Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dealing with Long-tail Issue in Diabetic Retinopathy and Diabetic Macular Edema Grading

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a multiply occurring complication induced by prolonged course of diabetes. Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) is the most common complication of DR which is the major threat of vision loss. Hence, it is urgently needed to expand the early screening and diagnosis via computer-assisted therapy. However, prior works mainly focus on investigating DR and DME in isolation, largely ignoring their inherent relationships. Besides, the fundus data distribution is typically long-tailed, with tail classes concentrating on critical levels of DME. Motivated by the distinctive complexion above, this work presents a novel position-guided attention block (PGAB) as well as an innovative label-sensitive (LS) loss, which are respectively in charge of extracting position-sensitive features to exploit interactions between hard exudate and macular and encouraging the model to embrace tail classes to lift the accuracy on critical levels of DME. Comprehensive experiments on popular Messidor and IDRiD datasets well demonstrate the superiority of our approach in achieving competitive performance compared to state-of-the-arts.
Expert Perspectives on Student Errors in SQL

Prior studies in the Computer Science education literature have illustrated that novices make many mistakes in composing SQL queries. Query formulation proves to be difficult for students. Only recently, some headway was made towards understanding why SQL leads to so many mistakes, by uncovering student misconceptions. In this article, we shed new light on SQL misconceptions by analyzing the hypotheses of SQL experts on the causes of student errors. By examining the experts’ perceptions, we draw on their understanding of students’ misconceptions and on their experiences with studying and teaching SQL. For our analysis, we chose the Policy Delphi, a questionnaire instrument specifically designed for gathering opinions and evidence. Through a two-round process, our nineteen participants proposed and voted on underlying causes for SQL errors which resulted in a set of hypotheses per error. Our main contribution to this article is this new set of possible misconceptions. With them, we can design more complete educational approaches to address misconceptions underlying SQL errors made by students, leading to more effective SQL education.
Risky Business: Consumer Attitudes, Perceptions, and Consumption Behaviors During COVID-19

Abstract With consumers cautious of COVID-19, managers are forced to adapt to changes in consumer behavior, government regulations, and disrupted supply chains. Using Protection Motivation Theory, two studies investigate consumers’ attitudes toward, and perceptions of, the disease to better understand consumer behaviors during a pandemic. Study 1, assessing young adults and their parents, shows students’ attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors were riskier than their parents during the pandemic. Study 2 considers the influence of political affiliation, finding Democrats are more likely to take the threat seriously whereas Republicans were less likely to perceive COVID-19 as a threat; each modeled behavior that reflects their respective views. Practitioners must consider consumer’s protection motivation and business risk levels when contemplating changes to business practice during this time.
Regulatory roles of three-dimensional structures of chromatin domains

Transcriptional enhancers usually, but not always, regulate genes within the same topologically associating domain (TAD). We hypothesize that this incomplete insulation is due to three-dimensional structures of corresponding chromatin domains in individual cells: Whereas enhancers and genes buried inside the “core” of a domain interact mostly with other regions in the same domain, those on the “surface” can more easily interact with the outside. Here we show that a simple measure, the intra-TAD ratio, can quantify the “coreness” of a region with respect to single-cell domains it belongs. We show that domain surfaces are permissive for high gene expression, and cell type-specific active cis-regulatory elements (CREs), active histone marks, and transcription factor binding sites are enriched on domain surfaces, most strongly in chromatin subcompartments typically considered inactive. These findings suggest a “domain surface CRE” model of gene regulation. We also find that disease-associated non-coding variants are enriched on domain surfaces.
GPC3-Unc5D complex structure and role in cell migration

Neural migration is a critical step during brain development that requires the interactions of cell-surface guidance receptors. Cancer cells often hijack these mechanisms to disseminate. Here we reveal crystal structures of Uncoordinated-5 receptor D (Unc5D) in complex with morphogen receptor glypican-3 (GPC3), forming an octameric glycoprotein complex. In the complex, four Unc5D molecules pack into an antiparallel bundle, flanked by four GPC3 molecules. Central glycan-glycan interactions are formed by N-linked glycans emanating from GPC3 (N241 in human) and C-mannosylated tryptophans of the Unc5D thrombospondin-like domains. MD simulations, mass-spectrometry and structure-based mutants validate the crystallographic data. Anti-GPC3 nanobodies enhance or weaken Unc5-GPC3 binding. Using these tools in vivo, we show that Unc5/GPC3 guide migrating pyramidal neurons in the mouse cortex, and cancer cells in an embryonic xenograft neuroblastoma model. The results demonstrate a conserved structural mechanism of cell-guidance, with the potential for wide- ranging biomedical implications in development and cancer biology.
Oxytocin receptor is not required for social attachment in prairie voles

Prairie voles are among a small group of mammals that display long-term social attachment between mating partners. Many pharmacological studies show that signaling via the oxytocin receptor (OxtR) is critical for the display of social monogamy in these animals. We used CRISPR-mutagenesis to independently generate three different OxtR null mutant prairie vole lines. OxtR mutants displayed social attachment such that males and females showed a behavioral preference for their mating partners over a stranger of the opposite sex when assayed using different paradigms. Mothers lacking OxtR delivered viable pups, and parents displayed care of their young and raised them to the weanling stage. Together, our studies unexpectedly reveal that OxtR-mediated signaling is genetically dispensable for social attachment, parturition, and parental behavior.
The APE2 nuclease is essential for DNA double strand break repair by microhomology-mediated end-joining

Microhomology-mediated end-joining (MMEJ) is an intrinsically mutagenic pathway of DNA double strand break repair essential for proliferation of homologous recombination (HR) deficient tumors. While targeting MMEJ has emerged as a powerful strategy to eliminate HR-deficient (HRD) cancers, this is limited by an incomplete understanding of the mechanism and factors required for MMEJ repair. Here, we identify the APE2 nuclease as a novel MMEJ effector. We show that loss of APE2 blocks the fusion of deprotected telomeres by MMEJ and inhibits MMEJ in DNA repair reporter assays to levels comparable to Pol Theta suppression. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that APE2 possesses intrinsic flap-cleaving activity, that its MMEJ function in cells depends on its nuclease domain and further identify uncharacterized domains required for recruitment to damaged DNA. We conclude that HR-deficient cells are addicted to APE2 due to a previously unappreciated role in MMEJ, which could be exploited in the treatment of cancer.
The chromosome-scale genome assembly of the yellowtail clownfish Amphiprion clarkii provides insights into the melanic pigmentation of anemonefish

Anemonefish are an emerging group of model organisms for studying genetic, ecological, evolutionary, and developmental traits of coral reef fish. The yellowtail clownfish Amphiprion clarkii possesses species-specific characteristics such as inter-species co-habitation, high intra-species color variation, no anemone specificity, and a broad geographic distribution, that can increase our understanding of anemonefish evolutionary history, behavioral strategies, fish-anemone symbiosis, and color pattern evolution. Despite its position as an emerging model species, the genome of A. clarkii is yet to be published. Using PacBio long-read sequencing and Hi-C chromatin capture technology, we generated a high-quality chromosome-scale genome assembly initially comprised of 1,840 contigs with an N50 of 1,203,211 bp. These contigs were successfully anchored into 24 chromosomes of 843,582,782 bp and annotated with 25,050 protein-coding genes encompassing 97.0 % of conserved actinopterygian genes, making the quality and completeness of this genome the highest amongst all published anemonefish genomes to date. Transcriptomic analysis identified tissue-specific gene expression patterns, with the brain and optic lobe having the largest number of expressed genes. Further analyses revealed higher copy numbers of erbb3b (a gene involved in melanophore development) in A. clarkii compared to other anemonefish, thus suggesting a possible link between erbb3b and the natural melanism polymorphism observed in A. clarkii. The publication of this high-quality genome, along with A. clarkii’s many unique traits, position this species as an ideal model organism for addressing scientific questions across a range of disciplines.
Causes Patterns

A wide variety of disease states give rise to intra-abdominal infection 1. While varying according to age, gender and geography, the three most common causes of generalized peritonitis in low-income countries are probably appendicitis, perforated duodenal ulcer and typhoid perforations, in no particular order 2. Causes and patterns of peritonitis were evaluated in patients surgically managed at Nsambya hospital. This study was aimed at determining the causes and patterns of peritonitis in patients managed surgically at St. Francis Hospital, Nsambya. Methods: This was both a retrospective and prospective study of patients with peritonitis who underwent surgical treatment at Nsambya Hospital over a 15-months period from January 2012- to March 2013 inclusive. A total of 62 patients were included in the study. Results: Of the 62 patients, 29 patients were retrospective and 33 patients prospective, 46 (74.2%) were males while 16 (25.8%) were females, giving a male to female sex ratio of 3:1. The mean age at presentation was 30.79 (SD 15.55) years, the youngest being 0.103) and hospital stay (p = 0.257) between those who were operated within 24 hours of onset of and those operated after 24 hours of onset of Wabwire Ntirenganya, Ntakiyiruta and and after of The that the major causes of peritonitis was ileal (25) and colonic perforation (3) and bacterial from the accounted for the after of onset of symptoms compared to our study where there was less virulent bacterial contamination from the perforated peptic ulcers.
A Domain-Adapted Machine Learning Approach for Visual Evaluation and Interpretation of Robot-Assisted Surgery Skills

In this study, we present an intuitive machine learning-based approach to evaluate and interpret surgical skills level of a participant working with robotic platforms. The proposed method is domain-adapted, i.e., jointly utilizes an end-to-end learning approach for smoothness detection and domain knowledge-based metrics such as fluidity and economy of motion for extracting skills-related features within a given trajectory. An advantage of our approach compared to similar stochastic or deep learning models is its intuitive and transparent manner for extraction and visualization of skills-related features within the data. We illustrate the performance of our proposed method on trials of the JIGSAWS data set as well as our own experimental data gathered from Phantom Premium $\boldsymbol{1.5}$A Haptic Device. This approach utilized $\boldsymbol{t}\text{-}{\mathbf {SNE}}$ technique and provides visualized low-dimensional representation for different trials that highlights nuanced information within the executive task and returns unusual or faulty trials as outliers far away from their normal skill or participant clusters. This information regarding the input trajectory can be used for evaluation and education applications such as learning curve analysis in surgical assessment and training programs.
Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

Recent work in subregular syntax has revealed deep parallels among syntactic phenomena, many of which fall under the computational class TSL (Graf, 2018, 2022). Vu et al. (2019) argue that case dependencies are yet another member of this class. But their analysis focuses mainly on English, which is famously case-poor. In this paper I present a TSL analysis of Japanese, which features a much wider range of case-marking patterns, adding support to the claim that case dependencies, and by extension syntactic dependencies, are TSL.
On-chip waste heat-driven absorption cooling system for sustainable data center environment: simulation

ABSTRACT Development of waste heat-driven absorption-based cooling system is inspired for the need of removing high heat flux from the sustainable data centre environment. This paper presents a simulation study of single-stage Lithium Bromide–Water (LiBr–H2O) vapour absorption heat pump for chip cooling. In the present work, a complete thermodynamic analysis of the single-stage LiBr–H2O vapour absorption-based heat pump for chip cooling without a solution heat exchanger is performed and a user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) package including visual components is developed by using MATlab (2008b). The effect of chip heat flux on COP (Coefficient of Performance), flow rates and conductance is examined using the developed package. The model is verified using the data available in the literature which indicates that there is a greater reduction in the absorber load. The influence of chip heat flux on the performance and thermal loads of individual components are studied, and it is concluded that COP decreases from 0.7121 to 0.68924 with increase in chip heat flux.
Factors Influencing Graduate Students’ Preference of Software Tools for Building Engineering Applications

Based on previous research on technology acceptance models, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of four variables (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, output quality and enjoyment) on students’ intentions to useGoogle Drive Spreadsheet and Arquimedes software for budgeting and measurement purposes in the Building Engineering context, as well as students’ preferences to use each program. A sample of 92 students received training in both programs and evaluated them. Results suggest that students prefer Google Drive Spreadsheet in the academic context and Arquimedes in the professional context. Findings also show a significant effect of perceived usefulness and output quality on usage intentions of both applications, as well as an effect of output quality on perceived usefulness. However, with respect to the rest of variables, differences were found between Google Drive Spreadsheet and Arquimedes. While in the case of Google Drive Spreadsheet perceived usefulness and output quality worked as mediators of enjoyment, and perceived ease of use had no significant effect on any variable, in the case of Arquimedes all the variables had a significant effect on usage intentions. These results suggest that when a technology is perceived as very easy to utilize, such as Google Drive Spreadsheet, the variable perceived ease of use has very little or no impact on individuals’ intentions to use that technology. Findings are discussed in terms of its implications for practice and further research.
Family satisfaction and self-efficacy among low-income adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of parents' educational attainment

Purposes Given that the period from middle to high school is important to develop and cultivate self-efficacy, reduced support in low-income families might negatively influence the development of self-efficacy among low-income students since COVID-19. This study aims to investigate the association between family satisfaction and self-efficacy among low-income students since COVID-19 and the moderating effect of parents' educational attainment on the relationship. Methods 255 low-income students in South-Korea were selected for the final sample. The PROCESS macro 3.4 for Statistical Product and Service Solutions was used to analyze the data. Results Family satisfaction was positively related to self-efficacy among low-income students. There was a significant moderating effect of parents' educational attainment on the relationship between family satisfaction and self-efficacy among low-income students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion Financial support and COVID-19 benefits should be prioritized to low-income families with adolescents to improve family relationships, leading to increase self-efficacy among low-income students. Social welfare programs targeting family relationships in low-income households should be especially targeted toward low-income households without a parent who received higher education. Life-long education should be provided to parents in low-income families who did not gain higher education as their educational attainment influences the self-efficacy of their adolescent children.
HTLV-1 intragenic viral enhancer influences immortalization phenotype in vitro, but is dispensable for persistence and disease development in animal models

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the causative infectious agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and chronic neurological disease. The disparity between silenced sense transcription versus constitutively active antisense (Hbz) transcription from the integrated provirus is not fully understood. The presence of an internal viral enhancer has recently been discovered in the Tax gene near the 3’ long terminal repeat (LTR) of HTLV-1. In vitro, this enhancer has been shown to bind SRF and ELK-1 host transcription factors, maintain chromatin openness and viral gene transcription, and induce aberrant host gene transcription near viral integration sites. However, the function of the viral enhancer in the context of early HTLV-1 infection events remains unknown. In this study, we generated a mutant Enhancer virus (mEnhancer) and evaluated its effects on HTLV-1-mediated in vitro immortalization, establishment of persistent infection with an in vivo rabbit model, and disease development in a humanized immune system (HIS) mouse model. The mEnhancer virus was able to establish persistent infection in rabbits, and there were no significant differences in proviral load or HTLV-1-specific antibody responses over a 25-week study. However, rabbits infected with the mEnhancer virus had significantly decreased sense and antisense viral gene expression at 12-weeks post-infection. HIS mice infected with wt or mEnhancer virus showed similar disease progression, proviral load, and viral gene expression. While mEnhancer virus was able to sufficiently immortalize primary T-lymphocytes in cell culture, the immortalized cells had an altered phenotype (CD8+ T-cells), decreased proviral load, decreased sense and anti-sense gene expression, and altered cell cycle progression compared to HTLV-1.wt immortalized cells (CD4+ T-cells). These results suggest that the HTLV-1 enhancer element alone does not determine persistence or disease development but plays a pivotal role in regulating viral gene expression.
College students' cyberloafing and the sense of meaning of life: The mediating role of state anxiety and the moderating role of psychological flexibility

Background With the gradual penetration of network media into various fields of people's life, the relationship between network behavior and the sense of meaning of life is bound to be closer and closer. The purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of state anxiety between cyber loafing and the sense of meaning of life, and the moderating role of psychological flexibility in this mediating relationship. Methodology With 964 undergraduates recruited as subjects three-wave-time-lagged quantitative research design was conducted in China. All participants were required to complete a self-reported electronic questionnaire. Then, the mediating mechanism and moderating effect were explored with utilization of SPSS25.0. Results The results showed that cyberloafing had significant negative correlation with the sense of meaning of life. Our analysis testing the mediating effect showed that state anxiety partially mediated the relationship between cyberloafing and the sense of meaning of life (indirect effect = −0.05, p < 0.01,), while the mediating effect was 31.25% of the total effect. Our analysis testing the moderating effect showed that psychological flexibility significantly moderated the relationship between cyberloafing and state anxiety (interaction effect = −0.26, p < 0.01). And our analysis testing the moderated mediating effect showed that psychological flexibility played a moderating role in the mediating effect of state anxiety. Conclusion Based on the findings of this study, college students' cyberloafing negatively affects their sense of meaning of life. Therefore, appropriate measures should be taken to supervise and restrict college students' Internet use and provide them with corresponding guidance; certain psychological adjustment measures should also be taken when necessary to help college students with low psychological flexibility in reducing their state anxiety and improving their sense of meaning of life.
Job autonomy and work-life conflict: A conceptual analysis of teachers’ wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic

With the shift toward online environments due to COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for educational sector, employees’ performance has been affected by an array of different factors. Personal aspects as well as organizational focus on individuals’ wellbeing are the main focus of this study through inclusion of job autonomy and work-life conflict alongside other factors, such as informational support that can aid academic staff regarding their wellbeing during times of crisis. In response to the effects of COVID-19 on employees, this study aims to provide tangible data to protect university teachers during crises and establish key points that can improve their wellbeing. For this purpose, we used interviews to provide in-depth understanding of the subject. A total of 16 teachers as interviewees have provided qualitative data that was analyzed with MAXQDA (thematic network approach). This study highlights the importance of work-life conflict and vitality of job autonomy on academic staffs’ performance and overall wellbeing through a conceptual analysis. We emphasize the role of organizations in maintaining a work environment where university teachers’ wellbeing is prioritized and various elements such as training and support are used to help stabilizing work-life balance. The current findings can be beneficial for both scholars and decision-makers in schools and universities to enhance elements of remote work for their staff.