Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences in Germination, Growth, and Fecundity Characteristics of Dicamba-Fluroxypyr-Resistant and Susceptible Kochia scoparia

The widespread occurrence of herbicide-resistant (HR) Kochia scoparia is an increasing concern for growers in the US Great Plains and Canada. K. scoparia populations resistant to dicamba have been reported in six US states. Populations cross-resistant to dicamba and fluroxypyr have been reported from wheat fields in Montana, USA. It is unclear whether resistance to the auxinic herbicides (dicamba and/or fluroxypyr), can alter the fitness traits of K. scoparia. The objectives of this research were to compare the germination dynamics in response to thermal environment, vegetative growth and fecundity characteristics, and the relative competitive ability of dicamba-fluroxypyr–susceptible (S) vs.–resistant (R) K. scoparia selected from within a single segregating population (collected from wheat-fallow field in MT). S and R selected lines were developed after three generations of recurrent group selection. Compared to the S selected line, the R selected line had lower cumulative germination at all constant temperatures except 25°C, and at all alternating temperatures except 30/35°C. Also, the R selected line had delayed germination relative to the S selected line. The R had lower plant height, plant width, primary branches, total leaf area, stem diameter, and shoot dry weight compared with the S plants in the absence of competition. The reduction in seed production per plant resulted in a 39% fitness cost. The 1000-seed weight of R (1.6 g) was also less than that of S (2.6 g). When grown in an intraspecific competition at different mixture proportions, replacement series indices for the growth parameters further indicated that the R was less competitive than the S. Evident from this research, the dicamba-fluroxypyr–resistant R selected line is less likely to persist in a field population in the absence of the auxinic herbicides.
Putative Tests of Frontal Lobe Function: A PET-Study of Brain Activation During Stroop's Test and Verbal Fluency

Stroop's test and the Verbal Fluency test are commonly argued to be measures of the integrity of the prefrontal cortex. This assumption has only to some degree been confirmed by lesion studies. In the present study, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with H 2 15 O was used to further validate Stroop's test and the Verbal Fluency as measures of frontal lobe function; both tests were implemented as activation paradigms during scanning of normal middleaged individuals. Stroop interference was found to activate the left anterior cingulate cortex, the supplementary motor cortex, thalamus, and the cerebellum. Although the prominent anterior cingulate activation is in the frontal lobe, it is not prefrontal. Verbal Fluency activated the left inferior frontal cortex and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the supplementary motor cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the cerebellum. These results bring this latter test closer to being a specific test of prefrontal function.
DOES LEVEL OF EDUCATION INFLUENCE PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS? EVIDENCE FROM USED CAR ENTREPRENEURS

The entrepreneurship literature is inundated with controversy on discerning an appropriate definition of e ntrepreneurship and the entrepreneur. This research gap is fur ther widened by researchers attempting to dete rmine appropriate sociological influences that may impact the relationship between psychological traits and entrepreneurial orientations. Previous data-based research studies have been criticized because of their use of single level of analysis and a majority of the studies have been conducted in the manufacturing industries. The service industry, which represents one of the fastest growing sectors in the global economy, has received mi nimal attention (Z ahra & Covin 1995, p .50). Th is re search study addresses these research voids in the entrepreneurship literature. This research study was conducted to empirically examine the levels of education on the relationships between psyc hological traits and entrepreneurial orientations. The sample was comprised of used car entrepreneurs located in a “deep south” capital city Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). The relationship between psychological traits and entrepreneurial orientations were tested using hierarchical regression analysis. Findings suggest significant positive relationships between psychological traits and entrepreneurial orientations. The influence of level of education on the relationships between psychological traits and entrepreneurial orientations were tested using moderated multiple regression analysis. Findings suggest that the interaction effects of levels of education and psychological traits had positive variance change at significant levels in predicting entrepreneurial orientations. This research study findings reported herein tends to provide modest support and corroboration to the criticisms that psychological traits alone are inadequate to explain what constitutes entrepreneurial behavior. Findings also tend to suggest that entrepreneurship is an outcome of many events and influences.
Identification of Differentially Expressed miRNAs in Appendiceal Mucinous Cystadenocarcinoma from Mucinous Cystadenoma

Objective Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of appendix is a rare entity. Differentiating mucinous cystadenocarcinoma from mucinous cystadenoma is very challenging and depends on establishing the presence of malignant cells in the appendix wall. The invasion may be very difficult to assess in some cases, especially in early stages of the disease, which could have devastating prognostic effects on patients. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an ancillary test that can differentiate the mucinous cystadenocarcinoma from mucinous cystadenoma. So far, there is no report available about the role of differentially expressed miRNAs in the diagnosis of appendiceal mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Materials and Methods Six confirmed mucinous appendiceal cystadenocarcinoma and twelve mucinous appendiceal cystadenoma cases were selected. The total RNAs were extracted from the formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimen of these cases. The comprehensive miRNA microarray expression profiling from pooled aliquots of RNA samples from these two entities were analyzed to detect the differentially expressed miRNAs in mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. The best seven differentially expressed miRNAs were validated in individual cases by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR). Results The microarray miRNA expression profiling analysis revealed 646 miRNAs that were differentially expressed in the mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Among these differentially expressed miRNAs, the expression of 80 miRNAs showed statistical difference (p<0.01). The quantitative RT-PCR validated that the expression of miR-1, miR-4328 was significantly down regulated in mucinous cystadenocarcinoma compared to the mucinous cystadenoma (p<0.05). On the other hand, the expression of miR-200b, miR-200c, miR-451, miR-223 and miR-21 were significantly upregulated in mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (p<0.05). Conclusion The expression levels of miRNAs tested were significantly altered in the appendiceal mucinous cystadenocarcinoma samples compared to the mucinous cystadenoma. These data suggest that the miRNA expression in mucinous appendiceal neoplasm may help to supplement the morphological evaluation in distinguishing benign from malignant tumors.
Promoting collaborative playful experimentation through group playing by ear in higher education

A group of 46, first-year, primarily classically trained, undergraduate students took part in an exploratory research study on Group Ear Playing (GEP) in higher education. The students attended the “Playing by Ear” component of the Practical Musicianship module, which adopts the materials and strategies on playing by ear in the instrumental lesson developed by Lucy Green. The students were divided into eight groups, then provided with audio material and were instructed to copy the music by ear as a group for 40 minutes each week for five weeks. Data were collected through individual reflective logs and end-of-programme feedback forms. The analysis of the data focused on thematic discovery from the transcripts and was achieved through open, axial and selective coding. The findings of the study suggest, first, that the students engaged in playful experimentation in a collaborative manner, where the more confident musicians supported their less confident colleagues. Second, a variety of strategies for exploring improvising was reported by the students, which included adding ornaments based on scales, changing the rhythms for variety, missing notes out and incorporating other melodic riffs. Third, although the focus of the activity was on copying music by ear from recordings, all musicians appeared motivated to improvise together rather than as soloists, in order to “change things slightly”, “make the piece sound more interesting” and fit with others’ parts. Finally, the students reported that GEP not only helped them to feel more confident about playing by ear but also to be more confident about improvising and to become more confident musicians. This study proposes that playing by ear from recordings in a group successfully facilitates collaborative playful experimentation in higher education and supports the development of learners’ listening, creativity and improvisation skills.
Fiscal and Monetary Policy Interactions in a New Keynesian Model with Liquidity Constraints

This paper derives a New Keynesian dynamic general equilibrium model with liquidity constrained consumers and sticky prices. The model allows a role for both government spending and taxation in the DGE model. The model is then estimated using US data. We demonstrate that there seems to be a significant role for rule-of-thumb consumer behaviour. Our model is then used to analyse the interaction between fiscal and monetary policies. We examine the extent to which fiscal policy (automatic stabilisers) assist or hinder monetary policy when the latter takes a standard forward-looking inflation targeting form. We also examine the extent to which inertia in fiscal policy and the presence of rule-of-thumb consumers affects output and inflation variability in the presence of such a monetary policy rule.
ECO: Efficient Convolution Operators for Tracking

In recent years, Discriminative Correlation Filter (DCF) based methods have significantly advanced the state-of-the-art in tracking. However, in the pursuit of ever increasing tracking performance, their characteristic speed and real-time capability have gradually faded. Further, the increasingly complex models, with massive number of trainable parameters, have introduced the risk of severe over-fitting. In this work, we tackle the key causes behind the problems of computational complexity and over-fitting, with the aim of simultaneously improving both speed and performance. We revisit the core DCF formulation and introduce: (i) a factorized convolution operator, which drastically reduces the number of parameters in the model, (ii) a compact generative model of the training sample distribution, that significantly reduces memory and time complexity, while providing better diversity of samples, (iii) a conservative model update strategy with improved robustness and reduced complexity. We perform comprehensive experiments on four benchmarks: VOT2016, UAV123, OTB-2015, and TempleColor. When using expensive deep features, our tracker provides a 20-fold speedup and achieves a 13.0% relative gain in Expected Average Overlap compared to the top ranked method [12] in the VOT2016 challenge. Moreover, our fast variant, using hand-crafted features, operates at 60 Hz on a single CPU, while obtaining 65.0% AUC on OTB-2015.
Histone H3K9 Trimethylase Eggless Controls Germline Stem Cell Maintenance and Differentiation

Epigenetic regulation plays critical roles in the regulation of cell proliferation, fate determination, and survival. It has been shown to control self-renewal and lineage differentiation of embryonic stem cells. However, epigenetic regulation of adult stem cell function remains poorly defined. Drosophila ovarian germline stem cells (GSCs) are a productive adult stem cell system for revealing regulatory mechanisms controlling self-renewal and differentiation. In this study, we show that Eggless (Egg), a H3K9 methyltransferase in Drosophila, is required in GSCs for controlling self-renewal and in escort cells for regulating germ cell differentiation. egg mutant ovaries primarily exhibit germ cell differentiation defects in young females and gradually lose GSCs with time, indicating that Egg regulates both germ cell maintenance and differentiation. Marked mutant egg GSCs lack expression of trimethylated H3K9 (H3k9me3) and are rapidly lost from the niche, but their mutant progeny can still differentiate into 16-cell cysts, indicating that Egg is required intrinsically to control GSC self-renewal but not differentiation. Interestingly, BMP-mediated transcriptional repression of differentiation factor bam in marked egg mutant GSCs remains normal, indicating that Egg is dispensable for BMP signaling in GSCs. Normally, Bam and Bgcn interact with each other to promote GSC differentiation. Interestingly, marked double mutant egg bgcn GSCs are still lost, but their progeny are able to differentiate into 16-cell cysts though bgcn mutant GSCs normally do not differentiate, indicating that Egg intrinsically controls GSC self-renewal through repressing a Bam/Bgcn-independent pathway. Surprisingly, RNAi-mediated egg knockdown in escort cells leads to their gradual loss and a germ cell differentiation defect. The germ cell differentiation defect is at least in part attributed to an increase in BMP signaling in the germ cell differentiation niche. Therefore, this study has revealed the essential roles of histone H3K9 trimethylation in controlling stem cell maintenance and differentiation through distinct mechanisms.
Fighting fire with fire: Mainstream adoption of the populist political style in the 2014 Europe debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage

Advancing the concept of populism as a political style, this study compares the debate performances of two British party leaders, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as they clashed in a pair of televised debates over Britain’s European Union (EU) membership leading up to the 2014 European Parliament elections. The argument is tested that if under certain conditions, mainstream politicians will adopt a populist style although retaining a non-populist agenda. A mixed-methods approach combines quantitative text analysis with a qualitative rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the populist and non-populist style can be distinguished and compared systematically. The results suggest that Clegg, while maintaining a non-populist ideology, adopts a populist style after losing the first debate. Farage’s communication style, conversely, remains stable to the point of statistical significance. This suggests that one explanatory factor of populists’ success is the consistency of their message and rhetorical delivery, bolstering their perceived authenticity among voters.
State estimation for non-linear systems using a decoupled multiple model

The multiple model approach is an elegant and a powerful tool for modelling real-world complex processes. In this modelling framework, a judicious combination of a set of submodels makes it possible to describe the behaviour of a non-linear system. Two different structures of multiple models can be distinguished according to whether the submodels share a common state vector (Takagi-Sugeno multiple model) or not (decoupled multiple model). This latter structure is an interesting alternative to the popular Takagi-Sugeno multiple model because different dimensions of submodels can be considered. The decoupled multiple model is nowadays increasingly used to perform the identification and the control of non-linear systems. However, to our knowledge, the state estimation problem of non-linear systems represented by this structure is not thoroughly investigated. The present paper deals with this worthwhile problem.
Shape and Appearance Context Modeling

In this work we develop appearance models for computing the similarity between image regions containing deformable objects of a given class in realtime. We introduce the concept of shape and appearance context. The main idea is to model the spatial distribution of the appearance relative to each of the object parts. Estimating the model entails computing occurrence matrices. We introduce a generalization of the integral image and integral histogram frameworks, and prove that it can be used to dramatically speed up occurrence computation. We demonstrate the ability of this framework to recognize an individual walking across a network of cameras. Finally, we show that the proposed approach outperforms several other methods.
Drying Simulation of Ceramic Shell Build Up Process

In this work, a two-dimensional numerical model for the convective drying process of ceramic shell layers was developed. The governing system of fully coupled non-linear partial differential equations describing the process was derived from a mechanistic approach along with the implementation of continuum model. The most extensive formulation of the material used in many hygrothermal and soil transport investigation was adopted as the basis for further development in this work. Two examples comprising one dimensional brick drying and shell drying are solved to validate and demonstrate robustness of the approach. Validation within a one dimensional framework showed that the model presented is in a good agreement with other studies that have been reported previously in the drying of porous material. A two layers case study which illustrate the drying of ceramic shell layers are compared and contrasted against experimental data on shell drying, showing good agreements.
Stop-Frame Filming and Discovery of Reactions at the Single-Molecule Level by Transmission Electron Microscopy

We report an approach, named chemTEM, to follow chemical transformations at the single-molecule level with the electron beam of a transmission electron microscope (TEM) applied as both a tunable source of energy and a sub-angstrom imaging probe. Deposited on graphene, disk-shaped perchlorocoronene molecules are precluded from intermolecular interactions. This allows monomolecular transformations to be studied at the single-molecule level in real time and reveals chlorine elimination and reactive aryne formation as a key initial stage of multistep reactions initiated by the 80 keV e-beam. Under the same conditions, perchlorocoronene confined within a nanotube cavity, where the molecules are situated in very close proximity to each other, enables imaging of intermolecular reactions, starting with the Diels–Alder cycloaddition of a generated aryne, followed by rearrangement of the angular adduct to a planar polyaromatic structure and the formation of a perchlorinated zigzag nanoribbon of graphene as the final product. ChemTEM enables the entire process of polycondensation, including the formation of metastable intermediates, to be captured in a one-shot “movie”. A molecule with a similar size and shape but with a different chemical composition, octathio[8]circulene, under the same conditions undergoes another type of polycondensation via thiyl biradical generation and subsequent reaction leading to polythiophene nanoribbons with irregular edges incorporating bridging sulfur atoms. Graphene or carbon nanotubes supporting the individual molecules during chemTEM studies ensure that the elastic interactions of the molecules with the e-beam are the dominant forces that initiate and drive the reactions we image. Our ab initio DFT calculations explicitly incorporating the e-beam in the theoretical model correlate with the chemTEM observations and give a mechanism for direct control not only of the type of the reaction but also of the reaction rate. Selection of the appropriate e-beam energy and control of the dose rate in chemTEM enabled imaging of reactions on a time frame commensurate with TEM image capture rates, revealing atomistic mechanisms of previously unknown processes.
What Has Been Happening to the Quality of Workers’ Lives in Britain?

This paper studies workers’ lives in modern Britain. It uses longitudinal data to examine stress and job satisfaction through the decade of the 1990s. The results are disturbing. On both measures, the wellbeing of British public sector workers worsened sharply over the decade. The size of the deterioration was between one half point and one full point on a standard GHQ mental stress scale. This is remarkably large. Stress levels among private sector employees also rose. Job satisfaction in the private sector ran approximately flat through time. These findings may be of interest to nations who are thinking of adopting the British government’s policies towards the public sector, and to those who have conjectured that working life is becoming more pressurised.
Cognitive Effort and Motor Learning

Recent research on the role of practice variables during the acquisition of motor skills is reviewed. These practice variables include (a) the effects of a model's skill level during observation, (b) how augmented feedback is provided to a learner, and (c) how practice conditions are arranged when learning multiple tasks. The results of research in these areas suggest that cognitive processes play an important role during the early stages of skill acquisition. Moreover, the effort by which these cognitive processes are undertaken is influenced by practice variables. Motor learning is enhanced when these variables are manipulated to promote cognitive effort by a learner.
Identification and characterization of DNA sequences that prevent glucocorticoid receptor binding to nearby response elements

Out of the myriad of potential DNA binding sites of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) found in the human genome, only a cell-type specific minority is actually bound, indicating that the presence of a recognition sequence alone is insufficient to specify where GR binds. Cooperative interactions with other transcription factors (TFs) are known to contribute to binding specificity. Here, we reasoned that sequence signals preventing GR recruitment to certain loci provide an alternative means to confer specificity. Motif analyses uncovered candidate Negative Regulatory Sequences (NRSs) that interfere with genomic GR binding. Subsequent functional analyses demonstrated that NRSs indeed prevent GR binding to nearby response elements. We show that NRS activity is conserved across species, found in most tissues and that they also interfere with the genomic binding of other TFs. Interestingly, the effects of NRSs appear not to be a simple consequence of changes in chromatin accessibility. Instead, we find that NRSs interact with proteins found at sub-nuclear structures called paraspeckles and that these proteins might mediate the repressive effects of NRSs. Together, our studies suggest that the joint influence of positive and negative sequence signals partition the genome into regions where GR can bind and those where it cannot.