Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FAT-based robust adaptive control of optical micro electro mechanical system

This paper is concerned with the problem of designing a FAT-based robust adaptive control strategy for optical micro electro mechanical system (MEMS). Uncertainties including system parameter variations, external disturbance, and un-modeled dynamics are considered in control design procedure. The uncertainties firstly represented by finite linear combinations of orthonormal basis function with some unknown constant weighting vectors. Appropriate update laws for the weighting vectors are then adjusted using the Lyapunov method so that uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) stability of the output error can be proved as long as a sufficient number of basis functions are used. The proposed control strategy is simple, and less computational that is suitable for practical implementation. Simulation results demonstrate high performance of the proposed control schemes.
The Role of a Neuropsychologist on a Movement Disorders Deep Brain Stimulation Team

Abstract The term movement disorders is misleading in the implication that the symptoms are limited to motor problems. Most movement disorders include a variety of neurobehavioral and neurocognitive symptoms that require neuropsychological expertise. The goal of this paper is to provide a rationale and practical roadmap for neuropsychologists’ involvement in a Movement Disorders team with a specific focus on pre-operative deep brain stimulation (DBS) evaluations. Pragmatic recommendations regarding requisite skills, clinical practice, recommendations, communication, and benefits are outlined.
Covariate‐adjusted heatmaps for visualizing biological data via correlation decomposition

Motivation: Heatmap is a popular visualization technique in biology and related fields. In this study, we extend heatmaps within the framework of matrix visualization (MV) by incorporating a covariate adjustment process through the estimation of conditional correlations. MV can explore the embedded information structure of high‐dimensional large‐scale datasets effectively without dimension reduction. The benefit of the proposed covariate‐adjusted heatmap is in the exploration of conditional association structures among the subjects or variables that cannot be done with conventional MV. Results: For adjustment of a discrete covariate, the conditional correlation is estimated by the within and between analysis. This procedure decomposes a correlation matrix into the within‐ and between‐component matrices. The contribution of the covariate effects can then be assessed through the relative structure of the between‐component to the original correlation matrix while the within‐component acts as a residual. When a covariate is of continuous nature, the conditional correlation is equivalent to the partial correlation under the assumption of a joint normal distribution. A test is then employed to identify the variable pairs which possess the most significant differences at varying levels of correlation before and after a covariate adjustment. In addition, a z‐score significance map is constructed to visualize these results. A simulation and three biological datasets are employed to illustrate the power and versatility of our proposed method. Availability and implementation: GAP is available to readers and is free to non‐commercial applications. The installation instructions, the user's manual, and the detailed tutorials can be found at http://gap.stat.sinica.edu. tw/Software/GAP. Supplementary information: Supplementary Data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Cu nanowires shelled with NiFe layered double hydroxide nanosheets as bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting

Developing highly active and low-cost electrocatalysts with superior durability for both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a grand challenge to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Here, we report on a facile and scalable approach to fabricate highly efficient three-dimensional (3D) bulk catalysts of core–shell nanostructures, in which few-layer NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets are grown on Cu nanowire cores supported on Cu foams, toward overall water splitting. Remarkably, benefiting from the 3D hierarchical nanoarchitecture with large surface areas, fast electron transport, and open-channels for effective gas release, the resulting 3D self-standing catalysts exhibit outstanding OER activity as well as excellent HER performance in an alkaline medium. Using them as bifunctional catalysts for overall water splitting, a current density of 10 mA cm−2 was achieved at a voltage of 1.54 V, and 100 mA cm−2 at 1.69 V with excellent durability, which is much better than the benchmark of IrO2(+)//Pt(−) electrodes. Our 3D core–shell electrocatalysts significantly advance the research towards large-scale practical water electrolysis.
Are words easier to learn from infant- than adult-directed speech? A quantitative corpus-based investigation

We investigate whether infant-directed speech (IDS) could facilitate word form learning when compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). To study this, we examine the distribution of word forms at two levels, acoustic and phonological, using a large database of spontaneous speech in Japanese. At the acoustic level we show that, as has been documented before for phonemes, the realizations of words are more variable and less discriminable in IDS than in ADS. At the phonological level, we find an effect in the opposite direction: The IDS lexicon contains more distinctive words (such as onomatopoeias) than the ADS counterpart. Combining the acoustic and phonological metrics together in a global discriminability score reveals that the bigger separation of lexical categories in the phonological space does not compensate for the opposite effect observed at the acoustic level. As a result, IDS word forms are still globally less discriminable than ADS word forms, even though the effect is numerically small. We discuss the implication of these findings for the view that the functional role of IDS is to improve language learnability.
A Novel Enzyme Portfolio for Red Algal Polysaccharide Degradation in the Marine Bacterium Paraglaciecola hydrolytica S66T Encoded in a Sizeable Polysaccharide Utilization Locus

Marine microbes are a rich source of enzymes for the degradation of diverse polysaccharides. Paraglaciecola hydrolytica S66T is a marine bacterium capable of hydrolyzing polysaccharides found in the cell wall of red macroalgae. In this study, we applied an approach combining genomic mining with functional analysis to uncover the potential of this bacterium to produce enzymes for the hydrolysis of complex marine polysaccharides. A special feature of P. hydrolytica S66T is the presence of a large genomic region harboring an array of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) notably agarases and carrageenases. Based on a first functional characterization combined with a comparative sequence analysis, we confirmed the enzymatic activities of several enzymes required for red algal polysaccharide degradation by the bacterium. In particular, we report for the first time, the discovery of novel enzyme activities targeting furcellaran, a hybrid carrageenan containing both β-carrageenan and κ/β-carrageenan motifs. Some of these enzymes represent a new subfamily within the CAZy classification. From the combined analyses, we propose models for the complete degradation of agar and κ/β-type carrageenan by P. hydrolytica S66T. The novel enzymes described here may find value in new bio-based industries and advance our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for recycling of red algal polysaccharides in marine ecosystems.
RNA interference-mediated silencing of speckle-type POZ protein promotes apoptosis of renal cell cancer cells

This study aimed to investigate the effects of silencing the speckle-type POZ protein (SPOP) gene on renal cell cancer (RCC) cells and to explore its possible mechanism. The A498 and ACHN RCC cells were transfected with small interference RNA (siRNA)-SPOP by lipofection methods. The silencing efficiency was monitored by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot. The effects of SPOP silencing on cell apoptosis, cell viability, colony formation ability, cell migration ability, and chemosensitivity to Sorafenib were assessed by flow cytometry, an MTT assay, a colony formation assay, a trans-well migration assay, and a CCK-8 assay, respectively. Its effects on the expression of several cytokines were determined by a protein microarray. Relevant signaling pathways were also analyzed. Compared with the control group, the cell apoptosis rate was significantly higher; the cell viability, the colony formation, and migration ability were significantly decreased in the siRNA-SPOP group. The protein microarray screening showed that the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, matrix metallopeptidase-9, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, and stromal cell-derived factor-1 in the siRNA group was significantly decreased and that the expression of granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor and E-cadherin was significantly increased (P<0.05). The relevant signaling pathways were the integrin-mediated cell surface interactions pathway and extracellular matrix organization signal pathway. SPOP gene silencing induced cell apoptosis, decreased cell viability, colony formation, and migration ability, and elevated the drug sensitivity in the RCC cells. A possible mechanism is that silencing SPOP induces the differential expression of E-cadherin, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, matrix metallopeptidase-9, and vascular cell adhesion molecule, which are related to the integrin-mediated cell surface interactions and extracellular matrix organization signaling pathway.
CRISPR-Cas 9 Mediated Gene-Silencing of the Mutant Huntingtin Gene in an In Vitro Model of Huntington ’ s Disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative genetic disease characterized by a loss of neurons in the striatum. It is caused by a mutation in the Huntingtin gene (HTT) that codes for the protein huntingtin (HTT). The mutant Huntingtin gene (mHTT) contains extra poly-glutamine (CAG) repeats from which the translated mutant huntingtin proteins (mHTT) undergo inappropriate post-translational modifications, conferring a toxic gain of function, in addition to its non-functional property. In order to curb the production of the mHTT, we have constructed two CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat)-Cas9 (CRISPR associate protein) plasmids, among which one nicks the DNA at untranslated region upstream to the open reading frame (uORF), and the other nicks the DNA at exon1-intron boundary. The primary goal of this study was to apply this plasmid into mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) extracted from the bone-marrow of YAC128 mice, which carries the transgene for HD. Our results suggest that the disruption of uORF through CRISPR-Cas9 influences the translation of mHTT negatively and, to a lesser extent, disrupts the exon1-intron boundary, which affects the translation of the mHTT. These findings also revealed the pattern of the nucleotide addition or deletion at the site of the DNA-nick in this model.
Direct Reciprocity in Spatial Populations Enhances R-Reciprocity As Well As ST-Reciprocity

As is well-known, spatial reciprocity plays an important role in facilitating the emergence of cooperative traits, and the effect of direct reciprocity is also obvious for explaining the cooperation dynamics. However, how the combination of these two scenarios influences cooperation is still unclear. In the present work, we study the evolution of cooperation in 2×2 games via considering both spatial structured populations and direct reciprocity driven by the strategy with 1-memory length. Our results show that cooperation can be significantly facilitated on the whole parameter plane. For prisoner's dilemma game, cooperation dominates the system even at strong dilemma, where maximal social payoff is still realized. In this sense, R-reciprocity forms and it is robust to the extremely strong dilemma. Interestingly, when turning to chicken game, we find that ST-reciprocity is also guaranteed, through which social average payoff and cooperation is greatly enhanced. This reciprocity mechanism is supported by mean-field analysis and different interaction topologies. Thus, our study indicates that direct reciprocity in structured populations can be regarded as a more powerful factor for the sustainability of cooperation.
VEX: Vetting Browser Extensions for Security Vulnerabilities

The browser has become the de facto platform for everyday computation. Among the many potential attacks that target or exploit browsers, vulnerabilities in browser extensions have received relatively little attention. Currently, extensions are vetted by manual inspection, which does not scale well and is subject to human error. In this paper, we present VEX, a framework for highlighting potential security vulnerabilities in browser extensions by applying static information-flow analysis to the JavaScript code used to implement extensions. We describe several patterns of flows as well as unsafe programming practices that may lead to privilege escalations in Firefox extensions. VEX analyzes Firefox extensions for such flow patterns using high-precision, context-sensitive, flow-sensitive static analysis. We analyze thousands of browser extensions, and VEX finds six exploitable vulnerabilities, three of which were previously unknown. VEX also finds hundreds of examples of bad programming practices that may lead to security vulnerabilities. We show that compared to current Mozilla extension review tools, VEX greatly reduces the human burden for manually vetting extensions when looking for key types of dangerous flows.
Prosocial Tendencies and Its Effect on School Adaptation among students in Yunnan Province

In order to explore the prosocial tendencies' development and type' s characteristic among the undergraduate,middle-school students,pupil in Yunnan Province; and analyze the effect of prosocial tendencies on students' School Adaptation.Method: Selected the participants according to different layer randomly,then 3249 undergraduate and 9055 middle-school students and pupil were selected.Every student finished the Prosocial Tendencies Measure(PMT) and Adaptation Scale.Result: The analysis showed that(1) The Prosocial tendencies were developing followed grade increasing,and there was significant different among different type and gender student;(2) Public and Anonymous Tendencies were decreasing followed grade increasing,but Dire Tendencies was contrary.Dire Tendencies was number one among all of the six Prosocial Tendencies.Also,there was significant different among different type and gender student;(3)The development of Prosocial tendencies in Yunnan Province's students was higher than other place student totally,however,lower than them in Altruistic Tendencies;(4) Prosocial Tendencies could predict students' school adaptation,but less predict undergraduate.Conclusion: We should enhance education for students' Dire Tendencies,and bring the prosocial tendencies into play.
Photo Sleuth : Combining Collective Intelligence and Computer Vision to Identify Historical Portraits

Identifying people in photographs is a critical task in a wide variety of domains, from national security [7] to journalism [14] to human rights investigations [1]. The task is also fundamentally complex and challenging. With the world population at 7.6 billion and growing, the candidate pool is large. Studies of human face recognition ability show that the average person incorrectly identifies two people as similar 20–30% of the time, and trained police detectives do not perform significantly better [11]. Computer vision-based face recognition tools have gained considerable ground and are now widely available commercially, but comparisons to human performance show mixed results at best [2,10,16].
Phonological Specificity of Vowel Contrasts at 18-months

Previous research has shown that English infants are sensitive to mispronunciations of vowels in familiar words by as early as 15-months of age. These results suggest that not only are infants sensitive to large mispronunciations of the vowels in words, but also sensitive to smaller mispronunciations, involving changes to only one dimension of the vowel. The current study broadens this research by comparing infants' sensitivity to the different types of changes involved in the mispronunciations. These included changes to the backness, height, and roundedness of the vowel. Our results confirm that 18-month-olds are sensitive to small changes to the vowels in familiar words. Our results also indicate a differential sensitivity of vocalic specification, with infants being more sensitive to changes in vowel height and vowel backness than vowel roundedness. Taken together, the results provide clear evidence for specificity of vowels and vocalic features such as vowel height and backness in infants' lexical representations.
Numerical Experiments with MM 5 and WRF using the Upgraded Unified Noah Land Surface Model

Since its implementation in the WRF and MM5 models, the Unified Noah land surface model (LSM) have been verified under different scenarios (Chen and Dudhia 2001; Ek et al 2003, Tewari et al 2004). In the Noah LSM, we have recently made some improvements that include (a) introduction of surface emissivity as function of landuse types in the Noah LSM surface energy balance calculation, (b) enhancing Noah LSM with a simple treatment of urban landuse and c) incorporating a simple treatment of urban landuse. We have introduced the emissivity in the surface energy balance equation for both snow and non-snow surface and revised the energy balance. For the present study, we have used the seasonal values of surface emissivity derived from Wilber et al. (1999). (i) Using simple slab model referred to as “SLAB” (ii) Using Noah LSM referred to as “Noah” and (iii) Using upgraded Noah LSM referred to as “Noah total”. Three test cases are presented here: 1) a wintertime simulation (1 February 2003) using MM5/Noah for the Southwest Asia region; 2) the case study for May 29 2002 during IHOP field experiment using WRF/Noah coupled model (with 10 km grid spacing), which was initialized with Edas (Eta land data assimilation systems) data at 12Z and was integrated for 24 hours; 3) a wintertime WRF/Noah was conducted at in order to see the impact over the snow areas due to the modification of emissivity in Noah LSM. We selected a winter storm case of March18 2003 and integrated the model at 22 km resolution for 36 hrs starting at March18 2003, 00Z. For these cases, we have compared the modified Noah (referred to as Noah_total) with Noah LSM in WRF1.3. 4). In order to see the impact of urban zone modifications, we selected a domain over the Houston area for the WRF-Noah run with 4km grid spacing. The model was integrated for 24 hours starting at 12z of Aug 25, 2000. The results of “Noah_total” are compared with Noah model. In this study, we would present some results of the coupled WRF-Noah and MM5-Noah modeling systems with recent Noah LSM modifications for selected summer and winter cases and their comparison with surface and aircraft data sets. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the performance of the upgraded Noah LSM coupled with WRF and MM5 models as compared with standard Noah for different seasons.
Interdependent and separable functions of Caenorhabditis elegans MRN-C complex members couple formation and repair of meiotic DSBs

Significance Double-strand breaks (DSBs) are deleterious DNA lesions, and impairment of the DSB repair machinery can lead to devastating diseases, such as Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS). During meiosis, DSBs represent a “necessary evil”: they are required to promote formation of crossovers between homologous chromosomes. Crossovers, in turn, ensure correct chromosome inheritance during gamete formation, which is essential for viability and normal development of embryos. During meiosis, numerous DSBs are actively created, so meiotic cells must ensure that all breaks are properly repaired to ensure crossover formation and restore genomic integrity. Here, we identify Caenorhabditis elegans NBS-1 as essential to properly process meiotic DSBs to both promote crossover formation and antagonize an error-prone DSB repair pathway, thereby ensuring faithful chromosome inheritance. Faithful inheritance of genetic information through sexual reproduction relies on the formation of crossovers between homologous chromosomes during meiosis, which, in turn, relies on the formation and repair of numerous double-strand breaks (DSBs). As DSBs pose a potential threat to the genome, mechanisms that ensure timely and error-free DSB repair are crucial for successful meiosis. Here, we identify NBS-1, the Caenorhabditis elegans ortholog of the NBS1 (mutated in Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome) subunit of the conserved MRE11-RAD50-NBS1/Xrs2 (MRN) complex, as a key mediator of DSB repair via homologous recombination (HR) during meiosis. Loss of nbs-1 leads to severely reduced loading of recombinase RAD-51, ssDNA binding protein RPA, and pro-crossover factor COSA-1 during meiotic prophase progression; aggregated and fragmented chromosomes at the end of meiotic prophase; and 100% progeny lethality. These phenotypes reflect a role for NBS-1 in processing of meiotic DSBs for HR that is shared with its interacting partners MRE-11-RAD-50 and COM-1 (ortholog of Com1/Sae2/CtIP). Unexpectedly, in contrast to MRE-11 and RAD-50, NBS-1 is not required for meiotic DSB formation. Meiotic defects of the nbs-1 mutant are partially suppressed by abrogation of the nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) pathway, indicating a role for NBS-1 in antagonizing NHEJ during meiosis. Our data further reveal that NBS-1 and COM-1 play distinct roles in promoting HR and antagonizing NHEJ. We propose a model in which different components of the MRN-C complex work together to couple meiotic DSB formation with efficient and timely engagement of HR, thereby ensuring crossover formation and restoration of genome integrity before the meiotic divisions.
Furthering the Evidence of the Effectiveness of Employment Strategies for People with Mental Disorders in Europe: A Systematic Review

(1) Purpose: This systematic review aims to assess the effectiveness of strategies used in the professional (re)integration of persons with mental disorders (MD) in European countries; (2) Methods: We conducted a search for scientific publications available in relevant electronic databases (Medline, PsycINFO, CDR-HTA, CDR-DARE, and Cochrane Library). The present study collected evidence on the effectiveness, from 2011 to 2016, of employment strategies for persons with MDs; (3) Results: A total of 18 studies were included, representing 5216 participants (aged 18–65, mean age of 38.5 years old) from 7 countries. Job access programs demonstrated effectiveness in four out of six studies. Return to work (RTW) interventions showed significant positive results in two studies, while four studies did not refer to effectiveness. There were inconsistent results in another four studies; (4) Conclusions: Our findings highlight the complexities of the implementation of employment strategies (job access and return to work). Job access strategies seem to improve employment outcomes. The effectiveness of return to work strategies remains unclear. The involvement and commitment of physicians, employment specialists, and employers, and employees capacity for self-care seem decisive for employment re-integration success. Further analyses are needed to assess the cost-effectiveness of these interventions and corroborate our results, with longer follow-ups.