Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors Predictive of Primary Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Simple Summary According to the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, primary resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment is defined as progression of disease within 6 months of ICI treatment with patients receiving at least 6 weeks of ICI monotherapy. We evaluated factors predictive of primary resistance to ICI monotherapy in 108 advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients. The prevalence of primary resistance was 54.6%. The majority of patients were male, smokers, received pembrolizumab and had adenocarcinoma histology. We found that female gender, an elevated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio of ≥3 at 6 weeks and a later line of immunotherapy treatment (≥2 lines) were key factors in predicting primary resistance to ICI monotherapy in advanced NSCLC. Abstract Introduction: Primary resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) is observed in routine clinical practice. We sought to determine factors predictive of primary resistance to ICI monotherapy, defined by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) as progression within 6 months of ICI treatment with patients receiving at least 6 weeks of ICI monotherapy, in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Method: Patients with stage IV NSCLC treated with at least 6 weeks of single-agent ICI at two tertiary hospitals in Singapore were included. A multivariate logistic regression model was utilised to elucidate factors predictive of primary resistance to ICI. Results: Of the 108 eligible patients, 59 (54.6%) experienced primary resistance. The majority were male (65.7%), smokers (66.3%), Chinese (79.6%), had adenocarcinoma (76.9%), received Pembrolizumab (55.6%) and received immunotherapy treatment in the later line setting (≥2 lines) (61.1%). Female gender (aOR = 3.16, p = 0.041), a sixth-week neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) of ≥3) (aOR = 3.454, p = 0.037) and a later line of immunotherapy treatment (≥2 lines) (aOR = 2.676, p = 0.040) were factors predictive of primary resistance to ICI monotherapy in patients with advanced NSCLC. Conclusions: Using SITC criteria, an elevated NLR (≥3) at 6 weeks, female gender and a later line of immunotherapy treatment (≥2 lines) were predictive factors of developing primary resistance to ICI monotherapy in patients with advanced NSCLC.
Yeast Chaperone Hsp70-Ssb Modulates a Variety of Protein-Based Heritable Elements

Prions are transmissible self-perpetuating protein isoforms associated with diseases and heritable traits. Yeast prions and non-transmissible protein aggregates (mnemons) are frequently based on cross-β ordered fibrous aggregates (amyloids). The formation and propagation of yeast prions are controlled by chaperone machinery. Ribosome-associated chaperone Hsp70-Ssb is known (and confirmed here) to modulate formation and propagation of the prion form of the Sup35 protein [PSI+]. Our new data show that both formation and mitotic transmission of the stress-inducible prion form of the Lsb2 protein ([LSB+]) are also significantly increased in the absence of Ssb. Notably, heat stress leads to a massive accumulation of [LSB+] cells in the absence of Ssb, implicating Ssb as a major downregulator of the [LSB+]-dependent memory of stress. Moreover, the aggregated form of Gγ subunit Ste18, [STE+], behaving as a non-heritable mnemon in the wild-type strain, is generated more efficiently and becomes heritable in the absence of Ssb. Lack of Ssb also facilitates mitotic transmission, while lack of the Ssb cochaperone Hsp40-Zuo1 facilitates both spontaneous formation and mitotic transmission of the Ure2 prion, [URE3]. These results demonstrate that Ssb is a general modulator of cytosolic amyloid aggregation, whose effect is not restricted only to [PSI+].
Dynamic modeling of the behavior of permalloy for magnetic shielding

The minimization of the remanent magnetization of ferromagnetic materials is a prerequisite for a reproducible low magnetic field inside shields. To realistically describe this so-called magnetic equilibration procedure, this paper proposes two approaches for the calculation of time- and space-dependent fields in the presence of ferromagnetic materials like permalloy. The first method is based on the Jiles-Atherton model and also takes into account frequency dependent effects. The second method is the newly developed empirical phase shift model, tailored specially for the simulation of the equilibration procedure. Both approaches are compared to experimental tests and show good quantitative agreement.
New Specific Kinesthetic Differentiation Tests for Female Volleyball Players: Reliability, Discriminative Ability, and Usefulness

This study aimed to determine the test-retest reliability and discriminative ability of five sport-specific kinesthetic differentiation ability tests in female volleyball players. The sample of participants consisted of 98 female volleyball players aged 15.20 ± 1 years from six clubs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kinesthetic differentiation ability was determined by the overhead passing test, forearm passing test, float service with a net test, float service without a net test, and float service 6 m from the net test. To estimate test-retest reliability, a sub-sample of 13 players performed all tests on two testing occasions. Furthermore, the discriminative ability of the tests was determined by analyzing the performance between players of different playing positions and situational performances. Parameters of the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were excellent (0.87–0.78) in all tests except for the float service with the net test, whose reliability was good (0.66). For the absolute reliability estimates, the SEM was higher than SWC (0.2) for all variables except the float service 6 m from the net test, and the SEM was lower than SWC (0.6, 1.2). One-way ANOVA detected no statistically significant inter-positional differences in all five tests (p > 0.05). A significant difference was found between less and more successful players (p < 0.01) for all applied tests. The results of this study show that a specific battery test is a reliable and valid measure and can be used to monitor kinesthetic differentiation ability in young female volleyball players.
Bacterial Skin Microbiota of Seabass from Aegean Fish Farms and Antibiotic Susceptibility of Psychrotrophic Pseudomonas

Farming seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) is an essential activity in the Mediterranean basin including the Aegean Sea. The main seabass producer is Turkey accounting for 155,151 tons of production in 2021. In this study, skin swabs of seabass farmed in the Aegean Sea were analysed with regard to the isolation and identification of Pseudomonas. Bacterial microbiota of skin samples (n = 96) from 12 fish farms were investigated using next-generation sequencing (NGS) and metabarcoding analysis. The results demonstrated that Proteobacteria was the dominant bacterial phylum in all samples. At the species level, Pseudomonas lundensis was identified in all samples. Pseudomonas, Shewanella, and Flavobacterium were identified using conventional methods and a total of 46 viable (48% of all NGS+) Pseudomonas were isolated in seabass swab samples. Additionally, antibiotic susceptibility was determined according to standards of the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) and Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) in psychrotrophic Pseudomonas. Pseudomonas strains were tested for susceptibility to 11 antibiotics (piperacillin-tazobactam, gentamicin, tobramycin, amikacin, doripenem, meropenem, imipenem, levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, and tetracycline) from five different groups of antibiotics (penicillins, aminoglycosides, carbapenems, fluoroquinolones, and tetracyclines). The antibiotics chosen were not specifically linked to usage by the aquaculture industry. According to the EUCAST and CLSI, three and two Pseudomonas strains were found to be resistant to doripenem and imipenem (E-test), respectively. All strains were susceptible to piperacillin-tazobactam, amikacin, levofloxacin, and tetracycline. Our data provide insight into different bacteria that are prevalent in the skin microbiota of seabass sampled from the Aegean Sea in Turkey, and into the antibiotic resistance of psychrotrophic Pseudomonas spp.
l p -Norm Multiple Kernel Learning

Learning linear combinations of multiple kernels is an appealing strategy when the right choice of features is unknown. Previous approaches to multiple kernel learning (MKL) promote sparse kernel combinations to support interpretability and scalability. Unfortunately, this l1-norm MKL is rarely observed to outperform trivial baselines in practical applications. To allow for robust kernel mixtures that generalize well, we extend MKL to arbitrary norms. We devise new insights on the connection between several existing MKL formulations and develop two efficient interleaved optimization strategies for arbitrary norms, that is lp-norms with p ≥ 1. This interleaved optimization is much faster than the commonly used wrapper approaches, as demonstrated on several data sets. A theoretical analysis and an experiment on controlled artificial data shed light on the appropriateness of sparse, non-sparse and l∞-norm MKL in various scenarios. Importantly, empirical applications of lp-norm MKL to three real-world problems from computational biology show that non-sparse MKL achieves accuracies that surpass the state-of-the-art. Data sets, source code to reproduce the experiments, implementations of the algorithms, and further information are available at http://doc.ml. tu-berlin.de/nonsparse_mkl/.
Numerical modelling and theoretical analysis of the acoustic attenuation in bubbly liquids

The propagations of acoustic waves in bubbly liquids have been extensively investigated through experimental and theoretical methods, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was introduced to investigate the acoustic attenuation through bubbles in this study. Numerical ‘measurements’ of attenuation coefficient (α) and phase velocity (V) were conducted using a homogeneous cavitation model, which were modeled from experimental schemes and compared with the theoretical results. At extremely small bubble volume fraction (β around 10−11), new formulas of the theoretical α (αtheo) were proposed respectively for linear and transient oscillations, and a new formula of the numerical α (αnum) was proposed for transient oscillations. Results showed that αnum matched precisely with αtheo for linear, nonlinear and transient oscillations. At medium β (around 10−4), the relative difference of αnum between the VOF and present methods was less than 1.6%, while it reached 15.4% after replacing the bounded Keller-Miksis equation (KME) in the present method with the KME. However, the traditional theoretical α and V matched precisely with the predictions by the present method with the KME. Thus new theoretical α and V were proposed based on the bounded KME, and the relative differences between αtheo and αnum were less than 1%. It can be concluded that the bounded KME should be used in both numerical and theoretical predictions.
Exotic spin-orbital Mott insulating states in BaIrO3

Electronic structures of 5d transition-metal oxide BaIrO3 are investigated by using a first-principles method. The system is found to be an exotic spin-orbital Mott insulator in multiple Jeff = 1/2 states, achieved only after spin-orbit coupling and a modest on-site Coulomb interaction are taken into account simultaneously. The multiplicity of Jeff=1/2 states is associated with the unique Ir3O12 structural units in the crystal. These results explain well the nonmetallic behavior of the system observed in experiments. The magnetic state is found to be weak and noncollinear. Our work provides essential understandings on the electronic states of this type of 5d transition-metal oxide.
Vertical Jump of a Humanoid Robot With CoP-Guided Angular Momentum Control and Impact Absorption

Highly dynamic movements such as jumping are important to improve the agility and environmental adaptation of humanoid robots. This article proposes an online optimization method to realize a vertical jump with centroidal angular momentum (CAM) control and landing impact absorption for a humanoid robot. First, the robot's center of mass (CoM) trajectory is generated by nonlinear optimization. Then, a quasi-sliding mode controller is designed to ensure that the robot tracks the CoM trajectory accurately. To avoid unexpected spinning in the flight phase, a center-of-pressure-guided angular momentum controller is designed to stabilize the CAM. The modifications of CoM and CAM are realized by online optimization of dynamic components and inverse dynamics. Two quadratic programming optimizations are utilized to generate feasible contact force/torque and joint acceleration referring to uplevel CoM and CAM controllers. In addition, a viscoelastic model-based controller is designed to absorb the vibration caused by a large contact impact. A simulation and experiment of a 0.5-m high (foot lifting distance) vertical jump are achieved on a humanoid robot platform in this article (Fig. 1).
Nonselective and A2a-Selective Inhibition of Adenosine Receptors Modulates Renal Perfusion and Excretion Depending on the Duration of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes in Rats

Long-lasting hyperglycaemia may alter the role of adenosine-dependent receptors (P1R) in the control of kidney function. We investigated how P1R activity affects renal circulation and excretion in diabetic (DM) and normoglycaemic (NG) rats; the receptors’ interactions with bioavailable NO and H2O2 were also explored. The effects of adenosine deaminase (ADA, nonselective P1R inhibitor) and P1A2a-R-selective antagonist (CSC) were examined in anaesthetised rats, both after short-lasting (2-weeks, DM-14) and established (8-weeks, DM-60) streptozotocin-induced hyperglycaemia, and in normoglycaemic age-matched animals (NG-14, NG-60, respectively). The arterial blood pressure, perfusion of the whole kidney and its regions (cortex, outer-, and inner medulla), and renal excretion were determined, along with the in situ renal tissue NO and H2O2 signals (selective electrodes). The ADA treatment helped to assess the P1R-dependent difference in intrarenal baseline vascular tone (vasodilation in DM and vasoconstriction in NG rats), with the difference being more pronounced between DM-60 and NG-60 animals. The CSC treatment showed that in DM-60 rats, A2aR-dependent vasodilator tone was modified differently in individual kidney zones. Renal excretion studies after the ADA and CSC treatments showed that the balance of the opposing effects of A2aRs and other P1Rs on tubular transport, seen in the initial phase, was lost in established hyperglycaemia. Regardless of the duration of the diabetes, we observed a tonic effect of A2aR activity on NO bioavailability. Dissimilarly, the involvement of P1R in tissue production of H2O2, observed in normoglycaemia, decreased. Our functional study provides new information on the changing interaction of adenosine in the kidney, as well as its receptors and NO and H2O2, in the course of streptozotocin diabetes.
Internal wave turbulence in a stratified fluid with and without eigenmodes of the experimental domain

We present laboratory experiments on turbulence in a linearly stratified fluid driven by an ensemble of internal gravity waves which approaches statistical homogeneity and axi-symmetry. In a way similar to several recent experimental works, non-linearities develop through the establishment of a set of internal wave modes at discrete frequencies, when the forcing amplitude is increased. We show that the most energetic of these modes are resonant eigenmodes of the fluid domain. The discretization of the energy in frequency and wavenumber associated to the emergence of these modes prevents the flow from approaching a regime described by the Weak/Wave Turbulence Theory, in which a forward cascade carried by a statistical ensemble of weakly non-linear waves in an infinite domain forms an energy continuum in the frequency and wavenumber spaces. We then show that the introduction of slightly tilted panels at the top and at the bottom of the fluid domain allows to inhibit the emergence of the discrete wave modes. In this new configuration, the non-linear regime results in a continuum of energy over one decade of frequencies which is mainly carried by internal gravity waves verifying the dispersion relation. We therefore achieved a turbulent flow approaching a three-dimensional internal wave turbulence regime with no discretization of the energy in the frequency and wavenumber domains. These results constitute a significant step forward in the search of the laboratory observation of a fully-developed weakly-non-linear internal-gravity-wave turbulence.
Regionalized classification of stand tree species in mountainous forests by fusing advanced classifiers and ecological niche model

ABSTRACT Though many new remote sensing technologies have been introduced to analyze forests, regional-scale species-level mapping products are still rare, especially in large mountainous areas. Tree species abundance, low spectral separability among species and huge computing demand are hindrances for obtaining an accurate stand tree species map. This study addressed these problems by synergizing regionalization, multiple feature fusion, and model fusion and proposed a new machine learning workflow. The whole area, i.e. Yunnan province in China (approximately 390,000 km2), was firstly divided into 8 distinct floristic regions according to the distributions and phylogenetic relationships of native tree species. Thereafter, with Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, multiple data sets, including Sentinel-2 imagery, SRTM DEM, and WorldClim bioclimatic, were collected to construct a high-dimensional feature pool for each region. Thirdly, the maximum entropy model （MaxEnt）, generally used for predicting ecological niche, and three classifiers, i.e. Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), were used to pre-classify environmental and remote sensing data, respectively. After that, two types of decision fusion strategies, parallel and serial ensembles, were applied to fuse pre-classification probability maps for each sub-region. Finally, the spatial distribution of 19 forest stand species over the whole Yunnan Province was obtained by mosaicking the best classification results from 8 sub-regions. Our method achieves an overall accuracy of 72.18% on the entire validation dataset. The decision fusion models significantly improve the classification accuracy, with the eight partitioned best fusion models improving the accuracy by 7.33%–25.39% on average compared to base classifiers. This study demonstrates that the spatial partitioning strategy and the decision fusion integrating a proper machine learning algorithm and ecological niche model can significantly improve the classification accuracy of forest stand species in montane forests.
Vascular Changes in the Macula of Patients after Previous Episodes of Vision Loss Due to Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy and Non-Arteritic Ischemic Optic Neuropathy

Purpose: to assess the vasculature and thickness of the macula using OCT-A in patients who had experienced a previous episode of Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NA-AION). Methods: twelve eyes with chronic LHON and ten eyes with chronic NA-AION and eight NA-AION fellow eyes were examined using OCT-A. The vessel density was measured in the superficial and deep plexus of the retina. Moreover, the full and inner thicknesses of the retina were assessed. Results: There were significant differences in all sectors between the groups in regard to the superficial vessel density and the inner and full thicknesses of the retina. The nasal sector of the macular superficial vessel density was affected more in LHON than in NA-AION; the same with the temporal sector of the retinal thickness. There were no significant differences between the groups in the deep vessel plexus. There were no significant differences between the vasculature of the inferior and superior hemifields of the macula in all groups and no correlation with the visual function. Conclusions: The superficial perfusion and structure of the macula assessed with OCT-A are affected both in chronic LHON and NA-AION, but more in LHON eyes, especially in the nasal and temporal sectors.
On intersecting subgroups of Brunnian link groups

Let G.Ln/ be the link group of a Brunnian n–link Ln and Ri be the normal closure of the i th meridian in G.Ln/ for 1 i n . In this article, we show that the intersecting subgroup R1 \R2 \ \Rm coincides with the iterated symmetric commutator subgroup Q 2†m ŒŒR . 1/;R . 2/; : : : ;R . m/ for 2 m n using the techniques of homotopy theory. Moreover, we give a presentation for the intersecting subgroup R1\R2\ \Rn .
Dyslipidemia in Muscular Dystrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Muscular dystrophies (MDs) are characterized by chronic muscle wasting but also poorly understood metabolic co-morbidities. We have recently shown that Duchenne MD (DMD) patients, dogs and asymptomatic carriers are affected by a new form of dyslipidemia that may exacerbate muscle damage. Objective: We aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis for evidence that other types of MDs are associated with dyslipidemia compared to healthy controls. Methods: Search was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for reports that compare plasma/serum lipids from MD patients and controls, and meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies quantifying total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein and triglycerides was performed. Results: Out of 749 studies, 17 met our inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. 14 of the 17 studies (82%) included investigated myotonic dystrophy (DM); other studies were on pseudohypertrophic MD (PMD) or DMD. As a whole, MD individuals had significantly higher levels of circulating total cholesterol (Hedges’ g with 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 [0.03 – 1.56]; p = 0.04) and triglycerides (Hedges’ g with 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.28[0.63 – 3.92]; p = 0.01) compared to controls. Meta-regression analysis showed the percentage of male gender was significantly associated with the difference in total cholesterol (beta = 0.05; 95% CI, – 0.02 to 0.11; p = 0.043) and high-density lipoprotein (beta = – 9.38; 95% CI, – 16.26 to – 2.50; p = 0.028). Conclusions: MD is associated with significantly higher circulating levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides. However, caution on the interpretation of these findings is warranted and future longitudinal research is required to better understand this relationship.
EFFICIENCY, PRODUCTIVITY, AND OPENNESS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM ASEAN PLUS THREE ECONOMIES

This paper investigates the impact of openness variables, i.e., Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), exports, and imports, on productivity and efficiency. By employing annual data from the 13 countries from 2001 to 2018, this study confirms that openness variables affect countries’ productivity and efficiency. Productivity will improve when FDI interacts with human capital and intra-and inter-region exports, as well as when inter-region imports interact with human capital. Meanwhile, efficiency will enhance along with the enhancement of FDI, human capital, and intra-region imports. This study emphasises the importance of minimising underutilised capital and optimising production cost and managerial expertise