nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Improving photosynthesis and crop productivity by accelerating recovery from photoprotection
Venue: Science

Faster light adaptation improves productivity Crop plants protect themselves from excess sunlight by dissipating some light energy as heat, readjusting their systems when shadier conditions prevail. But the photosynthetic systems do not adapt to fluctuating light conditions as rapidly as a cloud passes overhead, resulting in suboptimal photosynthetic efficiency. Kromdijk et al. sped up the adaptation process by accelerating interconversion of violaxanthin and zeaxanthin in the xanthophyll cycle and by increasing amounts of a photosystem II subunit. Tobacco plants tested with this system showed about 15% greater plant biomass production in natural field conditions. Science, this issue p. 857 Altering the regulation of light harvesting increases photosynthetic efficiency and biomass productivity in crop plants. Crop leaves in full sunlight dissipate damaging excess absorbed light energy as heat. When sunlit leaves are shaded by clouds or other leaves, this protective dissipation continues for many minutes and reduces photosynthesis. Calculations have shown that this could cost field crops up to 20% of their potential yield. Here, we describe the bioengineering of an accelerated response to natural shading events in Nicotiana (tobacco) resulting in increased leaf carbon dioxide uptake and plant dry matter productivity by about 15% in fluctuating light. Because the photoprotective mechanism that has been altered is common to all flowering plants and crops, the findings provide proof of concept for a route to obtaining a sustainable increase in productivity for food crops and a much needed yield jump.
Photon management for augmented photosynthesis
Venue: Nature communications

Microalgae and cyanobacteria are some of nature's finest examples of solar energy conversion systems, effortlessly transforming inorganic carbon into complex molecules through photosynthesis. The efficiency of energy dense hydrocarbon production by photosynthetic organisms is determined in part by the light collected by the microorganisms. Therefore, optical engineering has the potential to increase the productivity of algae cultivation systems used for industrial scale biofuel synthesis. Herein, we explore and report emerging and promising material science and engineering innovations for augmenting microalgal photosynthesis.
Integrality gaps for strengthened linear relaxations of capacitated facility location
Venue: Math. Program.

Metric uncapacitated facility location is a well studied problem for which linear programming methods have been used with great success in deriving approximation algorithms. Capacitated facility location (Cfl) is a generalization for which there are local search based constant factor approximations, while there is no known compact relaxation with constant integrality gap. This paper produces, through a host of impossibility results, the first comprehensive investigation of the effectiveness of mathematical programming for metric capacitated facility location, with emphasis on lift and project methods. We show that the relaxations obtained from the natural LP at \varOmega (n)$O(n) levels of the semidefinite Lovasz Schrijver hierarchy for mixed programs, and at \varOmega (n)$O(n) levels of the Sherali Adams hierarchy, have an integrality gap of \varOmega (n)$O(n) where $n$$n is the number of facilities, partially answering an open question of An et al. (Centrality of trees for capacitated k center, 2013) Li and Svensson ( 2013) For the families of instances we consider, both hierarchies yield at the $n$$nth level an exact formulation for Cfl. Thus our bounds are asymptotically tight. Building on our methodology for the Sherali Adams result, we prove that the standard Cfl relaxation enriched with the submodular inequalities of Aardal et al. ( 1995) a generalization of the flow cover valid inequalities, has also an \varOmega (n)$O(n) gap and thus not bounded by any constant. This disproves a long standing conjecture of Levi et al (Math Program 131(1 2):365 379, 2012) We finally introduce the family of proper relaxations which generalizes to its logical extreme the classic star relaxation and captures general configuration style LPs. We characterize the behavior of proper relaxations for Cfl through a sharp threshold phenomenon.
Molecular and biological characterization of Potato mop top virus (PMTV, Pomovirus) isolates from the potato growing regions of Colombia

Potato mop top virus (PMTV) causes necrotic flecks inside and on tubers in temperate countries. In South America, these symptoms have not been observed, although the presence of the virus has been confirmed in the Andes and in Central America. To characterize PMTV isolates from the Andes, soil samples were taken from the main potato producing regions in Colombia and virus was recovered by planting Nicotiana benthamiana as bait plants. The complete genomes of five isolates were sequenced and three of the isolates were inoculated to four different indicator plants. Based on sequence comparisons, three types of RNA CP (RNA2) and RNA TGB (RNA3) were found. The isolates from the centre of the country (CO3 and CO4) were similar to isolates from Europe. The genomes of CO1, CO2 and CO5 differ from other PMTV isolates, placing them in a separate clade in phylogenetic trees. The three Colombian isolates (CO1, CO2 and CO5) only induced slightly different symptoms in the indicator plants. However, the isolate from the northwest of the country (CO1) induced stronger symptoms in N. benthamiana including severe stunting. A correlation between the genotype of the isolates and the symptoms they induced on indicator plants was not found.
CONSENSUS TECHNIQUES AND THE COMPARISON

Adams, E. N. III (Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 111. 61801) 1972. Consensus techniques and the comparison of taxonomic trees. Syst. Zool. 21: 390 397. A new problem in the science of classification is presented, along with its solution. The problem is to combine the information in several taxonomic trees into a single tree. The solution is a computational method for computing a tree which represents only that information shared by all the rival trees. Such a method, called the consensus method, can be used to "compare" several rival tree representations or to compute a more stable tree from slightly perturbed variants of the original data. A method is defined and demonstrated for each of two different types of trees: rooted, fully labelled trees, and rooted trees with unlabelled internal nodes.
Pre University English as Second Language (ESL) Learners' Attitude towards Mobile Learning

Despite computer technologies, mobile technologies are also seen to have proven as potential tools in increasing the learning of language. The fast growth of new generation of mobile technologies has increased the great potential of effective English language learning especially among the pre university English as Second Language (ESL) learners. This demands the needs for higher education institutions to change over their approach to meet new technological advances and educational challenges. However, since the success of mobile learning depends upon ESL learners' acceptance of the technology, their acceptance should be a key concern for administrators and educators when are considering the implementation of mobile learning. Thus, this study investigates pre university ESL learners' attitude towards mobile learning for the purpose of learning ESL. Data are collected from 378 semester one students from four polytechnics in Malaysia and are analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study are hoped to provide polytechnic administrators a means to make effective fiscal and educational decisions regarding mobile learning and to ensure the fiscal and pedagogical success of a mobile learning initiative in a globally competitive environment.
Educators' Attitude towards Outcomes Based Educational Approach in English Second Language Learning

Determining the educators' attitude towards Outcomes Based Educational (OBE) approach in English language is essential for the success of any undertaking to shift to a new paradigm in the curriculum. This study used descriptive correlational research design to investigate to what extent English language educators are accepting or resisting the envisioned education approach in a State University. Quantitative data gathered from researcher made survey were analyzed using SPSS software. Relationships among variables were determined using the Spearman's rho. Results revealed that the respondents' age, number of years in teaching and educational attainment are positively related to their attitude towards Outcomes Based Education (OBE) This study has helped in making the educational institution realize the pressing need for their commitment to support academic staff by providing continuing professional development to educators, and a facilitative learning environment to students that will help achieve the desired learning outcomes in English as Second Language (ESL) class.
ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION OF STUDENTS TOWARDS LEARNING ENGLISH AS SECOND LANGUAGE IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN PENANG

Today, the English language as a medium of instruction and communication has become very important and makes an increased contribution to education and efficiencies of the students and enables them to fulfil the major demands of the institutions and organizations they work in. In Malaysian schools, as the language is not taught from the beginning in the schools, many of the students are not able to grasp the language at a later stage in their lives. Due to various factors, the students are not able to gain the right attitude and motivational level, which is essential to learn and use the second language effectively. Thus, there is a need to understand the attitudes and motivational level of the students in a secondary school in Penang to identify the various factors, which influence their attitudes and motivational levels. Using focus group interviews, this qualitative case study is an attempt to understand the views of students about learning ESL and the attitudes they have developed about the language and its use. This study is also an attempt to understand the motivational levels and the reason behind the motivational level which involve 20 students in a secondary school in Penang. The results of the research confirm that students have developed both positive and negative attitudes and motivation towards ESL due to the lack of proper environment and teaching approaches administered.
Oscillating water column wave energy converters and air turbines: A review

The ocean waves are an important renewable energy resource that, if extensively exploited, may contribute significantly to the electrical energy supply of countries with coasts facing the sea. A wide variety of technologies has been proposed, studied, and in some cases tested at full size in real ocean conditions. Oscillating water column (OWC) devices, of fixed structure or floating, are an important class of wave energy devices. A large part of wave energy converter prototypes deployed so far into the sea are of OWC type. In an OWC, there is a fixed or floating hollow structure, open to the sea below the water surface, that traps air above the inner free surface. Wave action alternately compresses and decompresses the trapped air which is forced to flow through a turbine coupled to a generator. The paper presents a comprehensive review of OWC technologies and air turbines. This is followed by a survey of theoretical, numerical and experimental modelling techniques of OWC converters. Reactive phase control and phase control by latching are important issues that are addressed, together with turbine rotational speed control.
COZ: Finding Code that Counts with Causal Profiling
Venue: USENIX Annual Technical Conference

Improving performance is a central concern for software developers. To locate optimization opportunities, developers rely on software profilers. However, these profilers only report where programs spend their time: optimizing that code may have no impact on performance. Past profilers thus both waste developer time and make it difficult for them to uncover significant optimization opportunities.This paper introduces causal profiling. Unlike past profiling approaches, causal profiling indicates exactly where programmers should focus their optimization efforts, and quantifies their potential impact. Causal profiling works by running performance experiments during program execution. Each experiment calculates the impact of any potential optimization by virtually speeding up code: inserting pauses that slow down all other code running concurrently. The key insight is that this slowdown has the same relative effect as running that line faster, thus "virtually" speeding it up.We present Coz, a causal profiler, which we evaluate on a range of highly tuned applications such as Memcached, SQLite, and the PARSEC benchmark suite. Coz identifies previously unknown optimization opportunities that are both significant and targeted. Guided by Coz, we improve the performance of Memcached by 9% SQLite by 25% and accelerate six PARSEC applications by as much as 68% in most cases, these optimizations involve modifying under 10 lines of code.
Intra articular injection of two different doses of autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells versus hyaluronic acid in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial (phase I/II)
Venue: Journal of Translational Medicine

AbstractBackgroundMesenchymal stromal cells are a promising option to treat knee osteoarthritis. Their safety and usefulness must be confirmed and the optimal dose established. We tested increasing doses of bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BM MSCs) in combination with hyaluronic acid in a randomized clinical trial.MaterialsA phase I/II multicenter randomized clinical trial with active control was conducted. Thirty patients diagnosed with knee OA were randomly assigned to intraarticularly administered hyaluronic acid alone (control) or together with 10 x 106 or 100 x 106 cultured autologous BM MSCs, and followed up for 12 months. Pain and function were assessed using VAS and WOMAC and by measuring the knee motion range. X ray and magnetic resonance imaging analyses were performed to analyze joint damage.ResultsNo adverse effects were reported after BM MSC administration or during follow up. BM MSC administered patients improved according to VAS during all follow up evaluations and median value (IQR) for control, low dose and high dose groups change from 5 (3, 7) 7 (5, 8) and 6 (4, 8) to 4 (3, 5) 2 (1, 3) and 2 (0,4) respectively at 12 months (low dose vs control group p 0.005 and high dose vs control group p 0.009) BM MSC administered patients were also superior according to WOMAC, although improvement in control and low dose patients could not be significantly sustained beyond 6 months. On the other hand, the BM MSC high dose group exhibited an improvement of 16.5 (12, 19) points at 12 months (p 0.01) Consistent with WOMAC and VAS values, motion ranges remained unaltered in the control group but improved at 12 months with BM MSCs. X ray revealed a reduction of the knee joint space width in the control group that was not seen in BM MSCs high dose group. MRI (WORMS protocol) showed that joint damage decreased only in the BM MSC high dose group, albeit slightly.ConclusionsThe single intraarticular injection of in vitro expanded autologous BM MSCs together with HA is a safe and feasible procedure that results in a clinical and functional improvement of knee OA, especially when 100 x 106 cells are administered. These results pave the way for a future phase III clinical trial. Clinical Trials.gov identifier NCT02123368.
Quasi noise free digital holography
Venue: Light, science applications

One of the main drawbacks of Digital Holography (DH) is the coherent nature of the light source, which severely corrupts the quality of holographic reconstructions. Although numerous techniques to reduce noise in DH have provided good results, holographic noise suppression remains a challenging task. We propose a novel framework that combines the concepts of encoding multiple uncorrelated digital holograms, block grouping and collaborative filtering to achieve quasi noise free DH reconstructions. The optimized joint action of these different image denoising methods permits the removal of up to 98% of the noise while preserving the image contrast. The resulting quality of the hologram reconstructions is comparable to the quality achievable with non coherent techniques and far beyond the current state of art in DH. Experimental validation is provided for both single wavelength and multi wavelength DH, and a comparison with the most used holographic denoising methods is performed.
The Grism lens amplified survey from space (GLASS) VIII. The influence of the cluster properties on Halpha emitter galaxies at 0.3

Exploiting the data of the Grism Lens Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) we characterize the spatial distribution of star formation in 76 high star forming galaxies in 10 clusters at 0.3< z <0.7. All these galaxies are likely restricted to first infall. In a companion paper we contrast the properties of field and cluster galaxies, whereas here we correlate the properties of H{\alpha} emitters to a number of tracers of the cluster environment to investigate its role in driving galaxy transformations.  emitters are found in the clusters out to 0.5 virial radii, the maximum radius covered by GLASS. The peak of the H{\alpha} emission is offset with respect to the peak of the UV continuum. We decompose this offsets into a radial and tangential component. The radial compo nent points away from the cluster center in 60% of the cases, with 95% confidence. The decompositions agree with cosmological simulations, i.e. the H{\alpha} emission offset correlates with galaxy velocity and ram pressure stripping signatures. Trends between H{\alpha} emitter properties and surface mass density distributions and X ray emissions emerge only for unrelaxed clusters. The lack of strong correlations with the global environment does not allow us to identify a unique environmental effect originating from the cluster center. In contrast, correla tions between H{\alpha} morphology and local number density emerge. We conclude that local effects, uncorrelated to the cluster centric radius, play a more important role in shaping galaxy properties.
POSITIONING THE OFFER OF FOUR STARS HOTEL FROM FELIX SPA BETWEEN BALNEO AND WELLNESS TOURISM

Introducere/Objective In Romania, around consistent thermal water sources were developed centers resorts profile SPA, spas named. Balneology is regarded as a branch of medicine dealing with disorders using mineral water. Completing the offer of hotels climatic spa resorts, in response to worldwide trends, it was done with wellness services. In this study we intend to investigate to what extent a four star hotel in the largest spa in the country, has an offer wellness not only name but also as content and consumer perception.  The research methods used were: analysis of secondary data, research direct investigation based on a questionnaire applied among customers. Data were statistically analyzed primary and deepened.  The first two hypotheses were validated. The third hypothesis was validated in demand limit imposed by the observation unit. Hypotheses are: H1: Offer wellness services unit studied is one incomplete H2: Customer is not the specific Wellness Hotel H3 Consumer preference is for hotel guests balnear services, especially.  The results reflect a partial understanding of the concept of wellness by the hotel management.
Spatial Data Supply Chain Provenance Modelling for Next Generation Spatial Infrastructures Using Semantic Web Technologies

This research addresses spatial data supply chain provenance issues using semantic Web technologies to resolve knowledge gaps when disseminating spatial data products. Two models from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Open Provenance Group for general data on the Web do not satisfy geospatial end user needs. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has investigated the W3C PROV model for spatial datasets. Issues identified are the lack of provenance captured at the feature and attribute level, and for time series, data set series, representation and presentation interfaces, and elements at different levels. In order to answer user queries comprehensively, a geospatial provenance model in conjunction with semantic technologies has been identified as a potential solution to increase a user's trust in datasets and processes. This is important as raster dataset provenance, time series conflation processes and incremental updates have not been addressed. This has created a critical gap between provenance currency and the believability of geospatial
Evaluation of the efficiency of artificial neural networks for genetic value prediction.
Venue: Genetics and molecular research GMR

Artificial neural networks have shown great potential when applied to breeding programs. In this study, we propose the use of artificial neural networks as a viable alternative to conventional prediction methods. We conduct a thorough evaluation of the efficiency of these networks with respect to the prediction of breeding values. Therefore, we considered eight simulated scenarios, and for the purpose of genetic value prediction, seven statistical parameters in addition to the phenotypic mean in a network designed as a multilayer perceptron. After an evaluation of different network configurations, the results demonstrated the superiority of neural networks compared to estimation procedures based on linear models, and indicated high predictive accuracy and network efficiency.
The Prediction of PM2.5 Value Based on ARMA and Improved BP Neural Network Model
Venue: 2016 International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems (INCoS)

According to the value of PM2.5 in Langfang city in 2015, we propose a new prediction technique based on ARMA and improved BP neural network to forecast the PM2.5 concentrations. In order to prove the accuracy of prediction of PM2.5 concentration of the combined model, Two models considered in the study:ARMA+BP neural network combined model and ARMA+improved BP neural network combined model. The study showed that compared with the ARMA+BP neural network combined model, ARMA+improved BP neural network combined model can better predict the value of PM2.5 and the prediction error is relatively small.