Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
$LiveForen$ : Ensuring Live Forensic Integrity in the Cloud

To expedite the forensic investigation process in the cloud, excessive and yet volatile data need to be acquired, transmitted, and analyzed in a timely manner. A common assumption for most existing forensic systems is that credible data can always be collected from a cloud infrastructure, which might be susceptible to various exploits. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of LiveForen, a system that enforces a trustworthy forensic data acquisition and transmission process in the cloud, whose computer platforms’ integrity has been verified. To fulfill this objective, we propose two secure protocols that verify the fingerprints of the computer platforms, as well as the attributes of the human agents, by taking advantage of the trusted platform module and the attribute-based encryption. To transmit forensic data as a data stream and verify its integrity at the same time, a unique fragile watermark is embedded into the data stream without altering the data itself. The watermark allows not only the data integrity to be verified but also any malicious data manipulation to be localized, with minimum communication overhead. The experimental results demonstrate that LiveForen achieves good scalability and limited performance overhead for authentication, data transmission, and integrity verification in an Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud environment.
Measurement of the Respiratory Activity of Single Human Embryos by Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy

Respiration is useful parameter for evaluating embzyo quality as it provides important information about metabolic activity. In the present study, we employed scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to accurately determine the oxygen consumption of single, identical human embryos at different developmental stages. The oxygen consumption rates of single embryos were low at 2-8-cell stages (0.51 ±0.05 X 10 14 /mol • s· 1, n=l8) but increased by the morula (0.61 ±0.11 X 10 14 /mol· s· 1, n=5) and early blastocyst(0.72±0.06X 10 14 /mol • s· 1, n=14) stages. Later blastocysts exhibited even higher oxygen consumption rates (1.00±0.19 X 10 14 /mol • s·\ n=4). Ultrastructural studies revealed that most mitochondria in embzyos up to the 8-cell stage were immature and had a spherical or ovoid shape. However, by the morula stage, the mitochondria had elongated cristae, with the elongated mmphology even more pronounced in mitochondria present in blastocysts. The maturation of mitochondria correlated with the increase of oxygen consumption rate during the development of embryos. The SECM technique may be a valuable tool for accurately assessing the mitochondrial function and quality of human embryos.
Energy Efficiency–Delay Tradeoff for a Cooperative NOMA System

The tradeoff between the energy efficiency (EE) and delay problem in the cooperative relaying system is studied by using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in this letter. To obtain an efficiency tradeoff between EE and delay, a stochastic-based EE optimization problem is formulated by considering the system queue stability. Then, the fractional programming and control parameter-based Lyapunov optimization method is proposed to solve the formulated problem. Furthermore, we derive the analytical bounds of EE and delay based on the control parameter. Finally, simulation results verify that the proposed cooperative NOMA system performs better than the traditional orthogonal multiple access cooperative system.
Sequencing and functional assessment of hPXR (NR1I2) variants in intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy

1. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of coding variation in hPXR (NR1I2) in intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) and to functionally asses the response of PXR variants to ligands of interest in ICP. 2. The coding region of hPXR was sequenced in a cohort of 121 Caucasian ICP patients and exon 2 was sequenced in an additional 226 cases. Reporter assays were used to evaluate the function of all known hPXR variants in response to the secondary bile acid lithocholic acid and therapeutic agents rifampicin, ursodeoxycholic acid and dexamethasone. 3. Two coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (C79T and G106A) were detected in the ICP cohort at frequencies consistent with healthy populations. These do not alter hPXR function in response to ligands of interest to ICP. Analysis of all known coding hPXR variants demonstrates that while subtle changes in experimental design mask or may unveil the functional effects of genetic variation, these are not maintained in a standard functional assay. 4. Coding genetic variation in hPXR does not contribute to the aetiology of ICP in Caucasian populations.
A Real-Time Street Actions Detection

Human action detection in real time is one of the most important and challenging problems in computer vision. Nowadays, CCTV cameras exist everywhere in our lives. However, the contents of these cameras are monitored and analyzed using human operator. This paper proposes a real time human action detection approach which efficiently detects basic and common actions in the street such as stopping, walking, running, group stopping, group walking, and group running. The proposed approach measures the object movement type based on three techniques: YOLO object detection, Kalman Filter and Homography. Real videos from CCTV camera and BEHAVE dataset are used to test the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method is very effective and accurate to detect basic human actions in the street. The accuracies of the proposed method on the tested videos are 96.9% and 88.4% for the BEHAVE and the created CCTV datasets, respectively. The proposed approach runs in real time with more than 50 fps for BEHAVE dataset and 32 fps for the created CCTV datasets.
Telomerase activity detected in eyed embryos of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss

: Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein that synthesizes telomeric DNA onto chromosome termini and maintains the telomere length, and is expressed in immortal cells, stem cells, and germ cells. The objectives of the present investigation were to detect telomerase activity in the eyed embryos of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss using stretch polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and to estimate the relative telomerase activity and compare it with the value found in HeLa cells. High levels of telomerase activity could be detected quantitatively in the embryos using stretch PCR assay. Telomerase activity in embryos completely vanished using pretreatments with heating and RNase A. Relative telomerase activity per cell in embryos was 19.3–50.7-fold higher than that in HeLa cells. Conversely, relative activity on the basis of the protein amount showed no significant difference between the embryos and HeLa cells. This finding supports previous results in which high level expressions of telomerase are demonstrated in the normal cells and organs of fish species.
Functionality and Cell Senescence of CD4/ CD8-Selected CD20 CAR T Cells Manufactured Using the Automated CliniMACS Prodigy® Platform

Clinical studies using autologous CAR T cells have achieved spectacular remissions in refractory CD19+ B cell leukaemia, however some of the patient treatments with CAR T cells failed. Beside the heterogeneity of leukaemia, the distribution and senescence of the autologous cells from heavily pretreated patients might be further reasons for this. We performed six consecutive large-scale manufacturing processes for CD20 CAR T cells from healthy donor leukapheresis using the automated CliniMACS Prodigy® platform. Starting with a CD4/CD8-positive selection, a high purity of a median of 97% T cells with a median 65-fold cell expansion was achieved. Interestingly, the transduction rate was significantly higher for CD4+ compared to CD8+ T cells and reached in a median of 23%. CD20 CAR T cells showed a good specific IFN-γ secretion after cocultivation with CD20+ target cells which correlated with good cytotoxic activity. Most importantly, 3 out of 5 CAR T cell products showed an increase in telomere length during the manufacturing process, while telomere length remained consistent in one and decreased in another process. In conclusion, this shows for the first time that beside heterogeneity among healthy donors, CAR T cell products also differ regarding cell senescence, even for cells manufactured in a standardised automated process.
Neutrophil Extracellular Traps: Signaling Properties and Disease Relevance

Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are characterized as extracellular DNA fibers comprised of histone and cytoplasmic granule proteins. NETs were first described as a form of innate response against pathogen invasion, which can capture pathogens, degrade bacterial toxic factors, and kill bacteria. Additionally, NETs also provide a scaffold for protein and cell binding. Protein binding to NETs further activate the coagulation system which participates in thrombosis. In addition, NETs also can damage the tissues due to the proteins they carry. Many studies have suggested that the excessive formation of NETs may contribute to a range of diseases, including thrombosis, atherosclerosis, autoimmune diseases, and sepsis. In this review, we describe the structure and components of NETs, models of NET formation, and detection methods. We also discuss the molecular mechanism of NET formation and their disease relevance. Modulation of NET formation may provide a new route for the prevention and treatment of releated human diseases.
A 10-Year Risk of Cardiovascular Disease among Patients with Severe Mental Illness at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, Southwestern Uganda

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Patients with severe mental illness (SMI) are at a higher risk for developing CVD and have a higher risk for harboring factors related to CVD. In addition to the effects of antipsychotic medications, unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as poor diet, inadequate physical activity, cigarette smoking, and sedentary behaviors, are known to be risk factors that may contribute to poor cardiovascular health in patients with SMI. Early identification of individuals at elevated risk of CVD is essential so that dietary and lifestyle modifications or pharmacological interventions can be prescribed to alleviate the risk of cardiovascular disease. The objective of the study was to determine the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease among patients with severe mental illness at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, southwestern Uganda. We conducted a cross-sectional study at the outpatient mental health clinic of Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, between October 2018 and March 2019. We used the Globorisk CVD risk score to estimate the 10-year risk of CVD among patients with SMI, using the online Globorisk calculator. Participants were then assigned to one of three categories depending on their 10-year CVD risk score: <3% (low), 3–10% (intermediate), and >10% (high). We calculated the risk scores of 125 participants aged 40-74 years. Most of the participants were female 75 (60%), had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder 75 (60%), and had mental illness for ≥10 years 57 (46%). Eighty five percent (85%) of the participants had intermediate to high 10-year risk of CVD (64% with intermediate and 21% with high risk). The average risk score was significantly higher in males compared to females, 8.82% versus 6.43%, p = 0.016. We detected a high 10-year risk of CVD in a significant proportion of patients with SMI in southwestern Uganda. We recommend lifestyle modifications and pharmacological interventions to reverse risk or delay progression to CVD in this patient population.
The design and analysis of multi-phase plant breeding experiments

Despite the importance of selection for quality characteristics in plant improvement programmes, literature on experimental design and statistical analysis for these traits is scarce. Most quality traits are obtained from multi-phase experiments in which plant varieties are first grown in a field trial then further processed in the laboratory. In the present paper a general mixed model approach for the analysis of multi-phase data is described, with particular emphasis on quality trait data that are often highly unbalanced and involve substantial sources of non-genetic variation and correlation. Also detailed is a new approach for experimental design that employs partial replication in all phases. The motivation for this was the high cost of obtaining quality trait data, thus the need to limit the total number of samples tested, but still allow use of the mixed model analysis. A simulation study is used to show that the combined use of the new designs and mixed model analysis has substantial benefits in terms of the genetic gain from selection.
bryophytes and lichens of a calcium-rich spring seep isolated on the granitic terrain of Mt. Katahdin, Maine, U.S.A.

Abstract An unexpected concentration of calcicole mosses and lichens has been discovered at and near a small spring seep on the granite headwall of the North Basin of Mt. Katahdin, Piscataquis County, Maine. Water samples from the spring were circumneutral and high in calcium ion content, whereas other springs, ponds, and streams on the mountain tested acidic and low in calcium. Because the Katahdin granite contains no primary carbonate minerals, it is suggested that the source of calcium enrichment in the North Basin spring water is secondary calcium carbonate (calcite) precipitated in cavities and fractures near the base of the upper Katahdin granite and its subsequent dissolution and mobilization by percolating groundwater. Plagioclase, epidote, and other calcic minerals in the granite supply the primary calcium ions. The moss calcicoles grew in small discontinuous patches on wet humified peaty soil over alpine bedrock ledges in communities having floristics and water chemistry similar to lowland rich fens. Present in or near the seep were mosses previously unrecorded for New England or Maine [Loeskypnum wickesiae (Grout) Tuom. , Neckera oligocarpa Bruch in Hartm. , Pseudoleskea radicosa (Mitt.) Mac. & Kindb. , Tortella tortuosa var. fragilifolia (Jur.) Limpr. , Warnstorfia sarmentosa (Wahlenb.) Hedenäs], one lichen [Hymenelia cyanocarpa (Anzi) Lutzoni], reported here for the first time from North America, and another lichen (Thelidium minutulum Körb.) for the first time from the contiguous United States. An area adjacent to the seep, but unaffected by calcareous seep-water, was remarkable for a concentration of rare lichen species of acidic rocks, including Catillaria contristans (Nyl.) Zahlbr. and Lecanora caesiosora Poelt, that have not previously been reported from North America. The bryophyte and lichen flora of the seep area is an example of a Holocene alpine microrefugium. Refugia such as these can serve as a source of propagules that allow new populations to establish elsewhere in mountainous terrain, or beyond, during climatic and other environmental change. Therefore, extant, cryptic microrefugia are important biogeographically and especially worthy of preservation efforts.
Diet of a rare herbivore based on DNA metabarcoding of feces: Selection, seasonality, and survival

Abstract In herbivores, survival and reproduction are influenced by quality and quantity of forage, and hence, diet and foraging behavior are the foundation of an herbivore's life history strategy. Given the importance of diet to most herbivores, it is imperative that we know the species of plants they prefer, especially for herbivorous species that are at risk for extinction. However, it is often difficult to identify the diet of small herbivores because: (a) They are difficult to observe, (b) collecting stomach contents requires sacrificing animals, and (c) microhistology requires accurately identifying taxa from partially digested plant fragments and likely overemphasizes less‐digestible taxa. The northern Idaho ground squirrel (Urocitellus brunneus) is federally threatened in the United States under the Endangered Species Act. We used DNA metabarcoding techniques to identify the diet of 188 squirrels at 11 study sites from fecal samples. We identified 42 families, 126 genera, and 120 species of plants in the squirrel's diet. Our use of three gene regions was beneficial because reliance on only one gene region (e.g., only trnL) would have caused us to miss >30% of the taxa in their diet. Northern Idaho ground squirrel diet differed between spring and summer, frequency of many plants in the diet differed from their frequency within their foraging areas (evidence of selective foraging), and several plant genera in their diet were associated with survival. Our results suggest that while these squirrels are generalists (they consume a wide variety of plant species), they are also selective and do not eat plants relative to availability. Consumption of particular genera such as Perideridia may be associated with higher overwinter survival.
Water Sorption by Different Types of Filter Media Used for Particulate Matter Collection Under Varying Temperature and Humidity Conditions

The present study describes the effects of temperature and humidity on the level of water absorption by filter blanks most popularly used for gravimetric analyzes of particulate matter (PM) and the effects of those on the accuracy of its weight measurements. The main parts of the research quantified the effect of temperature and humidity conditions on water contents quartz fiber (Q), fiberglass (G), PTFE, and nylon (N) filters. Supplementary studies were conducted to estimate the effects of temperature, humidity and material on mass loss/gain and the shape of water retention. All chemical analyses of water contents were performed by the Karl Fischer titration method. The results indicate that quartz filters are the most susceptible to the variations in water contents under changing humidity levels and therefore, less suitable to high accuracy determinations of PM mass compared to nylon or glass filters; PTFE performed the best due to their hydrophobicity. For PM water contents determinations, the best choice of filter media is PTFE. Although many other factors determine the choice of filter type for PM analyses, the present study is an important contribution to knowledge of assessing the suitability of different types of filter material for specific measurements.
Phenotypic responses to temperature in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila

Abstract Understanding the effects of temperature on ecological and evolutionary processes is crucial for generating future climate adaptation scenarios. Using experimental evolution, we evolved the model ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila in an initially novel high temperature environment for more than 35 generations, closely monitoring population dynamics and morphological changes. We observed initially long lag phases in the high temperature environment that over about 26 generations reduced to no lag phase, a strong reduction in cell size and modifications in cell shape at high temperature. When exposing the adapted populations to their original temperature, most phenotypic traits returned to the observed levels in the ancestral populations, indicating phenotypic plasticity is an important component of this species thermal stress response. However, persistent changes in cell size were detected, indicating possible costs related to the adaptation process. Exploring the molecular basis of thermal adaptation will help clarify the mechanisms driving these phenotypic responses.
How, why and under what circumstances does a quality improvement collaborative build knowledge and skills in clinicians working with people with dementia? A realist informed process evaluation

In increasingly constrained health and aged care services, strategies are needed to improve quality and translate evidence into practice. In dementia care, recent failures in quality and safety have led the World Health Organisation to prioritise the translation of known evidence into practice. While quality improvement collaboratives have been widely used in healthcare, there are few examples in dementia care. We describe a recent quality improvement collaborative to improve dementia care across Australia and assess the implementation outcomes of acceptability and feasibility of this strategy to translate known evi-dence into practice. A realist-informed process evaluation was used to analyse how, why and under what circumstances a quality improvement collaborative built knowledge and skills in clinicians working in dementia care. This realist-informed process evaluation developed, tested, and refined the program theory of a quality improvement collaborative. Data were collected pre-and post-intervention using surveys and interviews with participants (n=24). A combined inductive and deductive data analysis process integrated three frameworks to examine the context and mechanisms of knowledge and skill building in participant clinicians. A refined program theory showed how and why clinicians built knowledge and skills in quality improvement in dementia care. Seven mechanisms were identified: motivation, accountability, identity, collective learning, credibility, and reflective practice. Each of these mechanisms operated differently according to context. A quality improvement collaborative designed for clinicians in different contexts and roles was acceptable and feasible in building knowledge and skills of clinicians to improve dementia care. A supportive setting and a credible, flexible, and collaborative process optimises quality improvement knowledge and skills in clinicians working with people with dementia.
Age‐related variation in the trophic characteristics of a marsupial carnivore, the Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus harrisii

Abstract Age‐related changes in diet have implications for competitive interactions and for predator–prey dynamics, affecting individuals and groups at different life stages. To quantify patterns of variation and ontogenetic change in the diets of Tasmanian devils Sarcophilus harrisii, a threatened marsupial carnivore, we analyzed variation in the stable isotope composition of whisker tissue samples taken from 91 individual devils from Wilmot, Tasmania from December 2014 to February 2017. Both δ13C and δ15N decreased with increasing age in weaned Tasmanian devils, indicating that as they age devils rely less on small mammals and birds, and more on large herbivores. Devils <12 months old had broader group isotopic niches, as estimated by Bayesian standard ellipses (SEAB mode = 1.042) than devils from 12 to 23 months old (mode = 0.541) and devils ≥24 months old (mode = 0.532). Devils <24 months old had broader individual isotopic niches (SEAB mode range 0.492–1.083) than devils ≥24 months old (mode range 0.092–0.240). A decrease in δ15N from the older whisker sections to the more recently grown sections in devils <24 months old likely reflects the period of weaning in this species, as this pattern was not observed in devils ≥24 months old. Our data reveal changes in the isotopic composition of devil whiskers with increasing age, accompanied by a reduction in isotopic variation both among population age classes and within individuals, reflecting the effect of weaning in early life, and a likely shift from an initially diverse diet of small mammals, birds, and invertebrates towards increasing consumption of larger herbivores in adulthood.