Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epilepsy Caused by an Abnormal Alternative Splicing with Dosage Effect of the SV2A Gene in a Chicken Model

Photosensitive reflex epilepsy is caused by the combination of an individual's enhanced sensitivity with relevant light stimuli, such as stroboscopic lights or video games. This is the most common reflex epilepsy in humans; it is characterized by the photoparoxysmal response, which is an abnormal electroencephalographic reaction, and seizures triggered by intermittent light stimulation. Here, by using genetic mapping, sequencing and functional analyses, we report that a mutation in the acceptor site of the second intron of SV2A (the gene encoding synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A) is causing photosensitive reflex epilepsy in a unique vertebrate model, the Fepi chicken strain, a spontaneous model where the neurological disorder is inherited as an autosomal recessive mutation. This mutation causes an aberrant splicing event and significantly reduces the level of SV2A mRNA in homozygous carriers. Levetiracetam, a second generation antiepileptic drug, is known to bind SV2A, and SV2A knock-out mice develop seizures soon after birth and usually die within three weeks. The Fepi chicken survives to adulthood and responds to levetiracetam, suggesting that the low-level expression of SV2A in these animals is sufficient to allow survival, but does not protect against seizures. Thus, the Fepi chicken model shows that the role of the SV2A pathway in the brain is conserved between birds and mammals, in spite of a large phylogenetic distance. The Fepi model appears particularly useful for further studies of physiopathology of reflex epilepsy, in comparison with induced models of epilepsy in rodents. Consequently, SV2A is a very attractive candidate gene for analysis in the context of both mono- and polygenic generalized epilepsies in humans.
Towards a characterization of exact symplectic Lie algebras $\frak{g}$ in terms of the invariants for the coadjoint representation

We prove that for any known Lie algebra $\frak{g}$ having none invariants for the coadjoint representation, the absence of invariants is equivalent to the existence of a left invariant exact symplectic structure on the corresponding Lie group $G$. We also show that a nontrivial generalized Casimir invariant constitutes an obstruction for the exactness of a symplectic form, and provide solid arguments to conjecture that a Lie algebra is endowed with an exact symplectic form if and only if all invariants for the coadjoint representation are trivial. We moreover develop a practical criterion that allows to deduce the existence of such a symplectic form on a Lie algebra from the shape of the antidiagonal entries of the associated commutator matrix. In an appendix the classification of Lie algebras satisfying $\mathcal{N}(\frak{g})=0$ in low dimensions is given in tabular form, and their exact symplectic structure is given in terms of the Maurer-Cartan equations.
Special object extraction from medieval books using superpixels and bag-of-features

Abstract. We propose a method to extract special objects in images of medieval books, which generally represent, for example, figures and capital letters. Instead of working on the single-pixel level, we consider superpixels as the basic classification units for improved time efficiency. More specifically, we classify superpixels into different categories/objects by using a bag-of-features approach, where a superpixel category classifier is trained with the local features of the superpixels of the training images. With the trained classifier, we are able to assign the category labels to the superpixels of a historical document image under test. Finally, special objects can easily be identified and extracted after analyzing the categorization results. Experimental results demonstrate that, as compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms, our method provides comparable performance for some historical books but greatly outperforms them in terms of generality and computational time.
Timeline-based Planning with Uncertainty: a Human-Robot Collaboration Case Study

Planning is a core field of Artificial Intelligence since its beginnings and, there are many planning techniques that have been introduced in the literature. The timeline-based approach is a particular temporal planning paradigm which has been successfully applied in many real world scenarios. However despite its practical success, there is not a shared view of this approach. In this context, my PHD project aims at investigating timeline-based planning and applying this technique to solve real-world problems. The main research objectives this paper describe are: (i) formally characterize timeline-based approach to planning by taking into account also controllability features of a domain; (ii) develop a planning framework (EPSL) and propose a methodology for modeling and solving problems with timelines; (iii) apply the proposed approach to real-world problems. Concerning this last point, Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) scenarios present many critical points a planning technique must deal with in order to successfully face this kind of problems. In this regards, several characteristics of the envisaged approach to timeline-based planning, are well-suited for this kind of applications. Thus the paper presents some initial contributions for an HRC scenario within an ongoing research project.
Machine Learning for Metrical Analysis of English Poetry

In this work we tackle the challenge of identifying rhythmic patterns in poetry written in English. Although poetry is a literary form that makes use standard meters usually repeated among different authors, we will see in this paper how performing such analyses is a difficult task in machine learning due to the unexpected deviations from such standard patterns. After breaking down some examples of classical poetry, we apply a number of NLP techniques for the scansion of poetry, training and testing our systems against a human-annotated corpus. With these experiments, our purpose is establish a baseline of automatic scansion of poetry using NLP tools in a straightforward manner and to raise awareness of the difficulties of this task.
ATF 3 promotes regeneration of the central axon branch of sensory neurons but the addition of Smad 1 , c-Jun and STAT 3 does not exert synergistic effects

ATF3 promotes regeneration of the central axon branch of sensory neurons but the addition of Smad1, c-Jun and STAT3 does not exert synergistic effects Abstract Successful axon regeneration after nerve injury is accompanied by the upregulation of hundreds of regeneration-associated genes (RAGs), including a number of transcription factors (TFs) which may be key regulators of the RAG program. We aimed to stimulate the RAG program in rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons by adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector-mediated expression of TFs, in the absence of a peripheral nerve lesion. Of the known RAG TFs, ATF3, Smad1, STAT3 and c-Jun have been functionally linked to successful axonal regeneration in the peripheral nervous system, and are known to interact functionally and physically. We hypothesised that TF expression would promote regeneration of the central axon branch of DRG neurons and that simultaneous overexpression of multiple regeneration-associated TFs would lead to greater effects than delivery of a single TF. We overexpressed either the combination of ATF3, Smad1, STAT3 and c-Jun with farnesylated enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFPf), ATF3 only with eGFPf or eGFPf only in DRG neurons and assessed axonal regeneration after dorsal root transection or dorsal column injury and functional improvement after dorsal root injury. Histological analysis shows that both ATF3 alone and the combination of TFs promoted faster regeneration in the injured dorsal root. Surprisingly, however, the combination did not perform better than ATF3 alone. Neither treatment was able to induce functional improvement on sensory tests after dorsal root injury. Neither ATF3 nor the combination of factors promoted sprouting or regeneration in a dorsal column injury model. In conclusion, overexpression of the regeneration-associated TF ATF3 in DRG neurons promotes regeneration of injured dorsal root axons in the absence of a conditioning lesion, but a combination of four TFs, including ATF3, used here did not result in synergistic effects.
Internal control system for Islamic micro financing: An exploratory study of Baitul Maal wat Tamwil in the City of Yogyakarta Indonesia

Purpose - This paper aims to contribute to literature on managing Islamic micro financing by formulating and evaluating the implementation of internal control system for Islamic micro financing. It also aims to investigate the implementation of an internal control system for financing activities practiced by Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT), a special micro finance organization, in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach - First, the paper introduces the concept of internal control system. Second, an internal control system for Islamic financing is formulated. Primary data that relate to the implementation of an internal control system for financing activities are obtained through a direct survey using questionnaires. The data are then analyzed using descriptive statistic and qualitative analysis to find the implementations of the internal control system. Findings - BMTs in Indonesia have implemented an internal control system for their financing activities. The rank of the implementation is: information and communication; monitoring; control environment; risk assessment; and control activities. This study also indicates that the implementation of authorization and consultation to the Research limitations/implications - The respondents of this study are small in number. However, the findings are valid and reliable. Originality/value - To the author's knowledge, there is a lack of scholars' attention on the implementation of internal control especially for Islamic micro financing. Therefore, this study will provide insight to the literature on how to manage Islamic micro financing efficiently and effectively.
Scalable Feedback Protocol for Achieving Sum-Capacity of the MIMO BC with Finite Feedback

We consider a feedback protocol with a limited amount of feedback that achieves the asymptotic sum-rate capacity. Time slots for channel feedback correspond not to users, but to a channel value; thus, users opportunistically access these slots based on their channel state information (CSI) measurement. We show analytically that the proposed SF protocol a) requires finite number of feedback slots upper bounded by a small number, b) is fully distributed, c) needs finite transmission energy during feedback and d) asymptotically achieves the sum-capacity of the MIMO BC. Numerical results show that the proposed feedback protocol performs close to a system with perfect CSI at the transmitter, with substantially less number of feedback bits compared with conventional CSI feedback methods because feedback requirements only grow as log2(K) rather than linearly with K, where K is the number of users.
Evidence of unmetabolised folic acid in cord blood of newborn and serum of 4-day-old infants

Oral folic acid above certain threshold doses results in unmetabolised folic acid in serum. This raises a number of public health safety issues, principally the potential to mask pernicious anaemia; more recently the theoretical potential for high-dose folic acid to promote cancer has been highlighted. In this paper we set out to examine the appearance of unmetabolised folic acid both in cord blood from newborn full-term and premature infants and serum from 4-d-old infants post-formula feeding. Blood was collected from the umbilical cord of eleven infants in the delivery room immediately after birth. A follow-up serum sample (n 9) was collected 4d later from infants post-formula feeding. We detected unmetabolised folic acid in cord blood from all infants at birth. In addition, unmetabolised folic acid was present in serum of seven infants post-formula feeding, six of which had increased from birth. Our results imply that infants in Ireland, which does not yet have mandatory fortification, could potentially have circulatory unmetabolised folic acid at the time of birth. We do not know if the presence of folic acid in cord blood will have any adverse consequences. However, if theoretical safety concerns are borne out by future research, the likelihood is that the longer the exposure the more likely the potential for harm. This would also be the case in infants exposed to unmetabolised folic acid as a result of formula feeding.
Is There a Favoritism Strategy in Taiwan Mutual-Fund Companies?

This paper investigates whether Taiwan mutual-fund companies actively pursue a corporate-level strategy of enhancing the performance of "high-value" funds (i.e., high fee-ratio funds or high past performers) at the expense of other "low-value" funds belonging to the same companies. The results show a significant difference between high- and low-value funds within the same fund families and that this difference favors the high past-perorming funds. The future incremental cash inflows from these high-value funds indicate that fund companies indeed benefit from the subsidized strategy. Our findings highlight the potential for agency problems and the importance of corporate and fund governance in the Taiwan asset-management industry.
A Note on R&D and Price Elasticity of Demand

Summary This note explores the relationship between the price elasticity of demand and the R&D intensity of the product. We introduce the concept of R&D intensity into a standard Dixit- Stiglitz/Krugman-type setting. R&D activity is treated as a fixed cost of production. Within this framework, sectors with a higher R&D intensity show a lower price elasticity of demand. This proposition is confirmed by an empirical investigation of export demand for manufactured goods from major industrialised countries. Consequently, real exchange rate changes have an impact on the commodity structure of exports.
Men in Politics Revisiting Patterns of Gendered Parliamentary Representation in Thailand and Beyond

Male parliamentary dominance, rather than the corresponding female parliamentary underrepresentation, is the object of study in this thesis. This shift in focus implies a gendered analysis centered on men and men’s practices. The thesis contributes to our understanding of how male dominance is maintained and reinvented by empirically studying male parliamentary dominance in clientelist settings. Worldwide trends of parliamentary representation are analyzed statistically and constitute the starting-point for a case study of male political networks in Thailand. Clientelism is a strategy used by political actors to increase predictability in politically unpredictable settings. The thesis shows that clientelism is an informal political practice that requires the building and maintenance of large and localized networks to help distribute services, goods and/or money in exchange for political support. Where political parties also use candidate selection procedures that are informal, exclusive and localized, there are ample openings for clientelist practices to translate into political power and ultimately parliamentary seats. This study also coins and develops a new concept: homosocial capital. It shows that clientelist networks are and continue to be male dominated because homosocial capital, a political capital accessible only to men, is needed for electoral success. Homosocial capital has two main components: a perceived pragmatic necessity to build linkages to those with access to important resources in society and a more psychological desire to cooperate with individuals whose behavior can be understood, predicted and trusted.
Nonparametric Ridge Estimation

We study the problem of estimating the ridges of a density function. Ridge estimation is an extension of mode finding and is useful for understanding the structure of a density. It can also be used to find hidden structure in point cloud data. We show that, under mild regularity conditions, the ridges of the kernel density estimator consistently estimate the ridges of the true density. When the data are noisy measurements of a manifold, we show that the ridges are close and topologically similar to the hidden manifold. To find the estimated ridges in practice, we adapt the modified mean-shift algorithm proposed by Ozertem and Erdogmus [J. Mach. Learn. Res. 12 (2011) 1249-1286]. Some numerical experiments verify that the algorithm is accurate.
AN ADAPTIVE INVERSE ITERATION FEM FOR THE INHOMOGENEOUS DIELECTRIC WAVEGUIDES

We introduce an adaptive flnite element method for computing electromagnetic guided waves in a closed, inhomogeneous, pillared three-dimensional waveguide at a given frequency based on the inverse iteration method. The problem is formulated as a generalized eigenvalue problems. By modifying the exact inverse iteration algorithm for the eigenvalue problem, we design a new adaptive inverse iteration flnite element algorithm. Adaptive flnite element methods based on a posteriori error estimate are known to be successful in resolving singularities of eigenfunctions which deteriorate the flnite element convergence. We construct a posteriori error estimator for the electromagnetic guided waves problem. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the quasi-optimal performance of our adaptive inverse iteration flnite element method.
A Stochastic Gradient Method with an Exponential Convergence Rate for Strongly-Convex Optimization with Finite Training Sets

We propose a new stochastic gradient method for optimizing the sum of a nite set of smooth functions, where the sum is strongly convex. While standard stochastic gradient methods converge at sublinear rates for this problem, the proposed method incorporates a memory of previous gradient values in order to achieve a linear convergence rate. In a machine learning context, numerical experiments indicate that the new algorithm can dramatically outperform standard algorithms, both in terms of optimizing the training objective and reducing the testing objective quickly.
The Chilean miracle : patrimonialism in a modern free-market democracy

International policy institutions claim that Chile's remarkable economic performance testifies to the merits of a neo-liberal development model. This book argues, however, that 'the Chilean miracle' did not result from the adoption of neoliberalism itself, but from the persistence within the free market of older, patrimonial forms of social organization, as manifested in patron-client relations. The argument is based on an in-depth case study of supply chain management in the tomato processing industry. Further support comes from an empirical analysis of farmer cooperatives and shop floor relations, a historical analysis of the Chilean political economy, and a reinterpretation of the longstanding debate in Chile over the 'national idiosyncrasy. Blending together cultural anthropology with managerial sciences, and theory with consultancy practice, the book is a valuable resource for practitioners and policymakers in understanding and managing institutional durability within change.
Towards robust automatic traffic scene analysis in real-time

Traffic scene information can be used to optimize traffic flow during busy periods, identify stalled vehicles and accidents, and aid the decision-making of an autonomous vehicle controller. Improvements in technologies for machine vision-based surveillance and high-level symbolic reasoning have enabled us to develop a system for detailed, reliable traffic scene analysis. The machine vision component of our system employs a contour tracker and an affine motion model based on Kalman filters to extract vehicle trajectories over a sequence of traffic scene images. The symbolic reasoning component uses a dynamic belief network to make inferences about traffic events such as vehicle lane changes and stalls. In this paper, we discuss the key tasks of the vision and reasoning components as well as their integration into a working prototype. Preliminary results of an implementation on special purpose hardware using C-40 digital signal processors show that near real-time performance can be achieved without further improvements. <<ETX>>
The Global Economy in Transition

1. The Forces Promoting Globalization. 2. The Factors Reinforcing Regionalization. 3. Population: The Ultimate Resource. 4. Food Supplies: A Limit to Growth? 5. Energy, Minerals, and the Environment. 6. Price and Other Mechanisms for Regulating Exchange. 7. Rent Gradients, Land Use, and the Structure of Global Systems. 8. Comparative Costs and the Geometry of Industrial Location. 9. Scale, Externalities, and Agglomeration: The Evolving Structure of Global Industry. 10. Technology Transitions and Patterns of Growth. 11. Patterns and Dynamics of Global Economic Transactions. 12. Trade Regimes and Global Development. Glossary. Index.
Mergers and acquisitions in Poland : a comparison of general management perceptions from Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland

Key words: culture, ethnic oppositions, EU enlargement, managerial oppositions, transaction costs. The study examines managerial perceptions between German and Polish managers, and between British and Polish managers. It is a multidisciplinary study for which the theoretical underpinning comes from the theory of International Business, Cross-cultural Management, European Integration, Social Anthropology, and Anthropology of Ethnicity. The research is based on empirical data collected during face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the general managers in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland. The method of analysis applied is based on the interpretive approach, and uses managerial perceptions as a tool of the analysis. The current study identifies and explains differences and similarities in perceptions between German and Polish, and between British and Polish managers. The analysis is conducted within a theoretical framework bringing together international business, economics, and social anthropological ideas concerning ethnicity. The results of the current study suggest that national perceptions constructed by the managers in foreign invested companies (i.e., both from the investor and invested side) are mirrored in their corporate perceptions pertaining to working together with a foreign partner. The implications of differences in perceptions and their origins for the inter-cultural interaction between the representatives of German and Polish culture, and British and Polish culture in cross-border M&As are explored. In this context it is also argued that managerial perceptions can be factors promoting and restricting the effectiveness of economic integration between the EU Member States and Poland. These issues mediated by individuals in business organisations have relevance to the shaping of the competition policy.