Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HSF-Net: Multiscale Deep Feature Embedding for Ship Detection in Optical Remote Sensing Imagery

Ship detection is an important and challenging task in remote sensing applications. Most methods utilize specially designed hand-crafted features to detect ships, and they usually work well only on one scale, which lack generalization and impractical to identify ships with various scales from multiresolution images. In this paper, we propose a novel deep feature-based method to detect ships in very high-resolution optical remote sensing images. In our method, a regional proposal network is used to generate ship candidates from feature maps produced by a deep convolutional neural network. To efficiently detect ships with various scales, a hierarchical selective filtering layer is proposed to map features in different scales to the same scale space. The proposed method is an end-to-end network that can detect both inshore and offshore ships ranging from dozens of pixels to thousands. We test our network on a large ship data set which will be released in the future, consisting of Google Earth images, GaoFen-2 images, and unmanned aerial vehicle data. Experiments demonstrate high precision and robustness of our method. Further experiments on aerial images show its good generalization to unseen scenes.
Impact of rocker sole footwear on plantar pressure distribution during standing and walking in adult obese women

Abstract Purpose: Obesity increases the stresses applied to the foot. Ergonomic rocker sole shoes increase energy expenditure of standing and walking in obese individuals but could potentially alter plantar pressure distribution. The aim of this study was to compare plantar pressure distribution during standing and walking between rocker sole and flat-bottomed shoes in obese subjects. Methods: Twenty adult obese women were asked to stand quietly and to walk at their preferred walking speed whilst wearing flat-bottomed or rocker sole shoes. Plantar pressure distribution was assessed using instrumented insoles. Results: During standing, toe pressure and as well as midfoot force were higher with rocker sole than with flat-bottomed shoes (p < 0.05). During walking with rocker sole shoes, mean pressure and maximal force were lower under the toes and the forefoot, but higher under the midfoot and rearfoot regions with respect to flat-bottomed shoes (p < 0.05). Conclusions: While standing with rocker sole shoes, obese subjects showed augmented pressure under the toes whereas forefoot and heel pressure had no significant difference compared to the flat-bottomed shoes. As walking with rocker sole shoes resulted in decreased forces and pressures under the forefoot but increased overload at heel and midfoot regions, obese individuals may not benefit from wearing rocker sole shoes during walking, at least from a plantar pressure distribution perspective. Implications for rehabilitation The use of ergonomic rocker sole shoes causes a redistribution of in-shoe plantar pressures leading to potentially detrimental adjustments that fail to attenuate the obesity-related increase in midfoot pressure during standing, while accentuating this region-specific impairment in dynamic conditions. Rocker sole shoes may best be avoided for walking in obese patients with heel pain or with any midfoot/rearfoot alteration such as medial arch flattening.
Measuring dietary intake in remote Australian Aboriginal communities

This paper reports a comparison of the practicality, acceptability and face validity of five dietary intake methods in two remote Australian Aboriginal communities: weighed dietary intake, 24‐hour recall, ‘store‐turnover’, diet history and food frequency methods. The methods used to measure individual dietary intake were poorly accepted by the communities. Quantitative data were obtained only from the first three methods. The 24‐hour recall method tended to produce higher nutrient intakes than the weighed intake method and certain foods appeared to be selectively recalled according to perceived nutritional desirability. The ‘store‐turnover’ method was most acceptable to the communities and had less potential for bias than the other methods. It was also relatively objective, non‐intrusive, rapid, easy and inexpensive. However, food distribution patterns within the communities could not be assessed by this method. Nevertheless, other similarly isolated communities may benefit by use of the ‘store‐turnover’ .
GDMN: Group Decision-Making Network for Person Re-Identification

Person re-identification (re-ID) is a widely studied yet still challenging problem in computer vision. It aims to match images of the same pedestrian captured from different cameras. Recently, deep learning has been widely used for feature extraction and distance metric learning in re-ID. However, most of them only consider a certain aspect of the input data and thus will make certain mistakes during the testing process. In this paper, group decision-making (GDM) theory is introduced for comprehensive decision. Furthermore, a novel GDM network (GDMN) is proposed which consists of two sub-networks. First, proposal generation network can generate proposals based on baseline networks for the following decision-making process. Then, decision evaluation network evaluates all the proposals and makes the comprehensive decision. The proposed GDMN can analyze the merits and drawbacks of existing methods and make a better decision. The experimental results on public re-ID benchmarks show that our approach significantly improves the performance of the baseline methods and achieves competitive results compared with other state-of-the-art methods.
Number and brightness analysis reveals that NCAM and FGF2 elicit different assembly and dynamics of FGFR1 in live cells

ABSTRACT Both fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) and neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) trigger FGF receptor 1 (FGFR1) signaling; however, they induce remarkably distinct receptor trafficking and cellular responses. The molecular basis of such a dichotomy and the role of distinct types of ligand-receptor interaction remain elusive. Number of molecules and brightness (N&B) analysis revealed that FGF2 and NCAM promote different FGFR1 assembly and dynamics at the plasma membrane. NCAM stimulation elicits long-lasting cycles of short-lived FGFR1 monomers and multimers, a behavior that might reflect a rapid FGFR1 internalization and recycling. FGF2, instead, induces stable dimerization at the dose that stimulates cell proliferation. Reducing the occupancy of FGFR1 in response to low FGF2 doses causes a switch towards cyclically exposed and unstable receptor dimers, consistently with previously reported biphasic response to FGF2 and with the divergent signaling elicited by different ligand concentrations. Similar instability was observed upon altering the endocytic pathway. Thus, FGF2 and NCAM induce differential FGFR1 clustering at the cell surface, which might account for the distinct intracellular fate of the receptor and, hence, for the different signaling cascades and cellular responses. Summary: FGFR1 clustering is differentially regulated by the two ligands NCAM and FGF2 in live cells, as revealed by number of molecules and brightness (N&B) analysis.
Necrostatin-1 Attenuates Trauma-Induced Mouse Osteoarthritis and IL-1β Induced Apoptosis via HMGB1/TLR4/SDF-1 in Primary Mouse Chondrocytes

Necrostatin-1 (Nec-1) is a specific small molecule inhibitor of receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) that specifically inhibits phosphorylation of RIPK1. RIPK1 regulates inflammation and cell death by interacting with receptor-interacting serine/threonine protein kinases 3(RIPK3). We hypothesized that Nec-1 may have anti-inflammatory efficacy in patients with osteoarthritis (OA), as the pathophysiology of OA involves the activation of inflammation-related signaling pathways and apoptosis. In this study, we explored the effects of Nec-1 on interleukin (IL)-1β-induced inflammation in mouse chondrocytes and the destabilised medial meniscus (DMM) mouse model. Inhibiting RIPK1 with Nec-1 dramatically suppressed catabolism both in vivo and in vitro, but did not inhibit changes in subchondral bone. Nec-1 abolished the in vitro increases in matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) and ADAM metallopeptidase with thrombospondin type 1 motif 5 (ADAMTs5) expression induced by IL-1β. However, adding high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) partially abrogated this effect, indicating the essential role of HMGB1 and Nec-1 in the protection of primary chondrocytes. Furthermore, Nec-1 decreased the expression of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1), and attenuated the interaction between TLR4 and HMGB1. Western blot results suggested that Nec-1 significantly suppressed IL-1β-induced NF-κB transcriptional activity, but not MAPK pathway. Micro-computed tomography, immunohistochemical staining, and Safranin O/Fast Green staining were used in vivo to assess the degree of destruction of OA cartilage. The results show that NEC-1 can significantly reduce the degree of destruction of OA cartilage. Therefore, Nec-1 may be a novel therapeutic candidate to treat OA.
Dependability of the NFV Orchestrator: State of the Art and Research Challenges

The introduction of network function virtualisation (NFV) represents a significant change in networking technology, which may create new opportunities in terms of cost efficiency, operations, and service provisioning. Although not explicitly stated as an objective, the dependability of the services provided using this technology should be at least as good as conventional solutions. Logical centralisation, off-the-shelf computing platforms, and increased system complexity represent new dependability challenges relative to the state of the art. The core function of the network, with respect to failure and service management, is orchestration. The failure and misoperation of the NFV orchestrator (NFVO) will have huge network-wide consequences. At the same time, NFVO is vulnerable to overload and design faults. Thus, the objective of this paper is to give a tutorial on the dependability challenges of the NFVO, and to give insight into the required future research. This paper provides necessary background information, reviews the available literature, outlines the proposed solutions, and identifies some design and research problems that must be addressed.
Impact of Bacillus spp. spores and gentamicin on the gastrointestinal microbiota of suckling and newly weaned piglets

Administrating antibiotics to young piglets may have short- and long-term consequences on the gut microbiota. We hypothesised that these consequences may be alleviated by concurrent probiotic administration. The study objective was to investigate the effect of administrating gentamicin and a mixture of Bacillus (B.) licheniformis, B. subtilis and B. amyloliquefaeceans spores on the gut microbiota of piglets pre- and post-weaning. Twenty-four sows and their litters were randomly allocated to four treatment groups receiving; a) Bacillus spore mixture (six B. subtilis, two B. amyloliquefaeceans, and one B. licheniformis) fed to sows and piglets (PRO); b) gentamicin (5 mg per day) administered to piglets on day 4, 5, and 6 of age (AB); c) Bacillus spore mixture fed to sows and piglets, and gentamicin to piglets (PRO+AB); or d) no administration of probiotics or antibiotics (CTRL). Faecal and digesta samples were collected repeatedly during the study. Selected samples were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing, culture counts, and organic acid, biogenic amine and tissue gene expression analysis. Treatment had a significant effect on the faecal microbial community composition on day 28 and 42, and colonic community on day 28. Faecal species richness (observed and estimated) and Shannon index, and colonic species richness, were higher in AB compared to PRO piglets on day 28, and were not significantly different from day 42. PRO piglets had the highest faecal concentration of iso-butyric acid on day 7 and a higher butyric acid concentration compared to CTRL piglets. We conclude that gentamicin and Bacillus spores influence the gut microbial diversity of piglets, although administration of gentamicin did not result in dysbiosis as hypothesised.
AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

The efficient use of resources in production has been a crucial strategy for achieving performance in manufacturing firms for decades. Information technology has become an important enabler in manufacturing firms, having the potential to transform the industry into a more resource efficient one with sustainable behaviour. However, its influence on resource efficient production remains unexplored. By drawing on the resource-based view and the dynamic capability theory, we develop a research model and propose that IT alignment is the primary source of resource efficient production, which leads to superior performance outcomes. Moreover, we argue that IT alignment mediates the relationship between IT integration and resource efficiency. An empirical study across executives in manufacturing firms (n = 242) was conducted to empirically validate the research model. Our findings provide evidence for the important role of IT capabilities for resource efficient production and advance our understanding of creating IT value in manufacturing contexts.
Strong stimulation triggers full fusion exocytosis and very slow endocytosis of the small dense core granules in carotid glomus cells

Abstract Chemosensory glomus cells of the carotid bodies release transmitters, including ATP and dopamine mainly via the exocytosis of small dense core granules (SDCGs, vesicular diameter of ∼100 nm). Using carbon-fiber amperometry, we showed previously that with a modest uniform elevation in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i of ∼0.5 µM), SDCGs of rat glomus cells predominantly underwent a “kiss-and-run” mode of exocytosis. Here, we examined whether a larger [Ca2+]i rise influenced the mode of exocytosis. Activation of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels by a train of voltage-clamped depolarizations which elevated [Ca2+]i to ∼1.6 μM increased the cell membrane capacitance by ∼2.5%. At 30 s after such a stimulus, only 5% of the added membrane was retrieved. Flash photolysis of caged-Ca2+ (which elevated [Ca2+]i to ∼16 μM) increased cell membrane capacitance by ∼13%, and only ∼30% of the added membrane was retrieved at 30 s after the UV flash. When exocytosis and endocytosis were monitored using the two-photon excitation and extracellular polar tracer (TEP) imaging of FM1–43 fluorescence in conjunction with photolysis of caged Ca2+, almost uniform exocytosis was detected over the cell’s entire surface and it was followed by slow endocytosis. Immunocytochemistry showed that the cytoplasmic densities of dynamin I, II and clathrin (key proteins that mediate endocytosis) in glomus cells were less than half of those in adrenal chromaffin cells, suggesting that a lower expression of endocytotic machinery may underlie the slow endocytosis in glomus cells. An analysis of the relative change in the signals from two fluorescent dyes that simultaneously monitored the addition of vesicular volume and plasma membrane surface area, suggested that with an intense stimulus, SDCGs of glomus cells underwent full fusion without any significant “compound” exocytosis. Therefore, during a severe hypoxic challenge, glomus granules undergo full fusion for a more complete release of transmitters.
Single Line to Ground Fault Detection in a Non-Effectively Grounded Distribution Network

In the event of a single line to ground (SLG) fault in a non-effectively grounded distribution network, the faulted current is weak (only a few amperes or less) and the existing devices cannot accurately judge the faulted feeder. In this paper, we proposed algorithms that combine complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and Hilbert transform to construct a multi-criteria comprehensive voting method. First, CEEMDAN algorithm is used to decompose the zero-sequence current to obtain the IMF1 (the first intrinsic mode function) component and the Hilbert transform is used to calculate the instantaneous amplitude and instantaneous phase. Then, according to the three largest instantaneous amplitudes information, we constructed the characteristic instantaneous phase, characteristic instantaneous energy relative entropy and characteristic instantaneous zero sequence current polarity criteria from the phase, energy and polarity, respectively. Finally, we proposed a comprehensive voting method, which is specifically shown as follows: when two or more criteria show that one feeder or the bus has an SLG fault, it is voted that the feeder or the bus has an SLG fault. In contrast, if the judgment results of the three criteria are inconsistent, then we would return to recalculation and then vote. Compared with existing method, simulation tests and field experiments show that the method proposed in this paper has higher accuracy and a faster calculation speed.
Bilateral Trade Agreements and the Interconnectedness of Global Trade

Over the last decades, bilateral trade agreements (BTAs) have increased considerably in number and economic relevance. Notably, such agreements substantially affect global trade, since the reorganization of flows of goods and services has prominent impacts on the contracting countries' economies, but also on other parties that are (directly or indirectly) engaged in trade with these countries. Here, we empirically study the effect of BTAs on the input-output linkages between the contractual parties' national economic sectors by defining a new measure of Trade Interconnectedness (TI), which describes the relative importance of direct and indirect production linkages between the two countries in the international trade network. By analyzing its time evolution for each pair of trade agreement partners, we demonstrate that while most BTAs are succeeded by an increase in TI between the contractors, there are some notable exceptions. In particular, comparing the trade profiles of China and the United States (US), we find indications that both countries have been pursuing fundamentally different objectives and strategies related to the negotiation of BTAs.
Pre-hospital risk assessment in suspected non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome: A prospective observational study

Background: Pre-hospital risk stratification of non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS) by the complete HEART score has not yet been assessed. We investigated whether pre-hospital risk stratification of patients with suspected NSTE-ACS using the HEART score is accurate in predicting major adverse cardiac events (MACE). Methods: This is a prospective observational study, including 700 patients with suspected NSTE-ACS. Risk stratification was performed by ambulance paramedics, using the HEART score; low risk was defined as HEART score ⩽ 3. Primary endpoint was occurrence of MACE within 45 days after inclusion. Secondary endpoint was myocardial infarction or death. Results: A total of 172 patients (24.6%) were stratified as low risk and 528 patients (75.4%) as intermediate to high risk. Mean age was 53.9 years in the low risk group and 66.7 years in the intermediate to high risk group (p<0.001), 50% were male in the low risk group versus 60% in the intermediate to high risk group (p=0.026). MACE occurred in five patients in the low risk group (2.9%) and in 111 (21.0%) patients at intermediate or high risk (p<0.001). There were no deaths in the low risk group and the occurrence of acute myocardial infarction in this group was 1.2%. In the high risk group six patients died (1.1%) and 76 patients had myocardial infarction (14.4%). Conclusions: In suspected NSTE-ACS, pre-hospital risk stratification by ambulance paramedics, including troponin measurement, is accurate in differentiating between low and intermediate to high risk. Future studies should investigate whether transportation of low risk patients to a hospital can be avoided, and whether high risk patients benefit from immediate transfer to a hospital with early coronary angiography possibilities.
Effects of Bacillus subtilis C‐3102 on production, hatching performance, egg quality, serum antioxidant capacity and immune response of laying breeders

To investigate the supplemental effects of Bacillus subtilis C-3102 on the production, hatching performance, egg quality, serum antioxidant capacity and immune response of laying breeders, a total of 480 Xuefeng black-bone (25-week-old) hens were randomly assigned into four treatment groups: Hens fed the basal diets with 0 (CON), 3.0 × 105 (BS-1), 6.0 × 105 cfu/g (BS-2) and 9.0 × 105 (BS-3) cfu/g of B. subtilis C-3102. As the B. subtilis C-3102 level increased, egg weight (linear, p < 0.01; quadratic, p = 0.003), fertility (linear, p = 0.021; quadratic, p = 0.059), hatchability (linear, p = 0.038; quadratic, p = 0.119) and yolk colour (linear, p = 0.006; quadratic, p = 0.021) increased in a linear or quadratic manner. Yolk index increased quadratically (linear, p = 0.054; quadratic, p = 0.017), and eggshell thickness (linear, p = 0.036; quadratic, p = 0.128), the activity of GSH-Px (linear, p = 0.024; quadratic, p = 0.078), the concentration of IgM (linear, p = 0.016; quadratic, p = 0.056) and the level of AIV-Ab (linear, p = 0.034; quadratic, p = 0.103) in the serum increased linearly as dietary supplementation of B. subtilis C-3102 increased. The results showed that dietary treatments did not affect egg production, feed conversion ratio, egg mass, hatchability of fertile eggs, eggshell-breaking strength, egg-shape index, yolk percentage, Haugh unit, T-SOD, T-AOC, MDA, IgA and IgG concentrations and the level of NDV-Ab in the serum. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of 9.0 × 105 cfu/g B. subtilis C-3102 in laying breeders diets may be a feasible means of effectively increasing egg weight, fertility and hatchability, and improving egg quality such as eggshell thickness, yolk index and yolk colour. Besides, B. subtilis C-3102 can enhance the activity of GSH-Px, the concentration of IgM and the level of AIV-Ab in the serum.