Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring Epistemic Curiosity and Its Diversive and Specific Components

A questionnaire constructed to assess epistemic curiosity (EC) and perceptual curiosity (PC) curiosity was administered to 739 undergraduates (546 women, 193 men) ranging in age from 18 to 65. The study participants also responded to the trait anxiety, anger, depression, and curiosity scales of the State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI; Spielberger et al., 1979) and selected subscales of the Sensation Seeking (SSS; Zuckerman, Kolin, Price, & Zoob, 1964) and Novelty Experiencing (NES; Pearson, 1970) scales. Factor analyses of the curiosity items with oblique rotation identified EC and PC factors with clear simple structure. Subsequent analyses of the EC items provided the basis for developing an EC scale, with Diversive and Specific Curiosity subscales. Moderately high correlations of the EC scale and subscales with other measures of curiosity provided strong evidence of convergent validity. Divergent validity was demonstrated by minimal correlations with trait anxiety and the sensation-seeking measures, and essentially zero correlations with the STPI trait anger and depression scales. Male participants had significantly higher scores on the EC scale and the NES External Cognition subscale (effect sizes of r = .16 and .21, respectively), indicating that they were more interested than female participants in solving problems and discovering how things work. Male participants also scored significantly higher than female participants on the SSS Thrill-and-Adventure and NES External Sensation subscales (r = .14 and .22, respectively), suggesting that they were more likely to engage in sensation-seeking activities.
As(V) and P Competitive Sorption on Soils, By-Products and Waste Materials

Batch-type experiments were used to study competitive As(V) and P sorption on various soils and sorbent materials. The materials assayed were a forest soil, a vineyard soil, pyritic material, granitic material, coarsely and finely ground mussel shell, calcinated mussel shell ash, pine sawdust and slate processing fines. Competition between As(V) and P was pronounced in the case of both soils, granitic material, slate fines, both shells and pine sawdust, showing more affinity for P. Contrary, the pyritic material and mussel shell ash showed high and similar affinity for As(V) and P. These results could be useful to make a correct use of the soils and materials assayed when focusing on As and P removal in solid or liquid media, in circumstances where both pollutants may compete for sorption sites.
A Framework for Distributed Spatio-Temporal Communications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Space-time communications can help combat fading and hence can significantly increase the capacity of ad hoc networks. Cooperative diversity or virtual antenna arrays facilitate spatio-temporal communications without actually requiring the deployment of physical antenna arrays. Virtual MISO entails the simultaneous transmission of appropriately encoded information by multiple nodes to effectively emulate a transmission on an antenna array. We present a novel multi-layer approach for exploiting virtual MISO links in ad hoc networks. The approach spans the physical, medium access control and routing layers and provides: (a) a significant improvement in the end-to-end performance in terms of throughput and delay and, (b) robustness to mobility and interference induced link failures. The key physical layer property that we exploit is an increased transmission range due to achieved the diversity gain. Except for space-time signal processing capabilities, our design does not require any additional hardware. We perform extensive simulations to quantify the benefits of our approach using virtual MISO links. As compared to using only SISO links, we achieve an increase of up to 150% in terms of the end-to-end throughput and a decrease of up to 75% in the incurred end-to-end delay. Our results also demonstrate a reduction in the route discovery attempts due to link failures by up to 60%, a direct consequence of the robustness that our approach provides to link failures.
Bilirubin Metabolism

DURING the last ten years considerable advances have been made in our knowledge of the metabolism of bilirubin and thus in our understanding of the basic defects underlying jaundice, particularly in the newborn and in some types of familial hyperbilirubinaemia. These advances are due mainly to the characterization of 'direct' bilirubin as an ester glucuronide of bilirubin. Many of the classical concepts of bilirubin metabolism can therefore now be explained in chemical terms.
ACUTE PRESSURE–NATRIURESIS RELATIONSHIP FOLLOWING WITHDRAWAL OF CHRONIC NORADRENALINE INFUSION

1 Pathological changes to the kidney, such as vascular remodelling, have been found in several models of hypertension and may contribute to the maintenance of hypertension or confer susceptibility to redeveloping hypertension after the original prohypertensive stimulus is withdrawn. 2 To investigate whether noradrenaline‐induced hypertension induces persistent, functionally important changes to the kidney, the acute pressure–natriuresis relationship was characterized in anaesthetized rats under controlled neural and hormonal conditions following chronic (14 days) intravenous infusion of noradrenaline (48 µg/kg per h) or vehicle (0.04 mg/mL ascorbic acid and 0.156 mg/mL NaH2PO4·2H2O in 10 IU/mL heparinized saline). 3 Conscious mean arterial pressure was significantly elevated by infusion of noradrenaline at 48 µg/kg per h (+10 ± 2 mmHg at Day 14; P < 0.01 vs vehicle group). The acute relationships between arterial pressure and renal blood flow, glomerular filtration rate, Na+ excretion and urine flow were not significantly different between the noradrenaline‐ and vehicle‐infused rats immediately after termination of noradrenaline infusion. 4 In summary, chronic intravenous noradrenaline infusion did not cause persistent changes in renal function, indicating that, in contrast with many models of hypertension, this model does not induce underlying prohypertensive changes to the kidney.
GAGA: A New Algorithm for Genomic Inference of Geographic Ancestry Reveals Fine Level Population Substructure in Europeans

Attempts to detect genetic population substructure in humans are troubled by the fact that the vast majority of the total amount of observed genetic variation is present within populations rather than between populations. Here we introduce a new algorithm for transforming a genetic distance matrix that reduces the within-population variation considerably. Extensive computer simulations revealed that the transformed matrix captured the genetic population differentiation better than the original one which was based on the T1 statistic. In an empirical genomic data set comprising 2,457 individuals from 23 different European subpopulations, the proportion of individuals that were determined as a genetic neighbour to another individual from the same sampling location increased from 25% with the original matrix to 52% with the transformed matrix. Similarly, the percentage of genetic variation explained between populations by means of Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) increased from 1.62% to 7.98%. Furthermore, the first two dimensions of a classical multidimensional scaling (MDS) using the transformed matrix explained 15% of the variance, compared to 0.7% obtained with the original matrix. Application of MDS with Mclust, SPA with Mclust, and GemTools algorithms to the same dataset also showed that the transformed matrix gave a better association of the genetic clusters with the sampling locations, and particularly so when it was used in the AMOVA framework with a genetic algorithm. Overall, the new matrix transformation introduced here substantially reduces the within population genetic differentiation, and can be broadly applied to methods such as AMOVA to enhance their sensitivity to reveal population substructure. We herewith provide a publically available (http://www.erasmusmc.nl/fmb/resources/GAGA) model-free method for improved genetic population substructure detection that can be applied to human as well as any other species data in future studies relevant to evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, medicine, and forensics.
Expression signature of microRNA-181-a reveals its crucial role in the pathogenesis of paediatric systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVES Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease manifested by self-reactive antibodies due to failure of selection in both B and T lymphocytes leading to immune intolerance accompanied by increased rate of apoptosis and deficiency in the clearance of the apoptotic cells. Micro RNAs regulate posttranscriptional gene expression and have been recently identified to regulate cellular differentiation, establishing immunological tolerance and are involved in the pathogenesis of several diseases. miR-181-a, expressed in haematopoietic cell lineage, has shown to be an important modulator of B and T cell differentiation, maturation and function. This study aims to identify the expression signature of miR-181-a in the peripheral blood of paediatric SLE and its regulatory effect on the consequent expression of its target gene PCAF. METHODS Twenty SLE paediatrics patients, 9 healthy controls and 4 FMF patients were enrolled in this study. The relative expression of miR-181-a, miR-223, PCAF and Hdm2 were performed using quantitative real time PCR. RESULTS For the first time we show that miR-181-a was significantly downregulated in SLE pediatrics as compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, miR-181-a showed significant difference in its expression among groups with different SLEDAI scores. This special signature of miR-181-a expression is unique to SLE as compared to FMF samples which showed a parallel expression to healthy controls. PCAF was upregulated in SLE patients compared to healthy controls, which has an impact on the ubiquitination of Hdm2 and hence releases p53 leading to the induction of apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS miR-181-a plays an important role in SLE pathogenesis.
The TamB ortholog of Borrelia burgdorferi interacts with the β-barrel assembly machine (BAM) complex protein BamA

Two outer membrane protein (OMP) transport systems in diderm bacteria assist in assembly and export of OMPs. These two systems are the β‐barrel assembly machine (BAM) complex and the translocation and assembly module (TAM). The BAM complex consists of the OMP component BamA along with several outer membrane associated proteins. The TAM also consists of an OMP, designated TamA, and a single inner membrane (IM) protein, TamB. Together TamA and TamB aid in the secretion of virulence‐associated OMPs. In this study we characterized the hypothetical protein BB0794 in Borrelia burgdorferi. BB0794 contains a conserved DUF490 domain, which is a motif found in all TamB proteins. All spirochetes lack a TamA ortholog, but computational and physicochemical characterization of BB0794 revealed it is a TamB ortholog. Interestingly, BB0794 was observed to interact with BamA and a BB0794 regulatable mutant displayed altered cellular morphology and antibiotic sensitivity. The observation that B. burgdorferi contains a TamB ortholog that interacts with BamA and is required for proper outer membrane biogenesis not only identifies a novel role for TamB‐like proteins, but also may explain why most diderms harbor a TamB‐like protein while only a select group encodes TamA.
Colovesical Fistula Complicating Diverticular Disease: A 14-Year Experience

Objective: Colovesical fistulas (CVF) constitute the most common type of spontaneously occurring fistulas associated with diverticular disease. One-stage laparoscopic resection has been shown to be feasible, but studies comparing this approach to open surgery are scarce. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of open and laparoscopic surgery for CVF of diverticular origin. Materials and Methods: From January 2000 to July 2014, 37 colectomies were performed for diverticular disease–related CVF. Twenty-eight patients who underwent resection and primary anastomosis were divided in 2 groups: the laparoscopic surgery group (group A) and the open surgery group (group B). We have analyzed the following parameters: operative time, complication rate, hospital stay, recurrence, and early mortality rate. Results: Groups A and B were comparable in terms of age, sex, diverticulitis episodes, previous abdominal surgery, and body mass index. The mean duration of surgery was significantly shorter in group B: 175 versus 237 minutes (P=0.011). There was a faster recovery of gastrointestinal transit in group A (2 vs. 13; P=0, 0002). However, there were no significant differences between the groups with respect to serious postoperative morbidity [(Clavien-Dindo scores of 3, 4, and 5) 4 vs. 0; P=0.098)] and with respect to hospital stay (10.5 vs. 9.5 d; P=0.537). There was no recurrence during a median follow-up of 12 months. Conclusions: Laparoscopic resection and primary anastomosis should be considered a safe and feasible option for the management of diverticular CVF. Despite progresses in minimally invasive colorectal surgery, the conversion rate and morbidity are still high.
Embedding Model for Stereo Matching Costs

This paper presents a data-driven matching cost for stereo matching. A novel deep visual correspondence embedding model is trained via Convolutional Neural Network on a large set of stereo images with ground truth disparities. This deep embedding model leverages appearance data to learn visual similarity relationships between corresponding image patches, and explicitly maps intensity values into an embedding feature space to measure pixel dissimilarities. Experimental results on KITTI and Middlebury data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of our model. First, we prove that the new measure of pixel dissimilarity outperforms traditional matching costs. Furthermore, when integrated with a global stereo framework, our method ranks top 3 among all two-frame algorithms on the KITTI benchmark. Finally, cross-validation results show that our model is able to make correct predictions for unseen data which are outside of its labeled training set.
Reconstruction and In Silico Analysis of Metabolic Network for an Oleaginous Yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica

With the emergence of energy scarcity, the use of renewable energy sources such as biodiesel is becoming increasingly necessary. Recently, many researchers have focused their minds on Yarrowia lipolytica, a model oleaginous yeast, which can be employed to accumulate large amounts of lipids that could be further converted to biodiesel. In order to understand the metabolic characteristics of Y. lipolytica at a systems level and to examine the potential for enhanced lipid production, a genome-scale compartmentalized metabolic network was reconstructed based on a combination of genome annotation and the detailed biochemical knowledge from multiple databases such as KEGG, ENZYME and BIGG. The information about protein and reaction associations of all the organisms in KEGG and Expasy-ENZYME database was arranged into an EXCEL file that can then be regarded as a new useful database to generate other reconstructions. The generated model iYL619_PCP accounts for 619 genes, 843 metabolites and 1,142 reactions including 236 transport reactions, 125 exchange reactions and 13 spontaneous reactions. The in silico model successfully predicted the minimal media and the growing abilities on different substrates. With flux balance analysis, single gene knockouts were also simulated to predict the essential genes and partially essential genes. In addition, flux variability analysis was applied to design new mutant strains that will redirect fluxes through the network and may enhance the production of lipid. This genome-scale metabolic model of Y. lipolytica can facilitate system-level metabolic analysis as well as strain development for improving the production of biodiesels and other valuable products by Y. lipolytica and other closely related oleaginous yeasts.
Separate Signals for Target Selection and Movement Specification in the Superior Colliculus

We examined the expression of these genes in Lhx5 mutant embryos. At E12.5, all three of these genes were expressed in the hip-pocampal anlagen in both wild-type (Fig. 4, A through C) and mutant (Fig. 4, F through H) embryos, which indicates that the hip-pocampal precursor cells were specified after disruption of Lhx5. In the mutant embryos, the domains of Lhx2, Emx2, and Otx1 expression expanded ventrally into the region of the telencephalic choroid plexus, and morpho-genesis of the choroid plexus was impaired. Signaling molecules of the Wnt and Bmp families have been implicated in patterning the medial telencephalic wall to form the hippocampal anlagen and the choroid plexus, because these molecules are expressed at the border between these two morphologically distinctive structures (13, 14) (Fig. 4, D and E). In support of this idea, expression of Wnt5a (Fig. 4I), Bmp4, and Bmp7 (Fig. 4J) was diminished in this specific region in Lhx5 null mutant embryos. Previous experiments have shown that other members of the LIM homeobox gene family play crucial roles in the differentiation of distinct cell types in various organisms (15–18). In mice, for example, Islet1 is essential for the differentiation of motor neu-rons in the spinal cord (15), and Lhx3 is required for the differentiation of the pituitary cell lineages (16). More recently, it has been observed that Lhx3 and Lhx4 together control the axon projection of subtypes of motor neurons as well as their exact soma position in the developing spinal cord (17). Our data suggest that Lhx5 may play an analogous role in the developing forebrain. Defects in hippocampal development have been observed in mice carrying null mutations in a variety of genes. Functional ablation of the homeobox gene Emx2 (11) or Lhx2 (8) leads to an early arrest of hippocampal development as precursor cells fail to be specified or to proliferate. neuronal migration, resulting in a disorganiza-tion of cells in Ammon's horn and the dentate gyrus. Our results show that Lhx5 is required for differentiation of the various types of hip-pocampal neurons. Together, these studies reveal an intricate genetic program underlying the assembly of complex hippocampal structures. Expression of Lhx5 after E13.5 in the Cajal-Retzius cells raises the possibility that the impairment in hippocampal morphogenesis observed in Lhx5 mutant embryos could result from a lack of function of those cells. The gene Reeler is expressed in these cells (5), in keeping with the possibility …
Generalized Uniformity Testing

In this work, we revisit the problem of uniformity testing of discrete probability distributions. A fundamental problem in distribution testing, testing uniformity over a known domain has been addressed over a significant line of works, and is by now fully understood. The complexity of deciding whether an unknown distribution is uniform over its unknown (and arbitrary) support, however, is much less clear. Yet, this task arises as soon as no prior knowledge on the domain is available, or whenever the samples originate from an unknown and unstructured universe.In this work, we introduce and study this generalized uniformity testing question, and establish nearly tight upper and lower bound showing that &#x2013; quite surprisingly &#x2013; its sample complexity significantly differs from the known-domain case. Moreover, our algorithm is intrinsically adaptive, in contrast to the overwhelming majority of known distribution testing algorithms.
DNA replication timing is deterministic at the level of chromosomal domains but stochastic at the level of replicons in Xenopus egg extracts

Replication origins in Xenopus egg extracts are located at apparently random sequences but are activated in clusters that fire at different times during S phase under the control of ATR/ATM kinases. We investigated whether chromosomal domains and single sequences replicate at distinct times during S phase in egg extracts. Replication foci were found to progressively appear during early S phase and foci labelled early in one S phase colocalized with those labelled early in the next S phase. However, the distribution of these two early labels did not coincide between single origins or origin clusters on single DNA fibres. The 4 Mb Xenopus rDNA repeat domain was found to replicate later than the rest of the genome and to have a more nuclease-resistant chromatin structure. Replication initiated more frequently in the transcription unit than in the intergenic spacer. These results suggest for the first time that in this embryonic system, where transcription does not occur, replication timing is deterministic at the scale of large chromatin domains (1–5 Mb) but stochastic at the scale of replicons (10 kb) and replicon clusters (50–100 kb).
Upper Extremity Functional Evaluation by Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scoring Using Depth-Sensing Camera in Hemiplegic Stroke Patients

Virtual home-based rehabilitation is an emerging area in stroke rehabilitation. Functional assessment tools are essential to monitor recovery and provide current function-based rehabilitation. We developed the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) tool using Kinect (Microsoft, USA) and validated it for hemiplegic stroke patients. Forty-one patients with hemiplegic stroke were enrolled. Thirteen of 33 items were selected for upper extremity motor FMA. One occupational therapist assessed the motor FMA while recording upper extremity motion with Kinect. FMA score was calculated using principal component analysis and artificial neural network learning from the saved motion data. The degree of jerky motion was also transformed to jerky scores. Prediction accuracy for each of the 13 items and correlations between real FMA scores and scores using Kinect were analyzed. Prediction accuracies ranged from 65% to 87% in each item and exceeded 70% for 9 items. Correlations were high for the summed score for the 13 items between real FMA scores and scores obtained using Kinect (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = 0.873, P<0.0001) and those between total upper extremity scores (66 in full score) and scores using Kinect (26 in full score) (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = 0.799, P<0.0001). Log transformed jerky scores were significantly higher in the hemiplegic side (1.81 ± 0.76) compared to non-hemiplegic side (1.21 ± 0.43) and showed significant negative correlations with Brunnstrom stage (3 to 6; Spearman correlation coefficient = -0.387, P = 0.046). FMA using Kinect is a valid way to assess upper extremity function and can provide additional results for movement quality in stroke patients. This may be useful in the setting of unsupervised home-based rehabilitation.
The Impact of Aid on Bureaucratic Quality: Does the Mode of Delivery Matter?

We show that the impact of foreign aid on bureaucratic quality in recipient countries varies with the mode of delivery. Specifically, grants are found to impair the functioning of the bureaucracy, whereas loans are not. The negative impact of grants is larger when they are given as budget support rather than as assistance for specific projects or for programs in general.