Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Multi‐scale Marked Area‐interaction Point Process: A Model for the Spatial Pattern of Trees

Abstract. The spatial pattern of trees in forests often combines different types of structure (regularity, clustering or randomness) at different scales. Taking species or size into account leads to marked patterns. The question addressed is to model such multi‐scale marked patterns using a single process. Within the category of Markov processes, the area‐interaction process has the advantage of being locally stable, whether it is attractive or repulsive. This process was originally defined as a one‐scale non‐marked process. We propose an extension as a multi‐scale marked process. Three examples are presented to show the adequacy of this process to model tree patterns: 1. A pine pattern showing anisotropic regularity and clustering at different scales. 2. A bivariate (adult/juvenile) kimboto pattern in French Guiana, showing regularity for one type, clustering for the other and repulsion between the two. 3. A marked pattern in Gabon where the mark is tree diameter.
A Bootstrap Test for Positive Definiteness of Income Effect Matrices

Positive definiteness of income effect matrices provides a sufficient condition for the law of demand to hold. Given cross section household expenditure data, empirical evidence for the law of demand can be obtained by estimating such matrices. Härdle, Hildenbrand, and Jerison used the bootstrap method to simulate the distribution of the smallest eigenvalue of random matrices and to test their positive definiteness. Here, theoretical aspects of this bootstrap test of positive definiteness are considered. The asymptotic distribution of the smallest eigenvalue , of the matrix estimate is obtained. This theory applies generally to symmetric, asymptotically normal random matrices. A bootstrap approximation to the distribution of is shown to converge in probability to the asymptotic distribution of . The bootstrap test is illustrated using British family expenditure survey data.
Two-dimensional Structure of a Polar Coronal Hole at Solar Minimum: New Semiempirical Methodology for Deriving Plasma Parameters

We develop a new technique to determine the plasma parameters in a polar coronal hole. This method makes use of the line intensities of the H I Lyα λ1215. 6 line and of the O VI λλ1031. 9, 1037.6 doublet, measured with the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on board the ESA-NASA solar spacecraft Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) during 1996 August. The observed intensities are self-consistently reproduced with a two-dimensional semiempirical coronal hole model, for heliocentric distances between 1.4 and 2.6 R☉ and latitudes between 90° (north pole) and 40°. Electron densities are derived by separating the O VI doublet collisional components from those due to resonant scattering. The calculated electron density radial profiles are consistent with typical polar coronal hole data and show only a moderate increase with latitude decreasing, in regions close to the equatorial streamer. The outflow speeds of protons and O VI ions are determined by means of the Doppler dimming technique. In the Doppler dimming analysis we use kinetic temperatures Tk derived from UVCS observations of the line profiles, whenever available, or we keep Tk as a free parameter if not provided by data. Mass flux conservation along the magnetic field lines is studied adopting a simple analytical model for the geometry of the magnetic flux tubes. Our model shows that protons and O VI ions accelerate outward, but their outflow speed turns out to decrease slowly as latitude decreases. The O VI speed, initially comparable to the speed of protons, exceeds the proton speed beyond ~1.7 R☉. Anisotropic O VI kinetic temperatures, T∥ and T⊥, turn out to be necessary to ensure the consistency of the model parameters with mass flux conservation, while the H kinetic temperature distribution is kept isotropic. Results from our model are compared with those from other two-dimensional models recently developed.
Comparison of hemodynamic response functions obtained from resting-state functional MRI and invasive electrophysiological recordings in rats

Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) is a popular technology that has enriched our understanding of brain and spinal cord functioning, including how different regions communicate (connectivity). But fMRI is an indirect measure of neural activity capturing blood hemodynamics. The hemodynamic response function (HRF) interfaces between the unmeasured neural activity and measured fMRI time series. The HRF is variable across brain regions and individuals, and is modulated by non-neural factors. Ignoring this HRF variability causes errors in FC estimates. Hence, it is crucial to reliably estimate the HRF from rs-fMRI data. Robust techniques have emerged to estimate the HRF from fMRI time series. Although such techniques have been validated non-invasively using simulated and empirical fMRI data, thorough invasive validation using simultaneous electrophysiological recordings, the gold standard, has been elusive. This report addresses this gap in the literature by comparing HRFs derived from invasive intracranial electroencephalogram recordings with HRFs estimated from simultaneously acquired fMRI data in six epileptic rats. We found that the HRF shape parameters (HRF amplitude, latency and width) were not significantly different (p>0.05) between ground truth and estimated HRFs. In the single pathological region, the HRF width was marginally significantly different (p=0.03). Our study provides preliminary invasive validation for the efficacy of the HRF estimation technique in reliably estimating the HRF non-invasively from rs-fMRI data directly. This has a notable impact on rs-fMRI connectivity studies, and we recommend that HRF deconvolution be performed to minimize HRF variability and improve connectivity estimates.
Network-aware recommendations in online social networks

Along with the rapid increase of using social networks sites such as Twitter, a massive number of tweets published every day which generally affect the users decision to forward what they receive of information, and result in making them feel overwhelmed with this information. Then, it is important for this services to help the users not lose their focus from what is close to their interests, and to find potentially interesting tweets. The problem that can occur in this case is called information overload, where an individual will encounter too much information in a short time period. For instance, in Twitter, the user can see a large number of tweets posted by her followees. To sort out this issue, recommender systems are used to give contents that match the user’s needs. This thesis presents a tweet-recommendation approach aiming at proposing novel tweets to users and achieving improvement over baseline. For this reason, we propose to exploit network, content, and retweet analyses for making recommendations of tweets. The main objective of this research is to recommend tweets that are unseen by the user (i.e., they do not appear in the user timeline) because nobody in her social circles published or retweeted them. To achieve this goal, we create the user’s ego-network up to depth two and apply the transitivity property of the friends-of-friends relationship to determine interesting recommendations. After this step, we apply cosine similarity and Jaccard distance as similarity measures for the candidate tweets obtained from the network analysis using bigrams. We also count the mutual retweets between the ego user and candidate users as a measure of shared similar tastes. The values of these features are compared together for each of the candidate tweets using pairwise comparisons in order to determine interesting recommendations that are ranked to best match the user’s interests. Experimental results demonstrate through a real user study that our approach improves the state-of-the-art technique. In addition to the efficiency of our approach in finding relevant contents, it is also characterized by the fact of providing novel tweets, which solves the over-specialization challenge or serendipity problem that appears when using content-based recommender systems as a stand alone approach of recommendation.
Experimental results in state estimation of industrial robots

A simple asymptotic observer, with linear and decoupled structure, is proposed for the estimation of the generalized velocities of a robotic manipulator. High-gains are used in the attenuation of the nonlinearities characterizing the dynamic behavior of the robot. Lyapunov stability theory is used to prove the convergence of the proposed observer and of the control laws based on such a high-gain observer. The accuracy of the proposed algorithm is verified through some experimental tests. <<ETX>>
Observations of Transient Linear Organization and Nonlinear Scale Interactions in Lake-Effect Clouds. Part I: Transient Linear Organization

Abstract The cold-air outbreak of 13–14 January 1998 during the Lake-Induced Convection Experiment was characterized by large positive buoyancy flux and moderate wind shear. Although theory predicts only cellular organization in these conditions, transient linear organization was observed. Time series of vertical velocity obtained with the Pennsylvania State University 94-GHz vertically pointing cloud radar, which is sensitive to cloud droplets and ice crystals, were used to document the changes in organization that occurred during this wintertime lake-effect event. The cloud radar was deployed on the downwind shore of southern Lake Michigan and measured high-temporal-resolution vertical velocity data at several in-cloud heights. The duration of the event was 18 h, encompassing three cycles of linear organization switching to cellular organization. In Part I of this two-part series the authors document the transient nature of the linearly organized convection and evaluate the role of atmospheric condition.
X-ray spectroscopy of dips of Cir X-1

We present X-ray spectral analyses of the low-mass X-ray binary Cir X-1 during X-ray dips, using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) data. Each dip was divided into several segments, and the spectrum of each segment was fitted with a three-component blackbody model, in which the first two components are affected by partial covering and the third one is unaffected. A Gaussian emission line is also included in the spectral model to represent the Fe K alpha line at similar to 6.4keV. The fitted temperatures of the two partially covered components are about 2 keV and I keV, while the uncovered component has a temperature of similar to 0.5-0.6keV. The equivalent blackbody emission radius of the hottest component is the smallest and that of the coolest component is the largest. During the dips the fluxes of the two hot components are linearly correlated, while that of the third component does not show any significant variation. The Fe line flux remains constant, within the errors, during the short dips. However, during the long dips the line flux varies significantly and is positively correlated with the fluxes of the two hot components. These results suggest: (1) that the temperature of the X-ray emitting region decreases with radius, (2) that the Fe Ka line emitting region is close to the hot continuum emitting region, and (3) that the size of the Fe line emitting region is larger than that of the obscuring matter causing the short dips but smaller than the region of that causing the long dips.
Scattering depolarization by a bio-medium with anisotropic bio-molecules

Light depolarization due to multiple scattering in tissue is an interesting bio-medical issue. The bio-tissue is made of anisotropic molecules. Using a simple ellipsoid model, the polarization property of single anisotropic bio-molecule has been investigated theoretically. We extend this theory to a bio-tissue that is modeled as a system of non-correlated anisotropic molecules. Based upon a statistical model of anisotropic distribution, the scattering depolarization effects are investigated. The simulated molecular orientation-dependent single scattering depolarization Ds (1) and the double scattering depolarization Ds (2) are reported. Ds (2) contribution is more important for high density scattering medium. This theory has provided a simulation tool for investigating the depolarization effect in the highly scattering bio-medium.
Diffraction of Plane Wave by Two Parallel Slits in an Infinitely Long Impedance Plane Using the Method of Kobayashi Potential

We studied the diffraction of E-polarized electromagnetic plane wave by two parallel slits in an infinitely long impedance plane. Analysis is based on the concept of Kobayashi potential. Imposition of required boundary conditions leads to dual integral equations. The dual integral equations can be reduced to matrix equations with the infinite unknowns by using the properties of Weber-Schafheitlin's discontinuous integrals and Jacobi's polynomials. Matrix elements are given in terms of indefinite integrals which are difficult to evaluate analytically. The matrix elements are solved numerically. Diffracted far fields in the upper half space are studied.
Permutation Tests: A Practical Guide to Resampling Methods for Testing Hypotheses

This book provides a step-by-step manual on the application of permutation tests in biology, medicine, science, and engineering. Its intuitive and informal style will ideally suit it as a text for students and researchers coming to these methods for the first time. In particular, it shows how the problems of missing and censored data, nonresponders, after-the-fact covariates, and outliers may be handled.
Observation of collision and oscillation of microdroplets with extremely large shear deformation

We measured the viscosity and surface tension of various liquids under large (∼106 s−1) shear deformation. Oscillation of a 10-μm size microdroplet is brought about by the head-on collision of two droplets. Since the Reynolds number is as small as 100, the motion of the liquid is stable and the dynamic image is obtained with high reproducibility by the stroboscopic method. By observing and evaluating the mechanical oscillation of the microdroplet, of which frequency ranges typically in 100 – 300 kHz, we found that the viscosity of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol is smaller than the known literature value, which is considered to be the viscosity at zero-frequency. This phenomena can be attributed to the slow viscous relaxation of associated liquids due to the re-combination dynamics of the network of H-bonds.
Moist dynamics and orographic precipitation

Uniformly stratified moist flow over a Gaussian-shaped circular mountain is investigated using anonhydrostatic mesoscale model. The focus is the interaction between flow stagnation and orographicprecipitation. Two closely related issues are addressed: the effect of condensation and precipitation onmountain flow stagnation, and the influence of flow blocking and latent heat on upslope precipitation. Itis demonstrated that latent heat release and precipitation can significantly delay the onset of mountainflow stagnation. The dynamical and thermodynamical nature of this modification can be qualitativelyunderstood using the moist stability concept. However, due to the vertical variation of the moist stability, it is not possible to define a single nondimensional mountain height to describe the general nonlinearityof moist orographic flow. The effect of flow blocking and splitting on the intensity and distribution oforographic precipitation is found to be significant. For lowmountains, the upslope ascent dominates andthe precipitation intensity is roughly proportional to the mountain height and windspeed as predicted byboth a slab model and the mesoscale model. For high mountains, this relationship breaks down becausethe mountain lift effect is reduced as the low level moist flow passes around the peak. An arc-shapedprecipitation band forms further upstream of the peak where the terrain slope is gentle, associatedwith the secondary circulation forced by the upstream flow blocking/reversal. The removal of latentheat processes leads to reduced upslope lift and enhanced windward blocking, thereby reducing themaximum precipitation rates and increasing the precipitation area.
Coarticulation in a whole event model of speech production

Previous models of coarticulation have used varying combinations of advance planning and on-line calculation of weighted averages to determine how temporally overlapping speech sounds interact [see Farnetani and Recasens, Hbk. Phonet. Sci. Wiley-Blackwell (2010)]. A robust model of coarticulation should be able to predict such local interactions, as well as to describe changes resulting from rate variation, which should influence degree of temporal overlap between adjacent events. Using a model of tongue-jaw-hyoid biomechanics [Stavness et al., J. Biomech. (2012)], the present paper demonstrates that typical cases of lingual coarticulation can be attributed to the intrinsic biomechanics of the human body in an entirely feed-forward model with no additional machinery. Biomechanical modeling outcomes are compared to speech articulations at different speech rates, and show that naturalistic coarticulatory patterns emerge simply by varying degrees of temporal overlap in a biomechanically realistic model. The .
Adaptive Local Polynomial Whittle Estimation of Long-Range Dependence

The local Whittle (or Guassian semiparametric) estimator of long range dependence, proposed by Kunsch (1987) and analyzed by Robinson (1995a), has a relatively slow rate of convergence and a finite sample bias that can be large. In this paper, we generalize the local Whittle estimator to circumvent these problems. Instead of approximating the short-run component of the spectrum, Phi (Lamda), by a constant in a shrinking neighborhood of frequency zero, we approximate its logarithm by a polynomial. This leads to a "local polynomial Whittle" (LPW) estimator. We specify a data-dependent adaptive procedure that adjusts the degree of the polynomial to the smoothness of Phi (Lamda) at zero and selects the bandwidth. The resulting "adaptive LPW" estimator is shown to achieve the optimal rate of convergence, which depends on the smoothness of Phi (Lamda) at zero, up to a logarithmic factor.
Diagonal equivalence to matrices with prescribed row and column sums. II

Let A be a nonnegative m x n matrix and let r= (rl, ** I rm) and c = (c1' * c ) be positive vectors such that ? m r. = zn. c1. It is well known that if there exists a nonnegative z =1 z ]-=1 m x n matrix B with the same zero pattern as A having the ith row sum ri and jth column sum c,, there exist diagonal matrices D1 and D with positive main diagonals such that D1AD2 has ith row sum r. and jth column sum cjHowever the known proofs are at best cumbersome. It is shown here that this result can be obtained by considering the minimum of a certain real-valued function of n positive variables. It has been shown originally by Sinkhorn and Knopp [81 and Brualdi, Parter, and Schneider [31 that if A is a nonnegative fully indecomposable matrix, i.e. A contains no s x (n s) zero submatrix, then there exists a doubly stochastic matrix of the form D 1AD2 where DI and D2 are diagonal matrices with positive main diagonals. Later Djokovic? [41, and independently, London [5], proved the same theorem by considering the minimum of
Decentralized Nonlinear Robust Coordinated Control of UPFC and Generators in Multi‐ Machine Power System Via Pseudo‐Generalized Hamiltonian Theory

In this paper, based on a structure preserving power system with a unified power flow controller (UPFC), using pseudo‐generalized Hamiltonian function method and boundary‐function method, a nonlinear robust coordinated control law is constructed for multi‐machine power system oscillation damping. The 4‐machine 2‐area power system is used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller. Simulation results indicate that the proposed coordinated control scheme can effectively improve both transient stability and voltage regulation performance of the power system. ©2014 Chinese Automatic Control Society and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Astragalus membranaceus formula for moderate-high risk idiopathic membranous nephropathy: A meta-analysis

Background: Idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) is a noninflammatory autoimmune glomerulonephropathy. Based on the risk stratification for disease progression, conservative nonimmunosuppressive and immunosuppressive therapy strategies have been recommended. However, there remains challenges. Therefore, novel approaches to treat IMN are needed. We evaluated the efficacy of Astragalus membranaceus (A membranaceus) combined with supportive care or immunosuppressive therapy in the treatment of moderate-high risk IMN. Methods: We comprehensively searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, Wanfang Knowledge Service Platform, and SinoMed. We then performed a systematic review and cumulative meta-analysis of all randomized controlled trials assessing the two therapy methods. Results: The meta-analysis included 50 studies involving 3423 participants. The effect of A membranaceus combined with supportive care or immunosuppressive therapy is better than that of supportive care or immunosuppressive therapy along in regulating for improving 24 hours urinary total protein (MD = −1.05, 95% CI [−1.21, −0.89], P = .000), serum albumin (MD = 3.75, 95% CI [3.01, 4.49], P = .000), serum creatinine (MD = −6.24, 95% CI [−9.85, −2.63], P = .0007), complete remission rate (RR = 1.63, 95% CI [1.46, 1.81], P = .000), partial remission rate (RR = 1.13, 95% CI [1.05, 1.20], P = .0004). Conclusions: Adjunctive use of A membranaceus preparations combined with supportive care or immunosuppressive therapy have a promising treatment for improving complete response rate, partial response rate, serum albumin, and reducing proteinuria, serum creatinine levels compared to immunosuppressive therapy in people with MN being at moderate-high risk for disease progression. Given the inherent limitations of the included studies, future well-designed randomized controlled trials are required to confirm and update the findings of this analysis.
The intelligence of observation: improving high school students’ spatial ability by means of intervention unit

This case study of one class versus a control group focused on the impact of an intervention unit, which is not part of the regular curriculum, on the improvement of spatial ability of high school students (forty-six 12th-graders, aged 17–18, both boys and girls) in general as well as from a gender perspective. The study explored three sub-abilities: mental rotation (MR), spatial visualization (VS) and spatial orientation (SO). Findings indicated that the spatial orientation of the experimental group students had considerably improved. The findings also illustrated a significant gender-based advantage in favour of the boys in some of the spatial abilities even before the implementation of the intervention unit. The hypothesis relating to the reduction of the gender differences was not corroborated.