In recent years, various metrics have been developed for measuring the behavioural similarity of states in probabilistic transition systems [Desharnais et al., Proceedings of CONCUR, (1999), pp. 258-273, van Breugel and Worrell, Proceedings of ICALP, (2001), pp. 421-432]. In the context of finite Markov decision processes, we have built on these metrics to provide a robust quantitative analogue...

Xylem structure and function are well described in woody plants, but the implications of xylem organization in less-derived plants such as ferns are poorly understood. Here, two ferns with contrasting phenology and xylem organization were selected to investigate how xylem dysfunction affects hydraulic conductivity and stomatal conductance (g(s)). The drought-deciduous pioneer species, Pteridium...

Pterosins are abundant in ferns, and pterosin A was considered a novel activator of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase, which is crucial for regulating blood glucose homeostasis. However, the distribution of pterosins in different species of ferns from various places in Taiwan is currently unclear. To address this question, the distribution of pterosins, glucose-uptake efficiency,...

With over 1,000 species, Pteridaceae comprises approximately 10% of extant fern diversity and is notable for its extreme morphological and ecological disparity. In addition to species-rich and predominantly forest-dwelling genera such as Adiantum and Pteris, the family includes floating, freshwater aquatics (Ceratopteris), mangrove specialists (Acrostichum), obligate epiphytes (Vittaria), and e...

We explore a novel approach for human detection based on random color similarity feature (RCS) and random ferns classifier which is also known as semi-naive Bayesian classifier. In contrast to other existing features employed by human detection, color-based features are rarely used in vision-based human detection because of large intra-class variations. In this paper, we propose a novel color-b...

BACKGROUND The Pteridaceae family is the largest fern family in Togo by its specific and generic diversity. Like all other families of ferns in the country, Pteridaceae are poorly studied and has no identification key. The objective of this study is to perform a taxonomic revision and list establishment of this family of leptosporangiate ferns in the light of current available knowledge about t...

A fern from the French Pyrenees-×Cystocarpium roskamianum-is a recently formed intergeneric hybrid between parental lineages that diverged from each other approximately 60 million years ago (mya; 95% highest posterior density: 40.2-76.2 mya). This is an extraordinarily deep hybridization event, roughly akin to an elephant hybridizing with a manatee or a human with a lemur. In the context of oth...