Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heparan Sulphation Patterns Generated by Specific Heparan Sulfotransferase Enzymes Direct Distinct Aspects of Retinal Axon Guidance at the Optic Chiasm

Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons from each eye execute a series of maneuvers as they converge on the ventral surface of the brain at the optic chiasm for sorting into the optic tracts. Heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) are extracellular glycoproteins involved in cell-surface interactions. HSPGs exhibit massive structural diversity, conferred partly by extensive post-translational modification including differential sulfation. Here we examine the roles of HSPG sulfation in RGC axon guidance at the chiasm. We identified different axon navigation phenotypes in two heparan sulfate sulfotransferase (Hst) mutant embryos, Hs2st−/− and Hs6st1−/−, each lacking an enzyme that catalyzes a particular HSPG modification. Hs2st−/− embryos display axon disorganization at the chiasm. Hs6st1−/− embryos exhibit prolific inter-retinal innervation. We show that RGCs express Hs2st and Hs6st1 and that navigation errors made by their axons coincide with regions of high Hs2st and/or Hs6st1 expression at the chiasm. Slit proteins are expressed at particular locations in the retina and around the chiasm and are normally deployed to prevent axons entering inappropriate territories. We show that Hs2st and/or Hs6st1 expression coincides with Slit expression domains at locations where RGC axons make navigation errors in Hs2st−/− and Hs6st1−/− mutants and that Hs6st1−/− RGC axons are less sensitive to Slit2 repulsion than their wild-type counterparts in vitro. We suggest that (1) Hs2st and Hs6st1 are each deployed to generate distinct patterns of heparan sulfation on RGCs and at the optic chiasm and (2) this differential sulfation directs retinal axons through the chiasm, at least in part by modulating the response of the navigating growth cone to Slit proteins.
The enduring predictive significance of early maternal sensitivity: social and academic competence through age 32 years.

This study leveraged data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (N = 243) to investigate the predictive significance of maternal sensitivity during the first 3 years of life for social and academic competence through age 32 years. Structural model comparisons replicated previous findings that early maternal sensitivity predicts social skills and academic achievement through midadolescence in a manner consistent with an enduring effects model of development and extended these findings using heterotypic indicators of social competence (effectiveness of romantic engagement) and academic competence (educational attainment) during adulthood. Although early socioeconomic factors and child gender accounted for the predictive significance of maternal sensitivity for social competence, covariates did not fully account for associations between early sensitivity and academic outcomes.
Student satisfaction and perceived skills: any link to employability?

The present study aims to determine the perceived satisfaction of students enrolled in a tourism undergraduate program and to assess the impact perceived skills have on their intentions regarding future careers. This is a quantitative study based on the analysis of primary data gathered through a questionnaire. A sample of 114 students in their second year of study from the biggest university in Romania completed the questionnaire. The data collected were analysed using descriptive analysis, ANOVA and regression analysis. An ANOVA test and post hoc Tukey test were therefore used to determine differences in the means and variance of satisfaction, with the grade levels and course attendance set as the independent variables. A regression analysis was then conducted to identify the connections between perceived skills and the future career path of tourism students. The results show that students do not perceive satisfaction differently according to their grade levels, although there may be a relationship between levels of satisfaction and class attendance. Optimism was found to predict whether students would be interested in starting a business, while attitudes towards leadership and networking were found to predict whether students wished to pursue a management career.
2 A new approach to analyse data from laddering interviews

The paper presents a new approach to analyzing data from laddering interviews based on the latent class model. An à priori enumeration of all potential ladders, stemming from given sets of attributes, consequences, and values, forms the rows of a data matrix, while individual respondents evoked ladders, form the columns. When this data matrix is submitted to a latent class analysis guidelines are provided for determining the number of evoked chains and their content. Hence, the approach may be seen as quantitative, model based analogue to the LadderMap program that is the usual standard tool employed in doing means-end chain research.
Evaluating Sampling Designs for Assessing the Accuracy of Cropland Extent Maps in Different Cropland Proportion Regions

The GFSAD30m cropland extent map has been recently produced at a spatial resolution of 30m as a part of NASA MEaSUREs’ Program Global Food Security Data Analysis (GFSAD) project. Accuracy assessment of this GFSAD30m cropland extent map was initially performed using an assessment strategy involving a simple random sampling (SRS) design and an optimum sample size of 250 for each of 72 different regions around the world. However, while statistically valid, this sampling design was not effective in regions of low cropland proportion (LCP) of less than 15% cropland area proportion (CAP). The SRS sampling resulted in an insufficient number of samples for the rare cropland class due to low cropland distribution, proportion, and pattern. Therefore, given our objective of effectively assessing the cropland extent map in these LCP regions, the use of an alternate sampling design was necessary. A stratified random sampling design was applied using a predetermined minimum number of samples followed by a proportional distribution (i.e., SMPS) for different cropland proportion regions to achieve sufficient sample size of the rare cropland map class and appropriate accuracy measures. The SRS and SMPS designs were compared at a common optimum sample size of 250 which was determined using a sample simulation analysis in ten different cropland proportion regions. The results demonstrate that the two sampling designs performed differently in the various cropland proportion regions and therefore, must be selected according to the cropland extent maps to be assessed.
A new rate-based congestion control scheme for wireless networks

We consider link error or physical channel error in wireless networks and propose a new rate- based congestion control scheme for wireless networks, which is based on the NUM framework developed for TCP-like congestion control model in wired networks. This scheme is distributed and can be implemented by changing the number of connections opened by one user and requires no modification to either the network infrastructure, or the network protocols. The scheme is proved to be global stability in the absence of round trip delay of each user and all trajectories can converge to the unique equilibrium point. The convergence rate is also studied and stochastic disturbance is analyzed. Furthermore, a sufficient condition is obtained under which the scheme is locally stable at the equilibrium point in the presence of delay based on the general Nyquist criterion of stability.
The conserved arginine 380 of Hsp90 is not a catalytic residue, but stabilizes the closed conformation required for ATP hydrolysis

Hsp90, a dimeric ATP‐dependent molecular chaperone, is required for the folding and activation of numerous essential substrate “client” proteins including nuclear receptors, cell cycle kinases, and telomerase. Fundamental to its mechanism is an ensemble of dramatically different conformational states that result from nucleotide binding and hydrolysis and distinct sets of interdomain interactions. Previous structural and biochemical work identified a conserved arginine residue (R380 in yeast) in the Hsp90 middle domain (MD) that is required for wild type hydrolysis activity in yeast, and hence proposed to be a catalytic residue. As part of our investigations on the origins of species‐specific differences in Hsp90 conformational dynamics we probed the role of this MD arginine in bacterial, yeast, and human Hsp90s using a combination of structural and functional approaches. While the R380A mutation compromised ATPase activity in all three homologs, the impact on ATPase activity was both variable and much more modest (2–7 fold) than the mutation of an active site glutamate (40 fold) known to be required for hydrolysis. Single particle electron microscopy and small‐angle X‐ray scattering revealed that, for all Hsp90s, mutation of this arginine abrogated the ability to form the closed “ATP” conformational state in response to AMPPNP binding. Taken together with previous mutagenesis data exploring intra‐ and intermonomer interactions, these new data suggest that R380 does not directly participate in the hydrolysis reaction as a catalytic residue, but instead acts as an ATP‐sensor to stabilize an NTD‐MD conformation required for efficient ATP hydrolysis.
On the construction of variant supergravities in D = 11, D = 10

We construct with a geometric procedure the supersymmetry transformation laws and lagrangian for all the ``variant'' D = 11 and D = 10 type-IIA supergravities. We identify into our classification the D = 11 and D = 10 type-IIA ``variant'' theories first introduced by Hull performing T-duality transformation on both spacelike and timelike circles. We find in addition a set of D = 10 type-IIA ``variant'' supergravities that can not be obtained trivially from eleven dimensions compactifying on a circle.
Locality Preserving Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machine

Manifold regularization, which learns from a limited number of labeled samples and a large number of unlabeled samples, is a powerful semi-supervised classifier with a solid theoretical foundation. However, manifold regularization has the tendency to misclassify data near the boundaries of different classes during the classification process. In this paper, we propose a novel classification method called locality preserving semi-supervised support vector machine (LPSSVM) with an extended manifold regularization framework based on within-class locality preserving scatter. LPSSVM is good at exploring the underlying discriminative information as well as the local geometry of the samples as much as possible rather than merely relying on the smoothness information regarding manifold regularization. Meanwhile, benefiting from the geodesic distance metric, LPSSVM can more effectively reflect the true local geometry of data instances in the manifold space, which further strengths its accuracy in reality. The extensive comparisons with respect to LPSSVM and several state-of-the-art approaches were carried out on both artificial and real-word data sets. These experimental studies demonstrate the advantages as well as the superiority of our proposed method.
Domain Specific Changes in Cognition at High Altitude and Its Correlation with Hyperhomocysteinemia

Though acute exposure to hypobaric hypoxia is reported to impair cognitive performance, the effects of prolonged exposure on different cognitive domains have been less studied. The present study aimed at investigating the time dependent changes in cognitive performance on prolonged stay at high altitude and its correlation with electroencephalogram (EEG) and plasma homocysteine. The study was conducted on 761 male volunteers of 25–35 years age who had never been to high altitude and baseline data pertaining to domain specific cognitive performance, EEG and homocysteine was acquired at altitude ≤240 m mean sea level (MSL). The volunteers were inducted to an altitude of 4200–4600 m MSL and longitudinal follow-ups were conducted at durations of 03, 12 and 18 months. Neuropsychological assessment was performed for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), attention, information processing rate, visuo-spatial cognition and executive functioning. Total homocysteine (tHcy), vitamin B12 and folic acid were estimated. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) showed temporal increase in the percentage prevalence of MCI from 8.17% on 03 months of stay at high altitude to 18.54% on 18 months of stay. Impairment in visuo-spatial executive, attention, delayed recall and procedural memory related cognitive domains were detected following prolonged stay in high altitude. Increase in alpha wave amplitude in the T3, T4 and C3 regions was observed during the follow-ups which was inversely correlated (r = −0.68) to MMSE scores. The tHcy increased proportionately with duration of stay at high altitude and was correlated with MCI. No change in vitamin B12 and folic acid was observed. Our findings suggest that cognitive impairment is progressively associated with duration of stay at high altitude and is correlated with elevated tHcy in the plasma. Moreover, progressive MCI at high altitude occurs despite acclimatization and is independent of vitamin B12 and folic acid.
Performance evaluation of lossless medical and natural continuous tone image compression algorithms

In this study we evaluate the performance of several lossless grayscale image compression algorithms: algorithms that are standards in medical image transmitting and archiving systems, other algorithms used for compressing medical images in practice and in image compression research, and of a couple of universal algorithms applied to raw and preprocessed image data. In the experiments we use a new, publicly available, test image set, which is described in detail in the paper. The set contains about one hundred images, mainly medical images of various modalities (CR, CT, MR, and US) and natural continuous tone grayscale images of various sizes and various bit depths (up to 16 bits per pixel). We analyze algorithm performance with respect to image modality, depth, and size. Our results generally adhere to results reported in other studies, however, we find that some common opinions on performance of popular algorithms are imprecise, or even false. Most interesting observation concerning the compression speed is that the speed of many algorithms is relatively low, e.g., JPEG2000 obtains speed close to CALIC algorithm, which is considered to be slow. On the other hand there exist algorithms much faster than the JPEG-LS (i.e., SZIP and SFALIC). Considering the compression ratio, the most interesting results were obtained for high bit depth medical CT and MR images, which are of sparse histograms. For better compression ratios of those images, instead of standard image compression algorithms, we should either use universal algorithms or employ the histogram packing technique prior to actual image compression.
A Novel Technique for the Evaluation of the Transfer Function of Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Codes

Turbo codes, in the form of parallel concatenated convolutional codes, consist of two recursive systematic convolutional encoders separated by an interleaver. Due to the presence of the interleaver, each constituent convolutional encoder accepts as input a block of information bits with a size equal to that of the interleaver rather than a continuous stream of information bits. By determining the transfer function of each terminated constituent convolutional code, which can be seen as a convolutional block code, an upper bound to the bit error rate performance of the turbo code is readily calculated. In this paper, we briefly present the conventional techniques for evaluating the transfer function of the convolutional block code and we propose a novel technique, according to which the state diagram of the convolutional code is modified so as to allow the direct evaluation of the transfer function of the convolutional block code.
Designing context-aware display ecosystems

Display ecosystems encapsulate a number of independent and/or interconnected displays and their users. We are seeing the emergence of more complex display ecosystems, whether it is due to the number of collaborators, the number of devices or displays, the complexity of the user interface or increased information flow or a combination of all of all these factors. I hypothesise that interactions within display ecologies would benefit from awareness of the computational, physiological and environmental context. This paper presents a brief overview of related work as well as the research goals, relevant methodology and current research status.
Building Mobile Social Network with Semantic Relation Using Bayesian NeTwork-based Life-log Mining

Mobile devices such as cell phone, PDA and smart phone have been so popularized that they are to be a necessity for everyday life. These mobile devices can be very useful tools to collect users’ life-logs because they have many sensors and users always carry them. Therefore, many studies using mobile life-logs are actually being conducted. Mobile life-logs include interaction information between users as well as personal information of each user. We collect these mobile life-logs, and additionally, high-level logs such as activity and emotion as helping users to annotate them. Based on these life-logs, we build a novel mobile social network by mining semantic relations between users in life-logs using Bayesian network. For experiments, we build the mobile social networks and analyze them. Finally, we discuss how this mobile social network can be used for practical application and implemented a proof-of-concept application.
Score and Pseudo-Score Confidence Intervals for Categorical Data Analysis

This article reviews methods for constructing confidence intervals for analyzing categorical data. A considerable literature indicates that the method of inverting score tests performs well for a variety of cases. When the sample size is small or the parameter is near the parameter space boundary, this method usually performs much better than inverting Wald tests and sometimes better than inverting likelihood-ratio tests. For small samples, exact methods are also available. Although these methods can be quite conservative, inverting a score test using the mid P-value provides a sensible compromise that uses the small-sample distribution while reducing the conservatism and only slightly sacrificing the lower bound for the desired confidence level. For some models, score-test-based inferences are impractical, such as when the likelihood function is not an explicit function of the model parameters. For such cases, pseudo-score inference can be based on a Pearson-type chi-squared statistic that compares fitted values for a working model with fitted values when the parameter of interest takes a fixed value. For some simple cases involving proportions and their differences, a different pseudo-score approach that adds artificial observations before forming Wald confidence intervals provides a simple way of approximating score confidence intervals.
Carbon export and cycling by the Yukon, Tanana, and Porcupine rivers, Alaska, 2001–2005

Loads and yields of dissolved and particulate organic and inorganic carbon (DOC, POC, DIC, PIC) were measured and modeled at three locations on the Yukon River (YR) and on the Tanana and Porcupine rivers (TR, PR) in Alaska during 2001–2005. Total YR carbon export averaged 7.8 Tg C yr−1, 30% as OC and 70% as IC. Total C yields (0.39–1.03 mol C m−2 yr−1) were proportional to water yields (139–356 mm yr−1; r2 = 0.84) at all locations. Summer DOC had an aged component (fraction modern (FM) = 0.94–0.97), except in the permafrost wetland‐dominated PR, where DOC was modern. POC had FM = 0.63–0.70. DOC had high concentration, high aromaticity, and high hydrophobic content in spring and low concentration, low aromaticity, and high hydrophilic content in winter. About half of annual DOC export occurred during spring. DIC concentration and isotopic composition were strongly affected by dissolution of suspended carbonates in glacial meltwater during summer.
Perceptions of Postgraduate Students on Academic Writing Skills: A Metaphor Analysis Study.

In this research, it was aimed to determine the perceptions of postgraduate students towards academic writing skills through metaphors. In this context, the study group is composed of postgraduate (master and doctorate) students studying at Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Education in the 2017-2018 academic year. In this context, 100 graduate students were interviewed by appropriate sampling method; an academic writing form was applied to these postgraduate students. In the research, descriptive approach has been adopted. Participants were asked to complete the sentences of "academic writing is like ; because " . The metaphors obtained from the research classified according to their similarities and differences with the descriptive analysis technique and then tabulated according to the frequency values separated by the categories. Then, the findings were interpreted. Accordingly, the metaphors associated with academic writing vary. The metaphorical perceptions are collected under 9 categories / themes. The categories include "a long / challenging/difficult process", "a process of producing / discovering new things", "an action that requires composition / analysis-synthesis / interpretation skill", "an action that requires expert support", "a multi-threaded action", "an action requires care in language and expression", "an unpleasant action", an action that gives joy" and "other" titles. Findings suggest upper academic level students with academic writing experience refer mostly positive attitude towards academic writing.
Efficient Protein Transduction Method Using Cationic Peptides and Lipids

Cationic peptides termed protein transduction domains (PTDs) have been shown to cross biological membranes efficiently. However, proteins transduced by PTDs become entrapped within the endosomal vesicles and are not delivered into organelles. We have developed a novel protein delivery system to enhance the proton sponge effect, which results in rupture of the endosomes, by using a mixture of Wr-T transporter peptide and a commercially available cationic lipid reagent. This peptide and cationic lipid reagent mixture efficiently delivers a variety of cargo proteins into living cells by releasing them from the endosomes.
Wavelet-based reversible watermarking for authentication

In the digital information age, digital content (audio, image, and video) can be easily copied, manipulated, and distributed. Copyright protection and content authentication of digital content has become an urgent problem to content owners and distributors. Digital watermarking has provided a valuable solution to this problem. Based on its application scenario, most digital watermarking methods can be divided into two categories: robust watermarking and fragile watermarking. As a special subset of fragile watermark, reversible watermark (which is also called lossless watermark, invertible watermark, erasable watermark) enables the recovery of the original, unwatermarked content after the watermarked content has been detected to be authentic. Such reversibility to get back unwatermarked content is highly desired in sensitive imagery, such as military data and medical data. In this paper we present a reversible watermarking method based on an integer wavelet transform. We look into the binary representation of each wavelet coefficient and embed an extra bit to expandable wavelet coefficient. The location map of all expanded coefficients will be coded by JBIG2 compression and these coefficient values will be losslessly compressed by arithmetic coding. Besides these two compressed bit streams, an SHA-256 hash of the original image will also be embedded for authentication purpose.