Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of underlying genes and functions associated with diabetic kidney disease

This study aimed to investigate the pathogenic characteristics of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) from gene level. The microarray data of GSE30528 and GSE30529 were downloaded to screen the differentially expressed genes (DEGs): (a) DKD glomeruli vs. normal glomeruli; (b) DKD tubuli vs. normal tubuli; (c) normal glomeruli vs. normal tubuli. Then functional enrichment analysis and interaction network analysis of the DEGs were performed. Co-expression network analysis was carried out to study the module preservation. Total 511, 503 and 941 DEGs were identified in groups a, b and c respectively. Functional enrichment analyses found that DEGs in DKD glomeruli were mainly enriched in functions related to actin cytoskeleton; in DKD tubuli were mainly enriched in immune and inflammatory response-associated functions. In the interaction networks constructed by DEGs of DKD glomeruli and DKD tubuli, FYN, FN1, RB1 and CASP3 had higher degrees. Co-expression network analysis revealed 43 modules that did not reach the threshold requirements of preservation in DKD glomeruli. The probes in 43 modules had 44 common probes with differentially expressed probes in DKD glomeruli and DKD tubuli, which were enriched in extracellular matrix-associated terms. In the interaction networks of 43 common probes, FN1, ANXA2, and EFNB2 had higher degrees. The present study indicates that the function terms like actin cytoskeleton, immune and inflammatory response and extracellular matrix may play an important role in the pathogenesis of DKD. Genes such as FN1, EFNB2 and ANXA2 may be used as novel biomarkers in DKD.
Introduction to Robust Estimation and Hypothesis Testing

Thank you very much for downloading introduction to robust estimation and hypothesis testing. As you may know, people have search numerous times for their favorite books like this introduction to robust estimation and hypothesis testing, but end up in harmful downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they cope with some harmful bugs inside their laptop.
2 . 1 Traditional Threats in IS and ICS Availability threats

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) have become a serious hazard for any critical infrastructure, as a single solution to protect all industrial assets from these complex attacks does not exist. It is then essential to understand what are the defense mechanisms that can be used as a first line of defense. For this purpose, this article will firstly study the spectrum of attack vectors that APTs can use against existing and novel elements of an industrial ecosystem. Afterwards, this article will provide an analysis of the evolution and applicability of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that have been proposed in both the industry and academia.
Low-Noise Micro-Power Amplifiers for Biosignal Acquisition

There are many different types of biopotential signals, such as action potentials (APs), local field potentials (LFPs), electromyography (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), etc. Nerve action potentials play an important role for the analysis of human cognition, such as perception, memory, language, emotions, and motor control. EMGs provide vital information about the patients which allow clinicians to diagnose and treat many neuromuscular diseases, which could result in muscle paralysis, motor problems, etc. EEGs is critical in diagnosing epilepsy, sleep disorders, as well as brain tumors. Biopotential signals are very weak, which requires the biopotential amplifier to exhibit low input-referred noise. For example, EEGs have amplitudes from 1 μV [microvolt] to 100 μV [microvolt] with much of the energy in the sub-Hz [hertz] to 100 Hz [hertz] band. APs have amplitudes up to 500 μV [microvolt] with much of the energy in the 100 Hz [hertz] to 7 kHz [hertz] band. In wearable/implantable systems, the low-power operation of the biopotential amplifier is critical to avoid thermal damage to surrounding tissues, preserve long battery life, and enable wirelessly-delivered or harvested energy supply. For an ideal thermal-noise-limited amplifier, the amplifier power is inversely proportional to the input-referred noise of the amplifier. Therefore, there is a noise-power trade-off which must be well-balanced by the designers. In this work I propose novel amplifier topologies, which are able to significantly improve the noise-power efficiency by increasing the effective transconductance at a given
Revenue-Utility Tradeoff in Assortment Optimization Under the Multinomial Logit Model with Totally Unimodular Constraints

We examine the revenue–utility assortment optimization problem with the goal of finding an assortment that maximizes a linear combination of the expected revenue of the firm and the expected utility of the customer. This criterion captures the trade-off between the firm-centric objective of maximizing the expected revenue and the customer-centric objective of maximizing the expected utility. The customers choose according to the multinomial logit model, and there is a constraint on the offered assortments characterized by a totally unimodular matrix. We show that we can solve the revenue–utility assortment optimization problem by finding the assortment that maximizes only the expected revenue after adjusting the revenue of each product by the same constant. Finding the appropriate revenue adjustment requires solving a nonconvex optimization problem. We give a parametric linear program to generate a collection of candidate assortments that is guaranteed to include an optimal solution to the revenue–utility assortment optimization problem. This collection of candidate assortments also allows us to construct an efficient frontier that shows the optimal expected revenue–utility pairs as we vary the weights in the objective function. Moreover, we develop an approximation scheme that limits the number of candidate assortments while ensuring a prespecified solution quality. Finally, we discuss practical assortment optimization problems that involve totally unimodular constraints. In our computational experiments, we demonstrate that we can obtain significant improvements in the expected utility without incurring a significant loss in the expected revenue. This paper was accepted by Omar Besbes, revenue management and market analytics.
DEVELOPMENT , AND PRELIMINARY TESTING OF AN AUTONOMOUS AMPHIBIOUS ROBOT

This paper presents the design and development of an Autonomous Amphibious Robot (AAR). The AAR design is presented in detail. The AAR was tested outdoors, over land and water to demonstrate that the design meets all of the customer requirements. The AAR successfully drove with sixwheel drive, over land based obstacles and into Lake Ontario until it was floating. The robot proceeded to transition to water jet propulsion and navigated circular maneuvers. The AAR returned to the location it entered the water and transitioned from water propulsion back to wheeled drive. The robot powered out of the water and back onto land. This work represents the first step toward developing an autonomous robot. Keywordsamphibious; autonomous; robot; littoral
An open learning system for special needs education

The field of special needs education in case of speech and language deficiencies has seen great success, utilizing a number of paper-based systems, to help young children experiencing difficulty in language acquisition and the understanding of languages. These systems employ card and paper-based illustrations, which are combined to create scenarios for children in order to expose them to new vocabulary in context. While this success has encouraged the use of such systems for a long time, problems have been identified that need addressing. This paper presents research toward the application of an Open Learning system for special needs education that aims to provide an evolution in language learning in the context of understanding spoken instruction. Users of this Open Learning system benefit from open content with novel presentation of keywords and associated context. The learning algorithm is derived from the field of applied computing in human biology using the concept of spaced repetition and providing a novel augmentation of the memorization process for special needs education in a global Open Education setting.
Enhancing Response Generation Using Chat Flow Identification

Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely applied to different products and services in the past few years. As a common engagement channel between customers and businesses, live chat can benefit substantially from conversational AI. Currently, businesses spend a tremendous amount of time and money to train and educate chat agents. The training and educating processes include providing agents with chat flows, FAQs, and answer templates to guide chat agents answering customer questions efficiently and properly. However, creating such training materials for chat agents is time-consuming. In addition, the materials need to be constantly updated as new services and products are deployed to customers. In this work, we study the problem of extracting common chat flow from online customer care chats to enhance question response generation, with the goal of using them to facilitate chat agent training.
Study of Mean Transverse Energy of (N)UNCD with Tunable Laser Source

There is a strong motivation to develop and understand novel materials with the potential to be utilized as photocathodes, as these could have desirable photoemission properties for research and industrial applications. Nitrogen-incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond ((N)UNCD) photocathodes have potential to become a material of choice for photocathode applications [1]. (N)UNCD has high quantum efficiency when processed in hydrogen plasma [1], low surface roughness, and high electron conductivity through the bulk [2].
Using Natural Language Processing to Analyze Financial Climate Disclosures

According to U.S. financial legislation, companies traded on the stock market are obliged to regularly disclose risks and uncertainties that are likely to affect their operations or financial position. Since 2010, these disclosures must also include climate-related risk projections. These disclosures therefore present a large quantity of textual information on which we can apply NLP techniques in order to pinpoint the companies that divulge their climate risks and those that do not, the types of vulnerabilities that are disclosed, and to follow the evolution of these risks over time.
Graduate entrepreneurs and the tensions faced when developing social capital Dr

In recent years, academic incubators have been increasingly recognised as important for transferring academic expertise to private business. In this paper, we explore the areas of tension graduate entrepreneurs are facing. Using a qualitative social network approach, we present results from four case studies of an Austrian academic incubator and its technology oriented start-ups. We argue that in the start-up process, social capital cannot be seen as static. Social capital changes at different stages of the start-up, depending on the resources currently needed. The success of the entrepreneur depends on their ability to identify the changing business needs and to quickly adjust their social networks to the resources required. Due to the persistence forces of social capital, especially young entrepreneurs are facing problems on the relational and cognitive dimensions, such as the conflict between academia and business, and cooperation and competition. Finally, we discuss the results with regard to the management of social capital for entrepreneurs and academic incubators.
Nurlan Kerimov Designing a robust and portable workflow for detecting genetic variants associated with molecular phenotypes across multiple studies

Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis links variations in molecular phenotype expression levels to genotype variation. This analysis has become a standard practice to better understand molecular mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases. Typical QTL analysis consists of multiple steps. Although a diverse set of tools is available to perform these individual analysis, the tools have so far not been integrated into a reproducible and scalable workflow that is easy to use across a wide range computational environments. Our analysis workflow consists of three modules. The analysis starts with quantification of the phenotype of interest, proceeds with normalisation and quality control and finishes with the QTL analysis. For phenotype quantification and QTL mapping modules we developed pipelines following best practices of the nf-core framework. The pipelines are containerized, open-source, extensible and eligible to be parallelly executed in a variety computational environments. For quality control module we developed a script which automatically computes the measures of quality and provides user with information. As a proof of concept, we uniformly processed more than 40 context specific groups from more than 15 studies and discovered at least one significant eQTL for more than 9000 genes. We believe that adopting our pipelines will increase reproducibility, portability and robustness of QTL analysis in comparison to existing approaches.
The Ties that Bind: Implicit Contracts and Management Practices in Family-Run Firms

This paper investigates the impact of family CEOs on firm organizational choices and the causes and consequences of these decisions. We focus on second-generation (dynastic) family firms, collect new data on CEO successions for over 900 firms in Latin America and Europe and merge it with unique data on organizational choices, specifically, structured management practices. We use variation in the gender composition of the outgoing CEOs' children for identification. There is clear preference for male heirs: conditional on number of children, having at least one son is correlated with a 30pp higher likelihood of dynastic family succession. As the gender composition of the outgoing CEO's children is unlikely to affect decisions on mid-level managerial practices, we use it as an instrumental variable for family succession. Dynastic CEO successions lead to almost one standard deviation lower adoption of structured management practices, with an implied productivity decrease of about 10%. We rationalize this finding with a new conceptual framework that accounts for the importance of implicit employment commitments to employees of dynastic firms in determining the adoption of monitoring technologies. We find empirical evidence that, controlling for lower levels of knowledge and skills of family CEOs, concerns for reputation and ''family name'' can play a role in constraining investment in structured management practices. Overall, our empirical results shed new light on dynastic firms' persistent performance deficit and apparent lag in the adoption of structured management practices.
miR-21 is involved in resistance of Huh 7 cells to cisplatin by regulating Wnt signaling via PTEN not CK 1

It is not well-known how microRNAs (miRNAs) affect cisplatin resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, it was found that miR-21 levels were significantly increased in HCC patients after cisplatin chemotherapy and cisplatin resistant Huh7 (Huh 7 R) cells. miR-21 mimics were used to upregulate miR-21 levels in Huh7 cells while miR-21 inhibitors were used to downregulate miR-21 levels in Huh7-R cells. Relative mRNA levels and protein levels were detected by real-time PCR and Western blotting, respectively. Cell proliferation was tested by CCK-8 assay. The results showed that forced expression of miR-21 decreased cisplatin (10 μg/mL)-induced inhibition of cell proliferation in Huh7 cells. Both mRNA and protein levels of Wnt were elevated remarkably when Huh7 cells were treated with miR-21 mimics. Wnt expression was also significantly increased in Huh7-R cells, compared with Huh7 cells. Expression of PTEN, a negative regulator of Wnt signaling, was decreased by miR-21 mimics and its expression was lower in Huh7-R cells. Wnt signaling was activated by PTEN inhibition. PTEN overexpression impaired miR-21 upregulation-induced cell proliferation and inhibition of Wnt signaling decreased the role of miR-21 in cisplatin resistance. In conclusion, miR-21 is involved in regulating resistance of Huh7 cells to cisplatin by activating Wnt signaling via PTEN.
Heterologous Expression of CVS Rabies Virus Glycoprotein Gene in Pichia pastoris

The glycoprotein of rabies virus is most antigenic and immunogenic determinant present in rabies virion and can serve as effective target for development of vaccine. Hence the CVS rabies glycoprotein gene (1575 bp) was cloned into pBKS plasmid vector which was characterized by PCR and by sequencing, further the rabies glycoprotein gene was sub cloned into yeast transfer vector (pPICZαA) for expression. Linearised recombinant vector containing glycoprotein gene was introduced into yeast (Pichia pastoris, GS115) by electrophoration and the recombinant yeast clones were identified by PCR analysis. The recombinant protein expressed in yeast at a yield of 200mg per liter was confirmed by SDS-PAGE, ELISA and western blot. These results allow us to conclude that P.pastoris is a convenient system for the efficient production of heterologous CVS rabies glycoprotein for using as recombinant vaccine.
Studies on Application of Ion Beam Breeding to Industrial Microorganisms at TIARA

Mutation-breeding technologies are useful tools for the development of new biological resources in plants and microorganisms. In Takasaki Ion Accelerators for Advanced Radiation Application (TIARA) at the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Japan, ion beams were explored as novel mutagens. The mutagenic effects of various ion beams on eukaryotic and prokaryotic microorganisms were described and their application in breeding technology for industrial microorganisms were discussed. Generally, the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) depended on the liner energy transfer (LET) and the highest RBE values were obtained with 12C5+ ion beams. The highest mutation frequencies were obtained at radiation doses that gave 1%–10% of surviving fraction. By using 12C5+ ion beams in this dose range, many microorganisms have been improved successfully at TIARA. Therefore, ion-beam breeding technology for microorganisms will have applications in many industries, including stable food production, sustainable agriculture, environmental conservation, and development of energy resources in the near future. Moreover, genome analyses of the ion-beam-induced mutants are in progress to clear the differences of mutational functions induced by different LET radiations in microorganisms. Further characterizations of mutations induced by different LET radiations will facilitate more effective use of ion beams in microorganisms breeding.
Chapter 15 Monitoring α-Synuclein Proteotoxicity in Drosophila Models

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease without cure. It is characterized by α-synuclein accumulation and aggregation in dopaminergic and other types of neurons. Because α-synuclein accumulation leads to a toxic gain of function, its ectopic expression in Drosophila has been a useful in vivo model for testing modifiers of its toxicity. This chapter describes four assays: the rapid iterative negative geotaxis, rough eye phenotype, quantification of dopaminergic neuronal loss, and measurements of circadian effects.
Right-Wing Populism and Beyond

Introduction For observers of the Israeli political scene, populism may seem ubiquitous, an impression that could well be reinforced by the recent deluge of populist messages in the run-up to the 2015 general elections. Still, while there appears to be no shortage of populist manifestations in Israel’s short political history, there is surprisingly little research on populism in Israel. Studies of populist political communication are even scarcer. The literature that addresses this phenomenon tends to be non-empirical or focused on specific case studies, and while there are some comparative studies (Filc, 1996, 2011), they are the exception. Furthermore, most of the literature on the subject is engaged with right-wing populism. Against the backdrop of recent developments in the Israeli political map, and given that populism, at least in its “thin” sense, has no political color (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007), we believe that some attention should also be paid to populist manifestations at other points on the political spectrum. Our objective in this chapter is to draw a map of populism in Israel and of the research carried out in this area as a basis for future research. This map is based on existing scholarship, which primarily focuses on right-wing populism, as well as on preliminary observations regarding centrist populist manifestations in Israeli politics, focusing in particular on the case of the Yesh Atid (YA) party and its leader, Lapid.
Remote Sensing for the Mapping of Urban Poverty and Slum Areas

Urban focused social science investigates the present-day challenges (threats) to the welfare of urban populations. Social science research mostly relies on interactions with individuals, e.g., through surveys or ethnographic research. Social science studies are attracted to remote sensing (RS) data for observing changes in physical characteristics on a local (e.g. urban studies), regional (forest cover change), or even a global scale. Those are the ones that can be coupled with social science data streams, e.g. within surveys or observation of behavior (e.g., migration, market activities). But there is no natural correspondence to grids or even small-scale administrative units. On the other hand technological requirements seriously reduce the usability of RS data in social science (SS) applications.
DISTRIBUTED PROPELLERS SLIPSTREAM EFFECTS ON WING AT LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER

Based on the research about the distributed electric propulsion (DEP) technology applied on high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) solarpowered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the aerodynamic characteristics of the FX 63-137 wing under the distributed propellers slipstream effects in a tractor configuration at low Reynolds numbers are numerically studied. The numerical simulations are achieved by quasisteadily solving the Reynolds-Averaged NaviorStokes (RANS) equations based on the multiple reference frames (MRF) method, the kT-kL-ω transition model, and the hybrid grids. Firstly, the numerical results of the FX 63-137 wing and a practical propeller X1 are compared with the experimental data to validate the accuracy and flexibility of the method. Secondly, the aerodynamic properties of the distributed propellers/wing integration are compared among different rotation rates of propellers. Lastly, the detailed flow structures formed on the wing surfaces are sketched and analyzed. The results show that (a) significant lift benefits can be achieved for the reason that both the speed and the dynamic pressure of the incoming flow are enhanced by the propellers slipstream; (b) the turbulence added to the free stream by means of the distributed propellers slipstream prevent the formation of laminar separation bubble (LSB), but apparent horizontal vortexes can be observed at the slipstream boundaries at the same time; (c) the lift augmentation on the down-wash side of the wing is slightly stronger than that on the up-wash side at low Reynolds numbers, which results from the mechanisms that the LSB formed on the windward side of the wing is correspondingly found to be slightly shorter than that on the leeward side.