Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification and Separation of Aggregates in Asphalt Mixture Based on Computed Tomography

In order to study the aggregates structure within asphalt mixture,the 3D aggregate structure was reconstructed based on CT technology.The program based on Matlab was developed to conduct aggregate identification and separation.Most of the time,the aggregates which touch each other are easily be identified as one aggregate.Therefore,the Gaussian filter was used to smooth the aggregates,Hmax filter was used to flat the aggregates,and Watershed filter was applied to cut the touched aggregates.The technique was validated by laboratory experiments.Based on this technique,the real asphalt mixture was analyzed based on CT slices,and the calculated aggregate volume information was consistent with the grading information.The results reveal that it is feasible to identify and separate the aggregates within asphalt mixture based on CT technology,which is good for the research of aggregate orientation,segregation and gradation change during the compaction.
The genetic diversity and population structures of indigenous pig breeds in Zhejiang Province revealed by GGRS sequencing

Chinese indigenous pigs in Zhejiang Province are well known for their high fecundity. In order to verify breed subdivision at the genomic level, we investigated genetic diversity and population structure of seven breeds and made comparisons with three Western pig breeds using next-generation sequencing data. Parameters obtained from allelic richness and proportion of polymorphic markers indicated that the genetic diversity of the Chinese indigenous pigs was higher than that of the Western pigs, with the highest and lowest values found in the Chaluand and the Landrace pigs respectively. Both neighbor-joining tree and principal components analysis could distinguish breeds from one another and structure analysis showed less differentiation among Western pigs than among the Chinese pigs. The average linkage disequilibrium decay over distance was significantly less in the Chinese pigs compared with the Western pigs, ranging from 188.2 to 280.6 kb for the Chinese pigs and 680.3 to 752.8 kb for the Western breeds and showing an average r2 threshold value of 0.3. Results obtained from high-density SNP comparison over the whole genome on genetic diversity and population structure were in agreement with the current breed classification of the pigs in Zhejiang Province. More importantly, the results presented here advances our current understanding of the genomic biology of Chinese indigenous pigs in Zhejiang Province and allows for implementation of conservation strategies in additional breeds.
Learning distribution metric for object contour tracking

A new approach to tracking using active contour model is presented. Suppose that the class of objects to be tracked is characterized by a probability distribution, we tackle the active contour tracking problem by learning a suitable distance measure between distributions. A cross bin criterion for comparing distributions in quadratic form is adopted in this paper for active contour tracking, in which the measure matrix is learned and updated on-the-fly based on convex optimization. We model the image energy by the distance between the foreground distribution and the model one, divided by the distance between the background distribution and the model one. The experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of our method.
Effects of Heat Shock on Resistance to Parasitoids and on Life History Traits in an Aphid/Endosymbiont System

Temperature variation is an important factor determining the outcomes of interspecific interactions, including those involving hosts and parasites. This can apply to variation in average temperature or to relatively short but intense bouts of extreme temperature. We investigated the effect of heat shock on the ability of aphids (Aphis fabae) harbouring protective facultative endosymbionts (Hamiltonella defensa) to resist parasitism by Hymenopteran parasitoids (Lysiphlebus fabarum). Furthermore, we investigated whether heat shocks can modify previously observed genotype-by-genotype (G x G) interactions between different endosymbiont isolates and parasitoid genotypes. Lines of genetically identical aphids possessing different isolates of H. defensa were exposed to one of two heat shock regimes (35°C and 39°C) or to a control temperature (20°C) before exposure to three different asexual lines of the parasitoids. We observed strong G x G interactions on parasitism rates, reflecting the known genetic specificity of symbiont-conferred resistance, and we observed a significant G x G x E interaction induced by heat shocks. However, this three-way interaction was mainly driven by the more extreme heat shock (39°C), which had devastating effects on aphid lifespan and reproduction. Restricting the analysis to the more realistic heat shock of 35°C, the G x G x E interaction was weaker (albeit still significant), and it did not lead to any reversals of the aphid lines' susceptibility rankings to different parasitoids. Thus, under conditions feasibly encountered in the field, the relative fitness of different parasitoid genotypes on hosts protected by particular symbiont strains remains mostly uncomplicated by heat stress, which should simplify biological control programs dealing with this system.
Long‐term outcome following remote ischemic postconditioning during percutaneous coronary interventions—the RIP‐PCI trial long‐term follow‐up

The clinical value of ischemic conditioning during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and mode of administration is controversial. Our aim was to assess the long‐term effect of remote ischemic postconditioning among patients undergoing PCI. We randomized 360 patients undergoing PCI who presented with a negative troponin T at baseline into 3 groups: 2 groups received remote ischemic postconditioning (with ischemia applied to the arm in 1 group and to the thigh in the other group), and the third group acted as a control group. Remote ischemic postconditioning was applied during PCI immediately following stent deployment, by 3, 5‐minute cycles of blood pressure cuff inflation to >200 mm Hg on the arm or thigh (20 mm Hg to the arm in the control), with 5‐minute breaks between each cycle. There were no differences in baseline characteristics among the 3 groups. Periprocedural myocardial injury occurred in 33% (P = 0.64). After 1 year, there was no difference between groups in death (P = 0.91), myocardial infarction (P = 0.78), or repeat revascularization (P = 0.86). During 3 years of follow‐up, there was no difference in death, myocardial infarction, and revascularization among the groups (P = 0.45). Remote ischemic postconditioning during PCI did not affect long‐term cardiovascular outcome. A similar effect was obtained when remote ischemia was induced to the upper or lower limb.
Suitability of a PLCL fibrous scaffold for soft tissue engineering applications: A combined biological and mechanical characterisation

Poly(lactide-co-ε-caprolactone) (PLCL) has been reported to be a good candidate for tissue engineering because of its good biocompatibility. Particularly, a braided PLCL scaffold (PLL/PCL ratio = 85/15) has been recently designed and partially validated for ligament tissue engineering. In the present study, we assessed the in vivo biocompatibility of acellular and cellularised scaffolds in a rat model. We then determined its in vitro biocompatibility using stem cells issued from both bone marrow and Wharton Jelly. From a biological point of view, the scaffold was shown to be suitable for tissue engineering in all these cases. Secondly, while the initial mechanical properties of this scaffold have been previously reported to be adapted to load-bearing applications, we studied the evolution in time of the mechanical properties of PLCL fibres due to hydrolytic degradation. Results for isolated PLCL fibres were extrapolated to the fibrous scaffold using a previously developed numerical model. It was shown that no accumulation of plastic strain was to be expected for a load-bearing application such as anterior cruciate ligament tissue engineering. However, PLCL fibres exhibited a non-expected brittle behaviour after two months. This may involve a potential risk of premature failure of the scaffold, unless tissue growth compensates this change in mechanical properties. This combined study emphasises the need to characterise the properties of biomaterials in a pluridisciplinary approach, since biological and mechanical characterisations led in this case to different conclusions concerning the suitability of this scaffold for load-bearing applications.
Biofilm Lithography enables high-resolution cell patterning via optogenetic adhesin expression

Significance Bacteria live in surface-attached communities known as biofilms, where spatial structure is tightly linked to community function. We have developed a genetically encoded biofilm patterning tool (“Biofilm Lithography”) by engineering bacteria such that the expression of membrane adhesion proteins responsible for surface attachment is optically regulated. Accordingly, these bacteria only form biofilm on illuminated surface regions. With this tool, we are able to use blue light to pattern Escherichia coli biofilms with 25 μm spatial resolution. We present an accompanying biophysical model to understand the mechanism behind light-regulated biofilm formation and to provide insight on related natural biofilm processes. Overall, this biofilm patterning tool can be applied to study natural microbial communities as well as to engineer living biomaterials. Bacterial biofilms represent a promising opportunity for engineering of microbial communities. However, our ability to control spatial structure in biofilms remains limited. Here we engineer Escherichia coli with a light-activated transcriptional promoter (pDawn) to optically regulate expression of an adhesin gene (Ag43). When illuminated with patterned blue light, long-term viable biofilms with spatial resolution down to 25 μm can be formed on a variety of substrates and inside enclosed culture chambers without the need for surface pretreatment. A biophysical model suggests that the patterning mechanism involves stimulation of transiently surface-adsorbed cells, lending evidence to a previously proposed role of adhesin expression during natural biofilm maturation. Overall, this tool—termed “Biofilm Lithography”—has distinct advantages over existing cell-depositing/patterning methods and provides the ability to grow structured biofilms, with applications toward an improved understanding of natural biofilm communities, as well as the engineering of living biomaterials and bottom–up approaches to microbial consortia design.
SPAN: Understanding a Question with Its Support Answers

Matching a question to its best answer is a common task in community question answering. In this paper, we focus on the non-factoid questions and aim to pick out the best answer from its candidate answers. Most of the existing deep models directly measure the similarity between question and answer by their individual sentence embeddings. In order to tackle the problem of the information lack in question's descriptions and the lexical gap between questions and answers, we propose a novel deep architecture namely SPAN in this paper. Specifically we introduce support answers to help understand the question, which are defined as the best answers of those similar questions to the original one. Then we can obtain two kinds of similarities, one is between question and the candidate answer, and the other one is between support answers and the candidate answer. The matching score is finally generated by combining them. Experiments on Yahoo! Answers demonstrate that SPAN can outperform the baseline models.
Peak Shift and Rules in Human Generalization

Two experiments tested whether a peak-shifted generalization gradient could be explained by the averaging of distinct gradients displayed in subgroups reporting different generalization rules. Across experiments using a causal judgment task (Experiment 1) and a fear conditioning paradigm (Experiment 2), we found a close concordance between self-reported rules and generalization gradients using a continuous stimulus dimension (hue). Both experiments also showed an overall peak-shifted gradient after differential conditioning, but not after single cue conditioning. Importantly, the peak shift could be decomposed into linear and peaked gradients when participants were divided into rule subgroups. Our results highlight the need to consider individual differences in the rules that participants derive in human generalization studies and suggest that in some situations, peak shift may be a consequence of averaging across diverse rule subgroups.
New quantization error assessment methodology for fixed-point pipeline FFT processor design

Since the blooming of mobile computing era, all semiconductor providers are seeking to provide low-power, high-performance, high-compact solutions to consumers. System on Chip (SoC) is a prominent solution for integrating multiple functions into one compact size chip. However, for many new applications with high intensive computing demands, such as GPS location, High Definition (HD) video recording and processing, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), etc. System designers usually utilize fixed point algorithms other than floating-point algorithms as a trade-off between precession and memory occupation. One of the challenging works in designing a fixed-point FFT processor is to assess the quantization error introduced by wordlength configuration. An optimized wordlength configuration will eliminate the output quantization error in some extent, and save a large amount of memory space, which has become a crucial part of SoC/ASIC design. In this paper, we proposed a quantization error model based method to assess the output SQNR (Signal-to-Quantization-Noise Ratio), and we thoroughly discussed a matrix representation of a radix-22 Decimation-In-Frequency (DIF) FFT quantization error propagation model. In addition, we comprehensively analyze and disclose the quantitative relationships among wordlength configuration, fixed-point FFT architecture and output SQNR. A new wordlength configuration method named PMBM (Performance-Memory Balanced Method) for fixed-point pipeline FFT processor is also proposed. Eventually, we testified our method in both a 256-point FFT and a 1024-point FFT using SystemC platform. The experiment results show that our method significantly decrease the memory usage of a pipeline FFT by 26% (256-point) and 30% (1024-point) respectively. We implemented a 16K-point FFT ASIC to verify our method.
Rehabilitation of Advanced Cancer Patients in Palliative Care Unit

Objective To evaluate the compliance and satisfaction of rehabilitation recommendations for advanced cancer patients hospitalized in the palliative care unit. Methods Advanced cancer patients admitted to a hospice palliative care unit were recruited. Patients with advanced cancer and a life expectancy of less than 6 months, as assumed by the oncologist were included. Patients who were expected to die within 3 days were excluded. ECOG and Karnofsky performance scales, function ambulatory category, level of ambulation, and survival days were evaluated under the perspective of comprehensive rehabilitation. Problem-based rehabilitations were provided categorized as physical therapy at the gym, bedside physical therapy, physical modalities, medications and pain intervention. Investigation of compliance for each category was completed. Patient satisfaction was surveyed using a questionnaire. Results Forty-five patients were recruited and received evaluations for rehabilitation perspective. The subjects were reported to have gait-related difficulties (71.1%), pain (68.9%), poor medical conditions (68.9%), bladder or bowel problems (44.4%), dysphagias (11.1%), mental status issues (11.1%), edemas (11.1%), spasticity (2.2%), and pressure sores (2.2%). In the t-test, patients with good compliance for GymPT showed higher survival days (p<0.05). In the satisfaction survey, patients with performance scales showed a greater satisfaction in Spearman's correlation analysis (p<0.05). Conclusion Advanced cancer patients admitted to the hospice palliative care unit have many rehabilitation needs. Patients with a longer survival time showed better compliance for GymPT. Patients with a better performance scale showed a higher satisfaction. Comprehensive rehabilitation may be needed to advanced cancer patients in the hospice palliative care unit.
Multiple Single-Cell Genomes Provide Insight into Functions of Uncultured Deltaproteobacteria in the Human Oral Cavity

Despite a long history of investigation, many bacteria associated with the human oral cavity have yet to be cultured. Studies that correlate the presence or abundance of uncultured species with oral health or disease highlight the importance of these community members. Thus, we sequenced several single-cell genomic amplicons from Desulfobulbus and Desulfovibrio (class Deltaproteobacteria) to better understand their function within the human oral community and their association with periodontitis, as well as other systemic diseases. Genomic data from oral Desulfobulbus and Desulfovibrio species were compared to other available deltaproteobacterial genomes, including from a subset of host-associated species. While both groups share a large number of genes with other environmental Deltaproteobacteria genomes, they encode a wide array of unique genes that appear to function in survival in a host environment. Many of these genes are similar to virulence and host adaptation factors of known human pathogens, suggesting that the oral Deltaproteobacteria have the potential to play a role in the etiology of periodontal disease.
On Projection Matrix Optimization for Compressive Sensing Systems

This paper considers the problem of designing the projection matrix <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\Phi $</tex></formula> for a compressive sensing (CS) system in which the dictionary <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\Psi $</tex></formula> is assumed to be given. The optimal projection matrix design is formulated in terms of finding those <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\Phi $</tex></formula> such that the Frobenius norm of the difference between the Gram matrix of the equivalent dictionary <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\Phi \Psi $</tex></formula> and the identity matrix is minimized. A class of the solutions is derived in a closed-form, which is a generalization of the existing results. More interestingly, it is revealed that this solution set is characterized by an arbitrary orthonormal matrix. This freedom is then used to further enhance the performance of the CS system by minimizing the coherence between the atoms of the equivalent dictionary. An alternating minimization-based algorithm is proposed for solving the corresponding minimization problem. Experiments are carried out and simulations show that the projection matrix obtained by the proposed approach significantly improves the signal recovery accuracy of the CS system and outperforms those by existing algorithms.
DeepTest: Automated Testing of Deep-Neural-Network-Driven Autonomous Cars

Recent advances in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have led to the development of DNN-driven autonomous cars that, using sensors like camera, LiDAR, etc., can drive without any human intervention. Most major manufacturers including Tesla, GM, Ford, BMW, and Waymo/Google are working on building and testing different types of autonomous vehicles. The lawmakers of several US states including California, Texas, and New York have passed new legislation to fast-track the process of testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles on their roads. However, despite their spectacular progress, DNNs, just like traditional software, often demonstrate incorrect or unexpected corner-case behaviors that can lead to potentially fatal collisions. Several such real-world accidents involving autonomous cars have already happened including one which resulted in a fatality. Most existing testing techniques for DNN-driven vehicles are heavily dependent on the manual collection of test data under different driving conditions which become prohibitively expensive as the number of test conditions increases. In this paper, we design, implement, and evaluate DeepTest, a systematic testing tool for automatically detecting erroneous behaviors of DNN-driven vehicles that can potentially lead to fatal crashes. First, our tool is designed to automatically generated test cases leveraging real-world changes in driving conditions like rain, fog, lighting conditions, etc. DeepTest systematically explore different parts of the DNN logic by generating test inputs that maximize the numbers of activated neurons. DeepTest found thousands of erroneous behaviors under different realistic driving conditions (e.g., blurring, rain, fog, etc.) many of which lead to potentially fatal crashes in three top performing DNNs in the Udacity self-driving car challenge.
Notes on “a password-based remote user authentication scheme without smart card”

Recently, Chen et al. proposed a remote user authentication scheme for non-tamper-proof storage devices like Universal Serial Bus (USB) stick. A little later, He et al. found that Chen et al.'s scheme suffers from device stolen attack, insider attack and lack of forward secrecy. He et al. improved the scheme by Chen et al. by presenting another scheme. Nonetheless, we detect some security problems in the scheme by He et al. We show that He et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to off-line password guessing attack. Besides, an attacker can not only impersonate the user impersonation but can also establish a session key with the server, as a result, the scheme lacks proper mutual authentication. Further, the scheme does not protect user's privacy and a user cannot freely change his password at his will as password updating requires interaction with the server.
MicroRNA-143-3p, up-regulated in H. pylori-positive gastric cancer, suppresses tumor growth, migration and invasion by directly targeting AKT2

Our previous studies have suggested a protective role for H. pylori infection in the prognosis of gastric cancer. Based on those findings, we hypothesized that H. pylori-positive and -negative gastric cancers may exhibit different growth patterns and pathobiological behaviors, indicating different mechanisms of cancer progression. By microarray analysis, we studied miRNAs expression profiles in 42 gastric cancer patients, comparing 21 H. pylori-positive and 21 H. pylori-negative groups. Luciferase reporter assay and western blot were used to examine the potential target genes of the interested miRNA. In the present study, 53 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in H. pylori-positive and -negative gastric cancer tissues. We investigated the expression and function of one candidate, miR-143-3p, which was the most significantly increased miRNA in H. pylori-positive gastric cancer tissues. We observed that miR-143-3p expression was significantly decreased in gastric cancer tissues and cells, which correlated with late stage and lymph node metastasis. Using gain- and loss-of-function experiments in vitro, we demonstrate that miR-143-3p negatively regulated cell growth, apoptosis, migration and invasion. We further characterized AKT2 as a novel direct target of miR-143-3p. Knockdown of AKT2 expression mimicked the effects of miR-143-3p restoration. In conclusion, our data suggest that miR-143-3p acts as a novel tumor suppressive miRNA by regulating tumor growth, migration and invasion through directly targeting AKT2 gene. Further investigation is warranted to characterize the mechanisms underlying gastric cancer progression and may eventually contribute to its therapy.