Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compliant design for intrinsic safety: general issues and preliminary design

We describe some initial results of a project aiming at the development of a programmable compliance, inherently safe robot arm for applications in anthropic environments. In order to obtain safety in spite of worst-case situations (such as unexpected delays in teleoperation, or even controller failure), we propose an approach to achieving the compliance by mechanical rather than by control design. We first describe some of the control problems encountered in a typical, large, possibly unknown mechanical compliance, and present the result that shows the possibility to cope with these uncertainties in an adaptive way. Next, we describe the initial development of a new prototype arm under construction in our laboratory. The arm is designed to achieve arbitrary position tracking in 3D with controlled effective compliance at the joints.
Does milk and dairy consumption during pregnancy influence fetal growth and infant birthweight? A systematic literature review

It is increasingly acknowledged that the maternal diet influences fetal development and health of the child. Milk and milk products contribute essential nutrients and bioactive substances; they are of ample supply and have a long tradition in Nordic countries. To revise and update dietary guidelines for pregnant women valid in Nordic countries, the Pregnancy and Lactation expert group within the NNR5 project identified a need to systematically review recent scientific data on infant growth measures and maternal milk consumption. The objective of this study was to assess the influence of milk and dairy consumption during pregnancy on fetal growth through a systematic review of studies published between January 2000 and December 2011. A literature search was run in June 2011. Two authors independently selected studies for inclusion from the 495 abstracts according to predefined eligibility criteria. A complementary search in January 2012 revealed 64 additional abstracts published during the period June to December 2011, among them one study of interest previously identified. Of the 33 studies extracted, eight were relevant research papers. Five were prospective cohort studies (including a retrospective chart review), one was a case–control study, and two were retrospective cohort studies. For fetal length or infant birth length, three studies reported no association and two reported positive associations with milk or dairy consumption. For birthweight related outcomes, two studies reported no associations, and four studies reported positive associations with milk and/or dairy consumption. There was large heterogeneity in exposure range and effect size between studies. A beneficial fetal growth-increase was most pronounced for increasing maternal milk intake in the lower end of the consumption range. Evidence from prospective cohort studies is limited but suggestive that moderate milk consumption relative to none or very low intake, is positively associated with fetal growth and infant birthweight in healthy, Western populations.
Voluntary Enhancement of Neural Signatures of Affiliative Emotion Using fMRI Neurofeedback

In Ridley Scott’s film “Blade Runner”, empathy-detection devices are employed to measure affiliative emotions. Despite recent neurocomputational advances, it is unknown whether brain signatures of affiliative emotions, such as tenderness/affection, can be decoded and voluntarily modulated. Here, we employed multivariate voxel pattern analysis and real-time fMRI to address this question. We found that participants were able to use visual feedback based on decoded fMRI patterns as a neurofeedback signal to increase brain activation characteristic of tenderness/affection relative to pride, an equally complex control emotion. Such improvement was not observed in a control group performing the same fMRI task without neurofeedback. Furthermore, the neurofeedback-driven enhancement of tenderness/affection-related distributed patterns was associated with local fMRI responses in the septohypothalamic area and frontopolar cortex, regions previously implicated in affiliative emotion. This demonstrates that humans can voluntarily enhance brain signatures of tenderness/affection, unlocking new possibilities for promoting prosocial emotions and countering antisocial behavior.
A comparison of cognitive-behavior therapy with interpersonal and cognitive behavior therapy in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy with the combination of cognitive behavior therapy and interpersonal therapy on decreasing the excessiveness of pathological worry and increasing happiness of the individuals with generalized anxiety disorder. Method: The sample consisted of 36 female undergraduate students who referred themselves to the Isfahan University Counseling Center and met the criteria for GAD. They were randomly assigned into three groups; namely, two experimental groups and one control group. Before receiving the interventions all of the groups completed Penn State Worry Questionnaire and Oxford Happiness Inventory. One of the experimental groups underwent cognitive behavior therapy and the other one received the integration of cognitive behavior therapy and interpersonal therapy. The control group received no intervention. Result: The statistical analyses indicated that the differences between the CBT and CBT+ IPT groups on excessive worry and happiness in the post tests were not significant. But significant mean differences were observed in the follow-ups regarding pathological worry and happiness between two groups. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the integration of cognitive behavior therapy and interpersonal therapy can be applied as an effective intervention for decreasing the rate of GADs’ relapses after cognitive behavior therapy.
Expression of Thy-1 on human hematopoietic progenitor cells

Expression of Thy-1 on hematopoietic cells from human fetal liver (FL), cord blood (CB), and bone marrow (BM) was studied with a novel anti-Thy- 1 antibody, 5E10. Specificity of 5E10 for human Thy-1 was demonstrated by immunoprecipitation of a 25-35-kD molecule, and the sequence of a cDNA that was cloned by immunoselection of COS cells transfected with a cDNA library derived from a 5E10+ cell line. Two- and three-color immunofluorescence staining experiments revealed that the Thy-1 expression is restricted to, an average, 1-4% of FL, CB, and BM cells, and binding to these cell types is essentially restricted to a very small subset of lymphoid cells and approximately 25% of CD34+ cells. Thy-1+ CD34+ cells were further characterized as CD38lo/CD45RO+/CD45RA- /CD71lo/c-kit(lo) and rhodamine 123dull. When CD34+ cells were sorted on the basis of Thy-1 expression, the majority of clonogenic cells were recovered in the CD34+Thy-1- fraction, whereas the majority of cells capable of producing myeloid colonies after 5-8 wk of long-term culture (long-term culture initiating cells) were recovered in the Thy-1+CD34+ fraction. In addition to CD34+ cells, Thy-1 was found to be expressed on a variable, very small number (< 1%) of CD34- mononuclear cells in BM, CB, and peripheral blood that were further characterized as CD3+ CD4+ lymphocytes. The restricted expression of Thy-1 on primitive hematopoietic cells is in agreement with a previous report (Baum et al., 1992. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 89:2804) in which Thy-1 expression was used to enrich for primitive hematopoietic cells from fetal tissue. Compared with those previous studies, we found Thy-1 expression on a larger proportion of CD34+ cells (25% in our study vs. 5% in Baum et al.) and furthermore performed studies on Thy-1 expression on CD34+ cells from CB, FL, and BM in relation to markers that are known to be differentially expressed on hematopoietic cells. Taken together our results indicate that Thy-1-specific antibody 5E10 is an attractive tool for further studies on the biology and purification of human stem cells.
The delayed and noisy nervous system: implications for neural control

Recent advances in the study of delay differential equations draw attention to the potential benefits of the interplay between random perturbations (‘noise’) and delay in neural control. The phenomena include transient stabilizations of unstable steady states by noise, control of fast movements using time-delayed feedback and the occurrence of long-lived delay-induced transients. In particular, this research suggests that the interplay between noise and delay necessitates the use of intermittent, discontinuous control strategies in which corrective movements are made only when controlled variables cross certain thresholds. A potential benefit of such strategies is that they may be optimal for minimizing energy expenditures associated with control. In this paper, the concepts are made accessible by introducing them through simple illustrative examples that can be readily reproduced using software packages, such as XPPAUT.
The Impact of Relationship Status, Gender, and Minor Status in the Police Response to Domestic Assaults

Abstract Data from police records on 320 domestic violence calls for assistance collected during a four-month period from five jurisdictions operating under a pro-arrest statute in a Northeastern state were examined to determine the distribution of incidents by victim-suspect household relationship. It was hypothesized that, despite the lack of any statutory distinction, police compliance with the requirements of a pro-arrest statute—and mandatory arrest policies—would be higher in incidents involving a parent complainant than in incidents between other household members. Logistic and ordinary least-squares regression indicated that the odds of arrest for cases of child to parent and sibling assault were significantly higher than for other kinds of relationships, especially adult partner cases. Analyses also revealed that police compliance with victim assistance actions was significantly less likely for victims of parent to child and sibling violence relative to other victim-suspect relationships. The police were also more legalistic in the application of the statute to both female victims and female suspects. The implications of the increased role of extra-legal variables in the arrest decision (i.e. age, gender and relationship status) and the police support of parental authority are examined.
Genetic basis of male colour dimorphism in a Lake Tanganyika cichlid fish

Phenotypic polymorphisms can be applied to study the micro‐evolutionary forces that maintain genetic variation and can mediate speciation, but it can be difficult to determine the genetic basis of polymorphisms. Recently, restriction‐site‐associated DNA (RAD) sequencing has become popular, which can easily produce multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms from whole genomes. Here, we combined RAD sequencing, allele‐specific PCR and Sanger sequencing to determine the genetic basis underlying male colour dimorphism of a Lake Tanganyika cichlid fish, Cyprichromis leptosoma. Our analyses using both a cross‐family (two parents and 12 F2 males) and 64 wild individuals do not contradict a hypothesis that two alleles of one‐locus control male colour dimorphism. Also, the locus may be located on a genome region that experiences reduced levels of recombination. Although more analyses will be needed to conclude these findings, this study is the first to suggest the genetic basis of a colour polymorphism using RAD sequencing.
The Association of a Mediterranean-Style Diet Pattern with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Status in a Community Cohort Study

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common condition in reproductive-aged women. While lifestyle management is first-line treatment in PCOS, the dietary intake of women with PCOS is unclear and there is no research assessing dietary patterns of women with and without PCOS. The aim of this study was to examine dietary patterns in a large cohort of women with and without PCOS. Data were from 7569 participants in the 1973–1978 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health population assessed at 2009 (Survey 5) (n = 414 PCOS, n = 7155 non-PCOS). Dietary patterns were evaluated using factor analysis and multiple logistic regressions assessed their associations with PCOS status. Three dietary patterns were identified that explained 27% of the variance in food intake between women with and without PCOS: Non-core foods; Meats and take-away and Mediterranean-style. The Mediterranean-style dietary pattern was independently associated with PCOS status. On adjusted analysis for each 1 SD increase in the Mediterranean-style dietary pattern, there was a 26% greater likelihood that women had PCOS. This may indicate an improvement in the quality of dietary intake following a diagnosis of PCOS. Future research should examine the contribution of dietary patterns to the incidence and severity of PCOS and the potential for modification of dietary patterns in the lifestyle management of PCOS.
Parallel reasoning in structured connectionist networks: Signatures versus temporal synchrony

Shastri & Ajjanagadde (1993) (S&A) argue convincingly that both structured connectionist networks and parallel dynamic inferencing are necessary for reflexive reasoning - a kind of inferencing and reasoning that occurs rapidly, spontaneously, and without conscious effort, and which seems necessary for everyday tasks such as natural language understanding. As S&A describe, reflexive reasoning requires a solution to the dynamic binding problem, that is, how to encode systematic and abstract knowledge and instantiate it in specific situations to draw appropriate inferences. Although symbolic artificial intelligence systems trivially solve the dynamic binding problem using computers' registers and pointers, it has remained a difficult problem for connectionist systems (see Fodor & Pylyshyn 1988). S&A's temporal synchrony solution to the dynamic binding problem using synchronous firing of argument units and the entities that are bound to them illustrates one way in which connectionist networks can do thisusing a constrained but important class of long-term knowledge rules. Their structured connectionist solution allows dynamic inferencing to proceed in parallel and therefore has a number of advantages for reflexive reasoning over most other connectionist and symbolic systems.
Vps22/EAP30 in ESCRT‐II Mediates Endosomal Sorting of Growth Factor and Chemokine Receptors Destined for Lysosomal Degradation

The ubiquitin‐binding protein Hrs and endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT)‐I and ESCRT‐III are involved in sorting endocytosed and ubiquitinated receptors to lysosomes for degradation and efficient termination of signaling. In this study, we have investigated the role of the ESCRT‐II subunit Vps22/EAP30 in degradative protein sorting of ubiquitinated receptors. Vps22 transiently expressed in HeLa cells was detected in endosomes containing endocytosed epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) as well as Hrs and ESCRT‐I and ESCRT‐III. Depletion of Vps22 by small interfering RNA, which was accompanied by decreased levels of other ESCRT‐II subunits, greatly reduced degradation of EGFR and its ligand EGF as well as the chemokine receptor CXCR4. EGFR accumulated on the limiting membranes of early endosomes and aberrantly small multivesicular bodies in Vps22‐depleted cells. Phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of extracellular‐signal‐regulated kinase1/2 downstream of the EGF‐activated receptor were sustained by depletion of Hrs or the ESCRT‐I subunit Tsg101. In contrast, this was not the case when Vps22 was depleted. These results indicate an important role for Vps22 in ligand‐induced EGFR and CXCR4 turnover and suggest that termination of EGF signaling occurs prior to ESCRT‐II engagement.
Heuristics-Based Schema Extraction for Deep Web Query Interfaces

Along with the popularity of the internet, contents inside web databases also increase quickly. These data, hidden behind the query interfaces, are called deep web. These contents normally are not collected by the search engines. Many deep web contents related applications, like contents collection, topic-focused crawling, and data integration, are based on understanding the schema of these query interfaces. The schema needs to cover mappings of input elements and labels, data types of valid input values, and range constraints of the input values. We propose a Heuristics-based deep web query interface Schema Extraction system (HSE) that identifies labels, elements, mappings among labels and elements, and relationships among elements. In HSE, texts surrounding elements are collected as candidate labels. We propose a string similarity function and dynamic similarity threshold setup to cleanse candidate labels. In HSE, elements, candidate labels, and new lines in the query interface are streamlined to produce its Interface Expression (IEXP). By combining the user's view and the designer's view, with the aid of semantic information, we build heuristic rules to extract schema from IEXP of query interfaces in the ICQ dataset. These rules are constructed through utilizing (1) the characteristics of labels and elements, and (2) the spatial, group, and range relationships of labels and elements. Our schema not only helps extracting contents of the deep web, but also benefits the processes of schema matching and schema merging. The experimental results on the TEL-8 dataset show that HSE produces effective performance.
Discordant Classification of Transposable Elements in Segmental Duplications Raise Concerns About Subfamily Definitions

Patterson, Gilia, B.A., May 2016 Biology Discordant Classification of Transposable Elements in Segmental Duplications Raise Concerns About Subfamily Definitions Faculty Mentor: Travis Wheeler Most of the human genome comes from transposable elements (TEs), sequences of DNA that can move and insert copies of themselves throughout the genome. TE sequences both inform and complicate analyses of genomes, so it is important that TEs are annotated completely and accurately. Remnants of TEs are annotated and classified into subfamilies based on their DNA sequences. A subfamily represents all the copies generated in a burst of replication by a few closely related TEs. Wacholder et al. (2014) suggested that the current methods for representing subfamilies are not accurate and should be reevaluated. We expand on this discussion and show that many TE sequences that should belong to the same subfamily are classified into discordant subfamilies. When a segment of genome with a TE remnant is duplicated, the TE remnants in each copy are replicates and so should be assigned to the same subfamily. We identified the location and subfamily of all TEs in known segmental duplications and found that a large fraction are assigned to different subfamilies, suggesting that the current method of classifying TEs splits them too much.
Maturational changes in brain contents of salmon GnRH in rainbow trout as measured by a newly developed time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay.

A newly developed time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay (TR-FIA) for salmon gonadotropin-releasing hormone (sGnRH) was applied to investigate changes in sGnRH content in discrete brain areas at three different gonadal stages in the rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. The sensitivity (6.8 pg/well), specificity, intraassay coefficients of variation (<7.4%), and interassay coefficients of variation (<10.3%) of the assay system were almost the same as those for the radioimmunoassay. Displacement curves of serially diluted brain extracts of nine teleost fish (freshwater fish and seawater fish) including rainbow trout paralleled that of the sGnRH standard, indicating that the sGnRH TR-FIA is widely applicable to the measurement of the brain sGnRH contents of various fishes. The sGnRH content in female hypothalamus decreased during final gonad maturation, whereas the sGnRH levels in pituitary were highest at the time of spermiating in males or ovulating in females, decreasing significantly thereafter. In contrast, there were no changes in the sGnRH contents of olfactory bulbs, telencephalon, optic tectum + thalamus, and cerebellum + medulla oblongata during final maturation, except for olfactory bulbs of males. Changes in sGnRH contents in the hypothalamus and the pituitary indicate that sGnRH is involved in final maturation (ovulation or spermiation) in the rainbow trout.
Distribution of bronchial responsiveness in a general population: effect of sex, age, smoking, and level of pulmonary function.

Bronchial responsiveness (BR) was assessed by the methacholine challenge test in 1,694 subjects from a sample of the general population (aged 8 to 73 yr) enrolled in a prospective epidemiologic study on the natural history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Information on respiratory symptoms and risk factors for COPD were obtained with a standardized questionnaire. The provocative dose causing a 10%, 15%, and 20% decrease in FEV1 was reached in 939 (55%), 658 (39%), and 447 (26%) subjects, respectively, after the last cumulative dose of methacholine (i.e., 4.8 mg). The slope of the dose-response curve was also computed in order to attribute a parameter to subjects who did not reach the provocative dose. After natural log transformation, the slope (Ln Slope) of the curve showed a significant association with the degree of airway obstruction, as assessed by FEV1% predicted, FEV1/VC%, and FEV1/FVC%. Therefore, relationships between BR, sex, age, and smoking were evaluated after adjustments for the initial airway caliber (FEV1, FEV1 adjusted for height, and FEV1/VC%). Females showed significantly higher values of Ln Slope than did males after adjustments were made for baseline lung function. In males, higher BR was observed in childhood-adolescence age groups and at older ages, while in females a higher level of BR was observed during childhood. Significantly higher Ln Slope values were found for females who currently smoked than for non- and ex-smokers. No difference was observed in males in relation to smoking habit. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
An oblique projection filtering based DOA estimation algorithm without a priori knowledge

The high resolution multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm provides an efficient way to estimate direction- of-arrival (DOA). However, it performs poorly when weak signals are accompanied with strong ones. To solve this problem, an oblique projection filtering based DOA estimation algorithm is proposed without using a priori knowledge of the sources, such as directions, strength, modulation modes, etc. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. It is shown that a high resolution DOA estimation of the incident sources can be achieved. The detection performances for weak signals are more stable and superior than that of the MUSIC algorithm.
Teaching programming languages: A survey of approaches

Ten approaches to programming language instruction are summarized. The approaches discussed are: structured programming, modular programming, grammatical versus “whole program”, spiral, problem analysis, computer modeling, computer assisted instruction, instructional television, egoless versus individualistic programming, and team debugging. These approaches are discussed in terms of their general characteristics, proposed benefits, and demonstratable effectiveness. It is concluded that the serious lack of empirical research on teaching programming makes it difficult to rationally infer the comparable effectiveness of these pedagogical approaches.