Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporarily Out of Order: Temporal Perspective Taking in Language in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Clinical reports suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with time perception, but few studies have investigated this. This is the first study to examine these children’s understanding of before and after. These temporal conjunctions have been argued to require additional cognitive effort when conjoining two events in a clause order that is incongruent with their order in time. Given the suggested time perception impairment and well-established cognitive deficits of children with ASD, we expected them to have difficulties interpreting temporal conjunctions, especially in an incongruent order. To investigate this, the interpretation of before and after in congruent and incongruent orders was examined in 48 children with ASD and 43 typically developing (TD) children (age 6–12). Additional tasks were administered to measure Theory of Mind (ToM), working memory (WM), cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, IQ, and verbal ability. We found that children with ASD were less accurate in their interpretation of temporal conjunctions than their TD peers. Contrary to our expectations, they did not have particular difficulties in an incongruent order. Furthermore, older children showed better overall performance than younger children. The difference between children with ASD and TD children was explained by WM, ToM, IQ, and verbal ability, but not by cognitive inhibition and flexibility. These cognitive functions are more likely to be impaired in children with ASD than in TD children, which could account for their poorer performance. Thus, the cognitive factors found to affect the interpretation of temporal language in children with ASD are likely to apply in typical development as well. Sufficient WM capacity and verbal ability may help children to process complex sentences conjoined by a temporal conjunction. Additionally, ToM understanding was found to be related to children’s interpretation of temporal conjunctions in an incongruent order, indicating that perspective taking is required when events are presented out of order. We conclude from this that perspective-taking abilities are needed for the interpretation of temporal conjunctions, either to shift one’s own perspective as a hearer to another point in time, or to shift to the perspective of the speaker to consider the speaker’s linguistic choices.
Transferring Deep Reinforcement Learning with Adversarial Objective and Augmentation

In the past few years, deep reinforcement learning has been proven to solve problems which have complex states like video games or board games. The next step of intelligent agents would be able to generalize between tasks, and using prior experience to pick up new skills more quickly. However, most reinforcement learning algorithms for now are often suffering from catastrophic forgetting even when facing a very similar target task. Our approach enables the agents to generalize knowledge from a single source task, and boost the learning progress with a semisupervised learning method when facing a new task. We evaluate this approach on Atari games, which is a popular reinforcement learning benchmark, and show that it outperforms common baselines based on pre-training and fine-tuning.
MS-UEdin Submission to the WMT2018 APE Shared Task: Dual-Source Transformer for Automatic Post-Editing

This paper describes the Microsoft and University of Edinburgh submission to the Automatic Post-editing shared task at WMT2018. Based on training data and systems from the WMT2017 shared task, we re-implement our own models from the last shared task and introduce improvements based on extensive parameter sharing. Next we experiment with our implementation of dual-source transformer models and data selection for the IT domain. Our submissions decisively wins the SMT post-editing sub-task establishing the new state-of-the-art and is a very close second (or equal, 16.46 vs 16.50 TER) in the NMT sub-task. Based on the rather weak results in the NMT sub-task, we hypothesize that neural-on-neural APE might not be actually useful.
Do volatile compounds produced by Fusarium oxysporum and Verticillium dahliae affect stress tolerance in plants?

ABSTRACT Volatile compounds (VCs) produced by diverse microbes seem to affect plant growth, development and/or stress tolerance. We investigated how VCs released by soilborne fungi Fusarium oxysporum and Verticillium dahliae affect Arabidopsis thaliana responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Under salt stress, VCs from both fungi helped its growth and increased chlorophyll content. However, in contrast to wild-type A. thaliana (Col-0), V. dahliae VCs failed to increase leaf surface area in auxin signalling mutants aux1-7, tir1-1 and axr1-3. Compared to wild-type Col-0, the degree of lateral root density enhanced by V. dahliae VCs in these mutants was also reduced. Consistent with the involvement of auxin signalling in fungal VC-mediated salt torelance, A. thaliana line carrying DR5::GUS displayed increased auxin accumulation in root apex upon exposure to V. dahliae VCs, and 1-naphthylphthalamic acid, an auxin transport inhibitor, adversely affected V. dahliae VC-mediated salt tolerance. F. oxysporum VCs induced the expression of PR1 but not PDF1.2 in A. thaliana lines containing PR1::GUS and PFD1.2::GUS. When challenged with Pseudomonas syringae after the exposure to F. oxysporum VCs, A. thaliana showed reduced disease symptoms. However, the number of bacterial cells in F. oxysporum VC-treated plants was not significantly different from that in control plants.
The combination of canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid ameliorates insulin resistance and cardiac biomarkers via modulation of inflammatory cytokines in type 2 diabetic rats

The present study was carried out with the hypothesis that combination of canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid may have potential effect on insulin level, insulin resistance, cardiac biomarkers, inflammatory cytokines and histological studies in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Type 2 DM was induced by injecting nicotinamide (120 mg/kg, i.p.) 15 min before STZ (60 mg/kg) injection. Canagliflozin (5 and 10 mg/kg) and omega-3 fatty acid (300 mg/kg) were given for 28 days after confirmation of diabetes. Biochemical estimations revealed elevated levels of glucose, insulin, HOMA-R and inflammatory cytokines in diabetic group. Daily dosing of alone canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid slightly reduced elevated levels of glucose, insulin, HOMA-R and inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-2, and TNFα), whereas canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid combination has reduced these biochemical parameters significantly when compared with diabetic group. Similarly in diabetic group the levels of cardiac biomarkers such as lipid profile, LDH, CKMB and troponin were significantly increased. Elevated levels of cardiac biomarkers were significantly reduced after daily dosing of alone canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid. Canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid combination has offered better improvement in cardiac biomarkers compared to alone canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid. Histopathological analysis also supported the above hypothesis that combination therapy (canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid) offered better protection against degenerative changes in β-cells of pancreas as compared to alone treatment with these drugs. Thus the present study revealed that canagliflozin and omega-3 fatty acid can be used as potential combination therapy in type 2 DM along with cardiac complication.
Multitask Learning for Fundamental Frequency Estimation in Music

Fundamental frequency (f0) estimation from polyphonic music includes the tasks of multiple-f0, melody, vocal, and bass line estimation. Historically these problems have been approached separately, and only recently, using learning-based approaches. We present a multitask deep learning architecture that jointly estimates outputs for various tasks including multiple-f0, melody, vocal and bass line estimation, and is trained using a large, semi-automatically annotated dataset. We show that the multitask model outperforms its single-task counterparts, and explore the effect of various design decisions in our approach, and show that it performs better or at least competitively when compared against strong baseline methods.
Raisonnement transitif et dyscalculie : étude par IRMf chez l’enfant

Les dyscalculie se caracterise par d’importantes difficultes d’apprentissage des maths, malgre une scolarisation adequat et des capacites intellectuelles dans la norme. Meme si ce trouble affecte 3 a 7% des enfants d’âge scolaire, ses causes restent encore peu connues. Il a ete propose que la dyscalculie consiste en un deficit specifique de representation des quantites numeriques, cause par des anomalies cerebrales au niveau du sillon intra-parietal (IPS). Cependant, de plus en plus d’etudes suggerent que la dyscalculie serait due a des atteintes cognitives generales. Cette these s’est interessee au lien entre apprentissage des maths et une forme de raisonnement deductif, a savoir le raisonnement transitif (A>B, B>C donc A>C). Dans une premiere etude en Imagerie par Resonance Magnetique fonctionnelle (IRMf), nous avons compare l’activite cerebrale d’enfants dyscalculiques de 9 a 12 ans a celle d’enfants neurotypiques de meme âge pendant l’ecoute d’histoires comprenant des problemes transitifs. Dans une seconde etude, nous avons evalue l’amelioration en maths des enfants neurotypiques 1,5 an apres la session IRMf. Nous avons determine si les mesures cerebrales associees au raisonnement transitif pouvaient predire l’amelioration en maths. Nous avons mis en evidence l’implication de l’IPS gauche dans le raisonnement transitif chez les enfants neurotypiques mais pas chez les dyscalculiques, qui etaient moins precis pour evaluer les problemes transitifs. Par ailleurs, les capacites de memoire de travail etaient correlees a la performance et a l’activite de l’IPS lors du raisonnement transitif. Enfin, l’activite cerebrale de l’IPS pendant le traitement des problemes transitifs predisait l’amelioration en maths chez les enfants neurotypiques. Ces resultats soulignent l’importance du raisonnement transitif pour l’apprentissage des maths et suggerent qu’un deficit de traitement des problemes transitifs dans l’IPS pourrait contribuer a la dyscalculie
Papillomaviruses and Endocytic Trafficking

Endocytic trafficking plays a major role in transport of incoming human papillomavirus (HPVs) from plasma membrane to the trans Golgi network (TGN) and ultimately into the nucleus. During this infectious entry, several cellular sorting factors are recruited by the viral capsid protein L2, which plays a critical role in ensuring successful transport of the L2/viral DNA complex to the nucleus. Later in the infection cycle, two viral oncoproteins, E5 and E6, have also been shown to modulate different aspects of endocytic transport pathways. In this review, we highlight how HPV makes use of and perturbs normal endocytic transport pathways, firstly to achieve infectious virus entry, secondly to produce productive infection and the completion of the viral life cycle and, finally, on rare occasions, to bring about the development of malignancy.
Fbxo2VHC mouse and embryonic stem cell reporter lines delineate in vitro-generated inner ear sensory epithelia cells and enable otic lineage selection and Cre-recombination

While the mouse has been a productive model for inner ear studies, the lack of highly specific genes and tools have presented challenges, specifically for in vitro studies of otic development, where innate cellular heterogeneity and disorganization increase the reliance on lineage-specific markers. To address this challenge in mice and embryonic stem (ES) cells, we targeted the lineage-specific otic gene Fbxo2 with a multicistronic reporter cassette (Venus/Hygro/CreER = VHC). In otic organoids derived from ES cells, Fbxo2VHC specifically delineates otic progenitors and inner ear sensory epithelia. In mice, Venus expression and CreER activity reveal a cochlear developmental gradient, label the prosensory lineage, show enrichment in a subset of type I vestibular hair cells, and expose strong expression in adult cerebellar granule cells. We provide a toolbox of multiple spectrally distinct reporter combinations to the community for studies that require use of fluorescent reporters, hygromycin selection, and conditional Cre-mediated recombination. SUMMARY STATEMENT A multifunctional Fbxo2-targeted reporter in mice and stem cells was developed and characterized as a resource for inner ear studies, along with a toolbox of plasmids to facilitate the use of this technique for other users.
Fumonisin Distribution in Maize Dry-Milling Products and By-Products: Impact of Two Industrial Degermination Systems

In temperate areas, the main limitation to the use of maize in the food chain is its contamination by B-series fumonisins (FBs) during cultivation. Since the content of this group of mycotoxins may be distributed unevenly after milling, the aim of this study was to compare the distribution of FBs in maize fractions derived from two industrial dry-milling processes, that is, a dry-degermination (DD) system and a tempering-degermination (TD) system. Grain cleaning reduces FBs by about 42%. The germ of the two degermination processes showed a similar FB content of kernel after cleaning. Conversely, an animal feed flour resulted in a FB content that was two times higher than whole grain before cleaning. A significant FB reduction was observed in the milling fractions in both processes, with a higher reduction in the TD system than in the DD one. The average decontamination respect to uncleaned kernels in the DD process was 50%, 83% and 87%, for maize flour, break meal and pearl meal, respectively, while it was 78%, 88% and 94% in the TD process for small, medium and flaking grits, respectively. Among the milling fractions, the flaking grits with the highest particle size resulted in the highest FB reduction.
Effect Of epigallocatechin-3-gallate on the pharmacokinetics of amlodipine in rats

Abstract This study investigates the effect of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a major ingredient of green tea, on the pharmacokinetics of amlodipine in rats. The pharmacokinetics of orally administered amlodipine (1 mg/kg) with or without EGCG pretreatment (30 mg/kg/day for 10 days) were investigated. Plasma concentrations of amlodipine were determined by using a sensitive and reliable liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) method. The effects of EGCG on the metabolic stability of amlodipine were investigated by using rat liver microsome incubation systems. The results indicated that when the rats were pretreated with EGCG, the Cmax of amlodipine increased from 16.32 ± 2.57 to 21.44 ± 3.56 ng/mL (p < 0.05), the Tmax decreased from 5.98 ± 1.25 to 4.01 ± 1.02 h (p < 0.05), and the AUC0–t increased from 258.12 ± 76.25 to 383.34 ± 86.95 μg h L−1 (p < 0.05), which suggested that the pharmacokinetic behavior of amlodipine was affected after oral co-administration of EGCG. Additionally, the metabolic half-life was prolonged from 31.3 ± 5.6 to 52.6 ± 7.9 min (p < 0.05) with the pretreatment of EGCG. It can be speculated that the drug-drug interaction between EGCG and amlodipine might occur, which might have resulted from the metabolism inhibition of amlodipine by EGCG when they were co-administered.
Chinese Pinyin Aided IME, Input What You Have Not Keystroked Yet

Chinese pinyin input method engine (IME) converts pinyin into character so that Chinese characters can be conveniently inputted into computer through common keyboard. IMEs work relying on its core component, pinyin-to-character conversion (P2C). Usually Chinese IMEs simply predict a list of character sequences for user choice only according to user pinyin input at each turn. However, Chinese inputting is a multi-turn online procedure, which can be supposed to be exploited for further user experience promoting. This paper thus for the first time introduces a sequence-to-sequence model with gated-attention mechanism for the core task in IMEs. The proposed neural P2C model is learned by encoding previous input utterance as extra context to enable our IME capable of predicting character sequence with incomplete pinyin input. Our model is evaluated in different benchmark datasets showing great user experience improvement compared to traditional models, which demonstrates the first engineering practice of building Chinese aided IME.
Interleukin-4 Contributes to Degeneration of Dopamine Neurons in the Lipopolysaccharide-treated Substantia Nigra in vivo

The present study investigated the effects of interleukin (IL)-4 on dopamine (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) in vivo of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated rat. Tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry showed a significant loss of nigral DA neurons at 3 and 7 day post-LPS. In parallel, IL-4 immunoreactivity was upregulated as early as 1 day, reached a peak at 3 day and remained elevated at 7 day post-LPS. IL-4 immunoreactivity was detected exclusively in microglia. IL-4 neutralizing antibody (NA) significantly increased survival of DA neurons in LPS-treated SN in vivo by inhibiting microglial activation and production of proinflammatory mediator such as IL-1β as assessed by immunihistochemical, RT-PCR and ELISA analysis, respectively. Accompanying neuroprotection are IL-4NA effects on decreased disruption of blood-brain barrier and astrocytes. The present data suggest that endogenously expressed IL-4 from reactive microglia may be involved in the neuropathological processes of degeneration of DA neurons occurring in Parkinson's disease.
Effect of combination therapy with ceftizoxime and clotrimazole in the treatment of otomycosis

Background and Purpose: There are controversial findings regarding the efficacy of antifungal drugs in the treatment of a ruptured eardrum following fungal infections. Regarding this, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the therapeutic effect of the co-administration of antifungal and antibacterial agents in the treatment of otomycosis with tympanic membrane perforation. Materials and Methods: This analytical, clinical trial was conducted on 87 patients with otomycosis showing no bacterial elements in the direct observation and culture. The study population was assigned into two groups of intervention (n=45) and control (n=42). The demographic and clinical data, as well as the data related to the direct observation and culture of the ear samples were recorded in a checklist. All statistical analysis was performed in SPSS (version 24). Results: The most prevalent symptoms in both groups were hearing loss and itching, and the most common finding was secretion. Aspergillus and Candida were the most frequent fungi isolated from the samples. After the implementation of combination therapy, the intervention group demonstrated a significant decrease in symptoms and signs, compared to the control group (P=0.005). Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicated that the use combination therapy with ceftizoxime powder and clotrimazole ointment was effective the in treatment of the patients with tympanic membrane rupture showing no bacterial effects in direct examination and culture.
Role of E-cadherin and cyclin D1 as predictive markers of aggression and clonal expansion in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Objectives Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide. Inconsistency in various histopathologic features for predicting nodal metastasis and overall prognosis and a better understanding of molecular mechanisms of tumourigenesis have shifted the focus to a search for more definitive predictive markers. To identify the role of two immunohistochemical (IHC) markers, E-cadherin and cyclin D1, as predictive markers of aggressiveness in HNSCC and to assess clonal expansion of tumour cells. Materials and Methods A total of 66 cases of HNSCC with neck node dissection were studied. IHC was performed on primary tumour sections and lymph nodes showing metastatic deposits. Histopathological parameters such as tumour grade and TNM stage together with nodal status were compared according to expression of the two markers. Fischer's chi-square test was used to assess the correlation between the two markers and histopathological parameters. Results Out of 66 cases studied, 37 showed LN metastasis. Most of the patients were male, and the most common tumour site was buccal mucosa. We found a significant association between loss of E-cadherin and node metastasis (P<0.001) and higher TNM stage (P<0.001). Cyclin D1 overexpression was significantly associated with only nodal metastasis (P=0.007). No significant association with tumour grade was found for either marker. The subgroup of E-cadherin loss with cyclin D1 overexpression was associated with the maximum incidence of nodal metastasis and higher TNM stage, highlighting the importance of using a combination of these two markers. A significant association was noted between the expression of markers at the primary site and at nodal deposits, indicating clonal expansion. Conclusion A combination of the two markers E-cadherin and cyclin D1 can predict prognosis in HNSCC, although tumour heterogeneity may affect this association in some cases.
Examining the Role of Twitter in Response and Recovery During and After Historic Flooding in South Carolina.

CONTEXT Social media has played an increasing role in the response to emergency situations through information exchange and efforts to promote recovery. Understanding more about how social media users share and re-share information is particularly important to help emergency response entities determine best strategies for expanding reach and impact through social media in disseminating emergency messages. OBJECTIVE This study examined the role and use of Twitter as a response and recovery strategy before, during, and after historic rainfall and flooding in the Midlands region of the greater Columbia, South Carolina, area in October 2015. DESIGN A cross-sectional, thematic, and descriptive examination of Twitter data across 4 time periods (before the historic rainfall and flooding, during, immediately after a boil water advisory period, and 6 months later) was conducted. SETTING Twitter posts containing "#SCFlood" with a focus on the Midlands region were extracted and analyzed. RESULTS The most common themes of tweets across all 4 time periods were weather conditions, devastation description, resource distribution, volunteerism, actions to reduce threats to health, and appreciation. Tweets mostly originated from individual users, followed by media outlets, governmental agencies, and nonprofit agencies. Tweets from the first 3 time periods were largely focused on built and natural environment devastation and action to reduce threats to health, and tweets from the fourth time period were primarily focused on cleanup and repair. CONCLUSIONS Twitter was utilized widely as a communication tool to provide time-sensitive and critical information before, during, and after the event. Ensuring that key social media users have developed disaster communication strategies inclusive of Twitter seems important in aiding response to and recovery from natural disasters.