Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surface Wave Multipath Signals in Near-Field Microwave Imaging

Microwave imaging techniques are prone to signal corruption from unwanted multipath signals. Near-field systems are especially vulnerable because signals can scatter and reflect from structural objects within or on the boundary of the imaging zone. These issues are further exacerbated when surface waves are generated with the potential of propagating along the transmitting and receiving antenna feed lines and other low-loss paths. In this paper, we analyze the contributions of multi-path signals arising from surface wave effects. Specifically, experiments were conducted with a near-field microwave imaging array positioned at variable heights from the floor of a coupling fluid tank. Antenna arrays with different feed line lengths in the fluid were also evaluated. The results show that surface waves corrupt the received signals over the longest transmission distances across the measurement array. However, the surface wave effects can be eliminated provided the feed line lengths are sufficiently long independently of the distance of the transmitting/receiving antenna tips from the imaging tank floor. Theoretical predictions confirm the experimental observations.
Fusion-based multiview distributed video coding

In this paper, we introduce a scheme for coding video surveillance camera networks. It is based on multiview and Distributed Video Coding (DVC). DVC is known for its low complexity encoders. This makes it very interesting for a wide range of applications, in particular video surveillance. More specifically, we introduce a new fusion technique between temporal side information and homography-based side information that improves the rate-distortion performance of the DVC compression. Finally, we introduce a new scheme with a pure Wyner-Ziv camera, which encodes all its frames as Wyner-Ziv frames.
Threats to Sustainability: Simulating Con ict Within and Between Nations

A locking apparatus is disclosed suitable for mounting on a bicycle comprising a flexible securing member such as a cable or a chain secured to a reel at a point between the ends of the cable or chain thereby allowing the ends to be payed out or reeled in. This arrangement allows the reel and the housing over the reel if such housing is to be used to be attached to a bicycle and both can be constructed of very light weight materials. The cable or chain can be of sufficient length that it may be completely run through the back wheel, the frame and the front wheel of a bicycle and then the ends of the cable or chain secured to one another through lock receiving members at the ends thereof. When the cable is employed in the foregoing manner and additionally placed around a pole or other object securely imbedded in the ground, the cable is locked to itself and the bicycle so that even though the housing may be pried off of the bicycle, the cable will remain locked to it and the pole or post and neither the bicycle or the cable and housing can be stolen.
Exploring the N-glycosylation Pathway in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Unravels Novel Complex Structures*

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a green unicellular eukaryotic model organism for studying relevant biological and biotechnological questions. The availability of genomic resources and the growing interest in C. reinhardtii as an emerging cell factory for the industrial production of biopharmaceuticals require an in-depth analysis of protein N-glycosylation in this organism. Accordingly, we used a comprehensive approach including genomic, glycomic, and glycoproteomic techniques to unravel the N-glycosylation pathway of C. reinhardtii. Using mass-spectrometry-based approaches, we found that both endogenous soluble and membrane-bound proteins carry predominantly oligomannosides ranging from Man-2 to Man-5. In addition, minor complex N-linked glycans were identified as being composed of partially 6-O-methylated Man-3 to Man-5 carrying one or two xylose residues. These findings were supported by results from a glycoproteomic approach that led to the identification of 86 glycoproteins. Here, a combination of in-source collision-induced dissodiation (CID) for glycan fragmentation followed by mass tag-triggered CID for peptide sequencing and PNGase F treatment of glycopeptides in the presence of 18O-labeled water in conjunction with CID mass spectrometric analyses were employed. In conclusion, our data support the notion that the biosynthesis and maturation of N-linked glycans in the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus occur via a GnT I-independent pathway yielding novel complex N-linked glycans that maturate differently from their counterparts in land plants.
A new heart-sounds gating device for medical imaging

A heart-sounds gating device has been designed and tested which identifies, individually, both the first (S1) and second (S2) heart sound from their timing relationship, providing two trigger points through the cardiac cycle for synchronizing medical images. The gate utilizes dynamically varying timing windows to anticipate the occurrence of S1 and S2. It has been initially applied to nuclear imaging of the cardiac bloodpool, but may be applied to any imaging modality requiring cardiac synchronization. <<ETX>>
Can You Hear us Now? Voices from the Margin: Using Indigenous Methodologies in Geographic Research

Indigenous methodologies are an alternative way of thinking about research processes. Although these methodologies vary according to the ways in which different Indigenous communities express their own unique knowledge systems, they do have common traits. This article argues that research on Indigenous issues should be carried out in a manner which is respectful and ethically sound from an Indigenous perspective. This naturally challenges Western research paradigms, yet it also affords opportunities to contribute to the body of knowledge about Indigenous peoples. It is further argued that providing a mechanism for Indigenous peoples to participate in and direct these research agendas ensures that their communal needs are met, and that geographers then learn how to build ethical research relationships with them. Indigenous methodologies do not privilege Indigenous researchers because of their Indigeneity, since there are many ‘insider’ views, and these are thus suitable for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. However, there is a difference between research done within an Indigenous context using Western methodologies and research done using Indigenous methodologies which integrates Indigenous voices. This paper will discuss those differences while presenting a historical context of research on Indigenous peoples, providing further insights into what Indigenous methodologies entail, and proposing ways in which the academy can create space for this discourse.
1 A review of Bradac et al . ’ s arguments 1 . 1 An overview of Bradac et al . ’ s study

We report on the secondary analyses of some conjectures and empirical evidence presented in Bradac et al.’s prototype process-monitoring experiment, published previously in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. We identify 13 conjectures in the original paper, and re-analyse six of these conjectures using the original evidence. Rather than rejecting any of the original conjectures, we identify assumptions underlying those conjectures, identify alternative interpretations of the conjectures, and also propose a number of new conjectures. Bradac et al.’s study focused on reducing the project schedule interval. Some of our re-analysis has considered improving software quality. We note that our analyses were only possible because of the quality and quantity of evidence presented in the original paper. Reflecting on our analyses leads us to speculate about the value of ‘descriptive papers’ that seek to present ‘empirical material’ (together with an explicit statement of goals, assumptions and constraints) separate from the analyses that proceeds from that material. Such descriptive papers could improve the ‘public scrutiny’ of software engineering research and may respond, in part, to some researchers criticisms concerning the small amount of software engineering research that is actually evaluated. We also consider opportunities for further research, in particular opportunities for relating individual actions to project outcomes.
HERBICIDES AND TRANSFORMATION PRODUCTS IN SURFACE WATERS OF THE MIDWESTERN UNITED STATES 1

ABSTRACT: Most herbicides applied to crops are adsorbed by plants or transformed (degraded) in the soil, but small fractions are lost from fields and either move to streams in overland runoff, near surface flow, or subsurface drains, or they infiltrate slowly to ground water. Herbicide transformation products (TPs) can be more or less mobile and more or less toxic in the environment than their source herbicides. To obtain information on the concentrations of selected herbicides and TPs in surface waters of the Midwestern United States, 151 water samples were collected from 71 streams and five reservoir outflows in 1998. These samples were analyzed for 13 herbicides and 10 herbicide TPs. Herbicide TPs were found to occur as frequently or more frequently than source herbicides and at concentrations that were often larger than their source herbicides. Most samples contained a mixture of more than 10 different herbicides or TPs. The ratios of TPs to herbicide concentrations can be used to determine the source of herbicides in streams. Results of a two‐component mixing model suggest that on average 90 percent or more of the herbicide mass in Midwestern streams during early summer runoff events originates from the runoff and 10 percent or less comes from increased ground water discharge.
The quantity of biomass burned in southern Africa

Abstract. A new method is described for calculating the amount of biomass burned, its type and location, and the time of burning. Active fires in 1989 were detected using daily advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) satellite imagery. The fire count was calibrated to area burned using a stratified sample of multitemporal multispectral scanner (MSS) imagery. The calibration factor is strongly dependent on mean individual fire area, which is in turn strongly related to cumulative normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The best available vegetation maps for southern hemisphere Africa were combined and reclassified into functional vegetation types with a similar fire ecology. The fuel load was calculated in each 0.5° × 0.5° grid square using a production model specific for each vegetation type, driven by monthly rainfall data. Multiyear fuel accumulation, herbivory, and decay were accounted for. Combustion completeness was modeled as a function of fuel mass and fuel type, established from field-collected data. The method was compared to the conventional procedure for calculating biomass burned, based on classification. The estimated amount of biomass burned in vegetation fires in southern hemisphere Africa annually is 90–264 Tg dry matter (DM) by the new modeling method and 247–2719 Tg DM by the conventional classification method. The modeling method is conservative since it does not include burning due to forest clearing or the burning of agricultural waste or domestic biomass fuels, but it is believed to be more realistic than the classification method and provides space-and-time-resolved output. The bulk of the burning occurs between June and September, with a peak in August. Half of the burning takes place in the broad-leaved, low-nutrient-status savannas which dominate the zone between 5° and 18°S.
EPR and Mössbauer Studies of Benzoyl-CoA Reductase*

Benzoyl-CoA reductase catalyzes the two-electron transfer from a reduced ferredoxin to the aromatic ring of benzoyl-CoA; this reaction is coupled to stoichiometrical ATP hydrolysis. A very low reduction potential (less than −1 V) is required for the first electron transfer to the aromatic ring. In this work the nature of the redox centers of purified benzoyl-CoA reductase from Thauera aromatica was studied by EPR and Mössbauer spectroscopy. The results obtained indicated the presence of three [4Fe-4S] clusters. Redox titration studies revealed that the reduction potentials of all three clusters were below −500 mV. The previously reported S = 7/2 state of the enzyme during benzoyl-CoA-independent ATPase activity (Boll, M., Albracht, S. J. P., and Fuchs, G. (1997) Eur. J. Biochem. 244, 840–851) was confirmed by Mössbauer spectroscopy. Inactivation by oxygen was associated with the irreversible conversion of part of the [4Fe-4S] clusters to [3Fe-4S] clusters. Acetylene stimulated the benzoyl-CoA-independent ATPase activity and induced novel EPR signals with gav >2. The presence of simple cubane clusters in benzoyl-CoA reductase as the sole redox-active metal centers demonstrates novel aspects of [4Fe-4S] clusters since they adopt the role of elemental sodium or lithium which are used as electron donors in the analogous chemical Birch reduction of aromatic rings.
Scene perception by context-aware dominant surfaces

Most of the computer vision algorithms operate pixel-wise and process image in a small neighborhood for feature extraction. Such a feature extraction strategy ignores the context of an object in the real world. Taking geometric context into account while classifying various regions in a scene, we can discriminate the similar features obtained from different regions with respect to their context. A geometric context based scene decomposition method is proposed and is applied in a context-aware Augmented Reality (AR) system. The proposed system segments a single image of a scene into a set of semantic classes representing dominant surfaces in the scene. The classification method is evaluated on an urban driving sequence with labeled ground truths and found to be robust in classifying the scene regions into a set of dominant applicable surfaces. The classified dominant surfaces are used to generate a 3D scene. The generated 3D scene provides an input to the AR system. The visual experience of 3D scene through the contextually aware AR system provides a solution for visual touring from single images as well as an experimental tool for improving the understanding of human visual perception.
A Nonlinear Approach to Regional Flood Frequency Analysis Using Projection Pursuit Regression

AbstractThis paper presents an approach for regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) in the presence of nonlinearity and problematic stations, which require adapted methodologies. To this end, the projection pursuit regression (PPR) is proposed. The PPR is a family of regression models that applies smooth functions on intermediate predictors to fit complex patterns. The PPR approach can be seen as a hybrid method between the generalized additive model (GAM) and the artificial neural network (ANN), which combines the advantages of both methods. Indeed, the PPR approach has the structure of a GAM to describe nonlinear relations between hydrological variables and other basin characteristics. On the other hand, PPR can consider interactions between basin characteristics to improve the predictive capabilities in a similar way to ANN, but simpler. The methodology developed in the present study is applied to a case study represented by hydrometric stations from southern Quebec, Canada. It is shown that flood qua.
Fungal Bioconversion of Lignocellulosic Residues; Opportunities & Perspectives

The development of alternative energy technology is critically important because of the rising prices of crude oil, security issues regarding the oil supply, and environmental issues such as global warming and air pollution. Bioconversion of biomass has significant advantages over other alternative energy strategies because biomass is the most abundant and also the most renewable biomaterial on our planet. Bioconversion of lignocellulosic residues is initiated primarily by microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria which are capable of degrading lignocellulolytic materials. Fungi such as Trichoderma reesei and Aspergillus niger produce large amounts of extracellular cellulolytic enzymes, whereas bacterial and a few anaerobic fungal strains mostly produce cellulolytic enzymes in a complex called cellulosome, which is associated with the cell wall. In filamentous fungi, cellulolytic enzymes including endoglucanases, cellobiohydrolases (exoglucanases) and β-glucosidases work efficiently on cellulolytic residues in a synergistic manner. In addition to cellulolytic/hemicellulolytic activities, higher fungi such as basidiomycetes (e.g. Phanerochaete chrysosporium) have unique oxidative systems which together with ligninolytic enzymes are responsible for lignocellulose degradation. This review gives an overview of different fungal lignocellulolytic enzymatic systems including extracellular and cellulosome-associated in aerobic and anaerobic fungi, respectively. In addition, oxidative lignocellulose-degradation mechanisms of higher fungi are discussed. Moreover, this paper reviews the current status of the technology for bioconversion of biomass by fungi, with focus on mutagenesis, co-culturing and heterologous gene expression attempts to improve fungal lignocellulolytic activities to create robust fungal strains.
Physiological and biomechanical responses to walking underwater on a non-motorised treadmill: effects of different exercise intensities and depths in middle-aged healthy women

Abstract Non-motorised underwater treadmills are commonly used in fitness activities. However, no studies have examined physiological and biomechanical responses of walking on non-motorised treadmills at different intensities and depths. Fifteen middle-aged healthy women underwent two underwater walking tests at two different depths, immersed either up to the xiphoid process (deep water) or the iliac crest (shallow water), at 100, 110, 120, 130 step-per-minute (spm). Oxygen consumption (VO2), heart rate (HR), blood lactate concentration, perceived exertion and step length were determined. Compared to deep water, walking in shallow water exhibited, at all intensities, significantly higher VO2 (+13.5%, on average) and HR (+8.1%, on average) responses. Water depth did not influence lactate concentration, whereas perceived exertion was higher in shallow compared to deep water, solely at 120 (+40%) and 130 (+39.4%) spm. Average step length was reduced as the intensity increased (from 100 to 130 spm), irrespective of water depth. Expressed as a percentage of maximum, average VO2 and HR were: 64–76% of peak VO2 and 71–90% of maximum HR, respectively at both water depths. Accordingly, this form of exercise can be included in the “vigorous” range of exercise intensity, at any of the step frequencies used in this study.
A Critique of Atheistic Humanism in the Quest for Human Dignity

A challenge confronting the human person in contemporary society is the abuse to his personality which constitutes a bane to his dignity and well-being which has continued to be on the increase despite various theoretical attempts at addressing the issue of abuse to human dignity. One of such theoretical attempts, which is atheistic humanism, has failed in its quest to enhancing the dignity of man because it has neglected the theistic background necessary for understanding, relating to and the treatment of the human person. This paper therefore, aims at a critical analysis of atheistic humanism in its quest for human dignity with a view to showing its implications for the dignity and well-being of man. The paper employs the critical method of philosophy with a view to showing the inconsistencies and the implications of an atheistic humanistic understanding of man. The paper thereafter states that a theistic humanistic understanding and treatment of the human person better provides the ground for the pursuit and realization of human dignity and well-being.
Managing big clones to ease evolution: Linux kernel example

Successful software is often enhanced and adapted to the needs of new users. During evolution, a software system grows in size, becomes more complex, and costly to maintain. In this paper, we point to big clones-large granular duplicated program structures such as files or directories-as one of many reasons why this happens. Using the Linux kernel as an example, we show that big clones arise in the Linux kernel despite careful architecture design and a systematic approach for managing variability. We propose a solution to avoid these big clones by representing them as generalized templates in ART (Adaptive Reuse Technique). ART templates are constructed on top of the Linux code, without conflicts with the state-of-art techniques and tools used to manage the Linux kernel. Benefits include simplification of the Linux kernel due to non-redundancy, easier comprehension, and traceability of the change impact during evolution. The proposed technique is general and the Linux example discussed in this paper also illustrates general phenomena.
A Simplified Chinese Parser with Factored Model

This paper presents our work for participation in the 2012 CIPS-ParsEval shared task of Simplified Chinese parsing. We adopt a factored model to parse the Simplified Chinese. The factored model is one kind of combined structure between PCFG structure and dependency structure. It mainly uses an extremely effective A* parsing algorithm which enables to get a more optimal solution. Throughout this paper, we use TCT Treebank as experimental data. TCT mainly consists of binary trees, with a few single-branch trees. The final experiment result demonstrates that the head propagation table improves the parsing performance. Finally, we describe the implementation of the system we used as well as analyze our experiment result SC_F1 from 43% up to 63% and the LC_F1 is about 92% we have achieved.
Klasifikasi Tanah Di Lereng Selatan Gunung Burni Telong Kecamatan Bukit Kabupaten Bener Meriah Provinsi Aceh

The research at south slope of mount Burni Telong is aimed to soil classification with the classification system of Soil Taxonomy, 2014 into sub grup category which was conducted in February – September 2014. Two selected pedons were observed at middle slop (Va.1.6.1t) and bottom slope (Va.1.4.1t). Soil samples were taken from each horizon for analysis bulk density, pH (H 2 O), pH (KCl), pH (NaF), Al , cation exchange capacity, base saturation, qrganic carbon, phosfat retention in Research and Technology Laboratory, Agricultural Faculty of North Sumatera University, Medan and analysis of soil texture, Al-oxalate extracted (Alo), Si-oxalate extracted (Sio), and Fe-oxalate extracted (Feo) in Soil Laboratory, Soil Research Institute, Bogor.The result of this research is the classification in the middle slop soil (Va.1.6.1t) is Humic Psammentic Dystrudepts, and on the bottom slope soil (Va.1.4.1t) is Typic Hapludands. Keywords: Mount Burni Telong, Soil Classification, Soil Taxonomy dd