Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing Northern Hemisphere Snow Seasons

Abstract Spatial and temporal patterns in the onset, offset, and length of the snow season across Northern Hemisphere continents are examined for the period from 1967 to 2008. Full snow seasons (FSS) and core snow seasons (CSS) are defined based on the consistency of snow cover within a location over the course of the cold season. Climatologically, the seasonal onsets of FSS and CSS progress more rapidly across the continents than the slower spring northward offset. Average Northern Hemisphere FSS duration has decreased at a rate of 0.8 week decade−1 (5.3 days decade−1) between the winters of 1972/73 and 2007/08, while there is no significant hemispheric change in CSS duration. Changes in the FSS duration are attributed primarily to a progressively earlier offset, which has advanced poleward at a rate of 5.5 days decade−1. A major change in the trends of FSS offset and duration occurred in the late 1980s. Earlier FSS offsets, ranging from 5 to 25 days, and resultant abbreviated durations are observed in w.
Marketing político e comportamento eleitoral nas Eleições Legislativas: construção de um modelo explicativo

A analise dos varios factores ligados aos processos eleitorais, particularmente, a decisao de voto, tem recebido bastante atencao, e tem sido alvo de um vasto numero de estudos. O principal objectivo deste trabalho prende-se com a criacao de um modelo explicativo do comportamento de voto, alem de possibilitar o planeamento de estrategias de actuacao, de marketing e de comunicacao eficientes. Foi construido e validado um instrumento para a recolha de informacao relevante para a analise do comportamento eleitoral relevante para a populacao portuguesa. A populacao em estudo e composta pelos eleitores residentes e inscritos em Portugal com telefone da rede fixa no seu lar. Assim, foi recolhida, via telefone, uma amostra representativa de 782 participantes, constituida por 382 homens (48,8%) e 400 mulheres (51,2%) com idades compreendidas entre os 18 e os 87 anos (M = 51,0; DP = 16,3). A construcao deste modelo considerou a contribuicao de diversos modelos salientes na Ciencia Politica e na Psicologia Social, mais concretamente na Teoria do Comportamento Planeado (Theory of Planned Behavior). Foram elaborados quatro modelos (dois para o PS e dois para o PSD), dois com a amostra global e os outros dois para o segmento de eleitores que nao votaram sempre no mesmo partido nas eleicoes legislativas em que participaram. Realcamos o poder explicativo dos modelos obtidos que, no caso do PS ultrapassa os 80% e no caso do PSD os 70%. Os preditores directos da intencao de voto sao a proximidade partidaria e as dimensoes da Teoria do Comportamento Planeado, quer para o PS quer para o PSD. Na analise das restantes variaveis do modelo, salientaram-se a satisfacao com o trabalho do governo, o voto habitual, a confianca no governo e a comparacao de perfis dos lideres, no caso do PS e o voto habitual, comparacao de perfis e autoposicionamento ideologico, no caso do PSD. As variaveis de caracterizacao como o sexo, a idade, ou o nivel de formacao nao sao particularmente uteis para explicar a intencao de voto. No caso dos eleitores que nao votam sempre no mesmo partido (representando 43,2% da totalidade dos eleitores da nossa amostra) verificamos um menor efeito da proximidade partidaria, tornando-se mais relevante o suporte afectivo ao lider, bem como a satisfacao e a confianca no trabalho desenvolvido pelo governo. Estas constatacoes serao, obviamente, uma importante base de trabalho para a compreensao e estudo da decisao de voto em Portugal, para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas de marketing politico, bem como para a fomentacao de pistas relevantes para a investigacao nesta area. Palavras-chave: Comportamento eleitoral, Marketing politico, Modelos de analise eleitoral, Participacao politica, Opiniao publica
Nutritive value of corn distillers dried grains with solubles as an ingredient of poultry diets: A review

A rapid increase in corn use in ethanol plants, and subsequent creation of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) by-products, has led to an increase in the use of DDGS in the diets of livestock. DDGS has been used all over the world as a dietary ingredient and this has necessitated more research to be conducted on its quality, nutritive values, and recommendations for feeding to poultry. Currently, there have been a limited number of research publications regarding corn DDGS as an ingredient of diets for poultry. Approximately 100 scientific papers can be found which cover a variety of topics, with various degrees of depth into each. The purpose of this review is to collate the available information to date on the application of corn DDGS as an ingredient of poultry diets that can be easily accessed by researchers and nutritionists. This review presents the current state of knowledge of nutritive values of various corn DDGS ingredients, summarizes recommendations for using DDGS in diets for laying hens, broilers and turkeys, and reports the environmental ramifications when utilizing corn DDGS in poultry feed. In spite of the great amount of variation in nutritional properties of corn DDGS originating from various sources, it has been concluded that good quality corn DDGS, especially when derived from new generation plants, can be a viable ingredient in poultry diets.
Trans-Pacific dust events observed at Whistler, British Columbia during INTEX-B

The meteorology and physico-chemical characteristics of aerosol associated with two new cases of long range dust transport affecting western Canada during spring 2006 are described. Each event showed enhancements of both sulfate aerosol and crustal material of Asian origin. However, the events were of quite different character and demonstrate the highly variable nature of such events. The April event was a significant dust event with considerable enhancement of fine particle sulfate while the May event was a weaker dust event, also with significant fine particle sulfate enhancement. The latter event was notable in the sense that it was of short duration and was quickly followed by a large increase of organic material likely of regional origin. Comparison of these two events with other documented cases extending back to 1993, suggests that all dust events show coincident enhancements of sulfate and crustal aerosol. However, events vary across a wide continuum based on the magnitude of aerosol enhancements and their sulfate to calcium ratios. At one extreme, events are dominated by highly significant crustal enhancements (e.g. the well-documented 1998 and 2001 "dust" events) while at the other are events with some dust transport, but where sulfate enhancements are of very high magnitude (e.g. the 1993 event at Crater Lake and the 15 May 2006 event at Whistler). Other events represent a "mix". It is likely that this variability is a function of the comparative strengths of the dust and anthropogenic SO 2 sources, the transport pathway and in particular the extent to which dust is transported across industrial SO 2 sources, and finally, meteorological and chemical processes.
Virus-Like Particles of SARS-Like Coronavirus Formed by Membrane Proteins from Different Origins Demonstrate Stimulating Activity in Human Dendritic Cells

The pathogenesis of SARS coronavirus (CoV) remains poorly understood. In the current study, two recombinant baculovirus were generated to express the spike (S) protein of SARS-like coronavirus (SL-CoV) isolated from bats (vAcBS) and the envelope (E) and membrane (M) proteins of SARS-CoV, respectively. Co-infection of insect cells with these two recombinant baculoviruses led to self-assembly of virus-like particles (BVLPs) as demonstrated by electron microscopy. Incorporation of S protein of vAcBS (BS) into VLPs was confirmed by western blot and immunogold labeling. Such BVLPs up-regulated the level of CD40, CD80, CD86, CD83, and enhanced the secretion of IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α in immature dendritic cells (DCs). Immune responses were compared in immature DCs inoculated with BVLPs or with VLPs formed by S, E and M proteins of human SARS-CoV. BVLPs showed a stronger ability to stimulate DCs in terms of cytokine induction as evidenced by 2 to 6 fold higher production of IL-6 and TNF-α. Further study indicated that IFN-γ+ and IL-4+ populations in CD4+ T cells increased upon co-cultivation with DCs pre-exposed with BVLPs or SARS-CoV VLPs. The observed difference in DC-stimulating activity between BVLPs and SARS CoV VLPs was very likely due to the S protein. In agreement, SL-CoV S DNA vaccine evoked a more vigorous antibody response and a stronger T cell response than SARS-CoV S DNA in mice. Our data have demonstrated for the first time that SL-CoV VLPs formed by membrane proteins of different origins, one from SL-CoV isolated from bats (BS) and the other two from human SARS-CoV (E and M), activated immature DCs and enhanced the expression of co-stimulatory molecules and the secretion of cytokines. Finding in this study may provide important information for vaccine development as well as for understanding the pathogenesis of SARS-like CoV.
The pacemaker current in cardiac Purkinje myocytes

It is generally assumed that in cardiac Purkinje fibers the hyperpolarization activated inward current i(f) underlies the pacemaker potential. Because some findings are at odds with this interpretation, we used the whole cell patch clamp method to study the currents in the voltage range of diastolic depolarization in single canine Purkinje myocytes, a preparation where many confounding limitations can be avoided. In Tyrode solution ([K+]o = 5.4 mM), hyperpolarizing steps from Vh = -50 mV resulted in a time-dependent inwardly increasing current in the voltage range of diastolic depolarization. This time- dependent current (iKdd) appeared around -60 mV and reversed near EK. Small superimposed hyperpolarizing steps (5 mV) applied during the voltage clamp step showed that the slope conductance decreases during the development of this time-dependent current. Decreasing [K+]o from 5.4 to 2.7 mM shifted the reversal potential to a more negative value, near the corresponding EK. Increasing [K+]o to 10.8 mM almost abolished iKdd. Cs+ (2 mM) markedly reduced or blocked the time-dependent current at potentials positive and negative to EK. Ba2+ (4 mM) abolished the time-dependent current in its usual range of potentials and unmasked another time-dependent current (presumably i(f)) with a threshold of approximately -90 mV (> 20 mV negative to that of the time-dependent current in Tyrode solution). During more negative steps, i(f) increased in size and did not reverse. During i(f) the slope conductance measured with small (8-10 mV) superimposed clamp steps increased. High [K+]o (10.8 mM) markedly increased and Cs+ (2 mM) blocked i(f). We conclude that: (a) in the absence of Ba2+, a time-dependent current does reverse near EK and its reversal is unrelated to K+ depletion; (b) the slope conductance of that time-dependent current decreases in the absence of K+ depletion at potentials positive to EK where inactivation of iK1 is unlikely to occur. (c) Ba2+ blocks this time-dependent current and unmasks another time-dependent current (i(f)) with a more negative (> 20 mV) threshold and no reversal at more negative values; (d) Cs+ blocks both time-dependent currents recorded in the absence and presence of Ba2+. The data suggest that in the diastolic range of potentials in Purkinje myocytes there is a voltage- and time-dependent K+ current (iKdd) that can be separated from the hyperpolarization- activated inward current i(f).
Effective “static-graph” reorganization to improve locality in garbage-collected systems

Several researchers have attempted to improve locality in garbage-collected heaps by changing the traversal algorithm used by a copying garbage collector. Unfortunately, these studies met with small success. We hypothesized that the disappointing results of these previous studies were due to two flaws in the traversal algorithms tested. They failed to group data structures in a manner reflecting their hierarchical organization, and more importantly, they ignored the dkastrous grouping effects caused by reaching data structures from a linear traversal of hash tables (i.e., in pseudo-random order). To test this hypothesis, we modified the garbage collector of a Lisp system (specifically, the Scheme-48 system) to avoid both problems in reorganizing the system heap image. We implemented our “hierarchical decomposition” algorithm (a cousin of Moon’s “approximately depth-fiist” algorithm) that is quite efficient on stock hardware. We aleo changed the collector to traverse global variable bindings in the order of their creation rather than in the memory order imposed by hash tables. The effects of these changes confirm our hypothesis. Some improvement comes from the basic traversal algorithm, and a greater effect results from the special treatment of hash tables. Initial page faults are reduced significantly and repeated page faults are reduced tremendously (by roughly an order of magnitude). In addition, improved measures of static locality (such as the percentage of on-page pointers) indicate that heap data can be cheaply and effectively compressed, and this may allow more effective paging and prefetching strategies; we suggest a level of “compressed in-RAM storage”, with price and performance between those of RAM and disk. These results call for a reinterpretation of previous studies, and for further studies of static-graph traversal techniques. They reduce the attractiveness of the exotic hardware needed for dynamically reorganizing objects within pages, and show that good locality can easily be achieved by straightforward and efficient techniques on stock hardware.
Unreconciled Collisions Uncover Cloning Attacks in Anonymous RFID Systems

Cloning attacks threaten radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications but are hard to prevent. Existing cloning attack detection methods are enslaved to the knowledge of tag identifiers (IDs). Tag IDs, however, should be protected to enable and secure privacy-sensitive applications in anonymous RFID systems. In a first step, this paper tackles cloning attack detection in anonymous RFID systems without requiring tag IDs as a priori. To this end, we leverage unreconciled collisions to uncover cloning attacks. An unreconciled collision is probably due to responses from multiple tags with the same ID, exactly the evidence of cloning attacks. This insight inspires GREAT, our pioneer protocol for cloning attack detection in anonymous RFID systems. We evaluate the performance of GREAT through theoretical analysis and extensive simulations. The results show that GREAT can detect cloning attacks in anonymous RFID systems fairly fast with required accuracy. For example, when only six out of 50,000 tags are cloned, GREAT can detect the cloning attack in 75.5 s with a probability of at least 0.99.
From von Thuenen to Fujita : continuity or rupture ? [De von Thünen à Fujita : continuité ou rupture ?]

L'histoire de la pensee economique spatiale fait apparaitre quatre grands paradigmes qui se rattachent respectivement aux travaux initiateurs de von Thunen, Weber, Christaller et Losch et enfin Hotelling (Ponsard, 1983). En y ajoutant les apports d'autres auteurs, comme Lauhnardt et Greenhut (Norman, 1993), et en etudiant les complementarites et les interactions entre ces paradigmes (Ponsard, 1983 ; Fujita, Ogawa et Thisse, 1988 ; Fujita et Thisse, 1986), on a pu souvent souligner les pertinences actuelles, theoriques et empiriques, de ces contributions historiques. Mais ces pertinences depassent egalement le champ strict de l'economie spatiale, puisque certaines theories de l'economie internationale ou de l'economie industrielle ont integre avec succes les propositions des economistes spatialistes (Krugman, 1991a, 1991b ; Rallet et Torre, 1995). (.)
Internet-Enabled Information Management for Configure-to-Order Product Fulfillment

Configure-to-order (CTO) strategy has been implemented by many industries that adopt mass customization. Its major concern lies in a series of product fulfillment activities, e.g. configuring the individual product and corresponding production process. The successful implementation of CTO production calls for the correctness and promptness of the execution of these activities. Therefore, a Web-based integrated information management system is important and necessary. Facilitated by such a system, not only the required product and process information can be shared and exchanged by multiple partners dispersed geographically, but also the enabled functional integration contributes to an effective communication and coordination among departments across a supply chain network. In the paper the issues relating to the integrated information management and a Web-based system are discussed in detail. Also provided is the role of the system in supply chain management in today's e-commerce environment.
Risk Factors of Porcine Cysticercosis in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

There is a high prevalence of Taenia solium taeniosis/cysticercosis in humans and pigs in the Eastern Cape Province (ECP) of South Africa. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors of porcine cysticercosis in select districts of the ECP. Data were collected in 2003 by interviewing 217 pig producers from the area. Blood samples were collected from 261 of their pigs, which were tested using two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for the presence of antibodies to cysticercosis. Frequencies of both owner- and pig-level characteristics were determined. For pig-level analysis, all bivariable and multivariable associations were determined using the surveylogistic procedure of the SAS/STAT® software to accommodate for the intraclass correlation that exists for clusters of pigs within one owner and for clusters of owners within a district. All tests for significance were performed at the α = 0.05 level, and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were determined. Among the respondents, 48% of their households lacked a latrine, 98% slaughtered pigs at home, and 99% indicated that meat inspection services were not available. On bivariable analysis, there was a significant association between porcine infection and district (p = 0.003), breed (p = 0.041) and the absence of a latrine (p = 0.006). On multivariable analysis, the absence of a latrine was the only variable significantly associated with porcine infection (aOR = 1.89; 95% CI = 1.07, 3.35) (p = 0.028). The increased odds of porcine infection with households lacking a latrine contributes to our understanding of the transmission of this parasite in the ECP. Determining and addressing the risk factors for T. solium infection can potentially lower the very high prevalence in humans and pigs in this endemic area.
Treatment Effects on Measures of Body Composition in the TODAY Clinical Trial

OBJECTIVE The Treatment Options for type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) trial showed superiority of metformin plus rosiglitazone (M+R) over metformin alone (M), with metformin plus lifestyle (M+L) intermediate in maintaining glycemic control. We report here treatment effects on measures of body composition and their relationships to demographic and metabolic variables including glycemia. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Measures of adiposity (BMI, waist circumference, abdominal height, percent and absolute fat, and bone mineral content [BMC] and density [BMD]) were analyzed as change from baseline at 6 and 24 months. RESULTS Measures of fat accumulation were greatest in subjects treated with M+R and least in M+L. Although fat measures in M+L were less than those of M+R and M at 6 months, differences from M were no longer apparent at 24 months, whereas differences from M+R persisted at 24 months. The only body composition measure differing by race and/or ethnicity was waist circumference, greater in M+R than either M or M+L at both 6 and 24 months in whites. BMD and BMC increased in all groups, but increased less in M+R compared with the other two groups by 24 months. Measures of adiposity (increases in BMI, waist circumference, abdominal height, and fat) were associated with reduced insulin sensitivity and increased hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), although effects of adiposity on HbA1c were less evident in those treated with M+R. CONCLUSIONS Despite differential effects on measures of adiposity (with M+R resulting in the most and M+L in the least fat accumulation), group differences generally were small and unrelated to treatment effects in sustaining glycemic control.
Graph theoretic expansion of Borei Cayley Graphs with an optimal and distributed routing algorithm

In our previous work, we reported Borei Cayley Graphs (BCGs) have prominent properties such as outstanding topologlcal properties, ultrafast consensus speed and optimal routing algorithm. However, the network performance of BCGs Intensively relies on generating parameters p and k, where p Is a prime number and k Is a factor of p - 1. In this paper, we propose the Expanded BCGs (Er-BCGs) to theoretically expand BCGs to eliminate the dependence on the parameters with node ID space expansion and extended connection rule. The Ex-BCGs preserve outstanding topological properties of BCGs and enable nodes to be represented as Generalized Chordal Ring (GCR). Furthermore, the Ex-BCGs have class-level vertex transitivity which allows the networks viewed by vertices in the same class have an identical structure. Based on these properties, we present the class-level vertex transitive (CVT) routing algorithm for Er-BCGs. The CVT routing algorithm is an optimal, distributed algorithm and incorporates with the routing table which is generated by the GCR constant based routing table generation requiring a low size complexity of O{dk), where d is a node degree. To further improve the CVT routing efficiency, we provide the routing table folding scheme to reduce the number of routing table entries from Nd to Nd/n, where N is a network size and n is an expansion factor. In the routing simulation with All-to-All and All-to-M traffic patterns, Er-BCGs outperform the benchmark networks in reachability, end-to-end delay and the mean number of packets at node with a variety of packet generation ratios.
Spontaneous Facial Expression Recognition Based on Feature Point Tracking

In recent years, facial expression recognition has attracted a lot of attention because of its importance in human-computer interaction. However, most previous work has focus on posed expression. In this paper, we propose a spontaneous facial expression recognition method based on feature point tracking. First, all expression sequences are normalized according to their pupils' coordinates. Second, 23 points are labeled manually in the onset and apex frames. Then Kalman filter is used for tracking. Two kinds of features, point displacement features and points distance variation features, are extracted. Finally, Hidden Markov Model is employed as classifier. Experiments have been conducted on the spontaneous facial expression database of USTC-NVIE. The results indicate that Kalman filter point tracking method could detect the right place of points, and the points distance variation features are more suitable than the point displacement features for the facial expression recognition.