Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OR Practice - Selecting a Portfolio of Environmental Programs for a Synthetic Fuels Facility

This article describes how a U.S. Department of Energy steering committee used a decision analysis procedure to develop a portfolio of environmental and health research programs for a commercial-scale synthetic fuels facility. The procedure used information and insights from decision analyses conducted in five technical areas to support decision analysis at the portfolio level. The problem was complex because it included many combinations of studies that could be funded; multiple objectives in the five technical areas, as well as at the portfolio level; and uncertainties about research needs, the availability of technical data, and research costs. The article discusses: the rationale for using formal decision analysis, the main features of the procedure, and how the procedure provided the steering committee with a logical basis for evaluating a large number of diverse technical projects and, with the help of health and environmental experts, established research priorities and budget allocations in a logical and defensible manner.
Not like my mother : truth and the author in creative nonfiction

This exegesis examines how a writer can effectively negotiate the relationship between author, character, fact and truth, in a work of Creative Nonfiction. It was found that individual truths, in a work of Creative Nonfiction, are not necessarily universal truths due to individual, cultural, historical and religious circumstances. What was also identified, through the examination of published Creative Nonfiction, is a necessity to ensure there are clear demarcation lines between authorial truth and fiction. The Creative Nonfiction works examined, which established this framework for the reader, ensured an ethical relationship between author and audience. These strategies and frameworks were then applied to my own Creative Nonfiction.
Altered Cell Cycle Gene Expression and Apoptosis in Post-Implantation Dog Parthenotes

Mature oocytes can be parthenogenetically activated by a variety of methods and the resulting embryos are valuable for studies of the respective roles of paternal and maternal genomes in early mammalian development. In the present study, we report the first successful development of parthenogenetic canine embryos to the post-implantation stage. Nine out of ten embryo transfer recipients became pregnant and successful in utero development of canine parthenotes was confirmed. For further evaluation of these parthenotes, their fetal development was compared with artificially inseminated controls and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were compared using ACP RT-PCR, histological analysis and immunohistochemistry. We found formation of the limb-bud and no obvious differences in histological appearance of the canine parthenote recovered before degeneration occurred; however canine parthenotes were developmentally delayed with different cell cycle regulating-, mitochondria-related and apoptosis-related gene expression patterns compared with controls. In conclusion, our protocols were suitable for activating canine oocytes artificially and supported early fetal development. We demonstrated that the developmental abnormalities in canine parthenotes may result from defective regulation of apoptosis and aberrant gene expression patterns, and provided evidence that canine parthenotes can be a useful tool for screening and for comparative studies of imprinted genes.
ALCOHOL HEALTH AND RESEARCH WORLD

Examples of how individuals, public agencies, and private or voluntary organizations are working together to reduce drunk driving are presented. According to administrators of the largest driving under the influence (DUI) treatment program for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia, an overwhelming majority of those arrested for drunk driving are alcoholics or problem drinkers, and are unlikely to respond to short jail terms. Findings from a study of first drunk driving offenders in Pennsylvania's accelerated rehabilitation disposition (ARD) program, an alcohol education and driver safety program operated in conjunction with the Philadelphia court system, are reported. It was found that of those convicted of a first drunk driving offense, 90 percent were male, 41 percent were stopped for having caused an accident, and 45 percent were arrested for reckless driving or a hazardous moving violation. The average age of the group was 32 years, and their average blood alcohol concentration at the time of arrest was 0.19, well over the legal minimum for presumed intoxication (0.10). While these subjects had not previously been convicted of DUI, many reported that they suffered blackouts, had early morning drinking bouts, or had drinking habits that interfered with their daily lives. (Author/TRRL)
Empirical Evidence on the Importance of Aggregation, Asymmetry, and Jumps for Volatility Prediction

Many recent modelling advances in finance topics ranging from the pricing of volatility-based derivative products to asset management are predicated on the importance of jumps, or discontinuous movements in asset returns. In light of this, a number of recent papers have addressed volatility predictability, some from the perspective of the usefulness of jumps in forecasting volatility. Key papers in this area include Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold and Labys (2003), Corsi (2004), Andersen, Bollerslev and Diebold (2007), Corsi, Pirino and Reno (2008), Barndorff, Kinnebrock, and Shephard (2010), Patton and Shephard (2011), and the references cited therein. In this paper, we review the extant literature and then present new empirical evidence on the predictive content of realized measures of jump power variations (including upside and downside risk, jump asymmetry, and truncated jump variables), constructed using instantaneous returns, i.e., |r_{t}|^{q}, 0≤q≤6, in the spirit of Ding, Granger and Engle (1993) and Ding and Granger (1996). Our prediction experiments use high frequency price returns constructed using SP and our empirical implementation involves estimating linear and nonlinear heterogeneous autoregressive realized volatility (HAR-RV) type models. We find that past "large" jump power variations help less in the prediction of future realized volatility, than past "small" jump power variations. Additionally, we find evidence that past realized signed jump power variations, which have not previously been examined in this literature, are strongly correlated with future volatility, and that past downside jump variations matter in prediction. Finally, incorporation of downside and upside jump power variations does improve predictability, albeit to a limited extent.
Appearance-based visual localisation in outdoor environments with an omnidirectional camera

After achieving many goals in indoor robot navigation the focus of research is shifting to outdoor applications. This poses a new challenge since outdoor environments do not only lack the presence of mainly straight and close in range walls as can be found in indoor office environments but also come up with more dynamic lighting conditions. Thus localising the robot in its environment becomes a greater challenge. On the other hand robots can have the advantage of an additional sensory input the Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver which measures a global position of the robot and is not applicable indoors. Though it has a bounded error, the GPS position estimate can not be exclusively used for robot localisation since it is prone to jumps in precision and might include an offset over longer periods of time because of multipath reflections from buildings or trees. Therefore we use a visual localisation system which was made robust to changes in illumination and sensor occlusion. Our robot platform is a three-wheeled vehicle equipped with an omnidirectional camera as well as a low-cost GPS receiver, a laser range finder, sonar sensors and an inertial odometry measurement unit (see Figure 2(a)).
Emergent trends in the reported incidence of prostate cancer in Nigeria

Background To date there has not been any nationwide age-standardized incidence data reported for prostate cancer in Nigeria. We examined and integrated diverse trends in the age-specific incidence of prostate cancer into a comprehensive trend for Nigeria, and examined how best the existing data could generate a countrywide age-standardized incidence rate for the disease. Methods Data were obtained from studies undertaken between 1970 and 2007 in referral hospital-based cancer registries. Records from at least one tertiary hospital in each of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria were examined retrospectively. Data were also reported for the rural population in cross-sectional prospective studies. Age-standardized incidence rates and the annual incidence of disease were calculated. Results Higher incidence rates for prostate cancer during this period were recorded for patients aged 60–69 years and 70–79 years, with a lower incidence rate for patients aged younger than 50 years. An exponential annual incidence rate of disease was observed in the 50–79 year age group and peaked at 70–79 years before dropping again at age 80 years. The results showed metastasis in more than half of these hospital-based prostate tumors. Conclusion Our results suggest that prostate cancer occurs at a relatively young age in Nigerians and that hospital-based registry reports may not appropriately reflect the incidence of the disease in Nigeria. A countrywide screening program is urgently needed. Finally, the difference in reported stages of disease found in Nigerians and African-Americans versus Caucasians suggests biological differences in the prognosis. Nigeria may thus typify one of the ancestral populations that harbor inherited genes predisposing African-Americans to high-risk prostate cancer.
ProtSweep, 2Dsweep and DomainSweep: protein analysis suite at DKFZ

The wealth of transcript information that has been made publicly available in recent years has led to large pools of individual web sites offering access to bioinformatics software. However, finding out which services exist, what they can or cannot do, how to use them and how to feed results from one service to the next one in the right format can be very time and resource consuming, especially for non-experts. Automating this task, we present a suite of protein annotation pipelines (tasks) developed at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) oriented to protein annotation by homology (ProtSweep), by domain analysis (DomainSweep), and by secondary structure elements (2Dsweep). The aim of these tasks is to perform an exhaustive structural and functional analysis employing a wide variety of methods in combination with the most updated public databases. The three servers are available for academic users at the HUSAR open server http://genius.embnet. dkfz-heidelberg.de/menu/biounit/open-husar/
The Power of Local Optimization: Approximation Algorithms for Maximum-Leaf Spanning Tree

Given an undirected graph G, finding a spanning tree of G with the maximum number of leaves is NP-complete [5]. We use the simple technique of local optimization to provide the first approximation algorithms for this problem. Our algorithms run in polynomial time to produce locally optimal solutions. We prove that such locally optimal solutions to this problem are globally near-optimal. In particular, we prove that two such algorithms have performance ratios of 5 and 3. The latter algorithm employs more powerful local-improvement steps than the former and hence has higher running time. This may indicate an interesting trade-off between the performance ratios and the running times of the series of algorithms we describe.
Aspergillus flavus: the major producer of aflatoxin.

UNLABELLED SUMMARY Aspergillus flavus is an opportunistic pathogen of crops. It is important because it produces aflatoxin as a secondary metabolite in the seeds of a number of crops both before and after harvest. Aflatoxin is a potent carcinogen that is highly regulated in most countries. In the field, aflatoxin is associated with drought-stressed oilseed crops including maize, peanut, cottonseed and tree nuts. Under the right conditions, the fungus will grow and produce aflatoxin in almost any stored crop seed. In storage, aflatoxin can be controlled by maintaining available moisture at levels below that which will support growth of A. flavus. A number of field control measures are being utilized or explored, including: modification of cultural practices; development of resistant crops through molecular and proteomic techniques; competitive exclusion using strains that do not produce aflatoxin; and development of field treatments that would block aflatoxin production. TAXONOMY Aspergillus flavus Link (teleomorph unknown) kingdom Fungi, phyllum Ascomycota, order Eurotiales, class Eurotiomycetes, family Trichocomaceae, genus Aspergillus, species flavus. HOST RANGE Aspergillus flavus has a broad host range as an opportunistic pathogen/saprobe. It is an extremely common soil fungus. The major concern with this fungus in agriculture is that it produces highly carcinogenic toxins called aflatoxins which are a health hazard to animals. In the field, A. flavus is predominantly a problem in the oilseed crops maize, peanuts, cottonseed and tree nuts. Under improper storage conditions, A. flavus is capable of growing and forming aflatoxin in almost any crop seed. It also is a pathogen of animals and insects. In humans it is predominantly an opportunistic pathogen of immunosuppressed patients. USEFUL WEBSITES http://www.aspergillusflavus. org, http://www.aflatoxin. info/health.asp, plantpathology.tamu. edu/aflatoxin, http://www.aspergillus. org.uk.
p95vav associates with the nuclear protein Ku-70

The proto-oncogene vav is expressed solely in hematopoietic cells and plays an important role in cell signaling, although little is known about the proteins involved in these pathways. To gain further information, the Src homology 2 (SH2) and 3 (SH3) domains of Vav were used to screen a lymphoid cell cDNA library by the yeast two-hybrid system. Among the positive clones, we detected a nuclear protein, Ku-70, which is the DNA-binding element of the DNA-dependent protein kinase. In Jurkat and UT7 cells, Vav is partially localized in the nuclei, as judged from immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy studies. By using glutathione S-transferase fusion proteins derived from Ku-70 and coimmunoprecipitation experiments with lysates prepared from human thymocytes and Jurkat and UT7 cells, we show that Vav associates with Ku-70. The interaction of Vav with Ku-70 requires only the 150-residue carboxy-terminal portion of Ku-70, which binds to the 25 carboxy-terminal residues of the carboxy SH3 domain of Vav. A proline-to-leucine mutation in the carboxy SH3 of Vav that blocks interaction with proline-rich sequences does not modify the binding of Ku-70, which lacks this motif. Therefore, the interaction of Vav with Ku-70 may be a novel form of protein-protein interaction. The potential role of Vav/Ku-70 complexes is discussed.
Enzyme-assisted vitrectomy in enucleated pig eyes: a comparison of hyaluronidase, chondroitinase, and plasmin

Purpose. Facilitation of vitrectomy by vitreolytic enzymes may be of great value in complicated or office-procedure vitreo-retinal surgery. In this study, we quantified and compared the effect of hyaluronidase, chondroitinase, and plasmin pre-incubation on vitrectomy rate and explored potential retinal damage. Methods. Freshly enucleated pigs eyes were incubated (1 or 3 hours) with an intravitreally injected enzyme or control solution. Enzyme doses were 100 and 1000 U for hyaluronidase, 1 and 2 U for chondroitinase, 3 and 30 U for plasmin. The eyes were weighed before and after 10 minutes of one-port vitrectomy, the difference representing the amount of removed vitreous. Light microscopy was used to assess potential damage to the retina. Results. All enzymes significantly increased the amount of removed vitreous at all doses and incubation periods. The highest increase was found with hyaluronidase 1000 U, 3 hours, the lowest with chondroitinase 1 U, 1 hour. Damage occasionally occurred to the internal limiting membrane and very rarely to the nerve fiber layer. No damage at all was seen in the 100 and 1000 U hyaluronidase (1-hour incubation) groups. Conclusions. Hyaluronidase, chondroitinase, and plasmin are good candidates for enzyme-assisted vitrectomy. Although retinal structural damage was very rarely seen, safety concerns will have to be investigated further.
Salmonella enteritidis phage type 4 from the contents of intact eggs: a study involving naturally infected hens

SUMMARY Two small flocks of egg-laying hens, naturally infected with Salmonella enteritidis. were housed in individual cages so that their eggs could be identified. During a longitudinal study where the contents of 1119 eggs were examined, 11 were positive for S. enteritidis. One isolate was phage type (PT) 33 the others were PT4. The production of infected eggs was clustered though intermittent. The positive eggs. which were produced by 10 of the 35 hens, were all found to contain fewer than 10 salmonellas. Some birds were also apparently carrying S. hadar PT14 as this organism was isolated from the contents of six Cracked eggs.
Towards weaving software architecture models

Increasingly, UML metamodels and profiles are adopted to specify software architectures from different angles in order to cope with analysis specific modeling needs. In particular, whenever two or more analysis techniques are required over the same architectural model, different modeling tools and notations are required, and feedback from one model to the other is not propagated since integration is not universally established. Model-driven architecture offers a conceptual framework for defining a set of standards in support of model-driven development, where models are first class entities and play a central role in software development. In this paper, the coexistence and integration of different analysis techniques at the architectural level is reduced to the problem of enriching multi-view descriptions with proper UML elements by means of directed weaving operations
Cholesterol-induced interfacial area condensations of galactosylceramides and sphingomyelins with identical acyl chains.

The interfacial interactions occurring between cholesterol and either galactosylceramides (GalCers) or sphingomyelins (SMs) with identical acyl chains have been investigated using Langmuir film balance techniques. Included among the synthesized GalCers and SMs were species containing palmitoyl (16:0), stearoyl (18:0), oleoyl [18:1 delta 9(c)], nervonoyl [24:1 delta 15(c)], or linoleoyl [18:2 delta 9,12(c)] acyl residues. The cholesterol-induced condensations in the average molecular areas of the monolayers were determined by classic mean molecular area vs composition plots as well as by expressing the changes in terms of sphingolipid cross-sectional area reduction over the surface pressure range from 1 to 40 mN/m (at 1 mN/m intervals). The results show that, at surface pressures approximating bilayer conditions (30 mN/m), acyl heterogeneity in naturally occurring SMs (bovine of egg SM) enhanced the area condensation induced by cholesterol compared with their predominant molecular species (e.g. 18:0 SM in bovine SM; 16:0 SM in egg SM). Nonetheless, cholesterol always had a greater condensing effect on SM compared to GalCer when these sphingolipids were acyl chain matched and in similar phase states (prior to mixing with cholesterol). Also, the cholesterol-induced area changes for a given sphingolipid type (e.g. SM or GalCer) were similar whether the acyl chains were saturated, cis-delta 9-monounsaturated, or cis-delta 9,12-diunsaturated if the sphingolipids were in similar phase states (prior to mixing with cholesterol) and compared at equivalent surface pressures. These results indicate that, under conditions were hydrocarbon structure is matched, the sphingolipid head group plays a dominant role in determining the extent to which cholesterol reduces sphingolipid cross-sectional area. Despite the larger cholesterol-induced area condensations observed in SMs compared to those in GalCers, the molecular-packing densities showed that equimolar GalCer-cholesterol films were generally packed as tight as or slightly tighter than those of the SM-cholesterol films. The results are discussed in terms of a molecular model for sphingolipid-cholesterol interactions. Our findings also do only raise questions as to whether cholesterol-induced condensation data provide a reliable measure of the affinity, i.e. interaction strength, between cholesterol and different lipids but also provide insight regarding the stability of sterol/sphingolipid 1-1 rich microdomains thought to exist in caveolae and other cell membrane regions.
SVM based on personal identification system using Electrocardiograms

This paper presents a new algorithm for personal identification from their Electrocardiograms (ECG) which is based on morphological descriptors and Hermite Polynomials Expansion coefficients (HPEc). After preprocessing, we extracted ten morphological descriptors which were divided into homogeneous groups (amplitude, surface interval and slope) and we extracted sixty Hermite Polynomials Expansion coefficients(HPEc) from each heartbeat. For the classification, we employed a binary Support Vector Machines with Gaussian kernel and we adopted a particular strategy: we first classified groups of morphological descriptors separately then we combined them in one system. On the other hand, we classified the Hermite Polynomials Expansion coefficients apart and we associated them with all groups of morphological descriptors in a single system in order to improve overall performance. We tested our algorithm on 18 different healthy signals of the MIT_BIH database. The analysis of different groups separately showed that the best recognition performance is 96.45% for all morphological descriptors and the results of experiments showed that the proposed hybrid approach has led to an overall maximum of 98.97%.
Intelligent User Interfaces with Adaptive Knowledge Assistants

One promising application of intelligent user interfaces (IUIs) is the support of daily tasks for information workers. In such a scenario, users perform various general and domain-specific information generation, processing, and retrieval tasks (e.g., processing data, creating reports, and searching for previous results). Intelligent user interfaces can improve the daily lives of such workers through activities such as task management, including managing the user’s todo list and schedule (Conley and Carpenter, 2007; Myers et al., 2007), as well as summarizing meeting notes (Basu et al., 2008) or recommending tasks for the user to perform (Cosley et al., 2007) or users to collaborate with (Guy et al., 2009).
Generality of leaf traits relationships of dominant species along the secondary succession in the Loess Plateau of China

The study investigated the specific leaf area (SLA), leaf photosynthetic rates (Pn), leaf nitrogen contents (on mass and area bases, Nm and Na, respectively) and nitrogen use efficiencies (PNUE) of 18 dominant species of four secondary succession groups in the Loess Plateau. The leaf SLA, N m, P n and PNUE significantly differed among the different secondary succession groups ( P<0.05), but the leaf N a and leaf chlorophyll content (Chl) did not differ. SLA varied in a high → low → high pattern with the secondary succession, reaching the lowest point in the early forest community. The N m and Chl showed a double peak curve with the secondary succession and peaked in the shrub community. Of all the species, the photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiencies were positively correlated with the SLA, but negatively correlated with the N a. The SLA of all the species negatively correlated with the N a, but weak positively correlated with the Nm. The above resource capture-, use- and growth-related traits probably clarified the mechanism of the secondary succession in the Loess Plateau.