Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
lant biostimulants : Definition , concept , main categories and egulation atrick

A plant biostimulant is any substance or microorganism applied to plants with the aim to enhance nutrition efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance and/or crop quality traits, regardless of its nutrients content. By extension, plant biostimulants also designate commercial products containing mixtures of such substances and/or microorganisms. The definition proposed by this article is supported by arguments related to the scientific knowledge about the nature, modes of action and types of effects of biostimulants on crop and horticultural plants. Furthermore, the proposed definition aims at contributing to the acceptance of biostimulants by future regulations, especially in the EU, drawing the lines between biostimulants and fertilisers, pesticides or biocontrol agents. Many biostimulants improve nutrition and they do so regardless of their nutrients contents. Biofertilisers, which we propose as a subcategory of biostimulants, increase nutrient use efficiency and open new routes of nutrients acquisition by plants. In this sense, microbial biostimulants include mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal fungi, bacterial endosymbionts (like Rhizobium) and Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria. Thus, microorganisms applied to plants can have a dual function of biocontrol agent and of biostimulant, and the claimed agricultural effect will be instrumental in their regulatory categorization. The present review gives an overview of the definition and concept of plant biostimulants, as well as the main categories. This paper will also briefly describe the legal and regulatory status of biostimulants, with a focus on the EU and the US, and outlines the drivers, opportunities and challenges of their market development. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Person-Specific Subspace Analysis for Unconstrained Familiar Face Identification

While significant strides have been made in the recognition of faces under controlled viewing conditions, face recognition “in the wild” remains a challenging unsolved problem [12, 13, 21]. Interestingly, while humans are generally excellent at identifying familiar individuals under such conditions, their performance is significantly worse with unfamiliar individuals [5] and groups [19], leading to the idea that brain may have enhanced or specialized representations of familiar individuals [6]. Inspired by these observations, we explored the use of a number of subspace analysis techniques, applied to various visual representations, to generate person-specific subspaces of “familiar” individuals for face identification. In particular, we introduce a person-specific application of partial least squares (PS-PLS) to generate per-individual subspaces, and show that operating in these subspaces yields state-of-the-art performance on the challenging PubFig83 familiar face identification benchmark. The results underscore the potential importance of incorporating a notion of familiarity into face recognition systems.
E unibus pluram: massive-scale software diversity as a defense mechanism

We contend that the time has come to revisit the idea of software diversity for defense purposes. Four fundamental paradigm shifts that have occurred in the past decade now make it viable to distribute a unique version of every program to every user. We outline a practical approach for providing compiler-generated software diversity on a massive scale. It is based on an "App Store" containing a diversification engine (a "multicompiler") that automatically generates a unique, but functionally identical version of every program each time that a downloader requests it. All the different versions of the same program behave in exactly the same way from the perspective of the end-user, but they implement their functionality in subtly different ways. As a result, any specific attack will succeed only on a small fraction of targets. An attacker would require a large number of different attacks and would have no way of knowing a priori which specific attack will succeed on which specific target. Hence, the cost to the attacker is raised dramatically. Equally importantly, our approach makes it much more difficult for an attacker to generate attack vectors by way of reverse engineering of security patches. An attacker requires two pieces of information to extract a vulnerability from a bug fix: the version of the program that is vulnerable and the specific patch that fixes the vulnerability. In an environment in which software is diversified and every instance of every program is unique, we can set things up so that the attacker never obtains a matching pair of vulnerable program and its corresponding bug fix that could be used to identify the vulnerability. We propose a mechanism for incremental updating of diversified software that has this property.
Effects of the estrous cycle and early pregnancy on uterine expression of Mx protein in sheep (Ovis aries).

Conceptuses of ruminant ungulates produce large amounts of a type I interferon, interferon-tau (IFNtau), which is the signal for maternal recognition of pregnancy. Induction of cellular Mx proteins is an important component of the response to type I interferon in the immune system, but Mx regulation and function have not been studied in the uterus. This study examined temporal and spatial alterations in ovine uterine Mx expression during the cycle and early pregnancy using immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, and Northern and slot-blot analysis. Sheep uterine endometrium expressed a single approximately 2.5-kilobase Mx mRNA transcript that was detectable at all stages of the estrous cycle and early pregnancy examined. In cyclic ewes, mRNA abundance in endometrium increased from Day 1 to peak levels at Day 13 and then declined to Day 15. In pregnant ewes, steady-state levels of Mx mRNA were first detected above the level in cyclic ewes at Day 13 postmating, were greater than 10-fold higher at Day 15, and remained elevated at Day 19. Expression of Mx mRNA in the myometrium did not change during the estrous cycle but increased approximately 23-fold between Days 11 and 15 of pregnancy. Immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization analysis revealed a similar temporal pattern of Mx expression. In cyclic ewes, Mx protein and mRNA were initially localized to the luminal epithelium at Days 1 and 3, increased from Days 5 to 13, especially in the shallow uterine glands, and then declined at Day 15. Pregnancy resulted in up-regulation of Mx expression in the luminal and glandular epithelium, stroma, and myometrium. Punctate Mx immunostaining and Mx mRNA concentrations were greatest when progesterone production was maximal during the estrous cycle and were strongly up-regulated by the conceptus across the entire uterine wall. It is suggested that a cascade of induction of Mx gene expression proceeds from the luminal epithelium to the outer longitudinal myometrium and that transcriptional activation of the promoter may involve both soluble cytokines (i.e., IFNtau) and steroid hormones (i.e., progesterone).
Weights of exact threshold functions

We consider Boolean exact threshold functions defined by linear equations and, more generally, polynomials of degree . We give upper and lower bounds on the maximum magnitude (absolute value) of the coefficients required to represent such functions. These bounds are very close. In the linear case in particular they are almost matching. This quantity is the same as the maximum magnitude of the integer coefficients of linear equations required to express every possible intersection of a hyperplane in and the Boolean cube or, in the general case, intersections of hypersurfaces of degree in and . In the process we construct new families of ill-conditioned matrices. We further stratify the problem (in the linear case) in terms of the dimension of the affine subspace spanned by the solutions and give upper and lower bounds in this case as well. There is a substantial gap between these bounds, a challenge for future work.
Involvement of histone H1 in the organization of the nucleosome and of the salt-dependent superstructures of chromatin

We describe the results of a systematic study, using electron microscopy, of the effects of ionic strength on the morphology of chromatin and of H1-depleted chromatin. With increasing ionic strength, chromatin folds up progressively from a filament of nucleosomes at approximately 1 mM monovalent salt through some intermediate higher- order helical structures (Thoma, F., and T. Koller, 1977, Cell 12:101- 107) with a fairly constant pitch but increasing numbers of nucleosomes per turn, until finally at 60 mM (or else in approximately 0.3 mM Mg++) a thick fiber of 250 A diameter is formed, corresponding to a structurally well-organized but not perfectly regular superhelix or solenoid of pitch approximately 110 A as described by Finch and Klug (1976, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 73:1897-1901). The numbers of nucleosomes per turn of the helical structures agree well with those which can be calculated from the light-scattering data of Campbell et al. (1978, Nucleic Acids Res. 5:1571-1580). H1-depleted chromatin also condenses with increasing ionic strength but not so densely as chromatin and not into a definite structure with a well-defined fiber direction. At very low ionic strengths, nucleosomes are present in chromatin but not in H1-depleted chromatin which has the form of an unravelled filament. At somewhat higher ionic strengths (greater than 5 mM triethanolamine chloride), nucleosomes are visible in both types of specimen but the fine details are different. In chromatin containing H1, the DNA enters and leaves the nucleosome on the same side but in chromatin depleted of H1 the entrance and exit points are much more random and more or less on opposite sides of the nucleosome. We conclude that H1 stabilizes the nucleosome and is located in the region of the exit and entry points of the DNA. This result is correlated with biochemical and x-ray crystallographic results on the internal structure of the nucleosome core to give a picture of a nucleosome in which H1 is bound to the unique region on a complete two-turn, 166 base pair particle (Fig. 15). In the formation of higher-order structures, these regions on neighboring nucleosomes come closer together so that an H1 polymer may be formed in the center of the superhelical structures.
N omega-amino-L-arginine, an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, raises vascular resistance but increases mortality rates in awake canines challenged with endotoxin

Inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) have been reported to increase mean arterial pressure in animal models of sepsis and recently have been given to patients in septic shock. However, controlled studies to determine the effects of these agents on cardiovascular function and survival in awake animal models of sepsis have not been reported. To examine the therapeutic potential of NOS inhibition in septic shock, we challenged canines with endotoxin (2 or 4 mg/kg i.v.) and treated them with either normal saline or N omega-amino-L-arginine (10 or 1 mg/kg/h), the most specific inhibitor available for the isoform of NOS implicated in septic shock. Endotoxemic animals treated with N omega-amino-L-arginine (n = 11) had higher systemic and pulmonary vascular resistance indices (SVRI and PVRI, p less than or equal to 0.033) and decreased heart rates (p = 0.009), cardiac indices (CI, p = 0.01), oxygen delivery indices (p = 0.027), and oxygen consumption indices (p = 0.046) compared with controls (n = 6). Moreover, N omega-amino-L-arginine increased mortality rates after endotoxin challenge (10 of 11 vs. 1 of 6 controls, p = 0.005). Administration of L-arginine did not improve survival or alter the cardiopulmonary effects of N omega-amino-L-arginine, which suggests that inhibition of NOS may not have been competitive. In normal animals, N omega-amino-L-arginine alone (n = 3) increased SVRI (p = 0.0008) and mean arterial pressure (p = 0.016), and decreased CI (p = 0.01) compared with saline-treated controls (n = 3), but, at the high dose, also produced neuromuscular rigidity and seizure-like activity that was not apparent in the endotoxemic model. Thus, the mortality rate from endotoxemia increased either because of NOS inhibition per se or because of properties unique to N omega-amino-L-arginine, or both.
Stad, IKT (ICT) en beleid : 'n kognitiewe benadering : internasionaal

Die artikel is gerig op 'n ondersoek na die rol wat inligting en kommunikasie tegnologie (IKT) in stede speel. Hierdie ondersoek fokus op stedelike openbare beleid betreffende die IKT sektor nadat ? n bree oorsig oor die moontlikhede van IKT vanuit 'n geografiese perspektief asook die impak daarvan op stedelike beleid oor die IKT sektor bespreek is. Die hipotese word gemaak dat stedelike IKT beleid tot 'n groot mate direk deur 'sagte' faktore soos beeld en persepsie gemaak word, wat besluite wat deur munisipale regerings geneem word, merkwaardig beinvloed. Stad, ICT en beleid : een cognitieve benadering Dit artikel richt zich op de rol van de informatie- en communicatietechnologie (ICT) in de stad. Na een breed overzicht van de mogelijkheden van ICT in een geografisch perspectief en van de mogelijke impact daarvan op het stedelijk beleid met betrekking tot de ICT-sector, concentreert het artikel zich op stedelijk openbaar beleid aangaande de ICT-sector. Dit onderzoek poneert de stelling dat stedelijk ICT-beleid in belangrijke mate wordt gestuurd door 'zachte' factoren als imago en perceptie, die de beslissingen van het stadsbestuur significant beinvloeden. City, ICT and policy : a cognitive approach This article is aimed at investigating the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the city. After a broad overview of the possibilities of ICT from a geographical perspective, as well as of the impact thereof on urban policy with regard to the ICT sector, the investigation is focused on urban public policy concerning the ICT sector. The hypothesis is made that urban ICT policy is, to a large extent, directed by 'soft' factors, like image and perception, which significantly influence the decisions made by municipal governments.
A variant form of median defect syndrome. Syndrome of combined congenital defects involving the supraumbilical abdominal wall, sternum, diaphragm, pericardium, and heart.

An autopsy case with the syndrome of combined congenital defects involving the supraumbilical abdominal wall, sternum, diaphragm, pericardium, and heart is reported. In this case, abnormal arterial plexus including anastomosis of the left coronary artery and the left internal mammary artery is recognized at the hernial pericardial wall, in addition to the already reported anomaly complex, i.e. diastasis recti abdominis with pericardial hernia, ventral defect of the diaphragm, partial defect of the sternum, and tetralogy of Fallot. It is suggested that this newly revealed vascular anomaly also comes within a specific syndrome of combined congenital defects.
Cloud Incident Management, Challenges, Research Directions, and Architectural Approach

With the ongoing advancements in Cloud Computing, new technologies and standards are being developed, ever increasing the complexity of this environment along with the associated risks, thus making it difficult for companies to take advantage of the benefits Cloud Computing brings without being exposed to them. Due to this increased complexity, there is an increased chance of a deviation from the normal operation which can lead to a reduction or interruption of quality of service, to service shortages, to an incident. Cloud Incident Management is thus an important research direction that is being addressed in this paper, which focuses on providing a complete support for the cloud incident lifecycle from its detection to its resolution. The paper covers existing solutions and standards, challenges and open issues as well as proposes an architecture for Cloud Incident Management.
Personal Dividend and Capital Gains Taxes : Further Examination of the Signaling Bang for the Buck

In this study, we examine the impact of dividend and capital gains taxes on dividendincrease announcement returns. Consistent with Bernheim and Wantz (1995), we find dividend announcement returns increase in the dividend tax rate. In contrast to existing signaling models, however, we also find robust evidence that dividend announcement returns increase in the capital gains tax rate. This anomalous new result sheds new light on the bang-for-the-buck findings in Bernheim and Wantz (1995) and it raises new questions regarding the role for personal taxes in dividend announcement returns. We express appreciation for helpful comments from seminar participants at the Columbia University Burton Conference and from New York University. Professor Kemsley and Professor Nissim also express appreciation for financial assistance from the Columbia Business School Research Program in Tax. 607 Uris Hall, 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027; phone: (212) 854-2641; fax: (212) 3169219; dk151@columbia.edu. 604 Uris Hall, 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027; phone: (212) 854-4249; fax: (212) 316-9219; dn75@columbia.edu. Yale School of Management, 135 Prospect Street, P.O. Box 208200, New Haven, CT, 06520-2800, (203) 432-5977, mgw9@som.yale. edu.
Evaluating Fuzzy Analogy on incomplete software projects data

Missing Data (MD) is a widespread problem that can affect the ability to use data to construct effective software development effort prediction systems. This paper investigates the use of missing data (MD) techniques with Fuzzy Analogy. More specifically, this study analyze the predictive performance of this analogy-based technique when using toleration, deletion or k-nearest neighbors (KNN) imputation techniques using the Pred(0.25) accuracy criterion and thereafter compares the results with the findings when using the Standardized Accuracy (SA) measure. A total of 756 experiments were conducted involving seven data sets, three MD techniques (toleration, deletion and KNN imputation), three missingness mechanisms (MCAR: missing completely at random, MAR: missing at random, NIM: non-ignorable missing), and MD percentages from 10 percent to 90 percent. The results of accuracy measured in terms of Pred(0.25) confirm the findings of a study which used the SA measure. Moreover, we found that SA and Pred(0.25) measure different aspects of technique performance. Hence, SA is not sufficient to conclude about the technique accuracy and it should be used with other metrics, especially Pred(0.25).
Implementing a Built-In Self-Test PLA Design

An NMOS implementation of a new built-in self-test PLA design is presented. The layouts for its additional test circuitry result in appoximately 15-percent overhead for most large PlAS, a significantly better overhead than that of any existing scheme. Both the input test patterns and the output responses, which are compressed intoastring of parity bits, are independent of the functions that the PLA realizes, and the 15-percent overhead includes the storage needed for the fault-free compressed output data. The fault coverage of this approach consists of all single and (1-2 -( 2n + m)) of all multiple stuck, crosspoint, and bridging faults in the original PLA and the additional test circuitry (n and m are the number of input variables and product terms, respectively). The article begins with a short review of existing design schemes.
Specificity Determinants of CYP 1 B 1 Estradiol Hydroxylation

Cytochrome P450 (P450)-catalyzed oxidation of the aromatic ring of estradiol can result in 2or 4-hydroxylation. Which of these products is formed is biologically important, as the 4hydroxylated metabolite is carcinogenic, whereas the 2-hydroxylated metabolite is not. Most human P450 enzymes, including CYP1A1 and CYP1A2, exhibit a high preference for estradiol 2hydroxylation, but human CYP1B1 greatly favors 4-hydroxylation. Here we show that heterologous expression of the human, monkey, dog, rat, and mouse CYP1B1 enzymes yields active proteins that differ in their estradiol hydroxylation specificity. The monkey and dog orthologs, like the human enzyme, preferentially catalyze 4-hydroxylation, but the rat and mouse enzymes favor 2-hydroxylation. Analysis of the CYP1B1 sequences in light of these findings suggested that one residue, Val395 in human CYP1B1, could account for the differential hydroxylation specificities. In fact, mutation of this valine in human CYP1B1 to the leucine present in the rat enzyme produces a human enzyme that has the 2-hydroxylation specificity of the rat enzyme. The converse is true when the leucine in the rat enzyme is mutated to the human valine. The role of CYP1B1 in estradiol carcinogenicity thus depends on the identity of this single amino acid residue.
Nitric oxide synthase in the human glaucomatous optic nerve head.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the hypothesis that nitric oxide contributes to neurotoxicity in the optic nerve heads of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma, we have determined the presence of the 3 isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) in the tissue. METHODS Histological sections of optic nerve heads from normal subjects and patients with glaucoma who have moderate to advanced nerve damage were studied by immunohistochemistry. Polyclonal antibodies to NOS-1, NOS-2, and NOS-3 were localized with immunoperoxidase staining. RESULTS In normal eyes, NOS-1 is sparsely present in astrocytes throughout the optic nerve head. In glaucomatous optic nerve heads, almost every astrocyte is positive for NOS-1. Nitric oxide synthase-1 immunoreactivity is abundantly present throughout the prelaminar region and the lamina cribrosa and is localized inside the diminished nerve fiber bundles. Nitric oxide synthase-2 is present in a few cells in the disorganized lamina cribrosa of the glaucomatous eye and is not present at all in normal tissue. Nitric oxide synthase-3 is present in normal eyes in the vascular endothelia of small blood vessels of the prelaminar region. In glaucomatous tissue, NOS-3 is present in astrocytes and in the vascular endothelia of large and small vessels. CONCLUSIONS The 3 isoforms of NOS are present in apparently increased amounts in the optic nerve head of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma. The increased presence of NOS-1 and the induction of NOS-2 in astrocytes of the lamina cribrosa suggest that the glaucomatous optic nerve head is exposed to excessive levels of nitric oxide, which may be neurodestructive, locally, to the axons of the retinal ganglion cells. Conversely, the increased presence of NOS-3 in vascular endothelia may be neuroprotective by causing vasodilation and increased blood flow in the tissue.
Towards automatic transcription of Syriac handwriting

We describe a method implemented for the recognition of Syriac handwriting from historical manuscripts. The Syriac language has been a neglected area for handwriting recognition research, yet is interesting because the preponderance of scribe-written manuscripts offers a challenging yet tractable medium for OCR research between the extremes of typewritten text and free handwriting. Like Arabic, Syriac is written in a cursive form from right-to-left, and letter shape depends on the position within the word. The method described does not need to find character strokes or contours. Both whole words and character shapes were used in recognition experiments. After segmentation using a novel probabilistic method, features of these shapes are found that tolerate variation in formation and image quality. Each shape is recognised individually using a discriminative support vector machine with 10-fold cross-validation. We describe experiments using a variety of segmentation methods and combinations of features on characters and words. Images from scribe-written historical manuscripts are used, and the recognition results are compared with those for images taken from clearer 19th century typeset documents. Recognition rates vary from 61-100%, depending on the algorithms used and the size and source of the data set.