gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Estimating forest parameters using Landsat ETM+ spectral responses and monocultured plantation fieldwork measurements data (2018)

Forest parameters, such as mean diameter at breast height (DBH), mean stand height (H) or volume per hectare (V), are imperative for forest resources assessment. Traditional forest inventory that is usually based on fieldwork is often difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to conduct over large areas. Therefore, estimating forest parameters in large areas using a traditional inventory approach combined with satellite data analysis can improve the spatial estimates of forest inventory data, and hence be useful for sustainable forest management and natural resources assessment. However, extracting practical information from satellite imagery for such purpose is a challenging task mainly because of insufficient knowledge linking forest inventory data to satellite spectral response. Here, we present the use of a cost-free Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) in order to explore whether it is possible to combine all available optical bands from a specific sensor for improving forest parameter spatial estimates, based on fieldwork at Lahav and Kramim Forests, in the Israeli Northern Negev. A generic strategy, based on morphological structuring element, convex hall and spectral band linear combination algorithms, was developed in order to extract the mathematical dependencies between the forest inventory measurements and linear combination sets of Landsat-7 ETM+ spectral bands, which yields the highest possible correlation with the forest inventory measured data. Using the mathematical dependency functions, we then convert the entire Landsat-7 ETM+ scenes into forest inventory parameter values with sufficient accuracy and tolerance errors needed for sustainable forest management. The root mean square error obtained between the measured and the estimated values for Lahav Forest are 0.70 cm, 0.29 m, and 1.48 m3 ha−1 for the mean DBH, H, and V, respectively, and for Kramim forest are 0.61 cm, 0.70 m, and 6.31 m3 ha−1, respectively. Furthermore, the suggested strategy could also be applied with other satellites data sources.
Engineering Soluble Human Paraoxonase 2 for Quorum Quenching (2016)

Many pathogenic bacteria utilize quorum sensing (QS) systems to regulate the expression of their virulence genes and promote the formation of biofilm, which renders pathogens with extreme resistance to conventional antibiotic treatments. As a novel approach for attenuating antibiotic resistance and in turn fighting chronic infections, enzymatic inactivation of QS signaling molecules, such as N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs), holds great promises. Instead of using bacterial lactonases that can evoke immune response when administered, we focus on the human paraoxonase 2 (huPON2). However, insolubility when heterologously overexpressed hinders its application as anti-infection therapeutics. In this study, huPON2 was engineered for soluble expression with minimal introduction of foreign sequences. On the basis of structure modeling, degenerate linkers were exploited for the removal of hydrophobic helices of huPON2 without disrupting its folding structure and thus retaining its enzymatic function. High soluble expression levels were achieved with a yield of 76 mg of fully human PON2 variants per liter of culture media. Particularly, two clones, D2 and E3, showed significant quorum quenching (QQ) bioactivities and effectively impeded Pseudomonas aeruginosa swimming and swarming motilities, signs of an early stage of biofilm formation. In addition, by correlating QQ with luminescence signal readouts, quantitative analysis of QQ toward natural or non-natural AHL-regulator combinations suggested that D2 and E3 exhibited strong lactone hydrolysis activities toward five AHLs of different side chain lengths and modifications widely utilized by a variety of biomedically important pathogens.
Security of VoIP : Analysis, Testing and Mitigation of SIP-based DDoS attacks on VoIP Networks (2008)

Voice over IP (VoIP) is gaining more popularity in today‟s communications. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is becoming one of the dominant VoIP signalling protocol[1, 2], however it is vulnerable to many kinds of attacks. Among these attacks, flood-based denial of service attacks have been identified as the major threat to SIP. Even though a great deal of research has been carried out to mitigate denial of service attacks, only a small proportion has been specific to SIP. This project examines the way denial of service attacks affect the performance of a SIP-based system and two evolutionary solutions to this problem that build on each other are proposed with experimental results to demonstrate the effectiveness of each solution. In stage one, this project proposes the Security-Enhanced SIP System (SESS), which contains a security-enhanced firewall, which evolved from the work of stage one and a security-enhanced SIP proxy server. This approach helps to improve the Quality-of-Service (QoS) of legitimate users during the SIP flooding attack, while maintaining a 100 percent success rate in blocking attack traffic. However, this system only mitigates SIP INVITE and REGISTER floods. In stage two, this project further advances SESS, and proposes an Improved Security-Enhanced SIP System (ISESS). ISESS advances the solution by blocking other SIP request floods, for example CANCEL, OK and BYE flood. JAIN Service Logic Execution Environment (JAIN SLEE) is a java-based application server specifically designed for event-driven applications. JAIN SLEE is used to implement enhancements of the SIP proxy server, as it is becoming a popular choice in implementing communication applications. The experimental results show that during a SIP flood, ISESS cannot only drop all attack packets but also the call setup delay of legitimate users can be improved substantially compared to and unsecured VoIP system.
Omnidirectional View Synthesis and Test Images (2018)

In this paper we introduce an algorithm for omnidirectional virtual view synthesis based on Omnidirectional Video plus Depth (OVD) format. The implementation is done on the basis of View Synthesis Reference Software (VSRS) developed by MPEG of ISO/IEC. Also, we address the problem of lack of benchmark data disallowing objective quality assessment. We present a method for generating test images in OVD representation along with example omnidirectional images and omnidirectional depths, called “Poznan Hall 360 ”.
Therapeutic effects of orally administrated antioxidant drugs on acute noise-induced hearing loss (2013)

This result demonstrates that orally administered drugs can treat acute noise-induced hearing loss in a dose-dependent manner. This suggests that oral administration was effective in treating acute noise-induced hearing loss as in intraperitoneal administration.
Befestigungen mit Verbundankern. [Teil 1] (1984)

Seit 1975 wurden Verbundankersysteme verschiedener Firmen bauaufsichtlich zugelassen, wobei die Systeme hinsichtlich der Zusammensetzung des Mörtels praktisch identisch sind. Diese Zulassungsbescheide regelten die Verwendung von Einzelankern sowie Ankerpaaren mit Ankern in der aus Lastspannungen erzeugten Druckzone von Beton- und Stahlbetonbauteilen. Die Anwendungsbedingungen wurden u. a. aus den beschriebenen Versuchen abgeleitet und sind ausführlich erläutert. Weitere wichtige Informationen über das Tragverhalten von Verbundankern mit großen Rand- und Achsabständen unter Kurzzeit-, Dauer- und Ermüdungsbelastung sowie bei unterschiedlichen klimatischen Bedingungen (Trocken- oder Naßlagerung) und bei erhöhten Temperaturen sind zu entnehmen. Zwischenzeitlich wurden wesentliche neue Erkenntnisse über das Tragverhalten von Verbundankern bei engen Rand- und Achsabständen sowie von Verankerungen in Rissen gewonnen, die bei der Neufassung der Zulassung berücksichtigt wurden. Diese Neufassung enthält auch wesentliche Vereinfachungen für die Bemessung von Befestigungen mit Verbundankern. In diesem Beitrag wird das Tragverhalten von Verbundankern unter Kurzzeitbelastung beschrieben und es wird auf Langzeiteinflüsse eingegangen. Weiterhin werden die in den Neuzulassungen festgelegten Anwendungsbedingungen erläutert.
Chemical and bacteriological quality of pasture runoff (1981)

ABSTRACT: Natural background characteristics and grazing cattle both influence the chemical and bacteriological quality of pasture runoff in south central Nebraska. The chemical quality of runoff from unstocked grassland was poorer than that from grazed pasture. The chemical quality of pasture runoff, which was better than runoff from cultivated cropland and urban areas, was within recommended water quality criteria. Cattle grazing increased fecal coliform (FC) counts 5- to 10-fold; however, FC counts in rainfall runoff from both grazed and ungrazed pasture, which were comparable to FC counts in runoff from cropland and urban areas, exceeded the water quality criterion of 200 organisms per 100 milliliters more than 90 percent of the time. The FC/fecal streptococci (FS) ratio of runoff from both grassland and ungrazed pasture was characteristic of wildlife feces, suggesting that the natural background level for bacteriological inputs may be large. Recommended bacteriological water quality criteria may be inappropriate for characterizing pasture runoff and other nonpoint sources of potential pollution.
Drug-Likeness and Increased Hydrophobicity of Commercially Available Compound Libraries for Drug Screening (2012)

Most drug discovery programs today originate by selection of 'hit' molecules resulting from assays against large compound screening libraries. The chemical space in which these hits reside has implications for its biological activity in vivo and likelihood of progression to a drug candidate. We have created a database of commercially available screening compounds and natural products in order to analyse the drug- and lead-likeness of commercial screening compounds and compare them with i) orally administered drugs, ii) non-orally administered drugs, and iii) compounds with significant biological activity but unspecified or not yet determined route of administration from the public databases DrugBank and ChEMBL. The data set contained 15.5 million entries from 102 vendors, which resulted in just over 8 million unique chemical structures. We review these data for current drug/lead-likeness, then utilise substructure-based filters for promiscuity and unwanted groups, and finally compare chemical properties for structures within the different sub-sets. While the majority of the commercial compounds satisfy various drug-likeness rules, they show a larger molecular weight and higher hydrophobicity compared to orally available drugs, with generally higher aromaticity and lower solubility. This 'right shift' of chemical properties has also been found in the majority of the compounds with significant biological activity in ChEMBL, reflecting a common trend in current drug discovery, towards larger, more hydrophobic compounds and fewer drug-like compounds. In particular, successful drugs were found to possess much lower median logD values than those found for compound collections. In addition, commercial compounds show a quite narrow distribution in molecular weight, with a median absolute deviation of only 78 Da around a median of 387 Da. For high-throughput screening a highly stringent combination of several lead-likeness and substructure filters against unwanted groups could be applied, resulting in 2 million lead-like structures. For fragment based screening approaches the rule of three (Ro3) would select around 400,000 structures.
Interdomain interactions within the gene 3 protein of filamentous phage (1999)

Infection of Escherichia coli by filamentous phage fd is mediated by the phage gene 3 protein (g3p). The g3p consists of three domains (g3p-D1, D2 and D3) linked by flexible glycine-rich linkers. All three domains are indispensable for phage infectivity; the g3p-D1 domain binds to the TolA receptor presumably at the inner face of the outer membrane, the g3p-D2 domain to the F-pilus and the g3p-D3 domain anchors g3p to the phage coat. The N-terminal domains g3p-D1 and D2 interact with each other; this interaction is abrogated by binding of g3p-D2 to the F-pilus leading to the release of g3p-D1 to bind to TolA. Here, using phages with deletions in g3p, we have discovered a specific interaction between the two N-terminal domains and g3p-D3, the C-terminal domain of g3p. We propose that these interdomain interactions within g3p lead to a compact and stable organisation when displayed on the phage tip, but that during infection, this compact state must be unraveled.
Mission der mennoniten Brüdergemeinde in Karaganda/Kasachstan (2001)

The dissertation in hand is about the theological researches about the mission of the German&#13;\nMennonite - Brethren - Church in Karaganda I Kasachstan from 1956 to 2000.&#13;\nThe existing socialism with its atheistical values affected adversely the lives of the Christians and&#13;\nprevented them from missionary work. In spite of that mission was able to be practised.&#13;\nExperienced preachers and teachers in the church prepared the missionary work by instructing the&#13;\nChristians to be effective witnesses for the Lord. This was achieved by the training of young&#13;\npreachers. regular pronouncements of the Gospel and the work with children and young persons.&#13;\nThe Christians retained this method until the middle of the 70ies when the regid laws concerning&#13;\nthe missionary work were mitigated. Commited brothers. young persons, preachers and singers&#13;\nvisited lonely Christians and churches in remote villages, had personal conversations with&#13;\nunbelievers and organized evangelizations. Members ofthe church were sent out as missionaries to&#13;\nerect parishes and carry out evangelizations
Examination of the Lille Apathy Rating Scale in Parkinson disease (2009)

Apathy is a unique, multidimensional syndrome commonly encountered in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). Recently, the Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS), a semistructured interview yielding a global score, and composite subscores for different domains of apathy (i.e., cognitive, behavioral, affective, self awareness), was developed and given to a sample of patients with PD in France. This study is the first outside of its original developers to examine the English language version of the LARS in PD. We found the LARS to be a coherent instrument demonstrating both convergent and divergent validity, as compared to the Apathy Scale (AS) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). Using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis comparing the LARS to the AS, a validated and widely-used measure, we identified a cut-off score (sensitivity = 64%, specificity = 92%, PPV = 88%, NPV = 75%) that was higher than that proposed by the original authors, who derived their cut-off by comparing LARS global scores to clinical judgments of apathy. Although the present study does not compare the LARS to a diagnostic gold standard or promote its utility for diagnosing apathy, it provides further support for the LARS as a promising instrument to examine apathy in PD.
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Patient iPSC-Derived Motor Neurons Have Reduced Expression of Proteins Important in Neuronal Development (2016)

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an inherited neuromuscular disease primarily characterized by degeneration of spinal motor neurons, and caused by reduced levels of the SMN protein. Previous studies to understand the proteomic consequences of reduced SMN have mostly utilized patient fibroblasts and animal models. We have derived human motor neurons from type I SMA and healthy controls by creating their induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Quantitative mass spectrometry of these cells revealed increased expression of 63 proteins in control motor neurons compared to respective fibroblasts, whereas 30 proteins were increased in SMA motor neurons vs. their fibroblasts. Notably, UBA1 was significantly decreased in SMA motor neurons, supporting evidence for ubiquitin pathway defects. Subcellular distribution of UBA1 was predominantly cytoplasmic in SMA motor neurons in contrast to nuclear in control motor neurons; suggestive of neurodevelopmental abnormalities. Many of the proteins that were decreased in SMA motor neurons, including beta III-tubulin and UCHL1, were associated with neurodevelopment and differentiation. These neuron-specific consequences of SMN depletion were not evident in fibroblasts, highlighting the importance of iPSC technology. The proteomic profiles identified here provide a useful resource to explore the molecular consequences of reduced SMN in motor neurons, and for the identification of novel biomarker and therapeutic targets for SMA.
Hematopoietic microenvironment and age (2007)

Considerable evidence supports the concept that the localization of hematopoiesis to the bone marrow (BM) in adult mammals involves developmentally regulated interactions between primitive hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and the stromal cell-mediated hematopoietic microenvironment (HM) of the marrow. Moreover, it is well accepted that stromal cells and their extracellular biosynthetic products play a critical role in many aspects of hematopoiesis including the regulation, recruitment, and retention of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells within preferred sites of the BM. Therefore, conceptually at least, there are two key cellular components for consideration when discussing the effects of aging on hematopoiesis: first the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells themselves, and second those cells that comprise the hematopoietic microenvironment. In this chapter we review the current understanding of what constitutes the HM and how its components and functions change during aging and thereby impact specifically on primitive hematopoietic progenitor cells and hematopoiesis. In the final section, we highlight the unresolved questions concerning the effect of age on the HM and suggest a series of studies to further our understanding of this biology. Finally, we acknowledge the publications and contributions made by many investigators over the last four decades or more, and apologize to those whose work we may have inadvertently not referenced in this review.
Effect of Flavobacterium psychrophilum strains and their metabolites on the oxidative activity of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss phagocytes (2000)

The oxidative activity of rainbow trout phagocytes was studied using a chemiluminescence technique using 12 different Flavobacterium psychrophilum strains and their metabolites. Phagocytes were obtained from the head kidney of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. The addition of viable F. psychrophilum or their metabolites to the phagocytes resulted in an immediate chemiluminescence response. The stimulating effects of both the F. psychrophilum and their metabolites on the phagocytes were found to be heat stable. No significant differences in stimulation capacity were found between the strains tested. To investigate the nature of the stimulating agent, both the bacteria and the supernatant were treated with either sodium metaperiodate or polymyxin B. Adding polymyxin B to the bacterial cells and supernatant did not change the chemiluminescence pattern, suggesting that the capacity of F. psychrophilum to stimulate the phagocytes probably is not due to lipopolysaccharides (LPS). However, following incubation of the bacteria and their metabolites with sodium metaperiodate, the capacity to stimulate phagocytes was significantly impaired. This suggests that a carbohydrate component most likely plays an important role in the ability of F. psychrophilum to stimulate phagocytes. Opsonisation of the bacteria with native trout serum or with rabbit anti-F. psychrophilum serum resulted in an additional chemiluminescence peak which was significantly higher than the first peak. This extra peak disappeared following heat treatment of the trout serum and the rabbit anti-F. psychrophilum serum, pointing towards the involvement of heat labile complement in opsonisation.
Computer-aided detection of sclerotic bone metastases in the spine using watershed algorithm and support vector machines (2011)

This work presents a computer-aided detection (CAD) system to aid radiologists in finding sclerotic bone metastases in the spine on CT images. The spine is first segmented using thresholding, region growing and a vertebra template. A watershed algorithm and a merging routine segment potential lesion candidates in each two-dimensional (2-D) axial CT image. Next, overlapping 2-D detections on sequential CT slices are merged to form 3-D candidate lesions. For each of these, 30 quantitative features based on shape, density, and location are computed. After a feature filter eliminates clearly false candidates, a ground truth on 10 clinical cases segmented manually by an expert, and the features of each CAD candidate are used to train seven support vector machines. The segmentation algorithm detects 164 out of the 212 manually segmented lesions. A ten-fold cross-validation trained on these detections results in 77.4% sensitivity at an average of 9.44 false positives per case.
Effective communication: Tips on technical writing [DSP Education] (2008)

The impact of a technical article may have as much to do with how well it is presented as with the engineering or scientific significance of the work. A well-written article is easier to understand and easier to remember; the more readers that remember your work, the higher the likelihood it will get cited. This article reviews some basic principles and discusses a few tips (dos and don'ts) about writing technical papers.
Laser Direct Write Doping and Metallization Fabrication of Silicon Carbide PIN Diodes (2006)

This DOI is not currently attached to any metadata records. DOIs can’t actually ever be deleted (they’re persistent), but sometimes our members create DOIs in error. We do have a process to approximate deletion which we follow only in rare cases where the DOI has been genuinely created in error, and most crucially, if the DOI has never been published anywhere online or in print and never otherwise distributed to or communicated with anyone (authors, readers, reviewers, etc.
A review of pollination and fruit set in the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentumMill.) (1984)

SummaryFruit setting is often poor in midwinter in early heated crops of tomatoes grown in the United Kingdom. This review considers recent research on the processes leading to fruit set in tomato with particular reference to the effects of low light and carbohydrate deficiency. Further research is needed to establish the most cost-effective cultural practices for maximum fruit set and early yield.
Cyclic product codes (1965)

A new class of cyclic codes, cyclic product codes, is characterized. These codes enjoy the implementation advantages of cyclic codes and, in addition, possess the important structural properties of product (iterated) codes. The main results are as follows: \begin{enumerate} \item Conditions are given which ensure that the product of two, and, hence, arbitrarily many, cyclic codes is itself a cyclic code. \item Cyclic product codes are shown to be capable of unambiguous correction of both bursts and random errors. \item The generator polynomial of the cyclic product code is derived and shown to be a simple function of the generator polynomials of the subcodes. \end{enumerate} These results have the following various applications: a) the codes effect a compromise between random and burst-error-correcting codes and, therefore, appear to be well-suited to error correction on channels in which both types of errors occur, b) many codes in a particular subclass of the class of cyclic product codes are efficient burst-error correctors and are more easily implemented than the equivalent codes formed by interleaving short codes, c) the previously mentioned results 1) and 3) can be applied to some cyclic codes to show that they are product codes as well; then known results on the minimum distance of product codes can be applied. This improves on the Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem lower bound in many cases.