Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of Motion and Muscle Activation Impacts on Low Back Pain during Pregnancy Using an Inertial Measurement Unit

Specific physiological changes during pregnancy exert excessive strain on muscles such as the erector spinae (ES) and contribute to low back pain (LBP). The link between LBP and sit-to-stand (STS) motion has previously been investigated through motion analysis using an inertial measurement unit (IMU); however, the factors leading to LBP have not been revealed. Moreover, clinicians require an effective assessment method for reducing the physical burden on pregnant women. Therefore, the investigation of the relationships between motion, muscle load calculated from musculoskeletal model for pregnancy, and the severity of LBP during STS in pregnant women was conducted. Furthermore, this study proposes a method for assessing motion and muscle load during STS using an IMU. The relationship among (i) motion evaluation indices and ES muscle torque, and (ii) the ES torque and the intensity of LBP during STS was investigated. As the results, significant positive correlations were observed between (i) the angular velocity of the torso in the sagittal plane and ES torque, and (ii) two types of evaluation indices of ES torque and intensity of LBP. The proposed method by an IMU attached to the torso could effectively assess ES load related to LBP during STS in pregnant women.
The hierarchical assembly of galaxies and black holes in the first billion years: predictions for the era of gravitational wave astronomy

In this work, we include black hole (BH) seeding, growth, and feedback into our semi-analytic galaxy formation model, Delphi. Our model now fully tracks the accretion- and merger-driven hierarchical assembly of the dark matter halo, gas, stellar, and BH masses of high-redshift (z ≳ 5) galaxies. We explore a number of physical scenarios that include (i) two types of BH seeds (stellar and those from direct collapse BH); (ii) the impact of reionization; and (iii) the impact of instantaneous versus delayed galaxy mergers on the baryonic growth. Using a minimal set of mass- and z-independent free parameters associated with star formation and BH growth, and their associated feedback, and including the suppressed BH growth in lower mass galaxies, we show that our model successfully reproduces all available data sets for early galaxies and quasars. While both reionization and delayed galaxy mergers have no sensible impact on the evolving ultraviolet luminosity function, the impact of the former dominates in determining the stellar mass density for observed galaxies as well as the BH mass function. We then use this model to predict the LISA detectability of merger events at high-z. As expected, mergers of stellar BHs dominate the merger rates for all scenarios and our model predicts an expected upper limit of about 20 mergers using instantaneous merging and no reionization feedback over the 4-yr mission duration. Including the impact of delayed mergers and reionization feedback provides about 12 events over the same observational time-scale.
Ecological specialization in populations adapted to constant versus heterogeneous environments *

Populations vary in their degree of ecological specialization. An intuitive, but often untested, hypothesis is that populations evolving under greater environmental heterogeneity will evolve to be less specialized. How important is environmental heterogeneity in explaining among‐population variation in specialization? We assessed juvenile viability of 20 Drosophila melanogaster populations evolving under one of four regimes: (1) a salt‐enriched environment, (2) a cadmium‐enriched environment, (3) a temporally varying environment, and (4) a spatially varying environment. Juvenile viability was tested in both the original selective environments and a set of novel environments. In both the original and novel environments, populations from the constant cadmium regime had the lowest average viability and the highest variance in viability across environments but populations from the other three regimes were similar. Our results suggest that variation in specialization among these populations is most simply explained as a pleiotropic by‐product of adaptation to specific environments rather than resulting from a history of exposure to environmental heterogeneity.
The impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment of rural female entrepreneurs in Uganda

ABSTRACT Although entrepreneurship training may improve labour market outcomes of individuals, little is known about the impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment in Uganda. In this study, a survey of 300 rural women in Uganda is undertaken before and four months after participating in an entrepreneurship training programme to examine the impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment. Business knowledge and business competence indices are used as measures of training effectiveness, and a self-employment probit regression model is utilized to examine the impact of training on self-employment. The main findings of this study suggest that an increase in the business knowledge index and the business competence index by one unit can lead to 6 per cent and 2.7 per cent increase in the probability of being self-employed. These findings are important for the design and implementation of appropriate policy and programmes to improve the labour market outcomes of women in rural Uganda.
Probing right handed neutrinos at the LHeC and lepton colliders using fat jet signatures

The inclusion of heavy neutral leptons (right-handed neutrinos) to the Standard Model (SM) particle content is one of the best motivated ways to account for the observed neutrino masses and flavor mixing. The modification of the charged and neutral currents from active-sterile mixing of the neutral leptons can provide novel signatures which can be tested at the future collider experiments. In this article, we explore the discovery prospect of a very heavy right handed neutrino to probe such extensions at the future collider experiments like Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and linear collider. We consider the production of the heavy neutrino via the t and s-channel processes and its subsequent decays into the semileptonic final states. We specifically focus on the scenario where the gauge boson produced from heavy neutrino decay is highly boosted, leading to a fat jet. We study the bounds on the sterile neutrino properties from several past experiments and compare with our results.
Detection and geographic distribution of seven facultative endosymbionts in two Rhopalosiphum aphid species

Study of the mutualistic associations between facultative symbionts and aphids are developed only in a few models. That survey on the situation and distribution of the symbionts in a certain area is helpful to obtain clues for the acquisition and spread of them as well as their roles played in host evolution. To understand the infection patterns of seven facultative symbionts (Serratia symbiotica, Hamiltonella defensa, Regiella insecticola, Rickettsia, Spiroplasma, Wolbachia, and Arsenophonus) in Rhopalosiphum padi (Linnaeus) and Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch), we collected 882 R. maidis samples (37 geographical populations) from China and 585 R. padi samples (32 geographical populations) from China and Europe. Results showed that both species were widely infected with various symbionts and totally 50.8% of R. maidis and 50.1% of R. padi were multi‐infected with targeted symbionts. However, very few Rhopalosiphum aphids were infected with S. symbiotica. The infection frequencies of some symbionts were related to the latitude of collecting sites, suggesting the importance of environmental factors in shaping the geographic distribution of facultative symbionts. Also, R. maidis and R. padi were infected with different H. defensa strains based on phylogenetic analysis which may be determined by host ×symbiont genotype interactions. According to our results, the ubiquitous symbionts may play important roles in the evolution of their host aphid and their impacts on adaptation of R. padi and R. maidis were discussed as well.
Processes and deformation rates generating seismicity in metropolitan France and conterminous Western Europe

Most of metropolitan France and conterminous Western Europe is currently located within the Eurasia intraplate domain, far from major plate boundaries (the Atlantic ridge and Nubia – Eurasia convergence zone). As in other intraplate regions, present-day deformation and seismicity rates are very slow, resulting in limited data and strong uncertainties on the ongoing seismotectonics and seismic hazards. In the last two decades, new geological, seismological and geodetic data and research have brought to light unexpected deformation patterns in metropolitan France, such as orogen-normal extension ca. 0.5 mm yr−1 in the Pyrenees and Western Alps that cannot be associated with their mountain-building history. Elsewhere, present-day deformation and seismicity data provide a partial picture that points to mostly extensive to strike-slip deformation regimes (except in the Western Alps foreland). A review of the numerous studies and observations shows that plate tectonics (plate motion, mantle convection) are not the sole, nor likely the primary driver of present-day deformation and seismicity and that additional processes must be considered, such as topography potential energy, erosion or glacial isostatic adjustment since the last glaciation. The exact role of each process probably varies from one region to another and remains to be characterized. In addition, structural inheritance (crust or mantle weakening from past tectonic events) can play a strong role in deformation localization and amplification up to factors of 5–20, which could explain some of the spatial variability in seismicity. On the basis of this review, we identify three research directions that should be developed to better characterize the seismicity, deformation rates and related processes in metropolitan France: macroseismic and historical seismicity, especially regarding moment magnitude estimations; geodetic deformation, including in regions of low seismicity where the ratio of seismic to aseismic deformation remains a key unknown; an integrated and consistent seismotectonic framework comprising numerical models, geological, seismological and geodetic data. The latter has the potential for significant improvements in the characterization of seismicity and seismic hazard in metropolitan France but also Western Europe.
Reinforcement Learning Based Text Style Transfer without Parallel Training Corpus

Text style transfer rephrases a text from a source style (e.g., informal) to a target style (e.g., formal) while keeping its original meaning. Despite the success existing works have achieved using a parallel corpus for the two styles, transferring text style has proven significantly more challenging when there is no parallel training corpus. In this paper, we address this challenge by using a reinforcement-learning-based generator-evaluator architecture. Our generator employs an attention-based encoder-decoder to transfer a sentence from the source style to the target style. Our evaluator is an adversarially trained style discriminator with semantic and syntactic constraints that score the generated sentence for style, meaning preservation, and fluency. Experimental results on two different style transfer tasks–sentiment transfer, and formality transfer–show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art approaches.Furthermore, we perform a manual evaluation that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method using subjective metrics of generated text quality.
Gene expression based survival prediction for cancer patients—A topic modeling approach

Cancer is one of the leading cause of death, worldwide. Many believe that genomic data will enable us to better predict the survival time of these patients, which will lead to better, more personalized treatment options and patient care. As standard survival prediction models have a hard time coping with the high-dimensionality of such gene expression data, many projects use some dimensionality reduction techniques to overcome this hurdle. We introduce a novel methodology, inspired by topic modeling from the natural language domain, to derive expressive features from the high-dimensional gene expression data. There, a document is represented as a mixture over a relatively small number of topics, where each topic corresponds to a distribution over the words; here, to accommodate the heterogeneity of a patient’s cancer, we represent each patient (≈ document) as a mixture over cancer-topics, where each cancer-topic is a mixture over gene expression values (≈ words). This required some extensions to the standard LDA model—e.g., to accommodate the real-valued expression values—leading to our novel discretized Latent Dirichlet Allocation (dLDA) procedure. After using this dLDA to learn these cancer-topics, we can then express each patient as a distribution over a small number of cancer-topics, then use this low-dimensional “distribution vector” as input to a learning algorithm—here, we ran the recent survival prediction algorithm, MTLR, on this representation of the cancer dataset. We initially focus on the METABRIC dataset, which describes each of n = 1,981 breast cancer patients using the r = 49,576 gene expression values, from microarrays. Our results show that our approach (dLDA followed by MTLR) provides survival estimates that are more accurate than standard models, in terms of the standard Concordance measure. We then validate this “dLDA+MTLR” approach by running it on the n = 883 Pan-kidney (KIPAN) dataset, over r = 15,529 gene expression values—here using the mRNAseq modality—and find that it again achieves excellent results. In both cases, we also show that the resulting model is calibrated, using the recent “D-calibrated” measure. These successes, in two different cancer types and expression modalities, demonstrates the generality, and the effectiveness, of this approach. The dLDA+MTLR source code is available at https://github.com/nitsanluke/GE-LDA-Survival.
Winning Isn't Everything: Training Human-Like Agents for Playtesting and Game AI

Recently, there have been several high-profile achievements of agents learning to play games against humans and beat them. We consider an alternative approach that instead addresses game design for a better player experience by training human-like game agents. Specifically, we study the problem of training game agents in service of the development processes of the game developers that design, build, and operate modern games. We highlight some of the ways in which we think intelligent agents can assist game developers to understand their games, and even to build them. Our early results using the proposed agent framework mark a few steps toward addressing the unique challenges that game developers face.
Expression of recombinant enhanced green fluorescent protein provides insight into foreign gene‐expression differences between Mut+ and MutS strains of Pichia pastoris

Pichia pastoris is a very popular yeast for recombinant protein production, mainly due to the strong, methanol‐inducible PAOX1 promoter. Methanol induction however poses several drawbacks. One approach to improve processes is to use MutS strains with reduced methanol catabolic ability. Various reports claim that MutS allows higher recombinant protein production levels than Mut+ but scarcely elaborate on reasons for differences. In this study, enhanced green fluorescent protein was used as a PAOX1‐driven reporter for the investigation of expression differences between Mut+ and MutS strains. Mut+ exhibited higher responses to methanol, with faster growth (0.07 vs. 0.01 hr−1) and higher consumption of methanol (2.25 vs. 1.81 mmol/gDCW.hr) and oxygen (2.2 vs. 0.66 mmol/gDCW.hr) than MutS. Mut+ yielded more biomass than MutS (2.3 vs. 1.3 gDCW/L), and carbon dioxide analysis of bioreactor off‐gas suggested that considerable amounts of methanol were consumed by Mut+ via the dissimilatory pathway. In contrast, it was demonstrated that the MutS population switched to an induced state more rapidly than Mut+. In addition, MutS exhibited 3.4‐fold higher fluorescence levels per cell (77,509 vs. 23,783 SFU) indicative of higher recombinant protein production. The findings were verified by similar results obtained during the expression of a lipase. Based on the differences in response to methanol versus recombinant protein production, it was proposed that higher energy availability occurs in MutS for recombinant protein synthesis, contrary to Mut+ that uses the energy to maintain high levels of methanol catabolic pathways and biomass production.
Mayer‐Rokitansky‐Küster‐Hauser syndrome with a uterine cervix and normal vagina associated with gonadal dysgenesis in a 46,XX female

Coexistence of Mayer‐Rokitansky‐Küster‐Hauser syndrome and gonadal dysgenesis is extremely rare, and a case of Mayer‐Rokitansky‐Küster‐Hauser syndrome with a uterine cervix and normal vagina has not been reported. Here, we report such a case associated with gonadal dysgenesis. A 17‐year‐old female presented with primary amenorrhea and undeveloped secondary sexual characteristics. Genital examination revealed a uterine cervix and normal vagina without a uterine body and ovaries. An endocrine study showed hypergonadotrophic hypogonadism. The karyotype was 46,XX. Laparoscopy revealed a rudimentary uterus, normal fallopian tubes and bilateral streak ovaries. There were no other associated malformations. Hormonal substitution therapy was started for development of secondary sexual characteristics and prevention of osteoporosis, but the problem of infertility is unresolved.
Long‐term declines of European insectivorous bird populations and potential causes

Evidence of declines in insect populations has recently received considerable scientific and societal attention. However, the lack of long‐term insect monitoring makes it difficult to assess whether declines are geographically widespread. By contrast, bird populations are well monitored and often used as indicators of environmental change. We compared the population trends of European insectivorous birds with those of other birds to assess whether patterns in bird population trends were consistent with declines of insects. We further examined whether declines were evident for insectivores with different habitats, foraging strata, and other ecological preferences. Bird population trends were estimated for Europe (1990–2015) and Denmark (1990–2016). On average, insectivores declined over the study period (13% across Europe and 28% in Denmark), whereas omnivores had stable populations. Seedeaters also declined (28% across Europe; 34% in Denmark), but this assessment was based on fewer species than for other groups. The effects of insectivory were stronger for farmland species (especially grassland species), for ground feeders, and for cold‐adapted species. Insectivory was associated with long‐distance migration, which was also linked to population declines. However, many insectivores had stable populations, especially habitat generalists. Our findings suggest that the decline of insectivores is primarily associated with agricultural intensification and loss of grassland habitat. The loss of both seed and insect specialists indicates an overall trend toward bird communities dominated by diet generalists.
Perception of Older Adults Toward Smartwatch Technology for Assessing Pain and Related Patient-Reported Outcomes: Pilot Study

Background Chronic pain, including arthritis, affects about 100 million adults in the United States. Complexity and diversity of the pain experience across time and people and its fluctuations across and within days show the need for valid pain reports that do not rely on patient’s long-term recall capability. Smartwatches can be used as digital ecological momentary assessment (EMA) tools for real-time collection of pain scores. Smartwatches are generally less expensive than smartphones, are highly portable, and have a simpler user interface, providing an excellent medium for continuous data collection and enabling a higher compliance rate. Objective The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes and perceptions of older adults towards design and technological aspects of a smartwatch framework for measuring patient report outcomes (PRO) as an EMA tool. Methods A focus group session was conducted to explore the perception of participants towards smartwatch technology and its utility for PRO assessment. Participants included older adults (age 65+), with unilateral or bilateral symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. A preliminary user interface with server communication capability was developed and deployed on 10 Samsung Gear S3 smartwatches and provided to the users during the focus group. Pain was designated as the main PRO, while fatigue, mood, and sleep quality were included as auxiliary PROs. Pre-planned topics included participants’ attitude towards the smartwatch technology, usability of the custom-designed app interface, and suitability of the smartwatch technology for PRO assessment. Discussions were transcribed, and content analysis with theme characterization was performed to identify and code the major themes. Results We recruited 19 participants (age 65+) who consented to take part in the focus group study. The overall attitude of the participants toward the smartwatch technology was positive. They showed interest in the direct phone-call capability, availability of extra apps such as the weather apps and sensors for tracking health and wellness such as accelerometer and heart rate sensor. Nearly three-quarters of participants showed willingness to participate in a one-year study to wear the watch daily. Concerns were raised regarding usability, including accessibility (larger icons), notification customization, and intuitive interface design (unambiguous icons and assessment scales). Participants expressed interest in using smartwatch technology for PRO assessment and the availability of methods for sharing data with health care providers. Conclusions All participants had overall positive views of the smartwatch technology for measuring PROs to facilitate patient-provider communications and to provide more targeted treatments and interventions in the future. Usability concerns were the major issues that will require special consideration in future smartwatch PRO user interface designs, especially accessibility issues, notification design, and use of intuitive assessment scales.
Duality structure, asymptotic analysis and emergent fractal sets

A new, extended nonlinear framework of the ordinary real analysis incorporating a novel concept of {\em duality structure} and its applications into various nonlinear dynamical problems is presented. The duality structure is an asymptotic property that should affect the late time asymptotic behaviour of a nonlinear dynamical system in a nontrivial way leading naturally to signatures generic to a complex system. We argue that the present formalism would offer a natural framework to understand the abundance of complex systems in natural, biological, financial and related problems. We show that the power law attenuation of a dispersive, lossy wave equation, conventionally deduced from fractional calculus techniques, could actually arise from the present asymptotic duality structure. Differentiability on a Cantor type fractal set is also formulated.