Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Customized, degradable, functionally graded scaffold for potential treatment of early stage osteonecrosis of the femoral head

Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a debilitating disease that results in progressive collapse of the femoral head and subsequent degenerative arthritis. Few treatments provide both sufficient mechanical support and biological cues for regeneration of bone and vascularity when the femoral head is still round and therefore salvageable. We designed and 3D printed a functionally graded scaffold (FGS) made of polycaprolactone (PCL) and β‐tricalcium phosphate (β‐TCP) with spatially controlled porosity, degradation, and mechanical strength properties to reconstruct necrotic bone tissue in the femoral head. The FGS was designed to have low porosity segments (15% in proximal and distal segments) and a high porosity segment (60% in middle segment) according to the desired mechanical and osteoconductive properties at each specific site after implantation into the femoral head. The FGS was inserted into a bone tunnel drilled in rabbit femoral neck and head, and at 8 weeks after implantation, the tissue formation as well as scaffold degradation was analyzed. Micro‐CT analysis demonstrated that the FGS‐filled group had a significantly higher bone ingrowth ratio compared to the empty‐tunnel group, and the difference was higher at the distal low porosity segments. The in vivo degradation rate of the scaffold was higher in the proximal and distal segments than in the middle segment. Histological analysis of both non‐decalcified and calcified samples clearly indicated new bone ingrowth and bone marrow‐containing bone formation across the FGS. A 3D printed PCL‐β‐TCP FGS appears to be a promising customized resorbable load‐bearing implant for treatment of early stage ONFH. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 36:1002–1011, 2018.
ARL11 regulates lipopolysaccharide-stimulated macrophage activation by promoting mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling

ADP-ribosylation factor-like GTPase 11 (ARL11) is a cancer-predisposing gene that has remained functionally uncharacterized to date. In this study, we report that ARL11 is endogenously expressed in mouse and human macrophages and regulates their activation in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. Accordingly, depletion of ARL11 impaired both LPS-stimulated pro-inflammatory cytokine production by macrophages and their ability to control intracellular replication of Salmonella. LPS-stimulated activation of extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) was substantially compromised in Arl11-silenced macrophages. In contrast, increased expression of ARL11 led to constitutive ERK1/2 phosphorylation, resulting in macrophage exhaustion. Finally, we found that ARL11 forms a complex with phospho-ERK in macrophages within minutes of LPS stimulation. Taken together, our findings establish ARL11 as a novel regulator of ERK signaling in macrophages, required for macrophage activation and immune function.
Translation and cultural appropriateness of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 in Afrikaans

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 is the ‘gold standard’ autism spectrum disorder observational assessment, and it is increasingly used in South Africa. However, its use is limited to English speakers, as it has not been translated into the country’s other 10 official languages. Moreover, the cultural appropriateness of this tool has not been explored in South Africa. The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 was translated into Afrikaans and assessed for cultural appropriateness to the ‘coloured’ population from low-middle socioeconomic status backgrounds in the Western Cape Province. Using a mixed-methods approach, three components associated with method bias in the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 were investigated: language used, social interactions and activities, and materials. An ethnographic investigation of play, social interaction and social activities was conducted in a community sample (n = 40), and the Afrikaans Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 was pre-piloted in a clinical sample (n = 7). Results highlighted unique aspects of the language (‘Kaaps’) that need to be considered during Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 administration. The social interaction demands of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 appeared appropriate, and sufficient familiarity with Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 materials and activities was found to support the use of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2. Guidelines for administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 to this population were generated to improve cultural sensitivity and cultural appropriateness and to reduce method bias.
Democratizing technology: pleasure, utility and expressiveness in DIY and maker practice

DIY, hacking, and craft have recently drawn attention in HCI and CSCW, largely as a collaborative and creative hobbyist practice. We shift the focus from the recreational elements of this practice to the ways in which it democratizes design and manufacturing. This democratized technological practice, we argue, unifies playfulness, utility, and expressiveness, relying on some industrial infrastructures while creating demand for new types of tools and literacies. Thriving on top of collaborative digital systems, the Maker movement both implicates and impacts professional designers. As users move more towards personalization and reappropriation, new design opportunities are created for HCI.
Pilot beamforming for massive machine type communication systems

In this paper, we propose a novel pilot beamforming and CSI acquisition strategy for machine-type-communication systems to achieve reduction in pilot overhead and improve the channel estimation performance. Key idea of the proposed beam-forming technique is to sparsify the time-domain channel vector using the beamforming. To be specific, using the deliberately designed beamforming weight, we minimize nonzero taps and thus sparsify the (beamformed) channel vector. Due to this, only a few samples are required to perform the channel estimation of beamformed pilots so that whole CSI can be acquired with partial pilot symbols in time and frequency. From the numerical evaluations, we show that the proposed scheme outperforms conventional channel estimation schemes, and achieves NT-fold reduction in the pilot overhead. Also, the proposed scheme can be applied for beamforming weight of energy harvesting.
Camera Trapping: A Contemporary Approach to Monitoring Invasive Rodents in High Conservation Priority Ecosystems

Invasive rodent species have established on 80% of the world's islands causing significant damage to island environments. Insular ecosystems support proportionally more biodiversity than comparative mainland areas, highlighting them as critical for global biodiversity conservation. Few techniques currently exist to adequately detect, with high confidence, species that are trap-adverse such as the black rat, Rattus rattus, in high conservation priority areas where multiple non-target species persist. This study investigates the effectiveness of camera trapping for monitoring invasive rodents in high conservation areas, and the influence of habitat features and density of colonial-nesting seabirds on rodent relative activity levels to provide insights into their potential impacts. A total of 276 camera sites were established and left in situ for 8 days. Identified species were recorded in discrete 15 min intervals, referred to as ‘events’. In total, 19 804 events were recorded. From these, 31 species were identified comprising 25 native species and six introduced. Two introduced rodent species were detected: the black rat (90% of sites), and house mouse Mus musculus (56% of sites). Rodent activity of both black rats and house mice were positively associated with the structural density of habitats. Density of seabird burrows was not strongly associated with relative activity levels of rodents, yet rodents were still present in these areas. Camera trapping enabled a large number of rodents to be detected with confidence in site-specific absences and high resolution to quantify relative activity levels. This method enables detection of multiple species simultaneously with low impact (for both target and non-target individuals); an ideal strategy for monitoring trap-adverse invasive rodents in high conservation areas.
Online Sparse Passive Aggressive Learning with Kernels

Conventional online kernel methods often yield an unbounded large number of support vectors, making them ineﬃcient and non-scalable for large-scale applications. Recent studies on bounded kernel-based online learning have attempted to overcome this shortcoming. Although they can bound the number of support vectors at each iteration, most of them fail to bound the number of support vectors for the ﬁnal output solution which is often obtained by averaging the series of solutions over all the iterations. In this paper, we propose a novel kernel-based online learning method, Sparse Passive Aggressive learning (SPA), which can output a ﬁnal solution with a bounded number of support vectors. The key idea of our method is to explore an eﬃcient stochastic sampling strategy, which turns an example into a new support vector with some probability that depends on the loss suﬀered by the example. We theoretically prove that the proposed SPA algorithm achieves an optimal regret bound in expectation, and empirically show that the new algorithm outperforms various bounded kernel-based online learning algorithms.
Impact of the end of CMOS miniaturization on ICT and the world after that

The downsizing of electron devices has always been the key to promote the computer performance and energy consumption for the past 70 years since its beginning. However, it should be noted now that the downsizing of the electron devices, — such as MOSFETs in CMOS LSI — cannot continue forever, and expected to reach its limit about 10 years from now. Thus, no big progress expected in the microprocessor level any more, but the rapid growth of IoT technologies will connect many different kinds of devices, resulting in the significant enhancement of the processing abilities in our society. Also, AI (Artificial Intelligence) constructed on the semiconductor computer will become much wiser than human brain in specific purpose use, helping our society promote to higher stage. In a long term, however, even with the tremendous progress of AI technologies, the system fabricated on the solid-state devices and their network cannot compete with the existing bio system constructed on organic materials in efficiency and maintenance. Thus, the technology how to use the bio system better, or how to combine electron and bio systems will become very important.
Does ‘You Are What You Eat’ Apply to Mangrove Grapsid Crabs?

In tropical mangroves, brachyuran crabs have been observed to consume high percentages of leaf litter production. However, questions concerning their ability to assimilate this low-quality food remain, as stable isotope analysis of C and N does not seem to support assimilation. Individuals of the common eastern Australian mangrove grapsid Parasesarma erythodactyla feeding on a mangrove leaf litter or mangrove+microphytobenthos diet developed a significantly higher hepatosomatic index than those with access to only sediment. Lipid biomarker analysis and feeding experiments using 13C and 15N-enriched mangrove leaf litter confirmed rapid assimilation of mangrove C and N by P. erythodactyla. Eight-week feeding experiments utilizing three food types (mangrove leaf litter, microphytobenthos and prawn muscle) established different food-specific trophic discrimination values (Δδ13C and Δδ15N) that are significantly different from those commonly applied to mixing model calculations. The mean Δδ13C(crab-mangrove) of +5.45‰ was close to the mean and median literature values for grapsid-mangrove pairs in 29 past studies (+5.2±1.8‰ and +5.6‰, respectively), suggesting that this large discrimination may generally be characteristic of detritivorous grapsid crabs. Solutions from the IsoConc mixing model using our determined trophic discrimination values suggest significantly higher and dominant contributions of mangrove C to the diet than those based on the global mean trophic discrimination values. Our results reaffirm the physiological capacity for and important mediating role of grapsid crabs in processing low-quality mangrove C in tropical estuaries, and caution against the use of global trophic discrimination values in stable isotope analysis of food-web data, especially those involving detritivores. While recent studies have questioned the trophic significance of mangrove detritus in coastal food chains, the contribution of this productive carbon source needs to be re-assessed in the light of these data.
Strength of Shear Studs in Steel Deck on Composite Beams and Joists

Composite beam or joist and slab systems typically provide the most efficient design alternative in steel frame construction, and indeed it is one of these systems that make steel an economically attractive alternative to concrete framed structures. Composite beam specification requirements and design aids are given in the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Manual. The LRFD composite beam design procedure results in designs that are typically 10-15 percent more economical than those obtained using the AISC allowable stress design (ASD) procedure. The efficiency of composite beam design using LRFD procedures has, in the authors' opinions, been the primary motivating factor for the use of the LRFD specification to date. The design strength and stiffness of composite beams depends on the shear connection behavior. The strength of the shear connectors may be reduced because of the influence of the steel deck geometry. An empirical expression for this reduction was developed by evaluating results of composite beam tests in which the deck ribs were oriented perpendicular to the steel beam. A reduced stud strength is obtained by multiplying the stud reduction factor, SRF, by the nominal strength of a shear stud, Qn. The expression for the nominal stud strength, which has been incorporated in the AISC LRFD specification and is the basis for the tabular values given in the AISC ASD specification, is given by:
Oligotyping reveals differences between gut microbiomes of free-ranging sympatric Namibian carnivores (Acinonyx jubatus, Canis mesomelas) on a bacterial species-like level

Recent gut microbiome studies in model organisms emphasize the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on the variation of the bacterial composition and its impact on the overall health status of the host. Species occurring in the same habitat might share a similar microbiome, especially if they overlap in ecological and behavioral traits. So far, the natural variation in microbiomes of free-ranging wildlife species has not been thoroughly investigated. The few existing studies exploring microbiomes through 16S rRNA gene reads clustered sequencing reads into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on a similarity threshold (e.g., 97%). This approach, in combination with the low resolution of target databases, generally limits the level of taxonomic assignments to the genus level. However, distinguishing natural variation of microbiomes in healthy individuals from “abnormal” microbial compositions that affect host health requires knowledge of the “normal” microbial flora at a high taxonomic resolution. This gap can now be addressed using the recently published oligotyping approach, which can resolve closely related organisms into distinct oligotypes by utilizing subtle nucleotide variation. Here, we used Illumina MiSeq to sequence amplicons generated from the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to investigate the gut microbiome of two free-ranging sympatric Namibian carnivore species, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and the black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas). Bacterial phyla with proportions >0.2% were identical for both species and included Firmicutes, Fusobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. At a finer taxonomic resolution, black-backed jackals exhibited 69 bacterial taxa with proportions ≥0.1%, whereas cheetahs had only 42. Finally, oligotyping revealed that shared bacterial taxa consisted of distinct oligotype profiles. Thus, in contrast to 3% OTUs, oligotyping can detect fine-scale taxonomic differences between microbiomes.
Fermented Food and Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases: A Review

Fermented foods represent a significant fraction of human diets. Although their impact on health is positively perceived, an objective evaluation is still missing. We have, therefore, reviewed meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCT) investigating the relationship between fermented foods and non-transmissible chronic diseases. Overall, after summarizing 25 prospective studies on dairy products, the association of fermented dairy with cancer was found to be neutral, whereas it was weakly beneficial, though inconsistent, for specific aspects of cardio-metabolic health, in particular stroke and cheese intake. The strongest evidence for a beneficial effect was for yoghurt on risk factors of type 2 diabetes. Although mechanisms explaining this association have not been validated, an increased bioavailability of insulinotropic amino acids and peptides as well as the bacterial biosynthesis of vitamins, in particular vitamin K2, might contribute to this beneficial effect. However, the heterogeneity in the design of the studies and the investigated foods impedes a definitive assessment of these associations. The literature on fermented plants is characterized by a wealth of in vitro data, whose positive results are not corroborated in humans due to the absence of RCTs. Finally, none of the RCTs were specifically designed to address the impact of food fermentation on health. This question should be addressed in future human studies.
The OU-ISIR Gait Database Comprising the Treadmill Dataset

This paper describes a large-scale gait database comprising the Treadmill Dataset. The dataset focuses on variations in walking conditions and includes 200 subjects with 25 views, 34 subjects with 9 speed variations from 2km/h to 10km/h with a 1km/h interval, and 68 subjects with at most 32 clothes variations. The range of variations in these three factors is significantly larger than that of previous gait databases, and therefore, the Treadmill Dataset can be used in research on invariant gait recognition. Moreover, the dataset contains more diverse gender and ages than the existing databases and hence it enables us to evaluate gait-based gender and age group classification in more statistically reliable way.
Identification and Validation of New Alleles of FALSIFLORA and COMPOUND INFLORESCENCE Genes Controlling the Number of Branches in Tomato Inflorescence

The architecture of inflorescences shows extensive diversity in both branching frequency and flower number, which eventually, determines agricultural productivity. In this study, F2 (second filial) populations derived from a cross between Solanum lycopersicum 10AS111A (highly-branched inflorescence) and the S. pimpinellifolium PI124039 (inflorescence having a single branch) were used to decipher the genetic control of branch number (BN) of inflorescence in plants bearing small-sized tomato fruits. The segregation ratio of single- and moderately-branched types to the highly-branched type was significantly different from 3:1 but not different from 15:1 at p < 0.05, suggesting that more than one gene controls the branch number of the inflorescences. Through genome-wide comparison of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profiles between the highly-branched type bulk and the single-branch type bulk constructed using the F2 plants, we identified a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) on chromosome 3 (58.75–61.4 Mb) and a minor QTL on chromosome 2 (32.95–37.1 Mb), which explained 15.7% and 6.1% of the BN variation, respectively. FALSIFLORA (FA) and COMPOUND INFLORESCENCE (S) genes, located in the QTL peak regions, caught our attention. Sequence comparison of the FA and S genes and their promoter regions from the two parental lines revealed that both contain missense mutations in the coding regions. Segregation analysis of FA and S alleles by high-resolution melting (HRM) method confirmed that alleles for both genes from 10AS111A significantly increased the BN and the size of inflorescence. In conclusion, we propose that SNPs in coding sequences might cause changes in the function of FA and S genes, which might be important determinants of BN.
Abrupt Motion Tracking Via Intensively Adaptive Markov-Chain Monte Carlo Sampling

The robust tracking of abrupt motion is a challenging task in computer vision due to its large motion uncertainty. While various particle filters and conventional Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have been proposed for visual tracking, these methods often suffer from the well-known local-trap problem or from poor convergence rate. In this paper, we propose a novel sampling-based tracking scheme for the abrupt motion problem in the Bayesian filtering framework. To effectively handle the local-trap problem, we first introduce the stochastic approximation Monte Carlo (SAMC) sampling method into the Bayesian filter tracking framework, in which the filtering distribution is adaptively estimated as the sampling proceeds, and thus, a good approximation to the target distribution is achieved. In addition, we propose a new MCMC sampler with intensive adaptation to further improve the sampling efficiency, which combines a density-grid-based predictive model with the SAMC sampling, to give a proposal adaptation scheme. The proposed method is effective and computationally efficient in addressing the abrupt motion problem. We compare our approach with several alternative tracking algorithms, and extensive experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method in dealing with various types of abrupt motions.