Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Large Scale Concept Ontology for News Stories: Empirical Methods, Analysis, and Improvements

We analyze the completeness, accuracy, and utility of the largest known annotation ground truth database for video news stories, comprising nearly 680K individual tags on 62K shots using a vocabulary of 449 semantic concepts. We find the vocabulary is not yet mature: it does not follow Zipf’s law, although concepts derived from vocabulary intersection do so more closely. We find that because many concepts are sparse, the best method for exposing the implicit semantic space is to use the distance measure G, complete link clustering, and a heuristic distance cutoff based on shot cluster evolution history; this yields 12 well-defined major shot categories. Because the database is errorful, we derive a model for annotator error, and using it, we extract a natural concept subsumption ontology from the database, including some counter-intuitive relationships. Again using intersection, we demonstrate a method for identifying “missing” subconcepts from superconcepts. Lastly, we note that without superconcepts, shot clustering fails. These methods are unbiased by any prior semantic assumptions, and only depend on a statistically sufficient body of ground truth. They are therefore applicable to any other specific video retrieval domain.
MBD 4 Interacts with and Recruits USP 7 to heterochromatic foci †

MBD4 is the only methyl-CpG binding protein that possesses a C-terminal glycosylase domain. It has been associated with a number of nuclear pathways including DNA repair, DNA damage response, the initiation of apoptosis, transcriptional repression and DNA demethylation. However, the precise contribution of MBD4 to these processes in development and relevant diseases remains elusive. We identified UHRF1 and USP7 as two new interaction partners for MBD4. Both UHRF1, a E3 ubiquitin ligase, and USP7, a de-ubiquinating enzyme, regulate the stability of the DNA maintenance methyltransferase, Dnmt1. The ability of MBD4 to directly interact with and recruit USP7 to chromocenters implicates it as an additional factor that can potentially regulate Dnmt1 activity during cell proliferation.
Donor-Directed HLA Antibodies Before and After Transplantectomy Detected by the Luminex Single Antigen Assay

Background. Donor-directed antibodies (DDA) have been shown to result in poor graft survival. This study was designed to analyze antibody appearance and patient and graft characteristics related to antibody formation in patients who lost their graft at different time points after transplantation. Methods. Pre- and posttransplant sera of 56 DDA-negative first transplant patients were screened for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II DDA by the Luminex single antigen assay (LSA). All patients were treated with calcineurine inhibitor-based immunosuppression. Results. Three of 56 patients proved DDA positive by LSA before transplantation. Eighty-one percent of the remaining 53 patients became DDA class I or II positive or both; 16% before and 84% after transplantectomy. Class I antibodies were produced in 84% and class II in 77% of the recipients. Based on time of transplantectomy, three groups were created as follows: less than or equal to 1 month, 1 to 6 months, and more than 6 months. The groups proved to be significantly different for HLA class II mismatch and acute rejection. All recipients in group 1 to 6 months proved to be DDA positive. Logistic regression analysis showed that DDA positivity for class I was related to higher donor age and donor type (nonheart beating), class II to higher donor age and class II mismatch. Conclusions. Donor-directed HLA antibodies after transplantation were demonstrated in 81% of first transplant recipients, all of whom were DDA negative by LSA before transplantation. The majority of the antibodies was found after transplantectomy. These findings may have to be taken into consideration in the allocation of organs of marginal donors such as older or nonheart beating kidneys.
The prevalence of diabetic retinopathy among adult type 1 diabetic persons in the United States.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the US prevalence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) among persons with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS Prevalence data from the New Jersey 725 and Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy were used to estimate the prevalence of DR by age, gender, and race among persons 18 years and older having type 1 DM diagnosed before age 30 years. Severity of DR was determined via masked grading of 7-field stereoscopic fundus photographs. Any DR was defined as retinopathy severity level of 14 or more; and vision-threatening retinopathy, as retinopathy severity level of 50 or more, the presence of clinically significant macular edema, or both. The estimates of the prevalence of DR among persons with type 1 DM were applied to the estimated number of persons with type 1 DM diagnosed before age 30 years in the 2000 US population to obtain prevalence estimates of DR due to type 1 DM in the general population. RESULTS Among 209 million Americans 18 years and older, an estimated 889 000 have type 1 DM diagnosed before age 30 years. Among persons with type 1 DM, the crude prevalences of DR of any level (74.9% vs 82.3% in black and white persons, respectively) and of vision-threatening retinopathy (30.0% vs 32.2%, respectively) are high. The prevalence of DR due to type 1 DM diagnosed before age 30 years in the general population 18 years and older is estimated at 767 000 persons having DR of any level (0.37%), and 376 000 persons having vision-threatening retinopathy (0.18%). CONCLUSION Retinopathy due to type 1 DM is an important public health problem in the United States, affecting 1 per 300 persons 18 years and older, and 1 per 600 persons with advanced, vision-threatening retinopathy.
Purchaser Preferences On Carbon Labels: Conventional Vs. Organic Milk

Over the past several years, there has been growing attention concerning global warming/climate change and how humans are contributors. It is known that agricultural production is a main contributor of greenhouse gas emissions and the livestock sector is particularly significant because it is quoted as having between 3 and 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent pending different assumptions. Due to this, carbon footprint labeling has been described as a potential tool to inform consumers about greenhouse gases associated with food products and assist them with the necessary information to purchase products that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently TESCO, a British grocery chain, prints carbon footprint labels on many of their products and they are striving for all of their products to display the label in the foreseeable future. Research has also been done in supermarkets throughout the UK showing there is an interest/demand for carbon labels in that country. Our main goal with this research was to analyze if a carbon label would modify milk consumer behavior for University of Arkansas faculty, staff and students. In particular would consumers be willing to pay for this information, would it affect how much milk they drink, what they pay for milk and if they would switch from organic to conventional milk because of a carbon footprint label. While the sample of respondents was more highly educated and younger than representative of the US or Arkansas, respondents did positively value the label information, would pay extra for lower carbon footprint milk and nearly half of the “organic” milk purchasers would switch to conventional milk for a more favorable carbon footprint.
Resilient quantum computation: error models and thresholds

Recent research has demonstrated that quantum computers can solve certain types of problems substantially faster than the known classical algorithms. These problems include factoring integers and certain physics simulations. Practical quantum computation requires overcoming the problems of environmental noise and operational errors, problems which appear to be much more severe than in classical computation due to the inherent fragility of quantum superpositions involving many degrees of freedom. Here we show that arbitrarily accurate quantum computations are possible provided that the error per operation is below a threshold value. The result is obtained by combining quantum error–correction, fault–tolerant state recovery, fault–tolerant encoding of operations and concatenation. It holds under physically realistic assumptions on the errors.
WLC33-2: On Relaying in Cooperative Static Channels

It is shown that regenerative relaying in a dual- hop diversity static or quasi-static relay channel can outperform non-regenerative relaying only if the source-relay link is reliable and power allocation to the source and the relay is optimized. In regenerative relaying, a maximal ratio combining receiver at the destination has an error floor at high signal-to-noise ratios. However, maximal ratio combining is not a maximum-likelihood structure in this application. Maximum-likelihood detection at the destination can remove this error floor, but cannot always make the performance of regenerative relaying surpass that of non- regenerative relaying. A hybrid protocol which avoids some of the limitations of previous relaying schemes is proposed. Conditions under which relaying increases the equivalent source-destination signal-to-noise ratio, and hence, the source-destination channel capacity are derived and the gain of the cooperation is calculated. The analysis provides quantitative measures for choosing the best relay among a set of candidates.
Immunoenhancing Effects of Alprazolam, a Benzodiazepine Receptor Agonist a

The effects of alprazolam (ALP), a triazolobenzodiazepine with high affinity for "central" benzodiazepine receptors, were examined on several parameters of immune function in mice. NK, MLR, and mitogen-induced lymphocyte proliferation were all significantly increased 2 hr after administration of low doses (0.02-1.0 mg/kg) of ALP. Twenty four hr later, similar but less robust immunoenhancing effects were observed. These measures of immune functions were not affected by higher doses of ALP (5-10 mg/kg). The immunoenhancing effects of ALP did not appear related to serum corticosterone levels. These and other findings demonstrate that the GABA/benzodiazepine receptor chloride channel complex can bidirectionally modulate immune function.
A born global’s radical, gradual and nonlinear internationalization: A case from Belarus

This paper contributes to the literature on internationalization processes by showing that a born global can experience nonlinear internationalization (de- and re-internationalize) after radical/fast initial growth, and use some subsidiaries as bases for further gradual expansion. After studying a case of a Belarusian door producer that has invested to seven and exported to 11 more countries, we conclude that a home country’s political/economic environment can be a crucial ‘push’ factor for a firm’s fast internationalization but, thereafter, it can internationalize gradually due to lacking knowledge or other resources, and de- and re-internationalize due to various internal and/or external reasons.
Classification Algorithms to Predict Students' Extraversion-Introversion Traits

Knowing students' personality traits helps to improve the environment of learning and living in college. However, the questionnaire commonly used for personality prediction has some inherent limitations such as inefficiency and proneness to cheating. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on data mining to determine students' personality traits in particular the extraversion and introversion. Real data set comes from 79 undergraduate students at Chongqing University. We use the results of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale for Chinese (EPQ-RSC) as class labels. Then, three classical classifiers are trained to infer the extraverts and introverts by the features which are extracted from web browsing history and consumption records of campus cards. The experimental results show that the linear SVM performs best with approximate accuracy of 72% and F-measure of 77%. According to our work, it's promising to predict students' extraversion-introversion traits using classification method based on campus data.
Introgressed Manihot glaziovii Alleles in Modern Cassava Germplasm Benefit Important Traits and Are Under Balancing Selection

Introgression of alleles from wild relatives has often been adaptive, usually for disease resistance, in plant breeding. However, the significance of historical hybridization events in modern breeding is often not clear. Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is among the most important staple foods in the world, sustaining hundreds of millions of people in the tropics, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Widespread genotyping makes cassava a model for clonally-propagated root and tuber crops in the developing world and provides an opportunity to study the modern benefits and consequences of historical introgression. We detected large introgressed M. glaziovii genome-segments in a collection of 2742 modern cassava landraces and elite germplasm, the legacy of 1930’s era breeding to combat epidemics disease. African landraces and improved varieties were on average 3.8% (max 13.6%) introgressed. Introgressions accounted for significant (mean 20%, max 56%) portion of the heritability of tested traits M. glaziovii alleles on the distal 10Mb of chr. 1 increased dry matter and root number. On chr. 4, introgressed alleles in a 20Mb region improved harvest index and brown streak disease tolerance. Three cycles of selection initially doubled the introgression frequency on chr. 1. Later stage variety trials selectively excluded homozygotes which indicates a heterozygous advantage. We show that maintaining large recombination-suppressed introgressions in the heterozygous state allows the accumulation of deleterious mutations. We conclude that targeted recombination of introgression segments would therefore increase the efficiency of cassava breeding by allowing simultaneous fixation of beneficial alleles and purging of genetic load. Significance Statement Crosses to wild relatives have often been adaptive for crop breeding, but their modern importance is usually poorly understood. Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is an important staple crop, feeding hundreds of millions in the developing world, and is a model for vegetatively-propagated non-inbred crops. In the 1930’s, crossing to M. glaziovii averted mosaic disease epidemic in Africa. We reveal that large genome segments, the legacy of those crosses, benefit a number of traits including yield in modern cassava and are consistently favored during selection. Elite cultivars are almost exclusively heterozygous for wild alleles; homozygotes are rejected during early stage trials, suggesting inbreeding depression. More recombination around beneficial wild alleles will allow purging of genetic load and increase genetic gain in cassava.
HVDC protection criteria for transient stability of AC systems with embedded HVDC links

In recent years, different protection strategies for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) grids have been developed by the industry and academia for the reliable and safe operation of direct current grids. The proposed strategies have different impacts on the AC networks where HVDC grids are connected. In the case of embedded HVDC grids embedded in a synchronous AC network, a partial loss of the HVDC grid might cause the desynchronisation of the AC grid. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to assess the impact of those protection strategies into the stability of the whole network. The objective of this study is to propose a methodology for the transient stability assessment of a simple but representative AC grid in case of DC fault. After validation of the methodology, some HVDC link protection criteria are defined in terms of the Critical Time to Return to Operation. These criteria will be helpful for the design of HVDC protection systems or for the sizing of future HVDC links in order to respect the constraints of the existing protection strategies.
A role for bacteriophages in the evolution and transfer of bacterial virulence determinants

A virulence‐associated region in the genome of Dichelobacter nodosus has been shown to contain an integrase gene which is highly related to the integrases of Shigella flexneri phage Sf6 and coliphages P4 and φR73, together with open reading frames (vapB, C and D) related to genes borne on plasmids in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Escherichia coli, Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans and Treponema denticola. Similar to P4 and φR73, the vap region is bracketed by putative bacteriophage att sites and is adjacent to a tRNA gene, which suggests that the vap region has been derived by the integration of a bacteriophage, or a plasmid carrying a bacteriophage‐related integrase gene. Many similarities in genes and genes clusters encoding virulence determinants have been found in distantly related bacteria. These genes are often located on plasmids in one organism but on the chromosome in others, implying that transmission of the genes has been followed by integration. Thus, the events which have generated the vap regions of D. nodosus may represent a common mechanism for transfer of virulence determinants. A number of genes involved in the virulence of bacterial pathogens are found on integrated bacteriophages, and we suggest that others will prove to be associated with tRNA genes and/or integrase genes derived from bacteriophages. The use of tRNA genes as integration sites for many bacteriophages and plasmids may favour intergeneric transmission, as tRNA genes are highly conserved.
Improving fixed-point implementation of QR decomposition by rounding-to-nearest

QR decomposition is a key operation in many current communication systems. This paper shows how to reduce the area of a fixed-point QR decomposition implementation based on Givens rotations by using a new number representation system. This new representation allows performing round-to-nearest at the same cost of truncation. Consequently, the rounding errors of the results are halved, which allows it to reduce the word-length by one bit. This reduction positively impacts on the area, delay and power consumption of the design.
Identifying Desirable Agricultural Education Cooperating Center Characteristics: Cooperating and First-Year Teacher Perceptions

Student teaching is arguably the most beneficial aspect of teacher preparation programs. The student teaching experience is shaped by several key components. One of the most important, yet least well defined component is the cooperating center at which a student teacher will gain his or her experiences. Very little research has been published regarding the characteristics of good cooperating centers for agricultural education. This study was designed to create a list of the key elements of cooperating centers for agricultural education student teachers. Qualitative research was conducted within the population of cooperating teachers and first-year teachers of agricultural education employed in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Two nominal groups were conducted on October 15, 1998, each having ten participants. One group was comprised of ten cooperating teachers and the other of ten first-year agricultural education teachers. The responses from these participants were used to create a prioritized list of the characteristics of cooperating centers that they felt were most important for a successful student teaching experience. Agricultural education Cooperating Centers
Hepatitis B virus S mutants in liver transplant recipients who were reinfected despite hepatitis B immune globulin prophylaxis

Long‐term hepatitis B immune globulin (HBIG) has been shown to reduce hepatitis B virus (HBV) reinfection in patients transplanted for hepatitis B. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HBV S gene mutations in liver transplant recipients who developed recurrent hepatitis B despite HBIG prophylaxis, and to determine if these mutations can revert after withdrawal of HBIG. The entire S gene sequences in pre‐ and posttransplant sera from 20 patients who developed recurrent hepatitis B despite HBIG prophylaxis were compared. Ten (50%) patients had 18 amino acid substitutions involving the ‘a’ determinant in the posttransplant samples. These mutations were absent in 93% of the pretransplantation clones analyzed. There was a significant correlation between the development of mutations in the ‘a’ determinant region and the duration of HBIG therapy. Most of the mutations result in changes in predicted antigenicity of the S protein. During follow‐up, mutations in 14 (78%) of 18 affected codons in the ‘a’ determinant region reverted back to the pretransplantation sequences; only 1 codon had a de novochange after the withdrawal of HBIG. Two control patients who did not receive HBIG had no change in the ‘a’ determinant in their posttransplantation samples. These data support the hypothesis that mutations in the S gene were induced or selected by immune pressure exerted by HBIG. HBV S mutants may play a role in HBV reinfection in liver transplant recipients who received HBIG prophylaxis.
Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought–fire interactions

Significance Climate change alone is unlikely to drive severe tropical forest degradation in the next few decades, but an alternative process associated with severe weather and forest fires is already operating in southeastern Amazonia. Recent droughts caused greatly elevated fire-induced tree mortality in a fire experiment and widespread regional forest fires that burned 5–12% of southeastern Amazon forests. These results suggest that feedbacks between fires and extreme climatic conditions could increase the likelihood of an Amazon forest “dieback” in the near-term. To secure the integrity of seasonally dry Amazon forests, efforts to end deforestation must be accompanied by initiatives that reduce the accidental spread of land management fires into neighboring forest reserves and effectively suppress forest fires when they start. Interactions between climate and land-use change may drive widespread degradation of Amazonian forests. High-intensity fires associated with extreme weather events could accelerate this degradation by abruptly increasing tree mortality, but this process remains poorly understood. Here we present, to our knowledge, the first field-based evidence of a tipping point in Amazon forests due to altered fire regimes. Based on results of a large-scale, long-term experiment with annual and triennial burn regimes (B1yr and B3yr, respectively) in the Amazon, we found abrupt increases in fire-induced tree mortality (226 and 462%) during a severe drought event, when fuel loads and air temperatures were substantially higher and relative humidity was lower than long-term averages. This threshold mortality response had a cascading effect, causing sharp declines in canopy cover (23 and 31%) and aboveground live biomass (12 and 30%) and favoring widespread invasion by flammable grasses across the forest edge area (80 and 63%), where fires were most intense (e.g., 220 and 820 kW⋅m−1). During the droughts of 2007 and 2010, regional forest fires burned 12 and 5% of southeastern Amazon forests, respectively, compared with <1% in nondrought years. These results show that a few extreme drought events, coupled with forest fragmentation and anthropogenic ignition sources, are already causing widespread fire-induced tree mortality and forest degradation across southeastern Amazon forests. Future projections of vegetation responses to climate change across drier portions of the Amazon require more than simulation of global climate forcing alone and must also include interactions of extreme weather events, fire, and land-use change.