Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transcriptional Control of Gene Expression and the Heterogeneous Cellular Identity of Erythroblastic Island Macrophages

During definitive erythropoiesis, maturation of erythroid progenitors into enucleated reticulocytes requires the erythroblastic island (EBI) niche comprising a central macrophage attached to differentiating erythroid progenitors. Normally, the macrophage provides a nurturing environment for maturation of erythroid cells. Its critical physiologic importance entails aiding in recovery from anemic insults, such as systemic stress or acquired disease. Considerable interest in characterizing the central macrophage of the island niche led to the identification of putative cell surface markers enriched in island macrophages, enabling isolation and characterization. Recent studies focus on bulk and single cell transcriptomics of the island macrophage during adult steady-state erythropoiesis and embryonic erythropoiesis. They reveal that the island macrophage is a distinct cell type but with widespread cellular heterogeneity, likely suggesting distinct developmental origins and biological function. These studies have also uncovered transcriptional programs that drive gene expression in the island macrophage. Strikingly, the master erythroid regulator EKLF/Klf1 seems to also play a major role in specifying gene expression in island macrophages, including a putative EKLF/Klf1-dependent transcription circuit. Our present review and analysis of mouse single cell genetic patterns suggest novel expression characteristics that will enable a clear enrichment of EBI subtypes and resolution of island macrophage heterogeneity. Specifically, the discovery of markers such as Epor, and specific features for EKLF/Klf1-expressing island macrophages such as Sptb and Add2, or for SpiC-expressing island macrophage such as Timd4, or for Maf/Nr1h3-expressing island macrophage such as Vcam1, opens exciting possibilities for further characterization of these unique macrophage cell types in the context of their critical developmental function.
Flow interaction of three-dimensional self-propelled flexible plates in tandem

Abstract Tandem configurations of two self-propelled flexible flappers of finite span are explored by means of numerical simulations. The same sinusoidal vertical motion is imposed on the leading edge of both flappers, but with a phase shift ($\phi$). In addition, a vertical offset, $H$, is prescribed between the flappers. The configurations that emerge are characterized in terms of their hydrodynamic performance and topology. The flappers reach a stable configuration with a constant mean propulsive speed and a mean equilibrium horizontal distance. Depending on $H$ and $\phi$, two different tandem configurations are observed, namely compact and regular configurations. The performance of the upstream flapper (i.e. the leader) is virtually equal to the performance of an isolated flapper, except in the compact configuration, where the close interaction with the downstream flapper (i.e. the follower) results in higher power requirements and propulsive speed than an isolated flapper. Conversely, the follower's performance is significantly affected by the wake of the leader in both regular and compact configurations. The analysis of the flow shows that the follower's performance is influenced by the interaction with the vertical jet induced by the vortex rings shed by the leader. This interaction can be beneficial or detrimental for the follower's performance, depending on the alignment of the jet velocity with the follower's vertical motion. Finally, a qualitative prediction of the performance of a hypothetical follower is presented. The model is semi-empirical, and it uses the flow field of an isolated flapper.
Interference Utilization Precoding in Multi-Cluster IoT Networks

In Internet-of-Things, downlink multi-device interference has long been considered as a harmful element deteriorating system performance, and thus the principle of the classic interference-mitigation based precoding is to suppress the multi-device interference by exploiting the spatial orthogonality. In recent years, a judicious interference utilization precoding has been developed, which is capable of exploiting multi-device interference as a beneficial element for improving device’s reception performance, thus reducing downlink communication latency. In this review paper, we aim to review the emerging interference utilization precoding techniques. We first briefly introduce the concept of constructive interference, and then we present two generic downlink interference-utilization optimizations, which utilizes the multi-device interference for enhancing system performance. Afterwards, the application of interference utilization precoding is discussed in multi-cluster scenario. Finally, some open challenges and future research topics are envisaged.
Structure‐guided envelope trimer design in HIV‐1 vaccine development: a narrative review

The development of a human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV‐1) vaccine remains a formidable challenge. An effective vaccine likely requires the induction of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which likely involves the use of native‐like HIV‐1 envelope (Env) trimers at some or all stages of vaccination. Development of such trimers has been very difficult, but much progress has been made in the past decade, starting with the BG505 SOSIP trimer, elucidation of its atomic structure and implementing subsequent design iterations. This progress facilitated understanding the weaknesses of the Env trimer, fuelled structure‐guided HIV‐1 vaccine design and assisted in the development of new vaccine designs. This review summarizes the relevant literature focusing on studies using structural biology to reveal and define HIV‐1 Env sites of vulnerability; to improve Env trimers, by creating more stable versions; understanding antibody responses in preclinical vaccination studies at the atomic level; understanding the glycan shield; and to improve “on‐target” antibody responses versus “off‐target” responses.
Self-Rectified Graphite-Based Reprogrammable One-Time Programmable (RS-OTP) Memory for Embedded Applications

A graphite-based RRAM device with a self-rectifying characteristic named “non-linearity (NL)” is developed for a high-density crossbar array for in-memory computing with low power and high scalability. Meanwhile, the reprogrammable functions are presented in self-selected RRAM as a promising candidate for one-time programmable (OTP) in the emerging memory-embedded applications such as security, system-on-chip (SoC), and Internet of Things (IoT).
Cinacalcet Targets the Neurokinin-1 Receptor and Inhibits PKCδ/ERK/P65 Signaling to Alleviate Dextran Sulfate Sodium-Induced Colitis

Objective: Inflammatory bowel disease is an immune-mediated chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract for which curative drugs are currently not available. This study was performed to assess the therapeutic effects of cinacalcet on dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. Methods: Primary macrophages obtained from bone marrow and the macrophage cell line RAW264.7 were used to examine the inhibitory effect of cinacalcet on cytokine production, the PKCδ/ERK/P65 signaling pathway, and NF-κB P65 translocation. Colitis was induced using DSS to assess the treatment effect of cinacalcet. Bioinformatics approaches were adopted to predict potential targets of cinacalcet, and a drug affinity responsive target stability (DARTs) assay was performed to confirm binding between cinacalcet and potential target. Results: In vivo analysis showed that cinacalcet reduced the disease activity score, prevented shortening of the colon, diminished inflammatory cell infiltration, and protected the structural integrity of the intestinal wall. Cinacalcet also reduced production of the inflammatory cytokines TNFα, IL-1β, and IL-6 in the colon and sera of mice with DSS-induced colitis. In vitro studies revealed that cinacalcet suppressed the translocation of P65 and inhibited production of the inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-6. Mechanistic studies revealed that the target of cinacalcet was neurokinin-1 receptor (NK1R) and their binding was confirmed by a DARTs assay. Furthermore, the inhibition of NK-κB P65 activation was found to occur via the suppression of PKCδ/ERK/P65 signaling mediated by cinacalcet. Conclusion: Cinacalcet inhibits the activation of NF-κB and reduces the production of inflammatory cytokines by suppressing the PKCδ/ERK/P65 signaling pathway via targeting NK1R, suggesting that it can be used to treat inflammatory diseases, particularly colitis.
Fiabilité des provisions environnementales et loi de Benford: application et implications

his paper evaluates the reliability of environmental accounting provisions through two criteria: they must be free from manipulation and free from errors in their recognition. Following the usable statistical methods in auditing to detect accounting fraud, Benford's goodness of fit tests of the environmental provisions of the French listed companies are ran over the period of 2005-2010. In contrast to previous studies impairing the reliability of environmental provisions, our results indicate that those disclosed by the French listed companies are reliable, unlike their total provisions for possible losses. Thus, these results call for a mandatory detailed disclosure of provisions, because detailed amounts are more reliable than the total ones.
Evaluation of process bus reliability

IEC 61850 based substation automation systems simplify the design, installation and maintenance with significantly reduced cost. Its real-time, security and reliability are of concern and are vital important to the industry. This paper presents the development and application of an established platform for evaluating process bus applications. The evaluation platform consists of a number of GOOSE, SMV TCP/IP and impairment generators, a GPS clock, a protocol analyzer and a test set. An example of a given architecture for sampled values streams and GOOSE transmission over the network testing and the related test results are presented in the paper. Various types of background traffic over different network architectures and their impact on the process bus reliability are discussed. (5 pages)
DeepDraper: Fast and Accurate 3D Garment Draping over a 3D Human Body

Draping a 3D human mesh has garnered broad interest due to its wide applicability in virtual try-on, animations, etc. The 3D garment deformations produced by the existing methods are often inconsistent with the body shape, pose, and measurements. This paper proposes a single unified learning-based framework (DeepDraper) to predict garment deformation as a function of body shape, pose, measurements, and garment styles. We train the DeepDraper with coupled geometric and multi-view perceptual losses. Unlike existing methods, we additionally model garment deformations as a function of standard body measurements, which generally a buyer or a designer uses to buy or design perfect fit clothes. As a result, DeepDraper significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art deep network-based approaches in terms of fitness and realism and generalizes well to the unseen style of the garments. In addition to that, DeepDraper is ~ 10 times smaller in size and ~ 23 times faster than the closest state-of-the-art method (TailorNet), which favors its use in real-time applications with less computational power. Despite being trained on the static poses of the TailorNet [32] dataset, DeepDraper generalizes well to unseen body shapes, poses, and garment styles and produces temporally coherent garment deformations on the pose sequences even from the unseen AMASS [25] dataset.
The ensemble of gene regulatory networks at mutation–selection balance

The evolution of diverse phenotypes both involves and is constrained by molecular interaction networks. When these networks influence patterns of expression, we refer to them as gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Here, we develop a quasi-species model of GRN evolution. With this model, we prove that–across a broad spectrum of viability and mutation functions–the dynamics converge to a stationary distribution over GRNs. Next, we show from first principles how the frequency of GRNs at equilibrium will be proportional to each GRN’s eigenvector centrality in the genotype network. Finally, we determine the structural characteristics of GRNs that are favored in response to a range of selective environments and mutational constraints. Our work connects GRN evolution to quasi-species models, and thus can provide a mechanistic explanation for the topology of GRNs experiencing various evolutionary forces.
Virtual Touch: Computer Vision Augmented Touch-Free Scene Exploration for the Blind or Visually Impaired

The Blind or Visually Impaired (BVI) individuals use haptics much more frequently than the healthy-sighted in their everyday lives to locate objects and acquire object details. This consequently puts them at higher risk of contracting the virus through close contact during a pandemic crisis (e.g. COVID-19). Traditional canes only give the BVIs limited perceptive range. Our project develops a wearable solution named Virtual Touch to augment the BVI’s perceptive power so they can perceive objects near and far in their surrounding environment in a touch-free manner and consequently carry out activities of daily living during pandemics more intuitively, safely, and independently. The Virtual Touch feature contains a camera with a novel point-based neural network TouchNet tailored for real-time blind-centered object detection, and a headphone telling the BVI the semantic labels. Through finger pointing, the BVI end user indicates where he or she is paying attention to relative to their egocentric coordinate system, based on which we build attention-driven spatial intelligence.
Comparison of Generalized Sidelobe Canceller Structures Incorporating External Microphones for Joint Noise and Interferer Reduction

In this paper, we compare two extended generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) structures, which exploit external microphones in conjunction with a local microphone array to improve the noise and interferer reduction. As a baseline algorithm we consider a local GSC using only the local microphones, for which the relative transfer function (RTF) vector of the target speaker is known. To incorporate the external microphones in a minimum power distortionless response beamformer, the RTF vector of the target speaker needs to be estimated. Since the estimation accuracy of this RTF vector depends on the signal-to-interferer ratio, the GSC with external speech references (GSC-ESR) pre-processes the external microphone signals to reduce the interferer. In a simplified extended structure, namely the GSC with external references (GSC-ER) no such pre-filtering operation is performed. Simulation results show that the GSC-ESR structure yields the best results in terms of noise and interferer reduction, especially in adverse conditions.
Code Conversion From Java to C#

: Nowadays there are lots of programming languages in use widely, only some of them appear as widely used and learned. Many of them require a calculation sequence (imperative form); others simply indicate the desired results (declarative form). System proposed some ways to convert java code to C# in this paper. The proposed algorithm which works for the proposed code conversion approach is called Source Code Migration (SCM) algorithm. After implementing this algorithm it ensures that algorithm works for code conversion from java to C# language.
Modeling of interruptions in human-agent interaction

Turn management is one of the skills necessary for social interactions. In human-human interactions, the exchange of turns is naturally completed by interruption, a communicative act connoting “cooperation” or “competition”. Interruptions, which at first glance can be considered as discourteous, are inherent in interaction and must therefore be modelled to create new interfaces such as Embodied Conversational Agent. A challenge is then to manage these agents, represented graphically so that they communicate autonomously with humans both verbally and nonverbally. This article presents ongoing work whose goal is to animate an Embodied Conversational Agent capable of managing the interruptions in an interaction. In particular, we are interested in when and how to appropriately interrupt humans without offending them and how to respond appropriately when interrupted. In order to achieve this goal, we start by analyzing human-human interaction data.
The application of sustainable behaviour change strategies in three built environment companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of methods derived from the study of social psychology to motive better sustainable behaviour in the workforces of built environment companies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines the multi‐methodological approach used to obtain the conclusions about the use of social psychological techniques. It also describes why case studies were the most appropriate framework for the study, based on the complex nature of both the companies that participated in the research, and the complex nature of sustainable development.Findings – The study shows that the application of motivational methods based on social psychology are effective in raising awareness of sustainability issues and, in one case, had a marked effect on the future path of the company. Leaders of built environment companies that are interested in improving sustainable performance should study these techniques and, in particular, consider their leadership style and method of messag.
Human-Plant Coevolution: A modelling framework for theory-building on the origins of agriculture

The domestication of plants and the origin of agricultural societies has been the focus of much theoretical discussion on why, how, when, and where these happened. The ‘when’ and ‘where’ have been substantially addressed by bioarchaeology, thanks to advances in methodology and the broadening of the geographical and chronological scope of evidence. However, the ‘why’ and ‘how’ have lagged behind, holding on to relatively old models with limited explanatory power. Armed with the evidence now available, we can return to theory by revisiting the mechanisms allegedly involved, disentangling their connection to the diversity of trajectories, and identifying the weight and role of the parameters involved. We present the Human-Plant Coevolution (HPC) model, which represents the dynamics of coevolution between a human and a plant population. The model consists of an ecological positive feedback system (mutualism), which can be reinforced by positive evolutionary feedback (coevolution). The model formulation is the result of wiring together relatively simple simulation models of population ecology and evolution, through a computational implementation in R. The HPC model captures a variety of potential scenarios, though which conditions are linked to the degree and timing of population change and the intensity of selective pressures. Our results confirm that the possible trajectories leading to neolithisation are diverse and involve multiple factors. However, simulations also show how some of those factors are entangled, what are their effects on human and plant populations under different conditions, and what might be the main causes fostering agriculture and domestication.
Navy EO sensor test-bed development for infrared search and track

The U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research (ONR) is developing electro-optical (EO) sensor testbeds based on second-generation infrared (IR) focal plane array (FPA) technology, to be used for research and system demonstration in both shipboard and airborne applications. These technology-base sensors will demonstrate the functionality as well as many of the operational characteristics necessary ultimately in fielded infrared search and track (IRST) systems. The shipboard application involves the augmentation of existing and developmental radar assets in countering the advanced, sea-skimming, anti-ship missile (ASM) threat for mast-mounted use aboard high-value surface combatants. The ONR shipboard IRST testbed, the focus of this paper, currently is completing development, integration, and testing activities; BDM Federal (Arlington, Virginia) has supported these activities under contract to ONR over the past three years. The shipboard IRST testbed employs two separate, scanning FPAs covering the long wavelength IR (LWIR) and medium wavelength IR (MWIR). Preliminary test results show both a good correlation to predicted performance and a high level of absolute performance in terms of sensitivity and stabilization.
Different Learning Trajectories for Performance in New Niches: Role of the Breadth and Depth of Experience and Entry Sequence

Research has only very recently started to consider within-industry diversification as a relevant and a different problem compared to inter-industry diversification (Zahavi and Lavie, 2013). In industries where new niches appear, it is crucial for firms to enter right niches in the right time for adaptation. Firms could leverage their experience accumulated in current markets (King and Tucci, 2002) but applicability of this could be limited due to different requirements of the focal niche. On the other hand, it is suggested that diversity of past entry experience helps in further entry to new niches by developing higher order routines for entry, but firms have difficulty in entering new niches early in their lives (Eggers, 2012). Although these studies suggest routes to action, they are scattered and conflicting at times. Considering both breadth and relatedness of experience allows two interesting questions: Is there a trade-off in leveraging different kinds of experience and does it matter how experience is accumulated, beyond what experience is accumulated? I will be arguing and testing for the trade-off between different types of experience and moderating effects of sequence of entry the breadth of experience itself in the context of entering new niches. Testing these hypotheses in the US Video game industry since its inception, preliminary results show support for the lasting effect of entry sequence in moderating the effect of experience itself. On the other hand, it is found to be different experience types complement each other, rather than trading-off. These findings may explain how firms go through different "learning trajectories" as they benefit from leveraging both types of experience through close entries or learning to explore markets.
Investigating inclusive practice in international schooling: a case study of two schools

Although the underlying principles and the founding history of international schools supposedly advocate the notions of providing equal opportunities, catering for diversity, and promoting global citizenship, the dimensions of inclusive education might not be self-evident. Findings from this qualitative case study show that the understanding of inclusion in the context of international schools goes beyond disabilities and special education needs. Several approaches to evolving inclusive practice are highlighted. However, there are tensions between different stakeholders of international schools in defining inclusion; between the rhetoric of inclusion found in school documents and the reality, and between the original philosophy of international education and schools’ admission policies.