Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variants in Vitamin D Binding Protein Gene Are Associated With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

AbstractTo investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within 4 representative genes (VDR, GC, CYP2R1, and CYP24A1) encoding the core proteins involved in vitamin D production, degradation, and ligand-dependent signaling pathway are associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in a Chinese population.A total of 1494 pregnant Han Chinese women (692 women with GDM and 802 women with normal glucose served as controls) were recruited through a 2-step approach. Participants were further divided into 2 groups according to body mass index before gestation (pre-BMI) (25 kg/m2). Nine SNPs (rs3733359, rs2282679, and rs16847024 in GC, rs2060793 and rs10741657 in CYP2R1, rs2248359 and rs6013897 in CYP24A1, rs11574143 and rs739837 in VDR) were genotyped using TaqMan allelic discrimination assays. The relationships between genotypes/alleles of a single locus as well as haplotypes of each gene and GDM were analyzed.We did not observe a significant difference in genotype frequency of each SNP between cases and controls. However, in the obese subgroup (pre-BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2), the risk allele-A of rs3733359 showed an association with increased risk of GDM (OR = 1.739, 95% CI = 1.066–2.837, P = 0.027). The GG-haplotype frequency of rs3733359 and rs2282679 in GC was modestly lower in the GDM group (OR = 0.848, 95% CI = 0.719–0.999, P = 0.048). Rs2060793 and rs10741657 were associated with insulin area under the curve (P = 0.028, P = 0.042, respectively), while rs739837 and rs6013897 demonstrated a correlation with fasting glucose (P = 0.019, P = 0.049, respectively). Additionally, rs2248359 displayed an association with leukocyte counts (B = 0.063 P = 0.033) and rs16847024 was related to high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels (B = 0.086, P = 0.005). Our results indicate an association between GC variants and GDM, as well as a relation between a subset of loci in CYP2R1, CYP24A1, and VDR and clinical parameters related to GDM. Our findings may provide information for identifying biomarkers for early risk prediction of GDM and the pathways involved in disease progression.
Globalization, Technology, and the Skill Premium: A Quantitative Analysis

We construct a model of international trade and multinational production (MP) to examine the impact of globalization on the skill premium in skill-abundant and skill-scarce countries. The key mechanisms in our framework arise from the interaction between three elements: cross-country differences in factor endowments and sectoral productivities, technological heterogeneity across producers within sectors, and skill-biased technology. Reductions in trade and/or MP costs induce a reallocation of resources towards a country's comparative advantage sector (increasing the skill premium in skill-abundant countries and reducing it in skill-scarce countries) and within sectors towards more productive and skill-intensive producers (increasing the skill premium in all countries). We parameterize the model to match salient features of the extent and composition of trade and MP between the U.S. and skill-abundant and skill-scarce countries in 2006. We show that a reduction in trade and MP costs, moving from autarky to 2006 levels of trade and MP, increases the skill premium by roughly 5% in skill-abundant and skill-scarce countries. We also show that the growth in US trade and MP between 1966 and 2006 accounts for 1/9th of the 24% rise in the US skill premium over this period. MP is at least as important as international trade in generating this rise in the skill premium.
Secondary flow in sharp open-channel bends

Secondary currents are a characteristic feature of flow in open-channel bends. Besides the classical helical motion (centre-region cell), a weaker and smaller counter-rotating circulation cell (outer-bank cell) is often observed near the outer bank, which is believed to play an important role in bank erosion processes. The mechanisms underlying the circulation cells, especially the outer-bank cell, are still poorly understood, and their numerical simulation still poses problems, not least due to lack of detailed experimental data. The research reported herein provides detailed experimental data on both circulation cells in an open-channel bend such as found in nature. Furthermore, the underlying dynamics are investigated by simultaneously analysing the vorticity equation and the kinetic energy transfer between the mean flow and the turbulence. This shows that turbulence plays a minor role in the generation of the centre-region cell, which is mainly due to the centrifugal force. By accounting for the feedback between the downstream velocity profile and the centre-region cell, a strongly simplified vorticity balance is shown to yield accurate predictions of the velocities in the centre region. For strong curvatures, however, a fully three-dimensional flow description is required. Due to the non-monotonic velocity profiles, the centrifugal force favours the outer-bank cell. Moreover, terms related to the anisotropy of the cross-stream turbulence, induced by boundary proximity, are of the same order of magnitude and mainly enhance the outer-bank cell. Both mechanisms strengthen each other. The occurrence of the outer-bank cell is shown to be not just due to flow instability, like in the case of curved laminar flow, but also to kinetic energy input from turbulence.
Teacher Training for LRE Mainstreaming and Diverse Classrooms

Since the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, classrooms in the United States have changed over the years. These laws have added numerous responsibilities for teachers, especially the Least Restrictive Environment mandate that places more students with disabilities in the general education classrooms. A review of the literature shows that even though more skills are required to teach in more diverse classrooms, teacher training programs have not changed in response to this need. A second problem related to insufficient teacher training is the increase in students being referred to special education programs because the regular education teachers haven’t learned how to successfully teach students with special needs. There is a dire need to modify teacher training programs from separate general and special education departments to more integrated, collaborative programs. An overhaul of teacher training programs will be a time-intensive endeavor; therefore, other short term solutions for teachers need to be considered. Preparing competent, effective teachers will ensure that laws affecting the classrooms will be carried out in the way they were intended so that all students receive the best education possible in the environment best suited to their needs. There is a need for continued research to determine the best training strategies to fulfill the needs of all teachers, which in turn will result in the best outcomes for all students. Table of
On Splitting-Based Numerical Methods for Convection-Diffusion Equations

Convection-diffusion equations model a variety of physical phenomena. Computing solutions of these equations is an important and challenging problem, especially in the convection dominated case, in which viscous layers are so thin that one is forced to use underresolved methods that may be unstable. If an insufficient amount of physical diffusion is compensated by an excessive numerical viscosity, the underresolved method is typically stable, but the resolution may be severely affected. At the same time, the use of dispersive schemes may cause spurious oscillations that may, in turn, trigger numerical instabilities. In this paper, we review a special operator splitting technique that may help to overcome these difficulties by numerically preserving a delicate balance between the convection and diffusion terms, which is absolutely necessary when an underresolved method is used. We illustrate the performance of the splitting-based methods on a number of numerical examples including the polymer system arising in modeling of the flooding processes in enhanced oil recovery, systems modeling the propagation of a passive pollutant in shallow water, and the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations.
Abdominal monophasic synovial sarcoma is a morphological and immunohistochemical mimic of gastrointestinal stromal tumour

Synovial sarcomas may arise within retroperitoneal or pelvic tissues or, more rarely, within the luminal gastrointestinal tract. This case series aims to demonstrate how such primary abdominal synovial sarcomas may particularly mimic gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) on both morphological and immunohistochemical grounds.
Effects of a prophylactic or therapeutic application of perflubron emulsion on myocardial ischaemia‐reperfusion injury in rats

Background and objective: The efficacy of administering a perfluorochemical‐based oxygen therapeutic such as perflubron emulsion (OxygentTM) prior to ischaemia is currently unknown, although there is evidence for potential beneficial effects for the perioperative treatment in cardiac risk patients. This experimental study investigated the efficacy of perflubron emulsion in preventing reperfusion injury and myocardial infarction size after coronary ischaemia and reperfusion. The perflubron emulsion was given either in a prophylactic manner, prior to induction of myocardial ischaemia, or as a therapeutic agent given during ischaemia. Methods: Thirty‐two anaesthetized and mechanically ventilated rats were subjected to 25 min occlusion of the left coronary artery followed by 120 min reperfusion. Animals were randomized to one of four groups: Group 1 was treated with administration of 6 g kg−1 intravenous perflubron emulsion 25 min before occlusion; Group 2 received the same dose 10 min after occlusion; and Groups 3 and 4 received no perflubron emulsion. Inspired O2 (FiO2) concentration was maintained at 1.0 in Groups 1, 2 and 3 and at 0.35 in Group 4. Results: Neither prophylactic nor therapeutic perflubron emulsion treatment reduced infarct size measurements by triphenyltetrazolium‐chloride staining or severity of cardiac arrhythmias in comparison to the hyperoxic control group. However, prophylactic application of perflubron emulsion reduced areas of impaired perfusion vs. Group 3 assessed by in vivo staining with Thioflavin‐S while no significant effect was seen in Groups 2 and 4 vs. 3. Density of DNA single‐strand breaks in the ventricle was increased in all groups ventilated with 100% oxygen. Conclusion: Although administration of perflubron emulsion did not reduce infarct size, areas of impaired perfusion were significantly mitigated when perflubron emulsion was administered prior to coronary occlusion. However, a high oxygen concentration may provoke DNA strand breaks during reperfusion after ischaemia. Further studies must clarify whether enhanced oxidative stress outweighs the advantage of improved areas of impaired perfusion following perflubron emulsion.
Efficient Entity Resolution with MFIBlocks

Entity resolution is the process of discovering groups of tuples that correspond to the same real world entity. In order to avoid the prohibitively expensive comparison of all pairs of tuples, blocking algorithms separate the tuples into blocks which are highly likely to contain matching pairs. Tuning is a major challenge in the blocking process. In particular, contemporary blocking algorithms need to provide a blocking key, based on which tuples are assigned to blocks. Due to the tuning complexity, blocking keys are manually designed by domain experts. In this work, we introduce a blocking approach that avoids selecting a blocking key altogether, relieving the user from this difficult task. The approach is based on maximal frequent itemsets selection. This approach also allows early evaluation of block quality based on the overall commonality of its members. A unique feature of the proposed algorithm is the use of prior knowledge of the estimated sizes of duplicate sets in enhancing the blocking accuracy. We report on a thorough empirical analysis, using common benchmarks of both real-world and synthetic datasets which exhibit the efficiency of our approach.
Willingness-to-Pay for a New Pharmaceutical : Is it Worth the Money ? Whose Money ?

This study seeks to provide evidence for deciding whether or not a new pharmaceutical should be included in the benefit list of social health insurance. A discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in Germany to measure preferences for modern insulin therapy using long-acting insulin analogue ”insulin detemir” in comparison to NPH insulin. The DCE contains two price attributes, copayment and increased contributions to health insurance. Of the 1,100 individuals interviewed in 2007, 200 suffered from type 1, 150 from insulin-treated type 2, and 150 from insulin-naive type 2 diabetes. This allows to compare ex-ante and ex-post willingnessto-pay (WTP). Non-diabetics and insulin-naive diabetics exhibit higher WTP values through copayment, while affected type 1 and insulin-treated type 2 diabetics have higher WTP through increased contributions. However, WTP values exceed the extra treatment cost in both financing alternatives, justifying inclusion of the new drug in the benefit list from a cost-benefit point of view. JEL-Classification: I11, H51, I18
Temporal Expression and Localization Patterns of Variant Surface Antigens in Clinical Plasmodium falciparum Isolates during Erythrocyte Schizogony

Avoidance of antibody-mediated immune recognition allows parasites to establish chronic infections and enhances opportunities for transmission. The human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum possesses a number of multi-copy gene families, including var, rif, stevor and pfmc-2tm, which encode variant antigens believed to be expressed on the surfaces of infected erythrocytes. However, most studies of these antigens are based on in vitro analyses of culture-adapted isolates, most commonly the laboratory strain 3D7, and thus may not be representative of the unique challenges encountered by P. falciparum in the human host. To investigate the expression of the var, rif-A, rif-B, stevor and pfmc-2tm family genes under conditions that mimic more closely the natural course of infection, ex vivo clinical P. falciparum isolates were analyzed using a novel quantitative real-time PCR approach. Expression patterns in the clinical isolates at various time points during the first intraerythrocytic developmental cycle in vitro were compared to those of strain 3D7. In the clinical isolates, in contrast to strain 3D7, there was a peak of expression of the multi-copy gene families rif-A, stevor and pfmc-2tm at the young ring stage, in addition to the already known expression peak in trophozoites. Furthermore, most of the variant surface antigen families were overexpressed in the clinical isolates relative to 3D7, with the exception of the pfmc-2tm family, expression of which was higher in 3D7 parasites. Immunofluorescence analyses performed in parallel revealed two stage-dependent localization patterns of RIFIN, STEVOR and PfMC-2TM. Proteins were exported into the infected erythrocyte at the young trophozoite stage, whereas they remained inside the parasite membrane during schizont stage and were subsequently observed in different compartments in the merozoite. These results reveal a complex pattern of expression of P. falciparum multi-copy gene families during clinical progression and are suggestive of diverse functional roles of the respective proteins.
Diverse Information-Gathering Methods in the Postsecondary Decision-Making Process

This study examined the techniques high school students used to gather information about postsecondary education and institutions. The researchers designated students as “highly diversified” or “less diversified” searchers and identified background characteristics and information-gathering behaviors using factor analysis and discriminant analysis. High diversification was significantly related to, among other things, student certainty about proposed academic major and satisfaction with the student’s chosen postsecondary institution.
Lattice QCD with Eight Degenerate Quark Flavors

We report on simulations of QCD with many flavors of degenerate quarks, the DBW2 gauge action and naive staggered fermions, using the rational hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm. We primarily focus on eight degenerate quark flavors where a variety of values of the coupling constant and quark mass have been used in the simulations. The scaling behavior of the hadron spectrum and the string tension of the heavy quark potential is studied, to probe whether the zero temperature, continuum limit of the theory breaks chiral symmetry.
An Interactive View on the Development of Deictic Pointing in Infancy

In this review, we will focus on the development of deictic pointing gestures. We propose that they are based on infants’ sensitivities to human motion. Since both conventionalized gestures and bodily movements can be interpreted as communicative, of special interest to us is how pointing gestures are employed within early social interactions. We push forward the idea of a conventionalization process taking place when the interaction partners guide infants’ participation toward joint goals. On their way to deploy pointing gestures and thus to successfully influence the partner for a specific purpose, infants need also to disengage from their own object perception or manipulation. In addition, infants accompany their gestures increasingly with verbal utterances—this form of communication is multimodal and offers the possibility to combine modalities for the purpose of expressing more complex utterances. The multimodal behavior will be picked up by caregivers and extended into linguistically more complex forms. Because of this emerging relationship to language and its social use, gestural behavior in early infancy is a powerful predictor for later language development.
Comparison of central corneal thickness with four noncontact devices: An agreement analysis of swept-source technology

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the central corneal thickness (CCT) measurements of four noncontact devices in healthy eyes. Materials and Methods: In a sample of 45 healthy controls, CCT was measured using an optical biometer (IOLMaster 700) based on swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT), high-resolution rotating Scheimpflug camera system (Pentacam HR), spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) device with an anterior segment module (Spectralis), and noncontact pachymetry (NCP) device (Topcon TRK-2P). Agreement among the devices was analyzed using mean differences (i.e., bias) and Bland–Altman analysis with 95% limits of agreement (LoA). Results: Mean CCT measurements were 537.5 ± 47.5 μm for SS-OCT optical biometer, 532.3 ± 43.8 μm for Scheimpflug system, 521.3 ± 44.7 μm for SD-OCT device, and 518.0 ± 43.1 μm for NCP (P < 0.001). The SD-OCT device and NCP showed the closest agreement, with a bias of 2.6 μm (95% LoA, −3.6–8.8 μm), whereas the SS-OCT optical biometer and NCP showed the least agreement, with a bias of 18.7 μm (95% LoA, −2.1–39.5 μm). Bias was 16.1 μm (95% LoA, −3.1–35.3 μm) for SS-OCT optical biometer and SD-OCT, 5.1 μm (95% LoA, −6.8–17.0 μm) for SS-OCT optical biometer and Scheimpflug system, 10.9 μm (95% LoA, −15.1–36.9 μm) for SD-OCT device and Scheimpflug system, and 13.6 μm (95% LoA, −5–32.2 μm) for Scheimpflug system and NCP. Conclusions: SS-OCT optical biometer overestimates CCT measurements compared to Scheimpflug system, SD-OCT device, and NCP. Given mean differences and range variations in CCT measurements between devices, SS-OCT optical biometer and Scheimpflug system are interchangeable as are SD-OCT and NCP.
Dimensional reduction and data visualization using hybrid artificial neural networks.

Data with dimension higher than three is not possible to be visualized directly. Unfortunately in real world data, not only the dimension are often more than three, very often real world data contain temporal information that makes the data only useful and meaningful when they are interpreted in sequence. Dimensionality reduction and visualization techniques such as self-organizing map (SOM) are usually used to explore the underlying multidimensional data structure. However, SOM only preserves inter-neurons distances in the input space and not in the output space due to the rigid grid used in SOM. Visualization induced self organizing map (ViSOM) was proposed as an extension of SOM in order to preserve the output space topology. In this paper, the modified adaptive coordinates (AC) technique is proposed to improve the visualization of SOM without the need to increase the number of neurons as in ViSOM. With a better visualization map formed, a post-processing technique is incorporated into the algorithm to produce a hybrid that is capable to extract temporal information contained in the data. Empirical studies of the hybrid techniques yield promising topology preserved visualizations and data structure exploration for synthetic and benchmarking datasets.
Comprehensive study of the metal-insulator transition in pulsed laser deposited epitaxial VO2 thin films

In this paper, we present a comprehensive, correlative study of the structural, transport, optical and thermoelectric properties of high-quality VO2 thin films across its metal-insulator phase transition. Detailed x-ray diffraction study shows that it's textured polycrystalline along [010]M1, with in-plane lattice orienting along three equivalent crystallographic directions. Across the metal-insulator transition, the conductivity increases by more than 3 orders of magnitude with a value of 3.8 × 103 S/cm in the metallic phase. This increase is almost entirely accounted for by a change in electron density, while the electron mobility changes only slightly between the two phases, yet shows strong domain boundary scattering when the two phases coexist. Electron effective mass was determined to be ∼65m0 in the insulating phase. From the optical and infrared reflection spectra in the metallic phase, we obtained the plasma edge of VO2, from which the electron effective mass was determined to be ∼23m0. The bandg.
Transition to higher degrees across the UK: an analysis of national, international and individual differences

This report is the first part of a three year study from the Higher Education Academy (HEA) that will examine the repercussions of recent reforms for learning and teaching in UK higher education. It investigates patterns of transition to postgraduate degrees and looks at differences in relation to three areas: (1) the individual characteristics of graduates, such as gender and ethnic group; (2) the type of higher education institution; and (3) the four UK home nations. Its findings help to understand where further work is needed to ensure that the postgraduate cohort is more representative of UK society as a whole. The research focuses on full-time UK- and EU-domiciled first degree graduates who successfully completed their studies in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years, using data about their studies, their background characteristics and their activity after graduation provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Research findings included the following: men are more likely than women to enter both kinds of higher degree; gender differences remain marked for almost all disciplines - women had lower rates of progression to higher degrees in arts, humanities, social sciences and [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] STEM disciplines; and Black Caribbean and Bangladeshi groups show lower than average rates of progression to taught postgraduate degrees.