Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Proteomic Analysis Provides New Insights into the Development of Haustorium in Taxillus chinensis (DC.) Danser

Taxillus chinensis is an important medicinal and parasitic plant that attacks other plants for living. The development of haustorium is a critical process, imperative for successful parasitic invasion. To reveal the mechanisms underlying haustorium development, we performed an iTRAQ-based proteomics analysis which led to the identification of several differentially abundant proteins (DAPs) in fresh seeds (CK), baby (FB), and adult haustoria (FD). A total of 563 and 785 DAPs were identified and quantified in the early and later developmental stages, respectively. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the DAPs are mainly associated with metabolic pathways, ribosome, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and photosynthesis. In addition, DAPs associated with the phytohormone signaling pathway changed markedly. Furthermore, we evaluated the content of various phytohormones during different stages of haustoria development. These results indicated that phytohormones are very important for haustorium development. qRT-PCR results validated that the mRNA expression levels were consistent with the expression of proteins, suggesting that our results are reliable. This is the first report on haustoria proteomes in the parasitic plant, Taxillus chinensis, to the best of our knowledge. Our findings will enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanism of haustoria development.
Complete sequence of Cynanchum rostellatum (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae) chloroplast genome and its phylogenetic analysis

Abstract Cynanchum rostellatum (Turcz.) Liede and Khanum 2016 is a perennial herbaceous twining vine that is widely distributed in Japan, South Korea, the United States of America, and China. In this study, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of C. rostellatum was sequenced using the Illumina platform and assembled for the first time. This plastome has a circular structure with a length of 160,641 bp. The GC content of the plastome was 37.82%. The cp genome contained 113 unique genes, including 79 protein-coding, 30 transfer RNA, and four ribosomal RNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete cp genome sequences of the Asclepiadoideae subfamily showed that C. rostellatum was closely related to C. bungei in the genus Cynanchum. These results provide useful information for both phylogenetic research and the utilization of C. rostellatum.
Three-Dimensional Lower-Limb Kinematics from Accelerometers and Gyroscopes with Simple and Minimal Functional Calibration Tasks: Validation on Asymptomatic Participants

The use of inertial measurement units (IMUs) to compute gait outputs, such as the 3D lower-limb kinematics is of huge potential, but no consensus on the procedures and algorithms exists. This study aimed at evaluating the validity of a 7-IMUs system against the optoelectronic system. Ten asymptomatic subjects were included. They wore IMUs on their feet, shanks, thighs and pelvis. The IMUs were embedded in clusters with reflective markers. Reference kinematics was computed from anatomical markers. Gait kinematics was obtained from accelerometer and gyroscope data after sensor orientation estimation and sensor-to-segment (S2S) calibration steps. The S2S calibration steps were also applied to the cluster data. IMU-based and cluster-based kinematics were compared to the reference through root mean square errors (RMSEs), centered RMSEs (after mean removal), correlation coefficients (CCs) and differences in amplitude. The mean RMSE and centered RMSE were, respectively, 7.5° and 4.0° for IMU-kinematics, and 7.9° and 3.8° for cluster-kinematics. Very good CCs were found in the sagittal plane for both IMUs and cluster-based kinematics at the hip, knee and ankle levels (CCs > 0.85). The overall mean amplitude difference was about 7°. These results reflected good accordance in our system with the reference, especially in the sagittal plane, but the presence of offsets requires caution for clinical use.
Nonlinear Piezoelectric Energy Harvester: Experimental Output Power Mapping

In this paper, the output power map of a nonlinear energy harvester (PEH) made of a console beam and the membrane of a resonant vibration speaker is analyzed experimentally. The PEH uses two large piezoelectric patches (PZT-5H) bonded into a parallel bimorph configuration. The nonlinear response of the deformable structure provides a wider bandwidth in which power can be harvested, compensating for the mistuning effect of linear counterparts. The nonlinear response of the proposed PEH is analyzed from the perspective of its electrical performance. The proposed experimental method provides novelty by measuring the effects produced by the nonlinearity of the deformable structure on the output power map. The objective of this analysis is to optimize the size of the PZT patch in relation to the size of the console beam, providing experimental support for the design. The presentation of the most significant experimental results of a nonlinear PEH, followed by experimental mapping of the output power, ensured that the proposed objective was achieved. The accuracy of the experimental results was determined by the high degree of automation in the experimental setup, assisted by advanced data processing.
A Comparative Study on Phytochemical Fingerprint of Two Diverse Phaseolus vulgaris var. Tondino del Tavo and Cannellino Bio Extracts

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) represents one of the most famous foods with antiobesity activity showing a significant efficacy against fat accumulation, insulin resistance and dyslipidaemia. In this work, two Italian varieties of common bean, i.e., Tondino del Tavo and Cannellino Bio, from the centre of Italy were studied to characterise their phenolic profile by HPLC-PDA in relation to different fractions after a straightforward extraction procedure. Antioxidant property and enzymatic inhibition power were also evaluated in order to delineate a possible biological profile. Results show a considerable phenolic content (0.79 and 1.1 µg/mg of 3-hydroxybenzoic acid for hexane extract of Tondino del Tavo and Cannellino Bio, respectively; 0.30 µg/mg p-coumaric acid for n-hexane extract of Tondino del Tavo) for both varieties, and a strong antioxidant activity according to the major phenolic concentration of the extracts. The anti-inflammatory activity of the decoction extracts was also investigated through a zymosan-induced edema formation assay, revealing a moderate ability for both of them. These preliminary data prompt us to further explore the nutrient components of these two varieties in the future.
Constructions and language change

Studies in diachronic linguistics increasingly acknowledge that linguistic change is highly context-dependent and somehow tied to constructions as linguistic units. This is the first volume to investigate the role of constructions and the potential of constructional approaches in linguistic change. The contributions in this volume comprise both theoretical and empirical studies, all of which are accessible for a general audience. While some contributions explicitly aim at comparing and unifying concepts from both traditional grammatical theories and recent construction grammar approaches, others offer detailed case studies of exemplary problems from a constructional point of view. The papers offer a cross-linguistic perspective and deal with a number of different language families, ranging from Germanic to Austronesian.
Development of STEM Educational Application with Easy Java Simulation in Mining & Metallurgical Engineering—Case Study on Mineral Processing

Although there is a widely expressed need for the adoption of new didactic approaches that promote the active participation of learners, especially in tertiary-level education, research endeavors in this topic are limited. Seeking to contribute to the limited research activity on the application of innovative educational applications in university education, an EJS educational application for ‘university level’ engineering studies was developed and incorporated in a problem-based learning activity during the teaching of a “particle size-reduction process of ores” topic. Analysis of the research results revealed that the adoption of a STEM educational approach contributed directly to the students’ performance, reaffirming the significant prospects arising with the use of modern educational approaches, as well as with the use of innovative educational tools, at tertiary-level
Study of the Structural, Electronic and Optical Properties of 1T-ZrX2 Materials (X=S, Se, Te)

The Electronic and optical properties of zirconium dichalcogenides (ZrS2,ZrSe2, andZrTe2),have been explored via ab-initio methods based on the density functionaltheory (DFT) within the frame of generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and a couplingtechnique between the plane wave (PW) and the pseudo-potential (PP) approaches. Theobtained results showed that ZrS2 and ZrSe2 are semiconducting materials with energy gapsof 1.15 eV and 0.3 eV respectively from the valence band maximum located at G point andthe conduction band minimum located at L point, while ZrTe2 showed a metallic characterwith a density of states at the Fermi level of about 0.8 states/eV. Based on a Kramers–Kroniganalysis of the reflectivity, we have obtained the spectral dependence of the real andimaginary parts of the complex dielectric function (ε1 and ε2, respectively) and the refractiveindex (n). The collected data were used for the calculation of absorption coefficient,reflectivity index, conductivity, and electron energy loss function of ZrS2, ZrSe2, and ZrTe2 forradiation up to 20 eV. All three chalcogenides were found to be good absorbers of ultravioletradiation. The reflectivity of ZrS2 is low in the visible and near-ultraviolet region butincreases sharply for higher photon energies and approaches 96% at ~18.5 eV. The R(ω) spectrum of ZrTe2, on the other hand, is non-selective and remains above 50% over a widerange of energies from infrared to ultraviolet which suggeststhe potential application of thismaterial as an effective solar reflector. On the other hand, the refractive indices of ZrS2, ZrSe2,and ZrTe2 in the visible range are high. The optical spectra show moderate anisotropy concerning the electric field polarization of the incident light.
Base on Megapixel Color Fundus Photos for Multi-label Disease Classification

This paper discusses a new challenge of artificial intelligence in predicting fundus diseases: using only unprocessed million pixel Color Fundus Photos(CFP) to complete multi-label multi classification and lesion location tasks at the same time. In order to solve this problem, Double Flow Multi Instance Neural Network(DF-MINN) is designed. Df-MINN is an end-to-end dual flow network. It uses Multi Instance Spatial Attention(MISA) module to extract local information and Global Priorities Network base on Involvement(GPNI) module to analyze the overall content. In addition, experiments on the open multi label fundus dataset OIA-ODIR showed that DF-MINN was higher average precision than the previous network in the prediction of all seven diseases. Ablation experiments further proved the importance of high-resolution images in the diagnosis of fundus diseases.
Investigation of Reading Skill Development of Primary School Students in the Covid 19 Process

Abstract In this study, it was investigated how the reading skills of students who were in the 3rd grade of primary school when the Covid-19 pandemic started (March 2020) were affected at the end of the fourth grade (June 2021) due to the school closure during the pandemic. The study employed the longitudinal survey model. Ten teachers and 18 primary school students participated in the study. In the study, the Informal Reading Inventory and interview questions were used as data collection tools. The data of the study were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and content analysis. According to the findings obtained from the analyses, the percentage of students’ word recognition increased partially, the reading speed did not increase sufficiently considering their age and grade level, the number of correct words they read was negatively affected during the pandemic, and the reading prosody remained stable and did not show a significant difference. These results show that students’ reading skills were negatively affected by the pandemic. In addition, it was concluded in the study that more reading time should be given to students in order to improve their fluent reading and reading comprehension skills, and that verbal/silent reading activities should be done more frequently. It is thought that the study will contribute to the field in terms of improving students’ reading skills during the pandemic and will provide original examples for future research.
Establishing a Prediction Model by Machine Learning for Accident-Related Patient Safety

Patient safety has always been an important issue when improving the quality of medical care. The first step when preventing accidents is to screen for the high-risk groups that are prone to accidents. A patient safety reporting system is one of the best tools for such screening. We used machine learning techniques to analyze events involving falling and establish a risk prediction model. The results are then fed back to medical organizations with the aim of raising their quality of medical care. Bayesian network, artificial neural network, logistic regression, and decision tree-based chi-square automatic interaction detection were applied to analyze a database covering a 14-month period from November 2012 to December 2013, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were 0.940, 0.979, 0.981, and 0.971, respectively. Next, data from January to February 2013 was verified by the model showing the highest discrimination ability, namely, logistic regression, and the AUC and F -measure values were 0.944 and 0.871, respectively. Our results demonstrate that a high level of performance was obtained when using a machine learning model for fall prediction among newly admitted patients. Machine learning can thus be applied to provide the most appropriate decision-aided prediction model when screening high-risk groups that are prone to accidents within hospitals.
Privacy protection against attack scenario of federated learning using internet of things

ABSTRACT Laws and regulations for privacy protection have been promulgated one after another, and the phenomenon of data islands has become a significant bottleneck hindering the development of big data and artificial intelligence technologies. From the perspective of the historical development, concepts, and architecture classification of federated learning, the technical advantages of federated learning are explained using Internet of Things. Simultaneously, numerous attack methods and classifications of federated learning systems are examined, as well as the distinctions between different federated learning encryption algorithms. Finally, it reviews research in the subject of federal learning privacy protection and security mechanisms, as well as identifies difficulties and opportunities.
Immediate Effect of Customized Foot Orthosis on Plantar Pressure and Contact Area in Patients with Symptomatic Hallux Valgus

Foot orthotics are recommended for the treatment of hallux valgus. The effects of customized foot orthoses (FOs) designed with both medial longitudinal and transverse arch supports are poorly understood, however. This study aimed to investigate the immediate effect of customized FOs on the plantar pressure and contact area in patients with symptomatic hallux valgus. We recruited 18 patients with a mean hallux valgus angle of 27.3 ± 11.1°. Plantar pressure while walking with FOs or flat insoles (FIs) was monitored with a wireless in-shoe plantar pressure-sensing system. Peak pressure (PP), peak force (PF), pressure-time integral (PTI), force-time integral (FTI), and contact area with FOs and FIs were compared. The PF, PTI, and FTI of the midfoot were significantly higher (p < 0.05), and the PP and PTI of the rearfoot were significantly lower (p < 0.05) with the FOs than the FIs. The FOs significantly increased the contact area of the midfoot and rearfoot (p < 0.05) and reduced the contact area of the forefoot (p < 0.05). These results suggest that customized FOs redistribute plantar pressure and the contact area of the midfoot and rearfoot, improving the functional support of the midfoot for patients with hallux valgus.
ASTRE: Prototyping Technique for Modular Soft Robots With Variable Stiffness

Soft robots are advantageous for human interaction owing to their adaptability and safe interactivity. However, research on soft robots is challenging because of the complex fabrication process of elastomeric materials with multiple channels. In this study, we introduce a prototyping technique for the fabrication-friendly soft robots using pneumatic artificial muscle(PAMs) and modular 3D printed reinforcement. We presented three primitive deformation structures: bending, twisting, and contraction. Moreover, we propose a novel variable stiffness technique that alters PAMs contraction and radial expansion behavior into locking, malleable, and rotational brake features. We explore both the parallel and series arrangement of the reinforcement module and propose new types of mixing configurations and scaling techniques. We quantitatively verified the force scaling technique on different types of features. We demonstrate the feasibility of this prototyping technique through six application examples and conclude with a discussion of the limitations and possible future improvements.
All Ionospheres are not Alike: Reports from other Planets

Gauss, Lord Kelvin and Stewart Balfour suggested the existence of an electrically conducting region in the terrestrial upper atmosphere already in the last century. The first direct verification of the existence of such a region came when Marconi succeeded in sending radio signals across the Atlantic. The name ionosphere was coined by R. A. Watson-Watt in 1926. No uniform definition of the ionosphere exists; a rather broad definition might be “the ionosphere is that region of the atmosphere (or gaseous envelope) surrounding a solar system body where significant numbers of low energy, free electrons and ions are present. ” The first direct evidence for an ionosphere at a planet other than Earth came from the radio occultation measurements of electron densities by Mariner 5, as it flew by Venus on October 19, 1967. Since then spacecraft have visited all planets, except Pluto. As a minimum, radio occultation measurements of the electron densities have been obtained at all, but Mercury. However, ground-based optical observations indicate that Mercury has a significant exosphere; thus an ionosphere, in its broad definition, must also be present. Also for Pluto, optical measurements have established the presence of an atmosphere, implying it too has an ionosphere.
Structural and Functional Analysis of CEX Fractions Collected from a Novel Avastin® Biosimilar Candidate and Its Innovator: A Comparative Study

Avastin® is a humanized recombinant monoclonal antibody used to treat cancer by targeting VEGF-A to inhibit angiogenesis. SIMAB054, an Avastin® biosimilar candidate developed in this study, showed a different charge variant profile than its innovator. Thus, it is fractionated into acidic, main, and basic isoforms and collected physically by Cation Exchange Chromatography (CEX) for a comprehensive structural and functional analysis. The innovator product, fractionated into the same species and collected by the same method, is used as a reference for comparative analysis. Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) ESI-QToF was used to analyze the modifications leading to charge heterogeneities at intact protein and peptide levels. The C-terminal lysine clipping and glycosylation profiles of the samples were monitored by intact mAb analysis. The post-translational modifications, including oxidation, deamidation, and N-terminal pyroglutamic acid formation, were determined by peptide mapping analysis in the selected signal peptides. The relative binding affinities of the fractionated charge isoforms against the antigen, VEGF-A, and the neonatal receptor, FcRn, were revealed by Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) studies. The results show that all CEX fractions from the innovator product and the SIMAB054 shared the same structural variants, albeit in different ratios. Common glycoforms and post-translational modifications were the same, but at different percentages for some samples. The dissimilarities were mostly originating from the presence of extra C-term Lysin residues, which are prone to enzymatic degradation in the body, and thus they were previously assessed as clinically irrelevant. Another critical finding was the presence of different glyco proteoforms in different charge species, such as increased galactosylation in the acidic and afucosylation in the basic species. SPR characterization of the isolated charge variants further confirmed that basic species found in the CEX analyses of the biosimilar candidate were also present in the innovator product, although at lower amounts. The charge variants’ in vitro antigen- and neonatal receptor-binding activities varied amongst the samples, which could be further investigated in vivo with a larger sample set to reveal the impact on the pharmacokinetics of drug candidates. Minor structural differences may explain antigen-binding differences in the isolated charge variants, which is a key parameter in a comparability exercise. Consequently, such a biosimilar candidate may not comply with high regulatory standards unless the binding differences observed are justified and demonstrated not to have any clinical impact.
Effect of Melanization on Thallus Microstructure in the Lichen Lobaria pulmonaria

Lichens often grow in microhabitats where they experience severe abiotic stresses. Some species respond to high UV radiation by synthesizing dark brown melanic pigments in the upper cortex. However, unlike the melanized structures of non-lichenized fungi, the morphology of the melanic layer in lichens remains unstudied. Here, we analyzed the morphology, ultrastructure, and elemental composition of the melanized layer in UV-exposed thalli of the lichen Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm. Using light microscopy, we detected a pigmented layer sensitive to staining with 3,4-L-dihydroxyphenylalanine, a precursor of eumelanin, in the upper cortex of melanized thalli. Analysis of cross-sections of melanized thalli using scanning electron microscopy revealed that melanin-like granules are deposited into the hyphal lumens. Melanized thalli also possessed thicker hyphal cell walls compared to pale thalli. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis of the elemental composition of the hyphal walls and extracted melanin indicated that the type of melanin synthesized by L. pulmonaria is eumelanin. Transmission electron microscopy was used to show that during melanization melanosome-like dark vesicles are transported to the cell surface and secreted into the cell walls of the fungal hyphae. Results from this study provide new insights into the effects of melanin synthesis on the microstructure of lichen thalli.