Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TPA induces apoptosis in MPC‐11 mouse plasmacytoma cells grown in serum‐free medium

Apoptotic‐like events could be rapidly induced by the phorbol ester 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate (TPA) in cells of the mouse plasmacytoma cell line MPC‐11 grown in serum‐free medium. Indicators for apoptosis were morphological changes visualized by light and electron microscopy, such as chromatin condensation and the formation of cellular buds and fragments, as well as biochemical indices like the appearance of the so‐called ‘DNA ladder’. Additionally, in these cells which are usually devoid of significant amounts of cytoplasmic intermediate filament (cIF) proteins, synthesis and accumulation of the cIF protein vimentin was rapidly induced by TPA treatment and almost all cells became vimentin‐positive. Later on, substantial amounts of vimentin and lamin B degradation products appeared, and an increasing fraction of cells displayed low or even undetectable quantities of intact vimentin. This subpopulation was characterized via microscopy to be in the late stages of apoptosis. We suggest that in MPC‐11 cells undergoing apoptosis in response to TPA treatment vimentin as well as lamin B are degraded, leading to a rearrangement and eventual loss of their respective filament networks.
A novel method to determine the diffusional water permeability of oocyte plasma membranes

Measurements of the cell membrane diffusional water permeability (Pd) are important to characterize water passage across water channels and across the lipid bilayer component of the membrane. Existing methods for those measurements are involved; however, we report here a simple procedure to estimate Pd in Xenopus laevis oocytes and similar large cells. Due to the different densities of H2O and D2O (heavy water), an oocyte transferred from normal medium to a D2O‐based medium floats initially, but subsequently sinks when a certain amount of the water originally in them is replaced by the D2O that diffuses in. We describe how the ‘flotation time’ (time that oocytes float in a heavy water solution before they start sinking) yields the Pd of the plasma membrane. Determination of Pd by this procedure and by the rate of tritiated water (T2O) efflux give for Pd results which are very close: 2.2 ± 0.2 (n = 8) and 2.0 ± 0.1 (n = 6) μm/s, respectively (T = 10°C). Further‐more, our method detects the increase in Pd elicited in oocytes by either expression of water channel proteins, or by treating them with the pore‐forming antibiotic amphotericin B. This method appears useful to gauge the expression and function of pore‐forming, water‐permeable membrane proteins.
The effects of game‐based learning in the acquisition of “soft skills” on undergraduate software engineering courses: A systematic literature review

The software industry is becoming an increasingly important part of the economy in countries that have realized that the education of future software engineers is crucial to having a vibrant software industry. However, software engineering education is still influenced by traditional teaching impeding the acquisition of soft skills. Game‐based learning (GBL) combines learning with different known resources, such as games, to support and improve the teaching/learning process and/or student evaluation through active learning. This study presents a systematic literature review on the use of GBL for teaching software engineering at the undergraduate level, from 2001 to 2020, by addressing four research questions: What kinds of games have been developed for software engineering education? Which software engineering areas have been addressed by these games? Which soft skills have been promoted by using these games? How have these skills been evaluated? The study found 96 studies to answer these four questions. The findings provided evidence on the development of digital games focused on teaching the fundamentals of software engineering defined by software engineering body of knowledge. Moreover, these games have been able to promote the acquisition of more than one soft skill which is beneficial for undergraduate students.
EVALUATION OF GENETIC VARIATION AMONG INDIAN POPULATIONS OF THE PIGEONPEA CYST NEMATODE, HETERODERA CAJANI, BY RAPD

One of the most important pathogen attacking pigeonpea root, the nematode Heterodera cajani Koshy, is causing significant economic losses in India. Knowledge of genetic variability present among different geographical populations is important for the selection of suitable control strategies. Molecular diversity among ten populations of H. cajani in India from pigeonpea growing areas is demonstrated by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Operon series of decamer primers were used for exploring the polymorphism. The number of amplified fragments per primer varied from 7 (with OPA 16 and OPD 4) to 24 (with OPB 2) whereas the size varied from 300 bp to 3.1 kb. Out of the 32 primers tested 23 revealed 100% polymorphism (OPA 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, OPB 2, 3, 4, 12, OPC 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, OPD 4 and 10). Overall, 451 amplification products were obtained out of which, 434 were polymorphic and 17 were monomorphic. The Jaccard’s coefficient and cluster analysis showed that the nematode population from Indore was distinct from the other populations of H. cajani in India. Samastipur and Pusa R.S. populations showed high degree of similarity in this experiment.
What determines the probability of discovering a species?: a study of South American oscine passerine birds

The spread of dates of description for species within taxa is normally broad, clearly indicating that there is considerable variation in the probability of species being discovered. The precise reason for this variation is unknown, although newly described species have been characterised as small, cryptic and locally distributed. Here, we explore the hypotheses that the range (both geographic and altitudinal), abundance and body size of species determine their probability of discovery, using South American oscine passerine birds. A species geographic range is the best predictor of its date of description: the two are strongly negatively correlated both across all species and within taxa, and when controlling for other variables. Altitudinal range and body mass are negatively correlated with date of description across species, and abundance and altitudinal range are negatively correlated with description date within taxa. However, the amounts of variation explained by these variables are low, and none of the variables remain significantly correlated with date of description if geographic range is controlled for using multiple regression. Of those variables tested, species body mass is the poorest predictor of species date of description, at least in South American oscine passerine birds. Whether the visual conspicuousness (e.g. plumage and behaviour) of a species affects its probability of description remains untested.
Birds of Two Worlds: The Ecology and Evolution of Migration

289 Amerindian languages are included for certain taxa which demonstrate an important research work. The taxon’s description also includes height, type of foliage, ecology and main uses. There are six indices in the Dictionary referring to the taxon number. Hence, one can easily find what he’s looking for. There is an index for the Latin synonyms, others for the common names in the continent main languages (French, English, and Spanish) and in additional languages such as Amerindian, and finally an index for commercial names. One can imagine that this indexing work will get more complicated with the volumes for Eurasia and Africa. With the globalisation of knowledge, particularly with harmonized taxonomy, the designation of plants is facilitated by a tool such as this dictionary. The project leader, the emeritus professor Miroslav M. Grandtner, and its team have established unique international collaborations to produce such a remarkable work. I have no doubt that this work tool will be useful to environmentalists from all over the world and they will surely be interested in having this dictionary available in their library.
STAT3 mediates cardioprotection against ischemia/reperfusion injury through metallothionein induction in the heart

Objective: Activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) was reported to be correlated with myocardial protection against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in ischemic preconditioning. Here, we tested the causality between STAT3 activity and cardioprotection. We also addressed the molecular mechanism for its cardioprotection. Methods and results: Cardiac-specific transgenic mice expressing constitutively active STAT3 (TG) were generated and exposed to I/R injury. TG hearts exhibited infarcts that reduced by 60.3% in size, compared with nontransgenic littermates (NTG). By measuring dichlorofluorescein (DCF) and 8-isoprostane, reactive-oxygen-species (ROS)-induced metabolites, it was revealed that ROS were generated to lesser extent in TG hearts than in NTG in response to I/R stress. In parallel, ROS scavengers, metallothionein1 (MT1), and metallothionein2 (MT2) were markedly up-regulated in TG hearts. Finally, homozygous deletion of the MT1 and MT2 genes abrogated cardioprotective effect of STAT3 against I/R injury with the cancellation of its ROS-scavenging effects. Conclusions: Activation of STAT3 protects myocardium from I/R injury in vivo. STAT3 mediates cardioprotection at least partially through MT1 and 2. STAT3 is a potential therapeutic target for I/R injury.
In severe COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 induces a chronic, TGF-Î²-dominated adaptive immune response

The human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection is highly variable, with less than 10% of infections resulting in severe COVID-19 requiring intensive care unit (ICU) treatment. Here we have analyzed the dynamics of the adaptive immune response in COVID-19 ICU patients at the level of single cell transcriptomes and B cell and T cell receptor (BCR, TCR) repertoires. Early after ICU admission, before seroconversion in response to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, patients generate activated peripheral B cells with a type 1 interferon-induced gene expression signature. After seroconversion, patients display circulating activated B cells expressing an IL-21-induced gene expression signature and mainly IgG1 and IgA1, two isotypes induced by IL-21 and TGF-{beta}, respectively. In sustained COVID-19, the persistent immune reaction is shifted to IgA2-expressing activated peripheral B cells, displaying somatic hypermutation, and expressing TGF-{beta}-induced signature genes, like IgA germline transcripts. The switch from an IgG1 to an IgA2-dominated B cell response correlates with the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 reactive follicular T helper cells expressing IL-21 and/or TGF-{beta} in the blood. Despite the continued presence of IgA2-expressing B cells and IgA antibodies in the blood of progressed COVID-19 patients, IgA2 secreting cells were scarce in the lungs of deceased COVID-19 patients. In summary, in severely affected COVID-19 patients SARS-CoV-2 triggers chronic immune reactions which are controlled by TGF-{beta}, with most of the activated B cells being no longer specific for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its receptor binding domain, nor for nucleoprotein. TGF-{beta} may candidate as a target to ameliorate detrimental immunopathology in those patients.
Subjective Assessment Underestimates Fraility in Patients With Heart Failure Referred for Advanced Therapies

Assessment of frailty is key for evaluation for advanced therapies (ATs). Most programs use a subjective provider assessment (SPA) or “eye-ball” test; however, objective measures exist. The modified five-item Fried Frailty Index (mFFI) is a validated tool to assess frailty. We compared SPA to mFFI testing in patients referred for AT. We also compared levels of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), an inflammatory biomarker associated with worse outcomes in heart failure, between frail and not frail subjects. Seventy-eight patients referred for evaluation for AT underwent both SPA and mFFI testing. Three cardiac surgeons independently assessed patients for frailty (SPA). SPA significantly underestimated frailty compared with mFFI testing and correlation between SPA and mFFI was not strong (κ = 0.02–0.14). Providers were correct 84% of the time designating a subject as frail, but only 40% of the time designating as not frail. Agreement between all three providers was robust (76%), which was primarily driven by designation as not frail. There was no significant difference in plasma MIF levels between frail and not frail subjects (47.6 ± 25.2 vs. 45.2 ± 18.9 ng/ml; p = 0.6). Clinicians significantly underestimate frailty but are usually correct when designating a patient as frail.
Runaway OB Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud: Dynamical versus Supernova Ejections

Runaway OB stars are ejected from their parent clusters via two mechanisms, both involving multiple stars: the dynamical ejection scenario (DES) and the binary supernova scenario (BSS). We constrain the relative contributions from these two ejection mechanisms in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) using data for 304 field OB stars from the spatially complete Runaways and Isolated O-Type Star Spectroscopic Survey of the SMC (RIOTS4). We obtain stellar masses and projected rotational velocities for the sample using RIOTS4 spectra, and we use transverse velocities from Gaia DR2 proper motions. Kinematic analyses of the masses, , noncompact binaries, high-mass X-ray binaries, and Oe/Be stars largely support predictions for the statistical properties of the DES and BSS populations. We find that dynamical ejections dominate over supernova ejections by a factor of ∼2−3 in the SMC, and our results suggest a high frequency of DES runaways and binary ejections. Objects seen as BSS runaways also include two-step ejections of binaries that are reaccelerated by supernova kicks. We find that two-step runaways likely dominate the BSS runaway population. Our results further imply that any contribution from in situ field OB star formation is small. Finally, our data strongly support the post-mass-transfer model for the origin of classical Oe/Be stars, providing a simple explanation for the bimodality in the distribution and high, near-critical, Oe/Be rotation velocities. The close correspondence of Oe/Be stars with BSS predictions implies that the emission-line disks are long-lived.
A Robotic Positive Psychology Coach to Improve College Students’ Wellbeing

A significant number of college students suffer from mental health issues that impact their physical, social, and occupational outcomes. Various scalable technologies have been proposed in order to mitigate the negative impact of mental health disorders. However, the evaluation for these technologies, if done at all, often reports mixed results on improving users' mental health. We need to better understand the factors that align a user's attributes and needs with technology-based interventions for positive outcomes. In psychotherapy theory, therapeutic alliance and rapport between a therapist and a client is regarded as the basis for therapeutic success. In prior works, social robots have shown the potential to build rapport and a working alliance with users in various settings. In this work, we explore the use of a social robot coach to deliver positive psychology interventions to college students living in on-campus dormitories. We recruited 35 college students to participate in our study and deployed a social robot coach in their room. The robot delivered daily positive psychology sessions among other useful skills like delivering the weather forecast, scheduling reminders, etc. We found a statistically significant improvement in participants' psychological wellbeing, mood, and readiness to change behavior for improved wellbeing after they completed the study. Furthermore, students' personality traits were found to have a significant association with intervention efficacy. Analysis of the post-study interview revealed students' appreciation of the robot's companionship and their concerns for privacy.
Convolutional Neural Networks for Automatic Detection of Artifacts from Independent Components Represented in Scalp Topographies of EEG Signals

Electroencephalography (EEG) measures the electrical brain activity in real-time by using sensors placed on the scalp. Artifacts, due to eye movements and blink, muscular/cardiac activity and generic electrical disturbances, have to be recognized and eliminated to allow a correct interpretation of the useful brain signals (UBS) of EEG. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is effective to split the signal into independent components (ICs) whose re-projections on 2D scalp topographies (images), also called topoplots, allow to recognize/separate artifacts and by UBS. Until now, IC topoplot analysis, a gold standard in EEG, has been carried on visually by human experts and, hence, not usable in automatic, fast-response EEG. We present a completely automatic and effective framework for EEG artifact recognition by IC topoplots, based on 2D Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), capable to divide topoplots in 4 classes: 3 types of artifacts and UBS. The framework setup is described and results are presented, discussed and compared with those obtained by other competitive strategies. Experiments, carried on public EEG datasets, have shown an overall accuracy of above 98%, employing 1.4 sec on a standard PC to classify 32 topoplots, that is to drive an EEG system of 32 sensors. Though not real-time, the proposed framework is efficient enough to be used in fast-response EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and faster than other automatic methods based on ICs.
Unconventional scaling at non-Hermitian critical points

Critical phase transitions contain a variety of deep and universal physics, and are intimately tied to thermodynamic quantities through scaling relations. Yet, these notions are challenged in the context of non-Hermiticity, where spatial or temporal divergences render the thermodynamic limit ill-defined. In this work, we show that a thermodynamic grand potential can still be defined in pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonians, and can be used to characterize aspects of criticality unique to non-Hermitian systems. Using the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model as a paradigmatic example, we demonstrate the fractional order of topological phase transitions in the complex energy plane. These fractional orders add up to the integer order expected of a Hermitian phase transition when the model is doubled and Hermitianized. More spectacularly, gap preserving highly degenerate critical points known as non-Bloch band collapses possess fractional order that are not constrained by conventional scaling relations, testimony to the emergent extra length scale from the skin mode accumulation. Our work showcases that a thermodynamic approach can prove fruitful in revealing unconventional properties of non-Hermitian critical points.
New Physics in $b\to s\ell\ell$ anomalies and its implications for the complementary neutral current decays

We study the Standard Model and the new physics predictions for the lepton-flavour-universality violating (LFUV) ratios in various $b\to s \ell^+\ell^-$ channels with scalar, pseudoscalar, vector, axial-vector, and $\Lambda$ baryon final states, considering both unpolarized and polarized final state hadrons. In order to formulate physical observables, we use the model independent effective Hamiltonian approach and employ the helicity framework. We provide the explicit expressions of the helicity amplitudes in terms of the Wilson coefficients and the hadronic form factors by using the same kinematical configuration and polarization conventions for all decay channels. We perform the numerical analysis with new physics scenarios selected from the recent global fit analyses, having specific new physics model interpretations. We find that some of the LFUV ratios for these complementary channels in different kinematical regions have high sensitivity to new physics and the future measurements of them in Belle II and LHCb experiments, along with testing new physics/LFUV, can help to distinguish among the different new physics possibilities.
On principal types and well-foundedness of terms in ECC

When we investigate a type system, it is helpful if we can establish the well-foundedness of types or terms with respect to a certain hierarchy, and the Extended Calculus of Constructions (called ECC, defined and studied comprehensively in [Luo, 1994]) is no exception. However, under a very natural hierarchy relation, the well-foundedness of terms does not hold generally. In this article, the well-foundedness are established for two natural families of terms (namely, types in a valid context and terms having normal forms). Also, we give an independent proof of the existence of principal types in ECC since it is used in the proof of well-foundedness of types in a valid context although it is often proved by utilizing the well-foundedness of terms, which would make our argument circular if adopted.
Attack-resilient observer pruning for path-tracking control of Wheeled Mobile Robot

Path-tracking control of wheeled mobile robot (WMR) has gained a lot of research attention, primarily because of its wide applicability — for example intelligent wheelchairs, exploration-assistant remote WMR. Recent increase in remote and autonomous operations/requirements for WMR has led to more and more use of IoT devices within the control loop. Consequently, providing interfaces for malicious interactions through false data injection attacks (FDIA). Moreover, optimization-based FDIAs have been shown to cause catastrophic consequences in feedback control systems while by-passing any residual-based monitoring system. Since these attacks target system measurement process, this paper focuses on the problem of improving the resiliency of dynamical observers against FDIA. Specifically, we propose an attack-resilient pruning algorithm which attempts to exclude compromised channels from being processed by the observer. The proposed pruning algorithm improves attack-localization precision to 100% with high probability, which correspondingly improves the resiliency of the underlying UKF to FDIA. The improvements due to the developed resilient pruning-based observer is validated through a numerical simulation of a two-layer path-tracking control platform of differential-driven wheeled mobile robot (DDWMR) under FDIA.
Small Flux Superpotentials for Type IIB Flux Vacua Close to a Conifold

We generalize the recently proposed mechanism by Demirtas, Kim, McAllister and Moritz[1] for the explicit construction of type IIB flux vacua with |W0|≪1 to the region close to the conifold locus in the complex structure moduli space. For that purpose tools are developed to determine the periods and the resulting prepotential close to such a codimension one locus with all the remaining moduli still in the large complex structure regime. As a proof of principle we present a working example for the Calabi‐Yau manifold P1,1,2,8,12 . [24]