Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Leaf heteroblasty in Passiflora edulis as revealed by metabolic profiling and expression analyses of the microRNAs miR156 and miR172.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Juvenile-to-adult phase transition is marked by changes in leaf morphology, mostly due to the temporal development of the shoot apical meristem, a phenomenon known as heteroblasty. Sugars and microRNA-controlled modules are components of the heteroblastic process in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves. However, our understanding about their roles during phase-changing in other species, such as Passiflora edulis, remains limited. Unlike Arabidopsis, P. edulis (a semi-woody perennial climbing vine) undergoes remarkable changes in leaf morphology throughout juvenile-to-adult transition. Nonetheless, the underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. METHODS Here we evaluated the molecular mechanisms underlying the heteroblastic process by analysing the temporal expression of microRNAs and targets in leaves as well as the leaf metabolome during P. edulis development. KEY RESULTS Metabolic profiling revealed a unique composition of metabolites associated with leaf heteroblasty. Increasing levels of glucose and α-trehalose were observed during juvenile-to-adult phase transition. Accumulation of microRNA156 (miR156) correlated with juvenile leaf traits, whilst miR172 transcript accumulation was associated with leaf adult traits. Importantly, glucose may mediate adult leaf characteristics during de novo shoot organogenesis by modulating miR156-targeted PeSPL9 expression levels at early stages of shoot development. CONCLUSIONS Altogether, our results suggest that specific sugars may act as co-regulators, along with two microRNAs, leading to leaf morphological modifications throughout juvenile-to-adult phase transition in P. edulis.
HERC3-Mediated SMAD7 Ubiquitination Degradation Promotes Autophagy-Induced EMT and Chemoresistance in Glioblastoma

Purpose: Glioblastoma, a common malignant intracranial tumor, has the most dismal prognosis. Autophagy was reported to act as a survival-promoting mechanism in gliomas by inducing epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Here, we determined the critical molecules involved in autophagy-induced EMT and elucidated the possible mechanism of chemoradiotherapy resistance and tumor recurrence. Experimental Design: We used isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation to identify the critical proteins and pathway mediating EMT via autophagy inducer treatment, and tested the expression of these proteins using tissue microarray of gliomas and clinical glioblastoma samples as well as tissues and cells separated from the core lesion and tumor-peripheral region. Analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas database and 110 glioblastoma cases revealed the prognostic value of these molecules. The functional role of these critical molecules was further confirmed by in vitro experiments and intracranial xenograft in nude mice. Results: Autophagy inducers significantly upregulated the expression of HERC3, which promotes ubiquitination-mediated degradation of SMAD7 in an autolysosome-dependent manner. The corresponding increase in p-SMAD2/3 level and TGFβ pathway activation finally induced EMT in cell lines and primary glioblastoma cells. Moreover, HERC3 overexpression was observed in pseudo-palisade cells surrounding tumor necrosis and in tumor-adjacent tissue; high HERC3 and low SMAD7 levels predicted poor clinical outcome in glioblastoma; xenograft of nude mice and in vitro experiments confirmed these findings. Conclusions: Together, our findings reveal the indispensable role of HERC3 in regulating canonical SMAD2/3-dependent TGFβ pathway involvement in autophagy-induced EMT, providing insights toward a better understanding of the mechanism of resistance to temozolomide and peripheral recurrence of glioblastoma.
Effect of Mung Bean Sprouts Extract to the Morphology and Motility Spermatozoa in Mice Exposed Monosodium Glutamate

Background: The prevalence of male infertility in 30% of the case is considered idiopathic infertility that is infertility cases the cause cannot be found with certainly but on examination showed increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in seminal liquid. Increased level of ROS caused by the presence of free radical. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a food additive that is used for flavoring food, but MSG has the effect of free radicals when usage exceeds normal limits. Mung bean sprouts are natural antioxidants because it contains vitamins E and C and zinc. This study aimed to analyze the effect of mung bean sprouts extract to the morphology and motility spermatozoa in mice exposed MSG. Materials and Methods: This research is an experimental research with post-test only control group design. 30 male mice divided into five group control negative, control positive (Monosodium glutamate [MSG] 4 mg/g BB), P1 (MSG 4 mg/g BB + 108 mg extra), P2 (MSG 4 mg/g BB + 216 mg extra), and P3 (MSG 4 mg/g BB + 432 mg extra). Data were analyzed with oneway analysis of variances (ANOVA) and followed by Duncan. Result: ANOVA one-way test showed that there were significant differences among the groups with P = 0,000. Further tests by Duncan test showed that there are significant differences in each group because they are on a different subset group with significant < 0.05. Conclusion: The results showed that the extract of mung bean sprouts can increase the percentage of morphology and motility of spermatozoa.
Tetraspanin 1 as a mediator of fibrosis inhibits EMT process and Smad2/3 and beta‐catenin pathway in human pulmonary fibrosis

Tetraspanin 1(TSPAN1) as a clinically relevant gene target in cancer has been studied, but there is no direct in vivo or vitro evidence for pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Using reanalysing Gene Expression Omnibus data, here, we show for the first time that TSPAN1 was markedly down‐regulated in lung tissue of patient with idiopathic PF (IPF) and verified the reduced protein expression of TSPAN1 in lung tissue samples of patient with IPF and bleomycin‐induced PF mice. The expression of TSPAN1 was decreased and associated with transforming growth factor‐β1 (TGF‐β1)‐induced molecular characteristics of epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in alveolar epithelial cells (AECs). Silencing TSPAN1 promoted cell migration, and the expression of alpha‐smooth muscle actin, vimentin and E‐cadherin in AECs with TGF‐β1 treatment, while exogenous TSPAN1 has the converse effects. Moreover, silencing TSPAN1 promotes the phosphorylation of Smad2/3 and stabilizes beta‐catenin protein, however, overexpressed TSPAN1 impeded TGF‐β1‐induced activation of Smad2/3 and beta‐catenin pathway in AECs. Together, our study implicates TSPAN1 as a key regulator in the process of EMT in AECs of IPF.
OTT_A_201675 4141..4152

Yan Jiao Yanqing Li Songyang Liu Qingmin Chen Yahui Liu 1Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, 130021, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pathophysiology, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130021, People’s Republic of China Background and objective: ITGA3 is a cell surface adhesion protein that interacts with extracellular matrix proteins which function in cancer metastasis. We examined the relationship of pancreatic ITGA3 expression with the clinical and pathological characteristics of patients with pancreatic cancer. Methods: Data mining was used to analyze pancreatic cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. A Chi squared test was used to evaluate correlations of ITGA3 expression with clinical and pathological parameters. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of ITGA3 expression. Survival analysis and Cox regression analysis were used to examine the prognostic value of ITGA3 expression. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to identify signaling pathways related to ITGA3 expression. Results: Pancreatic expression of ITGA3 was greater in patients with pancreatic cancer than those without cancer, and was also associated with histological type, histological grade, stage, T classification, vital status, and relapse. ROC analysis indicated that ITGA3 had significant diagnostic value, in that high expression correlated with poor overall survival and relapse-free survival, especially in patients with early-stage cancer. Cox analysis indicated that high ITGA3 expression was an independent prognostic factor for pancreatic cancer. GSEA analysis identified 9 signaling pathways that were enriched in the presence of high ITGA3 expression. Conclusion: Expression of ITGA3 can be used as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in pancreatic cancer.
MSG-GAN: Multi-Scale Gradients GAN for more stable and synchronized multi-scale image synthesis

Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) which is widely used for Image synthesis via generative modelling suffers peculiarly from training instability. One of the known reasons for this instability is the passage of uninformative gradients from the Discriminator to the Generator due to learning imbalance between them during training. In this work, we propose Multi-Scale Gradients Generative Adversarial Network (MSG-GAN), a simplistic but effective technique for addressing this problem; by allowing the flow of gradients from the Discriminator to the Generator at multiple scales. This results in the Generator acquiring the ability to synthesize synchronized images at multiple resolutions simultaneously. We also highlight a suite of techniques that together buttress the stability of training without excessive hyperparameter tuning. Our MSG-GAN technique is a generic mathematical framework which has multiple instantiations. We present an intuitive form of this technique which uses the concatenation operation in the Discriminator computations and empirically validate it through experiments on the CelebA-HQ, CIFAR10 and Oxford102 flowers datasets and by comparing it with some of the current state-of-the-art techniques.
The "Physics of Diagrams": Revealing the scientific basis of graphical representation design

Data is omnipresent in the modern, digital world and a significant number of people need to make sense of data as part of their everyday social and professional life. Therefore, together with the rise of data, the design of graphical representations has gained importance and attention. Yet, although a large body of procedural knowledge about effective visualization exists, the quality of representations is often reported to be poor, proposedly because these guidelines are scattered, unstructured and sometimes perceived as contradictive. Therefore, this paper describes a literature research addressing these problems. The research resulted in the collection and structuring of 81 guidelines and 34 underlying propositions, as well as in the derivation of 7 foundational principles about graphical representation design, called the "Physics of Diagrams", which are illustrated with concrete, practical examples throughout the paper.
Evidence for the incorporation of temporal duration information in human hippocampal long-term memory sequence representations

Significance We demonstrate that multivariate patterns of activity in the human hippocampus during the recognition and cued mental replay of long-term sequence memories contain temporal structure information in the order of seconds. By using an experimental paradigm that required participants to remember the durations of empty intervals between visually presented scene images, our study provides evidence that the human hippocampus can represent elapsed time within a sequence of events in conjunction with other forms of information, such as event content. Our findings complement rodent studies that have shown that hippocampal neurons fire at specific times during the empty delay between two events and suggest a common hippocampal neural mechanism for representing temporal information in the service of episodic memory. There has been much interest in how the hippocampus codes time in support of episodic memory. Notably, while rodent hippocampal neurons, including populations in subfield CA1, have been shown to represent the passage of time in the order of seconds between events, there is limited support for a similar mechanism in humans. Specifically, there is no clear evidence that human hippocampal activity during long-term memory processing is sensitive to temporal duration information that spans seconds. To address this gap, we asked participants to first learn short event sequences that varied in image content and interval durations. During fMRI, participants then completed a recognition memory task, as well as a recall phase in which they were required to mentally replay each sequence in as much detail as possible. We found that individual sequences could be classified using activity patterns in the anterior hippocampus during recognition memory. Critically, successful classification was dependent on the conjunction of event content and temporal structure information (with unsuccessful classification of image content or interval duration alone), and further analyses suggested that the most informative voxels resided in the anterior CA1. Additionally, a classifier trained on anterior CA1 recognition data could successfully identify individual sequences from the mental replay data, suggesting that similar activity patterns supported participants’ recognition and recall memory. Our findings complement recent rodent hippocampal research, and provide evidence that long-term sequence memory representations in the human hippocampus can reflect duration information in the order of seconds.
Production and Characterization of Taxol as Anticancer Agent from Aspergillus terreus

Taxol, a diterpenoid was initially isolated from the bark of Taxus brevifolia, approved by FDA in 1994 as a powerful drug for metastatic ovarian carcinoma, breast and lung cancer. However, due to limitations in the production of this drug based on this plant source, the productive potentiality of fungi of this compound opened a new avenue for its commercial production. In this study, among the twenty fungal isolates screened for Taxol production, Aspergillus terreus had the highest potentiality to produce Taxol (131.2 μg/ml). The productivity of Taxol by A. terreus has been maximized by nutritional optimization using inhibitors and growth regulators. The yield of Taxol by A. terreus was maximally obtained (0.663μg/ ml) by growing the fungal isolate on potato dextrose broth medium, amended with addition of biotin at 150 μg/ml for 20 days. The chemical structure Taxol extracted of A. terreus has been verified by proton and carbon NMR, IR and UV analyses. The activity of A. terreus Taxol has been assessed towards multiple cell lines, displaying a strong anticancer activity. In conclusion, the productivity of Taxol by A. terreus has been greatly improved upon using biotin as chemical modulator, that open a new avenue for commercializing the Taxol yield by fungi.
Reconsidering the Market Size Effect in Innovation and Growth

In the standard horizontal innovation model of endogenous growth, larger economies innovate more and grow faster. Due to the homotheticity of preferences, however, it does not matter whether the large market size comes from a large population or a high per capita expenditure. In this paper, we extend the standard model to allow for nonhomothetic preferences. Among others, we show that, holding the size fixed, economies with higher per capita expenditure and smaller populations innovate more and grow faster for the empirically relevant case of incomplete pass-through, strategic complementarity in pricing, and procompetitive entry.
Effect of UV Radiation and Salt Stress on the Accumulation of Economically Relevant Secondary Metabolites in Bell Pepper Plants

The green biomass of horticultural plants contains valuable secondary metabolites (SM), which can potentially be extracted and sold. When exposed to stress, plants accumulate higher amounts of these SMs, making the extraction and commercialization even more attractive. We evaluated the potential for accumulating the flavones cynaroside and graveobioside A in leaves of two bell pepper cultivars (Mavras and Stayer) when exposed to salt stress (100 mM NaCl), UVA/B excitation (UVA 4–5 W/m2; UVB 10–14 W/m2 for 3 h per day), or a combination of both stressors. Plant age during the trials was 32–48 days. HPLC analyses proved the enhanced accumulation of both metabolites under stress conditions. Cynaroside accumulation is effectively triggered by high-UV stress, whereas graveobioside A contents increase under salt stress. Highest contents of secondary metabolites were observed in plants exposed to combined stress. Effects of stress on overall plant performance differed significantly between treatments, with least negative impact on above ground biomass found for high-UV stressed plants. The usage of two non-destructive instruments (Dualex and Multiplex) allowed us to gain insights into the ontogenetical effects at the leaf level and temporal development of SM contents. Indices provided by those devices correlate fairly with amounts detected via HPLC (Cynaroside: r2 = 0.46–0.66; Graveobioside A: r2 = 0.51–0.71). The concentrations of both metabolites tend to decrease at leaf level during the ontogenetical development even under stress conditions. High-UV stress should be considered as a tool for enriching plant leaves with valuable SM. Effects on the performance of plants throughout a complete production cycle should be evaluated in future trials. All data is available online.
A model of different cognitive processes during spontaneous and intentional coupling to music in multiple sclerosis

Evidence for using auditory–motor coupling in neurological rehabilitation to facilitate walking is increasing. However, the distinction between spontaneous and intended coupling and its underlying mechanisms is yet to be investigated. In this study, we include 30 persons with multiple sclerosis and 30 healthy controls (HCs) in an experiment with two sessions in which participants were asked to walk to music with various tempi, matching their preferred walking cadence (PWC) up to 10% above in incremental steps of 2%. In the first session, no instructions were given to synchronize. In the second, participants were instructed to synchronize steps to the beats. Spontaneous synchronization was possible at 0% and +2% of the PWC, and fewer persons with multiple sclerosis were able to do so compared with HCs. Instruction was needed to synchronize at above +2% tempo in all participants. In the instructed session, the +6% condition marked a cutoff for cognitively impaired persons, as they were no longer able to synchronize. Based on our findings, we constructed a model illustrating that spontaneous entrainment is limited, operating during spontaneous coupling at only 0% and +2% of the PWC, and that at a higher tempo, entrainment requires intentional synchronization, with an active cognitive control mechanism.
Recognizing Song Mood and Theme Using Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks

In this year’s MediaEval task, Emotion and Theme Recognition in Music Using Jamendo , the goal is to assign emotion and theme tags to songs. In this paper, we describe our–Team TaiInn (Innsbruck)– approach for this task. We use a neural network model consisting of both convolutional and recurrent layers and utilize spectral, high-level as well as rhythm features. Our approach achieves a ROC-AUC score of 0.723 on the provided test set.
A critical evaluation of processes to produce primary titanium by

Many different processes were conceived over the last 60 years to reduce the cost of titanium produced by the Kroll process. However, success eluded all previous efforts, which were consequently terminated in periods of economic downturn. Recently, the growth in demand for titanium and the high cost of producing the metal again sparked renewed attempts in various parts of the world to replace the antiquated Kroll process with a more efficient route. Several excellent reviews or summaries on new, potentially low-cost titanium production technologies have been published1–4 from time to time. In general these reviews give good descriptions of the work done in the field, but fail to indicate clear preference for any particular process or processes. The objective of this study was to develop a rational basis for selecting which route to pursue to develop more economic primary titanium metal production technology. This was done by comparing the underlying fundamentals that ultimately determine the costs and benefits of the various proposed processes.
Interaural Coherence Estimation for Speech Processing in Reverberant Environment

Interaural coherence is used to quantify the effects of reverberation on speech, and previous studies applied the conventional method using all previous time data in the form of an infinite impulse response filter to estimate interaural coherence. To consider a characteristic of speech that continuously changes over time, this paper proposes a new method of estimating interaural coherence using time data within a finite length of speech, which is called the quasi-steady interval. The length of the quasi-steady interval is determined with various frequency bands, reverberation times, and short-time Fourier transform (STFT) variables through numerical experiment, and it decreased as reverberation time decreased and the frequency increased. In this interval, a diffuse speech, which is an infinite sum of reflected speeches of different propagating paths, is uncorrelated between two microphones apart from each other; thus, the coherence is close to zero. However, a direct speech measured at the two microphones has steady amplitude and phase difference in this internal; thus, the coherence is close to one. Moreover, the new method is the form of a finite impulse response filter that has a linear phase delay or zero phase delay with respect to speech to frequency; thus, the same or zero time delay for each frequency is applied to the power spectral density. Therefore, the coherence estimation of the new method is closer to the ideal value than the conventional one, and the coherence is accurately estimated at the time–frequency bins of direct speech, which is time-varying according to speech variation.
Homotopy method for the numerical solution of the eigenvalue problem of self-adjoint partial differential operators

Given A i, the discrete approximation of a linear self-adjoint partial differential operator, the smallest few eigenvalues and eigenvectors of Ai are computed by the homotopy (continuation) method. The idea of the method is very simple. From some initial operator A0 with known eigenvalues and eigenvectors, define the homotopy H(t) = (1 t)Ao + tAi, 0 < t < 1. If the eigenvectors of H(to) are known, then they are used to determine the eigenpairs of H(to + dt) via the Rayleigh quotient iteration, for some value of dt. This is repeated until t becomes 1, when the solution to the original problem is found. A fundamental problem is the selection of the step size dt. A simple criterion to select dt is given. It is shown that the iterative solver used to find the eigenvector at each step can be stabilized by applying a lowrank perturbation to the relevant matrix. By carrying out a small part of the calculation in higher precision, it is demonstrated that eigenvectors corresponding to clustered eigenvalues can be computed to high accuracy. Some numerical results for the Schr6dinger eigenvalue problem are given. This algorithm will also be used to compute the bifurcation point ofa parametrized partial differential equation.