Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OsCASP1 Is Required for Casparian Strip Formation at Endodermal Cells of Rice Roots for Selective Uptake of Mineral Elements

Casparian strips at the endodermis of roots mediate the selective uptake of mineral elements in rice by preventing apoplastic flow and have impacts on transporter protein abundance. In response to diverse environmental conditions, rice (Oryza sativa) roots have developed one Casparian strip (CS) at the exodermis and one CS at the endodermis. Here, we functionally characterized OsCASP1 (Casparian strip domain protein 1) in rice. OsCASP1 was mainly expressed in the root elongation zone, and the protein encoded was first localized to all sides of the plasma membrane of endodermal cells without CS, followed by the middle of the anticlinal side of endodermal cells with CS. Knockout of OsCASP1 resulted in a defect of CS formation at the endodermis and decreased growth under both soil and hydroponic conditions. Mineral analysis showed that the oscasp1 mutants accumulated more Ca, but less Mn, Zn, Fe, Cd, and As in the shoots compared with the wild type. The growth inhibition of the mutants was further aggravated by high Ca in growth medium. The polar localization of the Si transporter Low Si 1 at the distal side of the endodermis was not altered in the mutant, but the protein abundance was decreased, resulting in a substantial reduction in silicon uptake. These results indicated that OsCASP1 is required for CS formation at the endodermis and that the CS in rice plays an important role in root selective uptake of mineral elements, especially Ca and Si.
Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys: Delivering Robust Data on Children and Women across the Globe

Abstract This article provides an overview of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) as a data source. MICS—one of the largest household survey programs focused on children and women—has covered 116 countries, many over several rounds of surveys producing trend data. Data are collected on a range of indicators for children, adolescents, women, and in recent years, men. Topics include fertility, mortality, contraceptive use, unmet need, maternal and newborn health, female genital mutilation, menstrual hygiene management, child illness and treatment, and child development and nutrition, among others. The surveys are cross‐sectional and use multistage probability designs to develop representative samples of households at the national and subnational levels. Survey interviews are conducted with: a household respondent who provides data on the household status; women and men aged 15–49 who provide current status and retrospective data on themselves; and mothers (or caregivers) who provide data on children under age 18. Data can be compared across countries and time for the most part, provide a wealth of indicators across research fields, and are open access. Data can be accessed on the MICS website where users are granted access to the MICS datasets for research purposes.
LOTTE-seq (Long hairpin oligonucleotide based tRNA high-throughput sequencing): specific selection of tRNAs with 3’-CCA end for high-throughput sequencing

ABSTRACT Transfer RNAs belong to the most abundant type of ribonucleic acid in the cell, and detailed investigations revealed correlations between alterations in the tRNA pool composition and certain diseases like breast cancer. However, currently available methods do not sample the entire tRNA pool or lack specificity for tRNAs. A specific disadvantage of such methods is that only full-length tRNAs are analysed, while tRNA fragments or incomplete cDNAs due to RT stops at modified nucleosides are lost. Another drawback in certain approaches is that the tRNA fraction has to be isolated and separated from high molecular weight RNA, resulting in considerable labour costs and loss of material. Based on a hairpin-shaped adapter oligonucleotide selective for tRNA transcripts, we developed a highly specific protocol for efficient and comprehensive high-throughput analysis of tRNAs that combines the benefits of existing methods and eliminates their disadvantages. Due to a 3ʹ-TGG overhang, the adapter is specifically ligated to the tRNA 3ʹ-CCA end. Reverse transcription prior to the ligation of a second adapter allows to include prematurely terminated cDNA products, increasing the number of tRNA reads. This strategy renders this approach a powerful and universal tool to analyse the tRNA pool of cells and organisms under different conditions in health and disease.
Cytolinker Gas2L1 regulates axon morphology through microtubule‐modulated actin stabilization

Crosstalk between the actin and microtubule cytoskeletons underlies cellular morphogenesis. Interactions between actin filaments and microtubules are particularly important for establishing the complex polarized morphology of neurons. Here, we characterized the neuronal function of growth arrest‐specific 2‐like 1 (Gas2L1), a protein that can directly bind to actin, microtubules and microtubule plus‐end‐tracking end binding proteins. We found that Gas2L1 promotes axon branching, but restricts axon elongation in cultured rat hippocampal neurons. Using pull‐down experiments and in vitro reconstitution assays, in which purified Gas2L1 was combined with actin and dynamic microtubules, we demonstrated that Gas2L1 is autoinhibited. This autoinhibition is relieved by simultaneous binding to actin filaments and microtubules. In neurons, Gas2L1 primarily localizes to the actin cytoskeleton and functions as an actin stabilizer. The microtubule‐binding tail region of Gas2L1 directs its actin‐stabilizing activity towards the axon. We propose that Gas2L1 acts as an actin regulator, the function of which is spatially modulated by microtubules.
Eddy current separation for recovering aluminium and lithium-iron phosphate components of spent lithium-iron phosphate batteries

With the rapid development of the electric vehicle market since 2012, lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries face retirement intensively. Numerous LFP batteries have been generated given their short service life. Thus, recycling spent LFP batteries is crucial. However, published information on the recovery technology of spent LFP batteries is minimal. Traditional separators and separation theories of recovering technologies were unsuitable for guiding the separation process of recovering metals from spent LFP batteries. The separation rate of the current method for recovering spent LFP batteries was rather low. Furthermore, some wastewater was produced. In this study, spent LFP batteries were dismantled into individual parts of aluminium shells, cathode slices, polymer diaphragms and anode slices. The anode pieces were scraped to separate copper foil and anode powder. The cathode pieces were thermally treated to reduce adhesion between the cathode powder and the aluminium foil. The dissociation rate of the cathode slices reached 100% after crushing when the temperature and time reached 300℃ and 120 min, respectively. Eddy current separation was performed to separate nonferrous metals (aluminium) from aluminium and LFP mixture. The optimized operation parameters for the eddy current separation were feeding speed of 1 m/s and magnetic field rotation speed of 4 m/s. The separation rate of the eddy current separation reached 100%. Mass balance of the recovered materials was conducted. Results showed that the recovery rate of spent LFP can reach 92.52%. This study established a green and full material recovery process for spent LFP batteries.
MicroRNA-608 sensitizes non-small cell lung cancer cells to cisplatin by targeting TEAD2

Cisplatin has been widely used as a conventional treatment for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, primary and acquired cisplatin resistances are frequently developed during the treatment of patients with NSCLC, leading to an increased mortality rate. Accumulating evidence demonstrated that aberrantly expressed microRNAs (miRs) are involved in the development of chemoresistance. In the present study, sensitivity of NSCLC cells to cisplatin was identified to increase following overexpression of miR-608. Conversely, sensitivity to cisplatin was reduced following miR-608 knockdown. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blotting analyses identified that TEA domain transcription factor 2 (TEAD2), a key regulator of cell stemness, was negatively regulated by miR-608 in NSCLC cells. By repressing TEAD2, miR-608 decreased the expression level of several target genes of the Hippo-yes-associated protein signaling pathway. Furthermore, TEAD2 mRNA was confirmed to be targeted by miR-608 in NSCLC cells via a dual-luciferase reporter assay. Importantly, the increased cisplatin sensitivity induced by miR-608 overexpression was reversed by transfection of TEAD2 in NSCLC cells. The present data suggested that miR-608 may represent a novel candidate biomarker for the evaluation of cisplatin sensitivity in patients with NSCLC.
Coherence analysis and Laplacian energy of recursive trees with controlled initial states

We study the consensus of a family of recursive trees with novel features that include the initial states controlled by a parameter. The consensus problem in a linear system with additive noises is characterized as network coherence, which is defined by a Laplacian spectrum. Based on the structures of our recursive treelike model, we obtain the recursive relationships for Laplacian eigenvalues in two successive steps and further derive the exact solutions of first- and second-order coherences, which are calculated by the sum and square sum of the reciprocal of all nonzero Laplacian eigenvalues. For a large network size N , the scalings of the first- and second-order coherences are ln N and N , respectively. The smaller the number of initial nodes, the better the consensus bears. Finally, we numerically investigate the relationship between network coherence and Laplacian energy, showing that the first- and second-order coherences increase with the increase of Laplacian energy at approximately exponential and linear rates, respectively.
Über die Struktur und die Eigenschaften der Halbmetalle

Vor Jahren haben wir die Ansicht ausgesprochen, daß Selen und Schwefel im geschmolzenen hochviskosen sowie im amorph abgeschreckten Zustand vorwiegend ringförmig gebaut sind. Die in der Literatur dagegen angeführten Argumente werden besprochen. Insbesondere werden die nach der paramagnetischen Resonanzmethode durchgeführten Messungen der Radikalkonzentration von GARDENER und FRAENKEL an Hand des Ringmodells diskutiert. Für die Entstehung der verschiedenen amorphen und flüssigen Schwefelformen wird eine molekularkinetische Deutung gegeben.
“Induced Electron Transfer” in Silk Cocoon Derived N-Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide-Mo-Li-S Electrode

Developing 'carbon lithium sulfide composite (C-Li2S)' cathode is a promising strategy for Li-S battery. Quite interestingly, when Li and S are caged in a heavily nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (NDRGO) matrix derived from Tassar silk cocoon, the composite (NDRGO-Li-S) electrode behaves like a supercapacitor. In this work, we first optimized the concentrations of sulfur and then introduced molybdenum in the NDRGO matrix to develop a stable NDRGO-Mo-Li-2S (where 2 stands for 2M) composite electrode. The electrode design process utilized the concepts of ‘embedded redox couples' and ‘induced electron transfer’; a putative strategy to alter internal electron-shuttling kinetics for applications in various charge storage devices; where a time of electron-shuttling is the key. In NDRGO-Mo-Li-2S composite the charge transport occurs via ‘induced electron transfer’, where Li+, is an external oxidant, provoking the inter atom electron transfer between Mo(VI), the internal oxidant, and S(-II), the internal reductant in Mo-S redox couple. This redox reaction is reversed using NDRGO, an external reductant inducing inter atom electron flow across (Mo(V)–(S2)) to complete the starting to product and back cycle. Such a redox cycle is competent for the flow of electrons in a lasting charge storage material through this unique bio-inorganic hybrid approach.
The Effects of the Environment on the Drawings of an Extraordinarily Productive Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) Artist

We report on the case of an extraordinary orangutan who spontaneously produced over a thousand drawings in 5 years. This female orangutan, Molly, started drawing when she was estimated to be 50 years old. Although it has been established that great apes spontaneously draw without training, she produced an enormous number of paintings in her old age, and the numbers of lines and colors in her drawings varied from day to day. As her drawings seemed to be affected by her surroundings, we attempted to analyze quantitatively relationships between her drawings and potentially influential factors during a specific period in which no ostensibly major events were observed. According to our results, her drawings were affected by the identity of her keeper, implying that her drawing behavior may have been affected by environmental factors. Thus, drawings may serve as windows to the internal states of non-human primates.
Development and Validation of a Gyroscope-Based Turn Detection Algorithm for Alpine Skiing in the Field

Several methodologies have been proposed to determine turn switches in alpine skiing. A recent study using inertial measurement units (IMU) was able to accurately detect turn switch points in controlled lab conditions. However, this method has yet to be validated during actual skiing in the field. The aim of this study was to further develop and validate this methodology to accurately detect turns in the field, where factors such as slope conditions, velocity, turn length, and turn style can influence the recorded data. A secondary aim was to identify runs. Different turn styles were performed (carving long, short, drifted, and snowplow turns) and the performance of the turn detection algorithm was assessed using the ratio, precision, and recall. Short carved turns showed values of 0.996 and 0.996, carving long 1.007 and 0.993, drifted 0.833 and 1.000 and snowplow 0.538 and 0.839 for ratio and precision, respectively. The results indicated that the improved system was valid and accurate for detecting runs and carved turns. However, for drifted turns, while all the turns detected were real, some real turns were missing. Further development needs to be done to include snowplow skiing.
Dimethylethanolamine Decreases Epileptiform Activity in Acute Human Hippocampal Slices in vitro

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of focal epilepsy with about 30% of patients developing pharmacoresistance. These patients continue to suffer from seizures despite polytherapy with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and have an increased risk for premature death, thus requiring further efforts for the development of new antiepileptic therapies. The molecule dimethylethanolamine (DMEA) has been tested as a potential treatment in various neurological diseases, albeit the functional mechanism of action was never fully understood. In this study, we investigated the effects of DMEA on neuronal activity in single-cell recordings of primary neuronal cultures. DMEA decreased the frequency of spontaneous synaptic events in a concentration-dependent manner with no apparent effect on resting membrane potential (RMP) or action potential (AP) threshold. We further tested whether DMEA can exert antiepileptic effects in human brain tissue ex vivo. We analyzed the effect of DMEA on epileptiform activity in the CA1 region of the resected hippocampus of TLE patients in vitro by recording extracellular field potentials in the pyramidal cell layer. Epileptiform burst activity in resected hippocampal tissue from TLE patients remained stable over several hours and was pharmacologically suppressed by lacosamide, demonstrating the applicability of our platform to test antiepileptic efficacy. Similar to lacosamide, DMEA also suppressed epileptiform activity in the majority of samples, albeit with variable interindividual effects. In conclusion, DMEA might present a new approach for treatment in pharmacoresistant TLE and further studies will be required to identify its exact mechanism of action and the involved molecular targets.
Development and External Validation of a Novel 12-Gene Signature for Prediction of Overall Survival in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer

Purpose: We aimed to develop and validate a novel gene signature from published data and improve the prediction of survival in muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Methods: We searched the published gene signatures associated with the overall survival (OS) of MIBC and compiled all 274 genes to develop a novel gene signature. RNAseq data of TCGA (the Cancer Genome Atlas) bladder cohort were downloaded. All genes were included in a univariate Cox hazard ratio model. We then used a reduced multivariate Cox regression model, which included only genes achieving P < 0.05 in the univariate model. A total of 172 patients at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center (FUSCC) and 61 patients from GEO datasets were used as an external validation set. Results: A total of 327 patients in the TCGA cohort were enrolled. We identified 274 genes from eight published papers on the OS of MIBC. Using the TCGA database, we identified 12 genes that correlated with OS (P < 0.05 in both univariate and multivariate analyses). By integrating these genes with the RT-qPCR data in our validation dataset and GEO datasets, we confirmed that the power for predicting OS of the 12-gene panel (AUC of 0.741 and 0.727, respectively) was higher than just clinical data (including gender, age, T stage, grade, and N stage) alone in the TCGA and FUSCC cohort (AUC of 0.667 and 0.631, respectively). Additionally, upon combining the clinical data and 12-gene panel together, the AUC increased to 0.768, 0.757, and 0.88 in the TCGA, FUSCC and GSE13507 cohorts, respectively. Conclusions: Applying published gene signatures and TCGA data, we successfully built and externally validated a novel 12-gene signature for the survival of MIBC. Brief Explanation We systemically reviewed all published prognostic gene signatures of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and integrated the genes in the TCGA MIBC cohort. This new gene panel was validated in a newly established MIBC cohort in GEO and FUSCC. This method can help update the previous established panels in a new way.
A Novel Virtual Sample Generation Method to Overcome the Small Sample Size Problem in Computer Aided Medical Diagnosing

Deep neural networks are successful learning tools for building nonlinear models. However, a robust deep learning-based classification model needs a large dataset. Indeed, these models are often unstable when they use small datasets. To solve this issue, which is particularly critical in light of the possible clinical applications of these predictive models, researchers have developed approaches such as virtual sample generation. Virtual sample generation significantly improves learning and classification performance when working with small samples. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the ability of the proposed virtual sample generation to overcome the small sample size problem, which is a feature of the automated detection of a neurodevelopmental disorder, namely autism spectrum disorder. Results show that our method enhances diagnostic accuracy from 84%–95% using virtual samples generated on the basis of five actual clinical samples. The present findings show the feasibility of using the proposed technique to improve classification performance even in cases of clinical samples of limited size. Accounting for concerns in relation to small sample sizes, our technique represents a meaningful step forward in terms of pattern recognition methodology, particularly when it is applied to diagnostic classifications of neurodevelopmental disorders. Besides, the proposed technique has been tested with other available benchmark datasets. The experimental outcomes showed that the accuracy of the classification that used virtual samples was superior to the one that used original training data without virtual samples.
LMI Pole Regions for a Robust Discrete-Time Pole Placement Controller Design

Herein, robust pole placement controller design for linear uncertain discrete time dynamic systems is addressed. The adopted approach uses the so called “D regions” where the closed loop system poles are determined to lie. The discrete time pole regions corresponding to the prescribed damping of the resulting closed loop system are studied. The key issue is to determine the appropriate convex approximation to the originally non-convex discrete-time system pole region, so that numerically efficient robust controller design algorithms based on Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI) can be used. Several alternatives for relatively simple inner approximations and their corresponding LMI descriptions are presented. The developed LMI region for the prescribed damping can be arbitrarily combined with other LMI pole limitations (e.g., stability degree). Simple algorithms to calculate the matrices for LMI representation of the proposed convex pole regions are provided in a concise way. The results and their use in a robust controller design are illustrated on a case study of a laboratory magnetic levitation system.
Point Pattern Synthesis via Irregular Convolution

Point pattern synthesis is a fundamental tool with various applications in computer graphics. To synthesize a point pattern, some techniques have taken an example‐based approach, where the user provides a small exemplar of the target pattern. However, it remains challenging to synthesize patterns that faithfully capture the structures in the given exemplar. In this paper, we present a new example‐based point pattern synthesis method that preserves both local and non‐local structures present in the exemplar. Our method leverages recent neural texture synthesis techniques that have proven effective in synthesizing structured textures. The network that we present is end‐to‐end. It utilizes an irregular convolution layer, which converts a point pattern into a gridded feature map, to directly optimize point coordinates. The synthesis is then performed by matching inter‐ and intra‐correlations of the responses produced by subsequent convolution layers. We demonstrate that our point pattern synthesis qualitatively outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods on challenging structured patterns, and enables various graphical applications, such as object placement in natural scenes, creative element patterns or realistic urban layouts in a 3D virtual environment.
Structured Regularization of Functional Map Computations

We consider the problem of non‐rigid shape matching using the functional map framework. Specifically, we analyze a commonly used approach for regularizing functional maps, which consists in penalizing the failure of the unknown map to commute with the Laplace‐Beltrami operators on the source and target shapes. We show that this approach has certain undesirable fundamental theoretical limitations, and can be undefined even for trivial maps in the smooth setting. Instead we propose a novel, theoretically well‐justified approach for regularizing functional maps, by using the notion of the resolvent of the Laplacian operator. In addition, we provide a natural one‐parameter family of regularizers, that can be easily tuned depending on the expected approximate isometry of the input shape pair. We show on a wide range of shape correspondence scenarios that our novel regularization leads to an improvement in the quality of the estimated functional, and ultimately pointwise correspondences before and after commonly‐used refinement techniques.