Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epistatic partners of neurogenic genes modulate Drosophila olfactory behavior

The extent to which epistasis affects the genetic architecture of complex traits is difficult to quantify, and identifying variants in natural populations with epistatic interactions is challenging. Previous studies in Drosophila implicated extensive epistasis between variants in genes that affect neural connectivity and contribute to natural variation in olfactory response to benzaldehyde. In this study, we implemented a powerful screen to quantify the extent of epistasis as well as identify candidate interacting variants using 203 inbred wild‐derived lines with sequenced genomes of the Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP). We crossed the DGRP lines to P[GT1]‐element insertion mutants in Sema‐5c and neuralized (neur), two neurodevelopmental loci which affect olfactory behavior, and to their coisogenic wild‐type control. We observed significant variation in olfactory responses to benzaldehyde among F1 genotypes and for the DGRP line by mutant genotype interactions for both loci, showing extensive nonadditive genetic variation. We performed genome‐wide association analyses to identify the candidate modifier loci. None of these polymorphisms were in or near the focal genes; therefore, epistasis is the cause of the nonadditive genetic variance. Candidate genes could be placed in interaction networks. Several candidate modifiers are associated with neural development. Analyses of mutants of candidate epistatic partners with neur (merry‐go‐round (mgr), prospero (pros), CG10098, Alhambra (Alh) and CG12535) and Sema‐5c (CG42540 and bruchpilot (brp)) showed aberrant olfactory responses compared with coisogenic controls. Thus, integrating genome‐wide analyses of natural variants with mutations at defined genomic locations in a common coisogenic background can unmask specific epistatic modifiers of behavioral phenotypes.
Systers : Contradictions in Community

Systers is a 13-year old online community for technical women. Substantial growth in the membership (from an initial group of 12 to over 2300 today), and of the Internet generally, has changed the nature of this community. We report empirical research leading to redesign of Systers’ online community resources. Systers must serve an increasingly diverse membership. Newcomers desire more and broader discussion and services whereas long-time members tend to prefer limited interaction. Redesign must grapple with a fundamental tension between the goals of successful members who act as mentors and community leaders, and those needing support, who tend to participate more actively in the community.
Generating Healthy Menus for Older Adults Using a Hybrid Honey Bees Mating Optimization Approach

This paper models the problem of generating healthy menu recommendations for older adults as an optimization problem and proposes a hybrid Honey Bees Mating Optimization method for solving this problem. The method hybridizes the state of the art Honey Bees Mating Optimization meta-heuristic by injecting strategies inspired from Genetic Algorithms, Hill Climbing, Simulated Annealing, and Tabu Search into the steps that generate new solutions of the optimization problem. The method has been integrated in a food ordering system enabling older adults to order food daily. Experiments have been conducted on several hybridization configurations to identify the most appropriate hybridization that leads to the healthy menu recommendation that best satisfies the older adult's diet recommended by the nutritionist, its culinary preferences and time and price constraints.
Stroke Prognosis and Abnormal Nocturnal Blood Pressure Falls in Older Hypertensives

It remains uncertain whether abnormal dipping patterns of nocturnal blood pressure influence the prognosis for stroke. We studied stroke events in 575 older Japanese patients with sustained hypertension determined by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (without medication). They were subclassified by their nocturnal systolic blood pressure fall (97 extreme-dippers, with ≥20% nocturnal systolic blood pressure fall; 230 dippers, with ≥10% but <20% fall; 185 nondippers, with ≥0% but <10% fall; and 63 reverse-dippers, with <0% fall) and were followed prospectively for an average duration of 41 months. Baseline brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) disclosed that the percentages with multiple silent cerebral infarct were 53% in extreme-dippers, 29% in dippers, 41% in nondippers, and 49% in reverse-dippers. There was a J-shaped relationship between dipping status and stroke incidence (extreme-dippers, 12%; dippers, 6.1%; nondippers, 7.6%; and reverse-dippers, 22%), and this remained significant in a Cox regression analysis after controlling for age, gender, body mass index, 24-hour systolic blood pressure, and antihypertensive medication. Intracranial hemorrhage was more common in reverse-dippers (29% of strokes) than in other subgroups (7.7% of strokes, P =0.04). In the extreme-dipper group, 27% of strokes were ischemic strokes that occurred during sleep (versus 8.6% of strokes in the other 3 subgroups, P =0.11). In conclusion, in older Japanese hypertensive patients, extreme dipping of nocturnal blood pressure may be related to silent and clinical cerebral ischemia through hypoperfusion during sleep or an exaggerated morning rise of blood pressure, whereas reverse dipping may pose a risk for intracranial hemorrhage.
Validation of a two-time step HVDC transient stability simulation model including detailed HVDC controls and DC line L/R dynamics

A two-time step approach to transient stability modeling of detailed HVDC controls and L/R line dynamics is validated against a detailed electromagnetic transients model, and compared to the response-type HVDC model typically used in transient stability studies. The two-time step method combines the ability to include the detailed fast HVDC controls while still running the transient stability simulation of the large network at a 1/2 cycle time step, minimizing the impact to the overall computation time. To reduce complexity of the model, the detailed HVDC model assumes the AC commutating bus voltages to be unchanging during the internal fast time step loop of the HVDC link. Validation results show improved accuracy and numerical stability of the detailed HVDC transient stability model when compared to the typical response-type model, both in weak and strong test systems with effective short circuit ratios (ESCR) ranging from 2.0 to 5.0
Why/AutoTutor: A Test of Learning Gains from a Physics Tutor with Natural Language Dialog

Author(s): Graesser, A.C. ; Jackson, G.T. ; Matthews, E.C. ; Mitchell, H.H. ; Olney, A. ; Ventura, M. ; Chipman, P.; Franceschetti, D. ; Hu, X. ; Louwerse, M.M. ; Person, N.K. ; Tutoring Research Group
Resolution in Modal, Description and Hybrid Logic

We provide a resolution-based proof procedure for modal, description and hybrid logic that improves on previous proposals in important ways. It avoids translations into large undecidable logics, and works directly on modal, description or hybrid logic formulas instead. In addition, by using the hybrid machinery it avoids the complexities of earlier propositional resolution-based methods for modal logic. It combines ideas from the method of prefixes used in tableaux, and resolution ideas in such a way that some of the heuristics and optimizations devised in either field are applicable.
Safety and feasibility of initial frequency mapping within 24 hours after cochlear implantation

Abstract Conclusion: Switch-on within 24 h after cochlear implantation can be safely and practically performed. The minimally invasive approach presented here also brought about benefits such as nonstop rehabilitation programs and shorter duration of uncertainty/worry for patients and their families about surgical outcomes. Those were important factors for international patients. Our research invites further studies to show whether instant commencement of electrical stimulation helps to expedite long-term hearing/speech performance in cochlear implantees. Objectives: Initial switch-on generally could not launch until weeks after cochlear implantation due to factors associated with wound conditions. Commencement of electrical stimulation within 24 h after the surgery has long been performed in our department on a routine basis. The idea issued from the need to sew-and-go for international patients. This study presents the safety and feasibility of the procedure. Methods: Charts of 79 subjects with profound hearing impairment were studied. A minimally invasive approach was used for cochlear implantation, with an intention to control wound condition and tissue swelling. Hearing threshold was measured preoperatively and postoperatively. Results: Initial switch-on within 24 h was done in all patients. Good hearing gain was obtained. No major complication occurred. There was no significant difference in hearing postoperatively that was attributable to the early switch-on.
Video-assessment of tear meniscus height in elderly Caucasians and its relationship to the exposed ocular surface

Purpose. An adequate volume of tears is considered essential to prevent desiccation of the exposed ocular surface, especially in elderly individuals. Few assessments of tear meniscus height (TMH) have however been reported for elderly individuals. Methods. Close-up images of the lower marginal tear strip were obtained by videography over about 30 s in 56 elderly individuals (38 women, 18 men; 71 ± 5 years of age) without significant eye disease and having a functional lacrimal system (Schirmer test). From such an “en face” view, the vertical height of the tear meniscus (TMH) at the lower eyelid was measured from stopped video frames. Firstly, TMH was assessed at the mid-point of the eyelid from five frames separated by 5 s; these values were averaged to give a time-averaged assessment of TMH (a tTMH value). Secondly, a position-averaged method (pTMH) was used in which TMH was assessed at 5 locations along the eyelid margin from a single frame that included several mm of marginal tear strip, and an average value calculated. The videographs were also used to assess palpebral aperture and the exposed ocular surface, a 1 min Schirmer test measure (closed eye) was also made, and keratometry data was available for most subjects. Results. A wide range of average values was encountered for both tTMH (range 0.057 to 0.271 mm) and pTMH (0.031 mm to 0.325 mm). The group-averaged tTMH value was 0.172 ± 0.047 mm (median 0.164 mm) while the group-averaged pTMH value was 0.171 ± 0.058 mm (median 0.168 mm), with no difference being found between the two methods (p = 0.84, paired t-test). With either method, the apparent TMH value was greater when the exposed ocular surface value (average 1.68 ± 0.51 cm 2) was lower and vice versa, and was statistically-significant for the tTMH measures (p = 0.02, r = 0.32), but not the pTMH measures (p = 0.18, r = 0.18). Neither TMH measure was related to the Schirmer test values or to central corneal curvature. Conclusions. The results indicate that healthy elderly individuals can be expected to have a measurable lower marginal tear strip, and that objective assessment of this may be a useful alternative to the Schirmer test. A possible association was found between the measures of TMH and the palpebral aperture height (and thus the exposed ocular surface), and so might need to be considered when TMH is assessed.
Micro- / nano- structuralized interfaces of conductive and transparent thin-film microelectrodes for biomedical application

Planar thin-film microelectrodes have been developed based on conductive and transparent thin films of ZnO:Al which are applicable in biomedicine as well as in the thin film solar cells. Nano-structuralization of their interfaces (surfaces) was carried out by the ion-sputter etching and by the photo-assisted electrodeless chemical etching. Interdigital array of microelectrodes was verified as a very useful tool for biomedical application: the monitoring of blood state or psychogalvanic reflex.
Studies on removal of malachite green dye from aqueous solution using plant based biosorbents

The removal of malachite green dye from wastewater is carried out using papaya wood, banana peel, and bael shell as biosorbents. Batch scale biosorption studies were carried out to evaluate the effect of various parameters such as time of contact, temperature, initial pH, biosorbate dosage and the suitable criteria for these factors were estimated. It was found that the effective time of contact for better dye removal performance was around 140 min at the dye concentration of 10 mg/l for all the three biosorbents. The removal efficiency of biosorbents was found maximum at pH 10 for papaya wood, at pH 7 for banana peel and at pH 8 for bael shell. Moreover, the optimum doses of these biosorbent materials were estimated at 0.06, 0.1 and 0.12 g/100 ml for papaya wood, banana peel and bael shell respectively. Maximum removal of dye was achieved at temperature 50°C for all the three biosorbents. Isotherm study of biosorption was done as well as the suitable fitting isothermal models were also demonstrated. Isotherm of Langmuir and Freundlich concepts were utilized to fit the equilibrated data and the outcomes showed that the Langmuir concept appeared better than Freundlich’s one. The results showed that papaya wood, banana peel and bael shell are proficient to use as an alternative for treating effluents which have malachite green in the water sample.
Direction of arrival tracking of an underwater acoustic source using particle filtering: Real data experiments

In the past, both theoretical work and practical implementation of particle filtering (PF) method have been extensively studied. However, its application in underwater signal processing has received much less attention. This paper intends to introduce PF approach for underwater acoustic signal processing. Particularly, we are interested in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation using PF. A detailed introduction along with this perspective is presented in this paper. Since the noise usually spreads the mainlobe of likelihood function and causes problem in subsequent particle resampling step, an exponential weighted likelihood model is developed to emphasize particles at more relevant area. Hence, the the effect due to background noise can be reduced. Real underwater acoustic data collected in SWELLEx-96 experiment are employed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed PF approaches for underwater DOA tracking.
Recent developments in graph matching

Graphs are a powerful and versatile tool useful in various subfields of science and engineering. In many applications, for example, in pattern recognition and computer vision, it is required to measure the similarity of objects. When graphs are used for the representation of structured objects, then the problem of measuring object similarity turns into the problem of computing the similarity of graphs, which is also known as graph matching. In this paper, similarity measures on graphs and related algorithms are reviewed. Also theoretical work showing various relations between different similarity measures is discussed. Other topics to be addressed include graph clustering and efficient indexing of large databases of graphs.
Temporal scaling of upper body motion for Sound feedback system of a dancing humanoid robot

This paper proposes a method to model the modification of upper body motion of dance performance based on the speed of played music. When we observed structured dance motion performed at a normal music playback speed and motion performed at a faster music playback speed, we found that the detail of each motion is slightly different while the whole of the dance motion is similar in both cases. This phenomenon is derived from the fact that dancers omit the details and perform the essential part of the dance in order to follow the faster speed of the music. To clarify this phenomenon, we analyzed the motion differences in the frequency domain, and obtained two insights on the omission of motion details: (1) High frequency components are gradually attenuated depending on the musical speed, and (2) important stop motions are preserved even when high frequency components are attenuated. Based on these insights, we modeled our motion modification considering musical speed and joint limitations that a humanoid robot has. We show the effectiveness of our method via some applications for humanoid robot motion generation.
Designing audio aura

In this paper. we describe the process behind the design of Audio Aura. The goal of Audio Aura is to provide serendipitous information, via background auditory cues, that is tied to people’s physical actions in the workplace. We used scenarios to explore issues in serendipitous information such as privacy and work practice. Our sound design was guided by a number of strategies for creating peripheral sounds grouped in cohesive ecologies. Faced with an physical and software infrastructure under development in a laboratory distant f? om our sound studio. we prototyped different sonic landscapes in VRML worlds. In our infrastructure design, we made a number of trade-offs in our use of legacy systems and our client-server design.
Cantilever energy effects on bimodal AFM: phase and amplitude contrast of multicomponent samples

Bimodal atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a recently developed technique of dynamic AFM where a higher eigenmode of the cantilever is simultaneously excited along with the fundamental eigenmode. The effects of different operating parameters while imaging an impact copolymer blend of polypropylene (PP) and ethylene–propylene (E–P) rubber in bimodal mode are explored through experiments and numerical simulations. The higher mode amplitude and phase contrasts between the two components of the sample reverse at different points as the free amplitude of the higher eigenmode is increased. Three different regimes are identified experimentally depending on the relative contrast between the PP and the E–P rubber. It is observed that the kinetic energy and free air drive input energy of the two cantilever eigenmodes play a role in determining the regimes of operation. Numerical simulations conducted with appropriate tip–sample interaction forces support the experimental results. An understanding of these regimes and the associated cantilever dynamics will guide a rational approach towards selecting appropriate operating parameters.
Effect of Exposure to a Mixture of Organic Solvents on Hearing Thresholds in Petrochemical Industry Workers

Introduction: Hearing loss is one of the most common occupational diseases. In most workplaces, workers are exposed to noise and solvents simultaneously, so the potential risk of hearing loss due to solvents may be attributed to noise. In this study we aimed to assess the effect of exposure to mixed aromatic solvents on hearing in the absence of exposure to hazardous noise. Materials and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 99 workers from the petrochemical industry with exposure to a mixture of organic solvents whose noise exposure was lower than 85 dBA were compared with 100 un-exposed controls. After measuring sound pressure level and mean concentration of each solvent in the workplace, pure-tone-audiometry was performed and the two groups were compared in terms of high-frequency and low-frequency hearing loss. T-tests and Chi-square tests were used to compare the two groups. Results: The mean hearing threshold at all frequencies among petrochemical workers was normal (below 25 dB). We did not observe any significant association between solvent exposure and high-frequency or low-frequency hearing loss. Conclusion: This study showed that temporary exposure (less than 4 years) to a mixture of organic solvents, without exposure to noise, does not affect workers’ hearing threshold in audiometry tests.
Multilabel Classification with Label Correlations and Missing Labels

Many real-world applications involve multilabel classification, in which the labels can have strong inter-dependencies and some of them may even be missing.Existing multilabel algorithms are unable to handle both issues simultaneously.In this paper, we propose a probabilistic model that can automatically learn and exploit multilabel correlations.By integrating out the missing information, it also provides a disciplinedapproach to the handling of missing labels. The inference procedure is simple, and the optimization subproblems are convex. Experiments on a number of real-world data sets with both complete and missing labelsdemonstrate that the proposed algorithm can consistently outperform state-of-the-art multilabel classification algorithms.
LGR6 Is a High Affinity Receptor of R-Spondins and Potentially Functions as a Tumor Suppressor

Background LGR6 (leucine-rich repeat containing, G protein-coupled receptor 6) is a member of the rhodopsin-like seven transmembrane domain receptor superfamily with the highest homology to LGR4 and LGR5. LGR6 was found as one of the novel genes mutated in colon cancer through total exon sequencing and its promoter region is hypermethylated in 20–50% of colon cancer cases. In the skin, LGR6 marks a population of stem cells that can give rise to all cell lineages. Recently, we and others demonstrated that LGR4 and LGR5 function as receptors of R-spondins to potentiate Wnt/β-catenin signaling. However, the binding affinity and functional response of LGR6 to R-spondins, and the activity of colon cancer mutants of LGR6 have not been determined. Principal Findings We found that LGR6 also binds and responds to R-spondins 1–3 with high affinity to enhance Wnt/β-catenin signaling through increased LRP6 phosphorylation. Similar to LGR4 and LGR5, LGR6 is not coupled to heterotrimeric G proteins or to β-arrestin following R-spondin stimulation. Functional and expression analysis of three somatic mutations identified in colon cancer samples indicates that one mutant fails to bind and respond to R-spondin (loss-of-function), but the other two have no significant effect on receptor function. Overexpression of wild-type LGR6 in HeLa cells leads to increased cell migration following co-treatment with R-spondin1 and Wnt3a when compared to vector control cells or cells overexpressing the loss-of-function mutant. Conclusions LGR6 is a high affinity receptor for R-spondins 1–3 and potentially functions as a tumor suppressor despite its positive effect on Wnt/β-catenin signaling.