Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Educational Attainment: A Genome Wide Association Study in 9538 Australians

Background Correlations between Educational Attainment (EA) and measures of cognitive performance are as high as 0.8. This makes EA an attractive alternative phenotype for studies wishing to map genes affecting cognition due to the ease of collecting EA data compared to other cognitive phenotypes such as IQ. Methodology In an Australian family sample of 9538 individuals we performed a genome-wide association scan (GWAS) using the imputed genotypes of ∼2.4 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) for a 6-point scale measure of EA. Top hits were checked for replication in an independent sample of 968 individuals. A gene-based test of association was then applied to the GWAS results. Additionally we performed prediction analyses using the GWAS results from our discovery sample to assess the percentage of EA and full scale IQ variance explained by the predicted scores. Results The best SNP fell short of having a genome-wide significant p-value (p = 9.77×10−7). In our independent replication sample six SNPs among the top 50 hits pruned for linkage disequilibrium (r2<0.8) had a p-value<0.05 but only one of these SNPs survived correction for multiple testing - rs7106258 (p = 9.7*10−4) located in an intergenic region of chromosome 11q14.1. The gene based test results were non-significant and our prediction analyses show that the predicted scores explained little variance in EA in our replication sample. Conclusion While we have identified a polymorphism chromosome 11q14.1 associated with EA, further replication is warranted. Overall, the absence of genome-wide significant p-values in our large discovery sample confirmed the high polygenic architecture of EA. Only the assembly of large samples or meta-analytic efforts will be able to assess the implication of common DNA polymorphisms in the etiology of EA.
Histone chaperones, histone acetylation, and the fluidity of the chromogenome

The “chromogenome” is defined as the structural and functional status of the genome at any given moment within a eukaryotic cell. This article focuses on recently uncovered relationships between histone chaperones, post‐translational acetylation of histones, and modulation of the chromogenome. We emphasize those chaperones that function in a replication‐independent manner, and for which three‐dimensional structural information has been obtained. The emerging links between histone acetylation and chaperone function in both yeast and higher metazoans are discussed, including the importance of nucleosome‐free regions. We close by posing many questions pertaining to how the coupled action of histone chaperones and acetylation influences chromogenome structure and function. J. Cell. Physiol. 224: 289–299, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Fragile sites are unrelated to reciprocal translocation breakpoints

In 492 cases of reciprocal translocations in balanced carriers, the 984 breakpoints were studied for a possible relationship to the 45 fragile sites. Random coincidence was predicted at 14% and the observed coincidence was 14.3%, indicating that the two events are unrelated. However, chromosomes 1,11 and 14 were exceptions and did show a statistically significant relationship.
Landmark-Based Heuristics and Search Control for Automated Planning (Extended Abstract)

Automated planning is the process of automatically selecting actions that achieve a desired outcome. This paper summarises several contributions that improve the efficiency of automated planning via heuristic search. We discuss novel heuristics based on landmarks and a search algorithm for anytime planning. Furthermore, we analyse various search-enhancement techniques and show how the combination of these techniques lead to a planning system that proved highly successful in the 2008 and 2011 International Planning Competitions.
Identification of a salivary agglutinin-binding domain within cell surface adhesin P1 of Streptococcus mutans

DNA encoding the alanine-rich region (A-region) of the cell surface adhesin, P1, from Streptococcus mutans was subcloned and expressed as a fusion protein with the maltose-binding protein (MBP) of Escherichia coli. The A-region fusion protein was shown to competitively inhibit both adherence of S. mutans to salivary agglutinin-coated hydroxyapatite and fluid-phase agglutinin-mediated aggregation of this organism. MBP alone or an MBP-paramyosin fusion protein was not inhibitory. Proteolytic cleavage of the fusion protein into its component moieties, MBP and A-region, resulted in breakdown of the A-region into three main fragments. Western immunoblot analysis of calcium-dependent agglutinin binding to this preparation revealed binding specificity for a 28-kDa fragment. Thus, the A-region of P1 is an important domain which interacts directly with salivary agglutinin, and this interaction interferes with both the aggregation and the adherence mechanisms in vitro.
An Ultraviolet-to-Radio Broadband Spectral Atlas of Nearby Galaxies

The ultraviolet-to-radio continuum spectral energy distributions are presented for all 75 galaxies in the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey (SINGS). A principal component analysis of the sample shows that most of the sample's spectral variations stem from two underlying components, one representative of a galaxy with a low infrared-to-ultraviolet ratio and one representative of a galaxy with a high infrared-to-ultraviolet ratio. The influence of several parameters on the infrared-to-ultraviolet ratio is studied (e.g., optical morphology, disk inclination, far-infrared color, ultraviolet spectral slope, and star formation history). Consistent with our understanding of normal star-forming galaxies, the SINGS sample of galaxies in comparison to more actively star-forming galaxies exhibits a larger dispersion in the infrared-to-ultraviolet versus ultraviolet spectral slope correlation. Early-type galaxies, exhibiting low star formation rates and high optical surface brightnesses, have the most discrepant infrared-to-ultraviolet correlation. These results suggest that the star formation history may be the dominant regulator of the broadband spectral variations between galaxies. Finally, a new discovery shows that the 24 μm morphology can be a useful tool for parameterizing the global dust temperature and ultraviolet extinction in nearby galaxies. The dust emission in dwarf/irregular galaxies is clumpy and warm accompanied by low ultraviolet extinction, while in spiral galaxies there is typically a much larger diffuse component of cooler dust and average ultraviolet extinction. For galaxies with nuclear 24 μm emission, the dust temperature and ultraviolet extinction are relatively high compared to disk galaxies.
Urine pH Is Important for Chlorpropamide Elimination

derline diabetes and prediabetes because the individuals referred to do not have diabetes and because the term diabetes invokes social, psychological, and economic sanctions unjustified by the person's mild or negative glucose intolerance. In addition to dropping the old words, I suggest that deliberate use of all the new terms will facilitate our activities in all spheres of diabetes, whether treatment, education, prevention, or cure, with marked efficacy in the prevention and cure of obese non-insulin-dependent diabetes.
Fault recovery in the reliable multicast protocol

The Reliable Multicast Protocol (RMP) provides a unique, group-based model for distributed programs that need to handle reconfiguration events at the application layer. This model, called membership views, provides an abstraction in which events such as site failures, network partitions, and normal join-leave events are viewed as group reformations. RMP provides access to this model through an application programming interface (API) that notifies an application when a group is reformed as the result of a some event. RMP provides applications with reliable delivery of messages using an underlying IP Multicast (12, 5) media to other group members in a distributed environment even in the case of reformations. A distributed application can use various Quality of Service (QoS) levels provided by RMP to tolerate group reformations. This paper explores the implementation details of the mechanisms in RMP that provide distributed applications with membership view information and fault recovery capabilities.
Early Seizure Detection Based on Cardiac Autonomic Regulation Dynamics

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that causes changes in the autonomic nervous system. Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the regulation of cardiac activity and autonomic nervous system tone. The early detection of epileptic seizures could foster the use of new treatment approaches. This study presents a new methodology for the prediction of epileptic seizures using HRV signals. Eigendecomposition of HRV parameter covariance matrices was used to create an input for a support vector machine (SVM)-based classifier. We analyzed clinical data from 12 patients (9 female; 3 male; age 34.5 ± 7.5 years), involving 34 seizures and a total of 55.2 h of interictal electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings. Data from 123.6 h of ECG recordings from healthy subjects were used to test false positive rate per hour (FP/h) in a completely independent data set. Our methodological approach allowed the detection of impending seizures from 5 min to just before the onset of a clinical/electrical seizure with a sensitivity of 94.1%. The FP rate was 0.49 h−1 in the recordings from patients with epilepsy and 0.19 h−1 in the recordings from healthy subjects. Our results suggest that it is feasible to use the dynamics of HRV parameters for the early detection and, potentially, the prediction of epileptic seizures.
The structure and DNA-binding properties of Mgm101 from a yeast with a linear mitochondrial genome

To study the mechanisms involved in the maintenance of a linear mitochondrial genome we investigated the biochemical properties of the recombination protein Mgm101 from Candida parapsilosis. We show that CpMgm101 complements defects associated with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae mgm101–1ts mutation and that it is present in both the nucleus and mitochondrial nucleoids of C. parapsilosis. Unlike its S. cerevisiae counterpart, CpMgm101 is associated with the entire nucleoid population and is able to bind to a broad range of DNA substrates in a non-sequence specific manner. CpMgm101 is also able to catalyze strand annealing and D-loop formation. CpMgm101 forms a roughly C-shaped trimer in solution according to SAXS. Electron microscopy of a complex of CpMgm101 with a model mitochondrial telomere revealed homogeneous, ring-shaped structures at the telomeric single-stranded overhangs. The DNA-binding properties of CpMgm101, together with its DNA recombination properties, suggest that it can play a number of possible roles in the replication of the mitochondrial genome and the maintenance of its telomeres.
Metacognition in higher education

This thesis studies (a) the reasoning of students, (b) teaching and learning in a laboratory course, and (c) the ideas of teachers about the structure of a theoretical course. These studies have been united by the concept of metacognition that can be understood globally as cognition on cognition. Reasoning about the content of a course is considered to be a metacognitive skill, the instruction in the lab course contains metacognitive hints and develops the metacognition of the students, and teachers have metacognitive knowledge about the domain. The thesis relates theoretical concepts from instructional science and psychology on the one hand with the practice of education on the other hand.
Whisper, Don't Scream: Grids and Transparency

Visual elements such as grids, labels, and contour lines act as reference structures that support the primary information being presented. Such structures need to be usefully visible, but not so obtrusive that they clutter the presentation. Visual designers know how to carefully manage transparency and layering in an image to balance these elements. We want the presentation of these structures in complex, dynamic, computer-generated visualizations to reflect the same subtlety and comfort of good design. Our goal is to determine the physical, perceptual, and cognitive characteristics of such structures in a way that enables automatic presentation. Our approach to this problem does not try to characterize "ideal” or "best,” but instead seeks boundary conditions that define a range of visible yet subtle legibility. All presentations that are clearly bad lie outside of this range, and can easily be avoided. In this paper, we report three experiments investigating the effects of grid color and spacing on these boundary conditions, defined by manipulating the transparency (alpha) of thin rectangular grids over scatter plots. Our results show that while there is some variation due to user preference and image properties, bounding alpha allows us to reliably predict a range of usable yet unobtrusive grids over a wide variety of conditions.
Prolotherapy: An effective therapy for Tietze syndrome.

PURPOSE To compare the short-term effect of prolotherapy and conservative terapy for the Tietze syndrome. PATIENTS AND METHODS From 2013 to 2014, twenty-one patients underwent prolotherapy (group 1) and thirteen underwent conservative therapy with analgesics (group 2). A visual analogue score (VAS) was recorded for measurement of pain intensity in all patients before (Pre VAS) and after injection first day (VAS1), first week (VAS2) and fourth week (VAS3). Group 2 were received systemic nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. VAS score was recorded similarly at the same times (Pre VAS, VAS1, VAS2, VAS3), and clinical affects were compared between the two groups. RESULTS The mean VAS score (mm) before prolotherapy was 7.10 in patients who received prolotherapy, and 7.14 mm in patients who treated nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. The mean VAS after the fist injection was 2.19 mm and dropped to 1.52 mm after the third injection. The mean VAS after the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug treatment dropped 2.62 mm and during the same scores to 3 weeks later. There was no significant difference between the group 1 and group 2 in the age, sex and comorbidity. Also there was no significant difference between the group 1 and group 2 in clinical and radiological evidence. The prolotherapy group showed a faster recovery, including significantly reduced clinic findings (p: 0.001). Third VAS is significant finding for the prolotherapy group. CONCLUSION Prolotherapy could be performed safely and is a method with a favorable long term treatments for Tietze Syndrome. It may be the ideal procedure for patients with drugs side effects and advers events especially for those with limited liver and kidney reserve or significant comorbidities.
A Large-Scale Technology Evaluation Study: Effects of Model-based Analysis and Testing

Besides model-based development, model-based quality assurance and the tighter integration of static and dynamic quality assurance activities are becoming increasingly relevant in the development of software-intensive systems. Thus, this paper reports on an empirical study aimed at investigating the promises regarding quality improvements and cost savings. The evaluation comprises data from 13 industry case studies conducted during a three-year large-scale research project in the transportation domain (automotive, avionics, rail system). During the evaluation, we identified major goals and strategies associated with (integrated) model-based analysis and testing and evaluated the improvements achieved. The aggregated results indicate an average cost reduction of between 29% and 34% for verification and validation and of between 22% and 32% for defect removal. Compared with these cost savings, improvements regarding test coverage (~8%), number of remaining defects (~13%), and time to market (~8%) appear less noticeable.
Movement-Specific Repetition Suppression in Ventral and Dorsal Premotor Cortex during Action Observation

There are several models of premotor cortex contributions to sensorimotor behavior. For instance, the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) appears to be involved in processing visuospatial object properties for grasping, whereas the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) is involved in using arbitrary rules to guide advance motor planning. These models have focused on individual movements. Here, we examine the premotor responses evoked during the processing of individual movements functionally embedded in an action. We tested whether processing hand–object interactions and action end states would differentially engage PMv and PMd. We used a repetition suppression (RS)–functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm in which we independently manipulated the observed grip, the end position of the object (independent of its spatial location), and the hand trajectory. By comparing novel and repeated trials for each of these action components, we could isolate RS effects specific to each of them. Repeating the grasp component attenuated activity in right PMv, whereas repeating the end state of the action reduced blood oxygen level–dependent activity in the left PMd. These results suggest that PMv is involved in controlling the kinematic means of an appropriate hand–object interaction, whereas PMd is focused on specifying the desired end state of an action.
Molecular genetic characteristics of X-linked retinoschisis in Koreans

Purpose X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS) is a recessively inherited disorder that causes macular degeneration and resultant visual defect in young males. Many genetic studies had focused on the patients in Western countries. We characterized the mutational spectrum of the RS1 gene in Korean patients with XLRS, and aimed to provide genetic information of XLRS in an Asian population. Methods This study enrolled 17 unrelated probands and their mothers for molecular genetic evaluation. All exons and the flanking intronic regions of RS1 were analyzed by direct sequencing. We performed gene dosage analysis by semiquantitative multiplex PCR to rule out the possibility of duplication in a patient without a sequence variation. We also tried RT–PCR analysis in a case with a putative splicing mutation. Results Genetic tests revealed 16 Korean patients (94.1%) had RS1 mutations. In one patient, neither sequence variation nor deletion or duplication in RS1 was detected. One case with de novo mutation was confirmed by familial analysis. Identified were 14 causative mutations, three of which were novel: one missense mutation (c.227T>G, p.V76G) and two splice-site mutations (c.78+1G>T and c.78+5G>A). No obvious genotype-phenotype relationship was observed. Conclusions A missense mutation was the predominant type, and common or founder mutations were not observed in the Korean patients in this study who had XLRS. This study provides molecular genetic characteristics about an Asian population previously unexplored. The genetic characteristics of Korean XLRS will be helpful for understanding the worldwide spectrum of RS1 mutation.
C1 units for scene classification

In this paper, we unify C1 units and the locality preserving projections (LPP) into the conventional gist model for scene classification. For the improved gist model, we first utilize the C1 units, intensity channel and color channel of color image to represent the color image with the high dimensional feature, then we project high dimensional samples to a low dimensional subspace via LPP to preserve both the local geometry and the discriminate information, and finally, we apply the nearest neighbour rule with the Euclidean distance for classification. Experimental results based on the USC scene database not only demonstrate that the proposed gist improves the classification accuracy around 7% but also reduce the testing cost around 50 times in comparing with the original gist model proposed by Siagian and Itti in TPAMI 2007.
Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of hydroquinone dioxygenase from Sphingomonas sp. TTNP3.

Hydroquinone dioxygenase (HQDO), a novel Fe(II) ring-fission dioxygenase from Sphingomonas sp. strain TTNP3 which oxidizes a wide range of hydroquinones to the corresponding 4-hydroxymuconic semialdehydes, has been crystallized. The enzyme is an α(2)β(2) heterotetramer constituted of two subunits of 19 and 38 kDa. Diffraction-quality crystals of HQDO were obtained using the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion method at 277 K from a solution consisting of 16% PEG 4000, 0.3 M MgCl(2), 0.1 M Tris pH 8.5. The crystals belonged to the monoclinic space group P2(1), with unit-cell parameters a = 88.4, b = 125.4, c = 90.8 Å, β = 105.3°. The asymmetric unit contained two heterotetramers, i.e. four copies of each of the two different subunits related by noncrystallographic 222 symmetry. A complete data set extending to a maximum resolution of 2.5 Å was collected at 100 K using a wavelength of 0.980 Å.
Web-based Attacks on Host-Proof Encrypted Storage

Cloud-based storage services, such as Wuala, and password managers, such as LastPass, are examples of so-called host-proof web applications that aim to protect users from attacks on the servers that host their data. To this end, user data is encrypted on the client and the server is used only as a backup data store. Authorized users may access their data through client-side software, but for ease of use, many commercial applications also offer browser-based interfaces that enable features such as remote access, form-filling, and secure sharing. We describe a series of web-based attacks on popular host-proof applications that completely circumvent their cryptographic protections. Our attacks exploit standard web application vulnerabilities to expose flaws in the encryption mechanisms, authorization policies, and key management implemented by these applications. Our analysis suggests that host-proofing by itself is not enough to protect users from web attackers, who will simply shift their focus to flaws in client-side interfaces.
Cooperative Multi-Cell Block Diagonalization with Per-Base-Station Power Constraints

Block diagonalization (BD) is a practical linear precoding technique that eliminates the inter-user interference in downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In this paper, we apply BD to the downlink transmission in a cooperative multi-cell MIMO system, where the signals from different base stations (BSs) to all the mobile stations (MSs) are jointly designed with the perfect knowledge of the downlink channels and transmit messages. Specifically, we study the optimal BD precoder design to maximize the weighted sum-rate of all the MSs subject to a set of per-BS power constraints. This design problem is formulated in an auxiliary MIMO broadcast channel (BC) with a set of transmit power constraints corresponding to those for individual BSs in the multi-cell system. By applying convex optimization techniques, this paper develops an efficient algorithm to solve this problem, and derives the closed-form expression for the optimal BD precoding matrix. It is revealed that the optimal BD precoding vectors for each MS in the per-BS power constraint case are in general non-orthogonal, which differs from the conventional orthogonal BD precoder design for the MIMO-BC under one single sum-power constraint. Moreover, for the special case of single-antenna BSs and MSs, the proposed solution reduces to the optimal zero-forcing beamforming (ZF-BF) precoder design for the weighted sum-rate maximization in the multiple-input single-output (MISO) BC with per-antenna power constraints. Suboptimal and low-complexity BD/ZF-BF precoding schemes are also presented, and their achievable rates are compared against those with the optimal schemes.