Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microbial resource utilization traits and trade-offs: implications for community structure, functioning, and biogeochemical impacts at present and in the future

Trait-based approaches provide a mechanistic framework to understand and predict the structure and functioning of microbial communities. Resource utilization traits and trade-offs are among key microbial traits that describe population dynamics and competition among microbes. Several important trade-offs have been identified for prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial taxa that define contrasting ecological strategies and contribute to species coexistence and diversity. The shape, dimensionality, and hierarchy of trade-offs may determine coexistence patterns and need to be better characterized. Laboratory measured resource utilization traits can be used to explain temporal and spatial structure and dynamics of natural microbial communities and predict biogeochemical impacts. Global environmental change can alter microbial community composition through altering resource utilization by different microbes and, consequently, may modify biogeochemical impacts of microbes.
Research of Interest

After a century of research, it has been generally established that in most adults the left hemisphere i s the major hemisphere for mediating linguistic, analytic, sequential processing and that the right hemisphere is the major hemisphere for mediating nonlinguistic, spatial holistic processing. Is an atypical pattern of neural organization associated with develop mental dyslexia? In a recent study, a pattern was observed for dyslexics in which performance was impaired on tasks associated with the normal pattern of hemisphere specialization, while performance was adequate, or even somewhat higher, on those tasks associated with an abnormal pattern of specialization. To date, 'most of the evidence suggests that dyslexic children have normal left-hemisphere specialization. However, our knowledge of hemisphere specialization for the period of chil,(Jhood i s not complete; there i s virtually no in format ion concerning right-hemisphere specialization for the processing of spatial information in childhood. The relationship of a lack of right-hemisphere specialization and dyslexia warrants investigation since the act of reading involves aspects of spatial processing, such as shape discrimination of letters and words, memory of the visual images of words, and aspects of phonetic and linguistic encoding of the words. I f the general hypothesis that dyslexic children have atypical hemisphere specialization is to be tested, then the functional specialization of both hemispheres merits study. In this research, neural processing and organization were not observed directly but inferred on the basis of t e s t performance, The investigators used several different test methods to study theoretical neural organization and to allow for the possible observation of converging patterns of performance from different sets of data. The children were tested over a period of five years. All were referred as possible subjects to the study from clinical sources, were first assessed medically and psychiatrically, and were then tested with 'a batten/ of standardized psychological tests, Students were classified as dyslexic and considered to have a different type of learning impairment than those described as "hyperactive" or as having "minimal brain dysfunction." Each child was given several perceptual tests specifically chosen for their relevance in making inferences of hemisphere specialization for cognitive processing: (1 1 dichotomous tactual stimulation two forms, a nonsense-shapes test and a letters test (the latter always given approximately one month later); (2) lateralized tachistoscopic stimulation pictures of people; and (3) dichotic listening test digits. The main method used to study righthemisphere specialization for spatial processing employed a version of the dichotomous tactual stimulation paradigm which required spatial perception of pairs of "competing" nonsense shapes through touch. The subject was required
Developmental Precursors of Affective Illness in a General Population Birth Cohort

Background: Recent evidence suggests that neurodevelopmental impairment may be a risk factor for later affective disorder. Methods: Associations between childhood developmental characteristics and affective disorder were examined in a prospectively studied national British birth cohort of 5362 individuals born between March 3 and March 9, 1946. Mental state examinations by trained interviewers performed at ages 36 and 43 years identified 270 case subjects with adult affective disorder (AD). Teachers' questionnaires completed at age 13 and 15 years identified 195 case subjects who had shown evidence of childhood affective disturbance (CAD). Results: Female gender and low educational test scores at ages 8, 11, and 15 years were a risk factor for AD, CAD, and AD without CAD. In addition, attainment of motor milestones was later in the CAD group (odds ratio [OR] =1.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-1.3), followed by, and independent of, greater risk for speech defects between the ages of 6 and 15 years (OR=2.0; 95% CI, 1.3-3.0), decreased psychomotor alertness on medical examination between ages 4 and 11 years (OR=4.6; 95% CI, 2.2-9.7), and an excess of twitching and grimacing motor behaviors in adolescence (OR=3.9; 95% CI, 2.5-6.1). Persistent CAD was strongly associated with persistent AD (OR=7.8; 95% CI, 2.6-23.2). Conclusion: The findings give credence to the suggestion that affective disorder, especially its early-onset form, is preceded by impaired neurodevelopment.
An accurate and contrast invariant junction detector

This paper introduces a generic method for the accurate analysis of junctions, relying on a statistical modeling of normalized image gradients. We analyze junctions as local visual events that do not happen by chance under a background model derived from the a-contrario methodology. The method not only provides thresholds for the detection of junctions, but also enables their accurate characterization, including a precise computation of their type, localization, scale and geometrical configuration. The efficiency of the method is evaluated through various experiments.
An End-to-End Entity Linking Approach for Tweets

We present a novel approach for detecting, classifying, and linking entities from Twitter posts (tweets). The task is challenging because of thenoisy,short, andinformalnature of tweets. Consequently, the proposed approach introduces several methods that robustly facilitate successful realization of the task with enhanced performance in several measures.
Men, Women, and Televised Violence: Predicting Viewer Aggression in Male and Female Television Viewers

This study examined whether the motivation for watching television violence and several audience and contextual factors, including locus of control, experience with crime, exposure to television violence, perceived realism, and involvement, explain differences in viewer aggression in women and men. Motivation was a much more important predictor of viewer aggression for males than for females. Among men, when exposure to televised violence was a significant predictor of aggression, experience with crime, locus of control, and motivation were stronger predictors. Among women, background factors (experience with crime and locus of control) predicted aggression. These results support the “uses and gratifications” theoretical suppositions that individual characteristics mediate the impact of media exposure. Because background factors and motivation for watching television violence impacted viewer aggression differently in men and women, the data raise questions about research concluding that sheer exposure to television violence leads to aggression. Results suggest the need to scrutinize further the role of viewer motivation and other audience and contextual factors, as well as the importance of gender differences in the individual-use-exposure relationship.
In the River: A Socio-Historical Account of Dialogue and Diaspora

I give encouragement to David Nickell and the Between the Rivers community by offering an account of good relations between a government natural resource land management agency and local people: Canada's St. Lawrence Islands National Park and the people of the Thousand Islands, focusing on Grenadier Island. I speak from my perspective as a descendent of the former year-round community on Grenadier. I describe our diaspora, our heated disagreement with the St. Lawrence Islands National Park's 1970s expansion plans, and how the local community successfully engaged a dialogue that ended these plans. I recount what I term the double politics of dialogue, a “good-cop/bad-cop” approach used by the community, and its resulting providence of good relations. I conclude with the prospect of such providence for the people of Between the Rivers.
Word Sense Disambiguation of Persian Homographs

This paper seeks to elaborate on the disambiguation of Persian words with the same written form but different senses using a combination of supervised and unsupervised method which is conducted by means of thesaurus and corpus. The present method is based on a previously proposed one with several differences. These differences include the use of texts which have been collected by supervised or unsupervised method. In addition, the words of the input corpus were stemmed, and in the case of those words whose different senses have different roles in the sentence, the role of the word in the input sentence was considered for disambiguation. Applying this method to the selected ambiguous words from “Hamshahri”, which is a standard Persian corpus, we achieved to a satisfactory accuracy of 97 percent in the results, and evaluated the presented method as a better and more efficient in comparison with the similar methods.
Realizing in-band full-duplex MIMO with feasible RF-chain: Key challenges

This paper presents some of the experiment results of the proposed in-band full-duplex scheme. In this system, the end-fire arranged transmitting / receiving arrays is used for the base station antenna. Each array consists of four sleeve antennas, where all of them are arranged linearly. The experiment using the actual OFDM signal proved that the proposed technique can suppress the interference by −76 dB even when one degree of freedom is used. This system also introduces the multi-user full-duplex scheme, which alleviates the self-interference inside the mobile handset, but incurs the inter-user interference. To resolve this problem, the transmitting beamforming is used at the transmitting user. The experiment campaign has been carried out in an outdoor environment to evaluate the interference suppression performance. The measurement results indicated that the datarate with the multi-user full-duplex scheme outperforms that with the conventional schemes.
Learning from the Academy: From Peer Observation of Teaching to Peer Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

Abstract This article seeks to explore the potential for improving learning and teaching in theology and religion by evolving current schemes for the peer observation of teaching into the wider and richer framework of the peer enhancement of learning and teaching. Specifically, it argues that this richer framework, (i) creates more opportunities for teachers to learn from each other by sharing in each other's teaching, (ii) strengthens the facilitation of individual and team reflection on good practice, (iii) links well with current national and institutional developments for the continuing professional development of HE teachers, and the recognition and reward of excellence in learning and teaching.
Characterization of the Human OATP-C (SLC21A6) Gene Promoter and Regulation of Liver-specific OATP Genes by Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1α*

OATP-C (SLC21A6) is the predominant Na+-independent uptake system for bile salts and bilirubin of human liver and is expressed exclusively at the basolateral (sinusoidal) hepatocyte membrane. To investigate the basis of liver-specific expression of OATP-C, we studied promoter function in the two hepatocyte-derived cell lines HepG2 and Huh7 and in nonhepatic HeLa cells. OATP-C promoter constructs containing from 66 to 950 nucleotides of 5′-regulatory sequence were active in HepG2 and Huh7 but not HeLa cells, indicating that determinants of hepatocyte-specific expression reside within the minimal promoter. Deoxyribonuclease I footprint analysis revealed a single region that was protected by HepG2 and Huh7 but not HeLa cell nuclear extracts. The liver-enriched transcription factor hepatocyte nuclear factor 1α (HNF1α) was shown by mobility shift assays to bind within this footprint. Coexpression of HNF1α stimulated OATP-C promoter activity 30-fold in HepG2 and 49-fold in HeLa cells. Mutation of the HNF1 site abolished promoter function, indicating that HNF1α is critical for hepatocyte-specificOATP-C gene expression. The human OATP8 (SLC21A8) and mouse Oatp4 (Slc21a6) promoters were also responsive to HNF1α coexpression in HepG2 cells. These data support a role for HNF1α as a global regulator of liver-specific bile salt and organic anion transporter genes.
Effect of Dynamic Cooling on 585‐nm Pulsed Dye Laser Treatment of Port–Wine Stain Birthmarks

background and objective The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a dynamic cooling device (DCD), spraying the skin with a brief spurt of cryogen prior to the laser pulse, in reducing transient pain associated with 585‐nm pulsed dye laser (PDL) treatment of port‐wine stains (PWS), and reducing epidermal damage (hypo/hyperpigmentation) caused by this laser during PWS treatment. materials and methods Matched treatment sites were compared with and without the use of the cryogen spray in 47 patients at two investigations! sites. Pain ratings, clearance of the PWS, and pigmentation changes were assessed. The results were analyzed by skin type and patient age. results A statistically significant reduction in pain ratings was found in all patient groups using the DCD without changing the efficacy of PWS clearance. Pain reduction was most remarkable in patients with darker skin types. Dynamic cooling prevented the occurrence of epidermal damage or pigmentation change in most cases. conclusions This study suggests that dynamic cooling can dramatically diminish pain during PWS treatment with the 585‐nm PDL without reducing treatment efficacy. The absence of epidermal damage in most patients suggests that precooling with the DCD may allow the use of higher laser fluences to expedite clearance without inducing epidermal change. Dynamic cooling has potential use with other lasers and different lesions where discomfort and epidermal effects limit therapy.
A differentially-fed complementary antenna for WiGig applications

A differentially-fed complementary antenna array is introduced in this paper. Coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed planar slot antennas are inherently narrow in bandwidth. Modification on widening open-ends of the slot is the most popular technique for bandwidth enhancement. An alternative approach is to use complementary sources. In this paper, a new stacked structure of complementary antenna is proposed which utilizes a regular slot antenna to act as a magnetic source and a parasitic dipole allocated across the slot to act as an electric source. This antenna array, fabricated on generic microwave substrate with simple plated-through-hole printed-circuit technology, achieves an impedance bandwidth of 25% from 53 to 68 GHz for VSWR <; 2. It also yields a stable gain of 11.5 dBi across the entire operating band from 56 to 67GHz.
Tissue- and age-dependent expression of RNA-binding proteins that influence mRNA turnover and translation

Gene expression patterns vary dramatically in a tissue-specific and age-dependent manner. RNA-binding proteins that regulate mRNA turnover and/or translation (TTR-RBPs) critically affect the subsets of expressed proteins. However, very little is known regarding the tissue- and age-dependent expression of TTR-RBPs in humans. Here, we use human tissue arrays containing a panel of organ biopsies from donors of different ages, to study the distribution and abundance of four TTR-RBPs: HuR, AUF1, TIA-1, and TTP. HuR and AUF1 were expressed with remarkably similar patterns. Both TTR-RBPs were present in high percentages of cells and displayed elevated intensities in many age groups and tissues, most notably in the gastrointestinal and reproductive systems; they were moderately expressed in the urinary and immune systems, and were almost undetectable in muscle and brain. TIA-1 was also abundant in many tissues and age groups; TIA-1 was expressed at high levels in the gastrointestinal, immune, urinary, and reproductive systems, and at low levels in brain and muscle. By contrast, TTP-expressing cells, as well as TTP signal intensities declined with advancing age, particularly in the immune, nervous, and muscular systems; however, TTP levels remained elevated in the gastrointestinal tract. The widespread abundance of HuR, AUF1, and TIA-1 throughout the body and in all age groups was in stark contrast with their declining levels in human diploid fibroblasts (HDFs) undergoing replicative senescence, a cultured-cell model of aging. Conversely, TTP levels increased in senescent HDFs, while TTP levels decreased with advancing age. Our studies provide a framework for the study of human TTR-RBP function in different tissues, throughout the human life span.
Reducing the Uncertainty: Gating of Peripheral Inputs by Zona Incerta

Sensory inputs are relayed to the neocortex by “first-order” thalamic nuclei, the responses of which are determined by ascending inputs from peripheral receptors. In contrast, “higher-order” thalamic nuclei respond poorly to peripheral inputs, and their responses are thought to be determined by descending cortical inputs. We tested this hypothesis by recording from neurons in the higher-order somatosensory posterior medial (POm) nucleus of narcotized rats. As reported previously, POm neurons responded to whisker stimuli with long-latency (median, 27 msec) and low-magnitude responses, consistent with cortically driven responses. However, when we suppressed inhibitory inputs from the subthalamic nucleus zona incerta (ZI), POm responses were of significantly higher magnitude and shorter latency, with many POm neurons responding at latencies consistent with ascending driving inputs from trigeminal nuclei. Our data suggest that POm comprises two neuronal populations: one population is driven by both peripheral and cortical inputs, and the second population responds only to cortical inputs. These findings demonstrate that ZI gates peripheral inputs to POm, enabling it to function both as a first-order and higher-order nucleus. Because ZI innervates all higher-order nuclei, this gating mechanism may exert similar regulation of thalamic processing in other sensory systems.
Equity, quality and commitment in education: Interview with Luis C. Moll

Abstract Luis C. Moll, Puerto Rican by birth, is one of the most prominent researchers in Latino education in the United States. His avant-garde works on Hispanic children's linguistic development and bilingual literacy are well known and renowned for their implications in the research on the impact of culture and education on human development. He is also one of the most notable advocates of Vygotskian theory in the Hispanic world, and his labor in this field has played an important role as a meeting point between United States' and Hispanic scholars. This interview examines his formation as a researcher: the intention is to provide an account of his educational and human trajectory, as well as to relate those projects he is involved in at the moment and that can be considered the result of such trajectory.
Hidden Markov Models for Greek Sign Language Recognition

Sign languages are the basic means of communication between hearing impaired people. A translator is usually needed when a deaf person wants to communicate with persons that do not speak sign language. The work presented in this paper aims at developing a system that could recognize and translate isolated and continuous Greek Sign Language (GSL) sentences. Input is obtained by using a feature extracting method from two-dimensional images. The feature vectors produced by the method are then presented as input to Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for recognition. We use a vocabulary of 26 greek words (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs) and achieve a recognition rate of 98% for isolated recognition and 85.7% for continuous recognition. Key-Words: Hidden Markov Models, sign language, sign language recognition, gesture recognition.
YouEDU: Addressing Confusion in MOOC Discussion Forums by Recommending Instructional Video Clips

In Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), struggling learners often seek help by posting questions in discussion forums. Unfortunately, given the large volume of discussion in MOOCs, instructors may overlook these learners' posts, detrimentally impacting the learning process and exacerbating attrition. In this paper, we present YouEDU, an instructional aid that automatically detects and addresses confusion in forum posts. Leveraging our Stanford MOOCPosts corpus, we train a heterogeneous set of classifiers to classify forum posts across multiple dimensions. In particular, classifiers that target sentiment, urgency, and other descriptive variables inform a single classifier that detects confusion. We then employ information retrieval techniques to map confused posts to minute-resolution clips from course videos; the ranking over these clips accounts for textual similarity between posts and closed captions. We measure the performance of our classification model in multiple educational contexts, exploring the nature of confusion within each; we also evaluate the relevancy of materials returned by our ranking algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that YouEDU achieves both its goals, paving the way for intelligent intervention systems in MOOC discussion forums.
Bone density changes in bovine toe necrosis

WE were interested to read the recent letter on bone density changes in bovine toe necrosis by Blowey and others ( VR , February 9, 2013, vol 172, pp 164-165). Toe necrosis does indeed appear to be a disease of increasing prevalence and a better understanding of the aetiology might help us devise the appropriate strategies to help farmers reduce the risk of new cases. The apparent link with bovine digital dermatitis treponemes and the resultant osteomyelitis and osteoporosis pathology are important observations. Some workers have previously suggested that exposed corium at the toe (toe ulcers, either through over wear or excess trimming) might be the most obvious route of …
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Optimization and approximation on systems of geometric objects

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.