Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Arabidopsis NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 Genes Are Functionally Redundant and Are Required in Early Embryogenesis

Nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) is a trimeric transcription factor composed of three distinct subunits called NF-YA, NF-YB and NF-YC. In Arabidopsis thaliana, NF-Y subunits are known to play roles in many processes, such as gametogenesis, embryogenesis, seed development, drought resistance, ABA signaling, flowering time, primary root elongation, Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress response and blue light responses. Here, we report that the closely related NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 genes control early embryogenesis. Detailed GUS and in situ analyses showed that NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 are expressed in vegetative and reproductive tissues with the highest expression being during embryo development from the globular to the torpedo embryo stage. Plants from the nf-ya3 and nf-ya8 single mutants do not display any obvious phenotypic alteration, whereas nf-ya3 nf-ya8 double mutants are embryo lethal. Morphological analyses showed that the nf-ya3 nf-ya8 embryos fail to undergo to the heart stage and develop into abnormal globular embryos with both proembryo and suspensor characterized by a disordered cell cluster with an irregular shape, suggesting defects in embryo development. The suppression of both NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 gene expression by RNAi experiments resulted in defective embryos that phenocopied the nf-ya3 nf-ya8 double mutants, whereas complementation experiments partially rescued the abnormal globular nf-ya3 nf-ya8 embryos, confirming that NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 are required in early embryogenesis. Finally, the lack of GFP expression of the auxin responsive DR5rev::GFP marker line in double mutant embryos suggested that mutations in both NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 affect auxin response in early developing embryos. Our findings indicate that NF-YA3 and NF-YA8 are functionally redundant genes required in early embryogenesis of Arabidopsis thaliana.
Exploratory Data Analysis Using Alternating Covers of Rules and Exceptions

During exploratory data analysis in a variety of domains we have found it useful to summarize the available data via sets of rules and their exceptions. Often, a practitioner is interested in exploring more than one such summary before settling on any single explanation. It is important for each summary to be succinct, cover a significant fraction of the data as well as highlight rules enjoying high confidence, support and lift. It is often difficult to achieve all these objectives simultaneously, and retain a meaningful dialogue with the user. To help achieve these goals, we have found it useful to combine some existing tools for data analysis: association rule-mining to find broad patterns in the data; clustering to group these patterns into similar sets; exception-mining to find deviations from the patterns; and a coverage-based extraction of explanations for the data. We demonstrate how a combination of these methods can be used for exploratory data analysis on both synthetic and industrial data sets for which we derived interesting insights.
Towards personal data services: a view on some enabling factors

Data are increasingly considered the fuel of our economies. However, only a small share of organisations, including governments, are in the position of collecting and analysing large amounts of data. Emerging models allow individuals to reconstruct their digital footprint and benefit from customised services based on personal data. For instance, smart disclosure is defined as "the timely release of complex information and data in standardised, machine readable formats in ways that enable consumers to make informed decisions". In this paper, we compare data access trends enabled or directly promoted by governments and describe examples of personal data services based on smart disclosure initiatives, in particular green button in the USA, applied to energy consumption. In light of the analysis, we identify five enabling factors for the further creation and adoption of personal data services: trusted architectures, data interoperability, friendly regulation, market incentives and availability of complementary open data by governments.
University of Dundee Storage nitrogen coordinates leaf expansion and photosynthetic capacity in winter oilseed rape ( Brassica napus L

Storage nitrogen (N) is a buffer pool for maintaining leaf growth and synthesizing photosynthetic proteins, but the dynamics of its forms within the life cycle of a single leaf and how it is influenced by N supply remain poorly understood. A field experiment was conducted to estimate the influence of N supply on leaf growth, photosynthetic characteristics, and N partitioning inthe sixth leaf of winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) from emergence through senescence. Storage N content (Nstore) decreased gradually along with leaf expansion. The relative growth rate based on leaf area (RGRa) was positively correlated with Nstore during leaf expansion. The water-soluble protein form of storage N was the main N source for leaf expansion. After the leaves fully expanded, the net photosynthetic rate (An) followed a linear–plateau response to Nstore, with An stabilizing at the highest value above a threshold and declining below the threshold. Non-protein and SDS (detergent)-soluble protein forms of storage N were the main N sources for maintaining photosynthesis. For the leaf N economy, storage N is used for co-ordinating leaf expansion and photosynthetic capacity. N supply can improve Nstore, thereby promoting leaf growth and biomass.
Competitive Poaching in Search Advertising: Two Randomized Field Experiments

Keyword searches with brand names enable firms to generate traffic from search advertising by bidding not only on their own keywords but also on competitors’ keywords. The strategy of bidding on competitors’ keywords, known as competitive poaching, presents unique opportunities for practitioners. This study examines factors that influence the effectiveness of competitive poaching. We collected data from two randomized field experiments, one with a business school in the Northeastern United States and the other one with a leading automobile dealership company, where these firms bid on keywords of competing brands and randomly display different types of ad copies in the sponsored search listings. We find that, when poaching on keywords of high-quality brands, ad copies that feature vertical differentiation through quality signals are more effective than the control ad copies that do not convey any differentiation or prescriptive messages. We also find that when poaching from low-quality brands, ad copies featuring horizontal differentiation through nonquality attributes perform better than the control ad copies. Finally, the presence of the poached brand’s own ad has a positive association with the ad effectiveness of the poaching brand when that poached brand is high quality and a negative association when the poached brand is low quality.
Far-Field Audio-Visual Scene Perception of Multi-Party Human-Robot Interaction for Children and Adults

Human-robot interaction (HRI) is a research area of growing interest with a multitude of applications for both children and adult user groups, as, for example, in edutainment and social robotics. Crucial, however, to its wider adoption remains the robust perception of HRI scenes in natural, untethered, and multi-party interaction scenarios, across user groups. Towards this goal, we investigate three focal HRI perception modules operating on data from multiple audio-visual sensors that observe the HRI scene from the far-field, thus bypassing limitations and platform-dependency of contemporary robotic sensing. In particular, the developed modules fuse intra- and/or inter-modality data streams to perform: (i) audio-visual speaker localization; (ii) distant speech recognition; and (iii) visual recognition of hand-gestures. Emphasis is also placed on ensuring high speech and gesture recognition rates for both children and adults. Development and objective evaluation of the three modules is conducted on a corpus of both user groups, collected by our far-field multisensory setup, for an interaction scenario of a question-answering “guess-the-object” collaborative HRI game with a “Furhat” robot. In addition, evaluation of the game incorporating the three developed modules is reported. Our results demonstrate robust far-field audio-visual perception of the multi-party HRI scene.
3D pose estimation based on planar object tracking for UAVs control

This article presents a real time Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAVs 3D pose estimation method using planar object tracking, in order to be used on the control system of a UAV. The method explodes the rich information obtained by a projective transformation of planar objects on a calibrated camera. The algorithm obtains the metric and projective components of a reference object (landmark or helipad) with respect to the UAV camera coordinate system, using a robust real time object tracking based on homographies. The algorithm is validated on real flights that compare the estimated data against that obtained by the inertial measurement unit IMU, showing that the proposed method robustly estimates the helicopter's 3D position with respect to a reference landmark, with a high quality on the position and orientation estimation when the aircraft is flying at low altitudes, a situation in which the GPS information is often inaccurate. The obtained results indicate that the proposed algorithm is suitable for complex control tasks, such as autonomous landing, accurate low altitude positioning and dropping of payloads.
High‐resolution body wave tomography models of the upper mantle beneath eastern China and the adjacent areas

We present new 3‐D tomographic models of VP, VS and VP/VSratio anomalies in the upper mantle beneath EC and adjacent areas. This data was collected and interpreted with the goal of clarifying geodynamic processes that caused spatially variable event histories throughout Eastern China (EC) during Mesozoic to Cenozoic time. The tomographic images were constructed by inverting body wave travel‐times recorded at ∼1300 stations within the upgraded China National Seismic Network, and 9 temporary arrays. Resolution tests for different depths and the featured velocity anomalies verify that the tomographic images capture the velocity heterogeneities in the upper mantle to depths of 700 km. The salient features of VP, VS and VP/VSratio anomalies can be clearly identified. These include strong multiscale heterogeneities occupying the upper mantle beneath EC and differences in the spatial scale of anomalies found beneath northern and southern areas of EC. These features demonstrate a degree of spatial variability in the geodynamic evolution of EC. We propose two mechanisms to explain these patterns. First, the western front of the subducted slab may have imparted greater horizontal compressional stress in areas where it impinged further eastward into EC. These areas would experience stronger convection and an altered stress regime in the upper mantle, creating significant thermal anomalies beneath the South China Block (SCB) relative to the eastern North China Craton (NCC). Second, differing thermal states and viscosities for the eastern NCC and the Cathaysia Block (CaB) resulted in differing responses to regional deformation. The Archean hinterland of the eastern NCC specifically has a colder thermal state and higher viscosity, and therefore exhibits only small‐scale heterogeneities due to the effect of shear localization. The Neoproterozoic CaB has a relatively warm thermal state with lower viscosity, and thus deformed more continuously.
Design and Development of a Bilateral Therapeutic Hand Device for Stroke Rehabilitation Regular Paper

The major cause of disability is stroke. It is the second highest cause of death after coronary heart disease in Australia. In this paper, a post stroke therapeutic device has been designed and developed for hand motor function rehabilitation that a stroke survivor can use for bilateral movement practice. A prototype of the device was fabricated that can fully flex and extend metacarpophalangeal (MCP), proximal interphalangeal (PIP) and distal interphalangeal (DIP) joints of the fingers, and interphalangeal (IP), metacarpophalangeal (MCP) and trapeziometacarpal (TM) joints of the thumb of the left hand (impaired hand), based on movements of the right hand's (healthy hand) fingers. Out of 21 degrees of freedom (DOFs) of hand fingers, the prototype of the hand exoskeleton allowed fifteen degrees of freedom (DOFs), with three degrees of freedom (DOFs) for each finger and three degrees of freedom (DOFs) for the thumb. In addition, testing of the device on a healthy subject was conducted to validate the design requirements.
Recent Advances in Nutritional Sciences Please Pass the Chips: Genomic Insights into Obesity and Diabetes 1

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is an increasingly common disorder of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Approximately 16 million individuals in the United States have diabetes, and 800,000 new cases are identiﬁed each year. Two important characteristics of this disease are insulin resistance, the failure of peripheral tissues, including liver, muscle, and adipose tissue, to respond to physiologic doses of insulin, and failure of pancreatic b -cells to prop-erly secrete insulin in response to elevated blood glucose levels. Obesity is a signiﬁcant risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recent observations of extremely lean, lipoatrophic models have revealed a similar predisposition to developing diabetes. Although it may seem paradoxical that both increased adiposity and severely reduced fat mass cause diabetes, a common patho-physiologic process in fat may be responsible for the predisposition to develop hyperglycemia in both conditions. This review will focus on the important role of adipose tissue dysfunction in the pathogenesis of diabetes, and on insights gained through the application of microarray tech-nology to analyze adipocyte gene expression. J. Nutr. 131: 2078–2081, 2001.
Cytomegalovirus Strain Diversity in Seropositive Women

ABSTRACT Infection and reinfection with multiple cytomegalovirus (CMV) strains have been shown to occur in immunocompromised individuals, sexually transmitted disease clinic attendees, and children attending day care centers. To characterize the CMV diversity in healthy seropositive individuals, 16 CMV PCR-positive specimens from 113 seropositive women were analyzed for glycoprotein gN and gB genotypes by cloning, followed by nucleotide sequencing of the plasmid DNA and/or restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). The results showed that most (93.7%) of the PCR-positive specimens contained multiple gN and/or gB genomic variants, suggesting that the majority of women were infected with more than one virus strain. The results also showed that the RFLP technique might not be sufficiently sensitive to detect all of the genomic variants present in a sample.
Unseen stimuli modulate conscious visual experience: evidence from inter-hemispheric summation

Emotional facial expression can be discriminated despite extensive lesions of striate cortex. Here we report differential performance with recognition of facial stimuli in the intact visual field depending on simultaneous presentation of congruent or incongruent stimuli in the blind field. Three experiments were based on inter-hemispheric summation. Redundant stimulation in the blind field led to shorter latencies for stimulus detection in the intact field. Recognition of the expression of a half-face expression in the intact field was faster when the other half of the face presented to the blind field had a congruent expression. Finally, responses to the expression of whole faces to the intact field were delayed for incongruent facial expressions presented in the blind field. These results indicate that the neuro-anatomical pathways (extra-striate cortical and sub-cortical) sustaining inter-hemispheric summation can operate in the absence of striate cortex.
1 Investors ’ distraction and strategic repricing decisions

In this paper I analyze investors’ reactions to changes in the expense ratios of equity mutual funds. I show that investment flows’ response to fees cannot be fully explained by looking at investors’ performance sensitivity. While performance sensitivity monotonically increases with past performance, price sensitivity does not: investors who buy top past performers seem to be “distracted” by the fund’s previous return and pay relatively little attention to the expense ratios. Moreover price sensitivity increases with fund visibility while performance sensitivity decreases, and while looking at data from 1986 to 2006 no discernible trend can be observed in the average performance sensitivity, price sensitivity strongly increases due to the dramatic increase in the availability of mutual funds’ information for retail investors. Finally I show that investment companies strategically time their repricing decisions in order to exploit time variations in price and performance sensitivities, and that fund governance quality affects the degree to which investment companies engage in this opportunistic behavior. JEL classification: G11; G23
An Overview on Ontology Learning Tasks

Ontology Learning (OL) for the Semantic Web has become widely used for knowledge representation. Therefore, the success of the Semantic Web depends strongly on the proliferation of ontologies, which requires fast and sound ontologies engineering learning process in order to provide an efficient knowledge acquisition service. The vision of ontology learning includes a number of complementary disciplines whose feed on different types of unstructured, semi-structured and fully structured data in order to support a semi-automatic, cooperative ontology engineering process. This article presents a general review of work related to types and tasks involving OL. These works consider fundamental types of Ontology Learning, schema extraction, creation and population, besides of evaluation methods and tools.
Down-regulation of miR-26 a-5 p and its regulatory roles in hepatocellular carcinoma : an in silico analysis

To investigate the clinical potential of miR-26a-5p in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and further reveal the latent molecular mechanism. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases were used to extract miR-26a-5p expression and its clinical potential. Afterwards a comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted with data from TCGA, GEO and literature. With regards of bioinformatics analysis, we obtained potential target genes via the intersection of literatures, 12 online databases, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in TCGA and natural language processing (NLP) analysis. The predicted target genes were subsequently analyzed by Gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis. In TCGA data, miR-26a-5p indicated lower expression in HCC tissues than adjacent benign liver tissues (P<0.001). Significant correlation between down-regulation of miR-26a-5p and male (P=0.002) was also discovered. The area under curve (AUC) in receiver operating characteristic (ROC) of miR-26a-5p was 0.828 (95% CI: 0.774-0.883, P<0.001) to diagnose HCC. Down-regulated miR-26a-5p was also represented in pooled metaanalysis (SMD=-0.62, 95% CI: -0.98, -0.26) with GEO and TCGA data together. The most prevailing GO terms of potential targets of miR-26a-5p were: response to steroid hormone stimulus, response to estrogen stimulus, extracellular space, and AT DNA binding. The KEGG pathway analysis mainly indicated focal adhesion and pathways in cancer, and ESR1 was highlighted by PPI analysis. Down-regulated miR-26a-5p may be crucial in tumorigenesis and progression, possessing potential diagnostic value in HCC. MiR-26a-5p exerted modulated functions via multiple target genes and pathways, which requires further validation.
Developmental dyscalculia and the teaching of arithmetic

To understand Developmental Dyscalculia and organize an inclusive education that is functional to ensure the overcoming of the difficulties involved, it is necessary to know how the arithmetic is processed in the brain, both in subjects with neurotypical functioning and in those who, instead, have abnormal neural functioning that characterizes the dyscalculia disorder. From this information it is possible to address the choices of methodological practices for the classroom setting, following the directions of the research path named “Cervello, Cognizione & Educazione” which traces the basic steps to make possible a link between the Cognitive Sciences and the Educational Sciences. This article aims to describe what is numerical cognition, making a short review of the most recent researches concerning dyscalculia in the context of Cognitive Sciences and to create a possible methodological approach useful for teaching arithmetic basic competencies, in a school inclusion perspective.
Researching norms, narratives, and transitional justice: focus group methodology in post-conflict Croatia

This article is based on the assumption that norms can help better understand one of the expressivist aims of transitional justice, that of building a new narrative about the past. The main argument is that focus groups, as an interactive method of inquiry, are well suited to investigating how this “judicial” narrative interacts with the official and dominant war narrative in Croatia. Focus groups are more adept at this than other methodological approaches since they can effectively reflect independence of opinion; they lead to more truthful answers through spontaneity; they effectively probe taken-for-granted concepts; and they can more easily overcome distrust in post-conflict societies, especially with ex-combatants. The approach faces new challenges in such a situation since recruitment problems, insider/outsider status, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other ethical concerns, present problems that often arise due to the group process. The powerful and unpredictable effect of the group dynamic can, therefore, provide a deep exploration of social norms, but it can also cause significant upset among participants. In this instance the methodology explores how widely accepted the war narrative is, how it is constructed, and how important the public believes it is not to question it.
Discovery of δ-Tolerance Closed Subgraphs on GPGPU

Frequent subgraph mining, i.e. a complete enumeration of subgraph patterns frequently appearing in graph databases, often generates unmanageable number of patterns and requires a long computation time. In this paper, to solve these two essential drawbacks in subgraph mining at a time, we develop a GPU-based pattern miner for delta-tolerance closed subgraphs. The delta-tolerance closed subgraph is an extension of closed subgraph for handling noise, and it can also represent closed and maximal subgraphs by setting the value of delta appropriately. A basic enumeration algorithm for delta-tolerance closed subgraphs consists of frequent subgraph enumeration, delta-closedness checking and delta-occurrence matching for pruning. We develop a GPU-based algorithm by incorporating delta-closedness checking and delta-occurrence matching on GPU with an existing GPU-based frequent subgraph mining. The performance improvements are observed in intensive experiments using real and synthetic datasets.