Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuromodulation of Interhemispheric Connectivity by Paired Associative Stimulation after Stroke

Neuromodulation of Interhemispheric Connectivity by Paired Associative Stimulation after Stroke By Shiyu Lin Atypical interhemispheric connectivity has been observed in stroke survivors. Specifically, the presence of excessive interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) from the contralesional motor cortex (cM1) to ipsilesional motor cortex (iM1) (cM1-to-iM1 IHI) created a model of interhemispheric competition after stroke which may contribute to motor recovery. Paired associative stimulation (PAS) was found to be able to induce spike-timing-dependent plasticity, which is essential for motor relearning during rehabilitation. However, it is unknown how modulation of IHI through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) might influence post-stroke motor function. The purpose of this study was to 1) determine the effect of a session of interhemispheric paired associative stimulation (ihPAS) on neuromodulation of cortical excitability, IHI, and motor performance in stroke survivors and 2) investigate the relationship between IHI and post-stroke motor function. Thirteen participants (7 male) with ischemic chronic (>6 mo.) stroke were tested during two separate sessions with two ihPAS conditions: ihPAS8ms (interstimulus interval [ISI] of 8ms) and ihPAS1ms (ISI of 1ms). ihPAS consisted of 100 paired TMS pulses to cM1 followed by iM1 delivered at 0.25Hz. Electromyography (EMG) were placed on first dorsal interosseous muscles to measure the motor evoked potential upon TMS stimulations. IHI and cortical excitability were assessed by TMS before and after ihPAS. Motor function and skill learning were assessed by both 3-item Wolf Motor Function Test and serial reaction time task. ihPAS did not significantly modulate iM1 cortical excitability and cM1-to-iM1 IHI, but paretic motor function was improved following ihPAS8ms. cM1-to-iM1 IHI was not strongly correlated with paretic arm motor function. Contrary our hypothesis, there was greater iM1-to-cM1 IHI than cM1-to-iM1 IHI prior to ihPAS. Secondary analyses revealed that those demonstrating exaggerated cM1-toiM1 IHI before ihPAS had decreased cM1-to-iM1 IHI compared to those who showed diminished IHI. Our results suggest that the effect of ihPAS is variable across individuals. The absence of exaggerated cM1-to-iM1 IHI does not support the interhemispheric competition model. Future studies are necessary to further characterize the role of cM1-to-iM1 IHI in the motor recovery process on an individual level to develop effective therapies. Neuromodulation of Interhemispheric Connectivity by Paired Associative Stimulation after Stroke
First Report of Cowpea Polero Virus 1 (CPPV1) Infecting Cowpea in Kenya

Cowpea is an important legume crop for nutritional security, livestock feed and source of income in Kenya. Cowpea yield in Kenya is very low and declining further due to high incidences of pests and diseases among other factors. Like other pathogens, viruses have continued to cause yield losses of up to 100% depending on the prevailing epidemiological factors. This study had sought to determine the distribution, prevalence and genetic diversity of Cowpea Mild Mottle Virus (CPMMV) in western Kenya. Two surveys were conducted in the main legume growing areas of western Kenya. A total of 139 legume leafy samples were collected from 5 Counties; Bungoma, Nandi, Vihiga, Kakamega and Busia in June and October 2016. Collected samples were analyzed by Double Antibody Sandwich Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (DAS–ELISA) for detection CPMMV. ELISA was not carried out to test for CPPV1. Total RNA was extracted from the symptomatic leaf samples using RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen) according to the manufacturers’ protocol. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) protocol proceeded. Assembled contigs were then subjected to a BLASTn search against the Genbank database. Phylogenetic analyses and comparisons were performed using MEGA X. Symptoms observed on legumes in the fields were mosaic, severe yellowing, chlorotic blotches and downward leaf curling. Some of the groundnut, cowpea and common bean samples collected in June and October tested CPMMV positive by DAS-ELISA. Legume samples of soybean, lablab, green grams, bambara nuts and legume weed collected tested negative for CPMMV. Results from Next Generation Sequencing technique revealed the presence of Cowpea Polero Virus 1 (CPPV1), the first full-length CPPV1 report and sequence to be reported in Eastern Africa. Phylogenetic analysis of VCP1 Kenyan isolate sequence revealed 98.27% similarity with that of Burkina faso isolate BE 167 (KY364846.1) (Palanga et al., 2017) and they clustered together. Kenyan isolate VCP1 and the Burkina faso BE 167 isolate are closely related. It is not clear if the spread of CPPV1 is through international trade from either country. Revelation of CPPV1 show that there could be more viruses affecting legume crops in the region whose identities are still unknown. There is need to conduct more diagnosis using NGS technique to detect more unknown but occurring viruses in the region. CPPV1 has been found infecting cowpea in Burkina faso, to the best of our knowledge this is the first report of CPPV1 in Kenya.
Simulation Caching and Its Application to Remote Interactive Fluid Simulation

In this paper, we showcase an interactive fluid simulator as an example of a next generation human in the loop scientific simulation environment. It has a capability of steering the simulation by interactively changing the boundary conditions, through the haptic device which is also used as a force display device to visualize the simulation results as force. Furthermore, in order to utilize the power of the simulation server which is located far away from the operator of this interactive fluid simulation, the remote steering framework is discussed. The results of the preliminary implementation is also discussed briefly.
Clasificación Automática de Naranjas utilizando Técnicas de Data Mining y Procesamiento de Imágenes

Las técnicas de data mining consisten en la extracción de información a partir de una gran cantidad de datos, mediante el descubrimiento de patrones y regularidades por medio de algoritmos de aprendizaje automático entre otros. Esto puede aplicarse a la clasificación de objetos por medio de imágenes. En la cadena de producción de frutas, el control de calidad es realizado por personas entrenadas, que examinan los frutos mientras éstos avanzan por una cinta transportadora. Luego los clasifican en distintas categoŕıas de acuerdo a diversas caracteŕısticas visuales. En este trabajo presentamos un método para clasificar naranjas por medio de imágenes. El proceso consiste en capturar las imágenes mediante una cámara digital para luego extraer caracteŕısticas y entrenar diversos algoritmos de data mining, los cuales deberán clasificar a la naranja en una de las tres categoŕıas pre-establecidas. Los algoritmos de data mining utilizados son cinco diferentes árboles de decisión (J48, Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Best First Tree, Logistic Model Tree (LMT) y Random Forest), tres redes neuronales (Perceptrón Multicapa con Backpropagation, Radial Basis Function Network (RBF Network), Sequential Minimal Optimization para Support Vector Machines (SMO)) y una regla de clasificación (1Rule). Uno de los principales problemas que tiene la clasificación de naranjas es la detección del cáliz, debido a que en las imágenes el cáliz puede confundirse con un defecto. Por lo tanto, previo a la extracción de caracteŕısticas necesitamos detectar y remover el cáliz de la imagen. Para ello, en la etapa de segmentación utilizamos el espacio de color CIE L*a*b* y análisis de agrupamiento k-medias para identificar las regiones candidatas que puedan pertenecer al cáliz o a un defecto. Luego, realizamos la extracción de caracteŕısticas utilizando momentos de Zernike y análisis de componentes principales para obtener diversos descriptores para cada región. Por último, en la etapa de clasificación empleamos diversos algoritmos de aprendizaje automático (tres redes neuronales y un árbol de decisión) mediante los cuales clasificamos a la región como cáliz o defecto. Los resultados obtenidos son alentadores, debido a la buena precisión alcanzada por los clasificadores, lo que demuestra la factibilidad de construir un sistema de clasificación de naranjas basado en técnicas de data mining y procesamiento de imágenes, para ser utilizado en la industria alimenticia.
Structure and Reactivity of a n and a n * Peptide Fragments Investigated Using Isotope Labeling, Tandem Mass Spectrometry, and Density Functional Theory Calculations*

Extensive 15 N labeling and multiple-stage tandem mass spectrometry were used to investigate the fragmentation pathways of the model peptide FGGFL during low-energy collision-induced-dissociation (CID) in an ion-trap mass spectrometer. Of particular interest was formation of a 4 from b 4 and a 4 * ( a 4 -NH 3 ) from a 4 ions correspondingly, and apparent rearrangement and scrambling of peptide sequence during CID. It is suggested that the original FGGF oxa b 4 structure undergoes b -type scrambling to form GGFF oxa . These two isomers fragment further by elimination of CO and 14 NH 3 or 15 NH 3 to form the corresponding a 4 and a 4 * isomers, respectively. For ( 15 N-F)GGFL and FGG( 15 N-F)L the a 4 * ion population appears as two distinct peaks separated by 1 mass unit. These two peaks could be separated and fragmented individually in subsequent CID stages to provide a useful tool for exploration of potential mechanisms along the a 4 ¡ a 4 * pathway reported previously in the literature (Vachet et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1997, 119 , 5481, and Cooper et al. J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 2006, 17 , 1654). These mechanisms result in formally the same a 4 * structures but differ in the position of the expelled nitrogen atom. Detailed analysis of the observed fragmentation patterns for the separated light and heavy a 4 * ion fractions of ( 15 N-F)GGFL indicates that the mechanism proposed by Cooper et al. is consistent with the experimental findings, while the mechanism proposed by Vachet et al. cannot account for the labeling data. In addition, a new rearrangement pathway is presented for a 4 *-CO
Microchip Wireless ( MiWi TM ) Application Programming Interface – MiApp

It is not an easy task to develop a short-range, low data rate and low power wireless application. Apart from complex Radio Frequency (RF) circuit designs, the firmware development process may require the developers to understand the details of RF transceivers, as well as the different wireless communication protocols. Microchip has developed a way to handle the complex and difficult RF hardware and/or communication protocol stack software development, which allows wireless developers to focus on their own application development. This is achieved through a concise, yet powerful communication programming interface in the application layer which is called MiApp, and it is defined in this application note. The MiApp specification defines the programming interfaces between the application layer and Microchip proprietary wireless communication protocols. The MiApp programming interface is implemented in two ways: as configuration parameters defined in the configuration file, and as a set of function calls to the Microchip proprietary wireless protocols. Complying with the MiApp specification defined in this application note, applications can use any Microchip proprietary wireless protocols. With little or no modification in the application layer, software development can be easily changed between a proprietary P2P/star topology connection protocol to a full mesh proprietary networking protocol for small or big networks, depending on the application needs.
Reliability in Warehouse-Scale Computing: Why Low Latency Matters

—Warehouse sized buildings are nowadays hosting several types of large computing systems: from supercomputers to large clusters of servers to provide the infrastructure to the cloud. Although the main target, especially for high-performance computing, is still to achieve high throughput, the limiting factor of these warehouse-scale data centers is the power dissipation. Power is dissipated not only in the computation itself, but also in heat removal (fans, air conditioning, etc.) to keep the temperature of the devices within the operating ranges. The need to keep the temperature low within a minimal power envelope and to maintain high throughput and high reliability poses hard challenges. Inthiswork, we show that by moving part of the computation to accelerators, not only we reduce the latency of operations, but also make the system more energy efﬁcient and reliable.
A 100MHz, 91.5% Peak Efficiency Integrated Buck Converter With a three-MOSFETs Cascode Bridge

High switching frequency DC–DC converters are present in many applications where wide regulation bandwidth and high efficiency are needed. A three-MOSFETs cascode bridge is presented to get full benefit from digital CMOS technology advancements, and a 3D assembly with a capacitive interposer is proposed for high frequency efficient decoupling. A test-chip is designed in 40nm CMOS technology, validating the operation and the efficiency performance of the converter using the cascode bridge. An conversion efficiency of 91.5% is demonstrated when converting 3.3V to 2.4V with a 150mA load current, while switching at 100MHz.
Mulching-Induced Changes in Tuber Yield and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Potato in China: A Meta-Analysis

In dry environments, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is grown under mulching for water conservation and improving tuber yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). A meta-analysis was conducted to determine how mulching improved tuber yield and NUE in potato and how yield and NUE is influenced by fertilization, tillage practices, and growing environment in China. A search of peer-reviewed publications was performed to collect data on the effects of mulching on yield and NUE in potato grown in China. The data included were from field studies with a mulching and a no mulching treatment and data on tuber yield and NUE. A total of 169 publications (17 in English and 152 in Chinese) containing 1802 observations from 105 sites were compiled into the dataset. Mulching significantly increased both tuber yield and NUE by an average of 24% compared to no mulching, respectively. Plastic film mulching was more effective in improving yield and NUE than straw mulching. The yield and NUE increase were highest under plastic film mulching on ridge-furrow plots and straw mulching on flat plots. Mulching was more effective at improving yield and NUE in the Northwest dryland region at a plant density between 55,000 and 70,000 plants ha−1 and with application of synthetic N and P2O5 at rates of 100−200 kg ha−1, K fertilization at 0−100 kg K2O ha−1, and without organic fertilization. Integrated use of organic fertilizer and mulching was found to reduce synthetic N and P fertilizer input by 50% and K fertilizer input by 100% for production without affecting yield and NUE. These results demonstrate that mulching increases yield and NUE in potato in China, but the benefits occur when the growing region, tillage, and fertilization practices are appropriately considered.
Nitrogen Fixing and Phosphate Mineralizing Bacterial Communities in Sweet Potato Rhizosphere Show a Genotype-Dependent Distribution

We hypothesize that sweet potato genotypes can influence the bacterial communities related to phosphate mineralization and nitrogen fixation in the rhizosphere. Tuberous roots of field-grown sweet potato from genotypes IPB-149, IPB-052, and IPB-137 were sampled three and six months after planting. The total community DNA was extracted from the rhizosphere and analyzed by Polymerase Chain Reaction-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR), based on the alkaline phosphatase coding gene (alp gene) and on the nitrogenase coding gene (nifH gene). The cluster analysis based on DGGE showed that plant age slightly influenced the bacterial community related to phosphate mineralization in the rhizosphere of IPB-137, although it did not affect the bacterial community related to nitrogen fixation. The statistical analysis of DGGE fingerprints (Permutation test, p ≤ 0.05) showed that nitrogen-fixing bacterial community of IPB-052 statistically differed from genotypes IPB-149 and IPB-137 after six months of planting. The bacterial community of IPB-137 rhizosphere analyzed by alp gene also showed significant differences when compared to IPB-149 in both sampling times (p ≤ 0.05). In addition, alp gene copy numbers significantly increased in abundance in the rhizosphere of IPB-137 after six months of planting. Therefore, plant genotype should be considered in the biofertilization of sweet potato.
The Construction of Risk and Protective Factor Indices for Adolescent Alcohol and other Drug Use

This paper applies the risk factor approach to assess the influence of protection and risk on five measures of substance use: overall involvement in drugs, frequent alcohol use, frequent illegal drug use, frequent drug abuse, and quantity of daily cigarette consumption. For each measure, it was hypothesized that an index of risk factors would serve to increase the likelihood of the occurrence of problem behavior and that an index of protection would result in a reduction. It was also hypothesized that under conditions of high risk the effect of protection would moderate the influence of risk factors more forcefully than under conditions of low risk. Data were obtained from a self-report questionnaire containing over 60 risk and protective measures administered to nearly 400 grade 9 students in 7 high schools located in Toronto, Canada. Measures were tested in a series of regression equations to construct indices of risk and protective factors for each substance measure. Results supported the hypothesis of separate risk and protective factor main effects for all categories of substances. Evidence of moderate to strong interaction effects (i.e., a moderating influence of protection) were also noted. Implications are discussed for methods of identifying high risk youth as well as programs designed to prevent/reduce problem behaviors among this group.
Evaluation of Two SMAP Soil Moisture Retrievals Using Modeled- and Ground-Based Measurements

A comprehensive evaluation of the performance of satellite-based soil moisture (SM) retrievals is undoubtedly very important to improve its quality and evaluate its potential application in hydrology, climate, and natural disasters (drought, flood, etc.). Since the release of the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) mission data in April 2015, the associated SM retrieval algorithms have developed rapidly, and their improvement work is still in progress. However, some newly developed SM retrievals have not been fully assessed and inter-compared. One such product is the new multi-temporal dual-channel retrieval algorithm (MT-DCA) SM retrievals, which was recently retrieved using the so-called MT-DCA algorithm. To solve this, we aim to assess the MT-DCA SM retrievals along with the SMAP-enhanced level three SM products (SPL3SMP_E, version 2). More specifically, in this paper we evaluated and inter-compared the two SMAP SM retrievals with the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) modeled SM and ISMN (International Soil Moisture Network) in situ observations by applying four statistical scores: Pearson correlation coefficient (R), root mean square difference (RMSD), bias, and unbiased RMSD (ubRMSD). It was found that both SMAP SM retrievals can better capture the seasonal variations of ECMWF-modeled SM and ground-based measurements according to correlations, and MT-DCA SM was drier than SPL3SMP_E SM by ~0.018 m3/m3 on average on a global scale. With respect to the ISMN ground-based measurements, the performance of SPL3SMP_E SM compared better than the MT-DCA SM. The median ubRMSD of SPL3SMP_E SM and MT-DCA SM with ground measurements computed over all selected ISMN sites were 0.058 m3/m3 and 0.070 m3/m3, respectively.
15-300 Project Milestone Report

Surprises: For this first technical milestone, the goal was to generate a plot of normalized fixation probability versus population size under a specific set of population assumptions and hopefully replicate the sign inversion effect obtained in [1]. To begin, I implemented a population model as outlined in the paper. Then, for a range of thirty-two distinct population sizes, I estimated the fixation probability over 1000 trials; however, the resulting plot did not manifest the desired sign inversion effect. For a long time I suspected that my model implementation was faulty, but in the end, it turned out that the 1000 trials was insufficient. Variance effects were overpowering the underlying signal. Thus, after I re-ran the simulations for each population size over 106 trials instead of only 1000, I was able to achieve a matching plot. Still, the increased iterations came with its challenges. The 103 factor increase implied that implementation efficiency was now non-negligible. My implementation for this milestone followed a logically clear approach since correctness was the first priority and forwent any algorithmic optimizations. Consequently, when I ran the simulations on an Andrew Unix machine directly, I was getting Write Failed: broken pipe errors due to timeout. Ultimately, the workaround that I employed was to partition the work, e.g. break the 106 trials into ten 105 blocks, but even then, the total running time was significant.
DOES TODAY’S CSR DISCLOSURE DIFFER FROM THE DISCLOSURE OF THE 1970S? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

In this paper, we respond to the call for further research on whether the accountability disclosure of today differs from the social disclosure of the 1970s. We do this by examining for differences in corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the late 1970s (using data from Ernst & Ernst, 1978) relative to disclosure from 2010 corporate reports. More specifically, we show (1) the breadth of CSR disclosure (using two different measures of disclosure extensiveness) has grown dramatically, (2) that there is no significant change in the relation between legitimacy variables and differences in CSR disclosure, and (3) that differences in CSR disclosure (using either of the breadth measures) were not significant in explaining differences in the market value of firms in the late 1970s and continue to be insignificant today. In general, our results suggest that CSR disclosure, while more extensive today than it had been three decades ago, fails to provide information that is relevant for assessing firm value.