Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genome-Wide Association Scan Shows Genetic Variants in the FTO Gene Are Associated with Obesity-Related Traits

The obesity epidemic is responsible for a substantial economic burden in developed countries and is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The disease is the result not only of several environmental risk factors, but also of genetic predisposition. To take advantage of recent advances in gene-mapping technology, we executed a genome-wide association scan to identify genetic variants associated with obesity-related quantitative traits in the genetically isolated population of Sardinia. Initial analysis suggested that several SNPs in the FTO and PFKP genes were associated with increased BMI, hip circumference, and weight. Within the FTO gene, rs9930506 showed the strongest association with BMI (p = 8.6 ×10− 7), hip circumference (p = 3.4 × 10− 8), and weight (p = 9.1 × 10− 7). In Sardinia, homozygotes for the rare “G” allele of this SNP (minor allele frequency = 0.46) were 1.3 BMI units heavier than homozygotes for the common “A” allele. Within the PFKP gene, rs6602024 showed very strong association with BMI (p = 4.9 × 10− 6). Homozygotes for the rare “A” allele of this SNP (minor allele frequency = 0.12) were 1.8 BMI units heavier than homozygotes for the common “G” allele. To replicate our findings, we genotyped these two SNPs in the GenNet study. In European Americans (N = 1,496) and in Hispanic Americans (N = 839), we replicated significant association between rs9930506 in the FTO gene and BMI (p-value for meta-analysis of European American and Hispanic American follow-up samples, p = 0.001), weight (p = 0.001), and hip circumference (p = 0.0005). We did not replicate association between rs6602024 and obesity-related traits in the GenNet sample, although we found that in European Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans, homozygotes for the rare “A” allele were, on average, 1.0–3.0 BMI units heavier than homozygotes for the more common “G” allele. In summary, we have completed a whole genome–association scan for three obesity-related quantitative traits and report that common genetic variants in the FTO gene are associated with substantial changes in BMI, hip circumference, and body weight. These changes could have a significant impact on the risk of obesity-related morbidity in the general population.
The Student Conference: A Model of Authentic Assessment

In the global marketplace, the ability to communicate, both orally and in writing, is a skillset demanded by employers. Unfortunately, typical academic exercises that involve written and oral communication are often just that â? ¦ academic exercises. To provide a more authentic and robust experience, a student conference activity has been developed for use in a second-level physics course entitled Physics for a New Millennium (PNM) at American University (AU). This activity involves writing a formal research paper using professional guidelines. In addition, students present their research paper during a class event modeled after an actual professional conference. A focus of this paper is to discuss the assessment strategies developed for the conference paper activity. A major goal of the assessment strategies designed for the conference paper and the associated presentation is to better capture (and then assess) what students are actually learning in the course. This paper will provide an overview of the student conference paper activity with emphasis on its value as an alternative assessment tool. To that end, a synopsis of how the conference paper activity has been designed will be shared. This synopsis will begin with a general discussion of assessment, assessment methods, and the â? language of assessment. â?  Following this synopsis a model of non-traditional assessment using the student conference paper will be highlighted. Subsequently a description of the course curriculum and the specific structure for the writing activity will be outlined as they relate to the learning outcomes for the course. Shadowing the presentation of the course-specific learning outcomes, a description of the strategies used to uncover student learning will be shared. These strategies provide an opportunity for multiple assessment â? snapshotsâ?  to be made throughout various phases of the learning process. To illustrate these snapshots, examples from actual student work will be presented and discussed. The assessment strategies developed for the student conference paper can be used as an alternative, or as a supplement, to more traditional pencil and paper examinations, quizzes, and homework assignments. Whether used as a stand-alone assessment tool or coupled with more traditional measures, the model presented here can provide an enhanced and more authentic way to capture what students are actually learning while the learning is taking place.
Blind Multi-User Detection of a Chaos-Based CDMA System Using Support Vector Machine

This paper presents the algorithms and the results of multi-user detectors (MUD) on a synchronous chaos-based code division multiple access system (CDMA), which uses chaotic sequences as the spreading codes. Popular linear and non-linear MUD algorithms such as the decorrelator detector, minimum mean square error (MMSE) detector and parallel interference cancellation (PIC) detector are all considered in this paper. These conventional detectors are used to compare the BER performance with a novel blind-MUD receiver. The blind-MUD is achieved by a recently emerged learning technique called support vector machines (SVM). This method can be used to replace the conventional matched filter of the receiver and can be implemented on the forward link. All the MUD schemes are simulated over an AWGN channel and result shows that the blind-MUD compare favorably with other techniques.
Mortality and Morbidity of Fireworks-Related Burns on the Annual Last Wednesday of the Year Festival (Charshanbeh Soori) in Iran: An 11-Year Study

Background Management of firework-related injuries is costly for the patient, society, and government. Objectives Evaluating effective factors yielding to such injuries may lead to better management of patients and decreased costs and morbidities. Patients and Materials This retrospective cross-sectional study was performed on burn patients referred to Shahid Motahari Burns Hospital on Charshanbeh Soori day festival during the period extending from March 2000 to March 2011 (11 days in an 11-year period). Demographic data, causes of burn injury, severity, and affected body parts were recorded. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16. Results There were164 patients in the study with a mean age of 18.34 ± 9.31 years; 87% (145/164) were male. Homemade grenades were the most frequent cause of injury. Hand injury was reported in 56% (92/164) of the cases. Amputation was executed in 7 (4.3%) cases, and 6 (3.7%) patients died due to severe burn injuries and facial damage. Conclusions Fireworks- related injuries during Charshanbeh Soori ceremony causes significant morbidities and damage to different body parts (especially upper limbs and face), and some of these injuries will lead to life time disabilities, amputations, and even death. As most of the injured patients are young teenagers and children, special consideration must be taken into account to prevent long term morbidities.
Polycystic ovaries and associated clinical and biochemical features in young women

To determine the prevalence of polycystic ovaries as identified by ultrasound in a group of young, postmenarcheal women in the normal population, and to investigate how polycystic ovaries are related to the spectrum of clinical and biochemical symptoms associated with the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Interpolation of triangle hierarchies

We consider interpolation between keyframe hierarchies. We impose a set of weak constraints that allows smooth interpolation between two keyframe hierarchies in an animation or, more generally, allows the interpolation in an n-parameter family of hierarchies. We use hierarchical triangulations obtained by the Rivara element bisection algorithm (M. Rivara, 1984) and impose a weak compatibility constraint on the set of root elements of all keyframe hierarchies. We show that the introduced constraints are rather weak. The strength of our approach is that the interpolation works in the class of conforming triangulations and simplifies the task of finding the intermediate hierarchy, which is the union of the two (or more) keyframe hierarchies involved in the interpolation process. This allows for an efficient generation of the intermediate connectivity and additionally ensures that the intermediate hierarchy is again a conforming hierarchy satisfying the same constraints.
STUDIES ON FACTORS AFFECTING THE HEAT RESISTANCE OF SPORES OF CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM

One of the fundamental properties of bacterial spores is the ability to survive physical and chemical treatments which destroy the vegetative cells from which they arise. Of the resistance to deleterious agents that of heat survival is of great practical and theoretical interest. The relatively high heat resistance of the spores and the toxin production by this organism make the survival of Clostridium botulinum spores in heat processed foods a subject of considerable concern to the food technologists. The present study is concerned with the factors which may influence the heat resistance of the spores of C. botulinum. The primary considerations were (1) the relationship between the environmental conditions during sporulation and the heat tolerance of the spores and (2) the effect of some treatments of the formed spores on their heat survival.
Predicting Reactions to Blog Headlines

This paper describes some experiments carried out to measure sentiment, which we call emotional reaction, on blog headlines. We analyze a text corpus of titles from Facebook entries or posts linking to a website. These titles are basically headlines and we study them to understand the relationship between article headlines and the self-reported reactions of the articles’ readers. We utilize the recently launched feature, Facebook reactions that enable people to express their emotional reactions with five emojis. These reactions and headlines are gathered from different fan-pages, we analyze them, make an exploratory data analysis and present preliminary results of a reaction predictor.
Influence of learning styles on social structures in online learning environments

In e-learning settings, the interactions of students with one another, with the course content and with the instructors generate a considerable amount of information that may be useful for understanding how people learn online. The objective of the present research was to use social network analysis to explore the social structure of an e-learning environment and analyse how the structure depends on user learning style. Applying Felder and Silverman's inventory of learning styles to an online course with 214 adult graduate-level participants, we found that some styles occupied more central positions than others. These findings may help designers improve learning activities by tailoring them to the learning styles of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence

Significance Differences among children in educational achievement are highly heritable from the early school years until the end of compulsory education at age 16, when UK students are assessed nationwide with standard achievement tests [General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE)]. Genetic research has shown that intelligence makes a major contribution to the heritability of educational achievement. However, we show that other broad domains of behavior such as personality and psychopathology also account for genetic influence on GCSE scores beyond that predicted by intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE scores. These results underline the importance of genetics in educational achievement and its correlates. The results also support the trend in education toward personalized learning. Because educational achievement at the end of compulsory schooling represents a major tipping point in life, understanding its causes and correlates is important for individual children, their families, and society. Here we identify the general ingredients of educational achievement using a multivariate design that goes beyond intelligence to consider a wide range of predictors, such as self-efficacy, personality, and behavior problems, to assess their independent and joint contributions to educational achievement. We use a genetically sensitive design to address the question of why educational achievement is so highly heritable. We focus on the results of a United Kingdom-wide examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), which is administered at the end of compulsory education at age 16. GCSE scores were obtained for 13,306 twins at age 16, whom we also assessed contemporaneously on 83 scales that were condensed to nine broad psychological domains, including intelligence, self-efficacy, personality, well-being, and behavior problems. The mean of GCSE core subjects (English, mathematics, science) is more heritable (62%) than the nine predictor domains (35–58%). Each of the domains correlates significantly with GCSE results, and these correlations are largely mediated genetically. The main finding is that, although intelligence accounts for more of the heritability of GCSE than any other single domain, the other domains collectively account for about as much GCSE heritability as intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE. We conclude that the high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence.
A new approach to ensure fairness over the Internet

Congestion signaling is an essential issue for ensuring a high network performance. Explicit congestion notification (ECN) has been proved to provide a faster indication of congestion and thus improve the QoS of a TCP/IP network. In this paper, we present a new scheme for ECN named fair in‐time marking (FIM), which employs a mechanism that as well as providing an indication of incipient congestion, assures a fair service to all the connections. To facilitate such services using FIM, we propose inclusion of some simple yet effective functionalities in the routers. This is important as the client base of the Internet is increasing rapidly and the demand for a reasonably fair service is getting stronger. Experiments show that FIM offers the best fairness, sometimes better by around 20% or more without affecting efficiency, compared with other proposed schemes for ECN. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Analysis of Evolving Oil Spills in Full-Polarimetric and Hybrid-Polarity SAR

Oil spill detection using a time series of images acquired off Norway in June 2015 with the uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar is examined. The relative performance of a set of features derived from quad-polarization versus hybrid-polarity (HP) modes in detection of various types of slicks as they evolve on a high wind driven sea surface is evaluated. It is shown that the HP mode is comparable with the full-polarimetric mode in its ability to distinguish the various slicks from open water (OW) for challenging conditions of high winds (9–12 m/s), small release volumes (0.2–0.5 m3), and during the period 0–9 h following release. The features that contain the cross-polarization component are better for distinguishing the various slicks from open water at later and more developed stages. Although these features are not available in the HP mode, we identify alternative features to achieve similar results. In addition, a clear correlation between the results of individual features and their dependence on particular components within the two-scale Bragg scattering theory is identified. The features that show poor detectability of the oil slicks are those that are independent of the small-scale roughness, while the features resulting in good separability were dependent on several factors in the two-scale Bragg scattering model. We conclude that the HP mode is a viable alternative for SAR-based oil spill detection and monitoring that provides comparable results to those from the quad-polarimetric SAR.
A Society of Self-organizing Agents in the Intelligent Home

A concept of the intelligent home is presented which is based on the idea that the functioning of the intelligent home emerges from the cooperation of different agents each representing a device of the home. The agents are grouped together in systems each of which realizes a certain function of the intelligent home. The security system is taken as an example for the way how these systems may be organized, namely in a highly decentralized way. The cooperation of the agents in this system is done through self-organization.
Health-related quality of life after elective surgery: measurement of longitudinal changes.

OBJECTIVE To examine the responsiveness of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) to clinical changes in three surgical groups and to study how health-related quality of life (HRQL) changes with time among patients who undergo total hip arthroplasty, thoracic surgery for treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer, or abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. DESIGN Prospective cohort study with serial evaluations of HRQL preoperatively and at 1, 6, and 12 months after surgery. SETTING University tertiary care hospital. PATIENTS Of 528 patients, more than 50 years of age, who were admitted for these elective procedures, 454 (86%) provided preoperative health status data and are members of the study cohort. At 12 months after surgery, 439 (93%) of the cohort was successfully contacted and 390 (90%) provided follow-up interviews. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The Medical Outcomes Study SF-36, the Specific Activity Scale, five validated health transition questions, and a 0 to 100 scale measure of global health were used to assess changes in health status at 1, 6, and 12 months after surgery. Change in health status as measured by the SF-36 demonstrated that physical function and role limitations due to physical health problems were worse 1 month after these three surgeries. However, by 6 months after surgery, most patients experienced significant gains in the majority of the dimensions of health, and these gains were sustained at 12 months after surgery. Longitudinal changes in the SF-36 were positively associated with responses to the five health transition questions, to changes on the Specific Activity Scale and global health rating question, and to clinical parameters for persons who had AAA repair. These findings indicate that the SF-36 has evidence of validity and is responsive to expected changes in HRQL after elective surgery for these procedures. CONCLUSIONS For the total hip arthroplasty patients, responsiveness was greatest for the SF-36 scales that measure physical constructs. However, for the two other procedures and at various points of recovery, significant changes were observed for all eight subscales, suggesting that responsiveness was dependent on the type of surgery and the timing of follow-up, and that multidimensional measures are needed to fully capture changes in HRQL after surgery.
Pulsewidth modulation-a survey

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is surveyed with reference to performance criteria, feedforward schemes, and feedback PWM control. It is stressed that the implementation of PWM techniques in the design of AC motor drive systems depends on the machine type, the power level, and the semiconductor devices used in the power converter. It is ultimately performance and cost criteria which determine the choice of a PWM method in a specific application. <<ETX>>
Explaining control strategies in problem solving

Explaining how knowledge-based systems reason involves presentation user modeling, dialogue structure, and the way systems understand their own problem-solving knowledge and strategies. The authors concentrate on the last of these, noting that such understanding provides any explanations's content. The authors also note that most current approaches to knowledge-based system construction require expressing knowledge and control at such low levels that it's hard to give high-level explanations. Providing an explanation example from a prototypical system (MYCIN) built using generic-task methods, they propose generic-task methodology as one way to build knowledge-based systems that contain basic explanation constructs at appropriate abstraction levels. The central concept of generic tasks is what input-output behavior (i.e. that task function), knowledge needed to perform the task, and inferences appropriate for the task are all specified together. <<ETX>>
Why do entrepreneurs use franchising as a financial tool?: An agency explanation

When and why one type of entrepreneur (franchisor) attracts to its ventures another type of entrepreneur (franchisees) instead of passive investors is a central concern in entrepreneurship literature. Based on the informativeness principle of the principal-agent model, we claim that franchisees are not such an expensive financial capital source as has been argued in the literature because their compensation (return) is more efficiently designed: it directly depends on variables which are under franchisees� control. We therefore link agency and financial explanations for franchising. Our findings show that, once the agency argument is controlled for, the higher the cost of alternative funds for the franchisor, the more likely it is that franchisee capital will be used. We interpret this as a clue that franchising is also used as a financial capital source.
Anaphylaxis treatment: current barriers to adrenaline auto‐injector use

Anaphylaxis is a life‐threatening condition that is increasing in prevalence in the developed world. There is universal expert agreement that rapid intramuscular injection of adrenaline is life‐saving and constitutes the first‐line treatment of anaphylaxis. The unpredictable nature of anaphylaxis and its rapid progression makes necessary the availability of a portable emergency treatment suitable for self‐administration. Thus, anaphylaxis treatment guidelines recommend that at‐risk patients are provided with adrenaline auto‐injectors (AAIs). Despite these clear recommendations, current emergency treatment of anaphylaxis continues to be inadequate in many cases. The aim of this review is to highlight the barriers that exist to the use and availability of AAIs and that prevent proper management of anaphylaxis. In addition, we review the characteristics of all AAIs that are presently available in Europe and the USA and discuss the need for regulatory requirements to establish the performance characteristics of these devices.
Math Anxiety: the Poor Problem Solving Factor in School Mathematics

Math anxiety indicates psychologically a negative mind-set towards solving mathematical problems which impacts on students " learning practices and outcomes. In looking more closely at why a remarkable no of students may be struggling for improvement in mathematics in comparison to other subjects, it is timely to consider, the math anxiety factor. This literature review looks at the concept of math anxiety and solving mathematical problems highlighting math anxiety as an important factor of poor performance in terms of solving mathematical problems of school students in mathematics and how to assist in mitigating math anxiety.