Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal effects and evolution at ecological time‐scales

Summary 1Genetic and environmental maternal effects can play an important role in the evolutionary dynamics of a population: they may have a substantial impact on the rate and direction of genetic change in response to selection, and they may generate immediate phenotypic change via phenotypic plasticity. Because of this potential to generate rapid phenotypic change in a population, maternal effects may be particularly important for evolution at ecological time-scales. 2Despite an increased interest in the prevalence, composition and adaptive benefits of maternal effects, little is still known of their impact on ecological and evolutionary processes in natural populations. We consider here the insights that a quantitative genetic framework provides into the pathways by which maternal effects can influence trait evolution in wild populations. Widespread evidence for a genetic basis of a range of maternal effects traits reinforces the notion that they cannot be treated as purely environmental sources of variation. We also provide an overview of the impact of environmental conditions on the expression and impact of maternal effects, and describe empirical evidence for their impact on evolution at ecological time-scales. 3We emphasize the need for empirical work to quantify the associations between maternal and offspring phenotype and genotype, and the suite of selection pressures generated by maternal effects, as well as the relationship between maternal effects and environmental variation. Future work should aim to identify the conditions under which maternal effects are likely to play a role in evolution, as well as explicitly test the contribution of maternal effects to evolutionary responses.
Axonal signals regulate the differentiation of non-myelin-forming Schwann cells: an immunohistochemical study of galactocerebroside in transected and regenerating nerves

Little is known about the factors involved in directing and maintaining the divergent differentiation of the 2 major Schwann cell variants, myelin and non-myelin-forming cells, in peripheral nerves. There is strong evidence that the differentiation of myelin-forming cells depends critically on cell-cell signaling through contact with appropriate axons. In this paper we ask whether this remarkable dependence of the Schwann cell on axonal contact for full differentiation is unique to those cells that form myelin or whether axonal signaling is also an important factor in the differentiation of non-myelin-forming Schwann cells. Sciatic nerves or cervical sympathetic trunks of adult rats were either transected or crushed and the axons allowed to degenerate and, in the case of crushed nerves, to regenerate into the distal stump for periods of time varying from 2 d to 9 weeks. The distal stump of the nerve was excised at specific times, the Schwann cells dissociated and immunolabeled with antibodies to galactocerebroside. In the sciatic nerve, which contains a mixture of non-myelin-forming and myelin-forming Schwann cells, transection resulted in a loss of galactocerebroside expression from the surface of all the Schwann cells in the distal stump over a 9 week period, irrespective of their original phenotype. In crushed sciatic nerves, where axons were allowed to regrow into the distal stumps, the number of Schwann cells expressing immunohistochemically detectable quantities of galactocerebroside in the stump declined over the first 3 weeks, but by 9 weeks after crush the total percentage of galactocerebroside- positive cells in the nerve had risen to control levels. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
On the structure and zero divisors of the Cayley-Dickson sedenion algebra

The algebrasC (complex numbers), H (quaternions), andO (octonions) are real division algebras obtained from the real numbers R by a doubling procedure called the Cayley-Dickson Process. By doubling R (dim 1), we obtain C (dim 2); then C produces H (dim 4); and H yields O (dim 8): The next doubling process applied to O then yields an algebra S (dim 16) called the sedenions. This study deals with the subalgebra structure of the sedenion algebra S and its zero divisors. In particular, it shows that S has subalgebras isomorphic to R; C; H; O; and a newly identifled algebra e O called the quasi-octonions that contains the zero-divisors of S:
Shocks and dust survival in nearby active galaxies: Implications for the alignment effect

One of the most popular explanations for the so-called alignment effect in high-redshift radio galaxies is the scattering by dust of the hidden quasar light. As shown by De Young, a problem with the dust scattering model is that the short destruction time-scale for dust grains means that they will not survive the passage of the radio jet. We investigate the survival of dust in the extended ionized gas of nearby active galaxies with jet–gas interactions. We discuss the implications on the alignment effect of high-redshift (≥0.7) radio galaxies. We conclude that although shocks are likely to destroy dust grains in regions of interaction, dust might survive in great enough quantities to scatter light from the active nucleus and produce alignment between scattered light and the radio structures. We propose an observational test to investigate the existence of dust in shocked regions based on the sensitivity of calcium to depletion in the dust grains.
The Canadian Registry for Pulmonary Fibrosis: Design and Rationale of a National Pulmonary Fibrosis Registry

Background. The relative rarity and diversity of fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) have made it challenging to study these diseases in single-centre cohorts. Here we describe formation of a multicentre Canadian registry that is needed to describe the outcomes of fibrotic ILD and to enable detailed healthcare utilization analyses that will be the cornerstone for future healthcare planning. Methods. The Canadian Registry for Pulmonary Fibrosis (CARE-PF) is a prospective cohort anticipated to consist of at least 2,800 patients with fibrotic ILD. CARE-PF will be used to (1) describe the natural history of fibrotic ILD, specifically determining the incidence and outcomes of acute exacerbations of ILD subtypes and (2) determine the impact of ILD and acute exacerbations of ILD on health services use and healthcare costs in the Canadian population. Consecutive patients with fibrotic ILD will be recruited from five Canadian ILD centres over a period of five years. Patients will be followed up as clinically indicated and will complete standardized questionnaires at each clinic visit. Prespecified outcomes and health services use will be measured based on self-report and linkage to provincial health administrative databases. Conclusion. CARE-PF will be among the largest prospective multicentre ILD registries in the world, providing detailed data on the natural history of fibrotic ILD and the healthcare resources used by these patients. As the largest and most comprehensive cohort of Canadian ILD patients, CARE-PF establishes a network for future clinical research and early phase clinical trials and provides a platform for translational and basic science research.
Improving realism of 3D texture using component based modeling

3D textures are often described by parametric functions for each pixel, that models the variation in its appearance with respect to varying lighting direction. However, parametric models such as Polynomial Texture Maps (PTMs) tend to smoothen the changes in appearance. We propose a technique to effectively model natural material surfaces and their interactions with changing light conditions. We show that the direct and global components of the image have different nature, and when modeled separately, leads to a more accurate and compact model of the 3D surface texture. For a given lighting position, both components are computed separately and combined to render a new image. This method models sharp shadows and specularities, while preserving the structural relief and surface color. Thus rendered image have enhanced photorealism as compared to images rendered by existing single pixel models such as PTMs.
Learning from Imbalanced Data in Relational Domains: A Soft Margin Approach

We consider the problem of learning probabilistic models from relational data. One of the key issues with relational data is class imbalance where the number of negative examples far outnumbers the number of positive examples. The common approach for dealing with this problem is the use of sub-sampling of negative examples. We, on the other hand, consider a soft margin approach that explicitly trades off between the false positives and false negatives. We apply this approach to the recently successful formalism of relational functional gradient boosting. Specifically, we modify the objective function of the learning problem to explicitly include the trade-off between false positives and negatives. We show empirically that this approach is more successful in handling the class imbalance problem than the original framework that weighed all the examples equally.
Physical Activity in Different Preschool Settings: An Exploratory Study

Introduction. Physical activity (PA) in preschoolers is vital to protect against obesity but is influenced by different early-life factors. The present study investigated the impact of different preschool programs and selected family factors on preschoolers' PA in different countries in an explorative way. Methods. The PA of 114 children (age = 5.3 ± 0.65 years) attending different preschool settings in four cities of the trinational Upper Rhine region (Freiburg, Landau/Germany, Basel/Switzerland, and Strasbourg/France) was measured by direct accelerometry. Anthropometrical and family-related data were obtained. Timetables of preschools were analyzed. Results. Comparing the preschool settings, children from Strasbourg and Landau were significantly more passive than children from Basel and Freiburg (P < .01). With regard to the family context as an important early-life factor, a higher number of children in a family along with the mother's and child's anthropometrical status are predictors of engagement in PA. Conclusion. More open preschool systems such as those in Basel, Freiburg, and Landau do not lead to more PA “per se” compared to the highly regimented desk-based system in France. Preliminaries such as special training and the number of caregivers might be necessary elements to enhance PA. In family contexts, targeted PA interventions for special groups should be more focused in the future.
Benchmarking Amazon EC2 for High-Performance Scientific Computing

How effective are commercial cloud computers for high-performance scientific computing compared to currently avaible alternatives? I aim to answer a specific instance of this question by examining the performance of Amazon EC2 for high-performance scientific applications. I used macro and micro benchmarks to study the performance of a cluster composed of EC2 high-CPU compute nodes and compared this against the performance of a cluster composed of equivalent processors avaible to the open scientific research community. My results show a significant performance gap in the examined clusters that system builders, computational scientist, and commercial cloud computing vendors need to be aware of .
Motivation for the Pastoral Profession in the Netherlands

Expectancy theory has been utilized by organizational psychology to explore the expectations and valuations of individuals in various professions. This study employs expectancy theory to clergy, investigating pastors' personal motivations, or values, for assuming pastoral ministry and the subsequent expectation that these values will be honored by their activities within the pastorate. The responses of 235 pastors from Catholic and Protestant denominations on a 24-item questionnaire devised to gauge pastoral motivation and adapted to assess pastoral expectations were factor analyzed and correlated in this exploratory study. The analysis yielded four robust factors. The first two motives found to be dominant were the pursuit of a Christian Way of Life and Anthropocentric Altruism. Anthropocentric Egoism and Theocentric Egoism, although secondary motivations, were theoretically meaningful in the understanding of pastoral motivations and expectations. The impact of expectations upon pastoral well-being and resilience against burnout is discussed.
Efficacy of Anti-Interleukin-2 Receptor Antibody (Daclizumab) in Reducing the Incidence of Acute Rejection After Renal Transplantation

Background Acute rejection remains a major problem in renal transplantation and represents one of the most important causes of chronic allograft dysfunction and late graft loss. Daclizumab is a genetically engineered human IgG1 monoclonal antibody that binds specifically to the α chain of the interleukin-2 receptor, and may thus reduce the risk of rejection after renal transplantation. Objectives The aim of this study was to examine the effect of daclizumab induction therapy combined with a triple immunosuppressive protocol including prednisolone,cyclosporine microemulsion (CsA), and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), in reducing the incidence of acute rejection in recipients of living unrelated donor kidneys. Patients and Methods In this historical cohort study, 43 adult recipients of their first kidney allograft received daclizumab (three 1 mg/kg doses administered every 2 weeks) with triple immunosuppressive therapy (steroids, CsA, and MMF). This group was compared to 43 first-time graft recipients who received maintenance triple immunosuppressive therapy comprising steroids, CsA, and MMF. The end point was the incidence of biopsy confirmed acute rejection within 6 months after transplantation. Results At 6 months, 5 (11.6%) of the patients in the daclizumab group had biopsy-proven rejections, as compared to 14 (32.5%) in the control group (P = 0.017). The sex and the age of recipients had no impact on the incidence of acute rejection episodes in the two groups. Conclusions Adding interleukin-2 receptor antibody (daclizumab) to maintenance triple immunosuppressive therapy (prednisolone, CsA, and MMF) reduces the incidence of acute rejection episodes at 6 months in first-time transplant recipients of living unrelated donor.
Interest Analysis using PageRank and Social Interaction Content

We introduce a method for learning to predict reader interest. In our approach, social interaction content and both syntactic and semantic features of words are utilized. The proposed method involves estimating topical interest preferences and determining the informativity between articles and their social content. In interest prediction, we integrate articles’ quality social feedback representing readers’ opinions into articles to get information which may identify readers’ interests. In addition, semantic aware PageRank is used to find reader interest with the help of word interestingness scores. Evaluations show that PageRank benefits from proposed features and interest preferences inferred across articles. Moreover, results conclude that social interaction content and the proposed selection process help to accurately cover more span of reader interest.
Influence of Perceived Organizational Support on Employees' Affective Commitment in Railway Enterprises: From the Mediating Role of Overconfidence

The rapid development of high speed railways urgently needs talents, and the affective commitment of railway employees has an important impact on the development of the enterprises. Based on the survey data of 462 railway employees in China, regression analysis was used to examine the influence of the perceived organizational support on overconfidence and affective commitment, and to examine the mediating effect of overconfidence between the perceived organizational support and affective commitment. The results showed that perceived organizational support has a significant impact on overconfidence and affective commitment, and overconfidence plays a part of mediating role between perceived organizational support and affective commitment.
Evaluating and Enhancing Communication Skills in Four Adolescents with Profound and Multiple Disabilities

Individuals with profound and multiple disability (PMD) experience more than one type of disability, typically severe to profound intellectual disability and significant motoric impairment. These complex impairments negatively affect many aspects of the person’s functioning, such as daily living, academic, and social skills. Persons with PMD will often experience fluctuating levels of awareness, and often have such severe communication deficits that they rely on the use prelinguistic behaviours (PLBs) to communicate. It is often difficult for those working with these individuals to identify preferences and behavioural states indicative of engagement and motivation. As a result, these individuals often experience social isolation and a lower quality of life. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate the overall level of functioning and communicative abilities of four adolescents with PMD and identify instructional procedures that might enhance their natural method of communication, such that they are more readily understood. This was achieved through assessment and intervention based methods. First, the repertoire of forms and functions of specific PLBs in four participants with PMD were identified. Then, circumstances under which behaviours indicative of alertness and engagement were assessed. Next, the author validated the function of specific PLBs used to request the continuation or access to preferred stimuli. Subsequently, three intervention case studies were implemented to strengthen and/or enhance the PLB requesting behaviours of three participants using microswitch technology and individualised instructional strategies. Results suggested that individuals with PMD can and do demonstrate consistent PLBs used to request access to preferred stimuli. Specific PLBs of three participants were strengthened and/or enhanced, with two of these participants able to use a microswitch to activate a speech generating device to produce a communicative request. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the overall outcomes for each participant and the challenges of implementing a whole communication assessment and intervention approach for this population of learners.
High-velocity features in the spectra of the Type Ia supernova SN 1999ee: a property of the explosion or evidence of circumstellar interaction?

The near-maximum spectra of the Type Ia supernova SN 1999ee are reviewed. Two narrow absorption features corresponding to the strongest component of the Ca II infrared (IR) triplet appear in the spectra from 7 d before to 2 d after the B-band maximum, at a high velocity (∼22 000 km s -1 ). Before these features emerge, the Ca II IR triplet has an anomalously high velocity, indicating that the narrow features were still blended with the main, photospheric component. High-velocity Can absorption has been observed in other Type Ia supernovae, but usually detached from the photospheric component. Furthermore, the Si II 6355-A line is observed at a comparably high velocity (∼20 000 km s -1 ) 9 and 7 d before the B maximum, but then it suddenly shifts to much lower velocities. Synthetic spectra are used to reproduce the data under various scenarios. An abundance enhancement requires an outer region dominated by Si and Ca, the origin of which is not easy to explain in terms of nuclear burning. A density enhancement leads to a good reproduction of the spectral evolution if a mass of ∼0.10 M○. is added at velocities between 16 000 and 28 000 km s -1 , and it may result from a perturbation, possibly angular, of the explosion. An improved match to the Can IR triplet at the earliest epoch can be obtained if the outermost part of this modified density profile is assumed to be dominated by H (∼0.004 M○. above 24000 km s -1 ). Line broadening is then the result of increased electron scattering. This H may be the result of interaction between the ejecta and circumstellar material.
The 5′ Untranslated Region of Rhopalosiphum padi Virus Contains an Internal Ribosome Entry Site Which Functions Efficiently in Mammalian, Plant, and Insect Translation Systems

ABSTRACT Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV) is one of several picorna-like viruses that infect insects; sequence analysis has revealed distinct differences between these agents and mammalian picornaviruses. RhPV has a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome of about 10 kb; unlike the genomes of Picornaviridae, however, this genome contains two long open reading frames (ORFs). ORF1 encodes the virus nonstructural proteins, while the downstream ORF, ORF2, specifies the structural proteins. Both ORFs are preceded by long untranslated regions (UTRs). The intergenic UTR is known to contain an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) which directs non-AUG-initiated translation of ORF2. We have examined the 5′ UTR of RhPV for IRES activity by translating synthetic dicistronic mRNAs containing this sequence in a variety of systems. We now report that the 5′ UTR contains an element which directs internal initiation of protein synthesis from an AUG codon in mammalian, plant, andDrosophila in vitro translation systems. In contrast, the encephalomyocarditis virus IRES functions only in the mammalian system. The RhPV 5′ IRES element has features in common with picornavirus IRES elements, in that no coding sequence is required for IRES function, but also with cellular IRES elements, as deletion analysis indicates that this IRES element does not have sharply defined boundaries.
2014 Epilepsy Benchmarks Area II: Prevent Epilepsy and Its Progression

Area II of the 2014 Epilepsy Research Benchmarks aims to establish goals for preventing the development and progression of epilepsy. In this review, we will highlight key advances in Area II since the last summary of research progress and opportunities was published in 2016. We also highlight areas of investigation that began to develop before 2016 and in which additional progress has been made more recently.
Uncertainty, risk, and information value in software requirements and architecture

Uncertainty complicates early requirements and architecture decisions and may expose a software project to significant risk. Yet software architects lack support for evaluating uncertainty, its impact on risk, and the value of reducing uncertainty before making critical decisions. We propose to apply decision analysis and multi-objective optimisation techniques to provide such support. We present a systematic method allowing software architects to describe uncertainty about the impact of alternatives on stakeholders' goals; to calculate the consequences of uncertainty through Monte-Carlo simulation; to shortlist candidate architectures based on expected costs, benefits and risks; and to assess the value of obtaining additional information before deciding. We demonstrate our method on the design of a system for coordinating emergency response teams. Our approach highlights the need for requirements engineering and software cost estimation methods to disclose uncertainty instead of hiding it.
Machine-learning-based hotspot detection using topological classification and critical feature extraction

Because of the widening sub-wavelength lithography gap in advanced fabrication technology, lithography hotspot detection has become an essential task in design for manufacturability. Current state-of-the-art works unite pattern matching and machine learning engines. Unlike them, we fully exploit the strengths of machine learning using novel techniques. By combing topological classification and critical feature extraction, our hotspot detection framework achieves very high accuracy. Furthermore, to speed up the evaluation, we verify only possible layout clips instead of full-layout scanning. After detection, we filter hotspots to reduce the false alarm. Experimental results show that the proposed framework is very accurate and demonstrates a rapid training convergence. Moreover, our framework outperforms the 2012 CAD Contest at ICCAD winner on accuracy and false alarm.