Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Engineering Ligand and Receptor Pairs with LIPSTIC to Track Cell-Cell Interactions

Interactions between different cell types are critical for a plethora of biological processes, such as the immune response. We recently developed a novel technology, called LIPSTIC (labeling of immune partnership by SorTagging intercellular contacts), that allows for identifying cells undergoing specific interactions thanks to an enzymatic labeling reaction. Our work demonstrated the use of this technology to monitor interactions between immune cells, both in vitro and in vivo, by the genetic engineering of CD40 and CD40L, an essential costimulatory axis between antigen‐presenting cells and T cells. Here we describe protocols to design novel LIPSTIC‐engineered ligand and receptor pairs, clone constructs into retroviral expression vector, perform their initial validation, and use them to measure interactions ex vivo. This information will be useful to investigators interested in exploiting the LIPSTIC technology to track their favorite immune interaction. © 2021 The Authors. Current Protocols published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Xuanbai Chengqi Decoction Ameliorates Pulmonary Inflammation via Reshaping Gut Microbiota and Rectifying Th17/Treg Imbalance in a Murine Model of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Purpose Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a prevalent obstructive airway disease, has become the third most common cause of death globally. Xuanbai Chengqi decoction (XBCQ) is a traditional Chinese medicine prescription for the acute exacerbation of COPD. Here, we aimed to reveal the therapeutic effects of XBCQ administration and its molecular mechanisms mediated by Th17/Treg balance and gut microbiota. Methods We determined the counts of Th17 and Treg cells in the serum of 15 COPD and 10 healthy subjects. Then, cigarette smoke extract-induced COPD mice were gavaged with low, middle, and high doses of XBCQ, respectively. Weight loss, pulmonary function and inflammation, Th17/Treg ratio, and gut microbiota were measured to evaluate the efficacy of XBCQ on COPD. Results COPD patients had a higher Th17/Treg ratio in the serum than healthy controls, which was consistent with the results in the lung and colon of COPD mice. The middle dose of XBCQ (M-XBCQ) significantly decreased the weight loss and improved the pulmonary function (FEV0.2/FVC) in COPD mice. Moreover, M-XBCQ alleviated lung inflammation by rectifying the Th17/Treg imbalance, reducing the expressions of TNF-α, IL-1β, and MMP-9, and suppressing inflammatory cells infiltration. Meanwhile, M-XBCQ greatly improved the microbial homeostasis in COPD mice by accumulating probiotic Gordonibacter and Akkermansia but inhibiting the growth of pathogenic Streptococcus, which showed significant correlations with pulmonary injury. Conclusion Oral M-XBCQ could alleviate COPD exacerbations by reshaping the gut microbiota and improving the Th17/Treg balance, which aids in elucidating the mechanism through which XBCQ as a therapy for COPD.
Marvel: A Data-Centric Approach for Mapping Deep Learning Operators on Spatial Accelerators

A spatial accelerator’s efficiency depends heavily on both its mapper and cost models to generate optimized mappings for various operators of DNN models. However, existing cost models lack a formal boundary over their input programs (operators) for accurate and tractable cost analysis of the mappings, and this results in adaptability challenges to the cost models for new operators. We consider the recently introduced Maestro Data-Centric (MDC) notation and its analytical cost model to address this challenge because any mapping expressed in the notation is precisely analyzable using the MDC’s cost model. In this article, we characterize the set of input operators and their mappings expressed in the MDC notation by introducing a set of conformability rules. The outcome of these rules is that any loop nest that is perfectly nested with affine tensor subscripts and without conditionals is conformable to the MDC notation. A majority of the primitive operators in deep learning are such loop nests. In addition, our rules enable us to automatically translate a mapping expressed in the loop nest form to MDC notation and use the MDC’s cost model to guide upstream mappers. Our conformability rules over the input operators result in a structured mapping space of the operators, which enables us to introduce a mapper based on our decoupled off-chip/on-chip approach to accelerate mapping space exploration. Our mapper decomposes the original higher-dimensional mapping space of operators into two lower-dimensional off-chip and on-chip subspaces and then optimizes the off-chip subspace followed by the on-chip subspace. We implemented our overall approach in a tool called Marvel, and a benefit of our approach is that it applies to any operator conformable with the MDC notation. We evaluated Marvel over major DNN operators and compared it with past optimizers.
The Trickle-Down Effects of Inclusive Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Behavior: The Joint Moderating Effects of Vicarious Learning and Organizational Inclusion Climate

The supervisor-subordinate dyad has been well articulated in the framework of inclusive leadership and employee outcomes. Applying a multisource dataset from China, the present study develops a trickle-down model of inclusive leadership across three hierarchical levels (i.e., top managers, supervisors, and employees). Building on social learning theory and social exchange theory, the study found empirical support for the assumptions that both top management and supervisory inclusive leadership have a positive effect on employees’ innovative behavior. In addition, the findings support the proposition that supervisor's inclusive leadership mediates the effects of top manager's inclusive leadership on employees’ innovative behavior. The study also verified that vicarious learning and organizational inclusion climate jointly moderate the relationship between the top manager's inclusive leadership and the supervisor's inclusive leadership. The contribution, limitations, and future directions are also discussed.
A Review of the Critical Success Factors in the Adoption of Lean Production System by Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are important contributors to the economy of a country. In recent years, due to globalization and competition in the market they have faced high pressure to survive in the market. Lean production as a method of cost reduction which improves the efficiency has been adopted by many SMEs to survive within these dynamic markets. However, many failures of implementing a successful lean production system have been reported, caused by the inherent limitations of and factors unique to SMEs. This paper reviewed studies that focused on the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of implementing lean production among SMEs. The result of the study highlighted that lack of top management commitment, cultural change, education and training might hinder the implementation of lean production in SMEs successfully.
A GUIDE TO DESIGNING WATER WELLS

Libya depends almost totally on groundwater resources for its water needs. In the past, groundwater was easily extracted through traditional manually dug large wells since water tables were very near to the ground surface. However, starting from the early sixties, groundwater abstraction rates accelerated rapidly and the use of submersible pumps became necessary to cope with the falling water tables. Despite the scarcity of water resources, water consumption is on the rise as a result of improving standards of living. Authorized and unauthorized water well drillings have been widespread especially in the Jefara, Greeen mountain, and the northern part of Hamada basins. Most of these drillings were carried out without proper well design and without professional well drilling, which, in turn, led to environmental and economical problems. The main aim of this paper was to prepare a step by step guide which can be used in designing water wells. To achieve this goal, an extensive literature review has been conducted covering the main types of aquifers and their characteristics and water well structures. Water well design criteria and steps, for different types of formations, have been prepared, including well casing, well screen and artificial gravel pack.
The Ergonomics Society The Society's Lecture 1996 Ergonomics and the quality movement

In a wide variety of business settings, both ergonomics and quality initiatives are being undertaken. As ergonomists we cannot ignore those simultaneously occurring programmes. At best we should be able to contribute to and learn from them; at worst we need to be aware of possible adverse human consequences of quality initiatives. The quality movement is examined for its ergonomic implications, and current ergonomics/ quality interactions are reviewed. The future of both ergonomics and the quality movement are considered to derive new directives for interaction. These directions comprise strategic issues, systems approaches to organization design and leadership, measurement-based operations, the impact of technology, teams and the change process and human error studies. It is concluded that interactions between ergonomics and the quality movement can benefit both.
Sensitivity Analysis and Energy Harvesting for a Self-Powered Piezoelectric Sensor

Sensors play a crucial role in structural systems with concern over reliability/ failure issues. The development of wireless monitoring systems has been of great interest because wireless transmission has been proven as a convenient means to transmit signals while minimizing the use of many long wires. However, the wireless transmission systems need sufficient power to function properly. Conventionally, batteries are used as the power sources for the remote sensing systems. However, due to their limited lifetime, replacement of batteries has to be carried out periodically, which is inconvenient. In recent years, piezoelectric materials have been developed as sensing and actuating devices mostly, and power generators in some cases. In this article, a self-powered piezoelectric sensor is studied, in which one piece of piezoelectric element is simultaneously used as a sensor and a power generator under vibration environment. Concurrent design with piezoelectric materials in sensor and power generator is integrated with energy storage device. We evaluate sensing and power generating abilities individually and then energy harvesting performances. The potential of the piezoelectric sensor to power wireless transmission systems is discussed. Experimental efforts are carried out to study the feasibility of the self-powered piezoelectric sensor system.
Situated Talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok

There is a pressing need to facilitate sensitive conversations between people with differing or opposing views. On video-sharing app TikTok, the diverse experiences of donor-conceived people and recipient parents sit uneasily alongside each other, coalescing in hashtags like #donorconceived. This article describes a method ‘Situated Talk’ which uses TikToks to facilitate a reflexive encounter, drawing on three areas of scholarship: media ethnography and elicitation, researcher reflexivity and duoethnography/collaborative autoethnography. We describe how we, as a donor-conceived adult (Giselle) and a queer woman who would need donor sperm to have a child (Clare), employed TikToks from #donorconceived as prompts to facilitate a sensitive conversation and elicit situated insights. We explore three central insights from applying our method: (1) discomfort as a productive tension; (2) unresolved dilemmas; and (3) discovering parallels in experience. Using TikToks as stimuli, ‘Situated Talk’ contributes an innovative method for generating grounded social media insights.
UNSTEADY PHENOMENA IN SEPARATED AND REATTACHING FLOWS: FROM STATISTICAL CHARACTERISTICS TO INSTANTANEOUS SPACE-TIME FIELDS

The dynamics of the backflow region in a separated turbulent flow was visualized using results of a direct numerical simulation. A new parameter for description of the non-stationary cycle in a separated flow is proposed - the total wall area occupied by the reverse flow. A local multipoint identification criterion for registering basic stages of the non-stationary cycle is presented. In practice such a criterion can be realized using a rake of near- wall hot-wire probes uniformly distributed in the z- direction and located in the forward-flow region not far downstream from flow reattachment.
Automated Diagnosis of Childhood Pneumonia in Chest Radiographs Using Modified Densely Residual Bottleneck-Layer Features

Pneumonia is a severe infection that affects the lungs due to viral or bacterial infections such as the novel COVID-19 virus resulting in mild to critical health conditions. One way to diagnose pneumonia is to screen prospective patient’s lungs using either a Computed Tomography (CT) scan or chest X-ray. To help radiologists in processing a large amount of data especially during pandemics, and to overcome some limitations in deep learning approaches, this paper introduces a new approach that utilizes a few light-weighted densely connected bottleneck residual block features to extract rich spatial information. Then, shrinking data batches into a single vector using four efficient methods. Next, an adaptive weight setup is proposed utilizing Adaboost ensemble learning which adaptively sets weight for each classifier depending on the scores generated to achieve the highest true positive rates while maintaining low negative rates. The proposed method is evaluated using the Kaggle chest X-ray public dataset and attained an accuracy of 99.6% showing superiority to other deep networks-based pneumonia diagnosis methods.
Building power demand response methods toward smart grid

Smart grid has been drawing attention particularly when renewable generations are integrated. In order to ensure high power reliability and energy efficiency in an electrical grid, research and application has been conducted at power supply side to solve the grid critical issues: peak load and power imbalance. However, as the major end-users at power demand side, buildings can also play a significant and cost-effective role by making use of their power demand responses. Different demand response programs (e.g., time- and incentive-based) have been developed and applied for encouraging the end-users to change their energy usage behaviors expected by the grid. Generally, buildings are able to limit and/or shift the power demands according to their own considerations under the specific incentives. A comprehensive review on the building power demand response methods is still missing, although research and application has been investigated and conducted on power demand aspects concerning the building system configuration and the control strategies of power demand optimization. This article, therefore, presents a comprehensive review on the strategies, impacts, and benefits of building power demand response in a grid to systematically evaluate and make better use of their demand response potentials. The possibility of developing proper building power demand response strategies for offline and online applications of the smart grid is also discussed.
Highly sensitive thermal actuators for temperature sensing

A thermal actuator based on two symmetrical V-shaped beam stacks (also called chevron-type) is presented. Each beam stack consists of 6 beams in parallel. The stacks are coupled facing each other and are slightly shifted along the mirror axis. Both stacks are connected to a lever beam. Due to the thermal expansion of the material, the tip of the lever moves up and downwards perpendicular to the mirror axis. The device is built up of galvanic deposited nickel. Finite element simulations were carried out for design considerations prior to the manufacturing of the device. The simulations were used to optimize the design regarding to the sensitivity and the maximum mechanical stress to be expected. The stress level needs to be lower than the yield strength of the material, to prevent plastic deformation and, therefore, irreversible tip defections. This also limits the overall sensitivity of the design. First results of the device with 400 µm long bent beams show a linear behavior and a sensitivity of 0.5 μm/K and expectable forces of 66 μN/K in a temperature range of -30°C up to +40°C.
Space charge behavior near LDPE/LDPE interface

We investigated the space charge behavior near the interface between different low-density polyethylene (LDPE). Charge carriers were mainly injected from the semiconductive electrode in a specimen of Al/LDPE/LDPE/semiconductive layer and they moved through the interface to the counter Al electrode. Charge carriers moving from a lower density LDPE to a higher density one were accumulated near the interface to form space charge, while there was no space charge accumulation for carriers moving in the opposite direction. The mobilities of charge carriers were estimated from the change in space charge profile with time. Charge carriers are more mobile in the lower density LDPE than in the higher density one. Positive carriers were more mobile in LDPE than negative ones. The interface between different LDPE's greatly affected space charge behavior and discharging currents.
Personal Healthy Diet and Calorie Monitoring System using Fuzzy Inference in Smart Phones

The increasing popularity of dining out has led to a rise in obesity and a reduction in exercise among adults. In addition, the increasing consumption of refined foods is resulting in unbalanced diets and elevated risk of various chronic diseases. To reduce these risks, much attention is being paid to methods of weight loss in Taiwan, and there is increasing awareness of the need to monitor caloric and nutrient intake, as well as an emphasis on the healthiness and balanced nature of food intake. Hence, we developed the ”personal diet and caloric intake monitoring system” for use on smart phones, which is based on the fuzzy inference method. In this system, a QR code is used to save information regarding nutrients, including calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and sodium. Using the data stored in the QR code, the proposed system calculates the total nutrition from individual sessions of food intake. Next, it determines whether the number of intake-calories and intake-nutrition value go beyond the daily recommended allowances. In addition, this system applies the G-Sensor available on most smart phones to measure the rocking motion of users during exercise. Fuzzy inference method infers number of calories burned. The success rate of the system was 90% in terms of the accuracy of calorie burning calculations. Based on comparisons with Nike+ sensor, the calorie-burning value measured by the proposed system was closer to that calculated by the standard calorie-burning formula. In summary, this proposed system was able to help users make food selections and monitor calories, regardless of gender or goal whether it be losing weight or monitoring diet. Users are able to adjust nutritional intake and measure calories burned during exercise to eventually balance nutrients and control caloric intake.
Layout Dependence on Threshold Voltage Instability of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Thin Film Transistors

In this paper, we discuss the threshold voltage instability of two distinct layouts of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film transistors (a-Si:H TFTs). By simultaneously applying gate and drain bias stress, we show that the average threshold voltage shift of circular a-Si:H TFTs is 54% less than that of conventional inverted staggered a-Si:H TFTs. This result is primarily due to that the circular layout reduces the channel electron concentration. ISE-DESSIS (Integrated System Engineering DEvice Simulation for Smart Integrated Systems) was used to simulate the parallel electric field and obtain the total channel electron concentration. The simulation results closely correspond to the explanation in this study. These results indicate a significant impact of improving threshold voltage stability by a layout method.
Spectroscopic Stability Studies of Pressure Sensitive Labels Facestock Made from Recycled Post-Consumer Waste and Agro-Industrial By-Products

To support circular economy and sustainability, the use of synthetic polymers should be minimized due to their excessive accumulation in the environment and low biodegradation rate which leads to a global waste problem. Thus, the quota of natural resources should be increased, as well as the use of agriculture and industrial waste or by-products as raw materials in industrial processes. Agro-industrial wastes were found to have high cellulose fiber potential which makes them an excellent resource for paper production. This study investigates the influence of artificial aging test on the stability of commercially available fiber based self-adhesive pressure sensitive labels (PSL), in which the facestock is made of 15% agro-industrial byproducts, 40% post-consumer recycled paper and 45% virgin wood pulp and compared to ones made of biobased polyethylene. The results showed that optical brighteners are present in the composition of fiber based PSL. Moreover, the fluorescence and UV-Visible spectroscopy results indicated that by the action of UV irradiation and temperature. The oxidation of cellulose was not found by FTIR spectroscopy, indicating its high stability.
Heterogeneity Analysis of Urban Rail Transit on Housing with Different Price Levels: A Case Study of Chengdu, China

The impact of urban rail transit on housing prices has attracted the extensive attention of scholars, but few studies have explored the heterogeneous impact of rail transit on housing prices with different price levels. To solve this problem, we adopted the hedonic price model based on ordinary least squares regression as a supplementary method of quantile regression to study the heterogeneous impact of the Chengdu Metro system on low-, middle-, and high-priced housing. The result shows that the housing price rises first, then falls with the distance from the housing to the nearest subway station. Besides, the influence of transportation accessibility on low-, middle-, and high-priced housing decreases progressively. This research can provide a reference for the government’s transportation planning and decision-making.
Derivative measurement by frequency mixing

A dual-frequency technique for electronically measuring high-order derivatives by frequency mixing is described. The technique utilizes an ac modulation at two distinct but synchronous frequencies to produce a derivative signal at a useful difference frequency, which is unique to the order of the derivative being measured. By appropriate selection of the frequencies, significant advantages are obtained compared to the conventional method in which derivatives are measured at harmonics of a single frequency. The technique is illustrated with a practical measurement of the second derivative of the electrical characteristic of a silicon rectifier diode.