Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kronenberg, J. Global warming, glaciers and gold mining. GLOBAL WARMING, GLACIERS AND GOLD MINING

Two case studies (Kumtor in the Kyrgyz Republic and Pascua-Lama in Chile–Argentina) are analysed, illustrating how gold mining interferes with glaciers and how this may be affected by changing perceptions on global warming. Although global warming presents new opportunities for the mining industry, increasing the physical accessibility of resources previously covered with glaciers, it may also limit this accessibility in consequence of changing societal preferences towards the preservation of increasingly scarce glaciers. Whether these preferences can affect gold mining, depends on a number of site and time specific factors.
The financial life well-lived: psychological benefits of financial planning

As the financial planning industry undergoes a series of reforms aimed at increased professionalism and improved quality of advice, financial planner training in Australia and elsewhere has begun to acknowledge the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge bases in informing both curriculum design and professoinal practice (e.g. FPA2009). This paper underscores the importance of the process of financial planning by providing a conceptual analysis of the six step financial planning process using key mechanisms derived from theory and research in cognate disciplines such as psychology and well-being. The paper identifies how these mechanisms may operate to impact client well-being in the financial planning context. The conceptual mapping of th emechanisms to process elements of financial planning is a unique contribution to the financial planning literature and offers a further framework in the armamentarium of researchers interested in pursuing questions around the value of financial planning. The conceptual framework derived from the analysis also adds to the growing body of literature aimed at developing an integrated model of financial planning.
Genetic polymorphisms in folate metabolism as risk for Down syndrome in the southern China

Abstract Objective: To assess the association between maternal gene polymorphisms of the enzymes involved in folate metabolism and the risk of having a Down syndrome (DS) offspring in southern China mothers. Methods: Gene polymorphisms in folate metabolizing and the levels of homocysteine (HCY) were analyzed in 84 southern China mothers with DS babies (the case group) and 120 healthy mothers (the control group). Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T (rs1801133) and A1298C (rs1801131), methionine synthase (MTR) A2756G (rs1805087), and methionine synthase reductase (MTRR) A66G (rs1801394) were studied. Results: We found no significant differences (p > .05) in the frequencies of four genetic polymorphisms between the two groups. We found gene–gene interactions had a 1.997-fold increased risk in MTHFR 677 CT with MTR AA (OR: 1.997, 95% CI: 1.038–3.841, p = .038) and a 2.588-fold increased risk in MTHFR 677 CT with MTRR AG (OR: 2.588, 95% CI: 1.111–6.031, p = .028) in the case group than control. The levels of HCY were significantly higher in MTHFR 677 TT than MTHFR 677 CC in the case group (TT 17.2167±5.1051, CC 12.1969±5.0299, F = 2.194, p < .05), and it was significantly higher in MTHFR 677 TT in the case group than control (TT 17.2167±5.1051 in the case group, TT 10.2286±1.4373 in the control group, F = 2.546, p < .05). Conclusion: These results suggest that genetic polymorphisms involved in folate metabolism may have population specificity in determining the susceptibility of having DS offsprings. The gene-nutrition, gene–gene interactions and ethnicity are important variables to be considered in periconceptional nutritional supplementation and antenatal care for reducing the risk of DS babies.
Functional divergence of duplicate genes several million years after gene duplication in Arabidopsis

Abstract Lineage-specific duplicated genes likely contribute to the phenotypic divergence in closely related species. However, neither the frequency of duplication events nor the degree of selection pressures immediately after gene duplication is clear in the speciation process. Here, using Illumina DNA-sequencing reads from Arabidopsis halleri, which has multiple closely related species with high-quality genome assemblies (A. thaliana and A. lyrata), we succeeded in generating orthologous gene groups in Brassicaceae. The duplication frequency of retained genes in the Arabidopsis lineage was ∼10 times higher than the duplication frequency inferred by comparative genomics of Arabidopsis, poplar, rice and moss (Physcomitrella patens). The difference of duplication frequencies can be explained by a rapid decay of anciently duplicated genes. To examine the degree of selection pressure on genes duplicated in either the A. halleri-lyrata or the A. halleri lineage, we examined positive and purifying selection in the A. halleri-lyrata and A. halleri lineages throughout the ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitution rates (KA/KS). Duplicate genes tended to have a higher proportion of positive selection compared with non-duplicated genes. Interestingly, we found that functional divergence of duplicated genes was accelerated several million years after gene duplication compared with immediately after gene duplication.
Phase retrieval for characteristic functions of convex bodies and reconstruction from covariograms

We propose strongly consistent algorithms for reconstructing the characteristic function 1K of an unknown convex body K in R n from possibly noisy measurements of the modulus of its Fourier transform c 1K. This represents a complete theoretical solution to the Phase Retrieval Problem for characteristic functions of convex bodies. The approach is via the closely related problem of reconstructing K from noisy measurements of its covariogram, the function giving the volume of the intersection of K with its translates. In the many known situations in which the covariogram determines a convex body, up to reflection in the origin and when the position of the body is fixed, our algorithms use O(k n ) noisy covariogram measurements to construct a convex polytope Pk that approximates K or its reflection −K in the origin. (By recent uniqueness results, this applies to all planar convex bodies, all three- dimensional convex polytopes, and all symmetric and most (in the sense of Baire category) arbitrary convex bodies in all dimensions. ) Two methods are provided, and both are shown to be strongly consistent, in the sense that, almost surely, the minimum of the Hausdorff distance between Pk and ±K tends to zero as k tends to infinity.
Inhibitory and modulatory inputs to the vocal central pattern generator of a teleost fish

Vocalization is a behavioral feature that is shared among multiple vertebrate lineages, including fish. The temporal patterning of vocal communication signals is set, in part, by central pattern generators (CPGs). Toadfishes are well‐established models for CPG coding of vocalization at the hindbrain level. The vocal CPG comprises three topographically separate nuclei: pre‐pacemaker, pacemaker, motor. While the connectivity between these nuclei is well understood, their neurochemical profile remains largely unexplored. The highly vocal Gulf toadfish, Opsanus beta, has been the subject of previous behavioral, neuroanatomical and neurophysiological studies. Combining transneuronal neurobiotin‐labeling with immunohistochemistry, we map the distribution of inhibitory neurotransmitters and neuromodulators along with gap junctions in the vocal CPG of this species. Dense GABAergic and glycinergic label is found throughout the CPG, with labeled somata immediately adjacent to or within CPG nuclei, including a distinct subset of pacemaker neurons co‐labeled with neurobiotin and glycine. Neurobiotin‐labeled motor and pacemaker neurons are densely co‐labeled with the gap junction protein connexin 35/36, supporting the hypothesis that transneuronal neurobiotin‐labeling occurs, at least in part, via gap junction coupling. Serotonergic and catecholaminergic label is also robust within the entire vocal CPG, with additional cholinergic label in pacemaker and prepacemaker nuclei. Likely sources of these putative modulatory inputs are neurons within or immediately adjacent to vocal CPG neurons. Together with prior neurophysiological investigations, the results reveal potential mechanisms for generating multiple classes of social context‐dependent vocalizations with widely divergent temporal and spectral properties.
Fetal exposures and perinatal influences on the stool microbiota of premature infants

Abstract Objective: To test the hypothesis that maternal complications significantly affect gut colonization patterns in very low birth weight infants. Methods: Forty-nine serial stool samples were obtained weekly from nine extremely premature infants enrolled in a prospective longitudinal study. Sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene from stool samples was performed to approximate the intestinal microbiome. Linear mixed effects models were used to evaluate relationships between perinatal complications and intestinal microbiome development. Results: Subjects with prenatal exposure to a non-sterile intrauterine environment, i.e. prolonged preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPPROM) and chorioamnionitis exposure, were found to have a relatively higher abundance of potentially pathogenic bacteria in the stool across all time points compared to subjects without those exposures, irrespective of exposure to postnatal antibiotics. Compared with those delivered by Caesarean section, vaginally delivered subjects were found to have significantly lower diversity of stool microbiota across all time points, with lower abundance of many genera, most in the family Enterobacteriaceae. Conclusions: We identified persistently increased potential pathogen abundance in the developing stool microbiota of subjects exposed to a non-sterile uterine environment. Maternal complications appear to significantly influence the diversity and bacterial composition of the stool microbiota of premature infants, with findings persisting over time.
Contrasting effects on path integration after hippocampal damage in humans and rats

The hippocampus and other medial temporal lobe structures have been linked to both memory and spatial cognition, but it has been unclear how these ideas are connected. We carried out parallel studies of path integration in patients with medial temporal lobe lesions and rats with hippocampal lesions. Subjects entered a circular arena without vision, searched for a target, and then attempted to return to the start location. Patients performed accurately, and as well as controls, so long as the outward path was relatively direct and the target was found within 20 s. In sharp contrast, rats with hippocampal lesions were impaired, even when the outward path was shorter than 1 m, involved no turns, and the target was found within 3 s. We suggest that patients succeeded because performance could be supported by working memory and that patients and rats differ after hippocampal lesions in their ability to construct a coherent working memory of spatial environments.
Salience and the Government Provision of Public Goods

This paper examines the consequences of salience for the government provision of public goods. Salience is a common behavioral bias whereby people’s attention is drawn to salient features of a decision problem, leading them to overweight prominent information in subsequent judgments. We analyze the case in which the public’s demand for the good is distorted by salient events, and explore how salience influences public good allocation and efficiency. Theoretical predictions regarding public good allocation depend on the magnitude of the change in payoffs and the extent of salience effects. We test whether salience increases allocation of government projects to reduce wildfire severity near wildland-adjacent communities. Even though the occurrence of a wildfire reduces the severity of future fires in the same area, it may increase the likelihood that fuels management projects are placed nearby if wildfire events strongly increase the salience of losses under future fires. We find evidence that the salience effects increase the likelihood of fuels management projects and use robustness checks to eliminate competing explanations for our results. Our salience framework may also offer insights into government responses to terrorism, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and environmental catastrophes.
Maplab: An Open Framework for Research in Visual-Inertial Mapping and Localization

Robust and accurate visual-inertial estimation is crucial to many of today's challenges in robotics. Being able to localize against a prior map and obtain accurate and drift-free pose estimates can push the applicability of such systems even further. Most of the currently available solutions, however, either focus on a single session use case, lack localization capabilities, or do not provide an end-to-end pipeline. We believe that only a complete system, combining state-of-the-art algorithms, scalable multisession mapping tools, and a flexible user interface, can become an efficient research platform. We, therefore, present maplab, an open, research-oriented visual-inertial mapping framework for processing and manipulating multisession maps, written in C++. On the one hand, maplab can be seen as a ready-to-use visual-inertial mapping and localization system. On the other hand, maplab provides the research community with a collection of multisession mapping tools that include map merging, visual-inertial batch optimization, and loop closure. Furthermore, it includes an online frontend that can create visual-inertial maps and also track a global drift-free pose within a localization map. In this letter, we present the system architecture, five use cases, and evaluations of the system on public datasets. The source code of maplab is freely available for the benefit of the robotics research community.
TDP-43 frontotemporal lobar degeneration and autoimmune disease

Background The aetiology and pathogenesis of non-genetic forms of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is unknown and even with the genetic forms of FTD, pathogenesis remains elusive. Given the association between systemic inflammation and other neurodegenerative processes, links between autoimmunity and FTD need to be explored. Objective To describe the prevalence of systemic autoimmune disease in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), a clinical cohort, and in progranulin (PGRN) mutation carriers compared with neurologically healthy normal controls (NC) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) as dementia controls. Design Case control. Setting Academic medical centres. Participants 129 svPPA, 39 PGRN, 186 NC and 158 AD patients underwent chart review for autoimmune conditions. A large subset of svPPA, PGRN and NC cohorts underwent serum analysis for tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α) levels. Outcome measures χ2 Comparison of autoimmune prevalence and follow-up logistic regression. Results There was a significantly increased risk of autoimmune disorders clustered around inflammatory arthritides, cutaneous disorders and gastrointestinal conditions in the svPPA and PGRN cohorts. Elevated TNF-α levels were observed in svPPA and PGRN compared with NC. Conclusions svPPA and PGRN are associated with increased prevalence of specific and related autoimmune diseases compared with NC and AD. These findings suggest a unique pattern of systemic inflammation in svPPA and PGRN and open new research avenues for understanding and treating disorders associated with underlying transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 aggregation.
Yeast RNA-Binding Protein Nab3 Regulates Genes Involved in Nitrogen Metabolism

ABSTRACT Termination of Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcripts occurs through two alternative pathways. Termination of mRNAs is coupled to cleavage and polyadenylation while noncoding transcripts are terminated through the Nrd1-Nab3-Sen1 (NNS) pathway in a process that is linked to RNA degradation by the nuclear exosome. Some mRNA transcripts are also attenuated through premature termination directed by the NNS complex. In this paper we present the results of nuclear depletion of the NNS component Nab3. As expected, many noncoding RNAs fail to terminate properly. In addition, we observe that nitrogen catabolite-repressed genes are upregulated by Nab3 depletion.
The Production of Bio-energy and its Properties of Transport in the Living systems

We here introduced the form of bio-energy in living system and eluciduted again the new theory of bio-energy transport along protein molecules in living systems based on the changes of structure and conformation of molecules arising from the energy, which is released by hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). In this theory, the Davydov’s Hamiltonian and wave function of the systems are simultaneously improved and extended. A new interaction have been added into the original Hamiltonian. The original wave function of the excitation state of single particles have been replaced by a new wave function of two-quanta quasicoherent state. In such a case, bio-energy is carried and transported by the new soliton along protein molecular chains. The soliton is formed through selftrapping of two excitons interacting amino acid residues. The exciton is generated by vibrations of amide-I (C=O stretching) arising from the energy of hydrolysis of ATP. The properties of the soliton are extensively studied by analytical method and its lifetime for a wide ranges of parameter values relevant to protein molecules is calculated using the nonlinear quantum perturbation theory. The lifetime of the new soliton at the biological temperature 300 K is enough large and belongs to the order of 1010 second orτ/τ0≥700. The different properties of the new soliton are further studied. The results show that the new soliton in the new model is a better carrier of bio-energy transport and it can play an important role in biological processes. This model is a candidate of the bio-energy transport mechanism in protein molecules.
Rotavirus vaccine coverage and factors associated with uptake using linked data: Ontario, Canada

Background In August 2011, Ontario, Canada introduced a rotavirus immunization program using Rotarix™ vaccine. No assessments of rotavirus vaccine coverage have been previously conducted in Ontario. Methods We assessed vaccine coverage (series initiation and completion) and factors associated with uptake using the Electronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD), a collection of family physician electronic medical records (EMR) linked to health administrative data. Series initiation (1 dose) and series completion (2 doses) before and after the program’s introduction were calculated. To identify factors associated with series initiation and completion, adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were calculated using logistic regression. Results A total of 12,525 children were included. Series completion increased each year of the program (73%, 79% and 84%, respectively). Factors associated with series initiation included high continuity of care (aOR = 2.15; 95%CI, 1.61–2.87), maternal influenza vaccination (aOR = 1.55; 95%CI,1.24–1.93), maternal immmigration to Canada in the last five years (aOR = 1.47; 95% CI, 1.05–2.04), and having no siblings (aOR = 1.62; 95%CI,1.30–2.03). Relative to the first program year, infants were more likely to initiate the series in the second year (aOR = 1.71; 95% CI 1.39–2.10) and third year (aOR = 2.02; 95% CI 1.56–2.61) of the program. Infants receiving care from physicians with large practices were less likely to initiate the series (aOR 0.91; 95%CI, 0.88–0.94, per 100 patients rostered) and less likely to complete the series (aOR 0.94; 95%CI, 0.91–0.97, per 100 patients rostered). Additional associations were identified for series completion. Conclusions Family physician delivery achieved moderately high coverage in the program’s first three years. This assessment demonstrates the usefulness of EMR data for evaluating vaccine coverage. Important insights into factors associated with initiation or completion (i.e. high continuity of care, smaller roster sizes, rural practice location) suggest areas for research and potential program supports.
The effect of alpha-HGA on HIV-1 replication

Different classes of anti HIV-1 drugs are now available for treatment of HIV-1 infection. Although improved, these drugs show adverse effects and their long-term efficiency is severely hampered by the emergence of resistant viruses. Therefore, less toxic and more effective anti HIV-1 therapeutics agents are still needed. This thesis aimed to evaluate the anti HIV-1 activity of the small molecule, alpha-hydroxy glycineamide (αHGA), and to investigate its mode of action against HIV-1. Here we showed that αHGA inhibits HIV-1 replication and that HIV-1 particles with aberrant core structures are formed in the presence of αHGA. We also showed that αHGA inhibits the replication of clinical HIV-1 isolates with acquired resistance to reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors but has no effect on the replication of any of ten different RNA and DNA viruses. Alpha-HGA affected the ability of the HIV-1 capsid protein to assemble into tubular or core structures in vitro and in vivo. In silica molecular modeling studies indicated a possible interaction of αHGA with the aspartate 51 (D51) of p24. This amino acid residue, located in the N-terminal domain of the capsid protein, has been shown to play a key role in virus assembly and maturation by forming a β-hairpin structure upon proteolytic cleavage of the Gag precursor protein. We introduced three different D51 substitution mutations into both prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems and studied their effects on in vitro CA assembly and virus infectivity. The results showed that substitutions of D51 with glutamate, glutamine, or asparagine, three amino acid residues that are structurally related to aspartate, could not rescue the structural integrity of the capsid nor viral infectivity. Surprisingly, in direct p24 binding studies αHGA was found to bind to the hinge region between the Nand C-terminal domains of the HIV-1 capsid protein and not to the p24 interaction surfaces. Importantly, αHGA only bound to dimerized p24 and not to monomeric protein. Binding to the flexible hinge region of p24 would indicate an allosteric effect of αHGA on the protein affecting its ability to assemble into capsids. Since drug transport is an important aspect of drug function, we investigated the mechanism of [C]αHGA uptake by human T cell line. Uptake of [C]αHGA into H9 cells was timeand dosedependent. The uptake properties showed low temperature dependency (Q10<2) and the cellular uptake of [C] labeled αHGA was not inhibited by increasing concentrations of cold competitors. The metabolic inhibitors, NaN3 and NaF, had no effect on the cellular uptake of [C] labeled αHGA. Kinetic analysis of compound uptake, studies with metabolic inhibitors, saturation studies, and temperature coefficient value of αHGA uptake indicated that this compound enters H9 cells by a mechanism of passive diffusion.