Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An optimized electroporation approach for efficient CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in murine zygotes

Electroporation of zygotes represents a rapid alternative to the elaborate pronuclear injection procedure for CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing in mice. However, current protocols for electroporation either require the investment in specialized electroporators or corrosive pre-treatment of zygotes which compromises embryo viability. Here, we describe an easily adaptable approach for the introduction of specific mutations in C57BL/6N mice by electroporation of intact zygotes using a common electroporator with synthetic CRISPR/Cas9 components and minimal technical requirement. Direct comparison to conventional pronuclear injection demonstrates significantly reduced physical damage and thus improved embryo development with successful genome editing in up to 100% of living offspring. Hence, our novel approach for Easy Electroporation of Zygotes (EEZy) allows highly efficient generation of CRISPR/Cas9 transgenic mice while reducing the numbers of animals required.
Thermo-Electric Power Generators Using Gated Silicon Nanowires

Sentaurus technology computer aided design (TCAD) software is used to investigate the thermo-electric power generation of gated silicon nanowires. Two NiSi2/n-Si/NiS2 nanowire systems were considered, one where both contacts are Ohmic and one where the hot side contact is Schottky and the cold plate contact Ohmic. Gating of the contact-nanowire interface varies the depletion regions around the contacts allowing or blocking tunneling currents. In addition, the gate influences the carrier concentration at the surface of the nanowires, tuning the Seebeck coefficient and the electrical conductivity. Applying an appropriate gate voltage at the hot side contact can improve the output power. The best output power for the Schottky-Ohmic structure was found to be approximately 100 times higher than that of the Ohmic-Ohmic structure for a temperature difference of 30 K for the structure with a gate covering the full length of the nanowire.
Exploration of geometry and forces occurring within human-to-robot handovers

This work presents an exploratory user study of human-to-robot handovers. In particular, it examines how changes in a robot behaviour influence human participation and the overall interaction. With a 2×2×2 experimental design, we vary three basic factors and observe both the interaction position and forces. We find the robot's initial pose can inform the giver about the upcoming handover geometry and impact fluency and efficiency. Also we find variations in grasp method and retraction speed induce significantly different interaction forces. This effect may occur by changing the giver's perception of object safety and hence their release timing. Alternatively, it may stem from unnatural or mismatched robot movements. We determine that making the robot predictable is important: we observe a learning effect with forces declining over repeated trials. Simultaneously, the participants' self-reported discomfort with the robot decreases and perception of emotional warmth increases. Thus, we posit users are learning to predict the robot, becoming more familiar with its behaviours, and perhaps becoming more trusting of the robot's ability to safely receive the object. We find these results exciting as we believe a robot can become a trusted partner in collaborative tasks.
Transmit Signal Designs for Spatial Modulation With Analog Phase Shifters

In this paper, we study transmit codebook designs for spatial modulation with analog phase shifters. The proposed spatial modulation with analog phase shifters can send more spatial symbols than conventional spatial modulation, while reserving the low complexity of single RF-chain MIMO structure. The main idea is to transmit $N_{t}$ different phase-shifted copies of a digitally modulated signal through $N_{t}$ transmit antennas. In each time slot, the transmitted information bits are divided into two groups. The first group of the bits is mapped to the digitally modulated signal symbol. The second group of the bits is mapped to the spatial symbol, which determines the phase shift of each antenna. The transmit signal designs are carried out in open loop and closed loop scenarios, respectively. In open loop scenario, the transmit codebook is designed in two steps, i.e., generate the optimal spatial codebook according to Grassmannian line packing criterion, and find the optimal tradeoff between the cardinality of spatial codebook and the modulation order of signal symbol. In the closed loop scenario, the transmit codebook is designed according to the structure of Huffman tree. Extensive simulation results are given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in open loop scenario and close loop scenario, respectively.
Discreteness effects in population dynamics

We analyse numerically the effects of small population size in the initial transient regime of a simple example population dynamics. These effects play an important role for the numerical determination of large deviation functions of additive observables for stochastic processes. A method commonly used in order to determine such functions is the so-called cloning algorithm which in its non-constant population version essentially reduces to the determination of the growth rate of a population, averaged over many realizations of the dynamics. However, the averaging of populations is highly dependent not only on the number of realizations of the population dynamics, and on the initial population size but also on the cut-off time (or population) considered to stop their numerical evolution. This may result in an over-influence of discreteness effects at initial times, caused by small population size. We overcome these effects by introducing a (realization-dependent) time delay in the evolution of populations, additional to the discarding of the initial transient regime of the population growth where these discreteness effects are strong. We show that the improvement in the estimation of the large deviation function comes precisely from these two main contributions.
German Stock Returns: The Dance with the Dollar

In this paper, we try to shed some light on the association between the stock returns of German DAX corporations and movements of the U.S. Dollar. The link turns out to be rather unstable, but it depends significantly on direction and magnitude of foreign trade, and on the existing level of the DM/ Dollar exchange rate. This conclusion is based on exchange-rate-exposure and APT-modelling, as well as on panel data on the performance of 28 German DAX corporations, inclusion of macroeconomic risk factors, data on export and import involvement, and on econometric panel, GLS, SUR and cointegration techniques.
Automated Robotic Measurement of 3-D Cell Morphologies

Cell morphology plays an important role in maintaining normal cellular functions. Existing techniques for cell morphology measurement, such as confocal imaging and atomic force microscopy, have the limitations of photobleaching and incompatibility for integration with other cell manipulation instruments. This paper reports a robotic cell manipulation system that is capable of measuring changes of cell morphologies. This capability is enabled by several key techniques including cell recognition, determination of contact points on a cell, and two vision-based contact detection methods for measuring cell bottom and top surface positions. With the detected cell contour and height information, three-dimensional cell morphology is reconstructed. Experiments show that the cell morphology measurement technique has an overall success rate of 95.67%, an average measurement speed of 2.63 s/contact, and a measurement error of 4.65%. The cell morphology measurement results indicate that bladder cancer cells with higher metastatic potential exhibit lower cell heights than earlier-stage cancer cells because of more disorganized cytoskeleton networks. We also applied the robotic system to microinject the drug Cytochalasin D into cancer cells, and the drug effect on cell morphology changes was quantified.
Learning Robust Search Strategies Using a Bandit-Based Approach

Effective solving of constraint problems often requires choosing good or specific search heuristics. However, choosing or designing a good search heuristic is non-trivial and is often a manual process. In this paper, rather than manually choosing/designing search heuristics, we propose the use of bandit-based learning techniques to automatically select search heuristics. Our approach is online where the solver learns and selects from a set of heuristics during search. The goal is to obtain automatic search heuristics which give robust performance. Preliminary experiments show that our adaptive technique is more robust than the original search heuristics. It can also outperform the original heuristics.
The many faces of operationalization in goal-oriented requirements engineering

Goal models have been used in Requirements Engineering (RE) to elicit, model and analyse stakeholder requirements. In a goal model, stakeholder requirements are represented as root-level goals that are iteratively refined through AND/OR-refinements to eventually yield a specification consisting of functions the system-to-be needs to implement, as well non-functional requirements and domain assumptions. The association of a function to a goal is called operationalization in the sense that the function specifies how a goal can be made operational. We focus on the concept of operationalization and propose several extensions to account for operationalizations of non-functional and adaptation requirements, as well as behavioural specifications.
Single Mothers’ Experiences with Pregnancy and Child Rearing in Korea: Discrepancy between Social Services/Policies and Single Mothers’ Needs

This study aims to explore single mothers’ experiences with social services/policies for their independent living and to identify gaps between these experiences and the needs of single mothers. A focus group discussion was performed to collect data. Seven single mothers discussed their experiences in significant periods of their lives: pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. Findings from the qualitative thematic analysis show discrepancies between the direction of social services/policies and single mothers’ needs, in terms of difficulties in healthcare, childcare, housing, employment, and income security. To the single mothers in this study, the social safety net is not inclusive, compared to that which is available to two-parent families or adoptive families. It is necessary to intervene in current blind spots of services/policies for single mothers, and to provide a social safety net to strengthen single mothers’ self-reliance and their children’s social security in the long term.
Comparing privacy attitudes of knowledge workers in the U.S. and India

We compared privacy attitudes of knowledge workers from the U.S. and India who were involved in a collaborative software development project distributed across five sites of a multinational corporation. Prior studies on consumer privacy suggest that privacy concerns in India are lower than those in the U.S. While our work largely confirmed these findings, we found unexpectedly that knowledge workers in India expressed higher interpersonal privacy concerns compared with their U.S. colleagues. Our study points to a number of explanatory factors for the elevated privacy concerns in the Indian knowledge workplace: nature of interpersonal relationships, associations with privacy, competition among team members, management style and hierarchy, and differences in the physical characteristics of the workplace. Our findings highlight the challenges in satisfying privacy needs when individuals and teams collaborate with knowledge workers in India. An understanding of these issues is important for building and deploying systems for intercultural collaboration that can accommodate differences in privacy concerns.
Long-Term Power Procurement Scheduling Method for Smart-Grid Powered Communication Systems

With the emergence of smart grids, adopting dynamic energy pricing models has become both possible and desirable. With such a pricing dynamicity, great savings in energy costs can be achieved in telecommunication systems when energy is procured efficiently through carefully designed real-time resource schedulers. Broadly speaking, existing scheduling algorithms can be categorized into two classes: online and off-line. Off-line algorithms are not practical merely because of their need for prior knowledge of future system information. In this paper, we propose an efficient online power procurement and allocation scheduler that maximizes a long-term system utility function without the need for prior knowledge of future system information, where the system utility function is expressed in such a way that the gain coming from serving the users and the cost of the procured energy are traded off for one another. We propose an approach that allows us to derive closed-form instantaneous energy procurement and resource allocations that are functions only of the actual instantaneous system parameters. Our approach computes the optimal power procurement and users’ allocation per time slot in an online fashion with very low computational complexity. Using simulations, we study the efficiency of the proposed approach under various parameters and quantify the energy costs that our approach can potentially save.
Predicting the performance of school: Case study in Sultanate of Oman

Advancement of the pedagogical education systems is imperative for any country. The education systems in Sultanate of Oman have come a long way in the processes of improving the quality of education provided to students from the primary school until the university. Like any system, the education system generates a huge amount of data related to all the stakeholders involve in the education process. However, this data is still untapped and it is considered very important to enhance the quality of education. The objective of this study is to predict the performance of schools based on educational data set. Several classification algorithms were employed to achieve the goal of the paper and the result shows a high accuracy for the generated models.
TRIQK, a Novel Family of Small Proteins Localized to the Endoplasmic Reticulum Membrane, Is Conserved Across Vertebrates

Abstract Here we report a novel small protein that is highly conserved across vertebrates. The protein, which we have named TRIQK, has no homology to any previously reported proteins or functional domains, but all vertebrate homologs of this protein share a characteristic triple repeat of the sequence QXXK/R, as well as a hydrophobic C-terminal region. The Xenopus triqk gene (xTriqk) was isolated in an expression screen on the basis of its ability to cause dramatic changes in cell size and nuclear size and morphology in developing embryos. The Xenopus and mouse triqk genes are broadly expressed throughout embryogenesis, and mtriqk is also generally expressed in mouse adult tissues. TRIQK proteins are localized to the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. Depletion of endogenous xTRIQK protein in Xenopus embryos causes no detectable morphological or functional changes in tadpoles.
A programmable CMOS transceiver for structural health monitoring

We describe a highly-integrated CMOS transceiver for active structural health monitoring (SHM). The chip actuates piezoelectric transducers and also senses ultrasound waves received by the same or another transducer. The transmitter uses an integer-N frequency synthesizer and pulse-width modulation (PWM) to generate low-distortion, band-limited waveforms up to 12.7 Vpp with center frequency from ∼0.1–2.75 MHz. The integrated offset-canceling fully-differential receiver has programmable gain and bandwidth, and uses quadrature demodulation to extract both amplitude and phase of the received waveforms for further signal processing. The transceiver was fabricated in a 0.5 μm CMOS process and has been validated using (2D) damage localization on an SHM test bed.
Detection-Localization Tradeoff in MIMO Radars

Two gains play key roles in recently developed MIMO wireless communication systems: “spatial diversity” gain and “spatial multiplexing” gain. The diversity gain refers to the capability to decrease the error rate of theMIMO channel, while the multiplexing gain implicitly refers to the amount of increase in the capacity of the MIMO channel. It has been shown that there is a fundamental tradeoff between these two types of gains, meaning interplay between increasing reliability (via an increase in the diversity gain) and increasing data rate (via an increase in the multiplexing gain). On the other hand, recently, MIMO radars have attracted much attention for their superior ability to enhance the system’s performance. As a MIMO system, it is expected that the mentioned diversity-multiplexing tradeoff exists in a MIMO radar, too. In this paper, this tradeoff is studied and verified in MIMO radars with widely separated antennas. In more details, it will be shown that increasing dependency between transmit-receive links results in higher diversity gain and lower multiplexing gain, and vice versa. Then, the optimal tradeoff is introduced, i.e., the conditions that the MIMO radar system should have, so that the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff is at its optimum point, are driven.
A description of externally recorded womb sounds in human subjects during gestation

Objective Reducing environmental noise benefits premature infants in neonatal intensive care units (NICU), but excessive reduction may lead to sensory deprivation, compromising development. Instead of minimal noise levels, environments that mimic intrauterine soundscapes may facilitate infant development by providing a sound environment reflecting fetal life. This soundscape may support autonomic and emotional development in preterm infants. We aimed to assess the efficacy and feasibility of external non-invasive recordings in pregnant women, endeavoring to capture intra-abdominal or womb sounds during pregnancy with electronic stethoscopes and build a womb sound library to assess sound trends with gestational development. We also compared these sounds to popular commercial womb sounds marketed to new parents. Study design Intra-abdominal sounds from 50 mothers in their second and third trimester (13 to 40 weeks) of pregnancy were recorded for 6 minutes in a quiet clinic room with 4 electronic stethoscopes, placed in the right upper and lower quadrants, and left upper and lower quadrants of the abdomen. These recording were partitioned into 2-minute intervals in three different positions: standing, sitting and lying supine. Maternal and gestational age, Body Mass Index (BMI) and time since last meal were collected during recordings. Recordings were analyzed using long-term average spectral and waveform analysis, and compared to sounds from non-pregnant abdomens and commercially-marketed womb sounds selected for their availability, popularity, and claims they mimic the intrauterine environment. Results Maternal sounds shared certain common characteristics, but varied with gestational age. With fetal development, the maternal abdomen filtered high (500–5,000 Hz) and mid-frequency (100–500 Hz) energy bands, but no change appeared in contributions from low-frequency signals (10–100 Hz) with gestational age. Variation appeared between mothers, suggesting a resonant chamber role for intra-abdominal space. Compared to commercially-marketed sounds, womb signals were dominated by bowel sounds, were of lower frequency, and showed more variation in intensity. Conclusions High-fidelity intra-abdominal or womb sounds during pregnancy can be recorded non-invasively. Recordings vary with gestational age, and show a predominance of low frequency noise and bowel sounds which are distinct from popular commercial products. Such recordings may be utilized to determine whether sounds influence preterm infant development in the NICU.
A Novel Contactless Current Sensor for HVDC Overhead Transmission Lines

Measuring the current in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems is always regarded as a challenging task. For transmission systems, dc current transformers or sensors are only available in substations and converter stations. In order to provide more flexibility and convenience, this paper proposes a contactless dc current sensor, which can be easily placed on-site in the environment of HVDC overhead transmission lines. The proposed method significantly improves the convenience and safety of the HVDC current measurement. Using a magnetic-field sensor array, the proposed current algorithm can optimally calculate the overhead-line currents with partially known overhead-line geometry. The simulation results in this paper demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately calculate the HVDC current. Moreover, the proposed method is validated by a reduced-scale HVDC overhead transmission line.
Growth, grazing, and inorganic C and N uptake in a mixotrophic and a heterotrophic ciliate

We compared growth, grazing and inorganic carbon and nitrogen uptake in two ciliates, the mixotrophic Strombidium rassoulzadegani and the heterotrophic Strombidinopsis sp. The mixotroph had over 2-fold higher gross growth ef ﬁ ciencies (fraction of ingestion devoted to growth; GGE) for C at low food concentrations, while the heterotroph ’ s GGE was 2-fold higher under food saturation. Inorganic carbon uptake did not vary signi ﬁ cantly with food concentration in the mixotroph, but its importance for growth was highest at low food concentrations. Although there was measurable inorganic carbon uptake in the heterotroph due to still-active algae in food vacuoles, it did not contribute signi ﬁ cantly to growth. The two ciliates took up inorganic nitrogen (both nitrate and ammonium) at similar biomass-speci ﬁ c rates, but inorganic nitrogen did not contribute signi ﬁ cantly to their N requirements. Mixotrophy with retained chloroplasts provides a signi ﬁ cant energy subsidy, especially at low food levels, but maximum growth rates were similar for the mixotroph and the heterotroph we compared, suggesting that the advantage of chloroplast retention diminishes when food concentrations are high.
Design a software real-time operation platform for wave piercing catamarans motion control using linear quadratic regulator based genetic algorithm

This work presents optimal linear quadratic regulator (LQR) based on genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the two degrees of freedom (2 DoF) motion control problem in head seas for wave piercing catamarans (WPC). The proposed LQR based GA control strategy is to select optimal weighting matrices (Q and R). The seakeeping performance of WPC based on proposed algorithm is challenged because of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system of uncertain coefficient problems. Besides the kinematical constraint problems of WPC, the external conditions must be considered, like the sea disturbance and the actuators (a T-foil and two flaps) control. Moreover, this paper describes the MATLAB and LabVIEW software plats to simulate the reduction effects of WPC. Finally, the real-time (RT) NI CompactRIO embedded controller is selected to test the effectiveness of the actuators based on proposed techniques. In conclusion, simulation and experimental results prove the correctness of the proposed algorithm. The percentage of heave and pitch reductions are more than 18% in different high speeds and bad sea conditions. And the results also verify the feasibility of NI CompactRIO embedded controller.