Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Interface Dynamism on Learning Procedural Motor Skills

The effectiveness of dynamic versus static visualizations in computer-based training (CBT) systems has generated a lot of research effort with divergent findings. The work reported in this paper examines a novel paradigm that learning a procedural motor skill may be enhanced by instructional visualizations that optimizes the construction of mental task models. We investigated the interaction of different interface visualizations of a CBT system with the cognitive characteristics of trainees by comparing three conditions of interface dynamism in a mechanical motor skills learning task. Ninetyone participants across three treatment groups performed a disassembly motor task.After controlling for effects of spatial visualization abilities, participants who used training interfaces with dynamic information content completed the post-learning motor task faster and more accurately than those who used interfaces with a static visual content. These findings suggest that instructional interfaces having motor coordinating information, which is intrinsic to the execution of procedural motor tasks, are more suitable for CBT of novice trainees. It may also imply the possibility of a common approach to the design and implementation of CBT systems, which is independent of learner’s cognitive abilities.
Growth-blocking peptide expressed in the insect nervous system--cloning and functional characterization.

Growth-blocking peptide (GBP) is an insect biogenic peptide that retards larval growth and, consequently, delays the onset of pupation of lepidopteran larvae. Transcription of the GBP gene has been proven to be regulated in a tissue-dependent manner by an approximately 0.8-kb mRNA transcript in fat body and 2.5-kb transcript in the brain central nervous system (CNS) [Hayakawa, Y. , Ohnishi, A. , Yamanaka, A. , Izumi, S. & Tomino, S. (1995) FEBS Lett. 367, 185-189]. The GBP cDNA in the brain CNS was isolated, sequenced and found to be almost identical with that in the fat body, except that it encodes a long 5'-untranslated region (approximately 1.1 kb), thus indicating that the brain CNS is synthesized as a polyprotein precursor and released through posttranslational processing in the same manner as that predicted in the fat body. Sequence analyses of the genomic GBP gene fragments demonstrated that the 5'-untranslated region contains an intron encoding a sequence element, TGATAA, which has been reported to be important for expression in the insect larval fat body, suggesting that this element contributes to a tissue-specific expression of the shorter GBP mRNA in fat body. Ribonuclease protection assays showed that parasitization by a parasitic wasp elevated the expression of GBP mRNA in brain CNS. The parasitization-induced increase of GBP precursor and GBP concentrations was also demonstrated in brain CNS. Brain CNS dopamine was increased eightfold by incubating the tissue with GBP for 8 h through the elevation of dopa decarboxylase activity by a transcriptional enhancement perhaps due to GBP-induced increase of cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration. Dopamine elevation reduced in vitro incorporation of methionine into proteins synthesized in brain CNS.
Constitutively Active β-Catenin Promotes Expansion of Multipotent Hematopoietic Progenitors in Culture1

This study was designed to investigate one component of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway that has been implicated in stem cell self-renewal. Retroviral-mediated introduction of stable β-catenin to primitive murine bone marrow cells allowed the expansion of multipotential c-KitlowSca-1low/−CD19− CD11b/Mac-1−Flk-2−CD43+AA4.1+NK1.1−CD3−CD11c−Gr-1−CD45R/B220+ cells in the presence of stromal cells and cytokines. They generated myeloid, T, and B lineage lymphoid cells in culture, but had no T lymphopoietic potential when transplanted. Stem cell factor and IL-6 were found to be minimal requirements for long-term, stromal-free propagation, and a β-catenin-transduced cell line was maintained for 5 mo with these defined conditions. Although multipotential and responsive to many normal stimuli in culture, it was unable to engraft several types of irradiated recipients. These findings support previous studies that have implicated the canonical Wnt pathway signaling in regulation of multipotent progenitors. In addition, we demonstrate how it may be experimentally manipulated to generate valuable cell lines.
Remyelinating Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cell miRNAs from the Sfmbt2 Cluster Promote Cell Cycle Arrest and Differentiation

Oligodendrocyte (OL) loss contributes to the functional deficits underlying diseases with a demyelinating component. Remyelination by oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) can restore these deficits. To understand the role that microRNAs (miRNAs) play in remyelination, 2′,3′-cyclic-nucleotide 3′-phosphodiesterase-EGFP+ mice were treated with cuprizone, and OPCs were sorted from the corpus callosum. Microarray analysis revealed that Sfmbt2 family miRNAs decreased during cuprizone treatment. One particular Sfmbt2 miRNA, miR-297c-5p, increased during mouse OPC differentiation in vitro and during callosal development in vivo. When overexpressed in both mouse embryonic fibroblasts and rat OPCs (rOPCs), cell cycle analysis revealed that miR-297c-5p promoted G1/G0 arrest. Additionally, miR-297c-5p transduction increased the number of O1+ rOPCs during differentiation. Luciferase reporter assays confirmed that miR-297c-5p targets cyclin T2 (CCNT2), the regulatory subunit of positive transcription elongation factor b, a complex that inhibits OL maturation. Furthermore, CCNT2-specific knockdown promoted rOPC differentiation while not affecting cell cycle status. Together, these data support a dual role for miR-297c-5p as both a negative regulator of OPC proliferation and a positive regulator of OL maturation via its interaction with CCNT2. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This work describes the role of oligodendrocyte progenitor cell (OPC) microRNAs (miRNAs) during remyelination and development in vivo and differentiation in vitro. This work highlights the importance of miRNAs to OPC biology and describes miR-297c-5p, a novel regulator of OPC function. In addition, we identified CCNT2 as a functional target, thus providing a mechanism by which miR-297c-5p imparts its effects on differentiation. These data are important, given our lack of understanding of OPC miRNA regulatory networks and their potential clinical value. Therefore, efforts to understand the role of miR-297c-5p in pathological conditions and its potential for facilitating repair may provide future therapeutic strategies to treat demyelination.
Cooperative MIMO-OFDM Cellular System with Soft Handover Between Distributed Base Station Antennas

Cooperative processing of transmitted signal from several multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) base stations (BS) is considered for users located within a soft handover (SHO) region. The downlink resource allocation problem with different BS power constraints is studied for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system with adaptive MIMO transmission. Joint design of the linear transmit and receive beamformers in a MIMO multiuser transmission subject to per BS power constraints is considered. A solution for the weighted sum rate maximization problem is proposed. The proposed algorithm is shown to provide a very efficient solution despite of the fact that the global optimality cannot be guaranteed due to the non-convexity of the optimization problem. Moreover, efficient resource allocation method based on zero forcing transmission is provided. The impact of the size of a SHO region, the overhead from the increased resource utilization, and different inter-cell interference distributions due to the SHO are evaluated by system level simulations. Although the overhead from the SHO processing can be significant, it can be mitigated by using space division multiple access for users having an identical SHO active set composition. The users located at the SHO region may enjoy from greatly increased transmission rates. This translates to significant overall system level gains from the cooperative SHO processing.
Concomitant Use of an Oral Live Pentavalent Human-Bovine Reassortant Rotavirus Vaccine With Licensed Parenteral Pediatric Vaccines in the United States

Background: A live pentavalent rotavirus vaccine (PRV) containing 5 human-bovine (WC3) reassortants expressing human serotypes G1, G2, G3, G4 and P1A[8] was evaluated in a blinded, placebo-controlled study. Possible interactions between PRV and concomitantly administered licensed pediatric vaccines were investigated in a United States-based nested substudy (Concomitant Use Study) of the Rotavirus Efficacy and Safety Trial. Methods: From 2002 to 2003, healthy infants approximately 6 to 12 weeks of age at entry were randomized to receive either 3 oral doses of PRV or placebo at 4- to 10-week intervals. Subjects were also to receive combined Haemophilus influenzae type b and hepatitis B vaccine (2 doses), diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine (3 doses), inactivated poliovirus vaccine (2 doses) and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (3 doses) on the same day; oral poliovirus vaccine was not administered. Immunogenicity was assessed by measuring antibody responses to PRV and antigens contained in the licensed vaccines. Cases of rotavirus gastroenteritis were defined by forceful vomiting and/or ≥3 watery or looser-than-normal stools within a 24-hour period, and detection of rotavirus antigen in the stool. Safety was assessed by reporting of adverse events using diary cards. Results: The Concomitant Use Study enrolled 662 subjects in the PRV group and 696 subjects in the placebo group. For the 17 antigens in the concomitantly administered vaccines, antibody responses were similar in PRV and placebo recipients, except for moderately diminished antibody responses to the pertactin component of pertussis vaccine. Efficacy of PRV against rotavirus gastroenteritis of any severity was 89.5% (95% CI = 26.5–99.8%). PRV was generally well tolerated when given concomitantly with the prespecified vaccines. Conclusions: In this study, antibody responses to the concomitantly administered vaccines were generally similar in PRV and placebo recipients. PRV was efficacious and well tolerated when given concomitantly with pediatric vaccines licensed in the United States.
Block spectral clustering methods for multiple graphs

In data science, data are often represented by using an undirected graph where vertices represent objects and edges describe a relationship between two objects. In many applications, there can be many relations arising from different sources and/or different types of models. Clustering of multiple undirected graphs over the same set of vertices can be studied. Existing clustering methods of multiple graphs involve costly optimization and/or tensor computation. In this paper, we study block spectral clustering methods for these multiple graphs. The main contribution of this paper is to propose and construct block Laplacian matrices for clustering of multiple graphs. We present a novel variant of the Laplacian matrix called the block intra‐normalized Laplacian and prove the conditions required for zero eigenvalues in this variant. We also show that eigenvectors of the constructed block Laplacian matrix can be shown to be solutions of the relaxation of multiple graphs cut problems, and the lower and upper bounds of the optimal solutions of multiple graphs cut problems can also be established. Experimental results are given to demonstrate that the clustering accuracy and the computational time of the proposed method are better than those of tested clustering methods for multiple graphs.
Polarimetric Ship Detection Based on Principle Component Analysis and Sparsity

In this paper, A novel ship detection method based on the principle component analysis technique and sparseness is developed. The model relates components of the covariance matrix. RADARSAT-2 QUAD Mode image is used to demonstrate the efficiency of the method. Compared with HV CFAR detector a better performance of our method is shown. Moreover, this method does not depend on the size of target and therefore offers more adaptability for ship detection.
On exact sampling of stochastic perpetuities

A stochastic perpetuity takes the form D∞=∑ n=0 ∞ exp(Y 1+⋯+Y n )B n , where Y n :n≥0) and (B n :n≥0) are two independent sequences of independent and identically distributed random variables (RVs). This is an expression for the stationary distribution of the Markov chain defined recursively by D n+1=A n D n +B n , n≥0, where A n =e Y n ; D ∞ then satisfies the stochastic fixed-point equation D ∞D̳AD ∞+B, where A and B are independent copies of the A n and B n (and independent of D ∞ on the right-hand side). In our framework, the quantity B n , which represents a random reward at time n, is assumed to be positive, unbounded with EB n p <∞ for some p>0, and have a suitably regular continuous positive density. The quantity Y n is assumed to be light tailed and represents a discount rate from time n to n-1. The RV D ∞ then represents the net present value, in a stochastic economic environment, of an infinite stream of stochastic rewards. We provide an exact simulation algorithm for generating samples of D ∞. Our method is a variation of dominated coupling from the past and it involves constructing a sequence of dominating processes.
Peripheral nerve regeneration using autologous porcine skin‐derived mesenchymal stem cells

Porcine skin‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (pSMSCs) were evaluated on their biological MSC characterizations and differentiation into mesenchymal lineages, along with in vitro and in vivo neural inductions. Isolated pSMSCs showed plate‐adherent growth, expression of various MSC‐marker proteins and transcriptional factors, and differentiation potential into mesenchymal lineages. Neuron‐like cell morphology and various neural markers were highly detected at 6 h and 24 h after in vitro neural induction of pSMSCs, but their neuron‐like characteristics disappeared as induction time extended to 48 and 72 h. To evaluate the in vivo peripheral nerve regeneration potential of pSMSCs, a total of 5 × 106 autologous pSMSCs labelled with tracking dye, supplemented with fibrin glue scaffold and collagen tubulization, were transplanted into the peripheral nerve defected miniature pigs. At 2 and 4 weeks after cell transplantation, well‐preserved transplanted cells and remarkable in vivo nerve regeneration, including histologically complete nerve bundles, were observed in the regenerated nerve tissues. Moreover, S‐100 protein and p75 nerve growth factor receptor were more highly detected in regenerated nerve fibres compared to non‐cell grafted control fibres. These results suggest that autologous pSMSCs transplanted with fibrin glue scaffold can induce prominent nerve regeneration in porcine peripheral nerve defect sites. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Employer-sponsored insurance, health care cost growth, and the economic performance of U.S. Industries.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the effect of growth in health care costs that outpaces gross domestic product (GDP) growth ("excess" growth in health care costs) on employment, gross output, and value added to GDP of U.S. industries. STUDY SETTING We analyzed data from 38 U.S. industries for the period 1987-2005. All data are publicly available from various government agencies. STUDY DESIGN We estimated bivariate and multivariate regressions. To develop the regression models, we assumed that rapid growth in health care costs has a larger effect on economic performance for industries where large percentages of workers receive employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI). We used the estimated regression coefficients to simulate economic outcomes under alternative scenarios of health care cost inflation. RESULTS Faster growth in health care costs had greater adverse effects on economic outcomes for industries with larger percentages of workers who had ESI. We found that a 10 percent increase in excess growth in health care costs would have resulted in 120,803 fewer jobs, US$28,022 million in lost gross output, and US$14,082 million in lost value added in 2005. These declines represent 0.17 to 0.18 percent of employment, gross output, and value added in 2005. CONCLUSION Excess growth in health care costs is adversely affecting the economic performance of U.S. industries.
Effets des rayonnements UV-C sur la réponse de la laitue romaine Lactuca sativa var Claudius aux contraintes biotoques et abiotiques

Appliques a forte dose, les rayonnements UV-C sont deleteres, alors que administres a faibles doses, ces memes rayonnements stimulent des reponses benefiques. Ce phenomene est connu sous le nom d’hormesis et la dose benefique est qualifiee d’hormique. L’application des faibles doses d’UV-C sur les fruits et les legumes en post-recolte a permis donc d’augmenter leur resistance vis a vis des pathogenes (Charles et al, 2008), d’ameliorer leur qualite nutritionnelle (Mercier et al, 2001) et d’ameliorer leur rendement et leur croissance (Siddiqui et al, 2011). Ces travaux ont ete realises sur des especes differentes. Dans le cadre de ma these, nous avons traite une seule espece de laitues romaines var Claudius apres recolte avec une dose non deletere d’UV-C (0.85kJ.m-2) puis nous avons evalue son effet sur leur aspect de resistance aux champignons Botrytis cinerea (BC87) et Sclerotinia minor (SM), sur leurs valeurs nutritionnelles au cours du stockage et sur leurs reponses a la contrainte saline du milieu. L’analyse de tous les resultats obtenus,a mis en evidence que la dose d’UV-C choisie diminue la sensibilite de la laitue romaine a ces deux agents pathogenes (Ouhibi et al. 2014a), ameliore sa valeur nutritionnelle en augmentant la concentration des composees phenoliques et de l’acide ascorbique et acquiere aux plantes provenant de grains pretraitees aux UV-C un meilleur potentiel d'adaptation a la contrainte saline (Ouhibi et al, 2014 b). Le traitement des plantes avec une dose d’UV-C non deletere permet d’agir de facon benefique et simultanement sur differents processus physiologiques.
Analysis and design of photonic crystal based demultiplexer

In this paper, two dimensional photonic crystal ring resonator based demultiplexer is proposed and its characteristics, namely, transmission efficiency, Q factor, resonant wavelength and crosstalk are investigated. The demultiplexing is done by altering the structural parameter values of the structure such as radius of the rod, lattice constant and refractive index of the rod. The output response of the PC based demultiplexer is obtained using two dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) methods and the photonic band gap is obtained by Plane Wave Expansion (PWE) method. As the designed PC based demultiplexer is much smaller than the conventional demultiplexer. Hence it could be useful to implement in Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs).
On the Role of Nitric Oxide in Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation

Nitric oxide (NO) functions in several types of synaptic plasticity, including hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), in which it may serve as a retrograde messenger after postsynaptic NMDA receptor activation. In accordance with a prediction of this hypothesis, and with previous findings using guinea pig tissue, exogenous NO, when paired with a short tetanus (ST) to afferent fibers, generated a stable NMDA receptor-independent potentiation of rat CA1 hippocampal synaptic transmission that occluded LTP. Contrary to predictions, however, the pairing-induced potentiation was abolished in the presence of NO synthase inhibitors, indicating that endogenous NO is required for exogenous NO to facilitate LTP. Periodic application of NO while endogenous NO synthesis was blocked indicated that a tonic low level is necessary on both sides of the NO–ST pairing for the plasticity to occur. A similar dependence on tonic NO seems to extend to LTP, because application of an NO synthase inhibitor 5 min after tetanic stimulation blocked LTP as effectively as adding it beforehand. The posttetanus time window during which NO operated was restricted to <15 min. Inhibition of the guanylyl cyclase-coupled NO receptor indicated that the potentiation resulting from NO–ST pairing and the NO signal transduction pathway during early LTP are both through cGMP. We conclude that NO does not function simply as an acute signaling molecule in LTP induction but has an equally important role outside this phase. The results resonate with observations concerning the role of the hippocampal NO–cGMP pathway in certain types of learning behavior.
The Trickle Algorithm

The Trickle algorithm allows wireless nodes to exchange information in a highly robust, energy efficient, simple, and scalable manner. Dynamically adjusting transmission windows allows Trickle to spread new information on the scale of link-layer transmission times while sending only a few messages per hour when information does not change. A simple suppression nechanism and transmission point selection allows Trickle's communication rate to scale logarithmically with density. This document describes Trickle and considerations in its use.
Coordinated transportation of a single object by multiple mobile robots without position information of each robot

We propose a decentralized control algorithm of multiple mobile robots transporting a single object in coordination. In this algorithm, each robot is controlled as if it has a caster-like mechanism and transportation of a single object by multiple mobile robots is realized without using the geometric relations among robots. The proposed control algorithm is experimentally applied to two mobile robots. Experimental results illustrate the validity of the proposed control algorithm.
Constructing co-occurrence network embeddings to assist association extraction for COVID-19 and other coronavirus infectious diseases

Abstract Objective As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started its rapid emergence and gradually transformed into an unprecedented pandemic, the need for having a knowledge repository for the disease became crucial. To address this issue, a new COVID-19 machine-readable dataset known as the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) has been released. Based on this, our objective was to build a computable co-occurrence network embeddings to assist association detection among COVID-19–related biomedical entities. Materials and Methods Leveraging a Linked Data version of CORD-19 (ie, CORD-19-on-FHIR), we first utilized SPARQL to extract co-occurrences among chemicals, diseases, genes, and mutations and build a co-occurrence network. We then trained the representation of the derived co-occurrence network using node2vec with 4 edge embeddings operations (L1, L2, Average, and Hadamard). Six algorithms (decision tree, logistic regression, support vector machine, random forest, naïve Bayes, and multilayer perceptron) were applied to evaluate performance on link prediction. An unsupervised learning strategy was also developed incorporating the t-SNE (t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding) and DBSCAN (density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise) algorithms for case studies. Results The random forest classifier showed the best performance on link prediction across different network embeddings. For edge embeddings generated using the Average operation, random forest achieved the optimal average precision of 0.97 along with a F1 score of 0.90. For unsupervised learning, 63 clusters were formed with silhouette score of 0.128. Significant associations were detected for 5 coronavirus infectious diseases in their corresponding subgroups. Conclusions In this study, we constructed COVID-19–centered co-occurrence network embeddings. Results indicated that the generated embeddings were able to extract significant associations for COVID-19 and coronavirus infectious diseases.