Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of Association between Susceptibility to Leprosy and SNPs inside and near the BCHE Gene of Butyrylcholinesterase

Leprosy is a chronic disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and affects the skin and the peripheral nervous system. Butyrylcholinesterase is coded by the BCHE gene, and the atypical allele (70G; rs1799807) has been investigated as a leprosy risk factor, with conflicting results. The present study estimated the frequencies of variants of rs1799807 and of five additional SNPs at the BCHE gene or near it: rs1126680, rs1803274, rs2863381, rs4440084, and rs4387996. A total of 167 patients and 150 healthy controls were genotyped by TaqMan PCR. Significantly higher allelic (70G) and genotypic (70DG) frequencies in rs1799807 were found in the patient group, with odds ratio (OR) of 6.33 (1.40 to 28.53) for the heterozygote. This finding was replicated in a comparison of the cases against a control group of 361 blood donors. The present data suggest that the atypical BChE variant may predispose to leprosy per se.
Anxiety and depression in twin and sib pairs extremely discordant and concordant for neuroticism: prodromus to a linkage study

Abstract Multivariate modelling of anxiety and depression data in twins has suggested that the two phenotypes are largely underpinned by one genetic factor, while other studies have indicated a relationship between these disorders and the neuroticism personality trait. As part of a study to identify quantitative trait loci for anxiety and depression, questionnaire responses and interviews of 15 027 Australian twins and 11 389 of their family members conducted during the past 20 years were reviewed to identify individuals with neuroticism, anxiety and depression scores in the upper or lower deciles of the population. This information was then used to identify extreme discordant and concordant (EDAC) sib pairs. 1373 high-scoring and 1571 low-scoring subjects (2357 sib pairs) were selected for participation, and extremely high participation rates were achieved, with over 90% of contactable prospective participants completing the interview phase, and over 90% of these providing blood or buccal samples. Participation bias arising from the nature of the selection variables was minimal, with only a small difference between rates of interview participation among prospective participants with high and low selection scores (89.4% vs 91.6%). The interview permitted the diagnosis of depression and several anxiety disorders (OCD, agoraphobia, panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder) in this sample according to DSM-IV criteria. The methodology for selection of prospective subjects was demonstrated to be extremely successful, with highly significant differences in depression and anxiety disorder prevalence rates between individuals in the two selection groups. The success of this EDAC sampling scheme will enhance the power for QTL linkage and association analysis in this sample. Twin Research (2000) 3, 299–309.
Automatic Identification for Automotives Vehicles Plates

This article describes the adopted strategy for the conception and development of a system for automatic recognition of automotives vehicles plates. We used a modular solution to approach this problem that is divided in six phases. It covers from the way of taking the images to how to recognize each one of the characters in the plate. Process images and intelligence computational techniques were used as well as neural networks system. key Words: lication, plates recognition, characters segmentation, extraction of characteristics, neural networks.
Gene Expression Profiling Predicts the Development of Oral Cancer

Patients with oral premalignant lesion (OPL) have a high risk of developing oral cancer. Although certain risk factors, such as smoking status and histology, are known, our ability to predict oral cancer risk remains poor. The study objective was to determine the value of gene expression profiling in predicting oral cancer development. Gene expression profile was measured in 86 of 162 OPL patients who were enrolled in a clinical chemoprevention trial that used the incidence of oral cancer development as a prespecified endpoint. The median follow-up time was 6.08 years and 35 of the 86 patients developed oral cancer over the course. Gene expression profiles were associated with oral cancer–free survival and used to develop multivariate predictive models for oral cancer prediction. We developed a 29-transcript predictive model which showed marked improvement in terms of prediction accuracy (with 8% predicting error rate) over the models using previously known clinicopathologic risk factors. On the basis of the gene expression profile data, we also identified 2,182 transcripts significantly associated with oral cancer risk–associated genes (P value < 0.01; univariate Cox proportional hazards model). Functional pathway analysis revealed proteasome machinery, MYC, and ribosomal components as the top gene sets associated with oral cancer risk. In multiple independent data sets, the expression profiles of the genes can differentiate head and neck cancer from normal mucosa. Our results show that gene expression profiles may improve the prediction of oral cancer risk in OPL patients and the significant genes identified may serve as potential targets for oral cancer chemoprevention. Cancer Prev Res; 4(2); 218–29. ©2011 AACR.
Section I – Kinesiology Effects of Unstable Conditions on Kinematics and Performance Variables in Young Handball Players Material and Methods

The execution variability and outcomes found in throwing actions have received special attention in numerous studies in recent years. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of an unstable condition on velocity, accuracy and kinematics of movement in the seven metres throw in handball. Twenty‐five young handball players took part in an experiment, throwing towards a target on a stable and an unstable surface. Each participant performed 32 throws, 16 for each situation. Linear variability of the dominant hand was assessed by 3D Motion Tracking. A radar sports gun was used to record the velocity of the ball and the throws were video recorded to establish their accuracy. Results showed significant decreases in throwing velocity in unstable conditions, but these did not significantly affect the accuracy achieved in performance. Differences were also found in movement kinematics between the two throwing conditions and relationships were found between kinematics, velocity and accuracy. Introduction Handball is a very strenuous body‐contact team sport placing heavy emphasis on running, jumping, and throwing (Toyoshima et al., 1976). In addition, playing conditions constantly change during the development of the game. Usually, an adversary is located between the thrower and the goal, causing the throw to be performed in varied conditions, forcing the thrower to adapt to situations of instability that result in great variability both in the movement's execution and in the outcome of the throw. Some previous studies have shown the influence of instability caused by the opposition in throwing kinematics (Gutierrez‐Davila et al., 2006) or in outcome variables such as throwing velocity (Rivilla et al., 2010), what has also been studied in overhand actions in other sports (Vila et al., 2009). Therefore, the maintenance of stability is a fundamental motor act in handball, as well as in many other motor actions in the upright standing posture. Stability provides the basis for locomotion and most other movement tasks (Vaillancourt and Newell, 2002). The system regulates the body's postural sway through the complex interaction of somatosensory, visual, and vestibular sensory feedback networks, numerous brain regions, and the musculoskeletal system In this sense, as we have noted, the opposition of an adversary causes continuous unstable conditions, forcing the player to adjust the movement during the execution of the throw. Highly skilled athletes have shown higher capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions with the aim of improving performance (Scholz et al., 2000; Wilson et al., …
Design and Performance Analysis of a Multiuser OFDM Based Differential Chaos Shift Keying Communication System

In this paper, a multiuser OFDM-based chaos shift keying (MU OFDM-DCSK) modulation is presented. In this system, the spreading operation is performed in time domain over the multicarrier frequencies. To allow the multiple access scenario without using excessive bandwidth, each user has NP predefined private frequencies from the N available frequencies to transmit its reference signal and share with the other users the remaining frequencies to transmit its M spread bits. In this new design, NP duplicated chaotic reference signals are used to transmit M bits instead of using M different chaotic reference signals as done in DCSK systems. Moreover, given that NP <;<; M, the MU OFDMDCSK scheme increases spectral efficiency, uses less energy and allows multiple-access scenario. Therefore, the use of OFDM technique reduces the integration complexity of the system where the parallel low pass filters are no longer needed to recover the transmitted data as in multicarrier DCSK scheme. Finally, the bit error rate performance is investigated under multipath Rayleigh fading channels, in the presence of multiuser and additive white Gaussian noise interferences. Simulation results confirm the accuracy of our analysis and show the advantages of this new hybrid design.
Teaching College Students How to Solve Real-Life Moral Dilemmas: An Ethical Compass for Quarterlifers by Robert J. Nash and Jennifer J. J. Jang (review)

Patricia A. Perillo distill student affairs work into three core convictions necessary for staying relevant in the twenty-first century. They pose questions that might be answered with the development of these competencies and describe problems as needing transdisciplinary problem solving. Shushok and Perillo close by suggesting tools for innovation as well a very brief consideration of how graduate programs might be shaped to meet changes in the field. My introduction to the Rentz text was as a first-year, first-semester master’s student. The dean of students who taught our class used the 2nd edition (1996) of the book. I have kept that copy on my professional bookshelf ever since, using it as both a reference and occasionally assigning chapters to my students. I fondly recall reading the text for class, gathering context for numerous areas of student affairs. I distinctly remember using it to learn about both my graduate assistantship area (financial aid) as well as for several internship sites. The clear writing, straightforward organization, history, current trends, and references to outside material were invaluable to the case study learning in that class. This new edition maintains those standards. The chapter authors have both preserved the fundamental focus of the book and added value by incorporating updated literature, professional standards, trends, and links to student development. My criticisms are minor and mostly personal preferences. The second chapter on history integrates topics and chronology in a confusing order for me; however, the organization is consistent with previous editions. The new focus on student learning in chapter 15 is conceptually a good fit, but it feels a bit out of place in a text where most areas have well-defined and often structurally existent offices for programs. Organizationally, I wondered if it might be more consistent following the philosophy and history chapters that provide overall context? Finally, because the book has such utility in the classrooms of graduate preparation programs, the inclusion of case studies would be additive. While instructors certainly can write these from the text, the authors represents leaders in their respective areas who could offer thoughtprovoking scenarios. These comments aside, the newest edition has maintained and extended its place as the general introductory text for the role and practice of student affairs.
One-dimensional quantum walks

We define and analyze quantum computational variants of random walks on one-dimensional lattices. In particular, we analyze a quantum analog of the symmetric random walk, which we call the <italic>Hadamard walk</italic>. Several striking differences between the quantum and classical cases are observed. For example, when unrestricted in either direction, the Hadamard walk has position that is nearly uniformly distributed in the range <italic>[-t/\sqrt 2, t/\sqrt 2]</italic> after <italic>t</italic> steps, which is in sharp contrast to the classical random walk, which has distance <italic>O(\sqrt t)</italic> from the origin with high probability. With an absorbing boundary immediately to the left of the starting position, the probability that the walk exits to the left is <italic>2/&pgr</italic>, and with an additional absorbing boundary at location <italic>n</italic>, the probability that the walk exits to the left actually increases, approaching <italic>1/\sqrt 2</italic> in the limit. In the classical case both values are 1.
Regular Exercise Prolongs Survival in a Type 2 Spinal Muscular Atrophy Model Mouse

Several studies indicate that physical exercise is likely to be neuroprotective, even in the case of neuromuscular disease. In the present work, we evaluated the efficiency of running-based training on type 2 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)-like mice. The model used in this study is an SMN (survival motor neuron)-null mouse carrying one copy of a transgene of human SMN2. The running-induced benefits sustained the motor function and the life span of the type 2 SMA-like mice by 57.3%. We showed that the extent of neuronal death is reduced in the lumbar anterior horn of the spinal cord of running-trained mice in comparison with untrained animals. Notably, exercise enhanced motoneuron survival. We showed that the running-mediated neuroprotection is related to a change of the alternative splicing pattern of exon 7 in the SMN2 gene, leading to increased amounts of exon 7-containing transcripts in the spinal cord of trained mice. In addition, analysis at the level of two muscles from the calf, the slow-twitch soleus and the fast-twitch plantaris, showed an overall conserved muscle phenotype in running-trained animals. These data provide the first evidence for the beneficial effect of exercise in SMA and might lead to important therapeutic developments for human SMA patients.
De-demonising Japan? Transitioning from war to peace through Japan’s cinematic post-war cultural diplomacy in UNESCO’s Orient project 1957–1959

Abstract In 1959, UNESCO published a film catalogue titled Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures. Out of the 139 feature films included in the catalogue, 37 were Japanese. Through a discussion of the descriptions of the films provided in the catalogue, this article analyses Japan’s post-war cultural diplomacy in the context of the Orient project. The aim is to discuss the question of what purpose the Japanese films chosen for the Orient catalogue served in terms of cultural diplomacy. The analysis suggests the Japanese representatives aimed to position the nation in the international arena outside the Cold War political and ideological framework. Instead, they promoted national interests by utilising the catalogue project to renegotiate the country’s position in the post-war world with the larger ideal of intercultural understanding guiding the selection process and the meaning created for Western audiences.
Data Compression Considering Text Files

Lossless text data compression is an important field as it significantly reduces storage requirement and communication cost. In this work, the focus is directed mainly to different file compression coding techniques and comparisons between them. Some memory efficient encoding schemes are analyzed and implemented in this work. They are: Shannon Fano Coding, Huffman Coding, Repeated Huffman Coding and Run-Length coding. A new algorithm “Modified Run-Length Coding” is also proposed and compared with the other algorithms. These analyses show how these coding techniques work, how much compression is possible for these coding techniques, the amount of memory needed for each technique, comparison between these techniques to find out which technique is better in what conditions. It is observed from the experiments that the repeated Huffman Coding shows higher compression ratio. Besides, the proposed Modified run length coding shows a higher performance than the conventional one.
Fuzzy-logic based information fusion for image segmentation

This work presents an information fusion mechanism for image segmentation using multiple cues. Initially, a fuzzy clustering of each cue space is performed and corresponding membership functions are produced on the image coordinates space. The latter include complementary as well as redundant information. A fuzzy inference mechanism is developed, which exploits these characteristics and fuses the membership functions. The produced aggregate membership functions represent objects, which bear combinations of the properties specified by the cues. The segmented image results after post-processing and defuzzification, which involves majority voting. A fuzzy rule based merging algorithm is finally proposed for reducing possible oversegmentation. Experimental results have been included to illustrate the steps and the efficiency of the algorithm.
Storage efficient particle filters with multiple out-of-sequence measurements

A particle filter based solution to the out-of-sequence measurement (OOSM) problem is proposed. The solution is storage efficient, while being computationally fast. The filter approaches the multi-OOSM problem by not only updating the estimate at the most recent time, but also for all times between the OOSM time and the most recent time. This is done by exploiting the complete in-sequence information approach and extending it to nonlinear systems. Simulation experiments on a challenging nonlinear tracking scenario show that the new approach outperforms recent state-of-the-art particle filter algorithms in some respects, despite demanding less storage requirements.
Concentrated vinasse as a novel diazotrophs growth medium ( Biovinasse Inoculant ) and soil conditioner to improve faba bean yield under dripping irrigation system

Nitrogen fixing bacterial strains, Azospirillum brasilense, Bacillus polymyxa and Azotobacter chroococcum were grown on culture containing different concentrations (6, 8, 10 and 15%v/v) of vinasse . The maximum activities of nitrogenase potentiality of a single strain were estimated after 24 hrs of incubation period under 10% of acetylene gas, when bacterial strains grown on 60, 80, 100 and 150 mL L of concentrated vinasse . The values of nitrogenase activity ranged between 110.70 and 320.90 nmoles C2H4 /hr/100 ml culture in medium containing vinasse concentration of 8 and 15%, respectively. Two experiments were designed in private farm at Ismaillia governorate to evalute the effect of inoculation on faba bean (var. Giza 714) yield using nitrogen fixing bacteria (Azotobacter chroococcum or Bacillus polymyxa) growing on vinasse medium (Biovinasse). All treatments were inoculated by Rhizobium leguminosarum bv viceae . By using seed coating and soil application technique under different concentrations (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 t fed) of vinasse as soil conditioner. Data showed that significant increase in grain yield of faba bean with average values 33% over the control, irrespective of concentrated vinasse levels. The second experiment was aimed to study the effect of biovinasse inoculation using seed coating and soil application technique under two levels of nitrogen fertilizer, half and full dose of recommended rate. The strains used in this experiment were Azospirillum brasilense, Bacillus polymyxa and Azotobacter chroococcum. All treatments were inoculated by Rhizobium leguminosarum bv viceae . The obtained data ,showed that at half dose of nitrogen, faba bean yield responded well specially with seed coating treatments (the average values 21% over the control) as compared with soil application technique. Inoculation by B. polymyxa had positive effect on grain yield (9.83 ardab fed) as compared with uninoculated treatment (7.56 ardab fed) at full dose of nitrogen.
A New Class of Estimators for the N-Point Correlations

A class of improved estimators is proposed for N-point correlation functions of galaxy clustering and for discrete spatial random processes in general. In the limit of weak clustering, the variance of the unbiased estimator converges to the continuum value much faster than with any alternative, and all terms giving rise to a slower convergence exactly cancel. Explicit variance formulae are provided for both Poisson and multinomial point processes using techniques for spatial statistics reported by Ripley. The formalism naturally includes most previously used statistical tools such as N-point correlation functions and their Fourier counterparts, moments of counts in cells, and moment correlators. For all these, and perhaps some other statistics, our estimator provides a straightforward means for efficient edge corrections.
Characterization of antibodies induced by vaccination with Hepatitis C virus envelope glycoproteins

Abstract Hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2 were used with MF59 adjuvant as a candidate vaccine for a phase 1 safety and immunogenicity trial. Ten of 41 vaccinee serum samples displayed a neutralization titer of ⩾1:20 against vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-HCV pseudotype, 15 of 36 serum samples tested had a neutralization titer of ⩾1:400 against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-HCV pseudotype, and 10 of 36 serum samples tested had a neutralization titer of ⩾1:20 against cell culture-grown HCV genotype 1a. Neutralizing serum samples had increased affinity levels and displayed >2-fold higher specific activity levels to well-characterized epitopes on E1/E2, especially to the hypervariable region 1 of E2.
Unification-Based Glossing

We present an approach to syntax-based machine translation that combines unification-style interpretation with statistical processing. This approach enables us to translate any Japanese newspaper article into English, with quality far better than a word-for-word translation. Novel ideas include the use of feature structures to encode word lattices and the use of unification to compose and manipulate lattices. Unification also allows us to specify abstract features that delay target-language synthesis until enough source language information is assembled. Our statistical component enables us to search efficiently among competing translations and locate those with high English fluency.
An example of neckpinching for Ricci flow on $S^{n+1}$

We give an example of a class of metrics on Sn+1 that evolve under the Ricci Flow into a “neckpinch. ” We show that the solution has a Type I singularity, and that the length of the neck, i.e. the region where |Rm| ∼ (T−t)−1, is bounded from below by c √ (T − t)| log(T − t)| for some c > 0.