farmers in Indiana are less likely to use variable rate application, application timing, and nutrient management plans, and the degree to which farmers adopt practices varies. There were few consistent predictors of practice uptake, yet attending workshops for information, access to equipment, larger farm size, trust in crop consultants, and usage of conservation crop rotations were positive predictors of at least two of the four practices. Usage of an ordinal rather than a binary measure of adoption did not improve model predictability as hypothesized, suggesting that future research should continue to try novel measures.
Theory of Interaction of Memory Patterns in Layered Associative Networks(Cross-disciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

A synfire chain is a network that can generate repeated spike patterns with millisecond precision. Although synfire chains with only one activity propagation mode have been intensively analyzed with several neuron models, those with several stable propagation modes have not been thoroughly investigated. By using the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron model, we constructed a layered associative network embedded with memory patterns. We analyzed the network dynamics with the Fokker–Planck equation. First, we addressed the stability of one memory pattern as a propagating spike volley. We showed that memory patterns propagate as pulse packets. Second, we investigated the activity when we activated two different memory patterns. Simultaneous activation of two memory patterns with the same strength led the propagating pattern to a mixed state. In contrast, when the activations had different strengths, the pulse packet converged to a two-peak state. Finally, we studied the effect of the preceding pulse packet on th.
Graphical methods for classifier performance evaluation

Evaluating the performance of classifiers is not as trivial as it would seem at a first glance. Even the most widely used methods such as measuring accuracy or error rate on a test set has severe limitations. Two of the most prominent limitations of these measures are that they do not consider misclassification costs and can be misleading when the classes have very different prior probabilities. On the last years, several researches have pointed out alternative methods to evaluate the performance of learning systems. Some of those methods are based on graphical evaluation of classifiers. Usually, a graphical evaluation lets the user analyze the performance of a classifier under different scenarios, for instance, with different misclassification costs, and to select the classifier parameters setting that provides the best result. The objective of this paper is to survey some of the most used graphical methods for performance evaluation, which do not rely on precise class and cost distribution information.
Trends in glaucoma medication expenditure: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey 2001-2006.

OBJECTIVE To study trends of glaucoma medication expenditure from 2001 to 2006 using a nationally representative sample of US adults. METHODS We analyzed glaucoma medication expenditure trends among participants of the 2001-2006 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a subsample of the National Health Interview Survey, which is a continuous multipurpose, multistage area probability survey of the US civilian noninstitutionalized population. After adjusting for survey design and inflation using the 2009 inflation index, data from 1404 participants 18 years and older using glaucoma medication were analyzed. RESULTS Mean annual glaucoma medication expenditure per subject increased from $445 in 2001 to $557 in 2006 (slope = 20.8; P < .001). Subgroup analysis showed expenditure increased significantly in women (P = .02), those with public-only insurance (P < .001), and those with less than a high school education (P < .008). Over the survey period, a significant decrease in expenditures on β-blockers (P = .048) and significant increases in expenditures on prostaglandin analogs (P = .01) and α-agonists (P = .01) were found. CONCLUSIONS Factors associated with increasing glaucoma medication expenditure trends include the increasing use of prostaglandin analogs, changes in insurance coverage, and possibly more aggressive glaucoma treatment. The findings are pertinent to the development of cost-effective strategies that optimize treatment and reduce expenditures.
A multi-camera person tracking system for robotic applications in virtual reality TV studio

In this paper, an integrated multi-camera person tracking system for virtual reality television studios (VR-TV) is presented. The system robustly tracks the moderator while freely moving, sitting or walking around the studio, and the estimation result can be used in order to drive the main broadcasting camera mounted on a large robotic arm. Application of the proposed tracking system to real-time VR-TV results in an autonomous robot cameraman, able to keep the moderator inside the screen with jitter-free viewpoint adjustments, as required by the scene rendering engine.
The secular trend in physical growth in Sweden.

SummaryThe secular trend in physical growth of Swedish school children aged 10–17 years is shown by comparing growth data from three investigations, of 1883, 1938–39 and 1965–71. These data include height and weight as well as height and weight velocity. A proportionally larger increase in height than in weight was detected which is more pronounced for girls than for boys between the two later studies. In girls the adolescent growth spurt occurred about six months earlier in the late 60's than in the late 30's and the maximum rate of height increase was about 1 cm/yr greater. Boys also show an earlier growth spurt now than in 1938–39, although the height peak is only slightly greater. The weight peaks of boys and girls were of about the same magnitude as in 1938–39.Comparisons of other Swedish investigations, on menarche, show a declining age of onset of puberty of about 4·5 months per decade from 1950 to 1968.
Prevalence Comparison of Past-year Mental Disorders and Suicidal Behaviours in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian General Population

Objective: Military personnel in Canada and elsewhere have been found to have higher rates of certain mental disorders relative to their corresponding general populations. However, published Canadian data have only adjusted for age and sex differences between the populations. Additional differences in the sociodemographic composition, labour force characteristics, and childhood trauma exposure in the populations could be driving these prevalence differences. Our objective is to compare the prevalence of past-year mental disorders and suicidal behaviours in the Canadian Armed Forces Regular Force with the rates in a representative, matched sample of Canadians in the general population (CGP). Methods: Data sources were the 2013 Canadian Forces Mental Health Survey and the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey–Mental Health. CGP sample was restricted to match the age range, employment status, and history of chronic conditions of Regular Force personnel. An iterative proportional fitting method was used to approximate the marginal distribution of sociodemographic and childhood trauma variables in both samples. Results: Relative to the matched CGP, Regular Force personnel had significantly higher rates of past-year major depressive episode, generalized anxiety disorder, and suicide ideation. However, lower rates of alcohol use disorder were seen in Regular Force personnel relative to the matched CGP sample. Conclusions: Factors other than differences in sociodemographic composition and history of childhood trauma account for the excess burden of mental disorders and suicidal behaviours in the Canadian Armed Forces. Explanations to explore in future research include occupational trauma, selection effects, and differences in the context of administration of the 2 surveys.
Antibiotic prescribing in long-term care facilities: a qualitative, multidisciplinary investigation

Objectives To explore healthcare professionals’ views of antibiotic prescribing in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). To use the findings to recommend intervention strategies for antimicrobial stewardship in LTCFs. Design Qualitative semistructured interviews were conducted. The data were analysed by thematic content analysis. After the interviews, the emerging findings were mapped to the theoretical domains framework (TDF), and the behaviour change wheel and behaviour change technique (BCT) taxonomy were used to recommend future intervention strategies. Participants Interviews were conducted with 37 healthcare professionals who work in LTCFs (10 general practitioners, 4 consultants, 14 nurses, 9 pharmacists) between December 2012 and March 2013. Setting Interviews were conducted in the greater Cork region. Results The main domains from the TDF which emerged were: ‘Knowledge’, ‘Environmental context and resources’, ‘Social influences’, ‘Beliefs about consequences’, ‘Memory, attention and decision making’, with the findings identifying a need for ‘Behavioural regulation’. Many participants believed that antibiotic prescribing was satisfactory at their LTCF, despite the lack of surveillance activities. Conclusions This study, using the TDF and BCT taxonomy, has found that antibiotic prescribing in LTCFs is influenced by many social and contextual factors. The challenges of the setting and patient population, the belief about consequences to the patient, and the lack of implementation of guidelines and knowledge regarding antibiotic prescribing patterns are significant challenges to address. On the basis of the study findings and the application of the TDF and BCT taxonomy, we suggest some practical intervention functions for antimicrobial stewardship in LTCFs.
The relationship between tropospheric wave forcing and tropical lower stratospheric water vapor

Using water vapor data from HALOE and SAGE II, an anti-correlation between planetary wave driving (here expressed by the mid-latitude eddy heat flux at 50 hPa added from both hemispheres) and tropical lower stratospheric (TLS) water vapor has been obtained. This appears to be a manifestation of the inter-annual variability of the Brewer-Dobson (BD) circulation strength (the driving of which is generally measured in terms of the mid-latitude eddy heat flux), and hence amount of water vapor entering the stratosphere. Some years such as 1991 and 1997 show, however, a clear departure from the anti-correlation which suggests that the water vapor changes in TLS can not be attributed solely to changes in extratropical planetary wave activity (and its effect on the BD circulation). After 2000 a sudden decrease in lower stratospheric water vapor has been reported in earlier studies based upon satellite data from HALOE, SAGE II and POAM III indicating that the lower stratosphere has become drier since then. This is consistent with a sudden rise in the combined mid-latitude eddy heat flux with nearly equal contribution from both hemispheres as shown here and with the increase in tropical upwelling and decrease in cold point temperatures found by Randel et al. (2006). The low water vapor and enhanced planetary wave activity (in turn strength of the BD circulation) has persisted until the end of the satellite data records. From a multi-variate regression analysis applied to 27 years of NCEP and HadAT2 (radiosonde) temperatures (up to 2005) with contributions from solar cycle, stratospheric aerosols and QBO removed, the enhancement wave driving after 2000 is estimated to contribute up to 0.7 K cooling to the overall TLS temperature change during the period 2001–2005 when compared to the period 1996–2000. NCEP cold point temperature show an average decrease of nearly 0.4 K from changes in the wave driving, which is consistent with observed mean TLS water vapor changes of about −0.2 ppm after 2000.
A semi supervised clustering method using relative compactness

Community structure detection in complex networks is important since it can help better understand the network topology and how the network works. Compared with unsupervised method, semi supervised method may perform better. Previous works add and remove edges based on the prior information. But this method doesn't make full use of the prior information. It only used party of information to change the network. This paper proposed a new semi supervised clustering framework for community detection. By adding the prior information into network based on the network topology, the community structure is more obvious. The experiments on both the synthetic and the real-world networks confirm the effectiveness of the frame work.
Translation Probabilities in Cross-language Information Retrieval

Translation ambiguity is a major problem in dictionary-based cross-language information retrieval. To attack the problem, indirect disambiguation approaches, which do not explicitly resolve translation ambiguity, rely on query-structuring techniques such as a structured Boolean model and Pirkola's method. Direct disambiguation approaches try to assign translation probabilities to translation equivalents, normally by employing co-occurrence statistics of target language terms from target documents as disambiguation clues. Thus far, translation probabilities have not been well explored in terms of statistical query translation models, query formulation, or cross-lingual retrieval models, etc. In order to study the impact of translation probabilities on retrieval effectiveness in direct disambiguation approaches, this paper empirically investigates the following issues: different disambiguation factors affecting the calculation of translation probabilities, the comparison of cross-lingual query formulation techniques involving translation probabilities, the relationship between the accuracy of translation disambiguation and retrieval effectiveness, and the relationship between top n translations and retrieval effectiveness.
RAF associates with phosphorylated nuclear BubR1 during endoreduplication induced by JAK inhibition

The role of JAK signaling in cell cycle transit and maintenance of genomic stability was determined in HL-60 human myeloblastic leukemia cells. We have previously reported that a pan-JAK inhibitor caused ERK-dependent endoreduplication. In the current study we find that JAK inhibition caused nuclear re-localization of RAF-1, which could be inhibited by RAF inhibitor GW5074. GW5074 also inhibited JAK inhibitor-induced appearance of nuclear phosphorylated RAF-1(pS621RAF) and MEK, and it inhibited the JAK inhibitor-induced co-immunoprecipitation of nuclear RAF-1 and MEK. JAK inhibition also increased nuclear BubR1 phosphorylation, which was diminished by RAF inhibitor GW5074. RAF-1 and BubR1 in the nucleus co-immunoprecipitated; and GW5074 eliminated this. Furthermore, inhibiting RAF with GW5074 blocked the pan-JAK inhibitor-induced endoreduplication. These data thus show that JAK inhibition causes nuclear re-localization and phosphorylation of RAF and MEK where RAF binds BubR1 with ensuing nuclear RAF-dependent BubR1 phosphorylation. Inhibiting RAF inhibited this and endoreduplication. The results suggest that there is a JAK/RAF/MEK/BubR1 axis that can regulate genomic stability. In this hypothetical model JAK suppresses RAF/MEK phosphorylation and nuclear re-localization, but JAK inhibition induces the phosphorylations and re-localization with association of RAF and phosphorylated BubR1 in the nucleus leading to endoreduplication.
Microsatellites proximal to leptin and leptin receptor as risk factors for spina bifida.

Several recent studies have observed an association between neural tube defect risk and prepregnant obesity. This association was generally stronger for spina bifida and was observed irrespective of additional maternal factors, including periconceptional intake of vitamin supplements. Other studies have identified mutations within the genes that code for leptin (LEP) and its receptor (LEPR), which have been linked to obesity in mice and humans. We investigated the potential association between nucleotide variation at the LEP and LEPR loci, and increased risk of spina bifida. We searched specifically for allelic association at a pair of highly polymorphic microsatellites closely linked to either the LEP or LEPR gene. Data were derived from a population-based case-control study that had previously identified an association between a woman's prepregnant obesity and her risk of delivering an infant with spina bifida. A total of 56 spina bifida case infants and 126 nonmalformed control infants were genotyped for 10 microsatellite alleles closely linked to the LEP gene, and 49 cases and 125 controls were genotyped for 10 microsatellite alleles closely linked to the LEPR gene. In general, alleles were not observed to be exclusively associated with substantially greater spina bifida risk in the body mass index (BMI) category (obese) of >29 kg/m(2) compared with the BMI category (nonobese) of </=29 kg/m(2). Thus, these particular infant allelic variants did not appear to explain the previously reported elevated risk observed for women whose prepregnant BMI exceeded 29 kg/m(2). A modest elevated spina bifida risk, irrespective of maternal BMI, was observed for two LEP microsatellite alleles (257 and 271). These estimates, however, were imprecise. Compared with those infants who did not have either of these alleles and whose mother's prepregnant BMI was </=29 kg/m(2), we computed odds ratios for (1) having either the 257 or 271 allele and maternal BMI >29 kg/m; (2) having either allele and BMI </=29 kg/m(2); and (3) not having either allele but BMI >29 kg/m(2). The odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for these comparisons were: for allele 257, 4.5 (1.1-19.4), 1.9 (0.5-6.3), and 2.9 (1.3-6.4), respectively, and for allele 271, 6.7 (1.6-30.4), 2.7 (0.7-10.9), and 2.7 (1.2-5.9), respectively. Owing to the exploratory nature of this investigation, the significance of these latter results is unclear.
Texture Characterization Based on a Chandrasekhar Fast Adaptive Filter

— In the framework of adaptive parametric modelling of images, we propose in this paper a new technique based on the Chandrasekhar fast adaptive filter for texture characterization. An Auto-Regressive (AR) linear model of texture is obtained by scanning the image row by row and modelling this data with an adaptive Chandrasekhar linear filter. The characterization efficiency of the obtained model is compared with the model adapted with the Least Mean Square (LMS) 2-D adaptive algorithm and with the co-occurrence method features. The comparison criteria is based on the computation of a characterization degree using the ratio of "between-class" variances with respect to "within-class" variances of the estimated coefficients. Extensive experiments show that the coefficients estimated by the use of Chandrasekhar adaptive filter give better results in texture discrimination than those estimated by other algorithms, even in a noisy context.
Flash crowd mitigation via adaptive admission control based on application-level observations

We design an adaptive admission control mechanism, network early warning system (NEWS), to protect servers and networks from flash crowds and maintain high performance for end-users. NEWS detects flash crowds from performance degradation in responses and mitigates flash crowds by admitting incoming requests adaptively. We evaluate NEWS performance with both simulations and testbed experiments. We first investigate a network-limited scenarion in simulations. We find that NEWS detects flash crowds within 20 seconds. By discarding 32&percent; of incoming requests, NEWS protects the target server and networks from overloading, reducing the response packet drop rate from 25&percent; to 2&percent;. For admitted requests, NEWS increases their response rate by two times. This performance is similar to the best static rate limiter deployed in the same scenario. We also investigate the impact of detection intervals on NEWS performance, showing it affects both detection delay and false alarm rate. We further consider a server memory-limited scenario in testbed experiments, confirming that NEWS is also effective in this case. We also examine the runtime cost of NEWS traffic monitoring in practice and find that it consumes little CPU time and relatively small memory. Finally, we show NEWS effectively protects bystander traffic from flash crowds.
Protein Kinase C-Related Kinase (PKN/PRK). Potential Key-Role for PKN1 in Protection of Hypoxic Neurons

Serine/threonine protein kinase C-related kinase (PKN/PRK) is a family of three isoenzymes (PKN1, PKN2, PKN3), which are widely distributed in eukaryotic organisms and share the same overall domain structure. The Nterminal region encompasses a conserved repeated domain, termed HR1a-c as well as a HR2/C2 domain. The serine/threonine kinase domain is found in the C-terminal region of the protein and shows high sequence homology to other members of the PKC superfamily. In neurons, PKN1 is the most abundant isoform and has been implicated in a variety of functions including cytoskeletal organization and neuronal differentiation and its deregulation may contribute to neuropathological processes such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. We have recently identified a candidate role of PKN1 in the regulation of neuroprotective processes during hypoxic stress. Our key findings were that: 1) the activity of PKN1 was significantly increased by hypoxia (1% O2) and neurotrophins (nerve growth factor and purine nucleosides); 2) Neuronal cells, deficient of PKN1 showed a decrease of cell viability and neurite formation along with a disturbance of the F-actinassociated cytoskeleton; 3) Purine nucleoside-mediated neuroprotection during hypoxia was severely hampered in PKN1 deficient neuronal cells, altogether suggesting a potentially critical role of PKN1 in neuroprotective processes. This review gives an up-to-date overview of the PKN family with a special focus on the neuroprotective role of PKN1 in hypoxia.