Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NKG2A and HLA-E define a novel alternative immune checkpoint axis in bladder cancer

PD-1/PD-L1-blockade immunotherapies have limited efficacy in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and metastatic urothelial carcinoma. Here, we show that KLRC1 (NKG2A) expression associates with improved survival and responsiveness to PD-L1 blockade immunotherapy in CD8Ahigh bladder tumors. The loss of antigen presentation is a common mechanism for tumor escape in bladder cancer. NKG2A+ CD8 T cells are able to circumvent HLA-ABC loss through TCR-independent cytotoxicity, which is partly mediated by DNAM-1. In bladder tumors, NKG2A is acquired on a subset of PD-1+ CD8 T cells, alongside stronger tissue-residency memory features, TCR-independent cytotoxicity and evidence of recent proliferation. HLA-E is low but variably expressed on bladder tumors. When expressed, NKG2A+ CD8 T cell anti-tumor responses to HLA-ABC-deficient tumors are inhibited and partly restored upon NKG2A blockade. Overall, our study identifies an alternative path for CD8 T cell exhaustion, that is mediated by NKG2A upregulation and TCR-independent cytotoxicity.
Behavior of Piles under Different Installation Effects by Physical Modeling

AbstractMany factors influence the axial bearing capacity and performance of deep foundations embedded in sand deposits. Among these factors, the installation method is of great importance. The objective of this study was to investigate the construction effects on pile performance via physical modeling. The frustum confining vessel of Amirkabir University of Technology (FCV-AUT) was employed for this purpose. Six different installation methods were studied: jacking, drilling and grouting, driving, screwing, drilling and placing, and postgrouting. Up to 30 axial compressive and tensile load tests were carried out on different piles on Babolsar sand, from the northern coast of Iran, with relative densities of 45% to 50% within the FCV-AUT. Experimental results show that among different pile installation methods, jacked and precast-in-place piles had the greatest and lowest capacities, respectively. Moreover, the performance results of the different pile types in the FCV-AUT indicate that the axial bearing c.
Pavilion as an architecture of new placeness : a case of Serpentine Pavilion project

ABSTRACT Pavilions are flexible, open architectural structures, usually erected in parks and gardens. And they played a significant role in the political and cultural propaganda through international exhibitions in the 19th century, as well as in the presentations of new technologies and materials. By focusing on the concept of temporality, this study takes a novel approach and examines the role of the pavilion from the perspective of nomadic, wandering cultures through a case of Serpentine Pavilion Project. This study is based on the interpretive and critical approach which relies on gathering cases and references about the phenomenon or literature in hand. We provide a history overview and trace the changes in the concept of place at the dawn of the modern era, investigating how the Serpentine Pavilion reflects a modern understanding of placeness. Essentially, it argues that the pavilion, as a special temporary architectural form, can be used as the foundation of modern discourse on placeness. As a material and spatial alternative to such placeness, the pavilion constitutes an important architectural type.
The Effect of Inner Engineering Online (IEO) Program on Reducing Stress for Information Technology Professionals: A Randomized Control Study

In recent years, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are rapidly growing in the workplace. Several meta-analyses conclude that overall MBIs have a moderate effect of alleviating deficit-based experiences, such as burnout and stress, but a small to no effect of promoting asset-based experiences, such as positive affect and well-being. While workplace MBIs vary greatly in their content, format, and duration, the dominant format is still face to face in a group setting, which limits scalability. Our study introduces an emerging workplace intervention called Inner Engineering Online (IEO) and evaluates its effect on reducing stress, burnout, depression, and anxiety and increasing mindfulness and joy. Drawing on the classical yogic science, IEO is a comprehensive web-based multicomponent intervention that utilizes dialectic discourse, meditation, and yogic practices designed to improve physical, mental, and emotional health. Utilizing a randomized active control cross-over experimental design with a sample of 71 employees of an Information Technology company, we tested our hypothesis that IEO training and regular daily yogic practice are likely to lower the stress levels, prevent burnout, and alleviate anxiety and depression, while at the same time promotes positive affect for employees. The results show that IEO program significantly reduces stress only among those who adhere to recommended daily yogic practices. The study is limited by its small sample size. Future research using a large sample is recommended to reexamine the effect of IEO training on occupational health. This trial is registered with NCT04126564.
A multidimensional approach to identifying the physical qualities of male English regional academy rugby union players; considerations of position, chronological age, relative age and maturation

ABSTRACT Interpreting the physical qualities of youth athletes is complex due to the effects of growth, maturation and development. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of position, chronological age, relative age and maturation on the physical qualities of elite male academy rugby union players. 1,424 participants (n = 2,381 observations) from nine Rugby Football Union regional academies prospectively completed a physical testing battery at three time points, across three playing seasons. Anthropometrics, body composition, muscular power, muscular strength, speed, aerobic capacity and running momentum were assessed. Positional differences were identified for all physical qualities. The largest effect sizes were observed for the associations between chronological age (d = 0.65–0.73) and maturation (d = −0.77 to −0.69) and body mass related variables (i.e. body mass and running momentum). Relative strength, maximum velocity and aerobic capacity were the only models to include two fixed effects with all other models including at least three fixed effects (i.e. position and a combination of chronological age, relative age and maturation). These findings suggest a multidimensional approach considering position, chronological age, relative age and maturation is required to effectively assess the physical qualities of male age grade rugby union players. Therefore practitioners should use regression equations rather than traditional descriptive statistic tables to provide individualised normative comparisons thus enhancing the application of testing results for talent identification and player development. Highlights Practitioners should record and incorporate position, chronological age, relative age and maturation into the physical evaluation of elite academy rugby union players. The regression equations provided within this study offer highly generalisable comparative values that are specific to a players chronological and biological development. Through the use of enhanced player evaluation practitioners will be able to make more informed decisions surrounding talent identification and athlete development.
The YAP/TAZ Signaling Pathway in the Tumor Microenvironment and Carcinogenesis: Current Knowledge and Therapeutic Promises

The yes-associated protein (YAP) and the transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) are transcriptional coactivators, members of the Hippo signaling pathway, which play a critical role in cell growth regulation, embryonic development, regeneration, proliferation, and cancer origin and progression. The mechanism involves the nuclear binding of the un-phosphorylated YAP/TAZ complex to release the transcriptional enhanced associate domain (TEAD) from its repressors. The active ternary complex is responsible for the aforementioned biological effects. Overexpression of YAP/TAZ has been reported in cancer stem cells and tumor resistance. The resistance involves chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy. This review provides an overview of YAP/TAZ pathways’ role in carcinogenesis and tumor microenvironment. Potential therapeutic alternatives are also discussed.
Predicting miRNA-Disease Association Based on Neural Inductive Matrix Completion with Graph Autoencoders and Self-Attention Mechanism

Many studies have clarified that microRNAs (miRNAs) are associated with many human diseases. Therefore, it is essential to predict potential miRNA-disease associations for disease pathogenesis and treatment. Numerous machine learning and deep learning approaches have been adopted to this problem. In this paper, we propose a Neural Inductive Matrix completion-based method with Graph Autoencoders (GAE) and Self-Attention mechanism for miRNA-disease associations prediction (NIMGSA). Some of the previous works based on matrix completion ignore the importance of label propagation procedure for inferring miRNA-disease associations, while others cannot integrate matrix completion and label propagation effectively. Varying from previous studies, NIMGSA unifies inductive matrix completion and label propagation via neural network architecture, through the collaborative training of two graph autoencoders. This neural inductive matrix completion-based method is also an implementation of self-attention mechanism for miRNA-disease associations prediction. This end-to-end framework can strengthen the robustness and preciseness of both matrix completion and label propagation. Cross validations indicate that NIMGSA outperforms current miRNA-disease prediction methods. Case studies demonstrate that NIMGSA is competent in detecting potential miRNA-disease associations.
Variability in Southern Yellow Pine Bark from Industrial Sources

Bark utilization requires the development of quality control protocols to assess variability and predict product yields. Southern yellow pine (SYP) bark samples from two industrial sources were separated into inner and outer bark tissues prior to characterization. Results suggest that simple screening operations can remove much of the grit contributing to high ash contents. Differences in Klason lignin and polysaccharide values were attributed to different relative ratios of inner and outer bark tissues for the two sources of bark. Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy coupled with multivariate analysis was used to develop a model to predict relative amounts of inner bark and outer bark in an industrial bark sample.
A Novel Zero/Reduced Common-Mode Voltage Modulation Scheme for a Dual Three-Phase Motor Drive System in Full Modulation Span

Common-mode voltage (CMV) is one of the major concerns in modern motor drive systems using pulsewidth modulation (PWM) controls. To alleviate the CMV issue, a series of different PWM methods have been proposed. However, due to the physical limits of the three-phase structure, none of those reduced-CMV PWMs (RCMV-PWMs) can fully eliminate the CMV. As the motor phases have been extended to even numbers, such as six phases, opportunities to eliminate the CMV by a proper modulation scheme emerge. This article proposes a new modulation method to fully eliminate or reduce the CMV for the full modulation span of a dual-three-phase motor drive system, thereby helping to shrink the CM filter. Mathematical models are built indicating its effectiveness of eliminating the CMV in the linearity range of the modulation index and reducing the CMV in the overmodulation range. Simulation results along with experiments implemented on field-programmable gate array controlled dual inverters validated the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.
Split-Belt Training but Not Cerebellar Anodal tDCS Improves Stability Control and Reduces Risk of Fall in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

The objective of this study was to examine the therapeutic potential of multiple sessions of training on a split-belt treadmill (SBT) combined with cerebellar anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on gait and balance in People with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS). Twenty-two PwMS received six sessions of anodal (PwMSreal, n = 12) or sham (PwMSsham, n = 10) tDCS to the cerebellum prior to performing the locomotor adaptation task on the SBT. To evaluate the effect of the intervention, functional gait assessment (FGA) scores and distance walked in 2 min (2MWT) were measured at the baseline (T0), day 6 (T5), and at the 4-week follow up (T6). Locomotor performance and changes of motor outcomes were similar in PwMSreal and PwMSsham independently from tDCS mode applied to the cerebellum (anodal vs. sham, on FGA, p = 0.23; and 2MWT, p = 0.49). When the data were pooled across the groups to investigate the effects of multiple sessions of SBT training alone, significant improvement of gait and balance was found on T5 and T6, respectively, relative to baseline (FGA, p < 0.001 for both time points). The FGA change at T6 was significantly higher than at T5 (p = 0.01) underlining a long-lasting improvement. An improvement of the distance walked during the 2MWT was also observed on T5 and T6 relative to T0 (p = 0.002). Multiple sessions of SBT training resulted in a lasting improvement of gait stability and endurance, thus potentially reducing the risk of fall as measured by FGA and 2MWT. Application of cerebellar tDCS during SBT walking had no additional effect on locomotor outcomes.
The Impact of Transformational Leadership Style and Employee Creativity on Organizational Innovation in Universities During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Organizational innovation is one of the important issues for organizations in every country to adapt to changing operating environments, scientific and technological progress, and crisis issues. This study aims to evaluate the impact of transformational leadership style and employee creativity on organizational innovation in universities in Vietnam. We employed Bayesian exploratory factor analysis and Bayesian regression analysis with primary data of leader–employee pairs to explore the abovementioned effects. The findings show that the components of transformational leadership style, including idealized influence (II), inspirational motivation (IM), intellectual stimulation (IS), and individual consideration (IC), have positive impacts on organizational innovation (OI) and employee creativity (EC). The findings also imply that employee creativity (EC) is a mediating factor in the impact of transformational leadership style (TLS) on organizational innovation (OI). Finally, increasing intrinsic motivation (INM) can increase the positive impact of transformational leadership style (TLS) on employee creativity (EC). Based on the results, we propose policy implications to promote organizational innovation in Vietnamese universities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Case Study on Sustainable Business of Indian Art and Craft Industry

The Indian Handicrafts are exclusively known for their cultural heritage and exquisitely skilled craftsmanship. In the present market, there are lots of brands that come into existence with the synergy of artisans and have sustainable business growth. In this study, the focus is on understanding sustainable business in the Indian arts and crafts industry through a qualitative case study method. The data collected are through semistructured phone call interviews and Google survey forms. The collected data are categorized and analyzed through Observe, Think, Test, and Revise (OTTR) method. From this research, the various opportunities to enhance the synergy of artisans and entrepreneurs, analyzing market potential, production techniques of the artisans, design interventions in the craft, the 4P’s of marketing strategies, the importance of government policies and schemes, and the effect of competition are explored. The unsustainable business in handicrafts was the key problem that paved way for the rise of this research. This paper explores the unsustainable practices in the handicraft sector through literature review and also provides sustainable business opportunities that could help in the growth of the handicraft business.
Oral Cancer Detection using Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques

Introduction: Oral cancer is one of the most dangerous cancers which occurs in the oral cavity. Overuse of tobacco and smoking cigarettes are the primary risk factors for developing oral cancer. Oral cancer diagnosis at an early stage can save the lives of many people with proper treatment. Objective: The proposed work aims at early detection of potentially malignant oral lesions by the development of an automated disease diagnosis system. Building a large dataset of well-annotated oral lesions is a primary key component. A novel strategy to build automatic oral cancerous image classification software is provided in this paper. Methods: In the present work, machine learning models and deep neural networks are used to build an automated diagnosis system. By using the initial data which was gathered in this study, Naive Bayes, KNN, SVM, ANN, and CNN classification models are constructed for the automated detection and classiﬁcation of oral malignancies. A new CNN network is designed which consists of 43 deep layers, whose network structure is inspired by the standard VGG-16 network. Results: Performance analysis of different machine learning models and deep learning models has been provided. Results demonstrate that the deep learning model has the potential to tackle this challenging task of early detection of oral cancerous lesions. Conclusion: It is observed from experiments that different classifiers can perform well in identifying oral cancerous lesions. Particularly, the deep learning CNN model shows high accuracy in differentiating normal and cancerous images.
DM-VIO: Delayed Marginalization Visual-Inertial Odometry

We present DM-VIO, a monocular visual-inertial odometry system based on two novel techniques called delayed marginalization and pose graph bundle adjustment. DM-VIO performs photometric bundle adjustment with a dynamic weight for visual residuals. We adopt marginalization, which is a popular strategy to keep the update time constrained, but it cannot easily be reversed, and linearization points of connected variables have to be fixed. To overcome this we propose delayed marginalization: The idea is to maintain a second factor graph, where marginalization is delayed. This allows us to later readvance this delayed graph, yielding an updated marginalization prior with new and consistent linearization points. In addition, delayed marginalization enables us to inject IMU information into already marginalized states. This is the foundation of the proposed pose graph bundle adjustment, which we use for IMU initialization. In contrast to prior works on IMU initialization, it is able to capture the full photometric uncertainty, improving the scale estimation. In order to cope with initially unobservable scale, we continue to optimize scale and gravity direction in the main system after IMU initialization is complete. We evaluate our system on the EuRoC, TUM-VI, and 4Seasons datasets, which comprise flying drone, large-scale handheld, and automotive scenarios. Thanks to the proposed IMU initialization, our system exceeds the state of the art in visual-inertial odometry, even outperforming stereo-inertial methods while using only a single camera and IMU. The code will be published at http://vision.in. tum.de/dm-vio.
The Synoptic and Interannual Variability of Extreme Turbulent Heat Flux Events During Austral Winter in the Southern Indian Ocean

Extreme turbulent heat flux (THF) event is a key linkage between the atmosphere and ocean. Based on ERA5 reanalysis data, this study investigates the synoptic and interannual variability of extreme THF events in the Southern Indian Ocean during austral winter (May–September) from 1979 to 2018. On synoptic timescale, the extreme THF events account for approximately 36% of total THF, with the duration of 20% within the total analysis period. The extreme THF events are induced by strong sea surface temperature (SST) gradient in the oceanic front and synoptic eastward Rossby wave train with equivalent barotropic structure, associated with advecting relatively dry and cold air over warm SST at the edge of eddies. On interannual time scales, the occurrences of extreme THF events have a significant negative correlation with Southern Annular Mode (SAM). During the negative phase of SAM, a negative pressure anomaly is located in the Southern Indian Ocean, corresponding to a large cyclonic circulation anomaly. As a result, surface wind speeds and the differences of temperature and humidity between the atmosphere and ocean are strengthened over the warm flank of the oceanic front, leading to the onset of extreme THF event. Additionally, the accumulated effect of extreme THF events can not only deepen the oceanic mixed layer locally, but also have a downstream impact possibly through oceanic advection effect.
Antarctic sea ice types from active and passive microwave remote sensing

Abstract. Polar sea ice is one of the Earth’s climate components that has been significantly affected by the recent trend of global warming. While the sea ice area in the Arctic has been decreasing at a rate of about 4 % per decade, the multi-year ice (MYI), also called perennial ice, is decreasing at a faster rate of 10 %–15 % per decade. On the other hand, the sea ice area in the Antarctic region was slowly increasing at a rate of about 1.5 % per decade until 2014 and since then it has fluctuated without a clear trend. However, no data about ice type areas are available from that region, particularly of MYI. Due to differences in physical and crystalline structural properties of sea ice and snow between the two polar regions, it has become difficult to identify ice types in the Antarctic. Until recently, no method has existed to monitor the distribution and temporal development of Antarctic ice types, particularly MYI throughout the freezing season and on decadal time scales. In this study, we have adapted a method for retrieving Arctic sea ice types and partial concentrations using microwave satellite observations to fit the Antarctic sea ice conditions. The first circumpolar, long-term time series of Antarctic sea ice types; MYI, first-year ice and young ice is being established, so far covering years 2013–2019. Qualitative comparison with synthetic aperture radar data, with charts of the development stage of the sea ice, and with Antarctic polynya distribution data show that the retrieved ice types, in particular the MYI, are reasonable. Although there are still some shortcomings, the new retrieval for the first time allows insight into the evolution and dynamics of Antarctic sea ice types. The current time series can in principle be extended backwards to start in the year 2002 and can be continued with current and future sensors.