Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction of social structure and genetic relatedness in colonies of the facultative polygynous stingless bee Melipona bicolor (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

Stingless bee colonies typically consist of one single-mated mother queen and her worker offspring. The stingless bee Melipona bicolor (Hymenoptera: Apidae) shows facultative polygyny, which makes this species particularly suitable for testing theoretical expectations concerning social behavior. In this study, we investigated the social structure and genetic relatedness among workers from eight natural and six manipulated colonies of M. bicolor over a period of one year. The populations of M. bicolor contained monogynous and polygynous colonies. The estimated genetic relatedness among workers from monogynous and polygynous colonies was 0.75 ± 0.12 and 0.53 ± 0.16 (mean ± SEM), respectively. Although the parental genotypes had significant effects on genetic relatedness in monogynous and polygynous colonies, polygyny markedly decreased the relatedness among nestmate workers. Our findings also demonstrate that polygyny in M. bicolor may arise from the adoption of related or unrelated queens.
The Thyrotropin‐Releasing Hormone Secretory System in the Hypothalamus of the Siberian Hamster in Long and Short Photoperiods

Thyrotropin‐releasing hormone (TRH) is not only essential for the regulation of the pituitary‐thyroid axis, but also exerts complementary effects on energy metabolism within the brain. We hypothesised that increased activity of the TRH secretory system may contribute to seasonal adaptations in the Siberian hamster whereby food intake is decreased in winter, and catabolism of fat stores is increased to support thermogenesis. We determined the distribution of TRH producing neurones and TRH‐R1 receptor expressing cells in the hypothalamus, and investigated whether photoperiod regulated this system. TRH‐immunoreactive (ir) cell somata and preproTRH mRNA expression were found to be widely distributed throughout the medial hypothalamus, with particular clusters in the paraventricular nucleus, the medial preoptic area and periventricular nucleus, and in the dorsomedial hypothalamus extending into the lateral hypothalamic area. A partial sequence encoding TRH‐R1 was cloned from hamster hypothalamic cDNA and used to generate a riboprobe for in situ hybridisation studies. TRH‐R1 mRNA expressing cells were abundant throughout the hypothalamus, corresponding to the widespread presence of TRH‐ir fibres. Photoperiod did not affect the expression of preproTRH mRNA in any region, and the only significant change in TRH‐R1 expression was in the dorsomedial posterior arcuate region. This wide distribution of TRH‐producing and receptive cells in the hypothalamus is consistent with its hypothesised neuromodulatory roles in the short‐term homeostatic control of appetite, thermoregulation and energy expenditure, but the lack of photoperiodic change in TRH mRNA expression does not support the hypothesis that changes in this system underlie long‐term seasonal changes in body weight.
Framework for Estimating Energy Consumption in Embedded Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are characterizedby an intensive interaction between its electro-mechanicaldevices and the embedded computer system. In most of thesesystems the battery autonomy is crucial, since power failurescan render the system inoperable. Therefore CPS designersmust take good-care regarding its energy consumption. Thispaper presents a framework to monitor the energy consump-tion in CPS in order to estimate its autonomy. The developedapproach is based on the characterization of the embeddedsoftware operating modes, which represent the operationalstates of the system. To illustrate the proposed framework we carried out a case-study applied to mobile robotics.
The Benefit of Using Tag-Based Profiles

Collaborative tagging, i.e. the process of assigning metadata in the form of keywords to shared content by many users, has emerged as an important way to provide information about resources on the Web and elsewhere. Such keywords (tags) are used to enable the organization of information within personal information spaces, such as photo collections, but can also be shared, allowing browsing and searching with the help of tags attached by other users to information resources from the Web. Recent research has shown that such tag distributions stabilize over time and can be used to improve search on the Web. In this paper we are interested in another aspect, namely how they characterize the user and enable personalized recommendations. Using data from a frequently used music search portal, Last.fm, we analyze tag usage and statistics and investigate the use of tag-based user profiles in contrast to conventional user profiles based on song and track usage. We specify recommendation algorithms based on tag user profiles, and explore how collaborative filtering recommendations based on these tag profiles are different from recommendations based on song/track profiles. Finally, we describe a new search-based method, which uses tags to recommend songs interesting to a user, yielding substantially improved results. The paper finishes with a discussion of some future work to further improve tag-based search and recommendation in community Web sites.
Epidemiological Research on Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease in Mainland China

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD), which has led to millions of attacks and several outbreaks across the world and become more predominant in Asia-Pacific Region, especially in Mainland China, is caused by several Human Enteroviruses including new enterovirus, coxsakievirus and echovirus. In recent years, much research has focused on the epidemiological characteristics of HFMD. In this article, multiple characteristics of HFMD such as basic epidemiology, etiology and molecular epidemiology; influencing factors; detection; and surveillance are reviewed, as these can be help protect high risks groups, prevalence prediction and policy making for disease prevention.
[In-depth interviews on late stage schistosomiasis patients about factors related to prevention and treatment in the rural areas].

OBJECTIVE To explore factors related to current prevention and treatment of Advanced cases on schistosomiasis. METHODS In-depth interviews were introduced to the qualitative study on 61 Advenced cases of schistosomiasis in Dongting Lake regions. Sampling was accidentally and judgmentally performed. RESULTS Related factors on prevention and treatment of Advenced cases of schistosomiasis would include: higher degree of social support for patients (61/61), excessive dependence on the past pattern of schistosomiasis control, lack of the idea that one should be responsible for his/her own health, lack of knowledge about prevention and treatment of schistosomiasis (28/61), older age (57.40 +/- 10.80), lower education (4.70 years), less family income, lack of effective medical insurance system and efficient close-to-client system. CONCLUSION Active participation from patients, medical institutions and society was needed to control Late Stage Schistosomiasis. Health education campaign should be intensified to improve the health awareness for schistosomiasis among residents in the heavy endemic areas. Medical insurance system should be set up in epidemic areas, while public health and cure systems for important diseases should be intensified in rural areas. The ability of public health system to be responsive and the accessibility of residents to health service system should be improved in rural areas as well.
Importance weighted image enhancement for prosthetic vision: An augmentation framework

Augmentations to enhance perception in prosthetic vision (also known as bionic eyes) have the potential to improve functional outcomes significantly for implantees. In current (and near-term) im-plantable electrode arrays resolution and dynamic range are highly constrained in comparison to images from modern cameras that can be head mounted. In this paper, we propose a novel, generally applicable adaptive contrast augmentation framework for prosthetic vision that addresses the specific perceptual needs of low resolution and low dynamic range displays. The scheme accepts an externally defined pixel-wise weighting of importance describing features of the image to enhance in the output dynamic range. Our approach explicitly incorporates the logarithmic scaling of enhancement required in human visual perception to ensure perceivability of all contrast augmentations. It requires no pre-existing contrast, and thus extends previous work in local contrast enhancement to a formulation for general image augmentation. We demonstrate the generality of our augmentation scheme for scene structure and looming object enhancement using simulated prosthetic vision.
Test cost optimization technique for the pre-bond test of 3D ICs

Three-dimensional (3D) integration using through-silicon via (TSV) is an emerging technique for integrated circuit (IC) designs. A 3D IC consists of multiple dies vertically connected by TSVs. To ensure the yield of 3D ICs, each die should be tested before it is stacked, i.e., the pre-bond test. Typically, test pads are implemented in the die under test for the pre-bond test due to the limitation of current probing technologies. However, the additional test pads incur additional die area. In this paper, therefore, we propose a test cost optimization technique for the pre-bond test of 3D ICs. This technique attempts to minimize the number required power pads of each die in a wafer and the overall test time of the wafer. Simulation results show that reducing power pads can effectively reduce the number of required test pads and the wafer test time.
The Synergistic Toxicity of Pesticide Mixtures: Implications for Risk Assessment and the Conservation of Endangered Pacific Salmon

Background Mixtures of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides are commonly detected in freshwater habitats that support threatened and endangered species of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.). These pesticides inhibit the activity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and thus have potential to interfere with behaviors that may be essential for salmon survival. Although the effects of individual anticholin-esterase insecticides on aquatic species have been studied for decades, the neurotoxicity of mixtures is still poorly understood. Objectives We assessed whether chemicals in a mixture act in isolation (resulting in additive AChE inhibition) or whether components interact to produce either antagonistic or synergistic toxicity. Methods We measured brain AChE inhibition in juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) exposed to sublethal concentrations of the organophosphates diazinon, malathion, and chlorpyrifos, as well as the carbamates carbaryl and carbofuran. Concentrations of individual chemicals were normalized to their respective median effective concentrations (EC50) and collectively fit to a nonlinear regression. We used this curve to determine whether toxicologic responses to binary mixtures were additive, antagonistic, or synergistic. Results We observed addition and synergism, with a greater degree of synergism at higher exposure concentrations. Several combinations of organophosphates were lethal at concentrations that were sublethal in single-chemical trials. Conclusion Single-chemical risk assessments are likely to underestimate the impacts of these insecticides on salmon in river systems where mixtures occur. Moreover, mixtures of pesticides that have been commonly reported in salmon habitats may pose a more important challenge for species recovery than previously anticipated.
Lipids in Health and Disease

Background: A recent in vitro study indicates that IGOB131, a novel seed extract of the traditional West African food plant Irvingia gabonensis, favorably impacts adipogenesis through a variety of critical metabolic pathways including PPAR gamma, leptin, adiponectin, and glycerol-3 phosphate dehydrogenase. This study was therefore aimed at evaluating the effects of IGOB131, an extract of Irvingia gabonensis, on body weight and associated metabolic parameters in overweight human volunteers. Methods: The study participants comprised of 102 healthy, overweight and/or obese volunteers (defined as BMI > 25 kg/m2) randomly divided into two groups. The groups received on a daily basis, either 150 mg of IGOB131 or matching placebo in a double blinded fashion, 30–60 minutes before lunch and dinner. At baseline, 4, 8 and 10 weeks of the study, subjects were evaluated for changes in anthropometrics and metabolic parameters to include fasting lipids, blood glucose, C-reactive protein, adiponectin, and leptin. Results: Significant improvements in body weight, body fat, and waist circumference as well as plasma total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, blood glucose, C-reactive protein, adiponectin and leptin levels were observed in the IGOB131 group compared with the placebo group. Conclusion: Irvingia gabonensis administered 150 mg twice daily before meals to overweight and/or obese human volunteers favorably impacts body weight and a variety of parameters characteristic of the metabolic syndrome. This is the first double blind randomized placebo controlled clinical trial regarding the anti-obesity and lipid profile modulating effects of an Irvingia gabonensis extract. The positive clinical results, together with our previously published mechanisms of gene expression modulation related to key metabolic pathways in lipid metabolism, provide impetus for much larger clinical studies. Irvingia gabonensis extract may prove to be a useful tool in dealing with the emerging global epidemics of obesity, hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance, and their co-morbid conditions. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00645775 Published: 2 March 2009 Lipids in Health and Disease 2009, 8:7 doi:10.1186/1476-511X-8-7 Received: 7 January 2009 Accepted: 2 March 2009 This article is available from: http://www.lipidworld. com/content/8/1/7 © 2009 Ngondi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Comparison of Computational Modeling of Precision Glass Molding of Infrared Lenses

ii Dedication . v Acknowledgments. v Vita . vii List of Tables . x List of Figures . xii Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 1.1. Precision Lens Molding Process.1 1.2. Finite Element Analysis.4 1.3. Molded Infrared Optics.6 1.4. Chalcogenide glasses.8 1.5. Motivation for current research.11 1.6. Research goals.12 1.7. Literature review . 12 1.8. Organization of this thesis.16
Giving your self to the game: transferring a player's own movements to avatars using tangible interfaces

We investigate the cognitive connection players create between their own bodies and the virtual bodies of their game avatars through tangible interfaces. The work is driven by experimental results showing that execution, perception and imagination of movements share a common coding in the brain, which allows people to recognize their own movements better. Based on these results, we hypothesize that players would identify and coordinate better with characters that encode their own movements. We tested this hypothesis in a series of four studies (n=20) that tracked different levels of movement perception abstraction, from own body to that of an avatar's body controlled by the participant, to see in which situations people recognize their own movements. Results show that participants can recognize their movements even in abstracted and distorted presentations. This recognition of 'own' movements occurs even when people do not see themselves, but just see a puppet they controlled. We conclude that players - if equipped with the appropriate interfaces - can indeed project and decipher their own body movements in a game character.
MACHINE TRANSLATION FROM ENGLISH TO ARABIC

Machine Translation has been defined as the process that utilizes computer software to translate text from one natural language to another. This definition involves accounting for the grammatical structure of each language and using rules, examples and grammars to transfer the grammatical structure of the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). This paper presents English to Arabic approach for translating well-structured English sentences into well-structured Arabic sentences, using a Grammar-based and example-translation techniques to handle the problems of ordering and agreement. The proposed methodology is flexible and scalable, the main advantages are: first, a hybrid-based approach combined advantages of rule-based (RBMT) with advantages example-based (EBMT), and second, it can be applied on some other languages with minor modifications. The OAK Parser is used to analyze the input English text to get the part of speech (POS) for each word in the text as a pre-translation process using the C# language, validation rules have been applied in both the database design and the programming code in order to ensure the integrity of data. A major design goal of this system is that it will be used as a stand-alone tool, and can be very well integrated with a general machine translation system for English sentences.
Application over Cross-layer Designed Wireless Networks Using Multi-carrier CDMA

Cross-layer design has become an emerging trend in the wireless network for efficient video transmission. In this paper, a cross-layer design approach is proposed for multi-user scenario by using multiple-input multipleoutput antennas (MIMO) at the physical layer. The impact of multi-user system on the bit error rate performance is presented in Rayleigh fading channels. The cross-layer adaptation across physical layer, data link layer and application layer works well in multi-user environment. Results reveal that proposed cross-layer design attain 15 % distortion gain. Key-Words Cross-layer design, Quality-of-service (QoS), Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), Multi-carrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA), Automatic repeat request (ARQ), Adaaptive modulation coding(AMC).
Global sequence properties for superfamily prediction: a machine learning approach

Summary Functional annotation of a protein sequence in the absence of experimental data or clear similarity to a sequence of known function is difficult. In this study, a simple set of sequence attributes based on physicochemical and predicted structural characteristics were used as input to machine learning methods. In order to improve performance through increasing the data available for training, a technique of sequence enrichment was explored. These methods were used to predict membership to 24 and 49 large and diverse protein superfamiles from the SCOP database. We found the best performance was obtained using an enriched training dataset. Accuracies of 66.3% and 55.6% were achieved on datasets comprising 24 and 49 superfamilies with LibSVM and AdaBoostM1 respectively. The methods used here confirm that domains within superfamilies share global sequence properties. We show machine learning models used to predict categories within the SCOP database can be significantly improved via a simple sequence enrichment step. These approaches can be used to complement profile methods for detecting distant relationships where function is difficult to infer.
Relationships Between Tolerance and Resistance to Meloidogyne incognita in Cotton.

The southern root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, is the most damaging pathogen of cotton in the United States, and both resistance and tolerance to M. incognita could be valuable management approaches. Our objectives were to evaluate advanced cotton breeding lines for resistance and tolerance to M. incognita and to determine if a relationship between resistance and tolerance exists. Reproduction of M. incognita was evaluated on 17 breeding lines, a susceptible control (Delta and Pine Land DP5415), and a resistant control (M-120) in two greenhouse trials with six replications in a randomized complete block design. Two-week-old seedlings were inoculated with 8,000 M. incognita eggs and assessed for egg production 8 weeks later. Reproduction on the resistant control was only 10% of that on the susceptible control. Eight breeding lines supported 45% to 57% less (P <= 0.05) nematode reproduction than the susceptible control, and none of them were as resistant as M-120. Yield was determined in 2001 and 2002 in fumigated (1,3-dichloropropene at 56 liters/ha) and nonfumigated plots in a strip-plot design with three replications in a field naturally infested with M. incognita. Yield suppression caused by nematode infection differed among genotypes (P </= 0.05 for genotype x fumigation interaction). Six genotypes in 2001 and nine in 2002 were tolerant to M. incognita based on no difference in yield between the fumigated and nonfumigated plots (P >/= 0.10). However, only three genotypes had no significant yield suppression in both years, of which two also were resistant to M. incognita. Regression analysis indicated that yield suppression decreased linearly as nematode resistance increased.
Remapping annual precipitation in mountainous areas based on vegetation patterns: a case study in the Nu River basin

Abstract. Accurate high-resolution estimates of precipitation are vital to improving the understanding of basin-scale hydrology in mountainous areas. The traditional interpolation methods or satellite-based remote sensing products are known to have limitations in capturing the spatial variability of precipitation in mountainous areas. In this study, we develop a fusion framework to improve the annual precipitation estimation in mountainous areas by jointly utilizing the satellite-based precipitation, gauge measured precipitation, and vegetation index. The development consists of vegetation data merging, vegetation response establishment, and precipitation remapping. The framework is then applied to the mountainous areas of the Nu River basin for precipitation estimation. The results demonstrate the reliability of the framework in reproducing the high-resolution precipitation regime and capturing its high spatial variability in the Nu River basin. In addition, the framework can significantly reduce the errors in precipitation estimates as compared with the inverse distance weighted (IDW) method and the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) precipitation product.
Local gene therapy and the identification of therapeutic targets in Sjögren’s syndrome

Ongeveer 0,5 tot 1 procent van de bevolking heeft het syndroom van Sjogren (SjS). Deze aandoening leidt tot een ernstige mate van droge ogen en mond en is niet goed te behandelen. Met behulp van gentherapie onderzocht Nienke Roescher het effect van drie immuun-modulerende eiwitten op de speekselklierwerking en op ontstekingen. Ze deed dit bij muizen met een SjS-achtige ziekte. Twee van de drie eiwitten verminderden de ontsteking, maar verbeterden de speekselvloed niet. Het eiwit CD40 had onverwacht weinig effect. Een nieuw beschreven eiwit (het cytokine APRIL) bleek bij patienten met SjS in een lagere hoeveelheid aanwezig dan bij gezonde mensen. Deze bevinding geeft een interessant aanknopingspunt voor nieuwe therapieen.
LMMSE channel estimation for MIMO W-CDMA with out-of-cell interference mitigation

An LMMSE channel estimator is proposed for the downlink of a MIMO W-CDMA system. The estimation takes into account intra-cell and out-of-cell interference, as well as receive-side spatial correlation. Efficient numerical methods are applied to solve the resulting large block Toeplitz linear equation sets. Various simplifying assumptions about the prior knowledge of second-order statistics used by the estimator are investigated, providing a performance vs. complexity tradeoff. Link level simulation results of a MIMO HSDPA system show that LMMSE channel estimation together with out-of-cell interference-aware equalization yield performance throughput gains of up to 30% over a correlation based channel estimator.