Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Circular RNAs in monkey muscle: age-dependent changes

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been identified in numerous species, including human, mouse, nematode, and coelacanth. They are believed to function as regulators of gene expression at least in part by sponging microRNAs. Here, we describe the identification of circRNAs in monkey (Rhesus macaque) skeletal muscle. RNA sequencing analysis was employed to identify and annotate ∼12,000 circRNAs, including numerous circular intronic RNAs (ciRNAs), from skeletal muscle of monkeys of a range of ages. Reverse transcription followed by real-time quantitative (q)PCR analysis verified the presence of these circRNAs, including the existence of several highly abundant circRNAs, and the differential abundance of a subset of circRNAs as a function of age. Taken together, our study has documented systematically circRNAs expressed in skeletal muscle and has identified circRNAs differentially abundant with advancing muscle age. We propose that some of these circRNAs might influence muscle function.
Exact analysis of the dynamic properties of 2–2 cement based piezoelectric actuator considering poling layer effect

Cement based piezoelectric composites can have not only low frequency, but also good compatibility with the concrete, which is perfect for measuring the properties of the civil engineering structures. However, up till now there have been only a few literatures dealing with the theoretical analysis of cement based piezoelectric composite, especially for the 2-2, 0-3 and 1-3 cement based types. Based on the general theory of elasticity and the dynamic theory of piezoelectricity, the dynamic behavior of 2-2 cement-based piezoelectric actuator is investigated under the harmonic electric signal. The actuator consists of 2 cement layers and 1 piezoelectric layer. Considering the poling layers between the cement layer and the piezoelectric layer as the elastic layer, the exact solutions of the mechanical and electrical fields of the actuator are obtained by utilizing Airy stress function method. Furthermore, the curves of displacement or stress along axial direction and other conclusions are given and discussed. Finally, it can be seen that the analytical model established in this paper works very well, which could benefit the design of this kind of cement-based smart devices.
Efficient estimation of compressible state-space models with application to calcium signal deconvolution

In this paper, we consider linear state-space models with compressible innovations and convergent transition matrices in order to model spatiotemporally sparse transient events. We perform parameter and state estimation using a dynamic compressed sensing framework and develop an efficient solution consisting of two nested Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithms. Under suitable sparsity assumptions on the innovations, we prove recovery guarantees and derive confidence bounds for the state estimates. We provide simulation studies as well as application to spike deconvolution from calcium imaging data which verify our theoretical results and show significant improvement over existing algorithms.
MACHINE LEARNING METHODS FOR SPAM E-MAIL CLASSIFICATION

The increasing volume of unsolicited bulk e-mail (also known as spam) has generated a need for reliable anti-spam filters. Machine learning techniques now days used to automatically filter the spam e-mail in a very successful rate. In this paper we review some of the most popular machine learning methods (Bayesian classification, k-NN, ANNs, SVMs, Artificial immune system and Rough sets) and of their applicability to the problem of spam Email classification. Descriptions of the algorithms are presented, and the comparison of their performance on the SpamAssassin spam corpus is presented.
Exploring Motion Boundary based Sampling and Spatial-Temporal Context Descriptors for Action Recognition

Feature representation is important for human action recognition. Recently, Wang et al. [25] proposed dense trajectory (DT) based features for action video representation and achieved state-of-the-art performance on several action datasets. In this paper, we improve the DT method in two folds. Firstly, we introduce a motion boundary based dense sampling strategy, which greatly reduces the number of valid trajectories while preserves the discriminative power. Secondly, we develop a set of new descriptors which describe the spatial-temporal context of motion trajectories. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methods, we conduct extensive experiments on three benchmarks including KTH, YouTube and HMDB51. The results show that our sampling strategy significantly reduces the computational cost of point tracking without degrading performance. Meanwhile, we achieve superior performance than the state-of-the-art methods by utilizing our spatial-temporal context descriptors.
Mobile Location Estimator in Mixed LOS/NLOS Conditions Using UKF Banks

In wireless mobile location systems, NLOS problem has been considered as the key issue that affects the estimation accuracy. In this paper, mobile location in a mixed line-of-sight/non-line-of-sight (LOS/NLOS) condition is considered, and a NLOS error mitigation technique is proposed, which utilizes unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to jointly estimate mobile state and the hidden sight state based on the data collected by each BS. In addition, data fusion method is further applied to achieve high estimation accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed method meet the requirement of the FCC E911 in different LOS/NLOS conditions.
EVOLUTION OF THE RADIO–X-RAY COUPLING THROUGHOUT AN ENTIRE OUTBURST OF AQUILA X-1

The 2009 November outburst of the neutron star X-ray binary Aquila X-1 (Aql X-1) was observed with unprecedented radio coverage and simultaneous pointed X-ray observations, tracing the radio emission around the full X-ray hysteresis loop of the outburst for the first time. We use these data to discuss the disk–jet coupling, finding the radio emission to be consistent with being triggered at state transitions, both from the hard to the soft spectral state and vice versa. Our data appear to confirm previous suggestions of radio quenching in the soft state above a threshold X-ray luminosity of ∼10% of the Eddington luminosity. We also present the first detections of Aql X-1 with very long baseline interferometry, showing that any extended emission is relatively diffuse and consistent with steady jets rather than arising from discrete, compact knots. In all cases where multi-frequency data were available, the source radio spectrum is consistent with being flat or slightly inverted, suggesting that the internal shock mechanism that is believed to produce optically thin transient radio ejecta in black hole X-ray binaries is not active in Aql X-1.
Intraoperative Imaging-Guided Cancer Surgery: From Current Fluorescence Molecular Imaging Methods to Future Multi-Modality Imaging Technology

Cancer is a major threat to human health. Diagnosis and treatment using precision medicine is expected to be an effective method for preventing the initiation and progression of cancer. Although anatomical and functional imaging techniques such as radiography, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have played an important role for accurate preoperative diagnostics, for the most part these techniques cannot be applied intraoperatively. Optical molecular imaging is a promising technique that provides a high degree of sensitivity and specificity in tumor margin detection. Furthermore, existing clinical applications have proven that optical molecular imaging is a powerful intraoperative tool for guiding surgeons performing precision procedures, thus enabling radical resection and improved survival rates. However, detection depth limitation exists in optical molecular imaging methods and further breakthroughs from optical to multi-modality intraoperative imaging methods are needed to develop more extensive and comprehensive intraoperative applications. Here, we review the current intraoperative optical molecular imaging technologies, focusing on contrast agents and surgical navigation systems, and then discuss the future prospects of multi-modality imaging technology for intraoperative imaging-guided cancer surgery.
Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Hard X-Ray Observation of A754: Constraining the Hottest Temperature Component and the Intracluster Magnetic Field

Abell 754, a cluster undergoing merging, was observed in hard X-rays with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) in order to constrain its hottest temperature component and search for evidence of nonthermal emission. Simultaneous modeling of RXTE data and those taken with previous missions yields an average intracluster temperature of ~9 keV in the 1-50 keV energy band. A multitemperature component model derived from numerical simulations of the evolution of a cluster undergoing a merger produces similar quality of fit, indicating that the emission measure from the very hot gas component is sufficiently small that it renders the two models indistinguishable. No significant nonthermal emission was detected. However, our observations set an upper limit of 7.1×10−14 ergs cm−2 s−1 keV−1 (90% confidence limit) to the nonthermal emission flux at 20 keV. Combining this result with the radio synchrotron emission flux, we find a lower limit of 0.2 μG for the intracluster magnetic field. We discuss the implications of our results for the theories of magnetic field amplifications in cluster mergers.
Biomass Enzymatic Saccharification Is Determined by the Non-KOH-Extractable Wall Polymer Features That Predominately Affect Cellulose Crystallinity in Corn

Corn is a major food crop with enormous biomass residues for biofuel production. Due to cell wall recalcitrance, it becomes essential to identify the key factors of lignocellulose on biomass saccharification. In this study, we examined total 40 corn accessions that displayed a diverse cell wall composition. Correlation analysis showed that cellulose and lignin levels negatively affected biomass digestibility after NaOH pretreatments at p<0.05 & 0.01, but hemicelluloses did not show any significant impact on hexoses yields. Comparative analysis of five standard pairs of corn samples indicated that cellulose and lignin should not be the major factors on biomass saccharification after pretreatments with NaOH and H2SO4 at three concentrations. Notably, despite that the non-KOH-extractable residues covered 12%–23% hemicelluloses and lignin of total biomass, their wall polymer features exhibited the predominant effects on biomass enzymatic hydrolysis including Ara substitution degree of xylan (reverse Xyl/Ara) and S/G ratio of lignin. Furthermore, the non-KOH-extractable polymer features could significantly affect lignocellulose crystallinity at p<0.05, leading to a high biomass digestibility. Hence, this study could suggest an optimal approach for genetic modification of plant cell walls in bioenergy corn.
Voter and Consumer Evaluation of Restrictions on Farm Animal Management Practices

Buyer attention to treatment of farm animals and other farm practices has been much discussed recently. Some marketers ensure that farms follow particular production practices and certify these standards to consumers. Governments also sometimes mandate that growers adhere to specific production guidelines, including those related to treatment of animals. These practices can be costly for consumers. We examine mandated practices and effects of such mandates when some farms already adhere to animal-treatment standards voluntarily. This paper makes four contributions to the literature on evaluation of restrictions on farm practices: (1) we show conditions for consumers to support such restrictions, despite buying products that would be restricted under the restrictions; (2) we show conditions for consumers to oppose such restrictions, despite buying products that would not be restricted under the restrictions; (3) we develop a unique data set on voter outcomes and economic variables related to restriction of farm practices; and (4) we test hypotheses about support for restrictions on farm animal treatment practices and find that economic incentives influenced support for a California referendum, consistent with the economic incentives highlighted by our model. Voter and consumer evaluation of restrictions on farm animal management practices Bovay and Sumner
Development of the Universe and New Cosmology

Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of cosmological expansion are being precisely measured for the rst time, and a consistent standard picture of the Universe is beginning to emerge. Recent developments in cosmology give rise the intriguing possibility that all structures in the Universe, from superclusters to planets, had a quantummechanical origin in its earliest moments. Furthermore, these ideas are not idle theorizing, but predictive, and subject to meaningful experimental test. We review the concordance model of the development of the Universe, as well as evidence for the observational revolution that this eld is going through. This already provides us with important information on particle physics, which is inaccessible to accelerators.
Full-Waveform Airborne Laser Scanning in Vegetation Studies—A Review of Point Cloud and Waveform Features for Tree Species Classification

In recent years, small-footprint full-waveform airborne laser scanning has become readily available and established for vegetation studies in the fields of forestry, agriculture and urban studies. Independent of the field of application and the derived final product, each study uses features to classify a target object and to assess its characteristics (e.g., tree species). These laser scanning features describe an observable characteristic of the returned laser signal (e.g., signal amplitude) or a quantity of an object (e.g., height-width ratio of the tree crown). In particular, studies dealing with tree species classification apply a variety of such features as input. However, an extensive overview, categorization and comparison of features from full-waveform airborne laser scanning and how they relate to specific tree species are still missing. This review identifies frequently used full-waveform airborne laser scanning-based point cloud and waveform features for tree species classification and compares the applied features and their characteristics for specific tree species detection. Furthermore, limiting and influencing factors on feature characteristics and tree classification are discussed with respect to vegetation structure, data acquisition and processing.
Exploiting Emotional Information for Trust/Distrust Prediction

Trust and distrust networks are usually extremely sparse and the vast majority of the existing algorithms for trust/distrust prediction suffer from the data sparsity problem. In this paper, following the research from psychology and sociology, we envision that users’ emotions such as happiness and anger are strong indicators of trust/distrust relations. Meanwhile the popularity of social media encourages the increasing number of users to freely express their emotions; hence emotional information is pervasively available and usually denser than the trust and distrust relations. Therefore incorporating emotional information could have the potentials to alleviate the data sparsity in the problem of trust/distrust prediction. In this study, we investigate how to exploit emotional information for trust/distrust prediction. In particular, we provide a principled way to capture emotional information mathematically and propose a novel trust/distrust prediction framework ETD. Experimental results on the real-world social media dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and the importance of emotional information in trust/distrust prediction.
Rajiform locomotion: three-dimensional kinematics of the pectoral fin surface during swimming in the freshwater stingray Potamotrygon orbignyi

SUMMARY Rajiform locomotion in fishes is dominated by distinctive undulations of expanded pectoral fins. Unlike other fishes, which typically interact with the fluid environment via multiple fins, undulating rays modulate a single control surface, the pectoral disc, to perform pelagic locomotion, maneuvering and other behaviors. Complex deformations of the broad, flexible pectoral fins occur as the undulating wave varies in three dimensions; pectoral fin kinematics and changes in waveform with swimming speed cannot be fully quantified by two-dimensional analyses of the fin margin. We present the first three-dimensional analysis of undulatory rajiform locomotion in a batoid, the freshwater stingray Potamotrygon orbignyi. Using three cameras (250 frames s−1), we gathered three-dimensional excursion data from 31 points on the pectoral fin during swimming at 1.5 and 2.5 disc lengths s−1, describing the propulsive wave and contrasting waveforms between swimming speeds. Only a relatively small region of the pectoral fin (~25%) undulates with significant amplitude (>0.5 cm). Stingrays can maintain extreme lateral curvature of the distal fin margin in opposition to induced hydrodynamic loads, ‘cupping’ the edge of the pectoral fin into the flow, with potential implications for drag reduction. Wave amplitude increases across both anteroposterior and mediolateral fin axes. Along the anteroposterior axis, amplitude increases until the wave reaches mid-disc and then remains constant, in contrast to angulliform patterns of continuous amplitude increase. Increases in swimming speed are driven by both wave frequency and wavespeed, though multivariate analyses reveal a secondary role for amplitude.
A new critically sampled non-uniform subband adaptive structure

A non-uniform subband adaptive structure with critical sampling of the subband signals is derived. With the assumption of non-overlapping between non-adjacent analysis filters, the resulting structure yields exact modeling of an arbitrary FIR system. An LMS-type adaptation algorithm, which minimizes the sum of the subband squared-errors, is obtained for updating the coefficients of the proposed structure, resulting in significant convergence rate improvement for colored input signals when compared to the fullband LMS algorithm. Computer simulations illustrate the convergence behavior of the proposed non-uniform subband adaptive filter in the applications of system identification and acoustic echo cancellation.
‘That’s weird, my ob-gyn said the exact opposite!’ : Discourse and knowledge in an online discussion forum thread for expecting parents

This paper is concerned with knowledge as an object of sociolinguistic inquiry. Drawing on some key work in mediated discourse analysis, MDA (Jones, 2013; Scollon and Scollon, 2004), we hold that knowledge is, as it were, a crucial aspect of the processes whereby people take actions with discourses. We frame this pursuit by dwelling on the interwoven relationship between power and knowledge, looking into an online discussion forum thread used by some 200 people who are expecting a child in the same month.
Molecular-level thermodynamic and kinetic parameters for the self-assembly of apoferritin molecules into crystals.

The self-assembly of apoferritin molecules into crystals is a suitable model for protein crystallization and aggregation; these processes underlie several biological and biomedical phenomena, as well as for protein and virus self-assembly. We use the atomic force microscope in situ, during the crystallization of apoferritin to visualize and quantify at the molecular level the processes responsible for crystal growth. To evaluate the governing thermodynamic parameters, we image the configuration of the incorporation sites, "kinks", on the surface of a growing crystal. We show that the kinks are due to thermal fluctuations of the molecules at the crystal-solution interface. This allows evaluation of the free energy of the intermolecular bond phi=3.0 k(B)T=7.3 kJ/mol. The crystallization free energy, extracted from the protein solubility, is -42 kJ/mol. Published determinations of the second virial coefficient and the protein solubility between 0 and 40 degrees C revealed that the enthalpy of crystallization is close to zero. Analyses based on these three values suggest that the main component in the crystallization driving force is the entropy gain of the water molecules bound to the protein molecules in solution and released upon crystallization. Furthermore, monitoring the incorporation of individual molecules in to the kinks, we determine the characteristic frequency of attachment of individual molecules at one set of conditions. This allows a correlation between the mesoscopic kinetic coefficient for growth and the molecular-level thermodynamic and kinetic parameters determined here. We found that step growth velocity, scaled by the molecular size, equals the product of the kink density and attachment frequency, i.e. the latter pair are the molecular-level parameters for self-assembly of the molecules into crystals.
For a new dialogue between theoretical and empirical studies in evo-devo

Despite its potentially broad scope, current evo-devo research is largely dominated by empirical developmental studies, whereas comparably little role is played by theoretical research. I argue that this represents an obstacle to a wider appreciation of evo-devo and its integration within a more comprehensive evolutionary theory, and that this situation is causally linked to a limited exchange between theoretical and experimental studies in evo-devo. I discuss some features of current theoretical work in evo-devo, highlighting some possibly concurring impediments to an effective dialogue with experimental studies. Finally, I advance two suggestions for enhancing fruitful cross-fertilization between theoretical and empirical studies in evo-devo: i) to broaden the scope of evo-devo beyond its current conceptualization, teaming up with other variational approaches to the study of evolution, and ii) to develop more effective forms of scientific interaction and communication.
Strategic Renewal via Generational Product Innovation : The Impact of Market Concentration on Firms ’ Responsiveness to Competitive and Complementary External Events

Generational product innovation (GPI) is an important but understudied form of strategic renewal strategy. The limited discussion of GPI in the organizational strategy literature argues that firms benefit from internally-driven GPI strategies, such as time-based pacing and serendipitous timing. While such internally-driven strategies may predominate when firms face diffuse competition, the literature underemphasizes the point that as market concentration increases, firms need to be increasingly responsive to external events. This study examines how competitive market conditions shape the responsiveness of firms’ generational product innovation releases to the introduction of competitor and complementary innovations in the external marketplace. The results show that as market concentration increases within the U.S. packaged software industry, introduction of both competitive and complementary innovations act as a spur to overcome firms’ tendencies to follow internal rhythms of product introduction timing. The results suggest that increasing market concentration leads to greater interdependence of innovation strategies in an industry – including interactions both with competitors and with other players in a larger system of complementary products – shifting firms from relying on internal rhythms and forcing them to undertake renewal strategies that respond to external