Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptation to the Local Environment by Modifications of the Photoperiod Response in Crops

Flowering plants produce a meristem at the shoot tip where specialized tissue generates shoot apical meristems at the appropriate time to differentiate into reproductive structures, pollinate and efficiently generate seeds. The complex set of molecular and phenological events culminating in development of a flowering meristem is referred to as ‘flowering time’. Flowering time affects plant productivity because plants dedicate energy to produce flowers and seeds rather than vegetative tissue once the molecular decision to initiate flowering has been taken. Thus, initiation of flowering time is an important decision in plants, especially in annual plants including crops. Humans have introduced crops into latitudes and climate areas far from their origin or natural ecosystem, requiring in many cases modification of native flowering times. Recent molecular–genetic studies shed light on the genetic basis related to such introductions. In this review, recent progress regarding crop introductions and their genetic bases are summarized, as well as the potential of other agricultural plants to be introduced into different climatic zones.
The 1999 NIST speaker recognition evaluation, using summed two-channel telephone data for speaker detection and speaker tracking

The 1999 NIST Speaker Recognition Evaluation encompassed three tasks: one-speaker detection, two-speaker detection, and speaker tracking. All tasks were performed in the context of conversational telephone speech. The one-speaker task used single channel mu-law data; the other tasks used summed twochannel data. Twelve sites from the United States, Europe, and India participated in the evaluation. Performance was measured by a decision cost function and compared among systems and test conditions via DET Curves. Performance factors examined include segment duration, degradation resulting from the presence of a second speaker, sex mix of the two-speaker segments, matched or mismatched between training and test handsets, and the variation in handset type.
Posterior fossa reexploration for persistent or recurrent trigeminal neuralgia or hemifacial spasm: surgical findings and therapeutic implications.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the surgical findings and subsequent therapeutic implications of posterior fossa reexploration for persistent or recurrent trigeminal neuralgia (TN) or hemifacial spasm (HFS) after failed microvascular decompression (MVD). METHODS Between December 1975 and October 1996, the senior author performed 31 reexplorations for failure or recurrence after MVD: 23 for TN and 8 for HFS. Records were analyzed retrospectively for evidence of vascular compression in primary and secondary operations, other pertinent intraoperative findings, intraoperative therapeutic interventions, and postoperative results and complications. RESULTS The previously placed polyvinyl alcohol foam (Ivalon sponge; Unipoint Industries, High Point, NC) or Teflon implant (Teflon felt; CR Bard, Inc., Bard Implants Division, Billerica, MA) was found to be in good position in 100% of the patients (31 of 31 patients). New vascular compression from an arterial source was found in three patients during posterior fossa reexploration: one with TN and two with HFS. New vascular compression from a venous source was observed in one patient with HFS. A scarred Ivalon sponge or Teflon implant with apparent mass effect on the nerve root was identified in seven reexplorations. One bony source of compression was seen. No new compressive elements or other sources of root irritation were appreciated in 61% of reexplorations. Partial sensory trigeminal rhizotomy was performed in 83% of reexplorations for persistent or recurrent TN. Of eight patients undergoing reexploration for persistent or recurrent HFS, six sustained complications. CONCLUSION Recurrent vascular compression was seldom identified during posterior fossa reexploration for failed MVD in patients with persistent or recurrent TN or HFS. The previously placed Ivalon sponge or Teflon implant was consistently found to be in good position. Partial sensory trigeminal rhizotomy is an often effective alternative in cases of recurrent TN when neurovascular compression is not identified. However, because of the relatively high incidence of complications associated with reexploration, we recommend other ablative or medical treatments for most patients after failed MVD for TN or HFS.
Bayesian Methodology for the Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials in Critical Care Medicine: A Primer for Clinicians

Objectives:To review Bayesian methodology and its utility to clinical decision making and research in the critical care field. Data Source and Study Selection:Clinical, epidemiological, and biostatistical studies on Bayesian methods in PubMed and Embase from their inception to December 2013. Data Synthesis:Bayesian methods have been extensively used by a wide range of scientific fields, including astronomy, engineering, chemistry, genetics, physics, geology, paleontology, climatology, cryptography, linguistics, ecology, and computational sciences. The application of medical knowledge in clinical research is analogous to the application of medical knowledge in clinical practice. Bedside physicians have to make most diagnostic and treatment decisions on critically ill patients every day without clear-cut evidence-based medicine (more subjective than objective evidence). Similarly, clinical researchers have to make most decisions about trial design with limited available data. Bayesian methodology allows both subjective and objective aspects of knowledge to be formally measured and transparently incorporated into the design, execution, and interpretation of clinical trials. In addition, various degrees of knowledge and several hypotheses can be tested at the same time in a single clinical trial without the risk of multiplicity. Notably, the Bayesian technology is naturally suited for the interpretation of clinical trial findings for the individualized care of critically ill patients and for the optimization of public health policies. Conclusions:We propose that the application of the versatile Bayesian methodology in conjunction with the conventional statistical methods is not only ripe for actual use in critical care clinical research but it is also a necessary step to maximize the performance of clinical trials and its translation to the practice of critical care medicine.
The diagnosis and management of supraaortic arterial dissections

Purpose of reviewTo review recent advances in understanding supraaortic arterial dissections and their diagnosis and management. Recent findingsDissection of the supraaortic arteries, including the extracranial carotid and vertebral arteries and intracranial arteries, is increasingly identified as an important cause of stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage. The most common cause likely involves minor trauma with preexisting arteriopathy. The imaging diagnosis of dissection is complicated by the wide range of pathological changes that occur after dissection. Modalities include ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging and angiography, computed tomography angiography, and digital subtraction angiography. The choice of method is best tailored to each patient individually. Similarly, treatments may vary from antiplatelet medications to complex endovascular techniques. There are limited data to guide treating patients with strokes due to arterial dissections. Conservative management is likely optimal for most patients with cervical dissections, endovascular treatments being reserved for the rapidly deteriorating patient only. However, patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage due to rupture of a dissecting aneurysm require urgent endovascular or surgical treatment of the aneurysm. SummaryThe diagnosis and management of supraaortic arterial dissections is complex, and a variable multidisciplinary approach will likely yield the best outcome.
Еconomic Theory and the New-Keynesian School

In this paper it is described the school of neo-Keynesians (Akerlof and Stiglitz are in the group of ”Hard” New-Keynesians, that don’t accept New neo-classical synthesis, i.e. Dynamic Stochastic General equilibrium models-DSGE),that as a basic source of instability in the economies view the demand аnd supply side shocks, short run is important for them, wages and prices are rigid, expectations of the economic agents are rational, but also historical data are of great importance, and they introduced microeconomic foundations for their macroeconomic models.
Quantitative evaluation of DNA methylation by optimization of a differential-high resolution melt analysis protocol

DNA methylation is a key regulator of gene transcription. Alterations in DNA methylation patterns are common in most cancers, occur early in carcinogenesis and can be detected in body fluids. Reliable and sensitive quantitative assays are required to improve the diagnostic role of methylation in the management of cancer patients. Here we present an optimized procedure, based on differential-high resolution melting analysis (D-HRMA), for the rapid and accurate quantification of methylated DNA. Two sets of primers are used in a single tube for the simultaneous amplification of the methylated (M) and unmethylated (Um) DNA sequences in D-HRMA. After HRM, differential fluorescence was calculated at the specific melting temperature after automatic subtraction of UM-DNA fluorescence. Quantification was calculated by interpolation on an external standard curve generated by serial dilutions of M-DNA. To optimize the protocol, nine primer sets were accurately selected on the basis of the number of CpG on promoters of hTERT and Bcl2 genes. The use of optimized D-HRMA allowed us to detect up to 0.025% M-DNA. D-HRMA results of DNA from 85 bladder cancers were comparable to those obtained with real time quantitative methylation specific PCR. In addition, D-HRMA appears suitable for rapid and efficient measurements in ‘in vitro’ experiments on methylation patterns after treatment with demethylating drugs.
Further characterization and in situ localization of chain-like aggregates of the gliding bacteria Myxococcus fulvus and Myxococcus xanthus

For the first time, chain-like aggregates, called "strands," have been enriched from crude cell wall preparations of liquid-grown vegetative cells of two strains of Myxococcus xanthus. These strands are highly isomorphic to macromolecular structures, previously described for Myxococcus fulvus (Lünsdorf and Reichenbach, J. Gen. Microbiol. 135:1633-1641, 1989). The strands are morphologically composed of ring elements, consisting of six or more peripheral protein masses and possibly three small central masses. The ring elements are linked by two parallel strings of filamentous proteins, called elongated elements, which keep the ring elements at a constant distance. The overall dimensions of the ring elements are 16.6 +/- 1.0 nm (n = 55) for M. xanthus Mx x48 and 16.4 +/- 1.5 nm (n = 37) for M. xanthus DK 1622. The distance between the ring elements, as a measure of the length of the elongated elements, is 16.6 +/- 1.1 nm (n = 59) for strain Mx x48 and 15.5 +/- 0.6 nm (n = 41) for strain DK 1622. Characteristically, the strands and oligomeric forms thereof show a strict association with the outer membrane. In situ studies of freeze-fractured cells of M. fulvus showed ring elements, isomorphic to those described for M. xanthus, within the periplasm; they appeared in parallel rows just below the outer membrane but not in direct contact with the cytoplasmic membrane. A three-dimensional model summarizes the morphological data. It is hypothesized that the chain-like strands, as building blocks of a more complex belt-like continuum, represent the peripheral part of the gliding machinery, which transforms membrane potential energy into mechanical work.
Some Recent Studies on the Extraretinal Contribution to Distance Perception

Some recent studies on the extraretinal contribution to distance perception are reviewed. These experiments demonstrate that vergence can provide reliable information for judgments on the distance of proximal targets in the absence of all other cues. We argue that, although vergence is an unreliable cue at large fixation distances and is subject to a strong contraction bias when studied in isolation, these facts do not imply a minor role for vergence in near-space perception. When additional depth and distance cues are added, the contribution of vergence information becomes more complicated. We present results which indicate that the different cues to depth and distance are combined in a manner that can result in unexpected distortions of visual space. A simple heuristic model which can produce the observed distortions is outlined.
Chapter 5. Examining the influence of transfer and prototypes on the acquisition of the present progressive in L2 Spanish

We focus on the interpretation of the present progressive by English-speaking learners of Spanish (n=49) in order to examine whether L2 learners transfer all of the associated interpretations of a given form from the L1 or whether transfer is limited to the prototypes of a given form (Gass & Ard 1984; Kellerman 1977, 1979). In both Spanish and English, although the ‘core’ meaning of the progressive is continuous, a habitual meaning is possible if an adverb is present. However, unlike English, in the variety of Spanish that we examine, the progressive does not allow a futurate reading. The results of an interpretation task targeting the habitual and futurate interpretations show that early L2 learners of Spanish correctly accept the habitual reading, which is similar in the L1 and L2, and also incorrectly accept the futurate reading of the present progressive, which is possible only in the L1. These results suggest that the properties of the L1 can facilitate the acquisition of non-prototypical interpretations, even for early leaners. In addition, ruling out interpretations which are available in the L1, but not the L2, presents a challenge, even for less prototypical meanings.
Modeling of intra-die process variations for accurate analysis and optimization of nano-scale circuits

This paper proposes the use of Karhunen-Loeve expansion (KLE) for accurate and efficient modeling of intra-die correlations in the semiconductor manufacturing process. We demonstrate that the KLE provides a significantly more accurate representation, of the underlying stochastic process compared to the traditional approach of dividing the layout into grids and applying principal component analysis (PCA). By comparing the results of leakage analysis using both KLE and the existing approaches, we show that using KLE can provide up to 4-5times reduction in the variability space (number of random variables) while maintaining the same accuracy. We also propose an efficient leakage minimization algorithm that maximizes the leakage yield while satisfying probabilistic constraints on the delay
MZoltar: automatic debugging of Android applications

Automated diagnosis of errors and/or failures detected during software testing can greatly improve the efficiency of the debugging process, and thus help to make applications more reliable. In this paper, we propose an approach, dubbed MZoltar, offering dynamic analysis (namely, spectrum-based fault localization) of mobile apps that produces a diagnostic report to help identifying potential defects quickly. The approach also offers a graphical representation of the diagnostic report, making it easier to understand. Our experimental results show that the approach requires low runtime overhead (5.75% on average), while the tester needs to inspect 5 components (statements in this paper) on average to find the fault.
Eurographics Symposium on Point-based Graphics (2007) Self-similarity-based Compression of Point Clouds, with Application to Ray Tracing

Many real-world, scanned surfaces contain repetitive structures, like bumps, ridges, creases, and so on. We present a compression technique that exploits self-similarity within a point-sampled surface. Our method replaces similar surface patches with an instance of a representative patch. We use a concise shape descriptor to identify and cluster similar patches. Decoding is achieved through simple instancing of the representative patches. Encoding is efficient, and can be applied to large datasets consisting of millions of points. Moreover, our technique offers random access to the compressed data, making it applicable to ray tracing, and easily allows for storing additional point attributes, like normals.
Bendectin and birth defects: I. A meta-analysis of the epidemiologic studies.

"Bendectin" (Doxylamine/Dicyclomine/Pyridoxine) was widely used for the treatment of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy until 1983, when production was discontinued in the face of lawsuits alleging that the drug caused congenital malformations. We have conducted a meta-analysis of the 16 cohort and 11 case-control studies that report birth defects from Bendectin-exposed pregnancies. This meta-analysis provides an estimate of the relative risk of malformation at birth in association with Bendectin exposure. The pooled estimate of the relative risk of any malformation at birth in association with exposure to Bendectin in the first trimester was 0.95 (95% Cl 0.88 to 1.04). Separate analyses were undertaken for cardiac defects, central nervous system defects, neural tube defects, limb reductions, oral clefts, and genital tract malformations. In these categories, the pooled estimates of relative risk ranged from 0.81 for oral clefts to 1.11 for limb reductions, with all 95% confidence intervals enclosing unity. With the exception of studies for oral clefts and for pyloric stenosis, tests for heterogeneity of association indicated for each table that all studies were estimating the same odds ratio. These studies, as a group, showed no difference in the risk of birth defects between those infants whose mothers had taken Bendectin during the first trimester of pregnancy and those infants whose mothers had not. It is unlikely that Bendectin exposure contributed to the prevalence of congenital malformations in the population.
The Language of Gender

The vocabulary of gender continues to evolve and there is not universal agreement about the definitions of many terms. Nonetheless, here is some working language and examples of frequently used (and misused) terms. We offer them as a starting place for dialogue and understanding, which begins by clarifying how we are using various terms, rather than asserting that they represent the final or only definition of the various terms.
Dependency Language Models for Transition-based Dependency Parsing

In this paper, we present an approach to improve the accuracy of a strong transition-based dependency parser by exploiting dependency language models that are extracted from a large parsed corpus. We integrated a small number of features based on the dependency language models into the parser. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we evaluate our parser on standard English and Chinese data where the base parser could achieve competitive accuracy scores. Our enhanced parser achieved state-of-the-art accuracy on Chinese data and competitive results on English data. We gained a large absolute improvement of one point (UAS) on Chinese and 0.5 points for English.
Immunoelectron microscope studies of membrane-microfilament interactions: distributions of alpha-actinin, tropomyosin, and vinculin in intestinal epithelial brush border and chicken gizzard smooth muscle cells

The ultrastructural localization of three cytoskeletal proteins, alpha- actinin, tropomyosin, and vinculin, in the brush border of epithelial cells of chicken small intestine and the smooth muscle cells of chicken gizzard was studied by immunofluorescence and immunonelectron microscope labeling of frozen sections of lightly fixed, intact tissues. In the immunoelectron microscope studies, a recently described new type of electron-dense antibody conjugate, imposil-antibody, has been successfully used, along with ferritin-antibody conjugates, in single and double immunolabeling experiments. In the intestinal brush border shows that vinvulin is sharply confined to the junctional complex close to the membrane region of the zonula adherens, in distinct contrast to the more diffuse distributions of the other two proteins. In the smooth muscle cells, the labeling patterns show that vinculin is sharply confined to the membrane-associated dense plaques, closer to the membrane than the alpha-Actinin is also present in the cytoplastic dense bodies, from which vinculin is absent. Tropomyosin is present diffusely distributed in the cytoplasm, but absent from both dense plaques and dense bodies. These findings with the muscle cells demonstrate, therefore, that the dense plaques and dense bodies are chemically and structurally distinct entities. The results with both tissues, along with those in previous papers (Geiger, 1979, Cell. 18:193-205.; Geiger et al., 1980, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 77:4127-4131), suggest that vinculin may play an important and widespread role in the linkage of actin-containing microfilament bundles to membranes.
Kanshinji Antenna: A Japanese-language Concept Search System

We propose a concept search system called Kanshinji Antenna that searches for documents with semantic content similar to that of the input text. In this system, concept vectors are statistically generated as the semantic expressions of words, and the similarities between documents are judged based on these concept vectors. This makes it possible to provide search functions that cannot be implemented in ordinary keyword search systems. In this article we discuss the system configuration and useful functions of the Kanshinji Antenna and discuss its effectiveness based on the results of an accuracy evaluation and an online questionnaire.
An Overview of Recent Developments in Genomics and the Statistical Methods that Bear on Them

The landscape of Genomics has changed drastically in the last two decades. Increasingly inexpensive sequencing has shifted the primary focus from the acquisition of biological sequences to the study of biological function. Assays have been developed to study many intricacies of biological systems, and publicly available databases have given rise to integrative analyses that combine information from many sources to draw complex conclusions. Such research was the focus of the recent workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute, High Dimensional Statistics in Biology. Many computational methods from modern genomics and related disciplines were presented and discussed. Using, as much as possible, the material from these talks, we give an overview of modern Genomics: from the essential assays that make data-generation possible, to the statistical methods that yield meaningful inference. In hopes of calling fresh perspectives to this field, we point to current analytical challenges, where novel methods, or novel applications of extant methods, are presently needed.
Sexual Response in Cardiovascular Disease

The cardiovascular response to sexual activity in men and women is similar to other daily activities and not excessive between couples in a long-standing relationship. The risk of an ischemic event during sexual activity is low and death very uncommon. Sexual dysfunction is common in cardiac patients and, in men, may occur before cardiac symptoms, with a time interval of 2 to 5 years. Exercise testing fails to identify nonobstructive but vulnerable-to-rupture lipid-rich plaques. Cardiac computed tomography identifies these silent plaques and triggers an aggressive risk-reducing management plan. As erectile dysfunction in men over 40 years of age is usually of vascular (endothelial dysfunction) origin, they should be considered “cardiovascular equivalents,” and secondary prevention guidelines should be followed.