Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protein Conformation Changes on Block Copolymer Surfaces Detected by Antibody-Functionalized AFM Tips

Conformational changes of fibronectin deposited on poly(methyl methacrylate) and poly(acrylic acid) block copolymers with identical chemical compositions were detected using an antibodyfunctionalized atomic force microscope (AFM) tip. Based on the antibody-protein adhesive force maps and phase imaging, it was found that the nanomorphology of the triblock copolymer is conducive to the exposure of the arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) groups in fibronectin. For the first time, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to elucidate surface chemical composition and confirm AFM results. The findings demonstrate that block copolymer nanomorphology can be used to regulate protein conformation and potentially cellular response.
The dating of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic: an attempt at chronometric hygiene and linguistic correlation

As with conventional definitions of the Neolithic anywhere, the concept in this region relies on there being an agricultural economy, the traces of which are largely indirect. These traces are artefacts interpreted as being linked to agriculture, rather than direct finds of agricultural crops, which are rare in Island Southeast Asia. This definition by artefacts is inevitably polythetic, particularly because many of the sites which have been investigated are hardly comparable. We can expect quite different assemblages from open village sites as opposed to special use sites such as burial caves, or frequentation caves that are used occasionally either by agriculturalists while hunting or by gatherer-hunter groups in some form of interaction with near-by agricultural populations. And rarely is a full range of these different classes of sites available in any one area.
Safe Policy Learning from Observations

In this paper, we consider the problem of learning a policy by observing numerous non-expert agents. Our goal is to extract a policy that, with high-confidence, acts better than the average agents' performance. Such a setting is important for real-world problems where expert data is scarce but non-expert data can easily be obtained, e.g. by crowdsourcing. Our approach is to pose this problem as safe policy improvement in Reinforcement Learning. First, we evaluate an average behavior policy and approximate its value function. Then, we develop a stochastic policy improvement algorithm, termed Rerouted Behavior Improvement (RBI), that safely improves the average behavior. The primary advantages of RBI over current safe learning methods are its stability in the presence of value estimation errors and the elimination of a policy search process. We demonstrate these advantages in a Taxi grid-world domain and in four games from the Atari learning environment.
CapProNet: Deep Feature Learning via Orthogonal Projections onto Capsule Subspaces

In this paper, we formalize the idea behind capsule nets of using a capsule vector rather than a neuron activation to predict the label of samples. To this end, we propose to learn a group of capsule subspaces onto which an input feature vector is projected. Then the lengths of resultant capsules are used to score the probability of belonging to different classes. We train such a Capsule Projection Network (CapProNet) by learning an orthogonal projection matrix for each capsule subspace, and show that each capsule subspace is updated until it contains input feature vectors corresponding to the associated class. We will also show that the capsule projection can be viewed as normalizing the multiple columns of the weight matrix simultaneously to form an orthogonal basis, which makes it more effective in incorporating novel components of input features to update capsule representations. In other words, the capsule projection can be viewed as a multi-dimensional weight normalization in capsule subspaces, where the conventional weight normalization is simply a special case of the capsule projection onto 1D lines. Only a small negligible computing overhead is incurred to train the network in low-dimensional capsule subspaces or through an alternative hyper-power iteration to estimate the normalization matrix. Experiment results on image datasets show the presented model can greatly improve the performance of the state-of-the-art ResNet backbones by $10-20\%$ and that of the Densenet by $5-7\%$ respectively at the same level of computing and memory expenses. The CapProNet establishes the competitive state-of-the-art performance for the family of capsule nets by significantly reducing test errors on the benchmark datasets.
Whistler waves associated with weak interplanetary shocks

[1] We analyze the properties of 98 weak interplanetary shocks measured by the dual STEREO spacecraft over approximately 3 years during the past solar minimum. We study the occurrence of whistler waves associated with these shocks, which on average are high beta shocks (0.2 60°). The wave propagation with respect to the shock-normal direction has no preferred direction and varies similarly to the upstream case. It is possible that downstream fluctuations are generated by ion relaxation as suggested in previous hybrid simulation shocks.
Domain Adaptation for Factoid Question Answering

Most results in supervised learning make the assumption that the distributions from which the training data and test data are are drawn are independent and identically distributed. In practice, knowledge is stored in many different forms, and models that can combine information from multiple sources have an advantage over those that are restricted by the i.i. d. assumption. In this work, we present results on a factoid question answering dataset with 91754 questions representing 15400 different answers, and demonstrate significant improvement in accuracy by augmenting the training set with raw text from Wikipedia. In particular the most pronounced gains in accuracy are concentrated on the answers which have low representation in the training set. This is accomplished by using deep averaging networks (DANs), which we empirically demonstrate can learn in this heterogeneous setting, with no modifications, making them an attractive option compared to the other more complex methods for domain adaptation which are often used.
Impact of Static Magnetic Field on the Antioxidant Defence System of Mice Fibroblasts

Results of research assessing the biological impact of static magnetic fields are controversial. So far, they have not provided a clear answer to their influence on cell functioning. Since the use of permanent magnets both in everyday life and in industry becomes more and more widespread, the investigations are continued in order to explain these controversies and to evaluate positive applications. The goal of current work was to assess the impact of static magnetic field of different intensities on redox homeostasis in cultures of fibroblasts. The use of permanent magnets allowed avoiding the thermal effects which are present in electromagnets. During the research we used 6 chambers, designed exclusively by us, with different values of field flux density (varying from 0.1 to 0.7 T). We have noted the decrease in the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx). The static magnetic fields did not modify the energy state of fibroblasts— adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration was stable, as well as the generation of malondialdehyde (MDA)—which is a marker of oxidative stress. Results of research suggest that static magnetic fields generated by permanent magnets do not cause oxidative stress in investigated fibroblasts and that they may show slight antioxidizing activity.
Changes in the vibration sensitivity and pressure pain thresholds in patients with burning mouth syndrome

Objective To investigate the presence of changes in vibration detection and pressure pain threshold in patients with burning-mouth syndrome (BMS). Design of the study Case-control study. The sample was composed of 30 volunteers, 15 with BMS and 15 in the control group. The pressure-pain threshold (PPT) and vibration-detection threshold (VDT) were examined. The clinical evaluation was complemented with the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) and Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories (BDI and BAI, respectively). Results BMS subjects showed a statistically significant higher PPT in the tongue (p = 0.002), right (p = 0.001) and left (p = 0.004) face, and a significant reduction of the VDT in the tongue (p = 0.013) and right face (p = 0.030). Significant differences were also found when comparing the PPT and the VDT of distinct anatomical areas. However, a significant interaction (group × location) was only for the PPT. BMS subjects also showed significantly higher levels of depression (p = 0.01), as measured by the BDI, compared to controls; and a significant inverse correlation between the VDT in the left face and anxiety levels was detected. Conclusions The study of somatosensory changes in BMS and its correlations with the clinical features as well as the levels of anxiety and depression expands current understanding of the neuropathic origin and the possible contribution of psychogenic factors related to this disease.
Risk and protective factors for wellbeing in older veterans in New Zealand

ABSTRACT Objectives: To compare indicators relating to aging and health among veterans and non-veterans, and identify factors associated with subjective wellbeing (SWB) of older New Zealand veterans. Methods: Self-reported data were obtained from participants in a longitudinal cohort study of New Zealand older adults. Responses from 352 veterans and 1500 non-veterans (age range of 55–86 and gender matched) were selected as a comparison group on indicators related to health and aging. The association of these indicators with veterans’ SWB were assessed using hierarchical regression. Results: Apart from being older, smoking more, and having more chronic conditions, veterans did not differ from non-veterans on indicators of health and wellbeing. Mental health, physical health, purpose in life, housing satisfaction, and capabilities (choice and freedom) accounted for a significant amount of variance in veterans’ SWB. Conclusion: Our results suggest that older veterans do not differ greatly on indices of health and aging from their non-veteran peers. Results support previous findings that lower mental and physical health is associated with lower SWB for veterans. Building upon prior findings, the current results demonstrate that interventions focusing on enhancing a sense of purpose in life, supporting one's capability to achieve, and strengthening social and physical environment through social connectedness, may serve as protective factors for SWB in veterans.
Effect of the flame retardant tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) on Na+-K+-ATPase and Cl− transport in HeLa cells

Abstract Tris (1, 3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) is one of the most diffused phosphorus flame retardants in the environment and is highly persistent and abundant in residential dust samples. To date the cellular targets and mechanisms underlying its toxic effects are not completely understood. The aim of this work was to study the effects of TDCPP on ion transport mechanisms fundamental for the cellular ionic homeostasis, such as Na+-K+-ATPase and Cl− transport. HeLa cells were used as experimental model. TDCPP showed a dose-dependent effect on cell viability in cells exposed for 24 h as assessed by MTT test (IC50 = 52.5 µM). The flame retardant was able to exert a dose and time-dependent inhibition on the Na+-K+-ATPase activity. A short-term exposure (1 h) was able to exert a significant inhibition at 75 and 100 µM TDCPP, suggesting that TDCPP is able to directly interfere with the Na+-K+-ATPase phosphate catalytic activity. The sensitivity of the pump to lower TDCPP concentrations increased with the increase of the time of exposure. Following 24 h exposure a significant inhibition of about 40% was evident already at 10 µM and the IC50 value observed was 12.8 ± 6.0 µM. Moreover, TDCPP was also able to impair the NKCC mediated Cl− transport in HeLa cells, as assessed in YFP-H148Q/I152L-expressing HeLa cells. Following 1 h exposure TDCPP significantly inhibited the transport by about 30%. The kinetic analysis demonstrated a noncompetitive mechanism of inhibition. In conclusion, results demonstrated the impairment of ion transport mechanisms fundamental for ion homeostasis by TDCPP on HeLa cells.
Deterministic Attention for Sequence-to-Sequence Constituent Parsing

The sequence-to-sequence model is proven to be extremely successful in constituent parsing. It relies on one key technique, the probabilistic attention mechanism, to automatically select the context for prediction. Despite its successes, the probabilistic attention model does not always select the most important context. For example, the headword and boundary words of a subtree have been shown to be critical when predicting the constituent label of the subtree, but this contextual information becomes increasingly difficult to learn as the length of the sequence increases. In this study, we proposed a deterministic attention mechanism that deterministically selects the important context and is not affected by the sequence length. We implemented two different instances of this framework. When combined with a novel bottom-up linearization method, our parser demonstrated better performance than that achieved by the sequence-to-sequence parser with probabilistic attention mechanism.
Measurement agreement of the self-administered questionnaire of the Belgian Health Interview Survey: Paper-and-pencil versus web-based mode

Before organizing mixed-mode data collection for the self-administered questionnaire of the Belgian Health Interview Survey, measurement effects between the paper-and-pencil and the web-based questionnaire were evaluated. A two-period cross-over study was organized with a sample of 149 employees of two Belgian research institutes (age range 22–62 years, 72% female). Measurement agreement was assessed for a diverse range of health indicators related to general health, mental and psychosocial health, health behaviors and prevention with kappa coefficients and intraclass correlation (ICC). The quality of the data collected by both modes was evaluated by quantifying the missing, ‘don’t know’ and inconsistent values and data entry mistakes. Good to very good agreement was found for all categorical indicators with kappa coefficients superior to 0.60, except for two mental and psychosocial health indicators namely the presence of a sleeping disorder and of a depressive disorder (kappa≥0.50). For the continuous indicators high to acceptable agreement was observed with ICC superior to 0.70. Inconsistent answers and data-entry mistakes were only occurring in the paper-and-pencil mode. There were no less missing values in the web-based mode compared to the paper-and-pencil mode. The study supports the idea that web-based modes provide, in general, equal responses to paper-and-pencil modes. However, health indicators based upon factual and objective items tend to have higher measurement agreement than indicators requiring an assessment of personal subjective feelings. A web-based mode greatly facilitates the data-entry process and guides the completing of a questionnaire. However, item non-response was not positively affected.
Order Effects of Resistance and Stretching Exercises on Heart Rate Variability and Blood Pressure in Healthy Adults.

da Silva Araujo, G, Behm, DG, Monteiro, ER, de Melo Fiuza, AGF, Gomes, TM, Vianna, JM, Reis, MS, and da Silva Novaes, J. Order effects of resistance and stretching exercises on heart rate variability and blood pressure in healthy adults. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2018-The purpose of this study was to compare the acute effect of different combinations and order of resistance exercise (RE) and stretching exercise (SE) on heart rate variability, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Twenty subjects, recreationally trained, performed 5 sessions in a random order: (a) SE followed by RE no rest (SE + RE), (b) RE followed by SE no rest (RE + SE), (c) SE between RE sets (SBE), (d) SE isolated, and (e) RE isolated. Heart rate variability, SBP, and DBP were collected for 15 minutes before (baseline) and 60 minutes after each experimental session. A significant decrease was found for standardized deviation of differences between adjacent normal r-r intervals (RMSSDms) SE + RE (-50.79%), SE (+9.2%), SBE (-42.8%), and RE (-46.3%). Similarly, a significant increase was found for LFnu in SE + RE (+12.8%) and SBE (+16.6%). In addition, a significant decrease was found for HFnu in SE + RE (-34.8%) and SBE (-39.7%). Finally, a significant decrease was found for SBP in SE (-6.1%). In conclusion, this study indicated that SE followed by RE promotes a reduction in LFnu and RMSSDnu, with trivial to small magnitude decreases in SBP. Therefore, performing SE either before or between RE would be an important exercise prescription recommendation to lower cardiac load and consequently greater safety.
Recurrent Knowledge Distillation

Knowledge distillation compacts deep networks by letting a small student network learn from a large teacher network. The accuracy of knowledge distillation recently benefited from adding residual layers. We propose to reduce the size of the student network even further by recasting multiple residual layers in the teacher network into a single recurrent student layer. We propose three variants of adding recurrent connections into the student network, and show experimentally on CIFAR-10, Scenes and MiniPlaces, that we can reduce the number of parameters at little loss in accuracy.
Additional Multi-Touch Attribution for Online Advertising

Multi-Touch Attribution studies the effects of various types of online advertisements on purchase conversions. It is a very important problem in computational advertising, as it allows marketers to assign credits for conversions to different advertising channels and optimize advertising campaigns. In this paper, we propose an additional multi-touch attribution model (AMTA) based on two obvious assumptions: (1) the effect of an ad exposure is fading with time and (2) the effects of ad exposures on the browsing path of a user are additive.AMTA borrows the techniques from survival analysis and uses the hazard rate to measure the influence of an ad exposure. In addition, we both take the conversion time and the intrinsic conversion rate of users into consideration.Experimental results on a large real-world advertising dataset illustrate that the our proposed method is superior to state-of-the-art techniques in conversion rate prediction and the credit allocation based on AMTA is reasonable.
High-Uptake Areas on 18 F-FRP170 PET Image Necessarily Include Proliferating Areas in Glioblastoma: A Superimposed Image Study Combining 18 F-FRP170 PET with 11 C-methionine PET

Areas of uptake on positron emission tomography with 1-(2-[18F]fluoro-1-[hydroxymethyl]ethoxy)methyl-2-nitroimidazole (FRP170 PET), a hypoxic cell radiotracer, can include regions retaining highly proliferative activity despite tissue hypoxia. The aim of this study was to clarify whether FRP170 image can detect densely populated hypoxic areas without proliferating potential in glioblastoma. We performed FRP170 PET scan and L-methyl-11C-methionine (MET) PET scan in eight patients with non-treated glioblastoma. Standardized uptake values (SUVs) within tumor and apparent normal brain were measured on each FRP170 and MET image for all patients. To visualize actively proliferative areas on MET image we initially extracted pixels showing a ratio of SUV in tumor to SUV in normal brain (T/N) > 1.6. For FRP170 image, we changed the thresholds between minimum SUV and maximum SUV in tumor. Pixels showing SUV above each threshold were extracted and superimposed on previously extracted pixels from MET image. We estimated whether pixels extracted with MET and FRP170 were visually separated on superimposed image for each pa-tient. When no threshold was established, uptake areas on MET image and FRP170 image overlapped widely on superimposed image in all patients. The higher threshold for FRP170 image diminished FRP170-extracted pixels, and shrunk overlapped areas on superimposed image. However, pixels extracted from FRP170 images could not be completely separated from pixels extracted from MET images in all patients, even with threshold raised to almost maximum SUV. The current findings suggest that uptake areas on FRP170 PET scan necessarily include proliferating areas in glioblastoma.
Absolute Reliability and Concurrent Validity of the Stryd System for the Assessment of Running Stride Kinematics at Different Velocities.

García-Pinillos, F, Roche-Seruendo, LE, Marcen-Cinca, N, Marco-Contreras, LA, and Latorre-Román, PA. Absolute reliability and concurrent validity of the Stryd system for the assessment of running stride kinematics at different velocities. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2018-This study aimed to determine the absolute reliability and to evaluate the concurrent validity of the Stryd system for measuring spatiotemporal variables during running at different velocities (8-20 km·h) by comparing data with another widely used device (the OptoGait system). Eighteen trained male endurance runners performed an incremental running test (8-20 km·h with 3-minute stages) on a treadmill. Spatiotemporal parameters (contact time [CT], flight time [FT], step length [SL], and step frequency [SF]) were measured using 2 different devices (Stryd and OptoGait systems). The Stryd system showed a coefficient of variation (CV) <3%, except for FT (3.7-11.6%). The OptoGait achieved CV <4%, except for FT (6.0-30.6%). Pearson correlation analysis showed large correlations for CT and FT, and almost perfect for SL and SF over the entire protocol. The intraclass correlation coefficients partially support those results. Paired t-tests showed that CT was underestimated (p < 0.05, effect size [ES] > 0.7; ∼4-8%), FT overestimated (p < 0.05, ES > 0.7; ∼7-65%), whereas SL and SF were very similar between systems (ES < 0.1, with differences <1%). The Stryd is a practical portable device that is reliable for measuring CT, FT, SL, and SF during running. It provides accurate SL and SF measures but underestimates CT (0.5-8%) and overestimates FT (3-67%) compared with a photocell-based system.
Consumer Perception of the Quality of Lamb and Lamb Confit

The patterns of food consumption in general and those of meat, in particular, are constantly changing. These changes are due not only to socioeconomic and cultural trends that affect the whole society but also to the specific lifestyles of consumer groups. Due to the importance of consumer lifestyle, the objectives of this study were (i) to identify the profiles of lamb meat consumers according to their orientation toward convenience, as defined by their eating and cooking habits; (ii) to characterize these profiles according to their socioeconomic characteristics and their preferences regarding the intrinsic and extrinsic quality signals of lamb meat; and (iii) to analyze the willingness to pay for lamb confit. In this study, four types of consumers have been differentiated according to their lifestyles related to lamb consumption. These groups, due to their characteristics, could be called “Gourmet”, “Disinterested”, “Conservative”, and “Basic”. The Gourmet group has characteristics that make it especially interesting to market a product such as lamb confit. However, this group is unaware of this product. Therefore, a possible strategy to expand the commercialization of light lamb and the confit product would be guided marketing to this niche market.