Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
5 th Amino Acid Assessment Workshop The Hordaland Homocysteine Study : A Community-Based Study of Homocysteine , Its Determinants , and Associations with Disease 1

The Hordaland Homocysteine Study (HHS) is a population-based study of more than 18,000 men and women in the county of Hordaland in Western Norway. The first investigation (HHS-I) took place in 1992–93, when the subjects were aged 40–67 y. In 1997–99, a follow-up study (HHS-II) of 7,053 subjects was carried out. In this large population, plasma levels of total homocysteine (tHcy) are associated with several physiologic and lifestyle factors and common diseases. Increasing age, male sex, smoking, coffee consumption, high blood pressure, unfavorable lipid profile, high creatinine, and the MTHFR 677C . T polymorphism are among the factors associated with increased tHcy levels; physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, and a good folate or vitamin B-12 status are associated with lower tHcy levels. Subjects with raised tHcy levels have increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity, cardiovascular and noncardiovascular mortality, and are more likely to suffer from depression and from cognitive deficit (elderly). Among women, raised tHcy levels are associated with decreased bone mineral density and increased risk of osteoporosis. Women with raised tHcy levels also have an increased risk of having suffered from pregnancy complications and an adverse pregnancy outcome. Significant associations between tHcy and clinical outcomes are usually observed for tHcy levels . 15 mmol/L, but for most conditions, there is a continuous concentration–response relation with no apparent threshold concentration. Overall, the findings from HHS indicate that a raised tHcy level is associated with multiple clinical conditions, whereas a low tHcy level is associated with better physical and mental health. J. Nutr. 136: 1731S–1740S, 2006.
Egg production and caste allocation in the clonally reproductive ant Vollenhovia emeryi

Sex ratio theories based on relatedness asymmetries among colony members have been tested in eusocial Hymenoptera. The haplodiploid sex determination system leads to differences in optimal sex allocation between queens and workers. Queens should ideally produce sexual eggs in accordance with relatedness asymmetries. One of the methods to test this hypothesis is to examine sex allocation in species where relatedness asymmetries are extremely different between female and males produced by the queens. We investigated sex allocation patterns in the polygynous ant Vollenhovia emeryi where both sexes are produced clonally so that the relatedness of the queens to their female and male offspring is 1.0 and 0, respectively. In this situation, queens invest most of their resources in female production. Furthermore, caste allocation patterns were observed in egg production. This study involved genotype analysis of colony members using genetic polymorphic markers and revealed clonal reproduction in the V. emeryi population. In this population, castes were identified in 1,060 eggs produced by 70 queens in 8 colonies. Queens invested more resources in female sexual eggs, though male eggs were also produced depending on resource availability. In addition, the proportion of female eggs negatively correlated with that of worker eggs, suggesting that this correlation is a trade-off. However, male egg production did not affect the egg production of other castes. This observation indicates that male egg production is independent of that for other castes. This study is the first to document the real primary sex ratio and caste allocation in eusocial Hymenoptera. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.
Erratum: Is every strong lens model unhappy in its own way? Uniform modelling of a sample of 13 quadruply+ imaged quasars

Strong-gravitational lens systems with quadruply imaged quasars (quads) are unique probes to address several fundamental problems in cosmology and astrophysics. Although they are intrinsically very rare, ongoing and planned wide-field deep-sky surveys are set to discover thousands of such systems in the next decade. It is thus paramount to devise a general framework to model strong-lens systems to cope with this large influx without being limited by expert investigator time. We propose such a general modelling framework (implemented with the publicly available software lenstronomy) and apply it to uniformly model three-band Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 images of 13 quads. This is the largest uniformly modelled sample of quads to date and paves the way for a variety of studies. To illustrate the scientific content of the sample, we investigate the alignment between the mass and light distribution in the deflectors. The position angles of these distributions are well-aligned, except when there is strong external shear. However, we find no correlation between the ellipticity of the light and mass distributions. We also show that the observed flux-ratios between the images depart significantly from the predictions of simple smooth models. The departures are strongest in the bluest band, consistent with microlensing being the dominant cause in addition to millilensing. Future papers will exploit this rich data set in combination with ground-based spectroscopy and time delays to determine quantities such as the Hubble constant, the free streaming length of dark matter, and the normalization of the initial stellar mass function.
Scientific Realism without the WaveFunction : An Example of Naturalized Quantum Metaphysics to appear in

Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories can be regarded as (approximately) true. This is connected with the view that science, physics in particular, and metaphysics could (and should) inform one another: on the one hand, science tells us what the world is like, and on the other hand, metaphysical principles allow us to select between the various possible theories which are underdetermined by the data. Nonetheless, quantum mechanics has always been regarded as, at best, puzzling, if not contradictory. As such, it has been considered for a long time at odds with scientific realism, and thus a naturalized quantum metaphysics was deemed impossible. Luckily, now we have many quantum theories compatible with a realist interpretation. However, scientific realists assumed that the wavefunction, regarded as the principal ingredient of quantum theories, had to represent a physical entity, and because of this they struggled with quantum superpositions. In this paper I discuss a particular approach which makes quantum mechanics compatible with scientific realism without doing that. In this approach, the wave-function does not represent matter which is instead represented by some spatio-temporal entity dubbed the primitive ontology: point-particles, continuous matter fields, space-time events. I argue how within this framework one develops a distinctive theory-construction schema, which allows to perform a more informed theory evaluation by analyzing the various ingredients of the approach and their inter-
Conceptualizing Resistance: Women's Leisure as Political Practice

The idea of leisure as resistance focuses attention on the political nature of leisure, and specifically on the potential for leisure to enhance individual empowerment and to bring about positive social change. In this paper, the different theoretical perspectives that have led researchers to the idea of leisure as resistance, including structuralism, post-structuralism, and interactionism, are discussed. Using insights from these perspectives, three issues related to the conceptualization of resistance are examined: the collective versus individual nature of resistance; the question of outcomes of resistance; and the issue of intentionality. It is argued that resistance is, by definition, both individual and collective, and that research on resistance needs to focus on the specific types of oppression and constraint being resisted through leisure. However, while intentionality and outcome are also important aspects of resistance, they should not be seen as defining characteristics. Intentional acts to resist may be more or less successful, and successful resistance may occur without prior intent. Although the focus of this analysis is on women's leisure, the framework developed here can be applied to all forms of resistance, and hopefully can be used to enhance our understanding of leisure as political practice.
Comprehensive Screening of Drug Encapsulation and Co-Encapsulation into Niosomes Produced Using a Microfluidic Device

Microfluidics is a very facile and fast method of particulate production. Besides, it enables the manufacturing of size tuned particulate systems. Niosomes due to structural similarities have importance as alternative drug delivery systems to liposomes. Niosomes can be encapsulated or co-encapsulated with hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs. The research presented here includes the optimization of method parameters for niosome production as well as evaluation of the efficiency of microfluidics to encapsulate and co-encapsulate the drugs. For this purpose, metformin (MET) and garcinol (GC) were the model drugs. Two different non-ionic surfactants (NIS), namely Tween-20 and Span-60 with significant difference in hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) value, were chosen to analyze their efficiency to form niosomes and encapsulate one or more drugs.
Presentations Electrical and Computer Engineering 2018 BP : Security Concerns and Best Practices for Automation of Software Deployment Processes : An Industrial Case Study

SecDevOps is a paradigm for integrating the software development and operation processes considering security and compliance requirements. Organizations are reluctant to transform their development and operation processes to SecDevOps because of the expectation of incompatibility between security and DevOps. This paper reports about a study performed at IBM on transformation of five Business Intelligence (BI) projects to SecDevOps. The study revealed that main security concerns for the automation of the deployment process are: separation of roles, enforcement of access controls, manual security tests, audit, security guidelines, management of security issues, and participation of the security team. The major recommended best practices for a transformation of current processes to SecDevOps are: good documentation and logging, strong collaboration and communication, automation of the processes, and enforcement of separation of roles. Based on the empirical results, we conclude that separation of roles is the main aspect to be considered when planning to automate deployment processes. The results of the study are being used by IBM BI Unit and may be used by other organizations when planning to migrate to SecDevOps, especially for BI projects.
It's who you Know. Political Influence on Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and the Moderating Role of Intergroup Contact

This study examines whether political frames influence anti-immigrant attitudes among native populations in 21 European countries, and if this relationship is somehow moderated by personal experiences of intergroup contact. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project and European Social Survey, two indicators of intergroup contact are tested: immigrant friends and immigrant colleagues, to see whether they can counter the effect of nationalistic political framing. The analysis reveals a positive relationship between nationalistic frames and anti-immigrant attitudes that is moderated by experiences of intergroup contact. In this sense, extensive contact with immigrants seems to inoculate individuals against political influences. The results contribute to a better understanding of both the role of political contexts and of the consequences of intergroup contact.
The Insurance Role of Marriage

Marriage is an institution that also helps insure shocks. Despite this and the prevalence of marriage, very little is known on how effectively marriage insures households against income or health risks and how being married affects labor supply and savings. We develop a framework with both single and married people, in which single people meet partners and everyone experiences labor productivity shocks, medical costs shocks, life span risk, and married people also experience divorce risk. People can self-insure by saving and by choosing their labor supply. We also allow for reversibility of social security and pension payments to the surviving spouse in case of death of one of the spouses and for differential tax treatment of married and single people. In this framework, we study the insurance benefits of marriage, both at the individual and at the aggregate level. ∗Mariacristina De Nardi: UCL, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, IFS, and NBER. Fang Yang: Louisiana State University. De Nardi gratefully acknowledges support from the ERC, grant 614328 “Savings and Risks” and from the ESRC through the Centre for Macroeconomics. Yang gratefully acknowledges the hospitality of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. We thank Marco Bassetto for useful comments and suggestions. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research, any agency of the federal government, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, or the IFS.
Utilizing Deep Learning for Mobile Telecommunications Network Management

Traditional network and service management methods were based on counters, data records, and derived key indicators, whereas decision were mostly made in a rule-based manner. Advanced techniques have not yet got into the everyday life of operators, mostly due to complexity and scalability issues. Recent progress in computing architectures, however, allows to re-visit some of these techniques – nowadays, especially artificial neural networks –, and apply those in the network management. There are two aims of this paper. First, to briefly describe the possible network and service management tasks within the mobile core, where utilizing deep learning techniques can be beneficial. Secondly, to provide a living example of predicting certain fault-types based on historical events, and to project further, similar examples to be executed on the same architecture. The real-life example presented here aims to predict the occurrence of certain errors during the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) call establishment procedure. The methods and techniques presented in this paper has been validated through live network monitoring data.
Age-Related Variation in Wing Shape Differs between Bird Orders: Implications for Interpretation of the Pointedness Index (C2 Axis) in a Size-Constrained Principal Component Analysis (SCCA)

Summary. There is a strong relationship between bird wing morphology and flight style. Wing shapes are related to manoeuvrability, flight speed, energetic costs during flight and take-off speed. Wing shape differences among species have been frequently studied but differences can also be found within species, between sexes and age groups. Many studies have assessed differences in wing shape between juveniles and adults in different passerine species but little is known about such differences in other bird orders. Performing a Size Constrained Components Analysis (SCCA) and a graphical approximation, we analysed the wing shape of juveniles and adults of eight species, including four passerines and four non-passerines of three different orders. According to a graphical approximation, we observed that wing shape differences between age groups differ among species. In the non-passerine species considered, juveniles have more pointed and concave wings than adults. In contrast, in the four passerine species, juveniles have more rounded wings than adults. However, the results for the C2 axis of SCCA (index of pointedness) do not completely agree with the graphical approximation. Our results showed that the C2 axis does not represent the same vector of wing shape variation in all species. The contribution of changes in C2 to variation in wing pointedness seemed to depend on the position of the wing tip, which is a good index of pointedness only when the wing tip is in the two most distal primary feathers. Surprisingly, the adults of some species do not have longer wings than the corresponding juveniles, because the feathers that define the wing tip do not grow longer during the first complete moult. We discuss the role of the first complete moult in changing the shape of juvenile wings into adult wings, and the implications of our results for the analysis of bird wing shape. —Cabodevilla, X. , Pérez-Tris, J., Moreno-Zarate, L. , Pérez-Rodríguez, A. , Lima-Barbero, J.F. , Cruz Camacho, M. , Villanua, D. , Ibáñez, R. , Gerboles, A. & Arroyo, B. (2020). Age-related variation in wing shape differs between bird orders: implications for interpretation of the pointedness index (C2 axis) in a size-constrained principal component analysis (SCCA). Ardeola, 67: 341-354.
Jussi On The Teachers Role in Interactive Prototyping

The industrial design students are increasingly involved with the development of functional interactable prototypes. There is complexity in both the concept generation and the implementation, something that the design students need to be able to cope with. We approach the prototyping in the light of representing a design idea, moving from concept towards a physical manifestation, and discuss the concept-imposed minimum towards the complexity of a prototype. While a combination of methods, such as cardboard-mockups, and wizard-of-oz can be used to evaluate simpler design ideas, they simply fall short with a complex device, as there are too many things happening. Thus, an approach is needed for developing complex prototypes. We examine five different prototypes, and discuss the role of the teacher in each. Drawing from the concept, prototyping practice, and the required complexity, we suggest stages of complexity for the development, and a more active participation from the teacher.
Adaptive elastic-net selection in a quantile model with diverging number of variable groups

In real applications of the linear model, the explanatory variables are very often naturally grouped, the most common example being the multivariate variance analysis. In the present paper, a quantile model with group structure is considered, where the number of groups can diverge with the sample size. We introduce and study the adaptive elastic-net group quantile estimator, for improving the parameter estimation accuracy. This method allows automatic selection, with a probability converging to 1, of the non-zero coefficient vectors and further, the asymptotic normality of the non-zero parameter estimators. We also give the convergence rate of the adaptive elastic-net group quantile estimator, rate which depends on the number of the groups. In order to put the estimation method into practice, an algorithm based on the subgradient method is proposed and implemented. The performed Monte Carlo simulations show that the adaptive elastic-net group quantile estimations are more accurate than other existing group estimations in the literature. Moreover, the numerical study confirms the theoretical results and the usefulness of the proposed estimation method.
Distribution of Market Facilitation Program Payments and their Financial Impact for Illinois, Kansas, and Minnesota Farms

The recent infusion of cash into production agriculture due to damages from retaliatory trade actions has been large. Up to $28 billion has been authorized through the Trade Mitigation Program in 2018 and 2019, accounting for a significant share of farm income and providing liquidity in an extended period of low prices. Using farm‐level data from Illinois, Kansas, and Minnesota, this research examines the importance of market facilitation program payments in supporting incomes and reducing credit default risk. Results illustrate the additional liquidity provided for farms, and the distributional effects across states and among farms within each state.
Optical Amplification by Stimulated Cooling of Polaron-Polaritons

Two dimensional semiconductors provide an ideal platform for exploration of linear exciton and polariton physics, primarily due to large exciton binding and strong light-matter coupling. These features however, generically imply reduced exciton-exciton interactions, hindering the realisation of active optical devices such as lasers or parametric oscillators. Here, we show that electrical injection of itinerant electrons into monolayer molybdenum diselenide allows us to overcome this limitation and to demonstrate polariton amplification. To demonstrate optical gain by stimulated cooling of polaritons by electrons, we carry out pump-probe measurements and observe transmission gain of the probe field exceeding 2. Our findings demonstrate that itinerant electron exciton interactions provide an invaluable tool for electronic manipulation of optical properties and pave the way for realisation of nonequilibrium polariton condensates.
In Silico Design of Multi-Epitope ESAT-6:Ag85b:Fcγ2a Fusion Protein as a Novel Candidate for Tuberculosis Vaccine

: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), which is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), is among the most important infectious bacteria with high morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. Bacilli Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine has been discovered for about a century, and it is considered as a major vaccine for humans. However, some factors, such as its attenuated nature and its inefficacy against the latent form of the disease, have led to the use of alternative vaccines. Multi-epitope subunit vaccines are new-generation vaccines that are being developed in clinical trial phases. For the production of a subunit vaccine, the selection of immunodominant antigens and targeted delivery systems to antigen presenting cells (APCs) are considered as basic parameters. In the present study, we designed the novel multi-epitope ESAT-6:Ag85B:Fcγ2a, which was evaluated completely by various online tools as an optimum vaccine against TB. The early secreted antigenic target of 6 kDa (ESAT-6) and antigen 85B (Ag85B) are two immunodominant antigens, and Fcγ2a is a targeted delivery system. This vaccine candidate can be used for future preclinical studies.