Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gonad Differentiation in the Rabbit: Evidence of Species-Specific Features

The rabbit is an attractive species for the study of gonad differentiation because of its 31-day long gestation, the timing of female meiosis around birth and the 15-day delay between gonadal switch and the onset of meiosis in the female. The expression of a series of genes was thus determined by qPCR during foetal life until adulthood, completed by a histological analysis and whenever possible by an immunohistological one. Interesting gene expression profiles were recorded. Firstly, the peak of SRY gene expression that is observed in early differentiated XY gonads in numerous mammals was also seen in the rabbit, but this expression was maintained at a high level until the end of puberty. Secondly, a peak of aromatase gene expression was observed at two-thirds of the gestation in XX gonads as in many other species except in the mouse. Thirdly, the expression of STRA8 and DMC1 genes (which are known to be specifically expressed in germ cells during meiosis) was enhanced in XX gonads around birth but also slightly and significantly in XY gonads at the same time, even though no meiosis occurs in XY gonad at this stage. This was probably a consequence of the synchronous strong NANOS2 gene expression in XY gonad. In conclusion, our data highlighted some rabbit-specific findings with respect to the gonad differentiation process.
Behavioral / Systems / Cognitive Reduced Prefrontal Connectivity in Psychopathy

Julian C. Motzkin,1 Joseph P. Newman,2 Kent A. Kiehl,3,4 and Michael Koenigs1 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53719, 2Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, 3The MIND Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, and 4Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131
VeCycle: Recycling VM Checkpoints for Faster Migrations

Virtual machine migration is a useful and widely used workload management technique. However, the overhead of moving gigabytes of data across machines, racks, or even data centers limits its applicability. According to a recent study by IBM [7], the number of distinct servers visited by a migrating VM is small; often just two. By storing a checkpoint on each server, a subsequent incoming migration of the same VM must transfer less data over the network. Our analysis shows that for short migration intervals of 2 hours on average 50% to 70% of the checkpoint can be reused. For longer migration intervals of up to 24 hours still between 20% to 50% can be reused. In addition, we compared different methods to reduce the migration traffic. We find that content-based redundancy elimination consistently achieves better results than relying on dirty page tracking alone. Sometimes the difference is only a few percent, but can reach up to 50% and more. Our empirical measurements with a QEMU-based prototype confirm the reduction in migration traffic and time.
Rule-base data mining systems for customer queries

The main objective of this paper is to have a best association between customer and organisation. This method is proposed in order to discover knowledge from huge amount of data and to use the data efficiently because of great demand. Banking is the most commonly used application for financial section. In which, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) model is most widely used in order to cost control, accounting and e-business & analyses. The request of the customers are routed automatically to the next department when one department finishes their work of the customer's request and each department have access to the single database that holds the customers new request. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) model is responsible for receiving the request and sending responses to the customers quickly and directly. The request includes queries, complaints, suggestions, and orders. These requests are forwarded to inner view ERP through query generator. In this paper, we proposed a model that integrates the customer queries, transactions, databases and all other specifications used in ERP Systems, then use data mining techniques to integrate decision making and forecasting. Using ERP characteristics, data gathered from central database are in cluster format which is based on action taken against the queries generated by customers. Later the clustered data's are used by Apriori algorithm to extract new rules and patterns for the enhancement of an organisation.
Binding Interactions between Long Noncoding RNA HOTAIR and PRC2 Proteins

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a key role in the epigenetic regulation of cells. Many of these lncRNAs function by interacting with histone repressive proteins of the Polycomb group (PcG) family, recruiting them to gene loci to facilitate silencing. Although there are now many RNAs known to interact with the PRC2 complex, little is known about the details of the molecular interactions. Here, we show that the PcG protein heterodimer EZH2-EED is necessary and sufficient for binding to the lncRNA HOTAIR. We also show that protein recognition occurs within a folded 89-mer domain of HOTAIR. This 89-mer represents a minimal binding motif, as further deletion of nucleotides results in substantial loss of affinity for PRC2. These findings provide molecular insights into an important system involved in epigenetic regulation.
Attitudes toward anticoagulant treatment among nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients at high risk of stroke and low risk of bleed

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with an increased risk of stroke. Anticoagulant (AC) therapies are effective at treating AF, but carry with them an increased risk of bleed. Research suggests that a large proportion of AF patients who have high risk of stroke and low risk of bleeding are not currently receiving AC treatment. The goal of this study was to understand the reasons why these patients do not engage in this potentially life-saving treatment. Method Through a self-report online survey, using validated instruments, 1,184 US adults who self-reported a diagnosis of AF were screened for the risk of stroke and bleed. Of these patients, 230 (19.4%) were at high risk of stroke, low risk of bleed, and not currently using an AC treatment, and were asked follow-up questions to assess their reasons for nontreatment, attitudes toward treatment, and attitudes toward dosing regimens. Results The most common reasons patients stopped AC treatment were concerns regarding bleeding (27.8%) and other medical concerns (26.6%), whereas the most common reason cited for not being prescribed an AC in the first place was the use of antiplatelet therapy as an alternative (57.1%). In both cases, potentially erroneous decisions regarding perceived stoke and/or bleeding risk were also a factor. Finally, the largest factors regarding attitudes toward treatment and dosing regimen were instructions from an authority figure (eg, physician, pharmacist) and ease of use, respectively. Conclusion Results suggest that many AF patients who are at high risk of stroke but at low risk of bleed may not be receiving AC due to potentially inaccurate beliefs about risk. This study also found that AF patients place trust in physicians above other factors such as cost when making treatment decisions. Increased education of patients by physicians on the risks and benefits may be a simple strategy to improve outcomes.
Facial resemblance increases the attractiveness of same–sex faces more than other–sex faces

Our reactions to facial self–resemblance could reflect either specialized responses to cues of kinship or by–products of the general perceptual mechanisms of face encoding and mere exposure. The adaptive hypothesis predicts differences in reactions to self–resemblance in mating and prosocial contexts, while the by–product hypothesis does not. Using face images that were digitally transformed to resemble participants, I showed that the effects of resemblance on attractiveness judgements depended on both the sex of the judge and the sex of the face being judged: facial resemblance increased attractiveness judgements of same–sex faces more than other–sex faces, despite the use of identical procedures to manipulate resemblance. A control experiment indicated these effects were caused neither by lower resemblance of other–sex faces than same–sex faces, nor by an increased perception of averageness or familiarity of same–sex faces due to prototyping or mere exposure affecting only same–sex faces. The differential impact of self–resemblance on our perception of same–sex and other–sex faces supports the hypothesis that humans use facial resemblance as a cue of kinship.
Algorithms for the Alignment and Visualization of genome Mapping Data with Applications to Structural variant Detection

Title of dissertation: ALGORITHMS FOR THE ALIGNMENT AND VISUALIZATION OF GENOME MAPPING DATA WITH APPLICATIONS TO STRUCTURAL VARIANT DETECTION Lee M. Mendelowitz, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Dissertation directed by: Professor Mihai Pop Computer Science Department Optical mapping and nanocoding are single molecule restriction mapping systems for interrogating genomic structure at a scale that cannot currently be achieved using DNA sequencing methods. In these mapping experiments, large DNA molecules ≈ 500 kb are stretched, immobilized or confined, and then digested with a restriction endonuclease that cuts or nicks the DNA at its cognate sequence. The cut/nick sites are then observed through fluorescent microscopy and machine vision is used to estimate the length of the DNA fragments between consecutive sites. This produces, for each molecule, a barcode-like pattern comprising the ordered list of restriction fragment lengths Despite the promise of the optical mapping and nanocoding systems, there are few open source tools for working with the data generated by these platforms. Most analyses rely on custom in-house software pipelines using proprietary software. In this dissertation we present open source software tools for the alignment and vizualization of restriction mapping data. In this work we first present a review of the optical mapping and nanocoding systems and provide an overview of the current methods for aligning and assembling consensus restriction maps and their related applications. Next, we present the Maligner software for the alignment of a query restriction pattern to a reference pattern. Alignment is a fundamental problem which is the first step in many downstream analyses, such as consensus map assembly or structural variant calling. The Maligner software features both a sensitive dynamic programming implementation and a faster but less sensitive index based mode of alignment. We compare the Maligner software to other available tools for the task of aligning a sequence contig assembly to a reference optical map and for aligning single molecule maps to a reference. Next, we present a portable data visualization web application for visualizing pairwise alignments of restriction maps. Finally, we present updates to the Maligner software to support partial alignments of single molecule maps, allowing for the clustering of compatible split map alignments to identify structural variants. ALGORITHMS FOR THE ALIGNMENT AND VISUALIZATION OF GENOME MAPPING DATA WITH APPLICATIONS TO STRUCTURAL VARIANT DETECTION
Wireless ultra-wide band communication for implantable sensors

In this paper, we bring an overview of wireless radio communication techniques for implantable medical devices. The main focus is the ultra-wideband technology that can utilize low power and high data rates with its ability to co-exist with other electronic medical equipment. Unique properties of UWB communication make it suitable for long-term continuous health monitoring using small independent implanted sensor nodes.
Minimum Current Start-Up Method by Combined Use of Two Position-Sensorless Controls

A start-up method for reducing the start-up current of a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is proposed. Minimum current start-up is achieved by combining two position-sensorless control methods that require no harmonic injection. Position-sensorless control for low-speed regions utilizes induced voltage caused by the magnetic saturation of a PMSM with a conventional block commutation drive. During acceleration of the rotor, the position-sensorless control is switched to the second method, which is based on back electromotive force with a sinusoidal commutation drive. Since unconsidered switching may result in start-up failure when the proposed start-up method is used in applications with periodic load properties, a method to determine the correct timing to change the position-sensorless control in consideration of load variation is also proposed. The proposed methods are validated in start-up tests using a reciprocating compressor with a large periodic load torque.
Comparisons and performance evaluations of RNA-seq alignment tools

Next generation sequencing (NGS) has been widely used in biological and medical researches. NGS facilitates identifying mutations and differentially expressed genes that are causative to diseases. However, its high-throughput feature poses major challenges in performing the analysis, especially the alignment step. The alignment step is critical in the NGS gene expression analysis since the correctness of the advanced steps heavily depends on it. Therefore, we evaluated the performances of the four popular alignment algorithms including Tophat, STAR, MapSplice, and GNSAP based on the simulated data generated by Flux-Simulator. Shorter and longer reference genomes and read lengths were evaluated in the four scenarios. Three indices including time cost, alignment accuracy, and junction detection were utilized to consider the performances of different algorithms. The result shows that the Tophat algorithm has highest alignment accuracy and the STAR algorithm is the fastest one with a little lower accuracy. The MapSplice and GNSAP algorithms are not stable as the STAR and Tophat algorithms, and might encounter more problems in doing the alignment.
How Macroeconomic Instability Lowers Child Survival

The reduction of child mortality is one of the most universally accepted millennium goals. However, a significant debate came out on the means of reaching it and on its realism with regard to the situation of most of the least developed countries. The recommendations made for the achievement of this are mainly medical ones. However, without underestimating the importance of these measures, in particular vaccinations, it seems increasingly obvious that the rate of reduction of child mortality is mainly determined by the evolution of macroeconomic environment. The influence of per capita income level on mortality is frequently underlined. But a given income growth does not have the same effect on child survival whether it is stable or unstable. Indeed, rises and falls of income probably have asymmetrical effects on mortality. The purpose of this analysis is precisely to show how macroeconomic instability influences the evolution of child mortality. The analysis is based on a panel sample of 97 developing countries over the period 1980-1999. The effect of exogenous shocks is first examined through a variable of income instability. The study of the relation is then deepened with "primary instabilities": instability of world agricultural commodity prices, instability of exports of goods and services and instability of agricultural production.
Codon choice in genes depends on flanking sequence information—implications for theoretical reverse translation

Algorithms for theoretical reverse translation have direct applications in degenerate PCR. The conventional practice is to create several degenerate primers each of which variably encode the peptide region of interest. In the current work, for each codon we have analyzed the flanking residues in proteins and determined their influence on codon choice. From this, we created a method for theoretical reverse translation that includes information from flanking residues of the protein in question. Our method, named the neighbor correlation method (NCM) and its enhancement, the consensus-NCM (c-NCM) performed significantly better than the conventional codon-usage statistic method (CSM). Using the methods NCM and c-NCM, we were able to increase the average sequence identity from 77% up to 81%. Furthermore, we revealed a significant increase in coverage, at 80% identity, from < 20% (CSM) to > 75% (c-NCM). The algorithms, their applications and implications are discussed herein.
Compressive and Noncompressive Power Spectral Density Estimation from Periodic Nonuniform Samples

This paper presents a novel power spectral density estimation technique for bandlimited, wide-sense stationary signals from sub-Nyquist sampled data. The technique employs multi-coset sampling and applies to spectrally sparse and nonsparse power spectra alike. For sparse density functions, we apply compressed sensing theory and the resulting compressive estimates exhibit better tradeoffs among the estimator’s resolution, system complexity, and average sampling rate compared to their noncompressive counterparts. Both compressive and noncompressive estimates, however, can be computed at arbitrarily low sampling rates. The estimator does not require signal reconstruction and can be directly obtained from solving either a least squares or a nonnegative least squares problem. The estimates are piecewise constant approximations whose resolutions (width of the piecewise constant segments) are controlled by the periodicity of the multi-coset sampling. The estimates are also statistically consistent. This method is widely applicable, but it is targeted to situations where one wants to sense a wideband spectrum at low sampling rates.
Compressed Subspace Matching on the Continuum

We consider the general problem of matching a subspace to a signal in R N that has been observed indirectly (compressed) through a random projection. We are interested in the case where the collection of K-dimensional subspaces is continuously parameterized, i.e. naturally indexed by an interval from the real line, or more generally a region of R D . Our main results show that if the dimension of the random projection is on the order of K times a geometrical constant that describes the complexity of the collection, then the match obtained from the compressed observation is nearly as good as one obtained from a full observation of the signal. We give multiple concrete examples of collections of subspaces for which this geometrical constant can be estimated, and discuss the relevance of the results to the general problems of template matching and source localization.
An evaluation of excitation feature prediction in a hybrid approach to electrolaryngeal speech enhancement

We implement removing micro-prosody with low-pass filtering and avoiding Unvoiced/Voiced (U/V) prediction as part of a hybrid approach to improve statistical excitation prediction in electrolaryngeal (EL) speech enhancement. An electrolarynx is a device that artificially generates excitation sounds to enable laryngectomees to produce EL speech. Although proficient laryngectomees can produce quite intelligible EL speech, it sounds very unnatural due to the mechanical excitation produced by the device. Moreover, the excitation sounds produced by the device often leak outside, adding noise to EL speech. To address these issues, in our previous work, we proposed a hybrid method using a noise reduction method for enhancing spectral parameters and voice conversion method for predicting excitation parameters. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of removing micro-prosody with low-pass filtering and avoiding U/V prediction in the hybrid enhancement process.
Chinese Discourse Segmentation Based on Punctuation Marks

This paper addresses Chinese discourse segmentation based on punctuation mark. Particularly, we propose various kinds of lexical, syntactic, position and punctuation features to train classifiers for Chinese discourse segmentation. Experimental results on CDTB (Chinese Discourse Treebank) show that our method based on punctuation mark is appropriate for Chinese discourse segmentation with 89.2% in accuracy.
PENGARUH KEMUDAHAN PENGGUNAAN, KEPERCAYAAN, DAN COMPUTER SELF EFFICACY TERHADAP MINAT PENGGUNAAN E- SPT DALAM PELAPORAN PAJAK

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui: (1) Pengaruh kemudahan penggunaan terhadap minat meggunakan aplikasi E SPT. (2) Pengaruh kepercayaan terhadap minat menggunakan aplikasi E SPT. (3) Pengaruh computer self efficacy terhadap minat menggunakan aplikasi E SPT. (4) Pengaruh kemudahan penggunaan, kepercayan, computer self efficacy terhadap minat menggunakan aplikasi E SPT. Metode analisis data menggunakan uji prasyarat analisis, regresi linear sederhana dan berganda. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan: (1) Terdapat pengaruh positif dan signifikan Kemudahan Penggunaan terhadap Minat Penggunaan E SPT, ditunjukkan oleh nilai koefisien sebesar 0,501, signifikansi 0,000, dan nilai t hitung 7,116. (2) Terdapat pengaruh positif dan signifikan Kepercayaan terhadap Minat Penggunaan E SPT, ditunjukkan oleh nilai koefisien sebesar 0,597, signifikansi 0,000, dan nilai t hitung 4,998. (3) Terdapat pengaruh positif dan signifikan Computer Self Efficacy terhadap Minat Penggunaan E SPT, ditunjukkan oleh nilai koefisien sebesar 0,343, signifikansi 0,046, dan nilai t hitung 2,027. (4) Terdapat pengaruh positif dan signifikan Kemudahan Penggunaan, Kepercayaan dan Computer Self Efficay terhadap Minat Penggunaan E SPT, ditunjukan oleh nilai koefisien sebesar 0,679, Adjusted R² 0,438 dan nilai F hitung 20,518. Kata kunci: Kemudahan Penggunaan, Kepercayaan, Computer Self Efficacy dan Minat Penggunaan E SPT.
Student’s first year experience of American Degree Transfer Program in Malaysia

The first year is a very essential year as students transition themselves from the traditional exam oriented school system to a more flexible and holistic education system practiced in American Degree Program in Taylor’s University. Therefore, the psychometric validation is executed in order to have a better knowledge of both behavioral and attitudinal dimensions. The overall findings are largely positive with a few aspects of distress expressed such as finance. Meanwhile the respond rates among students who participated in the survey had shown a high percentage. Most of the correlation findings on the other items had found positive correlation with what the students had learned during orientation and the categories of the aspect in university life.