Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conditional switching of VEGF provides new insights into adult neovascularization and pro‐angiogenic therapy

To gain insight into neovascularization of adult organs and to uncover inherent obstacles in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐based therapeutic angiogenesis, a transgenic system for conditional switching of VEGF expression was devised. The system allows for a reversible induction of VEGF specifically in the heart muscle or liver at any selected schedule, thereby circumventing embryonic lethality due to developmental misexpression of VEGF. Using this system, we demonstrate a progressive, unlimited ramification of the existing vasculature. In the absence of spatial cues, however, abnormal vascular trees were produced, a consequence of chaotic connections with the existing network and formation of irregularly shaped sac‐like vessels. VEGF also caused a massive and highly disruptive edema. Importantly, premature cessation of the VEGF stimulus led to regression of most acquired vessels, thus challenging the utility of therapeutic approaches relying on short stimulus duration. A critical transition point was defined beyond which remodeled new vessels persisted for months after withdrawing VEGF, conferring a long‐term improvement in organ perfusion. This novel genetic system thus highlights remaining problems in the implementation of pro‐angiogenic therapy.
A Comparison of Picture and Video Prompts to Teach Daily Living Skills to Individuals With Autism

This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of video prompting and picture prompting when used as antecedents for teaching daily living skills to two adolescents with autism. Participants were taught two different skills, and the effects of the instructional conditions were compared and evaluated using an adapted alternating-treatments design. The results can be interpreted to conclude that video prompting was slightly more effective in terms of independent correct responding, fewer external prompts for task completion, and fewer prompts to use instructional materials. In addition, when efficiency scores were calculated by considering the ratio of each participant’s growth (from pretest to posttest) to the measured “cost” of minutes required to create instructional materials, video prompting was considerably more efficient than picture prompting.
Newborn bio/logics and US legal requirements for changing gender/sex designations on state identity documents

Legal enactments are de facto definitions of gender/sex and affect the day-to-day lives of trans-identified individuals. We assessed requirements for changing gender/sex designations on US driver's licenses and birth certificates alongside their potential foundations to explore these legal definitions. Analyses showed that surgico-medical authority and sex reassignment surgery were privileged over lived experiences, psychology, and physiology (e.g. genetics; hormones). Though ‘biologism’ is typically theorized to explain legal conceptualizations and treatments of gender/sex and transgender, we argue for a diverse set of ‘bio/logics’ (implicit biological decision rules) that have profoundly different implications for trans lives. Over two other possibilities (trace bio/logics: a conceptual or physiological persistence of sexed origins; and interior bio/logics: a privileging of more embedded and immutable sex features), we conclude that US state enactments of gender/sex rely on ‘newborn bio/logics’: those binaristic features of genital sex immediately observable in newborns and naturalized via surgico-medical authority.
Perceptions of Risk and Travel Intentions: The Case of China and the Beijing Olympic Games

The issue of risk associated with mega-event tourism has been receiving increased attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between risk perceptions and travel intentions associated with an Olympic Games' host country, using the Beijing Games as a case study. To control for the influence of individual backgrounds, this study focused on a homogeneous population, students below 30 years of age, US born and raised, and enrolled at a university in the US. Research participants (N = 350) responded to a questionnaire designed to measure perceived risks, travel intentions, international travel experience, tourist role, and demographics. A factor analysis revealed four perceived risk factors: Personal Safety, Cultural Risk, Socio-psychological Risk, and Violence Risk. Utilizing the factor scores, regression analyses revealed that Violence Risk and Socio-psychological Risk had significantly (p < 0.05) negative impacts on participants' intention to visit China as a tourist. Although not statistically significant, the four risk factors were negatively predictive of the intention to attend the Olympic Games in China. The perceived risk factors were further found to be related to gender and tourist role types. Discussions are focused on the implications of these research findings to mega event management and promotions of host countries as tourism destinations.
Individual learning and group performance: the role of collective efficacy

Purpose – The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of training individual group members on the collective efficacy of the group and the group's subsequent performance.Design/methodology/approach – Participants (n=275), in a laboratory study were randomly assigned to groups of five (k=55). Individuals were then randomly selected from those groups such that none, one, three, or all five members of the group participated in training on effective ways to select a job candidate.Findings – Groups in which at least a majority of group members were trained had higher collective efficacy than groups where fewer members were trained. Training individuals beyond a majority did not improve collective efficacy further. Collective efficacy mediated the relationship between individual training and group level performance.Research limitations/implications – This research extends the knowledge of the relationship between the individual and the group within social cognitive theory. Training a majority of t.
GBF1 (Gartenzwerg)-dependent secretion is required for Drosophila tubulogenesis

Here we report on the generation and in vivo analysis of a series of loss-of-function mutants for the Drosophila ArfGEF, Gartenzwerg. The Drosophila gene gartenzwerg (garz) encodes the orthologue of mammalian GBF1. garz is expressed ubiquitously in embryos with substantially higher abundance in cells forming diverse tubular structures such as salivary glands, trachea, proventriculus or hindgut. In the absence of functional Garz protein, the integrity of the Golgi complex is impaired. As a result, both vesicle transport of cargo proteins and directed apical membrane delivery are severely disrupted. Dysfunction of the Arf1–COPI machinery caused by a loss of Garz leads to perturbations in establishing a polarized epithelial architecture of tubular organs. Furthermore, insufficient apical transport of proteins and other membrane components causes incomplete luminal diameter expansion and deficiencies in extracellular matrix assembly. The fact that homologues of Garz are present in every annotated metazoan genome indicates that secretion processes mediated by the GBF-type ArfGEFs play a universal role in animal development.
Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists

Applying statistical concepts to biological scenarios, this established textbook continues to be the go-to tool for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates studying biostatistics or experimental design in biology-related areas. Chapters cover linear models, common regression and ANOVA methods, mixed effects models, model selection, and multivariate methods used by biologists, requiring only introductory statistics and basic mathematics. Demystifying statistical concepts with clear, jargon-free explanations, this new edition takes a holistic approach to help students understand the relationship between statistics and experimental design. Each chapter contains further-reading recommendations, and worked examples from today's biological literature. All examples reflect modern settings, methodology and equipment, representing a wide range of biological research areas. These are supported by hands-on online resources including real-world data sets, full R code to help repeat analyses for all worked examples, and additional review questions and exercises for each chapter.
Formation of Transmembrane Helices In Vivo—Is Hydrophobicity All that Matters?

Introduction While many generalizations about membrane protein assembly and structure have been formulated over the years, most recently based on the rapidly growing database of high-resolution three-dimensional membrane protein structures (White, 2004), a quantitative understanding of the underlying principles is mostly lacking, at least for in vivo conditions. To address this issue, we have developed an experimental system based on in vitro translation of model membrane proteins in the presence of dog pancreas rough microsomes that makes it possible to measure the effi ciency with which different natural or designed polypeptide segments insert into the ER membrane under conditions approximating the in vivo situation (Sääf et al., 1998; Hessa et al., 2005a,b; Meindl-Beinker et al., 2006). Here, I will fi rst summarize the basic mechanism of membrane protein insertion in the ER and will then review the main results that we have obtained so far using the microsomal in vitro system. From a conceptual point of view, the data we have generated point to protein–lipid interactions as providing the main driving force for membrane integration, despite the fact that integration is mediated by a very complex molecular machine: the Sec61 translocon. Finally, I will discuss what possible bearing our results might have on an issue close to the hearts of many molecular physiologists: the workings of ion channel voltage-sensor domains.
Exploiting Vector Parallelism in Software Pipelined LoopsTopology Control

An emerging trend in processor design is the incorporation of short vector instructions into the ISA. In fact, vector extensions have appeared in most general-purpose microprocessors. To utilize these instructions, traditional vectorization technology can be used to identify and exploit data parallelism. In contrast, efficient use of a processor’s scalar resources is typically achieved through ILP techniques such as software pipelining. In order to attain the best performance, it is necessary to utilize both sets of resources. This paper presents a novel approach for exploiting vector parallelism in a software pipelined loop. At its core is a method for judiciously partitioning operations between vector and scalar resources. The proposed algorithm (i) lowers the burden on the scalar resources by offloading computation to the vector functional units, and (ii) partially (or fully) inhibits the optimizations when full vectorization will decrease performance. This results in better resource usage and allows for software pipelining with shorter initiation intervals. Although our techniques complement statically scheduled machines most naturally, we believe they are applicable to any architecture that tightly integrates support for ILP and data parallelism. An important aspect of the proposed methodology is its ability to manage explicit communication of operands between vector and scalar instructions. Our methodology also allows for a natural handling of misaligned vector memory operations. For architectures that provide hardware support for misaligned references, software pipelining effectively hides the latency of these potentially expensive instructions. When explicit alignment is required in software, our algorithm accounts for these extra costs and vectorizes only when it is profitable. Finally, our heuristic can take advantage of alignment information where it is available. We evaluate our methodology using several DSP and SPEC FP benchmarks. Compared to software pipelining, our approach is able to achieve an average speedup of 1.30× and 1.18× for the two benchmark sets, respectively.
Perception-based line quality measurement

It is well-known that many sub-attributes of line quality, such as edge raggedness, line waviness, etc., contribute to the perception of the overall line quality. But the relative importance of these sub-attributes is not clear, nor is there a method available for combining them into one representative number for overall line quality. To address these issues, we have designed and conducted a series of psychophysical experiments, which explore the shape of the human visual transfer functions (VTF) relevant to the perception of these sub-attributes. Based on this, we have proposed an approach to assess overall line quality. In our method, we first pre-process the line image acquired (for example from a scanner) and extract certain profiles relevant to line quality measurement. A set of corresponding VTF’s is then applied to these profiles to calculate the various sub-attributes. Finally, overall line quality is determined by the weighted combination of these individual sub-attributes. Our preliminary results show that this measurement correlates well with human perception of overall line quality, for the sub-attributes studied.
Development of an Axial Flux MEMS BLDC Micromotor with Increased Efficiency and Power Density

This paper presents a rigorous design and optimization of an axial flux microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) brushless dc (BLDC) micromotor with dual rotor improving both efficiency and power density with an external diameter of only around 10 mm. The stator is made of two layers of windings by MEMS technology. The rotor is developed by film permanent magnets assembled over the rotor yoke. The characteristics of the MEMS micromotor are analyzed and modeled through a 3-D magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) taking the leakage flux and fringing effect into account. Such a model yields a relatively accurate prediction of the flux in the air gap, back electromotive force (EMF) and electromagnetic torque, whilst being computationally efficient. Based on 3-D MEC model the multi-objective firefly algorithm (MOFA) is developed for the optimal design of this special machine. Both 3-D finite element (FE) simulation and experiments are employed to validate the MEC model and MOFA optimization design.
Application of an ELISA Milk Pregnancy Test in Beef Cows.

Pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAG) are secreted by the binucleate giant cells of the ruminant placenta and enter maternal circulation at the time of placental attachment. The IDEXX Milk Pregnancy Test (IDEXX, Westbrook, ME) detects a subset of PAG in milk. Although designed as a management tool for dairy cows, there is potential for using the milk PAG test in beef cows. Our objective was to compare the performance of the milk PAG ELISA with a gold standard method for pregnancy diagnosis and determine the agreement between milk and serum PAG analysis in lactating beef cows. Angus and Angus-crossed cows (n = 332) from two Michigan beef herds were enrolled in this study. Cows were subjected either to timed artificial insemination followed by exposure to a bull or exclusively exposed to a bull. The bulls and cows were separated 30 days prior to examination. Serum and milk samples were collected and submitted within 24 h of collection to a commercial laboratory for PAG analysis using the IDEXX Milk Pregnancy Assay (milk) and the IDEXX Bovine Pregnancy Assay (serum). Concurrently with milk and serum collection, each cow was examined transrectally by palpation or ultrasonography. When compared to transrectal examination, the performance (and 95% confidence intervals) of the milk PAG ELISA was sensitivity of 99.7% (99.0-100.0%) and specificity of 80.8% (65.6-95.9%). The lower specificity is likely due to the low prevalence (9.9%) of open cows (n = 30) in the herds examined. Of the 332 cows examined, 1.8% (n = 6) were classified as rechecks using the milk PAG ELISA. Results of the milk and serum PAG ELISA were in high agreement (kappa coefficient = 0.91). The milk PAG ELISA was accurate in predicting pregnancy status using milk collected from beef cattle between days 37 and 125 post-insemination and may be useful for aiding management decisions in beef herds.
Sources of Work‐Family Conflict: A Sino‐U.S. Comparison of the Effects of Work and Family Demands

Given differences in values about work and family time, we hypothesize that Americans will experience greater family demand, which will have greater impact on work‐family conflict, whereas the Chinese will experience greater work demand, which will have the greater impact on work‐family conflict. The results of a survey of working men and women in the two countries generally supported the hypotheses; however, work demand did not differ significantly between the two countries and did not have a greater effect than family demand on work‐family conflict in China.
The structure of situations from a personality perspective

A taxonomy of situations was constructed that categorizes situations by means of ratings of one's ability to deal with those situations. A principal components analysis of self- and other-ratings yielded four components of situations: I, situations of pleasure; II, situations of individual adversity; III, situations of interpersonal conflict; and IV, situations of social demand. Ratings of being able to deal with a situation were related to ratings on a personality questionnaire. This resulted in a very clear set of situations for each of the Big Five factors of personality. The Big Five differed in kind and in number of situations for which they were able to distinguish the well handling from the less well handling persons. Especially, it turned out that the so-called temperament-factors, Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and also Autonomy, give rise to more situational differentiation than the so-called character-factors, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Comparing the present situation structure to that obtained in an earlier study, we found that using the same set of situations does not guarantee obtaining the same set of situation components. Different methods of classification yield differences in the resulting classifications. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of Methylphenidate on Motor Skill Acquisition of Hyperactive Children

This reports a study of the motor performance of 12 normal children and 12 hyperactive children with and without methylphenidate. The task required subjects to maintain their equilibrium on a square platform that rotated (+10 from horizontal) about a central axis. Subjects performed 30 trials at each of two testing sessions. Hyperactive subjects were receiving medication (methylphenidate) to control their hyperactivity on one of the test sessions, and a placebo on the other. The medicated hyperactive subjects performed more like their normal peers than did those receiving a placebo. This was true for both average performance scores and for consistency of performance.
Low level control in a semi-autonomous rehabilitation robotic system via a Brain-Computer Interface

In this work, a connection between a semi-autonomous rehabilitation robotic system and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) is described This paper focuses on a system for user intervention in low-level movement control of an assistive robotic arm. The rehabilitation robotic system allows tetra-plegics to control the system with high-level commands (e.g., "grab the bottle"), and then to intervene in the execution of the task, if they see that something is going wrong. In such a case, the user gets the opportunity to continue the task with a low-level control of the robot arm. A system for such a control on a low abstraction level by a Brain-Computer Interface based on P300 and steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) will be described in this work.
Self-reported sleep duration is associated with the metabolic syndrome in midlife adults.

STUDY OBJECTIVE Short and long sleep duration have been linked to various risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In the present study, we evaluated the relationship between sleep duration and presence of the metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of physiologically interrelated risk factors for cardiometabolic disease. DESIGN/SETTING Cross-sectional community-based cohort study. PARTICIPANTS One thousand two hundred fourteen participants from the Adult Health and Behavior Project registry (aged 30 to 54 years). MEASUREMENTS Participants were divided into 4 groups based upon their reported sleep duration. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the American Heart Association/National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's criteria. Logistic regression was used to test the hypothesis that sleep duration is a significant correlate of the metabolic syndrome and its components. RESULTS The observed metabolic syndrome rate (22%) was similar to that of published health statistics for American adults. After covariate adjustment, the odds for having the metabolic syndrome increased by more than 45% in both short and long sleepers, compared with those sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night. Sleep duration was also associated individually with abdominal obesity, elevated fasting glucose, and hypertriglyceridemia. After further adjustment for use of antihypertensive medication, prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and its components remained elevated in short sleepers only. CONCLUSION These data suggest that sleep duration is a significant correlate of the metabolic syndrome. Additional studies are needed to evaluate temporal relationships among these measures, the behavioral and physiologic mechanisms that link the two, and their impact on subsequent cardiometabolic disease.
QoS-based network virtualization to future networks: An approach based on network constraints

Network virtualization is recently becoming increasingly relevant for designing future networks. It enables network providers to select appropriate network services according to application needs. In addition, virtualization technologies are used by the SDN (Software Defined Networking) paradigm to decouple control plane from forwarding plane. The convergence of SDN and network virtualization allows to conceive on-demand virtual network by personalizing its services and even its control plane. In this context, a key challenge faced by network providers is how to place virtual network components while ensuring QoS requirements of application flows. To surpass this issue, we propose in this paper a constraint placement language used when mapping virtual network components (node and links) over the substrate infrastructure. Particularly, we define network constraints including QoS, isolation, security, affinity, anti-affinity, etc. in the node-level and link-level.
Triterpenoids from Abies faxoniana and their cytotoxic activities

Abstract Two previously unreported triterpenoids (1 and 2) and four known compounds were isolated from Abies faxoniana. Compound 1 has a α,β-unsaturated-γ-lactone ring conjugated with the C-22/23 olefin in the C-17 side chain. The structures of the new compounds were established on the basis of spectroscopic data analysis. These compounds were tested for their cytotoxicities against six human tumour cell lines. Compound 1 showed cytotoxic activities against MCF-7 and A549 cells with IC50 values of 7.5 and 8.7 μM, respectively.