Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Analysis Identifies Key lncRNA-mRNA Network in Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common cardiac arrhythmias, is associated with the risk of stroke and pronounced morbidity and mortality. The application of biomarkers in the management of AF has been grown as an interesting topic. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to participate in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases by regulating mRNA networks. Results: In this study, we firstly used two AF cohorts to identify circulating lncRNAs and mRNAs with potential diagnostic prediction value. The expression of 8,164 lncRNAs and 14,508 mRNAs were quantified in these two cohorts with lncRNA microarray. By using a stringent threshold (P < 0.01, fold change > 2.0 or < 0.5), we identified 10 lncRNAs and 7 mRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in AF in both cohorts. To further explore the function of these significantly dysregulated lncRNA and mRNA, we performed co-expression analysis by using RNA-seq data of 429 atrial appendage tissue samples. Interestingly, we found a significant lncRNA-mRNA network for 5 lncRNAs (AC109460.1, AL031123.1, MIAT, PTPRG-AS1 and ZNF815P) and 4 mRNAs (D2HGDH, SPNS1, KCND2 and TNFAIP8L3) with Pearson correlation r > 0.3 (all P < 10-8). Moreover, in silico analysis showed that the lncRNA MIAT and PTPRG-AS1 may serve as miRNA sponges to regulate D2HGDH, SPNS1, KCND2 and TNFAIP8L3.Conclusions: Our study suggested that the circulating lncRNA-mRNA network of MIAT and PTPRG-AS1 play an important role in AF and may be considerable diagnostic biomarkers. These results may contribute to the precise diagnosis and early detection of this disease.
Ideology, attitudinal positioning, and the blockchain: a social semiotic approach to understanding the values construed in the whitepapers of blockchain start-ups

ABSTRACT Recent work on algorithmic bias has shown that understanding the values embedded in technology design processes is important for avoiding social harm. This paper explores the attitudes construed in whitepapers of blockchain technology start-ups. Blockchain technology is a relatively new phenomenon that has informed discourses about the future of governance and economics in relation to the internet. This study aims to understand the values discursively construed in the whitepapers of four blockchain start-ups: Steemit, Creativechain, Democracy Earth, and Bitnation. It adopts a corpus linguistics approach, and uses the Appraisal framework (Martin, J. R., and P. R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan) to analyse the evaluative meanings expressed in the whitepaper dataset. This analysis reveals that the blockchain start-ups manifest shared values around the concepts of decentralisation, trust in algorithms, and trust in individuals over institutions. The start-ups enact different political orientations, expressing ideals related to the digital commons, cyber-libertarianism, and capitalism. The corpus-based linguistic analysis used in this study offers a method that may be applicable to other areas of technology discourse where whitepapers and design documents tend to embed covert political and ideological positions.
Settling it on the multi-level parliamentary field? A fields approach to interparliamentary cooperation in foreign and security policy

Abstract Interparliamentary cooperation in EU foreign and security policy, once the paradigmatic example of competitive relations between parliamentary levels, has recently evolved towards more cooperative dynamics. This evolution provides an interesting context in which to examine the conditions that facilitate or hinder cooperation in the EU multi-level parliamentary field. This article takes inspiration from Fligstein and McAdam’s sociological theory of fields, arguing that certain field conditions (power, preferences, field environment, and social skill) can influence patterns of cooperation in a parliamentary field. The theoretical argument is assessed using two empirical cases: institutionalised cooperation in the Interparliamentary Conference on foreign policy, security and defence; and policy-specific cooperation during negotiations over the controversial European Defence Fund. The findings indicate that a relative ‘settlement’ of the parliamentary field does not necessarily translate into mutually reinforcing parliamentarism. On the contrary, certain properties in the field continue to impair the quality of democratic oversight in this burgeoning domain.
Mobile Phones Facilitation of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Initiatives: Health Students Initial Perspectives

Students are regarded as frequent users of mobile phones which has proven to be a convenient and acceptable method to promote healthy lifestyle. Students usually engage in relatively high levels of risky behavior and make unhealthy lifestyle choices, a study that investigates how health students access health information is necessary. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional study which was undertaken among third-year nursing students from three nurses training institutions in Ghana. A total of 270 students participated in the study. Most of the respondents who were currently subscribers of the health messages reported that they usually received health information on reproductive health issues, nutrition, and practicing safe sex. Most of the health students revealed that they needed more information on safe sex, diet, managing weight, and stress management. The results also show that health students are likely to remember and share short messages with friends. The findings serve as an ‘eye-opener’ for health educators and mobile service providers concerning factors that should be taken into consideration when framing health text messages that will attract health students.
Detection of Crack on Asphalt Pavement using Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Detection of crack on asphalt pavement is an essential task of monitoring and regulatory inspection. Currently, this task is conducted manually by surveyor or human inspectors for further maintenance works. Manual practice would lead some drawback such as time-consuming, labour intensive, hazardous and also subjective valuation for different individual. To overcome this deficit circumstances an automated technique is implemented. The objective of this study is to develop an intelligent system to detect pavement crack using Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN). This study consists of several procedures which is started with collecting pavement crack images using online and from own developed dataset. The images are pre-processed by resizing the image into desire dimensions. Next, small patches are extracted as inputs to ease of detection and reduce classifier burden. The images further be labelled into two (2) types which is crack and non-crack. In this study, it is utilized Python environment and Keras framework to establish DCNN model. 80% of dataset is used for training set to train, while another 20% is used for testing set to test the model in order to evaluate the performance in terms of accuracy, precision and recall and F1 score. This proposed model is compared on different patch sizes, training algorithms and architectures to get the best classification. Thus, an automated system that able to accurately detect the present of crack in pavement images within speedy computation is successfully developed. To conclude, the system can be used to assist the surveyor or human operator in task of crack detection, so that the process of detection can be done faster and more efficient. This will help in reducing cost of maintenance and enhancing safety of road users.
Virtual team professional learning and development for practitioners in education

ABSTRACT Surprisingly little has been written about the notion of virtual teams in schooling contexts and less on the role of virtual teams in the professional learning and development (PLD) of teachers. Virtual teams are groups that use technologies to collaborate to address common goals. Members may work at in different locations, in different organisations, or at different times so that the electronic communication media becomes an important feature in the feasibility of the work. Increasingly, technologies are used to support practitioners’ (leaders and teachers) professional learning. In this conceptual article, we draw on research literature from online and blended professional learning and development to conceptualise what is important to consider when establishing virtual teams for the purpose of practitioners’ learning. Specifically, we address the question: what are the characteristics of virtual teams that can serve the purpose of professional learning and development in schools? A technology-enriched planning model for institutions with an interest in establishing and maintaining a virtual team approach to PLD (VTPLD) is provided. We consider three strategic characteristics for PLD: (relevance, collaboration and a future focus) to address how virtual teams can support professional learning for teachers.
Data Independent Acquisition Based Bi-Directional Deep Networks for Biometric ECG Authentication

In this report, the study of non-fiducial based approaches for Electrocardiogram(ECG) biometric authentication is examined, and several excessive techniques are proposed to perform comparative experiments for evaluating the best possible approach for all the classification tasks. Non-fiducial methods are designed to extract the discriminative information of a signal without annotating fiducial points. However, this process requires peak detection to identify a heartbeat signal. Based on recent studies that usually rely on heartbeat segmentation, QRS detection is required, and the process can be complicated for ECG signals for which the QRS complex is absent. Thus, many studies only conduct biometric authentication tasks on ECG signals with QRS complexes, and are hindered by similar limitations. To overcome this issue, we proposed a data-independent acquisition method to facilitate highly generalizable signal processing and feature learning processes. This is achieved by enhancing random segmentation to avoid complicated fiducial feature extraction, along with auto-correlation to eliminate the phase difference due to random segmentation. Subsequently, a bidirectional recurrent neural network (RNN) with long short-term memory (LSTM) deep networks is utilized to automatically learn the features associated with the signal and to perform an authentication task. The experimental results suggest that the proposed data-independent approach using a BLSTM network achieves a relatively high classification accuracy for every dataset relative to the compared techniques. Moreover, it exhibited a significantly higher accuracy rate in experiments using ECG signals without the QRS complex. The results also revealed that data-dependent methods can only perform well for specified data types and amendments of data variations, whereas the presented approach can also be considered for generalization to other quasi-periodical biometric signal-based classification tasks in future studies.
Analysis of reference materials for serum copper and zinc by flame AAS

A flame-AAS method was evaluated for its analytical accuracy in the determination of serum copper and serum zinc in commercially available reference materials: Cation-Cal, Seronorm, and Contox for Cu and Zn, and Precilip for Cu. The method includes dilution of serum (1+9) with a water solution of 6% (v/v) 1-butanol and calibration with standards containing a mixture of Cu and Zn in 0.5% (v/v) HCI, diluted in the same way. The detection limits (3 σ) of the method were 1.27 μg/L of Cu and 0.78 μg/L of Zn, the day-today precisions (coefficients of variation) of duplicate determinations in 152 human serum samples were in the range 1.7-4.5% at 831-1772 μg/L of Cu and 1.2-3.9% at 601-1245 μg/L of Zn, and the recoveries (mean±SD) were 100.2±1.1% of Cu and 99.6±0.9% of Zn. The results obtained for three out of the four reference materials were in good agreement with the certified values for both Cu and Zn. On the other hand, the precision and the accuracy of the Cu and Zn results obtained for Contox were poor, probably due to the nonhomogeneity of this lyophilized reference material following its reconstitution with water, and possibly unreliable certified values.
The Roots of Racial Categorization

I examine the origins of ordinary racial thinking. In doing so, I argue against the thesis that it is the byproduct of a unique module (e.g. a folk-biology module). Instead, I defend a pluralistic thesis according to which different forms of racial thinking are driven by distinct mechanisms, each with their own etiology. I begin with the belief that visible features are diagnostic of race. I argue that the mechanisms responsible for face recognition have an important, albeit delimited, role to play in sustaining this belief. I then argue that essentialist beliefs about race are driven by some of the mechanisms responsible for “entitativity perception”: the tendency to perceive some aggregates of people as more genuine groups than others. Finally, I argue that coalitional thinking about race is driven by a distinctive form of entitativity perception. However, I suggest that more data is needed to determine the prevalence of this form of racial thinking.
Blood Glucose Response to Unilateral and Bilateral Resistance Training Among Trained Women

Exercise selection is one of the crucial factors in designing a comprehensive training program. The exposure of different exercise selection may stimulate the specific adaptation imposed demand. In the construction of any resistance training (RT) program, it is important to choose whether to apply bilaterally (BI) or unilaterally (UNI) exercise. The present study aimed to look into the physiological responses of blood glucose (BG) between UNI and BI RT. The quantitative research method was used, RT (UNI versus BI training) as the independent variables whereas BG set as the dependent variable. In order to measure training effects following a single bout of different training intervention (UNI versus BI), a crossover experimental pre and post-test design were implemented. A total of sixteen (n = 16) trained women with a mean age of 23 (SD = 1.35) years old went through a single bout of RT involved a total body exercise using major muscles group with 80% of 1RM for each protocol (UNI and BI) for 10 repetitions to maximal effort (for 3 sets). Crossover design would be more accurate in exposing different training protocol to a similar characteristic of individuals as compared using different individuals. The results revealed that blood glucose (BG) was statistically changed (p < .001) across times, and finding shows there is no difference between training protocols (p = .39). Based on the results, it would be interesting to observe the blood glucose and/or energy metabolism between UNI versus BI RT during exercise as well as to investigate the relationship between BG and calories expenditure during exercises. Future research on UNI versus BI RT could venture onto other populations such as the untrained women, men population, elderly and specific population such as diabetic population in order to further understand the physiology of human body responded towards exercise. Other types of hormones analysis including insulin, growth hormone, and cortisol can be included. Besides, future research should consider a long run study that involves chronic adaptation of RT on the human body in order to prevent and alleviate disease.
Functional and molecular characterization of PD1+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes from lung cancer patients

ABSTRACT Antibody-mediated cancer immunotherapy targets inhibitory surface molecules, such as PD1, PD-L1, and CTLA-4, aiming to re-invigorate dysfunctional T cells. We purified and characterized tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and their patient-matched non-tumor counterparts from treatment-naïve NSCLC patient biopsies to evaluate the effect of PD1 expression on the functional and molecular profiles of tumor-resident T cells. We show that PD1+ CD8+ TILs have elevated expression of the transcriptional regulator ID3 and that the cytotoxic potential of CD8 T cells can be improved by knocking down ID3, defining it as a potential regulator of T cell effector function. PD1+ CD4+ memory TILs display transcriptional patterns consistent with both helper and regulator function, but can robustly facilitate B cell activation and expansion. Furthermore, we show that expanding ex vivo-prepared TILs in vitro broadly preserves their functionality with respect to tumor cell killing, B cell help, and TCR repertoire. Although purified PD1+ CD8+ TILs generally maintain an exhausted phenotype upon expansion in vitro, transcriptional analysis reveals a downregulation of markers of T-cell dysfunction, including the co-inhibitory molecules PD1 and CTLA-4 and transcription factors ID3, TOX and TOX2, while genes involved in cell cycle and DNA repair are upregulated. We find reduced expression of WNT signaling components to be a hallmark of PD1+ CD8+ exhausted T cells in vivo and in vitro and demonstrate that restoring WNT signaling, by pharmacological blockade of GSK3β, can improve effector function. These data unveil novel targets for tumor immunotherapy and have promising implications for the development of a personalized TIL-based cell therapy for lung cancer.
Will Intellectual Property Rights Policy Increase Foreign Direct Investment and Promote Technological Innovation?

In this paper, we discuss the effects of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on FDI and indigenous innovation and the overall effects of IPR on the Southern and Northern countries. Our model predicts that tighter IPR is good for FDI and indigenous innovation; however, the effects vary according to the initial resource endowment such as skill level and absorptive capacity. By a game theory model, we also find that tighter IPR benefits both sides if the innovation is the common knowledge to both players, and it improves indigenous innovation and welfare in a short term, but they will emerge in the long run. We also discuss the further direction to an empirical study. Finally, we make the following conclusion: IPR is part of business environment, and tighter IPR in progress is good for boosting welfare of both sides. It is time to build a better environment for IPR, but the cost of patent enforcement policy and the trade barrier must be taken into account.
Nanotechnology-Based Antimicrobial and Antiviral Surface Coating Strategies

Biocontamination of medical devices and implants is a growing issue that causes medical complications and increased expenses. In the fight against biocontamination, developing synthetic surfaces, which reduce the adhesion of microbes and provide biocidal activity or combinatory effects, has emerged as a major global strategy. Advances in nanotechnology and biological sciences have made it possible to design smart surfaces for decreasing infections. Nevertheless, the clinical performance of these surfaces is highly depending on the choice of material. This review focuses on the antimicrobial surfaces with functional material coatings, such as cationic polymers, metal coatings and antifouling micro-/nanostructures. One of the highlights of the review is providing insights into the virus-inactivating surface development, which might particularly be useful for controlling the currently confronted pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The nanotechnology-based strategies presented here might be beneficial to produce materials that reduce or prevent the transmission of airborne viral droplets, once applied to biomedical devices and protective equipment of medical workers. Overall, this review compiles existing studies in this broad field by focusing on the recent related developments, draws attention to the possible activity mechanisms, discusses the key challenges and provides future recommendations for developing new, efficient antimicrobial and antiviral surface coatings.
Up-to-date Notions of Polystyrene Nanocomposite Nanofibers

ABSTRACT Polystyrene is an important and commonly used synthetic thermoplastic polymer. This state-of-the-art review is an endeavor to describe the unique capabilities of polystyrene to form the high performance nanocomposite nanofibers. Different types of nanofillers have been introduced in polystyrene nanocomposite nanofibers such as carbon nanotube, graphene, nanoclay, and metal nanoparticles. Accordingly, the article introduces the categories of the polystyrene/carbon nanotube, polystyrene/graphene, polystyrene/nanoclay, and polystyrene/metal nanoparticle nanocomposites. The comprehensive deliberations on design, morphology, physical properties, and developments related to polystyrene nanocomposite nanofibers are presented. The nanocomposite characteristics have been considerably enhanced with the addition of the nanoparticles. High performance polystyrene based nanocomposite nanofibers was found to be related to the interactions between the matrix and the nanofillers. The polystyrene nanocomposite nanofibers have found applications for electromagnetic interference shielding, sensors, membranes, and drug delivery. Graphical Abstract
Adoption of video annotation tool in enhancing students’ reflective ability level and communication competence

ABSTRACT Video-based education has shown a positive impact on teaching and learning. Hence, it has been increasingly adopted, and one form of video-based education is the use of video annotation tools (VATs). However, the adoption of VATs in life coaching courses has rarely been observed. The present investigation aims to examine the effect of VATs on enhancing students’ level of reflective thinking and communication competence during coaching practices in a sample of seventy-three undergraduates enrolled in the course ‘Life coaching with the aid of peer support’. During the coaching practices, two coaching sessions were video-taped, and the videos were uploaded on an online platform. Students were instructed to use VATs to give peer comments based on the performances of their peers. Their reflective thinking level and communication competence were also examined. In addition, four students participated in focus group interviews to explore the effectiveness of VATs. Two dependent t-tests demonstrated that both reflective thinking level and communication competence improved over time. Implications of the adoption of VATs in teaching and learning were discussed.