Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SIRT6 Minor Allele Genotype Is Associated with >5-Year Decrease in Lifespan in an Aged Cohort

Aging is a natural process involving complex interplay between environment, metabolism, and genes. Sirtuin genes and their downstream targets have been associated with lifespan in numerous organisms from nematodes to humans. Several target proteins of the sirtuin genes are key sensors and/or effectors of oxidative stress pathways including FOXO3, SOD3, and AKT1. To examine the relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) at candidate genes in these pathways and human lifespan, we performed a molecular epidemiologic study of an elderly cohort (≥65 years old.). Using age at death as a continuous outcome variable and assuming a co-dominant genetic model within the framework of multi-variable linear regression analysis, the genotype-specific adjusted mean age at death was estimated for individual SNP genotypes while controlling for age-related risk factors including smoking, body mass index, alcohol consumption and co-morbidity. Significant associations were detected between human lifespan and SNPs in genes SIRT3, SIRT5, SIRT6, FOXO3 and SOD3. Individuals with either the CC or CT genotype at rs107251 within SIRT6 displayed >5-year mean survival advantages compared to the TT genotype (5.5 and 5.9 years, respectively; q-value = 0.012). Other SNPs revealed genotype-specific mean survival advantages ranging from 0.5 to 1.6 years. Gender also modified the effect of SNPs in SIRT3, SIRT5 and AKT1 on lifespan. Our novel findings highlight the impact of sirtuins and sirtuin-related genotypes on lifespan, the importance of evaluating gender and the advantage of using age as a continuous variable in analyses to report mean age at death.
Cultural Competence in Clinical Psychology Training: A Qualitative Investigation of Student and Academic Experiences

Objective Recent years have seen a marked increase in attention to cultural competence in clinical psychology practice in Australia. While the body of literature on the need for cultural competence is expanding, this is the first study that analyses how cross‐cultural training and practice is experienced and related to standardised models of cultural competence. Method Twelve participants (8 students and 4 academics; 9 females and 3 males, ages 22–57) in two Australian universities were interviewed on their experiences with cultural competence during clinical psychology training. Each semi‐structured interview took about 30 min and focused on identifying the training experiences and needs for cultural competence. Results Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the transcripts delivered three master themes: experiences of culture, strategies for culturally competent practice, and experiences of cultural competence development. Conclusions Students and academics experienced a “western” bias in training, and consequently adopted a variety of strategies to adapt their practice with culturally non‐western clients. These findings draw attention to the need for structured cultural competence development in professional training programs.
Simultaneous determination of Omega~M~0 and H~0 from joint Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and X-ray observations with median statistics

Clusters of galaxies contain a fair sample of the universal baryonic mass fraction. A combined analysis of the intracluster medium (ICM) within their hydrostatic regions, as derived from both Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) measurements and X-ray images, makes it possible to constrain the cosmological parameters. We consider both gas fraction estimates and angular diameter distance measurements. Adopting median statistics, we find, at the 2- σ level, the pressureless matter density, $\Omega_{\rm M0}$, to be between 0.30 and 0.40 and the Hubble constant, H 0 , between 44 and 66 km s -1 Mpc -1 .
Towards Quantifying the "Album Effect" in Artist Identification

Recent systems for automatically identifying the performing artist from the acoustic signal of music have demonstrated reasonably high accuracy when discriminating between hundreds of known artists. A well-documented issue, however, is that the performance of these systems degrades when music from different albums is used for training and evaluation. Conversely, accuracy improves when systems are trained and evaluated using music from the same album. This performance characteristic has been labeled the “album effect”. The unfortunate corollary to this result is that the classification results of these systems are based not entirely on the music itself, but on other audio features common to the album that may be unrelated to the underlying music. We hypothesize that one of the primary reasons for this phenomenon is the production process of commercial recordings, specifically, post-production. Understanding the primary aspects of post-production, we can attempt to model its effect on the acoustic features used for classification. By quantifying and accounting for this transformation, we hope to improve future systems for automatic artist identification.
The influence of gender role ideology on developmental trajectories of dismissive attitudes towards sexual harassment in early adolescence

Sexual harassment of adolescent girls by their male peers is prevalent in schools, and tends to be normalized and dismissed by students and school personnel as a natural characteristic of crossgender interactions in adolescence. This study highlights the gendered nature of sexual harassment in adolescence by examining the longitudinal association between socially constructed gender role ideologies and dismissive attitudes toward sexual harassment. Data were collected from 147 males and 164 females in three racially and economically diverse middle schools across four semesters. At each wave of data collection, students completed measures of masculinity and femininity ideology, sexual harassment perpetration and victimization, and attitudes toward sexual harassment. Growth curve modeling was used to examine developmental trajectories of dismissive attitudes toward sexual harassment and identify factors that account for different patterns of change. In the best-fitting model for females, dismissive attitudes decreased linearly over time, and endorsement of traditional masculinity and femininity ideologies was associated with dismissive attitudes across time. The final model accounted for 18.7% of the within-person variance and 27.8% of the between-person variance in dismissive attitudes. For males, a nonlinear change trajectory provided the best fit to the data. Traditional and nontraditional masculinity ideologies and sexual harassment perpetration accounted for different patterns of change. The final model accounted for 31.6% of the within-person variance and 41.5% of the between-person variance in dismissive attitudes. The results support a feminist sociocultural model of sexual harassment, which posits that sexual harassment arises from gendered power differentials that are legitimized and maintained by hegemonic masculinity ideology. Implications for the development of school prevention and intervention programs are discussed.
Phylogenomics and the number of characters required for obtaining an accurate phylogeny of eukaryote model species

MOTIVATION Through the most extensive phylogenomic analysis carried out to date, complete genomes of 11 eukaryotic species have been examined in order to find the homologous of more than 25,000 amino acid sequences. These sequences correspond to the exons of more than 3000 genes and were used as presence/absence characters to test one of the most controversial hypotheses concerning animal evolution, namely the Ecdysozoa hypothesis. Distance, maximum parsimony and Bayesian methods of phylogenetic reconstruction were used to test the hypothesis. RESULTS The reliability of the ecdysozoa, grouping arthropods and nematodes in a single clade was unequivocally rejected in all the consensus trees. The Coelomata clade, grouping arthropods and chordates, was supported by the highest statistical confidence in all the reconstructions. The study of the dependence of the genomes' tree accuracy on the number of exons used, demonstrated that an unexpectedly larger number of characters are necessary to obtain robust phylogenies. Previous studies supporting ecdysozoa, could not guarantee an accurate phylogeny because the number of characters used was clearly below the minimum required.
Approximate Input Reconstruction for Diagnosing Aircraft Control Surfaces

An approximate input reconstruction algorithm is used to reconstruct unknown inputs, which are then used for fault detection. The approximate input reconstruction algorithm is a least squares algorithm that estimates both the unknown initial state and input history. The estimated inputs are then compared to the commanded values and sensor values to assess the health of actuators and sensors. This approach is applied to the longitudinal and lateral dynamics of NASA’s Generic Transport Model. The input reconstruction algorithm can be used for systems with minimum-phase or nonminimum-phase zeros; however, minimum-phase zeros entail an additional delay in reconstructing inputs, while zeros on the unit circle yield persistent estimation errors and thus poor input reconstruction regardless of the delay.
IPNN: An Incremental Probabilistic Neural Network for Function Approximation and Regression Tasks

This paper presents a new probabilistic neural network model, called IPNN (for Incremental Probabilistic Neural Network), which is able to learn continuously probability distributions from data flows. The proposed model is inspired in the Specht's general regression neural network, but have several improvements which makes it more suitable to be used in on-line and robotic tasks. Moreover, IPNN is able to automatically define the network structure in an incremental and on-line way, with new units added whenever necessary to represent new training data. The experiments performed using the proposed model shows that IPNN is able to approximate continuous functions using few probabilistic units.
Testing the Predictive Power of New Zealand Bank Bill Futures Rates

The hypothesis that New Zealand 90-day bank bill futures rates are an unbiased predictor of 90-day bank bill rates is tested by applying the single-equation method of Stock and Watson (1993) to quarterly data from 1989 to 1997. The results do not reject the unbiasedness hypothesis for the one and two-quarter-ahead horizons tested. However, the estimated residuals are found to contain significant serial correlation in both cases, which suggests that some degree of information inefficiency might exist. The relative forecasting performance of futures rates against the random-walk is also investigated for weekly horizons up to 26 weeks. The results indicate that futures rates outperform the random-walk over all horizons tested, with the improvement statistically significant for all horizons greater than 1 week.
CARBON ABUNDANCES OF THREE CARBON-ENHANCED METAL-POOR STARS FROM HIGH-RESOLUTION GEMINI-S/bHROS SPECTRA OF THE λ8727 [C i] LINE

We present the results from an analysis of the λ8727 forbidden [C i] line in high-resolution Gemini-S/bHROS spectra of three Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor (CEMP) stars. Previous derivations of C abundances in CEMP stars have primarily used the blue bands of CH and the C2 Swan system, features which are suspected to be sensitive to photospheric temperature inhomogeneities (the so-called three-dimensional effects). We find the [C/Fe] ratios based on the [C i] abundances of the two most Fe-rich stars in our sample (HE 0507-1653: [Fe/H] = −1.42 and HE 0054-2542: [Fe/H] = −2.66) to be in good agreement with previously determined values. For the most Fe-deficient star in our sample (HE 1005-1439: [Fe/H] = −3.08), however, the [C/Fe] ratio is found to be 0.34 dex lower than the published molecular-based value. We have carried out three-dimensional local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) calculations for [C i], and the resulting corrections are found to be modest for all three stars, suggesting that the discrepancy between the [C i] and molecular-based C abundances of HE 1005-1439 is due to more severe three-dimensional effects on the molecular lines. Carbon abundances are also derived from C i high-excitation lines and are found to be 0.45–0.64 dex higher than the [C i]-based abundances. Previously published non-LTE (NLTE) C i abundance corrections bring the [C i] and C i abundances into better agreement; however, targeted NLTE calculations for CEMP stars are clearly needed. We have also derived the abundances of nitrogen, potassium, and iron for each star. The Fe abundances agree well with previously derived values, and the K abundances are similar to those of C-normal metal-poor stars. Nitrogen abundances have been derived from resolved lines of the CN red system assuming the C abundances derived from the [C i] feature. The abundances are found to be approximately 0.44 dex larger than literature values, which have been derived from CN blue bands near 3880 and 4215 Å. We discuss evidence that suggests that analyses of the CN blue system bands underestimate the N abundances of metal-poor giants.
Regional Brain Structural Abnormality in Meal-Related Functional Dyspepsia Patients: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Background and Aims Brain dysfunction in functional dyspepsia (FD) has been identified by multiple neuroimaging studies. This study aims to investigate the regional gray matter density (GMD) changes in meal-related FD patients and their correlations with clinical variables, and to explore the possible influence of the emotional state on FD patients’s brain structures. Methods Fifty meal-related FD patients and forty healthy subjects (HS) were included and underwent a structural magnetic resonance imaging scan. Voxel-based morphometry analysis was employed to identify the cerebral structure alterations in meal-related FD patients. Regional GMD changes' correlations with the symptoms and their durations, respectively, have been analyzed. Results Compared to the HS, the meal-related FD patients showed a decreased GMD in the bilateral precentral gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and midcingulate cortex (MCC), left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and right insula (p<0.05, FWE Corrected, Cluster size>50). After controlling for anxiety and depression, the meal-related FD patients showed a decreased GMD in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, left MCC, right precentral gyrus and insula (p<0.05, FWE Corrected, Cluster size>50). Before controlling psychological factors, the GMD decreases in the ACC were negatively associated with the symptom scores of the Nepean Dyspepsia Index (NDI) (r = −0.354, p = 0.048, Bonferroni correction) and the duration of FD (r = −0.398, p = 0.02, Bonferroni correction) respectively. Conclusions The regional GMD of meal-related FD patients, especially in the regions of the homeostatic afferent processing network significantly differed from that of the HS, and the psychological factors might be one of the essential factors significantly affecting the regional brain structure of meal-related FD patients.
The Market Price of Credit Risk: An Empirical Analysis of Interest Rate Swap Spreads

This paper studies the market price of credit risk incorporated into one of the most important credit spreads in the financial markets: interest rate swap spreads. Our approach consists of jointly modeling the swap and Treasury term structures using a general five-factor affine credit framework and estimating the parameters by maximum likelihood. We solve for the implied special financing rate for Treasury bonds and find that the liquidity component of on-the-run bond prices can be significant. We also find that credit premia in swap spreads are positive on average. These premia, however, vary significantly over time and were actually negative for much of the 1990s.
Minimal surfaces and harmonic diffeomorphisms from the complex plane onto certain Hadamard surfaces

We construct harmonic diffeomorphisms from the complex plane ${\bf C}$ onto any Hadamard surface $\mathbb{M}$ whose curvature is bounded above by a negative constant. For that, we prove a Jenkins-Serrin type theorem for minimal graphs in $\mathbb{M} \times \mathbb{R}$ over domains of $\mathbb{M}$ bounded by ideal geodesic polygons and show the existence of a sequence of minimal graphs over polygonal domains converging to an entire minimal graph in $\mathbb{M} \times \mathbb{R}$ with the conformal structure of ${\bf C}$.
Colorectal cancer recognition from ultrasound images, using complex textural microstructure cooccurrence matrices, based on Laws' features

The colorectal cancer is a frequent lethal disease nowadays. The most reliable method for diagnosis, the biopsy, is invasive and dangerous. We developed computerized, texture-based methods, for non-invasive cancer diagnosis, using the information obtained from ultrasound images. In this work, we defined the co-occurrence matrix of complex textural micro-structures, determined by using the Laws' convolution filters, in conjunction with clustering methods and we experimented it in order to perform automatic diagnosis of the colorectal tumors. These tumors were compared with the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD), as they have the same appearance with these affections in ultrasound images. We also determined the relevant textural features that characterize the colorectal tumors, by using specific methods. For the automatic recognition, we used powerful classifiers, such as the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), the Support-Vector Machines (SVM), decision-trees based classifiers such as Random Forest (RF) and C4.5, respectively AdaBoost in combination with the C4.5 algorithm.
Exposure to an enriched CO2 atmosphere alters carbon assimilation and allocation in a pine forest ecosystem

We linked a leaf‐level CO2 assimilation model with a model that accounts for light attenuation in the canopy and measurements of sap‐flux‐based canopy conductance into a new canopy conductance‐constrained carbon assimilation (4C‐A) model. We estimated canopy CO2 uptake (AnC) at the Duke Forest free‐air CO2 enrichment (FACE) study. Rates of AnC estimated from the 4C‐A model agreed well with leaf gas exchange measurements (Anet) in both CO2 treatments. Under ambient conditions, monthly sums of net CO2 uptake by the canopy (AnC) were 13% higher than estimates based on eddy‐covariance and chamber measurements. Annual estimates of AnC were only 3% higher than carbon (C) accumulations and losses estimated from ground‐based measurements for the entire stand. The C budget for the Pinus taeda component was well constrained (within 1% of ground‐based measurements). Although the closure of the C budget for the broadleaf species was poorer (within 20%), these species are a minor component of the forest. Under elevated CO2, the C used annually for growth, turnover, and respiration balanced only 80% of the AnC. Of the extra 700 g C m−2 a−1 (1999 and 2000 average), 86% is attributable to surface soil CO2 efflux. This suggests that the production and turnover of fine roots was underestimated or that mycorrhizae and rhizodeposition became an increasingly important component of the C balance. Under elevated CO2, net ecosystem production increased by 272 g C m−2 a−1: 44% greater than under ambient CO2. The majority (87%) of this C was sequestered in a moderately long‐term C pool in wood, with the remainder in the forest floor–soil subsystem.
Targeted high throughput sequencing in hereditary ataxia and spastic paraplegia

Hereditary ataxia and spastic paraplegia are heterogeneous monogenic neurodegenerative disorders. To date, a large number of individuals with such disorders remain undiagnosed. Here, we have assessed molecular diagnosis by gene panel sequencing in 105 early and late-onset hereditary ataxia and spastic paraplegia probands, in whom extensive previous investigations had failed to identify the genetic cause of disease. Pathogenic and likely-pathogenic variants were identified in 20 probands (19%) and variants of uncertain significance in ten probands (10%). Together these accounted for 30 probands (29%) and involved 18 different genes. Among several interesting findings, dominantly inherited KIF1A variants, p.(Val8Met) and p.(Ile27Thr) segregated in two independent families, both presenting with a pure spastic paraplegia phenotype. Two homozygous missense variants, p.(Gly4230Ser) and p.(Leu4221Val) were found in SACS in one consanguineous family, presenting with spastic ataxia and isolated cerebellar atrophy. The average disease duration in probands with pathogenic and likely-pathogenic variants was 31 years, ranging from 4 to 51 years. In conclusion, this study confirmed and expanded the clinical phenotypes associated with known disease genes. The results demonstrate that gene panel sequencing and similar sequencing approaches can serve as efficient diagnostic tools for different heterogeneous disorders. Early use of such strategies may help to reduce both costs and time of the diagnostic process.
Free-text comments as a tool for developing the self-report method: Parents’ responses to a survey on violence against children

Self-report measures are used to study the degree of victimisation in children that have experienced violence. Very little methodological attention is, however, paid to development of these measures. In this article, we will analyse parents’ free-text comments in response to a self-report survey of their own violent behaviour towards their children. Themes presented by parents concerning violence against children as a phenomenon will be analysed and methodological input of these free-text comments in a self-report survey will be examined. Analysis is based on survey data collected in Finland in 2011 (N = 3170) including 2047 free-text comments. Based on the thematic analysis of those comments, four themes were phrased: making sense of the responses, defining violence, children and violence in society and experiencing exclusion. Parents’ comments with respect to these themes reflected the complexity of what actually constitutes violence against children. Analysis also showed that free-text comments are a valuable and ethically sound tool for developing the self-report measure.
A taxonomy based semantic similarity of documents using the cosine measure

In this paper, we present a new method for calculating semantic similarities between documents. This method is based on cosine similarity calculation between concept vectors of documents obtained from a taxonomy of words that captures IS-A relations. The calculation of semantic similarities between documents is a very time consuming task, since it is necessary first to calculate semantic similarities between each pair of words that appear on different documents. In this paper, we present a new method to calculate semantic similarities between documents which results in faster computational time. Both a taxonomy based semantic similarity and cosine similarity are employed. First, the concept vectors of documents are obtained by extending the terms in the document vectors with their corresponding IS-A concepts. Cosine similarity is then calculated between those concept vectors of documents. Thus, the overall similarity between documents is a combination of cosine similarity and semantic similarity. The proposed semantic similarity is tested in document clustering problem. The experimental results show that our method achieves a good performance.