Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EGT-A sensitive time-of-flight mass spectrometer for multielement isotope gas analysis.

The principles of operation and figures of merit of a novel, compact (324 mm × Ø 114 mm; volume approximately 1000 cm3 ) reflectron-type time-of-flight mass spectrometer designed for simultaneous multielement isotope gas analysis is presented. The system, which consists of a pulsed electron impact ion source, is designed either to directly analyse gas samples collected and stored in a compartment or samples extracted from solids using a CW laser system (fibre-coupled diode laser, <75 W, λ = 808 ± 10 nm). In latter case, laser pulses are focussed onto the sample surface to spot sizes of approximately 400 μm in diameter that allows for direct ablation and vaporisation of solid sample material and releasing of trapped gases. A cleaning and trapping system that consists of various cold stages and getters is used before the gas enters the mass analyser. Measurements on various gases were conducted for performance evaluation, ranging from standard gases (Ar, Kr, and Xe) to trapped gases extracted from a sample of the Millbillillie meteorite. At optimised instrument settings, mass spectrometric measurements can be conducted with a mass resolution m/∆m of up to approximately 1200 (16 O and CH4 can be resolved), with a dynamic range of approximately 6 orders of magnitude and a mass calibration accuracy of approximately 100 ppm. The high detection sensitivity of the system allows the detection of gas species at partial pressures down to the low 10-16 mbar level (corresponding to <10 particles/cm3 at standard temperature and pressure, including an ion transmission of approximately 80%). Measurements using standard gases demonstrated that the isotope ratios for a given element can be measured with an accuracy at the per mill level (relative to terrestrial values). Measurements of Ar extracted from the meteorite Millbillillie gave a 36 Ar/38 Ar ratio of approximately 1.6, which is in good agreement with literature values.
Learning dexterous in-hand manipulation

We use reinforcement learning (RL) to learn dexterous in-hand manipulation policies that can perform vision-based object reorientation on a physical Shadow Dexterous Hand. The training is performed in a simulated environment in which we randomize many of the physical properties of the system such as friction coefficients and an object’s appearance. Our policies transfer to the physical robot despite being trained entirely in simulation. Our method does not rely on any human demonstrations, but many behaviors found in human manipulation emerge naturally, including finger gaiting, multi-finger coordination, and the controlled use of gravity. Our results were obtained using the same distributed RL system that was used to train OpenAI Five. We also include a video of our results: https://youtu.be/jwSbzNHGflM.
Connecting Visual Experiences using Max-flow Network with Application to Visual Localization

We are motivated by the fact that multiple representations of the environment are required to stand for the changes in appearance with time and for changes that appear in a cyclic manner. These changes are, for example, from day to night time, and from day to day across seasons. In such situations, the robot visits the same routes multiple times and collects different appearances of it. Multiple visual experiences usually find robotic vision applications like visual localization, mapping, place recognition, and autonomous navigation. The novelty in this paper is an algorithm that connects multiple visual experiences via aligning multiple image sequences. This problem is solved by finding the maximum flow in a directed graph flow-network, whose vertices represent the matches between frames in the test and reference sequences. Edges of the graph represent the cost of these matches. The problem of finding the best match is reduced to finding the minimum-cut surface, which is solved as a maximum flow network problem. Application to visual localization is considered in this paper to show the effectiveness of the proposed multiple image sequence alignment method, without loosing its generality. Experimental evaluations show that the precision of sequence matching is improved by considering multiple visual sequences for the same route, and that the method performs favorably against state-of-the-art single representation methods like SeqSLAM and ABLE-M.
Ginsenoside Rg3 Attenuates Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Acute Lung Injury via MerTK-Dependent Activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common clinical disease with high morbidity in both humans and animals. Ginsenoside Rg3, a type of traditional Chinese medicine extracted from ginseng, is widely used to cure many inflammation-related diseases. However, the specific molecular mechanism of the effects of ginsenoside Rg3 on inflammation has rarely been reported. Thus, we established a mouse model of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ALI to investigate the immune protective effects of ginsenoside Rg3 and explore its molecular mechanism. In wild type (WT) mice, we found that ginsenoside Rg3 treatment significantly mitigated pathological damages and reduced myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity as well as the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6); furthermore, the production of anti-inflammatory mediators interleukin-10 (IL-10) and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), polarization of M2 macrophages and expression levels of the phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol 3-hydroxy kinase (PI3K), protein kinase B (PKB, also known as AKT), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and Mer receptor tyrosine kinase (MerTK) were promoted. However, there were no significant differences with regards to the pathological damage, MPO levels, inflammatory cytokine levels, and protein expression levels of the phosphorylation of PI3K, AKT and mTOR between the LPS treatment group and ginsenoside Rg3 group in MerTK-/- mice. Taken together, the present study demonstrated that ginsenoside Rg3 could attenuate LPS-induced ALI by decreasing the levels of pro-inflammatory mediators and increasing the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines. These processes were mediated through MerTK-dependent activation of its downstream the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. These findings identified a new site of the specific anti-inflammatory mechanism of ginsenoside Rg3.
Binding deficits in visual short‐term memory in patients with temporal lobe lobectomy

Classical views of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) have established that it plays a crucial role in long‐term memory (LTM). Here we demonstrate, in a sample of patients who have undergone anterior temporal lobectomy for the treatment of pharmacoresistant epilepsy, that the MTL additionally plays a specific, causal role in short‐term memory (STM). Patients (n=22) and age‐matched healthy control participants (n=26) performed a STM task with a sensitive continuous report measure. This paradigm allowed us to examine recall memory for object identity, location and object‐location binding, independently on a trial‐by‐trial basis. Our findings point to a specific involvement of MTL in object‐location binding, but, crucially, not retention of either object identity or location. Therefore the MTL appears to perform a specific computation: binding disparate features that belong to a memory. These results echo findings from previous studies, which have identified a role for the MTL in relational binding for LTM, and support the proposal that MTL regions perform such a function for both STM and LTM, independent of the retention duration. Furthermore, these findings and the methodology employed here may provide a simple, sensitive and clinically valuable means to test memory dysfunuction in MTL disorders.
Global Norm-Aware Pooling for Pose-Robust Face Recognition at Low False Positive Rate

In this paper, we propose a novel Global Norm-Aware Pooling (GNAP) block, which reweights local features in a convolutional neural network (CNN) adaptively according to their L2 norms and outputs a global feature vector with a global average pooling layer. Our GNAP block is designed to give dynamic weights to local features in different spatial positions without losing spatial symmetry. We use a GNAP block in a face feature embedding CNN to produce discriminative face feature vectors for pose-robust face recognition. The GNAP block is of very cheap computational cost, but it is very powerful for frontal-profile face recognition. Under the CFP frontal-profile protocol, the GNAP block can not only reduce EER dramatically but also boost TPR@FPR=0.1% (TPR i.e. True Positive Rate, FPR i.e. False Positive Rate) substantially. Our experiments show that the GNAP block greatly promotes pose-robust face recognition over the base model especially at low false positive rate.
Implications of dimeric activation of PDE6 for rod phototransduction

We examine the implications of a recent report providing evidence that two transducins must bind to the rod phosphodiesterase to elicit significant hydrolytic activity. To predict the rod photoreceptor's electrical response, we use numerical simulation of the two-dimensional diffusional contact of interacting molecules at the surface of the disc membrane, and then we use the simulated PDE activity as the driving function for the downstream reaction cascade. The results account for a number of aspects of rod phototransduction that have previously been puzzling. For example, they explain the existence of a greater initial delay in rods than in cones. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the ‘continuous’ noise recorded in rods in darkness is likely to arise from spontaneous activation of individual molecules of PDE at a rate of a few tens per second per rod, probably as a consequence of spontaneous activation of transducins at a rate of thousands per second per rod. Hence, the dimeric activation of PDE in rods provides immunity against spontaneous transducin activation, thereby reducing the continuous noise. Our analysis also provides a coherent quantitative explanation of the amplification underlying the single photon response. Overall, numerical analysis of the dimeric activation of PDE places rod phototransduction in a new light.
Identifying the contribution of prenatal risk factors to offspring development and psychopathology: What designs to use and a critique of literature on maternal smoking and stress in pregnancy

Abstract Identifying prenatal environmental factors that have genuinely causal effects on psychopathology is an important research priority, but it is crucial to select an appropriate research design. In this review we explain why and what sorts of designs are preferable and focus on genetically informed/sensitive designs. In the field of developmental psychopathology, causal inferences about prenatal risks have not always been based on evidence generated from appropriate designs. We focus on reported links between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or conduct problems. Undertaking a systematic review of findings from genetically informed designs and “triangulating” evidence from studies with different patterns of bias, we conclude that at present findings suggest it is unlikely that there is a substantial causal effect of maternal smoking in pregnancy on either attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or conduct problems. In contrast, for offspring birth weight (which serves as a positive control) findings strongly support a negative causal effect of maternal smoking in pregnancy. For maternal pregnancy stress, too few studies use genetically sensitive designs to draw firm conclusions, but continuity with postnatal stress seems important. We highlight the importance of moving beyond observational designs, for systematic evaluation of the breadth of available evidence and choosing innovative designs. We conclude that a broader set of prenatal risk factors should be examined, including those relevant in low- and middle-income contexts. Future directions include a greater use of molecular genetically informed designs such as Mendelian randomization to test causal hypotheses about prenatal exposure and offspring outcome.
Autonomous control mechanism of stator assembly in the bacterial flagellar motor in response to changes in the environment

The bacterial flagellar motor is composed of a rotor and a transmembrane ion channel complex that acts as a stator unit. The ion channel complex consists of at least three structural parts: a cytoplasmic domain responsible for the interaction with the rotor, a transmembrane ion channel that forms a pathway for the transit of ions across the cytoplasmic membrane, and a peptidoglycan‐binding (PGB) domain that anchors the stator unit to the peptidoglycan (PG) layer. A flexible linker connecting the ion channel and the PGB domain not only coordinates stator assembly with its ion channel activity but also controls the assembly of stator units to the motor in response to changes in the environment. When the ion channel complex encounters the rotor, the N‐terminal portion of the PGB domain adopts a partially stretched conformation, allowing the PGB domain to reach and bind to the PG layer. The binding affinity of the PGB domain for the PG layer is affected by the force applied to its anchoring point and to the type of ionic energy source. In this review article, we will present current understanding of autonomous control mechanism of stator assembly in the bacterial flagellar motor.
Distance and size matters: A comparison of six wildlife camera traps and their usefulness for wild birds

Abstract Camera traps are increasingly used in ecological research. However, tests of their performance are scarce. It is already known from previous work that camera traps frequently fail to capture visits by animals. This can lead to a misinterpretation of ecological results such as density estimates or predation events. While previous work is mainly based on mammals, for birds, no data about if and how camera traps can be successfully used to estimate species diversity or density are available. Hence, the goal of our study was an empirical validation of six different camera traps in the field. We observed a total number of N = 4567 events (independent visits of a bird) in 100 different sessions from March 2017 until January 2018 while camera traps were deployed. In addition, N = 641 events are based on a comparison of the two close‐up camera traps especially designed for birds. These events were all directly observed by the authors. Thus, the cameras can be compared against the human observer. To give an overall assessment and a more generalizable result, we combined the data from the six camera traps and showed that bird size category (effect size = 0.207) and distance (effect size = 0.132) are the most important predictors for a successful trigger. Also, temperature had a small effect, and flock size had an impact with larger flocks being captured more often. The approach of the bird, whether it approached the camera frontally or laterally had no influence. In Table 8, we give some recommendations, based on our results, at which distances camera traps should be placed to get a 25%, 50%, and 75% capture rate for a given bird size.
Iron Scavenging in Aspergillus Species: Structural and Biochemical Insights into Fungal Siderophore Esterases.

Fungi utilize high-affinity chelators termed siderophores with chemically diverse structures to scavenge the essential nutrient iron from their surroundings. Since they are among the strongest known Fe3+ binding agents, intracellular release of the heavy metal atom is facilitated by the activity of specific hydrolases. In this work, we report the characterization and X-ray crystal structures of four siderophore esterases: AfEstB and AfSidJ from Aspergillus fumigatus, as well as AnEstB and AnEstA from Aspergillus nidulans. Even though they all display the conserved α/β-hydrolase fold, we found significant structural and enzymatic discrepancies in their adaption to both related and chemically diverse substrates. A structure of AfEstB in complex with its substrate triacetylfusarinine C gives insight into the active enzyme and shows tetrahedral coordination between the catalytic serine and the scissile ester bond.
Hemodynamic Results and Mid-term Follow-up of 850 19 to 23 mm Perimount Magna Ease Valves

Abstract Background Aortic valve replacement (AVR) in small aortic roots remains a surgical dilemma with a higher risk of patient-prosthesis mismatch (PPM). The Perimount Magna Ease aortic valve (PMEAV) represents an attractive device in such cases. We examined the early hemodynamic performance, the mid-term outcomes of the PMEAV, and the impact of PPM on outcome and functional class. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected in-hospital data, and a prospective single-center follow-up of 849 patients who received a 19 to 23 mm PMEAV (2008–2014). Concomitant mitral or tricuspid replacement was the exclusion criterion. Early hemodynamic features were prospectively collected; mid-term follow-up was conducted according to current guidelines. Results Size of implanted prosthesis was 19 mm in 11.5% of patients, 21 mm in 36.9%, and 23 mm in 51.5%. Operative mortality was 4.5% (3.1% for isolated AVR). The rate of severe and moderate PPMs was significantly higher in the 19 mm group. Follow-up was 99.9% complete (3.7 ± 2 years). Actuarial freedom from structural valve deterioration (SVD) at 5 years was 99.1%. At stratified Kaplan–Meier's analysis, PPM and age <70 years were associated with SVD. PPM was not associated with worse functional status (New York Heart Association class) or mortality at follow-up. Conclusion This series shows satisfactory clinical outcomes of the PMEAV implanted in small aortic annuli at mid-term follow-up. Although PPM may occur in smaller sizes, it has limited clinical impact, and it is not associated with mid-term mortality or worse functional class. Few SVD events are evidenced; nonetheless, limited follow-up duration and its methodology need to be considered.
Matrix Completion and Extrapolation via Kernel Regression

Matrix completion and extrapolation (MCEX) are dealt with here over reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHSs) in order to account for prior information present in the available data. Aiming at a fast and low-complexity solver, the task is formulated as one of kernel ridge regression. The resultant MCEX algorithm can also afford online implementation, while the class of kernel functions also encompasses several existing approaches to MC with prior information. Numerical tests on synthetic and real datasets show that the novel approach is faster than widespread methods such as alternating least-squares (ALS) or stochastic gradient descent (SGD), and that the recovery error is reduced, especially when dealing with noisy data.
Colorectal surgeons should be open to modern surgical technologies for challenging cases

Today, colorectal surgeons globally are practicing in an exciting era where surgical technologies are constantly emerging. Most of these cutting‐edge technologies are readily available in Australia and New Zealand at present. Thus the ‘modern surgeon’ should always be defined by this open‐minded attitude towards these new and emerging surgical technologies. This review article highlights current modalities that we have been using in our north‐Brisbane public and private hospitals for cases predicted to be technically challenging using minimally invasive approaches for most of them. We examined the current evidence regarding the following modalities and critiqued their use in clinical practice: lighted ureteric stents, minimally invasive surgery approaches of laparoscopy and robotic surgery, pressure barrier insufflation devices, 3D camera systems, hand‐assist device ports and indocyanine green dye fluorescence angiography. The objective of this review paper is to alert colorectal surgeons to new surgical technologies available to them, to encourage colorectal surgeons' familiarization with these many technologies, and to support evidence‐based consideration for the clinical use of such. These technologies should be supplemental aides to the safe, oncologically adequate and efficient operation that they already routinely perform.
Economic Pressure and Depressive Symptoms: Testing the Family Stress Model From Adolescence to Adulthood

The family stress model (FSM) was used to examine the effects of economic pressure on maternal depressive symptoms, couple conflict, and mother harsh parenting during adolescence on offspring depressive symptoms in adulthood. Prospective longitudinal data were analyzed across 3 developmental time points that included 451 mothers and their adolescents. Economic pressure and mother depressive symptoms were assessed during early adolescence, couple conflict and mother harsh parenting were assessed during middle to late adolescence, and offspring depressive symptoms were assessed in adulthood. Findings were in support of pathways in the FSM in that economic pressure was related to maternal depressive symptoms, which were associated with couple conflict, which in turn predicted mother harsh parenting during adolescence, and mother harsh parenting was associated with offspring depressive symptoms in adulthood.
Discovery of a multispecies shark aggregation and parturition area in the Ba Estuary, Fiji Islands

Abstract Population declines in shark species have been reported on local and global scales, with overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change posing severe threats. The lack of species‐specific baseline data on ecology and distribution of many sharks, however, makes conservation measures challenging. Here, we present a fisheries‐independent shark survey from the Fiji Islands, where scientific knowledge on locally occurring elasmobranchs is largely still lacking despite the location's role as a shark hotspot in the Pacific. Juvenile shark abundance in the fishing grounds of the Ba Estuary (north‐western Viti Levu) was assessed with a gillnet‐ and longline‐based survey from December 2015 to April 2016. A total of 103 juvenile sharks identified as blacktip Carcharhinus limbatus (n = 57), scalloped hammerhead Sphyrna lewini (n = 35), and great hammerhead Sphyrna mokarran (n = 11) sharks were captured, tagged, and released. The condition of umbilical scars (68% open or semihealed), mean sizes of individuals (±SD) (C. limbatus: 66.5 ± 3.8 cm, S. lewini: 51.8 ± 4.8 cm, S. mokarran 77.4 ± 2.8 cm), and the presence of these species over recent years (based on fishermen interviews), suggest that the Ba Estuary area is a critical habitat for multiple species that are classified as “Near Threatened” or “Endangered. ” Specifically, the area likely acts as a parturition ground over the studied period, and potentially as a subsequent nursery area. We identified subareas of high abundance and found that temperature, salinity and depth acted as small‐scale environmental drivers of shark abundance. The data suggests a tendency for species‐specific spatial use, both horizontally (i.e., between sampling areas) and vertically (i.e., across the water column). These results enhance the understanding of shark ecology in Fiji and provide a scientific basis for the implementation of local conservation strategies that contribute to the protection of these threatened species.