Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rhizobium population genetics: enzyme polymorphism in isolates from peas, clover, beans and lucerne grown at the same site

Summary: Isolates of Rhizobium meliloti and of R. leguminosarum biovars viceae, trifolii and phaseoli were obtained from a single site in Norfolk, England, and examined by enzyme electrophoresis of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, superoxide dismutase, -galactosidase and esterases. All the enzymes had mobility variants, but the variation of the different enzymes was highly correlated, so that only a restricted number of combinations (electrophoretic types, ETs) were found. Some ETs were confined to a single biovar, but others were shared amongst R. leguminosarum biovars viceae, trifolii and phaseoli. Most R. meliloti isolates were quite distinct from those of R. leguminosarum. Electrophoresis of total soluble protein in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate revealed variation that correlated with the ET rather than with the host range. It is suggested that the Rhizobium isolates from this site comprise a number of genetically distinct lineages, some of which may carry any of several different host-range determinants, and which therefore appear in more than one biovar.
Optimal Estimation of Simultaneous Signals Using Absolute Inner Product with Applications to Integrative Genomics

Integrating the summary statistics from genome-wide association study (GWAS) and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data provides a powerful way of identifying the genes whose expression levels are causally associated with complex diseases. A parameter that quantifies the genetic sharing (colocalisation) between disease phenotype and gene expression of a given gene based on the summary statistics is first introduced based on the mean values of two Gaussian sequences. Specifically, given two independent samples $X\sim N(\theta, I_n)$ and $Y\sim N(\mu, I_n)$, the parameter of interest is $T(\theta, \mu)=n^{-1}\sum_{i=1}^n |\theta_i|\cdot |\mu_i|$, a non-smooth functional, which characterizes the degree of shared signals between two absolute normal mean vectors $|\theta|$ and $|\mu|$. Using approximation theory and Hermite polynomials, a sparse absolute colocalisation estimator (SpACE) is constructed and shown to be minimax rate optimal over sparse parameter spaces. Our simulation demonstrates that the proposed estimates out-perform other naive methods, resulting in smaller estimation errors. In addition, the methods are robust to the presence of block-wise correlated observations due to linkage equilibrium. The method is applied to an integrative analysis of heart failure genomics data sets and identifies several genes and biological pathways that are possibly causal to human heart failure.
Sensitivity Analysis of Volatility: A New Tool for Risk Management

The extension of GARCH models to the multivariate setting has been fraught with difficulties. In this paper, we suggest to work with univariate portfolio GARCH models. We show how the multivariate dimension of the portfolio allocation problem may be recovered from the univariate approach. The main tool we use is the "variance sensitivity analysis", which measures the change in the portfolio variance as a consequence of an infinitesimal change in the portfolio allocation. We derive the sensitivity of the univariate portfolio GARCH variance to the portfolio weights, by analytically computing the derivatives of the estimated GARCH variance with respect to these weights. We suggest a new and simple method to estimate full variance-covariance matrices of portfolio assets. An application to real data portfolios shows how to implement our methodology and compares its performance against that of selected popular alternatives. JEL Classification: C32, C53, G15
Leadership Development: A Lever for System-Wide Educational Change.

The continuous poor performance of South Africa’s learners is detrimental to its developing economy. The need for education change prompted two universities to initiate a system-wide change strategy in a poorly performing school district. The leverage for change was leadership development, involving school principals and district officials. The global impetus for driving leadership development is based on the positive association between high-quality leadership and effective schools. The change strategy was a three year leadership development intervention programme. An evaluative case study was used to investigate the experiences of the participants during the implementation of the programme. Research methods included individual interviews, observation, and a survey by means of a questionnaire. Using systems theory as a theoretical framework, various disconnections were identified in the school district. These disconnections concern the interrelationships between the educational leaders which hinder organisational learning. Changing the culture of the school district through system-wide collaboration could be the key to systemic improvements. Strategies such as collective capacity building, joint problem-solving, networking and system leadership, might provide the essential ‘glue’ for strengthening the interconnections within the school district. Keywords: collective capacity building; district officials; education change; educational leadership; leadership development; principals; school district; system leadership; system-wide change
3 ON THE DIMENSIONALITY AND CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE AFFECT INTENSITY

We propose and find a six-factor structure for the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM). The factors are labeled general (i.e., non-valenced) affect intensity, negative affectivity, guilt, threat to self-identity, serenity, and positive affectivity. Construct validity was established a) internally with regard to convergent and discriminant validity of measures of the six dimensions of the AIM and b) externally for discriminant validity between measures of the need for cognition and the six AIM dimensions and for criterion-related validity between measures of empathy and the six AIM dimensions. All the above analyses were done separately for women ( = 413) and men ( = 333). Further analyses established the invariance of the factor structure, factor loadings, error variances, and factor variance-covariance matrix for men and women. Finally, women were found to experience affect more intensely than men on all six dimensions of the AIM.
Joints Position Estimation of a Redundant Scara Robot by Means of the Unscented Kalman Filter and Inertial Sensors

A method is presented for estimating the position of rotational and prismatic joints of a novel SCARA‐type fault‐tolerant redundant manipulator using inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes). The estimation is based on the integration of the different sensors by means of the modified AUKF algorithm. The results of the evaluation of this integration scheme are compared with the CMRGD and DCMR methods, which are used for the estimation of the positions of rotational joints based on inertial sensors, showing a clear advantage of the proposed integration method over existing methods for estimating the joint angles, in addition to allowing the calculation of the position of prismatic joints.
THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATING SOCIAL NETWORK TIES

Este estudo analisa o comportamento de universitarios na formacao da sua rede de network atraves dos sistemas de comunicacao disponiveis como telefones, celulares, e-mails, websites de relacionamento, face a face e mensagem de texto, e a influencia da forca do vinculo na transferencia de informacao. Um questionario sobre o uso dos meios de comunicacao foi respondido por 40 alunos do curso de graduacao de uma faculdade no oeste do Estado de Nova York nos Estados Unidos considerando dois grupos de pessoas: a) amigos proximos e b) amigos de trabalho/estudo. Os grupos responderam as seguintes perguntas: 1. Localizacao geografica; 2. Principal meio de comunicacao entre o aluno e seu network 3. Se ambos fazem parte do mesmo website de relacionamento; 4. Quanto os alunos se sentem confortaveis em solicitar aos membros do grupo um favor e compartilhar informacoes profissionais. O resultado preliminar indicou que: 1. Alunos sao mais provaveis em pedir favores e busca informacao professional com amigos mais proximos do que com colegas de trabalho ou estudo. 2. Comunicacao face a face foi o meio mais comum de comunicacao com os alunos que trabalham ou estudam juntos. 3. Mensagem de texto e websites de relacionamento sao os meios mais importantes de comunicacao em ambos os grupos e mais frequentes com os amigos mais proximos. Esta informacao sugere que departamentos de recrutamento das universidades devem investir em novas areas de relacionamento com alunos, uma vez que emails deixam de ser o principal meio de comunicacao.
Analysis of Series-Connected IGBTs Protection Method under Short Circuit II

The difference between single and series-connected insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBTs) during short circuit II (SC II) is analyzed contrastively, and requirements for an improved protection have been advanced to solve the SC II problem of series-connected IGBTs. A new principle of short circuit protection based on the logic of SC II fault processing used by the main control unit was proposed, using an active voltage clamping circuit to balance the dynamic voltage during breakdown, using an RC circuit to balance the voltage during tail current stage, and a formula to estimate the absorption capacitance and the selection principle of static voltage balancing resistance was proposed. The parameters under the actual test condition was given, the short circuit test system of series-connected IGBTs established, and the experimental verification carried out under the actual conditions. The result shows that under a Vbus of 1400V (2.65kV maximum peak voltage for each IGBT), the new protection method can provide synchronization of protect operation and voltage balancing during turning-off process, and the unbalance of steady stage voltage is under 5%.
Bioengineering shape, structure and function in primary and stem cell derived cardiomyocytes: in vitro and in-silico models of exitations contraction coupling

The pharmaceutical industry is facing a critical juncture: developing new compounds has become an extremely expensive process (~500M$/compound that makes it to clinical trials) with such a low efficiency (per single disease target, ~5/5000 compounds make it to the later stages) that will not be sustainable much longer. Return on investment in fact is threatened by the toxicity that a compound may have on on/off-targets organs or in patients with particular genetics, a fact that might be overlooked during traditional clinical trials due to limited sample size. Recently a new paradigm has been proposed named “Fail Fast, Fail Cheap” (FFFC): that is, if better predictive models can be designed for the pre-clinical trial phases a compound’s toxicity can be estimated when tests are cheaper, thus increasing the probability of the final ~5 compounds to be non-toxic. In this doctorate thesis the author investigates two strategies to achieve FFFC: i) a theoretical/computational approach to describe the biophysics of the biological systems of interest (in-silico) and male predictions regarding toxicity and efficacy and ii) an experimental approach with the use of primary and stem-cell derived cells (in-vitro). The work is focused on cardiac cells (cardiomyocytes) as cardiac toxicity has been introduced by regulatory agencies as one of the most important metric for drugs targeting any organ or disease.
RITMO DE ESTUDIO Y TRAYECTORIA UNIVERSITARIA

El proposito del trabajo fue enunciar relaciones entre el manejo del tiempo y el rendimiento academico de alumnos universitarios. Se traba-jo con 462 sujetos que cursan de 1o a 5o ano de diferentes carreras univer-sitarias. Para los analisis se subdividio al Grupo Total en Grupo I y Grupo II en funcion de no contar o contar con aplazos en los examenes finales. Ademas se realizaron analisis por carrera y por genero. Los resultados mostraron lo siguiente: a) leve tendencia a un mejor manejo del tiempo de los varones sin aplazos que de las mujeres y la relacion inversa cuando se considera el grupo de alumnos con aplazos; b); las mujeres tienen un ma-yor porcentaje de materias rendidas en relacion con el plan de estudio que los varones; c) el grupo de alumnos que no tiene aplazos presenta un porcentaje menor de numero de materias rendidas con relacion al plan de estudio que el grupo de estudiantes que tiene aplazos en sus examenes y; d) se confirma que el instrumento es apto para medir las relaciones entre manejo de tiempo y rendimiento academico.
Theoretical Studies of Solid Nitromethane

A classical potential to simulate the dynamics of a nitromethane crystal as a function of temperature and pressure is described. The intramolecular part of the potential was taken as superposition of bond stretching, bond bending, and torsional angles terms. These terms were parametrized on the basis of the geometric and spectroscopic (vibrational frequencies and eigenvectors) data obtained using ab initio molecular orbital calculations performed at the B3LYP/6-31G* level on an isolated molecule. The intermolecular potential used is of the Buckingham 6-exp form plus charge−charge Coulombic interactions and has been previously developed by us (Sorescu, D. C.; Rice, B. M.; Thompson, D. L. J. Phys. Chem. 1997, B101, 798) to simulate crystals containing nitramine molecules and several other classes of nitro compounds. The analyses performed using constant pressure and temperature molecular dynamics simulations and molecular packing calculations indicate that the proposed potential model is able to reproduce a.
Design education in the age of media convergence

The development of digital media has enabled the convergence of different technologies and forms of communication into a single distribution network, while also leading to the diversification of media forms. These convergent and divergent phenomena have affected the way in which products and services are created and delivered. This paper explores the implications of new communication technologies on design education, informed by teaching projects with graphic and multimedia design students. Drawing from a research project conducted as part of a doctoral program, this paper examines what new challenges might emerge for design educators due to the convergence and divergence of communication technologies. Observations made during the project were used as a basis for discussion around questions such as: How do design educators create relevant curricula that address the challenges posed by convergent media? How might educators address the growing gulf between traditional media-specific skills, and the skills required for new media? How might educators teach design skills that are applicable across a broad spectrum of media and disciplines, while still addressing the requirements of a specific medium? Several possible approaches will be offered in the conclusion of this paper and are used to inform further discussion on pedagogic approaches for convergent media.
Rawan Atari - The Influence of Multi-Sensory Environment on Physiological Response in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Children with Special Health Care Needs

A research study based on the sensory integration theory was conducted to examine the effects of multi-sensory environment (MSE) on physiological arousal in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and special health care needs. Adapted environments may serve as a mechanism to treat anxiety levels in a population of children who experience more severe generalized anxiety symptoms than typically developing children. The sample consisted of children with community-based diagnoses of ASD and children with special health care needs, primarily children diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) from the Milwaukee Center for Independence (MCFI). Treatment for the autism sample was carried out by a trained MCFI staff member and treatment for children with special health care needs was carried out by a trained physical therapist. Electrodermal response was used as a measure to detect the “fight or flight” response of the sympathetic nervous system. The measurement of electrodermal activity was recorded by a wireless bracelet device that recorded the skin conductance level of the participant prior to entering the sensory room, during treatment in the sensory room, and after exiting the sensory room. Results indicated increased arousal in children with CP, as sensory stimulation was the main goal of physical therapists. Results for the autism sample varied by participant and indicated that treatment needs to be individualized for optimal benefits. Findings support the use of MSE as an alternative technique to improve therapeutic opportunities for children with cerebral palsy by stimulating sensations that are otherwise generally dormant. THE INFLUENCE OF MULTI-SENSORY ENVIRONMENT 3 The Influence of Multi-sensory Environment on Physiological Response in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Children with Special Health Care Needs
Stability Conditions of Second Order Integrodifferential Equations with Variable Delay

We investigate integrodifferential functional differential equations with variable delay. By using the fixed point theory, we obtain conditions which ensure that the zero solution of this equation is stable under an exponentially weighted metric. Then we establish necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring that the zero solution is asymptotically stable. We will give an example to apply our results.
Effects of rapamycin on life span and on expression of TOR and S6K in Brachionus calyciflorus (Rotifera)

The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) coordinates a complex signal pathway from translation to autophagy that is a key regulator of not only growth and proliferation but also metabolism and aging. mTOR is sensitive to many environmental and endocrine stimuli. We investigated the influence of TOR signaling on aging and reproduction of the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus using rapamycin as an exogenous inhibitor. We found that 2 and 4 μM rapamycin extended B. calyciflorus life span by 15 and 22%, respectively compared with controls (p < 0.05). The reproductive peak was significantly delayed by rapamycin at 2 and 4 μM (p < 0.01), but the preand post-reproduction periods were not significantly different from controls (p > 0.05). Partial cDNAs coding 375 bp for TOR and 951 bp for S6 kinase (S6K) were obtained from B. calyciflorus expressed sequence tags. The identities of the deduced amino acid sequences of B. calyciflorus cDNAs to their human orthologs were 58% for TOR and 68% for S6K. TOR and S6K mRNA expression were upor down-regulated by different rapamycin concentrations (0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 μM) and treatment intervals (control, 12, 24, 36, and 48 h). The results indicated that TOR inhibition acted additively to extend rotifer life span, with upand down-regulation simultaneously impacting reproduction and gene expression.
Stanley Milgram’s Experiments and the Saving of the Possibility of Disobedience

Milgram’s experiments have exposed the bitter truth that, against their moral standards, the great majority of subjects actually obeyed malevolent authorities and are ready to cause great suffering, even death, to innocent victims. The reason for such unexpected and shocking behavior can be clearly explained in the light of panenmentalist philosophy, according to which individual pure possibilities and their relations are as real as actualities and, normally, persons are free to choose between alternative pure possibilities in whatsoever circumstances. Nevertheless, whenever persons ignore the singular individuality of other people, such persons can cause most evil, entirely immoral deeds, to the others simply because impersonal authorities order them to do so. Hence, panenmentalism reveals the philosophical conditions because of which obedience or defiance to malevolent authority is possible.
Fragmentation, Productivity and Relative Wages in the UK: A General Equilibrium Approach

Feenstra and Hanson (1999) propose a two-stop method to analyse the role of outsourcing and skill-biased technological change (SBTC) in the rise in wage inequality. This paper applies their methodology to UK manufacturing using data for the 1990s and extends it in order to obtain additional insight in the relative importance of the sector bias and the factor bias of outsourcing and SBTC. The results indicate that outsourcing has significantly contributed to the rise in the domestic wage inequality accounting for approximately 12% of the increase in the UK in the 1990s. Factor-biased outsourcing was about 2.5 times as important as sector-biased outsourcing in explaining the increase in wage inequality.
Designing a Comic Exploration System Using a Hierarchical Topic Classification of Reviews

The purpose of our research is information access support based on the contents of a comic book. For this purpose, it is necessary to obtain information related to the story and the characters. In our previous research, we extracted the information using a review sentence and built a comic search system based on the extraction results. This system determined the relationship between comics using the TF-IDF method. However, the TF-IDF method cannot take into account the meaning of each word included in the review sentence. Therefore, this system may not be able to provide accurate results based on comic relationships. In this study, we analyze the review sentence using a hierarchical topic classification. On the other hand, the extracted topics often contain words that hinder the user from guessing the contents of the comic. Especially, the named entities defined in the comic tend to cause the problem. The amount of information obtained by the user varies greatly based on the user's knowledge about the named entities. In this study, we investigated the influence of the named entity extracted from the comic reviews as the feature words. Our experiment revealed that the user's understandability was improved when the proportion of the named entities was decreased. Furthermore, we build an exploratory search system based on the topic.
An observational study of cardiac output changes during regional anaesthesia in patients with fractured neck of femur.

Background and objectives: Regional anaesthesia is a popular choice for repair of fractured neck of femur. We found very few studies looking at the cardiac output changes during regional anaesthesia for this procedure. We therefore decided to observe cardiac output changes in patients undergoing repair of fractured neck of femur under regional anaesthesia using Lithium Dilution Cardiac Output Monitor.Methods: Twenty one fractured neck of femur patients agreed to take part in this observational study. Cardiac output, stroke volume, invasive blood pressure and heart rate data were recorded from the time before the establishment of regional anaesthesia until completion of surgery. Results:The cardiac output changes occurred mostly within the first 25 min after intrathecal administration of local anaesthetic. Stroke volume and cardiac output decreased on average by 15% and 20% respectively. We recorded an average reduction of 22% in systemic vascular resistance and of 20% in mean arterial pressure from pre-anaesthetic levels.Conclusions:Regional anaesthesia for fractured neck of femur repair can be associated with significant changes in cardiac output. Most prominent changes happened within the first 25 minutes after intrathecal injection. Vasoconstrictors and fluid appear to be appropriate first line treatment. Minimally invasive cardiac output monitoring is likely to be beneficial in this high risk population of surgical patients.