Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Functional Electrical Stimulation Mediated by Iterative Learning Control and Robotics to Improve Arm Movement for People With Multiple Sclerosis

Few interventions address multiple sclerosis (MS) arm dysfunction but robotics and functional electrical stimulation (FES) appear promising. This paper investigates the feasibility of combining FES with passive robotic support during virtual reality (VR) training tasks to improve upper limb function in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). The system assists patients in following a specified trajectory path, employing an advanced model-based paradigm termed iterative learning control (ILC) to adjust the FES to improve accuracy and maximise voluntary effort. Reaching tasks were repeated six times with ILC learning the optimum control action from previous attempts. A convenience sample of five pwMS was recruited from local MS societies, and the intervention comprised 18 one-hour training sessions over 10 weeks. The accuracy of tracking performance without FES and the amount of FES delivered during training were analyzed using regression analysis. Clinical functioning of the arm was documented before and after treatment with standard tests. Statistically significant results following training included: improved accuracy of tracking performance both when assisted and unassisted by FES; reduction in maximum amount of FES needed to assist tracking; and less impairment in the proximal arm that was trained. The system was well tolerated by all participants with no increase in muscle fatigue reported. This study confirms the feasibility of FES combined with passive robot assistance as a potentially effective intervention to improve arm movement and control in pwMS and provides the basis for a follow-up study.
Differential roles of multiple signal peptidases in the virulence of Listeria monocytogenes

Most bacteria contain one type I signal peptidase (Spase I) for cleavage of signal peptides from exported and secreted proteins. Here, we identified a locus encoding three contiguous Spase I genes in the genome of Listeria monocytogenes. The deduced Sip proteins (denoted SipX, SipY and SipZ) are significantly similar to SipS and SipT, the major SPase I proteins of Bacillus subtilis (38% to 44% peptidic identity). We studied the role of these multiple signal peptidases in bacterial pathogenicity by constructing a series of single‐ and double‐chromosomal knock‐out mutants. Inactivation of sipX did not affect intracellular multiplication of L. monocytogenes but significantly reduced bacterial virulence (∼ 100‐fold). Inactivation of sipZ impaired the secretion of phospholipase C (PC‐PLC) and listeriolysin O (LLO), restricted intracellular multiplication and almost abolished virulence (LD50 of 108.3), inactivation of sipY had no detectable effects. Most importantly, a mutant expressing only SipX was impaired in intracellular survival and strongly attenuated in the mouse (LD50 of 107.2), whereas, a mutant expressing only SipZ behaved like wild‐type EGD in all the assays performed. The data establish that SipX and SipZ perform distinct functions in bacterial pathogenicity and that SipZ is the major Spase I of L. monocytogenes. This work constitutes the first report on the differential role of multiple Spases I in a pathogenic bacterium and suggests a possible post‐translational control mechanism of virulence factors expression.
Distribution of phytoplasma diseases in the Lombardy poplar tree population of Zagreb urban area

Phytoplasmas are uncultivable prokaryotic wall-less pathogens belonging to the class Mollicutes that inhabit plant phloem and insects. Their identification and classification is difficult and mainly based on the polymorphism of their 16S rRNA gene sequences. Aster yellows (AY; 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris') phytoplasmas (ribosomal subgroup 16SrI-P) had been previously identified in several Populus nigra L. 'Italica' (Lombardy poplar) trees from the urban area of Zagreb. The aim of this research was to examine phytoplasmosis distribution in the poplar tree population of the wider Zagreb urban area. Total nucleic acids were extracted from leaf samples of 30 symptomatic and 4 asymptomatic trees. Phytoplasma 16S rDNA was amplified in direct and nested PCRs by using universal and group-specific primers. The pathogens were classified on the basis of 16S rDNA amplicon RFLP analyses. Phytoplasmas belonging to the 16SrI ribosomal group (AY) were detected in 12 out of 34 trees examined. In addition, a phytoplasma putative gene for aa kinase was analyzed for positive samples. RFLP profiles from 10 samples were referable to the phytoplasma 16SrI-P ribosomal subgroup previously found only in poplars from Zagreb area. In two samples, unique restriction patterns were found, showing the presence of molecular variability within this conserved gene region. In the northern and north-western part of the area the infection was equally distributed, while in the southern part of the city phytoplasmas were not detected in sampled trees. Further research, including a search for potential insect vectors, is needed in order to indentify the ecological and epidemiological implications of these diseases and their impact on the sanitary status of ornamental trees in the city of Zagreb.
Forecasting of traffic load in a live 3G packet switched core network

In this paper we analyze different methods for long term forecasts of packet switched traffic from live 3G networks. The dataset consists of over 400 values, each representing the peak load for a separate day. Four different methods were applied to forecast the increase in traffic, two simple: linear and exponential regression, and two more sophisticated ARMA and DHR. We will show in which cases the sophisticated models deliver a better performance and discuss the question if the gain is significant to justify the increased complexity. We present numerical results for long, e.g., more than 100 day, and short time,e.g., hourly or daily, fitting for our case study based on real traces from a live network. The paper concludes with a benchmark based on the observed mean absolute error.
Association of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) load early in life with disease progression among HIV-infected infants. New York City Perinatal HIV Transmission Collaborative Study Group.

The utility of RNA virus load to predict progression of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 disease was assessed in 89 HIV-1-infected children. Of 22 virus load values during week 1 of life, 17 were below the detection threshold. Geometric mean virus load increased to approximately 7 x 10(5) copies/mL by week 4, was sustained throughout the first 6 months of life, and then declined to 1.6 x 10(5) copies/mL during the third year. Samples from week 1 of life had little predictive value, but virus load during days 7-30 strongly predicted progression to CDC-3 classification or death (P = .024; risk ratio = 1.6), and virus load during months 2-3 predicted progression to CDC-C or death within the first 6 months of life (P = .002, risk ratio = 11). Virus load was highly associated with imminent vulnerability to CDC-C or death (P = .002) during the first 18 months of life. Except for values from the first week of life, virus load at any age through 18 months is strongly associated with risk of HIV disease progression.
Development of neural basis for chinese orthographic neighborhood size effect

The brain activity of orthographic neighborhood size (N size) effect in Chinese character naming has been studied in adults, meanwhile behavioral studies have revealed a developmental trend of Chinese N‐size effect in developing readers. However, it is unclear whether and how the neural mechanism of N‐size effect changes in Chinese children along with development. Here we address this issue using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Forty‐four students from the 3rd, 5th, and 7th grades were scanned during silent naming of Chinese characters. After scanning, all participants took part in an overt naming test outside the scanner, and results of the naming task showed that the 3rd graders named characters from large neighborhoods faster than those from small neighborhoods, revealing a facilitatory N‐size effect; the 5th graders showed null N‐size effect while the 7th graders showed an inhibitory N‐size effect. Neuroimaging results revealed that only the 3rd graders exhibited a significant N‐size effect in the left middle occipital activity, with greater activation for large N‐size characters. Results of 5th and 7th graders showed significant N‐size effects in the left middle frontal gyrus, in which 5th graders induced greater activation in large N‐size condition than in small N‐size condition, while 7th graders exhibited an opposite effect which was similar to the adult pattern reported in a previous study. The current findings suggested the transition from broadly tuned to finely tuned orthographic representation with reading development, and the inhibition from neighbors' phonology for higher graders. Hum Brain Mapp 37:632–647, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Impact of STS (Context-Based Type of Teaching) in Comparison With a Textbook Approach on Attitudes and Achievement in

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of a context-based teaching approach (STS) versus a more traditional textbook approach on the attitudes and achievement of community college chemistry students. In studying attitudes toward chemistry within this study, I used a 30-item Likert scale in order to study the importance of chemistry in students' lives, the importance of chemistry, the difficulty of chemistry, interest in chemistry, and the usefulness of chemistry for their future career. Though the STS approach students had higher attitude post scores, there was no significant difference between the STS and textbook students' attitude post scores. It was noted that females had higher postattitude scores in the STS group, while males had higher postattitude scores in the textbook group. With regard to postachievement, I noted that males had higher scores in both groups. A correlation existed between postattitude and postachievement in the STS classroom. In summary, while an association between attitude and achievement was found in the STS classroom, teaching approach or sex was not found to influence attitudes, while sex was also not found to influence achievement. These results, overall, suggest that attitudes are not expected to change on the basis of either teaching approach or gender, and that techniques other than changing the teaching approach would need to be used in order to improve the attitudes of students. Qualitative analysis of an online discussion activity on Energy revealed that STS students were able to apply aspects of chemistry in decision making related to socioscientific issues. Additional analysis of interview and written responses provided insight regarding attitudes toward chemistry, with respect to topics of applicability of chemistry to life, difficulties with chemistry, teaching approach for chemistry, and the intent for enrolling in additional chemistry courses. In addition, the surveys of female students brought out subcategories with regard to emotional and professional characteristics of a good teacher, under the category of characteristics of teaching approach. With respect to the category of course experience, subcategories of useful knowledge to solve real-life problems and knowledge for future career were revealed. The differences between the control group females and STS group females with respect to these characteristics was striking and threw insight into how teacher behavior and teaching approach shape student attitudes to chemistry in case of female students.
An automatic coefficient design methodology for high-order bandpass sigma-delta modulator with single-stage structure

An automatic coefficient design method for synthesis of bandpass sigma-delta modulators (BPSDMs) is presented in this brief. Single-stage BPSDM structures, cascade-of-resonator with distributed feedback, cascade-of-resonator with distributed feedforward, and a new structure with lower coefficient spread, are all used to fit the synthesized coefficients. The automatic coefficient design method is realized in an easy-to-use computer program. Even for inexperienced designers, reliable and high-tolerance BPSDM coefficients for various applications can be automatically and efficiently generated. The methodology covers many design concerns including BPSDM coefficient tolerance for circuit component mismatch, design tradeoffs among in-band noise suppression, oversampling ratio, modulator order and quantizer bit number. Finally, design examples with orders of 6 and 8, and quantizer bit number of 1-bit and 3-bit, respectively, are used for the verification of the proposed automatic coefficient design method.
Improved Queuing Mechanism for Hybrid Load Balancing Scheme in Interactive Application

interactive applications (DIA) are becoming popular in the recent years. Examples of DIAs include shared workspaces, networked games, distributed whiteboards, distributed architectural design, virtual classrooms, telemedicine and simulation. The essential aspect of DIAs is that sufficient information is communicated between participants so that the state of the application remains consistent for all participants at all times. Consistent refers to the state of all the systems. If nodes have inaccurate information about the state of other nodes, due to communication delays between nodes, this could result in unnecessary periodic exchange of loads among them, due to which, certain nodes may become idle while loads are in transit, this would result in the prolonged total completion time of a load. Hence load balancing becomes more challenging in interactive applications as load variation is very large and the load on each server may change continuously over time, when the server takes the load migration decision, the load status collected from other servers may not be valid. This will affect the performance, of the load balancing algorithms. All the existing methods neglect the effect of network delay among the servers on the load balancing solutions. In this paper, due to the change in the load of the server, network delay would affect the performance of the load balancing algorithm. A new priority packet scheduling scheme is proposed in which load requesting Interactive application packets are placed in the highest priority queue and the processing of packets at other queue. Simulation results show that the proposed buffered priority packet scheduling scheme outperforms AODV with single queue for the load requesting messages of Interactive application in term of end-to-end data transmission delay.
Promotion of Ovarian Follicle Growth following mTOR Activation: Synergistic Effects of AKT Stimulators

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a serine/threonine kinase and mTOR signaling is important in regulating cell growth and proliferation. Recent studies using oocyte- and granulosa cell-specific deletion of mTOR inhibitor genes TSC1 or TSC2 demonstrated the important role of mTOR signaling in the promotion of ovarian follicle development. We now report that treatment of ovaries from juvenile mice with an mTOR activator MHY1485 stimulated mTOR, S6K1 and rpS6 phosphorylation. Culturing ovaries for 4 days with MHY1485 increased ovarian explant weights and follicle development. In vivo studies further demonstrated that pre-incubation of these ovaries with MHY1485 for 2 days, followed by allo-grafting into kidney capsules of adult ovariectomized hosts for 5 days, led to marked increases in graft weights and promotion of follicle development. Mature oocytes derived from MHY1485-activated ovarian grafts could be successfully fertilized, leading the delivery of healthy pups. We further treated ovaries with the mTOR activator together with AKT activators (PTEN inhibitor and phosphoinositol-3-kinase stimulator) before grafting and found additive enhancement of follicle growth. Our studies demonstrate the ability of an mTOR activator in promoting follicle growth, leading to a potential strategy to stimulate preantral follicle growth in infertile patients.
Dynamic eye convergence for head-mounted displays improves user performance in virtual environments

In Virtual Environments (VE), users are often facing tasks that involve direct manipulation of virtual objects at close distances, such as touching, grabbing, placement. In immersive systems that employ head-mounted displays these tasks could be quite challenging, due to lack of convergence of virtual cameras. We present a mechanism that dynamically converges left and right cameras on target objects in VE. This mechanism simulates the natural process that takes place in real life automatically. As a result, the rendering system maintains optimal conditions for stereoscopic viewing of target objects at varying depths, in real time. Building on our previous work, which introduced the eye convergence algorithm [Sherstyuk and State 2010], we developed a Virtual Reality (VR) system and conducted an experimental study on effects of eye convergence in immersive VE. This paper gives the full description of the system, the study design and a detailed analysis of the results obtained.
Identification of a Novel Two-Component Regulatory System That Acts in Global Regulation of Virulence Factors ofStaphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT We have previously demonstrated that the presence of oxygen is necessary for the production of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1) by Staphylococcus aureus in vitro. To investigate the mechanism by which oxygen might regulate toxin production, we identified homologs in S. aureus of the Bacillus subtilis resDE genes. The two-component regulatory system encoded by resDE, ResD-ResE, has been implicated in the global regulation of aerobic and anaerobic respiratory metabolism in B. subtilis. We have designated the S. aureus homologssrrAB (staphylococcal respiratory response). The effects ofsrrAB expression on expression of RNAIII (the effector molecule of the agr locus) and on production of TSST-1 (an exotoxin) and protein A (a surface-associated virulence factor) were investigated. Expression of RNAIII was inversely related to expression of srrAB. Disruption of srrB resulted in increased levels of RNAIII, while expression of srrAB intrans on a multicopy plasmid resulted in repression of RNAIII transcription, particularly in microaerobic conditions. Disruption of srrB resulted in decreased production of TSST-1 under microaerobic conditions and, to a lesser extent, under aerobic conditions as well. Overexpression of srrABresulted in nearly complete repression of TSST-1 production in both microaerobic and aerobic conditions. Protein A production by thesrrB mutant was upregulated in microaerobic conditions and decreased in aerobic conditions. Protein A production was restored to nearly wild-type levels by complementation of srrAB into the null mutant. These results indicate that the putative two-component system encoded by srrAB, SrrA-SrrB, acts in the global regulation of staphylococcal virulence factors, and may repress virulence factors under low-oxygen conditions. Furthermore,srrAB may provide a mechanistic link between respiratory metabolism, environmental signals, and regulation of virulence factors in S. aureus.
Test Generation from Security Policies Specified in Or-BAC

Security policy testing is a practical way to ensure security policies are correctly implemented in information or networking systems with a certain level of confidence. In this paper, we adapt model based testing techniques for formal models of security policies, and propose a two stage approach to produce test cases from a security policy specified in Or-BAC, i.e., test purpose generation from Or-BAC rules, and test case generation from test purposes.
Involvement, Development, and Retention

The aim of this article is to orient those interested in adult community college student research to a wide array of discourses and theoretical tools that can help us understand the underlying complexity of the problems faced by this often-marginalized group. Reviewed are categories of theory about student involvement and engagement, student development, and adult learning that should inform how we educate adult community college students. This article concludes with a discussion of how all these theories, taken together, can improve adult education in community colleges.
Examining Student Teachers’ Perceptions on Mentoring During Field Experiences in Distance Learning: A Pilot Study

Abstract This paper is a pilot study that examines the perceptions of mathematics student teachers on the mentoring they received during practicum. Pre-service teachers’ views about teaching - and also their ideas regarding their own teaching abilities - are highly dependent upon their mentor teachers. A question may be posed: are mentors helpful to open distance learning (ODL) student teachers? A structured questionnaire was employed to collect data, which was analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics. The results are discussed in the categories of responses about support with lesson preparation, being coached, teaching experience, mentor’s feedback, views about the course and the subject, mathematics. The results on the perceptions of pre-service teachers on the mentoring they received during teaching practice were generally positive. These involved mentors helping them to identify teaching material, to prepare lessons, to provide them with useful feedback and to coach them on how to teach. The findings from this research will help to provide insights on the usefulness of the present mentoring system. It is recommended that strategies to improve and strengthen social relationships to the mentoring system in ODL contexts be planned.
A Constraint on the Gravitational Lensing Magnification and Age of the Redshift z = 6.28 Quasar SDSS 1030+0524

The recent discovery of bright quasars at redshift z ~ 6 suggests that black holes (BHs) with masses in excess of ~109 M☉ have already assembled at a very early stage in the evolution of the universe. An alternative interpretation is that these quasars are powered by less massive BHs, but their fluxes are strongly magnified through gravitational lensing by intervening galaxies. Here we analyze the flux distribution of the Lyα emission of the quasar with the highest known redshift, SDSS 1030+0524, at z = 6.28. We show that this object could not have been magnified by lensing by more than a factor of ~5. The constraint arises from the large observed size, ~30 (comoving) Mpc, of the ionized region around this quasar and relies crucially only on the assumption that the quasar is embedded in a largely neutral intergalactic medium. Based on the line/continuum ratio of SDSS 1030+0524, we further argue that this quasar also cannot be beamed by a significant factor. We conclude that the minimum mass for its resident BH is 4 × 108 M☉ (for magnification by a factor of 5); if the mass is this low, then the quasars had to switch on prior to redshift zf ≳ 9. From the size of the ionized region, we are also able to place an absolute lower bound on the age of this quasar at tQ > 2 × 107 yr.