Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regularizing by the Variance of the Activations' Sample-Variances

Normalization techniques play an important role in supporting efficient and often more effective training of deep neural networks. While conventional methods explicitly normalize the activations, we suggest to add a loss term instead. This new loss term encourages the variance of the activations to be stable and not vary from one random mini-batch to the next. As we prove, this encourages the activations to be distributed around a few distinct modes. We also show that if the inputs are from a mixture of two Gaussians, the new loss would either join the two together, or separate between them optimally in the LDA sense, depending on the prior probabilities. Finally, we are able to link the new regularization term to the batchnorm method, which provides it with a regularization perspective. Our experiments demonstrate an improvement in accuracy over the batchnorm technique for both CNNs and fully connected networks.
Supragingival Plaque Microbiome Ecology and Functional Potential in the Context of Health and Disease

Oral health has substantial economic importance, with over $100 billion spent on dental care in the United States annually. The microbiome plays a critical role in oral health, yet remains poorly classified. To address the question of how microbial diversity and function in the oral cavities of children relate to caries diagnosis, we surveyed the supragingival plaque biofilm microbiome in 44 juvenile twin pairs. Using shotgun sequencing, we constructed a genome encyclopedia describing the core supragingival plaque microbiome. This unveiled several new previously uncharacterized but ubiquitous microbial lineages in the oral microbiome. Caries is a microbial community metabolic disorder that cannot be described by a single etiology, and our results provide the information needed for next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutics for caries. ABSTRACT To address the question of how microbial diversity and function in the oral cavities of children relates to caries diagnosis, we surveyed the supragingival plaque biofilm microbiome in 44 juvenile twin pairs. Using shotgun sequencing, we constructed a genome encyclopedia describing the core supragingival plaque microbiome. Caries phenotypes contained statistically significant enrichments in specific genome abundances and distinct community composition profiles, including strain-level changes. Metabolic pathways that are statistically associated with caries include several sugar-associated phosphotransferase systems, antimicrobial resistance, and metal transport. Numerous closely related previously uncharacterized microbes had substantial variation in central metabolism, including the loss of biosynthetic pathways resulting in auxotrophy, changing the ecological role. We also describe the first complete Gracilibacteria genomes from the human microbiome. Caries is a microbial community metabolic disorder that cannot be described by a single etiology, and our results provide the information needed for next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutics for caries. IMPORTANCE Oral health has substantial economic importance, with over $100 billion spent on dental care in the United States annually. The microbiome plays a critical role in oral health, yet remains poorly classified. To address the question of how microbial diversity and function in the oral cavities of children relate to caries diagnosis, we surveyed the supragingival plaque biofilm microbiome in 44 juvenile twin pairs. Using shotgun sequencing, we constructed a genome encyclopedia describing the core supragingival plaque microbiome. This unveiled several new previously uncharacterized but ubiquitous microbial lineages in the oral microbiome. Caries is a microbial community metabolic disorder that cannot be described by a single etiology, and our results provide the information needed for next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutics for caries.
Statistical techniques for high-voltage engineering

This book sets out statistical methods that can be used in the preparation, execution, evaluation and interpretation of experiments of a random nature. It also includes the assessment of test methods used in high-voltage engineering from a statistical standpoint, and contains detailed sections on breakdown statistics of typical electrical insulating arrangements. Separate special areas of mathematical statistics - such as statistical trial planning, questions of reliability, and stochastic processes - are mentioned briefly. The extensive bibliography points the way to more advanced work. Emphasis is placed on easy comprehension, clarity, visual representation and practical relevance, and each process is explained using at least one example. The book is written from the engineer's point of view: mathematical eduction is dispensed with, while mathematical logic and terminological accuracy are ensured. This book is directed both at the practising engineer and at the student of electrical engineering at the stages of study involving independent creative experimental activity. Physicists and mathematicians encountering problems of application will also find the book invaluable.
Musculoskeletal Disorders among Dental Practitioners: Does It Affect Practice?

Background. Literature reviews world over have shown a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among dental practitioners. Prevalence of MSD among dental practitioners in India is not well documented. Aim. To determine the prevalence and distribution of MSD among dental practitioners in a city in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Material and Methods. A cross sectional descriptive study in which a self-administered questionnaire (the Standardized Nordic questionnaire) was used to assess the musculoskeletal symptoms among dental practitioners. The recorded data was analyzed with SPSS 13. <path id="x1D443" d="M619 482q0 -69 -40.5 -119t-96 -72.5t-118.5 -26.5h-44l-70 20l-31 -151q-14 -67 0.5 -83t89.5 -22l-5 -28h-287l8 28q65 7 81.5 22t29.5 83l79 398q12 56 0.5 70.5t-78.5 20.5l7 28h255q108 0 164 -43t56 -125zM524 478q0 141 -146 141q-25 0 -47 -8q-16 -6 -20.5 -13.5 t-10.5 -39.5l-43 -241q37 -13 83 -13q67 0 125.5 45t58.5 129z" /> -value 0.05 was considered to statistically significant. Results. Seventy-three dental practitioners participated in the study of which seventy-eight percent had a prevalence of at least one MSD symptom over the past twelve months. Most common areas affected by MSD in order of magnitude were neck (52%), low back (41%), shoulders (29%) and wrist (26%). One third of the practitioners (40%) required sick leave from their practice during the preceding twelve months. Conclusions. High prevalence of MSD exists among our dental practitioners affecting the daily practice of more than one third. Further studies are needed to identify the specific risk factors for MSD so as to introduce effective remedial measures.
Multi-Hierarchical Independent Correlation Filters For Visual Tracking

For visual object tracking, most of the traditional correlation filters (CF) based methods suffer from the bottleneck of feature redundancy and lack of motion information. In this paper, we design a novel tracking framework, called multi-hierarchical independent correlation filters (MHIT). The framework consists of hierarchical features selection, independent group CF online learning, adaptive multi-branch CF fusion and motion estimation module. Specifically, the multi-hierarchical deep features of CNN representing different semantic information can be fully employed to track multi-scale objects. To fully learn redundant deep features, each hierarchical feature is independently fed into a single branch to implement the online learning of parameters. Finally, an adaptive weight scheme is integrated into the framework to fuse these independent multi-branch CFs for robust visual object tracking. Furthermore, the motion estimation module is introduced to capture motion information, which effectively alleviates the problem of fast motion. Extensive experiments on OTB and VOT datasets show that the proposed MHIT tracker can significantly improve the tracking performance.
Calcineurin-dependent Protein Phosphorylation Changes During Egg Activation in Drosophila melanogaster

Phosphoproteomic and global proteomic changes that occur during egg activation were quantified for the oocytes and eggs of Drosophila melanogaster, with normal (control) or perturbed (CanB2, knockdown) calcineurin functions. We discovered broad influences of calcineurin on protein phosphorylation states in maturing oocytes and activating eggs. Our results illuminate the molecular mechanisms through which calcineurin regulates meiosis progression, protein translation, and signaling pathways during this critical developmental transition. Graphical Abstract Highlights Calcineurin controls proteomic phosphorylation in fly oocytes and activating eggs. Without CanB2, activated eggs arrest in an M-phase like cell cycle state. Calcineurin is a key regulator of translation factors during egg activation. In egg activation, phosphorylation of GSK3β via Akt1 is calcineurin-dependent. In almost all animals studied to date, the crucial process of egg activation, by which an arrested mature oocyte transitions into an actively developing embryo, initiates with an increase in Ca2+ in the oocyte's cytoplasm. This Ca2+ rise sets off a series of downstream events, including the completion of meiosis and the dynamic remodeling of the oocyte transcriptome and proteome, which prepares the oocyte for embryogenesis. Calcineurin is a highly conserved phosphatase that is activated by Ca2+ upon egg activation and that is required for the resumption of meiosis in Xenopus,, ascidians, and Drosophila. The molecular mechanisms by which calcineurin transduces the calcium signal to regulate meiosis and other downstream events are still unclear. In this study, we investigate the regulatory role of calcineurin during egg activation in Drosophila melanogaster,. Using mass spectrometry, we quantify the phosphoproteomic and proteomic changes that occur during egg activation, and we examine how these events are affected when calcineurin function is perturbed in female germ cells. Our results show that calcineurin regulates hundreds of phosphosites and also influences the abundance of numerous proteins during egg activation. We find calcineurin-dependent changes in cell cycle regulators including Fizzy (Fzy), Greatwall (Gwl) and Endosulfine (Endos); in protein translation modulators including PNG, NAT, eIF4G, and eIF4B; and in important components of signaling pathways including GSK3β and Akt1. Our results help elucidate the events that occur during the transition from oocyte to embryo.
Treating hepatitis C virus in dialysis patients: How, when, and why?

The identification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) occurred in 1989, and soon thereafter, it was recognized that there was a higher prevalence of anti‐HCV seropositivity in patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) when compared to the general population. Multiple extrahepatic manifestations have been associated with HCV infection in patients with ESRD; these include an increased prevalence and risk of cardiovascular complications, insulin resistance, diabetes mellitus, and lymphoproliferative disorders. Infection with HCV has also been associated with an increased relative risk of mortality in the ESRD patient when contrasted to those patients without infection. The availability of second‐generation direct‐acting antiviral agents has revolutionized the treatment of HCV in both the general population as well as those patients with advanced chronic kidney disease and receiving dialysis. These new treatment protocols are very well tolerated with limited side effects and manageable drug‐drug interactions while achieving remarkable sustained viral response rates. It is important that nephrologists become familiar with the differing strategies available for HCV‐infected ESRD patients so that the appropriate decision of when and who to treat can be made for each patient.
Fatal bronchopneumonia caused by skunk adenovirus 1 in an African pygmy hedgehog

Eleven adult African pygmy hedgehogs (Atelerix albiventris) were added to a group of 35 animals, and within 10 d, respiratory distress affected 8 of 35 resident animals in the group, but none of the introduced animals. Three animals died following onset of clinical signs. Tissues from one animal were collected and submitted for histopathology, which revealed acute necrotizing bronchopneumonia and tracheitis with intraepithelial intranuclear inclusion bodies. Electron microscopy identified 75–90 nm diameter encapsulated icosahedral virions. Degenerate nested PCR analysis identified adenovirus within the affected lung tissue. Deep sequencing showed 100% homology to skunk adenovirus 1 (SkAdV-1). Adenoviruses are usually species-adapted and -specific, but our case supports the single previous report of non-skunk infection with SkAdV-1, indicating that this virus can infect other species, and further shows that it can cause fatal disease.
Color, Music, and Emotion: Bach to the Blues

When people make cross-modal matches from classical music to colors, they choose colors whose emotional associations fit the emotional associations of the music, supporting the emotional mediation hypothesis. We further explored this result with a large, diverse sample of 34 musical excerpts from different genres, including Blues, Salsa, Heavy metal, and many others, a broad sample of 10 emotion-related rating scales, and a large range of 15 rated music–perceptual features. We found systematic music-to-color associations between perceptual features of the music and perceptual dimensions of the colors chosen as going best/worst with the music (e.g., loud, punchy, distorted music was generally associated with darker, redder, more saturated colors). However, these associations were also consistent with emotional mediation (e.g., agitated-sounding music was associated with agitated-looking colors). Indeed, partialling out the variance due to emotional content eliminated all significant cross-modal correlations between lower level perceptual features. Parallel factor analysis (Parafac, a type of factor analysis that encompasses individual differences) revealed two latent affective factors— arousal and valence —which mediated lower level correspondences in music-to-color associations. Participants thus appear to match music to colors primarily in terms of common, mediating emotional associations.
Binding of the general anesthetic sevoflurane to ion channels

The direct-site hypothesis assumes general anesthetics bind ion channels to impact protein equilibrium and function, inducing anesthesia. Despite advancements in the field, a first principle all-atom demonstration of this structure-function premise is still missing. We focus on the clinically used sevoflurane interaction to anesthetic-sensitive Kv1.2 mammalian channel to resolve if sevoflurane binds protein’s well-characterized open and closed structures in a conformation-dependent manner to shift channel equilibrium. We employ an innovative approach relying on extensive docking calculations and free-energy perturbation of all potential binding sites revealed by the latter, and find sevoflurane binds open and closed structures at multiple sites under complex saturation and concentration effects. Results point to a non-trivial interplay of site and conformation-dependent modes of action involving distinct binding sites that increase channel open-probability at diluted ligand concentrations. Given the challenge in exploring more complex processes potentially impacting channel-anesthetic interaction, the result is revealing as it demonstrates the process of multiple anesthetic binding events alone may account for open-probability shifts recorded in measurements.
Evaluation of Changes in the Motor Network Following BCI Therapy Based on Graph Theory Analysis

Despite the established effectiveness of the brain-computer interface (BCI) therapy during stroke rehabilitation (Song et al., 2014a, 2015; Young et al., 2014a,b,c, 2015; Remsik et al., 2016), little is understood about the connections between motor network reorganization and functional motor improvements. The aim of this study was to investigate changes in the network reorganization of the motor cortex during BCI therapy. Graph theoretical approaches are used on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired from stroke patients to evaluate these changes. Correlations between changes in graph measurements and behavioral measurements were also examined. Right hemisphere chronic stroke patients (average time from stroke onset = 38.23 months, standard deviation (SD) = 46.27 months, n = 13, 6 males, 10 right-handed) with upper-extremity motor deficits received interventional rehabilitation therapy using a closed-loop neurofeedback BCI device. Eyes-closed resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) scans, along with T-1 weighted anatomical scans on 3.0T MRI scanners were collected from these patients at four test points. Immediate therapeutic effects were investigated by comparing pre and post-therapy results. Results displayed that th average clustering coefficient of the motor network increased significantly from pre to post-therapy. Furthermore, increased regional centrality of ipsilesional primary motor area (p = 0.02) and decreases in regional centrality of contralesional thalamus (p = 0.05), basal ganglia (p = 0.05 in betweenness centrality analysis and p = 0.03 for degree centrality), and dentate nucleus (p = 0.03) were observed (uncorrected). These findings suggest an overall trend toward significance in terms of involvement of these regions. Increased centrality of primary motor area may indicate increased efficiency within its interactive network as an effect of BCI therapy. Notably, changes in centrality of the bilateral cerebellum regions have strong correlations with both clinical variables [the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), and the Nine-Hole Peg Test (9-HPT)]
Warmth and competence predict overoptimistic beliefs for out-group but not in-group members

People can be overly optimistic not only about their own future but also for the people with whom they identify. Furthermore, interpersonal perception generally forms along two universal dimensions, i.e. warmth and competence. In this study, we created four fictional characters that would map onto each quadrant of the two-dimensional space of warmth and competence, i.e. one in-group member (high on both warmth and competence) and three out-group members (high warmth, low competence; high competence, low warmth; low on both warmth and competence). We then asked respondents to assess the likelihood of each character experiencing a series of identical desirable and undesirable events in order to uncover potential optimistic biases. Our study had two goals. First, we wanted to balance the target desirable and undesirable events on four key characteristics, i.e. event frequency, controllability, emotional intensity and personal experience with the event. Second, we wanted to investigate whether stereotypes of warmth and competence could influence the respondents’ likelihood estimates for each character. We show that respondents manifested a strong desirability bias, expecting more desirable than undesirable events for the in-group member and the reverse pattern for the extreme out-group member. More important, we show that, within desirable and undesirable events, respondents anchored their judgments for the in-group member on their personal experience with the target events, further revealing an egocentric bias, but turned to stereotypical knowledge in the form of warmth and competence to judge out-group members. Implications for both social perception and optimism research are discussed.
Physiological Studies of Chlorobiaceae Suggest that Bacillithiol Derivatives Are the Most Widespread Thiols in Bacteria

Low-molecular-weight thiols are key metabolites that participate in many basic cellular processes: central metabolism, detoxification, and oxidative stress resistance. Here we describe a new thiol, N-methyl-bacillithiol, found in an anaerobic phototrophic bacterium and identify a gene that is responsible for its synthesis from bacillithiol, the main thiol metabolite in many Gram-positive bacteria. We show that the presence or absence of this gene in a sequenced genome accurately predicts thiol content in distantly related bacteria. On the basis of these results, we analyzed genome data and predict that bacillithiol and its derivatives are the most widely distributed thiol metabolites in biology. ABSTRACT Low-molecular-weight (LMW) thiols mediate redox homeostasis and the detoxification of chemical stressors. Despite their essential functions, the distribution of LMW thiols across cellular life has not yet been defined. LMW thiols are also thought to play a central role in sulfur oxidation pathways in phototrophic bacteria, including the Chlorobiaceae. Here we show that Chlorobaculum tepidum synthesizes a novel LMW thiol with a mass of 412 ± 1 Da corresponding to a molecular formula of C14H24N2O10S, which suggests that the new LMW thiol is closely related to bacillithiol (BSH), the major LMW thiol of low-G+C Gram-positive bacteria. The Cba. tepidum LMW thiol structure was N-methyl-bacillithiol (N-Me-BSH), methylated on the cysteine nitrogen, the fourth instance of this modification in metabolism. Orthologs of bacillithiol biosynthetic genes in the Cba. tepidum genome and the CT1040 gene product, N-Me-BSH synthase, were required for N-Me-BSH synthesis. N-Me-BSH was found in all Chlorobiaceae examined as well as Polaribacter sp. strain MED152, a member of the Bacteroidetes. A comparative genomic analysis indicated that BSH/N-Me-BSH is synthesized not only by members of the Chlorobiaceae, Bacteroidetes, Deinococcus-Thermus, and Firmicutes but also by Acidobacteria, Chlamydiae, Gemmatimonadetes, and Proteobacteria. Thus, BSH and derivatives appear to be the most broadly distributed LMW thiols in biology. IMPORTANCE Low-molecular-weight thiols are key metabolites that participate in many basic cellular processes: central metabolism, detoxification, and oxidative stress resistance. Here we describe a new thiol, N-methyl-bacillithiol, found in an anaerobic phototrophic bacterium and identify a gene that is responsible for its synthesis from bacillithiol, the main thiol metabolite in many Gram-positive bacteria. We show that the presence or absence of this gene in a sequenced genome accurately predicts thiol content in distantly related bacteria. On the basis of these results, we analyzed genome data and predict that bacillithiol and its derivatives are the most widely distributed thiol metabolites in biology.
Understanding Students’ Instrumental Goals, Motivation Deficits and Achievement: Through the Lens of a Latent Profile Analysis

Building on the future oriented and regulated nature of instrumental goals, Lens and colleagues developed a 2 (proximal-distal) x 2 (internal-external) motivational framework. The current study aimed to test this framework from a person-centred perspective, while equally taking into account students’ lack of motivation as to extend the empirical and theoretical borders of the model. Latent Profile Analyses were used to test the viability of two to five motivational profiles among Japanese second-year students (N = 781). A solution with three latent subgroups fitted the sample best, explaining 6% to 62% of the variance in the measured variables. The profiles were labelled “low future oriented motivational profile”, “average motivated profile”, and “highly motivated profile”. The highly motivated subgroup reported the most adaptive pattern of motivation and highest levels of deep level learning, while few differences were found for surface learning and GPA. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.