Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Delivery of small interfering RNA with a synthetic collagen poly(Pro‐Hyp‐Gly) for gene silencing in vitro and in vivo

Silencing gene expression by small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) has become a powerful tool for the genetic analysis of many animals. However, the rapid degradation of siRNA and the limited duration of its action in vivo have called for an efficient delivery technology. Here, we describe that siRNA complexed with a synthetic collagen poly(Pro‐Hyp‐Gly) (SYCOL) is resistant to nucleases and is efficiently transferred into cells in vitro and in vivo, thereby allowing long‐term gene silencing in vivo. We found that the SYCOL‐mediated local application of siRNA targeting myostatin, coding a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth, in mouse skeletal muscles, caused a marked increase in the muscle mass within a few weeks after application. Furthermore, in vivo administration of an anti‐luciferase siRNA/SYCOL complex partially reduced luciferase expression in xenografted tumors in vivo. These results indicate a SYCOL‐based non‐viral delivery method could be a reliable simple approach to knockdown gene expression by RNAi in vivo as well as in vitro.
Lithospheric fault and kinematic decoupling of the Apennines system across the Pollino range

A persistent seismic gap is hypothesized in the Pollino area (southern Italy), at the boundary between the Apennines and the Calabrian arc. Presently, seismic swarms are active in the gap area, creating concerns for possible future large earthquakes. In this study, we model the deep Earth structure across the Pollino range to give new insights on the kinematics and tectonics of this enigmatic area. Migrated receiver function profiles show a subvertical lithospheric discontinuity, delineated by an abrupt change in Moho depth and mantle fabrics across the range. The lithospheric‐scale discontinuity bounds the area of earthquake swarm activity and likely decouples the delamination‐related extension of the Apennines from the extensional collapse of the Calabrian fore arc. This large‐scale discontinuity implies that the normal faults are segmented across the range, limiting the lateral extent of faults where future earthquakes might occur.
Performance management within Cooperative Extension: Perceptions of extension educators in the Northeast region

The purpose of this study was to determine Cooperative Extension educator perceptions regarding performance management. Performance management is defined as a system comprised of an ongoing process of planning and appraising which includes the establishment of goals and expectations through performance planning; continuing year round performance feedback and coaching; and a formal performance appraisal at the end of the performance period. This research was intended to provide a better understanding of how extension educators perceived the performance management process within their respective state Cooperative Extension organization. An assumption of this study was that extension educator attitudes toward performance management are an important factor in the system's ultimate effectiveness. A survey research method of data collection was employed in this study with a stratified random sample of 233 extension educators representing 30% of all extension educators from eight states within the northeast region of the United States. Participating states included Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. A survey instrument consisting of a mailed questionnaire was developed to survey staff and determine the perceptions held by extension educators in response to statements regarding performance management especially in the areas of performance planning, performance feedback and coaching, and performance appraisal. Completed survey responses were received from 206 educators resulting in an 88% return rate. The results of the study revealed a gap between what educators perceive as present and ideal performance management practices for each of the 53 statements presented in the survey. On average, educators considered their performance management system to be in the range of "somewhat ineffective" to "somewhat effective"; a strong relationship was suggested between how educators perceived the elements of performance planning, performance feedback and coaching, and performance appraisal with how they perceived the effectiveness of the overall performance management system. Based on the study findings, recommendations for improving performance management within Cooperative Extension are presented.
Found in translation: identifying ecosystem services through public consultation statements in a marine spatial planning process

ABSTRACT There has been a widespread push to incorporate ecosystem services (ES) in research and policy-making, yet ES have remained an expert-driven discourse not well integrated into hands-on planning and management, particularly at the more local levels. We carry out a retrospective investigation of an inter-municipal marine spatial planning (MSP) process in Northern Norway, where the allocation of new aquaculture locations was a core issue. At this local/regional scale, the concept of ES is hardly known. Thus, our approach is to investigate the documents of public consultation, where different stakeholders operating at different scales respond to the proposed planning document. By analyzing and ‘translating’ the consultation statements into the ES nomenclature, we find a rich and diverse basis for ES identification especially at the local level and within cultural and supporting services. More than 208 different ecosystem services were identified, two-thirds of the total number of services at the local scale. This supports the debate in the ES-science community, which has suggested greater inclusion of plural and context-specific perspectives on people’s relationship to the environment. Our findings show that by doing so in MSP, municipal coastal planners may obtain tools that strengthen local democracy and include greater ES diversity and sustainability.
Dynamic channel coding reconfiguration in Software Defined Radio

Digital Front End Reconfiguration is considered one of the most promising techniques to implement the Software Defined Radio (SDR) and the Cognitive Radio (CR), allowing the same set of hardware to accommodate Multi-Standard Communication Systems (MSCS). The benefit increases when the reconfiguration is not only dynamic but also takes place in real time without the need to switch off the system. This work shows the advantages of using the Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration (DPR) technique in implementing the SDR convolutional encoders for 2G, 3G, LTE, and WIFI communication standards. Experimental results reveal that the DPR implementations improves the SDR implementation area and power consumption by 67% and 64% compared to the full implementation of these standards. The full implementation design and the DPR-based design are implemented and experimentally tested on Xilinx Virtex 5 design kit XUPV5-LX110T.
Factor analysis: Thomson's sampling theory recalled.

The advantages of basing the interpretation of mental factors on a model which is related to the possible physiological structure of the brain are re-emphasized. The importance of the concept of determinacy of factors for those who claim that factors exist in some more or less permanent sense is pointed out, while the fact that good determinacy is seldom achieved is taken to counter-indicate permanency. Examples are given to support the arguments, and it is shown that the value of factor analysis as a statistical aid is little affected when the notion of factors as entities is discarded.
Gateway Selection Game in Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) obtain the information of the physical world and impact the environment through many different kinds of devices. Usually, devices with different wireless technologies communicate with each other and the external networks through gateways placed in the working area. Different kinds of devices in a CPS may not operate with each other for their own benefit, and the competition will be more intense between different kinds of devices. They will contend for bandwidth of gateways to increase their throughput and avoid transmission delay. In this paper, we formulate this gateway selection situation as a noncooperative game. We investigate the actions of devices when they change their gateway and the result of devices' competition. We first give a bandwidth allocation model of gateways and propose a distributed algorithm for clients of gateway selection in order to increase the total bandwidth of their own kind. Then we investigate the migration trends of clients, and three theorems about the condition when clients stop migrating are given. We propose examples of gateway selection game with and without Nash Equilibrium. At last section, we give simulation results of gateway selection game.
Reliability Assessment of a Plaque Scoring Index Using Photographs

Summary Objectives: The need to evaluate the reliability of a clinical index before using it as a research tool is clearly recognized. Therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate whether a new calibration method by means of photographs would be useful for assessing the examiners’ reliability in the interpretation of a plaque index. Methods: Nine children were randomly recruited from a public school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Two trained examiners evaluated these children for dental plaque, in a classroom environment, in order to record plaque scores. The children’s teeth were dyed and colored photographs were taken of all tooth surfaces using a camera, mouth mirrors and lip retractors. The photographs were evaluated to select and identify the best visible tooth surfaces, and the final sample consisted of 343 tooth surfaces. One week after the clinical examination, both examiners scored the tooth surfaces from the photographs according to the index used. The intra and inter-examiner agreements were measured by intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for individual mean scores and for tooth surfaces scores. Results: The data showed an excellent agreement (ICC > 0.80) between clinical and photographic examinations, for both examiners, both for tooth surface and patient analysis. The statistics also demonstrated excellent (ICC > 0.80) inter-examiner agreement on clinical and photographic examinations. Conclusion: The method seems to be an effective technique to evaluate the reliability of the plaque index, improving the reproducibility of epidemiological studies.
iJTAG integration of complex digital embedded instruments

Embedded instruments are becoming used more often in modern SoCs for different testing and measurement purposes. IEEE 1687 (iJTAG) is a newly IEEE approved draft standard for embedded instruments access and control based on the widespread IEEE 1149.1 TAP port. In this paper the work done for enabling iJTAG control, observation and reconfiguration of complex digital embedded instruments will be discussed. Two digital embedded instruments used as a part of an MPSoC dependability management solution are presented as a case study, and the work done to enable iJTAG access is illustrated. Verification of the iJTAG control, observation and reconfiguration is also presented.
Utility-Based Joint Routing, Network Coding, and Power Control for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Energy saving and high delivery reliability are two essential metrics in wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a joint power control and network coding (PCNC) scheme which regulates the transmission power to reduce the overall energy usage and uses network coding to improve reliability by reducing the number of packet retransmissions. To argue for PCNC scheme, we investigate both unicast and multicast routing scenarios. To evaluate routing optimality, we adopt expected utility as a metric, which integrates energy cost, reliability, and benefit value. Based on the expected utility, we explore the optimality in both unicast and multicast routing. For unicast routing, we propose an optimal algorithm. We show the NP-hardness of multicast routing problem, and also design a heuristic solution. Results from simulations demonstrate that PCNC improves the performance in terms of expected utility compared with existing techniques.
Specific function of phosphoinositide 3-kinase beta in the control of DNA replication

Class IA phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) are enzymes comprised of a p85 regulatory and a p110 catalytic subunit that induce formation of 3-polyphosphoinositides, which activate numerous downstream targets. PI3K controls cell division. Of the 2 ubiquitous PI3K isoforms, α has selective action in cell growth and cell cycle entry, but no specific function in cell division has been described for β. We report here a unique function for PI3Kβ in the control of DNA replication. PI3Kβ regulated DNA replication through kinase-dependent and kinase-independent mechanisms. PI3Kβ was found in the nucleus, where it associated PKB. Modulation of PI3Kβ activity altered the DNA replication rate by controlling proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) binding to chromatin and to DNA polymerase δ. PI3Kβ exerted this action by regulating the nuclear activation of PKB in S phase, and in turn phosphorylation of PCNA negative regulator p21Cip. Also, p110β associated with PCNA and controlled PCNA loading onto chromatin in a kinase-independent manner. These results show a selective function of PI3Kβ in the control of DNA replication.
STAT 3 activation is sufficient to maintain an undifferentiated state of mouse embryonic stem cells

Embryonic stem (ES) cells can be maintained in an undifferentiated state in the presence of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). LIF acts through a receptor complex composed of a low affinity LIF receptor (LIFRβ) and gp130. We reported that the intracellular domain of gp130 plays an important role in selfrenewal of ES cells. In the present study, we examined the signaling pathway through which gp130 contributes to the self-renewal of ES cells. Mutational analysis of the cytoplasmic domain of gp130 revealed that the tyrosine residue of gp130 responsible for STAT3 activation is necessary for self-renewal of ES cells, while that required for SHP2 and MAP kinase activation was dispensable. Next, we constructed a fusion protein composed of the entire coding region of STAT3 and the ligand binding domain of the estrogen receptor. This construction (STAT3ER) induced expression of junB (one of the targets of STAT3) in ES cells in the presence of the synthetic ligand 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4HT), thereby indicating that STAT3ER is a conditionally active form. ES cells transfected with STAT3ER cultured in the presence of 4HT maintained an undifferentiated state. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that STAT3 activation is required and sufficient to maintain the undifferentiated state of ES cells.
Peripheral plasma testosterone concentrations in bulls around puberty.

It is now well established that dairy bulls attain their mature rate of spermatogenesis by 1 year of age (Attal & Courot, 1963; Macmillan & Hafs, 1968) and that gonadotrophins and steroid hormones are involved in the process of initiation and maintenance of spermatogenesis (Steinberger & Steinberger, 1969). Already by this age, testosterone is the most important androgen secreted by the interstitial tissue (Lindner, 1969). Rawlings, Hafs & Swanson (1972) observed an increase in the plasma levels of testosterone in five bulls up to 11 months of age and then a drop the following month. Since the levels found were highly variable, it was apparent that data from quite a large number of animals would be required to establish whether there is a significant increase or decrease in the plasma levels. Blood samples were collected from the jugular veins of fifty-one French Friesian bulls at 9, 12 and 15 months of age. The sampling period occurred over 1 year. The bulls were maintained under similar daily conditions since they
New data on an exotic Nippotaenia mogurndae (Cestoda), newly introduced to Europe

SummaryData on prevalence and current distribution of the cestode Nippotaenia mogurndae Yamaguti and Miyata, 1940 (Nippotaeniidea) in Slovakia, are provided. A total of 163 fish from 8 localities of different types in the Tisa River basin were infected with N. mogurndae. The mean intensity of infection was 1.8 with a maximum of 5 tapeworms. The expansion of the distribution of the cestode corresponds well with the spreading of its host, the invasive fish Amur sleeper Perccottus glenii Dybowski, 1877. The Spearmann correlation coefficient was used to test the relationship between the intensity of infection and standard length of the fish (r = 0.36; n = 163; P < 0.05), condition coefficient of the fish (r = 0.22; n = 115; P < 0.05) and season (r = −0.37; n = 355; P < 0.05). A significant correlation was confirmed for each pair of variables. There is a statistically significant difference between the prevalence of the cestode in two functional size groups (t = 3.28; n = 163; P < 0.05). The prevalence of the cestode increased with the standard length of fish. The potential risk of further expansion of N. mogurndae to other countries is discussed.
Critical success factors for offshore software outsourcing contract management from vendors' perspective: an exploratory study using a systematic literature review

Offshore software development outsourcing is a recent and widely used business strategy for the development of high quality products at low cost. The objective of the research presented in this study is to find critical success factors (CSFs) for contract management to assist vendor organisations for successful outcomes of the offshore software outsourcing contract. A systematic literature review (SLR) process was performed for the identification of factors that can assist vendor organisations in successful management of the various activities at different stages of the outsourcing contract. that is, pre-contract, during contract and post-contract. Our findings reveal that ‘contract flexibility, ‘trustworthy relationship management’, ‘competitive bidding’, ‘consultation and negotiation’ and ‘quality management’ are considered as the CSFs for outsourcing vendor organisations in planning, management and execution of outsourcing contract.
On Being Grateful and Kind: Results of Two Randomized Controlled Trials on Study-Related Emotions and Academic Engagement

ABSTRACT Despite the large amount of research attention to engagement as well as positive psychology in a general context, there have been few attempts to increase academic well-being by means of positive psychological interventions. This article tests the potential of positive psychological interventions to enhance study-related positive emotions and academic engagement, and to reduce study-related negative emotions among university students. We modified two existing positive interventions that are aimed at increasing general happiness for use in an academic context. These interventions focused on “thoughts of gratitude” and “acts of kindness,” respectively. The present study consisted of two randomized controlled trials with experimental (thoughts of gratitude or acts of kindness) and control conditions in which participants were monitored on a daily basis during the one-week intervention, and additional pre-, post-, and follow-up assessments were carried out. Results revealed that the gratitude intervention had a significant positive effect on daily positive emotions only. The kindness intervention had a positive influence on both positive emotions and academic engagement, though not in the long run. The results showed no effects on negative emotions in either of the two interventions. Positive psychological interventions seem to foster positive emotions and academic engagement, but do not decrease negative emotions.
LTZVisor: TrustZone is the Key ∗

Virtualization technology starts becoming more and more widespread in the embedded systems arena, driven by the upward trend for integrating multiple environments into the same hardware platform. The penalties incurred by standard software-based virtualization, altogether with the strict timing requirements imposed by real-time virtualization are pushing research towards hardware-assisted solutions. Among existing commercial oﬀ-the-shelf (COTS) technologies, ARM TrustZone promises to be a game-changer for virtualization, despite of this technology still being seen with a lot of obscurity and scepticism. In this paper we present a Lightweight TrustZone-assisted Hypervisor (LTZVisor) as a tool to understand, evaluate and discuss the beneﬁts and limitations of using TrustZone hardware to assist virtualization. We demonstrate how TrustZone can be adequately exploited for meeting the real-time needs, while presenting a low performance cost on running unmodiﬁed rich operating systems. While ARM continues to spread TrustZone technology from the applications processors to the smallest of microcontrollers, it is undeniable that this technology is gaining an increasing relevance. Our intent is to encourage research and drive the next generation of TrustZone-assisted virtualization solutions. 1998 ACM
Information Efficient Automatic Object Detection and Segmentation using Cosegmentation, Similarity based Clustering, and Graph Label Transfer

We tackle the problem of unsupervised object cosegmentation combining automatic image selection, cosegmentation, and knowledge transfer to yet unlabelled images. Furthermore, we overcome the limitations often present in state-of-the-art methods in object cosegmentation, namely, high complexity and poor scalability w.r. t. image set size. Our proposed approach is robust, reasonably fast, and scales linearly w.r. t. the image set size. We tested our approach on two commonly used cosegmentation data sets and outperformed some of the state-of-the-art methods using significantly less information than possible. Additionally, results indicate the applicability of our approach on larger image sets.
Toward unconstrained command and control: data-driven semantic inference

Command and control tasks are typically approached using a context-free grammaraslanguage model. Whileensuringagood system performance, this imposes a rigid framework on users, by implicitly forcing them to conform to a pre-de(cid:12)ned interaction structure. Thispaper introduces the concept of data-driven semantic inference, which in principle allows for any word constructs in command/query formulation. Each unconstrained word string is automatically mapped onto the intended action through a semantic classi(cid:12)cation against the set of supported actions. The underlying (latent semantic analysis) framework relies on co-occurrences between words and commands, as observed in a training corpus. Asuitable extension can also handle commands that are ambiguous at the word level. Experiments conducted on a desktop command and control task involving 113 di(cid:11)erent actions show a classi(cid:12)cation error rate of 1.7%.