| 1. |
- Hsu, N. -Y, et al.
(författare)
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Predicted risk of childhood allergy, asthma, and reported symptoms using measured phthalate exposure in dust and urine
- 2012
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Ingår i: Indoor Air. - : Hindawi Limited. - 0905-6947 .- 1600-0668. ; 22:3, s. 186-199
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The associated risk of phthalate exposure, both parent compounds in the home and their metabolites in urine, to childhood allergic and respiratory morbidity, after adjusting for exposures of indoor pollutants, especially bioaerosols, was comprehensively assessed. Levels of five phthalates in settled dust from the homes of 101 children (39 years old) were measured, along with their corresponding urinary metabolites. Other environmental risk factors, including indoor CO2, PM2.5, formaldehyde, 1,3-beta-d-glucan, endotoxin, allergen and fungal levels, were concomitantly examined. Subjects health status was verified by pediatricians, and parents recorded observed daily symptoms of their children for the week that the home investigation visit took place. Significantly increased level of benzylbutyl phthalate, in settled dust, was associated with test case subjects (allergic or asthmatic children). Higher levels of dibutyl phthalate and its metabolites, mono-n-butyl phthalate, and mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalate were found to be the potential risk factors for the health outcomes of interest. Similarly, indoor fungal exposure remained a significant risk factor, especially for reported respiratory symptoms. The relative contribution from exposure to phthalates and indoor biocontaminants in childhood allergic and respiratory morbidity is, for the first time, quantitatively assessed and characterized. Practical Implications For asthmatic and allergic children living in subtropical and highly developed environments like homes in Taiwan, controlling environmental exposure of phthalates may be viewed as equally important as avoiding indoor microbial burdens, for the management of allergy-related diseases. It is also recognized that multidisciplinary efforts will be critical in realizing the true underlying mechanisms associated with these observations.
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| 2. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
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| 3. |
- Casas, Israel, et al.
(författare)
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A balanced scheduler with data reuse and replication for scientific workflows in cloud computing systems
- 2017
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Ingår i: Future Generation Computer Systems. - : Elsevier. - 0167-739X .- 1872-7115. ; 74, s. 168-178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cloud computing provides substantial opportunities to researchers who demand pay-as-you-go computing systems. Although cloud provider (e.g., Amazon Web Services) and application provider (e.g., biologists, physicists, and online gaming companies) both have specific performance requirements (e.g. application response time), it is the cloud scheduler’s responsibility to map the application to underlying cloud resources. This article presents a Balanced and file Reuse-Replication Scheduling (BaRRS) algorithm for cloud computing environments to optimally schedule scientific application workflows. BaRRS splits scientific workflows into multiple sub-workflows to balance system utilization via parallelization. It also exploits data reuse and replication techniques to optimize the amount of data that needs to be transferred among tasks at run-time. BaRRS analyzes the key application features (e.g., task execution times, dependency patterns and file sizes) of scientific workflows for adapting existing data reuse and replication techniques to cloud systems. Further, BaRRS performs a trade-off analysis to select the optimal solution based on two optimization constraints: execution time and monetary cost of running scientific workflows. BaRRS is compared with a state-of-the-art scheduling approach; experiments prove its superior performance. Experiments include four well known scientific workflows with different dependency patterns and data file sizes. Results were promising and also highlighted most critical factors affecting execution of scientific applications on clouds.
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| 4. |
- Cho, Daewoong, et al.
(författare)
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Virtual Network Function Placement : Towards Minimizing Network Latency and Lead Time
- 2017
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Ingår i: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom). - Piscataway : IEEE. - 9781538619933 - 9781538619940 ; , s. 90-97
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging network architecture to increase flexibility and agility within operator's networks by placing virtualized services on demand in Cloud data centers (CDCs). One of the main challenges for the NFV environment is how to minimize network latency in the rapidly changing network environments. Although many researchers have already studied in the field of Virtual Machine (VM) migration and Virtual Network Function (VNF) placement for efficient resource management in CDCs, VNF migration problem for low network latency among VNFs has not been studied yet to the best of our knowledge. To address this issue in this article, we i) formulate the VNF migration problem and ii) develop a novel VNF migration algorithm called VNF Real-time Migration (VNF-RM) for lower network latency in dynamically changing resource availability. As a result of experiments, the effectiveness of our algorithm is demonstrated by reducing network latency by up to 70.90% after latency-aware VNF migrations.
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| 5. |
- Gustafsson, Oscar, et al.
(författare)
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Photoluminescence photoresponse from InSb/InAs-based quantum dot structures
- 2012
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Ingår i: Optics Express. - : Optical Society of America. - 1094-4087. ; 20:19, s. 21264-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- InSb-based quantum dots grown by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on InAs substrates are studied for use as the active material in interband photon detectors. Long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) photoluminescence is demonstrated with peak emission at 8.5 μm and photoresponse, interpreted to originate from type-II interband transitions in a p-i-n photodiode, was measured up to 6 μm, both at 80 K. The possibilities and benefits of operation in the LWIR range (8-12 μm) are discussed and the results suggest that InSb-based quantum dot structures can be suitable candidates for photon detection in the LWIR regime.
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| 6. |
- Kaatari, Henrik, PhD, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Exploring the effects of target-language extramural activities on students’ written production
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of second language writing. - : Elsevier. - 1060-3743 .- 1873-1422. ; 62
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Frequent engagement in English extramural activities (i.e., activities that take place outside the classroom) has been found to have a positive impact on EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. In the present study, we aim to extend our knowledge of the possible impact of extramural activities into the realm of second-language writing. Specifically, we investigate the relationship among a number of English extramural activities and two aspects of writing development: lexical diversity and noun phrase complexity. The data are drawn from the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC) which includes texts produced by Swedish secondary school students. The corpus also includes information on how many hours per week students (i) engage in conversations in English, (ii) communicate in English while playing computer/video games, (iii) read in English, (iv) spend time on social media with English content, (v) and watch TV shows or movies in English. The results show that reading in English leads to higher frequency of adjectival modification, whereas conversing in English and watching TV programs positively impact lexical diversity. The results of the study have implications for discussions about the role of L2 classroom instruction vis-à-vis learners’ extramural activities.
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| 7. |
- Kaatari, Henrik, PhD, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Introducing the Swedish Learner English Corpus : a corpus that enables investigations of the impact of extramural activities on L2 writing
- 2024
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Ingår i: Corpora. - : Edinburgh University Press. - 1749-5032 .- 1755-1676. ; 19:1, s. 17-30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper introduces the Swedish Learner English Corpus (slec), which consists of argumentative texts in English that are written by Swedish junior and senior high school students. slec includes rich metadata, enabling empirical studies of various extra-linguistic variables. Most noteworthy is the inclusion of detailed information on students’ extramural English activities (ee), such as reading, watching, conversing, gaming and engaging in social media in English. In addition, a sub-set of texts from slec have been assessed for proficiency using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (cefr). This paper provides an overview of the corpus compilation process, the metadata, and the available versions of slec. Researchers, teachers and students can access this resource to investigate various aspects of second language use and development, such as the impact of extramural language activities on linguistic complexity.
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| 8. |
- Liu, H., et al.
(författare)
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Formation and autocatalytic nucleation of co-zone {101¯2} deformation twins in polycrystalline Mg : A phase field simulation study
- 2018
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Ingår i: Acta Materialia. - : Elsevier. - 1359-6454 .- 1873-2453. ; 153, s. 86-107
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A phase-field model is developed to study the formation and autocatalytic nucleation of {101¯2} twins in polycrystalline Mg. The twins are found to nucleate most favourably in grains with the most negative interaction energy. Within such grains, the energetically most favoured nucleation site is determined by stresses concentrated near the grain boundaries that are related to the elastic anisotropy of the material. Furthermore, in a structure consisting of three lamellar grains with an incoming twin in the central grain, the simulation results show that before autocatalytic nucleation, the incoming twin often has a lenticular shape. The stress field around the tip of the incoming twin plays the major role in the autocatalytic nucleation. After a twin has nucleated in the neighbouring grain, the incoming and the outgoing twins evolve simultaneously, and the shape of the incoming twin gradually changes from lenticular to parallel-sided plate. Under the condition that the crystallographic orientation of the central grain and the applied strain remains unchanged, the driving force for twin nucleation decreases with increasing misorientation (up to 90°) across the grain boundary. It is further derived that the interaction energy values between the pre-existing stress field of the polycrystalline structure and the eigenstrain of the to-be-nucleated twin is mathematically related to the resolved shear stress of twins. © 2018 Acta Materialia Inc.
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| 9. |
- Sie, Y.-L., et al.
(författare)
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A SCORM-based caching strategy for supporting ubiquitous learning environment
- 2006
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Ingår i: Autonomic and Trusted Computing. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. - 9783540386193 - 9783540386223 - 354038619X ; 4158, s. 551-560
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With respect to the diverseness of learning devices and the different conditions of the internet connection availability, users might confront with some inevitable problems in traditional distance learning environment. The learning activities are always interfered while the network connection is failed. Furthermore, the learning contents become more and more miscellaneous with on-line multimedia presentations, and it is necessary for learners to wait for the learning resources to be downloaded from the remote learning server. In this paper, we propose a solution, called Caching Strategy, to solve those issues under the ubiquitous learning scope. According to some specific factors, we aim to provide the most needed learning resources for learners on the mobile learning devices even if the internet connection is not available intermittently. With our proposed methods, the waiting time of learning contents delivery can be reduced as well to smooth the learning activities online. In order to increase the efficiency of the strategy, we carefully examine some specific factors about the learning sequencing defined in the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). After applying this strategy to distance learning system, the efficient ubiquitous learning will be easier to come true.
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| 10. |
- Soler, Josep, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Predatory publishers’ spam emails as a symptom of the multiple vulnerabilities in academia
- 2023. - 1st
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Ingår i: Predatory Practices in Scholarly Publishing and Knowledge Sharing. - London : Routledge. - 9781003170723 ; , s. 19-38
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter analyzes a large corpus of spam emails spanning a six-year period (2016–2021) with the following two main goals: firstly, to uncover the linguistic features of these texts, and secondly, to connect the linguistic and textual analysis with the discursive and cultural contexts in which these spam emails are embedded. The corpus-based analysis performed in the chapter shows the different topics that predatory publishers’ spam emails focus on, and the ways in which these topics have changed and evolved over time. The main argument in the discussion is that predatory publishers are acutely aware of some of the key features structuring present-day academic publishing. In conclusion, in order to enable more effective ways of tackling the challenges posed by predatory publishing, both analyses and discourses about them should be shifting from a focus on the danger and risks they represent to the actual structuring features that make the existence of predatory publishing possible and viable.
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