Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Hybridization on Carcass Traits and Meat Quality of Erlang Mountainous Chickens

Native chickens hold a significant share of the market in China. In response to the huge demand from the market, the productivity of Chinese native chickens needs to be improved. Cross breeding is an effective method to increase productivity, although it might affect meat quality. In this study, two pure lines (SD02 and SD03) of Erlang mountainous chickens were hybridized with a yellow feather and faster growing line (SD01). The effect of hybridization on carcass and meat quality (physiochemical and textural traits) was measured in the F1 population at d 91 of age. The hybrids exhibited higher body weight and dressed weight, and amount of semi-eviscerated, eviscerated, breast muscle and abdominal fat (p<0.05). Abdominal fat yield also increased (p<0.05) compared to the offspring of the two pure-lines. Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in meat quality traits except for the myofiber diameter and density and the shear force of the breast muscle. Overall, the offspring of cross-lines were similar to pure lines in meat color, pH value, inosinic acid, crude protein, crude fat, dry matter, moisture content and amino acid composition in the breast muscle. These results suggest that productivity can be improved via cross-breeding while maintaining meat quality of the Erlang mountainous chicken.
Shared features and similarity : implications for category specificity and normal recognition

Patients with category-specific visual agnosia (CSVA) often exhibit a disproportionate difficulty recognizing objects from biological categories due (in part) to the fact that exemplars from biological categories tend to be visually and conceptually more similar. Similarity is often conceived of as a pairwise property (i.e., in terms of distance in a psychological space matrix), but may be more accurately conceived of as a setwise property (i.e., in terms of shared features). The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of shared features on similarity in normal observers, while controlling for distance in structural space. Behavioral and electrophysiological results are presented that indicate that feature integration is necessary across a variety of tasks and that setwise properties (i.e., shared features) influence similarity. As such, it is suggested that future studies conceptualize similarity in terms of setwise (and not pairwise) object properties. SHARED FEATURES AND SIMILARITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR CATEGORY SPECIFICITY AND NORMAL RECOGNITION By DANIEL KINKA B.S., Florida State University, 2008 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Richmond in Candidacy for the degree of MASTER OF ART in
La competencia TIC en el nuevo currículo peruano desde la perspectiva de la educación mediática

El 2017 empieza a implementarse en el Peru un nuevo curriculo para la educacion obligatoria. Entre otras novedades, esta norma desarrolla una competencia especifica sobre las Tecnologias de la Informacion y la Comunicacion (TIC). Para abrir el debate e introducir otros marcos de referencia que enriquezcan el analisis, este articulo presenta y analiza la denominada competencia TIC desde la perspectiva de la educacion mediatica. Concluimos que, aunque no se enuncie una competencia mediatica como tal, algunas de sus propuestas conceptuales estan presentes de forma diseminada, lo que presenta una oportunidad para el desarrollo inicial de la educacion mediatica en el contexto peruano.
Prevalence and significance of Legionella pneumophila contamination of residential hot-tap water systems.

A culture survey of hot-tap water systems in 95 apartments and houses in one area of Chicago showed that 30 (32%) were contaminated by Legionella pneumophila, ranging in concentration from 1 to 10(4) organisms/liter. Culture-positive and -negative systems differed significantly only in hot-tap water temperature (P less than .005), which was less than 60 C for all positive specimens. A questionnaire and serosurvey of a subject at each residence showed no cases of pneumonia while he or she lived in the residence and no association of high titers of antibodies to L. pneumophila with positive tap water cultures. Virulence of selected tap water isolates of L. pneumophila in embryonated eggs was similar to that of clinical isolates. In the area studied, residential hot-tap water systems maintained at less than 60 C are frequently contaminated by L. pneumophila, but systems with low levels of contamination (less than or equal to 10(4) organisms/liter) appear not to be an important source of infection of healthy individuals.
Determinants of Going-Public Decision in an Emerging Market: Evidence from India

During the past two decades, numerous Indian firms have gone public by undertaking Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of their equity shares. Yet, many other Indian firms have intentionally chosen to remain private even though they fulfill the eligibility criteria of going public. This raises the question as to what are the determinants of firms' going-public decision. While researchers have propounded several theories to explain the firms� going-public decision, yet the empirical studies conducted to test the proposed theories are still scarce, mainly due to lack of data on privately held firms necessary for a direct investigation of the choice between going public and remaining private. None of the existing studies have assessed the determinants of Indian firms' going-public decision. Besides, no consistent stylized facts have so far emerged. Rather contradictory findings have been reported in some of the existing studies. Further these individual studies have not been comprehensive as each of them has focused only on a limited number of determinants. This study investigates the determinants of going-public decision of the Indian firms, juxtaposing the following two related research issues: What ex-ante (pre-IPO) characteristics of going-public Indian firms differentiate them from those Indian firms that continue to remain private even though they fulfill the eligibility criteria of going public? What ex-post consequences of IPOs on firm characteristics influence their goingpublic decision? The preceding research issues are examined using two independent analyses. First, a panel probit regression analysis is done to identify the ex-ante characteristics of going- public Indian firms that differentiate them from those Indian firms that continue to remain private even though they fulfill the eligibility criteria of going public. This analysis reveals that going-public Indian firms tend to be younger, riskier, transparent, more profitable, experiencing higher sales growth, and larger-sized than firms that decide to remain private. Also if a firm belongs to retail trade sectors, it increases its probability to go public. In the second analysis, ex-post consequences of IPOs on firm characteristics are examined by comparing pre-IPO characteristics of IPO firms with their post-IPO characteristics using Wilcoxon two-sample signed rank test. This analysis suggests that Indian firms go public to: finance their growth and investments diversify owners' risk rebalance their capital structure bring down their borrowing rates.
How Can Intergroup Interaction Be Bad If Intergroup Contact Is Good? Exploring and Reconciling an Apparent Paradox in the Science of Intergroup Relations

The outcomes of social interactions among members of different groups (e.g., racial groups, political groups, sexual orientation groups) have long been of interest to psychologists. Two related literatures on the topic have emerged—the intergroup interaction literature and the intergroup contact literature—in which divergent conclusions have been reported. Intergroup interaction is typically found to have negative effects tied to intergroup bias, producing heightened stress, intergroup anxiety, or outgroup avoidance, whereas intergroup contact is typically found to have positive effects tied to intergroup bias, predicting lower intergroup anxiety and lower prejudice. We examine these paradoxical findings, proposing that researchers contributing to the two literatures are examining different levels of the same phenomenon and that methodological differences can account for the divide between the literatures. Further, we introduce a mathematical model by which the findings of the two literatures can be reconciled. We believe that adopting this model will streamline thinking in the field and will generate integrative new research in which investigators examine how a person’s experiences with diversity unfold.
A Convex Feature Learning Formulation for Latent Task Structure Discovery

This paper considers the multi-task learning problem and in the setting where some relevant features could be shared across few related tasks. Most of the existing methods assume the extent to which the given tasks are related or share a common feature space to be known apriori. In real-world applications however, it is desirable to automatically discover the groups of related tasks that share a feature space. In this paper we aim at searching the exponentially large space of all possible groups of tasks that may share a feature space. The main contribution is a convex formulation that employs a graph-based regularizer and simultaneously discovers few groups of related tasks, having close-by task parameters, as well as the feature space shared within each group. The regularizer encodes an important structure among the groups of tasks leading to an efficient algorithm for solving it: if there is no feature space under which a group of tasks has close-by task parameters, then there does not exist such a feature space for any of its supersets. An efficient active set algorithm that exploits this simplification and performs a clever search in the exponentially large space is presented. The algorithm is guaranteed to solve the proposed formulation (within some precision) in a time polynomial in the number of groups of related tasks discovered. Empirical results on benchmark datasets show that the proposed formulation achieves good generalization and outperforms state-of-the-art multi-task learning algorithms in some cases.
Dutch colonial anthropology in Indonesia

Attempts to assess the results of colonial anthropology in Indonesia faced some problems, which, until recently, have not been dealt with properly. Therefore, in a newly published comprehensive history of anthropology in the Netherlands, several studies focused on the character, rather than on the substance of colonial anthropology. In the case of Dutch colonial representations of Indonesia, 'colonial anthropology' appears to be an assemblage of various disciplines that constituted a fragmented whole (Indologie; Dutch Indies Studies) from which today's Dutch academic anthropology emerged. However, projection of current conceptions of anthropology into the colonial past resulted in a tendency to neglect some major characteristics of early representations that are imperative for the interpretation of these representations. Besides, a rather limited familiarity amongst present-day anthropologists with the way in which Dutch colonial politics became immersed in international discourses resulted in misappraisal of an essential change in colonial knowledge: the shift from local to analytical representations, deeply affecting the portrayal of Indonesian cultures. In colonial knowledge production, emphasis moved from ethnographic particularism to essentialist conceptions like 'Knowledge of the Native'. This shift also had serious consequences for the academic position of ethnology amongst other colonial disciplines. Until recently, this misappraisal could escape notice because students of Dutch colonial anthropology were insufficiently aware of the effects on interpretation of the great variety of disciplinary discourses, so characteristic for Dutch colonial studies. Therefore, we will here concentrate on these effects and on the growing intertwinement of knowledge and politics which was directly related to the international orientation of colonial policy that became increasingly prominent after the mid-nineteenth century.
Fine Mapping and Functional Analysis of the Multiple Sclerosis Risk Gene CD6

CD6 has recently been identified and validated as risk gene for multiple sclerosis (MS), based on the association of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs17824933, located in intron 1. CD6 is a cell surface scavenger receptor involved in T-cell activation and proliferation, as well as in thymocyte differentiation. In this study, we performed a haptag SNP screen of the CD6 gene locus using a total of thirteen tagging SNPs, of which three were non-synonymous SNPs, and replicated the recently reported GWAS SNP rs650258 in a Spanish-Basque collection of 814 controls and 823 cases. Validation of the six most strongly associated SNPs was performed in an independent collection of 2265 MS patients and 2600 healthy controls. We identified association of haplotypes composed of two non-synonymous SNPs [rs11230563 (R225W) and rs2074225 (A257V)] in the 2nd SRCR domain with susceptibility to MS (P max(T) permutation = 1×10−4). The effect of these haplotypes on CD6 surface expression and cytokine secretion was also tested. The analysis showed significantly different CD6 expression patterns in the distinct cell subsets, i.e. – CD4+ naïve cells, P = 0.0001; CD8+ naïve cells, P<0.0001; CD4+ and CD8+ central memory cells, P = 0.01 and 0.05, respectively; and natural killer T (NKT) cells, P = 0.02; with the protective haplotype (RA) showing higher expression of CD6. However, no significant changes were observed in natural killer (NK) cells, effector memory and terminally differentiated effector memory T cells. Our findings reveal that this new MS-associated CD6 risk haplotype significantly modifies expression of CD6 on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells.
Coagulation Optimization to Minimize and Predict the Formation of Disinfection By-products

The formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water has become an issue of greater concern in recent years. Bench-scale jar tests were conducted on a surface water to evaluate the impact of enhanced coagulation on the removal of organic DBP precursors and the formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). The results of this testing indicate that enhanced coagulation practices can improve treated water quality without increasing coagulant dosage. The data generated were also used to develop artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict THM and HAA formation. Testing of these models showed high correlations between the actual and predicted data. In addition, an experimental plan was developed to use ANNs for treatment optimization at the Peterborough pilot plant.
Smart micro-grid optimization with controllable loads using particle swarm optimization

Wind and solar energy are highly dynamic, vulnerable and expensive. Thus introduction of controllable loads and an intelligent optimization are necessary for a smart micro-grid (SMG) implementation. Considering reliability of a SMG, an over (under) estimation of resources is not feasible (acceptable). SMG is a multi-objective complex problem considering minimization of capital cost and operation cost as objectives, subject to large number of constraints including net zero emission. Historical wind speed, solar radiation and load profiles over a long period of time are used as inputs of the model and an intelligent energy management system for dispatch of the resources is carried out.
Tidy subgroups for commuting automorphisms of totally disconnected groups: an analogue of simultaneous triangularisation of matrices

Let α be an automorphism of the totally disconnected group G. The compact open subgroup, V ,o fG is tidy for α if (α(V ): α(V ) ∩ V ) is minimised at V , where V ranges over all compact open subgroups of G. Identifying a subgroup tidy for α is analogous to identifying a basis which puts a linear transformation into Jordan canonical form. This analogy is developed here by showing that commuting automorphisms have a common tidy subgroup of G and, conversely, that a group H of automorphisms having a common tidy subgroup V is abelian modulo the automorphisms which leave V invariant. Certain subgroups of G are the analogues of eigenspaces and corresponding realcharacters of H the analogues of eigenvalues.
Extended report: The effect of FTO variation on increased osteoarthritis risk is mediated through body mass index: a mendelian randomisation study

Objective Variation in the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene influences susceptibility to obesity. A variant in the FTO gene has been implicated in genetic risk to osteoarthritis (OA). We examined the role of the FTO polymorphism rs8044769 in risk of knee and hip OA in cases and controls incorporating body mass index (BMI) information.
Prevention of childhood rotavirus disease through the use of Rotarix™ and RotaTeq™ vaccines

Rotaviruses are the most common enteric pathogens to cause acute diarrhoea in infants and young children throughout the world. Two new live, orally administered vaccines (Rotarix™ and RotaTeq™) that provide protection against rotavirus infections are now available and have been licensed in many countries in Europe, North and Latin America. Two recent large clinical trials have demonstrated that their efficacy, immunogenicity and safety, including absence of vaccine-associated intussusception in young infants, are remarkably similar. The protection against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis extends into the second year of follow up for both vaccines. Rotarix and RotaTeq vaccines can be coadministered with routine childhood vaccines. However, more data on the efficacy of these two new vaccines in low-income nations are needed, particularly in Asia and Africa, before global inclusion of rotavirus vaccines into national immunisation programmes can be recommended.
A Preliminary Study Examining the Binding Capacity of Akkermansia muciniphila and Desulfovibrio spp., to Colonic Mucin in Health and Ulcerative Colitis

Background Akkermansia muciniphila and Desulfovibrio spp. are commensal microbes colonising the mucus gel layer of the colon. Both species have the capacity to utilise colonic mucin as a substrate. A. muciniphila degrades colonic mucin, while Desulfovibrio spp. metabolise the sulfate moiety of sulfated mucins. Altered abundances of these microorganisms have been reported in ulcerative colitis (UC). However their capacity to bind to human colonic mucin, and whether this binding capacity is affected by changes in mucin associated with UC, remain to be defined. Methods Mucin was isolated from resected colon from control patients undergoing resection for colonic cancer (n = 7) and patients undergoing resection for UC (n = 5). Isolated mucin was purified and printed onto mucin microarrays. Binding of reference strains and three clinical isolates of A. muciniphila and Desulfovibrio spp. to purified mucin was investigated. Results Both A. muciniphila and Desulfovibro spp. bound to mucin. The reference strain and all clinical isolates of A. muciniphila showed increased binding capacity for UC mucin (p < .005). The Desulfovibrio reference strain showed increased affinity for UC mucin. The mucin binding profiles of clinical isolates of Desulfovibrio spp. were specific to each isolate. Two isolates showed no difference in binding. One UC isolate bound with increased affinity to UC mucin (p < .005). Conclusion These preliminary data suggest that differences exist in the mucin binding capacity of isolates of A. muciniphila and Desulfovibrio spp. This study highlights the mucin microarray platform as a means of studying the ability of bacteria to interact with colonic mucin in health and disease.
Refractory AIDS cholangiopathy: metabolic complications and the role of plasmapheresis.

A 22-year-old man with AIDS (CD4 cell count 17 cells/ml, HIV viral load 39 689 copies/ml) presented with right upper abdominal pain and jaundice. The total bilirubin was 427.5 mmol/l (reference range: 5.1– 22.2 mmol/l), direct bilirubin 239.4 mmol/l (reference range: 0.0–3.42 mmol/l), alanine transferase 3.3 mkat/l (reference range: 0.1–1.05 mkat/l), aspartate transaminase 3.7 mkat/l (reference range: 0.25–0.72 mkat/l) and alkaline phosphatase 25.9 mkat/l (reference range: 0.58– 1.9 mkat/l). Tests for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, herpes simplex viruses, cytomegalovirus, acid fast bacilli, Cryptosporidium, Isospora belli, and microsporidia were negative. Antimitochondrial antibodies were absent. Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography showed multiple strictures within the intrahepatic and extrahep atic biliary tree and the common hepatic duct, suggestive of AIDS cholangiopathy.
Virtual Reality Therapy for Adults Post-Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Exploring Virtual Environments and Commercial Games in Therapy

Background The objective of this analysis was to systematically review the evidence for virtual reality (VR) therapy in an adult post-stroke population in both custom built virtual environments (VE) and commercially available gaming systems (CG). Methods MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, ERIC, PSYCInfo, DARE, PEDro, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were systematically searched from the earliest available date until April 4, 2013. Controlled trials that compared VR to conventional therapy were included. Population criteria included adults (>18) post-stroke, excluding children, cerebral palsy, and other neurological disorders. Included studies were reported in English. Quality of studies was assessed with the Physiotherapy Evidence Database Scale (PEDro). Results Twenty-six studies met the inclusion criteria. For body function outcomes, there was a significant benefit of VR therapy compared to conventional therapy controls, G = 0.48, 95% CI = [0.27, 0.70], and no significant difference between VE and CG interventions (P = 0.38). For activity outcomes, there was a significant benefit of VR therapy, G = 0.58, 95% CI = [0.32, 0.85], and no significant difference between VE and CG interventions (P = 0.66). For participation outcomes, the overall effect size was G = 0.56, 95% CI = [0.02, 1.10]. All participation outcomes came from VE studies. Discussion VR rehabilitation moderately improves outcomes compared to conventional therapy in adults post-stroke. Current CG interventions have been too few and too small to assess potential benefits of CG. Future research in this area should aim to clearly define conventional therapy, report on participation measures, consider motivational components of therapy, and investigate commercially available systems in larger RCTs. Trial Registration Prospero CRD42013004338