Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decoding Spatial Versus Non-spatial Processing in Auditory Working Memory

Objective Research on visual working memory has shown that individual stimulus features are processed in both specialized sensory regions and higher cortical areas. Much less evidence exists for auditory working memory. Here, a main distinction has been proposed between the processing of spatial and non-spatial sound features. Our aim was to examine feature-specific activation patterns in auditory working memory. Methods We collected fMRI data while 28 healthy adults performed an auditory delayed match-to-sample task. Stimuli were abstract sounds characterized by both spatial and non-spatial information, i.e., interaural time delay and central frequency, respectively. In separate recording blocks, subjects had to memorize either the spatial or non-spatial feature, which had to be compared with a probe sound presented after a short delay. We performed both univariate and multivariate comparisons between spatial and non-spatial task blocks. Results Processing of spatial sound features elicited a higher activity in a small cluster in the superior parietal lobe than did sound pattern processing, whereas there was no significant activation difference for the opposite contrast. The multivariate analysis was applied using a whole-brain searchlight approach to identify feature-selective processing. The task-relevant auditory feature could be decoded from multiple brain regions including the auditory cortex, posterior temporal cortex, middle occipital gyrus, and extended parietal and frontal regions. Conclusion In summary, the lack of large univariate activation differences between spatial and non-spatial processing could be attributable to the identical stimulation in both tasks. In contrast, the whole-brain multivariate analysis identified feature-specific activation patterns in widespread cortical regions. This suggests that areas beyond the auditory dorsal and ventral streams contribute to working memory processing of auditory stimulus features.
Body Mass Index Trajectories in the First 5 Years and Associated Antenatal Factors

Background: The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity is an important public health issue and the development of obesity in early life and associated risk factors need to be better understood. The aim of this study was to identify distinct body mass index trajectories in the first 5 years of life and to examine their associations with factors identified in pregnancy, including metabolic parameters. Methods: BMI measurements from 2,172 children in Ireland enrolled in the BASELINE cohort study with BMI assessments at birth, 2, 6, and 12 months, and 2 and 5 years were analyzed. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify distinct BMI trajectories, and multivariate multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the association between these trajectories and antenatal factors. Results: Three distinct BMI trajectories were identified: normal (89.6%); rapid gain in the first 6 months (7.8%); and rapid BMI after 12 months (2.6%). Male sex and higher maternal age increased the likelihood of belonging to the rapid gain in the first 6 months trajectory. Raised maternal BMI at 15 weeks of pregnancy and lower cord blood IGF-2 were associated with rapid gain after 1 year. Conclusion: Sex, maternal age and BMI, and IGF-2 levels were found to be associated with BMI trajectories in early childhood departing from normal growth. Further research and extended follow-up to examine the effects of childhood growth patterns are required to understand their relationship with health outcomes.
Genotype-Phenotype Analysis and Mutation Spectrum in a Cohort of Chinese Patients With Congenital Nystagmus

Purpose: Congenital nystagmus (CN) is a genetically and clinically heterogeneous ocular disorder that manifests as involuntary, periodic oscillations of the eyes. To date, only FRMD7 and GPR143 have been reported to be responsible for causing CN. Here, we aimed to identify the disease-causing mutations and describe the clinical features in the affected members in our study. Methods: All the subjects underwent a detailed ophthalmic examination. Direct sequencing of all coding exons and splice site regions in FRMD7 and GPR143 and a mutation assessment were performed in each patient. Results: We found 14 mutations in 14/37 (37.8%) probands, including nine mutations in the FRMD7 gene and five mutations in the GPR143 gene, seven of which are novel, including c.284G>A(R95K), c.964C>T(P322S), c.284+10T>G, c.901T>C (Y301H), and c. 2014_2023delTCACCCATGG(S672Pfs*12) in FRMD7, and c.250+1G>C, and c.485G>A (W162*) in GPR143. The mutation detection rate was 87.5% (7/8) of familial vs. 24.1% (7/29) of sporadic cases. Ten mutations in 24 (41.7%) non-syndromic subjects and 4 mutations in 13(30.8%) syndromic subjects were detected. A total of 77.8% (7/9) of mutations in FRMD7 were concentrated within the FERM and FA domains, while all mutations in GPR143 were located in exons 1, 2, 4 and 6. We observed that visual acuity tended to be worse in the GPR143 group than in the FRMD7 group, and no obvious difference in other clinical manifestations was found through comparisons in different groups of patients. Conclusions: This study identified 14 mutations (seven novel and seven known) in eight familial and 29 sporadic patients with congenital nystagmus, expanding the mutational spectrum and validating FRMD7 and GPR143 as mutation hotspots. These findings also revealed a significant difference in the screening rate between different groups of participants, providing new insights for the strategy of genetic screening and early clinical diagnosis of CN.
Inhibitory control deficits in vascular cognitive impairment revealed using the MILO task

We used the MILO (Multi-Item Localization) task to characterise the performance of a group of older adults diagnosed with mild to moderate vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). The MILO task is designed to explore the temporal context of visual search and in addition to measuring overall completion time, provides a profile of serial reaction time (SRT) patterns across all items in a sequence. Of particular interest here is the Vanish/Remain MILO manipulation that can identify problems with inhibitory control during search. Typically, SRT functions closely overlap, regardless of whether items Vanish or Remain visible when selected, indicating an ability to ignore previously selected targets. Based on the distributed nature of VCI-related pathology and previous visual search studies from our group, we speculated that MILO performance would be compromised in this group of participants when items remained visible after being selected relative to when they vanished. Compared to cognitively healthy, age-matched control participants, the performance of VCI participants was characterised by overall slowing, increased error rates, and crucially, a compromised ability to ignore past locations. As predicted, the Vanish versus Remain SRT functions of VCI participants significantly diverged towards the end of the sequence, which was not the case for control groups. Overall, our findings suggest that the MILO task could be a useful tool for identifying non-age-related changes in behaviour with patient populations, and more generally hints at a possible inhibitory deficit in VCI.
NOVEL POLAROGRAPHIC METHODS FOR DETERMINATION OF PIOGLITAZONE HCL IN PURE FORM AND PHARMACEUTICAL FORMULATIONS

A sensitive methods are described for the determination of pioglitazone HCl(PGZ-HCl) as anti-diabetic drug in its pure form and pharmaceutical formulations. The proposed methods depends on the polarographic activity of PGZ-HCl in Britton-Robinson buffer over the pH range2-12 using direct current (DC) and differential pulse polarography (DPP), and it showed well-defined two cathodic peaks with high selectivity. Its electrochemical behavior at a dropping mercury electrode (DME) and stating mercury drop electrode (SMDE) has been investigated. Polarograms of the drug at DME & SMDE in B–R buffer at pH 6.0 exhibited two 2-electron irreversible cathodic peaks, the first peak (Ep1) is in the range of potential at -0.05V to -0.10V,while the second peak (Ep2) is in the potential ranges at -0.975V to -1.10V versus Ag/AgCl. The first and second peaks may be attributed to the reduction of oxy group (peak1) and C=N group (peak2), respectively. The diffusion current–concentration relationship was found to be rectilinear over the range1.6–224 µg. mL-1 and 1.6–28 µg. mL-1 for Ep1 and over the ranges 1.6–256 µg. mL -1 and 1.6–32 µg. mL -1 for Ep2 using DME & SMDE, respectively, with limit of quantifying PGZ-HCl was 1.6 µg. mL -1 , and relative standard deviation (RSD) ±4.0% & ±4.3% for Ep1 & Ep2 using DME and ±3.6% & ±3.8% for Ep1 & Ep2 using SMDE. The peaks were characterized as being irreversible, diffusion-controlled although adsorption phenomenon played a limited role in the electrode process. The proposed methods were novel, simple, accurate and successfully applied to the determination PGZ-HCl in pharmaceuticals and the average percentage recovery was in agreement with that obtained by the official USP method.
Towards an Interactive Learning Ecosystem: Education in Power Systems

In this paper, it is presented the ongoing work on developing an Interactive Learning Ecosystem for power systems education and training. Opportunities to employ low-cost human computer interfaces for creating an Interactive Learning Ecosystem based on intelligent Human-Computer Interfaces are presented. Then, an Interactive Learning Ecosystem framework is shown. The ongoing work integrating these interfaces within Virtual Reality systems that compose a power systems education ecosystem are presented and discussed.
Variational Gaussian Process for Optimal Sensor Placement

Sensor placement is an optimisation problem that has recently gained great relevance. In order to achieve accurate online updates of a predictive model, sensors are used to provide observations. When sensor location is optimally selected, the predictive model can greatly reduce its internal errors. A greedy-selection algorithm is used for locating these optimal spatial locations from a numerical embedded space. A novel architecture for solving this big data problem is proposed, relying on a variational Gaussian process. The generalisation of the model is further improved via the preconditioning of its inputs: Masked Autoregressive Flows are implemented to learn nonlinear, invertible transformations of the conditionally modelled spatial features. Finally, a global optimisation strategy extending the Mutual Information-based optimisation and fine-tuning of the selected optimal location is proposed. The methodology is parallelised to speed up the computational time, making these tools very fast despite the high complexity associated with both spatial modelling and placement tasks. The model is applied to a real three-dimensional test case considering a room within the Clarence Centre building located in Elephant and Castle, London, UK.
Flexibility and resilience of great tit (Parus major) gut microbiomes to changing diets

Background Gut microbial communities play important roles in nutrient management and can change in response to host diets. The extent of this flexibility and the concomitant resilience is largely unknown in wild animals. To untangle the dynamics of avian-gut microbiome symbiosis associated with diet changes, we exposed Parus major (Great tits) fed with a standard diet (seeds and mealworms) to either a mixed (seeds, mealworms and fruits), a seed, or a mealworm diet for 4 weeks, and examined the flexibility of gut microbiomes to these compositionally different diets. To assess microbiome resilience (recovery potential), all individuals were subsequently reversed to a standard diet for another 4 weeks. Cloacal microbiomes were collected weekly and characterised through sequencing the v4 region of the 16S rRNA gene using Illumina MiSeq. Results Initial microbiomes changed significantly with the diet manipulation, but the communities did not differ significantly between the three diet groups (mixed, seed and mealworm), despite multiple diet-specific changes in certain bacterial genera. Reverting birds to the standard diet led only to a partial recovery in gut community compositions. The majority of the bacterial taxa that increased significantly during diet manipulation decreased in relative abundance after reversion to the standard diet; however, bacterial taxa that decreased during the manipulation rarely increased after diet reversal Conclusions The gut microbial response and partial resilience to dietary changes support that gut bacterial communities of P. major play a role in accommodating dietary changes experienced by wild avian hosts. This may be a contributing factor to the relaxed association between microbiome composition and the bird phylogeny. Our findings further imply that interpretations of wild bird gut microbiome analyses from single-time point sampling, especially for omnivorous species or species with seasonally changing diets, should be done with caution. The partial community recovery implies that ecologically relevant diet changes (e.g., seasonality and migration) open up gut niches that may be filled by previously abundant microbes or replaced by different symbiont lineages, which has important implications for the integrity and specificity of long-term avian-symbiont associations.
An XFEM/DG Approach for Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems with Contact

In this work, we address the problem of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) with moving structures that may come into contact. We propose a penalization contact algorithm implemented in an unfitted numerical framework designed to treat large displacements. In the proposed method, the fluid mesh is fixed and the structure meshes are superimposed to it without any constraint on the conformity. Thanks to the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM), we can treat discontinuities of the fluid solution on the mesh elements intersecting the structure. The coupling conditions at the fluid-structure interface are enforced via a discontinuous Galerkin mortaring technique, which is a penalization method that ensures the consistency of the scheme with the underlining problem. Concerning the contact problem, we consider a frictionless contact model in a master/slave approach. By considering the coupled FSI-contact problem, we perform some numerical tests to assess the sensitivity of the proposed method with respect to the discretization and contact parameters and we show some examples in the case of contact between a flexible body and a rigid wall and between two deformable structures.
Continuous atom transfer radical block copolymerization of methacrylates

A column reactor packed with silica-gel-supported copper bromide (CuBr)–hexamethyltriethylenetetramine (HMTETA) was developed for the continuous-transition–metal-mediated living/controlled radical polymerization [atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP)] for homo- and block copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA). The reactor showed good stability (>100 h) in both catalyst activity and molecular weight of the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) produced. The MMA conversion decreased as the flow rate increased. The polymerization in the reactor was in first order with respect to monomer concentration. The molecular weight of the resulting PMMA increased linearly with MMA conversion, exhibiting the characteristic feature of living polymerization. Thus, simply changing the flow rate of MMA, which in turn determined the MMA conversion, readily controlled the molecular weight of PMMA. The block copolymerization of MMA with n-butyl methacrylate (nBMA) was carried out using two reactors connected in series. The block copolymers were slightly contaminated by PMMA prepolymer from the first column. The molecular weight of the nBMA block could be changed by the flow rate of the nBMA in the second reactor. This packed column reactor technology is feasible for continuously synthesizing polymers or block copolymers with controlled molecular weights that are readily adjustable by changing the monomer flow rates.
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for the Determination of 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene and Related Nitroaromatic Compounds

A sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the determination of the explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and other nitroaromatic compounds was developed. As tracer, a trinitrophenyl-derivative conjugated to horseradish peroxidase was used. With this competitive assay, performed in polystyrene microtitre plates, TNT can be detected within the range of 0.02 μg/1 and 20μg/l. Cross-reactivities at the center points (50% values) of several nitroaromatic compounds were determined. Additionally, the cross-reactivities at different concentrations of the analytes were stated to yield a more realistic estimation of the interferences. Finally, the applicability of the immunoassay to the determination of TNT in water samples was assessed.
From Classical to Fuzzy Databases in a Production Enterprise

This article presents the evolution of databases from classical relational databases to distributed databases and data warehouses to fuzzy databases used in a production enterprise. This paper discusses characteristics of this kind of enterprise. The authors precisely define centralized and distributed databases, data warehouses and fuzzy databases. In the modern global world, many companies change their management strategy from the one based on a centralized database to an approach based on distributed database systems. Growing expectations regarding business intelligence encourage companies to deploy data warehouses. New solutions are sought as the demand for engineers' expertise continues to rise. The requested knowledge can be certain or uncertain. Certain knowledge does not any problems and is easy to obtain. However, uncertain knowledge requires new ways of obtaining, including the use of fuzzy logic. It is from where the fuzzy database approach takes its beginning. The above-mentioned strategies of a production enterprise were described herein as a case of special interest.
An Approach for Partially Automated Test Generation Based on Signal Recordings

: The increasing complexity of aircraft systems and the number of functions running on avionics components leads to a rapid growth of the number of required testing. In addition, the mission profile can change over the long life cycle of the aircraft, so that the originally developed tests may not cover all scenarios that occur during the operational use. Therefore, new test strategies are needed which allows tests to be generated without the effort growing along with it. At the same time, the aim is to identify and analyse previously unknown behavioural abnormalities. This paper describes an approach for the semi-automated generation of new test scripts based on recorded data from operations or test and simulation activities. For this purpose, methods were developed to convert these data into a generic format, so that they can be managed and processed with uniform functions. The recordings can be filtered via a graphical user interface (GUI) to derive test stimuli and verdicts. For the generation of the test script an automated process was developed, which is based on the specification for the test description language Generic State Chart extensible Markup Language.
Polyflow: a Polystore-compliant Mechanism to Provide Interoperability to Heterogeneous Provenance Graphs

Many scientific experiments are modeled as workflows. Workflows usually output massive amounts of data. To guarantee the reproducibility of workflows, they are usually orchestrated by Workflow Management Systems (WfMS), that capture provenance data. Provenance represents the lineage of a data fragment throughout its transformations by activities in a workflow. Provenance traces are usually represented as graphs. These graphs allows scientists to analyze and evaluate results produced by a workflow. However, each WfMS has a proprietary format for provenance and do it in different granularity levels. Therefore, in more complex scenarios in which the scientist needs to interpret provenance graphs generated by multiple WfMSs and workflows, a challenge arises. To first understand the research landscape, we conduct a Systematic Literature Mapping, assessing existing solutions under several different lenses. With a clearer understanding of the state of the art, we propose a tool called Polyflow, which is based on the concept of Polystore systems, integrating several databases of heterogeneous origin by adopting a global ProvONE schema. Polyflow allows scientists to query multiple provenance graphs in an integrated way. Polyflow was evaluated by experts using provenance data collected from real experiments that generate phylogenetic trees through workflows. The experiment results suggest that Polyflow is a viable solution for interoperating heterogeneous provenance data generated by different WfMSs, from both a usability and performance standpoint.
A Validated Stability-Indicating Method for Simultaneous Analysis of Mevastatin and Pravastatin in Fermentation Broth During Bioconversion by Actinomadura macra

Summary A simple, accurate, selective, precise, economical, and stability-indicating high-performance thin-layer chromatographic method for simultaneous analysis of mevastatin and pravastatin in fermentation broth has been established and validated. Compounds were separated on aluminium foil TLC plates precoated with silica gel 60F254; the mobile phase was toluene-ethyl acetate-formic acid 3:2:1 (v/v), which gave compact bands of mevastatin and pravastatin (RF 0.48 ± 0.02 and 0.31 ± 0.02, respectively). Detection at 237 nm resulted in r = 0.992 and 0.995 for mevastatin and r = 0.995 and 0.994 for pravastatin, for peak height and peak area, respectively. The limits of detection and quantification for mevastatin were 20.1 and 60.8 ng per band, and for pravastatin 19.2 and 58.3 ng per band, respectively. The method enabled effective quantification of mevastatin and pravastatin in the fermentation broth of Actinomadura macra and can therefore be used as a stability-indicating method for routine analysis of th.
Spatial Analysis and Data Mining of Urban Trees

Tree coverage in urban spaces is a theme of great importance for current societies, given all the benefits that green spaces provide to the population, especially in large cities. Trees fulfill a very important role to ensure quality of urban living and urban environmental quality, and as a result trees are considered to be an element of urban infrastructure. In spite of the recognition of the importance of tree coverage, events in which a street tree falls or needs to be preventively cut down are quite frequent, damaging property and causing disturbances in the routine of the population. From a rich dataset on urban trees for the city of Belo Horizonte (MG, Brazil), this paper proposes contributions towards the identification and solution of problems related to tree coverage, with special emphasis on felled trees. Data mining techniques are employed in search of consistent patterns, expressed as association rules or temporal sequences, that are related to felling events. We also show a VGI tool to updating and expanding the original dataset.