Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unlimited Thirst for Genome Sequencing, Data Interpretation, and Database Usage in Genomic Era: The Road towards Fast-Track Crop Plant Improvement

The number of sequenced crop genomes and associated genomic resources is growing rapidly with the advent of inexpensive next generation sequencing methods. Databases have become an integral part of all aspects of science research, including basic and applied plant and animal sciences. The importance of databases keeps increasing as the volume of datasets from direct and indirect genomics, as well as other omics approaches, keeps expanding in recent years. The databases and associated web portals provide at a minimum a uniform set of tools and automated analysis across a wide range of crop plant genomes. This paper reviews some basic terms and considerations in dealing with crop plant databases utilization in advancing genomic era. The utilization of databases for variation analysis with other comparative genomics tools, and data interpretation platforms are well described. The major focus of this review is to provide knowledge on platforms and databases for genome-based investigations of agriculturally important crop plants. The utilization of these databases in applied crop improvement program is still being achieved widely; otherwise, the end for sequencing is not far away.
Future Issues for Cross-Cultural Psychology : Research on Parenting

The present article reviews historical characteristics of cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology, and then reviews cross-cultural psychology parenting research on gender-roles in parenting and parenting style. The present article then introduces 2 approaches for overcoming the cultural dichotomy that began being debated in the 1990s. The first approach, based on research up to that point comparing and contrasting parenting in the West and Asia, is to carry out a comparison of adjacent regions as found in Asian regional research. The other approach is to not concentrate solely on the differences between nations, but to take into account socioeconomic factors within nations. Three future issues are suggested for cross-cultural psychology: (1) research on how best to guarantee equivalence of measurement when evaluating a culture, (2) an examination of not only the effect on individual development of changes in macro factors such as socioeconomic status, work patterns, educational patterns, childcare, and education platforms, but also, from a socio-historical viewpoint, of the type of changes in group and social affiliation that are brought about by changes in an individual's parenting, and (3) research on the relation between macro and micro factors. Longitudinal studies are required of the development of children who move across cultures and child-parent relations in intercultural, multilingual families, in order to clarify the relation the macro factors and micro factors, such as behavior, that children learn from their parents, and whether these factors have any life-long effects on the development of an individual's parenting. By focusing on the above issues, future cross-cultural psychology research can move beyond simply clarifying the similarities and differences between cultures, and in addition contribute to clarification of how values development processes are different for parents and their children who move between different cultures and children who live in multiple cultures.
Scientific Misconduct in Social Welfare Research: Preventive Lessons from Other Fields

This article examines instances of scientific misconduct which have occurred in recent years from an international perspective and explores their implications for the burgeoning social work research enterprise. Although the majority of cases of scientific misconduct which have received international publicity are confined to the hard sciences, there are important implications to be derived for the growing productivity in social welfare research. A comprehensive search was conducted of press reports for the time frame of 1995–2002 for both US and international stories about research misconduct. Using qualitative analysis, themes related to scientific conduct were identified. These cases reveal serious consequences to individual researchers and to their employing institutions. The motivating factors for the wrongdoing are applicable to researchers of any discipline and include perceived pressure to document positive outcomes and the rush to publish findings. The authors urge development of standards of research conduct specific to social work and social welfare and increased dialogue about the issues involved.
Effect of intra-dialytic, low-intensity strength training on functional capacity in adult haemodialysis patients: a randomized pilot trial.

BACKGROUND Kidney failure is associated with muscle wasting and physical impairment. Moderate- to high-intensity strength training improves physical performance, nutritional status and quality of life in people with chronic kidney disease and in dialysis patients. However, the effect of low-intensity strength training has not been well documented, thus representing the objective of this pilot study. METHODS Fifty participants (mean +/- SD, age 69 +/- 13 years) receiving long-term haemodialysis (3.7 +/- 4.2 years) were randomized to intra-dialytic low-intensity strength training or stretching (attention-control) exercises twice weekly for a total of 48 exercise sessions. The primary study outcome was physical performance assessed by the Short Physical Performance Battery score (SPPB) after 36 sessions, if available, or carried forward from 24 sessions. Secondary outcomes included lower body strength, body composition and quality of life. Measurements were obtained at baseline and at completion of 24 (mid), 36 (post) and 48 (final) exercise sessions. RESULTS Baseline median (IQR) SPPB score was 6.0 (5.0), with 57% of the participants having SPPB scores below 7. Exercise adherence was 89 +/- 15%. The primary outcome could be computed in 44 participants. SPPB improved in the strength training group compared to the attention-control group [21.1% (43.1%) vs. 0.2% (38.4%), respectively, P = 0.03]. Similarly, strength training participants exhibited significant improvements from baseline compared to the control group in knee extensor strength, leisure-time physical activity and self-reported physical function and activities of daily living (ADL) disability; all P < 0.02. Adverse events were common but not related to study participation. CONCLUSIONS Intra-dialytic, low-intensity progressive strength training was safe and effective among maintenance dialysis patients. Further studies are needed to establish the generalizability of this strength training program in dialysis patients.
Attendance, performance and the acquisition of early literacy skills: A comparison of Indigenous and non-Indigenous school children

As part of an evaluation of a web-based early literacy intervention, ABRACADABRA, a small exploratory study was conducted over one term in three primary schools in the Northern Territory. Of particular concern was the relationship between attendance and the acquisition of early literacy skills of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Using the GRADE literacy assessment, it was found that students made significant gains in a number of early literacy skills (e.g. phonological awareness skills and vocabulary processing). Classroom attendance was strongly and positively correlated with the acquisition of phonological awareness skills and early literacy skills (e.g. letter recognition, word identification processing). Indigenous children attended class significantly less frequently than non-Indigenous children and performed significantly worse overall, particularly with regard to phonological processing tasks. In light of these findings, it is suggested irregular attendance contributed to the Indigenous students' lowered literacy acquisition.
Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications the Jcsg High-throughput Structural Biology Pipeline

The Joint Center for Structural Genomics high-throughput structural biology pipeline has delivered more than 1000 structures to the community over the past ten years. The JCSG has made a significant contribution to the overall goal of the NIH Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) of expanding structural coverage of the protein universe, as well as making substantial inroads into structural coverage of an entire organism. Targets are processed through an extensive combination of bioinformatics and biophysical analyses to efficiently characterize and optimize each target prior to selection for structure determination. The pipeline uses parallel processing methods at almost every step in the process and can adapt to a wide range of protein targets from bacterial to human. The construction, expansion and optimization of the JCSG gene-to-structure pipeline over the years have resulted in many technological and methodological advances and developments. The vast number of targets and the enormous amounts of associated data processed through the multiple stages of the experimental pipeline required the development of variety of valuable resources that, wherever feasible, have been converted to free-access web-based tools and applications. 1. Structural genomics: evolution of structural biology The landscape of structural biology has changed dramatically during the past decade. At the turn of this century, technological advances broadened the application of structural biology to a much larger audience by increasing the number and the complexity of specific biological problems that could be addressed. This evolution in molecular biology, which resulted from major improvements in cloning, protein expression in heterologous systems, such as Escher-ichia coli, and protein purification by affinity chromatography, has significantly increased our ability to obtain the microgram to milligram quantities of protein needed for structure determination by X-ray crystallography or NMR. Combined with genetic manipulation and engineering to facilitate heavy-atom integration into the target of interest, these developments greatly increased the range of proteins accessible to X-ray and NMR structure determination. Major technological improvements in X-ray crystallography have significantly increased the resolution, speed and quality of data collection and structure determination. These developments included improved crystallization screening methods that enhanced our ability to obtain and optimize protein crystals, cryocooling techniques to obtain better quality data from single crystals and increased brightness, stability, availability and 'user-friendliness' of synchrotron and other X-ray sources. Together, these advances greatly enhanced the quality of data collection and extended it to smaller and smaller crystals. In parallel, advances in the 'dry lab', such as continued …
Exploring School Improvement in Hong Kong Secondary Schools

Scholars have increasingly sought to understand how the process of school improvement differs among schools operating in different school levels, conditions, and contexts. Using Rosenholtz's (1985) conception of “moving” and “stuck” schools as a framework for thinking about school improvement, this study examines the learning outcomes of 39 Hong Kong secondary schools over a 3-year period. We examine whether features of leadership and school capacity differed with respect to these learning outcomes within the sample of moving and stuck schools. This research in Hong Kong has identified several factors that appear to synergistically contribute to differences in patterns of improvement in learning across different subjects in both moving and stuck schools. These factors include resource management of principals and school capacity in terms of professional learning community; workload of teachers; alignment, coherence, and structure; and resource capacity. This study extends the research on leadership and capacity building as a means of school improvement, in the process elaborating on their impact within a non-Western society.
Two-level RRT planning for robotic push manipulation

This paper presents an algorithm for planning sequences of pushes, by which a robotic arm equipped with a single rigid finger can move a manipulated object (or manipulandum) towards a desired goal pose. Pushing is perhaps the most basic kind of manipulation, however it presents difficult challenges for planning, because of the complex relationship between manipulative pushing actions and resulting manipulandum motions. The motion planning literature has well developed paradigms for solving e.g. the piano-mover's problem, where the search occurs directly in the configuration space of the manipulandum object being moved. In contrast, in pushing manipulation, a plan must be built in the action space of the robot, which is only indirectly linked to the motion space of the manipulandum through a complex interaction for which inverse models may not be known. In this paper, we present a two stage approach to planning pushing operations. A global RRT path planner is used to explore the space of possible manipulandum configurations, while a local push planner makes use of predictive models of pushing interactions, to plan sequences of pushes to move the manipulandum from one RRT node to the next. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated in simulation experiments in which a robot must move a rigid body through complex 3D transformations by applying only a sequence of simple single finger pushes.
Analytical method to calculate the DC link current stress in voltage source converters

The dc-link capacitor is one of the critical components, which influences the lifetime of the whole voltage source converter unit. For reliable design, the operating temperature of the dc-link capacitor should be known, which is primarily determined by the ambient temperature and the rms value of the current flowing through the dc-link capacitor. A simple analytical method to calculate the rms value of the dc-link capacitor current is presented in this paper. The effect of the line current ripple on the rms value of the dc-link capacitor current is considered. This yields accurate results, especially for the applications with high line current ripple. The effect of the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) scheme on the rms value of the dc-link current is also studied and the analysis for continuous PWM and discontinuous PWM (DPWM) schemes is presented. The proposed analytical method is also verified experimentally.
Multiple Measures of Adiposity Are Associated with Mean Leukocyte Telomere Length in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966

Studies of leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and adiposity have produced conflicting results, and the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and telomere length throughout life remains unclear. We therefore tested association of adult LTL measured in 5,598 participants with: i) childhood growth measures (BMI and age at adiposity rebound (AR)); ii) change in BMI from childhood to adulthood and iii) adult BMI, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), body adiposity index (BAI). Childhood BMI at AR was positively associated with LTL at 31 years in women (P = 0.041). Adult BMI and WHR in both men (P = 0.025 and P = 0.049, respectively) and women (P = 0.029 and P = 0.008, respectively), and BAI in women (P = 0.021) were inversely associated with LTL at 31 years. An increase in standardised BMI between early childhood and adulthood was associated with shorter adult LTL in women (P = 0.008). We show that LTL is inversely associated with multiple measures of adiposity in both men and women. Additionally, BMI increase in women from childhood to adulthood is associated with shorter telomeres at age 31, potentially indicating accelerated biological ageing.
Comparison of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil versus cisplatin plus paclitaxel in patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare survival outcomes and toxicities between concurrent radiotherapy with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil and that with cisplatin plus paclitaxel in patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed data from 93 locally advanced cervical carcinoma patients (stage IB to IVA) who had been treated by concurrent radiotherapy with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil (CF, n=45) vs. cisplatin plus paclitaxel (CP, n=48) as primary therapy. Toxicities and survival outcomes were compared. RESULTS In the CP group, there were higher frequencies of severe (grade 3 or 4) leukopenia (79.2%, as compared to 11.1% in the CF group), severe neutropenia (77.1%, as compared to 8.9% in the CF group) and severe peripheral neuropathy (12.5%, as compared to 2.2% in the CF group). In the CF group, there were higher frequencies of severe nausea (33.3%, as compared to 14.6% in the CP group) and severe hyponatremia (11.1%, as compared to 0% in the CP group). Five-year DFS of the CF and CP groups was 67.4% and 79.1%, respectively (p=NS). Five year OS of the CF and CP groups was 79.6% and 80.9%, respectively (p=NS). CONCLUSION Concurrent radiotherapy with cisplatin plus paclitaxel showed increased leukopenia, neutropenia and peripheral neuropathy, but less gastrointestinal toxicity (nausea) than that with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil. Survival outcome between these two groups was not statistically different in this study. Large prospective randomized controlled studies will be needed to confirm this result.
Screening for Hourly Wages Jobs: Is there a Trade-Obetween E¢ ciency and Equality?

Because of the near-universal …nding that minorities fare poorly on standardized tests, the use of such tests for employment screening is thought to pose an equality-e¢ ciency trade-o¤: improved selection comes at a cost of screening out more minority applicants. This paper investigates the consequences of standardized testing for worker productivity and the distribution of employment by minority status. The data come from a large, geographically dispersed retail …rm whose 1,365 stores switched from paper to electronic job applications during 1999 and 2000. Both hiring methods use face to face interviews, while the electronic screen also places substantial weight on a computer administered personality assessment. We …nd strong evidence that the move to standardized testing raised productivity at treated stores: increasing mean and median employee tenure by 10 percent, and slightly lowering the frequency at which workers were …red for cause. Analysis of electronic applications reveals that minority applicants performed signi…cantly worse on the screen and were less likely to be hired conditional on their scores. Despite this, the use of standardized testing had no adverse consequences for minority hiring, and productivity gains were equally large among minority and non-minority workers. We provide a model that explains these facts as a consequence of statistical discrimination, both pre- and post- introduction of electronic assessment.
Visual Based Navigation of Mobile Robots

We have developed an algorithm to generate a complete map of the traversable region for a personal assistant robot using monocular vision only. Using multiple taken by a simple webcam, obstacle detection and avoidance algorithms have been developed. Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (SLIC) has been used for segmentation to reduce the memory and computation cost. A simple mapping technique using inverse perspective mapping and occupancy grids, which is robust, and supports very fast updates has been used to create the map for indoor navigation.
Out-migration of immigrants in Spain

Almost 5% of immigrants residing in Spain took the decision to leave the country in 2009. Spain has recently become a receiving country for international immigrants and the phenomenon of out-migration of this type is on the rise. However, not all out-migration involves a return to the country of origin. The aim of this paper is to provide some insights into the analysis of out-migration of Spanish immigrants, classifying it as either return or non-return out-migration, for the period 2002-2009. The effects of the available socio-demographic variables, and certain destination and origin variables of the migrants, on the probability of a return outflow of Spanish immigrants are analysed. The main results are that Asian, African and Latin-American out-migrants residing in Spain have lower probabilities of returning to their birth country. At the same time, an increase in GDP per capita in the destination country or an increase in the unemployment rate of the origin region increases the probability of non-return out-migration, which is usually more motivated by economic factors than return migration. Additionally, the greater the share of migrants in the population of the region of residence, the greater the probability that out-migrants will return home.
Accuracy of object tracking based on time-multiplexed structured light

Our research group is currently developing a new optical head tracking system which utilises infrared laser light to measure features of the soft tissue on the patient’s forehead. These features are intended to offer highly accurate registration with respect to the rigid skull structure by means of compensating for the soft tissue. In this context, the system also has to be able to quickly generate accurate reconstructions of the skin surface. For this purpose, we have developed a laser scanning device which uses time-multiplexed structured light to triangulate surface points. This paper shows, that time-multiplexed structured light can be used to generate highly accurate reconstructions of surfaces (RMS error 0.17 mm, Kinect: RMS error 0.89 mm). Moreover, we used our laser scanner for tracking of a rigid object to determine how this process is influenced by the remaining triangulation errors. It turned out that our scanning device can be used for high-accuracy tracking of objects (RMS errors of 0.33 mm and 0.12 degrees).
Lipoxygenase Activity Accelerates Programmed Spore Germination in Aspergillus fumigatus

The opportunistic human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus initiates invasive growth through a programmed germination process that progresses from dormant spore to swollen spore (SS) to germling (GL) and ultimately invasive hyphal growth. We find a lipoxygenase with considerable homology to human Alox5 and Alox15, LoxB, that impacts the transitions of programmed spore germination. Overexpression of loxB (OE::loxB) increases germination with rapid advance to the GL stage. However, deletion of loxB (ΔloxB) or its signal peptide only delays progression to the SS stage in the presence of arachidonic acid (AA); no delay is observed in minimal media. This delay is remediated by the addition of the oxygenated AA oxylipin 5-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (5-HETE) that is a product of human Alox5. We propose that A. fumigatus acquisition of LoxB (found in few fungi) enhances germination rates in polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich environments.
Organizing the Knowledge Used in Software Maintenance

Knowledge engineering emerged as a very promising area to help improve software engineering practice. One of its possible applications would be to help in solving the numerous problems that affect the software maintenance activity. Maintainers of legacy systems developed years ago with obsolete techniques and tools, and not documented, need all kinds of knowledge (application domain, programming skills, software engineering techniques, etc.) It is generally assumed that formalizing all this knowledge and recording it would be a worthwhile effort. However, research is still in a early stage and numerous questions need to be answered: What knowledge should be targeted first? Where to find this knowledge? etc. To answer these questions, one needs a precise unders tanding of what knowledge is at stake here. We, therefore, propose an ontology of the knowledge needed to perform software maintenance. This ontology would be most useful as a framework for future research in knowledge engineering for software maintenance.