Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Primary Porcine Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cell Model with Preserved Properties

Abstract Purpose To establish an ethical, reliable, and expandable retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell model with maintained RPE properties compatible with multifarious assays. Methods RPE cells from abattoir-obtained porcine eyes were cultured under various conditions. Morphology, RPE cell-specific protein markers (RPE-65, CRALBP), and the tight junction marker ZO-1 were analyzed by phase-contrast microscopy, immunocytochemistry, and western blot, and transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) was determined to assess barrier function. Results The porcine RPE cells (pRPE) were best established using TrypLE Express, 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) supplemented high-glucose media, and subculturing at semi-confluency. The pRPE cells maintained epithelioid morphology with ZO-1 positive tight junctions at the cell-to-cell borders, the ability to establish proper barrier function (TEERmax: 346/375 Ω⋅cm2 at passage I/passage VI), and expressed CRALBP and RPE-65 for several passages. The RPE characteristics decreased and disappeared with transdifferentiation. Conclusions This work describes, for the first time, a pRPE cell model that exhibits preserved RPE properties for several passages on cell culture plastic plates. Though RPE characteristics were maintained for at least 6 passages, the reduced CRALBP and RPE-65 with passaging emphasize that lower passage cells are advantageous to utilize, and that morphology, barrier function, and ZO-1 localization cannot be solely employed as a quality measure of RPE identity. Pigs are phylogenetically similar to humans, including similar physiology, anatomy and immune system. Therefore, porcine RPE cells constitute a relevant model system for studying human eye diseases, such as AMD.
Phenotypic Characterization of Congenital Hyperinsulinism Due to Novel Activating Glucokinase Mutations

The importance of glucokinase (GK) in the regulation of insulin secretion has been highlighted by the phenotypes of individuals with activating and inactivating mutations in the glucokinase gene (GCK). Here we report 10 individuals with congenital hyperinsulinism (HI) caused by eight unique activating mutations of GCK. Six are novel and located near previously identified activating mutations sites. The first recognized episode of hypoglycemia in these patients occurred between birth and 24 years, and the severity of the phenotype was also variable. Mutant enzymes were expressed and purified for enzyme kinetics in vitro. Mutant enzymes had low glucose half-saturation concentration values and an increased enzyme activity index compared with wild-type GK. We performed functional evaluation of islets from the pancreata of three children with GCK-HI who required pancreatectomy. Basal insulin secretion in perifused GCK-HI islets was normal, and the response to glyburide was preserved. However, the threshold for glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in perifused glucokinase hyperinsulinism (GCK-HI) islets was decreased, and glucagon secretion was greatly suppressed. Our evaluation of novel GCK disease-associated mutations revealed that the detrimental effects of these mutations on glucose homeostasis can be attributed not only to a lowering of the glucose threshold of insulin secretion but also to a decreased counterregulatory glucagon secretory response. Article Highlights Our evaluation of six novel and two previously published activating GCK mutations revealed that the detrimental effects of these mutations on glucose homeostasis can be attributed not only to a lowering of the glucose threshold of insulin secretion but also to a decreased counterregulatory glucagon secretory response. These studies provide insights into the pathophysiology of GCK-hyperinsulinism and the dual role of glucokinase in β-cells and α-cells to regulate glucose homeostasis.
Interventions to increase physical activity level in patients with whole spectrum chronic kidney disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background: Little is known about effective interventions to increase physical activity levels in this population. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the effectiveness of different interventions for physical activity levels in whole-spectrum CKD patients. Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched from inception to December 2022, with an update in March 2023. Studies of clinical interventions based on assessing physical activity outcomes (e.g., daily steps, time spent doing physical activity) in patients with whole-spectrum CKD were included. The pooled effect size was calculated using a restricted maximum likelihood method and reported as a standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results: The systematic review included 2,156 participants (59.9 ± 8.7 years) from 35 studies. Interventions aimed at modifying physical activity were associated with significantly higher physical activity levels in patients with CKD (SMD = 0.22; 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.36; I2 = 55%). Exercise-based interventions and real-time step feedback increased physical activity by 0.26 (95% CI: 0.07 to 0.45; I2 = 59%) and 0.36 (95% CI: 0.12 to 0.60; I2 = 0%) standard deviations, respectively. Effect sizes did not vary by disease stage or study duration; however, there was evidence of small study or publication bias for the primary analysis. Conclusion: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, intervention strategies aimed at modifying physical activity were associated with significantly increased physical activity levels in patients with whole-spectrum CKD.
Sample- and computationally efficient data-driven predictive control

Recently proposed data-driven predictive control schemes for LTI systems use non-parametric representations based on the image of a Hankel matrix of previously collected, persistently exciting, input-output data. Persistence of excitation necessitates that the data is sufficiently long and, hence, the computational complexity of the corresponding finite-horizon optimal control problem increases. In this paper, we propose an efficient data-driven predictive control (eDDPC) scheme which is both more sample efficient (requires less offline data) and computationally efficient (uses less decision variables) compared to existing schemes. This is done by leveraging an alternative data-based representation of the trajectories of LTI systems. We analytically and numerically compare the performance of this scheme to existing ones from the literature.
Epidemiology and sustainable control of Podosphaera aphanis (strawberry powdery mildew)

Until recently strawberries grown in the United Kingdom were grown in open fields, the plants and fruit were exposed to the British weather. This resulted in a short 6 week harvest period where the fruit was often damaged by rain and infected by Botrytis cinerea. Strawberry growers started to use polythene tunnels to extend the cropping season, protect the fruit from rain damage and reduce the incidence of infection by B. cinerea. However the conditions produced by the polythene tunnels were ideal for the growth and development of Podosphaera aphanis (strawberry powdery mildew). Growers are now under pressure from the retailers to reduce the amount of fungicides that they use to control P. aphanis. The symptoms related to P. aphanis infection have been identified (leaf cupping, visible mycelium and red blotches) and a progression has been established. From the symptom progression two new scoring methods for the identification of P. aphanis infections were developed which have greater relevance to current cultivation methods than the previous method. The source of initial inoculum for newly planted and established sites was identified. The inoculum was planted into new sites on the plants coming from the propagators and over wintering on plants within established sites. This was contrary to what the growers believed. They were basing their early season tunnel management on keeping the perceived air borne infection out of their tunnels. A rule based prediction system has been developed that has the potential to reduce the number of fungicide applications applied by the growers. The prediction system ensures that fungicide applications are not applied too close together. Potassium Bicarbonate has been shown to provide comparable control of P. aphanis to that achieved with Systhane (Myclobutanil). Significantly better control of P. aphanis was achieved using a new (at the time) product, Fortress (Quinoxyfen). There were significant differences in the resistance to infection by P. aphanis displayed by different cultivars of strawberry. Elsanta, the cultivar favoured by the retailers was not one of the most resistant. Control of inoculurn already present on plants as they are being planted could be achieved by dipping the plant in Systhane. Growers are under considerable pressure from the retailers to reduce the amount of fungicides used to control P. aphanis. Growers could achieve this by implementing the recommendations made in this report.
Citrus Carotenoid Extracts Exert Anticancer Effects through Anti-Proliferation, Oxidative Stress, and Mitochondrial-Dependent Apoptosis in MCF-7 Cells

Citrus is a globally popular fruit crop that contains bioactive compounds with numerous health benefits. Carotenoids are one of the main bioactive compounds present in citrus pulp. They possess exceptional antioxidant and anticancer properties, making them potentially effective in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer. Different citrus species, identified as ZMPG, DFGJ, NFMJ, XY, and ZHQC, were studied for their antioxidant activity and anticancer activity. XY had the highest total carotenoid content (75.30 µg/g FW), and ZHQC (ZH) had the lowest carotenoid content (19.74 µg/g FW). The composition of NFMJ, ZMPG, and DFHJ consisted of the most abundant number of carotenoids, while XY only had three types. The antioxidant capacity of the carotenoid extracts was evaluated, and ZH and DFHJ were identified as good sources of antioxidants. XY and ZH significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration, and arresting cells during the G0/G1 phase. XY and ZH enhanced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS); reduced mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP); reduced the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR), and peroxidase (POD); decreased glutathione (GSH) levels; and increased the malonaldehyde (MDA) content. Apoptosis occurred through the mitochondrial-mediated pathway through the up-regulation of BAX, caspase-3, and caspase-9 and the down-regulation of Bcl-2. In this study, the carotenoid-rich extracts of citrus pulp were found to induce oxidative stress through their pro-oxidant potential and regulate cell apoptosis in MCF-7 cancer cells. These results indicate that citrus carotenoids act as pro-oxidants and have the potential to be utilized for the development of anti-breast cancer products.
Convective activity in an extratropical cyclone and its warm conveyor belt – a case‐study combining observations and a convection‐permitting model simulation

Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are important Lagrangian features in extratropical cyclones for the evolution of clouds, precipitation and flow dynamics. According to the classical concept, WCBs rise continuously from the boundary layer to the upper troposphere with ascent rates of less than 50 hPa/hr. Recent studies identified embedded convection in WCBs with ascent rates exceeding 50 hPa/hr, however, its significance and characteristics have not yet been analysed systematically. This study presents a detailed analysis of a frontal wave cyclone that occurred during the North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment (NAWDEX) and investigates the occurrence of convection with ascent rates exceeding 100–200 hPa/hr embedded in the WCB. A set of diagnostics, based on the combination of Meteosat products, ECMWF data, and a convection‐permitting simulation, reveals consistently that convection occurs frequently in the warm sector of the investigated cyclone, in particular in the region of the WCB. These convective regions are characterized by increased surface precipitation, low values of convective available potential energy, and significant large‐scale forcing for ascent, indicating that this type of convection embedded in WCBs differs from classical air mass convection with higher vertical velocities. This is qualitatively confirmed by airborne radar observations of the considered cyclone with reflectivities hardly exceeding 30 dBZ. In the investigated WCB, the ascent is not continuous, but characterized by intermittent periods of very strong or even convective ascent and occasionally by short periods of descent. Together, these results provide a refined view on the concept of WCBs and its embedded convection.
VALID: A perceptually validated Virtual Avatar Library for Inclusion and Diversity

As consumer adoption of immersive technologies grows, virtual avatars will play a prominent role in the future of social computing. However, as people begin to interact more frequently through virtual avatars, it is important to ensure that the research community has validated tools to evaluate the effects and consequences of such technologies. We present the first iteration of a new, freely available 3D avatar library called the Virtual Avatar Library for Inclusion and Diversity (VALID), which includes 210 fully rigged avatars with a focus on advancing racial diversity and inclusion. We also provide a detailed process for creating, iterating, and validating avatars of diversity. Through a large online study (n = 132) with participants from 33 countries, we provide statistically validated labels for each avatar’s perceived race and gender. Through our validation study, we also advance knowledge pertaining to the perception of an avatar’s race. In particular, we found that avatars of some races were more accurately identified by participants of the same race.
An assessment of the variation in the practice of lumbar discectomy and its role in axial back pain

Background: Lumbar discectomy is performed for symptomatic lumbar disc herniation and is one of the most widely performed spinal surgical procedures worldwide in a variety of ways. This survey aimed at providing an overview/perspective of different practice patterns and the impact of lumbar discectomy on axial back pain with or without sciatica. Methods: An online survey was performed using the application “Google Forms. ” The link to the questionnaire was distributed to neurosurgeons through personal E-mail and social media platforms. Results: We received 333 responses. The largest percentage of responses across five continents was from Asia (66.97%, n = 223). The mean age of the respondents was 40.08 ± 10.5 years. A total of 66 respondents (20%) had a spine practice of 7%–90%, and 28 respondents had a spine practice of 90%–100% (8.4%). The number of respondents who practiced microscopic discectomy using a tubular retractor (n = 143 respondents, 42.9%) was nearly equal to the number of respondents who practiced open discectomy (n = 142 respondents, 42.6%). An almost equal proportion of respondents believed discectomy does not help in relieving axial back pain. Only 20.4% (n = 68) of respondents recommend bed rest for a longer duration postoperatively. Conclusions: Our survey revealed that only 22.2% of spine surgeons recommended discectomy in patients with radiological disc herniation with axial back pain alone and preferred a minimally invasive method of discectomy. Almost half of them believed discectomy to be ineffective for axial low back pain and only a few recommended prolonged bed rest postoperatively.
Generative Agent-Based Modeling: Unveiling Social System Dynamics through Coupling Mechanistic Models with Generative Artificial Intelligence

We discuss the emerging new opportunity for building feedback‐rich computational models of social systems using generative artificial intelligence. Referred to as generative agent‐based models (GABMs), such individual‐level models utilize large language models to represent human decision‐making in social settings. We provide a GABM case in which human behavior can be incorporated into simulation models by coupling a mechanistic model of human interactions with a pre‐trained large language model. This is achieved by introducing a simple GABM of social norm diffusion in an organization. For educational purposes, the model is intentionally kept simple. We examine a wide range of scenarios and the sensitivity of the results to several changes in the prompt. We hope the article and the model serve as a guide for building useful dynamic models of various social systems that include realistic human reasoning and decision‐making. © 2024 System Dynamics Society.
Semi-Autoregressive Streaming ASR With Label Context

Non-autoregressive (NAR) modeling has gained significant interest in speech processing since these models achieve dramatically lower inference time than autoregressive (AR) models while also achieving good transcription accuracy. Since NAR automatic speech recognition (ASR) models must wait for the completion of the entire utterance before processing, some works explore streaming NAR models based on blockwise attention for low-latency applications. However, streaming NAR models significantly lag in accuracy compared to streaming AR and non-streaming NAR models. To address this, we propose a streaming"semi-autoregressive"ASR model that incorporates the labels emitted in previous blocks as additional context using a Language Model (LM) subnetwork. We also introduce a novel greedy decoding algorithm that addresses insertion and deletion errors near block boundaries while not significantly increasing the inference time. Experiments show that our method outperforms the existing streaming NAR model by 19% relative on Tedlium2, 16%/8% on Librispeech-100 clean/other test sets, and 19%/8% on the Switchboard(SWB)/Callhome(CH) test sets. It also reduced the accuracy gap with streaming AR and non-streaming NAR models while achieving 2.5x lower latency. We also demonstrate that our approach can effectively utilize external text data to pre-train the LM subnetwork to further improve streaming ASR accuracy.
On Metrics for Analysis of Functional Data on Geometric Domains

This paper employs techniques from metric geometry and optimal transport theory to address questions related to the analysis of functional data on metric or metric-measure spaces, which we refer to as fields. Formally, fields are viewed as 1-Lipschitz mappings between Polish metric spaces with the domain possibly equipped with a Borel probability measure. We introduce field analogues of the Gromov-Hausdorff, Gromov-Prokhorov, and Gromov-Wasserstein distances, investigate their main properties and provide a characterization of the Gromov-Hausdorff distance in terms of isometric embeddings in a Urysohn universal field. Adapting the notion of distance matrices to fields, we formulate a discrete model, obtain an empirical estimation result that provides a theoretical basis for its use in functional data analysis, and prove a field analogue of Gromov's Reconstruction Theorem. We also investigate field versions of the Vietoris-Rips and neighborhood (or offset) filtrations and prove that they are stable with respect to appropriate metrics.
Decision-Directed Hybrid RIS Channel Estimation with Minimal Pilot Overhead

To reap the benefits of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), channel state information (CSI) is generally required. However, CSI acquisition in RIS systems is challenging and often results in very large pilot overhead, especially in unstructured channel environments. Consequently, the RIS channel estimation problem has attracted a lot of interest and also been a subject of intense study in recent years. In this paper, we propose a decision-directed RIS channel estimation framework for general unstructured channel models. The employed RIS contains some hybrid elements that can simultaneously reflect and sense the incoming signal. We show that with the help of the hybrid RIS elements, it is possible to accurately recover the CSI with a pilot overhead proportional to the number of users. Therefore, the proposed framework substantially improves the system spectral efficiency compared to systems with passive RIS arrays since the pilot overhead in passive RIS systems is proportional to the number of RIS elements times the number of users. We also perform a detailed spectral efficiency analysis for both the pilot-directed and decision-directed frameworks. Our analysis takes into account both the channel estimation and data detection errors at both the RIS and the BS. Finally, we present numerous simulation results to verify the accuracy of the analysis as well as to show the benefits of the proposed decision-directed framework.
On scattering behavior of corner domains with anisotropic inhomogeneities

This paper investigates the possible scattering and non-scattering behavior of an anisotropic and inhomogeneous Lipschitz medium at a fixed wave number and with a single incident field. We connect the anisotropic non-scattering problem to a Bernoulli type free boundary problem. By invoking methods from the theory of free boundaries, we show that an anisotropic medium with Lipschitz but not $C^{1,\alpha}$ boundary scatters every incident wave that satisfies a non-degeneracy condition.
Examination of Countermovement Jump Performance Changes in Collegiate Female Volleyball in Fatigued Conditions

The purpose of this investigation was to examine changes in countermovement vertical jump performance after a single sport-specific training session in a sample of collegiate female volleyball athletes. Eleven NCAA Division I volleyball athletes performed countermovement vertical jumps with and without an arm swing prior to and immediately after a sport-specific training session. Each participant completed two jumps in each condition using a portable force platform. Paired samples t-tests were performed within each jump condition. When using an arm swing, mean braking force was the only variable to display a statistically significant change (p < 0.05). In the no-arm-swing condition, mean propulsive force, propulsive net impulse, jump height and reactive strength index modified all statistically increased (p < 0.05). Time to takeoff was statistically reduced (p < 0.05). Additionally, a single-subject analysis was performed across all eleven participants resulting in general trends seen in the no-arm-swing condition, whereas the arm-swing condition displayed inconsistent findings across participants.