Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular Cytogenetic Mapping of Humulus lupulus Sex Chromosomes

Dioecy is relatively rare in plants and sex determination systems vary among such species. A good example of a plant with heteromorphic sex chromosomes is hop (Humulus lupulus). The genotypes carrying XX or XY chromosomes correspond to female and male plants, respectively. Until now no clear cytogenetic markers for the sex chromosomes of hop have been established. Here, for the first time the sex chromosomes of hop are clearly identified and characterized. The high copy sequence of hop (HSR1) has been cloned and localized on chromosomes by fluorescence in situ hybridization. The HSR1 repeat has shown subtelomeric location on autosomes with the same intensity of the signal. The signal has been present in the subtelomeric region of the long arm and in the near-centromeric region but absent in the telomeric region of the short arm of the X chromosome. At the same time the signal has been found in the telomeric region only of the long arm of the Y chromosome. This finding indicates that the sex chromosomes of hop have evolved from a pair of autosomes via ancient translocation or inversion. The observation of the meiotic configuration of the sex bivalents shows the location of a pseudoautosomal region on the long arms of X and Y chromosomes.
The cytoplasmic tail of NSP4, the endoplasmic reticulum‐localized non‐structural glycoprotein of rotavirus, contains distinct virus binding and coiled coil domains.

The final steps in the assembly of rotavirus occur in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Targeting of the immature inner capsid particle (ICP) to this compartment is mediated by the cytoplasmic tail of NSP4, a non‐structural virus glycoprotein located in the ER membrane. To delineate structural and functional features of NSP4, soluble fragments of the cytoplasmic tail have been expressed and purified. Our analysis combines a functional assay for ICP binding with biochemical and CD spectroscopic studies to examine the secondary and quaternary structure. The ICP‐binding domain is located within the C‐terminal 20 amino acids of the polypeptide. A second region, distinct from this receptor domain, adopts an alpha‐helical coiled coil structure and mediates the oligomerization of the virus binding domains into a homotetramer. The domain organization of the cytoplasmic fragments of NSP4 suggests a novel structure for an icosahedral virus receptor protein in which C‐terminal binding sites for immature rotavirus particles are connected to an alpha‐helical coiled coil stalk which projects from the ER membrane.
IVF outcomes are associated with biomarkers of the homocysteine pathway in monofollicular fluid.

BACKGROUND Maternal hyperhomocysteinemia is detrimental for reproduction, but the effects on embryo quality are unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate whether biomarkers of the homocysteine pathway are associated with in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcome. METHODS In a prospective study, we investigated biomarkers of the homocysteine pathway for associations with embryo quality and biochemical pregnancy in women undergoing IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment (n = 181). In the treatment cycle, blood and monofollicular fluid samples were collected for determination of folate, cobalamin and total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations. RESULTS Of all the women in the study, 67% used folic acid supplements. In blood, a significant correlation was established between high cobalamin and better embryo quality [standardized adjusted regression coefficient: -0.17, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.30, -0.01]. In monofollicular fluid of non-supplemented women, high cobalamin correlated with better embryo quality (estimate: -0.87; 95% CI: -1.68, -0.06), whereas high tHcy resulted in poor embryo quality (estimate: 1.01; 95% CI: 0.08, 1.95). However, in monofollicular fluid of supplemented women, high tHcy correlated with better embryo quality (estimate: -0.58; 95% CI: -1.12, -0.04). In the total group, a 2-fold increase of monofollicular fluid folate corresponded with a 3.3 times higher chance (95% CI: 1.09, 9.71) of achieving pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS An optimal homocysteine pathway in follicular fluid is associated with a better embryo quality and chance of pregnancy.
Walking Motion Generation, Synthesis, and Control for Biped Robot by Using PGRL, LPI, and Fuzzy Logic

This paper proposes the implementation of fuzzy motion control based on reinforcement learning (RL) and Lagrange polynomial interpolation (LPI) for gait synthesis of biped robots. First, the procedure of a walking gait is redefined into three states, and the parameters of this designed walking gait are determined. Then, the machine learning approach applied to adjusting the walking parameters is policy gradient RL (PGRL), which can execute real-time performance and directly modify the policy without calculating the dynamic function. Given a parameterized walking motion designed for biped robots, the PGRL algorithm automatically searches the set of possible parameters and finds the fastest possible walking motion. The reward function mainly considered is first the walking speed, which can be estimated from the vision system. However, the experiment illustrates that there are some stability problems in this kind of learning process. To solve these problems, the desired zero moment point trajectory is added to the reward function. The results show that the robot not only has more stable walking but also increases its walking speed after learning. This is more effective and attractive than manual trial-and-error tuning. LPI, moreover, is employed to transform the existing motions to the motion which has a revised angle determined by the fuzzy motion controller. Then, the biped robot can continuously walk in any desired direction through this fuzzy motion control. Finally, the fuzzy-based gait synthesis control is demonstrated by tasks and point- and line-target tracking. The experiments show the feasibility and effectiveness of gait learning with PGRL and the practicability of the proposed fuzzy motion control scheme.
Labour market segmentation by ownership type and gender wage gap in urban China: evidence from CHIP2013

Abstract This paper explores the labour market segmentation by ownership type and its impact on the gender wage gap in urban China. Using the latest data of the China Household Income Project (CHIP) survey conducted in 2014 (CHIP2013) and based on the Brown et al. model, I employ the decomposition analysis in this study. It is found that although both inter-sector differentials and intra-sector differentials affect the gender wage gap, the effect of intra-sector differentials is greater. In addition, in considering the effect of intra-sector differentials, the influence of unexplained differentials is greater than that of explained differentials. The results indicate that when other factors are held constantly, discrimination against female workers in a given sector is more serious, which is the main factor that causes the gender wage gap in urban China.
Behavioral and physiological sleep characteristics in women with irritable bowel syndrome

OBJECTIVES:The goal of this study was to investigate behavioral (self-reported) and physiological sleep characteristics in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients with and without concurrent dyspeptic symptoms, as compared to control subjects.METHODS:A total of 31 women with IBS were stratified into two groups: 15 with bowel symptoms only (IBS-only) and 16 with both lower and upper dyspeptic symptoms (IBS+D). In addition, 23 healthy women served as controls. For 4 consecutive days, subjective sleep quality, insomnia symptoms, alertness, state anxiety, perceived daytime stress, and daytime and nighttime GI symptoms were assessed. On night 4, subjects underwent polysomnographic (PSG) monitoring for an objective assessment of sleep quality including microarousals and respiratory parameters. Saliva samples were collected for cortisol analyses each morning and evening across the 4 days of the study. Psychological disturbances were assessed with the SCL.RESULTS:Patients reported significantly more dissatisfaction with their sleep quality and increased daytime fatigue as a result of both insomnia-type symptomatology and non-restful sleep. These complaints were significantly greater in IBS+D compared to IBS-only for some measures. A significant proportion of patients, particularly IBS+D patients, reported nighttime GI symptoms. Patients reported significantly greater average anxiety across the 4 days, which was greatest in IBS+D. Although both patient subgroups showed normal levels and circadian changes in cortisol compared to controls, IBS+D had significantly increased morning salivary cortisol levels compared to IBS-only. PSG data showed no significant differences between the patient groups and controls. Significant correlations were found between psychological distress and retrospective subjective sleep complaints for patients.CONCLUSIONS:This study confirms the importance of sleep complaints and nighttime GI symptoms in women with IBS that are not substantiated by any objective, physiological evidence. Rather, there is a reporting bias regarding sleep disturbances, which appears to be related to symptom severity and psychological disturbances.
Liver collagen in cirrhosis correlates with portal hypertension and liver dysfunction

Liver collagen proportionate area (CPA) assessed by computer‐assisted digital image analysis has been proposed as an accurate and objective histological variable for subclassifying cirrhosis. The study aimed to examine the relationship between CPA and relevant clinical parameters in cirrhotic patients and to evaluate the sampling variability for CPA. The study included 48 consecutive liver transplantation patients with established cirrhosis. Hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) and serum markers of liver failure were determined prior to transplantation. CPA was assessed in the explanted livers. In 20 of the livers, CPA was measured in more than one tissue sample. CPA showed significant correlations with HVPG and with various surrogate markers of hepatic dysfunction including albumin, bilirubin, INR, MELD score and Child‐Pugh score. CPA reliably discriminated HVPG ≥10 mmHg, termed ‘clinically significant portal hypertension’ (area under receiver operator curve: 0.923, p < 0.001; odds ratio: 1.209, p = 0.003). CPA measured on tissue blocks showed no significant sampling variability (p > 0.5). In conclusion, the study correlated portal hypertension and hepatic dysfunction with the amount of collagen in cirrhotic livers. The findings support the presumption of CPA as a useful histological marker for subclassifying cirrhosis and as a helpful supplement to the qualitative description of hepatic architectural changes in routine pathology.
Structure Prediction for Gland Segmentation With Hand-Crafted and Deep Convolutional Features

We present a novel method to segment instances of glandular structures from colon histopathology images. We use a structure learning approach which represents local spatial configurations of class labels, capturing structural information normally ignored by sliding-window methods. This allows us to reveal different spatial structures of pixel labels (e.g., locations between adjacent glands, or far from glands), and to identify correctly neighboring glandular structures as separate instances. Exemplars of label structures are obtained via clustering and used to train support vector machine classifiers. The label structures predicted are then combined and post-processed to obtain segmentation maps. We combine hand-crafted, multi-scale image features with features computed by a deep convolutional network trained to map images to segmentation maps. We evaluate the proposed method on the public domain GlaS data set, which allows extensive comparisons with recent, alternative methods. Using the GlaS contest protocol, our method achieves the overall best performance.
Premenstrual symptoms and premenstrual exacerbation in patients with psychiatric disorders

Abstract The aim of the present study was to examine the frequencies of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual exacerbation (PME) of a number of psychiatric disorders in Chinese subjects. Premenstrual syndrome was assessed using a symptom checklist based on International Classification of Diseases (10th revision; ICD‐10) criteria. Premenstrual exacerbation was defined as premenstrual worsening of pre‐existing generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), major depressive disorder or dysthymic disorder (depressive disorders, DD), panic disorder (PD), or schizophrenia (SCH). Fifty outpatients were randomly sampled for each diagnostic group. Diagnosis was performed by psychiatrists using the structured Mini‐International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), and the frequencies of PMS and PME were compared for the different diagnostic groups. The PMS symptoms were reported by 78%, 80%, 68%, and 52% of GAD, DD, PD, and SCH patients, respectively, with 52%, 52%, 36%, and 20% fulfilling the definition of PME. No significant statistical relationships between diagnostic entities and family history of PMS, years of education, or age were demonstrated, but number of PMS symptoms was associated with severity of PME. No significant relationships were demonstrated between PME and marital status, parity, years of education, age, or family history of PMS. The results showed that high PME rates were noted for a sample of Chinese women with mental disorders, especially those with depressive and anxiety disorders.
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Osgood-Schlatter Syndrome in a Population-Based Sample of Brazilian Adolescents

Background: Osgood-Schlatter (OS) syndrome is a disease of the musculoskeletal system often observed during the bone growth phase in adolescents. Hypothesis/Purpose: Demographic and anthropometric factors and those linked to the practice of sports may be related to the prevalence of OS. The aim of the present study was to describe the epidemiologic profile and associated factors of individuals with OS syndrome in a population-based sample of Brazilian adolescents. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 956 adolescent students (474 boys, 482 girls) from 2008 to 2009 enrolled in the school system of Natal, Brazil. The age ranged between 12 and 15 years (13.7 ± 1.04 years). Tests were performed to assess the anthropometric and clinical aspects related to OS. To confirm the diagnosis of OS syndrome, the participant had to fulfill all the following clinical criteria: pain with direct pressure on the tibial apophysis; aforementioned pain before, during, and after physical activities; enlargement or prominence of the tibial apophysis; pain with resisted knee extension; and pain from jumping. Results: The prevalence of OS in the sample was 9.8% (11.0% of boys and 8.3% of girls; boys, 13.5 ± 1.07 years; girls, 13.6 ± 1.01 years). The results showed that 74.6% of the students suffered from muscle shortening. Multivariate analysis using logistic regression showed that the factors associated with the presence of OS were the regular practice of sport activity (odds ratio, 1.94; 95% confidence interval, 1.22-3.10) and the shortening of the rectus femoris muscle (odds ratio, 7.15; 95% confidence interval, 2.86-17.86). Conclusions: The regular practice of sports in the pubertal phase and the shortening of the rectus femoris muscle were the main factors associated to the presence of OS syndrome in the students.
Direct Measures of Short-Term Visual Storage

Two experiments, involving seven conditions, explored the use of direct measures of visual persistence. In each, the subject was asked to judge if an intermittent stimulus appeared perceptually continuous, or whether it completely faded before the next presentation occurred. The first experiment showed that visual persistence was set at approximately 250 msec. for a recycling presentation of a circle in a tachistoscope; in another task employing a moving opaque slit passing back and forth over a circle, persistence times averaged 50 msec. longer. Reducing luminance by 2 log units increased persistence only slightly, though removing the adapting field increased it by over 100 msec. The second experiment, using the repeating circle, varied the duration of the stimulus, and compared monoptic with dichoptic presentations. Visual persistence was found to be independent of stimulus duration over a range of 4 to 200 msec. , where all durations were above recognition threshold for the stimulus. Persistence was unaffected whether the stimulus was repeatedly presented in the same eye or alternated between eyes, strongly suggesting that the storage is central. Finally, a re-analysis of Dodwell and Engel's paper on stereopsis suggests that their effects can be adequately explained by visual persistence of the asynchronous stereo pairs, rather than a more complex fusion model. All of these results strongly support the use of visual persistence as a direct measure of short-term visual storage.
Maternal prenatal, postpartum, and concurrent stressors and temperament in 3-year-olds: A person and variable analysis

The study was based on the assumption that stressors in the lives of pregnant and parenting women are processes that affect prenatal, postpartum, and concurrent maternal hormones and emotions and that these processes affect child temperament. The hypotheses were tested in a group of 67 young mothers and their 3-year-old children. Mothers were clustered into groups based on longitudinal patterns of hormones and emotions at prenatal, postpartum, and 3-year follow-up assessments. The analyses focused on relating maternal patterns of hormones and emotions to the child's temperament at age 3 years. Temperament was assessed by questionnaire and observation of behavior during a challenging situation. Illustrative findings included the following. Verbal aggression and nonverbal aggression were significantly higher in children of mothers in the low prenatal hormone cluster than children of mothers in the high prenatal hormone cluster. Children of mothers in the postpartum low testosterone (T), estradiol (E2), and androstenedione (Δ4-A) and medium cortisol (Cort) cluster (mainly low hormone cluster) exhibited significantly more physical aggression than children of mothers in the medium T and Δ4-A, high E2 and low Cort cluster. Maternal patterns of hormones, emotions, and parenting attitudes and practices were related to multiple aspects of temperament when the children were age 3 years. The findings support the important role of maternal biological and psychological processes in the development of child temperament.
Exploring the capabilities of fluorometric online monitoring on chinese hamster ovary cell cultivations producing a monoclonal antibody

Online monitoring of Chinese hamster ovary fed‐batch cell cultures via two‐dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy (2DFS) was evaluated in this work. Particular attention was directed toward different process strategies regarding the use of nutrient‐rich feed media and temperature shifts. These intentionally performed process manipulations broadened the variances in the obtained fluorescence spectra and this was suspected to hamper the generation of reliable soft sensors. Principal component analysis of the obtained fluorescence data showed that temperature shift and feeding strategy had a considerable impact on the fluorescence signals. Partial least square regression models were calculated for the prediction of glucose, lactate, monoclonal antibody (mAb), and viable cell concentrations (VCC). It was aimed to integrate all 2DFS datasets in the respective calibration models regardless of the process‐strategy‐dependent diversity. Contrary to the expectations, it was feasible to calibrate soft sensors for the online prediction of glucose (7 latent variables (LVs), Rcal2 = 0.97, rout mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) = 1.1 g L−1), lactate (5 LV; Rcal2 = 0.96; RMSEP = 0.5 g L−1) and mAb concentrations (4 LV; Rcal2 = 0.99; RMSEP = 11.4 mg L−1). Feeding and temperature shifts had the highest impact on the VCC model (3 LV; Rcal2 = 0.94; RMSEP 3.8 × 105 mL−1), nevertheless the prediction of VCC from the fed‐batch 2DFS data was feasible. The results strongly indicate that variances in the datasets due to the process strategy can be tolerated to some extent by the respective soft sensors. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 32:1592–1600, 2016
Exploring Teachers’ Constructivist Beliefs Using Talis 2013: Approaches to Training and Development

The changing landscape of demographics, technology, and diversity in the learning environment is challenging schools around the world to rethink their approaches to the implementation of high-quality teaching practices. Classroom practices are becoming more complex because educators have to ensure that their students are well-equipped with 21st century skills (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2010; Dede, 2010; Griffin, McGaw, & Care, 2012). Educators, curriculum developers, and school administrators need to be more than experts in pedagogy. They are now required to keep up with current ideas, innovative instructional practices, and the results of a variety of educational reform efforts. Believing that teachers’ beliefs are the most important psychological construct with regard to instructional practices (Pajares, 1992) and that teachers’ beliefs are related to their choice of classroom practices and, ultimately, the students’ performance (Bybee, Taylor, Gardner, Van Scotter, Powell, Westbrook, & Landes, 2006; Staub & Stern, 2002), the author of this study utilizes the international data set of the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS) 2013 to examine the associations between teachers’ constructivist beliefs, their self-efficacy beliefs, professional activities, and the school principals’ instructional leadership as related to lower secondary school teachers and principals in South Korea, Finland, and Mexico. These three countries represent the high and low performers in the global index of cognitive skills and educational attainment (Pearson, 2014). An account of their educational practices will provide some insights for stakeholders in school systems across nations. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that each country has unique teaching and learning conditions, and that conclusions reached in relation to such conditions do not apply across nations. A series of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) studies were performed for the present work to provide evidence-based information with practical implications to school administrators and educational policymakers regarding the development and implementation of leadership programs and teacher professional development. Additionally, an understanding of how the constructivist beliefs associate with the level of self-efficacy and professional activities will assist curriculum developers in higher educational institutions in the development of quality teacher preparation programs for the future teaching workforce.
Multivariate analysis of the European economic and defence

In this paper we model the defence and economic structure of 39 European countries using cluster and factor analytic methods. Initial results from standard cluster analysis performed on the original variables are compared with the results obtained from a confirmatory factor model estimated with maximum likelihood method within the general LISREL framework. Namely, a K-means cluster analysis is performed on latent scores calculated from the LISREL model. The results indicate that general clustering patters do not cut across EastWest or transitional/non-transition division lines, rather it is found that a more subtitle grouping of countries exists where the more developed transitional countries clearly cluster closer to some West European countries than to the other transitional countries. It is subsequently found that noted differences exist also among the EU countries, which generally do not belong to a single cluster, regardless of the methods used.