Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of copy number variants associated with renal agenesis using array-based comparative genomic hybridization

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all members in Dr. Manak's lab, especially to Steven Butcher, Xiaojing Hong and Riley Boland who help me for numerous times in my experiments. Also, thanks to Dr. Brophy and Jason Clarke who provide patients' DNA samples and useful information for my projects. Thanks to Song Yi and Nidhi Sahni for their nice help in thesis preparation and writing. Thanks to my advisor, Dr. Manak, for his insightful instructions and profound experience in research during my 2-year study in the lab. And in the end, to my parents who always support me under any circumstances. For the love and help from all of you. iii ABSTRACT Copy Number Variants (CNVs) are defined as DNA segments of 1kb or more in length and present in a variable number of copies in the human genome. It has been recently shown that many human genetic diseases including organ malformations are caused by CNVs in a patient's genome. However, the genetic and molecular basis for Renal Agenesis (RA), which is a medical condition whereby unilateral or bilateral fetal kidneys fail to develop, has not yet been extended to CNV studies. By using array-based Comparative Genomic Hybridization, we are analyzing DNA from patients who have RA in order to identify CNVs that are causative for RA; genes within the CNVs will then be assessed for their potential involvement in RA by altering their dose in Xenopus embryos.
ENERGY EFFICIENT IMAGE TRANSMISSION IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK USING RF CAMERA

The key obstacle to communicating images over wireless sensor networks has been the lack of suitable processing Architecture and communication strategies to deal with the large volume of data. High packet error rates and the need for retransmission make it inefficient in terms of energy and bandwidth. This paper presents novel architecture and protocol for energy efficient image processing and communication over wireless sensor networks. Practical results show the effectiveness of these approaches to make image communication over wireless sensor networks feasible, reliable and efficient.
The Fashion Condition: Rethinking Fashion from Its Everyday Practices

Abstract This article challenges traditional ways of understanding fashion as a social phenomenon. By considering the everyday social practice of fashion where looking, wearing, choosing, discarding, consuming, and producing fashion have central roles in understanding fashion’s person–object relationships, this study advances an alternative ontological view of fashion as a volatile emotional condition and inconstant state of mind. This suggested shift in theoretical perspective is significant in understanding and stimulating change or maintaining stability in fashion phenomena and could have principal consequences for thinking and developing policy in relation to fashion as well as to more general issues in person–object conditioned design cultures.
Potato Peels as an Adsorbent for Heavy Metals from Aqueous Solutions: Eco-Structuring of a Green Adsorbent Operating Plackett–Burman Design

Treatment of wastewater is becoming a concern of an increasing prominence. Trace amounts of toxic metalloids and heavy metals (HMs) would contaminate large volumes of water. Being present as traces, removal of these ultratrace contaminants from wastewater is challenging. Adsorption of HMs onto raw (RPP) and burnt (BPP) potato peels (PP) is presented in the current treatise. Both adsorbents (RPP and BPP) proved to be efficient in removing Cd(II), Co(II), Cu(II), Fe(II), La(III), Ni(II), and Pb(II) from aqueous solutions. BPP was a more efficient adsorbent compared to RPP. Ecodesign of a model, green adsorbent was structured executing a multivariate approach, design of experiments (DoE). The purpose of using DoE is to maximize the efficiency of BPP (carbonaceous biomass) as a versatile adsorbent. Plackett–Burman design (PBD) was used as a screening phase. Four factors were considered: pH, contact time (CT), heavy metal concentration (HMC), and the adsorbent dose (AD). The Pareto chart of standardized effects shows that the most influential factor is the HMC. These data were confirmed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). Derringer’s function was operated to find the best factorial blend that maximizes the adsorption process. The percentage (%) removal of Cd(II), for example, was maximized hitting 100%. Adsorbent surface characterization was performed using FTIR, BET, SEM, TGA/dTG, and EDX analyses. Adsorption was found to be physisorption that follows Temkin isotherm with sorption energy 66 kJ/mole. Adsorption kinetics was found to be pseudo-first-order. Adsorption capacity (qm) for BPP was 239.64 mg/g. The diffusion inside the particles was very limited, while the initial rate of the adsorption was extremely high as shown by the Elovich plot.
Deferoxamine Improves Alveolar and Pulmonary Vascular Development by Upregulating Hypoxia-inducible Factor-1α in a Rat Model of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

Fetal lung development normally occurs in a hypoxic environment. Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α is robustly induced under hypoxia and transactivates many genes that are essential for fetal development. Most preterm infants are prematurely exposed to hyperoxia, which can halt hypoxia-driven lung maturation. We were to investigate whether the HIF-1α inducer, deferoxamine (DFX) can improve alveolarization in a rat model of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). A rat model of BPD was produced by intra-amniotic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration and postnatal hyperoxia (85% for 7 days), and DFX (150 mg/kg/d) or vehicle was administered to rat pups intraperitoneally for 14 days. On day 14, the rat pups were sacrificed and their lungs were removed and examined. A parallel in vitro study was performed with a human small airway epithelial cell line to test whether DFX induces the expression of HIF-1α and its target genes. Alveolarization and pulmonary vascular development were impaired in rats with BPD. However, DFX significantly ameliorated these effects. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that HIF-1α was significantly upregulated in the lungs of BPD rats treated with DFX. DFX was also found to induce HIF-1α in human small airway epithelial cells and to promote the expression of HIF-1α target genes. Our data suggest that DFX induces and activates HIF-1α, thereby improving alveolarization and vascular distribution in the lungs of rats with BPD. Graphical Abstract
Robust transmit processing for frequency-selective fading channels with imperfect channel feedback

Reliable channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) can improve the throughput of wireless networks significantly. In a realistic scenario, there is a mismatch between the CSIT and the true channel. The CSIT may be outdated due to channel variations or could be erroneous due to quantization effects. In this paper, robust transmit beamforming (rBF) and the combination of time-reversal space-time block codes (TR-STBCs) with rBF, both optimized for transmission over frequency-selective fading channels with decision-feedback equalization (DFE), are considered. The reliability of the CSIT is taken into account for the design of channel state dependent transmit signal processing algorithms to achieve robustness against imperfect CSIT. Noisy (quantized) CSIT, outdated CSIT, and the combination of both cases are considered. We show that the performance of the rBF scheme is upper and lower bounded by that of transmit BF with perfect CSIT and optimized delay diversity (ODD) without instantaneous CSIT, respectively. The combination of a TR-STBC with rBF yields significant BF gains in addition to the diversity gains of the TR-STBC for reliable CSIT, whereas for unreliable CSIT, the performance is identical to that of the TR-STBC.
Examining coaching practices and philosophy through the lens of organizational culture in a Danish high-performance swimming environment

Interest in coaching and coaches, as well as coach–athlete relationships, has for a long time been a traditional and solid part of talent development literature. In recent times, talent development research has employed a holistic ecological approach and emphasized the important role of a broader athletic environment in athletes’ development and a constitutive role of organizational culture in the success of such an environment. This case study uses the holistic ecological perspective to examine coaching practices and philosophy through the lens of organizational culture in a Danish high-performance swimming environment. The environment was selected based on its performance success but also because of its nontraditional organization compared to typical Danish swimming clubs. Data were generated from in-depth interviews with six coaches, 30 h of participant observation of training and meetings, and analysis of related documents. Thematic data analysis was guided by Schein’s model of organizational culture. The findings revealed the organizational culture that incorporates specific features of coaching practices and philosophy through cultural artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. In the artifacts, coaching practices were explicit (e.g. flexible training groups and schedules) and philosophy implicit (e.g. ongoing flow of feedback), while in the espoused values, coaching philosophy was explicit (e.g. swimmers as whole persons, long-term development focus) and consistent with basic cultural assumptions (e.g. swimmers’ autonomy as a basis for progress). The study revealed that the cultural lens was helpful in exploring consistency between what coaches communicate about what they do (and how and why they do it) and what they actually did (and how they did it).
Graph cuts based left atrium segmentation refinement and right middle pulmonary vein extraction in C-arm CT

Automatic segmentation of the left atrium (LA) with the left atrial appendage (LAA) and the pulmonary vein (PV) trunks is important for intra-operative guidance in radio-frequency catheter ablation to treat atrial fibrillation (AF). Recently, we proposed a model-based method1, 2 for LA segmentation from the C-arm CT images using marginal space learning (MSL). 3 However, on some data, the mesh from the model-based segmentation cannot exactly fit the true boundary of the left atrium in the image since the method does not make full use of local voxel-wise intensity information. Furthermore, due to the large variations of the PV drainage pattern, extra right middle pulmonary veins are not included in the LA model. In this paper, a graph-based method is proposed by exploiting the graph cuts method to refine results from the model-based segmentation and extract right middle pulmonary veins. We first build regions of interest to constrain the segmentation. The region growing method is used to construct graphs within the regions of interest for the graph cuts optimization. The graph cuts optimization is then performed and newly segmented foreground voxels are assigned into different parts of the left atrium. For the extraction of right middle pulmonary veins, occasional false positive PVs are removed by examining multiple criteria. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed graph-based method is effective and efficient to improve the LA segmentation accuracy and extract right middle PVs.
The prediction of functional decline in older hospitalised patients.

BACKGROUND thirty to sixty per cent of older patients experience functional decline after hospitalisation, associated with an increase in dependence, readmission, nursing home placement and mortality. First step in prevention is the identification of patients at risk. OBJECTIVE to develop and validate a prediction model to assess the risk of functional decline in older hospitalised patients. DESIGN development study: cohort study (n = 492). Validation study: secondary data analysis of a cohort study (n = 484) in an independent population. Both with follow-up after 3 months. Functional decline was defined as a decline of at least one point on the Katz ADL index at follow-up compared with pre-admission status. SETTING development study: general internal medicine wards of two university hospitals and one regional hospital. Validation study: general internal wards of an university hospital. SUBJECTS patients ≥65 years acutely admitted and hospitalised for at least 48 h. RESULTS thirty-five per cent of all patients in the development cohort and 32% in the validation cohort developed functional decline. A four-item model could accurately predict functional decline with an AUC of 0.71. At threshold 2 sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 87, 39, 43 and 85%, respectively. In the validation study, this was, respectively, 0.68, 89, 41, 41 and 89%. CONCLUSION pre-admission need for assistance in instrumental activities of daily living, use of a walking device, need for assistance in travelling and no education after age 14, are the items of a prediction model to identify older patients at risk for functional decline following hospital admission. The strength of the model is that it relies on four simple questions and this makes it easy to use in clinical practice and easy to administer.
Anisotropic Thermal Conduction in Supernova Remnants: Relevance to Hot-Gas Filling Factors in the Magnetized Interstellar Medium

We explore the importance of anisotropic thermal conduction in the evolution of supernova remnants by means of numerical simulations. The mean temperature of the bubble of hot gas is decreased by a factor of ~3 compared with simulations without thermal conduction, together with an increase in the mean density of hot gas by a similar factor. Thus, thermal conduction greatly reduces the volume of hot gas produced over the life of the remnant. This underscores the importance of thermal conduction in estimating the hot-gas filling fraction and emissivities in high-stage ions in Galactic and protogalactic interstellar media.
Processing Mode Causally Influences Emotional Reactivity

Three studies are reported showing that emotional responses to stress can be modified by systematic prior practice in adopting particular processing modes. Participants were induced to think about positive and negative scenarios in a mode either characteristic of or inconsistent with the abstract-evaluative mind-set observed in depressive rumination, via explicit instructions (Experiments 1 and 2) and via implicit induction of interpretative biases (Experiment 3), before being exposed to a failure experience. In all three studies, participants trained into the mode antithetical to depressive rumination demonstrated less emotional reactivity following failure than participants trained into the mode consistent with depressive rumination. These findings provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that processing mode modifies emotional reactivity and support the processing-mode theory of rumination.
Root separation for reducible integer polynomials

(d) ≥ (d +1)/3, for every d ≥ 2.Except those from [2], the above results are obtained by presenting ex-plicit families of (irreducible) polynomials of degree d whose roots are closeenough. The ingenious proof in [2] does not give any explicit example ofsuch polynomials, but shows that algebraic numbers of degree d with a closeconjugate form a ‘highly dense’ subset in the real line.The aim of the present note is to improve all known lower bounds fore
Stacked Generalizations: When Does It Work?

Stacked generalization is a general method of using a high-level model to combine lower-level models to achieve greater predictive accuracy. In this paper we address two crucial issues which have been considered to be a `black art' in classiication tasks ever since the introduction of stacked generalization in 1992 by Wolpert: the type of generalizer that is suitable to derive the higher-level model, and the kind of attributes that should be used as its input. We demonstrate the eeectiveness of stacked generalization for combining three diierent types of learning algorithms.
Nurses/Midwifery Trainees’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Utilisation of HIV Testing/Counselling Service in the Central Region of Ghana

Background and purpose: Despite HIV testing and counselling (HTC) being recognized as important elements of any effective prevention, detection, care, and management programmes across many societies as part of their primary health care package, it is surprising that research evidence on related issues, especially in developing countries like Ghana is sparse. This study examined the extent of knowledge, attitudes and utilisation of HIV testing, and counselling services among trainee nurses of the public nursing and midwifery training colleges in the Central Region of Ghana. Methods and results: A descriptive cross-sectional design was employed to collect data from 375 nursing and midwifery students using multistage sampling procedures. Findings showed that students’ HTC knowledge was high (85%) whereas attitudes toward HTC were rated positive (95%). However, HTC utilisation was low (47%). Further results revealed a statistically significant difference between class level and HTC utilisation (χ [1, N = 375] = 14.263, p = 0.000). In contrast, no statistically significant differences in student nurses’ class level and HTC knowledge (χ [1, N = 375] = 0.624, p = 0.475) as well as class level and attitudes toward HTC services (χ [1, N = 375] = 2.334, p = 0.158) were realized. Conclusion: The low HTC utilisation among the student nurses may potentially lead to missing opportunities for early diagnoses, care, treatment, and support services for primary, secondary or tertiary prevention modes. Organisation of programmes by college authorities on the importance of HTC and the need for student nurses to utilise these services is crucial.
On the teletraffic capacity of CDMA cellular networks

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the teletraffic behavior of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) cellular networks. In particular, we examine a technique to assess the reverse link traffic capacity and its sensitivity to various propagation and system parameters. We begin by discussing methods of characterizing interference from other users in the network. These methods are extremely important in the development of the traffic models. We begin with a review of several existing approaches to the problem of handling other-cell interference before presenting a novel characterization of the interference in the form of an analytic expression for the interference distribution function in the deterministic propagation environment. We then look at extending the capacity analyses that assume a fixed and equal number of users in every cell to handle the random nature of call arrivals and departures. The simplest way to do this is by modeling each cell of the network as an independent M/G/x/spl infin/ queue. This allows us to replace the deterministic number of users in each cell by an independent Poisson random variable for each cell. The resulting compound Poisson sums have some very nice properties that allow us to calculate an outage probability by analyzing a single random sum. This leads to a very efficient technique for assessing the reverse link traffic capacity of CDMA cellular networks.
The Ca2+ sensitizer CK‐2066260 increases myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity and submaximal force selectively in fast skeletal muscle

We report that the small molecule CK‐2066260 selectively slows the off‐rate of Ca2+ from fast skeletal muscle troponin, leading to increased myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity in fast skeletal muscle. Rodents dosed with CK‐2066260 show increased hindlimb muscle force and power in response to submaximal rates of nerve stimulation in situ. CK‐2066260 has no effect on free cytosolic [Ca2+] during contractions of isolated muscle fibres. We conclude that fast skeletal muscle troponin sensitizers constitute a potential therapy to address an unmet need of improving muscle function in conditions of weakness and premature muscle fatigue.
Skewed Epigenetics: An Alternative Therapeutic Option for Diabetes Complications

Vascular complications are major causes of morbidity and mortality in type 2 diabetes patients. Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and a lack of efficient antioxidant machinery, a result of hyperglycaemia, mainly contribute to this problem. Although advances in therapy have significantly reduced both morbidity and mortality in diabetic individuals, diabetes-associated vascular complications are still one of the most challenging health problems worldwide. New healing options are urgently needed as current therapeutics are failing to improve long-term outcomes. Particular effort has recently been devoted to understanding the functional relationship between chromatin structure regulation and the persistent change in gene expression which is driven by hyperglycaemia and which accounts for long-lasting diabetic complications. A detailed investigation into epigenetic chromatin modifications in type 2 diabetes is underway. This will be particularly useful in the design of mechanism-based therapeutics which interfere with long-lasting activating epigenetics and improve patient outcomes. We herein provide an overview of the most relevant mechanisms that account for hyperglycaemia-induced changes in chromatin structure; the most relevant mechanism is called “metabolic memory. ”
Knowledge as an Intellectual Property: The Effect of Knowledge Sharing and Encouragement by Others on Information Systems Use in the Workplace

Organizations invest in Information Systems (IS) to help achieve strategic goals and to disseminate knowledge in order to enhance employee productivity. Most individuals consider knowledge as their intellectual property. However, sharing the knowledge about using IS and encouraging others to use IS has received limited attention in research. This study examined employees’ knowledge sharing (collegial and technical knowledge), encouragement by others to share knowledge, and their role in predicting computer self-efficacy (CSE) and IS usage. This study included 256 participants from five different organizations. Web-based instrument was used based on prior measures from literature, and an expert panel review was done. We conducted a confirmatory data analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS ® . Our results indicate that encouragement by others does significantly impact knowledge sharing. We also found that while technical knowledge sharing had a significantly positive influence on CSE, collegial knowledge sharing had a negative influence on CSE.
Research Area Markets and Politics Research Unit Market Processes and Governance Schwerpunkt Märkte Und Politik Abteilung Marktprozesse Und Steuerung Tax Progression under Collective Wage Bargaining and Individual Effort Determination Tax Progression under Collective Wage Bargaining and Individual E

In this paper, we study the impact of tax policy on wage negotiations, workers' effort, and employment when effort is only imperfectly observable. We show that the different wage-setting motives – rent sharing and effort incentives – reinforce the effects of partial tax policy measures but not necessarily those of more fundamental tax reforms. We show that a higher degree of tax progression always leads to wage moderation, but the well-established result from the wage bargaining literature that a revenue-neutral increase in the degree of tax progression is good for employment does not carry over to the case with wage negotiations and imperfectly observable effort. While it remains true that introducing tax progression increases employment, we cannot rule out negative employment effects from an increase in tax progression when tax progression is already very high. Foundation and the Academy of Finland (grant No. 1109089) for financial support. Schöb thanks the WZB in Berlin for great hospitality. weiteren Erhöhung der Steuerprogression nicht ausschließen.