Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genes underlying altruism

William D. Hamilton postulated the existence of ‘genes underlying altruism’, under the rubric of inclusive fitness theory, a half-century ago. Such genes are now poised for discovery. In this article, we develop a set of intuitive criteria for the recognition and analysis of genes for altruism and describe the first candidate genes affecting altruism from social insects and humans. We also provide evidence from a human population for genetically based trade-offs, underlain by oxytocin-system polymorphisms, between alleles for altruism and alleles for non-social cognition. Such trade-offs between self-oriented and altruistic behaviour may influence the evolution of phenotypic diversity across all social animals.
Treatment Concerns of Women with Co-Occurring Serious Mental Illness and Substance Abuse Disorders

Abstract The treatment needs of persons with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders is a relatively new area of inquiry. Even less information is available concerning the treatment concerns of women with dual diagnosis. A focus group was conducted with seven women as part of a larger study of effective treatments for adults with co-occurring disorders. Women responded to questions about what worked and what did not work in their past treatment experiences and what needs to be added for effective treatment. Five primary themes emerged: negative treatment experiences, negative system experiences, desirable treatment characteristics, therapeutic client characteristics, and life issues affecting treatment engagement. Two of the main treatment recommendations that emerged were the need for advocacy assistance with child protective service agencies and the need for providers to use client-centered treatment methods.
Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy

Heightened concerns about long-term sustainability have of late enlivened debates around the circular economy (CE). Defined as a series of restorative and regenerative industrial systems, parallel socio-cultural transformations have arguably received less consideration to date. In response, this paper examines the contributions human geographical scholarship can make to CE debates, focusing on ‘generative spaces’ of diverse CE practices. Concepts infrequently discussed within human geography such as product service systems and ‘prosumption’ are explored, to argue that productive potential exists in bringing these ideas into conversation with ongoing human geographical research into practices, materialities, emergent political spaces and ‘everyday activism’.
Exploration of a Bayesian Updating Methodology to Monitor the Safety of Interventional Cardiovascular Procedures

Appropriate methods for monitoring of the safety of medical devices introduced into clinical practice have been elusive to develop and implement. A novel approach is the application of Bayesian updating, which incorporates existing knowledge regarding event rates into the estimation of risk. This framework has been shown in other domains to be data efficient and to address some of the limitations of conventional statistical methods. In this article, the authors propose a methodologic framework for developing initial prior probability distributions in risk-stratified patient groups and a mechanism for incorporating accumulating procedure safety experience. In addition, they use this methodology to retrospectively analyze the clinical outcomes of 309 patients undergoing an infrequent interventional cardiology procedure, rotational atherectomy. These exploratory analyses demonstrate the feasibility of Bayesian updating applied to medical device safety evaluation and indicate that the methodology is capable of generating stable estimates of risk in a variety of patient risk groups.
Real-time Image Generation for Compressive Light Field Displays

With the invention of integral imaging and parallax barriers in the beginning of the 20th century, glasses-free 3D displays have become feasible. Only today—more than a century later—glasses-free 3D displays are finally emerging in the consumer market. The technologies being employed in current-generation devices, however, are fundamentally the same as what was invented 100 years ago. With rapid advances in optical fabrication, digital processing power, and computational perception, a new generation of display technology is emerging: compressive displays exploring the co-design of optical elements and computational processing while taking particular characteristics of the human visual system into account. In this paper, we discuss real-time implementation strategies for emerging compressive light field displays. We consider displays composed of multiple stacked layers of light-attenuating or polarization-rotating layers, such as LCDs. The involved image generation requires iterative tomographic image synthesis. We demonstrate that, for the case of light field display, computed tomographic light field synthesis maps well to operations included in the standard graphics pipeline, facilitating efficient GPU-based implementations with real-time framerates.
Salt reduction initiatives around the world

Objective To provide an overview of national salt reduction initiatives around the world, describe core characteristics and develop a framework for future strategy development. Methods National strategies were identified from existing reviews and from searches of the literature and relevant websites. Standardized information was extracted about governance and strategy development, baseline assessments and monitoring and implementation. Results Thirty-two country salt reduction initiatives were identified. The majority of activity was in Europe (19 countries). Most countries (27) had maximum population salt intake targets, ranging from 5 to 8 g/person per day. Twenty-six of the 32 strategies were led by government, five by nongovernment organizations and one by industry. Twenty-eight countries had some baseline data on salt consumption and 18 had data on sodium levels in foods. Twenty-eight countries were working with the food industry to reduce salt in foods, 10 had front-of-pack labelling schemes and 28 had consumer awareness or behaviour change programs. Five countries had demonstrated an impact, either on population salt consumption, salt levels in foods or consumer awareness. These strategies were led by government and were multifaceted including food reformulation, consumer awareness initiatives and labelling actions. Conclusion This is the first review to concisely summarize the most important elements of the many existing salt reduction programmes and highlight the characteristics most likely to be important to programme efficacy. For most countries, implementing a national salt reduction programme is likely to be one of simplest and most cost-effective ways of improving public health.
A healthy dose of scepticism: four good reasons to think again about protective effects of alcohol on coronary heart disease.

ISSUES Alcohol has been implicated in both the popular press and scientific literature as having a protective effect for at least a dozen conditions including coronary heart disease (CHD). APPROACH Epidemiological evidence for an apparent protective effect of alcohol on CHD is now being challenged on a number of fronts. This paper is a synopsis of those various challenges as they currently stand. KEY FINDINGS The argument that systematic misclassification of ex-drinkers and occasional drinkers to 'abstainer' categories among epidemiological studies might explain apparent protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD has recently been supported by new meta-analyses and independent research. The influence of uncontrolled or unknown factors on the relationship between alcohol and disease cannot be ruled out. Exclusion of participants on the basis of ill-health severely reduces study sample size and new analyses suggest that doing so might artificially create the appearance of protective effects. The ability of respondents to accurately recall their own alcohol consumption is in serious doubt and very few individuals maintain one single drinking level or style throughout life. The relationship between alcohol and some conditions might be a function of drinking patterns but few studies have addressed the issue. IMPLICATIONS Popular perceptions regarding the strength of evidence for alcohol's protective effect on a growing number of conditions might be misguided. CONCLUSION It is time for the wider research, health and medical community to seriously reflect on the quality of current evidence for apparent protective effects of alcohol on human disease.
Metabolic power of European starlings Sturnus vulgaris during flight in a wind tunnel, estimated from heat transfer modelling, doubly labelled water and mask respirometry

SUMMARY It is technically demanding to measure the energetic cost of animal flight. Each of the previously available techniques has some disadvantage as well advantages. We compared measurements of the energetic cost of flight in a wind tunnel by four European starlings Sturnus vulgaris made using three independent techniques: heat transfer modelling, doubly labelled water (DLW) and mask respirometry. We based our heat transfer model on thermal images of the surface temperature of the birds and air flow past the body and wings calculated from wing beat kinematics. Metabolic power was not sensitive to uncertainty in the value of efficiency when estimated from heat transfer modelling. A change in the assumed value of whole animal efficiency from 0.19 to 0.07 (the range of estimates in previous studies) only altered metabolic power predicted from heat transfer modelling by 13%. The same change in the assumed value of efficiency would cause a 2.7-fold change in metabolic power if it were predicted from mechanical power. Metabolic power did not differ significantly between measurements made using the three techniques when we assumed an efficiency in the range 0.11–0.19, although the DLW results appeared to form a U-shaped power-speed curve while the heat transfer model and respirometry results increased linearly with speed. This is the first time that techniques for determining metabolic power have been compared using data from the same birds flying under the same conditions. Our data provide reassurance that all the techniques produce similar results and suggest that heat transfer modelling may be a useful method for estimating metabolic rate.
An intelligent smart tutor system based on emotion analysis and recommendation engine

One of the core model of the Tutor System is considered to be Student model, which pays special attention to student's cognitive and affective states and their evolution as the learning process advances. As the student works step-by-step through their problem solving process the system engages in a process called model tracing. Anytime the student model deviates from the domain model the system identifies, or flags, that an error has occurred. This helps in the shorter feedback cycle for the student and help them in overcoming these shortcomings through the recommendation engine. The tutor model accepts information from the domain and student models and makes choices about tutoring strategies and actions. At any point in the problem-solving process the learner may request guidance on what to do next, relative to their current location in the model. Knowledge tracing tracks the learner's progress from problem to problem and builds a profile of strengths and weaknesses relative to the production rules. The tutor system gives a visual graph of the learner's success in each of the monitored skills related to solving problems. When a learner requests a hint, or an error is flagged, the know ledge tracing data and the skill meter are updated in real-time. The Another core feature of the tutor system is its recommendation engine which on the basis of the skill meter that is updated at the real time will find what all are the things that the student may be interested on and suggest him the path that could be more fruitful. And last the tutor system is able to builds student profiles while observing student performance throughout the interaction of the system.
Righting and turning in mid-air using appendage inertia: reptile tails, analytical models and bio-inspired robots

Unlike the falling cat, lizards can right themselves in mid-air by a swing of their large tails in one direction causing the body to rotate in the other. Here, we developed a new three-dimensional analytical model to investigate the effectiveness of tails as inertial appendages that change body orientation. We anchored our model using the morphological parameters of the flat-tailed house gecko Hemidactylus platyurus. The degree of roll in air righting and the amount of yaw in mid-air turning directly measured in house geckos matched the model's results. Our model predicted an increase in body roll and turning as tails increase in length relative to the body. Tails that swung from a near orthogonal plane relative to the body (i.e. 0–30° from vertical) were the most effective at generating body roll, whereas tails operating at steeper angles (i.e. 45–60°) produced only half the rotation. To further test our analytical model's predictions, we built a bio-inspired robot prototype. The robot reinforced how effective attitude control can be attained with simple movements of an inertial appendage.
Comprehensive and Comparative Metabolomic Profiling of Wheat, Barley, Oat and Rye Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry and Advanced Chemometrics

Beyond the main bulk components of cereals such as the polysaccharides and proteins, lower concentration secondary metabolites largely contribute to the nutritional value. This paper outlines a comprehensive protocol for GC-MS metabolomic profiling of phenolics and organic acids in grains, the performance of which is demonstrated through a comparison of the metabolite profiles of the main northern European cereal crops: wheat, barley, oat and rye. Phenolics and organic acids were extracted using acidic hydrolysis, trimethylsilylated using a new method based on trimethylsilyl cyanide and analyzed by GC-MS. In order to extract pure metabolite peaks, the raw chromatographic data were processed by a multi-way decomposition method, Parallel Factor Analysis 2. This approach lead to the semi-quantitative detection of a total of 247 analytes, out of which 89 were identified based on RI and EI-MS library match. The cereal metabolome included 32 phenolics, 30 organic acids, 10 fatty acids, 11 carbohydrates and 6 sterols. The metabolome of the four cereals were compared in detail, including low concentration phenolics and organic acids. Rye and oat displayed higher total concentration of phenolic acids, but ferulic, caffeic and sinapinic acids and their esters were found to be the main phenolics in all four cereals. Compared to the previously reported methods, the outlined protocol provided an efficient and high throughput analysis of the cereal metabolome and the acidic hydrolysis improved the detection of conjugated phenolics.
MAKING SENSE OF RESEARCH INTO THE ORGANIZATIONAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING: A REVIEW OF ITS UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS [1]

A central notion behind this paper is that certain fundamental theoretical and philosophical assumptions underlie any piece of research there is no such thing as a totally objective or value free investigation. Given this initial claim it is thought that the underlying assumptions behind any piece of work should be recognized and assessed by researchers to ensure that they are consistent with their personal beliefs. In other words, researchers into the management sciences should consider their own values and beliefs concerning the nature of society and the social sciences. In order to assist people in this task previous research into the organizational and social aspects of accounting is reviewed and grouped into various schools of thought within a basic sociological framework devised by Burrell and Morgan (1979). This classification of previous accounting literature according to its principal theoretical and philosophical assumptions serves a number of important purposes. First, the framework forms a map that can be used to find one's way through the wealth of research, the aims of which are sometimes confusing and the results conflicting. It will be seen that the multi-disciplinary nature of management accounting, and the consequent variety of theories subsumed under its heading, masks the fact that they tend to stem from similar perspectives towards society and the social sciences. Secondly, a practically oriented subject such as management accounting has often embraced theories from other areas with little concern for their philosophical underpinnings. By making explicit the basic assumptions behind different pieces of work, it is hoped that a greater tolerance and awareness of research from alternative disciplines and perspectives may br
Triggering through CD40 promotes interleukin‐4‐induced CD23 production and enhanced soluble CD23 release in atopic disease

The pathogenesis of atopic disease is closely linked to the overproduction of IgE. CD23 and CD40 are two cellular receptors involved in the regulation of IgE production and both receptors are elevated in atopic disease. We have examined the role of CD40 in the regulation of CD23 and soluble CD23 production in healthy and atopic donors. Triggering of the B cell CD40 receptor directly enhances interleukin (IL)‐4‐mediated up‐regulation of CD23 at both the protein and the mRNA level. When atopic donors were studied, the synergistic effect of CD40 triggering on the IL‐4‐induced up‐regulation of CD23 and soluble CD23 (sCD23) was enhanced and there was a relative skewing toward production of sCD23. These studies implicate the CD40 receptor in the hyperproduction of CD23 and sCD23 in atopic disease and suggest that abnormalities may exist in the cellular pathways leading to sCD23 production.
ZF21 is a new regulator of focal adhesion disassembly and a potential member of the spreading initiation center

Adherent cells migrate on extracellular matrices (ECM) by repeated spreading and contraction of the cell body. Focal adhesions (FAs) play a major role in the adherence of cells to the ECM and in the generation of the cellular forces that maintain morphology and allow cells to move. FAs also mediate bidirectional transmembrane signals in conjunction with growth factor receptors and signaling molecules. Although the mechanisms that regulate cell migration are not yet fully understood, the regulation of the formation and turnover of FAs is a key factor determining the rate and direction of cell migration. We recently identified a component of FAs termed ZF21, which is a member of a family of proteins characterized by the presence of a conserved phosphoinositide-binding motif. ZF21 promotes dephosphorylation of FAK at Tyr397 upon microtubule extension to FAs and thereby regulates the disassembly of FAs in a microtubules-dependent manner. To obtain further insight into the regulation of cell adhesion by ZF21, we analyzed proteins associating with ZF21 by proteomic analysis. We identified 45 proteins including FA-related proteins and multiple RNA binding proteins that have been shown recently to be components of the spreading initiation center (SIC). SICs are cell adherent structures that can be observed only in the early stages of cell spreading and have been implicated in regulating the rate of cell spreading. In this article, we report new ZF21-binding proteins identified by proteomic analysis and discuss the potential functions of ZF21 in regulating disassembly of FAs.
RAC: Reconfiguration-Assisted Charging in Large-Scale Lithium-Ion Battery Systems

Large-scale lithium-ion battery packs are widely adopted in systems such as electric vehicles and energy backup in power grids. Due to factors such as manufacturing difference and heterogeneous discharging conditions, cells in the battery pack may have different statuses, such as diverse voltage levels. This cell diversity is commonly known as the cell imbalance issue. For the charging of battery packs, the cell imbalance not only early on terminates the charging process before all cells are fully charged, but also leads to different desired charging currents among cells. In this paper, based on the advancement in reconfigurable battery systems, we demonstrate how to utilize system reconfigurability to mitigate the impact of cell imbalance on an efficient charging process. With the proposed reconfiguration-assisted charging (RAC), cells in the system are categorized according to their real-time voltages, and the charging process is performed in a category-by-category manner. To charge cells in a given category, a graph-based algorithm is presented to charge cells with their desired charging currents, respectively. We evaluate RAC through both experiments and simulations. The results demonstrate that the RAC increases the capacity charged into cells by about 25% and yields a dramatically reduced variance.
Genetics of Type 2 Diabetes: Insights into the Pathogenesis and Its Clinical Application

With rapidly increasing prevalence, diabetes has become one of the major causes of mortality worldwide. According to the latest studies, genetic information makes substantial contributions towards the prediction of diabetes risk and individualized antidiabetic treatment. To date, approximately 70 susceptibility genes have been identified as being associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) at a genome-wide significant level (P < 5 × 10−8). However, all the genetic loci identified so far account for only about 10% of the overall heritability of T2D. In addition, how these novel susceptibility loci correlate with the pathophysiology of the disease remains largely unknown. This review covers the major genetic studies on the risk of T2D based on ethnicity and briefly discusses the potential mechanisms and clinical utility of the genetic information underlying T2D.
Endogenous GABA attenuates CNS white matter dysfunction following anoxia

We studied the effects of GABA on anoxia-induced injury in CNS white matter using optic nerves exposed to 60 min of anoxia. Injury was assessed by recording pre- and postanoxic compound action potentials (CAPs). GABA (1 microM) significantly increased postanoxic CAP recovery when applied 60 min prior to anoxia. This effect was bicuculline (100 microM) insensitive, mimicked by baclofen (1 microM), blocked by GABA-B antagonists, and not mimicked by selective GABA-A agonists. GABA therefore acted at GABA-B receptors. High concentrations of GABA and baclofen did not influence recovery, possibly indicating GABA-B receptor desensitization at high agonist concentrations. Pertussis toxin (PTX) treatment reduced postanoxic CAP recovery in the presence of 1 microM GABA to control levels, indicating the recruitment of a G- protein-linked intracellular pathway. Protein kinase C (PKC) activation with 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) mimicked the effects of GABA. Inhibition of PKC with 1-(5-isoquinolinesulfonyl)-2-methylpiperazine dihydrochloride (H7) or staurosporine reduced postanoxic recovery in the presence of GABA to lower levels than under control conditions, confirming the involvement of PKC in the protective effect of GABA and indicating that this GABA-B receptor/G-protein/PKC protective pathway might be active under control conditions. This was confirmed by the observation that GABA-B receptor blockade, in the absence of exogenous GABA, significantly reduced postanoxia recovery. Thus, activation of the protective mechanism under control conditions is due to endogenous GABA release. Increasing the level of endogenous extracellular GABA by blocking GABA uptake with 1 mM nipecotic acid also protected against anoxia. We propose a model where release of GABA in white matter helps to limit nerve fiber injury during anoxia via recruitment of a G- protein/PKC pathway with subsequent phosphorylation of an unknown target protein.