Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probable omnigenic effect and evolutionary insights of aerobic adaptation allele OsNCED2T on qDTY12.1 effecting grain yield under reproductive stage drought stress in rice

Yield associated quantitative trait loci (qDTY) under drought stress provides significant advantage for grain yield in rice. The major, stable qDTY12.1 was identified in a mapping population developed from upland cultivars Vandana and Way Rarem. Further, introgression line comprising of qDTY12.1 genomic region was characterized to have multiple genes (NAM, DECUSSATE) regulating the drought tolerance under severe drought stress substantiated through recently proposed omnigenic model for complex traits. Recently, plastid localized NCED2T allele present within the qDTY12.1 genomic region was characterized for conferring aerobic adaptation in lowland varieties. Since, NCED2T is evolutionary fixed in upland cultivars and Vandana was found to have the favorable allele of NCED2T, we hypothesized that this favorable allele might confer omnigenic effect on qDTY12.1 genes. Our evolutionary analysis using non synonymous SNPs present in genes namely NCED, NAM, and DECUSSATE and qDTY12.1 genomic regions showed specific grouping of Vandana with upland cultivars only for NCED gene and its adjoining genomic regions. However, non synonymous SNPs in NAM and DECUSSATE genes and its adjoining genomic regions of drought tolerant varieties were closely related and grouped together in the phylogenetic analysis. Moreover, ecotype specific differentiation and greater nucleotide difference with wild relatives was also observed for DECUSSATE gene in rice. This finding indicates differential evolution of qDTY12.1 regions for upland and drought tolerance and omnigenic effect of NCED2T gene in qDTY12.1. Further, we propose a breeding model for enhancing genetic gain for yield under severe drought stress by incorporation of NCEDT, qDTY12.1 and other drought tolerant QTLs for membrane stability in rice.
Aerobic fitness relates to superior exact and approximate arithmetic processing in college-aged adults

BACKGROUND Aerobic fitness relates to superior math achievement, but the underlying reasons remain unclear. This study tested how more efficient processing (efficiency hypothesis) or enhanced allocation of cognitive resources (resources hypothesis) underly fitness-related differences in arithmetic cognition in a sample of 138 college-aged adults. METHOD Participants completed an arithmetic task while pupillary measures were recorded prior to an aerobic fitness test. RESULTS Higher aerobic fitness was associated with shorter reaction time for all problems and greater pupillary reactivity for problems requiring approximate and exact arithmetic. CONCLUSIONS Superior aerobic fitness relates to greater cognitive resources available to execute exact and approximate arithmetic faster. Fitness-related differences in math achievement may be driven by the cognitive resources underlying arithmetic strategy. These differences may extend beyond educational achievement and affect the motivation to engage in health behaviors based on quantitative information. Thus, improving cardiovascular fitness has the potential to also ameliorate health numeracy.
Diffusion coefficient in crystals with multiple jump frequencies

Abstract A general method is described for the derivation of the diffusion coefficient in a crystal lattice in terms of jump frequencies where more than one jump frequency is involved. The method is applicable mainly to interstitial-type diffusion. As examples of the application of the method, the diffusion coefficients are derived for an interstitial impurity occupying both tetrahedral and octahedral interstices in h.c. p. or b.c.c. lattices, and for a ‘diplon’ in the f.c. c. lattice.
Applications of solid state NMR spectroscopy to ceramic research

Abstract Although solid state NMR spectroscopy has been available for the last decade and a half, its application to studies of ceramic materials has occurred relatively slowly. The technique provides an excellent complement to XRD since it does not require the presence of long range atomic ordering and is thus eminently suitable for investigating glasses, gels, and amorphous intermediates formed during solid state reactions of ceramics and minerals. Solid state NMR spectroscopy can provide information about the co-ordination and atomic environment of most of the elements of interest to ceramic scientists. The principles and practical considerations underlying the technique are briefly outlined and examples of its application to a range of ceramic systems are presented.
Fingerprinting in Style: Detecting Browser Extensions via Injected Style Sheets

Browser extensions enhance the web experience and have seen great adoption from users in the past decade. At the same time, past research has shown that online trackers can use various techniques to infer the presence of installed extensions and abuse them to track users as well as uncover sensitive information about them. In this work we present a novel extension-ﬁngerprinting vector showing how style modiﬁcations from browser extensions can be abused to identify installed extensions. We propose a pipeline that analyzes extensions both statically and dynamically and pinpoints their injected style sheets. Based on these, we craft a set of triggers that uniquely identify browser extensions from the context of the visited page. We analyzed 116K extensions from Chrome’s Web Store and report that 6,645 of them inject style sheets on any website that users visit. Our pipeline has created triggers that uniquely identify 4,446 of these extensions, 1,074 (24%) of which could not be ﬁngerprinted with previous techniques. Given the power of this new extension-ﬁngerprinting vector, we propose speciﬁc countermeasures against style ﬁngerprinting that have minimal impact on the overall user experience.
On the Stacking of β -Rings: The solution self-association behavior of two partially N-methylated cyclo(hexaleucines)

Cyclo(-D-Leu-L-MeLeu-D-Leu-L-MeLeu-D-Leu-L-MeLeu-) (1) and cyclo(-L-Leu-D-Leu-L-MeLeu-D-Leu-L-Leu-D-Leu-) (2) were synthesized and used for a study of the interaction of β -rings in solution. In appropriate solvents, 1 and 2 formed dimers consisting of two β -rings connected through six interannular H-bonds and having the N -Me group(s) on the solvent-exposed face. The study also afforded indications that 2 formed different dimers of this kind, differing in the relative orientation of the two β -rings. These experimental observations provide strong support to the idea that unsubstituted D,L-alternating cyclooligopeptides, such as cyclo(hexaleucine), can self-assemble and give rise to long tubular stacks of β -rings.
The relation between responsible gambling program perceptions and customer satisfaction with a gambling firm

Using data collected from customers of a Canadian provincial government-owned gambling firm, this study explores the relationship between gamblers’ perception of the organization’s commitment to responsible gambling programs and satisfaction with the firm. Results of a principal components analysis suggest that many value based judgements are closely related, and a multivariate regression model suggests that perceived adequacy of responsible gambling programs and perceived firm motives are predictive of customer satisfaction scores. We conclude that corporate social responsibility, and in particular, a commitment to responsible gambling programs, are closely related to customer satisfaction with gambling firms.
Habitat partitioning in marine predators

A sympatric assemblage of morphologically similar predators is expected to exhibit fine-scale habitat segregation, or resource partitioning, to reduce the effects of direct competition. This principle has been well studied for predators in terrestrial ecosystems. In the marine environment, how sympatric species of large predators spatially segregate at the finescale is poorly understood because detailed movement and behavioural data is often not available across multiple species within the same timeframe. How co-occurring congeneric predators separate spatially is even less well understood. Medium sized species of skates (Genus Raja) co-occur in temperate habitats of the north-east Atlantic Ocean, share similar morphologies and have distributional ranges that overlap significantly in the western English Channel ecosystem. Here, detailed depth time series retrieved from 89 electronic data storage tags attached to four species of skate were analysed to determine preferred depth ranges. The four species were found to segregate spatially into two groups, with one group having a significantly shallower core annual depth range than the other. To our knowledge fine-scale segregation by depth has not been observed previously. Interestingly the members of each species group appeared complementary, each group comprising species having different dietary preferences and with a larger and smaller body size. Habitat partitioning in marine predators 2 An understanding of how core depth ranges differ and how these species utilise vertical habitat has potential to predict geographic ranges around the coast with important implications for how these species interact with fisheries and Marine Protected Areas.
PlusApps: Towards a Privacy Risk Analysis for Android Plus Applications

The Android platform leads the mobile operating system marketplace and subsequently has drawn the interest of malware authors and researchers. The significant number of proposed malware detection techniques, classification models and practical reverse engineering solutions are insufficient and there is a lack of perfection. Also, the number of Android apps has increased significantly in recent years, as has the number of apps revealing confidential data. It is essential to investigate the applications and make sure that none of them are leaking privacy data, and consequently a privacy leak analysis approach is needed. Therefore, this paper investigates plus apps behavior and data leakages with a machine-learning algorithm to determine the best features for differentiating plus apps from original apps. The result of the analysis discloses that the SVM classifier presents the greatest accuracy. Further investigation demonstrates that the classifier with the ranking algorithm that uses correlation coefficient (CorEvel) and information gain (InfGain) methods offers more exceptional precision than the other correlation algorithms. The result of this experiment proves that the ranking algorithm is able to decrease the dimension of features and produce an accuracy of 96.60%. Keywords—Android security; malware detection; permission analysis; privacy risk; plus application
Ripple: A Programmable, Decentralized Link-Flooding Defense Against Adaptive Adversaries

Link-ﬂooding attacks (LFAs) aim to cut off an edge network from the Internet by congesting core network links. Such an adversary can further change the attack strategy dynamically (e.g., target links, trafﬁc types) to evade mitigation and launch persistent attacks. We develop Ripple , a programmable, decentralized link-ﬂooding defense against dynamic adversaries. Ripple can be programmed using a declarative policy language to emulate a range of state-of-the-art SDN defenses, but it enables the defenses to shapeshift on their own without a central controller. To achieve this, Ripple develops new defense primitives in programmable switches, which are conﬁgured by the policy language to implement a desired defense. The Ripple compiler generates a distributed set of switch programs to extract a panoramic view of attack signals and act against them in a fully decentralized manner, enabling successive waves of defenses against fast-changing attacks. We show that Ripple has low overheads, and that it can effectively recover trafﬁc throughput where SDN-based defenses fail.
Data Visualizations for Helping Users Understand Statistical Models

Statistical models are playing a pivotal role in many domains (e.g., biology, chemistry, health care) and help users learn from data, find patterns, and make decisions. There is an increasing need for domain experts to use such models for understanding and solving domain-specific problems. However, domain experts may not be experts in data science. They may face two challenges when developing and using statistical models. One challenge is that the knowledge of non-expert users may be insufficient to evaluate statistical models in the model development process. The other challenge is that an insufficient understanding of statistical models may result in wrong decisions. This thesis uses tweaking model parameters and navigating plots to investigate the research question: how can data visualizations help users understand statistical models? More specifically, we explore the following four aspects to answer the research question: (1) how tweaking parameters facilitates model evaluation; (2) how navigating plots assists in model evaluation; (3) how navigating plots helps decision-making; (4) how tweaking parameters aids in decision-making. This thesis is based on four papers, and each paper explores one of the four aspects. Model evaluation is an essential part of the model development process. In paper 1, we propose a visual analytics tool, RegLine, to support model assumption verification and violation remedy by tweaking data transformation and influential data points in the model-training session. The user study suggests that the design features of RegLine facilitate exploring and evaluating models, even for users with little statistical expertise. Paper 2 aims to help users explore the space of model accuracy, cross-validation folds, and forecasts by structured navigation in the model-testing session. A think-aloud study is conducted, and the results show that our approach helps users explore connections among charts and enhances the understanding of time-series forecasting performance.
An IoT Time Series Data Security Model for Adversarial Attack Based on Thermometer Encoding

School of Information Science and Technology, North China University of Technology, Beijing, China Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science and Arts at Belgarn, University of Bisha, Sabt Al-Alaya 61985, Saudi Arabia College of Computing and Information Technology, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, University of Bisha, Bisha 61922, Saudi Arabia Department of Computer Science & Technology, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China Beijing Key Laboratory of Petroleum Data Mining, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
Exogenous Phytase Plus Cellulase and Phosphorus Excretion in Lactating Dairy Cows

Abstract The objectives were to assess the effects of exogenous phytase plus cellulase on P excretion in lactating cows. The effects of an exogenous phytase plus cellulase mixture and dietary P content on P partitioning and excretion were evaluated in nine early lactation cows (mean = 27 d in milk); six of the cows were ruminally cannulated. Cows were assigned to treatments in replicated (three) 3 × 3 Latin squares, and each cow received each treatment sequentially in three, 21-d periods. Diets were 45% forage (all corn silage) and included supplemental P (high P; 0.47%), no supplemental P (low P; 0.32%), or no supplemental P with exogenous phytase (low P-enzyme; 0.32%). Total collection of milk, urine, and feces was conducted on d 19 to 21 of each period. There were no effects of dietary P or exogenous phytase plus cellulase on DMI, milk yield, or milk composition. Excretion of feces was unaffected by diet, but urine excretion was less by cows fed the low P diets than by cows fed the high P diets (16.5 vs 21.3 kg/d). Compared with cows fed high P diets, cows fed the low P diets had reduced P intake (68.1 vs 103.9 g/d), reduced fecal (34.4 vs 51.3 g/d) and urinary P excretion (2.8 vs 9.2 g/d), and lesser P balance (-8.0 vs. 4.4 g/d). The addition of exogenous phytase plus cellulase did not affect P intake, milk P, fecal P, or urinary P excretion, but apparent P digestibility tended to be greater in cows fed diets supplemented with the enzyme formulations (50.1% vs 40.5% for low P-enzyme and low P, respectively).
Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Method and Application of Data Integration at a Nuclear Power Plant

The data of a nuclear power plant (NPP) are stored in silos for the various plant tools. A previous study conducted by the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program identified the different data sources that can benefit online monitoring in an NPP. These data have different structures and tools, and are therefore used independently. Integrating data from various sources can result in multiple benefits to online monitoring by enhancing the ability to compare data, reduce statistical uncertainty by accessing a larger data set, increase data heterogeneity in space and time to reveal confounded information, develop intelligent methods, and share data. Data integration can result in direct cost-savings by reducing the amount of effort needed to find information. It can also enable the establishment of a data warehouse, the backbone repository of data for an NPP, which is necessary to evolve NPPs to a holistic online monitoring approach and automate labor-intensive activities. Creating a data warehouse in a plant or a data broker for a fleet of plants requires overcoming multiple challenges, including the lack of a standard form of storing and using data and the lack of integration methods to compare and map the different data sources. This effort develops and demonstrates a data integration method and application through data fusion and data warehousing pilots. Data warehousing is focused on the application and architecture of data integration and data management. This process is commonly used by data integrators. The data fusion targets intelligently mapping or coupling data for optimized data use. The pilots were performed in collaboration with two NPPs. The first pilot
Confocal Imaging on Microprojectile-bombarded Pollen of Gossypium hirsutum L

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) was introduced to study transgenic molecular cytobiology. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the transferring traces of accelerated, DNA-coated, metal particles labeled with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) in mature cotton pollen (G. hirsutum L.). The results indicated that pollen exine can be penetrated by the high-velocity microprojectiles, and the microprojectile with fluorescent probe and its transferring trace in the exine-detached pollen can be observed. The optical sectioning imaging analysis indicated that the microprojectile can be introduced into a bombarded pollen grain approximately 20.6 m deep. In bombarded grains, transient expression of a βglucuronidase (GUS) gene in pBI121 was certified by histochemical assay.
Short Paper: Debt Representation in UTXO Blockchains /Author=Chiu, Michael; Kalabic, Uros /CreationDate=March 12, 2021 /Subject=Control, Dynamical Systems, Optimization

We provide a UTXO model of blockchain transactions that is able to represent both credit and debt on the same blockchain. Ordinarily, the UTXO model is solely used to represent credit and the representation of credit and debit together is achieved using the account model because of its support for balances. However, the UTXO model provides superior privacy, safety, and scalability when compared to the account model. In this work, we introduce a UTXO model that has the flexibility of balances with the usual benefits of the UTXO model. This model extends the UTXO model, which represents credits as unmatched outputs, by representing debts as unmatched inputs. We apply our model to solving the problem of transparency in mortgage markets, in which some transparency is necessary for a healthy market, but complete transparency leads to adverse outcomes. Here, the pseudonymous properties of the UTXO model protect the privacy of loan recipients while still allowing an aggregate view of the loan market. We present a prototype of our implementation in Tendermint and discuss the design and its benefits. Financial Cryptography and Data Security c © 2021 MERL. This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprofit educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Short Paper: Debt Representation in UTXO Blockchains Michael Chiu and Uroš Kalabić 1 Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, ON M5S 2E4, Canada chiu@cs.toronto. edu 2 Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
The natural compound n-butylidenephthalide kills high-grade serous ovarian cancer stem cells by activating intrinsic apoptosis signaling pathways

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) constitutes 80% of ovarian cancer. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for most of the tumor metastasis and chemoresistance. n-Butylidenephthalide (BP) is a potential anti-tumor agent for treating a variety of cancers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of BP on CSCs of HGSOC. CSCs were isolated using the CSC marker (ALDH; aldehyde dehydrogenase) from KURAMOCHI and OVSAHO cells (HGSOC cell lines). The cell proliferation, IC50 (the half-maximal inhibitory concentration), cell migration and invasion, TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) dUTP nick end labeling) assay, western blot of ovarian CSC were evaluated. The animal xenograft studies were evaluated on an immunodeficient mouse model. The results showed the proliferation of ALDH+ cells was greater than that of ALDH- cells. The dosage of IC50 of BP was higher in ALDH+ cells than in mixed cancer cells (317.2 vs. 206.5 μg/ml) in KURAMOCHI cells, but not in OVSAHO cells (61.1 vs. 48.5 μg/ml). BP could inhibit the migration and invasion of both cancer stem cells. BP treatment could activate apoptosis signaling, as indicated by the TUNEL assay and the increased expression of cleaved caspase-3, -7, and -9 but not cleaved caspase-8. A low dose of BP (20 and 25 μg/mL) treatment could increase the toxicity of taxol and cisplatin. In the animal model, BP (200 mg/kg) treatment also decreased the KURAMOCHI and OVSAHO tumor growth rate and induced tumor apoptosis. In conclusion, BP could kill ALDH+ CSCs of HGSOC in vitro and in vivo by inducing apoptosis. BP may provide a new therapeutic approach for HGSOC.
Multiple visual stimuli in Pacific staghorn sculpin Leptocottus armatus: Can fish modulate their escape response while escaping?

The effect of multiple visual stimuli replicating predator strikes from two opposite sides were investigated in the Pacific staghorn sculpin (Leptocottus armatus) at different time points during the escape response. To trigger the escape responses, we used a visual stimulation (e.g., a looming image of an approaching black circle) simulating a predator strike. For the control treatment, only a single visual stimulus was used while for the treatments we played a second stimulus, simultaneously or with a delay of 33 or 83 milliseconds. Our results revealed that a second stimulus with a delay of 33 ms affects the escape trajectory with a change of turning angle during the stage one of the escape response. Such findings tend to suggest that the sensory feedback mechanism modulates the escape response.