Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climate, Fire and Carbon: Tipping Points and LandscapeVulnerability in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

terrestrial-atmospheric different types Flux tower significant of C the but these cannot be used large heterogeneous future and fire regimes. Earth System Models climate and carbon flux at coarse scales but do not yet model disturbance Stand-level measurements of carbon pools before and at various intervals after fire are another approach for estimating C losses and subsequent gains after forest fires, but such studies have been conducted in a limited number of sites and ecosystem types Rothstein Our results may inform current efforts to improve of disturbances and dynamic vegetation transitions (e.g., forest to nonforest) in the next ESMs Our results may also contribute to improved projections of vegetation change at regional scales. With changing climate, fire may catalyze abrupt changes in species better suited to changed environmental conditions establish sites Our research thus contributes to these ongoing lines of inquiry by enhancing understanding of how both climate and fire regime may change across heterogeneous forest landscapes.
2 and 4 Super Yang-Mills Theories on M 4 × Z 2 × Z 2 Geometry

We derive the N = 2 and 4 super Yang-Mills theories from the viewpoint of the M4 × Z2 × Z2 gauge theory. Scalars and pseudoscalars appearing in the theories are regarded as gauge fields along the directions on Z2 × Z2 discrete space. PACS number(s): E-mail address: cb@itp.ac. cn E-mail address: tsaito@jpnyitp.yukawa. kyoto-u.ac. jp E-mail address: tenghb@itp.ac. cn E-mail address: uehara@tezukayama-u.ac. jp E-mail address: wuke@itp.ac. cn §
Wireless Multihop Networks with Stealing: Large Buffer Asymptotics via the Ray Method

Wireless networks equipped with CSMA are scheduled in a fully distributed manner. A disadvantage of such distributed control in multihop networks is the hidden node problem, which causes the effect of stealing, in which a downstream node steals the channel from an upstream node with probability p. Aziz, Starobinski, and Thiran [IEEE/ACM Trans. Networking, to appear] have recently shown that the N-hop model with stealing is stable only in the case $N=3$ and $p\in(0,1]$. This 3-hop model can be represented as a random walk in the quarter plane. We derive various asymptotic expressions for the stationary large buffer probabilities of the 3-hop model that capture the effect of p. We mainly rely on the ray method, and we show how this method is related to the compensation approach and singularity analysis.
A factorized representation of FMLLR transform based on QR-decomposition

In this paper, we propose a novel representation of the FMLLR transform. This is different from the standard FMLLR in that the linear transform (LT) is expressed in a factorized form such that each of the factors involves only one parameter. The representation is mainly motivated by QR-decomposition of a square matrix and hence is referred to as QR-FMLLR. The mathematical expressions and steps for maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of the parameters are presented. The ML estimation of QR-FMLLR does not require the use of numerical technique, such as gradient ascent, and it does not involve matrix inversion and computation of matrix determinant. On an LVCSR task, we show the performance of QR-FMLLR to be comparable to the standard FMLLR. We conjecture that QR-FMLLR is amenable to speaker adaptation using data that varies from very short to large and present a brief discussion on how this can be achieved.
A Formal Methodology , Tools , And Algorithm For The Analysis , Verification , And Design Of Emergency Procedures And Recovery Sequences

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Central to the success of the Exploration mission is the utility of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) as a safe and efficient system for transporting humans into space. One of the most critical aspects of ensuring the continual safety of the CEV lies in the crew's (and the onboard automation's) ability to cope with and recover from emergency situations. If one or more emergency conditions arise, astronauts must quickly initiate and successfully execute procedures to mitigate the failures and then recover; these procedures must be performed under tight timing constraints, e.g., during ascent to the Main Engine Cut Off (MECO) point in the current space shuttle system. Similarly, when the CEV is flown in fully autonomous mode, it will be the responsibility of the onboard computers to automatically initiate and execute emergency procedures and recovery sequences. Most likely, however, future exploration systems will be designed such that some (emergency) actions will be initiated by humans and some (recovery) actions will be performed automatically. Whether preformed manually, automatically, or in a manual/automatic combination, it is critical that such emergency procedures be correct, efficient, usable and, most importantly, safe. The analysis, verification, and design of these highly critical and time urgent emergency procedures and recovery sequences are the focus of this project. Current approaches and best practice for designing procedures are based on employing the knowledge and experience of system designers, simulator trainers, and astronauts, so as to collectively formulate the " best " perceived way to mitigate and recover from an abnormal or emergency situation. After their formulation, procedures undergo extensive testing to validate their correctness and usability. Nevertheless, both the increasing complexity of underlying space exploration systems–engines, fuel, life support, and computers–and the growing reliance on automation as an agent that reconfigures itself and also executes some action sequences, make such traditional design approaches progressively difficult to employ (Degani and Wiener, 1994). In particular, procedure developers have considerable difficulty fully comprehending all the possible paths in the systems and making sure that the procedures are indeed correct. That is, that the action sequence(s) specified in the procedure are guaranteed to be executable, achieve the procedures' goals, and insure the best course of recovery. Another problem common to current procedure design approaches is that there is no assurance that the selected action sequence is the " best " in terms of execution time, mitigation of potential failures, and maximization …
Information-Theoretic Approach to Optimal Differential Fault Analysis

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of differential fault analysis (DFA) attacks on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) from an information-theoretic perspective. Injecting faults into cryptosystems is categorized as an active at tack where attackers induce an error in operations to retrieve the secret internal information, e.g., the secret key of ciphers. Here, we consider DFA attacks as equivalent to a special kind of passive attack where attackers can obtain leaked information without measurement noise. The DFA attacks are regarded as a conversion process from the leaked information to the secret key. Each fault model defines an upper bound for the amount of leaked information. The optimal DFA attacks should be able to exploit fully the leaked information in order to retrieve the secret key with a practical level of complexity. This paper discusses a new DFA methodology to achieve the optimal DFA attack by deriving the amount of the leaked information for various fault models from an information-theoretic perspective. We review several previous DFA at tacks on AES variants to check the optimality of their attacks. We also propose improved DFA attacks on AES-192 and AES-256 that reach the theoretical limits.
A novel technique for selective NF-κB inhibition in Kupffer cells: contrary effects in fulminant hepatitis and ischaemia–reperfusion

Background and aims: The transcription factor nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) has risen as a promising target for anti-inflammatory therapeutics. In the liver, however, NF-κB inhibition mediates both damaging and protective effects. The outcome is deemed to depend on the liver cell type addressed. Recent gene knock-out studies focused on the role of NF-κB in hepatocytes, whereas the role of NF-κB in Kupffer cells has not yet been investigated in vivo. Here we present a novel approach, which may be suitable for clinical application, to selectively target NF-κB in Kupffer cells and analyse the effects in experimental models of liver injury. Methods: NF-κB inhibiting decoy oligodeoxynucleotides were loaded upon gelatin nanoparticles (D-NPs) and their in vivo distribution was determined by confocal microscopy. Liver damage, NF-κB activity, cytokine levels and apoptotic protein expression were evaluated after lipopolysaccharide (LPS), d-galactosamine (GalN)/LPS, or concanavalin A (ConA) challenge and partial warm ischaemia and subsequent reperfusion, respectively. Results: D-NPs were selectively taken up by Kupffer cells and inhibited NF-κB activation. Inhibition of NF-κB in Kupffer cells improved survival and reduced liver injury after GalN/LPS as well as after ConA challenge. While anti-apoptotic protein expression in liver tissue was not reduced, pro-apoptotic players such as cJun N-terminal kinase (JNK) were inhibited. In contrast, selective inhibition of NF-κB augmented reperfusion injury. Conclusions: NF-κB inhibiting decoy oligodeoxynucleotide-loaded gelatin nanoparticles is a novel tool to selectively inhibit NF-κB activation in Kupffer cells in vivo. Thus, liver injury can be reduced in experimental fulminant hepatitis, but increased at ischaemia–reperfusion.
Recycling Postconsumer Nylon Carpet

Each year 34 billion pounds of nylon carpet are discarded into landfills in the United States. As a case study we examine the technical and economic feasibility of recycling a portion of this source of discarded plastic. The carpet could be (I) shredded for use as daily cover at landfills or as a strengthening component of concrete, (2) sheared or chemically processed for reuse as recycled nylon or as pure nylon feedstock, or (3) made into a new type of plastic. We estimate the costs of a recycling facility to handle 450,000 Ib of discarded nylon carpet each month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We found that with current technology, regulations, and markets, only the recycling of carpet from commercial settings using shearing or chemical processing is economical and only under very narrow circumstances. We learned four lessons from this study, First, collection costs are high and can dominate the economics of recycling. Second, given time and incentives, collection costs can be reduced. Third, trying to recycle products not designed to be recycled leads to many problems. Carpet could be redesigned to make recycling easier by making the carpet out of a single material and using an adhesive that can be removed easily. Fourth, recycling processes should be designed to produce an existing material if at all possible, because new materials present marketing problems.
Beta Stiffness Index by Three-Dimensional Ultrasound

SUMMARY n Beta stiffness index is the most common marker for assessment of subclinical atherosclerosis. The aim of the study was to explore the new technique of three-dimensional ultrasound for carotid stiffness evaluation. This pilot investigation was conducted in ten healthy volunteers. Measurements were performed in common carotid artery (CCA) on an Aloka 5500-SSD Prosound ultrasound platform in B and M modes. Data were collected freehandedly over 10 seconds and postprocessing analysis was performed using TomTec Imaging software. Beta indexes were mathematically computed and statistically evaluated by use of nonparametric statistics for two related samples. There were nine women and one man aged 39.3‐9.2 years. There was one borderline hypertensive subject and four subjects were active smokers. The mean body mass index was 23.85‐5.83 kg/m 2 , and mean intima-media thickness on CCA bilaterally 0.42‐0.06 mm. Statistically, comparison between conventional and three-dimensional ultrasound corroborated consistency in the left CCA (p>0.05). This investigation proved that three-dimensional ultrasound could be used as a complementary method for evaluation of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, with a greater sensitivity in the left CCA.
Intrinsic Dissolution as a Tool for Evaluating Drug Solubility in Accordance with the Biopharmaceutics Classification System

The Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) is a tool that was cr eated to categorize drugs into different groups according to their solubility and permeability characteristics. Through a combination of these factors and physiological parameters, it is possible to understand the absorption behavior of a drug in the gastrointestinal tract, thus contributing to cost and time reductions in drug development, as well as reducing exposure of human subjects during in vivo trials. Solubility is attained by determining the equilibrium under conditions of physiological pH, while different methods may be employed for evaluating permeability. On the other hand, the intrinsic dissolution rate (IDR), which is defined as the rate of dissolution of a pure substance under constant temperature, pH, and surface area conditions, among others, may present greater correlation to the in vivo dissolution dynamic than the solubility test. The purpose of this work is to discuss the intrinsic dissolution test as a tool for determining the solubility of drugs within the scope of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS).
GIS-AIDED PER-SEGMENT SCENE ANALYSIS OF MULTI-TEMPORAL SPACEBORNE SAR SERIES WITH APPLICATION TO URBAN AREAS

It is well known that multi-temporal series of SAR data are able to provide interesting clues about temporal evolution of some land covers. In this work, a per-segment approach based on the use of ancillary Geographic Information System data is proposed. Two test cases show the effectiveness of the technique and its usefulness for quickly detecting changes in urban areas and discriminating to some extent different urban dynamics.
Anomalous ENSO Occurrences : An Alternate View *

There has been an apparent increase in the frequency and duration of El Niño–Southern Oscillation events in the last two decades relative to the prior period of record. Furthermore, 1990–95 was the longest period of sustained high Darwin sea level pressure in the instrumental record. Variations in the frequency and duration of such events are of considerable interest because of their implications for understanding global climatic variability and also the possibility that the climate system may be changing due to external factors such as the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Nonparametric statistical methods for time series analysis are applied to a 1882 to 1995 seasonal Darwin sea level pressure (DSLP) anomaly time series to explore the variations in El Niño–like anomaly occurrence and persistence over the period of record. Return periods for the duration of the 1990–95 event are estimated to be considerably smaller than those recently obtained by Trenberth and Hoar using a linear ARMA model with the same time series. The likelihood of a positive anomaly of the DSLP, as well as its persistence, is found to exhibit decadalto centennial-scale variability and was nearly as high at the end of the last century as it has been recently. The 1990–95 event has a much lower return period if the analysis is based on the 1882–1921 DSLP data. The authors suggest that conclusions that the 1990–95 event may be an effect of greenhouse gas–induced warming be tempered by a recognition of the natural variability
Melatonin in Retinal Physiology and Pathology: The Case of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Melatonin, an indoleamine, is synthesized mainly in the pineal gland in a circadian fashion, but it is produced in many other organs, including the retina, which seems to be especially important as the eye is a primary recipient of circadian signals. Melatonin displays strong antioxidative properties, which predispose it to play a protective role in many human pathologies associated with oxidative stress, including premature aging and degenerative disease. Therefore, melatonin may play a role in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease affecting photoreceptors, and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) with an established role of oxidative stress in its pathogenesis. Several studies have shown that melatonin could exert the protective effect against damage to RPE cells evoked by reactive oxygen species (ROS), but it has also been reported to increase ROS-induced damage to photoreceptors and RPE. Melatonin behaves like synthetic mitochondria-targeted antioxidants, which concentrate in mitochondria at relatively high levels; thus, melatonin may prevent mitochondrial damage in AMD. The retina contains telomerase, an enzyme implicated in maintaining the length of telomeres, and oxidative stress inhibits telomere synthesis, while melatonin overcomes this effect. These features support considering melatonin as a preventive and therapeutic agent in the treatment of AMD.
The Link between High School Reform and College Access and Success for Low-Income and Minority Youth.

Since 1985 the Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) at Stanford University has been developing a series of stand-alone multi-media computer-based distancelearning mathematics and physics courses from the elementary school through the university level. Because these courses are used in situations where students do not have access to regular classroom instruction, we have had to make essential use of the computer both as an instructional agent and as a tool for media-distributed learning. We discuss our experience over the last fourteen years developing software and delivering effective instruction.
Economic Analysis of Law: Uses & Limitations

This paper examines one broad question: “How useful is the economic analysis of law? ” Before getting to this question this paper defines the economic analysis o law (EAL) and traces its historical development. It then compares and contrasts legal and economic methods to determine the uses and limitations of EAL. The conclusion reached is that the benefits of EAL outweigh the costs but that good sense is necessary to determine where benefits exist and how costs can be avoided. The benefits, it is argued, are found in the economic analysis of legal policy where efficiency and utility are important. EAL may involve costs when applied to the functional areas of the law where adjudication and justice are more important than efficiency and utility. f
Developing a text classifier with constrained development and execution time

The aim of this paper is to show that an accurate and efficient text classifier for relatively simple problem domains can be created in only a few hours of development time. The motivating example discussed in the paper is a recent HackerRank competition problem that tasked competitors with creating a classifier for questions from the popular question and answer platform StackExchange. The paper describes the key components of one solution to this problem, and briefly overviews the naive Bayes classifier that is the basis of the solution. The discussion is focused on feature selection and example representation which were the key challenges to be addressed during the development of this classifier. We also analyze the effect of the number of features on accuracy, training and classification time and the size of the resulting classifier and the representation of the training examples which were all important characteristics for the competition. The described classifier achieved slightly over 89% accuracy on the hidden question set, while the winning submission achieved around 92%.
Genetic variants of C2 muscle cells that are defective in synthesis of the alpha-subunit of the acetylcholine receptor

We have analyzed two genetic variants of C2 muscle cells that have reduced levels of binding activity for alpha-bungarotoxin and have found that both synthesize only low levels of the alpha-subunit of the acetylcholine receptor. In both variants the uptake of 22Na in response to carbachol is diminished in proportion to the reduction in toxin- binding activity. In addition, the kinetic and sedimentation properties of the residual toxin-binding activity in both is indistinguishable from that seen in wild-type cells. Immunoblotting experiments on extracts of the variants using subunit-specific antibodies to alpha- and beta-subunits of the acetylcholine receptor demonstrated that the beta-subunit was present, but failed to detect alpha-subunit. In both variants, the amount of alpha-subunit accumulated after a 5-min period of labeling with [35S]methionine was reduced by over 90%, leading to the conclusion that the alpha-subunit is synthesized at greatly reduced rates. Northern blot and S1 nuclease analysis showed no differences between the alpha-subunit mRNA in wild-type and variant cells.
Perception is Always Right: The CNBâ€™s Monetary Policy in the Media

In this paper we analyze the favorableness and extent of the media coverage of the CNBâ€™s monetary policy decisions in the period of 2002â€“-2007. We identify the factors explaining the variance in these two dimensions using an extensive set of articles published in the four most relevant Czech daily broadsheets immediately after monetary policy meetings. We take account of parameters of the CNBâ€™s actual monetary policy decisions and related communication as well as variables characterizing the general economic environment that prevailed at the times of the individual meetings. The most appealing results are that those CNBâ€™s decisions that surprise financial markets are âˆ’ if needed âˆ’ not negatively perceived by the media and that the media welcomes interest rate changes. Therefore, from the media coverage point of view, there is no need for too much smoothing. Simultaneously, our analyses shed some light on how the media tends to report on (economic) events in general.
Influence of the packet size on the one-way delay on the down-link in 3G networks

The number of mobile broadband users is increasing. Furthermore, these users have high expectations into the capabilities of mobile broadband, comparable to those in fixed networks. On the other hand, the capacity assignment process on mobile access links is far from transparent to the user, and its properties need to be known in order to minimize the impact of the network on application performance. This paper investigates the impact of the packet size on the characteristics of the oneway delay for the down-link in third-generation mobile networks. For interactive and real-time applications such as VoIP, one-way delays are of major importance for user perception; however, they are challenging to measure due to their sensitivity to clock synchronization. Therefore, the paper applies a robust and innovative method to assure the quality of these measurements. We focus on the down-link as this is still the link that carries the most traffic to the user, and the quality of it will have a significant impact on all IP-based services. Results from measurements from several Swedish mobile operators reveal the possibility to partly control one-way delay and its variability by choosing appropriate packet sizes. In particular, packet sizes leading to the use of WCDMA entail significant but hardly varying one-way delays. On the other hand, we also show that HDSPA networks can deliver large amounts of data at rather high speed, but the cost is a huge variability in the one-way delay.