Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Generalized Constraints and Certificates on Generalized Constraints and Certificates

Ekin, Foldes, Hammer, and Hellerstein showed that a set of Boolean functions is characterizable by a (possibly innnite) set of Boolean equations ii it is closed under permutation of variables, addition of dummy variables, and identiica-tion of variables. Subsequently, Pippenger introduced constraint characterizations, which generalize previous characterizations of clones. He showed that a set of nite functions can be characterized by a set of constraints ii it is characterizable by Boolean equations. He also developed a Galois theory for sets of nite functions characterizable by constraints. In this paper we generalize Pippenger's results by considering sets of nite functions, such as the unate functions, that are closed under permutation of variables and addition of dummy variables but not necessarily under identiication of variables. We introduce the notion of a generalized constraint, and consider the question of which sets of functions can be characterized by nite sets of generalized constraints. We show a relation between sets of nite functions with this property, and sets of nite functions that have constant-size certiicates of non-membership. We show that the set of linear threshold functions cannot be characterized by a nite set of generalized or standard constraints. Finally, we extend Pippenger's Galois theory results to generalized constraints.
Transfers and Development: Easy Come, Easy Go?

Contrary to the popular notion that money that is easily earned, is also easily spent, economic theory holds that income is fungible. Drawing on the concept of mental accounting, this study theoretically explores when such a link between spending behaviour and the effort dispensed in obtaining income is plausible. Empirically, it is found that the marginal propensity to consume from unearned income is about three times larger than that from earned income, based on household panel data from rural China, with the difference more pronounced when unearned income is transitory and smaller than earned income. The policy implications are real.
The RecOR proteins modulate RecA protein function at 5′ ends of single‐stranded DNA

The Escherichia coli RecF, RecO and RecR pro teins have previously been implicated in bacterial recombinational DNA repair at DNA gaps. The RecOR‐facilitated binding of RecA protein to single‐stranded DNA (ssDNA) that is bound by single‐stranded DNA‐binding protein (SSB) is much faster if the ssDNA is linear, suggesting that a DNA end (rather than a gap) facilitates binding. In addition, the RecOR complex facilitates RecA protein‐mediated D‐loop formation at the 5′ ends of linear ssDNAs. RecR protein remains associated with the RecA filament and its continued presence is required to prevent filament disassembly. RecF protein competes with RecO protein for RecR protein association and its addition destabilizes RecAOR filaments. An enhanced function of the RecO and RecR proteins can thus be seen in vitro at the 5′ ends of linear ssDNA that is not as evident in DNA gaps. This function is countered by the RecF/RecO competition for association with the RecR protein.
Does Personality Trump Values in Explaining Risk Perception? An Analysis of Tweets about Genetically Modified Organisms

Does Personality Trump Values in Explaining Risk Perception? An Analysis of Tweets about Genetically Modified Organisms Nathaniel Whittingham Advisor: Dr. Andreas Boecker University of Guelph, 2017 Co-Advisor: Dr. Alexandra Grygorczyk Laypeople’s risk perception deviates from that of experts. While 88% of AAAS scientists agree that GMO foods are safe, only 37% of the American public agree. Research on other scientific debates identify intelligence, values, and personality as fundamental factors driving GMO risk perception. While values and personality are typically measured through surveys, the lexicon hypothesis states that values and personality are imbedded in the language individuals use. Approximately 100,000 Twitter messages were collected for search terms “Arctic Apple”, “Innate Potato” and “GMO Safety” in 2016. Data from 522 twitter accounts was submitted to the IBM Watson platform to obtain personality and values scores. Results indicate both are highly correlated with perceived GMO safety when used in separate estimations. However, personality almost fully mediates the relationship between values and perceived safety. This implies that an individual’s GMO risk perception is more deeply rooted in personality traits than currently assumed.
Why Do Some Countries Produce so Much More Output Per Worker than Others?

Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis, our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow residual across countries. At a deeper level, we document that the differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are driven by differences in institutions and government policies, which we call social infrastructure. We treat social infrastructure as endogenous, determined historically by location and other factors captured in part by language.
Natural Cross Chlamydial Infection between Livestock and Free-Living Bird Species

The study of cross-species pathogen transmission is essential to understanding the epizootiology and epidemiology of infectious diseases. Avian chlamydiosis is a zoonotic disease whose effects have been mainly investigated in humans, poultry and pet birds. It has been suggested that wild bird species play an important role as reservoirs for this disease. During a comparative health status survey in common (Falco tinnunculus) and lesser (Falco naumanni) kestrel populations in Spain, acute gammapathies were detected. We investigated whether gammapathies were associated with Chlamydiaceae infections. We recorded the prevalence of different Chlamydiaceae species in nestlings of both kestrel species in three different study areas. Chlamydophila psittaci serovar I (or Chlamydophila abortus), an ovine pathogen causing late-term abortions, was isolated from all the nestlings of both kestrel species in one of the three studied areas, a location with extensive ovine livestock enzootic of this atypical bacteria and where gammapathies were recorded. Serovar and genetic cluster analysis of the kestrel isolates from this area showed serovars A and C and the genetic cluster 1 and were different than those isolated from the other two areas. The serovar I in this area was also isolated from sheep abortions, sheep faeces, sheep stable dust, nest dust of both kestrel species, carrion beetles (Silphidae) and Orthoptera. This fact was not observed in other areas. In addition, we found kestrels to be infected by Chlamydia suis and Chlamydia muridarum, the first time these have been detected in birds. Our study evidences a pathogen transmission from ruminants to birds, highlighting the importance of this potential and unexplored mechanism of infection in an ecological context. On the other hand, it is reported a pathogen transmission from livestock to wildlife, revealing new and scarcely investigated anthropogenic threats for wild and endangered species.
Individual Differences in the Modulation of Fear-Related Brain Activation by Attentional Control

In this article, we consider the extent to which variations in the neural activation associated with fear-related stimuli are obligatory or optional. More specifically, we investigated modulation of activation according to type of encoding operation, and how this relates to individual differences in fearfulness and attentional control. In an fMRI study, fear-related (relative to neutral) pictures preferentially activated many of the regions involved in a hierarchical system responsible for organizing defensive behavior, and differential activation in some of these areas was related to self-reported individual variations in fearfulness. Preferential activation according to type of stimulus persisted to a limited extent even when attention was diverted from its emotional aspects. Importantly, however, encoding tasks involving attention to emotional versus nonemotional attributes of the same pictures revealed a pattern of greater activation during emotional encoding, similar to that differentiating fear-related from neutral stimuli. Again, the degree of modulation varied according to individual differences. We conclude that fear-related pictures can recruit activation in the defensive system even when attention is directed elsewhere, but that the extent of this activation is modulated by attentional control mechanisms. More critically, both differential activation and its modulation by attentional control are related to individual variations in emotional vulnerability, in a manner that conforms to predictions derived from existing theoretical accounts.
Osteopontin Is Required for the Early Onset of High Fat Diet-Induced Insulin Resistance in Mice

Background Insulin resistance is manifested in muscle, adipose tissue, and liver and is associated with adipose tissue inflammation. The cellular components and mechanisms that regulate the onset of diet-induced insulin resistance are not clearly defined. Methodology and Principal Findings We initially observed osteopontin (OPN) mRNA over-expression in adipose tissue of obese, insulin resistant humans and rats which was normalized by thiazolidinedione (TZD) treatment in both species. OPN regulates inflammation and is implicated in pathogenic maladies resulting from chronic obesity. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that OPN is involved in the early development of insulin resistance using a 2–4 week high fat diet (HFD) model. OPN KO mice fed HFD for 2 weeks were completely protected from the severe skeletal muscle, liver and adipose tissue insulin resistance that developed in wild type (WT) controls, as determined by hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp and acute insulin-stimulation studies. Although two-week HFD did not alter body weight or plasma free fatty acids and cytokines in either strain, HFD-induced hyperleptinemia, increased adipose tissue inflammation (macrophages and cytokines), and adipocyte hypertrophy were significant in WT mice and blunted or absent in OPN KO mice. Adipose tissue OPN protein isoform expression was significantly altered in 2- and 4-week HFD-fed WT mice but total OPN protein was unchanged. OPN KO bone marrow stromal cells were more osteogenic and less adipogenic than WT cells in vitro. Interestingly, the two differentiation pathways were inversely affected by HFD in WT cells in vitro. Conclusions The OPN KO phenotypes we report reflect protection from insulin resistance that is associated with changes in adipocyte biology and adipose tissue inflammatory status. OPN is a key component in the development of HFD-induced insulin resistance.
The effect of incidental learning on the comprehension of English affixes by Arabic-speaking EFL learners: acquisition and application

Abstract This study aims to examine the effect of incidental learning on the comprehension of 30 English affixes by 50 Arabic-speaking EFL learners in an attempt to determine which affixes are more easily comprehended. We adopt the experimental design of a pre- and post-test to measure the participants’ knowledge of English affixes before and after the treatment, which involved taking part in the prediction of the meaning of English affixed words in context for one academic semester. To this end, we divided the 50 participants into two groups: treatment and control. We administered a 30-item multiple choice test as the pre- and post-test to determine whether the treatment helped the participants expand their knowledge of English affixes.
Association of Storage and Processing Functions in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex of the Nonhuman Primate

The prominent role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in working memory (WM) is widely acknowledged both in nonhuman primates and in humans. However, less agreement exists on the issue of functional segregation within different subregions of the PFC with regard to the domains of spatial and nonspatial processing or involvement in simpler versus more complex aspects of WM, e.g., maintenance versus processing function. To address these issues, six monkeys were trained to perform four WM tasks that differed with respect to domain (spatial vs nonspatial) and level of WM demand (recall of one vs three items). The delayed response format was used to assess simple one-item memory, whereas self-ordering tasks were used to require the monkey to maintain and organize three items of information within WM. After training, the monkeys received bilateral PFC lesions in one of two different areas, Walker’s areas 9 and 8B (dorsomedial convexity; n = 3) or areas 46 and 8A (dorsolateral cortex, n = 3) and then tested postoperatively on all tasks. Monkeys with lesions of the dorsomedial convexity were not impaired either on spatial or nonspatial WM tasks, whether the task required simple storage or sequential processing. By contrast, lesions of the dorsolateral cortex produced a significant and persistent impairment in both simple and complex spatial WM but no impairment in the two nonspatial WM tasks. These results support a functional segregation within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for WM: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (area 46/8A) is selectively involved in spatial WM, whereas the dorsomedial convexity (area 9/8B) is not critically engaged in either spatial or nonspatial working memory. Furthermore, the specific involvement of area 46/8A in spatial sequencing as well as in single-item storage WM tasks supports, in the nonhuman primate, an areal dissociation based on domain rather than on processing demand.
Do Weapons Make Warfare? An Instrumental Variables Approach Towards Investigating the Relationship Between Small Arms Abundance, Civil Conflict Onset, and Civil Conflict Intensity

Scholars, journalists, and policymakers frequently attribute the intensity and onset of civil conflict to the abundance of small arms. However, the direction of causality has been difficult to assess due to a lack of data on the illicit small arms market and the plausibly endogenous relationship between the abundance of weapons and civil conflict. Using a new dataset of estimated small arms prices, I determine that a decrease in the price of small arms is significantly and negatively correlated with an increase in the intensity of conflict in the following year. I also determine that small arms prices increase in response to and in advance of the beginning of a civil conflict. In order to get unbiased estimates, I construct an instrumental variable, distance from disrupted stockpiles, and use it to estimate the specific effect of small arms prices in raising the risk of civil conflict onset. However, because the chosen instrument fails the exclusionary restriction the results do not provide conclusive proof of a negative causal relationship. ∗The author would like to profusely thank professor Lisa Mueller for the outstanding assistance, and feedback she provided in support of this honors thesis. This thesis was written in the Macalester College Department of Political Science.
Immunization with a nontoxic mutant of staphylococcal enterotoxin A, SEAD227A, protects against enterotoxin-induced emesis in house musk shrews.

BACKGROUND Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) are the most common cause of foodborne diseases and toxic shock throughout the world. However, no vaccine that prevents emesis induced by SEs has been described. METHODS A nontoxic mutant of SEA, SEAD227A, was constructed by site-directed mutagenesis and was purified by means of the Escherichia coli expression system. House musk shrews, a small emetic animal model, were immunized with SEAD227A and then challenged with wild-type SEA. SEA-induced emesis was recorded for 3 h. Antibody production was analyzed by gel double-immunodiffusion assay. Neutralizing activities of the antibodies with respect to superantigenic and emetic activities were analyzed in vitro and in vivo. RESULTS SEAD227A was devoid of both superantigenic and emetic activities but still retained its immunological activity. Immunization with SEAD227A strongly induced specific antibody production and provided significant protection against SEA-induced emesis. Antibodies from immunized shrews markedly inhibited the SEA-induced proliferation of spleen cells and also significantly ablated SEA-induced vomiting in the animals. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that vaccination with SEAD227A, which is devoid of toxic properties, provides protection against SEA-induced emesis. This nontoxic mutant and its specific antibodies might be useful in the prevention and treatment of staphylococcal food poisoning.
Body talk

Realistic, metrically accurate, 3D human avatars are useful for games, shopping, virtual reality, and health applications. Such avatars are not in wide use because solutions for creating them from high-end scanners, low-cost range cameras, and tailoring measurements all have limitations. Here we propose a simple solution and show that it is surprisingly accurate. We use crowdsourcing to generate attribute ratings of 3D body shapes corresponding to standard linguistic descriptions of 3D shape. We then learn a linear function relating these ratings to 3D human shape parameters. Given an image of a new body, we again turn to the crowd for ratings of the body shape. The collection of linguistic ratings of a photograph provides remarkably strong constraints on the metric 3D shape. We call the process crowdshaping and show that our Body Talk system produces shapes that are perceptually indistinguishable from bodies created from high-resolution scans and that the metric accuracy is sufficient for many tasks. This makes body "scanning" practical without a scanner, opening up new applications including database search, visualization, and extracting avatars from books.
Immigration, Transition into Adult Life and Social Adversity in Relation to Psychological Distress and Suicide Attempts among Young Adults

Background The increasing incidence of mental health problems among young people is a major concern in many Western countries. The causal mechanisms underlying these trends are not well established, but factors influenced by current societal changes ought to be implicated. Such factors include immigration and social adversity as well as the timing of taking on adult social roles (e.g. gainful employment, parenthood and own housing tenure). We therefore examined relationships between these factors and the risks of psychological distress as well as suicide attempts in young adults, with a focus on gender differences. Methods We conducted a population-based study including 10,081 individuals aged 18–29, recruited in 2002 and 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden. Data were collected by record linkage and questionnaires. Results Non-European immigrants had an increased risk of distress, and female non-European immigrants had a markedly higher risk of suicide attempts. Both early parenthood (≤24 years) and not being a parent, being a student and the lack of own housing tenure were associated with distress, but only in women. In both sexes, financial strain was associated with the increased risk of distress and suicide attempts, while unemployment was only associated with distress. Conclusions Immigration from outside Europe and social adversity are associated with mental health problems in young adults, especially females. Postponed transition into adulthood is associated with poor mental health in young women. These factors are influenced by current societal changes, and may have contributed to the increasing incidence of mental health problems among young people in Western countries.
Please Scroll down for Article Language and Cognitive Processes Co-speech Gesture in Bimodal Bilinguals

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Residual interpolation for color image demosaicking

A color difference interpolation technique is widely used for color image demosaicking. In this paper, we propose residual interpolation as an alternative to the color difference interpolation, where the residual is a difference between an observed and a tentatively estimated pixel value. We incorporate the proposed residual interpolation into the gradient based threshold free (GBTF) algorithm, which is one of current state-of-the-art demosaicking algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed demosaicking algorithm using the residual interpolation can give state-of-the-art performance for the 30 images of Kodak and IMAX datasets.
The CMA Evolution Strategy: A Tutorial

This tutorial introduces the CMA Evolution Strategy (ES), where CMA stands for Covariance Matrix Adaptation. The CMA-ES is a stochastic, or randomized, method for real-parameter (continuous domain) optimization of non-linear, non-convex functions. We try to motivate and derive the algorithm from intuitive concepts and from requirements of non-linear, non-convex search in continuous domain.
Quantum Mechanical/Molecular Mechanical Free Energy Simulations of the Self-Cleavage Reaction in the Hepatitis Delta Virus Ribozyme

The hepatitis delta virus (HDV) ribozyme catalyzes a self-cleavage reaction using a combination of nucleobase and metal ion catalysis. Both divalent and monovalent ions can catalyze this reaction, although the rate is slower with monovalent ions alone. Herein, we use quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) free energy simulations to investigate the mechanism of this ribozyme and to elucidate the roles of the catalytic metal ion. With Mg2+ at the catalytic site, the self-cleavage mechanism is observed to be concerted with a phosphorane-like transition state and a free energy barrier of ∼13 kcal/mol, consistent with free energy barrier values extrapolated from experimental studies. With Na+ at the catalytic site, the mechanism is observed to be sequential, passing through a phosphorane intermediate, with free energy barriers of 2–4 kcal/mol for both steps; moreover, proton transfer from the exocyclic amine of protonated C75 to the nonbridging oxygen of the scissile phosphate occurs to stabilize the phosphorane intermediate in the sequential mechanism. To explain the slower rate observed experimentally with monovalent ions, we hypothesize that the activation of the O2′ nucleophile by deprotonation and orientation is less favorable with Na+ ions than with Mg2+ ions. To explore this hypothesis, we experimentally measure the pKa of O2′ by kinetic and NMR methods and find it to be lower in the presence of divalent ions rather than only monovalent ions. The combined theoretical and experimental results indicate that the catalytic Mg2+ ion may play three key roles: assisting in the activation of the O2′ nucleophile, acidifying the general acid C75, and stabilizing the nonbridging oxygen to prevent proton transfer to it.