Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Rate of Nonallelic Homologous Recombination in Males Is Highly Variable, Correlated between Monozygotic Twins and Independent of Age

Nonallelic homologous recombination (NAHR) between highly similar duplicated sequences generates chromosomal deletions, duplications and inversions, which can cause diverse genetic disorders. Little is known about interindividual variation in NAHR rates and the factors that influence this. We estimated the rate of deletion at the CMT1A-REP NAHR hotspot in sperm DNA from 34 male donors, including 16 monozygotic (MZ) co-twins (8 twin pairs) aged 24 to 67 years old. The average NAHR rate was 3.5×10−5 with a seven-fold variation across individuals. Despite good statistical power to detect even a subtle correlation, we observed no relationship between age of unrelated individuals and the rate of NAHR in their sperm, likely reflecting the meiotic-specific origin of these events. We then estimated the heritability of deletion rate by calculating the intraclass correlation (ICC) within MZ co-twins, revealing a significant correlation between MZ co-twins (ICC = 0.784, p = 0.0039), with MZ co-twins being significantly more correlated than unrelated pairs. We showed that this heritability cannot be explained by variation in PRDM9, a known regulator of NAHR, or variation within the NAHR hotspot itself. We also did not detect any correlation between Body Mass Index (BMI), smoking status or alcohol intake and rate of NAHR. Our results suggest that other, as yet unidentified, genetic or environmental factors play a significant role in the regulation of NAHR and are responsible for the extensive variation in the population for the probability of fathering a child with a genomic disorder resulting from a pathogenic deletion.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language: Perceptions of an In-service Diploma Course

This thesis reports a study in the area of continuing professional development for teachers of English as a foreign language (TEFL). The research focuses on teachers' retrospective views of their in-service Diploma course, specifically their reasons for taking the course, their learning experience during the course and their perspectives on its impact. This appears to be an under-researched area, so, in an attempt to frame it, the literature is drawn from a number of different areas: teacher training impact studies within both EFL and mainstream teaching; writing in the area of teachers' careers, motivation and receptivity to professional learning; teacher learning and development; teacher professional identity; and supervision and mentoring of teachers. In terms of methodology, the study takes a case study approach with data analysed through a framework drawn from phenomenography, and investigates the topic through the use of several stages of qualitative, semi-structured, individual interviews. Some writers in the field of teacher education have taken the view that in-service professional development has little impact on practice but the findings from this study, although tentative and small-scale, are much more optimistic about the long-term value of CPO in the chosen field. Despite having varied opinions of their respective courses, almost all the interviewees could give concrete examples of sustained impact in the context of their subsequent practice, and in many instances it was possible to suggest tentative links between what had made the experience life-changing or otherwise. There was some considerable variation in the types of impact perceived and there also appeared to be a difference in the 'depth' of outcomes. Potential links between impact and other key issues are explored in detail, for example, motivation and receptivity to professional learning, self-identity and self-confidence as a teacher, the importance of prior teaching experience, and the role of course tutors.
System monitoring models as Active Information Resources

Mathematical and knowledge based models are the cornerstones of most autonomie network and systems monitoring operations. The models embody knowledge and experiences of monitoring the vast varieties of systems and their behaviours. These many models constitute a lot of unshared knowledge because of differing network dynamics, heterogeneity and interests. One way of making these models sharable is by making them searchable, reusable and adaptable. In this paper, we employ the concept of Active Information Resource (AIR) to give interactive abilities to knowledge models so that they can easily be searched, reused and adapted. The objective is to improve knowledge and experience transfer across system monitoring centers of our networks.
Web-Based Biometric Mouse Intelligent System for Analysis of Emotional State and Labour Productivity

This paper describes the Web-based Biometric Mouse Intelligent (WBMI) System developed by the authors for measuring and analysis of user’s emotions and labour productivity with a biometric mouse. The research included development of the WBMI System, which works in the background and is able to assess user‘s emotional state and labour productivity during work with a computer. The system captures information about user’s emotional state and labour productivity using three main biometric techniques: physiological (skin conductance, amplitude of hand tremble, skin temperature), psychological (e-self-reports) and behavioural/motor-behavioural (mouse pressure, speed of mouse pointer movement, acceleration of mouse pointer movement, scroll wheel turns, rightand left-click frequency). The system extracts physiological and motorbehavioural parameters from mouse actions and palm characteristics, and the user fills in the psychological (e-self-reports) data, which can be used to analyse correlations with user’s emotional state and labour productivity. Main features of the WBMI System are discussed, and the final recommendations for future research and improvement are included.
An independent endocytic pathway stimulates different monocyte subsets by the a2 N-terminus domain of vacuolar-ATPase

The vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase) plays an important role in tumor progression and metastases. A novel peptide from the a2 isoform of V-ATPase called a2NTD has been shown to exert an immunoregulatory role in the tumor microenvironment by controlling the maturation of monocytes toward a tumor-associated macrophage phenotype. Our data indicate that a2NTD binds to the surface of monocytes. a2NTD was preferentially endocytosed by pro-inflammatory monocytes bearing a CD14++CD16+ phenotype, which is associated with the monocyte-to-macrophage maturation process. Both a2NTD binding and internalization led to production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1α and IL-1β by CD14++CD16- (classical) and CD14++CD16+ (intermediate) monocytes. a2NTD was internalized via a macropinocytosis mechanism utilizing scavenger receptors. However, the inhibition of a2NTD endocytosis did not reduce cytokine production by monocytes. This points to the existence of two receptors that respond to a2NTD: scavengers receptors that mediate cellular uptake and an hitherto unidentified receptor stimulating the production of inflammatory cytokines. Both of these monocyte receptors may be important in generating the localized inflammation that is often required to promote tumor growth and hence may constitute novel targets for the development of anticancer drugs.
Metal abundances at z < 1.5: new measurements in sub-damped Lyman α absorbers★

Damped Lyman a systems (DLAs) andsub-DLAs seen towards background quasars provide the most detailed probes of elemental abundances. Somewhat paradoxically these measurements are more difficult at lower redshifts due to the atmospheric cut-off, and so a few years ago our group began a program to study abundances at z < 1.5 in quasar absorbers. In this paper, we present new Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) observations of six additional quasar absorption-line systems at z < 1.5, five of which are sub-DLAs. We find solar or above solar metallicity, as measured by the abundance of zinc, assumed not to be affected by dust, in two sub-DLAs: one, towards Q0138-0005 with [Zn/H] = +0.28 ± 0.16; the other towards Q2335+1501 with [Zn/H] = +0.07 ± 0.34. Relatively high metallicity was observed in another system: Q0123-0058 with [Zn/H] = -0.45 ± 0.20. Only for the one DLA in our sample, in Q0449-1645, do we find a low metallicity, [Zn/H] = -0.96 ± 0.08. We also note that in some of these systems large relative abundance variations from component to component are observed in Si, Mn, Cr and Zn.
Antecedents of Employees' Identification with a Merger

Research has shown that mergers and acquisitions (M&As) provoke a drop in psychological attachment, identification, and commitment in the affected organizations. Drawing on M&A literature, social identity theory, and social categorization theory, this paper answers the questions of what factors influence identification with a merger and how do these factors evolve over time. A longitudinal and mixed method design has been used to gather both quantitative and qualitative data through three rounds of data collection. The results show that identification with the previous organization, perception of opportunity, sense of belongingness to the dominant organization, and interaction intensity are significant factors explaining identification with the merger.
Enabling Flexible Human Strategic Guidance for Multi-Agent Planning and Scheduling in Dynamic Uncertain Domains

Creating decision support systems to help people coordinate in the real world is difficult because it requires simultaneously addressing planning, scheduling, uncertainty and distribution. Generic AI approaches produce inadequate solutions because they cannot leverage the structure of domains and the intuition that end-users have for solving particular problem instances. We present a general approach where end-users can encode their intuition as guidance enabling the system to decompose large distributed problems into simpler problems that can be solved by traditional centralized AI techniques. Evaluations in field exercises with real users show that teams assisted by our multi-agent decision-support system outperform teams coordinating using radios.
Expected difficult tracheal intubation: a prospective comparison of direct laryngoscopy and video laryngoscopy in 200 patients.

BACKGROUND The Berci-Kaplan video laryngoscope was developed to improve the visualization of the glottis and ease tracheal intubation. Whether this technique is also effective in patients with an expected difficult intubation is unclear. We have prospectively evaluated the conditions and success rate of tracheal intubation in patients with a Mallampati score of III or IV. METHODS Two hundred patients, undergoing general anaesthesia, were randomized to be intubated using direct laryngoscopy (n=100) or video laryngoscopy (n=100). Visualization of the vocal cords, success rate, time for intubation, and the need for additional manoeuvres (laryngeal manipulations, head positioning, and Eschmann stylet) were evaluated. RESULTS Video laryngoscopy produced better results for the visualization of the glottis using Cormack and Lehane criteria (P<0.001), success rate (n=92 vs 99, P=0.017), and the time for intubation [60 (77) vs 40 (31) s, P=0.0173]. In addition, the number of optimizing manoeuvres was also significantly decreased [1.2 (1.3) vs 0.5 (0.7), P<0.001]. CONCLUSIONS Video laryngoscopy, when compared with direct laryngoscopy for difficult intubations, provides a significantly better view of the cords, a higher success rate, faster intubations, and less need for optimizing manoeuvres. Therefore, we feel that the video laryngoscopy leads to a clinically relevant improvement of intubation conditions and can be recommended for difficult airway management.
Video Metrology without the Image-to-Ground Homography

The ability to measure metric information from videos is an essential functionality in security software packages that populate databases with human morphometric and gait descriptors. The configuration of such security systems often involves calibrating the cameras in the surveillance network. For this purpose, markers are placed on the ground in the vicinity of each camera location in order to compute a critical image-to-ground homography. This paper shows how the homography computation can be avoided by describing the key components of a system designed for view-independent video metrology. Experiments on measuring the height of subjects and ground distances from different camera views demonstrate the viability of the approach. In addition, it is shown that the calibration model of the proposed method yields more accurate measurements than the frequently used square pixel camera model.
GATA transcription factors integrate Wnt signalling during heart development

Cardiogenesis is inhibited by canonical Wnt/β-catenin signalling and stimulated by non-canonical Wnt11/JNK signalling, but how these two signalling pathways crosstalk is currently unknown. Here, we show that Wnt/β-catenin signalling restricts cardiogenesis via inhibition of GATA gene expression, as experimentally reinstating GATA function overrides β-catenin-mediated inhibition and restores cardiogenesis. Furthermore, we show that GATA transcription factors in turn directly regulate Wnt11 gene expression, and that Wnt11 is required to a significant degree for mediating the cardiogenesis-promoting function of GATA transcription factors. These results demonstrate that GATA factors occupy a central position between canonical and non-canonical Wnt signalling in regulating heart muscle formation.
A Text Representation Method Based on Harmonic Series

Text representation problem is one of the fundamental but most important issues in the areas of information processing and retrieval, and still a big challenge. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, this paper employs the ideas of the human cognitive process to the machine text understanding. And aiming at the structure of paper texts, we propose a cognition network model based on the Harmonic Series with the consideration of both key occurrence frequencies and occurrence locations. The proposed model is not only simple, but also effective and can be easily handled as RFID data in the Internet of Things.
Genetic architecture and bottleneck analyses of Salem Black goat breed based on microsatellite markers.

Aim: The present study was undertaken in Salem Black goat population for genetic analysis at molecular level to exploit the breed for planning sustainable improvement, conservation and utilization, which subsequently can improve the livelihood of its stakeholders. Materials and Methods: Genomic DNA was isolated from blood samples of 50 unrelated Salem Black goats with typical phenotypic features in several villages in the breeding tract and the genetic characterization and bottleneck analysis in Salem Black goat was done using 25 microsatellite markers as recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy. The basic measures of genetic variation were computed using bioinformatic software. To evaluate the Salem Black goats for mutation drift equilibrium, three tests were performed under three different mutation models, viz., infinite allele model (IAM), stepwise mutation model (SMM) and two-phase model (TPM) and the observed gene diversity (He) and expected equilibrium gene diversity (Heq) were estimated under different models of microsatellite evolution. Results: The study revealed that the observed number of alleles ranged from 4 (ETH10, ILSTS008) to 17 (BM64444) with a total of 213 alleles and mean of 10.14±0.83 alleles across loci. The overall observed heterozygosity, expected heterozygosity, inbreeding estimate and polymorphism information content values were 0.631±0.041, 0.820±0.024, 0.233±0.044 and 0.786±0.023 respectively indicating high genetic diversity. The average observed gene diversities (He) pooled over different markers was 0.829±0.024 and the average expected gene diversities under IAM, TPM and SMM models were 0.769±0.026, 0.808±0.024 and 0.837±0.020 respectively. The number of loci found to exhibit gene diversity excess under IAM, TPM and SMM models were 18, 17 and 12 respectively. Conclusion: All the three statistical tests, viz., sign test, standardized differences test and Wilcoxon sign rank test, revealed significant deviation of Salem Black goats from mutation-drift equilibrium under IAM and TPM models, however, nonsignificant deviation under SMM model. The qualitative test of mode shift analysis supported the results under SMM indicating the absence of the genetic bottleneck in the recent past in Salem Black goats.
Developing quality standards for cross-national survey research: five approaches

This paper addresses methods for the development of quality standards for cross-national quantitative surveys. Five conceptual approaches to the development of standards are presented and the properties and consequences of each are discussed. The aim is to provide researchers with a rational set of arguments for choosing a particular approach in a given situation. The development of quality standards is particularly complicated in the case of cross-national research, owing to variability between nations in a number of factors that might typically be considered as ‘fixed’ design constraints in the context of single-country studies. This variability is illustrated by a number of examples that arose in the course of development of the European Social Survey. The paper also touches upon some related issues in the implementation and maintenance of quality standards.
On control of reaching movements for musculo-skeletal redundant arm model

This paper focuses on a dynamic sensory-motor control mechanism of reaching movements for a musculo-skeletal redundant arm model. The formulation of a musculo-skeletal redundant arm system, which takes into account non-linear muscle properties obtained by some physiological understandings, is introduced and numerical simulations are perfomed. The non-linear properties of muscle dynamics make it possible to modulate the viscosity of the joints, and the end point of the arm converges to the desired point with a simple task-space feedback when adequate internal forces are chosen, regardless of the redundancy of the joint. Numerical simulations were performed and the effectiveness of our control scheme is discussed through these results. The results suggest that the reaching movements can be achieved using only a simple task-space feedback scheme together with the internal force effect that comes from non-linear properties of skeletal muscles without any complex mathematical computation such as an inverse dynamics or optimal trajectory derivation. In addition, the dynamic damping ellipsoid for evaluating how the internal forces can be determined is introduced. The task-space feedback is extended to the 'virtual spring-damper hypothesis' based on the research by Arimoto et al. 2006 to reduce the muscle output forces and heterogeneity of convergence depending on the initial state and desired position. The research suggests a new direction for studies of brain-motor control mechanism of human movements.
A Verification Environment for Imperative and Functional Programs in the Theorema system

We present a verification environment for imperative pro- grams (using Hoare logic) and for functional programs (using fixpoint theory) in the frame of the Theorema system (www.theorema.org). In particular, we discuss some methods for finding the invariants of loops and of specifications of auxiliary tail recursive functions. These meth- ods use algorithms from (polynomial) algebra and combinatorics, namely Groebner bases, variable elimination and symbolic summation (the Gosper algorithm, the technique of generating functions). The techniques are demonstrated on several examples which have been treated automati- cally by our implementation. AMS Subject Classification: 33F10, 65G20, 68N30, 68Q60, 68W30
Case Study of Model Adaptation: Transfer Learning and Online Learning

Many NLP tools are released as programs that include statistical models. Unfortunately, the models do not always match the documents that the tool user is interested in, which forces the user to update the models. In this paper, we investigate model adaptation under the condition that users cannot access the data used in creating the original model. Transfer learning and online learning are investigated as adaptation strategies. We test them on the category classification of Japanese newspaper articles. Experiments show that both transfer and online learning can appropriately adapt the original model if the dataset for adaptation contains all data, not just the data that cannot be well handled by the original model. In contrast, we confirmed that the adaptation fails if the dataset contains only erroneous data as indicated by the original model.
Nonlinear modelling and identification of torsional behaviour in harmonic drives

The demand for accurate and reliable positioning in industrial applications, especially in robotics and high-precision machines, has led to the increased use of Harmonic Drives. The unique performance features of harmonic drives, such as high reduction ratio and high torque capacity in a compact geometry, justify their widespread application. However, nonlinear torsional compliance and friction are the most fundamental problems in these components and accurate modelling of the dynamic behaviour is expected to improve the performance of the system. This paper offers a model for torsional compliance of harmonic drives. A statistical measure of variation is defined, by which the reliability of the estimated parameters for different operating conditions, as well as the accuracy and integrity of the proposed model, are quantified. The model performance is assessed by simulation to verify the experimental results. Two test setups have been developed and built, which are employed to evaluate experimentally the behaviour of the system. Each setup comprises a different type of harmonic drive, namely the high load torque and the low load torque harmonic drive. The results show an accurate match between the simulation torque obtained from the identified model and the measured torque from the experiment, which indicates the reliability of the proposed model.
Indoor MIMO Measurements at 2 . 55 and 5 . 25 GHz – a Comparison of Temporal and Angular Characteristics

Indoor MIMO measurements in a laboratory environment, covering both line-of-sight (LoS) and obstructed lineof-sight (OLoS), are reported. Comparison of data taken at 2.55 and 5.25 GHz reveal subtle differences in temporal and angular characteristics. Multipath appears in clusters, which can be attributed to specific scattering/reflection areas in the environment.
VisionSketch: integrated support for example-centric programming of image processing applications

We propose an integrated development environment (IDE) called "VisionSketch", which supports example-centric programming for easily building image processing pipelines. With VisionSketch, a programmer is first asked to select the input video. Then, he can start building the pipeline with a visual programming language that provides immediate graphical feedback for algorithms applied to the video. He can also use a text-based editor to create or edit the implementation of each algorithm. During the development, the pipeline is always ready for execution with a video player-like interface enabling rapid iterative prototyping. In a preliminary user study, VisionSketch was positively received by five programmers, who had prior experience of writing text-based image processing programs and could successfully build interesting applications.