Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early nutrition and epigenetic programming: chasing shadows

Purpose of reviewThe ways in which epigenetic modifications fix the effects of early environmental events, ensuring sustained responses to transient stimuli, which result into modified gene expression patterns and phenotypes later in life, is a topic of considerable interest. This review focuses on recently discovered mechanisms and calls into question prevailing views about the dynamics, positions and functions of relevant epigenetic marks. Recent findingsAnimal models, including mice, rats, sheep, pigs and rabbits, remain a vital tool for studying the influence of early nutritional events on adult health and disease. Most epigenetic studies have addressed the long-term effects on a small number of epigenetic marks, at the global or individual gene level, of environmental stressors in humans and animal models. They have demonstrated the existence of a self-propagating epigenetic cycle. In parallel, an increasing number of studies based on high-throughput technologies and focusing on humans and mice have revealed additional complexity in epigenetic processes, by highlighting the importance of crosstalk between the different epigenetic marks. In recent months, a number of studies focusing on the developmental origin of health and disease and metabolic programming have identified links between early nutrition, epigenetic processes and long-term illness. SummaryDespite recent progress, we are still far from understanding how, when and where environmental stressors disturb key epigenetic mechanisms. Thus, identifying the original key marks and their changes throughout development, during an individual's lifetime or over several generations, remains a challenging issue.
EINCKM: An Enhanced Prototype-based Method for Clustering Evolving Data Streams in Big Data

Data stream clustering is becoming an active research area in big data. It refers to group constantly arriving new data records in large chunks to enable dynamic analysis/updating of information patterns conveyed by the existing clusters, the outliers, and the newly arriving data chunk. Prototype-based algorithms for solving the problem have their promises for simplicity and efficiency. However, existing implementations have limitations in relation to quality of clusters, ability to discover outliers, and little consideration of possible new patterns in different chunks. In this paper, a new incremental algorithm called Enhanced Incremental K-Means (EINCKM) is developed. The algorithm is designed to detect new clusters in an incoming data chunk, merge new clusters and existing outliers to the currently existing clusters, and generate modified clusters and outliers ready for the next round. The algorithm applies a heuristic-based method to estimate the number of clusters (K), a radius-based technique to determine and merge overlapped clusters and a variance-based mechanism to discover the outliers. The algorithm was evaluated on synthetic and real-life datasets. The experimental results indicate improved clustering correctness with a comparable time complexity to existing methods dealing with the same kind of problems.
The Media and Public Understanding of Biotechnology

An exploratory survey was conducted to investigate the perceptions and opinions of two important “expert” groups—scientists and journalists. Scientists working in the biotechnology field and journalists who had written or broadcast about it were regarded as key players in the communication of information about scientific developments to the lay population. This research showed that both groups agreed that the media have an important part to play in informing the public about biotechnology. Scientists were more likely than journalists to perceive coverage as too sensational and dramatic, too speculative, with too much emphasis on risks. Scientists did not exhibit much trust in journalists, even though journalists were as likely as scientists to agree that media reporting of biotechnology should be sober, balanced, and focused on the facts. Both groups also agreed that journalists need to ensure they are technically prepared when reporting on complex science issues. Scientists probably needed more media training and support from their own professional culture to facilitate more effective relations with media professionals and the public.
Effects of antiorthostatic suspension and corticosterone on macrophage and spleen cell function

The purpose of this study was to determine whether antiorthostatic suspension of C3HeB/FeJ mice for a period of 11 days affected macrophage and spleen cell function. We found that antiorthostatic suspension did not alter macrophage secretion of prostaglandin E2, tumor necrosis factor α, and interleukin‐1. Antiorthostatic suspension also did not affect macrophage‐mediated contact‐dependent cytotoxicity, TNF‐mediated cytotoxicity, expression of class II histocompatibility molecules, or concanavalin A and Bandeiraea simplicifolia lectin binding sites. The proliferative response of splenic T cells in response to mitogens and staphylococcal exotoxins was significantly enhanced in antiorthostatically suspended mice. We detected significantly higher concentrations of corticosterone in the plasma of antiorthostatically suspended mice. Therefore, there did not appear to be any direct immunosuppressive effects of corticosterone on the parameters tested.
SMaRT: An Approach to Shingled Magnetic Recording Translation

Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) is a new technique for increasing areal data density in hard drives. Drivemanaged SMR (DM-SMR) drives employ a shingled translation layer to mask internal data management and support block interface to the host software. Two major challenges of designing an efficient shingled translation layer for DM-SMR drives are metadata overhead and garbage collection overhead. In this paper we introduce SMaRT, an approach to Shingled Magnetic Recording Translation which adapts its data management scheme as the drive utilization changes. SMaRT uses a hybrid update strategy which performs in-place update for the qualified tracks and outof-place updates for the unqualified tracks. Background Garbage Collection (GC) operations and on-demand GC operations are used when the free space becomes too fragmented. SMaRT also has a specially crafted space allocation and track migration scheme that supports automatic cold data progression to minimize GC overhead in the long term. We implement SMaRT and compare it with a regular Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and a simulated Seagate DM-SMR drive. The experiments with several block I/O traces demonstrate that SMaRT performs better than the Seagate drive and even provides comparable performance as regular HDDs when drive space usage is below a certain threshold.
Exploring the Linkages between Productivity and Social Development in Market Economies

This paper explores the linkages between productivity and social development from the perspective of synthesizing the findings of projects undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards in three related areas. The first is a project exploring the linkages between productivity and social well-being involving researchers from around the world and culminating in the edited volume Toward a Social Understanding of Productivity. Contributions discuss both linkages from productivity to social well-being, as in the case of productivity's role in improving fiscal balances; and from social well-being to productivity, as in the case of social and cultural factors surrounding the desire and capacity of families to invest in the education of children having powerful long-term consequences in a knowledge-driven economy. The second area is the Index of Economic Well-being developed by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards. Each of the four components - consumption, stocks of wealth, equality and economic security - are positively affected by productivity, and some in addition can in turn positively affect productivity. The third area is statistical research into the relationship between productivity and poverty in developing countries. It is found that this relationship is even stronger than that between economic growth and poverty reduction, and about as important as that between GDP per capita growth and poverty reduction. It is also found that the level of income inequality mediates the relationship between productivity growth and poverty reduction. The greater the level of inequality and any increase in inequality, the less an increase in productivity and income will reduce poverty.
Racines sociostructurelles des statuts sociométriques chez les enfants en milieu scolaire

Cette etude examine la distribution des nominations sociometriques selon l'organisation sociostructurelle de classes d'ecoles elementaires. Ont pris part a l'etude 75 filles et 71 garcons de neuf ans appartenant a deux contextes socioculturels (Montreal, Quebec, et Toulouse, France). Les indices d'acceptation, de rejet, de preference sociale et d'impact social (Coie et Dodge, 1983) ont ete examines en fonction de l'insertion sociale des enfants dans des reseaux affiliatifs etablis sur la base d'un consensus. Les resultats appuient une interpretation des statuts sociometriques en tant que reflet de la dynamique des affinites au sein du groupe plutot que comme caracteristiques intrinseques aux individus. Ils sont discutes dans la perspective de l'ecologie sociale des classes et des contraintes interpersonnelles canalisant l'adaptation et la reputation sociale des enfants.
On the deletion channel with small deletion probability

The deletion channel is the simplest point-to-point communication channel that models lack of synchronization. Despite significant effort, little is known about its capacity, and even less about optimal coding schemes. In this paper we initiate a new systematic approach to this problem, by demonstrating that capacity can be computed in a series expansion for small deletion probability.We compute two leading terms of this expansion, and show that capacity is achieved, up to this order, by i.i. d. uniform random distribution of the input. We think that this strategy can be useful in a number of capacity calculations.
Writing Across the Curriculum: Lessons from a Writing Teacher.

The development of Writing across-the-Curriculum (WAC) programs in colleges and univer sities in recent years has required profes sors in the various disciplines to teach writing, something they may never have done before or been prepared to do. Those of us who do teach writing have learned some things that might be of value to WAC instructors. Most of us have learned our lessons the hard way, through trial and error, observation, experiment, reading, talking, and listen ing. Twenty years after I faced my first college-level writing class, I still hold to some basic principles, but my methods have changed. I tell my students in workshops and classes, "If what you're doing isn't get ting you the results you want, it might be time to consider some new approaches. " I had to find ways to do this important work that did not entail useless aggrava tion and wasted energy: a prime recipe for burnout. Commitment to the task and intensive effort are essentials? but not sufficient. No matter how diligent I was, I learned that some ways of expending energy are counterproductive.
Minority language researchers and their role in policy development

This paper deals with the role of researchers in the development of language policies for European minority languages. This question is placed in the context of a long-standing debate in sociology to which several authors have contributed; among them are Max Weber, Howard Becker and Alvin Gouldner. This article also briefly refers to the European Charter for Researchers. A summary is given of the local research settings of Friesland and the Basque Country where my studies into European minority languages, language policy and multilingual education are carried out. This article mentions three possible roles for a researcher: academic scholar, policy adviser and language activist. A key issue in all this is to find a balance between ‘detachment’ and ‘involvement’. There is a dynamic in the different roles and the balance shifts over time. This is further complicated by being a relative insider to one language group and relative outsider to the other.
Language in the Mismatch Negativity Design

The article considers neurophysiological and psycholinguistic motivations for applying mismatch negativity (MMN) to studying the language function, briefly reviews the current evidence in the field, and offers some further directions for research in this area. MMN, a well-known index of automatic acoustic change detection, has also been found to be a sensitive indicator of long-term memory traces for native language sounds (phonemes, syllables). When comparing MMNs to words and meaningless pseudowords, we found larger amplitudes for words than for meaningless items. This was interpreted as a neurophysiological signature of word-specific memory circuits/cell assemblies activated in the human brain in a largely automatic and attention-independent fashion. This lexical enhancement of the word-elicited MMN has now been replicated by different groups using different languages and methodologies. We have also demonstrated that, using MMN, it is possible to register differences in the brain response to individual.
Synergy Sources, Target Autonomy, and Integration in Acquisitions

Determining the appropriate level of integration is crucial to realizing value from acquisitions. Most prior research assumes that higher integration implies the removal of autonomy from target managers, which in turn undermines the functioning of the target firm if it entails unfamiliar elements for the acquirer. Using a survey of 86 acquisitions to obtain the richness of detail necessary to distinguish integration from autonomy, the authors argue and find that integration and autonomy are not the opposite ends of a single continuum. Certain conditions (e.g., when complementarity rather than similarity is the primary source of synergy) lead to high levels of both integration and autonomy. In addition, similarity negatively moderates the relationship between complementarity and autonomy when the target offers both synergy sources. In contrast, similarity does not moderate the link between complementarity and integration. The authors’ findings advance scholarly understanding about the drivers of implementation strategy and in particular the different implementation strategies acquiring managers deploy when they attempt to leverage complementarities, similarities, or both.
Neural Network based Novelty Detection for Incremental Semi-supervised Learning in Multi-class Gesture Recognition

The problems of infinitely long data streams and its concept drift as well as non-linearly separable classes and the possible emergence of “novel classes” are topics of high relevance for gesture data streaming based automatic recognition systems. To address these problems we apply a semi-supervised learning technique using a neural network in combination with an incremental update rule. Neural networks have been shown to handle non-linearly separable data and the incremental update ensures that the parameters of the classifier follow the “concept-drift” without the necessity of an increased training set. Since a semi-supervised learning technique is sensitive to false labels, we apply an outlier detection method based on extreme value theory and confidence band intervals. The proposed algorithm uses the extreme learning machine, which is easily updated and works with multi-classes. A comparison with an auto-encoder neural network shows that the proposed algorithm has superior properties. Especially, the processing time is greatly reduced.
Theoretical Justification of Wavelength Selection in PLS Calibration:  Development of a New Algorithm.

The mathematical basis of improved calibration through selection of informative variables for partial least-squares calibration has been identified. A theoretical investigation of calibration slopes indicates that including uninformative wavelengths negatively affect calibrations by producing both large relative bias toward zero and small additive bias away from the origin. These theoretical results are found regardless of the noise distribution in the data. Studies are performed to confirm this result using a previously used selection method compared to a new method, which is designed to perform more appropriately when dealing with data having large outlying points by including estimates of spectral residuals. Three different data sets are tested with varying noise distributions. In the first data set, Gaussian and log-normal noise was added to simulated data which included a single peak. Second, near-infrared spectra of glucose in cell culture media taken with an FT-IR spectrometer were analyzed. Finally, dispersive Raman Stokes spectra of glucose dissolved in water were assessed. In every case considered here, improved prediction is produced through selection, but data with different noise characteristics showed varying degrees of improvement depending on the selection method used. The practical results showed that, indeed, including residuals into ranking criteria improves selection for data with noise distributions resulting in large outliers. It was concluded that careful design of a selection algorithm should include consideration of spectral noise distributions in the input data to increase the likelihood of successful and appropriate selection.
A theoretical approach to construction project progress drawing on complexity and metaphysics

This paper examines the current literature and debate surrounding the development of an alternative theoretical model of the firm from the perspective of construction metaphysics. In setting the context of the theoretical model, use is made of complexity theory alongside the identification of construction industry characteristics which differentiate it from other ‘manufacturing’ activities, processes and operations. These factors, it is believed may provide justification for the use of an alternative theory of construction, and as such, this paper critically examines the case for its development. Process metaphysics provides a framework with which to view the management of the early stages of the construction project. Mathematical descriptions of possible process pathways are presented for projects that are making progress, making no progress or are failing. Finding these trends in project data, using pattern recognition, may provide a greater understanding of the scope and scale of complexity in construction and may therefore assist in developing an improved capability to send an ‘early warning’ for the future success or failure of major capital projects.
Low-Density Lipoprotein Upregulates Low-Density Lipoprotein Receptor-Related Protein Expression in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells: Possible Involvement of Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein-2-Dependent Mechanism

Background—Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor-related protein (LRP) is highly expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) of both normal and atherosclerotic lesions. However, little is known about LRP regulation in the vascular wall. Methods and Results—We analyzed the regulation of LRP expression in vitro in human VSMCs cultured with native LDL (nLDL) or aggregated LDL (agLDL) by semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, real-time polymerase chain reaction, and Western blot and in vivo during diet-induced hypercholesterolemia by in situ hybridization. LRP expression in human VSMCs is increased by nLDL and agLDL in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Maximal induction of LRP mRNA expression was observed after 24 hours of exposure to LDL. However, agLDL induced higher LRP mRNA expression (3.0-fold) than nLDL (1.76-fold). LRP mRNA upregulation was associated with an increase on LRP protein expression with the greatest induction by agLDL. VSMC-LRP upregulation induced by nLDL or agLDL was reduced by an inhibitor of sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP) catabolism (N-acetyl-leucyl-leucyl-norleucinal). In situ hybridization analysis indicates that there is a higher VSMC-LRP expression in hypercholesterolemic than in normocholesterolemic pig aortas. Conclusions—These results indicate that LRP expression in VSMCs is upregulated by intravascular and systemic LDL.
Lossless image compression using integer to integer wavelet transforms

Invertible wavelet transforms that map integers to integers are important for lossless representations. We present an approach to build integer to integer wavelet transforms based upon the idea of factoring wavelet transforms into lifting steps. This allows the construction of an integer version of every wavelet transform. We demonstrate the use of these transforms in lossless image compression.
Co-transplantation of embryonic retina and retinal pigment epithelial cells to rabbit retina.

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is important for normal development of the neural retina. We sought to investigate whether cografting RPE cells affected the differentiation and survival of retinal grafts. Pigmented embryonic day 16 (E16) rabbit retina was dissected either with or without attached RPE and injected into a lesion site in retinas of young adult rabbit hosts. Each host obtained a pure retina graft in one eye and a retina/RPE cograft in the other. Animals were sacrificed after 4, 8 and 12 weeks. After 4 weeks, grafts (1-2 mm in diameter) were seen in both experimental groups at the lesion site or in the subretinal space. However, 8 and 12 weeks after transplantation, the graft survival rate decreased. The grafts developed cell layers in folded sheets and many rosettes (a rosette consists of photoreceptors and cells of other retinal layers around a central lumen defined by an outer limiting membrane). Cografts of retina with RPE had areas of more distinct cell lamination than transplants of pure retina. Grafted RPE cells were organized in clusters of cells surrounded by extracellular matrix and often associated with blood vessels. If the extracellular matrix of RPE cell clusters was outside the rosettes close to inner retinal layers in the graft, transplant Müller cell endfeet developed an inner limiting membrane. Müller cell endfeet could also be observed in subretinal transplants attached to the denuded Bruch's membrane of the host. In 12-week grafts, when RPE cell clusters were inside rosettes, the surrounded photoreceptors survived better. No RPE effect could be seen if single RPE cells were dispersed among retinal donor cells. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)