Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of the association between the C 677 T and A 1298 C polymorphisms of the MTHFR gene and the development risk of azoospermia and oligozoospermia in Turkish infertile men

Amaç: Bu çalışmada, non-obstrüktif azospermik ve şiddetli oligospermik infertil Türk erkeklerinde açıklanamayan infertilite ile MTHFR -677C/T (rs1801133) ve -1298A/C (rs1801131) gen polimorfizmleri arasındaki ilişkinin araştırılmasını amaçladık. Gereç ve Yöntem: Çalışma grubu, non-obstrüktif azospermik 50 hasta, şiddetli azospermik 50 hasta ve sperm parametreleri normal olup birden fazla çocuğu olan sağlıklı 50 bireyden oluşmaktadır. Genotipleme, realtime PCR sonrası erime eğrisi analizi ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bulgular: 677CC genotipinin dağılımı kontrol grubunda infertil gruptan belirgin olarak daha yüksek saptanmıştır (p=0.046). İnfertil hasta grubunda polimorfik T alel frekansı kontrol grubundan daha yüksektir (p=0.015). A1298C genotipi için ise infertil grup ve kontrol grubu arasında frekans ve alelik dağılım açısından herhangi farklılık saptanmamıştır. Sonuç: MTHFR 677TT genotipi özellikle oligospermli ve non-obstrüktif azospermli grupta açıklanamayan erkek infertilitesi için genetik risk faktörüdür. Anahtar Sözcükler: MTHFR, C677T, A1298C, polimorfizm, azosperm, oligosperm.
Use of Smoking Cessation Aids: Role of Perceived Safety and Efficacy

The majority of smokers indicate that they would like to quit. It has been estimated that approximately three quarters of Australian smokers have tried to change their behaviour in the last 12 months (Scollo & Winstanley, 2008); similarly more than half of US smokers report having tried to quit in the last year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011). Despite their interest in quitting, the proportion of smokers who successfully quit each year is very low (CDC, 2011). While other factors are also important, poor cessation rates can partly be attributed to the low uptake of efficacious smoking cessation methods, particularly pharmacotherapies (Shiffman, Brockwell, et al., 2008).
The effect of motivational arousal through films on salivary immunoglobulin A

Abstract One-hundred and thirty-two college students were exposed in small groups to two films which contrasted in the extent to which they aroused either power or affiliation motivation. In previous studies high power motivation, if it is inhibited, has been associated with lower levels of salivary immunoglobulin A (S-Ig A), and high affiliation motivation, if it is not inhibited, is associated with higher concentrations of S-Ig A. The film which aroused power motivation more was not followed by a decrease in S-Ig A concentrations as predicted, but the film was followed by a significant reduction in S-Ig A concentrations for those individuals with the inhibited power motive syndrome at baseline as compared to individuals characterized by other motive syndromes. The film which aroused affiliation motivation more was followed by an increase in S-Ig A concentrations immediately afterwards, and this increase was sustained an hour later when subjects continued to dwell on the loving relationships that charact.
Agricultural Biodiversity and Neoliberal Regimes of Agri-Environmental Governance in Australia

International agreements highlight the centrality of agricultural biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides to human well-being, but provide little guidance on how to integrate agrobiodiversity within workable national regimes of governance. Complicating this picture further, it is not species richness per se that underwrites the resilience and productivity of agroecosystems but the functional relationships between organisms and ecosystem components at a variety of scales. Like many others, Australia's national strategy for biodiversity conservation acknowledges the importance of functional biodiversity but, in reality, focuses most attention on the protection of `wild' biodiversity from unsympathetic land use. In constructing a workable regime of governance for agricultural biodiversity, Australian governments have been particularly concerned to maintain and extend the neoliberal project of market rule. Biodiversity loss is defined as an outcome of market failure best addressed through various types of market reform. However, new tensions have been created between the totalizing logic of market rule and the spatio-temporal variability and specificity of biodiversity management. Despite the positive emphasis of Australian agri-environmental policy on planning and capacity building, declining terms of trade for agricultural produce are likely to make it very difficult for the majority of landholders to actively manage biological resources for which there are no direct and immediate productivity benefits.
Is Executive Functioning Deficient in ADHD? It Depends on Your Definitions and Your Measures

NOTICE TO NON-PROFESSIONALS The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as a substitute for consultation with health care professionals. ADHD is associated with deficits in executive functioning (EF), particularly on measures of response inhibition and working memory (Boonstra, Oosterlaan, Sergeant, & Buitelaar, 2005; Frazier, Demareem, & Youngstrom, 2004; Hervey, Epstein, & Curry, 2004; Willcutt, Doyle, Nigg, Faraone, & Pennington, 2005). In contrast to these group level results using EF tests, analyses at the individual level reveal clinically significant deficits in just a minority (35–50%) of those with ADHD (Biederman, Petty, Fried, Fontanella, Doyle, Seidman, & Faraone, 2006; Willcutt et al., 2005). And the severity of ADHD symptoms may be only weakly correlated, if at all, with deficits on EF tests (Barkley, Murphy, & Fischer, 2008; Jonsdottir, Bouma, Sergeant, & Scherder, 2006; Stavro, Ettenhofer, & Nigg, 2007). Given these findings, some investigators have either concluded that ADHD is not a disorder of EF (Boonstra et al., 2005; Jonsdottir et al., 2006; Marchetta, Hurks, Krabbendam, & Jolles, 2008) or that only a subset may have EF deficits (Nigg, Willcutt, Doyle, & SonugaBarke, 2005; Willcutt et al., 2005). Underlying this conclusion, however, is a very important premise—that EF tests are the gold standard or most valid indicator of the presence of deficits in EF. Certainly, the vast majority of research on EF in ADHD reflects this stance as it has relied exclusively on EF tests as the primary index of EF deficits. Yet many previous writers on the topic of EF have noted some very troubling issues in prior efforts to conceptualize and assess EF (Barkley, 1997b, 2001; Denckla, 1996; Dimond, 1980; Eslinger, 1996; Hayes, Gifford, & Ruckstuhl, 1996). Space does not permit a detailed analysis—definition by definition—of all of the difficulties evident in prior efforts to define this construct (for a review of EF definitions, see Barkley, in press), but the major problems are worth some mention here before discussing the specific problems associated with using tests to evaluate EF. This discussion is a summary of a much lengthier critique published recently (Barkley, in press, 2011).
Method to build an initial adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy controller for joints control of a legged robot

Due to the complexity of walking robots which has in general a great number of degrees of freedom, cognitive modelling controller such as Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks…seems to be reasonable. Fuzzy Logic Controller is more used because it lets you describe desired system behaviour with simple “if-then” relations. But it has a major limitation because in many applications, the designer has to derive “if-then” rules manually by trial and error. In this paper, we show an original method to fix initial parameters of a Sugeno fuzzy controller apparently to Ziegler-Nichols rules. Simulations and application to a six-legged robot named AMRU5 has proved the effectiveness of this method. Then, we make the fuzzy controller obtained adaptive by combining it to Neural Networks technologies.
Towards Providing Data Validation as a Service

Data validation is one of the most important and, possibly, most under-valued task in an organization. Without clean data, an organization cannot employ sophisticated analysis and optimization tools to strive for excellence in operations, delivery or planning. Organizations have started to realize the value of data and its impact on their efficiency. Typically, they either develop in-house solutions or purchase industry standard solutions. In this work, we propose an alternative of data validation as a service offering. We argue that such a service would be a profitable proposition for both the parties, provider as well as consumer. We present a general framework to enable such an offering. We provide details on one such implementation that we carried to showcase the viability of such an approach. We propose multiple variants of the offering to handle privacy concerns of the consumer. Finally, we present a set of initial results comparing the different variants.
Topographic/isostatic evaluation of newgeneration GOCE gravity field models

[1] We use gravity implied by the Earth's rock-equivalent topography (RET) and modeled isostatic compensation masses to evaluate the new global gravity field models (GGMs) from European Space Agency (ESA)'s Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite gravimetry mission. The topography is now reasonably well-known over most of the Earth's landmasses, and also where conventional GGM evaluation is prohibitive due to the lack (or unavailability) of ground-truth gravity data. We construct a spherical harmonic representation of Earth's RET to derive band-limited topography-implied gravity, and test the somewhat simplistic Airy/Heiskanen and Pratt/Hayford hypotheses of isostatic compensation, but which did not improve the agreement between gravity from the uncompensated RET and GOCE. The third-generation GOCE GGMs (based on 12 months of space gravimetry) resolve the Earth's gravity field effectively up to spherical harmonic degree ∼200–220 (∼90–100 km resolution). Such scales could not be resolved from satellites before GOCE. From the three different GOCE processing philosophies currently in use by ESA, the time-wise and direct approaches exhibit the highest sensitivity to short-scale gravity recovery, being better than the space-wise approach. Our topography-implied gravity comparisons bring evidence of improvements from GOCE to gravity field knowledge over the Himalayas, Africa, the Andes, Papua New Guinea and Antarctic regions. In attenuated form, GOCE captures topography-implied gravity signals up to degree ∼250 (∼80 km resolution), suggesting that other signals (originating, e.g., from the crust-mantle boundary and buried loads) are captured as well, which might now improve our knowledge on the Earth's lithosphere structure at previously unresolved spatial scales.
Direct debit or pay in person? Power, action, and goal maintenance

Abstract Power leads to action and facilitates goal pursuit. The present study examines the joint effects of power and action demands on the ability to maintain the pursuit of goals. It is proposed that the power advantage in goal pursuit is particularly pronounced when goal striving requires high level of activity. Participants were assigned to a powerful or a powerless role and pursued a goal either in a passive or in an active self-regulatory mode. Level of activity affected powerless but not powerful participants: powerless participants gave up goal pursuit earlier when the level of activity required to maintain the goal was high (i.e., showed the typical passive-option effect), whereas this was not the case for powerful participants. The implications of these findings are discussed.
A Linkage Analysis of D 17 S 74 ( CMM 86 ) in Thirty-Five Families with Premenopausal Bilateral Breast Cancer 1

Materials and Methods We report here results of a linkage analysis of a marker in 35 families in which the proband had premenopansal bilateral breast cancer. This group is of particular interest given their high family risk and the question of etiological heterogeneity. Probands were ascertained from cancer registries in Los Angeles County and Connecticut and major hospitals in Montreal and Quebec. Assuming no residual heterogeneity and summing lod scores over all families, we obtained strong evidence against tight linkage (e .g . , lod score at O = 0.000001 is -3.39). To address the issue of heterogeneity, we performed admixture and predivided sample analyses. Using an admixture model we were able to reject the hypothesis of no linkage v e r s u s that of linkage with homogeneity (P = 0.045). However, we were unable to reject the hypothesis of no linkage v e r s u s linkage with heterogeneity (P = 0.119) or to distinguish between linkage with homogeneity and linkage with heterogeneity (P =0.500). Predivided sample analyses based upon age of onset, pathological characteristics, time between diagnoses of the breast cancers in each bilateral proband, and the span of ages at diagnoses within a family did not discriminate between apparently linked and unlinked families.
Pocket cloudlets

Cloud services accessed through mobile devices suffer from high network access latencies and are constrained by energy budgets dictated by the devices' batteries. Radio and battery technologies will improve over time, but are still expected to be the bottlenecks in future systems. Non-volatile memories (NVM), however, may continue experiencing significant and steady improvements in density for at least ten more years. In this paper, we propose to leverage the abundance in memory capacity of mobile devices to mitigate latency and energy issues when accessing cloud services. We first analyze NVM technology scaling trends, and then propose a cloud service cache architecture that resides on the mobile device's NVM (pocket cloudlet). This architecture utilizes both individual user and community access models to maximize its hit rate, and subsequently reduce overall service latency and energy consumption. As a showcase we present the design, implementation and evaluation of PocketSearch, a search and advertisement pocket cloudlet. We perform mobile search characterization to guide the design of PocketSearch and evaluate it with 200 million mobile queries from the search logs of m.bing. com. We show that PocketSearch can serve, on average, 66% of the web search queries submitted by an individual user without having to use the slow 3G link, leading to 16x service access speedup. Finally, based on experience with PocketSearch we provide additional insight and guidelines on how future pocket cloudlets should be organized, from both an architectural and an operating system perspective.
How Different Cultural and Geographic Groups Perceive the Attractiveness of Active and Inactive Feminists

Summary In contrast to earlier studies which reported Ss selecting more or less attractive photos as being of advocates of the Feminist Movement, Ss (N = 228) from four different geographic and cultural samples selected similarly attractive photos of both attributed advocates and attributed critics. However, in all samples, Ss selected less attractive photos as being of either outspoken advocates or outspoken critics of Feminism. Neither sex of photo nor sex of Ss was a determinant in attractiveness attribution.
Vacuolar H+-ATPase Binding to Microfilaments

Vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase) binds microfilaments, and that interaction may be mediated by an actin binding domain in subunit B of the enzyme. To test for possible physiologic functions of the actin binding activity of V-ATPase, early responses of resorbing osteoclasts to inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase activity by wortmannin and LY294002 were examined. Rapid co-localization between V-ATPase and F-actin was demonstrated by immunocytochemistry, and corresponding association between V-ATPase and F-actin in immunoprecipitations and pelleting assays was detected. This response was reversed as osteoclasts recovered resorptive activity after inhibitors were removed. By expressing and characterizing fusion proteins containing segments of the actin-binding amino-terminal regions of the B subunits of V-ATPase, we mapped the actin-binding site to a 44-amino acid domain. An 11-amino acid segment with a sequence similar to the actin-binding site of human profilin I was detected within this region. 13-Mers containing these profilin-like segments bound actin in fluorescent anisotropy studies and competed with profilin for binding to actin. Using site-directed mutagenesis, the 11-amino acid profilin-like actin-binding motifs (amino acids 49–59 of B1 and 55–65 of B2) were replaced with an 11-amino acid spacer with a sequence based on the homologous sequence from subunit B of Pyrococcus horikoshii, an organism that lacks an actin cytoskeleton. These substitutions eliminated the actin-binding activity of the B subunit fusion proteins. In summary, binding between V-ATPase and F-actin in osteoclasts occurs in response to blocking phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase activity. This response was fully reversible. The actin binding activities of the B subunits of V-ATPase required 11-amino acid actin-binding motifs that are similar in sequence to the actin-binding site of mammalian profilin I.
Distinct Roles for FOXP3+ and FOXP3− CD4+ T Cells in Regulating Cellular Immunity to Uncomplicated and Severe Plasmodium falciparum Malaria

Failure to establish an appropriate balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory immune responses is believed to contribute to pathogenesis of severe malaria. To determine whether this balance is maintained by classical regulatory T cells (CD4+ FOXP3+ CD127−/low; Tregs) we compared cellular responses between Gambian children (n = 124) with severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria or uncomplicated malaria infections. Although no significant differences in Treg numbers or function were observed between the groups, Treg activity during acute disease was inversely correlated with malaria-specific memory responses detectable 28 days later. Thus, while Tregs may not regulate acute malarial inflammation, they may limit memory responses to levels that subsequently facilitate parasite clearance without causing immunopathology. Importantly, we identified a population of FOXP3−, CD45RO+ CD4+ T cells which coproduce IL-10 and IFN-γ. These cells are more prevalent in children with uncomplicated malaria than in those with severe disease, suggesting that they may be the regulators of acute malarial inflammation.
Fission yeast cut3 and cut14, members of a ubiquitous protein family, are required for chromosome condensation and segregation in mitosis.

Fission yeast temperature‐sensitive mutants cut3‐477 and cut14‐208 fail to condense chromosomes but small portions of the chromosomes can separate along the spindle during mitosis, producing phi‐shaped chromosomes. Septation and cell division occur in the absence of normal nuclear division, causing the cut phenotype. Fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated that the contraction of the chromosome arm during mitosis was defective. Mutant chromosomes are apparently not rigid enough to be transported poleward by the spindle. Loss of the cut3 protein by gene disruption fails to maintain the nuclear chromatin architecture even in interphase. Both cut3 and cut14 proteins contain a putative nucleoside triphosphate (NTP)‐binding domain and belong to the same ubiquitous protein family which includes the budding yeast Smc1 protein. The cut3 mutant was suppressed by an increase in the cut14+ gene dosage. The cut3 protein, having the highest similarity to the mouse protein, is localized in the nucleus throughout the cell cycle. Plasmids carrying the DNA topoisomerase I gene partly suppressed the temperature sensitive phenotype of cut3‐477, suggesting that the cut3 protein might be involved in chromosome DNA topology.
Colonization and diversification of Galápagos terrestrial fauna: a phylogenetic and biogeographical synthesis

Remote oceanic islands have long been recognized as natural models for the study of evolutionary processes involved in diversification. Their remoteness provides opportunities for isolation and divergence of populations, which make islands remarkable settings for the study of diversification. Groups of islands may share a relatively similar geological history and comparable climate, but their inhabitants experience subtly different environments and have distinct evolutionary histories, offering the potential for comparative studies. A range of organisms have colonized the Galápagos Islands, and various lineages have radiated throughout the archipelago to form unique assemblages. This review pays particular attention to molecular phylogenetic studies of Galápagos terrestrial fauna. We find that most of the Galápagos terrestrial fauna have diversified in parallel to the geological formation of the islands. Lineages have occasionally diversified within islands, and the clearest cases occur in taxa with very low vagility and on large islands with diverse habitats. Ecology and habitat specialization appear to be critical in speciation both within and between islands. Although the number of phylogenetic studies is continuously increasing, studies of natural history, ecology, evolution and behaviour are essential to completely reveal how diversification proceeded on these islands.
A virtual paper model of a three piece brassiere cup to improve the efficiency of cup design process

A method is proposed to predict the shape of a paper model of a three piece brassiere cup, which consists of several cloth and wire parts. Currently, the shape of each part is determined by creating a paper model and then refining the model. This process is repeated until the desired shape is achieved. However, predicting the 3D shape with a simulation would improve design efficiency. As a model is made of paper, each part is assumed to be inextensible and its surface is represented as combination of developable surfaces. The potential energy of a cup and geometric constraints imposed on the cup are formulated by use of the normal curvature and the direction of a generatrix of each developable surface. Minimizing the potential energy under geometric constraints derives a stable shape of the cup model. The computed and measured cup shapes coincided qualitatively.
A software kit for automatic voice descrambling

Voice scrambling is widely used to add privacy to the radio communication of various authorities - but is also used by criminals to evade prosecution. In this article, we consider various analog voice scrambling techniques such as fixed frequency inversion, splitband inversion and rolling code scramblers. We explain how to break them using automatically extracted measures and scoring algorithms, and evaluate the proposed system using simulated data. While the simple inversion can be easily broken, the more advanced techniques require additional work prior to unsupervised automatization; the presented user interface allows the user to refine the automatic results to obtain a high quality solution.