Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Fusion LSTMs for Text Semantic Matching

Recently, there is rising interest in modelling the interactions of text pair with deep neural networks. In this paper, we propose a model of deep fusion LSTMs (DF-LSTMs) to model the strong interaction of text pair in a recursive matching way. Speciﬁcally, DF-LSTMs consist of two interdependent LSTMs, each of which models a sequence under the in-ﬂuence of another. We also use exter-nal memory to increase the capacity of LSTMs, thereby possibly capturing more complicated matching patterns. Experiments on two very large datasets demonstrate the efﬁcacy of our proposed architecture. Furthermore, we present an elaborate qualitative analysis of our models, giving an intuitive understanding how our model worked.
Psychometric Assessment of the Short Grit Scale Among Chinese Adolescents

This study sought to validate the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S), an instrument that measures perseverance and passion for long-term goals, among Chinese high school students. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the scale retains the two-factor structure of the original scale. The scale demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Evidence for construct validity was found in relation to the Big Five personality traits, self-control, and IQ. Evidence for criterion validity was found via the observation that grit explained unique variance in academic performance. Together, the Grit-S is a sound measure of grit among Chinese adolescents.
Inverse zero-sum problems II

Let $G$ be an additive finite abelian group. A sequence over $G$ is called a minimal zero-sum sequence if the sum of its terms is zero and no proper subsequence has this property. Davenport's constant of $G$ is the maximum of the lengths of the minimal zero-sum sequences over $G$. Its value is well-known for groups of rank two. We investigate the structure of minimal zero-sum sequences of maximal length for groups of rank two. Assuming a well-supported conjecture on this problem for groups of the form $C_m \oplus C_m$, we determine the structure of these sequences for groups of rank two. Combining our result and partial results on this conjecture, yields unconditional results for certain groups of rank two.
Comparison of Helicobacter bilis-Associated Protein Expression in Huh7 Cells Harbouring HCV Replicon and in Replicon-Cured Cells

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Hepatitis B or C infections are the main causes of HCC with hepatitis C being the major risk factor for liver cancer in the developed countries. Recently, complications with bacteria of the genus Helicobacter have been associated with HCV-induced HCC. To further understand the mechanisms leading to the development of HCC in the presence of HCV and/or Helicobacter spp. , investigation of the differential protein expression in Huh7 cells harbouring HCV-replicon, and replicon cured-Huh7 cells cocultured with H. bilis was done employing two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. In the transfected-Huh7 cells exposed to sublethal inoculum densities of H. bilis, 53 different proteins were identified comprising of 28 upregulated and 16 downregulated proteins including 9 potential protein isoforms; in the cured Huh7 cells, 45 different proteins were identified including 33 upregulated, 8 downregulated and, 9 potential protein isoforms. H. bilis affected the modulation of proteins involved in different pathways of Huh7-derived cells physiology including proteins involved in the progression from dysplasia to neoplasm. The result also indicated that the response of the Huh7-derived cells to the presence of H. bilis depended on whether or not HCV replicon was present.
Optical Flow Based Robot Obstacle Avoidance

In this paper we try to develop an algorithm for visual obstacle avoidance of autonomous mobile robot. The input of the algorithm is an image sequence grabbed by an embedded camera on the B21r robot in motion. Then, the optical flow information is extracted from the image sequence in order to be used in the navigation algorithm. The optical flow provides very important information about the robot environment, like: the obstacles disposition, the robot heading, the time to collision and the depth. The strategy consists in balancing the amount of left and right side flow to avoid obstacles, this technique allows robot navigation without any collision with obstacles. The robustness of the algorithm will be showed by some examples.
Does Education Matter in Patience Formation? Evidence from Ugandan Villages

The paper aims to contribute to the understanding of why there is a lack of domestic saving and investment in rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on heterogeneity in inter-temporal preferences as a possible explanation of this important puzzle. The study is based on a unique experimental data set collected from 856 respondents in Ugandan villages and scrutinizes how individual patience - measured by the discount rate - is formed. The results suggest that Ugandan respondents are substantially less patient than their counterparts in similar experimental studies undertaken in developed countries and South Asia. We find a strong negative association between the level of education and the individual discount rate. Furthermore, we took advantage of the Ugandan education reform in 1996 and varying school frequency to demonstrate the causal relationship stemming from education to patience. The estimates suggest that an additional year at school decreases the discount rate on average by 35 percentage points after controlling for other characteristics (age, income group, sex, marital status and clan linkage). Our findings strongly accord with patience understood as a non-cognitive ability which needs to be taught by parents, learnt at school and promoted by social norms. The Ugandan responses, therefore, propose a new way in which education may influence development in sub-Saharan Africa - by shaping individual patience.
THE IMPACT ON LEARNING OF AN ASYNCHRONOUS ACTIVE LEARNING COURSE FORMAT

Among the many differences between asynchronous interactions and traditional classroom communication, the most critical differences involve those that may affect a student’s ability to learn. The efficacy of courses in facilitating instruction and learning is a key concern of all educators involved in or contemplating conducting such courses. This paper explores the impact on learning in asynchronous internet courses compared to learning in a traditional classroom setting. Specifically, the study examines student perceptions of the effectiveness of an active-learning, asynchronous internet course relative to that of a traditional classroom-based course. Students were asked to compare effectiveness on a variety of dimensions. The study yields results consistent with previous research related to learning outcomes along several measures, particularly with regard to students’ positive attitudes about their learning in an online computer course. However, the findings here offer new evidence that learning can also be enhanced with an active learning format in an online course.
Tolerance to Excess-Boron Conditions Acquired by Stabilization of a BOR1 Variant with Weak Polarity in Arabidopsis

Boron (B) is a metalloid that is essential for plant growth but is toxic when present in excess. Arabidopsis BOR1 is a borate exporter, facilitating B translocation from root to shoot under limited-B conditions. BOR1 shows stele side polar localization in the plasma membrane of various root cells, presumably to support B translocation toward the stele. BOR1 is degraded under high-B supply through vacuolar sorting via ubiquitination at the K590 residue to prevent the accumulation of B to a toxic level in shoots. A previous study showed that overexpression of BOR1 under control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S RNA promoter improved the growth of Arabidopsis under limited-B conditions without affecting the growth under sufficient-to-excess-B conditions. In this study, we unexpectedly found that ubiquitous expression of a stabilized BOR1 variant improved tolerance to excess-B in Arabidopsis. We established transgenic plants expressing BOR1-GFP fused with hygromycin phosphotransferase (HPT) and BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT under control of the ubiquitin 10 promoter. BOR1-GFP-HPT and BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT were expressed in various cell types in leaves and roots and showed weak polar localization in root tip cells. BOR1-GFP-HPT, but not BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT, was degraded through an endocytic pathway under high-B conditions. Transgenic plants with the stabilized variant BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT showed improved root and shoot growth under excess-B conditions. The concentration of B was greater in the shoots of plants with BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT or BOR1-GFP-HPT than in those of untransformed wild-type plants. These results suggest that BOR1(K590A)-GFP-HPT confers tolerance to excess-B by excluding B from the cytosol of shoot cells. Results from this study indicate the potential for engineering the trafficking properties of a transporter to produce plants that are tolerant to mineral stress.
‘[Not] talking like a Motorola’: mobile phone practices and politics of masking and unmasking in postcolonial Kinshasa

The expression ‘talking like a Motorola’ (koloba lokola Motorola) was long used during the reign of President Mobutu in the Democratic Republic of Congo/Zaire to indicate the undesired disclosure of information. It manifests the perception of many Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa) that the Motorola handset was only deployed by Mobutu's secret service agents in order to detect and report critics of the regime. Today, mobile phones are no longer the preserve of political agents. Nearly everybody can have one. The idiom is thus outdated. Yet other lines between ‘what can be said [over the phone]’ and ‘what cannot be said’ are being drawn in Kinshasa's political society. Indeed, transformations in practices of secrecy, concealment, and, their counterpart, the divulging of information – all three significant axes of the production of power and contestation of authority – are key, both in state actions and in strategies of civil society. In this article, I attempt to locate the mobile phone within Kinshasa's political society, and analyse how relations to the Congolese state are articulated through the politics of cell phone technology and uses of the handset.
Neurodegeneration and Motor Dysfunction in a Conditional Model of Parkinson's Disease

α-Synuclein (α-syn) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease. These disorders are characterized by various neurological and psychiatric symptoms based on progressive neuropathological alterations. Whether the neurodegenerative process might be halted or even reversed is presently unknown. Therefore, conditional mouse models are powerful tools to analyze the relationship between transgene expression and progression of the disease. To explore whether α-syn solely originates and further incites these alterations, we generated conditional mouse models by using the tet-regulatable system. Mice expressing high levels of human wild-type α-syn in midbrain and forebrain regions developed nigral and hippocampal neuropathology, including reduced neurogenesis and neurodegeneration in absence of fibrillary inclusions, leading to cognitive impairment and progressive motor decline. Turning off transgene expression in symptomatic mice halted progression but did not reverse the symptoms. Thus, our data suggest that approaches targeting α-syn-induced pathological pathways might be of benefit rather in early disease stages. Furthermore, α-syn-associated cytotoxicity is independent of filamentous inclusion body formation in our conditional mouse model.
Spatial memory and stereotypy of flight paths by big brown bats in cluttered surroundings

SUMMARY The big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, uses echolocation for foraging and orientation. The limited operating range of biosonar implies that bats must rely upon spatial memory in familiar spaces with dimensions larger than a few meters. Prior experiments with bats flying in obstacle arrays have revealed differences in flight and acoustic emission patterns depending on the density and spatial extent of the obstacles. Using the same method, combined with acoustic microphone array tracking, we flew big brown bats in an obstacle array that varied in density and distribution in different locations in the flight room. In the initial experiment, six bats learned individually stereotyped flight patterns as they became familiar with the space. After the first day, the repetition rate of sonar broadcasts dropped to a stable level, consistent with low-density clutter. In a second experiment, after acquiring their stable paths, each bat was released from each of two unfamiliar locations in the room. Each bat still followed the same flight path it learned originally. In a third experiment, performed 1 month after the first two experiments, three of the bats were re-flown in the same configuration of obstacles; these three resumed flying in their accustomed path. The other three bats were flown in a mirror-image reconfiguration of the obstacles; these bats quickly found stable flight paths that differed from their originally learned paths. Overall, the flight patterns indicate that the bats perceive the cluttered space as a single scene through which they develop globally organized flight paths.
Lkb1 and Pten Synergise to Suppress mTOR-Mediated Tumorigenesis and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in the Mouse Bladder

The AKT/PI3K/mTOR pathway is frequently altered in a range of human tumours, including bladder cancer. Here we report the phenotype of mice characterised by deletion of two key players in mTOR regulation, Pten and Lkb1, in a range of tissues including the mouse urothelium. Despite widespread recombination within the range of epithelial tissues, the primary phenotype we observe is the rapid onset of bladder tumorigenesis, with median onset of approximately 100 days. Single deletion of either Pten or Lkb1 had no effect on bladder cell proliferation or tumour formation. However, simultaneous deletion of Lkb1 and Pten led to an upregulation of the mTOR pathway and the hypoxia marker GLUT1, increased bladder epithelial cell proliferation and ultimately tumorigenesis. Bladder tissue also exhibited characteristic features of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, with loss of the epithelial markers E-cadherin and the tight junction protein ZO-1, and increases in the mesenchymal marker vimentin as well as nuclear localization of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) regulator Snail. We show that these effects were all dependent upon mTOR activity, as rapamycin treatment blocked both EMT and tumorigenesis. Our data therefore establish clear synergy between Lkb1 and Pten in controlling the mTOR pathway within bladder epithelium, and show that loss of this control leads to the disturbance of epithelial structure, EMT and ultimately tumorigenesis.
Material Properties and Constitutive Modeling of Infant Porcine Cerebellum Tissue in Tension at High Strain Rate

Background The mechanical characterization of infant porcine cerebellum tissue in tension at high strain rate is crucial for modeling traumatic cerebellum injury, which is in turn helpful for understanding the biomechanics of such injuries suffered in traffic accidents. Material and Method In this study, the infant porcine cerebellum tissue was given three loading velocities, ie, 2s-1, 20s-1 and 100s-1 with up to 30% strain to investigate the tensile properties. At least six tensile tests for each strain rate were validly performed. Fung, Gent, Ogden and exponential models were applied to fit the constitutive equations, so as to obtain material parameters from the experimental data. Results The Lagrange stress of infant porcine cerebellum tissue in tension appeared to be no more than 3000Pa at each loading velocity. More specifically, the Lagrange stress at 30% strain was (393.7±84.4)Pa, (928.3±56.3)Pa and (2582.4±282.2)Pa at strain rates of 2s-1, 20s-1 and 100s-1, respectively. Fung (0.833≤R2≤0.924), Gent (0.797≤R2≤0.875), Ogden (0.859≤R2≤0.944) and exponential (0.930≤R2≤0.972) models provided excellent fitting to experimental data up to 30% strain. Conclusions The infant cerebellum tissue shows a stiffer response with increase of the loading speed, indicating a strong strain-rate sensitivity. This study will enrich the knowledge on the material properties of infant brain tissue, which may augment the biofidelity of finite element model of human pediatric cerebellum.
The genetic architecture of resistance to virus infection in Drosophila

Variation in susceptibility to infection has a substantial genetic component in natural populations, and it has been argued that selection by pathogens may result in it having a simpler genetic architecture than many other quantitative traits. This is important as models of host–pathogen co‐evolution typically assume resistance is controlled by a small number of genes. Using the Drosophila melanogaster multiparent advanced intercross, we investigated the genetic architecture of resistance to two naturally occurring viruses, the sigma virus and DCV (Drosophila C virus). We found extensive genetic variation in resistance to both viruses. For DCV resistance, this variation is largely caused by two major‐effect loci. Sigma virus resistance involves more genes – we mapped five loci, and together these explained less than half the genetic variance. Nonetheless, several of these had a large effect on resistance. Models of co‐evolution typically assume strong epistatic interactions between polymorphisms controlling resistance, but we were only able to detect one locus that altered the effect of the main effect loci we had mapped. Most of the loci we mapped were probably at an intermediate frequency in natural populations. Overall, our results are consistent with major‐effect genes commonly affecting susceptibility to infectious diseases, with DCV resistance being a near‐Mendelian trait.
Tipping and Residential Segregation: A Unified Schelling Model

This paper presents a Schelling-type checkerboard model of residential segregation formulated as a spatial game. It shows that although every agent prefers to live in a mixed-race neighborhood, complete segregation is observed almost all of the time. A concept of tipping is rigorously defined, which is crucial for understanding the dynamics of segregation. Complete segregation emerges and persists in the checkerboard model precisely because tipping is less likely to occur to such residential patterns. Agent-based simulations are used to illustrate how an integrated residential area is tipped into complete segregation and why this process is irreversible. This model incorporates insights from Schelling's two classical models of segregation (the checkerboard model and the neighborhood tipping model) and puts them on a rigorous footing. It helps us better understand the persistence of residential segregation in urban America.
“Letting Go” (Implicitly): Priming Mindfulness Mitigates the Effects of a Moderate Social Stressor

This experimental study investigated whether implicitly priming mindfulness would facilitate psychological and cortisol recovery after undergoing a standardized psychological stressor. After completing baseline measures of well-being, all participants (N = 91) completed a public speaking stress task, were implicitly primed with “mindfulness” or “neutral” concepts using a scrambled sentence task, and finally, reported their situational well-being and provided cortisol samples. Simple moderation regression analyses revealed that the implicit mindfulness condition had significant beneficial effects for participants with low trait mindfulness. These participants reported higher situational self-esteem as well as less negative affect, perceived stress, and self-reported physiological arousal than their counterparts in the control condition. Cortisol analyses revealed that participants in the implicit mindfulness condition, regardless of level of trait mindfulness, showed a greater decline in cortisol during the early recovery stage compared to those in the control condition. Overall, results suggest that implicitly activating mindfulness can mitigate the psychological and physiological effects of a social stressor.
Positive screening and carrier results for the England-wide universal newborn sickle cell screening programme by ethnicity and area for 2005–07

Aims The overall aim of the new national newborn programme is to identify infants at risk of sickle cell disease to allow early detection and to minimise deaths and complications. Methods Universal screening for sickle cell disease was introduced in England between September 2003 and July 2006. The 13 newborn laboratories each screen between 25 000 and 110 000 babies a year using the existing dried bloodspot cards. The specified conditions to be screened for include sickle cell anaemia (Hb SS), Hb SC disease, Hb S/β thalassaemia, Hb S/DPunjab and Hb S/OArab. Data are reported on screening results by ethnic group and geographical area. Results The prevalence of screen positive results across England is 1:2000. There is a 25-fold variation by geographical area. African babies make up 61% of all screen positive results despite representing only 4% of total births. Combined carrier rates vary widely by ethnicity, from 1.85 per 1000 (1:540) in ‘White British’ to 145 per 1000 (1:7) in ‘African’ babies. Refusal rates for screening show variation by ethnicity. Conclusions These results provide useful information both about the frequency of these conditions and the carrier state and their geographic and ethnic distribution across England. This can be used to refine counselling information and are also useful to target and plan services and public information.
The Dynamics of Arbitrage : Evidence from the Yen Forward Markets

(a) Jonathan A. Batten, Department of Finance, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Sai Kung, Hong Hong, Phone: ++852-2358-7688, Email: jabatten@ust.hk. (b) Wai-Sum Chan, Department of Finance, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 426D, Leung Kau Kui Building, New Territories, Hong Kong, Phone: +852 2609 7715, Email: waisum@baf.msmail. cuhk.edu.hk. (c) Hon-Lun Chung, School of Accounting and Finance, Office M819, Li Ka Shing Tower, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Phone: +852 2766 7029, Email: afalan@inet.polyu. edu.hk (d) Peter G. Szilagyi, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1AG, United Kingdom. , Phone: +44(0) 1223 764 026, Email: p.szilagyi@jbs.cam. ac.uk
Investigating the time-dependent behaviour of Boom clay under thermomechanical loading

Boom clay, a stiff clay, has been selected as a potential host formation for the geological disposal of radioactive waste in Belgium. The underground research facility HADES has been constructed to enable various in situ experiments to be performed on Boom clay so as to study the feasibility of high-level radioactive waste disposal, and to provide reliable data on the performance of Boom clay as a host formation. Among the various laboratory studies performed on samples extracted from the HADES facility to investigate the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of Boom clay, relatively few were devoted to the time-dependent behaviour, limiting any relevant analysis of the long-term behaviour of the disposal facility. The present work aims at investigating the time-dependent behaviour of Boom clay under both thermal and mechanical loading. High-pressure triaxial tests at controlled temperatures were carried out for this purpose. The tests started with constant-rate thermal and/or mechanical consolidation and end.