Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extraordinarily polymorphic ribosomal DNA in wild and cultivated rice.

A collection of 481 rice accessions was surveyed for ribosomal DNA (rDNA) intergenic spacer length polymorphism to assess the extent of genetic diversity in Chinese and Asian rice germplasm. The materials included 83 accessions of common wild rice, Oryza rufipogon, 75 of which were from China; 348 entries of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa), representing almost all the rice growing areas in China; and 50 cultivars from South and East Asia. A total of 42 spacer length variants (SLVs) were detected. The size differences between adjacent SLVs in the series were very heterogeneous, ranging from ca. 21 to 311 bp. The 42 SLVs formed 80 different rDNA phenotypic combinations. Wild rice displayed a much greater number of rDNA SLVs than cultivated rice, while cultivated rice showed a larger number of rDNA phenotypes. Indica and japonica groups of O. sativa contained about equal numbers of SLVs, but the SLV distribution was significantly differentiated: indica rice was preferentially associated with longer SLVs and japonica rice with shorter ones. The results may have significant implications regarding the origin and evolution of cultivated rice, as well as the inheritance and molecular evolution of rDNA intergenic spacers in rice. Key words : rDNA, Oryza rufipogon, Oryza sativa, germplasm diversity, evolution.
pH‐dependent effect of pectinase secretion in Penicillium griseoroseum recombinant strains

A number of parameters, including culture medium pH, affect growth and enzyme production by microorganisms. In the present study, the production and secretion of pectin lyase (PL) and polygalacturonase (PG) by recombinant strains of Penicillium griseoroseum cultured in mineral‐buffered media (MBM; initial pH 6.8) and mineral‐unbuffered medium (MUM; initial pH 6.3) were evaluated. Under these culture conditions, no change in the transcriptional levels of plg1 and pgg2 was observed. However, the levels of secreted total protein ranged from 7.80 ± 1.1 to 3.25 ± 1.50 µg ml−1 in MBM and MUM, respectively, and were evaluated by SDS–PAGE. PL and PG enzymatic activities decreased 6.4 and 3.6 times, respectively, when P. griseoroseum was cultivated under acidic pH conditions (MUM). Furthermore, differences were observed in the hypha and mycelium morphology. These findings suggest that acidic growing conditions affect PL and PG secretion, even though the transcription and translation processes are successful. The data obtained in this study will help to establish optimal culture conditions that increase production and secretion of recombinant proteins by filamentous fungi.
Planning sensing strategies in a robot work cell with multi-sensor capabilities

The authors present an approach to planning sensing strategies in a robot workcell with multisensor capabilities. The system first forms an initial set of object hypotheses by using one of the sensors. Subsequently, the system reasons over different possibilities for selecting the next sensing operation, this being done in a manner so as to maximally disambiguate the initial set of hypotheses. The 'next sensing operation' is characterized by both the choice of the sensor and the viewpoint to be used. Aspect graph representation of objects plays a central role in the selection of the viewpoint, these representations being derived automatically by a solid modelling program. <<ETX>>
Analysis and modeling of a voltage doubler rectifier fed by a piezoelectric transformer

Piezoelectric transformers (PZT) can be used advantageously in high output voltage dc-dc converters. In such applications the output section includes a voltage doubling rectification scheme to help increase the output voltage. This topology was modeled and analyzed by considering the expected voltage and current waveforms under the first harmonics approximation. The results were then used to build a linear ac equivalent circuit that emulates the ac-dc stage. The proposed model was verified against simulation and experimental results.
The incidences of and consultation rate for lower extremity complaints in general practice

Objective: To estimate the incidence and consultation rate of lower extremity complaints in general practice. Methods: Data were obtained from the Second Dutch National Survey of General Practice, in which 195 general practitioners (GPs) in 104 practices recorded all contacts with patients during 12 consecutive months in computerised patient records. GPs classified the symptoms and diagnosis for each patient at each consultation according to the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC). Incidence densities and consultation rates for different complaints were calculated. Results: During the registration period 63.2 GP consultations per 1000 person-years were attributable to a new complaint of the lower extremities. Highest incidence densities were seen for knee complaints: 21.4 per 1000 person-years for women and 22.8 per 1000 person-years for men. The incidence of most lower extremity complaints was higher for women than for men and higher in older age. Conclusions: Both incidences of and consultation rates for lower extremity complaints are substantial in general practice. This implies a considerable impact on the workload of the GP.
Sound Event Detection in Multichannel Audio Using Spatial and Harmonic Features

In this paper, we propose the use of spatial and harmonic features in combination with long short term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN) for automatic sound event detection (SED) task. Real life sound recordings typically have many overlapping sound events, making it hard to recognize with just mono channel audio. Human listeners have been successfully recognizing the mixture of overlapping sound events using pitch cues and exploiting the stereo (multichannel) audio signal available at their ears to spatially localize these events. Traditionally SED systems have only been using mono channel audio, motivated by the human listener we propose to extend them to use multichannel audio. The proposed SED system is compared against the state of the art mono channel method on the development subset of TUT sound events detection 2016 database. The usage of spatial and harmonic features are shown to improve the performance of SED.
Acute Binge Drinking Increases Serum Endotoxin and Bacterial DNA Levels in Healthy Individuals

Binge drinking, the most common form of alcohol consumption, is associated with increased mortality and morbidity; yet, its biological consequences are poorly defined. Previous studies demonstrated that chronic alcohol use results in increased gut permeability and increased serum endotoxin levels that contribute to many of the biological effects of chronic alcohol, including alcoholic liver disease. In this study, we evaluated the effects of acute binge drinking in healthy adults on serum endotoxin levels. We found that acute alcohol binge resulted in a rapid increase in serum endotoxin and 16S rDNA, a marker of bacterial translocation from the gut. Compared to men, women had higher blood alcohol and circulating endotoxin levels. In addition, alcohol binge caused a prolonged increase in acute phase protein levels in the systemic circulation. The biological significance of the in vivo endotoxin elevation was underscored by increased levels of inflammatory cytokines, TNFα and IL-6, and chemokine, MCP-1, measured in total blood after in vitro lipopolysaccharide stimulation. Our findings indicate that even a single alcohol binge results in increased serum endotoxin levels likely due to translocation of gut bacterial products and disturbs innate immune responses that can contribute to the deleterious effects of binge drinking.
Estimating the Value of Computation in Flexible Information Refinement

We outline a method to estimate the value of computation for a flexible algorithm using empirical data. To determine a reasonable trade-off between cost and value, we build an empirical model of the value obtained through computation, and apply this model to estimate the value of computation for quite different problems. In particular, we investigate this trade-off for the problem of constructing policies for decision problems represented as influence diagrams. We show how two features of our anytime algorithm provide reasonable estimates of the value of computation in this domain.
Insights into Seismogenic Deformation during the 2018 Hualien, Taiwan, Earthquake Sequence from InSAR, GPS, and Modeling

We provide new data and insights into a 6 February 2018 Mw 6.4 earthquake that shook the city of Hualien in eastern Taiwan at the leading edge of a modern arc–continent collision. Fatalities and damages were concentrated near the Milun fault and extended south to the northern Longitudinal Valley fault. Although the Hualien area has one of the highest rates of seismicity in Taiwan, the geologic structures responsible for active deformation were not well understood before this event. We analyzed Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and Global Positioning System (GPS) data and produced a 3D displacement model with InSAR and azimuth offset of radar images to document surface deformation induced by this earthquake. The 3D displacement model was inverted to estimate slip on the Milun fault. We find that models assuming a single fault are inconsistent with observations of coseismic deformation and regional strain patterns, providing evidence for linked slip on a little-studied offshore thrust belt. Based on data presented here and elsewhere, we propose a model for transpressive deformation in a zone of oblique convergence and left-lateral wrench tectonics to explain this and a prior 1951 M 7.3 earthquake. Electronic Supplement: Tables listing of details of the satellite radar images used in this research and Global Positioning System (GPS) coseismic deformation.
An Image Fusion Method Based on Lifting Wavelet and Weighted Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

The limitations, such as high computation complexity and low efficiency, impede the application of wavelet technology heavily. Lifting wavelet overcomes these problems, as well as keeps the multi-resolution characters of traditional wavelet method. Meanwhile, for the good performance in feature selection of weighted nonnegative matrix factorization technology, a fusion algorithm based on lifting wavelet and WNMF is presented. Experiments show that rich information is contained in our fusion results and the method is fast and suitable for infrared and visible image fusion.
Hepatocyte function and extracellular matrix geometry: long‐term culture in a sandwich configuration

Adult rat hepatocytes cultured in a collagen sandwich system maintained normal morphology and a physiological rate of albumin secretion for at least 42 days. Hepatocytes cultured on a single layer of collagen gel essentially ceased albumin secretion within 1 wk but could recover function with the overlay of a second layer of collagen gel. This culture configuration more closely mimics the hepatocytes' in vivo environment and provides a simple method for their long‐term maintenance. — Dunn, J. C. Y. ; Yarmush, M. L. ; Koebe, H. G. ; Tompkins, R. G. Hepatocyte function and extracellular matrix geometry: long‐term culture in a sandwich configuration. FASEB J. 3: 174‐177; 1989.
Towards Al3+-Induced Manganese-Containing Superoxide Dismutase Inactivation and Conformational Changes: An Integrating Study with Docking Simulations

Superoxide dismutase (SOD, EC 1.15.1.1) plays an important antioxidant defense role in skins exposed to oxygen. We studied the inhibitory effects of Al3+ on the activity and conformation of manganese-containing SOD (Mn-SOD). Mn-SOD was significantly inactivated by Al3+ in a dose-dependent manner. The kinetic studies showed that Al3+ inactivated Mn-SOD follows the first-order reaction. Al3+ increased the degree of secondary structure of Mn-SOD and also disrupted the tertiary structure of Mn-SOD, which directly resulted in enzyme inactivation. We further simulated the docking between Mn-SOD and Al3+ (binding energy for Dock 6.3: −14.07 kcal/mol) and suggested that ASP152 and GLU157 residues were predicted to interact with Al3+, which are not located in the Mn-contained active site. Our results provide insight into the inactivation of Mn-SOD during unfolding in the presence of Al3+ and allow us to describe a ligand binding via inhibition kinetics combined with the computational prediction.
Test Compression for Robust Testable Path Delay Fault Testing Using Interleaving and Statistical Coding

This paper proposes a method providing efficient test compression. The proposed method is for robust testable path delay fault testing with scan design facilitating two-pattern testing. In the proposed method, test data are interleaved before test compression using statistical coding. This paper also presents test architecture for two-pattern testing using the proposed method. The proposed method is experimentally evaluated from several viewpoints such as compression rates, test application time and area overhead. For robust testable path delay fault testing on 11 out of 20 ISCAS89 benchmark circuits, the proposed method provides better compression rates than the existing methods such as Huffman coding, run-length coding, Golomb coding, frequency-directed run-length (FDR) coding and variable-length input Huffman coding (VIHC).
Toward the Development of Learning Analytics: Student Speech as an Automatic and Natural Form of Assessment

While many of the nation’s educators and leaders are calling for students to develop 21 st century competencies through student-centered, hands-on learning, most school systems continue to cling to traditional forms of instruction. This reliance on traditional forms of instruction is not without merit, however, assessment within open-ended learning environments remains difficult, and, often times, seemingly unsatisfying. This is further complicated by the large emphasis placed on students demonstrating their knowledge through standardized tests. As a way of addressing this discontinuity between practice and theory, we have worked to develop Learning Analytics—a set of multi-modal sensory inputs, that can be used to predict, understand and quantify student learning. Central to the efficacy of Learning Analytics is the belief that educators will be able to more easily adhere to learning recommendations when they are given the proper tools; in this case, tools for more accurately assessing student knowledge in open-ended learning tasks. Accordingly, this study presents finding related to one of the Learning Analytics modalities: speech. By leveraging the tools of text and speech analysis, we are able to identify domain independent markers of expertise. Some of the most prominent markers of expertise include: user certainty, the ability to describe things efficiently and a disinclination to use unnecessary descriptors or qualifiers. While many of these are things one would expect of an expert, some of them are also observed among novices. To explain this we report on learning theories that can reconcile these seemingly odd findings, and expound on how these markers can be useful for identifying student knowledge learning over the course of an intervention or classroom experience.
An Architecture for Mining Resources Complementary to Audio-Visual Streams

In this paper we attempt to characterize resources of information complementary to audio-visual (A/V) streams and propose their usage for enriching A/V data with semantic concepts in order to bridge the gap between low-level video detectors and high-level analysis. Our aim is to extract cross-media feature descriptors from semantically enriched and aligned resources so as to detect finer-grained events in video.We introduce an architecture for complementary resource analysis and discuss domain dependency aspects of this approach related to our domain of soccer broadcasts.
Rapid speaker adaptation using MLLR and subspace regression classes

In recent years, various adaptation techniques for hidden Markov modeling with mixture Gaussians have been proposed, most notably MAP estimation and MLLR transformation. When the amount of adaptation data is limited, adaptation can be done by grouping similar Gaussians together to form regression classes and then transforming the Gaussians in groups. The grouping of Gaussians is often determined at the full-space level. In this paper, we propose to group the Gaussians at a finer acoustic subspace level. The motivation is that clustering at subspaces of lower dimensions results in lower distortion. Besides, as the dimension of subspace Gaussians reduces, there are fewer parameters to estimate for the subsequent MLLR transformation matrix. This is particular attractive in fast adaptation. Speaker adaptation experiments on the Resource Management task with few seconds of speech show that the use of subspace regression classes is more effective than traditional full-space regression classes.
Fast computation of generalized Voronoi diagrams using graphics hardware

We present a new approach for computing generalized 2D and 3D Voronoi diagrams using interpolation-based polygon rasterization hardware. We compute a discrete Voronoi diagram by rendering a three dimensional distance mesh for each Voronoi site. The polygonal mesh is a bounded-error approximation of a (possibly) non-linear function of the distance between a site and a 2D planar grid of sample points. For each sample point, we compute the closest site and the distance to that site using polygon scan-conversion and the Z-buffer depth comparison. We construct distance meshes for points, line segments, polygons, polyhedra, curves, and curved surfaces in 2D and 3D. We generalize to weighted and farthest-site Voronoi diagrams, and present efficient techniques for computing the Voronoi boundaries, Voronoi neighbors, and the Delaunay triangulation of points. We also show how to adaptively refine the solution through a simple windowing operation. The algorithm has been implemented on SGI workstations and PCs using OpenGL, and applied to complex datasets. We demonstrate the application of our algorithm to fast motion planning in static and dynamic environments, selection in complex user-interfaces, and creation of dynamic mosaic effects. CR Categories: I.3. 5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling; I.3. 3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation. Additional
Dichlorido(4,4′-di-tert-butyl-2,2′-bipyridine-κ2 N,N′)palladium(II) dimethyl sulfoxide monosolvate monohydrate

The title compound, [PdCl2(C18H24N2)]·(CH3)2SO·H2O, the PdII ion is in a distorted square-planar geometry. The Pd—N bond distances are 2.022 (2) and 2.027 (2) Å, the Pd—Cl bond distances are 2.2880 (7) and 2.2833 (7) Å, and the ligand bite angle is 80.07 (9)°. The dimethyl sulfoxide and water molecules form linear chains along [100] by O—H⋯O and O—H⋯S hydrogen bonds, generating eight- and 12-membered rings. C—H⋯Cl interactions link the chains, forming a three-dimensional arrangement. In addition, the 4,4-di-tert-butyl-2,2′-bipyridine ligand exhibits π–π stacking interactions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.8741 (15) and 3.8353 (15) Å]. The DMSO solvent is disordered and was refined with an occupancy ratio of 0.866 (3):0.134 (3).
Acoustic Self-calibrating System for Indoor Smartphone Tracking (ASSIST)

In this paper, we present a novel smartphone indoor localization system. The smartphone user is localized with small effort, affordable equipment and with high accuracy in indoor areas. The system uses commercially available smartphones generating high pitched acoustic chirp signals beyond the audible range. The chirp signals are received by sound receivers which identify the specific sound produced from each smartphone. The receivers are connected to a WiFi network, such that they synchronize their clocks and exchange the time differences of arrival (TDoA) of the received chirps. In this way, using an iterative multilateration algorithm, the location of the smartphones can be calculated and the receiver positions are calibrated automatically. For generating the specific sound signals from the smartphone and for user navigation an Android software application was developed. The user interface is simple and is invoked by starting the software application, which automatically connects to a server and receives an ID using the internet connection of the smartphone. Furthermore, the user is assigned specific parameters, such that several devices can be distinguished by the appearance of the chirps. The position of the user is displayed on the smartphone in context of the environment, with a map and surrounding items. In the presented work we have verified our system in a real-world scenario. We compared our trajectory of a pedestrian carrying smartphone to the reference positions. We could locate the smartphones with error margin of 30 cm. a centimeter margin of error.
Acute coronary syndromes without chest pain, an underdiagnosed and undertreated high-risk group: insights from the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events.

STUDY OBJECTIVES The clinical manifestations of acute coronary syndromes (ACSs) vary, and patients present frequently with symptoms other than chest pain. In this analysis, a large contemporary database has been accessed to define the frequency, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of patients presenting without chest pain across different diagnostic categories of ACS. DESIGN AND SETTING The Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events is a multinational, prospective, observational study involving 14 countries. PATIENTS Patients presenting to the hospital with a suspected ACS were stratified according to whether their predominant presenting symptoms included chest pain (ie, typical) or did not (ie, atypical). Demographics, medical history, hospital management, and outcomes were compared. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Of the 20,881 patients in this analysis, 1,763 (8.4%) presented without chest pain, 23.8% of whom were not initially recognized as having an ACS. They were less likely to receive effective cardiac medications, and experienced greater hospital morbidity and mortality (13% vs 4.3%, respectively; p < 0.0001) than did patients with typical symptoms. After adjusting for potentially confounding variables, increased hospital mortality rates were noted in patients with dominant presenting symptoms of presyncope/syncope (odds ratio [OR], 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4 to 2.9), nausea or vomiting (OR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.1 to 2.4), and dyspnea (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1 to 1.9), and in those with painless presentations of unstable angina (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.4 to 3.5) and ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (OR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.2 to 2.2). CONCLUSION Patients with ACSs who present without chest pain are frequently misdiagnosed and undertreated. With the exception of diaphoresis, each dominant presenting symptom independently identifies a population that is at increased risk of dying. These patients experience greater morbidity and a higher mortality across the spectrum of ACSs.