Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Salt intake causes B-type natriuretic peptide elevation independently of blood pressure elevation in the general population without hypertension and heart disease

Abstract Excessive salt intake causes hypertension and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is synthesized and released from the ventricle, and is a surrogate marker reflecting various CVDs. Moreover, when a slight BNP elevation is shown, it leads to a poor prognosis in the general population. However, the relationship between salt intake and BNP levels in the general population remains unclear, especially in those without hypertension and heart diseases. In this study, we recruited 1404 participants without hypertension and electrocardiogram abnormalities, who received regular annual health check-ups in Japan. Plasma BNP levels were measured, and daily salt intake levels were evaluated using urinary samples. In addition, some clinical parameters were obtained, and the data were cross-sectionally analyzed. The median of plasma BNP levels was 10.50 pg/mL, and daily salt intake was 8.50 ± 1.85 g. When dividing participants into quartiles according to daily salt intake, those with the highest daily salt intake revealed the highest plasma BNP levels. Plasma BNP levels were significantly and positively associated with daily salt intake. Moreover, multiple linear regression analyses revealed that plasma BNP levels showed a significant positive association with daily salt intake levels after adjustments. Plasma BNP levels were significantly and positively associated with daily salt intake after adjustment in the general population. Plasma BNP levels may be a surrogate marker reflecting salt-induced heart diseases.
Pathological Myopia Image Recognition Strategy Based on Data Augmentation and Model Fusion

The automatic diagnosis of various retinal diseases based on fundus images is important in supporting clinical decision-making. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved remarkable results in such tasks. However, their high expression ability possibly leads to overfitting. Therefore, data augmentation (DA) techniques have been proposed to prevent overfitting while enriching datasets. Recent CNN architectures with more parameters render traditional DA techniques insufficient. In this study, we proposed a new DA strategy based on multimodal fusion (DAMF) which could integrate the standard DA method, data disrupting method, data mixing method, and autoadjustment method to enhance the image data in the training dataset to create new training images. In addition, we fused the results of the classifier by voting on the basis of DAMF, which further improved the generalization ability of the model. The experimental results showed that the optimal DA mode could be matched to the image dataset through our DA strategy. We evaluated DAMF on the iChallenge-PM dataset. At last, we compared training results between 12 DAMF processed datasets and the original training dataset. Compared with the original dataset, the optimal DAMF achieved an accuracy increase of 2.85% on iChallenge-PM.
Assessment of effectiveness of optimum physical distancing phenomena for COVID-19

Currently, COVID-19 is a global pandemic that scientists and engineers around the world are aiming to understand further through rigorous testing and observation. This paper aims to provide safe distance recommendations among individuals and minimize the spread of COVID-19, as well as examine the efficacy of face coverings as a tool to slow the spread of respiratory droplets. These studies are conducted using computational fluid dynamics analyses, where the infected person breathes, coughs, and sneezes at various distances and environmental wind conditions and while wearing a face-covering (mask or face shield). In cases where there were no wind conditions, the breathing and coughing simulations display 1–2 m physical distancing to be effective. However, when sneezing was introduced, the physical distancing recommendation of 2 m was deemed not effective; instead, a distance of 2.8 m and greater was found to be more effective in reducing the exposure to respiratory droplets. The evaluation of environmental wind conditions necessitated an increase in physical distancing measures in all cases. The case where breathing was measured with a gentle breeze resulted in a physical distancing recommendation of 1.1 m, while coughing caused a change from the previous recommendation of 2 m to a distance of 4.5 m or greater. Sneezing in the presence of a gentle breeze was deemed to be the most impactful, with a recommendation for physical distancing of 5.8 m or more. It was determined that face coverings can potentially provide protection to an uninfected person in static air conditions. However, the uninfected person's protection can be compromised even in gentle wind conditions.
A regression discontinuity analysis

To examine the impact of inadequate health insurance coverage on physician utilization among older adults using a novel quasiexperimental design in the time period following the elimination of cost sharing for most preventative services under the US Affordable Care Act of 2010. TheMedical Expenditure Panel Survey full year consolidated data files for the period 2010 to 2017were used to construct a pooled cross-sectional dataset of adults aged 60 to 70. Regression discontinuity design was used to estimate the impact of transitioning between non-Medicare and Medicare plans on use of routine office-based physician visits and emergency room visits. For the overall population, gaining access to Medicare at age 65 is associated with a higher propensity to make routine officebased visits (2.94 percentage points [pp]; P< .01) and lower out-of-pocket costs ( 23.86 pp; P< .01) Similarly, disenrollment from non-Medicare insurance plans at age 66 was associated with more routine office-based visits (3.01 pp; P< .01) and less out-ofpocket costs ( 8.09 pp; P< .10). However, someminority groups reported no changes in visits and out-of-pocket costs or reported an increased propensity to make emergency department visits. Enrollment into Medicare from non-Medicare insurance plans was associated with increased use of routine office-based services and lower out-of-pocket costs. However, some subgroups reported no changes in routine visits or costs or an increased propensity to make emergency department visits. These findings suggest other nonfinancial, structural barriers may exist that limit patient’s ability to access routine services. Abbreviations: ACA = Affordable Care Act, CHDS = coronary heart disease and stroke, ED = emergency department, MEPS = Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.
Twitter, time and emotions

The study of temporal trajectories of emotions shared in tweets has shown that both positive and negative emotions follow nonlinear circadian (24 h) and circaseptan (7-day) patterns. But to this point, such findings could be instrument-dependent as they rely exclusively on coding using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count. Further, research has shown that self-referential content has higher relevance and meaning for individuals, compared with other types of content. Investigating the specificity of self-referential material in temporal patterns of emotional expression in tweets is of interest, but current research is based upon generic textual productions. The temporal variations of emotions shared in tweets through emojis have not been compared to textual analyses to date. This study hence focuses on several comparisons: (i) between Self-referencing tweets versus Other topic tweets, (ii) between coding of textual productions versus coding of emojis, and finally (iii) between coding of textual productions using different sentiment analysis tools (the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count—LIWC; the Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner—VADER and the Hu Liu sentiment lexicon—Hu Liu). In a collection of more than 7 million Self-referencing and close to 18 million Other topic content-coded tweets, we identified that (i) similarities and differences in terms of shape and amplitude can be observed in temporal trajectories of expressed emotions between Self-referring and Other topic tweets, (ii) that all tools feature significant circadian and circaseptan patterns in both datasets but not always, and there is often a correspondence in the shape of circadian and circaseptan patterns, and finally (iii) that circadian and circaseptan patterns obtained from the coding of emotional expression in emojis sometimes depart from those of the textual analysis, indicating some complementarity in the use of both modes of expression. We discuss the implications of our findings from the perspective of the literature on emotions and well-being.
Three species of Trimmatothelopsis (Acarosporaceae) from Europe and North America

Abstract. A phylogenetic analysis recovered Acarospora oreophila in the monophyletic Trimmatothelopsis clade and a new combination was made. Trimmatothelopsis oreophila is closely related to T. terricola. Acarospora benedarensis and A. sphaerosperma are transferred to Trimmatothelopsis based on morphological and anatomical analyses. Globose apothecia with the disc usually less 0.5 mm in diam. , a high hymenium, narrow paraphyses, and long conidia (3–6 × 1–1.5 µm) are diagnostic characters of the genus. Five species occur in North America.
Beyond Serial Founder Effects: The Impact of Admixture and Localized Gene Flow on Patterns of Regional Genetic Diversity

ABSTRACT Geneticists have argued that the linear decay in within-population genetic diversity with increasing geographic distance from East Africa is best explained by a phylogenetic process of repeated founder effects, growth, and isolation. However, this serial founder effect (SFE) process has not yet been adequately vetted against other evolutionary processes that may also affect geospatial patterns of diversity. Additionally, studies of the SFE process have been largely based on a limited 52-population sample. In this modestly updated article, originally published in Human Biology in 2016 (vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 219–231), we assess the effects of founder effect, admixture, and localized gene flow processes on patterns of global and regional diversity using a published data set of 645 autosomal microsatellite genotypes from 5,415 individuals in 248 widespread populations. We used a formal tree-fitting approach to explore the role of founder effects. The approach involved fitting global and regional population trees to extant patterns of gene diversity and then systematically examining the deviations in fit. We also informally tested the SFE process using linear models of gene diversity versus waypoint geographic distances from Africa. We tested the role of localized gene flow using partial Mantel correlograms of gene diversity versus geographic distance controlling for the confounding effects of treelike genetic structure. We corroborate previous findings that global patterns of diversity, both within and between populations, are the product of an out-of-Africa SFE process. Within regions, however, diversity within populations is uncorrelated with geographic distance from Africa. Here, patterns of diversity have been largely shaped by recent interregional admixture and secondary range expansions. Our detailed analyses of the pattern of diversity within and between populations reveal that the signatures of different evolutionary processes dominate at different geographic scales. These findings have important implications for recent publications on the biology of race. Our new foreword situates these findings in a long line of anthropological research that categorically rejects racial interpretations of analyses of human diversity.
Phosphorylation of Pal2 by the protein kinases Kin1 and Kin2 modulates HAC1 mRNA splicing in the unfolded protein response in yeast

Phosphorylated Pal2 promotes the cytosolic splicing of HAC1 to restore homeostasis in yeast undergoing ER stress. HAC-king an ER stress response ER stress induces an evolutionarily conserved response that initiates the alternative splicing of the mRNA encoding Hac1 in yeast and XBP1 in mammals. Hac1 or XBP1 then mediates the unfolded protein response (UPR) to restore ER homeostasis. The kinases Kin1 and Kin2 are required for the UPR, and Ghosh et al. uncovered the substrate of these kinases. Kin1 and Kin2 directly phosphorylated the endocytic adaptor protein Pal2, which bound to and promoted the processing of HAC1 mRNA. These results identify components in a mechanism that ensures the cytosolic splicing of HAC1 mRNA to generate a critical effector of the UPR. During cellular stress in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER)–resident dual kinase and RNase Ire1 splices an intron from HAC1 mRNA in the cytosol, thereby releasing its translational block. Hac1 protein then activates an adaptive cellular stress response called the unfolded protein response (UPR) that maintains ER homeostasis. The polarity-inducing protein kinases Kin1 and Kin2 contribute to HAC1 mRNA processing. Here, we showed that an RNA-protein complex that included the endocytic proteins Pal1 and Pal2 mediated HAC1 mRNA splicing downstream of Kin1 and Kin2. We found that Pal1 and Pal2 bound to the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of HAC1 mRNA, and a yeast strain lacking both Pal1 and Pal2 was deficient in HAC1 mRNA processing. We also showed that Kin1 and Kin2 directly phosphorylated Pal2, and that a nonphosphorylatable Pal2 mutant could not rescue the UPR defect in a pal1Δ pal2Δ strain. Thus, our work uncovers a Kin1/2-Pal2 signaling pathway that coordinates HAC1 mRNA processing and ER homeostasis.
Evaluation of the Evidence Base for Shared Reading to Support Literacy Skill Development for Students with Extensive Support Needs

This systematic literature review updates and extends the findings of Hudson and Test’s 2011 review of literature on shared reading, an interactive read-aloud practice, to promote literacy skills for students with extensive support needs (ESN). Thirty-two shared reading studies are assessed and described in terms of literacy skills investigated, intervention methods, materials used, interventionists, and settings in which shared reading has been evaluated for students with ESN. The quality of each included study was analyzed and the assessment of level of research evidence was conducted using systematic processes. Results indicate that there is a moderate level of evidence for shared reading as an intervention to promote comprehension, vocabulary, and emergent literacy skills for students with ESN. Implications for practice and areas of need for future research are presented.
Best Practices of Principals to Increase Attendance in Low-Socioeconomic Status Rural High Schools

Securing attendance is challenging at rural high schools with a high percentage of students from low-socioeconomic states (low-SES) households. Best practices of principals to achieve high annual attendance rates (> 90%) were studied. Interviews were held with principals from 8 of 12 high schools across rural West Virginia that met the eligibility criterion of 100% enrollment of low-SES students. Six best practices emerged. Rural schools striving to increase attendance could reduce student absenteeism by implementing best practices suggested.
The Role of Multiliteracies in Changing Learning Spaces and Promoting Self-Advocacy for Students with Complex Support Needs

Traditional literacy practices using print-based texts exclude students with complex support needs from the full range of literacy activities provided to peers without disabilities, which may limit them to low-level literacy skills or functional skills. By contrast, by including various forms of representation and text, multiliteracies are uniquely positioned to address the literacy development of students with complex support needs. The present study aimed to investigate the changes in student engagement, teacher–student interaction, staff and parent perceptions, and self-advocacy opportunities created during the implementation of multiliteracies with students with complex support needs. In a public high school classroom in northern California with a teacher and six paraeducators, two students with complex support needs created a multimodal book to present as student input at their individualized education program meetings. The book included the students’ favorite images of family and school, videos and images of their favorite activities at home and school, an identity chart with adjectives that best described them, a description of their strengths, and a transition plan describing what they wanted to do after school. Grounded theory was used to analyze the data collected through interviews, observations, and video and audio recordings. Data suggested that multiliteracies’ pedagogy created new learning spaces, empowering teacher–student interactions, and student self-advocacy.
Validation of the ns-3 802.11ax OFDMA implementation

The introduction of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in 802.11ax signifies a change in role for the Access Point (AP) in WiFi networks, with the opportunity to implement more complex scheduling logic to handle Downlink (DL) traffic flows and simultaneously act as coordinator of Multi User (MU) Uplink (UL) transmissions. In this context it becomes necessary to develop reliable network analysis and simulation tools that allow for an in-depth analysis of the trade-offs involved in the usage of OFDMA, especially considering that the standard leaves much of the actual scheduling algorithmic details to vendor-specific implementation. In this work we validate the recent OFDMA implementation in ns-3's wifi module, within the context of a re-design effort to improve modularity and support for future WiFi amendments. ns-3 based OFDMA performance evaluation via simulation is shown to match the predictions of an analytical approach in some simplified scenarios.
Machine Learning Facilitates Imputation of Gene Expression Levels across Multiple Environments

Gene expression level reflects the active biological processes in a live cell. It is of great importance to quantify gene expression levels across multiple environments. However, for technical reasons, the expression level in some environments/strains of species may not be measured correctly because of sequence diversity or technical reasons in mRNA-seq, qPCR, or microarray. Therefore, it would be highly beneficial if we could infer the missing expression level from existing data, and this process of filling in such missing values is called imputation. Imputation is a very active field in machine learning, and many tech companies use imputation to infer customer preferences for products/movies, etc. Here we apply multiple state-of-the-art imputation methods and compare their performance in predicting gene expression levels across multiple environments. Using a multi-environment expression dataset of Saccharomyces cerevisiae across 13 environments, we randomly removed 5%, 20%, 50%, and 75% of the expression level from the dataset and applied various imputation methods to predict the missing values and use root mean squared error for comparison of model performances. We found that SVD works the best among the five methods, followed by KNN with five nearest neighbors and KNN with two nearest neighbors. In contrast, univariate mean and univariate median works the worse and perform similarly. Although the latter two univariate methods were very commonly used in practice, our result highlights the benefit of using machine learning methods for imputation for better predictions of expression levels across environments.
Noise in the Machine: Sources of Physical and Computation Error in Eye Tracking with Pupil Core Wearable Eye Tracker: Wearable Eye Tracker Noise in Natural Motion Experiments

Developments in wearable eye tracking devices make them an attractive solution for studies of eye movements during naturalistic head/body motion. However, before these systems’ potential can be fully realized, a thorough assessment of potential sources of error is needed. In this study, we examine three possible sources for the Pupil Core eye tracking goggles: camera motion during head/body motion, choice of calibration marker configuration, and eye movement estimation. In our data, we find that up to 36% of reported eye motion may be attributable to camera movement; choice of appropriate calibration routine is essential for minimizing error; and the use of a secondary calibration for eye position remapping can improve eye position errors estimated from the eye tracker.
Investigation of Potential Inhibitors of Brown Adipose Tissue Induced Thermogenesis

Obesity is a worldwide problem that causes damage to quality of life and the national health care system. There is no effective treatment for obesity, and the development of novel treatment is necessary. Thermogenesis is a process that happens in thermogenic adipose tissue by transferring energy storage into heat and is a potential target for obesity treatment. In this paper, I screened for potential thermogenic inhibitors by cross comparing human and mouse unbiased proteomic profiling to get 3 out of 7 potential inhibitors. By designing genetic engineering approaches, I acquired gain-of-function and loss-of-function tools for further molecular biology regulation studies of my candidates
Viscoelastic effects in circular edge waves

Abstract Surface waves are excited at the boundary of a mechanically vibrated cylindrical container and are referred to as edge waves. Resonant waves are considered, which are formed by a travelling wave formed at the edge and constructively interfering with its centre reflection. These waves exhibit an axisymmetric spatial structure defined by the mode number $n$. Viscoelastic effects are investigated using two materials with tunable properties; (i) glycerol/water mixtures (viscosity) and (ii) agarose gels (elasticity). Long-exposure white-light imaging is used to quantify the magnitude of the wave slope from which frequency-response diagrams are obtained via frequency sweeps. Resonance peaks and bandwidths are identified. These results show that for a given $n$, the resonance frequency decreases with viscosity and increases with elasticity. The amplitude of the resonance peaks are much lower for gels and decrease further with mode number, indicating that much larger driving amplitudes are needed to overcome the elasticity and excite edge waves. The natural frequencies for a viscoelastic fluid in a cylindrical container with a pinned contact-line are computed from a theoretical model that depends upon the dimensionless Ohnesorge number ${Oh}$, elastocapillary number ${Ec}$ and Bond number ${Bo}$. All show good agreement with experimental observations. The eigenvalue problem is equivalent to the classic damped-driven oscillator model on linear operators with viscosity appearing as a damping force and elasticity and surface tension as restorative forces, consistent with our physical interpretation of these viscoelastic effects.