Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal effects are long‐lasting and influence female offspring's reproductive strategy in the swordtail fish Xiphophorus multilineatus

The adaptive benefits of maternal investment into individual offspring (inherited environmental effects) will be shaped by selection on mothers as well as their offspring, often across variable environments. We examined how a mother's nutritional environment interacted with her offspring's nutritional and social environment in Xiphophorus multilineatus, a live‐bearing fish. Fry from mothers reared on two different nutritional diets (HQ = high quality and LQ = low quality) were all reared on a LQ diet in addition to being split between two social treatments: exposed to a large adult male during development and not exposed. Mothers raised on a HQ diet produce offspring that were not only initially larger (at 14 days of age), but grew faster, and were larger at sexual maturity. Male offspring from mothers raised on both diets responded to the exposure to courter males by growing faster; however, the response of their sisters varied with mother's diet; females from HQ diet mothers reduced growth if exposed to a courter male, whereas females from LQ diet mothers increased growth. Therefore, we detected variation in maternal investment depending on female size and diet, and the effects of this variation on offspring were long‐lasting and sex specific. Our results support the maternal stress hypothesis, with selection on mothers to reduce investment in low‐quality environments. In addition, the interaction we detected between the mother's nutritional environment and the female offspring's social environment suggests that female offspring adopted different reproductive strategies depending on maternal investment.
Automatic Editing in a Back-End Speech-to-Text System

Written documents created through dictation differ significantly from a true verbatim transcript of the recorded speech. This poses an obstacle in automatic dictation systems as speech recognition output needs to undergo a fair amount of editing in order to turn it into a document that complies with the customary standards. We present an approach that attempts to perform this edit from recognized words to final document automatically by learning the appropriate transformations from example documents. This addresses a number of problems in an integrated way, which have so far been studied independently, in particular automatic punctuation, text segmentation, error correction and disfluency repair. We study two different learning methods, one based on rule induction and one based on a probabilistic sequence model. Quantitative evaluation shows that the probabilistic method performs more accurately.
An Update of the International Society of Sexual Medicine's Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Premature Ejaculation (PE)

Introduction In 2009, the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM) convened a select panel of experts to develop an evidence-based set of guidelines for patients suffering from lifelong premature ejaculation (PE). That document reviewed definitions, etiology, impact on the patient and partner, assessment, and pharmacological, psychological, and combined treatments. It concluded by recognizing the continually evolving nature of clinical research and recommended a subsequent guideline review and revision every fourth year. Consistent with that recommendation, the ISSM organized a second multidisciplinary panel of experts in April 2013, which met for 2 days in Bangalore, India. This manuscript updates the previous guidelines and reports on the recommendations of the panel of experts. Aim The aim of this study was to develop clearly worded, practical, evidenced-based recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of PE for family practice clinicians as well as sexual medicine experts. Method A comprehensive literature review was performed. Results This article contains the report of the second ISSM PE Guidelines Committee. It offers a new unified definition of PE and updates the previous treatment recommendations. Brief assessment procedures are delineated, and validated diagnostic and treatment questionnaires are reviewed. Finally, the best practices treatment recommendations are presented to guide clinicians, both familiar and unfamiliar with PE, in facilitating treatment of their patients. Conclusion Development of guidelines is an evolutionary process that continually reviews data and incorporates the best new research. We expect that ongoing research will lead to a more complete understanding of the pathophysiology as well as new efficacious and safe treatments for this sexual dysfunction. We again recommend that these guidelines be reevaluated and updated by the ISSM in 4 years. Althof SE, McMahon CG, Waldinger MD, Serefoglu EC, Shindel AW, Adaikan PG, Becher E, Dean J, Giuliano F, Hellstrom WJG, Giraldi A, Glina S, Incrocci L, Jannini E, McCabe M, Parish S, Rowland D, Segraves RT, Sharlip I, and Torres LO. An update of the International Society of Sexual Medicine's guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of premature ejaculation (PE). Sex Med 2014;2:60–90.
Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications Line Crossing Minimization on Metro Maps

We consider the problem of drawing a set of simple paths along the edges of an embedded underlying graph G = (V, E), so that the total number of crossings among pairs of paths is minimized. This problem arises when drawing metro maps, where the embedding of G depicts the structure of the underlying network, the nodes of G correspond to train stations, an edge connecting two nodes implies that there exists a railway track connecting them, whereas the paths illustrate the lines connecting terminal stations. We call this the metro-line crossing minimization problem (MLCM). As a first step towards solving MLCM in arbitrary graphs, we study path and tree networks. We examine several variations of the problem for which we develop algorithms for obtaining optimal solutions.
Non‐food application of camelina meal: Development of sustainable and green biodegradable paper‐camelina composite sheets and fibers

Recycled newspaper-reinforced sustainable and biodegradable composite sheets and fibers were fabricated with camelina meal, a by-product of camelina oil extraction-based resin. To prepare uniform composite sheets and fibers, the camelina meal was ground and sieved to remove large particles and some impurities and converted into resin by dissolving it in water and precuring at 75°C water bath. Sieving process improved protein contents by 4.7% and reduced fat contents by 4.2%. Recycled newspaper was used as a reinforcing agent to improve tensile properties and increase water resistance of the camelina meal-based biodegradable composite sheets and fibers. Increasing newspaper content increased fracture stress, Young's modulus, and water resistance property. However, the uniform sheet could not be formed when recycled newspaper content was above 30% (wt/wt camelina). Scanning electron microscope photomicrographs of fracture surfaces showed that at higher newspaper content longer fibers protruded out from the camelina resin. POLYM. COMPOS. , 33:1969–1976, 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers
Generating Contour Maps for Dynamic Fields Monitored by Sensor Networks

LIBRARY RIGHTS STATEMENT In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Maine, I agree that the library shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for " fair use " copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Librarian. It is understood that any copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Wireless sensor networks provide a new tool that enables researchers and scientists to efficiently monitor dynamic fields. In order to extend the lifetime of the network, it is important for us to minimize network data transmission as much as possible. Previous work proposed many useful aggregation techniques to answer max, min and average questions, and some of them have been employed in real applications. But we cannot get spatial information from these aggregation techniques. This thesis presents an efficient aggregation technique for continuous generation of contour maps for a dynamic field monitored by a wireless sensor network. A contour map is a useful data representation schema that provides an efficient way to visualize an approximation to the monitored field. In this thesis, we discuss an energy-efficient technique, which we call Isovector Aggregation, for generating such contours using an in-network approach. Our technique achieves energy efficiency in two principal ways. Firstly, only a selection of nodes close to contours are chosen to report, and each reported message contains information about a part or all of the contours, rather than any single node's ID and value pair. Secondly, contours are progressively merged and simplified along the data routing tree, which eliminates many unnecessary contour points from contour vectors before they are transmitted back to the base station. Using Isovector Aggregation, the base station receives a complete representation of the contours that requires no further processing. Analysis shows that for region-related monitoring, Isovector Aggregation is the only technique that has) (n O traffic generation and that considers in-network traffic reduction at the same time. These two factors make Isovector Aggregation highly scalable. Experimental results using simulations also show that Isovector Aggregation involves considerably less data transmission compared to other approaches, such as the no-aggregation approach and the Isolines Aggregation technique, without compromising the accuracy of representations of the baseline maps. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael F. Worboys for …
Meningioma: The Unusual Growth in a Transsexual Patient after Estrogen-Progesterone Therapy

The frequency of meningioma is nearly twice as high in females as in males [1]. This difference in incidence is partly explained by molecular and immunehistochemical studies’ indicating that meningioma is sensitive to hormones. Approximately 70% of meningiomas express progesterone receptors and 30% express estrogen receptors [2-4]. It has also been observed that meningioma cells tend to proliferate when exposed to estrogen and progesterone [4].
Hydrothermal impacts on trace element and isotope ocean biogeochemistry

Hydrothermal activity occurs in all ocean basins, releasing high concentrations of key trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) into the oceans. Importantly, the calculated rate of entrainment of the entire ocean volume through turbulently mixing buoyant hydrothermal plumes is so vigorous as to be comparable to that of deep-ocean thermohaline circulation. Consequently, biogeochemical processes active within deep-ocean hydrothermal plumes have long been known to have the potential to impact global-scale biogeochemical cycles. More recently, new results from GEOTRACES have revealed that plumes rich in dissolved Fe, an important micronutrient that is limiting to productivity in some areas, are widespread above mid-ocean ridges and extend out into the deep-ocean interior. While Fe is only one element among the full suite of TEIs of interest to GEOTRACES, these preliminary results are important because they illustrate how inputs from seafloor venting might impact the global biogeochemical budgets of many other TEIs. To determine the global impact of seafloor venting, however, requires two key questions to be addressed: (i) What processes are active close to vent sites that regulate the initial high-temperature hydrothermal fluxes for the full suite of TEIs that are dispersed through non-buoyant hydrothermal plumes? (ii) How do those processes vary, globally, in response to changing geologic settings at the seafloor and/or the geochemistry of the overlying ocean water? In this paper, we review key findings from recent work in this realm, highlight a series of key hypotheses arising from that research and propose a series of new GEOTRACES modelling, section and process studies that could be implemented, nationally and internationally, to address these issues. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry’.
Association Between Optimism and Serum Antioxidants in the Midlife in the United States Study

Objective Psychological and physical health are often conceptualized as the absence of disease; there is less research that addresses positive psychological and physical functioning. For example, optimism has been linked with reduced disease risk and biological dysfunction, but very little research has evaluated associations with markers of healthy biological functioning. Thus, we investigated the association between two indicators of positive health: optimism and serum antioxidants. Methods The cross-sectional association between optimism and antioxidant concentrations was evaluated in 982 men and women from the Midlife in the United States study. Primary measures included self-reported optimism (assessed with the revised Life Orientation Test) and serum concentrations of nine different antioxidants (carotenoids and vitamin E). Regression analyses evaluated the relationship between optimism and antioxidant concentrations in models adjusted for demographics, health status, and health behaviors. Results For every standard deviation increase in optimism, carotenoid concentrations increased by 3% to 13% in age-adjusted models. Controlling for demographic characteristics and health status attenuated this association. Fruit and vegetable consumption and smoking status were identified as potential pathways underlying the association between optimism and serum carotenoids. Optimism was not significantly associated with vitamin E. Conclusions Optimism was associated with greater carotenoid concentrations, and this association was partially explained by diet and smoking status. The direction of effects cannot be conclusively determined. Effects may be bidirectional given that optimists are likely to engage in health behaviors associated with more serum antioxidants, and more serum antioxidants are likely associated with better physical health that enhances optimism.
Crystallization Pathways in Biomineralization

A crystallization pathway describes the movement of ions from their source to the final product. Cells are intimately involved in biological crystallization pathways. In many pathways the cells utilize a unique strategy: They temporarily concentrate ions in intracellular membrane-bound vesicles in the form of a highly disordered solid phase. This phase is then transported to the final mineralization site, where it is destabilized and crystallizes. We present four case studies, each of which demonstrates specific aspects of biological crystallization pathways: seawater uptake by foraminifera, calcite spicule formation by sea urchin larvae, goethite formation in the teeth of limpets, and guanine crystal formation in fish skin and spider cuticles. Three representative crystallization pathways are described, and aspects of the different stages of crystallization are discussed. An in-depth understanding of these complex processes can lead to new ideas for synthetic crystallization processes of interest to mate.
Student understanding of the C++ notional machine through traditional teaching with conceptual contraposition and program memory tracing

In order to learn a programming language, a correct understanding of its notional machine is mandatory. Students acquire that comprehension mainly through visual and verbal explanations provided by professors, books, videos, and other instructional materials. This research applied the conceptual contraposition technique and program memory tracing technique to the prevalent teaching method in our country: the lecture. The understanding of the C++ notional machine was evaluated on students of a Programming II (CS2) course that implemented the mentioned methods. Results revealed that these techniques applied to the lecture are insufficient to help students develop satisfactory mental models of the C++ notional machine.
A Hardware Accelerator with Variable Pixel Representation & Skip Mode Prediction for Feature Point Detection Part of SIFT Algorithm

Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is well accepted as a robust feature point detection algorithm, which is invariant to rotation, scaling, illumination and viewpoint changes. Though powerful, high computation complexity acts as a bottleneck of the real-time systems. It is not until recently that the only hardware implementation scheme is proposed to reach real-time processing. In this paper, we propose a hardware accelerator structure of the Feature Point Detection part in SIFT which is possible to implement on FPGA. We apply integer-based Variable Pixel Representation which
Towards the Identification of the Optimal Number of Relevance Categories

In this paper, we are concerned with participants' confidence in their judgments of the relevance of bibliographic records to particular research questions. We describe an empirical investigation of the association between judges' confidence and the number of categories for a relevance rating scale. Participants rated the relevance of bibliographic records, and recorded their confidence in the relevance ratings. We hypothesize that confidence in relevance judgments is a function of the number of relevance categories that are available in the rating scale. We consider scales ranging from 2 to 11 points, and define the optimal scale as the one for which participants express a maximum level of confidence. A pilot study finds no optimal number of points (because confidence continues to improve slightly through the 11-point scale); nevertheless, the study shows little added benefit associated with scales that have more than six points. On the basis of the findings in that study, we adjusted our experimental procedures and found, in our principal study, that the optimal scale for maximizing confidence in relevance judgments has approximately seven points. We also present exploratory results involving gender effects, and the comparison of scales that have an odd number of points (for which a neutral judgment is possible) with scales that have an even number of points.
RADISH: Always-on sound and complete race detection in software and hardware

Data-race freedom is a valuable safety property for multithreaded programs that helps with catching bugs, simplifying memory consistency model semantics, and verifying and enforcing both atomicity and determinism. Unfortunately, existing software-only dynamic race detectors are precise but slow; proposals with hardware support offer higher performance but are imprecise. Both precision and performance are necessary to achieve the many advantages always-on dynamic race detection could provide.
Correction: Strong inter-population cooperation leads to partner intermixing in microbial communities

Patterns of spatial positioning of individuals within microbial communities are often critical to community function. However, understanding patterning in natural communities is hampered by the multitude of cell–cell and cell–environment interactions as well as environmental variability. Here, through simulations and experiments on communities in defined environments, we examined how ecological interactions between two distinct partners impacted community patterning. We found that in strong cooperation with spatially localized large fitness benefits to both partners, a unique pattern is generated: partners spatially intermixed by appearing successively on top of each other, insensitive to initial conditions and interaction dynamics. Intermixing was experimentally observed in two obligatory cooperative systems: an engineered yeast community cooperating through metabolite-exchanges and a methane-producing community cooperating through redox-coupling. Even in simulated communities consisting of several species, most of the strongly-cooperating pairs appeared intermixed. Thus, when ecological interactions are the major patterning force, strong cooperation leads to partner intermixing. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.00230. 001
Enhancing Lean Software Development by using Devops Practices

Competition between companies has made a great pressure to produce new features continuously as fast as possible, subsequently successful software companies needs to learn more about customers and get new features out to them more rapidly. Lean software development cannot integrate between development and operation teams. DevOps enables this merge between them and creates operational parts as one part of the development process and made it up to date during the development phase, so reduced errors during the deployment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how can use devops practices to improve the performance of lean software development production process and introduces a new framework that merge lean and devops process. The research has been evaluated on a sample of 2 departments in Faculty of Commerce at Helwan University. The results of this work have led to reduce the response delivery time for customers and rapid feedback provides accurate expectations for customer needs that lead to lower levels of deployment pains and lower change fail rates.
P‐62: Grating‐Based Optical Film for High‐Efficiency Backlights

LCD backlights have to fulfill somewhat ambivalent requirements: high luminance and uniform emission. Utilizing the characteristics of diffraction gratings, we have developed micro‐patterned optical films which provide both highly collimated emission and good uniformity. The design strategies, optical characteristics and high‐precision patterning of the films are reported.
Characterizing achievable rates in multi-hop wireless networks: the joint routing and scheduling problem

This paper considers the problem of determining the achievable rates in multi-hop wireless networks. We consider the problem of jointly routing the flows and scheduling transmissions to achieve a given rate vector. We develop tight necessary and sufficient conditions for the achievability of the rate vector. We develop efficient and easy to implement Fully Polynomial Time Approximation Schemes for solving the routing problem. The scheduling problem is a solved as a graph edge-coloring problem. We show that this approach guarantees that the solution obtained is within 67% of the optimal solution in the worst case and, in practice, is typically within about 80% of the optimal solution. The approach that we use is quite flexible and is a promising method to handle more sophisticated interference conditions, multiple channels, multiple antennas, and routing with diversity requirements.
Mold delamination and die fracture analysis of mechatronic packages

Multichip Mechatronic Power Packages have been developed in Motorola for automotive applications. Copper heat sink-based metal substrates were used to improve thermal and electrical performance. In the early stage of development, mold delamination and die cracking have been observed after assembly. With some mold compound, die backside has large delaminated areas, while with other mold compound, delamination stops early but die cracks. Finite element analysis, incorporated with interface fracture mechanics method, was conducted to understand these phenomena. Impact of mold material properties and package geometry on post-assembly delamination was evaluated. Excellent agreements have been obtained between experimental data and the simulation results. The phenomenon of crack branching into the die was also studied. Finite element simulation can be used to predict whether and when the crack at the interface will turn and crack the die. With a thorough understanding of the failure mechanism, both mold delamination and die cracks have been eliminated completely in the final package development.