Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in galaxy clusters since z ~ 0.8

Using galaxy clusters from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey, we study how the distribution of galaxies along the colour-magnitude relation has evolved since z ~ 0.8. While red-sequence galaxies in all these clusters are well described by an old, passively evolving population, we confirm our previous finding of a significant evolution in their luminosity distribution as a function of redshift. When compared to galaxy clusters in the local Universe, the high-redshift EDisCS clusters exhibit a significant deficit of faint red galaxies. Combining clusters in three different redshift bins, and defining as `faint' all galaxies in the range 0.4 >~ L/L* >~ 0.1, we find a clear decrease in the luminous-to-faint ratio of red galaxies from z ~ 0.8 to ~0.4. The amount of such a decrease appears to be in qualitative agreement with predictions of a model where the blue bright galaxies that populate the colour-magnitude diagram of high-redshift clusters, have their star formation suppressed by the hostile cluster environment. Although model results need to be interpreted with caution, our findings clearly indicate that the red-sequence population of high-redshift clusters does not contain all progenitors of nearby red-sequence cluster galaxies. A significant fraction of these must have moved on to the red sequence below z ~ 0.8.
Swift J1753.5–0127: The Black Hole Candidate with the Shortest Orbital Period

We present time-resolved photometry of the optical counterpart to the black hole candidate Swift J1753.5–0127 which has remained in the low/hard X-ray state and bright at optical/IR wavelengths since its discovery in 2005. At the time of our observations Swift J1753.5–0127 does not show a decay trend but remains stable at R = 16.45 with a night-to-night variability of ~0.05 mag. The R-band light curves, taken from 2007 June 3 to August 31, are not sinusoidal, but exhibit a complex morphology with remarkable changes in shape and amplitude. The best period determination is 3.2443 ± 0.0010 hr. This photometric period is likely a superhump period, slightly larger than the orbital period. Therefore, Swift J1753.5–0127 is the black hole candidate with the shortest orbital period observed to date. Our estimation of the distance is comparable to values previously published and likely places Swift J1753.5–0127 in the Galactic halo.
Coherent laminar and turbulent motion of toroidal vortex bundles

Motivated by experiments performed in superfluid helium, we study numerically the motion of toroidal bundles of vortex filaments in an inviscid fluid. We find that the evolution of these large-scale vortex structures involves the generalised leapfrogging of the constituent vortex rings. Despite three dimensional perturbations in the form of Kelvin waves and vortex reconnections, toroidal vortex bundles retain their coherence over a relatively large distance (compared to their size), in agreement with experimental observations.
Polyphasic approach to the taxonomy of the selected oscillatorian strains ( Cyanobacteria )

Morphology and ultrastructure of 25 oscillatorian strains was examined and phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA oscillatorian sequences was conducted. Genera Phormidium and Oscillatoria were shown to be polyphyletic. Although morphologically similar strains are found in different branches of the phylogenetic tree, considerable correlation between molecular, ultrastructural and some morphological and ecological traits was detected in several lineages. I declare, that I wrote this master thesis by myself, solely by the use of the listed literature. In é e, 23 April, 2007 . hodný Ogarovi (A. Horákovi) za velkou pomoc v molekulární laborce -
A Cross-Lagged Study of Developmental Trajectories of Video Game Engagement, Addiction, and Mental Health

Objectives: Video game addiction has been associated with an array of mental health variables. There is a paucity of longitudinal studies investigating such associations, and studies differentiating addicted gaming from problem and engaged (i.e., frequent but non-problem) gaming. The current explorative study investigate the natural course of gaming behavior in three sub-studies. The aim of study 1 was to investigate antecedents and consequences of video game addiction measured as a unidimensional construct (pathological gaming). Aim of study 2 was to investigate the same associations in terms of typologies of gamers (“engaged,” “problem,” “addicted”). Furthermore, study 3 aimed to investigate the estimated stability and transitions occurring between the aforementioned typologies, and a non-pathological gaming group. Methods: A nationally representative sample of 3,000 adolescents aged 17.5 years was drawn from the population registry of Norway in 2012 and invited to participate in annual surveys spanning 3 years (NT1 = 2,059, NT2 = 1,334, NT3 = 1,277). The respondents completed measures of video game addiction, depression, anxiety, loneliness, aggression, and alcohol use disorder. Statistical analysis comprised cross-lagged path modeling, Satorra-Bentler chi square test (study 1), regression analyses (study 2), hidden Markov model of transition probabilities (study 3). Results: Findings in study 1 showed that depression and loneliness were reciprocally associated with pathological gaming. Physical aggression was identified as an antecedent, and anxiety was a consequence of pathological gaming. Investigation of the three typologies of gamers (study 2) identified loneliness and physical aggression as antecedents, and depression as a consequence of all typologies. Depression was found to be an antecedent of problem and engaged gamers. Loneliness was found as a consequence of problem gamers, and anxiety was a consequence of addicted gamers. High alcohol consumption was found antecedent to addicted gamers, and low alcohol consumption was found antecedent to problem gamers. The estimated stability of video game addiction was 35%. Conclusion: A reciprocal relationship between pathological gaming and measures of mental health problems seems to exist. The stability of video game addiction indicates a condition that for a substantial number of people does not resolve spontaneously over the course of 2 years.
Affective temperament in inflammatory bowel diseases: Another brick in the wall of differentiation

Psychiatric disorders are significantly common complications among patients suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Affective temperament is a concept of core personality traits, which can decribe the vulnerability to mood disorders, therefore its evaluation might convey useful information about patients' mental status in autoimmune disorders. The aim of the study was to evaluate the affective temperament in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) as characteristic features of these diseases, but also in the clinical course and the severity of anxiety and depression.Due to our knowledge this is the first study of this kind. The study enrolled 130 patients with IBD, including 68 with CD and 62 with UC. We used TEMPS-A to evaluate affective temperament and HADS scales to assess the intensity of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Harvey Bradshaw scale, Crohn’s Disease Activity Index (CDAI) and Mayo Score were used to evaluate clinical severity of the diseases. We observed significantly higher prevalence of depressive, cyclothymic and anxiety temperaments in CD patients compared to the control group. Harvey Bradshaw scale, CDAI and Mayo Self Report showed statistically significant outcomes, including significant positive correlations with depressive, cyclothymic and anxiety subscales of TEMPS-A, and negative correlation with the hyperthymic temperament in CD subjects. Our findings indicate significant differences between CD and UC due to temperament traits, and suggest distinct pathogenesis of mood disorders in IBD.
Gliding for a free lunch: biomechanics of foraging flight in common swifts (Apus apus)

ABSTRACT Although the biomechanics of animal flight have been well studied in laboratory apparatus such as wind tunnels for many years, the applicability of these data to natural flight behaviour has been examined in few instances and mostly in the context of long-distance migration. Here, we used rotational stereo-videography to record the free-flight trajectories of foraging common swifts. We found that, despite their exquisite manoeuvring capabilities, the swifts only rarely performed high-acceleration turns. More surprisingly, we also found that despite feeding on tiny insects probably moving with ambient flow, the birds adjust their air speed to optimize cost of transport over distance. Finally, swifts spent only 25% of their time flapping; the majority of their time (71%) was spent in extended wing gliding, during which the average power expended for changes in speed or elevation was 0.84 W kg−1 and not significantly different from 0. Thus, gliding swifts extracted sufficient environmental energy to pay the cost of flight during foraging. Highlighted Article: Foraging common swifts spend the majority of their time gliding while making use of environmental energy such as thermals and gusts which, on average, completely cover the cost of flight.
A Local Metric for Defocus Blur Detection Based on CNN Feature Learning

Defocus blur detection is an important and challenging task in computer vision and digital imaging fields. Previous work on defocus blur detection has put a lot of effort into designing local sharpness metric maps. This paper presents a simple yet effective method to automatically obtain the local metric map for defocus blur detection, which based on the feature learning of multiple convolutional neural networks (ConvNets). The ConvNets automatically learn the most locally relevant features at the super-pixel level of the image in a supervised manner. By extracting convolution kernels from the trained neural network structures and processing it with principal component analysis, we can automatically obtain the local sharpness metric by reshaping the principal component vector. Meanwhile, an effective iterative updating mechanism is proposed to refine the defocus blur detection result from coarse to fine by exploiting the intrinsic peculiarity of the hyperbolic tangent function. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method consistently performed better than the previous state-of-the-art methods.
Novel subcutaneous low-molecular-weight heparin injection technique to reduce post-injection bruising

Objective To investigate the efficacy of a novel low-molecular-weight heparin injection technique compared to the standard technique relative to bruising incidence, bruise size, and pain. Methods A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 44 patients with acute deep vein thrombosis. Patients who were randomized into the control group received a 10-s duration injection with immediate needle withdrawal, whereas study group patients received a 30-s duration injection with a 10-s pause before needle withdrawal. Two injection sites were assessed for pain and bruising between 48 and 60 h after injection. Results Bruises occurred in 50.0% and 18.2% of control and study group patients, respectively (p = 0.03). Mean bruise size between 48 and 60 h after injection was 172.73 ± 372.60 mm2 and 28.18 ± 70.01 mm2 in the control group and study group, respectively (p = 0.026). Pain scores were comparable between groups. Conclusion A 30-s duration injection with a 10-s pause before needle withdrawal resulted in significantly fewer and smaller bruises.
Design of novel multi-epitope vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome validated through multistage molecular interaction and dynamics

Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is endemic in South China and is continuing to spread worldwide since the 2003 outbreak, affecting human population of 37 countries till present. SARS is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV). In the present study, we have designed two multi-epitope vaccines (MEVs) composed of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL), helper T lymphocyte (HTL) and B cell epitopes overlap, bearing the potential to elicit cellular as well as humoral immune response. We have used truncated (residues 10–153) Onchocerca volvulus activation-associated secreted protein-1 as molecular adjuvants at N-terminal of both the MEVs. Selected overlapping epitopes of both the MEVs were further validated for stable molecular interactions with their respective human leukocyte antigen class I and II allele binders. Moreover, CTL epitopes were further studied for their molecular interaction with transporter associated with antigen processing. Furthermore, after tertiary structure modelling, both the MEVs were validated for their stable molecular interaction with Toll-like receptors 2 and 4. Codon-optimized cDNA of both the MEVs was analysed for their potential high level of expression in the mammalian cell line (Human) needed for their further in vivo testing. Overall, the present study proposes in silico validated design of two MEVs against SARS composed of specific epitopes with the potential to cause a high level of SARS-CoV specific cellular as well as humoral immune response. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
Performance guarantees for greedy maximization of non-submodular controllability metrics

A key problem in emerging complex cyber-physical networks is the design of information and control topologies, including sensor and actuator selection and communication network design. These problems can be posed as combinatorial set function optimization problems to maximize a dynamic performance metric for the network. Some systems and control metrics feature a property called submodularity, which allows simple greedy algorithms to obtain provably near-optimal topology designs. However, many important metrics lack submodularity and therefore lack provable guarantees for using a greedy optimization approach. Here we show that performance guarantees can be obtained for greedy maximization of certain non-submodular functions of the controllability and observability Gramians. Our results are based on two key quantities: the submodularity ratio, which quantifies how far a set function is from being submodular, and the curvature, which quantifies how far a set function is from being supermodular.
Seminal vesicle secretory protein 7, PATE4, is not required for sperm function but for copulatory plug formation to ensure fecundity†

Abstract Seminal vesicle secretions (SVSs), together with spermatozoa, are ejaculated into the female reproductive tract. SVS7, also known as PATE4, is one of the major SVS proteins found in the seminal vesicle, copulatory plug, and uterine fluid after copulation. Here, we generated Pate4 knockout (−/−) mice and examined the detailed function of PATE4 on male fecundity. The morphology and weight of Pate4−/− seminal vesicles were comparable to the control. Although Pate4−/− cauda epididymal spermatozoa have no overt defects during in vitro fertilization, Pate4−/− males were subfertile. We found that the copulatory plugs were smaller in the vagina of females mated with Pate4−/− males, leading to semen leakage and a decreased sperm count in the uterus. When the females mated with Pate4−/− males were immediately re-caged with Pate4+/+ males, the females had subsequent productive matings. When the cauda epididymal spermatozoa were injected into the uterus and plugged artificially [artificial insemination (AI)], Pate4−/− spermatozoa could efficiently fertilize eggs as compared to wild-type spermatozoa. We finally examined the effect of SVSs on AI, and observed no difference in fertilization rates between Pate4+/+ and Pate4−/− SVSs. In conclusion, PATE4 is a novel factor in forming the copulatory plug that inhibits sequential matings and maintains spermatozoa in the uterus to ensure male fecundity.
Deleterious mitochondrial DNA point mutations are overrepresented in Drosophila expressing a proofreading-defective DNA polymerase γ

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations cause severe maternally inherited syndromes and the accumulation of somatic mtDNA mutations is implicated in aging and common diseases. However, the mechanisms that influence the frequency and pathogenicity of mtDNA mutations are poorly understood. To address this matter, we created a Drosophila mtDNA mutator strain expressing a proofreading-deficient form of the mitochondrial DNA polymerase. Mutator flies have a dramatically increased somatic mtDNA mutation frequency that correlates with the dosage of the proofreading-deficient polymerase. Mutator flies also exhibit mitochondrial dysfunction, shortened lifespan, a progressive locomotor deficit, and loss of dopaminergic neurons. Surprisingly, the frequency of nonsynonymous, pathogenic, and conserved-site mutations in mutator flies exceeded predictions of a neutral mutational model, indicating the existence of a positive selection mechanism that favors deleterious mtDNA variants. We propose from these findings that deleterious mtDNA mutations are overrepresented because they selectively evade quality control surveillance or because they are amplified through compensatory mitochondrial biogenesis.
Current Perspectives on Tooth Implantation, Attachment, and Replacement in Amniota

Teeth and dentitions contain many morphological characters which give them a particularly important weight in comparative anatomy, systematics, physiology and ecology. As teeth are organs that contain the hardest mineralized tissues vertebrates can produce, their fossil remains are abundant and the study of their anatomy in fossil specimens is of major importance in evolutionary biology. Comparative anatomy has long favored studies of dental characters rather than features associated with tooth attachment and implantation. Here we review a large part of the historical and modern work on the attachment, implantation and replacement of teeth in Amniota. We propose synthetic definitions or redefinitions of most commonly used terms, some of which have led to confusion and conflation of terminology. In particular, there has long been much conflation between dental implantation that strictly concerns the geometrical aspects of the tooth-bone interface, and the nature of the dental attachment, which mostly concerns the histological features occurring at this interface. A second aim of this work was to evaluate the diversity of tooth attachment, implantation and replacement in extant and extinct amniotes in order to derive hypothetical evolutionary trends in these different dental traits over time. Continuous dental replacement prevails within amniotes, replacement being drastically modified only in Mammalia and when dental implantation is acrodont. By comparison, dental implantation frequently and rapidly changes at various taxonomic scales and is often homoplastic. This contrasts with the conservatism in the identity of the tooth attachment tissues (cementum, periodontal ligament, and alveolar bone), which were already present in the earliest known amniotes. Because the study of dental attachment requires invasive histological investigations, this trait is least documented and therefore its evolutionary history is currently poorly understood. Finally, it is essential to go on collecting data from all groups of amniotes in order to better understand and consequently better define dental characters.
A Proteomic Approach for Understanding the Mechanisms of Delayed Corneal Wound Healing in Diabetic Keratopathy Using Diabetic Model Rat

Diabetes mellitus is a widespread metabolic disorder, and long-term hyperglycemia in diabetics leads to diabetic keratopathy. In the present study, we used a shotgun liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry-based global proteomic approach using the cornea of streptozotocin-induced diabetic (STZ) rats to examine the mechanisms of delayed corneal wound healing in diabetic keratopathy. Applying a label-free quantitation method based on spectral counting, we identified 188 proteins that showed expression changes of >2.0-fold in the cornea of STZ rats. In particular, the level of lumican expression in the cornea of STZ rats was higher than that of the normal rats. In the cornea of the normal rat, the expression level of lumican was elevated during the wound healing process, and it returned to the same expression level as before cornea injury after the wound was healed completely. On the other hand, a high expression level of lumican in the cornea of STZ rats was still maintained even after the wound was healed completely. In addition, adhesion deficiency in corneal basal cells and Bowman’s membrane was observed in the STZ rat. Thus, abnormally overexpressed lumican may lead to adhesion deficiency in the cornea of STZ rats.
The Cyanotoxin BMAA Induces Heterocyst Specific Gene Expression in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 under Repressive Conditions

Cyanobacteria synthesize neurotoxic β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA). The roles of this non-protein amino acid in cyanobacterial cells are insufficiently studied. During diazotrophic growth, filamentous cyanobacteria form single differentiated cells, called heterocysts, which are separated by approximately 12–15 vegetative cells. When combined nitrogen is available, heterocyst formation is blocked and cyanobacterial filaments contain only vegetative cells. In the present study, we discovered that exogenous BMAA induces the process of heterocyst formation in filamentous cyanobacteria under nitrogen-replete conditions that normally repress cell differentiation. BMAA treated cyanobacteria form heterocyst-like dark non-fluorescent non-functional cells. It was found that glutamate eliminates the BMAA mediated derepression. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) permitted to detect the BMAA impact on the transcriptional activity of several genes that are implicated in nitrogen assimilation and heterocyst formation in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120. We demonstrated that the expression of several essential genes increases in the BMAA presence under repressive conditions.
Analyzing Filters Toward Efficient ConvNet

Deep convolutional neural network (ConvNet) is a promising approach for high-performance image classification. The behavior of ConvNet is analyzed mainly based on the neuron activations, such as by visualizing them. In this paper, in contrast to the activations, we focus on filters which are main components of ConvNets. Through analyzing two types of filters at convolution and fully-connected (FC) layers, respectively, on various pre-trained ConvNets, we present the methods to efficiently reformulate the filters, contributing to improving both memory size and classification performance of the ConvNets. They render the filter bases formulated in a parameter-free form as well as the efficient representation for the FC layer. The experimental results on image classification show that the methods are favorably applied to improve various ConvNets, including ResNet, trained on ImageNet with exhibiting high transferability on the other datasets.