nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Effect of TiO2 nanoparticles on streamer propagation in transformer oil under lightning impulse voltage
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation

Recent experiments have shown that some nanoparticles can influence the breakdown strength of transformer oil under lightning impulse voltage. To reveal the working mechanism, this paper presents an experimental study on the effect of TiO2 nanoparticles on the impulse breakdown strength and prebreakdown streamer propagation process in transformer oil based nanofluid under both positive and negative lightning impulse voltage. The test results verify that the modification of nanoparticles on breakdown strength of transformer oil has a distinct polar effect: positive breakdown voltage of nanofluid is increased by up to 30.8% whereas the negative one is decreased by 6.8% Streamer shape, propagation length and velocity in both pure oil and nanofluid were investigated using the shadowgraph technique. It is revealed that the propagation characteristics of positive and negative streamers in nanofluid are markedly affected by the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles. The positive streamers in nanofluid form a bush like structure with thicker and denser branches, developing much slower than tree like streamers in pure oil. While negative streamers in nanofluid have a tree like shape with much longer branches, propagating faster than the original bush like streamer in pure oil. These differences in streamer propagation characteristics and breakdown strength in pure oil and nanofluid are closely related to the change of space charge distribution caused by shallow trap in nanofluid. More negative charges are formed through capturing fast electrons into slow electrons in shallow traps induced by the presence of TiO2 nanoparticles, which change the local electric field in front of the streamer tip. Thus, streamer propagation process in nanofluid is dramatically modified, leading to the change in breakdown strength.
Substrate and Passivation Techniques for Flexible Amorphous Silicon Based X ray Detectors
Venue: Sensors

Flexible active matrix display technology has been adapted to create new flexible photo sensing electronic devices, including flexible X ray detectors. Monolithic integration of amorphous silicon (a Si) PIN photodiodes on a flexible substrate poses significant challenges associated with the intrinsic film stress of amorphous silicon. This paper examines how altering device structuring and diode passivation layers can greatly improve the electrical performance and the mechanical reliability of the device, thereby eliminating one of the major weaknesses of a Si PIN diodes in comparison to alternative photodetector technology, such as organic bulk heterojunction photodiodes and amorphous selenium. A dark current of 0.5 pA/mm2 and photodiode quantum efficiency of 74% are possible with a pixelated diode structure with a silicon nitride/SU 8 bilayer passivation structure on a 20 um thick polyimide substrate.
Person identification system using feature level fusion of multi biometrics
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC)

The use of unimodal biometric system is very low because of physiological defects, modes of user and their environment. Some of those drawbacks are alleviated by providing same identity for multiple evidences. Here a multimodal biometric system is proposed based on LBP, PCA and probabilistic neural network (PNN) In proposed method LBP extracted the Face features from face images and those features are given as input to PCA that generates Face Feature Vector with reduced Dimensions. Finger features are extracted from Fingerprint images using LBP and those features are given as input to PCA that generates Finger Feature Vector with reduced Dimensions. Using LBP, the distinct textual features of face and fingerprint are extracted. Weighted Summation Fusion method is used to combine these unimodal features. A probabilistic neural network is used as Classifier. An average recognition rate of 97.5% achieved with proposed method. Proposed method show that the proposed algorithm requires low computational cost.
Advanced Variants of Feature Level Fusion for Finger Vein Recognition
Venue: 2016 International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group (BIOSIG)

Authentication based on vein patterns is a very promising biometric technique. The most important step is the accurate extraction of the vein pattern from sometimes low quality input images. A single feature extraction technique may fail to correctly extract the vein pattern, entailing bad recognition performance. One of the solutions that can be used to improve recognition results is biometric fusion. A possible fusion strategy is feature level fusion, that is the fusion of several feature extractors' outputs. In our work, we exploited the feature level fusion to improve the quality of the extracted vein patterns and thus the feature extraction accuracy. An experimental study involving different feature extraction techniques (maximum curvature, repeated line tracking, wide line detector, and different fusion techniques (majority voting, weighted average, STAPLE, is conducted on the UTFVP finger vein data set. The results show that feature level fusion is able to improve the recognition accuracy in terms of the EER over the single feature extraction techniques.
Prevalence of Comorbidities, Overweight and Obesity in an International Sample of People with Multiple Sclerosis and Associations with Modifiable Lifestyle Factors
Venue: PloS one

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disorder, often affecting young people. Comorbid disorders such as depression, anxiety and hypertension are common and can affect disease course, treatment, and quality of life (QOL) of people with MS (PwMS) The associations between comorbidities, body mass index (BMI) and health outcomes are not well studied in MS, although research shows most PwMS are overweight. Most data on the prevalence of comorbidities and obesity in PwMS comes from North American populations. This study describes the prevalence of comorbidities, overweight and obesity and associations with modifiable factors in an international sample of PwMS recruited online through social media, MS societies and websites. The online survey consisted of validated and researcher devised instruments to assess self reported health outcomes and lifestyle behaviors. Of the 2399 respondents, 22.5% were overweight, 19.4% were obese and 67.2% reported at least one comorbidity, with back pain (36.2% depression (31.7% anxiety (29.1% and arthritis (13.7% most prevalent and most limiting in daily activities. Obesity and most comorbid disorders were significantly more prevalent in North America. Obese participants were more likely to have comorbidities, especially diabetes (OR 4.8) and high blood pressure (OR 4.5) but also depression (OR 2.2) Being overweight, obese, or a former, or current smoker was associated with an increase in the number of comorbidities; while healthy diet, physical activity (borderline significant) and moderate alcohol consumption were associated with decreased number of comorbidities. Increasing number of comorbidities was related to worse QOL, increased odds of disability and prior relapse. Obese PwMS had higher odds of disability and lower QOL. The associations between BMI, comorbidities and health outcomes are likely to be bi directional and associated with lifestyle behaviors. Preventing and treating comorbid disorders and obesity in PwMS is warranted, and advice regarding healthy and risky lifestyle may assist in improving health outcomes.
Comparative morphology of the hemolymph vascular system in Uropygi and Amblypygi (Arachnida) Complex correspondences support Arachnopulmonata
Venue: Journal of morphology

Although the circulatory system of arthropods has long been considered as rather simple, recent studies have demonstrated that in certain arthropod taxa, such as Malacostraca, some Chilopoda and also many Chelicerata, the vascular systems in particular are rather complex. Furthermore, a recent study has revealed that the prosomal ganglion of scorpions and spiders is supplied by an intricate network of arteries, the complexity of which bears a close resemblance to that of vertebrate capillary systems. In this study, we analyzed the hemolymph vascular systems of various species of Pedipalpi (i.e. Amblypygi and Uropygi) By combining modern techniques, such as MicroCT and cLSM, with computer based 3D reconstruction, we were able to produce comprehensive visualizations and descriptions of the vascular systems. Despite the lack of well corroborated phylogenetic hypotheses on arachnid relationships and the controversial assertion of relationships between the pulmonate arachnids, we aim to elucidate the evolution of complex vascular systems in Arachnida. By comparing these highly complex vascular systems not only with each other, but also with other pulmonate arachnids, we found numerous detailed correspondences in the general branching pattern as well as in the supply patterns of the prosomal ganglion. We argue that these numerous and detailed correspondences by their absence in other arachnids i.e. aplumonates, support Arachnopulmonata.  2016.
Aging behavior and precipitates analysis of the Cu Cr Zr Ce alloy

Microstructure of the Cu Cr Zr Ce alloy was investigated by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) along with micro hardness and electrical conductivity measurements. The alloy hardness and electrical conductivity can reach 170 HV and 66% IACS, respectively, after 80% cold rolling and aging for 16 h at 300 degC. Under the same aging conditions, without cold rolling, the hardness is 90 HV and electrical conductivity is 44% IACS. Two kinds of Cr and Cu4Zr precipitates were identified by TEM characterization after aging at 400 degC for 8 h. HRTEM microstructure analysis shows the presence of chromium rich particles after aging for 18 h at 300 degC. Precipitates with ordered fcc structure are coherent with the matrix. Most of the precipitates are club shaped chromium rich particles, around 10 15 nm in size. The phase transformation kinetics was determined during aging. This study explored optimized processing conditions of the Cu Cr Zr Ce alloy.
Effect of nano Co reinforcements on the structure of the Sn 3.0Ag 0.5Cu solder in liquid and after reflow solid states

Ag Cu (SAC) alloys are commonly recognized as lead free solders employed in the electronics industry. However, some disadvantages in mechanical properties and their higher melting temperatures compared to Pb Sn solders prompt new research relating to reinforcement of existing SAC solders. One of the ways to reinforce these solder materials is the formation of composites with nanoparticles as filler materials. Accordingly, this study presents structural features of nanocomposite (Sn 3.0Ag 0.5Cu)100 x(nanoCo)x solders with up to 0.8 wt% nano Co. The effect of nano sized Co particles was investigated by means of differential thermal analysis (DTA) X ray diffraction (XRD) in both liquid and solid states, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) The experimental data of DTA are compared with available literature data for bulk Sn 3.0Ag 0.5Cu alloy to check the capability of minor nano inclusions to decrease the melting temperature of the SAC solder. The combination of structural data in liquid and solid states provides important information about the structural transformations of liquid Sn 3.0Ag 0.5Cu alloys caused by minor Co additions and the phase formation during crystallization. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy has shown the mutual substitution of Co and Cu atoms in the Cu6Sn5 and CoSn3 phases, respectively.
Heuristic approach for computer aided lesion detection in mammograms
Venue: Soft Comput.

Digital mammography is a common screening method for early detection of breast cancer. Its efficiency varies from 60 to 90 depending on various factors such as breast density, quality of the mammogram as well as experience and knowledge of the radiologist (Andolina and Lille in Mammographic imaging: a practical guide, Lippincott Williams Wilkins, Philadelphia, 2010) One of the most effective ways to increase the cancer detection rate is double reading (Fernandez Lozano in Soft Comput 19(9):2469 2480, 2015) Regarding the fact that only the early stage patients have high chances of survival, a computer aided detection (CAD) system for mammography that provides a second, independent diagnosis should be considered a valuable and lifesaving tool. In this paper we present a new heuristic approach focused on analyzing characteristics of the mammogram that may indicate the presence of breast cancer. Described soft computing detection algorithm based on local features allows us to extract microcalcifications and possible tumor areas from the image. Because calcifications are associated with certain types of lesions, we believe that this idea would result in improving existing medical information systems. Future inclusion of fuzzy classifiers in the algorithm may also provide additional diagnostic value. Conducted research confirms that proposed procedure correctly identifies the regions of interest and could be used as a base of a CAD system in a double reading procedures.
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China: The Tibetan Plateau, Sanjiangyuan Region

In Qinghai, China, on the Tibetan Plateau, is the Sanjiangyuan, or "Three Rivers Region." As the headwaters of three of the world's greatest rivers, it provides water to more than a billion people downstream, and at the source it includes some of the best snow leopard habitat in China. China is vital for the long term persistence of this species across its range, yet it is plagued by the specter of anthropogenic impact, none more imminent than increasing development, mining, and hydro projects. In the Sanjiangyuan, multistakeholder efforts among NGOs, universities, governments, and pastoralists have initiated a strong baseline of scientific and conservation work for snow leopards. However, because of significant shortcomings in biological, sociological, and political action, much effort is still needed to ensure the survival of this species. We can draw on lessons from giant panda conservation to make the charismatic, and enigmatic, snow leopard China's next conservation success.
PatchIt: Self Supervised Network Weight Initialization for Fine grained Recognition
Venue: BMVC

ConvNet training is highly sensitive to initialization of the weights. A widespread approach is to initialize the network with weights trained for a different task, an auxiliary task. The ImageNet based ILSVRC classification task is a very popular choice for this, as it has shown to produce powerful feature representations applicable to a wide variety of tasks. However, this creates a significant entry barrier to exploring non standard architectures. In this paper, we propose a self supervised pretraining, the PatchTask, to obtain weight initializations for fine grained recognition problems, such as person attribute recognition, pose estimation, or action recognition. Our pretraining allows us to leverage additional unlabeled data from the same source, which is often readily available, such as detection bounding boxes. We experimentally show that our method outperforms a standard random initialization by a considerable margin and closely matches the ImageNet based initialization.
Dual regulation of root hydraulic conductivity and plasma membrane aquaporins by plant nitrate accumulation and high affinity nitrate transporter NRT2.1.
Venue: Plant cell physiology

The water status and mineral nutrition of plants critically determine their growth and development. Nitrate (NO3( the primary nitrogen source of higher plants, is known to impact the water transport capacity of roots (root hydraulic conductivity, Lpr) To explore the effects and mode of action of NO3( on Lpr, we used an extended set of NO3( transport (nrt1.1, nrt1.2, nrt1.5 and nrt2.1) signaling (nrt1.1 and nrt2.1) and metabolism (nia) mutants in Arabidopsis, grown under various NO3( conditions. First, a strong positive relationship between Lpr and NO3( accumulation, in shoots rather than in roots, was revealed. Secondly, a specific 30% reduction of Lpr in nrt2.1 plants unraveled a major role for the high affinity NO3( transporter NRT2.1 in increasing Lpr These results indicate that NO3( )signaling rather than nitrogen assimilation products governs Lpr in Arabidopsis. Quantitative real time reverse transcription PCR and enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) were used to investigate the effects of NO3( availability on plasma membrane aquaporin (plasma membrane intrinsic protein; PIP) expression. Whereas PIP regulation mostly occurs at the post translational level in wild type plants, a regulation of PIPs at both the transcriptional and translational levels was uncovered in nrt2.1 plants. In conclusion, this work reveals that control of Arabidopsis Lpr and PIP functions by NO3( involves novel shoot to root signaling and NRT2.1 dependent functions.
Comparison of ground cover estimates from experiment plots in cotton, sorghum and sugarcane based on images and ortho mosaics captured by UAV.
Venue: Functional plant biology FPB

Ground cover is an important physiological trait affecting crop radiation capture, water use efficiency and grain yield. It is challenging to efficiently measure ground cover with reasonable precision for large numbers of plots, especially in tall crop species. Here we combined two image based methods to estimate plot level ground cover for three species, from either an ortho mosaic or undistorted (i.e. corrected for lens and camera effects) images captured by cameras using a low altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Reconstructed point clouds and ortho mosaics for the whole field were created and a customised image processing workflow was developed to (1) segment the 'whole field' datasets into individual plots, and (2) 'reverse calculate' each plot from each undistorted image. Ground cover for individual plots was calculated by an efficient vegetation segmentation algorithm. For 79% of plots, estimated ground cover was greater from the ortho mosaic than from images, particularly when plants were small, or when older/taller in large plots. While there was a good agreement between the ground cover estimates from ortho mosaic and images when the target plot was positioned at a near nadir view near the centre of image (cotton: R2=0.97, sorghum: R2=0.98, sugarcane: R2=0.84) ortho mosaic estimates were 5% greater than estimates from these near nadir images. Because each plot appeared in multiple images, there were multiple estimates of the ground cover, some of which should be excluded, e.g. when the plot is near edge within an image. Considering only the images with near nadir view, the reverse calculation provides a more precise estimate of ground cover compared with the ortho mosaic. The methodology is suitable for high throughput phenotyping for applications in agronomy, physiology and breeding for different crop species and can be extended to provide pixel level data from other types of cameras including thermal and multi spectral models.
Effect of heavy metals on seed germination and seedling growth of common ragweed and roadside ground cover legumes.
Venue: Environmental pollution

In southern Quebec, supplement roadside ground covers (i.e. Trifolium spp. struggle to establish near edges of major roads and thus fail to assist turf recruitment. It creates empty niches vulnerable to weed establishment such as common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) We hypothesized that heavy metal stresses may drive such species shifts along roadside edges. A growth chamber experiment was conducted to assess effects of metals (Zn, Pb, Ni, Cu, and Cd) on germination and seedling behaviors of roadside weed (A. artemisiifolia) and ground cover legumes (Coronilla varia, Lotus corniculatus, and Trifolium arvense) All metals inhibited T. arvense germination, but the effect was least on A. artemisiifolia. Low levels of Pb and Ni promoted germination initiation of A. artemisiifolia. Germination of L. corniculatus was not affected by Zn, Pb, and Ni, but inhibited by Cu and Cd. Germination of C. varia was decreased by Ni, Cu, and Cd and delayed by Zn and Pb. Metal additions hindered seedling growth of all test species, and the inhibitory effect on the belowground growth was greater than on the aboveground growth. Seedling mortality was lowest in A. artemisiifolia but highest in T. arvense when exposed to the metal treatments. L. corniculatus and C. varia seedlings survived when subjected to high levels of Zn, Pb, and Cd. In conclusion, the successful establishment of A. artemisiifolia along roadside edges can be associated with its greater tolerance of heavy metals. The findings also revealed that L. corniculatus is a potential candidate for supplement ground cover in metal contaminated roadside edges in southern Quebec, especially sites contaminated with Zn and Pb.
Ground cover management affects parasitism of Prays oleae (Bernard)

Spontaneous ground covers comprise ecological infrastructures that may provide food, alternative hosts and shelter for parasitoids in olive groves, thus contributing to biological control of pests. This study investigated the effects of herbicide application, tillage, and conservation of spontaneous ground covers on parasitism of the anthophagous generation of the olive moth, Prays oleae (Bernard) The study was performed in northeast Portugal in 2011 and 2013 in 14 and 15 olive groves, respectively, with different management types. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) were used to analyze olive moth emergence, overall parasitism rate, relative abundance of parasitoid species, and total parasitism of olive moth larvae. Ageniaspis fuscicollis (Dalman) accounted for the majority of the parasitism, followed by Elasmus flabellatus (Fonscolombe) In both years, ground cover management type did not influence the emergence rate of P. oleae. However, overall parasitism rate, emergence of A. fuscicollis, and the number of A. fuscicollis emerging per olive moth larvae varied among years. In 2011, the latter response variables were significantly higher in groves with spontaneous ground cover than in those treated with herbicide, indicating a negative effect of herbicides on parasitoids. Although tilled groves obtained higher values for these variables in 2013, parasitism rates were generally very low. In sum, the management of ground covers seemed to influence the overall rate of P. oleae parasitism in some years, but longer term experiments are needed to clarify this trend.