Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new giraffid (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Pecora) from the late Miocene of Spain, and the evolution of the sivathere-samothere lineage

Giraffids include the only living giraffomorph ruminants and are diagnosed by the presence of bi-lobed canines and a special type of epiphyseal cranial appendages called ossicones. The family Giraffidae ranges from the latest early Miocene until today. However they are currently extant relics with only two living representatives, the African genera Okapia and Giraffa. Giraffids were much more diverse and widespread in the past, with more than 30 fossil species described. For the past decades a number of studies intended to resolve the phylogenetic relationships of the family, but due to the lack of really good cranial material no clear consensus was reached regarding the phylogenetic relationships amongst the different members of the group. The exceptionally complete remains of a new large giraffid from the late Miocene of Spain, Decennatherium rex sp. nov., allows us to improve and reassess giraffid systematics, offering a lot of new data, both anatomic and phylogenetic, on the large late Miocene giraffids of Eurasia. The results of our cladistic analysis show Decennatherium as a basal offshoot of a clade containing the gigantic samotheres and sivatheres, characterized by the presence of a Sivatherium-like ossicone-plan among other features. Decennatherium thus offers the most ancient evidence of this Sivatherium-plan and firmly establishes the early morphological patterns of evolution of a sivathere / samothere-clade that is defined as the less inclusive clade that contains Decennatherium and Sivatherium. Finally, this large group of four-ossiconed giraffids evolutionarily links Miocene Europe and Africa indicating vicariance / migration processes among the giraffid genetic pools separated by the Mediterranean Sea.
Uniform Finite Generation of Compact Lie Groups and universal quantum gates

Consider a compact connected Lie group $G$ and the corresponding Lie algebra $\cal L$. Let $\{X_1,. ,X_m\}$ be a set of generators for the Lie algebra $\cal L$. We prove that $G$ is uniformly finitely generated by $\{X_1,. ,X_m\}$. This means that every element $K \in G$ can be expressed as $K=e^{Xt_1}e^{Xt_2} \cdot \cdot \cdot e^{Xt_l}$, where the indeterminates $X$ are in the set $\{X_1,. ,X_m \}$, $t_i \in \RR$, $i=1,. ,l$, and the number $l$ is uniformly bounded. This extends a previous result by F. Lowenthal in that we do not require the connected one dimensional Lie subgroups corresponding to the $X_i$, $i=1,. ,m$, to be compact. We discuss the consequence of this result to the question of universality of quantum gates in quantum computing.
Fundamental insights into ontogenetic growth from theory and fish

Significance Understanding growth of fish is important, both for regulating harvests of wild populations for sustained yields, and for using artificial selection and genetic engineering to increase productivity of domesticated fish stocks. We developed theory to account for how growth rate varies with body size, within individuals as they grow to maturity and across species as they evolve. Data on fish growth in FishBase supported our theoretical predictions. We found that growth rates scaled differently in populations of the same species than they scaled across species. We suggest that similar developmental programs of close relatives constrain growth, but as species diverge over evolutionary time they evolve the near-optimal −1/4 power scaling predicted by metabolic scaling theory. The fundamental features of growth may be universal, because growth trajectories of most animals are very similar, but a unified mechanistic theory of growth remains elusive. Still needed is a synthetic explanation for how and why growth rates vary as body size changes, both within individuals over their ontogeny and between populations and species over their evolution. Here, we use Bertalanffy growth equations to characterize growth of ray-finned fishes in terms of two parameters, the growth rate coefficient, K, and final body mass, m∞. We derive two alternative empirically testable hypotheses and test them by analyzing data from FishBase. Across 576 species, which vary in size at maturity by almost nine orders of magnitude, K scaled as m∞−0.23. This supports our first hypothesis that growth rate scales as m∞−0.25 as predicted by metabolic scaling theory; it implies that species that grow to larger mature sizes grow faster as juveniles. Within fish species, however, K scaled as m∞−0.35. This supports our second hypothesis, which predicts that growth rate scales as m∞−0.33 when all juveniles grow at the same rate. The unexpected disparity between across- and within-species scaling challenges existing theoretical interpretations. We suggest that the similar ontogenetic programs of closely related populations constrain growth to m∞−0.33 scaling, but as species diverge over evolutionary time they evolve the near-optimal m∞−0.25 scaling predicted by metabolic scaling theory. Our findings have important practical implications because fish supply essential protein in human diets, and sustainable yields from wild harvests and aquaculture depend on growth rates.
Utility of thieno[2,3-b] pyridine derivatives in the synthesis of some condensed heterocyclic compounds with expected biological activity

Abstract On the pharmaceutical account of the reported anticancer activity of thieno[2,3-b] pyridine and condensed thieno[2,3-b]pyridine, new compounds containing thieno[2,3-b] pyridine condensed with each of pyridine, cyclopentyl,
Discriminative ICA model with reconstruction constraint for image classification

Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is an effective unsupervised tool to learn statistically independent representations. However, ICA is not only sensitive to whitening but also difficult to learn an over-complete basis set. Consequently, ICA with soft Reconstruction cost(RICA) was presented to learn sparse representations with over-complete basis even on unwhitened data. Nevertheless, this model may not be an optimal discriminative model for classification tasks, because it failed to consider the association between the training sample and its class. In this paper, we propose a supervised Discriminative ICA model with Reconstruction constraint for image classification, named DRICA. DRICA brings in class information to learn the over-complete basis by incorporating inhomogeneous representation cost constraint into the RICA framework. This constraint leads to partition the set of basis vectors into several subsets corresponding to the sample classes, where each subset could sparsely model data samples from the same class but not others. Therefore, the proposed ICA model can learn an over-complete basis and an optimal multi-class classifier jointly. Some experiments carried out on several standard image databases validate the effectiveness of DRICA for image classification.
Patterns of Entrepreneurship

Preface. List of Cases. PART ONE: STARTING THE VENTURE. Chapter 1. The Entrepreneurial Process. Chapter 2. The Art of Innovation-Developing Ideas and Business Opportunities. Chapter 3. Analyzing the Market, Customers, and Competition. Chapter 4. Setting up the Company Objectives. PART TWO: SOURCES OF FINANCING. Chapter 5. Financing the Closely Held Company. Chapter 6. Equity Financing for High Growth. PART THREE: IMPLEMENTATION. Chapter 7. Discovering Value in Intellectual Property: The Competitive Edge. Chapter 8. Business Models and the Power of Information. Chapter 9. Managing the Money. PART IV: PATTERNS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP: BUILDING AND EXITING. Chapter 10. Scaling and Harvesting the Venture. Chapter 11. Putting it all Together-Writing the Winning Business Plan. Chapter 12. Communicating the Opportunity and Making a Presentation. Notes. Glossary of Terms. Index. Chapter Notes.
Higher Education in The Digital Age: The Impact of Digital Connective Technologies

Baglantici dijital teknolojiler 21. yuzyilda yasamin tum alanlarinda derin etkilere neden olmaktadir. Bu durum yasadigimiz cagin otesinde bir caga - dijital caga – eristigimizin bir gostergesidir. Bu yeni cagda bireylerin toplum icinde etkin bir sekilde rol alabilmeleri icin yeniden tasarlanmasi gereken alanlardan biri de egitimdir. Sanayi caginin sartlari ve gereklilikleri uzerine kurulu okul paradigmasi 21. yuzyilda ogrenenlerin ihtiyac ve isteklerini karsilamada eksik kalmaktadir. Gunumuzde ortaya cikan baglantici dijital teknolojiler ve bu teknolojilerin tetikledigi acik egitim kaynaklari (open educational resources), kitlesel acik cevrimici dersler (massive online open courses) ve ogrenme analitikleri gibi yenilikci egitim uygulamalari sanayi devriminden kalma ogrenme surec ve yapilarini derinden etkilemektedir. Bu nedenle, yeni bir egitim paradigmasi gelistirilmesine ihtiyac duyulmaktadir. Sozu edilen yenilikci egitim uygulamalari, yeni cevrimici sosyal platformlarda yapilandirilmamis (informal) ve zenginlestirilmis ogrenme deneyimleri saglayarak ogrenmenin geleneksel egitim kurumlarinin disina tasinmasina imkan tanimaktadir. Ayrica bu yenilikler ogreneni zaman sinirlarindan kurtarmakta ve ogrenenler hem bilgiye ersme hem de sosyal etkilesim ve isbirligi yoluyla bilgi insa etme firsati elde etmektedir. Icinde yasadigimiz cag yuksekogretim acisindan koklu degisim sancilarina ve firsatlara gebedir. Bu nedenle, egitimle ilgilenen politika ureticiler ve yoneticiler baglantici dijital teknolojilerin egitim alani baglaminda sagladigi firsatlari ve surunlari degerlendirerek yuksekogretime dair katma degeri yuksek politikalar ve uygulamalar gelistirmelidir. Bu makalede yuksekogretime iliskin ogrenen, ogreten, ogrenme ortamlari ve yonetim boyutlarinin baglantici dijital teknolojilerden nasil etkilendigi ele alinacak ve sonuc olarak bu cagda daha iyi isleyebilmesi acisindan yuksekogretim icin yol haritasi onerilecektir.
Gender as a Social Construct in the Use of Dental Fricatives /θ/ and /d/ in Ghanaian English

Studies on linguistic variation between males and females have shown that in general, women tend to use standard speech more than men. Many linguists have associated standard speech with femininity. In Victorian era, for instance, ? speaking properly? was associated with ? female? and with being a ? lady? ; you are a lady if you speak ? posh? (Mugglestone, 1995). Some, however, believe that the high preference for standard speech by women is due to their awareness of its social significance; since women are denied social status by the society, they make use of the standard speech to achieve the status they are denied. Unfortunately, this appears not to be universal as it varies in different cultures. According to Romaine (1998) this phenomenon is more of social and culture than biological. In non-western societies, particularly in Africa, women are noted to be the heaviest users of nonstandard language. What this paper sought to do was to find out how men and women in a multilingual society such as Ghana, where English is learned as a second language together with other indigenous languages vary in their use two RP phonemes [θ], [? ]. The study used a face-to-face interview to collect a sample of speech from 60 participants. Using both auditory and acoustic analyses, coupled with a statistical tool, an independent sample test (t-test), it was realised that both gender groups realised the standard [θ] and [? ], and the nonstandard [th], [t], [f], [d] and [d] variants of the two RP phonemes. And although both groups recorded different scores for each variant, the differences were statistically insignificant, suggesting that both genders are likely to use the two variants equally.
Detection of Neospora Caninum in Tissue Sections Using a Murine Monoclonal Antibody

A murine monoclonal antibody (MAb 6G7), isotype IgG2a, produced against tachyzoites of Neospora caninum (isolate NC-l) reacted specifically with tachyzoites of N. caninum in an indirect immunofluorescent antibody test. MAb 6G7 did not react with tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii, sporozoites of Isospora suis, Eimeria bovis, or E. tenella, or merozoites of E. bovis in the indirect immunofluorescent antibody test. MAb 6G7 reacted positively with both tachyzoites and bradyzoites of N. caninum in an avidin-biotin peroxidase complex immunohistochemical test on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. No reaction was observed with the following: tachyzoites and bradyzoites of T. gondii, T. gondii-like parasites, or Hammondia hammondi; bradyzoites of Frenkelia microti; schizonts and merozoites of Sarcocystis-like organisms; schizonts, sarcocysts, and oocysts/sporocysts of S. cruzi; schizonts and merozoites of S. canis; schizonts of S. hirsuta, S. tenella, and S. capracanis; merozoites of S. neurona and S. neurona-like organisms, E. bovis, or Haemoproteus sp. ; bradyzoites and merozoites of S. montanaensis; bradyzoites of S. odocoileocanis, S. cruzi, and S. tenella; meronts, sexual stages, and caryocysts of Caryospora sp. and C. bigenetica; micromerozoites, macromerozoites, and schizonts of Hepatozoon canis; sporozoites, sexual stages, and oocysts of Cryptosporidium parvum and C. baileyi; trophozoites of Monocystis Zumbrici, Tritrichomonas foetus, and Balantidium coli; tissue cysts and bradyzoites of Besnoitia sp. and B. jellisoni; amastigotes of Leishmania sp. ; and trophic theronts of Ichthyopthirius multifilis. MAb 6G7 reacted with tachyzoites and bradyzoites of N. caninum in natural and experimental infections in dogs, cattle, mice, rats, sheep, and goats, indicating that host origin of the tissues did not affect the performance of the test.
Clinical relevance of thyroglobulin doubling time in the management of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer.

International Thyroid Congress, Paris. 4. Tuttle RM, Tala H, Shah J, Leboeuf R, Ghossein R, Gonen M, Brokhin M, Omry G, Fagin JA, Shaha A 2010 Estimating risk of recurrence in differentiated thyroid cancer after total thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine remnant ablation: using response to therapy variables to modify the initial risk estimates predicted by the new American Thyroid Association staging system. Thyroid 20:1341–1349. 5. Miyauchi A, Kudo T, Miya A, Kobayashi K, Ito Y, Shimoyamatedori C, Takamura Y, Higashiyama T, Fukushima M, Kihara M, Tomoda C, Inoue H, Yabuta T, Masuoka H 2011 Prognostic impact of serum thyroglobulin doubling-time under TSH suppression in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent total thyroidectomy. Thyroid 21:707–716. 6. Miyauchi A, Onishi T, Morimoto S, Takai S, Matsuzuka F, Kuma K, Maeda M, Kumahara Y 1984 Relation of doubling time of plasma calcitonin levels to prognosis and recurrence of medullary thyroid carcinoma. Ann Surg 199:461–466. 7. Pacini F, Agate L, Elisei R, Capezzone M, Ceccarelli C, Lippi F, Molinaro E, Pinchera A 2001 Outcome of differentiated thyroid cancer with detectable serum Tg and negative diagnostic (131)I whole body scan: comparison of patients treated with high (131)I activities versus untreated patients. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 86:4092–4097. Address correspondence to: R. Michael Tuttle, M.D. Department of Endocrinology Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dispersion of a nanoliter bolus in microfluidic co-flow

Microfluidic systems enable reactions and assays on the scale of nanoliters. However, at this scale non-uniformities in sample delivery become significant. To determine the fundamental minimum sample volume required for a particular device, a detailed understanding of mass transport is required. Co-flowing laminar streams are widely used in many devices, but typically only in the steady-state. Because establishing the co-flow steady-state consumes excess sample volume and time, there is a benefit to operating devices in the transient state, which predominates as the volume of the co-flow reactor decreases. Analysis of the co-flow transient has been neglected thus far. In this work we describe the fabrication of a pneumatically controlled microfluidic injector constructed to inject a discrete 50 nL bolus into one side of a two-stream co-flow reactor. Using dye for image analysis, injections were performed at a range of flow rates from 0.5–10 µL min−1, and for comparison we collected the co-flow steady-state data for this range. The results of the image analysis were also compared against theory and simulations for device validation. For evaluation, we established a metric that indicates how well the mass distribution in the bolus injection approximates steady-state co-flow. Using such analysis, transient-state injections can approximate steady-state conditions within pre-defined errors, allowing straightforward measurements to be performed with reduced reagent consumption.
Detection of text-based social cues in adults with traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT Objectives: Written text contains verbal immediacy cues—word form or grammatical cues that indicate positive attitude or liking towards an object, action, or person. We asked if adults with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) would respond to these cues, given evidence of TBI-related social communication impairments. Methods: Sixty-nine adults with TBI and 74 healthy comparison (HC) peers read pairs of sentences containing different types of immediacy cues (e.g., speaker A said “these Canadians” vs. B said “those Canadians.”) and identified which speaker (A or B) had a more positive attitude towards the underlined entity (Task 1); and pairs of sentences comprised of a context sentence (e.g., Fred is asked, “Did you visit Joan and Sue? ”) and a statement sentence (Fred says, “I visited Sue and Joan.”) and were asked to indicate how much Fred liked or disliked the underlined words (Task 2). Results: HC group scores were significantly higher on Task 1, indicating more sensitivity to cues. On Task 2, TBI and HC group ratings differed across cue types and immediacy types, and the TBI group appeared to have less sensitivity to these cues. Conclusions: Findings suggest that TBI-related impairments may reduce sensitivity to subtle social cues in text.
Realising Potential: Community Service, Pro-Social Modelling and Desistance

Recent attention to the question of ‘what works? ’ in supporting desistance, coupled with the emergence of a number of research studies which suggest that Community Service (CS) might be effective in reducing recidivism, has contributed to growing interest in the rehabilitative potential of CS. Informed by this context, this paper reports on the findings of a small scale Scottish study which set out to evaluate the impact of pro-social modelling training on the practice of CS supervision within a local authority team. The study indicates that the training had a positive impact on CS supervision — most accurately described as a validation or development of existing approaches. However, the findings also highlight areas of limitation in training impact and, in doing so, present a rationale for attending to a number of key areas if CS is to realise its potential and assist offenders in their efforts towards desistance.
JNK3 Enzyme Binding to Arrestin-3 Differentially Affects the Recruitment of Upstream Mitogen-activated Protein (MAP) Kinase Kinases*

Background: An interaction between arrestin-3 and MKK7 has never been elucidated. Results: Arrestin-3 directly binds MKK7 and promotes JNK3α2 phosphorylation by MKK7 in vitro and in intact cells. Conclusion: Arrestin-3 recruits JNK3α2 and both upstream MKKs. Significance: Arrestin-3 promotes full JNK3α2 activation; MKK binding is regulated by JNK3α2. Arrestin-3 was previously shown to bind JNK3α2, MKK4, and ASK1. However, full JNK3α2 activation requires phosphorylation by both MKK4 and MKK7. Using purified proteins we show that arrestin-3 directly interacts with MKK7 and promotes JNK3α2 phosphorylation by both MKK4 and MKK7 in vitro as well as in intact cells. The binding of JNK3α2 promotes an arrestin-3 interaction with MKK4 while reducing its binding to MKK7. Interestingly, the arrestin-3 concentration optimal for scaffolding the MKK7-JNK3α2 module is ∼10-fold higher than for the MKK4-JNK3α2 module. The data provide a mechanistic basis for arrestin-3-dependent activation of JNK3α2. The opposite effects of JNK3α2 on arrestin-3 interactions with MKK4 and MKK7 is the first demonstration that the kinase components in mammalian MAPK cascades regulate each other's interactions with a scaffold protein. The results show how signaling outcomes can be affected by the relative expression of scaffolding proteins and components of signaling cascades that they assemble.
From the Library

Remembrance of things past “A photograph of Ahmad (unlike his father, he did not object to being portrayed) shows him watching the executions, surrounded by family and courtiers. The Imam sits in the middle, his great bulk clothed in white, his face framed by a dense beard (dyed black it was said to have gone gray prematurely during a fight with a jinni who was guarding a treasure), a white turban on his shaved head. The eyes, the famous exophthalmic stare said by his detractors to have been deliberately induced by sleeping with a rope tied around his neck, study the scene with shrewd but yet bemused appreciation”. (Tim MackintoshSmith. Yemen, the unknown Arabia. New York: The Overlook Press, 2000:107.)
Core Genome Multilocus Sequence Typing Scheme for High-Resolution Typing of Enterococcus faecium

ABSTRACT Enterococcus faecium, a common inhabitant of the human gut, has emerged in the last 2 decades as an important multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogen. Since the start of the 21st century, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) has been used to study the molecular epidemiology of E. faecium. However, due to the use of a small number of genes, the resolution of MLST is limited. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) now allows for high-resolution tracing of outbreaks, but current WGS-based approaches lack standardization, rendering them less suitable for interlaboratory prospective surveillance. To overcome this limitation, we developed a core genome MLST (cgMLST) scheme for E. faecium. cgMLST transfers genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) diversity into a standardized and portable allele numbering system that is far less computationally intensive than SNP-based analysis of WGS data. The E. faecium cgMLST scheme was built using 40 genome sequences that represented the diversity of the species. The scheme consists of 1,423 cgMLST target genes. To test the performance of the scheme, we performed WGS analysis of 103 outbreak isolates from five different hospitals in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany. The cgMLST scheme performed well in distinguishing between epidemiologically related and unrelated isolates, even between those that had the same sequence type (ST), which denotes the higher discriminatory power of this cgMLST scheme over that of conventional MLST. We also show that in terms of resolution, the performance of the E. faecium cgMLST scheme is equivalent to that of an SNP-based approach. In conclusion, the cgMLST scheme developed in this study facilitates rapid, standardized, and high-resolution tracing of E. faecium outbreaks.