Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recombination in Eukaryotic Single Stranded DNA Viruses

Although single stranded (ss) DNA viruses that infect humans and their domesticated animals do not generally cause major diseases, the arthropod borne ssDNA viruses of plants do, and as a result seriously constrain food production in most temperate regions of the world. Besides the well known plant and animal-infecting ssDNA viruses, it has recently become apparent through metagenomic surveys of ssDNA molecules that there also exist large numbers of other diverse ssDNA viruses within almost all terrestrial and aquatic environments. The host ranges of these viruses probably span the tree of life and they are likely to be important components of global ecosystems. Various lines of evidence suggest that a pivotal evolutionary process during the generation of this global ssDNA virus diversity has probably been genetic recombination. High rates of homologous recombination, non-homologous recombination and genome component reassortment are known to occur within and between various different ssDNA virus species and we look here at the various roles that these different types of recombination may play, both in the day-to-day biology, and in the longer term evolution, of these viruses. We specifically focus on the ecological, biochemical and selective factors underlying patterns of genetic exchange detectable amongst the ssDNA viruses and discuss how these should all be considered when assessing the adaptive value of recombination during ssDNA virus evolution.
Financial Contracting Along the Business Cycle'

The paper investigates the effects of macroeconomic conditions on firms' capital structure. We introduce a repeated lender-borrower interaction that allows for debt and equity financing to co-exist as optimal securities in every period. The presence of asymmetric information in the market for loans is responsible for endogenous fluctuations to take place.It is possible to state sufficient conditions for the overall economy debt-equity ratio to exhibit a counter-cyclical behavior. This result is widely supported by several recent empirical finance works.
Education Policy and Crime

This paper discusses the relationship between education and crime from an economic perspective, developing a human capital-based model that sheds light on key ways in which early childhood programs and policies that encourage schooling may affect both juvenile and adult crime. The paper first discusses evidence on the effects of educational attainment, school quality, and school enrollment on crime. Next, the paper discusses evidence on the crime reduction effects of preschool programs like Perry Preschool and Head Start, school-age programs that emphasize social and emotional development, and job training programs for low-skill adolescents and young adults. Finally, the paper concludes with a broad discussion of education policy and its potential role as a crime-fighting strategy.
An empirical study of how users adopt famous entities

Users of social networking services construct their personal social networks by creating asymmetric and symmetric social links. Users usually follow friends and selected famous entities that include celebrities and news agencies. In this paper, we investigate how users follow famous entities. We analyze static and dynamic data within a huge social networking service with a manually classified set of famous entities. The results show that the in-degree of famous entities does not fit the power-law distribution. Conversely, the maximum number of famous followers in one category for each user shows power-law property. To our knowledge, there is no research work on this topic on human-chosen famous entity dataset in real life and so these findings might be helpful in microblogging marketing and user classification.
Nanosized sustained-release pyridostigmine bromide microcapsules: process optimization and evaluation of characteristics

Background Pyridostigmine bromide (3-[[(dimethylamino)-carbonyl]oxy]-1-methylpyridinium bromide), a reversible inhibitor of cholinesterase, is given orally in tablet form, and a treatment schedule of multiple daily doses is recommended for adult patients. Nanotechnology was used in this study to develop an alternative sustained-release delivery system for pyridostigmine, a synthetic drug with high solubility and poor oral bioavailability, hence a Class III drug according to the Biopharmaceutics Classification System. Novel nanosized pyridostigmine-poly(lactic acid) microcapsules (PPNMCs) were expected to have a longer duration of action than free pyridostigmine and previously reported sustained-release formulations of pyridostigmine. Methods The PPNMCs were prepared using a double emulsion-solvent evaporation method to achieve sustained-release characteristics for pyridostigmine. The preparation process for the PPNMCs was optimized by single-factor experiments. The size distribution, zeta potential, and sustained-release behavior were evaluated in different types of release medium. Results The optimal volume ratio of inner phase to external phase, poly(lactic acid) concentration, polyvinyl alcohol concentration, and amount of pyridostigmine were 1:10, 6%, 3% and 40 mg, respectively. The negatively charged PPNMCs had an average particle size of 937.9 nm. Compared with free pyridostigmine, PPNMCs showed an initial burst release and a subsequent very slow release in vitro. The release profiles for the PPNMCs in four different types of dissolution medium were fitted to the Ritger-Peppas and Weibull models. The similarity between pairs of dissolution profiles for the PPNMCs in different types of medium was statistically significant, and the difference between the release curves for PPNMCs and free pyridostigmine was also statistically significant. Conclusion PPNMCs prepared by the optimized protocol described here were in the nanometer range and had good uniformity, with significantly slower pyridostigmine release than from free pyridostigmine. This novel sustained-release delivery nanosystem for pyridostigmine might alleviate the need to identify new acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
Mentoring in Education: An International Perspective

Contents: Preface: mentoring as myth and reality: evidence and ambiguity, Cedric Cullingford A decade of change? Mentor groups acting as communities of learners, Sue Warren A status report on teacher mentoring programmes in the United States, Tom Ganser The balancing act of mentoring: mediating between newcomers and communities of practice, Marion Jones Introducing mentoring systems in a centrally controlled state: a case study, Mohammad Momany with Cedric Cullingford Mentoring in the induction system of five countries: a sum greater than its parts, Ted Britton Learning mentorship in the primary school, Christine Farmery Sitting with Nellie? Subject knowledge and the role of the mentor, Dina Al-Jamal with Cedric Cullingford Mentoring in the academic world, Ulla Lindgren Mentoring new academic staff in higher education, Gillian Trorey and Chris Blamires Mentoring on-line: rethinking the tutor/student experience, Val Tarbitt Afterword, Cedric Cullingford Indexes.
Learning together and expanding horizons: reflections on a student—lecturer collaborative enquiry

Abstract The paper reports on findings from a 2011 ESCalate-funded project, Assessment Reassessed. Three student—lecturer research teams engaged in collaborative enquiry with education studies programmes at six universities in the UK. The paper draws on the reflections of students and lecturers who took part to consider the possibilities and difficulties of this approach for research. It explores the complex dynamics of making and maintaining research teams, and the potential for learning together and expanding horizons. In providing an account of the rich potential of student—lecturer collaborative enquiry, it concludes by reflecting on the lessons all participants took from the process.
Efficient datapath merging for partially reconfigurable architectures

Reconfigurable systems have been shown to achieve significant performance speedup through architectures that map the most time-consuming application kernel modules or inner loops to a reconfigurable datapath. As each portion of the application starts to execute, the system partially reconfigures the datapath so as to perform the corresponding computation. The reconfigurable datapath should have as few and simple hardware blocks and interconnections as possible, in order to reduce its cost, area, and reconfiguration overhead. To achieve that, hardware blocks and interconnections should be reused as much as possible across the application. We represent each piece of the application as a data-flow graph (DFG). The DFG merging process identifies similarities among the DFGs, and produces a single datapath that can be dynamically reconfigured and has a minimum area cost, when considering both hardware blocks and interconnections. In this paper we present a novel technique for the DFG merge problem, and we evaluate it using programs from the MediaBench benchmark. Our algorithm execution time approaches the fastest previous solution to this problem and produces datapaths with an average area reduction of 20%. When compared to the best known area solution, our approach produces datapaths with area costs equivalent to (and in many cases better than) it, while achieving impressive speedups.
A one-year intensified study of outbreaks of gastroenteritis in The Netherlands

In 2002, in The Netherlands a national study of gastroenteritis outbreaks was performed. Epidemiological information was collected by the Public Health Services (PHS) and the Food Inspection Services (FIS) using standardized questionnaires. Stool samples were collected for diagnostic testing. For foodborne outbreaks, food samples were taken. In total, 281 gastroenteritis outbreaks were included, mainly from nursing homes and homes for the elderly (57%), restaurants (11%), hospitals (9%) and day-care centres (7%). Direct person-to-person spread was the predominant transmission route in all settings (overall 78%), except for restaurant outbreaks where food was suspected in almost 90% (overall in 21% of outbreaks). The most common pathogen was norovirus (54%), followed by Salmonella spp. (4%), rotavirus group A (2%), Campylobacter spp. (1%) and only incidentally others. In conclusion, most outbreaks were reported from health and residential institutions, with norovirus as the dominant agent. Control should aim at reducing person-to-person spread. In foodborne outbreaks norovirus was common, due to contamination of food by food handlers. Salmonella, as the second foodborne pathogen, was mainly associated with raw shell eggs. These results stress the continuous need for food safety education, complementary to governmental regulation.
Existence Theory for the Radially Symmetric Contact Lens Equation

In this paper we present a variational formulation of the problem of determining the elastic stresses in a contact lens on an eye and the induced suction pressure distribution in the tear film between the eye and the lens. This complements the force-balance derivation that we used in earlier work [K. L. Maki and D. S. Ross, J. Bio. Sys. , 22 (2014), pp. 235--248]. We investigate the existence of solutions of the relevant boundary value problem for the singular, second-order Euler--Lagrange equation. We prove that, for lenses of constant thickness, solutions exist. We present an example to show that in some cases in which the lens thickness increases with distance from the lens center no solution exists.
When Does Deliberation Begin? Internal Reflection versus Public Discussion in Deliberative Democracy

Political deliberation involves both internal reflection and public discussion. The former might be far more important than implied by deliberative democrats' heavy emphasis on the discursive component. Analysis of the deliberations of a citizen's jury on an Australian environmental issue shows jurors' attitudes changing more in response to the ‘information’ phase of the jury proceedings, involving a large degree of ‘deliberation within’, than during the formal ‘discussion’ phase. Various ways can be imagined for evoking internal reflection of that sort, even in mass-political settings.
Brain is also a Dependent Variable: Biocultural Coconstruction of Developmental Plasticity Across the Life Span

This article reviews the emerging trend of interdisciplinary research aiming at exploring the effects of sociocultural influences on human brain functioning. Recent coconstructive views of brain development and functioning and empirical evidence of developmental plasticity at different levels are reviewed. Empirical findings that are indicative of reciprocal influences of environmental inputs, expertise, and cognitive training are highlighted. Links between age differences in neuromodulation and associative memory plasticity are illustrated as an example of cross-level interactions from molecular mechanisms to behavior. The quest to understand how individual brains get personalized through life-span development that takes place in the macro sociocultural experiential context is still at an embryonic stage. Nevertheless, studies reviewed here indicate that new conceptual and empirical opportunities for this endeavor are emerging.
Wireless Haptic Communication Under Varying Delay by Switching-Channel Bilateral Control With Energy Monitor

A switching-channel bilateral control with energy monitor (EM) is newly proposed to realize haptic communication through a wireless network. The varying delay in the communication line and the situation of duplex operation are considered. In such a system, human operators on two sides of the master-slave robots system feel the hardness of the remote environment placed on the contralateral side. The EM approach is presented to judge the role of the robot (manipulated by an operator or contacting an environment), which provides a beacon for the switching algorithm. The position tracking of the system is improved by switching off the channel of force control in the human manipulated robot. The problem of position drift in traditional methods is overcome. Disturbance observer is applied to simplify the design of the bilateral control law, and to guarantee the efficient force switching. Because of improved position tracking and satisfactory force fidelity, the proposed approach achieves more vivid haptic transmission. By experiments, the validity is verified.
Mother–toddler attachment in a paediatric setting: Presentation and validation of the Paediatric Attachment Style Indicator

The paediatric examination with immunization is a stressful event for toddlers. Its characteristics are close to the classic “Strange Situation”: a perceived threat, which activates the attachment system, a stranger, and an unfamiliar environment. As such, it can be used as a natural situation to assess the quality of the mother–child attachment, on one hand to manage the stress of the toddler during the paediatric examination, and on the other to screen for relationship disturbances. To this end, we have developed a specific coding instrument, the Paediatric Attachment Style Indicator (PASI), which allows classification of infant and toddler behaviour in the paediatric examination as secure, anxious–avoidant, or anxious–ambivalent. This article presents the PASI instrument and its validation. Paediatric examinations (N = 41 mother and toddler dyads) were videotaped during a booster session of the regular immunization schedule for toddlers in Switzerland. Results of the PASI coding were compared with other methods of direct observation of emotional behaviour of the toddler (distress signals) and of the mother (verbal behaviours), with the information given by the mother to the toddler before the examination, and with the assessment of temperament of the toddler by the paediatrician. Results show good face validity and construct validity for the instrument.
Families and caring amongst older people in South Asian communities in the UK: a pilot study

The increasing number of older people within Britain's and, more generally, Europe's ethnic minority communities raises the need for the development of health and social care services which are appropriate to the specific needs and expectations of these older members of the various ethnic minority communities. Within the UK, the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities can be identified as being in greater need of care and support in older age. There is, however, comparatively little research that examines the family and caring relationships of these ethnic minority older people, particularly those who are not identified from contacts with statutory and/or voluntary agencies. Drawing on a small but diverse sample of 20 older Bangladeshi and Pakistani women and men aged 50 years and older, we explore our participants’ understandings and experiences of care and support within the context of their family lives and social networks. Our data from the 20 semi-structured pilot interviews suggest that, much like the trend within the general population, the family remains central in the provision of care and support for these ethnic minority older people. We conclude by considering the implications this has for social care policy and practice.
Emulating BLAST using database technology

Sequence alignment is very important for molecular biologists. Blast is a well-known family of heuristic approaches to solve this problem efficiently. Special purpose algorithms and datastructures, however, do not support the data abstraction offered by database technology. In this paper, we show that modern extensible database management systems, like the Monet system, allow performance comparable to the special purpose solution, while offering the required data abstraction.
The perm provenance management system in action

In this demonstration we present the Perm provenance management system (PMS). Perm is capable of computing, storing and querying provenance information for the relational data model. Provenance is computed by using query rewriting techniques to annotate tuples with provenance information. Thus, provenance data and provenance computations are represented as relational data and queries and, hence, can be queried, stored and optimized using standard relational database techniques. This demo shows the complete Perm system and lets attendants examine in detail the process of query rewriting and provenance retrieval in Perm, the most complete data provenance system available today. For example, Perm supports lazy and eager provenance computation, external provenance and various contribution semantics.
A Qualitative Study of Juvenile Offenders, Student Engagement, and Interpersonal Relationships: Implications for Research Directions and Preventionist Approaches

Background factors that correlate with juvenile delinquency are consistent across the interdisciplinary literature base. Yet, information about the process of how risks relate to outcomes, especially within school settings, is limited. Researchers used qualitative methods to examine school and interpersonal experiences from the perspective of juvenile offenders and their families. Sixteen families were recruited from juvenile probation facilities in 2 different geographic regions. Consensual Qualitative Research methods yielded consistent themes, including the central role of advocacy to obtain appropriate school services, the importance of flexibility in discipline policies, classroom experiences that shaped outcomes, and the importance of nonjudgmental social support for the adolescents and their parents. The findings and recommendations for school consultants are presented from a preventionist standpoint, and self-determination theory is discussed in relation to future juvenile delinquency research.
Adaptive Bayesian network classifiers

This paper is concerned with adaptive learning algorithms for Bayesian network classifiers in a prequential (on-line) learning scenario. In this scenario, new data is available over time. An efficient supervised learning algorithm must be able to improve its predictive accuracy by incorporating the incoming data, while optimizing the cost of updating. However, if the process is not strictly stationary, the target concept could change over time. Hence, the predictive model should be adapted quickly to these changes. The main contribution of this work is a proposal of an unified, adaptive prequential framework for supervised learning called AdPreqFr4SL, which attempts to handle the cost-performance trade-off and deal with concept drift. Starting with the simple Naive Bayes, we scale up the complexity by gradually increasing the maximum number of allowable attribute dependencies, and then by searching for new dependences in the extended search space. Since updating the structure is a costly task, we use new data to primarily adapt the parameters. We adapt the structure only when is actually necessary. The method for handling concept drift is based on the Shewhart P-Chart. We experimentally prove the advantages of using the AdPreqFr4SL in comparison with its non-adaptive versions.
Complementation of Vaccinia Virus Lacking the Double-Stranded RNA-Binding Protein Gene E3L by Human Cytomegalovirus

ABSTRACT The cellular response to viral infection often includes activation of pathways that shut off protein synthesis and thereby inhibit viral replication. In order to enable efficient replication, many viruses carry genes such as the E3L gene of vaccinia virus that counteract these host antiviral pathways. Vaccinia virus from which the E3L gene has been deleted (VVΔE3L) is highly sensitive to interferon and exhibits a restricted host range, replicating very inefficiently in many cell types, including human fibroblast and U373MG cells. To determine whether human cytomegalovirus (CMV) has a mechanism for preventing translational shutoff, we evaluated the ability of CMV to complement the deficiencies in replication and protein synthesis associated with VVΔE3L. CMV, but not UV-inactivated CMV, rescued VVΔE3L late gene expression and replication. Thus, complementation of the VVΔE3L defect appears to depend on de novo CMV gene expression and is not likely a result of CMV binding to the cell receptor or of a virion structural protein. CMV rescued VVΔE3L late gene expression even in the presence of ganciclovir, indicating that CMV late gene expression is not required for complementation of VVΔE3L. The striking decrease in overall translation after infection with VVΔE3L was prevented by prior infection with CMV. Finally, CMV blocked both the induction of eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) phosphorylation and activation of RNase L by VVΔE3L. These results suggest that CMV has one or more immediate-early or early genes that ensure maintenance of a high protein synthetic capacity during infection by preventing activation of the PKR/eIF2α phosphorylation and 2-5A oligoadenylate synthetase/RNase L pathways.