Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Network Based Multi-agent Information Retrieval System

Agent-based information retrieval systems have gaine d great attentions due to the proliferation of readily available, but overwhelming information on t he distributed network environments such as the Web. Agents are often developed not in isolatio n but as part of a multi-agent system. In this paper, we present a neural network based multi-agen t, specially hierarchically organized, information retrieval system. The motivation for thi s work is based on our experience with our experimental system called Hierarchically Organized M ulti-agent Information Retrieval System (HOMIRS). We first introduce a neural network based information retrieval agent and then motivate our multi-agent approach both analytically a nd experimentally.
In Vitro Culture Increases the Frequency of Stochastic Epigenetic Errors at Imprinted Genes in Placental Tissues from Mouse Concepti Produced Through Assisted Reproductive Technologies1

ABSTRACT Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have enabled millions of couples with compromised fertility to conceive children. Nevertheless, there is a growing concern regarding the safety of these procedures due to an increased incidence of imprinting disorders, premature birth, and low birth weight in ART-conceived offspring. An integral aspect of ART is the oxygen concentration used during in vitro development of mammalian embryos, which is typically either atmospheric (∼20%) or reduced (5%). Both oxygen tension levels have been widely used, but 5% oxygen improves preimplantation development in several mammalian species, including that of humans. To determine whether a high oxygen tension increases the frequency of epigenetic abnormalities in mouse embryos subjected to ART, we measured DNA methylation and expression of several imprinted genes in both embryonic and placental tissues from concepti generated by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and exposed to 5% or 20% oxygen during culture. We found that placentae from IVF embryos exhibit an increased frequency of abnormal methylation and expression profiles of several imprinted genes, compared to embryonic tissues. Moreover, IVF-derived placentae exhibit a variety of epigenetic profiles at the assayed imprinted genes, suggesting that these epigenetic defects arise by a stochastic process. Although culturing embryos in both of the oxygen concentrations resulted in a significant increase of epigenetic defects in placental tissues compared to naturally conceived controls, we did not detect significant differences between embryos cultured in 5% and those cultured in 20% oxygen. Thus, further optimization of ART should be considered to minimize the occurrence of epigenetic errors in the placenta.
Modeling Chemotherapeutic Neurotoxicity with Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neuronal Cells

There are no effective agents to prevent or treat chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), the most common non-hematologic toxicity of chemotherapy. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the utility of human neuron-like cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a means to study CIPN. We used high content imaging measurements of neurite outgrowth phenotypes to compare the changes that occur to iPSC-derived neuronal cells among drugs and among individuals in response to several classes of chemotherapeutics. Upon treatment of these neuronal cells with the neurotoxic drug paclitaxel, vincristine or cisplatin, we identified significant differences in five morphological phenotypes among drugs, including total outgrowth, mean/median/maximum process length, and mean outgrowth intensity (P < 0.05). The differences in damage among drugs reflect differences in their mechanisms of action and clinical CIPN manifestations. We show the potential of the model for gene perturbation studies by demonstrating decreased expression of TUBB2A results in significantly increased sensitivity of neurons to paclitaxel (0.23 ± 0.06 decrease in total neurite outgrowth, P = 0.011). The variance in several neurite outgrowth and apoptotic phenotypes upon treatment with one of the neurotoxic drugs is significantly greater between than within neurons derived from four different individuals (P < 0.05), demonstrating the potential of iPSC-derived neurons as a genetically diverse model for CIPN. The human neuron model will allow both for mechanistic studies of specific genes and genetic variants discovered in clinical studies and for screening of new drugs to prevent or treat CIPN.
Sequential Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factor 5 (eIF5) Binding to the Charged Disordered Segments of eIF4G and eIF2β Stabilizes the 48S Preinitiation Complex and Promotes Its Shift to the Initiation Mode

ABSTRACT During translation initiation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an Arg- and Ser-rich segment (RS1 domain) of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4G (eIF4G) and the Lys-rich segment (K-boxes) of eIF2β bind three common partners, eIF5, eIF1, and mRNA. Here, we report that both of these segments are involved in mRNA recruitment and AUG recognition by distinct mechanisms. First, the eIF4G-RS1 interaction with the eIF5 C-terminal domain (eIF5-CTD) directly links eIF4G to the preinitiation complex (PIC) and enhances mRNA binding. Second, eIF2β-K-boxes increase mRNA binding to the 40S subunit in vitro in a manner reversed by the eIF5-CTD. Third, mutations altering eIF4G-RS1, eIF2β-K-boxes, and eIF5-CTD restore the accuracy of start codon selection impaired by an eIF2β mutation in vivo, suggesting that the mutual interactions of the eIF segments within the PIC prime the ribosome for initiation in response to start codon selection. We propose that the rearrangement of interactions involving the eIF5-CTD promotes mRNA recruitment through mRNA binding by eIF4G and eIF2β and assists the start codon-induced release of eIF1, the major antagonist of establishing tRNAiMet:mRNA binding to the P site.
Acculturation and Prejudice in Germany: Majority and Minority Perspectives

This article explores the connections between prejudice and specific attitudes toward acculturation in Germany. Results of surveys confirm the hypothesis that prejudice is related to ideologies of assimilation and segregation among majority- group members. Moreover, experimental and correlational studies indicate that these attitudes are linked to discriminatory behavior. Further analyses of studies with ethnic minorities prove that prejudice and acculturation are linked within minority groups as well. Additionally it is shown that prejudice is functional in order for minorities to acculturate. These studies confirm the impression that there is a close link between macrosocial and microsocial levels of coping with migration.
Se_nos gener@ mujeres. La construcción discursiva del pecho femenino en el ámbito médico

El objetivo de este articulo es reflexionar sobre el impacto de los mandatos de genero en los cuerpos de las mujeres en el contexto biomedico. Exploramos como se construye discursivamente la mamoplastia en tres grupos de mujeres: que han padecido cancer de pecho, trans y que se intervienen por motivos esteticos. Mediante el analisis del discurso estudiamos como profesionales de la salud especialistas en los tres casos elaboran la distincion entre ellos, como otorgan diferentes grados de legitimidad a la demanda y como justifican si su coste se debe cubrir publicamente. Resultado de este analisis detectamos que se establecen dos fronteras entre los cuerpos susceptibles de recibir esta intervencion: una relativa a la necesidad y otra a la legitimidad de la demanda.
The Leverage Effect in Financial Markets: Retarded Volatility And Market Panic

We investigate quantitatively the so-called "leverage effect," which corresponds to a negative correlation between past returns and future volatility. For individual stocks this correlation is moderate and decays over 50 days, while for stock indices it is much stronger but decays faster. For individual stocks the magnitude of this correlation has a universal value that can be rationalized in terms of a new "retarded" model which interpolates between a purely additive and a purely multiplicative stochastic process. For stock indices a specific amplification phenomenon seems to be necessary to account for the observed amplitude of the effect.
An efficient trajectory-based algorithm for model order reduction of nonlinear systems via localized projection and global interpolation

Trajectory-based methods offer an effective methodology for generating the reduced-order models (ROMs) for nonlinear systems. These methods first sample on the state trajectories driven by the training inputs, then linearize and reduce the linearized systems around the sample points. However, these methods depend on an single global reduction subspace generated by combining all the projection subspaces of the sample points on the trajectories. In order to address this problem, a localized reduction technique has been proposed. This method weaves together a larger set of smaller localized ROMs for the trajectory samples. However, since these localized ROMs do not share the same coordinates, these localized ROMs cannot be interpolated to derive new ROMs. As a result, a large number of localized ROMs are needed to cover the necessary state space and guarantee adequate reduction accuracy. In this paper, we propose a new, efficient trajectory-based model order reduction algorithm for nonlinear systems via localized projection and global interpolation. We employ an efficient procedure to transform the smaller localized ROMs into a set of equivalent ROMs with nearly consistent global coordinate. The ROMs for the nonlinear systems are then obtained by globally interpolating the localized ROMs. Because we can perform interpolation between these localized ROMs, the required number of localized ROMs can be greatly reduced.
Pervasive Computing Applied to the Care of Patients with Dementia in Homecare Environments

The aging population and the consequent increase in the incidence of dementias is causing many challenges to health systems, mainly related to infrastructure, low services quality and high costs. One solution is to provide the care at house of the patient, through of home care services. However, it is not a trivial task, since a patient with dementia requires constant care and monitoring from a caregiver, who suffers physical and emotional overload. In this context, this wor k presents an modelling for development of pervasive systems aimed at helping the care of these patients in order to lessen the burden of the caregiver while the patient continue to receive the necessary care.
Diversität und Erfolg von Organisationen / Diversity and Organizational Performance

Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag untersucht, ob eine heterogene Zusammensetzung der Belegschaften die Leistungsfähigkeit von Organisationen beeinflusst. Konflikttheoretische Argumentationen sprechen für negative Auswirkungen, ressourcenorientierte Ansätze für positive Effekte von Diversität. Diese Überlegungen werden für kulturelle und altersbezogene Diversität mit Daten des IAB-Betriebspanels und des Betriebs-Historik-Panels untersucht. In den Analysen wird nach der Betriebsgröße differenziert und neben der Diversität in der Gesamtbelegschaft auch jene der (hoch-)qualifizierten Beschäftigten betrachtet. Für kulturelle Diversität zeigen sich sowohl positive als auch negative Effekte, die je nach Betriebsgröße und Belegschaftsgruppen unterschiedlich stark ausfallen. Negative Produktivitätseffekte finden sich lediglich bei kleineren Betrieben während positive Wirkungen für alle Betriebsgrößen ermittelt werden. Bei größeren Betrieben ist zudem die Outputwirkung der Heterogenität unter den (hoch-)qualifizierten Arbeitskräften etwas ausgeprägter. Für die Altersdiversität lässt sich dagegen kein Produktivitätseffekt nachweisen. Summary This paper examines whether a heterogeneous composition of the workforce affects the performance of organizations. Conflict theoretical arguments speak for a negative impact; resource-oriented approaches see a positive effect of diversity. These considerations are examined for cultural and age diversity with data from the IAB (Institute for Employment Research) Establishment Panel and the Establishment History Panel. Furthermore, the analyses are differentiated according to firm size. We examine diversity within the entire workforce as well as the diversity among (highly) skilled workers. For cultural diversity, positive and negative effects are found which differ across both firm-size categories and the diversity of certain workforce groups. Negative productivity effects seem to be restricted to small firms, while positive effects can be found for all firms. For large establishments, the benefits of diversity among the (highly) qualified employees are somewhat stronger. In contrast, there are no significant effects of age diversity on the productivity of German firms.
GnRH antagonist in assisted reproduction: a Cochrane review.

BACKGROUND In the present systematic review, we wished to compare the efficacy of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist and GnRH agonist administration for controlled ovarian hyperstimulation in assisted conception. METHODS Five randomized controlled trials fulfilled the inclusion criteria. In four studies, the multiple low-dose (0.25 mg) antagonist regimen was applied and, in one study, the single high-dose (3 mg) antagonist regimen was investigated. In all trials, reference treatment included a long protocol of GnRH agonist (buserelin, leuprorelin or triptorelin) starting in the mid-luteal phase of the preceding cycle. RESULTS In comparison with the long protocol of GnRH agonist, the overall odds ratio for the prevention of premature LH surges was 1.76 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.75-4.16], which was not statistically significant. There were significantly fewer clinical pregnancies in those treated with GnRH antagonists (OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.63-0.99). There was no statistically significant reduction in incidence of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome between the two regimens (relative risk 0.51; OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.22-1.18). CONCLUSIONS We concluded that the fixed GnRH antagonist protocol is a short and simple protocol with good clinical outcome, but the lower pregnancy rate compared with the GnRH agonist long protocol and the non-significant difference between both protocols regarding prevention of premature LH surge and prevention of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome necessitates counselling subfertile couples before recommending change from GnRH agonist to antagonist. The clinical outcome may be further improved by developing more flexible antagonist regimens, taking into account individual patient characteristics.
Synchronization of Neuronal Activity Promotes Survival of Individual Rat Neocortical Neurons in Early Development

Neural activity is thought to play a significant role during the development of the cerebral cortex. In this study, we examined the effects of global activity block or enhancement and the effects of patterned firing on the ability of cultured rat neocortical neurons to survive during the second week in vitro, beyond the beginning of synaptogenesis. Blockade of neuronal activity by adding tetrodotoxin (TTX) and increasing magnesium concentration in the medium strongly reduced the survival of cortical cells. Increasing neuronal activity by raising the external potassium concentration significantly improved the survival of cortical neurons. We postulated that in a developing neuronal network the survival of nerve cells is regulated by synaptically mediated events that involve changes in the intracellular calcium concentration. To examine this question further, we monitored the activity of the developing network by optically recording the intracellular calcium signals of many neurons simultaneously. These recordings show that in low magnesium neocortical neurons express synchronized oscillation of their intracellular calcium concentration. The ability of a network to synchronize the changes in intracellular calcium of multiple cells appeared gradually during the second week in culture, paralleled by both an increase in the synaptic density and a decline in the number of surviving neurons. By examining the fate of identified cells several days after a recording session, we found that those nerve cells that were co‐activated with other neurons had a significantly higher chance to survive than cells that did not participate in synchronized events. These experiments demonstrate that during early cortical network development cortical neurons show synchronized firing activity and that the survival of neurons is at least partially dependent on this pattern of neuronal activity.
Reflections on varieties of culturespeak

This article discusses the various uses of culture concepts in contemporary public discourse. It notes that 'culture' is now often referred to in contexts of conflict, and that assumptions of cultural fundamentalism often become associated with xenophobia. This is one reason why some scholars are now critical of the culture concept. On the other hand, a cultural celebrationism viewing culture in esthetic and performative terms tends to disregard difficulties created by cultural difference. Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' scenario is criticized as an example of cultural fundamentalism, and a processual view of culture is proposed as an intellectual and practical resource for contemporary citizenship.
Big data analysis of Indian premier league using Hadoop and MapReduce

The exponential growth of the internet has changed the way people used to interact with each other. With the extensive use of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Twitter etc., people nowadays share their emotions, opinions, and reactions quite actively. Twitter, for example, being one of the prime sources of real-time information, it's being used by millions of netizens all around the globe. Twitterati ardently share their political views, movies' experience as well as react to numerous sporting events on a daily basis. This paper analyzes one such sporting event, the final match of Indian Premier League 2015, using Hadoop and MapReduce programming paradigm. The objective of this paper is to assess the popularity of Indian Premier League 2015 as well as various metrics related to the game. The analysis found that Indian Premier League is not only popular in India but it has gained immense popularity throughout the world, ranging from Ahmedabad (India) to Zurich (Switzerland). Furthermore, the time interval in which cricket fans tweeted the most, most talked about players, and the dominant team — are the various metrics that have also been analyzed from the game's perspective.
A novel optical Bi-Cell with integrated readout circuitry

In 3D imaging, a laser scanning system needs to be synchronised with the data acquisition electronics. Conventional optical Bi-Cells perform the task but require readout electronics which must be calibrated each time the laser beam intensity changes. In this paper we describe the design of a novel optical Bi-Cell sensor with integrated readout and synchronisation circuitry entirely fabricated in CMOS technology. The processing electronics has been designed to work over two decades of photogenerated current eliminating thus the requirement for calibration over the laser beam intensity changes. A fully differential architecture has been implemented to make the circuit less sensitive to temperature and power supply variations. Experimental results will also be presented.
Single-subject experimental design for evidence-based practice.

PURPOSE Single-subject experimental designs (SSEDs) represent an important tool in the development and implementation of evidence-based practice in communication sciences and disorders. The purpose of this article is to review the strategies and tactics of SSEDs and their application in speech-language pathology research. METHOD The authors discuss the requirements of each design, followed by advantages and disadvantages. The logic and methods for evaluating effects in SSED are reviewed as well as contemporary issues regarding data analysis with SSED data sets. Examples of challenges in executing SSEDs are included. Specific exemplars of how SSEDs have been used in speech-language pathology research are provided throughout. CONCLUSION SSED studies provide a flexible alternative to traditional group designs in the development and identification of evidence-based practice in the field of communication sciences and disorders.
A tag change with support for extra types and two more experiments in hProlog

The original WAM specializes abstract machine code and term representation for lists, squeezes the environment stack and choice point stack into one memory area and offers support for only one atomic data type. Most Prolog systems follow the list specialization, but the control stacks are often separated and also more data types are supported at the implementation level than in the WAM. We show within hProlog the performance effect of the list specialization and the control stack choice. We also introduce in hProlog four extra basic types and show how it was done without performance loss.
Epipole and fundamental matrix estimation using virtual parallax

The paper addresses the problem of computing the fundamental matrix which describes a geometric relationship between a pair of stereo images: the epipolar geometry. We propose a novel method based on virtual parallax. Instead of computing directly the 3/spl times/3 fundamental matrix, we compute a homography with one epipole position, and show that this is equivalent to computing the fundamental matrix. Simple equations are derived by reducing the number of parameters to estimate. As a consequence, we obtain an accurate fundamental matrix of rank two with a stable linear computation. Experiments with simulated and real images validate our method and clearly show the improvement over existing methods. <<ETX>>
Flp and Cre expressed from Flp–2A–Cre and Flp–IRES–Cre transcription units mediate the highest level of dual recombinase-mediated cassette exchange

Recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) is a powerful tool for unidirectional integration of DNA fragments of interest into a pre-determined genome locale. In this report, we examined how the efficiency of dual RMCE catalyzed by Flp and Cre depends on the nature of transcription units that express the recombinases. The following recombinase transcription units were analyzed: (i) Flp and Cre genes expressed as individual transcription units located on different vectors, (ii) Flp and Cre genes expressed as individual transcription units located on the same vector, (iii) Flp and Cre genes expressed from a single promoter and separated by internal ribosome entry sequence and (iv) Flp and Cre coding sequences separated by the 2A peptide and expressed as a single gene. We found that the highest level of dual RMCE (35–45% of the transfected cells) can be achieved when Flp and Cre recombinases are expressed as Flp–2A–Cre and Flp–IRES–Cre transcription units. In contrast, the lowest level of dual RMCE (∼1% of the transfected cells) is achieved when Flp and Cre are expressed as individual transcription units. The analysis shows that it is the relative Flp–to–Cre ratio that critically affects the efficiency of dual RMCE. Our results will be helpful for maximizing the efficiency of dual RMCE aimed to engineer and re-engineer genomes.