Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FAM-MDR: A Flexible Family-Based Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction Technique to Detect Epistasis Using Related Individuals

We propose a novel multifactor dimensionality reduction method for epistasis detection in small or extended pedigrees, FAM-MDR. It combines features of the Genome-wide Rapid Association using Mixed Model And Regression approach (GRAMMAR) with Model-Based MDR (MB-MDR). We focus on continuous traits, although the method is general and can be used for outcomes of any type, including binary and censored traits. When comparing FAM-MDR with Pedigree-based Generalized MDR (PGMDR), which is a generalization of Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction (MDR) to continuous traits and related individuals, FAM-MDR was found to outperform PGMDR in terms of power, in most of the considered simulated scenarios. Additional simulations revealed that PGMDR does not appropriately deal with multiple testing and consequently gives rise to overly optimistic results. FAM-MDR adequately deals with multiple testing in epistasis screens and is in contrast rather conservative, by construction. Furthermore, simulations show that correcting for lower order (main) effects is of utmost importance when claiming epistasis. As Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a complex phenotype likely influenced by gene-gene interactions, we applied FAM-MDR to examine data on glucose area-under-the-curve (GAUC), an endophenotype of T2DM for which multiple independent genetic associations have been observed, in the Amish Family Diabetes Study (AFDS). This application reveals that FAM-MDR makes more efficient use of the available data than PGMDR and can deal with multi-generational pedigrees more easily. In conclusion, we have validated FAM-MDR and compared it to PGMDR, the current state-of-the-art MDR method for family data, using both simulations and a practical dataset. FAM-MDR is found to outperform PGMDR in that it handles the multiple testing issue more correctly, has increased power, and efficiently uses all available information.
Identification of Important Elements in Lengthy Instructional Text.

Abstract This paper reports two experiments which are concerned with skilled readers’ perceptions of the relative importance of elements of informative text on a subject matter with which the readers are unfamiliar. In the first experiment, data were obtained from text presented on a computer on what text segments readers marked as important and on reading times for all text segments. In the second experiment readers marked important segments of text on a hard copy version of the same passage. In both experiments there was very little agreement among subjects regarding what material was important to remember for a test. In addition, data are presented evaluating the use of on‐line methods of investigating study behavior.
The Gastrointestinal Tract and Acute Effects of Copper in Drinking Water and Beverages

Copper is an essential element for all living beings. Exposure to copper results almost exclusively from the ingestion of food and water. Generally, potable water contains low levels of copper, but high concentrations of this mineral have been found in water from private wells or when water or beverages with low pH have been conducted through copper piping. Some authors have associated acute gastrointestinal symptoms (diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting) with elevated levels of copper in water or beverages, but without excluding other confounding factors that could produce such symptoms. Recently, various controlled studies have demonstrated that a concentration of 2 mg Cu/L of potable water does not produce an increase in gastrointestinal symptoms in infants, and that in women, only concentrations greater than 3 mg Cu/L increase the number of episodes of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, but not diarrhea. This critical analysis of scientific publications verifies the WHO provisional level for copper in drinking water (2 mg/L) as safe for human health.
Closing the gap: Near-optimal Steiner trees in polynomial time

The authors enhance the Iterated 1-Steiner (I1S) MRST heuristic of A.B. Kahng, and G. Robins (1992). For typical nets, the methods obtain average performance of less than 0.25% from optimal, and produce optimal solutions in 90% of cases. The authors generalize I1S to higher dimensions, and prove that in 2-D and 3-D the MST degree of any point can be made /spl les/4 and /spl les/14, respectively. Aside from reducing the running times of the algorithms, these results are of independent theoretical interest. <<ETX>>
Interactive environment exploration in clutter

Robotic environment exploration in cluttered environments is a challenging problem. The number and variety of objects present not only make perception very difficult but also introduce many constraints for robot navigation and manipulation. In this paper, we investigate the idea of exploring a small, bounded environment (e.g., the shelf of a home refrigerator) by prehensile and non-prehensile manipulation of the objects it contains. The presence of multiple objects results in partial and occluded views of the scene. This inherent uncertainty in the scene's state forces the robot to adopt an observe-plan-act strategy and interleave planning with execution. Objects occupying the space and potentially occluding other hidden objects are rearranged to reveal more of the unseen area. The environment is considered explored when the state (free or occupied) of every voxel in the volume is known. The presented algorithm can be easily adapted to real world problems like object search, taking inventory, and mapping. We evaluate our planner in simulation using various metrics like planning time, number of actions required, and length of planning horizon. We then present an implementation on the PR2 robot and use it for object search in clutter.
2016 Ieee International Conference on Big Data (big Data) Using Paraphrases to Improve Tweet Classification: Comparing Wordnet and Word Embedding Approaches

—two of the major problems in social media message classification are the data sparseness issue and the high degree of lexical variation. Paraphrases, or synonyms, are alternative ways of expressing the same meaning using different lexical variations. In this study, we try to use paraphrases to improve tweet topic classification performance. We explored two approaches to generating paraphrases, WordNet, which is a lexical database grouping English words into sets of synonyms, and word embeddings, which are learned from millions of tweets and billions of words. Our experiment shows that using paraphrases can improve the topic classification task, and the word embedding approach outperforms the WordNet method. To our knowledge, this is the first study exploiting paraphrases for tweet classification.
Illusory Sensation of Movement Induced by Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Human movement sense relies on both somatosensory feedback and on knowledge of the motor commands used to produce the movement. We have induced a movement illusion using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over primary motor cortex and dorsal premotor cortex in the absence of limb movement and its associated somatosensory feedback. Afferent and efferent neural signalling was abolished in the arm with ischemic nerve block, and in the leg with spinal nerve block. Movement sensation was assessed following trains of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation applied over primary motor cortex, dorsal premotor cortex, and a control area (posterior parietal cortex). Magnetic stimulation over primary motor cortex and dorsal premotor cortex produced a movement sensation that was significantly greater than stimulation over the control region. Movement sensation after dorsal premotor cortex stimulation was less affected by sensory and motor deprivation than was primary motor cortex stimulation. We propose that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over dorsal premotor cortex produces a corollary discharge that is perceived as movement.
Impact of creatinine methodology on glomerular filtration rate estimation in diabetes

AIM To evaluate the influence of creatinine methodology on the performance of chronic kidney disease (CKD)-Epidemiology Collaboration Group-calculated estimated glomerular filtration rate (CKD-EPI-eGFR) for CKD diagnosis/staging in a large cohort of diabetic patients. METHODS Fasting blood samples were taken from diabetic patients attending our clinic for their regular annual examination, including laboratory measurement of serum creatinine and eGFR. RESULTS Our results indicated an overall excellent agreement in CKD staging (kappa = 0.918) between the Jaffé serum creatinine- and enzymatic serum creatinine-based CKD-EPI-eGFR, with 9% of discordant cases. As compared to the enzymatic creatinine, the majority of discordances (8%) were positive, i.e., associated with the more advanced CKD stage re-classification, whereas only 1% of cases were negatively discordant if Jaffé creatinine was used for eGFR calculation. A minor proportion of the discordant cases (3.5%) were re-classified into clinically relevant CKD stage indicating mildly to moderately decreased kidney function (< 60 mL/min per 1.73 m2). Significant acute and chronic hyperglycaemia, assessed as plasma glucose and HbA1c levels far above the recommended glycaemic goals, was associated with positively discordant cases. Due to a very low frequency, positive discordance is not likely to present a great burden for the health-care providers, while intensified medical care may actually be beneficial for the small number of discordant patients. On the other hand, a very low proportion of negatively discordant cases (1%) at the 60 mL/min per 1.73 m2 eGFR level indicate a negligible possibility to miss the CKD diagnosis, which could be the most prominent clinical problem affecting patient care, considering high risk of CKD for adverse patient outcomes. CONCLUSION This study indicate that compensated Jaffé creatinine procedure, in spite of the glucose-dependent bias, is not inferior to enzymatic creatinine in CKD diagnosis/staging and therefore may provide a reliable and cost-effective tool for the renal function assessment in diabetic patients.
Language and socioeconomic status in Quebec: measurement, findings, determinants, and policy costs

This paper presents the various measurement tools used by economists to ascertain the socioeconomic Status of French and Francophones in Quebec since 1960 and the findings thus obtained. It then examines the nature and wie of the determinants of this Status and its evolution over time. This choice of emphasis and issues was made since it allows us to present tools that can be used by sociolinguists studying various languages situations. They can refer to a society, Quebec, where there has been major changes in the economic and legal Status of the two main languages, English and French, since 1960. The paper is divided in four sections. In the first we examine the Status of Quebec s language groups, and in the second the Status of the languages themselves. In the third, explanations are offered for recent changes in their relative Status. In thefourth the costs of Quebecs language policies are examined.
Design steps towards a 40-kVA SiC inverter with an efficiency exceeding 99.5%

This paper describes the concept, the design, the construction, and experimental investigation of a 40 kVA inverter with Silicon Carbide Junction Field Effect Transistors. The inverter was designed to have an efficiency exceeding 99.5%. Due to the low losses free convection cooling could be used. Since no fans are used the reliability can be increased compared to solutions with fans. A very low conduction loss has been achieved by parallel connecting ten 85 mΩ normally-on JFETs in each switch position. A special gate-drive solution was applied forcing the transistors to switch very fast (approx. 20 kV/μs) resulting in very low switching losses. As the output power is almost equal to the input power a special effort was done to precisely determine the amount of semiconductor power losses via comparative thermal measurements. A detailed analysis of the measurements shows that the efficiency of the inverter is approximately 99.7% at 40 kVA.
Loyalty measurement: A critical examination and theoretical extension

Abstract Although the construct of consumer loyalty has received considerable attention in the consumer behavior literature, its recent application to recreation and tourist behavior has not sufficiently addressed several theoretical and methodological issues. Following a critique of loyalty research in the leisure literature, we discuss suggestions for improving both the behavioral and attitudinal components of loyalty measurement. Crosby and Taylor's (1983) theory of psychological commitment is proposed as a basis for better operationalizing the attitudinal component of loyalty. This conceptualization describes the psychological phenomena that underlie loyalty to leisure goods and services in terms of preference stability (cognitive consistency) and resistance to change. Adopting this cognitive interpretation would allow leisure researchers to avoid some of the operational difficulties currently evident in consumer loyalty measurement.
Microclimate moderates plant responses to macroclimate warming

Significance Around the globe, climate warming is increasing the dominance of warm-adapted species—a process described as “thermophilization. ” However, thermophilization often lags behind warming of the climate itself, with some recent studies showing no response at all. Using a unique database of more than 1,400 resurveyed vegetation plots in forests across Europe and North America, we document significant thermophilization of understory vegetation. However, the response to macroclimate warming was attenuated in forests whose canopies have become denser. This microclimatic effect likely reflects cooler forest-floor temperatures via increased shading during the growing season in denser forests. Because standing stocks of trees have increased in many temperate forests in recent decades, microclimate may commonly buffer understory plant responses to macroclimate warming. Recent global warming is acting across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems to favor species adapted to warmer conditions and/or reduce the abundance of cold-adapted organisms (i.e., “thermophilization” of communities). Lack of community responses to increased temperature, however, has also been reported for several taxa and regions, suggesting that “climatic lags” may be frequent. Here we show that microclimatic effects brought about by forest canopy closure can buffer biotic responses to macroclimate warming, thus explaining an apparent climatic lag. Using data from 1,409 vegetation plots in European and North American temperate forests, each surveyed at least twice over an interval of 12–67 y, we document significant thermophilization of ground-layer plant communities. These changes reflect concurrent declines in species adapted to cooler conditions and increases in species adapted to warmer conditions. However, thermophilization, particularly the increase of warm-adapted species, is attenuated in forests whose canopies have become denser, probably reflecting cooler growing-season ground temperatures via increased shading. As standing stocks of trees have increased in many temperate forests in recent decades, local microclimatic effects may commonly be moderating the impacts of macroclimate warming on forest understories. Conversely, increases in harvesting woody biomass—e.g., for bioenergy—may open forest canopies and accelerate thermophilization of temperate forest biodiversity.
Research of fuzzy logic-controlled SMES for power system transient stability

This paper presents research results of a model power transmission system by using a superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) to improve the transient stability of electric power system. The fuzzy logic control strategy is suggested. The fuzzy rule-bases are designed and explained. SMIB system simulations are carried out. From the results they were demonstrated that stabilizing effect by mean of SMES was very significant.
Ethical Salesperson Behavior in Sales Relationships

This study examines the role ethical salesperson behavior plays in relationship selling. Four key findings emerge from a sample of purchasing agents. First, ethical salesperson behavior is positively related to trust in the salesperson. Second, the effects of ethical salesperson behavior on buyer commitment and buyer behavior are completely mediated by this trust. Third, ethical salesperson behavior is most influential in driving desirable resource-based and social relationship returns, and least influential in driving desirable economic returns. Fourth, the effects of ethical salesperson behavior are moderated by buyer age such that they become significantly stronger as buyer age increases. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed, and avenues for future research in the area are provided.
Government size and macroeconomic stability in life-cycle economies ∗

There exists a negative correlation between an economy’s output volatility and the size of its government. The correlation holds for most measures of government size both across countries and across US states. This feature of the data is shown by Gaĺı (1994) to be inconsistent with the stochastic growth model. This paper examines a life-cycle version of the stochastic growth model for a small open economy. We show that a reasonably calibrated model allows replication of the empirical relation between output volatility and government size for reasons which have to do with the U-shaped profile of labor supply elasticity over the life-cycle. We provide empirical evidence supporting our findings.
A highly stretchable, transparent, and conductive polymer

A polymer is described that is conductive and stretchable, which can lead to electronics that can conform to the human body. Previous breakthroughs in stretchable electronics stem from strain engineering and nanocomposite approaches. Routes toward intrinsically stretchable molecular materials remain scarce but, if successful, will enable simpler fabrication processes, such as direct printing and coating, mechanically robust devices, and more intimate contact with objects. We report a highly stretchable conducting polymer, realized with a range of enhancers that serve a dual function: (i) they change morphology and (ii) they act as conductivity-enhancing dopants in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The polymer films exhibit conductivities comparable to the best reported values for PEDOT:PSS, with over 3100 S/cm under 0% strain and over 4100 S/cm under 100% strain—among the highest for reported stretchable conductors. It is highly durable under cyclic loading, with the conductivity maintained at 3600 S/cm even after 1000 cycles to 100% strain. The conductivity remained above 100 S/cm under 600% strain, with a fracture strain of 800%, which is superior to even the best silver nanowire– or carbon nanotube–based stretchable conductor films. The combination of excellent electrical and mechanical properties allowed it to serve as interconnects for field-effect transistor arrays with a device density that is five times higher than typical lithographically patterned wavy interconnects.
A fairness study of the adaptive RIO active queue management algorithm

Active queue management (AQM) mechanisms manage queue lengths by dropping packets when congestion is building up; end-systems can then react to such losses by reducing their packet rate, hence avoiding severe congestion. They are also very useful for the differentiated forwarding of packets in the DiffServ architecture. Many studies have shown that setting the parameters of an AQM algorithm may prove difficult and error-prone, and that the performance of AQM mechanisms is very sensitive to network conditions. The adaptive RIO mechanism (A-RIO) addresses both issues. It requires a single parameter, the desired queuing delay and adjusts its internal dynamics accordingly. A-RIO has been thoroughly evaluated in terms of delay response and network utilization but no study has been conducted in order to evaluate its behaviour in terms of fairness. By way of ns-2 simulations, This work examines A-RIO's ability to fairly share the network's resources (bandwidth) between the flows contending for those resources. Using Jain's fairness index as our performance metric, we compare the bandwidth distribution among flows obtained with A-RIO and with RIO.
Murine germinal center B cells require functional Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 signaling for IgG1 class-switch recombination

Significance The protein kinase fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 receptor (Flt3) has an important role during early B-cell development. Recent reports have shown that Flt3 is reexpressed on peripheral B cells during activation, however the function for Flt3 during B-cell activation is poorly understood. The present study describes a role for Flt3 during B-cell activation and antibody production. We show that Flt3 is reexpressed on activated germinal center B cells and that lack of functional Flt3 signaling in peripheral B cells results in a specific deficiency in production of the antibody subclass IgG1. Mechanistic studies indicate that Flt3 synergizes with the IL-4 receptor to promote proper activation of Stat6 and class switch to IgG1. This study provides evidence for a previously unknown function for Flt3 during peripheral B-cell activation. Switched antibody classes are important for efficient immune responses. Aberrant antibody production to otherwise harmless antigens may result in autoimmunity. The protein kinase fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 receptor (Flt3) has an important role during early B-cell development, but the role of Flt3 in peripheral B cells has not been assessed before. Herein we describe a previously unappreciated role for Flt3 in IgG1 class-switch recombination (CSR) and production. We show that Flt3 is reexpressed on B-cell lymphoma 6+ germinal center B cells in vivo and following LPS activation of peripheral B cells in vitro. Absence of Flt3 signaling in Flt3 ligand-deficient mice results in impaired IgG1 CSR and accumulation of IgM-secreting plasma cells. On activated B cells, Flt3 is coexpressed and functions in synergy with the common-gamma chain receptor family. B cells from Flt3 ligand-deficient mice have impaired IL-4R signaling, with reduced phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription (Stat) 6, and demonstrate a failure to initiate CSR to IgG1 with low expression of γ1 germ-line transcripts, resulting in impaired IgG1 production. Thus, functional synergy between Flt3 and IL-4R signaling is critical for Stat-mediated regulation of sterile γ1 germ-line transcripts and CSR to IgG1.
Are People Programmed to Commit Fallacies? Further Thoughts about the Interpretation of Experimental Data on Probability Judgment

During the last decade or so a characteristic method of interpreting experimental data has been followed by most researchers in their investigations into how statistically untutored subjects actually judge probabilities. For the most part the investigator tacitly assumes that the problem-task set to his or her subjects is correctly soluble only in terms of some academically well-regarded conception of probabilities that he or she has in mind. The investigator therefore evaluates the subjects’ performance for correctness or incorrectness by a technique of assessment or estimation that is appropriate to this mode of conception. If some subjects’ responses seem, when thus evaluated, to be incorrect, their error may be put down by the investigator-in terms of the computational metaphor-either to a standing fault in the programming of ordinary people (in that they are not programmed to apply appropriate valid principles to the task in question or are programmed to apply inappropriate or invalid ones) or to a temporary malfunction in the running of a valid programme.