Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Nonnative and Native Ungulate Biomass and Seasonal Precipitation on Vegetation Production in a Great Basin Ecosystem

Abstract. The negative effects of equid grazers in semiarid ecosystems of the American West have been considered disproportionate to the influence of native ungulates in these systems because of equids' large body size, hoof shape, and short history on the landscape relative to native ungulates. Tools that can analyze the degree of influence of various ungulate herbivores in an ecosystem and separate effects of ungulates from effects of other variables (climate, anthropomorphic disturbances) can be useful to managers in determining the location of nonnative herbivore impacts and assessing the effect of management actions targeted at different ungulate populations. We used remotely sensed data to determine the influence of native and nonnative ungulates and climate on vegetation productivity at wildlife refuges in Oregon and Nevada. Our findings indicate that ungulate biomass density, particularly equid biomass density, and precipitation in winter and spring had the greatest influence on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values. Our results concur with those of other researchers, who found that drought exacerbated the impacts of ungulate herbivores in arid systems.
Predicting information security policy compliance intentions and behavior for six employee-based risks

ABSTRACT Employees’ non-compliance with organizational information security policies poses a significant threat to organizations. Enhancing our understanding of compliance behavior is crucial for improving security. Although research has identified numerous psychological factors that affect intentions to comply with security policies, how such intentions map onto actual compliance behavior is not well understood. Building on a well-supported model of security policy compliance intentions, we evaluate compliance with each of six types of information security policies using decision vignettes, and compare parameters across models. The study contributes to information security compliance research by examining each risk separately and exploring heterogeneity across risk types.
An endothelin-1 switch specifies maxillomandibular identity

Articulated jaws are highly conserved structures characteristic of gnathostome evolution. Epithelial-mesenchymal interactions within the first pharyngeal arch (PA1) instruct cephalic neural crest cells (CNCCs) to form the different skeletal elements of the jaws. The endothelin-1 (Edn1)/endothelin receptor type-A (Ednra)→Dlx5/6→Hand2 signaling pathway is necessary for lower jaw formation. Here, we show that the Edn1 signaling is sufficient for the conversion of the maxillary arch to mandibular identity. Constitutive activation of Ednra induced the transformation of upper jaw, maxillary, structures into lower jaw, mandibular, structures with duplicated Meckel's cartilage and dermatocranial jaws constituted by 4 dentary bones. Misexpression of Hand2 in the Ednra domain caused a similar transformation. Skeletal transformations are accompanied by neuromuscular remodeling. Ednra is expressed by most CNCCs, but its constitutive activation affects predominantly PA1. We conclude that after migration CNCCs are not all equivalent, suggesting that their specification occurs in sequential steps. Also, we show that, within PA1, CNCCs are competent to form both mandibular and maxillary structures and that an Edn1 switch is responsible for the choice of either morphogenetic program.
Using artificial intelligence to create value in insurance

Purpose Recent technological and digital developments have opened new avenues for customer data utilization in insurance services. One form of this data transformation is automated chatbots that provide convenient access to data leveraged through a discussion-like interface. The purpose of this paper is to uncover how insurance chatbots support customers’ value creation. Design/methodology/approach Three complementary theoretical perspectives – artificial intelligence, service logic, and reverse use of customer data – are briefly discussed and integrated into a conceptual framework. The suggested framework is further shown through illustrative case examples that characterize different ways of supporting customers’ value creation. Findings Chatbots represent a new type of interaction through which companies can influence customers’ value creation by providing them with additional resources. Based on the proposed conceptual framework and the illustrative case examples, four metaphors are identified that characterize how insurance chatbots can support customers’ value creation. Research limitations/implications The study is conceptual in nature, and the case examples are used for illustrative purposes. No representative data from those users who will eventually determine whether chatbots are of value was used. Practical implications Using the suggested framework, which is aligned with provider service logic, insurance companies can consider what kind of a role they wish to play in customers’ value-creating processes. Originality/value Automated chatbots provide convenient access to data leveraged through a discussion-like interface. This study is among the earliest to address their value-creating potential in insurance.
The Unemployment-Growth Relationship in Transition Countries

Does the disappointingly high unemployment in Central and East European countries reflect non-completed adjustment to institutional shocks from transition to a market economy, or is it the result of high labour market rigidities, or rather a syndrome of too weak aggregate demand and output? In the case of transitional causes, unemployment is expected to decline over time. Otherwise, it would pose a challenge to the European Union, particular in case of accession countries, for it jeopardizes the ambitious integration plans of, and may trigger excessive migration to the Union. In order to find out which hypothesis holds 15 years after transition has started, we analyze the unemploymentgrowth dynamics in the eight new member countries from Central-Eastern Europe. The study is based on country and panel regressions with instrument variables (TSLS). The results suggest to declare the transition of labour markets as completed; unemployment responds to output and not to a changing institutional environment for job creation. The regression coefficients report a high trend rate of productivity and a high unemployment intensity of output growth since 1998. The conclusion is that labour market rigidities do not to play an important role in explaining high unemployment rates. Rather, GDP growth is dominated by productivity progress, while the employment relevant component of aggregate demand is too low to reduce substantially the high level of unemployment.
Estimation of the flow of particles within a partition of the image domain in fluorescence video-microscopy

Automatic analysis of the dynamic content in fluorescence video-microscopy is crucial for understanding molecular mechanisms involved in cell functions. In this paper, we propose an original approach for analyzing particle trafficking in these sequences. Instead of individually tracking every particle, we estimate the particle flows between predefined regions. This approach allows us to process image sequences with a high number of particles and a low frame rate. We investigate several ways to estimate the particle flow at the cellular level and evaluate their performance in synthetic and real image sequences.
Comparison of Network Topologies by Simulation of Advertising

Information spreading processes and advertising strategies are often studied by different epidemic models on a given topology. The goal of this paper is to discover and summarize the effect of underlying network topologies on a general spreading process. A complex set of different networks is studied by computer simulations from regular networks through random networks to different scale-free network topologies. The speed of spreading and the micro-scale features of these systems highlight the differences caused by different network topologies. This may help to plan for example advertising strategies on different social networks.
High-Level Vision: Top-Down Processing in Neurally Inspired Architectures

Abstract : An exhaustive literature review of computationally relevant studies of high-level vision and mental imagery was conducted, and a qualitative theory of the processing subsystems in the brain and their interactions during visual object identification are summarized herein. A computational model that embodies these ideas was built with the intention that it could be "damaged" in various ways in order to observe its behavior while performing visual tasks that are analogous to those performed by the brain-damaged patients; this model is described in detail in this report. A second model of early/intermediate vision, which is intended to supplement and complement the work on late visual processing, has also been developed, and is described. Progress testing the models is reported. Additional deliverables include a binder with the abstracts of all the relevant literature (which can serve as a guide for further research) and an annotated copy of the software code for the IMPER model.
Parvalbumin‐lmmunoreactive Neurons in the Neocortex are Resistant to Degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease

Recent studies have stressed the fact that specific neuronal subtypes may display a differential sensitivity to degeneration in Alzheimer's disease. For example, large pyramidal neurons have been shown to be vulnerable, whereas smaller neurons are resistant to pathology. Using a monoclonal antibody against the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin, we investigated the possible changes in a subpopulation of intemeurons in two cortical areas known to be strongly damaged in Alzheimer's disease. In the prefrontal cortex as well as in the inferior temporal cortex, we observed no differences in parvalbumin-immunoreactive cell counts or cell size in Alzheimer's disease brains as compared to control cases. Moreover, the general cellular morphology of these neurons was preserved in the Alzheimer's disease cases, in that their perikarya and dendritic arborizations were intact. These results suggest that parvalbumin-immunoreactive cells represent a neuronal subset resistant to degeneration, and further support the hypothesis that the pathological process in Alzheimer's disease involves specific neuronal subtypes with particular morphological and molecular characteristics.
A Case Study of a Three-Part Entrepreneurial Strategy in a Japanese Accounting Cloud Service

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify a three-part entrepreneurial strategy in a Japanese accounting cloud service with two-sided markets and freemium. The service provider established its platform as one of industry platform in Fintech and made its initial public offering in five years since its entrepreneurship. The authors studied the service provider and obtained three findings. First, the service provider dares to adopt its cloud platform with single architecture. Second, it builds up its service platform with two business strategies, two marketing strategies, and two management of technology. Third, the integration of these strategies becomes a three-part entrepreneurial strategy, which realizes economies of scale and scope cyclically. Finally, it realizes agglomeration economies in the service platform. Therefore, start-up with two-sided markets and freemium not only dares to design its service platform with single architecture but also should build up the three-part entrepreneurial strategy to formulate service platform as market before building up its business ecosystem.
Gauge invariance and unitarity in higher-derivative quantum gravity.

The question of unitarity is examined in the renormalizable, ''higher-derivative'' theory of quantum gravity. It is pointed out that the presence of a massive spin-2 ghost in the bare propagator is inconclusive, since this excitation is unstable. In the presence of unstable particles, expansions using bare propagators are impossible: modified expansions with dressed propagators that exhibit the complex nature of the unstable pole must be employed. It is found, however, that the position of the complex poles in the dressed propagator is explicitly gauge dependent. It turns out that this is a specifically gravitational effect; it does not occur in gauge theories with an internal-symmetry gauge group. On the other hand, a physical S matrix between in and out states containing only transverse, massless gravitons and physical massless matter fields is shown to be gauge independent. It then follows by a standard, albeit formal, argument that the contribution of all gauge-variant poles to its intermediate states must cancel. The physical S matrix should therefore, be unitary. In this development, the standard rules of quantum field theory are followed throughout; no ad hoc modifications, such as the Lee-Wick prescription, are ever invoked.
Design of parallel BCH decoder for MLC memory

BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem) coding is very useful to correct a small bit error. But the code length n is longer such as a game program stored in a MLC (multi-level cell) flash memory, the decoding circuits takes a lot of computation time. This paper presents a parallel decoding architecture of BCH coding aiming to speed up that guarantees 2-bit error correction. It allows one word data can be fed into the BCH decoder at a time and decoded in parallel. The experimental results show that the proposed (4122, 4096, 2) BCH decoder runs about 7.5 times faster than the binary counterpart even though it has 1.2 times area overhead.
Common sequence motifs in DNA relaxases and nick regions from a variety of DNA transfer systems.

Site and strand specific nicking at a transfer origin (oriT) is the central event in initiation of transfer DNA replication during bacterial conjugation. Recently, sequence identity in a DNA region adjacent to the nick sites of IncP plasmids RP4 and R751 and part of the border sequences of agrobacterial Ti and Ri plasmids has been demonstrated (Figure 1 and ref. 1). A search for this 'nick region' in a variety of transfer origins of other plasmids demonstrates its conservation in R64 (Incll) and pTFFC2, a mobilizable plasmid from Thiobacillus ferrooxidans (Figure 1, ref. 2). This finding is paralleled by occurrence of a common sequence motif in proteins (DNA-relaxases) encoded by the respective plasmids that interact with their cognate nick regions (Figure 2). Using the corresponding consensus sequence, a search in protein data bases (NBRF-Protein Release 27.0; Swiss-Prot Release 16.0) revealed that the 'relaxase motif is also occurring in potential DNA-relaxing proteins (Rlx) of mobilizable plasmids from S.aureus (Figure 2).
A Tandem Drone-ground Vehicle for Accessing Isolated Locations for First Aid Emergency Response in Case of Disaster

The collapse of infrastructures is very often a complicating factor for the early emergency actuations after a disaster. A proper plan to better cover the needs of the affected people within the disaster area while maintaining life-saving relief operations is mandatory hence. In this paper, we use a drone for flying over a set of difficult-to-access locations for imaging issues to get information to build a risk assessment as the earliest stage of the emergency operations. While the drone provides the flexibility required to visit subsequently a sort of isolated locations, it needs a commando vehicle in ground for (i) monitoring the deployment of operations and (ii) being a recharging station where the drone gets fresh batteries. This work proposes a decision-making process to plan the mission, which is composed by the ground vehicle stopping points and the sequence of locations visited for each drone route. We propose a Genetic Algorithm (GA) which has proven to be helpful in finding good solutions in short computing times. We provide experimental analysis on the factors effecting the performance of the output solutions, around an illustrative test instance. Results show the applicability of these techniques for providing proper solutions to the studied problem.
ÉVALUATION DE LA PERFORMANCE GLOBALE : À PROPOS DE DEUX CAS FRANÇAIS

This study is focusing on the way to integrate Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) control device as a system of measuring non financial performance (SMNFP), besides traditional tools such as budgets. These last years, several studies have underlined, on the one hand the difficulty to put together SMNFP and budgets and on the other hand the necessity to dispose of an ad hoc system of piloting strategic orientations of CSR in order to make the speech more reliable. We analyzed management control under these two points of view with the objective to understand the hypothetical conditions of success. It took the form of longitudinal case studies made within 4 years in two companies that have developed dashboards such as SMNFP and CSR in a global and specific ways. The results show that, in both cases, the devices contribution is in favor of the implementation of CSR strategic orientations in an operating level, however the prevalence of economic goals seems to be an obstacle to their efficacity.
Experimental investigation of � ow through an asymmetric plane di user

There is a need for experimental measurements in complex turbulent ows that originate from very well de ned initial conditions Testing of large eddy simulations and other higher order computation schemes requires inlet boundary condition data that are not normally measured The use of fully developed upstream conditions o ers a solution to this dilemma in that the upstream conditions can be adequately computed at any level of sophistication Unfortunately experimenters have only recently been sensitized to this issue and there are relatively few appropriate data sets The plane di user experiment by Obi et al has received a lot of at tention because it has fully developed inlet conditions and it includes separation from a smooth wall subsequent reattachment and redevelopment of the down stream boundary layer Each of these features o ers challenges for modern turbu lence models In particular Durbin Kaltenbach and Mittal of CTR have devoted considerable e ort in developing several di erent computations of the ow Un fortunately they found that the experiment had several de ciencies as they began careful comparison to the data The most glaring problem is the fact that the data set does not appear to satisfy mass conservation a problem that is most likely due to three dimensional e ects in the di user The objective of this study is to provide careful quali cation and detailed mea surements in a re creation of the Obi experiment The work will include extensive documentation of the ow two dimensionality and detailed measurements required for testing of ow computations Also important to this study is the close inter action of the experimental and computational groups to improve the utility of the data obtained and the accuracy of computation
Sarcopenia in COPD: prevalence, clinical correlates and response to pulmonary rehabilitation

Background Age-related loss of muscle, sarcopenia, is recognised as a clinical syndrome with multiple contributing factors. International European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP) criteria require generalised loss of muscle mass and reduced function to diagnose sarcopenia. Both are common in COPD but are usually studied in isolation and in the lower limbs. Objectives To determine the prevalence of sarcopenia in COPD, its impact on function and health status, its relationship with quadriceps strength and its response to pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). Methods EWGSOP criteria were applied to 622 outpatients with stable COPD. Body composition, exercise capacity, functional performance, physical activity and health status were assessed. Using a case–control design, response to PR was determined in 43 patients with sarcopenia and a propensity score-matched non-sarcopenic group. Results Prevalence of sarcopenia was 14.5% (95% CI 11.8% to 17.4%), which increased with age and Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (GOLD) stage, but did not differ by gender or the presence of quadriceps weakness (14.9 vs 13.8%, p=0.40). Patients with sarcopenia had reduced exercise capacity, functional performance, physical activity and health status compared with patients without sarcopenia (p<0.001), but responded similarly following PR; 12/43 patients were no longer classified as sarcopenic following PR. Conclusions Sarcopenia affects 15% of patients with stable COPD and impairs function and health status. Sarcopenia does not impact on response to PR, which can lead to a reversal of the syndrome in select patients.
Risk aware Access Control model for Trust Based collaborative organizations in cloud

Secure interactions between collaborative organizations having their applications and data stored in “Cloud Computing” are a critical issue. Access control is the biggest challenge and trust is regarded as an essential secured relationship within a distributed system. Basic access control models, like Discretionary Access Control, Mandatory Access Control, and Role Based Access Control, cannot satisfy requirements in such environment, and need some improvements. During the collaboration, the attitude of the user may change. Therefore, in this context, adding trust management to an access control model is mandatory. To achieve this goal, in this paper, a new trust model to control access in the cloud is proposed. The aim is to monitor in real-time security for collaborative organizations, having decided to migrate to the cloud.
Characterization and Outcomes of Iliac Vessel Injury in the 21st Century

Introduction: Iliac vessel trauma (IVT) is traditionally associated with high mortality. We evaluated a modern series of patients with IVT to assess current outcomes and endovascular therapy use. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of the National Trauma Data Bank. Patients with IVT were stratified by blunt and penetrating mechanism and arterial and venous injury. Results: In blunt IVT, there was no significant difference in mortality between those with and without pelvic fractures (odds ratio [OR] 0.61, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.36-1.06). In penetrating IVT, combined arterial and venous IVT was associated with higher mortality (OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.06-2.70) compared to isolated arterial IVT. Isolated venous IVT was associated with lower mortality (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.35-0.85) compared to isolated arterial IVT. Endovascular stenting was utilized in 11.3% of blunt IVT with pelvic fractures, 6.3% of blunt IVT without pelvic fractures, and 1.8% of penetrating IVT. Conclusion: Iliac Vessel Trauma has significant mortality. Endovascular intervention for IVT is applied sparingly.
Proactive Financial Reporting Enforcement: Audit Fee and Financial Reporting Quality Effects

We examine the costs and benefits of proactive financial reporting enforcement by the UK Financial Reporting Review Panel. Enforcement scrutiny is selective and varies by sector and over time, yet can be anticipated by auditors and companies. We find evidence that increased enforcement intensity leads to temporary increases in audit fees and more conservative accruals. However cross-sectional analysis across market segments reveals that audit fees increase primarily in the less-regulated AIM segment, and especially those AIM companies with a higher likelihood of financial distress and less stringent governance. On the contrary, less reliable operating asset-related accruals are more conservative in the Main segment, and in particular those Main companies with stronger incentives for higher financial reporting quality. Overall, our study indicates that financial reporting enforcement generates costs and benefits, but not always for the same companies.