Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytoplasmic–Nuclear Incompatibility Between Wild Isolates of Caenorhabditis nouraguensis

How species arise is a fundamental question in biology. Species can be defined as populations of interbreeding individuals that are reproductively isolated from other such populations. Therefore, understanding how reproductive barriers evolve between populations is essential for understanding the process of speciation. Hybrid incompatibility (for example, hybrid sterility or lethality) is a common and strong reproductive barrier in nature. Here we report a lethal incompatibility between two wild isolates of the nematode Caenorhabditis nouraguensis. Hybrid inviability results from the incompatibility between a maternally inherited cytoplasmic factor from each strain and a recessive nuclear locus from the other. We have excluded the possibility that maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria cause the incompatibility by treating both strains with tetracycline and show that hybrid death is unaffected. Furthermore, cytoplasmic–nuclear incompatibility commonly occurs between other wild isolates, indicating that this is a significant reproductive barrier within C. nouraguensis. We hypothesize that the maternally inherited cytoplasmic factor is the mitochondrial genome and that mitochondrial dysfunction underlies hybrid death. This system has the potential to shed light on the dynamics of divergent mitochondrial–nuclear coevolution and its role in promoting speciation.
Correlation between a novel upper limb activity monitor and four other instruments to determine functioning in upper limb complex regional pain syndrome type I.

OBJECTIVE To determine the place of a novel Upper Limb Activity Monitor in the field of instruments measuring functioning and health in upper limb complex regional pain syndrome type I, by exploring the correlation between the Upper Limb Activity Monitor and 4 questionnaires. METHOD Subjects (n = 30) were measured at home and correlations were calculated between the Upper Limb Activity Monitor and 4 questionnaires; Sickness Impact Profile, RAND-36 Health Survey, Disabilities of Arm Shoulder Hand Questionnaire and Radboud Skills Questionnaire. RESULTS Of the inter-questionnaire correlations 83% were significant, whereas 46% of the correlations between the Upper Limb Activity Monitor and the questionnaires were significant. The number and strength of the correlations between the Upper Limb Activity Monitor and questionnaires was dependent on the degree to which similar aspects of functioning were measured. CONCLUSION The Upper Limb Activity Monitor has some correlation with other instruments related to functioning and health, but generally it does not measure the same areas.
Effects on Ion Permeation with Hydrophobic Substitutions at a Residue in Shaker S6 That Interacts with a Signature Sequence Amino Acid

lthough potassium channels differ in their gating properties, they all select for K with an extremely high fidelity and without compromising high flux rates. Based on reversal potential measurements, potassium channels display a relative selectivity sequence of K > Rb > NH4 > Cs >> Na. Potassium channels are tetramers, and each subunit contributes equally to the formation of the ion-conducting pore, which is formed along the central axis of the protein. Voltage-gated K channels have six transmembrane domains (S1–S6) in each subunit, as well as a membrane-spanning region (P-region) between S5 and S6. The P-region possesses a highly conserved sequence (TXTTXGYG) required for K selectivity. The prokaryotic K channel, KscA, has only two membrane-spanning domains, but these are homologous to the S5 and S6 regions of the voltage-gated K channels. The crystal structure of KscA has revealed that ion binding sites in the pore are formed by the backbone carbonyls of the signature sequence amino acids, while the S6-like helices cradle the selectivity filter and line the internal vestibule of the channel. In accordance with the idea that S6 helices of voltage-gated K channels also form part of the channel pore are the observations that mutations in this region can alter several pore properties. Substitutions at position A463 in the S6 of Shaker are known to alter K affinity, the rate of C-type inactivation, internal blocker efficacy, and the interaction of external permeant ions with channel closing. In the KscA channel a methionine occupies position 463, and the crystal structure has revealed that this residue inhabits a region of tight protein packing. In this study we examined the effect of hydrophobic substitutions of varying bulkiness at position 463 on the single-channel conductance and the relative K selectivity of the Shaker channel.
Performance Comparison of Particle Swarm Optimization and Gravitational Search Algorithm to the Designed of Controller for Nonlinear System

This paper presents backstepping controller design for tracking purpose of nonlinear system. Since the performance of the designed controller depends on the value of control parameters, gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) techniques are used to optimise these parameters in order to achieve a predefined system performance. The performance is evaluated based on the tracking error between reference input given to the system and the system output. Then, the efficacy of the backstepping controller is verified in simulation environment under various system setup including both the system subjected to external disturbance and without disturbance. The simulation results show that backstepping with particle swarm optimization technique performs better than the similar controller with gravitational search algorithm technique in terms of output response and tracking error.
Work and career experiences and emotional well‐being of managerial and professional women

This study examined a research model developed to understand emotional well-being among managerial and professional women. Data were collected from 792 women using questionnaires completed anonymously. Although considerable diversity was present in the sample, most women were in early career, married but still without children. Four groups of predictor variables identified in previous research were considered: personal demographic variables. Organizational and situational characteristics, work experiences associated with job and career satisfaction and work outcomes. Work experiences and work outcomes were fairly consistently and significantly related to self-reported emotional well-being. Implications for managerial women and their employing organizations are offered.
The Impact of Combining Conformance and Experiential Quality on Hospitals’ Readmissions and Cost Performance

To investigate the opportunity for hospitals to achieve better care at lower cost, we examine two key process quality measures, conformance quality and experiential quality, and two measures of performance, readmission rate and cost per discharge. Conformance quality represents a hospital’s level of adherence to evidence-based standards of care, whereas experiential quality represents the level of interaction between hospital’s caregivers and patients. Analyzing six years of data from 3,474 U.S. acute care hospitals, we find that combining conformance and experiential quality results in lower readmission rates. However, conformance quality and experiential quality each independently increase cost per discharge, which suggests that a readmissions–costs trade-off is unavoidable. To investigate this further, we conduct post hoc analyses by distinguishing between the granular elements of experiential quality (EQ) based on task type: response-focused EQ and communication-focused EQ. Response-focused EQ measure.
Multiple Constituencies and the Social Construction of Nonprofit Organization Effectiveness

Based on the social constructionism perspective and a multiple constituency model, this study investigates stakeholder judgments of nonprofit charitable organization effectiveness. ThestudyalsousesaDelphiprocesstoidentifycriteriathatsomepractitionerw-experts regard as objective indicators of effectiveness. Data on various stakeholder judgments of organizational effectiveness and on the objective indicators were collected for a sample of 64 organizations, allowing for examination of the extent to which stakeholder judgments are consistent and for examination of the extent to which judgments are related to objective indicators. Among the major results of the study are that practitioner-experts define objective effectiveness as employing correct procedures; stakeholders frequently vary substantially in their judgments of the effectiveness of the same organization; stakeholder judgments of effectiveness seldom are related to objective (correct procedures) effectiveness; and differenttypesofstakeholdersusesomeofthesame-mostnotably,boardeffectiveness-as well as different bases for making effectiveness judgments. Conclusions and implications are discussed.
Adaptive Radiation and Ecological Opportunity in Sulawesi and Philippine Fanged Frog (Limnonectes) Communities

Because island communities are derived from mainland communities, they are often less diverse by comparison. However, reduced complexity of island communities can also present ecological opportunities. For example, amphibian diversity on Sulawesi Island is lower than it is in the Philippines, but Sulawesi supports a surprising diversity of Sulawesi fanged frogs (Limnonectes). Here we examine molecular, morphological, and geographical variation of fanged frogs from these two regions. Using genealogical concordance, morphology, and a Bayesian approach to species delimitation, we identified 13 species on Sulawesi, only four of which have been previously described. After evolutionary history is accounted for, a model with multiple body size optima in sympatric species is favored over a “random-walk” model of body size evolution. Additionally, morphological variation is higher among sympatric than nonsympatric species on Sulawesi but not in the Philippines. These findings suggest that adaptive radiation of fanged frogs on Sulawesi was driven by natural selection to infiltrate ecological niches occupied by other frog lineages in the Philippines. This supports a role of ecological opportunity in community assembly: diversification in mature communities, such as the Philippines, is limited by a dearth of unoccupied ecological niches. On Sulawesi, evolutionary novelties originated in a predictable and replicated fashion in response to opportunities presented by a depauperate ancestral community.
The beat spectrum: a new approach to rhythm analysis

We introduce the beat spectrum, a new method of automatically characterizing the rhythm and tempo of music and audio. The beat spectrum is a measure of acoustic self-similarity as a function of time lag. Highly structured or repetitive music will have strong beat spectrum peaks at the repetition times. This reveals both tempo and the relative strength of particular beats, and therefore can distinguish between different kinds of rhythms at the same tempo. We also introduce the beat spectrogram which graphically illustrates rhythm variation over time. Unlike previous approaches to tempo analysis, the beat spectrum does not depend on particular attributes such as energy or frequency, and thus will work for any music or audio in any genre. We present tempo estimation results which are accurate to within 1% for a variety of musical genres. This approach has a variety of applications, including music retrieval by similarity and automatically generating music videos. Anyone who has ever tapped a foot in time to music has performed rhythm analysis. Though simple for humans, this task is considerably more difficult to automate. We introduce a new measure of tempo analysis called the beat spectrum. This is a measure of acoustic self-similarity versus lag time, computed from a representation of spectrally similarity. Peaks in the beat spectrum correspond to major rhythmic components of the source audio. The repetition time of each component can be determined by the lag time of the corresponding peak, while the relative amplitudes of different peaks reflects the strengths of their corresponding rhythmic components. We also present the beat spectrogram which graphically illustrates rhythmic variation over time. The beat spectrogram is an image formed from the beat spectrum over successive windows. Strong rhythmic components are visible as bright bars in the beat spectrogram, making changes in tempo or time signature visible. In addition, a measure of audio novelty can be computed that measures how novel the source audio is at any time [2]. Instances when this measure is large correspond to significant audio changes. Periodic peaks correspond to rhythmic periodicity in the music. In the final section, we present various applications of the beat spectrum, including music retrieval by rhythmic similarity, an “automatic DJ” that can smoothly sequence music with similar tempos and automatic music video generation.
On the Hardness of Being Truthful

The central problem in computational mechanism design is the tension between incentive compatibility and computational efficiency. We establish the first significant approximability gap between algorithms that are both truthful and computationally-efficient, and algorithms that only achieve one of these two desiderata. This is shown in the context of a novel mechanism design problem which we call the combinatorial public project problem (cppp). cpppis an abstraction of many common mechanism design situations, ranging from elections of kibbutz committees to network design.Our result is actually made up of two complementary results -- one in the communication-complexity model and one in the computational-complexity model. Both these hardness results heavily rely on a combinatorial characterization of truthful algorithms for our problem. Our computational-complexity result is one of the first impossibility results connecting mechanism design to complexity theory; its novel proof technique involves an application of the Sauer-Shelah Lemma and may be of wider applicability, both within and without mechanism design.
The biological effectiveness of targeted radionuclide therapy based on a whole-body pharmacokinetic model

Biologically effective dose (BED) may be more of a relevant quantity than absorbed dose for establishing tumour response relationships. By taking into account the dose rate and tissue-specific parameters such as repair and radiosensitivity, it is possible to compare the relative biological effects of different targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) agents. The aim of this work was to develop an analytical tumour BED calculation for TRT that could predict a relative biological effect based on normal body and tumour pharmacokinetics. This work represents a step in the direction of establishing relative pharmacokinetic criteria of when the BED formalism is more applicable than absorbed dose for TRT. A previously established pharmacokinetic (PK) model for TRT was used and adapted into the BED formalism. An analytical equation for the protraction factor, which incorporates dose rate and repair rate, was derived. Dose rates within the normal body and tumour were related to the slopes of their time–activity curves which were determined by the ratios of their respective PK parameters. The relationships between the tumour influx-to-efflux ratio (k34:k43), central compartment efflux-to-influx ratio (k12:k21), central elimination (kel), and tumour repair rate (μ), and tumour BED were investigated. As the k34:k43 ratio increases and the k12:k21 ratio decreases, the difference between tumour BED and D increases. In contrast, as the k34:k43 ratios decrease and the k12:k21 ratios increase, the tumour BED approaches D. At large k34:k43 ratios, the difference between tumour BED and D increases to a maximum as kel increases. At small k34:k43 ratios, the tumour BED approaches D at very small kel. At small μ and small k34:k43 ratios, the tumour BED approaches D. For large k34:k43 ratios, large μ values cause tumour BED to approach D. This work represents a step in the direction of establishing relative PK criteria of when the BED formalism is more applicable than absorbed dose for TRT. It also provides a framework by which the biological effects of different TRT agents can be compared in order to predict efficacy.
A cyclin‐dependent kinase family member (PHOA) is required to link developmental fate to environmental conditions in Aspergillus nidulans

We addressed the question of whether Aspergillus nidulans has more than one cyclin‐dependent kinase gene and identified such a gene, phoA, encoding two PSTAIRE‐containing kinases (PHOAM1 and PHOAM47) that probably result from alternative pre‐mRNA splicing. PHOAM47 is 66% identical to Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pho85. The function of this gene was studied using phoA null mutants. It functions in a developmental response to phosphorus‐limited growth but has no effect on the regulation of enzymes involved in phosphorus acquisition. Aspergillus nidulans shows both asexual and sexual reproduction involving temporal elaboration of different specific cell types. We demonstrate that developmental decisions in confluent cultures depend upon both the initial phosphorus concentration and the inoculation density and that these factors influence development through phoA. In the most impressive cases, absence of phoA resulted in a switch from asexual to sexual development (at pH 8), or the absence of development altogether (at pH 6). The phenotype of phoA deletion strains appears to be specific for phosphorus limitation. We propose that PHOA functions to help integrate environmental signals with developmental decisions to allow ordered differentiation of specific cell types in A.nidulans under varying growth conditions. The results implicate a putative cyclin‐dependent kinase in the control of development.
Predictive Modeling of Black Spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) Wood Density Using Stand Structure Variables Derived from Airborne LiDAR Data in Boreal Forests of Ontario

Our objective was to model the average wood density in black spruce trees in representative stands across a boreal forest landscape based on relationships with predictor variables extracted from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point cloud data. Increment core samples were collected from dominant or co-dominant black spruce trees in a network of 400 m2 plots distributed among forest stands representing the full range of species composition and stand development across a 1,231,707 ha forest management unit in northeastern Ontario, Canada. Wood quality data were generated from optical microscopy, image analysis, X-ray densitometry and diffractometry as employed in SilviScan™. Each increment core was associated with a set of field measurements at the plot level as well as a suite of LiDAR-derived variables calculated on a 20 × 20 m raster from a wall-to-wall coverage at a resolution of ~1 point m−2. We used a multiple linear regression approach to identify important predictor variables and describe relationships between stand structure and wood density for average black spruce trees in the stands we observed. A hierarchical classification model was then fitted using random forests to make spatial predictions of mean wood density for average trees in black spruce stands. The model explained 39 percent of the variance in the response variable, with an estimated root mean square error of 38.8 (kg·m−3). Among the predictor variables, P20 (second decile LiDAR height in m) and quadratic mean diameter were most important. Other predictors describing canopy depth and cover were of secondary importance and differed according to the modeling approach. LiDAR-derived variables appear to capture differences in stand structure that reflect different constraints on growth rates, determining the proportion of thin-walled earlywood cells in black spruce stems, and ultimately influencing the pattern of variation in important wood quality attributes such as wood density. A spatial characterization of variation in a desirable wood quality attribute, such as density, enhances the possibility for value chain optimization, which could allow the forest industry to be more competitive through efficient planning for black spruce management by including an indication of suitability for specific products as a modeled variable derived from standard inventory data.
Assessment as Part of a Continuity Study

Abstract In the context of a small scale study ‘Curricular and Pastoral Continuity and Progression from Preschool to Primary Education ‘which confirms that there continue to be significant gaps between preschool and primary education, this paper seeks to share the purposes and types of assessment used in the study and to relate them to the wider assessment debate by considering key questions: ‘Can formalised assessment, as advocated for the possibly incompatible dual purpose of value added measurement and continuity in learning, tell us anything that the observant practitioner doesn't already know about the pupils in their charge? ’ and ‘Does and could assessment, as a mechanism to promote links and measure school effectiveness, work? ‘It is concluded that the assessment of young children should be treated with honesty and care and will operate in a vacuum unless the underlying principle of continuity in children's experience and learning is embraced.
Comparison of Recharge Estimation Methods During a Wet Period in a Karst Aquifer

Management of water resources, implying their appropriate protection, calls for a sound evaluation of recharge. Such assessment is very complex in karst aquifers. Most methods are developed for application to detrital aquifers, without taking into account the extraordinary heterogeneity of porosity and permeability of karst systems. It is commonly recommended to estimate recharge using multiple methods; however, differences inherent to the diverse methods make it difficult to clarify the accuracy of each result. In this study, recharge was estimated in a karst aquifer working in a natural regime, in a Mediterranean‐type climate, in the western part of the Sierra de las Nieves (southern Spain). Mediterranean climate regions are characterized by high inter‐annual rainfall variability featuring long dry periods and short intense wet periods, the latter constituting the most important contribution to aquifer water input. This paper aims to identify the methods that provide the most plausible range of recharge rate during wet periods. Six methods were tested: the classical method of Thornthwaite‐Mather, the Visual Balan code, the chloride balance method, and spatially distributed methods such as APLIS, a novel spatiotemporal estimation of recharge, and ZOODRM. The results help determine valid methods for application in the rest of the unit of study and in similar karst aquifers.
An alias-free subband adaptive equalizer for OFDM system

We propose a subband adaptive digital filter (SBADF) for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. The proposed SBADF is able to carry out exact system identification without the degradation effect of both the aliasing and the cross terms even under the critical sub-sampling. The inverse transfer function of the channel can be directly implemented after the system identification. The advantage of the proposed SBADF based equalizer is that it is not necessary to take account of the delay in terms of the transmission path because of the frequency-domain equalization. Some simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed SBADF for OFDM system.