Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic Gradient Descent for Deep Learning

Deep learning has become very popular in recent times. Deep learning has been applied to almost every field of research successfully. Given the vast impact of deep learning, it is very important to understand why it works well. We believe that powerful optimization techniques such as gradient descent lie at the heart of deep learning. In this project, we study the behaviour of variants of gradient descent and then propose a heuristic which utilizes multiple learning rates in order to get out of badly conditioned areas on the surface of the loss function like local minima, saddle points and valleys.
The Possible Ameliorative Role of Anethum Graveolens Against Tramadol-Induced Testicular Damage in Male Albino Rat 1

Nowadays, tramadol hydrochloride (TM) is becoming abused more popular among teens in most countries worldwide; especially between males. The aim of present study was to investigate the biochemical and histopathological profiles of subchronic model of TM toxicity on testicular functions. Experimental study, Rats was divided into three groups. Group one received saline, group two received oral doses of TM (100 mg / kg b.w), group three received anethum graveolens (AG) two hours before tramadol (NG+TM). The experiment lasted for a one month. The results showed that a significantly decrease in serum testosterone, luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), and cortisol, but elevated prolactin (PRL) and estradiol (E2) in male albino rats after 30 days of TM group. In the same concern 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), protein carbonyl (PC) and MDA levels, as indicators of oxidative stress, were significantly (P<0.05) increased in group TM in comparing with control group. Moreover, TM group displayed an increase of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and nitric oxide (NO) in the testes tissues and decreased in glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity and glutathione (GSH). Also, showed a significant increase in acid phosphatase, N-acetyl-β-Dglucosaminidase and β-galactosidase in testes rat, meanwhile Anethum graveolens (AG) administration caused significantly ameliorative in all parameters in comparing to TM group.
Treatment of Conduct Disorders in Childhood: A Comparative Study.

The purpose of this study was to compare a relationship based model with a contingency management approach in the treatment of young conduct problem children. The subjects were 53 children (33 boys and 20 girls) between the ages of 4 and 7 years referred for treatment of problems such as aggression, noncompliance, tantrums, defiance and destruction of property. Parent. report measures indicated that both treated groups improved relative to a 12-week waiting-list control group. Home observation revealed, however, that only children assigned to the parent-child interaction condition significantly decreased deviance (2 <.01) and noncompliance (2 < .007) between pretreatment and posttreatment assessment. Coding of videotaped therapy sessions suggested that differential results may have been due to parent-child interaction training's emphasis on coaching of parents in the use of socialreinforcement. It was concluded that improving the relationship between a parent and a child may enhance the effeciveness of traditional behavior therapy with conduct problem children.
Serpentine polymorphism: a quantitative insight from first-principles calculations

Single-walled chrysotile nanotubes [Mg3Si2O5(OH)4] of increasing size (up to 5004 atoms per unit cell, corresponding to a radius of 205 A) have been modelled at the Density Functional level of theory. For the first time, it is demonstrated that the (n, −n) and (n, n) series present a minimum energy structure at a specific radius (88.7 and 89.6 A, respectively, referring to the neutral surface), corresponding to a rolling vector of (60, −60) and (105, 105), respectively. The minima are nearly overlapped and are lower in energy than the corresponding slab of lizardite (the flat-layered polymorph of chrysotile) by about 3.5 kJ mol−1 per formula unit. In both cases, the energy profile presents a shallow minimum, where radii in the range of 63 to 139 A differ in energy by less than 0.5 kJ mol−1 per formula unit. The energy of larger nanotubes has a trend that slowly converges to the limit of the flat lizardite slab. Structural quantities such as bond distances and angles of nanotubes with increasing size asymptotically converge to the flat slab limit, with no discontinuities in the surrounding of the minimum energy structures. However, analysis of the elongation of a rectangular pseudo-unit cell along the nanotube circumference indicates that the main factor that leads lizardite to curl in tubes is the elastic strain caused by the mismatch between the lattice parameters of the two adjacent tetrahedral and octahedral sheets. It is also shown in this study that the curvature of the layers in one of the lately proposed models of antigorite, the “wavy-layered” polymorph of chrysotile, falls within the range of radii of minimum energy for the nanotubes. These findings provide quantitative insights into the peculiar polymorphism of these three phyllosilicates. They show also that chrysotile belongs to those families of inorganic nanotubes that present a minimum in their strain energy profile at a specific range of radii, which is lower in energy with respect to their flat equivalent.
Bilayered skin-substitute technology for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers: current insights

php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms (https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php). Chronic Wound Care Management and Research 2017:4 7–16 Chronic Wound Care Management and Research Dovepress
Glycerol-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Isozymes : A Computational Approach to Their Metabolic Roles in the Flight Muscles of Triatoma Infestans

Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) isoenzymes play different roles in Triatoma infestans flight metabolism and only differ in the C-terminal end. We studied with computational models their dynamics and interactions. Homology-modeling dynamics showed models close to minimal energy with amino acid distribution similar to crystallized structures. Radius of gyration decrease because the models presented well fitted folded structures with solvation free energy of non-polar groups increased with temperature. Heat maps suggested the need to form dimeric structures to preserve activity or that temperature could be an activity modulator. Modeled dimeric structures were similar to crystallized references and didn ́t involve the Cterminals in their conformation. Docking studies of the C-terminals showed interaction between GPDH-1 and actin co-localized with glycolytic enzymes. GPDH-2 peptide could bind to model membranes and be substrate for lysine-acetyltransferases. Consequently, C-terminals could determine the sub-cellular localization and the metabolic functions in lipid biosynthesis or ATP generation.
THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL B Enhancing energy harvesting by coupling monostable oscillators

The performance of a ring of linearly coupled, monostable nonlinear oscillators is optimized towards its goal of acting as energy harvester – through piezoelectric transduction – of mesoscopic fluctuations, which are modeled as Ornstein-Uhlenbeck noises. For a single oscillator, the maximum output voltage and overall efficiency are attained for a soft piecewise-linear potential (providing a weak attractive constant force) but they are still fairly large for a harmonic potential. When several harmonic springs are linearly and bidirectionally coupled to form a ring, it is found that counter-phase coupling can largely improve the performance while in-phase coupling worsens it. Moreover, it turns out that few (two or three) coupled units perform better than more.
Relax online resource allocation algorithms for D2D communication

Maximizing the system sumrate by sharing the resource blocks among the cellular user equipments and the D2D (device to device) pairs while maintaining the quality of service is an important research question in a D2D communication underlaying cellular networks. The problem can be optimally solved in offline by using the weighted bipartite matching algorithm. However, in long‐term evolution and beyond (4G and 5G) systems, scheduling algorithms should be very efficient where the optimal algorithm is quite complex to implement. Hence, a low complexity algorithm that returns almost the optimal solution can be an alternative to this research problem. In this paper, we propose 2 less complex stable matching–based relax online algorithms those exhibit very close to the optimal solution. Our proposed algorithms deal with fixed number of cellular user equipments and a variable number of D2D pairs those arrive in the system online. Unlike online matching algorithms, we consider that an assignment can be revoked if it improves the objective function (total system sumrate). However, we want to minimize the number of revocation (ie, the number of changes in the assignments) as a large number of changes can be expensive for the networks too. We consider various offline algorithms proposed for the same research problem as relaxed online algorithms. Through extensive simulations, we find that our proposed algorithms outperform all of the algorithms in terms of the number of changes in assignment between 2 successive allocations while maintaining the total system sumrate very close to the optimal algorithm.
EFAS Score – Multilingual Development and Validation of a Patient-Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) by the Score Committee of the European Foot and Ankle Society (EFAS)

Category: Basic Sciences/Biologics Introduction/Purpose: A scientifically sound validated foot and ankle specific outcome measure for different European languages is still missing. Indeed, language-specific cross cultural validation in other languages than English is largely absent. Some outcome measures were validated for specific pathologies such as hallux valgus, ankle arthritis or flatfoot. The European Foot and Ankle Society (EFAS) established in 2013 a Score Committee to develop, validate, and publish a new score, the “EFAS Score”, which is not specific for single pathologies for different European languages. The principal aim of this project was to develop and validate the EFAS Score simultaneously for different European languages. Methods: The EFAS Score was developed and validated in three stages: 1) item (question) identification, 2) item reduction and scale exploration, 3) confirmatory analyses and responsiveness. The following score specifications were chosen: scale/subscale (Likert 0-4), questionnaire based, outcome measure, patient related outcome measurement. For stage 3, data were collected pre- operatively and post-operatively at a minimum follow-up of 3 months and mean follow-up of 6 months. Item reduction, scale exploration, confirmatory analyses and responsiveness were executed using analyses from classical test theory and item response theory. Results: Stage 1 resulted in 31 general and 7 sports related questions. In Stage 2, a 6-item general EFAS Score was constructed using English, German, French and Swedish language data. In Stage 3, internal consistency of the scale was confirmed in seven languages: the original four languages, plus Dutch, Italian and Polish (Cronbach’s Alpha >0.86 in all language versions). Responsiveness was good, with moderate to large effect sizes in all languages, and significant positive association between the EFAS Score and patient-reported improvement. No sound EFAS Sports Score could be constructed. Conclusion: The multi-language EFAS Score has been successfully validated for orthopaedic foot and ankle surgery populations incorporating a wide variety of foot and ankle pathologies, including language-specific validation in seven languages so far (English, German, French, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Polish). Validation for other languages (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish) is in progress. All validated score versions are freely available at www.efas. co.
Lipidated apolipoprotein E4 structure and its receptor binding mechanism determined by a combined cross-linking coupled to mass spectrometry and molecular dynamics approach

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is a forefront actor in the transport of lipids and the maintenance of cholesterol homeostasis, and is also strongly implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Upon lipid-binding apoE adopts a conformational state that mediates the receptor-induced internalization of lipoproteins. Due to its inherent structural dynamics and the presence of lipids, the structure of the biologically active apoE remains so far poorly described. To address this issue, we developed an innovative hybrid method combining experimental data with molecular modeling and dynamics to generate comprehensive models of the lipidated apoE4 isoform. Chemical cross-linking combined with mass spectrometry provided distance restraints, characterizing the three-dimensional organization of apoE4 molecules at the surface of lipidic nanoparticles. The ensemble of spatial restraints was then rationalized in an original molecular modeling approach to generate monomeric models of apoE4 that advocated the existence of two alternative conformations. These two models point towards an activation mechanism of apoE4 relying on a regulation of the accessibility of its receptor binding region. Further, molecular dynamics simulations of the dimerized and lipidated apoE4 monomeric conformations revealed an elongation of the apoE N-terminal domain, whereby helix 4 is rearranged, together with Arg172, into a proper orientation essential for lipoprotein receptor association. Overall, our results show how apoE4 adapts its conformation for the recognition of the low density lipoprotein receptor and we propose a novel mechanism of activation for apoE4 that is based on accessibility and remodeling of the receptor binding region.
Mertieite-II, Pd8Sb2.5As0.5, crystal-structure refinement and formula revision

The crystal structure of the mineral mertieite-II from the Kaarreoja River, Inari commune, Finnish Lapland, Finland, was refined to R1 = 0.0222 (I) and 0.0228 (II) on the basis of X-ray diffraction data collected from two single crystals. The mineral is trigonal, space group is R 3c. The unit-cell parameters for the two crystals are determined as: a = 7.5172(3), c = 43.037(2) Å, V = 2106.1(2) Å (I); a = 7.5135(4), c = 43.003(3) Å, V = 2102.4(3) Å (II) with Z = 12. The occupancies of the Sb and As position in the structure were refined according to the Sb:As ratio of each crystal. The position As1 (Wyckoff 6b) is completely filled by As atoms. Any excess of As is distributed together with Sb on structural positionM1 (Wyckoff 12c). The crystal chemical formulae are defined as Pd8Sb1.5(Sb0.94As0.06)As0.5 (crystal I) and Pd8Sb1.5(Sb0.88As0.12)As0.5 (crystal II). As→ Sb substitution of up to 4.50 wt% of As does not affect the main structural topology of mertieite-II. Mertieite-II, Pd8Sb2.5As0.5 and synthetic Pd8Sb3 are isotypic compounds. The crystal structures of synthetic Pd8Sb3 and natural mertieite-II, Pd8Sb2.5As0.5, can be derived from the hexagonal close packing by filling additional layers between the close-packed 3 layers. The structure consists of Sb and (Sb,As) triangular 3, Pd triangular 3 and Pd pentagonal-triangular 5.3 layers. Stacking of Sb-, (Sb,As)and Pdnets along the z axis caused extension of the unit cell. It contains a total of 36 layers: six Sb1-nets, six (M1, As1)-nets, 12 Pd1-nets and 12 (Pd1,Pd3,Pd4)-nets.
Plastidial NAD-Dependent Malate Dehydrogenase: A Moonlighting Protein Involved in Early Chloroplast Development through Its Interaction with an FtsH12-FtsHi Protease Complex[OPEN]

Plastid NAD-dependent malate dehydrogenase is essential for chloroplast development, not because of its enzymatic activity, but because it interacts with FtsH proteases at the inner envelope membrane. Malate dehydrogenases (MDHs) convert malate to oxaloacetate using NAD(H) or NADP(H) as a cofactor. Arabidopsis thaliana mutants lacking plastidial NAD-dependent MDH (pdnad-mdh) are embryo-lethal, and constitutive silencing (miR-mdh-1) causes a pale, dwarfed phenotype. The reason for these severe phenotypes is unknown. Here, we rescued the embryo lethality of pdnad-mdh via embryo-specific expression of pdNAD-MDH. Rescued seedlings developed white leaves with aberrant chloroplasts and failed to reproduce. Inducible silencing of pdNAD-MDH at the rosette stage also resulted in white newly emerging leaves. These data suggest that pdNAD-MDH is important for early plastid development, which is consistent with the reductions in major plastidial galactolipid, carotenoid, and protochlorophyllide levels in miR-mdh-1 seedlings. Surprisingly, the targeting of other NAD-dependent MDH isoforms to the plastid did not complement the embryo lethality of pdnad-mdh, while expression of enzymatically inactive pdNAD-MDH did. These complemented plants grew indistinguishably from the wild type. Both active and inactive forms of pdNAD-MDH interact with a heteromeric AAA-ATPase complex at the inner membrane of the chloroplast envelope. Silencing the expression of FtsH12, a key member of this complex, resulted in a phenotype that strongly resembles miR-mdh-1. We propose that pdNAD-MDH is essential for chloroplast development due to its moonlighting role in stabilizing FtsH12, distinct from its enzymatic function.
Cellular Effects of Repetition Priming in the Aplysia Feeding Network Are Suppressed during a Task-Switch But Persist and Facilitate a Return to the Primed State

Many neural networks are multitasking and receive modulatory input, which configures activity. As a result, these networks can enter a relatively persistent state in which they are biased to generate one type of output as opposed to another. A question we address is as follows: what happens to this type of state when the network is forced to task-switch? We address this question in the feeding system of the mollusc Aplysia. This network generates ingestive and egestive motor programs. We focus on an identified neuron that is selectively active when programs are ingestive. Previous work has established that the increase in firing frequency observed during ingestive programs is at least partially mediated by an excitability increase. Here we identify the underlying cellular mechanism as the induction of a cAMP-dependent inward current. We ask how this current is impacted by the subsequent induction of egestive activity. Interestingly, we demonstrate that this task-switch does not eliminate the inward current but instead activates an outward current. The induction of the outward current obviously reduces the net inward current in the cell. This produces the decrease in excitability and firing frequency required for the task-switch. Importantly, however, the persistence of the inward current is not impacted. It remains present and coexists with the outward current. Consequently, when effects of egestive priming and the outward current dissipate, firing frequency and excitability remain above baseline levels. This presumably has important functional implications in that it will facilitate a return to ingestive activity. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Under physiological conditions, an animal generating a particular type of motor activity can be forced to at least briefly task-switch. In some circumstances, this involves the temporary induction of an “antagonistic” or incompatible motor program. For example, ingestion can be interrupted by a brief period of egestive activity. In this type of situation, it is often desirable for behavioral switching to occur rapidly and efficiently. In this report, we focus on a particular aspect of this type of task-switch. We determine how the priming that occurs when a multitasking network repeatedly generates one type of motor activity can be retained during the execution of an incompatible motor program.
Capturing the onset of PRC2-mediated repressive domain formation

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) maintains gene silencing by catalyzing methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me2/3) within chromatin. By designing a system whereby PRC2-mediated repressive domains were collapsed and then reconstructed in an inducible fashion in vivo, a two-step mechanism of H3K27me2/3 domain formation became evident. First, PRC2 is stably recruited by the actions of JARID2 and MTF2 to a limited number of spatially interacting “nucleation sites”, creating H3K27me3-forming polycomb foci within the nucleus. Second, PRC2 is allosterically activated via its binding to H3K27me3 and rapidly spreads H3K27me2/3 both in cis and in far-cis via long-range contacts. As PRC2 proceeds further from the nucleation sites, its stability on chromatin decreases such that domains of H3K27me3 remain proximal, and those of H3K27me2 distal, to the nucleation sites. This study demonstrates the principles of de novo establishment of PRC2-mediated repressive domains across the genome.
Factors influencing the pathological quality of the surgical specimen in rectal cancer - a retrospective single-centre study.

AIM The pathologist's role in the multidisciplinary treatment of rectal cancer is to evaluate and stage the tumor according to the latest standards, as well as indicate the quality of the surgical act. This study aims to evaluate circumferential and distal resection margins as well as quality of mesorectal resection and correlate them with different clinical, pathological and therapeutic factors. PATIENTS, MATERIALS AND METHODS Four hundred ninety-eight patients treated radically for mid and low rectal cancer within one Clinic of Oncological Surgery in Iasi, Romania, were included in this study. RESULTS The distal resection margin showed significant correlations with the type of surgical intervention, chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant treatment plan and pathological node staging. The circumferential resection margin depended mostly on pathological node staging and the length of the interval between neoadjuvant treatment and surgery. Finally, the aspect of the mesorectum varied according to neoadjuvant treatment and the type of surgical intervention performed. CONCLUSIONS The study reached its aim in providing important data for the expected outcome of the specimen after curative treatment for rectal cancer.
Linking user profiles in social networks: a comparative review

The existence of user profiles belonging to a single user across different social networking sites poses several challenges to the research community. The main technical issue in that context is to detect the same user profiles across several different social networks by leveraging a set of mechanisms that identify the similarity among the user profiles. This problem is commonly referred to as entity matching or identity linkage on social networks. In this review, we describe and compare the 27 most important (to the best of our knowledge) research papers in this area. The main contributions of this article are to provide a systematic and integrated review of papers in this area, to provide comparative points that simplify the understanding of such systems, and finally to discuss future research avenues.