Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic Variation Associated with Differential Educational Attainment in Adults Has Anticipated Associations with School Performance in Children

Genome-wide association study results have yielded evidence for the association of common genetic variants with crude measures of completed educational attainment in adults. Whilst informative, these results do not inform as to the mechanism of these effects or their presence at earlier ages and where educational performance is more routinely and more precisely assessed. Single nucleotide polymorphisms exhibiting genome-wide significant associations with adult educational attainment were combined to derive an unweighted allele score in 5,979 and 6,145 young participants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children with key stage 3 national curriculum test results (SATS results) available at age 13 to 14 years in English and mathematics respectively. Standardised (z-scored) results for English and mathematics showed an expected relationship with sex, with girls exhibiting an advantage over boys in English (0.433 SD (95%CI 0.395, 0.470), p<10−10) with more similar results (though in the opposite direction) in mathematics (0.042 SD (95%CI 0.004, 0.080), p = 0.030). Each additional adult educational attainment increasing allele was associated with 0.041 SD (95%CI 0.020, 0.063), p = 1.79×10−04 and 0.028 SD (95%CI 0.007, 0.050), p = 0.01 increases in standardised SATS score for English and mathematics respectively. Educational attainment is a complex multifactorial behavioural trait which has not had heritable contributions to it fully characterised. We were able to apply the results from a large study of adult educational attainment to a study of child exam performance marking events in the process of learning rather than realised adult end product. Our results support evidence for common, small genetic contributions to educational attainment, but also emphasise the likely lifecourse nature of this genetic effect. Results here also, by an alternative route, suggest that existing methods for child examination are able to recognise early life variation likely to be related to ultimate educational attainment.
Design and performance evaluation of feedback phase recovery for M-PSK signals

In this paper, we propose a new feedback decision-directed (FB-DD) phase error detector for quadratic phase-shift keying (QPSK) signal and a self-normalizing FB-DD detector for M-PSK signal. The self-normalizing detector can be used in the hybrid carrier recovery loop as discussed by Linn, while its open loop characteristic is independent of the imperfection of automatic gain control (AGC). Moreover, the detector has an efficient fixed-point hardware implementation structure suitable for Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Simulation results of QPSK and 8PSK signals show that there is some negligible performance degradation at low SNR. The proposed first detector has good open-loop characteristic, while its phase error variance and complexity stay close to that of classical FB-DD and smaller than that of classical feedback non-data-aided (FB-NDA) detectors at medium to high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
Forcing Mycoplasma mobile into Line

Mycoplasmas are parasitic bacteria lacking a cell wall but possessing an internal cytoskeletal structure. In this issue, Miyata and coworkers report measurements of the force-velocity relation of Mycoplasma mobile gliding on a glass substrate at different temperatures (3). Protein A-conjugated polystyrene beads coated with antibodies raised against M. mobile proteins were attached to the tail ends of gliding bacteria. The hydrodynamic drag of beads on cells gliding upstream against fluid flow was used to define the force-velocity relation. In addition, the beads were used as handles to stall bacteria by an optical laser trap, with displacement of the bead in the trap defining the stall force. The hydrodynamic drag to movement against fluid flow exerted by the beads could be precisely estimated. Miyata et al. found linear force velocity relations, a temperature-independent stall force of 26 pN, and speeds up to 3.3 μm/s at 27.5°C at zero force. This study adds a new dimension to the existing literature on gliding motility. The Berg laboratory has pioneered the development of laser trap technology for analysis of molecular motor mechanics (1). Now, innovative application of this methodology to Mycoplasma gliding motility defines the force generation capability of this motility form with a precision not possible with simpler assays. The data set important constraints that should both spur attempts to discover the thus-far mysterious molecular machinery and provide criteria that candidate molecules, once identified, will ultimately need to satisfy. Interestingly, the bacteria orient in response to flow and move upstream in a second or so. When flow is turned off, they disorient on a similar time scale. Video documentation is available from the sixth BLAST meeting review (2) video link (http://stock.cabm.rutgers.edu/mem/stock/blast_19.html#A). Could stress-induced assembly and disassembly of cytoskeletal structure play a role here, as in actin-based amoeboid motility, coupled to force generation by a molecular motor? Members of the actin or microtubule-based cytoskeletal motor protein families have not been found in bacteria so far. However, particularly in pathogenic bacteria with long-standing associations with eukaryotic hosts, molecules are being uncovered that either interact with known cytoskeletal elements or behave as cytoskeletal analogs (4, 5). Miyata et al. note that the filamentous structure seen in Mycoplasma by electron microscopy is associated with the adhesion protein and, thus, may provide a possible scaffold for the substantial forces documented by their work. If so, the mechanisms that underlie prokaryotic gliding motility and eukaryotic amoeboid motility could turn out to be more similar than previously imagined.
Symbolic computation of Fenchel conjugates

Convex optimization deals with certain classes of mathematical optimization problems including least-squares and linear programming problems. This area has recently been the focus of considerable study and interest due to the facts that convex optimization problems can be solved efficiently by interior-point methods and that convex optimization problems are actually much more prevalent in practice that previously thought.Key notions in convex optimization are the Fenchel conjugate and the subdifferential of a convex function. In this paper, we build a new bridge between convex optimization and symbolic mathematics by describing the Maple package fenchel, which allows for the symbolic computation of these objects for numerous convex functions defined on the real line. We are able to symbolically reproduce computations for finding Fenchel conjugates and subdifferentials for numerous nontrivial examples found in the literature.
An Autonomous Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting IC Based on a Synchronous Multi-Shot Technique

This paper presents a fully autonomous integrated circuit (IC) dedicated to piezoelectric harvesters. The novel Multi-Shot Synchronous Electric Charge Extraction (MS-SECE) performed by the IC optimizes the energy transfer from a highly charged piezoelectric harvester to a low voltage storage element. The system deals with piezoelectric powers in the 10 μW to 1 mW range and handles very high piezoelectric voltage values ( >100 V) thanks to the off-chip components around the IC. The IC has been fabricated in AMS 0.35 μm 3.3 V technology and its low power consumption (1 μW @ 5 Hz) is particularly suitable for low frequency harvesters. MS-SECE increases the extracted power compared to the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique but it also improves the efficiency by up to 25% compared to standard SECE. Furthermore, MS-SECE allows the use of small off-chip components: an efficiency of 61% has been reached with a 125 mm 3 coupled-inductor. Finally, the proposed power management circuit self-starts, works without any battery and its overall volume is expected to be less than 1 cm 3 .
Regularized EM Algorithms: A Unified Framework and Statistical Guarantees

Latent variable models are a fundamental modeling tool in machine learning applications, but they present significant computational and analytical challenges. The popular EM algorithm and its variants, is a much used algorithmic tool; yet our rigorous understanding of its performance is highly incomplete. Recently, work in Balakrishnan et al. (2014) has demonstrated that for an important class of problems, EM exhibits linear local convergence. In the high-dimensional setting, however, the M-step may not be well defined. We address precisely this setting through a unified treatment using regularization. While regularization for high-dimensional problems is by now well understood, the iterative EM algorithm requires a careful balancing of making progress towards the solution while identifying the right structure (e.g., sparsity or low-rank). In particular, regularizing the M-step using the state-of-the-art high-dimensional prescriptions (e.g., Wainwright (2014)) is not guaranteed to provide this balance. Our algorithm and analysis are linked in a way that reveals the balance between optimization and statistical errors. We specialize our general framework to sparse gaussian mixture models, high-dimensional mixed regression, and regression with missing variables, obtaining statistical guarantees for each of these examples.
Pancreatic Lymph Nodes Are Required for Priming of β Cell Reactive T Cells in NOD Mice

Nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice develop spontaneous autoimmune diabetes that results from the destruction of insulin secreting β cells by diabetogenic T cells. The time and location of the encounter of autoantigen(s) by naive autoreactive T cells in normal NOD mice are still elusive. To address these issues, we analyzed diabetes development in mice whose spleen or pancreatic lymph nodes (panLNs) had been removed. Excision of panLNs (panLNx) at 3 wk protected mice against insulin autoantibodies (IAAs), insulitis, and diabetes development almost completely, but had no effect when performed at 10 wk. The protection afforded by panLNx at weaning was not due to modifications of the immune system, the absence of autoreactive T cells, or the increase in the potency of regulatory T cells. That panLNs are dispensable during adult life was confirmed by the capacity of 10-wk-old panLNx irradiated recipients to develop diabetes upon transfer of diabetogenic T cells. In contrast, splenectomy had no effect at any age. Partial excision of mesenteric LN at 3 wk did not prevent accelerated diabetes by cyclophosphamide as panLNx did. Thus, in normal NOD mice, autoreactive T cell initial priming occurs in LNs draining the target organ of the disease from 3 wk of age.
Early development and gravitropic response of lateral roots in Arabidopsis thaliana

Root system architecture plays an important role in determining nutrient and water acquisition and is modulated by endogenous and environmental factors, resulting in considerable developmental plasticity. The orientation of primary root growth in response to gravity (gravitropism) has been studied extensively, but little is known about the behaviour of lateral roots in response to this signal. Here, we analysed the response of lateral roots to gravity and, consistently with previous observations, we showed that gravitropism was acquired slowly after emergence. Using a lateral root induction system, we studied the kinetics for the appearance of statoliths, phloem connections and auxin transporter gene expression patterns. We found that statoliths could not be detected until 1 day after emergence, whereas the gravitropic curvature of the lateral root started earlier. Auxin transporters modulate auxin distribution in primary root gravitropism. We found differences regarding PIN3 and AUX1 expression patterns between the lateral root and the primary root apices. Especially PIN3, which is involved in primary root gravitropism, was not expressed in the lateral root columella. Our work revealed new developmental transitions occurring in lateral roots after emergence, and auxin transporter expression patterns that might explain the specific response of lateral roots to gravity.
Using 3D laser range data for SLAM in outdoor environments

Robot navigation in poorly structured and uneven outdoor environments is an unsolved problem. Thus we present a SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) approach that is based on "leveled range scans ". The combines 3D perception with 2D localization and mapping. In this way established path planning and 2D navigation algorithms can be used in uneven terrain without the computational costs of full three dimensional modeling. The paper describes the processing steps data acquisition, obstacle segmentation, generation of leveled range scans and SLAM with these scans. Additionally, the paper shows experimental results in man-made outdoor environments as they are typical for service robots used by civilians.
Stages as Models of Scene Geometry

Reconstruction of 3D scene geometry is an important element for scene understanding, autonomous vehicle and robot navigation, image retrieval, and 3D television. We propose accounting for the inherent structure of the visual world when trying to solve the scene reconstruction problem. Consequently, we identify geometric scene categorization as the first step toward robust and efficient depth estimation from single images. We introduce 15 typical 3D scene geometries called stages, each with a unique depth profile, which roughly correspond to a large majority of broadcast video frames. Stage information serves as a first approximation of global depth, narrowing down the search space in depth estimation and object localization. We propose different sets of low-level features for depth estimation, and perform stage classification on two diverse data sets of television broadcasts. Classification results demonstrate that stages can often be efficiently learned from low-dimensional image representations.
Interannual and Secular Variability of Larvae of Mesopelagic and Forage Fishes in the Southern California Current System

We used univariate and multivariate spatiotemporal delta models to quantify changes in the distribution of ichthyoplankton in the southern California Current System from 1951 to 2016. We focus on mesopelagic species, because they are most abundant, and on northern anchovy ( Engraulis mordax ), Paciﬁc sardine ( Sardinops sagax ), and Paciﬁc hake ( Merluccius productus ), because they are important commercial and forage ﬁsh species. Univariate models indicated that changes in the relative abundance, area occupied, center of gravity, and spatiotemporal variability of numerically dominant warm-water and cool-water-associated mesopelagic ichthyoplankton show strong species-speciﬁc diﬀerences. Multivariate models revealed that the warm-water-associated mesopelagic assemblage exhibits an increasing, nonmonotonic, secular trend of increasing relative abundance underlying interannual variability, suggesting a tropicalization of the southern California Current System. In contrast, the cool-water-associated mesopelagic assemblage shows mainly interannual variability, with little secular trend over the 65-year period. Correlation matrices of the modeled ichthyoplankton densities showed that the spatial distributions of northern anchovy and assemblage is complex, with many species-speciﬁc diﬀerences. Our results do not ﬁt tidily into the developing paradigm of northward or oﬀshore shifts of species distributions with climate change. To the contrary, our results suggest long-term trends are overlayed upon large interannual variability that is correlated among species and, at least for the dominant warm-water-associated mesopelagic ichthyoplankton, likely driven by extreme El Niño-Southern Oscillation events. The changes that we observed likely reﬂect both advection and changes in the spawning distribution of adults. It may be that the paradigm of poleward or oﬀshore distribution shifts may need to be modiﬁed in the California Current System to take account of the pulsing of warm events and subsequent persistence of these eﬀects in the ichthyoplankton assemblages.
On the false discovery rates of a frequentist: Asymptotic expansions

Consider a testing problem for the null hypothesis H0 : 2 0. The standard frequentist practice is to reject the null hypothesis when the p-value is smaller than a threshold value , usually 0:05. We ask the ques- tion how many of the null hypotheses a frequentist rejects are actually true. Precisely, we look at the Bayesian false discovery rate n = Pg( 2 0jp value < ) under a proper prior density g(). This depends on the prior g, the sample size n, the threshold value as well as the choice of the test statistic. We show that the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR in fact converges to n almost surely under g for any xed n. For one-sided null hypothe- ses, we derive a third order asymptotic expansion for n in the continuous exponential family when the test statistic is the MLE and in the location family when the test statistic is the sample median. We also briefly men- tion the expansion in the uniform family when the test statistic is the MLE. The expansions are derived by putting together Edgeworth expansions for the CDF, Cornish-Fisher expansions for the quantile function and various Taylor expansions. Numerical results show that the expansions are very accurate even for a small value of n (e.g., n = 10). We make many useful conclusions from these expansions, and specically that the frequentist is not prone to false discoveries except when the prior g is too spiky. The results are illustrated by many examples. AMS 2000 subject classications: Primary 62F05; secondary 62F03, 62F15.
Beyond Housing Preferences: Urban Structure and Actualisation of Residential Area Preferences

The concept of residential housing preferences has been studied across multiple disciplines, with extensive literature supporting both stated and revealed preference methods. This study argues that both preference types, stated and revealed, should be assessed concurrently to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of residential housing choices. To provide evidence, this research used findings from a public participation GIS survey that identified the stated housing preferences associated with three categories of urban residents, which were called urban “tribes”. We implemented an analytical framework using fuzzy modelling to relate stated preferences with revealed preferences for the same individuals using empirical data describing the urban structure in Tampere, Finland. Following an analysis of the relationships between residents’ revealed preferences and urban structural variables, we examined the consistency of stated housing preferences with revealed preferences. The results show considerable mismatch between the stated and revealed preferences for the urban tribes that were examined i.e., the preferred housing environment was significantly different from the actual living environment. Further, the stated preferences showed disequilibrium within the current structure of the housing supply in Tampere. The findings can have important implications for housing policy making in Tampere. Further, the use of a novel fuzzy model approach demonstrated a flexible and tolerant method for working with imprecise and variable social data to capture subtle differences. Finally, this study elaborately discusses the remaining limitations and suggests how they should be addressed in future research.
Sports analogy for modelling of combat in the air domain

Aggregated models of air warfare invariably rely on a user input value for probability of success (kill) or 'exchange ratio' in air-to-air combat. There is limited historical data available to validate these parameters for engagements between non-peer opponents. This paper explores the potential for gaining insights to non-peer air-to-air outcomes from the world of sport, and examines the results from Association Football competitions in England
Varying-Domain Optimal Management Strategy for Parallel Hybrid Electric Vehicles

In this paper, a management strategy is developed to realize the real-time optimal torque distribution between the internal combustion (IC) engine and the electric motor of parallel hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Without depending on future information, a set of instantaneous cost functions is defined as the objective of a multiobjective problem, which includes vehicle energy consumption, selected emission species, and an evaluation criterion for the battery state of charge (SOC). The varying-domain method is then utilized to introduce a flexible priority among objectives and to transform the multiobjective problem into a nonlinear programming problem, the optimal solution of which is subsequently found by a genetic algorithm, i.e., GENOCOPIII. A comparison of the simulation results demonstrates the flexibility of the proposed varying-domain optimal management strategy (VOMS) under different driving conditions. Compared with the rule-based management strategy (RBMS) and the weighted sum management strategy (WSMS), the VOMS potentially improves the fuel economy, emission reduction, and stability of the SOC.
Data center transport mechanisms: Congestion control theory and IEEE standardization

Data Center Networks present a novel, unique and rich environment for algorithm development and deployment. Projects are underway in the IEEE 802.1 standards body, especially in the Data Center Bridging Task Group, to define new switched Ethernet functions for data center use. One such project is IEEE 802.1Qau, the Congestion Notification project, whose aim is to develop an Ethernet congestion control algorithm for hardware implementation. A major contribution of this paper is the description and analysis of the congestion control algorithm - QCN, for Quantized Congestion Notification- which has been developed for this purpose. A second contribution of the paper is an articulation of the Averaging Principle: a simple method for making congestion control loops stable in the face of increasing lags. This contrasts with two well-known methods of stabilizing control loops as lags increase; namely, (i) increasing the order of the system by sensing and feeding back higher-order derivatives of the state, and (ii) determining the lag and then choosing appropriate loop gains. Both methods have been applied in the congestion control literature to obtain stable algorithms for high bandwidth-delay product paths in the Internet. However, these methods are either undesirable or infeasible in the Ethernet context. The Averaging Principle provides a simple alternative, one which we are able to theoretically characterize.
Comparison of parametric and non-parametric approaches for the full-rank polarimetric SAR tomography of volumetric environments

This paper proposes and compares different spectral estimation techniques to perform polarimetric 3-D imaging using SAR tomography (POLTOM). Parametric approaches based on the Random Volume over Ground model as well as non parametric techniques are proposed to derive 3-D full second-order polarimetric representations. Their theoretical performance is evaluated over simulated data sets and they are applied to the characterization of forested environments at L and P bands.