Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New insights from old bones: DNA preservation and degradation in permafrost preserved mammoth remains

Despite being plagued by heavily degraded DNA in palaeontological remains, most studies addressing the state of DNA degradation have been limited to types of damage which do not pose a hindrance to Taq polymerase during PCR. Application of serial qPCR to the two fractions obtained during extraction (demineralization and protein digest) from six permafrost mammoth bones and one partially degraded modern elephant bone has enabled further insight into the changes which endogenous DNA is subjected to during diagenesis. We show here that both fractions exhibit individual qualities in terms of the prevailing type of DNA (i.e. mitochondrial versus nuclear DNA) as well as the extent of damage, and in addition observed a highly variable ratio of mitochondrial to nuclear DNA among the six mammoth samples. While there is evidence suggesting that mitochondrial DNA is better preserved than nuclear DNA in ancient permafrost samples, we find the initial DNA concentration in the bone tissue to be as relevant for the total accessible mitochondrial DNA as the extent of DNA degradation post-mortem. We also evaluate the general applicability of indirect measures of preservation such as amino-acid racemization, bone crystallinity index and thermal age to these exceptionally well-preserved samples.
Non-thermal Bremsstrahlung as the Dominant Hard X-ray Continuum Mechanism for the Supernova Remnant Msh14-63 (rcw 86)

We present an analysis of the X-ray emission of the supernova remnant MSH14-63, which was partially covered by four observations with XMM-Newton. The detection of Fe K emission at 6.4 keV, and the lack of spatial correlation between hard X-ray and radio emission is evidence against a dominant X-ray synchrotron component. We argue that the hard X-ray continuum is best explained by non-thermal bremsstrahlung from a supra-thermal tail to an otherwise cool electron gas. The existence of low electron temperatures, required to explain the absence of line emission, is supported by low temperatures found in other parts of the remnant, which are as low as 0.2 keV in some regions.
How Infant Speech Perception Contributes to Language Acquisition

Abstract Perceiving the acoustic signal as a sequence of meaningful linguistic representationsis a challenging task, which infants seem to accomplish effortlessly, despite thefact that they do not have a fully developed knowledge of language. The presentarticle takes an integrative approach to infant speech perception, emphasizinghow young learners’ perception of speech helps them acquire abstract structuralproperties of language. We introduce what is known about infants’ perception oflanguage at birth. Then, we will discuss how perception develops during the first2 years of life and describe some general perceptual mechanisms whose importancefor speech perception and language acquisition has recently been established. Toconclude, we discuss the implications of these empirical findings for languageacquisition. 1. Introduction As part of our everyday life, we routinely interact with children and adults,women and men, as well as speakers using a dialect different from ourown. We might talk to them face-to-face or on the phone, in a quietroom or on a busy street. Although the speech signal we receive in thesesituations can be physically very different (e.g., men have a lower-pitchedvoice than women or children), we usually have little difficulty understandingwhat our interlocutors say. Yet, this is no easy task, because the mappingfrom the acoustic signal to the sounds or words of a language is notstraightforward. For instance, the physical signals corresponding to thesame phoneme differ depending on the speaker (age, gender, dialect,individual variation, etc.), the context of the sound (position withinword, surrounding phonemes, etc.), and a number of other factors (medium,noise level, etc.). The phoneme /d/, for instance, is pronounced differentlywhen it is followed by different vowels, as Figure 1 illustrates. In addition,speech is continuous, while we represent language as a sequence ofdiscrete phonemes, organized into discrete words. In our everyday lives,we often encounter manifestations of these problems when we interactwith automated speech recognition systems, such as computers or automatic
1 Operator Centered Design of Ship Systems

Cognitive science research, much of it supported by the Office of Naval Research, is bringing about a scientific revolution in our understanding of the human operator. It is yielding computational theories of human cognition and perceptual/motor activity that provide precise quantitative predictions of important variables such as the times required to complete tasks or to learn them in training. Although the scope of coverage of these theories is limited and basic research aimed at expanding them is on-going, they already have much to offer in aiding the design of ship systems that will optimize the combined effectiveness of human operators and the systems they will be using. This presentation discusses 1) what can be done now, 2) tools under development that will facilitate the use of these theories, reducing the labor involved, and 3) a long-term vision for what might be achieved in this area. Appearing in Proceedings of “Engineering the Total Ship Symposium, 2004” Held at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD March 17-18, 2004, organized by the American Society of Naval Engineers.
Encryption System Based on a New Chaotic Map

The paper designed an encryption system based on a new chaotic map. It can protect the security of images. Firstly it introduced a new chaotic map which can diffuse the image pixels. Then it designed a method to generate key to avoid some week keys. Lastly it used a diffusion mechanism to change the value of pixels. The analysis verified the effectiveness of the method.
Commitment to Self-Rewards

Self-administered rewards are ubiquitous. They serve as incentives for personal accomplish¬ments and are widely recommended as tools for overcoming self-control problems. However, it seems puzzling why self-rewards can work: the prospect of a reward has a motivating force only if the threat of self-denial of the reward after low performance is credible. We explain how a rational forward-looking individual may achieve commitment to self-rewards, by applying Koszegi and Rabin's (2006) model of endogenous reference point formation to a self-regulation problem. Our results show why and when self-regulation built on self-rewards can be successful and thus illustrate the power, but also the limits, of self-rewards.
Trace elements levels in the serum, urine, and semen of patients with infertility.

BACKGROUND/AIM Studies suggest that trace elements may have an adverse impact on male reproduction, even at low levels. We tried to investigate the relationships between these metals and semen quality in various body fluids among men with infertility. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 255 samples of blood, semen, and urine were collected from 85 men suffering from infertility. Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry was used for the determination of 22 trace elements. We compared the results of the semen parameters with the results of the element determinations. RESULTS Because of the high proportion of samples with values lower than the limit of detection for a number of the elements, only 8 of a total 22 trace elements were determined in the samples. When the concentrations of sperm were classified according to the World Health Organization's guidelines for normospermia, oligospermia, and azoospermia, statistically significant differences were found among Zn, Ca, Al, Cu, Mg, Se, and Sr concentrations in various serum, sperm, and urine samples (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION In the present study, we found significant correlations between concentrations of Zn, Ca, Al, Cu, Mg, Se, and Sr and semen parameters in various body fluids.
Designing Maintainable XML Transformations

Modern applications often rely on XML to represent data internally and to interact with other applications and with end users. XSL transformations are commonly employed to transform between the internal representations of XML documents manipulated by an application and representations used for interaction with end-users and with other applications. These XSL transformations need to be updated whenever the underlying XML formats evolve. To address this maintenance problem, we formulate a number of guidelines for designing XSL transformations that are resilient to changes in the schema of the input XML documents. These guidelines are evaluated experimentally on the basis of three case studies. The evaluation shows that the use of these guidelines leads to more concise XSL transformations and to significant reductions in the amount of changes required to adapt existing XSL transformations in response to changes in the input schema.
Analysis of Forelimb Motor Cortical Projections After Neonatal Hemicerebellectomy in Rats

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ••••• 16 Introduction • • • • • • • • • • • ••••• 17 Materials and Methods • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 19 Results • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 23 Discussion • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 26 Expt. II. An Anatomical Study Using Anterograde Transport of WGA/HRP • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . Abstract • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Introdution • • • • • • • • • • • • Materials and Methods ••••••••••• Results • • • • • • • • . Discussion • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • List of Abbreviations • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Introdution • • • • • • • • • • • • Materials and Methods ••••••••••• Results • • • • • • • • . Discussion • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • List of Abbreviations • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Epitomizing Teacher Educators’ Conception of Teaching from Student Teachers’ Reflection

Teaching practices of teachers strongly influence students’ learning. In turn, teachers’ practices shaped by the teaching conception they hold. Hence, this study explores the teaching conceptions held by teacher educators from the angle of their teaching practices using student teachers’ learning as a lens. In addition, refining the dimensional variations of teaching conception and figuring out teaching practices that work across the different conceptual categories were the intention of the study. To this end, reflection of 54 student teachers on what and how their professors have been doing and in what way did that assist them develop as a new teacher was considered. This came in three hierarchically related teaching conceptions: transmitting teachers’ understanding of the discipline, developing students’ understanding and challenging students’ understanding. These conceptions appeared to be varied across: contents, student role, interplay, motivation and evaluation. Coming to teaching practices, availing learning resources, modeling of teaching practices and using of video films were used differently across the conceptual categories.
Gender Homophily across Types of Social Networks in Rural India

Many thanks to Geoffrey Rothwell and the economic department's support through the undergraduate honors program, and to Mark Tendall for getting me started on this path in the economics summer research program. Thanks to Seema Jayachandran for her help researching the issue of caste. And of course, to Professor Jackson, without whom none of this research would have been possible. You have all been so patient and helpful, and I am endlessly thankful for your involvement. Teter 1 In this paper, I search for evidence that women in 75 Indian villages are somehow constrained in their ability to make instrumental social connections necessary to start or run businesses. I compare gender homophily across ten different types of social networks, and find it to be relatively high in both genders and in most all of networks. It appears that both genders are similarly discouraged from relationships with people of the other gender, but less so when there is a transaction involved than when the association is entirely social in nature. Women in higher castes do not appear to be any more constrained than their lower caste counterparts. There is evidence that a homosocial norm discourages other-­gender relationships, but it appears to be uniformly enforced across groups.
Role of Lung Function Genes in the Development of Asthma

Although our previous GWAS failed to identify SNPs associated with pulmonary function at the level of genomewide significance, it did show that the heritability for FEV1/FVC was 41.6% in a Japanese population, suggesting that the heritability of pulmonary function traits can be explained by the additive effects of multiple common SNPs. In addition, our previous study indicated that pulmonary function genes identified in previous GWASs in non-Japanese populations accounted for 4.3% to 12.0% of the entire estimated heritability of FEV1/FVC in a Japanese population. Therefore, given that many loci with individual weak effects may contribute to asthma risk, in this study, we created a quantitative score of genetic load based on 16 SNPs implicated in lower lung function in both Japanese and non-Japanese populations. This genetic risk score (GRS) for lower FEV1/FVC was consistently associated with the onset of asthma (P = 9.6 × 10−4) in 2 independent Japanese populations as well as with the onset of COPD (P = 0.042). Clustering of asthma patients based on GRS levels indicated that an increased GRS may be responsible for the development of a particular phenotype of asthma characterized by early onset, atopy, and severer airflow obstruction.
Supply chain collaborative advantage: A firm's perspective

The objective of the study is to uncover the nature and characteristics of collaborative advantage from a focal firm's perspective. Collaborative advantage is defined as strategic benefits gained over competitors in the marketplace through supply chain partnering, and it relates to the desired synergistic outcome of collaborative activity that could not have been achieved by any firm acting alone. The research conceptualizes collaborative advantage as the five dimensions: process efficiency, offering flexibility, business synergy, quality, and innovation. Reliable and valid instruments were developed through rigorous empirical analysis including structured interviews, Q-sort, and a large-scale study. Data were collected through a Web survey of U.S. manufacturing firms in various industries. The statistical methods used include structural equation modeling (i.e., LISREL). The construct definition and measures in this study have provided a rich and structured understanding of collaborative advantage in a supply network.
A Novel Double Integrated Buck Offline Power Supply for Solid-State Lighting Applications

A single-stage offline power supply for LED lighting applications, based on the integration of a buck power factor corrector (PFC) and a tapped buck dc/dc converter, is presented in this paper. In addition to the high step-down capability and the output current regulation, the proposed topology effectively provides PFC to comply with the harmonic injection and energy-saving standards EN 61000-3-2 and Energy Star. The low bus voltage level, resulting from the use of an input step-down PFC stage, actually allows the use of film technology capacitors, instead of short lifetime electrolytic capacitors, to filter the bus voltage and reduce the LED current ripple component at twice the line frequency. Due to the high reliability, the simple structure, the good line-side spectral performance, and the low component count, the proposed topology effectively results to be very suitable for medium-power solid-state lighting applications, as in the case of LED downlighting. The issues related to the operation of the presented solution and to its design optimization will be carefully discussed. A prototype of the proposed ac/dc converter has been built and tested. The main experimental results will be described.
INTENSI BERWIRAUSAHA DITINJAU DARI KREATIVITAS DAN KECERDASAN EMOSIONAL

The creativity and emotional inteliigence provide strong support for intention of entrepreneurship. This study aims to determine whether there is a direct influence either creativity or emotional intelligence towards the intention of entrepreneurship, whether there is an intervention of emotional intelligence that leads to the indirect effect creativity towards the intention of entrepreneurship, and the influence of creativity and emotional intelligence simultaneously towards the intention of entrepreneurship. This study uses a quantitative approach with survey method. Analysis data of hypothesis testing employs a path analysis. Samples were obtained from 154 students taking entrepreneurship courses. The test results prove that there are a direct effect of creativity towars the intention of entrepreneurship by 4.58%, a direct influence of emotional intelligence towards the intention of entrepreneurship by 6.2%, the influence both creativity and emotional intelligence towards the intention of entrepreneurship releases at 15.7%, and the indirect effect of creativity towards the intention entrepreneurial as a result of intervention emotional intelligence by 10.3%, where the effect is greater than the contribution of creativity to the intention of entrepreneurship. Keywords : Intention of Entrepreneurship, Creativity, and Emosional Intelligence.
Tracking Human Faces Using Motion , Skin Color Segmentation and Ellipse Fitting

A combination of recent methods is used for face detection in real-time video sequences for possible uses in video conferencing or surveillance. The possible solutions of the challenge of detecting faces in cluttered backgrounds are discussed in the literature survey. A variety of these methods, such as motion, skin color segmentation and ellipse fitting are used in unison to form a scheme to detect a face in the image. The main requirement is that the system works real-time on a standard PC without special hardware other than a webcam.
Design and Analysis of Heterogeneous DSP / FPGA Based Architectures for 3 GPP Wireless Systems

This paper shows how iterative hardware/software partitioning in heterogeneous DSP/FPGA based embedded systems can be utilized to achieve real-time deadlines of modern 3GPP wireless equalization workloads. By utilizing a well defined set of application partitioning criteria in tandem with SOC simulation tools, we are able to show a greater than six fold improvement in application performance and ultimately meet, and even exceed real-time data processing deadlines.
A better wake-up in radio networks

We present an improved algorithm to wake up a multi-hop ad-hoc radio network. The goal is to have all the nodes activated, when some of them may wake up spontaneously at arbitrary times and the remaining nodes need to be awoken by the already active ones. The best previously known wake-up algorithm was given by Chrobak, Gasieniec and Kowalski [11], and operated in time O(n5/3 log n), where n is the number of nodes. We give an algorithm with the running time O(n3/2 log n). This also yields better algorithms for other synchronization-type primitives, like leader election and local-clocks synchronization, each with a time performance that differs from that of wake-up by an extra factor of O(log n) only, and improves the best previously known method for the problem by a factor of n1/6. A wake-up algorithm is a schedule of transmissions for each node. It can be represented as a collection of binary sequences. Useful properties of such collections have been abstracted to define a (radio) synchronizer. It has been known that good radio synchronizers exist and previous algorithms [17,11] relied on this. We show how to construct such synchronizers in polynomial time, from suitable constructible expanders. As an application, we obtain a wake-up protocol for a multiple-access channel that activates the network in time O(k2 polylog n), where k is the number of stations that wake up spontaneously, and which can be found in time polynomial in n. We extend the notion of synchronizers to universal synchronizers. We show that there exist universal synchronizers with parameters that guarantee time O(n3/2 log n) of wake-up.
Approximation algorithms for the sex-equal stable marriage problem

The stable marriage problem is a classical matching problem introduced by Gale and Shapley. It is known that for any instance, there exists a solution, and there is a polynomial time algorithm to find one. However, the matching obtained by this algorithm is man-optimal, that is, the matching is favorable for men but unfavorable for women, (or, if we exchange the roles of men and women, the resulting matching is woman-optimal). The sex-equal stable marriage problem, posed by Gusfield and Irving, seeks a stable matching “fair” for both genders. Specifically it seeks a stable matching with the property that the sum of the men's scores is as close as possible to that of the women's. This problem is known to be strongly NP-hard. In this paper, we give a polynomial time algorithm for finding a near optimal solution for the sex-equal stable marriage problem. Furthermore, we consider the problem of optimizing an additional criterion: among stable matchings that are near optimal in terms of the sex-equality, find a minimum egalitarian stable matching. We show that this problem is strongly NP-hard, and give a polynomial time algorithm whose approximation ratio is less than two.
Experience From Wind Integration in Some High Penetration Areas

The amount of wind power in the world is increasing quickly. The background for this development is improved technology, decreased costs for the units, and increased concern regarding environmental problems of competing technologies such as fossil fuels. The amount of wind power is not spread equally over the world, so in some areas, there is comparatively a high concentration. The aims of this paper are to overview some of these areas, and briefly describe consequences of the increase in wind power. The aim is also to try to draw some generic conclusions, in order to get some estimation about what will happen when the amount of wind power increases for other regions where wind power penetration is expected to reach high values in future