Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mortality from Ischemic Heart Disease and Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2) in Four U.S. Wheat-Producing States: A Hypothesis-Generating Study

In this ecologic study I examined ischemic heart disease (IHD) and diabetes mortality in rural agricultural counties of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, in association with environmental exposure to chlorophenoxy herbicides, using wheat acreage as a surrogate exposure. I collected data on agricultural land use and 1979–1998 mortality from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites, respectively. Counties were grouped based on percentage of land area dedicated to wheat farming. Poisson relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), comparing high- and medium- with low-wheat counties, were obtained for IHD, the subcategories acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and coronary atherosclerosis (CAS), and diabetes, adjusting for sex, age, mortality cohort, and poverty index. Mortality from IHD was modestly increased (RR = 1.08; 95% CI, 1.04–1.12). Analyses of its two major forms were more revealing. Compared with low-wheat counties, mortality in high-wheat counties from AMI increased (RR = 1.20; 95% CI, 1.14–1.26), and mortality from CAS decreased (RR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83–0.96). Mortality from AMI was more pronounced for those < 65 years of age (RR = 1.31; 95% CI 1.22–1.39). Mortality from type 2 diabetes increased (RR = 1.16; 95% CI, 1.08–1.24). These results suggest that the underlying cause of mortality from AMI and type 2 diabetes increased and the underlying cause of mortality from CAS decreased in counties where a large proportion of the land area is dedicated to spring and durum wheat farming. Firm conclusions on causal inference cannot be reached until more definitive studies have been conducted.
Congestion Control Principles

The goal of this document is to explain the need for congestion control in the Internet, and to discuss what constitutes correct congestion control. One specific goal is to illustrate the dangers of neglecting to apply proper congestion control. A second goal is to discuss the role of the IETF in standardizing new congestion control protocols.
Detecting and avoiding frontal obstacles from monocular camera for micro unmanned aerial vehicles

In literature, several approaches are trying to make the UAVs fly autonomously i.e., by extracting perspective cues such as straight lines. However, it is only available in well-defined human made environments, in addition to many other cues which require enough texture information. Our main target is to detect and avoid frontal obstacles from a monocular camera using a quad rotor Ar.Drone 2 by exploiting optical flow as a motion parallax, the drone is permitted to fly at a speed of 1 m/s and an altitude ranging from 1 to 4 meters above the ground level. In general, detecting and avoiding frontal obstacle is a quite challenging problem because optical flow has some limitation which should be taken into account i.e. lighting conditions and aperture problem.
Title: Self-motion and the Shaping of Sensory Signals 3 4 Runn. Head: Self-motion and the Shaping of Sensory Signals Introduction

6 Affiliations: 1. Department of Physics 7 Harvard University 8 17A Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. 9 10 2. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering 11 Northeastern University 12 Boston, MA 02115 13 14 3. School of Engineering & Applied Sciences 15 Harvard University 16 40 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. 17 18 4. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering 19 Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University 20 313 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332. 21 22
Associations of single nucleotide polymorphisms in precursor‐microRNA (miR)‐125a and the expression of mature miR‐125a with the development and prognosis of autoimmune thyroid diseases

It is important to search the biomarker to predict the development and prognosis of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs) such as Hashimoto's disease (HD) and Graves' disease (GD). MicroRNA (miR) bind directly to the 3′ untranslated region of specific target mRNAs to suppress the expression of proteins, promote the degradation of target mRNAs and regulate immune response. miR‐125a is known to be a negative regulator of regulated upon activation normal T cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), interleukin (IL)‐6 and transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β; however, its association with AITDs remains unknown. To clarify the association between AITDs and miR‐125a, we genotyped the rs12976445 C/T, rs10404453 A/G and rs12975333 G/T polymorphisms in the MIR125A gene, which encodes miR‐125a, using direct sequencing and polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) methods in 155 patients with GD, 151 patients with HD and 118 healthy volunteers. We also examined the expression of miR‐125a in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 55 patients with GD, 79 patients with HD and 38 healthy volunteers using quantitative real‐time PCR methods. We determined that the CC genotype and C allele of the rs12976445 C/T polymorphism were significantly more frequent in patients with HD compared with control subjects (P < 0·05) and in intractable GD compared with GD in remission (P < 0·05). The expression of miR‐125a was correlated negatively with age (P = 0·0010) and down‐regulated in patients with GD compared with control subjects (P = 0.0249). In conclusion, miR‐125a expression in PBMCs and the rs12976445 C/T polymorphism were associated with AITD development and prognosis.
Surface observations for monitoring urban fossil fuel CO2 emissions: Minimum site location requirements for the Los Angeles megacity

The contemporary global carbon cycle is dominated by perturbations from anthropogenic CO2 emissions. One approach to identify, quantify, and monitor anthropogenic emissions is to focus on intensely emitting urban areas. In this study, we compare the ability of different CO2 observing systems to constrain anthropogenic flux estimates in the Los Angeles megacity. We consider different observing system configurations based on existing observations and realistic near‐term extensions of the current ad hoc network. We use a high‐resolution regional model (Stochastic Time‐Inverted Lagrangian Transport‐Weather Research and Forecasting) to simulate different observations and observational network designs within and downwind of the Los Angeles (LA) basin. A Bayesian inverse method is employed to quantify the relative ability of each network to improve constraints on flux estimates. Ground‐based column CO2 observations provide useful complementary information to surface observations due to lower sensitivity to localized dynamics, but column CO2 observations from a single site do not appear to provide sensitivity to emissions from the entire LA megacity. Surface observations from remote, downwind sites contain weak, sporadic urban signals and are complicated by other source/sink impacts, limiting their usefulness for quantifying urban fluxes in LA. We find a network of eight optimally located in‐city surface observation sites provides the minimum sampling required for accurate monitoring of CO2 emissions in LA, and present a recommended baseline network design. We estimate that this network can distinguish fluxes on 8 week time scales and 10 km spatial scales to within ~12 g C m–2 d–1 (~10% of average peak fossil CO2 flux in the LA domain).
Global stereo reconstruction under second order smoothness priors

Second-order priors on the smoothness of 3D surfaces are a better model of typical scenes than first-order priors. However, stereo reconstruction using global inference algorithms, such as graph-cuts, has not been able to incorporate second-order priors because the triple cliques needed to express them yield intractable (non-submodular) optimization problems. This paper shows that inference with triple cliques can be effectively optimized. Our optimization strategy is a development of recent extensions to a-expansion, based on the "QPBO" algorithm [5, 14, 26]. The strategy is to repeatedly merge proposal depth maps using a novel extension of QPBO. Proposal depth maps can come from any source, for example fronto-parallel planes as in a-expansion, or indeed any existing stereo algorithm, with arbitrary parameter settings. Experimental results demonstrate the usefulness of the second-order prior and the efficacy of our optimization framework. An implementation of our stereo framework is available online [34].
A survey on reactive programming

Reactive programming has recently gained popularity as a paradigm that is well-suited for developing event-driven and interactive applications. It facilitates the development of such applications by providing abstractions to express time-varying values and automatically managing dependencies between such values. A number of approaches have been recently proposed embedded in various languages such as Haskell, Scheme, JavaScript, Java, . NET, etc. This survey describes and provides a taxonomy of existing reactive programming approaches along six axes: representation of time-varying values, evaluation model, lifting operations, multidirectionality, glitch avoidance, and support for distribution. From this taxonomy, we observe that there are still open challenges in the field of reactive programming. For instance, multidirectionality is supported only by a small number of languages, which do not automatically track dependencies between time-varying values. Similarly, glitch avoidance, which is subtle in reactive programs, cannot be ensured in distributed reactive programs using the current techniques.
Rasch Analysis on Individual Cognitive Styles for Museum Learning Performances

The advantages offered by the web-based environment have successfully convinced museums around the world to employ the technology in enriching their visitors’ learning experiences. However, the design and development of such environment in presenting the museum exhibits is challenging due to the complexities of humancomputer interaction. The diverse profiles of museum visitors also add to the dilemma in designing effective museum leaning experiences for all. This paper addresses the issue by focusing on the effects between media representation formats and individual cognitive preferences. The data collected utilizing a quasi-experimental design was then analyzed using Rasch Model. The findings reveal that cognitive styles do have an effect on the learning performance thus should be consider during the design process of the learning environment.
Study of Random Dopant Fluctuation Effects in FD-SOI MOSFET Using Analytical Threshold Voltage Model

An analytical threshold voltage model developed for a nonuniformly doped channel is used to study the random dopant fluctuation (RDF) effects in FD-SOI MOSFETs. RDF results in nonuniform doping in the channel, leading to deviation in the threshold voltage, which can be computed using this analytical model. The effect of device parameters on RDF-induced threshold voltage deviations is also investigated. For each study, a large sample size has been used. This has been possible owing to the computational efficiency of the analytical model. Studies on the threshold voltage variation due to combined effects of RDF and other device parameter fluctuations have also been carried out.
Locating Sets : Spatial Semantics of Indefinites and Collective Descriptions

This paper addresses systematic variations in the interpre ation of indefinites and plurals when appearing within prepositional phra ses and other spatial expressions. We show that these variations are explain ed when spatial processes in semantics locate the setsassociated with properties and other setbased denotations of nominals. Starting with spatial indefi it s we consider contrasts like the following. (i) Michael is far from a gas station. (ii) Michael is close to a gas station. In the appropriate context – e.g. a car race in the desert, whe n Michael’s car is running out of gas – sentence (i) means that Michael is far f rom all gas stations. By contrast, sentence (ii) only has an existential in terpretation, which states that there is at least one gas station near Michael. We show that the existential-universal alternation in (i)-(ii) marks two e xtremes in a much wider range of (pseudo-)quantificational interpretations of spa tial nominals, which cannot be explained by any known theory of quantification ove r entities. By contrast, this behavior is consistent with property-basedtheories of indefinites (McNally 2009, “Properties and entity correlates”, in Gian n kidou & Rathert, eds., OUP). We propose that properties and other set concept s have a spatial dimension that is operational in locative sentences. Varia tions as in (i)-(ii) are explained by locating the set extension of the property d enoted by the indefinite. Thus, sentences (i)-(ii) make a claim about Michae l’s distance from the spatial set concept ‘gas station’. Such properties are l ocated similar to other spatial objects. For example, being far from the prope rty ‘gas station’ means being far from all of its ‘parts’ – individual gas stati on instances. By contrast, being close to a property means being close to at le ast one of its instances. Thus, the pseudo-quantificational variation in (i )-(ii) directly follows from meanings of spatial expressions and not from any compos itional difference. This account of spatial indefinites naturally extends to spatial sentences with collective descriptions like ‘the lakes’ or ‘the mount ain chain’, which show similar interpretative variability. At the same time, we observe some systematic differences between collective descriptions a nd singular indefinites in spatial constructions. We treat these differences as res ulting from the referential cohesion of ‘impure atom’ entities denoted by plur als, as opposed to property denotations of indefinites. Spelling out formally the proposed spatial semantics leads to a general theory of set-based locative ex pr ssions.
FLOWERING IN BAMBOO : AN ENIGMA !

The switch to flowering is the most important event in the life cycle of a plant, signaling its commitment to set seed ensuring survival of the species. Effective and efficient pollination leading to seed set requires that all individuals in a population flower together. Environmental cues are the most effective in bringing about simultaneous flowering in populations growing over wide extents of land. However, flowering in certain species of bamboo is intriguing, in that the cues that trigger flowering still remain a mystery. These manifest a cyclic pattern of flowering after long, and sometimes regular, vegetative periods that extend up to even 120 years. All individuals growing over vast expanses of land flower in synchrony along with individuals growing elsewhere far away. This phenomenon of mast flowering or mast seeding is the synchronized flowering and production of seed at long intervals by a large population. In bamboo, the population produces wind-pollinated flowers, sets seed in large quantity and perishes. The seeds regenerate to repeat the life cycle. Thus flowering is related to its life span, similar to that of annuals or ephemerals that flower and set seed only once before perishing. Mast flowering is uncommon in the plant kingdom and even in bamboo, only a few species exhibit this phenomenon. The unpredictable nature of this event has brought about devastations to people whose livelihood depends on bamboo. The growing economic importance of bamboo thus requires the understanding of flowering in this group of plants. Induction of flowering in vitro would be an approach to this solution in the absence of any other mechanism that can be used to trigger flowering in nature.
Localization of general and regulatory proteolysis in Bacillus subtilis cells

Protein degradation mediated by ATP‐dependent proteases, such as Hsp100/Clp and related AAA+ proteins, plays an important role in cellular protein homeostasis, protein quality control and the regulation of, e.g. heat shock adaptation and other cellular differentiation processes. ClpCP with its adaptor proteins and other related proteases, such as ClpXP or ClpEP of Bacillus subtilis, are involved in general and regulatory proteolysis. To determine if proteolysis occurs at specific locations in B. subtilis cells, we analysed the subcellular distribution of the Clp system together with adaptor and general and regulatory substrate proteins, under different environmental conditions. We can demonstrate that the ATPase and the proteolytic subunit of the Clp proteases, as well as the adaptor or substrate proteins, form visible foci, representing active protease clusters localized to the polar and to the mid‐cell region. These clusters could represent a compartmentalized place for protein degradation positioned at the pole close to where most of the cellular protein biosynthesis and also protein quality control are taking place, thereby spatially separating protein synthesis and degradation.
Degeneration of the Nonrecombining Regions in the Mating-Type Chromosomes of the Anther-Smut Fungi

Dimorphic mating-type chromosomes in fungi are excellent models for understanding the genomic consequences of recombination suppression. Their suppressed recombination and reduced effective population size are expected to limit the efficacy of natural selection, leading to genomic degeneration. Our aim was to identify the sequences of the mating-type chromosomes (a1 and a2) of the anther-smut fungi and to investigate degeneration in their nonrecombining regions. We used the haploid a1 Microbotryum lychnidis-dioicae reference genome sequence. The a1 and a2 mating-type chromosomes were both isolated electrophoretically and sequenced. Integration with restriction-digest optical maps identified regions of recombination and nonrecombination in the mating-type chromosomes. Genome sequence data were also obtained for 12 other Microbotryum species. We found strong evidence of degeneration across the genus in the nonrecombining regions of the mating-type chromosomes, with significantly higher rates of nonsynonymous substitution (dN/dS) than in nonmating-type chromosomes or in recombining regions of the mating-type chromosomes. The nonrecombining regions of the mating-type chromosomes also showed high transposable element content, weak gene expression, and gene losses. The levels of degeneration did not differ between the a1 and a2 mating-type chromosomes, consistent with the lack of homogametic/heterogametic asymmetry between them, and contrasting with X/Y or Z/W sex chromosomes.
Velocity Predictors for Predictive Energy Management in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

The performance and practicality of predictive energy management in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are highly dependent on the forecast of future vehicular velocities, both in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency. In this brief, we provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of three velocity prediction strategies, applied within a model predictive control framework. The prediction process is performed over each receding horizon, and the predicted velocities are utilized for fuel economy optimization of a power-split HEV. We assume that no telemetry or on-board sensor information is available for the controller, and the actual future driving profile is completely unknown. Basic principles of exponentially varying, stochastic Markov chain, and neural network-based velocity prediction approaches are described. Their sensitivity to tuning parameters is analyzed, and the prediction precision, computational cost, and resultant vehicular fuel economy are compared.
The effects of intended use on target acquisition

Fitts's Law has been used extensively in HCI to describe 2D targeting; however, the controlled tasks generally used neglect aspects of real-world pointing, including how the intended use of a target affects its acquisition. We studied aiming to a target in four tasks requiring varying precision after acquisition. Our results present the first evidence that the intended use of a target affects its acquisition in terms of movement time and motion kinematics for computer aiming. Important for researchers who model 2D targeting, our results also have particular impact for HCI research that uses motion kinematics.
The Centrosomal Kinase Nek 2 Displays Elevated Levels of Protein Expression in Human Breast Cancer

Aneuploidy and chromosome instability are common abnormalities in human cancer. Loss of control over mitotic progression, multipolar spindle formation, and cytokinesis defects are all likely to contribute to these phenotypes. Nek2 is a cell cycle-regulated protein kinase with maximal activity at the onset of mitosis that localizes to the centrosome. Functional studies have implicated Nek2 in regulation of centrosome separation and spindle formation. Here, we present the first study of the protein expression levels of the Nek2 kinase in human cancer cell lines and primary tumors. Nek2 protein is elevated 2to 5-fold in cell lines derived from a range of human tumors including those of cervical, ovarian, breast, prostate, and leukemic origin. Most importantly, by immunohistochemistry, we find that Nek2 protein is significantly up-regulated in preinvasive in situ ductal carcinomas of the breast as well as in invasive breast carcinomas. Finally, by ectopic expression of Nek2A in immortalized HBL100 breast epithelial cells, we show that increased Nek2 protein leads to accumulation of multinucleated cells with supernumerary centrosomes. These data highlight the Nek2 kinase as novel potential target for chemotherapeutic intervention in breast cancer.
Polarity Effects of Polymer Gate Electrets on Non‐Volatile Organic Field‐Effect Transistor Memory

Organic non‐volatile memory (ONVM) based on pentacene field‐effect transistors (FETs) has been fabricated using various chargeable thin polymer gate dielectrics—termed electrets—onto silicon oxide insulating layers. The overall transfer curve of organic FETs is significantly shifted in both positive and negative directions and the shifts in threshold voltage (VTh) can be systemically and reversibly controlled via relatively brief application of the appropriate external gate bias. The shifted transfer curve is stable for a relatively long time—more than 105 s. However, this significant reversible shift in VTh is evident only in OFETs with non‐polar and hydrophobic polymer electret layers. Moreover, the magnitude of the memory window in this device is inversely proportional to the hydrophilicity (determined from the water contact angle) and dielectric polarity (determined from the dielectric constant), respectively. Memory behaviors of ONVM originate from charge storage in polymer gate electret layers. Therefore, the small shifts in VTh in ONVM with hydrophilic and polar polymers may be due to very rapid dissipation of transferred charges through the conductive channels which form from dipoles, residual moisture, or ions in the polymer electret layers. It is verified that the surface or bulk conductivities of polymer gate electret layers played a critical role in determining the non‐volatile memory properties.