Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SNARE proteins SYP22 and VAMP727 negatively regulate plant defense

ABSTRACT Soluble N-ethylmaleimide sensitive factor attachment protein receptors (SNAREs) are the key regulators control trafficking of cargo proteins to their final destinations and plays key role in plant development; however, their roles in plant defense remain largely unknown. R-SNARE VAMP727 and Qa-SNARE SYP22 were previously reported to associate with vacuolar protein deposition and brassinosteroids (BRs) receptor BRI1 plasma membrane targeting. Here, we identified that VAMP727 and SYP22 are induced by infection of root-knot nematode (RKN), a plant pathogen, which cause severe growth defect and yield loss. Furthermore, decreased root-knot nematode (RKN) invasion, growth and disease index were observed in bri1-5 and SYP22ND, a SYP22 negative dominant mutants when compared to control plants. Overall, our results suggest that VAMP727-SYP22 SNARE complexes regulate plant defense might be via control of abundances of BRI1 on the plasma membrane.
Battery-Free Eye Tracker on Glasses

We propose the design of a battery-free wearable eye tracker that achieves sub-millimeter tracking accuracy at high tracking rates. It tracks pupil's 2D position based on pupil's light absorption effect. With a few near-infrared (NIR) lights and photodiodes around the eye, NIR lights sequentially illuminate the eye from various directions while photodiodes sense spatial patterns of reflected light, which are used to infer pupil positions on the fly through a lightweight inference algorithm. The system also exploits characteristics of different eye movement stages and adjusts its sensing and computation accordingly for further energy savings. We have built a prototype with off-the-shelf hardware components and integrated it into a regular pair of glasses. Experiments with ten participants show that the system achieves 0.9-mm mean tracking accuracy (2.4 mm at the 95th percentile) at 120-Hz output frame rate, consuming 395 -W mean power supplied by two small, thin solar cells on glasses side arms.
Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation

Research on the macroeconomic impact of capital account liberalization finds few, if any, robust effects of liberalization on real variables. In contrast to the prevailing wisdom, I argue that the textbook theory of liberalization holds up quite well to a critical reading of this literature. Most papers that find no effect of liberalization on real variables tell us nothing about the empirical validity of the theory because they do not really test it. This paper explains why it is that most studies do not really address the theory they set out to test. It also discusses what is necessary to test the theory and examines papers that have done so. Studies that actually test the theory show that liberalization has significant effects on the cost of capital, investment, and economic growth.
OPRE-2009-06-259 Stabilizing Customer Abandonment in Many-Server Queues with Time-Varying Arrivals

An algorithm is developed to determine time-dependent staffing levels to stabilize the time-dependent abandonment probabilities and expected delays at positive target values in the Mt/GI/st + GI many-server queueing model, which has a nonhomogeneous Poisson arrival process (the Mt), general service times (the first GI) and allows customer abandonment according to a general patience distribution (the +GI). New offered-load and modified-offered-load approximations involving infinite-server models are developed for that purpose. Simulations show that the approximations are effective. A many-server heavy-traffic limit in the efficiency-driven regime shows that: (i) the proposed approximations achieve the goal asymptotically as the scale increases, and (ii) it is not possible to simultaneously stabilize the mean queue length in the same asymptotic regime.
Attenuation of intestinal ischemia-reperfusion-injury by anesthetics: a potentially protective effect of anesthetic management in experimental studies

Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a potentially severe clinical syndrome after major surgical procedures. In addition to causing intestinal mucosa injury, intestinal IRI further damages distant organs, causing the severity of the condition in patients. So far, effective therapy for intestinal IRI is still absent, and the survival rate of the patients is low. Previous experimental studies have shown that some anesthetics can alleviate intestinal IRI and protect organs while exerting their pharmacological effects, indicating that reasonable perioperative anesthesia management may provide potential benefits for patients to avoid intestinal IRI. These meaningful findings drive scholars to investigate the mechanism of anesthetics in treating intestinal IRI in-depth to discuss the possible new clinical uses. In the present mini-review, we will introduce the protective effects of different anesthetics in intestinal IRI to help us enrich our knowledge in this area.
A Test of a Blended Method for Teaching Medical Coding

Methods: Optometry student participants (N = 53) had the traditional classroom and clinical education in E/M coding throughout the first 2 years of the curriculum. Students were randomly divided into two groups. One group (the Experimental Group) received education regarding E/M coding in an online format as well as two interactive practice cases. The other group did not. All students were then asked to determine the E/M code on 5 standardized cases. Approximately 8 weeks later, a second set of 4 standardized cases was given to all participants to determine whether knowledge acquired was long-lasting.
A Lower Bound for Distributed Averaging Algorithms on the Line Graph

We derive lower bounds on the convergence speed of a widely used class of distributed averaging algorithms. In particular, we prove that any distributed averaging algorithm whose state consists of a single real number and whose (possibly nonlinear) update function satisfies a natural smoothness condition has a worst case running time of at least on the order of n2 on a line network of n nodes. Our results suggest that increased memory or expansion of the state space is crucial for improving the running times of distributed averaging algorithms.
DEEP REINFORCEMENT LEARNING AGENTS

Adversarial attacks against deep neural networks have been widely studied. Adversarial examples for deep reinforcement learning (DeepRL) have significant security implications, due to the deployment of these algorithms in many application domains. In this work we formalize an optimal myopic adversary for deep reinforcement learning agents. Our adversary attempts to find a bounded perturbation of the state which minimizes the value of the action taken by the agent. We show with experiments in various games in the Atari environment that our attack formulation achieves significantly larger impact as compared to the current state-of-the-art. Furthermore, this enables us to lower the bounds by several orders of magnitude on the perturbation needed to efficiently achieve significant impacts on DeepRL agents.
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com Title: Effects of lateral retinacular release on the lateral stability of the patella

The objective of this cadaveric study was to evaluate quantitatively the effects of lateral retinacular release on the lateral stability of the patella. A materials testing machine was used to displace the patella of 7 cadaveric specimens 10 mm laterally while measuring the required force, with 175 N quadriceps tension. The patella was connected via a ball-bearing patellar mounting 10 mm deep to the anterior surface to allow rotations. Patellar force-displacement behaviour was tested from 0o to 60o knee flexion. At 0°, 10° and 20° flexion the mean force required to displace the patella 10 mm laterally was reduced significantly due to lateral retinacular release, by 16 to 19 %. The average force required to displace the patella was also reduced for larger flexion angles, although this was not statistically significant. These findings suggest that lateral retinacular release may not be appropriate in treatment of patellar lateral instability.
The African

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries continue to be challenged by their information technology (IT) adoption process, which is often characterized by a number of deficiencies. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of absorptive capacity (AC) in SMEs’ performance, as well as establish the correlation between SMEs’ AC and their IT adoption process. The findings of this study, obtained by measuring different dimensions of AC using Jimenez-Barrionuevo, Garcia-Morales, and Molina’s scale of 18 items, suggest that AC plays a critical role in the performance of SMEs in Kenya and that SMEs with strong AC employed the use of more superior IT adoption processes than did their counterparts with low levels of AC. The researchers submit that, if exploited, AC has the potential to improve the IT adoption strategies of SMEs in Kenya and those of other developing countries that operate within similar environments.
AC 2012-4934

1. Abstract In previous research, we found that the spatial and temporal organization of students’ solutions to engineering Statics problems correlates with the correctness of their work. Our technique utilized Livescribe TM Smartpens to capture digital records of students’ handwritten solutions. Analysis of the temporal and spatial organization of a solution can, for example, enable an instructor to inexpensively identify students who may be struggling in the course and need extra assistance. This requires, however, that the pen strokes be labeled according to the type of content they represent: free body diagrams, equations, or cross-outs of incorrect work (the ink of the Smartpens cannot be erased). For our initial analyses, we manually labeled the pen strokes, but it is too time consuming to do this for the entire data set. This led to our current work on a technique for automatically determining the content type of the pen stoke in a solution. Our approach correctly classified 93.30% of pen strokes in one experiment. We have used these labeled sketches to detect potentially poor-performing students by comparing the equation drawing time and total length of strokes for each student to the mean from all students.
Age , growth , and mortality of gray snapper , Lutjanus griseus , from the east coast of Florida

The gray snapper, Lutjanus griseus, is a moderate-size (to 8 kg) snapper (Lutjanidae) widely distributed in the western Atlantic from Florida through Brazil, including Bermuda, the Caribbean and the northern Gulf of Mexico (Robins et al., 1986). Juveniles have been reported from as far north as Massachusetts (Sumner et al., 1911), and transforming gray snapper larvae have been caught in ichthyoplankton samples collected at Ocracoke and Oregon Inlets, North Carolina (Hettler and Barker, 1993). Adults are rarely caught in the fi sheries of North Carolina; the larvae appear to be Gulf Stream exports and do not survive winter temperatures. Gray snapper occupy a variety of habitats during their life cycle. Adults are found near irregular, complex habitats, such as coral reefs, shipwrecks, rocky outcroppings and ledges, and other natural livebottom areas (Miller and Richards, 1980). Spawning occurs offshore, and eggs and larvae are transported into estuarine, shallow seagrass, and mangrove nursery areas by favorable currents. Larvae, juveniles, and smaller adults are found inshore in seagrass beds and around mangrove thickets, pilings, seawalls, and jetties. While they inhabit inshore areas, these younger fi sh are subject to fi shing pressure from recreational fi shermen. After moving offshore between the ages of 3 and 4 (Rutherford et al., 1983), gray snapper are caught by headboat1 and commercial fi sheries. The primary gear used in all fi sheries for gray snapper is vertical hook-and-line gear. Several investigators have conducted age-growth studies of gray snapper, but most have been restricted by limited geographic samples or gear types. Croker (1962), Starck and Schroeder (1970), and Rutherford et al. (1983) conducted age-growth studies on gray snapper using scales from limited areas in the Florida Keys and Florida Bay; all validated their aging techniques with marginal increment analysis. Manooch and Matheson (1981) aged otolith sections of gray snapper from headboat landings along the entire east coast of Florida but did not validate their aging method. Johnson et al. (1994) described age and growth with fi sh collected from recreational and commercial landings from Ft. Pierce, Florida, through Louisiana but failed to validate their aging method. The bulk of gray snapper landings in the U. S. South Atlantic (North Carolina–Florida Keys) occurs in Florida. Combined landings of gray snapper from headboat,2 private recreational and charterboat3 and commercial4 fi sheries of Florida’s east coast averaged 493,895 kg annually between 1986 and 1997. Average annual landings from the south Florida area (Ft. Pierce through the Dry Tortugas; 412,279 kg) were fi ve times greater than those from north Flo rida (Fernandina Beach through Sebastian; 81,616 kg). The species is highly Age, growth, and mortality of gray snapper, Lutjanus griseus, from the east coast of Florida
Using Financial Markets to Estimate the Macro Effects of Monetary Policy: An Impact-Identified FAVAR

In this paper, I use high-frequency financial market estimates to identify the monetary policy shock in a non-recursive 133 variable FAVAR. All restrictions are imposed exclusively on impact, and only on financial market variables. Using the economy's underlying factor structure as the link between its real and financial sides, I find that high-frequency responses contain valuable information about the behavior of lower-frequency macro variables. Even though the proposed identification scheme does not fall back on any of the standard (FA) VAR identifying assumptions, it confirms the classical finding that monetary policy has strong and significant delayed effects on real activity. I also obtain stock market responses that are compatible with the efficient market hypothesis and find that consumer prices react very little to monetary policy.
The Improvement of Intelligibility in the Oral Production of Standard English: A Study About the Production of Vowel Quality in Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

Pronunciation is an essential aspect in the teaching of the English language, especially those aspects of pronunciation such as stress and vowel quality as they are crucial elements to ensure intelligibility in communication. The general objective of this study is to investigate whether the theoretical-practical instruction on pronunciation has a crucial impact on the vowel quality production of stressed and unstressed syllable in isolated words and in wider contexts, and therefore, in the improvement of intelligibility and of the oral production in general terms, in two groups of Spanish students of English (the control and the experimental group). More particularly, the study addresses the impact of formal instruction in pronunciation based on deduction in terms of rule formation from a cognitive perspective. The results indicate that the specific work implemented with the production of vowel quality in stressed and unstressed syllables have a significant impact on intelligibility.
Older Cancer Patients’ User Experiences With Web-Based Health Information Tools: A Think-Aloud Study

Background Health information is increasingly presented on the Internet. Several Web design guidelines for older Web users have been proposed; however, these guidelines are often not applied in website development. Furthermore, although we know that older individuals use the Internet to search for health information, we lack knowledge on how they use and evaluate Web-based health information. Objective This study evaluates user experiences with existing Web-based health information tools among older (≥ 65 years) cancer patients and survivors and their partners. The aim was to gain insight into usability issues and the perceived usefulness of cancer-related Web-based health information tools. Methods We conducted video-recorded think-aloud observations for 7 Web-based health information tools, specifically 3 websites providing cancer-related information, 3 Web-based question prompt lists (QPLs), and 1 values clarification tool, with colorectal cancer patients or survivors (n=15) and their partners (n=8) (median age: 73; interquartile range 70-79). Participants were asked to think aloud while performing search, evaluation, and application tasks using the Web-based health information tools. Results Overall, participants perceived Web-based health information tools as highly useful and indicated a willingness to use such tools. However, they experienced problems in terms of usability and perceived usefulness due to difficulties in using navigational elements, shortcomings in the layout, a lack of instructions on how to use the tools, difficulties with comprehensibility, and a large amount of variety in terms of the preferred amount of information. Although participants frequently commented that it was easy for them to find requested information, we observed that the large majority of the participants were not able to find it. Conclusions Overall, older cancer patients appreciate and are able to use cancer information websites. However, this study shows the importance of maintaining awareness of age-related problems such as cognitive and functional decline and navigation difficulties with this target group in mind. The results of this study can be used to design usable and useful Web-based health information tools for older (cancer) patients.
Fiber Formation from Silk Fibroin Using Pressurized Gyration

P. L. Heseltine, J. Hosken, Prof. S. Homer-Vanniasinkam, Prof. M. Edirisinghe Department of Mechanical Engineering University College London Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK E-mail: m.edirisinghe@ucl.ac. uk Dr. C. Agboh, D. Farrar Xiros Ltd., Springfield House, White House Lane Leeds LS19 7UE, UK Prof. S. Homer-Vanniasinkam Leeds Vascular Institute Leeds General Infirmary Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK Prof. S. Homer-Vanniasinkam Division of Surgery University of Warwick & University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust Clifford Bridge Rd, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/mame.201800577.
An Integrated Model for STEM Teacher Preparation: The Value of a Teaching Cooperative Educational Experience

The purpose of this article is to evaluate an intensive, integrated model for teacher preparation, specifically, a preservice STEM teacher education model which incorporates science or mathematics content with pedagogical content knowledge in an early, intensive classroom immersion program based entirely in a local school. STEM preservice teachers participated in a cooperative teaching experience which placed them at the school site for their university course work and field placements, thus ensuring a more seamless connection between theory and practice. The findings from this comparative study of the STEM preservice students in the teaching co-op and STEM preservice teachers in a traditional preparation model indicate that the STEM preservice teachers in the teaching cooperative model were more confident about their teaching skills, more comfortable with their content knowledge, and prepared to work effectively with high-needs students.
Provisional chapter Alternative Approaches to ound Healing

The history of wound healing across the globe abounds with usage of various herbs for treating simple cuts and bruises to serious burns. Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process and, moreover, depends a lot on the wound bearing person’s immunity and mental status. Synthetic medicine may give rise to side effects of allergy and resistance with usually higher cost of treatment. Whereas the alternative and comple‐ mentary medicine such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Chinese medicine, and ozone therapy can lessen these side effects considerably and offer treatment at lower costs, thus elevating the overall quality of life of the patient. In today’s times the patient is more demanding and has the ability to partake in treatment decisions. It is then the moral responsibility of the scientists to apply modern up‐to‐date scientific acumen to provide evidenced‐based concept to alternative therapies of wound healing to ensure that these practices are safe and efficacious.
Marseille II Performance of the muon trigger algorithm with the muon TDR detector LHCb

' ( ' ) ' ! & & ! & ' ( ' ' % * ) " % ' ! ' ! ) ' ' ' & ' & + " % ' ! ) ' ) ! ( ' & ! ' " % ' ! ' ( ! & ' ' → μ, ) & ( . " ! ' ( ' ! ' & ) ! ( . " / ' ) ' ! 0 & ' ! " Document Status Sheet 1. Document title: Performance of the muon trigger algorithm. 2. Document Reference Number: LHCb 2001−059 3. Issue 4. Revision 5. Date 6. Reason for change 1 2 3 4 5 2 2 6 2 7 7 1 8 9 : ; < = > 9 ? @ A @ ; < B @ C D E @ < 4 F < G H I 9 > A
Chinese Trade in Latin America Compared to the European Union and the United States: The Case of Technology-Intensive Exports

Using trade data submitted by United Nations member states from 1995 to 2013, this article contributes to understanding China's trade with Latin America. By employing and building on the TECH score methodology, this project highlights China's growing economic connectivity with nine large and important Latin American economies. The analysis conducted here shows that compared with exports originating from other, more traditional foreign investors (i.e., the United States and the European Union member states), Chinese exports to these Latin American countries—although growing in sophistication over time—are relatively less technologically sophisticated during the study period. This work clarifies that in spite of these Latin American economies being highly complementary (for their natural resources and consumer markets) to China's manufacturing-intensive economy and despite the rapid growth in bilateral and biregional trade, China's displacement of traditional foreign actors, in terms of its technology-intensive exports to the region, is not supported by the data to date.
A graph-spectral method for surface height recovery from needle-maps

The paper describes a graph-spectral method for 3D surface integration. The algorithm takes as its input a 2D field of surface normal estimates, delivered, for instance, by a shape-from-shading or shape-from-texture procedure. The method borrows ideas from routing theory. We exploit the well-known fact that the leading eigenvector of a Markov chain transition probability matrix is the steady-state random walk on the equivalent weighted graph. We use this property to find the minimum total curvature path through the available surface normals. To do this, we construct a transition probability matrix whose elements are related to the differences in surface normal direction. By threading the surface normals together along the path specified by the magnitude order of the components of the leading eigenvector, we perform surface integration. The height increments along the path are simply related to the traversed path length and the slope of the local tangent plane. The method is evaluated on data delivered by a shape-from-shading algorithm.