Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing the role of dispersed floral resources for managed bees in providing supporting ecosystem services for crop pollination

Most pollination ecosystem services studies have focussed on wild pollinators and their dependence on natural floral resources adjacent to crop fields. However, managed pollinators depend on a mixture of floral resources that are spatially separated from the crop field. Here, we consider the supporting role these resources play as an ecosystem services provider to quantify the use and availability of floral resources, and to estimate their relative contribution to support pollination services of managed honeybees. Beekeepers supplying pollination services to the Western Cape deciduous fruit industry were interviewed to obtain information on their use of floral resources. For 120 apiary sites, we also analysed floral resources within a two km radius of each site based on geographic data. The relative availability of floral resources at sites was compared to regional availability. The relative contribution of floral resources-types to sustain managed honeybees was estimated. Beekeepers showed a strong preference for eucalypts and canola. Beekeepers selectively placed more hives at sites with eucalypt and canola and less with natural vegetation. However, at the landscape-scale, eucalypt was the least available resource, whereas natural vegetation was most common. Based on analysis of apiary sites, we estimated that 700,818 ha of natural vegetation, 73,910 ha of canola fields, and 10,485 ha of eucalypt are used to support the managed honeybee industry in the Western Cape. Whereas the Cape managed honeybee system uses a bee native to the region, alien plant species appear disproportionately important among the floral resources being exploited. We suggest that an integrated approach, including evidence from interview and landscape data, and fine-scale biological data is needed to study floral resources supporting managed honeybees.
Validation of a self-reported work disability questionnaire for ulcerative colitis

Abstract Ulcerative colitis (UC) may severely limit patients’ capacity to work. Recently, we validated a work disability questionnaire (WDQ) for Crohn disease. As UC shares clinical characteristics with Crohn disease, we hypothesized that the questionnaire might also be useful for UC. The study was aimed to validate the WDQ for use in UC. Consecutive patients with UC (n = 142, 67 women; age 48 ± 1) completed the UC-WDQ and the inflammatory bowel disease questionnaire-9 (IBDQ-9), and EuroQoL-5D quality-of-life questionnaires. Validation of the UC-WDQ included an assessment of its construct validity, including: discriminant validity, convergent validity, and reproducibility (test–retest). We also calculated the intraclass correlation and the Cronbach alpha.Discriminant validity: Mean UC-WDQ scores were 12.8 ± 4.4 (remission phase) and 17.2 ± 6.1 (with clinical activity) (P < .05). Convergent validity: The correlations of UC-WDQ were r = 0.74 (P < .001) with IBDQ, r = 0.44 (P < .01) with disease activity, r = 0.56 (P < .01) with EuroQoL-5D, and r = 0.60 (P < .01) with the EuroQoL-5D visual scale.Reproducibility:Test–retest reproducibility: UC-WDQ scores obtained after a 2-week interval were similar (15.8 vs 15.1), (r = 0.91, P < .01). Intraclass correlation was 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.92–0.95). Cronbach alpha was 0.94. The UC-WDQ is a valid and reliable tool for measuring work disability in patients with UC.
Effect of Body Weight-Supported Exercise on Symptoms of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Follow-up Investigation.

OBJECTIVE To examine the long-term effect of participation in a 12-week lower-body positive pressure (LBPP)-supported low-load treadmill exercise regime on knee joint pain, physical function, and thigh muscle strength in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). DESIGN Prospective, observational, repeated measures. SETTING Clinical orthopedic setting. PATIENTS Nineteen overweight patients with knee OA. INTERVENTION Participants exercised under low-load treadmill walking conditions 2×/week for 12 weeks using an amount of LBPP support that minimized knee pain while walking for a period of 30 minutes at a set speed of 3.1 mph at 0-degree incline. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Knee pain, function, thigh muscle strength, and body anthropometry were reassessed a minimum of 6 months after completion of the initial exercise regime and compared with results from baseline and postexercise evaluation. RESULTS Data suggested that: (1) patients were able to maintain improvements in knee joint pain and symptoms; (2) patients continued to report enhanced joint function and improved quality of life; and (3) patients maintained thigh muscle strength gains. Finally, a majority of patients continued to experience significant reductions in acute knee pain during full weight-bearing treadmill walking. CONCLUSIONS Data suggest that improvements in knee pain, joint function, and thigh muscle strength associated with participation in a 12-week LBPP-supported low-load exercise regime were maintained well after cessation of the program. These findings have important implications for the development and refinement of exercise strategies and interventions used in the long-term management of joint symptoms associated with knee OA in overweight patients.
Detecting and Isolating Black-Hole Attacks in MANET Using Timer Based Baited Technique

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a type of wireless networks that provides numerous applications in different areas. Security of MANET had become one of the hottest topics in networks fields. MANET is vulnerable to different types of attacks that affect its functionality and connectivity. The black-hole attack is considered one of the most widespread active attacks that degrade the performance and reliability of the network as a result of dropping all incoming packets by the malicious node. Black-hole node aims to fool every node in the network that wants to communicate with another node by pretending that it always has the best path to the destination node. AODV is a reactive routing protocol that has no techniques to detect and neutralize the black-hole node in the network. In this research, we enhanced AODV by integrating a new lightweight technique that uses timers and baiting in order to detect and isolate single and cooperative black-hole attacks. During the dynamic topology changing the suggested technique enables the MANET nodes to detect and isolate the black-hole nodes in the network. The implementation of the proposed technique is performed by using NS-2.35 simulation tools. The results of the suggested technique in terms of Throughput, End-to-End Delay, and Packet Delivery Ratio are very close to the native AODV without black holes.
End-to-end Multimodal Emotion and Gender Recognition with Dynamic Joint Loss Weights

Multi-task learning is a method for improving the generalizability of multiple tasks. In order to perform multiple classification tasks with one neural network model, the losses of each task should be combined. Previous studies have mostly focused on multiple prediction tasks using joint loss with static weights for training models, choosing the weights between tasks without making sufficient considerations by setting them uniformly or empirically. In this study, we propose a method to calculate joint loss using dynamic weights to improve the total performance, instead of the individual performance, of tasks. We apply this method to design an end-to-end multimodal emotion and gender recognition model using audio and video data. This approach provides proper weights for the loss of each task when the training process ends. In our experiments, emotion and gender recognition with the proposed method yielded a lower joint loss, which is computed as the negative log-likelihood, than using static weights for joint loss. Moreover, our proposed model has better generalizability than other models. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to demonstrate the strength of using dynamic weights for joint loss for maximizing overall performance in emotion and gender recognition tasks.
Haemodynamic evaluation and optimisation of brain-dead donors with oesophageal Doppler during organ harvesting: A feasibility study.

Keeping the circulatory system of brain-dead organ donors stable is challenging, and haemodynamic evaluation without advanced haemodynamic monitoring may be insufficient. Advanced haemodynamic monitoring is probably underused, and if used, it is rarely continued into the operating theatre for the organ procurement procedure. Donor management strategies have to be continued during organ procurement to ensure optimal organ preservation. The anaesthesiologist of the harvesting team often plays a crucial role in assessing the adequacy of fluid resuscitation and vasoactive (inotropic and/or vasopressor) medication in use. This assessment may be difficult to perform. Oesophageal Doppler is minimally invasive and has been demonstrated to improve outcome when used to guide haemodynamic therapy during several surgical procedures. The current study was undertaken to evaluate the adequacy of initial clinical assessments and whether haemodynamic management guided by oesophageal Doppler would be feasible and useful during organ procurement. The protocol (S-06184) was approved by the Regional Ethics Committee of Southern Norway on 22 June 2006. The requirement for written informed consent was waived.
A fuzzy clustering‐based denoising model for evaluating uncertainty in collaborative filtering recommender systems

Recommender systems are effective in predicting the most suitable products for users, such as movies and books. To facilitate personalized recommendations, the quality of item ratings should be guaranteed. However, a few ratings might not be accurate enough due to the uncertainty of user behavior and are referred to as natural noise. In this article, we present a novel fuzzy clustering‐based method for detecting noisy ratings. The entropy of a subset of the original ratings dataset is used to indicate the data‐driven uncertainty, and evaluation metrics are adopted to represent the prediction‐driven uncertainty. After the repetition of resampling and the execution of a recommendation algorithm, the entropy and evaluation metrics vectors are obtained and are empirically categorized to identify the proportion of the potential noise. Then, the fuzzy C‐means‐based denoising (FCMD) algorithm is performed to verify the natural noise under the assumption that natural noise is primarily the result of the exceptional behavior of users. Finally, a case study is performed using two real‐world datasets. The experimental results show that our proposal outperforms previous proposals and has an advantage in dealing with natural noise.
Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process

Recycling polymers is common due to the need to reduce the environmental impact of these materials. Polypropylene (PP) is one of the polymers called ‘commodities polymers’ and it is commonly used in a wide variety of short-term applications such as food packaging and agricultural products. That is why a large amount of PP residues that can be recycled are generated every year. However, the current increasing introduction of biodegradable polymers in the food packaging industry can negatively affect the properties of recycled PP if those kinds of plastics are disposed with traditional plastics. For this reason, the influence that generates small amounts of biodegradable polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) in the recycled PP were analyzed in this work. Thus, recycled PP was blended with biodegradables polymers by melt extrusion followed by injection moulding process to simulate the industrial conditions. Then, the obtained materials were evaluated by studding the changes on the thermal and mechanical performance. The results revealed that the vicat softening temperature is negatively affected by the presence of biodegradable polymers in recycled PP. Meanwhile, the melt flow index was negatively affected for PLA and PHB added blends. The mechanical properties were affected when more than 5 wt. % of biodegradable polymers were present. Moreover, structural changes were detected when biodegradable polymers were added to the recycled PP by means of FTIR, because of the characteristic bands of the carbonyl group (between the band 1700–1800 cm−1) appeared due to the presence of PLA, PHB or TPS. Thus, low amounts (lower than 5 wt.%) of biodegradable polymers can be introduced in the recycled PP process without affecting the overall performance of the final material intended for several applications, such as food packaging, agricultural films for farming and crop protection.
Tensor-Based Abduction in Horn Propositional Programs

This paper proposes an algorithm for computing solutions of abductive Horn propositional tasks using third-order tensors. We ﬁrst introduce the notion of explanatory operator , a single-step operation based on inverted implication, and prove that minimal abductive solutions of a given Horn propositional task can be correctly computed using this operator. We then provide a mapping of Horn propositional programs into third-order tensors, which builds upon recent work on matrix representation of Horn programs. We ﬁnally show how this mapping can be used to compute the explanatory operator by tensor multiplication.
Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the ABIS questionnaire for French speaking amputees

Abstract Background: The Amputee Body Image Scale (ABIS) and its shortened version (ABIS-R) are self-administered questionnaires to measure body image perception of amputee. Our aim was to assess the validity and reliability of the French ABIS (ABIS-F and ABIS-R-F). Methods: Ninety-nine patients were included. The cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to the recommendations. Construct validity was assessed by measuring the correlation between ABIS-F or ABIS-R-F scores and quality of life, pain, anxiety, and depression. Internal consistency was measured with Cronbach’s α. The standard error of measurement, smallest detectable change, Bland and Altman limits of agreement, and intraclass correlation were the measures of agreement and reliability. Results: A highest body image disturbance was associated with lowest quality of life, higher pain, and higher anxiety, and depression. Cronbach’s α was 0.91/0.89 (ABIS-F/ABIS-R-F). The standard error of measurement was 5.35/2.28 (ABIS-F/ABIS-R-F). The smallest detectable change was 14.82/6.31 (ABIS-F/ABIS-R-F). The mean difference in ABIS-F score was −3.90 with limits of agreement from −18.71 to 10.92. For ABIS-R-F, the mean difference was −2.12 with limits of agreement from −8.43 to 4.19. Intraclass correlation was 0.87/0.82 (ABIS-F/ABIS-R-F). Conclusions: The French versions ABIS-F and ABIS-R-F share similar psychometric properties, both are as reliable, but ABIS-R-F has a better response structure and is more feasible. Implications for rehabilitation The quality of life of amputees is impacted by their satisfaction with body image The Amputee Body Image Scale questionnaire measures this perception and is available for French-speaking amputees The Standard Errors of Measurement proposed could be useful for clinical and research purposes Both ABIS and ABIS-R showed satisfactory construct validity, internal consistency, and reliability The shortened version has a better response structure and is more readily feasible.
Development and validation of the hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage prognosis models

Abstract To develop and validate the prognosis model of hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage based on admission characteristics, which would be applied to predict the 3-month outcome. For developing the prognosis models, we studied data from 325 patients with retrospectively consecutive hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage admitted between 2012 and 2016. The predictive value of admission characteristics was tested in logistic regression models, presenting 3-month outcome as the primary outcome. The performance of the models was tested by discrimination and calibration. After development, internal and external validations were used to test the function. The multivariate analysis of logistic regression indicated that age, Glasgow coma scale score, pupillary light reflex, hypoxemia, intracerebral hemorrhage volume, blood glucose, and D-dimer level were independent factors of the hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage prognosis model. The prognosis model based on those admission risk factors worked well. The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to analyze the discriminant ability of model A, model A + B, and model A + B + C. Specifically, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve increased from 0.816 (model A; 95% CI, 0.760–0.872) to 0.913 (model A + B + C; 95% CI, 0.881–0.946), and the models were not overoptimistic and were applicably confirmed by internal and external validations respectively. This prognosis model could be used to predict the prognosis of patients with hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage early, simply and accurately, contributing to the clinical treatment eventually.
Dietary Iron Overload Abrogates Chemically-Induced Liver Cirrhosis in Rats

Chronic liver disease is an intractable disease, which can progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatic iron overload is considered to be involved in the progression of chronic liver diseases; however, the mechanism remains to be elucidated. Here we investigate the role of dietary iron overload using chemically-induced liver cirrhosis model. Rats were fed a high-iron or standard diet and were injected intraperitoneally with thioacetamide (TAA) or saline twice a week for 20 weeks. Rats with TAA treatment (TAA group) had progressive liver cirrhosis characterized by persistent hepatocellular injury, mononuclear cell inflammation and bridging fibrosis; these lesions were markedly reduced in rats with iron feeding and TAA treatment (Fe-TAA group). Rats with iron feeding alone (Fe group) had no evidence of liver injury. Hepatic expression of cleaved caspase-3, but not phospho-RIP3, was decreased in Fe-TAA group compared with that in TAA group. The number of TUNEL-positive (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling) apoptotic hepatocytes was lower in the Fe-TAA group than in the TAA group. Hepatic xenobiotic metabolism and lipid peroxidation were shown to be less related to the abrogation of liver cirrhosis. Our results suggested that dietary hepatic iron overload abrogates chemically-induced liver cirrhosis in rats, which could partly involve decreased hepatocellular apoptosis.
Plurality in multi-disciplinary research: multiple institutional affiliations are associated with increased citations

Background The institutional affiliations and associated collaborative networks that scientists foster during their research careers are salient in the production of high-quality science. The phenomenon of multiple institutional affiliations and its relationship to research output remains relatively unexplored in the literature. Methods We examined 27,612 scientific articles, modelling the normalized citation counts received against the number of authors and affiliations held. Results In agreement with previous research, we found that teamwork is an important factor in high impact papers, with average citations received increasing concordant with the number of co-authors listed. For articles with more than five co-authors, we noted an increase in average citations received when authors with more than one institutional affiliation contributed to the research. Discussion Multiple author affiliations may play a positive role in the production of high-impact science. This increased researcher mobility should be viewed by institutional boards as meritorious in the pursuit of scientific discovery.
Modulation of glucocorticoid receptor in human epileptic endothelial cells impacts drug biotransformation in an in vitro blood–brain barrier model

Nuclear receptors and cytochrome P450 (CYP) regulate hepatic metabolism of several drugs. Nuclear receptors are expressed at the neurovascular unit of patients with drug‐resistant epilepsy. We studied whether glucocorticoid receptor (GR) silencing or inhibition in human epileptic brain endothelial cells (EPI‐ECs) functionally impacts drug bioavailability across an in vitro model of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) by CYP‐multidrug transporter (multidrug resistance protein 1, MDR1) mechanisms.
X-ray structure of Arthrobacter globiformis M30 ketose 3-epimerase for the production of D-allulose from D-fructose.

The X-ray structure of ketose 3-epimerase from Arthrobacter globiformis M30, which was previously reported to be a D-allulose 3-epimerase (AgD-AE), was determined at 1.96 Å resolution. The crystal belonged to the hexagonal space group P6522, with unit-cell parameters a = b = 103.98, c = 256.53 Å. The structure was solved by molecular replacement using the structure of Mesorhizobium loti L-ribulose 3-epimerase (MlL-RE), which has 41% sequence identity, as a search model. A hexagonal crystal contained two molecules in the asymmetric unit, and AgD-AE formed a homotetramer with twofold symmetry. The overall structure of AgD-AE was more similar to that of MlL-RE than to the known structures of D-psicose (alternative name D-allulose) 3-epimerases (D-PEs or D-AEs), although AgD-AE and MlL-RE have different substrate specificities. Both AgD-AE and MlL-RE have long helices in the C-terminal region that would contribute to the stability of the homotetramer. AgD-AE showed higher enzymatic activity for L-ribulose than D-allulose; however, AgD-AE is stable and is a unique useful enzyme for the production of D-allulose from D-fructose.
Cancer stem cells in progression of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide with high mortality. Distant metastasis and relapse are major causes of patient death. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a critical role in the metastasis and relapse of colorectal cancer. CSCs are a subpopulation of cancer cells with unique properties of self-renewal, infinite division and multi-directional differentiation potential. Colorectal CSCs are defined with a group of cell surface markers, such as CD44, CD133, CD24, EpCAM, LGR5 and ALDH. They are highly tumorigenic, chemoresistant and radioresistant and thus are critical in the metastasis and recurrence of colorectal cancer and disease-free survival. This review article updates the colorectal CSCs with a focus on their role in tumor initiation, progression, drug resistance and tumor relapse.
Challenges of Using Text Classifiers for Causal Inference

Causal understanding is essential for many kinds of decision-making, but causal inference from observational data has typically only been applied to structured, low-dimensional datasets. While text classifiers produce low-dimensional outputs, their use in causal inference has not previously been studied. To facilitate causal analyses based on language data, we consider the role that text classifiers can play in causal inference through established modeling mechanisms from the causality literature on missing data and measurement error. We demonstrate how to conduct causal analyses using text classifiers on simulated and Yelp data, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of future work that uses text data in causal inference.