Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reappraisal of Immotthia in Dictyosporiaceae, Pleosporales: Introducing Immotthia bambusae sp. nov. and Pseudocyclothyriella clematidis comb. et gen. nov. Based on Morphology and Phylogeny

Immotthia is a poorly known genus, and currently, no DNA sequence data are available to ascertain its proper phylogenetic placement and evolutionary relationships with other bitunicate fungi. To date, there are only two species accepted in the genus. During our ongoing research study of bambusicolous fungi in southwest China and Thailand, a fungus associated with stromata of Hypoxylon sp. was found on dead bamboo culms in Loei Province, Thailand. Preliminary morphological identification revealed that the fungal collection belongs to Immotthia. A novel species, Immotthia bambusae, is introduced herein based on a comparison of morphological characteristics with the type specimen of I. hypoxylon (≡ Amphisphaeria hypoxylon Ellis and Everh.), a synonym of I. atrograna (Cooke and Ellis) M. E. Barr. Phylogenetic analyses of a concatenated ITS, LSU, SSU, and TEF1-α DNA sequence matrix showed that Immotthia belongs to Dictyosporiaceae, Pleosporales. Despite I. bambusae strains constituting a supported subclade, they are nested with the genus Pseudocoleophoma. Pseudocoleophoma clematidis is morphologically different from all other Pseudocoleophoma species, while its conidial characteristics are similar to Cyclothyriella. Multigene phylogenetic analyses showed that P. clematidis formed a clade basal to Immotthia, separated from Pseudocoleophoma with strong statistical support. Therefore, we introduce a monotypic genus, Pseudocyclothyriella Phukhams. and Phookamsak, gen. nov. to accommodate the single species, Pseudocyclothyriella clematidis (Phukhams. and K. D. Hyde) Phukhams. and Phookamsak, comb. nov. Detailed descriptions, color micrographs, and phylogenetic trees to show the placement of the new taxa are provided. In addition, an updated taxonomic treatment of the genera Immotthia and Pseudocyclothyriella is also provided based on the study of the type materials and phylogeny generated from DNA sequence data.
Mitochondrial Fusion Protein Mfn2 and Its Role in Heart Failure

Mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) is a transmembrane GTPase located on the mitochondrial outer membrane that contributes to mitochondrial network regulation. It is an essential multifunctional protein that participates in various biological processes under physical and pathological conditions, including mitochondrial fusion, reticulum–mitochondria contacts, mitochondrial quality control, and apoptosis. Mfn2 dysfunctions have been found to contribute to cardiovascular diseases, such as ischemia-reperfusion injury, heart failure, and dilated cardiomyopathy. Here, this review mainly focuses on what is known about the structure and function of Mfn2 and its crucial role in heart failure.
Associations of D-Dimer on Admission and Clinical Features of COVID-19 Patients: A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Meta-Regression

Background Dynamic D-dimer level is a key biomarker for the severity and mortality of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). How aberrant fibrinolysis influences the clinical progression of COVID-19 presents a clinicopathological dilemma challenging intensivists. Methods We performed meta-analysis and meta regression to analyze the associations of plasma D-dimer with 106 clinical variables to identify a panoramic view of the derangements of fibrinolysis in 14,862 patients of 42 studies. There were no limitations of age, gender, race, and country. Raw data of each group were extracted separately by two investigators. Individual data of case series, median and interquartile range, and ranges of median or mean were converted to SDM (standard deviation of mean). Findings The weighted mean difference of D-dimer was 0.97 µg/mL (95% CI 0.65, 1.29) between mild and severe groups, as shown by meta-analysis. Publication bias was significant. Meta-regression identified 58 of 106 clinical variables were associated with plasma D-dimer levels. Of these, 11 readouts were negatively related to the level of plasma D-dimer. Further, age and gender were confounding factors. There were 22 variables independently correlated with the D-dimer level, including respiratory rate, dyspnea plasma K+, glucose, SpO2, BUN (blood urea nitrogen), bilirubin, ALT (alanine aminotransferase), AST (aspartate aminotransferase), systolic blood pressure, and CK (creatine kinase). Interpretation These findings support elevated D-dimer as an independent predictor for both mortality and complications. The identified D-dimer-associated clinical variables draw a landscape integrating the aggregate effects of systemically suppressive and pulmonary hyperactive derangements of fibrinolysis, and the D-dimer-associated clinical biomarkers, and conceptually parameters could be combined for risk stratification, potentially for tracking thrombolytic therapy or alternative interventions.
Handover Control for Human-Robot and Robot-Robot Collaboration

Modern scenarios in robotics involve human-robot collaboration or robot-robot cooperation in unstructured environments. In human-robot collaboration, the objective is to relieve humans from repetitive and wearing tasks. This is the case of a retail store, where the robot could help a clerk to refill a shelf or an elderly customer to pick an item from an uncomfortable location. In robot-robot cooperation, automated logistics scenarios, such as warehouses, distribution centers and supermarkets, often require repetitive and sequential pick and place tasks that can be executed more efficiently by exchanging objects between robots, provided that they are endowed with object handover ability. Use of a robot for passing objects is justified only if the handover operation is sufficiently intuitive for the involved humans, fluid and natural, with a speed comparable to that typical of a human-human object exchange. The approach proposed in this paper strongly relies on visual and haptic perception combined with suitable algorithms for controlling both robot motion, to allow the robot to adapt to human behavior, and grip force, to ensure a safe handover. The control strategy combines model-based reactive control methods with an event-driven state machine encoding a human-inspired behavior during a handover task, which involves both linear and torsional loads, without requiring explicit learning from human demonstration. Experiments in a supermarket-like environment with humans and robots communicating only through haptic cues demonstrate the relevance of force/tactile feedback in accomplishing handover operations in a collaborative task.
Gut Microbiota of Drosophila subobscura Contributes to Its Heat Tolerance and Is Sensitive to Transient Thermal Stress

The gut microbiota can contribute to host physiology leading to an increase of resistance to abiotic stress conditions. For instance, temperature has profound effects on ectotherms, and the role of the gut microbiota on the thermal tolerance of ectotherms is a matter of recent research. However, most of these studies have been focused on single static temperatures instead of evaluating thermal tolerance in a wide range of stressful temperatures. Additionally, there is evidence supporting that the gut microbiota is sensitive to environmental temperature, which induces changes in its composition and diversity. These studies have evaluated the effects of thermal acclimation (>2 weeks) on the gut microbiota, but we know little about the impact of transient thermal stress on the composition and diversity of the gut microbiota. Thus, we investigated the role of the gut microbiota on the heat tolerance of Drosophila subobscura by measuring the heat tolerance of conventional and axenic flies exposed to different heat stressful temperatures (35, 36, 37, and 38°C) and estimating the heat tolerance landscape for both microbiota treatments. Conventional flies exposed to mild heat conditions exhibited higher thermal tolerance than axenic flies, whereas at higher stressful temperatures there were no differences between axenic and conventional flies. We also assessed the impact of transient heat stress on the taxonomical abundance, diversity, and community structure of the gut microbiota, comparing non-stressed flies (exposed to 21°C) and heat-stressed flies (exposed to 34°C) from both sexes. Bacterial diversity indices, bacterial abundances, and community structure changed between non-stressed and heat-stressed flies, and this response was sex-dependent. In general, our findings provide evidence that the gut microbiota influences heat tolerance and that heat stress modifies the gut microbiota at the taxonomical and structural levels. These results demonstrate that the gut microbiota contributes to heat tolerance and is also highly sensitive to transient heat stress, which could have important consequences on host fitness, population risk extinction, and the vulnerability of ectotherms to current and future climatic conditions.
Increased Added Sugar Consumption Is Common in Parkinson's Disease

Objectives: There is limited information about the dietary habits of patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD), or associations of diet with clinical PD features. We report on nutritional intake in an Australian PD cohort. Methods: 103 PD patients and 81 healthy controls (HCs) completed a validated, semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Food and nutrient intake was quantified, with consideration of micronutrients and macronutrients (energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat, fibre, and added sugar). Participants also completed PD-validated non-motor symptom questionnaires to determine any relationships between dietary intake and clinical disease features. Results: Mean daily energy intake did not differ considerably between PD patients and HCs (11,131 kJ/day vs. 10,188 kJ/day, p = 0.241). However, PD patients reported greater total carbohydrate intake (279 g/day vs. 232 g/day, p = 0.034). This was largely attributable to increased daily sugar intake (153 g/day vs. 119 g/day, p = 0.003) and in particular free sugars (61 g/day vs. 41 g/day, p = 0.001). PD patients who (1) experienced chronic pain, (2) were depressed, or (3) reported an impulse control disorder, consumed more total sugars than HCs (all p < 0.05). Increased sugar consumption was associated with an increase in non-motor symptoms, including poorer quality of life, increased constipation severity and greater daily levodopa dose requirement. Conclusions: We provide clinically important insights into the dietary habits of PD patients that may inform simple dietary modifications that could alleviate disease symptoms and severity. The results of this study support clinician led promotion of healthy eating and careful management of patient nutrition as part of routine care.
Precoding to Counteract Antenna and Channel Correlations in Multi-Stream Spatial Modulation

Since it uses active antenna indices to transmit information, spatial modulation (SM) is highly sensitive to transmit antenna and channel correlations, and precoding techniques to reduce this sensitivity are now well documented in the literature for single-stream SM with one active antenna. In this paper, we address the correlation issue for multi-stream SM (MSM) in which multiple antennas are active at a time. We show that conventional techniques fall short of efficiently compensating antenna and channel correlations in this case, and we introduce a novel precoding technique that significantly improves performance. Considering an MSM system with 4 transmit antennas and 2 parallel streams, we describe three variants of the proposed technique and evaluate its performance on Rayleigh fading and Rician fading channels. The results show a substantial improvement over conventional techniques, particularly on Rician fading channels.
The Design and Evaluation of Optimal Computerized Guidance for Invention Activities: The Invention Coach

A common dilemma in educational technology is designing the optimal level and type of guidance to support open-ended learning activities. We explored this question by designing a computer-based coach for Invention activities – a form of ill-structured problemsolving followed by expository instruction. The Coach was designed to elicit the core learning mechanisms of Invention by problematizing students’ solutions and mimicking naturalistic teacher guidance. This research tests both the efficacy of our designed guidance and the appropriate amount of guidance for Invention activities. In an experimental study, 205 middle schoolers worked with full, minimal, or no guidance versions of the Coach before receiving a lecture on the target knowledge (ratio structures in science). Students who received the full guidance Coach were better able to transfer their knowledge to novel domains. The work has implications for the design of guidance in open-ended learning environments.
Efficacy of a tight-control and treat-to-target strategy in axial spondyloarthritis: results of the open-label, pragmatic, cluster-randomised TICOSPA trial

Objectives To compare the benefits of a tight-control/treat-to-target strategy (TC/T2T) in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) with those of usual care (UC). Methods Pragmatic, prospective, cluster-randomised, controlled, open, 1-year trial (NCT03043846). 18 centres were randomised (1:1). Patients met Axial Spondylo Arthritis International Society (ASAS) criteria for axSpA, had an Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) ≥2.1, received non-optimal treatment by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and were biologic-naive. Interventions (1) TC/T2T: visits every 4 weeks and prespecified strategy based on treatment intensification until achieving target (ie, ASDAS <2.1); (2) UC: visits every 12 weeks and treatment at the rheumatologist’s discretion. Main outcome Percentage of patients with a ≥30% improvement on the ASAS-Health Index (ASAS-HI). Other efficacy outcomes and adverse events were recorded. A health economic evaluation was performed. Statistical analysis Two-level mixed models were used to estimate efficacy outcomes. Cost-effectiveness was assessed by the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained for TC/T2T versus UC. Results 160 patients were included (80/group). Mean (SD) age was 37.9 (11.0) years and disease duration was 3.7 (6.2) years; 51.2% were men. ASDAS at inclusion was 3.0 (0.7), and ASAS-HI was 8.6 (3.7). ASAS-HI improved by ≥30% in 47.3% of the TC/T2T arm and in 36.1% of those receiving UC (non-significant). All secondary efficacy outcomes were more frequent in the TC/T2T arm, although not all statistically significant. Safety was similar in both arms. From a societal perspective, TC/T2T resulted in an additional 0.04 QALY, and saved €472 compared with UC. Conclusion TC/T2T was not significantly superior to UC for the primary outcome, while many secondary efficacy outcomes favoured it, had a similar safety profile and was favourable from a societal health economic perspective. Trial registration number NCT03043846.
The removal of arsenic from aqueous solution by coprecipitation with iron (III)

In treating hydrometallurgical solutions and waste streams for the removal of arsenic, the use of coprecipitation with Fe(III) has been specified by the U.S. EPA as the Best Demonstrated Available Technology. This technology has been widely adopted over the last century, and developments have been well reviewed. This paper is aimed at clarifying a number of uncertainties that result from previously published work by many authors. The clarification will include a discussion of the importance of Fe/As mole ratio, initial arsenic concentration, arsenic valence state, the effect of mixed arsenic valence states, system agitation rate, and possible modifications to the ferrihydrite structure on the effectiveness of arsenic removal. A comparison of the effectiveness of arsenic removal by ferrihydrite coprecipitation, adsorption during post precipitation and on granulated ferrihydrite will be presented. Also, factors effecting ferrihydrite long term stability will be discussed.
Legitimate Eavesdropping with Wireless Powered Proactive Full-duplex Eavesdroppers

In this paper, legitimate eavesdropping in a point-to-point suspicious communication network with multiple wireless powered full-duplex legitimate eavesdroppers is investigated. The eavesdroppers are assumed to adopt the power splitting technique to coordinate energy harvesting and information eavesdropping, and use the harvested energy to proactively jam the suspicious communication. For both collusive and non-collusive eavesdroppers, the successful eavesdropping probability is maximized by optimizing the power splitting ratio at each eavesdropper. Heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve the optimization problems. Simulation results are provided to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. It is shown that the proposed algorithms outperform the reference algorithms without proactive jamming, especially for non-collusive eavesdroppers with a high energy harvesting efficiency, a high transmit power of the suspicious user, or a large number of eavesdroppers.
Distributed Stochastic Phase-Shift Optimization in a RIS-Assisted Cellular Network

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) technology, as the name implies, is a grid of many small intelligent surfaces that can be reconfigured. It is a new and promising concept in wireless communications, expected to help realize the requirements of the future cellular generations. Numerous studies have been done to prove its added advantages and to control these surfaces in beneficial ways. However, these control schemes come with difficulties related to efficient and practical implementation. In this paper, we propose to control multiple RISs in a multi-user scheme with an algorithm that leads to a simple implementation. We formulate a stochastic optimization problem and we propose a new method using a distributed stochastic algorithm that allows the optimization to be done locally at each RIS with low computational requirements and without the need for instantaneous channel knowledge at the RIS. Also, the signaling between the base station (BS) and each RIS is limited to the exchange of a scalar only. Simulation results prove the success and efficiency of this algorithm.
Composite grafts for fingertip amputations: a systematic review

There is debate in the literature surrounding the management of fingertip amputations. The role of composite grafts lacks clarity in terms of outcomes and complications. Hence, there is a need for an evidence synthesis to guide practice. A search of the databases OVID MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, The Cochrane Library, and clinical trial registries was conducted, from 1946 to January 2020, using the key terms “fingertip,” “digital tip,” “digit,” “finger,” “thumb,” “amputation,” “replantation,” “reattachment,” “reimplantation,” and “composite graft. ” Studies reporting primary data on the outcomes of composite grafts of 5 or more digits were included. The studies included in this systematic review ranged in year of publication from 1959 to 2019. Data extraction included demographic details, functional, esthetic and adverse outcomes. Twenty-three articles were included. Outcome data on composite grafts are heterogeneous and little standardization of measurements exists, making interpretation challenging. Identified factors associated with improved outcomes include lower age, distal amputation levels by cut mechanism and decreased time to operation. Smoking is associated with poorer composite graft outcomes. Although survival rates vary greatly, composite grafting may be useful in certain cases and provide good functional and sensation outcomes with good patient satisfaction.
Corporate Ownership and Firm Value: A Gmm-Based Dynamic Panel Data Approach

To establish the relationship between corporate ownership and firm value, static as well as Arellano-Bond dynamic panel model based on Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) are applied on a set of panel data consisting 112 Indian manufacturing firms listed in BSE 200 Index of Bombay Stock Exchange for the period of 2011-18. A significant and positive effect of domestic promoters, foreign promoters and institutional ownership on Tobin’s Q is established. Regarding ownership concentration, a U-shaped relationship between ownership of large shareholders and ownership of largest shareholder and firm value is evidenced. At lower level of concentration, the effect on firm value is found to be negative indicating joint effect of ‘expropriation of minority shareholders’ and ‘misaligned interests’ of majority owners with the firm. For ownership concentration by large owners and the largest one owner, the effect on firm value is found to be positive after a threshold of 70 and 52 percent respectively. This signifies improved alignment of interests and efficient monitoring of managerial opportunistic behaviour and dismantling of owners-managers agency problem at higher level of concentration. Stricter external regulatory mechanism is suggested as a complimentary force to internal governance to ensure protection of minority shareholders’ interest and improved firm valuation.
The Role of Strategic Knowledge towards Formulating Business Strategy in MSC Status Companies: a Preliminary Outlook

This is a preliminary study on examining the relationship between Knowledge Management (KM) and Competitive Intelligence (CI) that might be integrated as a management approach to leverage strategic knowledge which impacts Business Strategy Formulation (BSF). The literature revealed that it becomes managerial challenges when competitive advantage is seen as an association with the creation, transfer, and use of knowledge for value creation of organisations. The purpose of this study is to validate developed instruments that examining the relationship between KM, CI and BSF. Data were collected using an online questionnaire sent to a total of 30 representatives from the management team members of MSC Status Companies in Malaysia. From the analysis using SPSS, the results showed a positive significant positive relationship between strategic knowledge and business strategy formulation. Specifically, KM showed strong impacts on business strategy formulation, as compared to CI. The findings of this preliminary study begin to fill a research gap by empirically prove and support the idea that strategic knowledge is the core organisational asset for business strategy formulation that will lead organisations to gain competitive positions.