Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genotypic Assessment of the Latvian Rye (Secale Cereale L.) Collection

Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an important grain crop in Latvia, where it is mainly used for baking rye bread, which is a popular staple. However, the area under rye cultivation in Latvia is small, and the majority of varieties planted are foreign. In 1937, almost 290 000 ha of rye were planted, while in 2011, only 28 000 ha were planted, or ~5% of the area planted with cereals. The Latvian rye genetic resources collection contains nine accessions, including old and new cultivars, landraces and one repatriated accession, which was previously held in the N. I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry collection. A set of descriptors has been developed for rye, and field evaluations of the Latvian rye collection have been started. A set of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers has been utilised for genetic fingerprinting of the collection. The initial genetic results indicate that the Latvian rye collection contains a high degree of genetic diversity. Analyses are continuing in order to more fully characterise the collection both phenotypically and genetically. LATVIJAS RUDZU (Secale cereale L.) KOLEKCIJAS GENOTIPISKAIS NOVĒRTĒJUMS Rudzi (.Secale cereale L.) ir Latvijā nozīmīga graudaugu suga, un tie galvenokārt tiek izmantoti pārtikā rudzu maizes cepšanai. Rudzu platības Latvijā ir nelielas, un pārsvarā audzēšanai izmanto ārzemju šķirnes. 1937. gadā rudzu sējumi bija gandrīz 290 000 ha, savukārt, 2011. gadā - tikai 28 000 ha jeb -5% no visām graudaugu platībām. Latvijas rudzu ģenētisko resursu kolekcijā ir deviņi paraugi - vietējās un selekcionāru izveidotās šķirnes un viens no N. I. Vavilova Viskrievijas augkopības institūta kolekcijas repatriēts paraugs. Rudzu ģenētisko resursu kolekcija vērtēta lauka apstākļos atbilstoši izstrādātajiem morfoloģisko pazīmju deskriptoriem. Kolekcijas ģenētiskajā novērtējumā izmantoti SSR (Simple Sequence Repeat) DNS marķieri. Sākotnējie ģenētiskie rezultāti parāda, ka ģenētiskās daudzveidības līmenis Latvijas rudzu kolekcijā ir augsts. Lai pilnīgāk raksturotu kolekciju (gan fenotipiski, gan genotipiski), pētījumi tiek turpināti.
User experience design and agile development : integration as an on-going achievement in practice

This research investigates how Agile development is combined with User Experience (UX) design. Agile development and UX design have roots in different disciplines and practitioners have to reconcile their perspectives on developing software if they are to work together. To date, there has been no sustained academic study on how Agile developers and UX designers work together in practical settings on a day-to-day basis. The ethnographically-informed research in this dissertation consists of three studies of teams in organisational settings, combined with an analysis of accounts of Agile development and UX design practice found in the literature. Together, they provide evidence for the complex, multifaceted nature of the work that integrates Agile development with UX design. The studies of day-to-day practice conducted for this research, found the work of the Agile developers and UX designers to be localised, contingent and purposeful. Agile devolopment and UX design integration, as it was achieved in the teams studied, was negotiated and achieved on a day-to-day basis between the developers and designers. The findings from the analysis of accounts of practice from the literature show that integration is achieved with the right tools, techniques and processes that coordinate between the tasks of the developers and designers and establish a focus on usability and on releasing working software. However, the accounts contain little and conflicting evidence for what constitutes the day-to-day work of Agile developers and UX designers in practical settings and as a result the utility of tools, techniques and processes for practice is not clear. Informed by the findings from the accounts in the literature and the studies of practice, five facets emerged as integral to an understanding of how the integration of Agile development and UX design is an on-going achievement in practice. These facets are (1) focus and coordination, (2) mutual awareness, (3) expectations about acceptable behaviour, (4) negotiating progress and (5) engaging with each other. The extent to which these facets enable integration, depend on contextual values concerning the combination of Agile development and UX design endorsed in the organisation. These findings serve to establish conditions which can constrain and enable Agile developers and UX designers in their integration work, while being sympathetic to the values embedded in the settings in which they work.
Stable Thin-Film Reference Electrode on Plastic Substrate for All-Solid-State Ion-Sensitive Field-Effect Transistor Sensing System

Solid-state thin-film reference electrodes (REs) were fabricated on plastic substrate based on a titanium/gold/silver/silver chloride (Ti/Au/Ag/AgCl) multi-layer metal structure for ion-sensitive field-effect-transistor (ISFET)-based sensing systems. A porous structure polyvinyl butyral membrane was formed on top to maintain a constant concentration of chloride as well as acting as a bridge between the electrolyte inside the membrane and the test solution. Excellent measurement stability was achieved with the fabricated RE, with a small drift rate of the open circuit potential less than 1.7 mV per hour. An all-solid-state ISFET sensing system was thus able to be built using the RE for pH measurement, showing excellent reproducibility. The system was finally applied for measuring different beverages, and the measurement results agreed well with those obtained with a commercial pH meter.
Multiple routes to asexuality in an aphid species

Cyclical parthenogens, including aphids, are important models for studying the evolution of sex. However, little is known about transitions to asexuality in aphids, although the mode of origin of asexual lineages has important consequences for their level of genetic diversity, ecological adaptability and the outcome of competition with their sexual relatives. Thus, we surveyed nuclear, mitochondrial and biological data obtained on cyclical and obligate parthenogens of the bird cherry–oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi (L), to investigate the frequency of transitions from sexuality to permanent asexuality. Many instances of asexual lineages retaining the ability to produce males are known in aphids, so particular attention was paid to the existence of occasional matings between females from sexual lineages and males produced by asexual lineages, which have the potential to produce new asexual lineages. Phylogenetic inference based on microsatellite and mitochondrial data indicates at least three independent origins of asexuality in R. padi, yielding the strongest evidence to date for multiple origins of asexuality in an aphid. Moreover, several lines of evidence demonstrate that transitions to asexuality result from two mechanisms: a complete spontaneous loss of sex and repeated gene flow from essentially asexual lineages into sexual ones.
Times to exhaustion at 90, 100 and 105% of velocity at VO2 max (maximal aerobic speed) and critical speed in elite long-distance runners.

Previous studies had concluded that the treadmill velocity-endurance time hyperbolic relationship for runs could be accuratly approached with a regression at condition that bouts of exercise duration were included between 2 and 12 min. This regression allows to calculate the critical speed (CS) defined as the slope of the regression of work (distance) on time to exhaustion, the anaerobic running capacity (ARC) being the intercept of this line (Monod & Scherrer, 1965). The purpose of this investigation was to give practical indication concerning the choice of the velocities in reference to the maximal aerobic speed (MAS i.e. the minimum speed which elicits VO2max). Subjects were fourteen elite male long-distance runners (27 +/- 3 years old; VO2max = 74.9 +/- 2.9 ml.kg-1.min-1, MAS = 22.4 +/- 0.8 km.h-1, CS = 19.3 +/- 0.7 km.h-1 and 86.2 +/- 1.5% MAS). tlim 100 values (321 +/- 83 s) were negatively correlated with MAS (r = -0.538, p < 0.05) and with CS (km.h-1) (r = -0.644, p < 0.01). tlim 90 (1015 +/- 266 s) was positively correlated with CS when expressed in % MAS (r = 0.645, p < 0.01) and not when expressed in km.h-1 (r = -0.095, P > 0.05). tlim 105 (176 +/- 40 s) only was correlated with ARC (r = 0.526, p < 0.05). These data demonstrate that running time to exhaustion at 100 and 105% of MAS in a homogeneous elite male long-distance runners group is inversely related to MAS. Moreover, tlim 90 is positively correlated with CS (%MAS) but neither with tlim 100 and 105 nor with maximal aerobic speed. So from a practical point of view, the velocities chosen to determine the critical speed, would be closed to the maximal aerobic speed (time to exhaustion around 6 min), taking into account that the tlim 105 is correlated with the anaerobic capacity, whereas tlim 90 is correlated with the critical speed.
News Sensitivity and the Cross - Section of Stock Returns

The paper is the first one outside the high-frequency domain to use sentiment-signed news to directly compare news and no-news stock returns. This is done by estimating whether returns on positive, neutral and negative news days are significantly different from the average daily return for a large sample of US stocks over the period from January 2003 to August 2010. The general results show that positive news days indeed have above-average returns and negative news days returns are below average, while the neutral news days are economically barely distinguishable from the average. The market also proves to be fast and accurate at pricing new information, as there are no signs of drift shortly after news days. On the contrary, a directionally correct and statistically significant movement can be found on the day before the news day. The cross-sectional analysis reveals significant differences in the strength of market reactions between stocks ranked on size, book-to-market or news coverage. The general results however hold across all subsamples and are also not driven by earnings announcements or past stock returns. Moreover, the average news sensitivity is itself a priced source of risk. A portfolio of stocks with high sensitivity to news outperforms a portfolio of stocks with low sensitivity by a statistically and economically significant 0.84% per month. This news premium seems to primarily relate to the high impact of news in situations of general uncertainty.
Sparse learning with duality gap guarantee

We propose a general regularized empirical risk minimization framework for sparse learning which accommodates popular regularizers such as lasso, group lasso, and the trace norm. Within this framework, we develop two optimization algorithms. The first method is based on squared penalties added to the empirical risk and is solved using a subgradient-based L-BFGS quasi-Newton method. The second method is based on constraints imposed on sparsity-inducing norms and is solved using a gradient projection method. A notable advantage of our approaches is that a simple way to access the dual objective value is available, which is useful in tracking the progress of optimization and deciding when to terminate the optimization procedure.
Alopecia areata: light and electron microscopic pathology of the regrowing white hair

Light and electron microscopic studies have been carried out on fifteen regrowing white anagen hair follicles from seven patients with alopecia areata. Seven bulbs showed evidence of cell injury that was concentrated in cortical keratocytes. Lower bulb matrix cells appeared undamaged though in six bulbs apoptotic degeneration was seen in the lower bulb keratocytes, perhaps indicating early catagen transformation. Melanocytes were identified in all the bulbs except those from one patient. The number of melanocytes and their melanization were much less than in the normal pigmented follicle, and pigment transfer was rarely seen. It is proposed that alopecia areata is a disease of differentiating cortical keratocytes. The failure of pigmentation in the regrowing white hair may be post‐inflammatory, but the various other pigmentary features of alopecia areata, especially the sparing of senile white hairs, suggest that pigmentary mechanisms in the hair bulb are of primary importance in the pathogenesis of this disorder.
Rough sets and support vector machine for selecting differentially expressed miRNAs

The microRNAs, also known as miRNAs are, the class of small non-coding RNAs that repress the expression of a gene post-transcriptionally. In effect, they regulate expression of a gene or protein. It has been observed that they play an important role in various cellular processes and thus help in carrying out normal functioning of a cell. However, dysregulation of miRNAs is found to be a major cause of a disease. Various studies have also shown the role of miRNAs in cancer and utility of miRNAs for the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. A large number of works have been conducted to identify differentially expressed miRNAs as unlike with mRNA expression, a modest number of miRNAs might be sufficient to classify human cancers. In this regard, this paper presents a rough set based feature selection algorithm to select miRNAs from expression data that can classify tissue samples into their respective category with minimal error rate. It selects a set of miRNAs by maximizing both the relevance and significance of miRNAs. The effectiveness of the rough set based algorithm, along with a comparison with other related algorithms, is demonstrated on three miRNA microarray expression data sets using the B.632+ bootstrap error rate of support vector machine.
Surface leakage currents in SiN/sub x/ passivated AlGaN/GaN HFETs

A novel guarded surface leakage test structure is used to isolate the surface and bulk leakage contributions to gate current in AlGaN/GaN HFETs. Passivation with various recipes of SiN/sub x/ always resulted in the commonly observed increase in gate leakage, which was found to be dominated by bulk leakage through the AlGaN. However, high temperature deposited SiN/sub x/ recipes gave a 1-2 orders reduction in surface leakage, whereas low temperature deposition gave an increase. Gate lag measurements were found to correlate closely with the surface leakage component, giving direct evidence that the key device problem of current slump is associated with current flow at the AlGaN surface.
Enhancement of VCSEL Performances Using Localized Copper Bonding Through Silicon Vias

We report on a new cost effective, with a low temperature budget and simple bonding process on silicon, presenting efficient heat spreading and great potentialities in integration. This process is based on a thick electro-plated copper bonding layer through silicon vias and is expected to reduce significantly the bonded device internal temperature. We apply this process to realize 1.55-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> emitting vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. We demonstrate continuous wave operation from room temperature up to 55 °C, an internal temperature reduction of 13 °C, and we estimate a decrease of 30% of the overall device thermal impedance.
Lattice strains in gold and rhenium under nonhydrostatic compression to 37 GPa

Using energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction techniques together with the theory describing lattice strains under nonhydrostatic compression, the behavior of a layered sample of gold and rhenium has been studied at pressures of 14x2013;37 GPa. For gold, the uniaxial stress component t is consistent with earlier studies and can be described by t=0.06+0.015P where P is the pressure in GPa. The estimated single-crystal elastic moduli are in reasonable agreement with trends based on extrapolated low-pressure data. The degree of elastic anisotropy increases as x3B1;, the parameter which characterizes stress-strain continuity across grain boundaries, is reduced from 1.0 to 0.5. For rhenium, the apparent equation of state has been shown to be strongly influenced by nonhydrostatic compression, as evidenced by its dependence on the angle x3C8; between the diffracting plane normal and the stress axis. The bulk modulus obtained by inversion of nonhydrostatic compression data can differ by nearly a factor of 2 at angles of 0xB0; and 90xB0;. On the other hand, by a proper choice of x3C8;, d spacings corresponding to quasihydrostatic compression can be obtained from data obtained under highly nonhydrostatic conditions. The uniaxial stress in rhenium over the pressure range from 14x2013;37 GPa can be described by t=2.5+0.09P. The large discrepancy between x-ray elastic moduli and ultrasonic data and theoretical calculations indicates that additional factors such as texturing or orientation dependence of t need to be incorporated to more fully describe the strain distribution in hexagonal-close-packed metals.
Polypeptide GalNAc-transferase T3 and Familial Tumoral Calcinosis

Mutations in the gene encoding the glycosyltransferase polypeptide GalNAc-T3, which is involved in initiation of O-glycosylation, were recently identified as a cause of the rare autosomal recessive metabolic disorder familial tumoral calcinosis (OMIM 211900). Familial tumoral calcinosis is associated with hyperphosphatemia and massive ectopic calcifications. Here, we demonstrate that the secretion of the phosphaturic factor fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) requires O-glycosylation, and that GalNAc-T3 selectively directs O-glycosylation in a subtilisin-like proprotein convertase recognition sequence motif, which blocks processing of FGF23. The study suggests a novel posttranslational regulatory model of FGF23 involving competing O-glycosylation and protease processing to produce intact FGF23.
Comparison of Phenotypic and Genotypic Techniques for Identification of Unusual Aerobic Pathogenic Gram-Negative Bacilli

ABSTRACT Rapid and accurate identification of bacterial pathogens is a fundamental goal of clinical microbiology, but one that is difficult or impossible for many slow-growing and fastidious organisms. We used identification systems based on cellular fatty acid profiles (Sherlock; MIDI, Inc., Newark, Del.), carbon source utilization (Microlog; Biolog, Inc., Hayward, Calif.), and 16S rRNA gene sequence (MicroSeq; Perkin-Elmer Applied Biosystems Division, Foster City, Calif.) to evaluate 72 unusual aerobic gram-negative bacilli isolated from clinical specimens at the Mayo Clinic. Compared to lengthy conventional methods, Sherlock, Microlog, and MicroSeq were able to identify 56 of 72 (77.8%), 63 of 72 (87.5%), and 70 of 72 (97.2%) isolates to the genus level (P = 0.002) and 44 to 65 (67.7%), 55 of 65 (84.6%), and 58 of 65 (89.2%) isolates to the species level (P = 0.005), respectively. FourAcinetobacter and three Bordetella isolates which could not be identified to the species level by conventional methods were identified by MicroSeq. In comparison to the full 16S rDNA sequences, the first 527 bp provided identical genus information for all 72 isolates and identical species information for 67 (93.1%) isolates. These data show that MicroSeq provides rapid, unambiguous identification of clinical bacterial isolates. The improved turnaround time provided by genotypic identification systems may translate into improved clinical outcomes.
Natural Scene Character Recognition Without Dependency on Specific Features

Current methods in scene character recognition heavily rely on discriminative power of local features, such as HoG, SIFT, Shape Contexts (SC), Geometric Blur (GB), etc. One of the problems with this approach is that the local features are rasterized in an ad hoc manner into a single vector perturbing thus spatial correlations that carry crucial information. To eliminate this feature dependency and associated problems, we propose a holistic solution as follows: For each character to be recognized, we stack a set of training images to form a 3-mode tensor. Each training tensor is then decomposed into a linear superposition of ‘k’ rank-1 matrices, whereby the rank-1 matrices form a basis, spanning solution subspace of the character class. For a test image to be classified, we obtain projections onto the pre-computed rank-1 bases of each class, and recognize it as the class for which inner-product of mixing vectors is maximized. We use challenging natural scene character datasets, namely Chars74K, ICDAR2003, and SVT-CHAR. We achieve results better than several baseline methods based on local features (e.g. HoG) and show leave-random-one-out-cross validation yield even better recognition performance, justifying thus our intuition of the importance of featureindependency and preservation of spatial correlations in recognition.
Mutants in disulfide bond formation that disrupt flagellar assembly in Escherichia coli.

We report the isolation and characterization of Escherichia coli mutants (dsbB) that fail to assemble functional flagella unless cystine is present. Flagellar basal bodies obtained from these mutants are missing the L and P rings. This defect in assembly appears to result from an inability to form a disulfide bond in the P-ring protein (FlgI). Cystine suppresses this defect in dsbB strains. We also show that dsbA strains [Bardwell, J. C. A. , McGovern, K. & Beckwith, J. (1991) Cell 67, 581-589] fail to assemble P rings, apparently from a similar failure in disulfide bond formation. However, cystine does not completely suppress this defect in dsbA strains. Thus, disulfide bond formation in FlgI is essential for assembly. DsbA likely puts in that bond directly, whereas the DsbB product(s) play a role in oxidizing DsbA, so that it can be active.
Gender differences associated with orienting attentional networks in healthy subjects

Background Selective attention is considered one of the main components of cognitive functioning. A number of studies have demonstrated gender differences in cognition. This study aimed to investigate the gender differences in selective attention in healthy subjects. Methods The present experiment examined the gender differences associated with the efficiency of three attentional networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 73 healthy subjects (38 males). All participants performed a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT). Results Females had higher orienting scores than males (t=2.172, P <0.05). Specifically, females were faster at covert orienting of attention to a spatially cued location. There were no gender differences between males and females in alerting (t=0.813, P >0.05) and executive control (t=0.945, P >0.05) attention networks. Conclusions There was a significant gender difference between males and females associated with the orienting network. Enhanced orienting attention in females may function to motivate females to direct their attention to a spatially cued location.