Energy Budget on Various Land Use Areas Using Reanalysis Data in Florida

Energy budget is closely related to the hydrological cycle through evapotranspiration (ET) or latent heat. Hence, quantifying the energy budget on different land uses is critical for understanding the water budget and providing useful land use information for decision makers. However, traditional methods, including in situ measurements and model-only approaches, have deficiencies in data availability, and we have still not yet fully realized how well the energy budgets presented in reanalysis data sets. Therefore, in this study, North American regional reanalysis (NARR) data set from 1992 to 2002 were employed to investigate the energy budget on various land uses (lake, wetland, agriculture, forest, and urban) at a regional scale in Florida. The results showed that the lake and urban areas had high values of energy budget, evaporation, and low Bowen ratio, while the wetland areas have the opposite treads because of the lowest evaporation rate. During drought periods, Bowen ratio, surface temperature, and sensible heat were becoming higher than those of normal years conditions. Finally, by comparing with the observed data, we found NARR had better assimilation of precipitation observations and demonstrated the land use effects from the different coefficient of correlation relationships

Modeling mutual feedback between users and recommender systems

Recommender systems daily influence our decisions on the Internet. While considerable attention has been given to issues such as recommendation accuracy and user privacy, the long-term mutual feedback between a recommender system and the decisions of its users has been neglected so far. We propose here a model of network evolution which allows us to study the complex dynamics induced by this feedback, including the hysteresis effect which is typical for systems with non-linear dynamics. Despite the popular belief that recommendation helps users to discover new things, we find that the long-term use of recommendation can contribute to the rise of extremely popular items and thus ultimately narrow the user choice. These results are supported by measurements of the time evolution of item popularity inequality in real systems. We show that this adverse effect of recommendation can be tamed by sacrificing part of short-term recommendation accuracy

Quantitative measures of functional outcomes and quality of life in patients with C5 palsy

AbstractBackgroundIt is generally understood that postoperative C5 palsy can occur with anterior or posterior decompression surgery, but functional measures of the palsy have not been well documented. This study aimed to investigate the incidence of C5 palsy in different surgical procedures, examine the correlations between muscle strength, upper extremity functional measures, and health-related quality of life, and to observe potential risk factors contributing to C5 palsy.MethodsOur investigation involved a retrospective study design. A total of 364 patients who underwent decompression surgery were indicated within the selected exclusion criteria. Additionally, 12 C5 palsy patients were recruited. The relationships between the manual muscle test (MMT), the action research arm test (ARAT), the Jebsen test of hand function (JTHF), and the European quality of life-5 dimensions (EQ-5D) were studied, and univariate analyses were performed to search possible risk factors and recovery investigation.ResultsThe data analyzed in the 12 cases and C5 palsy incidences (3.3%) were: 0.7% in anterior procedures (n = 2), 8.8% in posterior procedures (n = 6), and 36.4% in combined procedures (n = 4). Moderate-to-high correlations were observed between the ARAT, JTHF, EQ-5D visual analog scale scores, and MMT (r = 0.636–0.899). There were significant differences in patient age, etiology of cervical lesion, variable decompression procedures, and the number of decompression levels between the C5 palsy and non-C5 palsy groups. For female patients (p = 0.018) and number of decompression levels (p = 0.028), there were significant differences between the complete recovery and the incomplete recovery groups.ConclusionPatients undergoing combined anterior–posterior decompression surgery had the highest incidence of C5 palsy, and correlations between the ARAT, JTHF, EQ-5D visual analog scale clinical tools, and MMT scores supported these findings. Female status and lower decompression levels could also be predictive factors for complete recovery, although additional research is needed to substantiate these findings

Using Pattern Recognition for Investment Decision Support in Taiwan Stock Market

In Taiwan stock market, it has been accumulated large amounts of time series stock data and successful investment strategies. The stock price, which is impacted by various factors, is the result of buyer-seller investment strategies. Since the stock price reflects numerous factors, its pattern can be described as the strategies of investors. In this paper, pattern recognition concept is adapted to match the current stock price trend with the repeatedly appearing past price data. Accordingly, a new method is introduced in this research that extracting features quickly from stock time series chart to find out the most critical feature points. The matching can be processed via the corresponding information of the feature points. In other words, the goal is to seek for the historical repeatedly appearing patterns, namely the similar trend, offering the investors to make investment strategies

New primers for methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction enhance specificity of detecting STAT1 methylation

AbstractObjectiveSignal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)1 is a key tumor suppressor, which is always methylated in a variety of human cancers. However, nonspecific primers for the detection of specific promoter hypermethylation of STAT1 gene can lead to false-positive or false-negative results for gene methylation.Materials and MethodsWe designed new primers for the detection of STAT1 methylation and compared the sensitivities and specificities of these new primers with prior published primers by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from ovarian clear cell carcinomas. The mRNA expression levels of STAT1 in these cancerous tissues were also evaluated by reverse-transcriptase PCR and correlated with the results of promoter methylation of STAT1 gene.ResultsNine (39%) of the 23 samples detected by the new primers and 13 samples (56%) detected by prior published primers showed STAT1 methylation. A direct DNA sequencing test revealed that four of the 13 samples (30.8%) showed false positivity for STAT1 methylation using the prior published primers. In contrast, none of the nine samples was false-positive for the detection of STAT1 methylation using the new primers. The new primers for the detection of STAT1 methylation showed 100% specificity and 100% sensitivity without false positivity.ConclusionSpecific primers for methylation-specific PCR are mandatory for the accurate detection of STAT1 gene methylation. Besides, specific primers can generate correct interpretation of STAT1 gene methylation, and its correlation with the clinicopathological characteristics and outcome of cancer patients

Energy Budget on Various Land Use Areas Using Reanalysis Data in Florida

Energy budget is closely related to the hydrological cycle through evapotranspiration (ET) or latent heat. Hence, quantifying the energy budget on different land uses is critical for understanding the water budget and providing useful land use information for decision makers. However, traditional methods, including in situ measurements and model-only approaches, have deficiencies in data availability, and we have still not yet fully realized how well the energy budgets presented in reanalysis data sets. Therefore, in this study, North American regional reanalysis (NARR) data set from 1992 to 2002 were employed to investigate the energy budget on various land uses (lake, wetland, agriculture, forest, and urban) at a regional scale in Florida. The results showed that the lake and urban areas had high values of energy budget, evaporation, and low Bowen ratio, while the wetland areas have the opposite treads because of the lowest evaporation rate. During drought periods, Bowen ratio, surface temperature, and sensible heat were becoming higher than those of normal years conditions. Finally, by comparing with the observed data, we found NARR had better assimilation of precipitation observations and demonstrated the land use effects from the different coefficient of correlation relationships

The reinforcing influence of recommendations on global diversification

Recommender systems are promising ways to filter the overabundant information in modern society. Their algorithms help individuals to explore decent items, but it is unclear how they allocate popularity among items. In this paper, we simulate successive recommendations and measure their influence on the dispersion of item popularity by Gini coefficient. Our result indicates that local diffusion and collaborative filtering reinforce the popularity of hot items, widening the popularity dispersion. On the other hand, the heat conduction algorithm increases the popularity of the niche items and generates smaller dispersion of item popularity. Simulations are compared to mean-field predictions. Our results suggest that recommender systems have reinforcing influence on global diversification.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Archaeobotanical evidence of plant cultivation from the Sanbaopi site in south-western Taiwan during the Late Neolithic and Metal Age

Despite decades of lively debate about Taiwan’s role in the spread of early agriculture, crops and cultivation practices to the Indo-Pacific region, there is little archaeobotanical data from the island. Here we present the first directly dated and systematically analysed macrobotanical records from Taiwan obtained by flotation at the archaeological site Sanbaopi 5 (23°07′03′′N, 120°15′32′′E), representing the Dahu (1400 BCE–100 CE) and Niaosong (100–1400 CE) culture periods. The results suggest that Middle Dahu (900–100 BCE) communities in the study area practiced rainfed crop cultivation with mainly foxtail (Setaria italica) and broomcorn (Panicum miliaceum) millet and rice (Oryza sativa). Pulses (Vigna angularis, Glycine soja/max) were also part of the subsistence of local farmers and used as supplementary food and/or green manure. The archaeobotanical record together with archaeological site data for prehistoric China substantiates evidence that the Dahu culture originates in the Lower Yellow River region and migrated to Taiwan along the East China Sea coast. The emergence of the Dahu culture coincided with the spread of mixed millet-rice farming to the Korean Peninsula and Japan and was possibly related to enhanced economic and political expansion of the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties and the long-term weakening of summer monsoon precipitation. Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) and mung bean (V. radiata var. radiata) assemblages from the sixth century CE Niaosong period highlight the influx of goods, crops, knowledge and people from South and Southeast Asia via southern routes in the context of enhanced exchange across the South China Sea region

POINeT: protein interactome with sub-network analysis and hub prioritization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are critical to every aspect of biological processes. Expansion of all PPIs from a set of given queries often results in a complex PPI network lacking spatiotemporal consideration. Moreover, the reliability of available PPI resources, which consist of low- and high-throughput data, for network construction remains a significant challenge. Even though a number of software tools are available to facilitate PPI network analysis, an integrated tool is crucial to alleviate the burden on querying across multiple web servers and software tools.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have constructed an integrated web service, POINeT, to simplify the process of PPI searching, analysis, and visualization. POINeT merges PPI and tissue-specific expression data from multiple resources. The tissue-specific PPIs and the numbers of research papers supporting the PPIs can be filtered with user-adjustable threshold values and are dynamically updated in the viewer. The network constructed in POINeT can be readily analyzed with, for example, the built-in centrality calculation module and an integrated network viewer. Nodes in global networks can also be ranked and filtered using various network analysis formulas, i.e., centralities. To prioritize the sub-network, we developed a ranking filtered method (S3) to uncover potential novel mediators in the midbody network. Several examples are provided to illustrate the functionality of POINeT. The network constructed from four schizophrenia risk markers suggests that EXOC4 might be a novel marker for this disease. Finally, a liver-specific PPI network has been filtered with adult and fetal liver expression profiles.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The functionalities provided by POINeT are highly improved compared to previous version of POINT. POINeT enables the identification and ranking of potential novel genes involved in a sub-network. Combining with tissue-specific gene expression profiles, PPIs specific to selected tissues can be revealed. The straightforward interface of POINeT makes PPI search and analysis just a few clicks away. The modular design permits further functional enhancement without hampering the simplicity. POINeT is available at <url>http://poinet.bioinformatics.tw/</url>.</p

Comparison of the mismatch-specific endonuclease method and denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography for the identification of HBB gene mutations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Beta-thalassemia is a common autosomal recessive hereditary disease in the Meditertanean, Asia and African areas. Over 600 mutations have been described in the beta-globin (<it>HBB</it>), of which more than 200 are associated with a beta-thalassemia phenotype.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used two highly-specific mutation screening methods, mismatch-specific endonuclease and denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography, to identify mutations in the <it>HBB </it>gene. The sensitivity and specificity of these two methods were compared. We successfully distinguished mutations in the <it>HBB </it>gene by the mismatch-specific endonuclease method without need for further assay. This technique had 100% sensitivity and specificity for the study sample.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Compared to the DHPLC approach, the mismatch-specific endonuclease method allows mutational screening of a large number of samples because of its speed, sensitivity and adaptability to semi-automated systems. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using the mismatch-specific endonuclease method as a tool for mutation screening.</p