Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ontogenetic variation in the sensory structures on the pedipalps of cosmetid harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones, Laniatores)

In arachnids, pedipalps are highly variable appendages that may be used in feeding, courtship, defense, and agonistic encounters. In cosmetid harvestmen, adults have pedipalps that feature flattened femora, spoon‐shaped tibiae, and robust tarsal claws. In contrast, the pedipalps of nymphs are elongate with cylindrical podomeres and are adorned with delicate pretarsi. In this study, we used scanning electron microscopy to examine the distribution of cuticular structures (e.g., sensilla chaetica, pores) on the elements of the pedipalps of adults and nymphs of three species of cosmetid harvestmen. Our results indicate that there is considerable ontogenetic variation in the morphology of the trochanter, femur, patella, tibia, and tarsus. The pretarsus of the nymph has a ventral patch of setae that is absent from the adult tarsal claw. We observed this structure on all three cosmetid species as well as on the pedipalps of an additional seven morphospecies of nymphs collected in Belize and Costa Rica. This structure may represent a previously unrecognized autapomorphy for Cosmetidae. Examinations of the pedipalps of antepenultimate nymphs of additional gonyleptoidean harvestmen representing the families Ampycidae, Cranaidae, Manaosbiidae, and Stygnidae revealed the occurrence of unusual, plumose tarsal setae, but no setal patches on the tarsal claw.
Modified Silane Thin Films as an Alternative to Chromates for Corrosion Protection of AA2024-T3 Alloy

The use of organofunctional silanes as a chromate replacement of aluminum aircraft alloys for corrosion protection has been studied in depth. The corrosion protection offered by these silane films is comparable to chromates and in certain cases even better. But the silane films had some striking drawbacks when compared to the chromates. This work aimed at developing a silane film that would mimic every property of the chromate, making it possible to replace them completely. Two different silane systems were selected based on previous work viz., a solvent-based system and a completely waterbased system. The thesis has been divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the introduction to silane coupling agents and their applications on various metals for corrosion protection. The two silane systems a solvent-based system and a completely water-based system has been described based on previous work. Chapter 2 describes how these silane solutions are prepared and how different additions are made to the silane solutions. Chapter 3 focuses on the addition and optimization of nanoparticles to the silane film on AA2024-T3 alloy. This chapter discusses the strengthening of the silane film due to the nanoparticle addition and the effect on the corrosion and mechanical properties of the silane film. These films were also characterized by infra-red spectroscopy and ellipsometry. It was found that loading of a small amount of nanoparticles such as silica into the silane film can strengthen and enhance the corrosion protection of silanes on AA2024-T3 alloys. Also it was demonstrated that other nanoparticles like zinc oxide and carbon fibers had a similar effect on the silane film. Chapter 4 focuses on giving the silane film a self-healing or selfrepairing property by adding optimum amounts of leachable inhibitors to the silane film which can be released at a controlled rate and protect local defects or scratches. The corrosion measurements were done using DC polarization measurements, salt spray and immersion tests. SEM/EDAX and TOFSIMS were used to explain the corrosion mechanism for the selfhealing effect. Chapter 5 discusses how a silane film can be colored without affecting any of its adhesion and corrosion properties. The silane films on metals cannot be detected as they are clear amber liquids. DC polarization and immersion tests were conducted to study the corrosion properties of the colored silane film. Crosscut adhesion tape test and Machu test were carried out to determine the adhesion of the colored silane system to paints. The results indicate that silane films can be colored and that proper selection and concentration of colorants is essential for optimum performance of the silane film. Chapter 6 gives an overall conclusion on modified silane films as potential candidates for replacement of chromates for aircraft aluminum alloys. Recommendations for future work are also suggested.
Behavioural health interventions in the Johns Hopkins Community Health Partnership: Integrated care as a component of health systems transformation

Abstract Health systems in the USA have received a mandate to improve quality while reining in costs. Several opportunities have been created to stimulate this transformation. This paper describes the design, early implementation and lessons learned for the behavioural components of the John Hopkins Community Health Partnership (J-CHiP) programme. J-CHiP is designed to improve health outcomes and reduce the total healthcare costs of a group of high healthcare use patients who are insured by the government-funded health insurance programmes, Medicaid and Medicare. These patients have a disproportionately high prevalence of depression, other psychiatric conditions, and unhealthy behaviours that could be addressed with behavioural interventions. The J-CHiP behavioural intervention is based on integrated care models, which include embedding mental health professionals into primary sites. A four-session behaviour-based protocol was developed to motivate self-efficacy through illness management skills. In addition to staff embedded in primary care, the programme design includes expedited access to specialist psychiatric services as well as a community outreach component that addresses stigma. The progress and challenges involved with developing this programme over a relatively short period of time are discussed.
Association of Adiponectin with Lung Function Impairment and Disease Severity in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Context: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is not only restricted to the pulmonary inflammation and airway obstruction but is also associated with comorbidities, which affect the therapeutic intervention and the quality of life and survival. Markers that can predict the systemic inflammation and a decline in the pulmonary function are of scientific interest. Adiponectin (APN) appears to be one such biomarker and can be used as a potential indicator of severity and response to treatment in patients of COPD. Aims: The study aims to find out the role of APN as a marker of inflammation in the pathogenesis of COPD and explore its relationship with the severity of the disease. Settings and Design: This was a cross-sectional study. Subjects and Methods: The study group consisted of 60 patients of COPD, which included 30 males admitted with acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD) and 30 males with stable COPD. The study group was compared with 30 healthy, age-matched males. APN was estimated by commercially available ELISA kits. Pulmonary function tests were performed on all cases and controls using standardized protocols on SPIROLAB III. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical analysis was performed using Student's t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: The levels of APN were found to be significantly higher in patients with COPD as compared to the controls and the levels increased with the severity of the disease were 16.10 ± 4.97 ng/ml and 11.43 ± 4.22 ng/ml, respectively, in AECOPD and COPD. A significant positive correlation was found between the levels of APN and interleukin (IL)-8 in patients of COPD, while the levels correlated negatively with percentage of forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1%). Conclusions: The results reveal that APN is associated with the inflammatory process of COPD as suggested by its significant inverse relationship with FEV1% and positive correlation with a marker of inflammation such as IL-8. It can thus be used as a biomarker for disease severity and progression in patients of COPD, therefore aiding in risk stratification and therapeutic intervention.
Determining Need for School-Based Physical Therapy Under IDEA: Commonalities Across Practice Guidelines

Background and Purpose: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) includes physical therapy (PT) as a related service that may be provided to help students with disabilities benefit from their education. However, the IDEA does not provide specific guidance for the provision of school-based PT, resulting in variations in practice across the United States. The authors examined 22 state and local education agency guidelines available online to find commonalities related to the determination of a student's need for PT. Results and Conclusions: Seven commonalities found: educational benefit, team decision, need for PT expertise, establishment of Individualized Education Program (IEP) goal before determining need for PT, distinction between medical and educational PT, the student's disability adversely affects education, and the student's potential for improvement. These commonalities are discussed in relation to current PT and special education literature. This article suggests applying these commonalities as procedural requirements and questions for discussion during an IEP team meeting.
MATHEMATICAL BASED MODEL OF STREPTOMYCES GROWTH ON WOODEN MATERIAL

A mathematical model for the growth of filamentous microorganisms has been tested by comparison of model predictions with data on growth of Streptomyces on building wood material. Growth of Streptomyces resulted in movement of filament classes to increasing the size, while shear forces produced mycelial fragments which entered the smallest size class, from which they grew to form further colonies on building surface materials. Quantification of Streptomyces growth in the model is based on the mould index used in the experiments for visual inspection. The model consists of differential equations describing the growth rate of the mould index in different fuctuating conditions including the effect of exposure time, temperature, relative humidity and dry periods. Temperature and humidity conditions favourable for mould growth are presented as a mathematical model. The modified model generated predictions which agreed closely with experimental data on biomass concentration, distribution, number of colonies and colonies radius during their growth on building wood material, thereby supporting the assumptions on which the model was based. The numerical values of the parameters included in the model are fitted for pine and spruce sapwood, but the functional form of the model can be reasoned to be valid also for other wood-based materials. Keywords : streptomycetes, mathematical model, building materials, humidity, temperature
Mitogenomic Evidence for an Indo-West Pacific Origin of the Clupeoidei (Teleostei: Clupeiformes)

The clupeoid fishes are distributed worldwide, with marine, freshwater and euryhaline species living in either tropical or temperate environments. Regional endemism is important at the species and genus levels, and the highest species diversity is found in the tropical marine Indo-West Pacific region. The clupeoid distribution follows two general pattern of species richness, the longitudinal and latitudinal gradients. To test historical hypotheses explaining the formation of these two gradients, we have examined the early biogeography of the Clupeoidei in reconstructing the evolution of their habitat preferences along with their ancestral range distributions on a time-calibrated mitogenomic phylogeny. The phylogenetic results support the distinction of nine main lineages within the Clupeoidei, five of them new. We infer several independent transitions from a marine to freshwater environment and from a tropical to temperate environment that occurred after the initial diversification period of the Clupeoidei. These results combined with our ancestral range reconstruction hypothesis suggest that the probable region of origin and diversification of the Clupeoidei during the Cretaceous period was the tropical marine precursor to the present Indo-West Pacific region. Thus, our study favors the hypotheses of “Region of origin” and “Tropical conservatism” to explain the origins of the longitudinal and latitudinal gradients of clupeoid species richness, respectively. Additional geological and paleontological evidence further define the tropical marine paleo-region of origin as the eastern Tethys Sea region. The Cretaceous fossil record of the Clupeoidei is partially incongruent with the results here as it contains taxa found outside this region. We discuss three possible causes of conflict between our biogeographical hypothesis and the distributions of the Cretaceous clupeoid fossils: regional extinction, incomplete taxonomic sampling and incorrect timescale estimation.
Prospecting for Novel Plant-Derived Molecules of Rauvolfia serpentina as Inhibitors of Aldose Reductase, a Potent Drug Target for Diabetes and Its Complications

Aldose Reductase (AR) is implicated in the development of secondary complications of diabetes, providing an interesting target for therapeutic intervention. Extracts of Rauvolfia serpentina, a medicinal plant endemic to the Himalayan mountain range, have been known to be effective in alleviating diabetes and its complications. In this study, we aim to prospect for novel plant-derived inhibitors from R. serpentina and to understand structural basis of their interactions. An extensive library of R. serpentina molecules was compiled and computationally screened for inhibitory action against AR. The stability of complexes, with docked leads, was verified using molecular dynamics simulations. Two structurally distinct plant-derived leads were identified as inhibitors: indobine and indobinine. Further, using these two leads as templates, 16 more leads were identified through ligand-based screening of their structural analogs, from a small molecules database. Thus, we obtained plant-derived indole alkaloids, and their structural analogs, as potential AR inhibitors from a manually curated dataset of R. serpentina molecules. Indole alkaloids reported herein, as a novel structural class unreported hitherto, may provide better insights for designing potential AR inhibitors with improved efficacy and fewer side effects.
FSO Links with Spatial Diversity over Strong Atmospheric Turbulence Channels

Free-space optical (FSO) communication has received much attention in recent years as a cost-effective, license-free and wide-bandwidth access technique for high data rates applications. The performance of FSO communication, however, severely suffers from turbulence-induced fading caused by atmospheric conditions. Multiple laser transmitters and/or receivers can be placed at both ends to mitigate the turbulence fading and exploit the advantages of spatial diversity. Spatial diversity is particularly crucial for strong turbulence channels in which single-input single-output (SISO) link performs extremely poor. Atmospheric-induced strong turbulence fading in outdoor FSO systems can be modeled as a multiplicative random process which follows the K distribution. In this paper, we investigate the error rate performance of FSO systems for K-distributed atmospheric turbulence channels and potential advantages of spatial diversity deployments at the transmitter and/or receiver. Our results demonstrate significant diversity gains of multiple transmitter/receivers deployment in FSO channels. We further present efficient approximated closed-form expressions for the average bit-error rate (BER) of multiple-input single-output (MISO) and single-input multiple-output (SIMO) FSO systems. These analytical tools are reliable alternatives to time-consuming Monte Carlo simulation of FSO systems where BER targets as low as 10-9 are typically aimed to achieve.
Transport properties of graphene based van der Waals heterostructures

In the past few years, led by graphene, a large variety of two dimensional (2D) materials have been discovered to exhibit astonishing properties. By assembling 2D materials with different designs, we are able to construct novel artificial van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures to explore new fundamental physics and potential applications for future technology.This thesis describes several novel vdW heterostructures and their fundamental properties. At the beginning, the basic properties of some 2D materials and assembled vdW heterostructures are introduced, together with the fabrication procedure and transport measurement setups. Then the graphene based capacitors on hBN (hexagonal Boron Nitride) substrate are studied, where quantum capacitance measurements are applied to determine the density of states and many body effects. Meanwhile, quantum capacitance measurement is also used to search for alternative substrates to hBN which allow graphene to exhibit micrometer-scale ballistic transport. We found that graphene placed on top of MoS2 and TaS2 show comparable mobilities up to 60,000cm2/Vs. After that, the graphene/hBN superlattices are studied. With a Hall bar structure based on the superlattices, we find that new Dirac minibands appear away from the main Dirac cone with pronounced peaks in the resistivity and are accompanied by reversal of the Hall effects. With the capacitive structure based on the superlattices, quantum capacitance measurement is used to directly probe the density states in the graphene/hBN superlattices, and we observe a clear replica spectrum, the Hofstadter-butterfly fan diagram, together with the suppression of quantum Hall Ferromagnetism. In the final part, we report on the existence of the valley current in the graphene/hBN superlattice structure. The topological current originating from graphene? s two valleys flows in opposite directions due to the broken inversion symmetry in the graphene/hBN superlattice, meaning an open band gap in graphene.
Genome-wide gain-of-function screen for genes that induce epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a developmental program that has been implicated in progression, metastasis and therapeutic resistance of some carcinomas. To identify genes whose overexpression drives EMT, we screened a lentiviral expression library of 17000 human open reading frames (ORFs) using high-content imaging to quantitate cytoplasmic vimentin. Hits capable of increasing vimentin in the mammary carcinoma-derived cell line MDA-MB-468 were confirmed in the non-tumorigenic breast-epithelial cell line MCF10A. When overexpressed in this model, they increased the rate of cell invasion through Matrigel™, induced mesenchymal marker expression and reduced expression of the epithelial marker E-cadherin. In gene-expression datasets derived from breast cancer patients, the expression of several novel genes correlated with expression of known EMT marker genes, indicating their in vivo relevance. As EMT-associated properties are thought to contribute in several ways to cancer progression, genes identified in this study may represent novel targets for anti-cancer therapy.
Perception of Social Cues of Danger in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Intuitive grasping of the meaning of subtle social cues is particularly affected in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Despite their relevance in social communication, the effect of averted gaze in fearful faces in conveying a signal of environmental threat has not been investigated using real face stimuli in adults with ASD. Here, using functional MRI, we show that briefly presented fearful faces with averted gaze, previously shown to be a strong communicative signal of environmental danger, produce different patterns of brain activation than fearful faces with direct gaze in a group of 26 normally intelligent adults with ASD compared with 26 matched controls. While implicit cue of threat produces brain activation in attention, emotion processing and mental state attribution networks in controls, this effect is absent in individuals with ASD. Instead, individuals with ASD show activation in the subcortical face-processing system in response to direct eye contact. An effect of differences in looking behavior was excluded in a separate eye tracking experiment. Our data suggest that individuals with ASD are more sensitive to direct eye contact than to social signals of danger conveyed by averted fearful gaze.
Learning to Generate Wikipedia Summaries for Underserved Languages from Wikidata

While Wikipedia exists in 287 languages, its content is unevenly distributed among them. In this work, we investigate the generation of open domain Wikipedia summaries in underserved languages using structured data from Wikidata. To this end, we propose a neural network architecture equipped with copy actions that learns to generate single-sentence and comprehensible textual summaries from Wikidata triples. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach by evaluating it against a set of baselines on two languages of different natures: Arabic, a morphological rich language with a larger vocabulary than English, and Esperanto, a constructed language known for its easy acquisition.
Crystal Structure of NisI in a Lipid-Free Form, the Nisin Immunity Protein, from Lactococcus lactis

ABSTRACT Nisin is a lantibiotic, a member of a family of polypeptides containing lanthionine with antimicrobial activity. Nisin-producing microorganisms require immunity proteins for self-protection from nisin itself. Lactococcus lactis, a microorganism that synthesizes nisin, has an integral NisFEG ABC transporter and an NisI lipoprotein that function in nisin immunity. Here, we present the crystal structure of the full length of NisI22-C, a lipid-free form of NisI, determined at 1.9-Å resolution. As with the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) structures of the N- and C-terminal domains of NisI, NisI22-C is composed of N- and C-terminal domains, both of which display a fold similar to that found in SpaI, a lipoprotein with immunity against subtilin in Bacillus subtilis. The full-length structure of NisI22-c reveals a large, deep cleft by the interdomain association, one side of which is occupied by the residues important for immunity. Opposite the cleft, a shallow groove is found where nisin-interacting residues are distributed in the periphery composed of the C-terminal negative patch. Based on a sulfate ion found in the large and deep cleft, a model of NisI in complex with a farnesyl diphosphate backbone of lipid II is proposed, suggesting a mechanism for increasing the chances of encountering nisin.
The Visual–Inertial Canoe Dataset

We present a dataset collected from a canoe along the Sangamon River in Illinois. The canoe was equipped with a stereo camera, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and a global positioning system (GPS) device, which provide visual data suitable for stereo or monocular applications, inertial measurements, and position data for ground truth. We recorded a canoe trip up and down the river for 44 minutes covering a 2.7 km round trip. The dataset adds to those previously recorded in unstructured environments and is unique in that it is recorded on a river, which provides its own set of challenges and constraints that are described in this paper. The dataset is stored on the Illinois Data Bank and can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-9342111_V1 .