Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling the relationship between environmental factors, transcriptional genes and deoxynivalenol mycotoxin production by strains of two Fusarium species

The effect of changes in temperature/water activity (aw) on growth, deoxynivalenol (DON) production and trichothecene gene cluster expression (18 genes) for strains of Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium graminearum was studied. The expression data for six key transcription genes (TRI4, TRI5, TRI6, TRI10, TRI12 and TRI13) were analysed using multiple regression analyses to model the relationship between these various factors for the first time. Changes in aw and temperature significantly (p = 0.05) affected growth and DON. Microarray data on expression of these genes were significantly related to DON production for both strains. Multi-regression analysis was done and polynomial models found to best fit the relationship between actual/predicted DON production relative to the expression of these TRI genes and environmental factors. This allowed prediction of the amounts of DON produced in two-dimensional contour maps to relate expression of these genes to either aw or temperature. These results suggest complex interactions between gene expression (TRI genes), environmental factors and mycotoxin production. This is a powerful tool for understanding the role of these genes in relation to environmental factors and enables more effective targeted control strategies to be developed.
A keyword-aware grammar framework for LVCSR-based spoken keyword search

In this paper, we proposed a method to realize the recently developed keyword-aware grammar for LVCSR-based keyword search using weight finite-state automata (WFSA). The approach creates a compact and deterministic grammar WFSA by inserting keyword paths to an existing n-gram WFSA. Tested on the evalpart1 data of the IARPA Babel OpenKWS13 Vietnamese and OpenKWS14 Tamil limited language pack tasks, the experimental results indicate the proposed keyword-aware framework achieves significant improvement, with about 50% relative actual term weighted value (ATWV) enhancement for both languages. Comparisons between the keyword-aware grammar and our previously proposed n-gram LM based approximation approach for the grammar also show that the KWS performances of these two realizations are complementary.
Multiview Rendering on a Graphics Processing Unit

We present a rendering algorithm for driving a multiview display device. The algorithm is based on micropolygon displacement mapping. It generates a set of mutually disparate images, which effectively simulate different camera positions. For the input we used disk-streamed RGBD video sequences, which contain both color and depth information. The proposed algorithm has been successfully implemented on a personal computer equipped with a programmable graphics processing unit (GPU). This engine enables real-time rendering to a nine-view display of 1920 × 1080 pixels – at 25 frames per second.
Possible Impact of Salivary Influence on Cytokine Analysis in Exhaled Breath Condensate

Background: Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is thought to contain substances of the lower airway epithelial lining fluid (ELF) aerosolized by turbulent flow. However, contamination by saliva may affect the EBC when collected orally. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the cytokine expression levels in EBC with those in saliva, and to clarify the influence of saliva on cytokine measurements of EBC. Methods: EBC and saliva samples were obtained from 10 adult subjects with stable asthma. To estimate differences in the contents of substances between EBC and saliva, the total protein concentration of each sample was measured. Further, we also measured the total protein concentration of ELF obtained from another patient group with suspected lung cancer using a micro sampling probe during bronchoscopic examination and roughly estimated the dilution of EBC by comparing the total protein concentration of EBC and ELF from those two patient groups. The cytokine expression levels of EBC and saliva from asthmatic group were assessed by a cytokine protein array. Results: The mean total protein concentrations in EBC, saliva and ELF were 4.6 μg/ml, 2,398 μg/ml and 14,111 μg/ml, respectively. The dilution of EBC could be estimated as 1:3000. Forty cytokines were analyzed by a cytokine protein array and each cytokine expression level of EBC was found to be different from that of saliva. Corrected by the total protein concentration, all cytokine expression levels of EBC were significantly higher than those of saliva. Conclusion: These results suggest that the salivary influence on the cytokine assessment in EBC may be negligible.
SurfaceSense: Smartphone Can Recognize Where It Is Kept

In recent times, researchers have proposed numerous approaches that allow smartphones to determine user current locations (e.g., home, office, railway station, restaurant, street, supermarket etc.) and their activities (such as sitting, walking, running, bicycling, driving, cutting bread, making coffee, watching television, working at laptop, taking lunch, using water tap, brushing teeth, flushing toilet etc.) in real-time. But, to infer much richer story of context-aware applications, it is necessary to recognize the smartphone surfaces - for example on the sofa, inside the backpack, on the plastic chair, in a drawer or in your pant-pocket. This paper presents SurfaceSense, a two-tier, simple, inexpensive placement-aware technique, that uses smartphone's embedded accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, microphone and proximity sensor to infer where phone is placed. It does not require any external hardware and provides 91.75% recognition accuracy on 13 different surfaces.
Hypofunction of Glutamatergic Neurotransmission in the Periaqueductal Gray Contributes to Nerve-Injury-Induced Neuropathic Pain

Neuropathic pain, a chronic pain due to neuronal lesion, remains unaltered even after the injury-induced spinal afferent discharges have declined, suggesting an involvement of supraspinal dysfunction. The midbrain ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) is known to be a crucial supraspinal region for initiating descending pain inhibition, but its role in neuropathic pain remains unclear. Therefore, here we examined neuroplastic changes in the vlPAG of midbrain slices isolated from neuropathic rats induced by L5/L6 spinal nerve ligation (SNL) via electrophysiological and neurochemical approaches. Significant mechanical hypersensitivity was induced in rats 2 d after SNL and lasted for >14 d. Compared with the sham-operated group, vlPAG slices from neuropathic rats 3 and 10 days after SNL displayed smaller EPSCs with prolonged latency, less frequent and smaller miniature EPSCs, higher paired-pulse ratio of EPSCs, smaller AMPAR-mediated EPSCs, smaller AMPA currents, greater NMDAR-mediated EPSCs, greater NMDA currents, lower AMPAR-mediated/NMDAR-mediated ratios, and upregulation of the NR1 and NR2B subunits, but not the NR2A, GluR1, or GluR2 subunits, of glutamate receptors. There were no significant differences between day 3 and day 10 neuropathic groups. These results suggest that SNL leads to hypoglutamatergic neurotransmission in the vlPAG resulting from both presynaptic and postsynaptic mechanisms. Upregulation of NMDARs might contribute to hypofunction of AMPARs via subcellular redistribution. Long-term hypoglutamatergic function in the vlPAG may lead to persistent reduction of descending pain inhibition, resulting in chronic neuropathic pain.
Visualizing large trees with divide & conquer partition

While prior works on enclosure approach, guarantees the space utilization of a single geometrical area, mostly rectangle, this paper proposes a flexible enclosure tree layout method for partitioning various polygonal shapes that break through the limitation of rectangular constraint. Similar to Treemap techniques, it uses enclosure to divide display space into smaller areas for its sub-hierarchies. The algorithm can partition a polygonal shape or even an arbitrary shape into smaller polygons, rotated rectangles or vertical-horizontal rectangles. The proposed method and implementation algorithms provide an effective interactive visualization tool for partitioning large hierarchical structures within a confined display area with different shapes for real-time applications. We demonstrated the effective of the new method with a case study, an automated evaluation and a usability study.
Giving Mom a Break: The Impact of Higher EITC Payments on Maternal Health

The 1993 expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit created the first meaningful separation in the benefit level for families based on the number of children, with families containing two or more children now receiving substantially more in benefits. If income is protective of health, we should see improvements over time in the health for mothers eligible for the EITC with two or more children compared to those with only one child. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey, we find in difference-in-difference models that for low-educated mothers of two or more children, the number of days with poor mental health and the fraction reporting excellent or very good health improved relative to the mothers with only one child. Using data from the National Health Examination and Nutrition Survey, we find evidence that the probability of having risky levels of biomarkers fell for these same low-educated women impacted more by the 1993 expansions, especially biomarkers that indicate inflammation.
Two-Sided Coordination : Conflict in Collective Action

We study a coordination problem where two distinct groups of individuals are in competition with each other. One group (regime opponents) prefers a change in regime, and can participate in an attack which, if sufficiently large, causes regime change. The other group (regime adherents) prefers the status quo and can support the regime, making it more resistant to attack. The outcome is dictated by the comparative mobilization of opponents and adherents. We show how changes in the incentives of one group influence the coordination of the other. We isolate the coordinating effect of public information which results from the two-sidedness of the coordination problem, and show that coordination between regime adherents intensifies the already disproportionate effect of public information. Specifically, we show that public information affects the actions of individuals in each group identically, regardless of disparities in the quality of private information between group members, implying that commonly observed sources of information will coordinate both regime adherents and regime opponents in exactly the same way. We then extend the analysis to study the effects of an information source that is commonly observed by only one group, regime adherents, which we term club information. JEL-Classification: D74, D82, C71
High performance dual supply level up/down shifter for a 0.6V–1V input/output range and 1.2V output/input

This paper proposes some important contributions in the design of a low voltage and low energy consumption CMOS level up shifter (bqc-ls) as well as to obtain a high performance level down shifter (bqc-ls/rev) based on the structure presented in [1]. The novel level up/down shifters are suitable for multiple clocks and different supply voltages domain logic systems with minimal area and energy consumption. When the pre-layout simulation is realized with UMC 65nm CMOS technology using regular threshold voltage transistors for a high capacitive load (2pF), the active area and the energy-delay product of bqc-ls are lower than that of reported level shifters. However, the layout of bqc-ls and bqc-ls/rev were implemented using low threshold voltage transistors, because the parasitic capacitance by the layout implementation, the maximum capacitive loading condition is 450fF. Even in this case our proposed circuits are very effective for low voltage operation and low energy consumption. The topology of bqc-ls/rev (level down shifter) is equal than that of bqc-ls, and the only difference between them is the size of their output inverter. Thus the active area for bqc-ls/rev is only 2.6% higher than that required for bqc-ls (level up shifter).
Oral Biofilm Architecture on Natural Teeth

Periodontitis and caries are infectious diseases of the oral cavity in which oral biofilms play a causative role. Moreover, oral biofilms are widely studied as model systems for bacterial adhesion, biofilm development, and biofilm resistance to antibiotics, due to their widespread presence and accessibility. Despite descriptions of initial plaque formation on the tooth surface, studies on mature plaque and plaque structure below the gum are limited to landmark studies from the 1970s, without appreciating the breadth of microbial diversity in the plaque. We used fluorescent in situ hybridization to localize in vivo the most abundant species from different phyla and species associated with periodontitis on seven embedded teeth obtained from four different subjects. The data showed convincingly the dominance of Actinomyces sp. , Tannerella forsythia, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Spirochaetes, and Synergistetes in subgingival plaque. The latter proved to be new with a possibly important role in host-pathogen interaction due to its localization in close proximity to immune cells. The present study identified for the first time in vivo that Lactobacillus sp. are the central cells of bacterial aggregates in subgingival plaque, and that Streptococcus sp. and the yeast Candida albicans form corncob structures in supragingival plaque. Finally, periodontal pathogens colonize already formed biofilms and form microcolonies therein. These in vivo observations on oral biofilms provide a clear vision on biofilm architecture and the spatial distribution of predominant species.
Improving Biomethane Production and Mass Bioconversion of Corn Stover Anaerobic Digestion by Adding NaOH Pretreatment and Trace Elements

This research applied sodium hydroxide (NaOH) pretreatment and trace elements to improve biomethane production when using corn stover for anaerobic digestion. Full-factor experimental tests identified the best combination of trace elements with the NaOH pretreatment, indicating that the best combination was with 1.0, 0.4, and 0.4 mg·L−1·d−1 of elements Fe, Co, and Ni, respectively. The cumulative biomethane production adding NaOH pretreatment and trace elements was 11,367 mL; total solid bioconversion rate was 55.7%, which was 41.8%–62.2% higher than with NaOH-pretreatment alone and 22.2%–56.3% higher than with untreated corn stover. The best combination was obtained 5–9 days shorter than T90 and maintained good system operation stability. Only a fraction of the trace elements in the best combination was present in the resulting solution; more than 85% of the total amounts added were transferred into the solid fraction. Adding 0.897 g of Fe, 0.389 g of Co, and 0.349 g of Ni satisfied anaerobic digestion needs and enhanced biological activity at the beginning of the operation. The results showed that NaOH pretreatment and adding trace elements improve corn stover biodegradability and enhance biomethane production.
Generative Models for Mining Latent Aspects and Their Ratings from Short Reviews

A large number of online reviews have been accumulated on the Web, such as Amazon.com and Cnet.com. It is increasingly challenging to digest these reviews for both consumers and firms as the volume of reviews increases. A promising direction to ease such a burden is to automatically identify aspects of a product and reveal each individual's ratings on them from these reviews. The identified and rated aspects can help consumers understand the pros and cons of a product and make their purchase decisions, and help firms learn user feedbacks and improve their products and marketing strategy. While different methods have been introduced to tackle this problem in the past, few of them successfully model the intrinsic connection between aspect and aspect rating particularly in short reviews. To this end, in this paper, we first propose the Aspect Identification and Rating (AIR) model to model observed textual reviews and overall ratings in a generative way, where the sampled aspect rating influences the sampling of sentimental words on this aspect. Furthermore, we enhance AIR model to particularly address one unique characteristic of short reviews that aspects mentioned in reviews may be quite unbalanced, and develop another model namely AIRS. Within AIRS model, we allow an aspect to directly affect the sampling of a latent rating on this aspect in order to capture the mutual influence between aspect and aspect rating through the whole generative process. Finally, we examine our two models and compare them with other methods based on multiple real world data sets, including hotel reviews, beer reviews and app reviews. Experimental results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness and improvement of our models. Other potential applications driven by our results are also shown in the experiments.
Safety Assessment of Liver-Targeted Hydrodynamic Gene Delivery in Dogs

Evidence in support of safety of a gene delivery procedure is essential toward gene therapy. Previous studies using the hydrodynamics-based procedure primarily focus on gene delivery efficiency or gene function analysis in mice. The current study focuses on an assessment of the safety of computer-controlled and liver-targeted hydrodynamic gene delivery in dogs as the first step toward hydrodynamic gene therapy in clinic. We demonstrate that the impacts of the hydrodynamic procedure were limited in the injected region and the influences were transient. Histological examination and the hepatic microcirculation measurement using reflectance spectrophotometry reveal that the liver-specific impact of the procedure involves a transient expansion of the liver sinusoids. No systemic damage or toxicity was observed. Physiological parameters, including electrocardiogram, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and body temperature, remained in normal ranges during and after hydrodynamic injection. Body weight was also examined to assess the long-term effects of the procedure in animals who underwent 3 hydrodynamic injections in 6 weeks with 2-week time interval in between. Serum biochemistry analysis showed a transient increase in liver enzymes and a few cytokines upon injection. These results demonstrate that image-guided, liver-specific hydrodynamic gene delivery is safe.
Reconstructing occluded regions using fast weighted PCA

Reconstructing occluded regions of the object is to automatically detect the occluded regions and background in the image and reconstruct these regions using image interpolation. This paper proposes a novel occluded region reconstruction method using Fast Weighted Principal Component Analysis (FW-PCA). The computation time of the weighted PCA can be reduced by using only the effective regions when calculating the principal component scores. The occluded regions are accurately detected by recursively updating the weight for each pixel in the image using FW-PCA. Then, the occluded regions can be reconstructed using the final weight. Thorough a set of experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits higher performance than the conventional method.
A merging and splitting algorithm based on mutual information for design neural networks

This paper presents a new algorithm based on the theory of mutual information and the relationship between the neural networks' architecture and learning capacity, called adaptive merging and splitting algorithm (AM SA), in designing optima feedforward neural networks (FNNs). This algorithm merges and splits hidden neurons during the training process of FNNs. Unlike most previous studies, AMSA puts emphasis on autonomous functioning in the design process of FNNs. This is the main reason why AMSA uses an adaptive not a predefined fixed strategy in designing FNNs. The adaptive strategy merges or splits hidden neurons based on the learning ability of hidden neurons or the training progress of FNNs. In order to reduce the amount of retraining after modifying FNN architectures, AMSA prunes hidden neurons by merging correlated hidden neurons and adds hidden neurons by splitting existing hidden neurons. In merge operation, the hidden neurons is merged based on mutual information criterion, resulting in compact neural networks architecture without decreasing the information processing capacity. In split operation, a new hidden neuron is added by splitting a hidden neuron in current neural networks, resulting in improve the information processing capacity. AMSA has been tested on the regression problem. The experimental results show that AMSA can design compact FNNs architectures with good generalization ability compared to other algorithm.
An improved algorithm of news video caption detection and recognition

News video captions have an important role in video analysis and retrieval. First, the article analyzed the algorithm of news video caption detection, then, analyzed the algorithm of the video subtitle processing based on the analysis of wavelet transform, consequently, analyzed the algorithm of the caption segmentation on the basis of the analysis of the line projection and the column projection. At last, the article realized the news video caption recognition using a similarity measure formula. Experiment showed that the algorithm can effectively segment the video caption and recognized the caption efficiency, which can satisfy the need of video analysis and retrieval.
Science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge development during enactment of socioscientific curriculum materials

The purpose of this study is to provide insight into short-term professionalization of teachers regarding teaching socioscientific issues (SSI). The study aimed to capture the development of science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for SSI teaching by enacting specially designed SSI curriculum materials. The study also explores indicators of stronger and weaker development of PCK for SSI teaching. Thirty teachers from four countries (Cyprus, Israel, Norway, and Spain) used one module (30–60 min lesson) of SSI materials. The data were collected through: (a) lesson preparation form (PCK-before), (b) lesson reflection form (PCK-after), (c) lesson observation table (PCK-in-action). The data analysis was based on the PCK model of Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko (1999). Strong development of PCK for SSI teaching includes “Strong interconnections between the PCK components,” “Understanding of students' difficulties in SSI learning,” “Suggesting appropriate instructional strategies,” and “Focusing equally on science content and SSI skills. ” Our findings point to the importance of these aspects of PCK development for SSI teaching. We argue that when professional development programs and curriculum materials focus on developing these aspects, they will contribute to strong PCK development for SSI teaching. The findings regarding the development in the components of PCK for SSI provide compelling evidence that science teachers can develop aspects of their PCK for SSI with the use of a single module. Most of the teachers developed their knowledge about students' understanding of science and instructional strategies. The recognition of student difficulties made the teacher consider specific teaching strategies which are in line with the learning objectives. There is an evident link between the development of PCK in instructional strategies and students' understanding of science for SSI teaching.