Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing Goats' Fecal Avoidance Using Image Analysis-Based Monitoring

The recent advances in sensor technologies and data analysis could improve our capacity to acquire long-term and individual dataset on animal behavior. In livestock management, this is particularly interesting when behavioral data could be linked to production performances, physiological or genetical information, with the objective of improving animal health and welfare management. In this study, we proposed a framework, based on computer vision and deep learning, to automatically estimate animal location within pasture and discuss the relationship with the risk of gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) infection. We illustrated our framework for the monitoring of goats allowed to graze an experimental plot, where feces containing GIN infective larvae were previously dropped in delimited areas. Four animals were monitored, during two grazing weeks on the same pasture (week 1 from April 12 to 19, 2021 and week 2, from June 28 to July 5, 2021). Using the monitoring framework, different components of animal behavior were analyzed, and the relationship with the risk of GIN infection was explored. First, in average, 87.95% of the goats were detected, the detected individuals were identified with an average sensitivity of 94.9%, and an average precision of 94.8%. Second, the monitoring of the ability of the animal to avoid infected feces on pasture showed an important temporal and individual variability. Interestingly, the avoidance behavior of 3 animals increased during the second grazing week (Wilcoxon rank sum, p-value < 0.05), and the level of increase was correlated with the level of infection during week 1 (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.9). The relationship between the time spent on GIN-infested areas and the level of infection was also studied, but no clear relationship was found. In conclusion, due to the low number of studied animals, biological results should be interpreted with caution; nevertheless, the framework provided here is a new relevant tool to explore the relationship between ruminant behavior and GIN parasitism in experimental studies.
Adaptação de uma rede U-net com duas MRIs de entrada para segmentação de lesões escleróticas

Resumo— A Esclerose Múltipla (EM) é uma doença autoimune que provoca lesões na substância branca no cérebro e na medula espinhal, em decorrência da desmielinização dos axônios. Essas lesões podem ser visualizadas através de imageamento por ressonância magnética (MRI do inglês Magnetic Resonance Imaging), auxiliando no diagnóstico e acompanhamento da evolução da doença. Este trabalho teve o objetivo de segmentar lesões escleróticas em MRI nas sequências FLAIR (do inglês Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery) e T1, através de Redes Neurais Convolucionais (CNN do inglês Convolutional Neural Networks). O modelo de segmentação foi testado em imagens de 20 pacientes diagnosticados com EM. O conjunto de segmentações foi avaliado estatisticamente, através das métricas coeficiente Dice (DSC do inglês Dice Similarity Coefficient), Valor Preditivo Positivo (VPP) e Diferença de Volume Absoluta (DVA). Os resultados indicaram que o método de segmentação automática apresenta bom desempenho, com grande potencial para ser utilizado para segmentar as lesões escleróticas em clínicas médicas no futuro.
Production of Tomato Lines Tolerating to Salinity Using In-Vitro Culture Technique

Salinity is one of the major stress between the abiotic stresses for plants worldwide. This study aimed to investigate and evaluate variations in salt tolerance of four tomatoes genotypes (Super strain B, Castle Rock, Edkawy and Advantage II) under laboratory conditions using different concentration of NaCl. The cotyledon explants were cultured in MS media containing 0.5 mg/l BA and 0.5 mg/l Kin under different concentration of NaCl (0.0, 3.0, 6.0, 8.0 and 11.0 gm/L). Cotyledon culturability traits such as the percentage of each callus induction, plant regeneration, rooting, number of shoots, shoot length, roots number, root length and the plantlets number were measured to evaluate the salinity tolerance. All growth traits decreased with increasing of NaCl concentration in the culture media. The results suggested that the Edkawy genotype was the best for the percentage of plant regeneration (79.33%), percentage of rooting (54.66%), length of the shoot (7.46 cm), length of the root (5.73 cm) and callus fresh weight (2.72 gm) compared with the other genotypes under different levels of NaCl. Super Strain B and Castel Rock genotypes gave the highest shoots number and plantlets number (13.00 ,13.06 and 4.66 ,4.00 respectively). Advantage II genotype gave the lowest values for almost traits except the percentage of callus induction which was the best value (90%). Super Strain B genotype appeared the best in the percentage for callus induction (53.33%), percentage of plant regeneration (36.66%) and length of the shoot (4.66 cm) under the highest salt concentration (11.0 gm/L).
TIMP1 may affect goat prolificacy by regulating biological function of granulosa cells

Abstract Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP1) is associated with animal reproductive processes, such as follicular growth, ovulation, luteinization, and embryo development in mammals. The purposes of this study were to explore the expression and localization of TIMP1 in the ovarian tissues and determine the effect of TIMP1 on the function of granulosa cells and the association of TIMP1 with lambing-related genes of the goats. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that TIMP1 protein was strongly expressed by granulosa cells. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results showed that TIMP1 overexpression promoted the secretion of estradiol of granulosa cells after 12, 24, and 48 h of transfection. Moreover, in vitro experiments indicated that TIMP1 had the ability to promote the cell proliferation and elevate the transcriptional levels of four genes associated with goat prolificacy, including BMPR-1B, BMP15, GDF9, and FSHB, in granulosa cells. In conclusion, TIMP1 could be an important molecule in regulating reproductive performance of the goats by affecting estrogen secretion and cell proliferation, as well as the expression of lambing-related genes of granulosa cells in the goats.
An Optimized Angle Control Strategy for Doubly Salient Electro-magnetic Motor Based on the Half-bridge Converter

The doubly salient electro-magnetic motor(DSEM) suffers from the significant torque ripples when operating in the conventional angle control method.In order to weaken the effects of the torque ripples,the ripple generation mechanism was analyzed in this paper firstly.Then,the operation principle and the steady state of the split-capacitor in DC-link of the half-bridge converter were discussed in detail.Thus,an optimized control strategy of the half-bridge converter was proposed for the DSEM drives.The simulation and experimental results verify that the optimized angle control strategy can alleviate the torque ripples effectively and improve the motor performance.
Algorithm for generating negative cases for collaborative filtering recommender

Most collaborative filtering recommenders based on deep learning utilize implicit feedback information such as likes and bookmarks to infer user preferences rather than explicit feedback such as ratings provided by users. However, collaborative filtering models utilizing implicit feedback pose a chronic problem, that is, the “one‐class” problem (also known as the one‐class collaborative filtering problem), which causes trivial solutions due to lack of negative examples. A one‐class problem free‐boosting (OCF‐B) algorithm is proposed in this study to solve the one‐class problem by considering a user's preference pattern when generating negative cases and training the model with both positive and negative cases. More specifically, the OCF‐B algorithm iteratively selects negative cases that exacerbate the loss value of the object function and replace them with other negative cases when extracting negative cases from unknown cells of the user–item interaction matrix. In an experiment using four datasets, the results show that negative cases selected meticulously via the OCF‐B algorithm improve the prediction performance not only for negative cases, but also for positive cases. In addition, the prediction performance was better than that of the existing zero‐injection method.
Therapeutic Effect of Exosomes Derived From Stem Cells in Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review Based on Animal Studies

Objective A systematic review of the role of stem cell-derived exosomes in repairing spinal cord injury (SCI) and the existing problems in animal experiments to provide a reference for better animal experiments and clinical studies in the future. Method Three electronic databases, namely PubMed, Web of Science, and Ovid-Embase were searched. The studies were retrieved from inception to October 2021. Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data, and evaluated the methodological quality based on the inclusion criteria. Results and Discussion Thirty-two studies were incorporated into the final analyses. Exosomes derived from stem cells could not only significantly improve the motor function of animals with SCI, but also significantly increase the expression of anti-inflammatory factors IL-4 and IL-10 and anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, while significantly lowering the pro-inflammatory factor IL-1β and TNF-α and the expression of the apoptotic protein BAX. However, the mechanism of exosome-mediated SCI repair, as well as the best source and dosage remain unknown. In addition, there are still some issues with the design, implementation, and reporting of animal experiments in the included studies. Therefore, future research should further standardize the implementation and reporting of animal studies and fully explore the best strategies for exosomes to repair SCI so as to promote the translation of preclinical research results to clinical research better and faster.
Disagreements Discussion on State Estimation in Related Standards

The promulgation of Tentative Standard on Practicality of Energy Management System(EMS)and Interim Procedures for Practical Acceptance of Energy Management System(EMS)is beneficial to the practicality of EMS and improvement on the security and economy of power grid operation.The state estimation(SE)is a fundamental function in EMS,and the values obtained through SE are also the fundamental data for analysis of other power grids and control functions. Some opinions differ from those as worded in the above two standards are discussed at the academic and technical level.
Building Intuition Regarding the Statistical Behavior of Mass Medical Testing Programs

The quality of medical decision-making and public health planning alike depends directly upon understanding the accuracy of medical tests, especially during a pandemic. But the statistical concepts and measures used to assess test accuracy can be confusing. Why is there not one single definitive measure of test accuracy? How much should individuals worry about spreading COVID-19 if their test results are negative? What do sensitivity, specificity, false positive results, false negative results, and positive predictive value mean relative to each other? In this tutorial, we clarify the meaning of these terms in intuitive ways via visual illustrations, and explain how these terms are all connected to one another through Bayes’ theorem. We show how to use the relationships in that theorem to assess personal risk when large numbers of people are being tested. We illustrate as well the extent to which the accuracy of large numbers of tests depends on the proportion of those tested who have the disease. Overall, we aim to heighten a general intuition regarding the performance of mass medical testing campaigns. Here, toward that end, we review different ways to measure the accuracy of diagnostic tests with reference to pandemic-specific examples.
A Low-Power Hiccup-Mode Short-Circuit Protection Technique for DC-DC Boost Converter

An improved low-power hiccup-mode technology for short-circuit protection is proposed in this paper, which can effectively suppress short-circuit currents and greatly minimize the power dissipation of hiccup mode. The circuit can start normally after the short circuit is recovered, and there is no voltage overshoot. At the same time, the proposed pre-charge circuit can effectively suppress the large initial inrush current in the pre-charge stage. These technologies are used in a Peak-Current-Mode-Control (PCMC) Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) DC-DC boost converter designed with a 0.35 standard CMOS process. Compared with the conventional structure, the post-simulation results show that the initial inrush current during the start-up phase in the proposed structure is reduced by about 90%. When the output short circuit occurs, the inductor current drops to approximately zero and the power dissipation of the converter is very low at this time. The converter repeatedly detects the state of the output load after a period of about 24 ms. Eventually, the converter will restart after the short circuit is recovered and there is no voltage overshoot.
Silicon Nitride-Based Micro-Apertures Coated with Parylene for the Investigation of Pore Proteins Fused in Free-Standing Lipid Bilayers

In this work, we present a microsystem setup for performing sensitive biological membrane translocation measurements. Thin free-standing synthetic bilayer lipid membranes (BLM) were constructed in microfabricated silicon nitride apertures (<100 µm in diameter), conformal coated with Parylene (Parylene-C or Parylene-AF4). Within these BLMs, electrophysiological measurements were conducted to monitor the behavior of different pore proteins. Two approaches to integrate pore-forming proteins into the membrane were applied: direct reconstitution and reconstitution via outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) released from Gram-negative bacteria. The advantage of utilizing OMVs is that the pore proteins remain in their native lipid and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) environment, representing a more natural state compared to the usage of fused purified pore proteins. Multiple aperture chips can be easily assembled in the 3d-printed holder to conduct parallel membrane transport investigations. Moreover, well defined microfabricated apertures are achievable with very high reproducibility. The presented microsystem allows the investigation of fast gating events (down to 1 ms), pore blocking by an antibiotic, and gating events of small pores (amplitude of approx. 3 pA).
Olfactory and Gustatory Supra-Threshold Sensitivities Are Linked to Ad Libitum Snack Choice

Snacking is a common eating habit in the modern food environment. Individual snack choices vary substantially, with sweet versus savoury snacks linked to differential health outcomes. The role of olfactory and gustatory sensitivities in snack choices and consumption is yet to be tested. A total of 70 Caucasian young males (age: 21–39 years; BMI: 20.5–40.5 kg∙m−2) were tested for their supra-threshold sensitivities to sweet and savoury associated odours and tastants (vanillin, methional; sucrose, NaCl). The participants also attended an ad libitum task in which their intakes of sweet and savoury snacks were recorded and analysed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to test for relationships between odour/taste sensitivities and sweet versus savoury snack intake. Results indicated that individual sensitivities to sweet-associated stimuli (e.g., vanillin, sucrose) were negatively linked with intake of the congruent (e.g., sweet) snacks and positively linked with incongruent (e.g., savoury) snacks (p < 0.05). These differences were reflected by energy intake rather than consumption weight (p > 0.05). This study outlines the fundamental roles of olfactory and gustatory sensitivities in snack choices and offers novel insights into inter-individual variability in snack consumption.
Association between 1,5-anhydro-D-sorbitol, Insulin, and Incretins in Patients with Pre-diabetes and ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction

BACKGROUND: Prediabetes itself could be an independent predictor of such adverse cardiovascular events as myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke. Since prediabetes is linked with hyperinsulinism it could also cause fluctuations of incretins concentration. Another significant fact related to prediabetes is glycemic variability. The impact of these factors on prediabetes and acute myocardial infarction is a promising phenomenon to study. AIM: The study aims to estimate insulin, incretins, and glycemic variability in patients with impaired carbohydrate metabolism and acute myocardial infarction METHODS: The 255 prediabetes patients participated in the observational case-control study. The first group included 85 patients hospitalized for STEMI. The second group included 170 patients without STEMI. Insulin and incretins were measured using a multiplex immunological assay with XMap technology on Bioplex 3D. The high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry was used to evaluate 1,5-AG concentration. The binary logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association between studying parameters and STEMI. RESULTS: The insulin secretion parameters showed higher insulin and C-peptide level in patients with STEMI. A similar trend was noted for the HOMA-IR index. Among incretin, we revealed a higher level of glucagon and reduced GLP-1 in patients with STEMI. The of 1,5-AG in STEMI patients was significantly lower than in non-STEMI patients. The logistic regression model shows that a lower plasma concentration of 1,5-AG increases the odds of STEMI in patients with prediabetes [OR 2.304 (95% CI 1.980–2.973), p = 0.018]. Reduced GLP-1 concentration also increased the odds of STEMI [OR 1.775 (95% CI 1.460-1.990), p = 0.001]. CONCLUSION: We discovered the association between 1,5-AG, GLP-1, and STEMI in patients with prediabetes. It is designating their potential role as cardiovascular risk markers in non-diabetic patients with impaired glucose metabolism.
Optimal load distribution in power plants based on an improved dynamic programming method

With the detailed analysis of the importance of implementing optimal load distribution in power plants,this paper emphatically discusses a generic dynamic programming(DP) method applied in optimal load distribution in thermal power plants.After its deficiency is pointed out,an improved DP method is proposed,which changes step length according to experienced-based strategies,and conducts secondary optimization on the solution under different step length,so as to basically overcome the problem of no optimization brought by the step length selected irrelevantly.The good effect of the proposed method has been proved by the case in this paper;it has good applicable value in projects.
Aesculus indica: an updated review on its pharmacognosy, phytochemistry and pharmacological profile

ABSTRACT Aesculus indica Wall. Ex Camb. Hook, a member of Hippocastanaceae family, is widely distributed in the low temperature region of the world. Various parts of this plant are enriched with bioactive molecules and used to treat a variety of illness such as abdominal colic, thrombosis, hemorrhoids, diabetes, rheumatism and skin diseases. All the information related to this plant was collected from different treatise and reference books, and databases like PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, Google Scholar etc. In this review, the pharmacognosy, phytochemistry and pharmacological properties of this plant and its patented formulations have been thoroughly discussed in order to provide a comprehensive and updated information for the scientists or researchers working on natural products. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
A Quasi-digital QPSK Modulator Design for Biomedical Devices

For the biomedical transceiver, the data transmission is often asymmetric. At the downlink, the transceiver only needs to receive a simple command to control the operation of the external device, and the receiving data rate is low, about hundreds of Kb/s. However, data collected by external devices such as temperature sensors, pressure sensors, or cameras are often very large, which results in a transmitting data rate of several Mb/s. Therefore, a high energy-efficient modulator is needed. Compared with conventional digital modulator, analog modulator circuits have demonstrated superior energy efficiency at high data rates. This article presents a quasi-digital quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulator design realized by pure analog circuits which follows a logic design flow. The simulation results show that the system can generate a stable carrier of 64 MHz that meets intra-body communications (IBCs) requirements with a data transmission rate of 10 Mb/s. When the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of the Gaussian channel is 14 dB, it can still maintain a bit error rate (BER) below 104.
CULEX: a Cable-driven Upper Limb Exoskeleton for rehabilitation

In this paper was proposed a Cable-driven Upper Limb Exoskeleton (CULEX) with 8 degrees of freedom for rehabilitation of patients post stroke with a motor or sensitive dysfunction. With the tension Amplification Mechanism, it was able to transmit the power to the joint and move the motor to a position closer to the shoulder, moving the center of mass with them, making a safer human-robot interaction. Furthermore, it was shown the study of upper limb biomechanics applied to assistive devices, involving the study of range of motion, length and center of mass of the limbs. A 3D printed prototype was made for the validation of the tension-amplification mechanism, and the latest CAD (Computer Aid Design) version had an increase in the moment of inertia of the structure and the separation of the cable system into different section planes for each joint movement.
A field evaluation of a matching mechanism: University applicant behavior in Australia

Abstract The majority of undergraduate university applications in the state of New South Wales—Australia's largest state—are processed by a clearinghouse, the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC). Applicants submit an ordered list of degrees to the UAC, which applies a matching algorithm to allocate university places to eligible applicants. Applicants receive advice on how to construct their degree preference list from multiple sources including individual universities. This advice is often confusing and misleading. To evaluate the performance of the current system, we run a large sample (832 observations) online experiment with experienced participants in a choice environment that mimics the UAC application process, and in which truth telling is optimal. We vary the advice received across treatments: no advice, the UAC advice only, an instance of misleading university advice only, and both the UAC and the misleading university advice together. Overall, 75.5% of participants fail to behave in their best interest. High rates of applicant manipulation persist even when applicants are provided with the UAC's accurate advice. Students who attend nonselective government high schools are more prone to use strictly dominated strategies than those who attend academically selective government high schools and private high schools.