Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Root Branching Is a Leading Root Trait of the Plant Economics Spectrum in Temperate Trees

Global vegetation models use conceived relationships between functional traits to simulate ecosystem responses to environmental change. In this context, the concept of the leaf economics spectrum (LES) suggests coordinated leaf trait variation, and separates species which invest resources into short-lived leaves with a high expected energy return rate from species with longer-lived leaves and slower energy return. While it has been assumed that being fast (acquisitive) or slow (conservative) is a general feature for all organ systems, the translation of the LES into a root economics spectrum (RES) for tree species has been hitherto inconclusive. This may be partly due to the assumption that the bulk of tree fine roots have similar uptake functions as leaves, despite the heterogeneity of their environments and resources. In this study we investigated well-established functional leaf and stature traits as well as a high number of fine root traits (14 traits split by different root orders) of 13 dominant or subdominant temperate tree species of Central Europe, representing two phylogenetic groups (gymnosperms and angiosperms) and two mycorrhizal associations (arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal). We found reflected variation in leaf and lower-order root traits in some (surface areas and C:N) but not all (N content and longevity) traits central to the LES. Accordingly, the LES was not mirrored belowground. We identified significant phylogenetic signal in morphological lower-order root traits, i.e., in root tissue density, root diameter, and specific root length. By contrast, root architecture (root branching) was influenced by the mycorrhizal association type which developed independent from phylogeny of the host tree. In structural equation models we show that root branching significantly influences both belowground (direct influence on root C:N) and aboveground (indirect influences on specific leaf area and leaf longevity) traits which relate to resource investment and lifespan. We conclude that branching of lower order roots can be considered a leading root trait of the plant economics spectrum of temperate trees, since it relates to the mycorrhizal association type and belowground resource exploitation; while the dominance of the phylogenetic signal over environmental filtering makes morphological root traits less central for tree economics spectra across different environments.
Generation of a Membrane Potential by Lactococcus lactis through Aerobic Electron Transport

ABSTRACT Lactococcus lactis, a facultative anaerobic lactic acid bacterium, is known to have an increased growth yield when grown aerobically in the presence of heme. We have now established the presence of a functional, proton motive force-generating electron transfer chain (ETC) in L. lactis under these conditions. Proton motive force generation in whole cells was measured using a fluorescent probe (3′,3′-dipropylthiadicarbocyanine), which is sensitive to changes in membrane potential (Δψ). Wild-type cells, grown aerobically in the presence of heme, generated a Δψ even in the presence of the F1-Fo ATPase inhibitor N,N′-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide, while a cytochrome bd-negative mutant strain (CydAΔ) did not. We also observed high oxygen consumption rates by membrane vesicles prepared from heme-grown cells, compared to CydAΔ cells, upon the addition of NADH. This demonstrates that NADH is an electron donor for the L. lactis ETC and demonstrates the presence of a membrane-bound NADH-dehydrogenase. Furthermore, we show that the functional respiratory chain is present throughout the exponential and late phases of growth.
Comparative analysis of the effects combined physical procedures and alpha-lipoic acid on the electroneurographic parameters of patients with distal sensorimotor diabetic polyneuropathy

[Purpose] Painful diabetic polyneuropathy occurs as a complication in 16% of all patients with diabetes mellitus. [Subjects and Methods] A clinical, prospective open-label randomized intervention study was conducted of 60 adult patients, with distal sensorimotor diabetic neuropathy two groups of 30 patients, with diabetes mellitus type 2 with distal sensorimotor diabetic neuropathy. Patients in group A were treated with combined physical procedures, and patients in group B were treated with alpha lipoic acid. [Results] There where a statistically significant improvements in terminal latency and the amplitude of the action potential in group A patients, while group B patients showed a statistically significant improvements in conduction velocity and terminal latency of n. peroneus. Group A patients showed a statistically significant improvements in conduction velocity and terminal latency, while group B patients also showed a statistically significant improvements in conduction velocity and terminal latency. This was reflected in a significant improvements in electrophysiological parameters (conduction velocity, amplitude and latency) of the motor and sensory nerves (n. peroneus, n. suralis). [Conclusion] These results present further evidence justifying of the use of physical agents in the treatment of diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy.
Statistical behaviour of the leaves of Riccati foliations

Abstract We introduce the geodesic flow on the leaves of a holomorphic foliation with leaves of dimension one and hyperbolic, corresponding to the unique complete metric of curvature −1 compatible with its conformal structure. We do these for the foliations associated to Riccati equations, which are the projectivization of the solutions of linear ordinary differential equations over a finite Riemann surface of hyperbolic type S, and may be described by a representation ρ:π1(S)→GL(n,ℂ). We give conditions under which the foliated geodesic flow has a generic repeller–attractor statistical dynamics. That is, there are measures μ− and μ+ such that for almost any initial condition with respect to the Lebesgue measure class the statistical average of the foliated geodesic flow converges for negative time to μ− and for positive time to μ+ (i.e. μ+ is the unique Sinaï, Ruelle and Bowen (SRB)-measure and its basin has total Lebesgue measure). These measures are ergodic with respect to the foliated geodesic flow. These measures are also invariant under a foliated horocycle flow and they project to a harmonic measure for the Riccati foliation, which plays the role of an attractor for the statistical behaviour of the leaves of the foliation.
Shear bond strength of bulk-fill and nano-restorative materials to dentin

Objectives: Bulk-fill composite materials are being developed for preparation depths of up to 4 mm in an effort to simplify and improve the placement of direct composite posterior restorations. The aim of our study was to compare shear-bond strength of bulk-fill and conventional posterior composite resins. Materials and Methods: In this study, 60 caries free extracted human molars were used and sectioned parallel to occlusal surface to expose midcoronal dentin. The specimens were randomly divided into four groups. Total-etch dentine bonding system (Adper Scotchbond 1XT, 3M ESPE) was applied to dentin surface in all the groups to reduce variability in results. Then, dentine surfaces covered by following materials. Group I: SonicFill Bulk-Fill, Group II: Tetric EvoCeram (TBF), Group III: Herculite XRV Ultra, and Group IV: TBF Bulk-Fill, 2 mm × 3 mm cylindrical restorations were prepared by using application apparatus. Shear bond testing was measured by using a universal testing machine. Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U-tests were performed to evaluate the data.Results: The highest value was observed in Group III (14.42 ± 4.34) and the lowest value was observed in Group IV (11.16 ± 2.76) and there is a statistically significant difference between these groups (P = 0.046). However, there is no statistically significant difference between the values of other groups. In this study, Group III was showed higher strength values. Conclusion: There is a need for future studies about long-term bond strength and clinical success of these adhesive and bulk-fill systems.
A Hybrid Method of Noise Robust Speech Recognition Based on Fractional Spectral Subtraction and Perceptual Linear Preditive

By combining Fractional Spectral Subtraction (FSS) with Perceptual Linear Predictive (PLP), a hybrid method of noise robustness speech recognition isinvestigated in this paper. This method uses FSS for noisy speech to reduce noise components in the fractional Fourier domain. According to the results ofcomputing Itakura distance and Mean Square Error (MSE), an approximate optimal fractional order is then obtained by comparing the difference betweenthem. Perceptual Linear Predictive Cepstral Coefficients (PLPCC) is finally computed for the enhanced speech in terms of the above obtained order.It is shown that this hybrid method performs better compared with conventional spectral subtraction and PLPCC for digits speech recognition experiments. Moreover, this method denotes good noise robustness when noise levels increases.
A stratified first order logic approach for access control

Modeling information security policies is an important problem in many domains. This is particularly true in the health care sector, where information systems often manage sensitive and critical data. This article proposes to use nonmonotonic reasoning systems to control access to sensitive data in accordance with a security policy. In the first part of the article, we propose an access control model that overcomes several limitations of existing systems. In particular, it allows us to deal with contexts and to represent the two main kinds of privileges: permissions and prohibitions. This model will then be formally encoded using stratified (or prioritized) first‐order knowledge bases. In the second part of the article, we discuss the problem of conflicts due to the joint handling of permissions and prohibitions. We show that approaches proposed for solving conflicts in propositional knowledge bases are not appropriate for handling inconsistent first‐order knowledge bases. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 19: 817–836, 2004.
A Markov random field approach to spatio-temporal contextual image classification

Markov random fields (MRFs) provide a useful and theoretically well-established tool for integrating temporal contextual information into the classification process. In particular, when dealing with a sequence of temporal images, the usual MRF-based approach consists in adopting a "cascade" scheme, i.e., in propagating the temporal information from the current image to the next one of the sequence. The simplicity of the cascade scheme makes it attractive; on the other hand, it does not fully exploit the temporal information available in a sequence of temporal images. In this paper, a "mutual" MRF approach is proposed that aims at improving both the accuracy and the reliability of the classification process by means of a better exploitation of the temporal information. It involves carrying out a bidirectional exchange of the temporal information between the defined single-time MRF models of consecutive images. A difficult issue related to MRFs is the determination of the MRF model parameters that weight the energy terms related to the available information sources. To solve this problem, we propose a simple and fast method based on the concept of "minimum perturbation" and implemented with the pseudoinverse technique for the minimization of the sum of squared errors. Experimental results on a multitemporal dataset made up of two multisensor (Landsat Thematic Mapper and European Remote Sensing 1 synthetic aperture radar) images are reported. The results obtained by the proposed "mutual" approach show a clear improvement in terms of classification accuracy over those yielded by a reference MRF-based classifier. The presented method to automatically estimate the MRF parameters yielded significant results that make it an attractive alternative to the usual trial-and-error search procedure.
Prevalence of Desmin Mutations in Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Background— Desmin-related myofibrillar myopathy (DRM) is a cardiac and skeletal muscle disease caused by mutations in the desmin (DES) gene. Mutations in the central 2B domain of DES cause skeletal muscle disease that typically precedes cardiac involvement. However, the prevalence of DES mutations in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) without skeletal muscle disease is not known. Methods and Results— Denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography was used to screen DES for mutations in 116 DCM families from the Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy Registry and in 309 subjects with DCM from the Beta-Blocker Evaluation of Survival Trial (BEST). DES mutations were transfected into SW13 and human smooth muscle cells and neonatal rat cardiac myocytes, and the effects on cytoskeletal desmin network architecture were analyzed with confocal microscopy. Five novel missense DES mutations, including the first localized to the highly conserved 1A domain, were detected in 6 subjects (1.4%). Transfection of DES mutations in the 2B domain severely disrupted the fine intracytoplasmic staining of desmin, causing clumping of the desmin protein. A tail domain mutation (Val459Ile) showed milder effects on desmin cytoplasmic network formation and appears to be a low-penetrant mutation restricted to black subjects. Conclusions— The prevalence of DES mutations in DCM is between 1% and 2%, and mutations in the 1A helical domain, as well as the 2B rod domain, are capable of causing a DCM phenotype. The lack of severe disruption of cytoskeletal desmin network formation seen with mutations in the 1A and tail domains suggests that dysfunction of seemingly intact desmin networks is sufficient to cause DCM.
Ranking approach to RecSys Challenge

In this paper we describe our approach to solve RecSys Challenge 2014. The challenge is to rank user's auto generated IMDB rating tweets by their favorited and shared count. Our approach is to formulate this as a ranking problem. We treat a single user as a query and all of the known tweets are treated as matching documents. We then apply various learning to rank approaches and pick the best performing.
Virtual Communities of Practice: Knowledge Retrieval, Contextualization and Establishment of Weak Trust in Multinational Corporations

This chapter focuses on virtual communities of practices, and whether participation in such forums improves knowledge retrieval processes by overcoming problems of contextual gaps between the sender and the receiver of knowledge. Most multinational corporations (MNCs) have invested heavily in computer systems that help employees to easily download documents, but problems still arise when the searched knowledge is removed from its context and thereby loses some or all of its meaning to the reader. This article, though, differentiates the conventional wisdom that employee socialization, resulting from physical proximity that facilitates contextualization and trust building processes allows transfer of complex and tacit knowledge, (Cohendet et al., 1999; Constant et al., 1994; Granovetter, 1972; Hansen, 1999; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) as in the case of communities of practice (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Here, it will be pointed out that proximity is seldom the case of the MNC – having operations spanning the globe – which makes most communication “global rather than local” (Li et al., 2007). In this chapter it will, therefore, be questioned whether knowledge retrieval can be AbSTRACT
Set-Consensus Collections are Decidable

A natural way to measure the power of a distributed-computing model is to characterize the set of tasks that can be solved in it. %the model. In general, however, the question of whether a given task can be solved in a given model is undecidable, even if we only consider the wait-free shared-memory model. In this paper, we address this question for restricted classes of models and tasks. We show that the question of whether a collection $C$ of \emph{$(\ell,j)$-set consensus} objects, for various $\ell$ (the number of processes that can invoke the object) and $j$ (the number of distinct outputs the object returns), can be used by $n$ processes to solve wait-free $k$-set consensus is decidable. Moreover, we provide a simple $O(n^2)$ decision algorithm, based on a dynamic programming solution to the Knapsack optimization problem. We then present an \emph{adaptive} wait-free set-consensus algorithm that, for each set of participating processes, achieves the best level of agreement that is possible to achieve using $C$. Overall, this gives us a complete characterization of a read-write model defined by a collection of set-consensus objects through its \emph{set-consensus power}.
A flow-based approach for variant parametric types

A promising approach for type-safe generic codes in the object-oriented paradigm is variant parametric type, which allows covariant and contravariant subtyping on fields where appropriate. Previous approaches formalise variant type as a special case of the existential type system. In this paper, we present a new framework based on flow analysis and modular type checking to provide a simple but accurate model for capturing generic types. Our scheme stands to benefit from past (and future) advances in flow analysis and subtyping constraints. Furthermore, it fully supports casting for variant types with a special reflection mechanism, called cast capture, to handle objects with unknown types. We have built a constraint-based type checker and have proven its soundness. We have also successfully annotated a suite of Java libraries and client code with our flow-based variant type system.
An On-line Backup Function for a Clustered NAS System (X-NAS)

An on-line backup function for X-NAS, a clustered NAS system designed for entry-level NAS, has been developed. The on-line backup function can replicate file objects on XNAS to a remote NAS in real-time. It makes use of the virtualized global file system of X-NAS, and sends NFS write operations to both X-NAS and the remote backup NAS at the same time. The performance of the on-line backup function was evaluated and the evaluation results show that the on-line backup function of X-NAS improves the system reliability while maintaining 80% of the throughput of the X-NAS without this function.
Presenter First : TDD for Large , Complex Applications with Graphical User Interfaces

Presenter First extends the benefits of functionality organized, customer prioritized, test driven development to complex applications with graphical user interfaces. A variation of the Model View Presenter pattern is used to isolate and test customer specified functionality. Unit testing the presenter allows for test driven development to be applied to customer described functionality. This creates an executable design specification for the behavior of the application, independent of the implementation of the user interface and business logic. Given the difficulty and cost of automating system tests for applications with GUIs, unit testing the presenter is a more economical means to achieve test coverage of system functionality. In addition, by concentrating on the functionality specified by the customer and developing the presenter first, minimal and complete requirements for the model and view are automatically uncovered. A complex color measurement . NET/C# application suite developed by the authors is used to illustrate Presenter First.
Oxidative Stress, Cytotoxicity and Genotoxicity in Earthworm Eisenia fetida at Different Di-n-Butyl Phthalate Exposure Levels

Recognized as ubiquitous contaminants in soil, the environmental risk of phthalic acid esters (PAEs) is of great concern recently. Effects of di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP), an extensively used PAE compound to Eisenia fetida have been investigated in spiked natural brown yellow soil (Alfisol) for soil contact test. The toxicity of DnBP to E. fetida on the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, peroxidase (POD), reactive oxygen species (ROS) content, and the apoptosis of coelomocytes and DNA damage at the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day of the incubation have been paid close attention to. In general, SOD activity and ROS content were significantly induced, opposite to total protein content and POD activity, during the toxicity test of 28 days especially under concentrations higher than 2.5 mg kg-1. The reduction in neutral red retention (NRR) time along with the increase of dead coelomocytes as the increasing of DnBP concentrations, indicating severe damage to cell viability under varying pollutant stress during cultivation, which could also be proved by comet assay results for exerting evident DNA damage in coelomocytes. DnBP in spiked natural soil could indeed cause damage to tissues, coelomocytes and the nucleus of E. fetida. The key point of the apparent change in different indices presented around 2.5 mg DnBP kg-1 soil, which could be recommended as the threshold of DnBP soil contamination, so that further investigation on threshold values to other soil animals or microorganisms could be discussed.
Human Computer Interaction – An Overview in Other Disciplines

In this paper, an overview of different kinds of approaches in phenomenology, philosophy and many more concerning Human Computer Interaction (HCI) are shortly introduced. The outreach as well as complexity of computer technology has grown during the last decades, so that many people working with computers are not necessarily in this same profession. Therefore it has gotten more important to consider the aspect of human perception and comprehension of environment into HCI. Many people have done research in this area, but most without connecting their research to the use in HCI. This paper will introduce some general ideas of these people and give a few examples for what it may be useful for in HCI. It provides a basis and insight to awaken interest for approaches which may be integrated into research or development of design processes in HCI.
LHash: A Lightweight Hash Function (Full Version)

In this paper, we propose a new lightweight hash function supporting three different digest sizes: 80, 96 and 128 bits, providing preimage security from 64 to 120 bits, second preimage and collision security from 40 to 60 bits. LHash requires about 817 GE and 1028 GE with a serialized implementation. In faster implementations based on function T , LHash requires 989 GE and 1200 GE with 54 and 72 cycles per block, respectively. Furthermore, its energy consumption evaluated by energy per bit is also remarkable. LHash allows to make trade-offs among security, speed, energy consumption and implementation costs by adjusting parameters. The design of LHash employs a kind of Feistel-PG structure in the internal permutation, and this structure can utilize permutation layers on nibbles to improve the diffusion speed. The adaptability of LHash in different environments is good, since different versions of LHash share the same basic computing module. The low-area implementation comes from the hardware-friendly S- box and linear diffusion layer. We evaluate the resistance of LHash against known attacks and confirm that LHash provides a good security margin.