Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Holding On to the Past: Older Adults Show Lingering Neural Activation of No-Longer-Relevant Items in Working Memory

Abstract Goal-relevant information can be maintained in working memory over a brief delay interval to guide an upcoming decision. There is also evidence suggesting the existence of a complementary process: namely, the ability to suppress information that is no longer relevant to ongoing task goals. Moreover, this ability to suppress or inhibit irrelevant information appears to decline with age. In this study, we compared younger and older adults undergoing fMRI on a working memory task designed to address whether the modulation of neural representations of relevant and no-longer-relevant items during a delay interval is related to age and overall task performance. Following from the theoretical predictions of the inhibitory deficit hypothesis of aging, we hypothesized that older adults would show higher activation of no-longer-relevant items during a retention delay compared to young adults and that higher activation of these no-longer-relevant items would predict worse recognition memory accuracy for relevant items. Our results support this prediction and more generally demonstrate the importance of goal-driven modulation of neural activity in successful working memory maintenance. Furthermore, we showed that the largest age differences in the regulation of category-specific pattern activity during working memory maintenance were seen throughout the medial temporal lobe and prominently in the hippocampus, further establishing the importance of “long-term memory” retrieval mechanisms in the context of high-load working memory tasks that place large demands on attentional selection mechanisms.
The reverse flight of a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is characterized by a weight-supporting upstroke and postural changes

Butterflies are agile fliers which use inactive and active upstrokes (US). The active US plays a secondary role to the downstroke (DS), generating both thrust and negative vertical force. However, whether their active halfstroke function is fixed or facultative has not been clarified. We showed that during multiple backward flights of an individual, postural adjustments via body angles greater than 90°, with pitch-down and pitch-up motions in the DS and US, respectively, reoriented the stroke plane and caused the reversal of the aerodynamic functions of the halfstrokes compared with forward flight. The US and DS primarily provided weight support and horizontal force, respectively, and a leading edge vortex (LEV) was formed in both halfstrokes. The US's LEV was a Class II LEV extending from wingtip to wingtip, previously reported albeit during the DS in forward flight. The US's net force contribution increased from 32% in forward to 60% in backward flight. Likewise, US weight support increased from 8 to 85%. Despite different trajectories, body postures and force orientations among flight sequences in the global frame, the halfstroke-average forces pointed in a uniform direction relative to the body in both forward and backward flight.
Management of Oral Feeding Challenges in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs): A National Survey in China

Objectives: To investigate the current practices of oral feeding difficulties facing high-risk infants in Chinese NICUs. Methods: A questionnaire to survey infant oral feeding practices was distributed to 100 level II and III Chinese neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Results: Responses were obtained from 88 NICUs. No Units had any structured guidelines regarding the management of infant oral feeding as they transitioned from tube to independent oral feeding. In 54 (61.4%) NICUs, nurses and physicians made shared decisions on when oral feeding were to be initiated. Fifty-four (61.4%) and 22 (25.0%) NICUs used postmenstrual age (PMA) or weight at PMA as a criterion for initiating oral feedings, respectively. The top three criteria to determine introduction of oral feeding were severity of disease, presence of sucking reflex, and trial feeding success. Adverse events were used by 78 Units as indices of oral feeding difficulty. Twenty (22.7%) and 25 (28.4%) Units had access to occupational therapists or nurses who provided oral motor interventions during feeding, i.e., oral support (chin and cheek support, aid to deglutition), non-nutritive sucking with pacifier, and oral stimulation. Conclusions: The management of oral feeding issues in NICUs vary widely in China in relation to the assessment of readiness to oral feeding, daily oral feeding practices and interventions used by staff. It is proposed that an educational program focused on the physiology of infant oral feeding, available evidence-based tools and interventions would assist NICU caregivers develop structured guidelines to improve infants' safe and efficient attainment of independent oral feeding.
The International Image of the Earliest Departure Port of the Maritime Silk Road: A Corpus-driven Study of English News Reports on Guangzhou

ABSTRACT Deng, F. ; Li, Z. ; Li, Y. , and Lyu, J., 2020. The international image of the earliest departure port of the Maritime Silk Road: A corpus-driven study of English news reports on Guangzhou. In: Yang, Y. ; Mi, C. ; Zhao, L. , and Lam, S. (eds.), Global Topics and New Trends in Coastal Research: Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 103, pp. 1070–1074. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Guangzhou, as the “earliest departure port of the Maritime Silk Road” and an international city, has attracted more and more attention at home and abroad. News is an important tool to spread information and record the social events and keywords are often taken to be markers of “aboutness” to indicate the main idea of the news reports. This paper retrieves the keywords from two self-built corpora, Corpus of Guangzhou's Local Media Reports and Corpus of China's Media Reports, which cover the news reports on Guangzhou from 2010 to 2018, and then studies the collocations and semantic prosody of the keywords. The research results show that as to the similarities, the news reports from both Guangzhou's local media and China's media are becoming internationalized recently. Furthermore, they both pay close attention to the holding of Asian Games, actions given by Guangzhou's government, the incity and international development of Guangzhou. However, the coverage of news reports by Guangzhou's local media is larger than that of news reports by China's media; Guangzhou's local media mainly targets readers within the city but China's media mainly targets readers in the whole country; Guangzhou's local media stresses the connection with surrounding cities while China's media emphasizes the connection with domestic main cities. In addition, Guangzhou's local media uses a positive tone to give news reports while China's media uses a neutral one when reporting Guangzhou.
Plastid osmotic stress influences cell differentiation at the plant shoot apex

The balance between proliferation and differentiation in the plant shoot apical meristem is controlled by regulatory loops involving the phytohormone cytokinin and stem cell identity genes. Concurrently, cellular differentiation in the developing shoot is coordinated with the environmental and developmental status of plastids within those cells. Here we employ an Arabidopsis thaliana mutant exhibiting constitutive plastid osmotic stress to investigate the molecular and genetic pathways connecting plastid osmotic stress with cell differentiation at the shoot apex. msl2 msl3 mutants exhibit dramatically enlarged and deformed plastids in the shoot apical meristem, and develop a mass of callus tissue at the shoot apex. Callus production in this mutant requires the cytokinin receptor AHK2 and is characterized by increased cytokinin levels, down-regulation of cytokinin signaling inhibitors ARR7 and ARR15, and induction of the stem cell identity gene WUSCHEL. Furthermore, plastid stress-induced apical callus production requires elevated plastidic ROS, ABA biosynthesis, the retrograde signaling protein GUN1, and ABI4. These results are consistent with a model wherein the cytokinin/WUS pathway and retrograde signaling control cell differentiation at the shoot apex. SUMMARY STATEMENT Plastid osmotic stress influences differentiation at the plant shoot apex. Two established mechanisms that control proliferation, the cytokinin/WUSCHEL stem cell identity loop and a plastid-to-nucleus signaling pathway, are implicated.
Efficacy of Ankle Supports on Dynamic Postural Control in Patients with Chronic Ankle Instability

ABSTRACT Introduction The chronic ankle instability (CAI) that results from a lateral ankle sprain causes balance deficits during quiet standing. Dynamic postural control in patients with CAI can be improved using soft and semirigid braces. Objective This study was aimed at investigating the effects of soft and semirigid ankle supports on dynamic postural stability in subjects with CAI. Materials and Methods Fifteen subjects with unilateral CAI as the CAI group and 15 healthy control subjects as the control group were recruited for participation in the study. Stability indexes (SIs), including overall SI, anteroposterior SI, and mediolateral SI, were determined using the Biodex Balance System (BBS), and lower-limb reach was ascertained using the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT). These indicators were measured under three conditions: without orthosis, with soft orthosis, and with semirigid orthosis. Results Significant differences in overall SI were found between the affected and healthy feet of the CAI group (P = 0.009) and between the affected feet of the CAI group and the healthy feet of the control group (P = 0.031). The SEBT revealed significant differences between the injured and uninjured sides of the CAI group in the anterior, anterior-medial, and anterior-lateral directions. With the use of soft ankle supports, no significant differences were found between the affected and unaffected limbs of the CAI group in the overall and mediolateral SIs of BBS test and the anterior-medial (P = 0.057) and anterior-lateral (P = 0.07) directions of SEBT. Conclusions The soft ankle support has more effect on the balance of the CAI patients in comparison with the semirigid orthosis.
ASAR Mesoscale Ocean Front Image Contour Extracting Method

ABSTRACT Ma, G. and Wei, M. , 2020. ASAR mesoscale ocean front image contour extracting method. In: Yang, Y. ; Mi, C. ; Zhao, L. , and Lam, S. (eds.), Global Topics and New Trends in Coastal Research: Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 103, pp. 947–951. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. When the current method is used to extract the contour of the ocean front image, it can not effectively remove the noise in the ocean front image. The extracted results are not consistent with the actual situation, and there are problems of poor denoising effect and low accuracy of the extracted results. The ASAR mesoscale extracting method of the ocean front image contour was proposed. The ocean front image was subjected to geometric correction during the pretreatment process, and the Contourlet transform was used to remove the noise in the ocean front image. The gray co-occurrence matrix was used to select gray co-occurrence matrix eigenvectors such as mean, variance, homogeneity and dissimilarity. The feature of the ocean front image contour was obtained by the above eigenvectors, and the contour of the ocean front image was extracted by its feature. The experimental results show that the proposed method has good denoising effect, high accuracy of extraction results.
Staphylococcus aureus Population Structure and Genomic Profiles in Asymptomatic Carriers in Switzerland

Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause for clinical infections and food intoxications, causing over 100,000 yearly cases of bacteremia in the United States and 434 food-borne outbreaks in the European Union. Approximately 30% of the population permanently carry S. aureus asymptomatically in their nasal cavity. The risk of infection and transmission to food items or the environment is higher in individuals that are nasally colonized. In addition, S. aureus can acquire various antimicrobial resistances leading to therapeutic failure, additional medical costs, and fatalities. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) cause a considerable burden of disease in humans and animals. MRSA carriage has been associated with animal and in particular livestock contact. Extensive current data on the virulence gene profiles, as well as data on antimicrobial resistance determinants is crucial in developing effective strategies to mitigate the burden of disease. To this end, we screened the anterior nares of 160 test subjects (87 pupils and 73 members of farmer families) in Switzerland for S. aureus carriage. A total of 73 S. aureus isolates were obtained. Factors such as exposure to farm or companion animals and personal medical history were recorded using a questionnaire. Using a DNA microarray, isolates were assigned to clonal complexes (CCs), and virulence and resistance gene profiles were determined. The collected strains were assigned to 20 CCs, among others CC1, CC7, CC8, CC15, CC30, CC45, CC97, and CC398. Two MRSA strains and one multiresistant isolate carrying genes blaZ/I/R, InuA, aadD, tetK, and fosB were isolated from farmers with intensive exposure to animals. Strains carrying pvl, causing severe skin lesions and necrotizing pneumonia, as well as tetracycline, erythromycin, and kanamycin resistance genes were found in individuals that had taken antibiotics during the last year. A variety of superantigenic toxin genes was detected, including among others, the toxic shock syndrome toxin (tst1), and various enterotoxins (sea, sec, sel, and the egc cluster). Contact to chickens was identified as a significant factor contributing to S. aureus colonization.
Policy and Pandemic: The Changing Practice of Nephrology During the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Outbreak

ABSTRACT The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has changed care delivery for patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). We explore the United States healthcare system as it pertains to dialysis care, including existing policies, modifications implemented in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and possible next steps for policy makers and nephrologists. This includes policies related to resource management, use of telemedicine, prioritization of dialysis access procedures, expansion of home dialysis modalities, administrative duties, and quality assessment. The government has already established policies that have instated some flexibilities to help providers focus their response to the crisis. However, future policy during and following the COVID-19 pandemic can bolster our ability to optimize care for patients with ESKD. Key themes in this perspective are the importance of policy flexibility, clear strategies for emergency preparedness, and robust health systems that maximize accessibility and patient autonomy.
Combined mineral N and organic waste fertilization – effects on crop growth and soil properties

SUMMARY An 8-year-long field experiment (1998–2006) was established in Sweden with the aim of evaluating the effects of applying organic wastes in combination with mineral nitrogen (N) to agricultural soil. Sewage sludge (SS), biogas residues (BR) and municipal compost (CO) were applied annually at rates corresponding to 50 kg N/ha and supplementary mineral N fertilizer also applied at rates corresponding to 50 kg N/ha. The effects were evaluated by analysing crop yield and soil chemical and microbiological properties. The results showed that none of the fertilizers produced significantly higher yield of barley over the 8-year period compared to any other. Biogas residue proved to be particularly beneficial for the substrate-induced respiration (SIR) in soil and increased the proportion of active to dormant micro-organisms. Treatment with SS increased plant-available phosphorus (P-AL) and N mineralization (N-min), whereas CO increased the basal respiration (B-resp). Changes in the microbial community structure were assayed by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP); the T-RFLP signatures of the soil bacterial community were largely unaffected by the addition of organic waste. Of the chemical properties assayed, the largest increases were seen in P-AL, where SS produced the highest value. Treatments with the organic wastes showed no negative effects other than a slight decrease in B-resp induced by SS and BR. In conclusion, the microbiological activity in the soil responded more rapidly than the changes in the community structure and the chemical properties to changes in the soil environment.
Design and spectral analysis of mixed-carrier communication for sixth-generation networks

The fifth-generation (5G) wireless cellular network is expected to be ready for commercialization within this year. The huge spectrum enabled by the millimetre-wave (mm-Wave) technology is expected to introduce a hype in data usage per user. The 5G is also expected to concurrently support a wide variety of services; however, the practical trade-offs associated with concurrent services require further investigations. In this work, a physical layer (PHY) design to support visible light communications is considered to efficiently support concurrent services that are essential to serve the needs of the sixth-generation (6G) network. A novel communication technique, i.e. mixed-carrier communication (MCC), is proposed. MCC enables simultaneous wireless services such as broadband access, low-rate internet-of-things connectivity, device-free sensing, and device-based localization. This study presents, firstly, a thorough investigation of the design procedure of the novel MCC PHY, secondly, the spectral profile of MCC towards proper spectrum management and interference analysis, and thirdly, performance evaluation based on modelling, simulation and an experimental proof-of-concept. The design steps recommend that the system performance degrades beyond a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold. For instance, SNR of 25.1 dB and 2.6652 optical power ratio between the communications signal and the driving envelope, for 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (64-QAM), are recommended to avoid performance degradation due to clipping. Simulation results show an interference-immune performance of a properly managed spectrum. For a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10−3, an SNR penalty of 2–5 dB is observed for different interference scenarios. The experimental measurements illustrate a high-quality signal of 21 dB SNR at 50 cm and 10−3 BER using 64-QAM.
Public Service Motivation and Turnover Intention: Testing the Mediating Effects of Job Attitudes

Research on the role of public service motivation (PSM) relating to work performance has been a significant topic in recent years; however, the relationship between PSM and job performance remains mixed. To investigate whether job attitudes mediate the effect of PSM on public employees’ turnover intention, this study integrated job satisfaction and organizational commitment into a single model. Based on a sample of 587 full-time Chinese public employees, our findings revealed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment, respectively, mediated the negative association between PSM and employees’ turnover intention. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that job satisfaction and organizational commitment sequentially mediated the effects of PSM on turnover intention. As a result, our findings suggested that public employees with high PSM levels preferred to stay in the public organizations. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.
Hotspot of Organic Carbon Export Driven by Mesoscale Eddies in the Slope Region of the Northern South China Sea

Mesoscale eddies frequently observed in the northern slope region of the South China Sea (SCS) significantly modulate the biological and biogeochemical behavior of organic carbon (OC). There have been few comparative studies on biological and biogeochemical processes in a pair of anticyclonic eddies (ACEs) and cyclonic eddies (CEs) in continental slope. In our research, an ACE–CE pair was observed in June 2015 on the northern slope of the SCS. The surface dissolved OC (DOC) was approximately 3 μmol L–1 higher in the ACE than that of the CE, and particulate OC (POC) was approximately 3.9 μmol L–1 higher in the CE than in the ACE. Along the transect across the ACE and CE, the concentrations of DOC and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM) were coincident with the downwelling and upwelling in the eddies. In the euphotic layer, the total OC (TOC) stock in the ACE was higher than that of the CE with a lower POC/TOC ratio. There was net consumption of both DOC and POC in the upper 120 m in the ACE; however, net POC production was observed within the CE. The results also indicated that the production of fresh OC was higher in the CE while carbon export was higher in ACE. The vertical export rates of DOC and POC at 120 m in the ACE were approximately 70.2 and 1.69 mmol C m–2 day–1. Summarizing these measurements, the horizontal export of TOC across the slope to the SCS basin transported by dual eddies was estimated more than 22.1 × 109 g C. This estimate implies that mesoscale eddies can contribute significantly to carbon sequestration in the SCS.
Serum GDF15, a Promising Biomarker in Obese Patients Undergoing Heart Surgery

Background: Obesity is a risk factor that negatively impacts outcomes in patients undergoing heart surgery by mechanisms that are not well-defined nor predicated on BMI alone. This knowledge gap has fuelled a search for biomarkers associated with cardiovascular diseases that could provide clinical insight to surgeons. One such biomarker is growth differentiation factor15(GDF15), associated with inflammation, metabolism, and heart failure outcomes but not yet examined in the context of obesity and cardiac surgery outcomes. Methods: Patients undergoing open-heart surgery were consented and enrolled for blood and tissue (atria) sampling at the time of surgery. Biomarker analysis was carried out using ELISA and western blot/qPCR, respectively. Biomarker screening was classified by inflammation(NLR, GDF15, Galectin3, ST2, TNFR2), heart failure(HF)/remodeling(NT-proBNP) and metabolism(glycemia, lipid profile). Patients were categorized based on BMI: obese group (BMI ≥30.0) and non-obese group(BMI 20.0–29.9). Subsequent stratification of GDF15 high patients was conservatively set as being in the 75th percentile. Results: A total of 80 patients undergoing any open-heart surgical interventions were included in the study. Obese (mean BMI = 35.8, n = 38) and non-obese (mean BMI = 25.7, n = 42) groups had no significant differences in age, sex, or co-morbidities. Compared to other biomarkers, plasma GDF15 (mean 1,736 vs. 1,207 ng/l, p < 0.001) was significantly higher in obese patients compared to non-obese. Plasma GDF15 also displayed a significant linear correlation with BMI (R2 = 0.097; p = 0.0049). Atria tissue was shown to be a significant source of GDF15 protein and tissue levels significantly correlated with plasma GDF15 (R2 = 0.4, p = 0.0004). Obesity was not associated with early/late mortality at median follow-up >2years. However, patients with high GDF15 (>1,580 ng/l) had reduced survival (65%) compared to the remaining patients with lower GDF15 levels (95%) by Kaplan Meier Analysis (median >2 years; p = 0.007). Conclusions: Circulating GDF15 is a salient biomarker likely sourced from heart tissue that appears to predict higher risk obese patients for adverse outcomes. More importantly, elevated GDF15 accounted for more sensitive outcome association than BMI at 2 years post-cardiac surgery, suggesting it heralds links to pathogenicity and should be actively studied prospectively and dynamically in a post-operative follow-up. Trial number: NCT03248921.