Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Task Graph offloading via Deep Reinforcement Learning in Mobile Edge Computing

Various mobile applications that comprise dependent tasks are gaining widespread popularity and are increasingly complex. These applications often have low-latency requirements, resulting in a significant surge in demand for computing resources. With the emergence of mobile edge computing (MEC), it becomes the most significant issue to offload the application tasks onto small-scale devices deployed at the edge of the mobile network for obtaining a high-quality user experience. However, since the environment of MEC is dynamic, most existing works focusing on task graph offloading, which rely heavily on expert knowledge or accurate analytical models, fail to fully adapt to such environmental changes, resulting in the reduction of user experience. This paper investigates the task graph offloading in MEC, considering the time-varying computation capabilities of edge computing devices. To adapt to environmental changes, we model the task graph scheduling for computation offloading as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). Then, we design a deep reinforcement learning algorithm (SATA-DRL) to learn the task scheduling strategy from the interaction with the environment, to improve user experience. Extensive simulations validate that SATA-DRL is superior to existing strategies in terms of reducing average makespan and deadline violation.
Plasmid-mediated drug resistance in mycobacteria: the tip of the iceberg?

ABSTRACT Macrolides, such as clarithromycin, are crucial in the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). NTM are notoriously innately drug resistant, which has made the dependence on macrolides for their treatment even more important. Not surprisingly, resistance to macrolides has been documented in some NTM, including Mycobacterium avium and Mycobacterium abscessus, which are the two NTM species most often identified in clinical isolates. Resistance is mediated by point mutations in the 23S ribosomal RNA or by methylation of the rRNA by a methylase (encoded by an erm gene). Chromosomally encoded erm genes have been identified in many of the macrolide-resistant isolates, but not in Mycobacterium chelonae. Now, Brown-Elliott et al. (J Clin Microbiol 61:e00428-23, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1128/JCM.00428-23) describe the identification of a new erm variant, erm(55), which was found either on the chromosome or on a plasmid in highly macrolide-resistant clinical isolates of M. chelonae. The chromosomal erm(55) gene appears to be associated with mobile elements; one gene is within a putative transposon and the second is in a large (37 kb) insertion/deletion. The plasmid carrying erm(55) also encodes type IV and type VII secretion systems, which are often linked on large mycobacterial plasmids and are hypothesized to mediate plasmid transfer. While the conjugative transfer of the erm(55)-containing plasmid between NTM has yet to be demonstrated, the inferences are clear, as evidenced by the dissemination of plasmid-mediated drug resistance in other medically important bacteria. Here, we discuss the findings of Brown-Elliott et al., and the potential ramifications on treatment of NTM infections.
The IFT81‐IFT74 complex acts as an unconventional RabL2 GTPase‐activating protein during intraflagellar transport

Cilia are important cellular organelles for signaling and motility and are constructed via intraflagellar transport (IFT). RabL2 is a small GTPase that localizes to the basal body of cilia via an interaction with the centriolar protein CEP19 before downstream association with the IFT machinery, which is followed by initiation of IFT. We reconstituted and purified RabL2 with CEP19 or IFT proteins to show that a reconstituted pentameric IFT complex containing IFT81/74 enhances the GTP hydrolysis rate of RabL2. The binding site on IFT81/74 that promotes GTP hydrolysis in RabL2 was mapped to a 70‐amino‐acid‐long coiled‐coil region of IFT81/74. We present structural models for RabL2‐containing IFT complexes that we validate in vitro and in cellulo and demonstrate that Chlamydomonas IFT81/74 enhances GTP hydrolysis of human RabL2, suggesting an ancient evolutionarily conserved activity. Our results provide an architectural understanding of how RabL2 is incorporated into the IFT complex and a molecular rationale for why RabL2 dissociates from anterograde IFT trains soon after departure from the ciliary base.
Nanopore translocation reveals electrophoretic force on A- and B-form nucleic acids

Electrophoretic transport plays a pivotal role in advancing sensing technologies, with A-form nucleic acids, predominantly RNA-containing, emerging as the new frontier for nanopore sensing and sequencing. Here, we compare the less-explored dynamics of A-form electrophoretic transport with the well-researched transport of B-form DNA. Using DNA/RNA nanotechnology and solid-state nanopores, the translocation of RNA:DNA (RD) and DNA:DNA (DD) duplexes was examined. Notably, RD duplexes were found to translocate through nanopores up to 1.8 times faster than DD duplexes, despite containing the same number of base pairs. Our experiments reveal that A- and B-form duplex molecules with the same contour length move with comparable velocity through nanopores. We examined the physical characteristics of both duplex forms using atomic force microscopy, agarose gel electrophoresis, and dynamic light scattering measurements. With the help of coarse-grained and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, we find the effective force applied by the electric field to a fragment of A-form or B-form duplex in a nanopore to be approximately the same. Our results shed light on the significance of helical form in nucleic acid translocation, with implications for RNA sensing, sequencing, and molecular understanding of electrophoretic transport.
Narrative medicine in clinical internship teaching practice

ABSTRACT Objective: To explore the effect on empathy skills of integrating narrative medicine instruction into clinical internship undergraduate medical education. Methods: One hundred clinical undergraduate students who were transferred to gynecology and obstetrics in 2016 were selected as subjects and divided into two groups. The control group adopted the traditional practice teaching mode, while the experimental group adopted a narrative medicine integrated with traditional teaching mode. The impact of the narrative medicine course was evaluated using the Davis Empathy Scale, and the students’ acceptance of the course was investigated using a self-developed questionnaire. Results: After completion of the rotation, the empathy scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05). Students in the experimental group rated the integration of narrative medicine into the internship class highly, and most students thought that the narrative medicine course was of great benefit with respect to the humanistic quality of medical teaching. Conclusion: The application of narrative medicine teaching in the clinical practice teaching of obstetrics and gynecology promoted students to improve their empathy ability.
Exploring the roles of distinctiveness and performance anticipation in the Attentional Boost Effect

ABSTRACT We tested the validity of two alternative accounts of the Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) – the finding that words associated with to-be-responded targets are recognized better than words associated with to-be-ignored distractors. The distinctiveness hypothesis assumes that, during recognition, participants probe their memories for distinctive information confirming that a word was studied (e.g., “I remember having pressed the spacebar, so I must have studied the word”). This strategy cannot be used in a between-subjects condition in which participants cannot appreciate the differences between target – and distractor-paired words. In agreement, Experiments 1A and 1B found that the ABE was significant in a within-subjects design, whereas it was eliminated in a between-subjects design. On the other hand, the performance anticipation hypothesis assumes that, during the study phase, participants anticipate the need of responding to a subset of target-paired words: this would create a persistent performance anticipation that would prevent them from effectively encoding distractor-paired words. In contrast with this account, we found that, when blocks of five distractor trials were regularly alternated with blocks of five target trials in Experiment 2, recognition accuracy decreased linearly in both conditions. Overall, these results suggest that distinctiveness, but not performance anticipation, might underlie the ABE.
Derivation of a Self-Consistent Auroral Oval Model Using the Auroral Boundary Index

Abstract : The position and intensity of the auroral oval has many implications for the Air Force from determining the effects of incoming electron flux on DoD systems to modeling the ionosphere to exploit current HF communications capabilities. The auroral morphology is a good indicator of the level at which space weather and its near-Earth consequences are occurring, and thus it is important to develop an auroral prediction model. However, since no purely physics-based models exist to describe the temporal and spatial evolution of the auroral zone, space weather practitioners and researchers are forced to produce statistical representations, "organized" by some relevant geophysical parameter. Currently, the most widely used model is the Hardy et al. (1985) auroral oval model, which is binned according to the Kp index. The Kp index is a mid-Iatitude measure of planetary geomagnetic activity, and was presumed to be well-correlated to the size and shape of the auroral region. However, subsequent research has shown that Kp is probably not the best binning parameter. This study used the Auroral Boundary Index (ABI) to parameterize the statistics of the auroral oval location since it is a measurement of the electron fluxes computed directly from sensors aboard the DMSP satellites. Thus, the current work represents a move toward a more self- consistent-and presumably more accurate-climatological representation of the auroral oval boundaries. This was accomplished by recreating the process performed by Hardy et al., substituting the ABI for the Kp index and deriving an entirely new set of auroral ovals based on almost 11 years ofDMSP data from the F8 and F9 satellites. To quantitatively assess the differences between the two models, electron flux values were compared to actual DMSP data of individual satellite passes. Preliminary findings suggest that the new ABI auroral ov
Geometry of stratified turbulent mixing: local alignment of the density gradient with rotation, shear and viscous dissipation

Abstract We introduce a geometric analysis of turbulent mixing in density-stratified flows based on the alignment of the density gradient in two orthogonal bases that are locally constructed from the velocity gradient tensor. The first basis connects diapycnal mixing to rotation and shearing motions, building on the recent ‘rortex–shear decomposition’ in stratified shear layers (Jiang et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 947, 2022, A30), while the second basis connects mixing to the principal axes of the viscous dissipation tensor. Applying this framework to datasets taken in the stratified inclined duct laboratory experiment reveals that density gradients in locations of high shear tend to align preferentially (i) along the direction of minimum dissipation and (ii) normal to the plane spanned by the rortex and shear vectors. The analysis of the local alignment across increasingly turbulent flows offers new insights into the intricate relationship between the density gradient and dissipation, and thus diapycnal mixing.
Seasonal migration alters energetic trade-off optimization and shapes life history

Trade-offs between current and future reproduction manifest as a set of co-varying life history and metabolic traits, collectively referred to as “pace of life” (POL). Seasonal migration modulates realized environmental dynamics and putatively affects realized POL, however, the mechanisms by which migratory behavior shapes POL remain unclear. We explored how migratory behavior interacts with environmental and metabolic dynamics to shape POL. Using an individual based model of movement and metabolism we compared fitness-optimized trade-offs among migration strategies. We found annual experienced seasonality and migration distance primarily drove POL differentiation through developmental and migration phenology trade-offs. Similarly, our analysis of empirically-estimated metabolic data from 265 bird species suggested seasonal niche conservatism and migration distance interact to drive POL. We show multiple viable life history strategies are conducive to a migratory lifestyle. Overall, our findings suggest metabolism mediates complex interactions between behavior, environment, and life history. Authorship statement AKP and SWY contributed equally to this work. AKP and SWY conceived the project, designed the model, performed analyses, and drafted the manuscript with support from MBW. Simulation and optimization model code written by AKP with input from SWY and MBW. Empirical data analysis and code lead by SWY with input from AKP and MBW. All authors contributed critical input to the manuscript. Data accessibility statement All R code for models and analyses are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10145976 and https://github.com/allipierce/Pierce_et_al_2023_MigrationPOL. The empirically derived data used in this work are all publicly available. DEB data are available from the Add-My-Pet portal at https://www.bio. vu.nl/thb/deb/deblab/add_my_pet/. Geographic range data are available from BirdLife International at http://datazone.birdlife. org/species/requestdis. Niche dissimilarity data came from https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13722 and phylogeny data are available from VertLife at http://vertlife.org/data/.
Surface plasmon induced quantum interference at meta-material interface

In this work we investigate quantum interference in a four-level atom coupled to a negative index meta-material (NIMM) plasmonic reservoir that supports both TE and TM polarized surface plasmons (SP). This provides more options to control SP interaction with emitters and hence more control of spontaneous emission decays and spectrum. The spectrum depends critically on parameters like the reservoir parameters, mode frequency, frequency dependent electric permittivity and magnetic permeability, and the location of the atom. We report orders of magnitude enhancement in the reservoir-modified decays and spectrum compared to free space case. The rich atomic and plasmonic parameters provide a wide range of flexibility and more options to control emission spectrum that suits practical applications.
The human cell count and size distribution

Significance A consistent and comprehensive quantitative framework of the cells in the human body could benefit many areas of biology. We compile data to estimate cell mass, size range, and cell count for some 1,200 cell groups, from the smallest red blood cells to the largest muscle fibers, across 60 tissues in a representative male, female, and 10-y-old child. We find large-scale patterns revealing that both cellular biomass in any given logarithmic cell-size class and the coefficient of cell-size variation are both approximately independent of cell size. These patterns are suggestive of a whole-organism trade-off between cell size and count and imply the existence of cell-size homeostasis across cell types.
Secreted footprints let cells switch between confined, oscillatory, and exploratory migration

For eukaryotic cells to heal wounds, respond to immune signals, or metastasize, they must migrate, often by adhering to extracellular matrix. Cells may also secrete matrix factors, leaving behind a footprint that influences their crawling. Recent experiments showed that epithelial cells on micropatterned adhesive stripes move persistently in regions they have previously crawled over, where footprints have been formed, but barely advance into unexplored regions, creating an oscillatory migration of increasing amplitude. Here, we explore through mathematical modeling how footprint secretion and cell responses to footprint combine to allow cells to develop oscillation and other complex migratory motions. We simulate cell crawling with a phase field model coupled to a biochemical model of cell polarity, assuming local contact with the secreted footprint activates Rac1, a polarity protein at the front of the cell. Depending on the footprint secretion rate and the response to the footprint, cells on micropatterned lines can display a variety of types of motility, including confined, oscillatory, and persistent motion. On 2D substrates, we predict a transition between cells undergoing circular motion and cells developing a more exploratory phenotype. Our model shows how minor changes in a cell’s interaction with its footprint can completely alter exploration, allowing cells to tightly regulate their motion, as well as leading to a wide spectrum of behaviors when secretion or sensing is variable from cell to cell. Consistent with our computational predictions, we find in earlier experimental data evidence of cells undergoing both circular and exploratory motion. Our work proposes a new paradigm for how cells regulate their own motility.
Sensory neuron population expansion enhances odor tracking without sensitizing projection neurons

The evolutionary expansion of sensory neuron populations detecting important environmental cues is widespread, but functionally enigmatic. We investigated this phenomenon through comparison of homologous neural pathways of Drosophila melanogaster and its close relative Drosophila sechellia, an extreme specialist for Morinda citrifolia noni fruit. D. sechellia has evolved species-specific expansions in select, noni-detecting olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) populations, through multigenic changes. Activation and inhibition of defined proportions of neurons demonstrate that OSN population increases contribute to stronger, more persistent, noni-odor tracking behavior. These sensory neuron expansions result in increased synaptic connections with their projection neuron (PN) partners, which are conserved in number between species. Surprisingly, having more OSNs does not lead to greater odor-evoked PN sensitivity or reliability. Rather, pathways with increased sensory pooling exhibit reduced PN adaptation, likely through weakened lateral inhibition. Our work reveals an unexpected functional impact of sensory neuron expansions to explain ecologically-relevant, species-specific behavior.
Prognostic and predictive impact of molecular tumor burden index in non‐small cell lung cancer patients

The biomarkers of immune checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients have limited predictive performance. In this study we aimed to investigate the feasibility of molecular tumor burden index (mTBI) in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as a predictor for immunotherapy in patients with NSCLC.
Syntrichia ruralis: Emerging model moss genome reveals a conserved and previously unknown regulator of desiccation in flowering plants

Water scarcity poses a significant threat to ecosystems in the face of global climate change. Syntrichia ruralis, a dryland moss known for its desiccation tolerance, provides valuable insights into surviving water-limited conditions. In this study, the genome of S. ruralis was sequenced and assembled into 12 chromosomes encompassing 21,169 protein-coding genes. Additionally, 3,199 unplaced scaffolds were identified as non-nuclear and symbiont DNA. Transposable elements (TEs) constitute 51.24% of the genome. Notably, chromosome 12, the largest in size due to its high TE load, was identified as the putative sex chromosome. Comparative analysis with the closely related Syntrichia caninervis genome reveals significant large-scale synteny yet some rearrangements, as well as the occurrence of older duplication events that are shared by both. Desiccation and drought tolerance associated gene families, such as early light-inducible proteins (ELIPs) and late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins, were characterized. In addition to a subset of LEA genes being species-specific, a comparative transcriptomic analysis revealed that some shared LEA genes respond differently to dehydration in these two species. Many ELIPs (9 out of 30) are the product of tandem duplication events. As expected, our analyses revealed the importance of the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) in the desiccation response of S. ruralis. A significant number of ABA responsive genes were found to be regulated by S. ruralis orthologs of ABA insensitive 3 (ABI3) and abscisic acid responsive element binding factor 2 (AREB2). Markedly, an uncharacterized, but deeply conserved MYB transcription factor, appears to act as a negative regulator of AREB2 in S. ruralis. Interestingly, we determined that the orthologous MYB TF is also involved in an ABA-dependent stress response in the model flowering plant A. thaliana. In sum, the new genomic resources from this emerging model moss offer new insights into the evolution of desiccation tolerance in land plants.
Inhibiting SETD7 methyl‐transferase activity impairs differentiation, lipid metabolism and lactogenesis in mammary epithelial cells

SETD7 (SET7/9, KMT7) is a lysine methyltransferase that targets master regulators of cell proliferation and differentiation. Here, the impact of inhibiting SETD7 catalytic activity on mammary epithelial cell differentiation was studied by focusing on genes associated with epithelial differentiation, lactogenesis, and lipid metabolism in HC11 and EpH4 cell lines. Setd7 mRNA and protein levels were induced upon lactogenic differentiation in both cell lines. Inhibition of SETD7 activity by the compound (R)‐PFI‐2 increased cell proliferation and downregulated E‐cadherin, beta‐catenin, lactoferrin, insulin‐like growth factor binding protein 5, and beta‐casein levels. In addition, inhibition of SETD7 activity affected the lipid profile and altered the mRNA expression of the phospholipid biosynthesis‐related genes choline phosphotransferase 1, and ethanolamine‐phosphate cytidylyltransferase. Altogether, the results suggest that inhibiting SETD7 catalytic activity impairs mammary epithelial and lactogenic differentiation.
Bisphosphonates attenuate age‐related muscle decline in Caenorhabditis elegans

Age‐related muscle decline (sarcopenia) associates with numerous health risk factors and poor quality of life. Drugs that counter sarcopenia without harmful side effects are lacking, and repurposing existing pharmaceuticals could expedite realistic clinical options. Recent studies suggest bisphosphonates promote muscle health; however, the efficacy of bisphosphonates as an anti‐sarcopenic therapy is currently unclear.