Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fenestrida and Rhabdomesida (Bryozoa) of the Otter Formation (Viséan), central Montana

Four species of Fenestrida and two species of Rhabdomesida occur in the Otter Formation (Viséan) of the Little Belt Mountains, central Montana. Four species are new: Laxifenestella snyderi n. sp. , Rectifenestella concava n. sp. , Streblotrypa (Streblascopora) eastoni n. sp. , and Nikiforovella beltensis n. sp. Several of these species are very similar to species described in Viséan rocks of central Mongolia, northeast Russia, Kazakhstan, and Japan. Fabifenestella cf. F. vulgaris compares closely with F. vulgaris Gorjunova and Morozova from the Lower Carboniferous of northern Mongolia. Most of the bryozoans in the Otter Formation occur in the normal marine, subtidal carbonate mud and calcareous shale microfacies.
Remote Sensing and Spectral Geology

Two recent papers, “Utility of high-altitude infrared spectral data in mineral exploration: Application to northern Patagonia Mountains, Arizona,” by Berger et al. (2003), and “Mapping hydrothermally altered rocks at Cuprite, Nevada, using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), a new satellite-imaging system,” by Rowan et al. (2003), make a distinctive mark on the use of airborne and satellite hyperspectral imaging as an exploration tool. These two papers deal with imaging of the Earth’s surface using the visible (0.4 μ m) to near infrared (2.5 μ m) part of the electromagnetic spectrum to map various mineral species. Depending on their structure and molecular bonding, minerals reflect and absorb the electromagnetic spectrum in unique ways. A large group of minerals have distinct electromagnetic signatures that make it possible to identify them from imaging systems that map the range of the electromagnetic spectrum between 0.5 and 2.5 μ m. These papers represent two distinct approaches. The first paper, by Berger et al., discusses the use of the AVIRIS (Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer) scanner, which provides high-resolution reflectance measurements in the spectral domain (224 channels between 0.4 and 2.45 μ m) and variable spatial resolution (20 m), dependent on aircraft altitude. The second paper, by Rowan et al., discusses the use of the ASTER satellite scanner, which offers a limited range of spectra at three spatial resolutions (15, 30, and 90 m). ASTER measures reflectance radiation in 3 bands within the 0.52- to 0.86- μ m range (visible-near-infrared) at 15-m spatial resolution, and 6 bands between 1.00 and 2.43 μ m (short wave infrared) at 30-m spatial resolution. Emitted radiation is measured in 5 bands between 8.125 and 11.650 μ m (thermal infrared) with a 90-m spatial resolution. The main advantage of the AVIRIS sensor is the level of spectral detail, which provides accurate measurements of reflectance and absorption features of minerals that enables detailed mineral mapping. Its main disadvantages, however, are the extensive processing required to make the reflectance spectra useful, and its limited spatial coverage and acquisition cost based on programmed flights. In contrast, the main advantage of the ASTER sensor is that it measures key portions of the visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared spectra of minerals for large-scale mapping projects, whereas its main disadvantage is that the data represent only portions of the electromagnetic spectrum and some minerals cannot be distinctively mapped. In addition, the lower spatial resolution in the near-and thermal infrared portions of the spectrum makes it more difficult to map at detailed scales.
Custom and Politics in Urban Africa

Based on Cohen's fieldwork in the 1960s among the Hausa migrants, a people of the Yoruba area (then the western region of the Federation of Nigeria), Custom and Politics in Urban Africa looks at how ethnic groups use elements of tradition in jostling for power and privilege in new urban situations. This is a landmark work in urban anthropology and provides a comparative framework for studying political processes in African societies.
Points-to analysis using BDDs

This paper reports on a new approach to solving a subset-based points-to analysis for Java using Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs). In the model checking community, BDDs have been shown very effective for representing large sets and solving very large verification problems. Our work shows that BDDs can also be very effective for developing a points-to analysis that is simple to implement and that scales well, in both space and time, to large programs.The paper first introduces BDDs and operations on BDDs using some simple points-to examples. Then, a complete subset-based points-to algorithm is presented, expressed completely using BDDs and BDD operations. This algorithm is then refined by finding appropriate variable orderings and by making the algorithm propagate sets incrementally, in order to arrive at a very efficient algorithm. Experimental results are given to justify the choice of variable ordering, to demonstrate the improvement due to incrementalization, and to compare the performance of the BDD-based solver to an efficient hand-coded graph-based solver. Finally, based on the results of the BDD-based solver, a variety of BDD-based queries are presented, including the points-to query.
An Approximation to the Distribution of the Product of Two Dependent Correlation Coefficients

1. INTRODUCTION Many methodological studies depend on the product of two dependent correlation coefficients. For example, the product of two dependent correlation coefficients is needed in assessing the impact of a confounding variable on a regression coefficient (Frank, 2000). In the literature, there is an extensive research on the distribution of a single correla-but little on the distribution of the product of two correlation coefficients. Thus, the behavior of the distribution of the product of two dependent correlation coefficients is little known. There are two plausible approaches to obtain the distribution of the product of two correlation coefficients. Mathai and Saxena (1969) express the product of two correlation coefficients as a special case of the product of two generalized Mellin-Barnes functions or H-functions (Mathai & Saxena, 1978). However, the expression obtained for the distribution function is quite unwieldy. In addition, in their study, the two correlation coefficients are assumed independent , while we are interested in two dependent correlation coefficients. The other approach is described in Frank (2000). Frank transforms the two correlation coefficients to two asymptotically, normally distributed Fisher z's, then uses Aroian and colleagues' findings about the distribution of the product of two normal variables to obtain the distribution of the product of two Fisher z's, instead of the two original correlation coefficients. A problem with this approach, however, is that the approach is relying on asymptotic theory for Fisher's z, compounded with the approximation error associated with Aroian's approach, which results in very slow convergence. By following Hotelling's (1940) and Ghosh's (1966) approximations to the moments of the distribution of correlation coefficient, the present study derives a more accurate approximation to the distribution of the product of two dependent correlation coefficients with a closed form, resulting in a Pearson Type I (Beta) distribution. A simulation study is also conducted to assess the accuracy of the approximation .
Evaluation of Six Registration Methods for the Human Abdomen on Clinically Acquired CT

Objective: This work evaluates current 3-D image registration tools on clinically acquired abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans. Methods: Thirteen abdominal organs were manually labeled on a set of 100 CT images, and the 100 labeled images (i.e., atlases) were pairwise registered based on intensity information with six registration tools (FSL, ANTS-CC, ANTS-QUICK-MI, IRTK, NIFTYREG, and DEEDS). The Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), mean surface distance, and Hausdorff distance were calculated on the registered organs individually. Permutation tests and indifference-zone ranking were performed to examine the statistical and practical significance, respectively. Results: The results suggest that DEEDS yielded the best registration performance. However, due to the overall low DSC values, and substantial portion of low-performing outliers, great care must be taken when image registration is used for local interpretation of abdominal CT. Conclusion: There is substantial room for improvement in image registration for abdominal CT. Significance: All data and source code are available so that innovations in registration can be directly compared with the current generation of tools without excessive duplication of effort.
Toward a Nonlinear Ensemble Filter for High Dimensional Systems

Many geophysical problems are characterized by high-dimensional, nonlinear systems and pose difficult challenges for real-time data assimilation (updating) and forecasting. The present work builds on the ensemble Kalman filter (EnsKF) with the goal of producing ensemble filtering techniques applicable to non-Gaussian densities and high-dimensional systems. Three filtering algorithms based on representing the prior density as a Gaussian mixture are presented. The first, referred to as a mixture ensemble Kalman filter (XEnsF), models local covariance structures adaptively using nearest neighbors. The XEnsF is effective in a three-dimensional system, but the required ensemble grows rapidly with the dimension and, even in a 40-dimensional system, we find the XEnsF to be unstable and inferior to the EnsKF for all com-putationally feasible ensemble sizes. A second algorithm, the local-local ensemble filter (LLEnsF), combines localizations in physical as well as phase space, allowing the update step in high dimensional systems to be decomposed into a sequence of lower-dimensional updates tractable by the XEnsF. Given the same prior forecasts in a 40-dimensional system, the LLEnsF update produces more accurate state estimates than the EnsKF if the forecast distributions are sufficiently non-Gaussian. Cycling the LLEnsF for long times, however, produces results inferior to the EnsKF because the LLEnsF ignores spatial continuity or smoothness between local state estimates. To address this weakness of the LLEnsF, we consider ways of enforcing spatial smoothness by conditioning the local updates on the prior estimates outside the localization in physical space. These considerations yield a third algorithm, 2 which is a hybrid of the LLEnsF and the EnsKF. The hybrid uses information from the EnsKF to ensure spatial continuity of local updates and outperforms the EnsKF by 5.7% in RMS error in the 40-dimensional system.
Concentración de urea en la sangre y leche de cabras y su correlación en sistemas lecheros intensivos de la Región Metropolitana

The aim of this study was to determine urea concentration in blood and milk in a group of dairy goats and the relationship between both parameters. Protein and energy content of the ration were also studied. Three dairy herds were selected and 60 goats randomly selected in each. Goats were separa­ted finto three groups (of 20 animals each) according to their stage of lactaton: 3 to 6 weeks, 4 months and 8 months of lactation. Blood and milk samples were obtained during the first milking of the day. Urea concentrations (mmol/l) were determined by colorimetric methods. To establish protein (g/day) and energy (ME, Mcal/day) of the ration fed to each group, a proximal chemical analysis was perfor­med. High and signifzcant correlations (p and second stage of lactation, showing that milk urea could be used as an indicator of urea concentra­tion in blood, being a milk sample easier to obtain. In every herd, imbalances were found between protein and energy contents of the ration supplied and animals requirements, reflected through high urea concentrations in blood and milk.
Widespread resetting of DNA methylation in glioblastoma-initiating cells suppresses malignant cellular behavior in a lineage-dependent manner

Citation for published version: Stricker, SH, Feber, A, Engström, PG, Carén, H, Kurian, KM, Takashima, Y, Watts, C, Way, M, Dirks, P, Bertone, P, Smith, A, Beck, S & Pollard, SM 2013, 'Widespread resetting of DNA methylation in glioblastoma-initiating cells suppresses malignant cellular behavior in a lineage-dependent manner' Genes & Development, vol 27, no. 6, pp. 654-669. , 10.1101/gad.212662. 112
Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk at Work

Preface. 1. Power and Politeness and the Workplace Context 2.From Office to Production Line: Constructing a Corpus of Workplace Data 3. Getting Things Done at Work 4. Workplace Meetings 5. Small Talk and Social Chat at Work 6. Humour in the Workplace 7. Miscommunication and Problematic Talk at Work 8. Conclusion: Some Implications and Applications.
Water balance, drought stress and yields for rainfed field crop rotations under present and future conditions in the Czech Republic

Continuous crop rotation modeling is a prospective trend that, compared to 1-crop or discrete year-by-year calculations, can provide more accurate results that are closer to real conditions. The goal of this study was to compare the water balance and yields estimated by the HERMES crop rotation model for present and future climatic conditions in the Czech Republic. Three locations were selected, representing important agricultural regions with different climatic conditions. Crop rotation (spring barley, silage maize, winter wheat, winter rape) was simulated from 1981−2080. The 1981−2010 period was covered by measured meteorological data, while 2011− 2080 was represented by a transient synthetic weather series from the weather generator M&Rfi. The data were based on 5 circulation models, representing an ensemble of 18 CMIP3 global circulation models, to preserve much of the uncertainty of the original ensemble. Two types of crop management were compared, and the influences of soil quality, increasing atmospheric CO2 and adaptation measures (i.e. sowing date changes) were also considered. Results suggest that under a ‘dry’ scenario (such as GFCM21), C3 crops in drier regions will be devastated for a significant number of seasons. Negative impacts are likely even on premium-quality soils regardless of flexible sowing dates and accounting for increasing CO2 concentrations. Moreover, in dry conditions, the use of crop rotations with catch crops may have negative impacts, exacerbating the soil water deficit for subsequent crops. This approach is a promising method for determining how various management strategies and crop rotations can affect yields as well as water, carbon and nitrogen cycling.
Context Preserving Crossover in Genetic Programming

This paper introduces two new crossover operators for Genetic Programming (GP). Contrary to the regular GP crossover, the operators presented attempt to preserve the context in which subtrees appeared in the parent trees. A simple coordinate scheme for nodes in an S-expression tree is proposed, and crossovers are only allowed between nodes with exactly or partially matching coordinates.
Sustainable Design with Respect to LCA Using Parametric Design and BIM Tools

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry has many times been criticized for lack of control and management of its environmental impacts. In an attempt to monitor and minimize these impacts, the method of Life Cycle Assessment is being used more and more often during the design process of construction projects. Nevertheless, the whole process of performing a building’s LCA is considered time consuming which sometimes prevents the design teams from using it more than once in the end of the design as a way to assess the impacts of their final design. The aim of this study is to suggest a method which will render LCA a design tool used during the whole design process. The study focuses not only in creating a tool that will be able to assess a building’s environmental impacts, but will also be an analysis tool which will help the design teams make the right decisions and help them minimize their design’s environmental impacts. To achieve this, this study evaluated the potential of integrating LCA into BIM, developed and proposed an Integrated Dynamic Model using Revit, Dynamo and Excel. The Integrated Dynamic model was used in case studies the results of which were compared with the respective ones from other established LCA software. The results showed that the integrated dynamic model can create results of equal quality and precision with other specialized software while demanding significantly less time. The ease of use of such an integrated dynamic model and the instant creation of results could render it a decision making tool in respect with LCA.
A Biochemical Dissection of the RNA Interference Pathway in Drosophila melanogaster : A Dissertation

In diverse eukaryotic organisms, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) induces robust silencing of cellular RNA cognate to either strand of the input dsRNA; a phenomenon now known as RNA interference (RNAi). Within the RNAi pathway, small, 21 nucleotide (nt) duplexed RNA, dubbed small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), derived from the longer input dsRNA, guide the RNA induced silencing complex (RISC) to destroy its target RNA. Due to its ability to silence virtually any gene, whether endogenous or exogenous, in a variety of model organisms and systems, RNAi has become a valuable laboratory tool, and is even being heralded as a potential therapy for an array of human diseases. In order to understand this complex and unique pathway, we have undertaken the biochemical characterization of RNAi in the model insect, Drosophila melanogaster . To begin, we investigated the role of ATP in the RNAi pathway. Our data reveal several ATP-dependent steps and suggest that the RNAi reaction comprises as least five sequential stages: ATP-dependent processing of double-stranded RNA into siRNAs, ATP-independent incorporation of siRNAs into an inactive ~360 kDa protein/RNA complex, ATP-dependent unwinding of the siRNA duplex to generate an active complex, ATP-dependent activation of RISC following siRNA unwinding, and ATP-independent recognition and cleavage of the RNA target. In addition, ATP is used to maintain 5´ phosphates on siRNAs, and only siRNAs with these characteristic 5´ phosphates gain entry into the RNAi pathway. Next, we determined that RISC programmed exogenously with an siRNA, like that programmed endogenously with microRNAs (miRNAs), is an enzyme. However, while RISC behaves like a classical Michaelis-Menten enzyme in the presence of ATP, without ATP, multiple rounds of catalysis are limited by release of RISC-produced cleavage products. Kinetic analysis of RISC suggests that different regions of the siRNA play distinct roles in the cycle of target recognition, cleavage and product release. Bases near the siRNA 5´ end disproportionately contribute to target RNA-binding energy, whereas base pairs formed by the central and 3´ region of the siRNA provide helical geometry required for catalysis. Lastly, the position of the scissile phosphate is determined during RISC assembly, before the siRNA encounters its RNA target. In the course of performing the kinetic assessment of RISC, we observed that when siRNAs are designed with regard to 'functional asymmetry' (by unpairing the 5´ terminal nucleotide of the siRNA's guide strand, i.e. the strand anti-sense to the target RNA), not all of the RISC formed was active for target cleavage. We observed, somewhat paradoxically, that increased siRNA unwinding and subsequent accumulation of single-stranded RNA into RISC led to reduced levels of active RISC formation. This inactive RISC did not act as a competitor for the active fraction. In order to characterize this non-cleaving complex, we performed a series of protein-siRNA photo-crosslinking assays. From these assays…
Inequality and Employment in a Dual Economy : Enforcement of Labor Regulation in Brazil

This paper studies the impact of an increase in the enforcement of labor regulations on unemployment and inequality, using city level data from Brazil. We find that stricter enforcement (affecting the payment of mandated benefits to formal workers) leads to: higher unemployment, less income inequality, a higher proportion of formal employment, and a lower formal wage premium. Our results are consistent with a model where stricter enforcement causes a contraction in labor demand in the formal sector; and where workers value mandated benefits highly, so that there is an increase in the formal sector labor supply, an increase in the willingness to become unemployed to search for a formal sector job, and a decrease in labor supply to the informal sector. JEL codes: J23, J30, K31, D63.
A New Lpv/h ∞ Semi-active Suspension Control Strategy with Performance Adaptation to Roll Behavior Based on Non Linear Algebraic Road Profile Estimation

— This paper presents a new LPV/H∞ semi-active suspension control strategy for a commercial vehicle equipped with 4 Magneto-Rheological dampers. The proposed approach concerns road adaptation using on-line road profile identification based on a non linear algebraic observer with unknown input. Then, the suspensions forces distribution in each corner of vehicle is performed considering roll dynamics. In this LPV/H∞ strategy, 2 varying parameters are used to model the semi-active behaviour of the MR dampers, and 2 other ones, namely, the road roughness identification and roll dynamics, are considered for the road adaptation and the full vehicle vertical dynamics control. Different ISO road classes are used to test the efficiency of the on-line non linear algebraic road profile identification. Simulations scenarios, applied on a non linear full vehicle model, are used to evaluate the LPV/H∞ controller performances in term of passengers comfort and road holding improvement in different driving situations.
First and Second Moment Reversion for a Discretised Square Root Process with Jumps

Mean-reversion is an important component of many financial models. When simulations are performed with numerical methods, it is therefore desirable to reproduce this qualitative property. Here, we study a square root process with jumps that has been used to model interest rates and volatilities, and we characterise the parameter regimes under which the first and second moments revert to steady state values. We then consider a class of implicit theta methods and investigate the same moment properties for the corresponding stochastic difference equation. We find that the theta method is unconditionally stable in first and second moment for theta values below a cutoff level. This cutoff level depends on the parameters governing the mean reversion and the jumps, but is always more favourable than the value of one half that arises in the deterministic setting. In the case of high jump intensity, large jump magnitude or slow mean reversion, it is even possible for the explicit Euler–Maruyama type method from this class to be unconditionally stable. We also establish upper and lower bounds for the second moment steady state that are close to that of the continuous-time process for small stepsizes. Numerical experiments are given to illustrate the results.