Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuromodulation of Glial Function During Neurodegeneration

Glia, a non-excitable cell type once considered merely as the connective tissue between neurons, is nowadays acknowledged for its essential contribution to multiple physiological processes including learning, memory formation, excitability, synaptic plasticity, ion homeostasis, and energy metabolism. Moreover, as glia are key players in the brain immune system and provide structural and nutritional support for neurons, they are intimately involved in multiple neurological disorders. Recent advances have demonstrated that glial cells, specifically microglia and astroglia, are involved in several neurodegenerative diseases including Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). While there is compelling evidence for glial modulation of synaptic formation and regulation that affect neuronal signal processing and activity, in this manuscript we will review recent findings on neuronal activity that affect glial function, specifically during neurodegenerative disorders. We will discuss the nature of each glial malfunction, its specificity to each disorder, overall contribution to the disease progression and assess its potential as a future therapeutic target.
Assessing Bioavailablility of Drug Delivery Systems: Mathematical Modeling

The purpose of this chapter is to describe a method of calculation leading to what it could be called a “quantitative pharmacokinetics,” since the plasma drug profiles are reckoned. This is the answer to the questions set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the late 1980s about a possible correlation between the in vivo tests and the in vitro tests for oral dosage forms with controlled release. Keywords: adapted therapy; bioavailability; drug delivery systems; dosage forms evaluation; intervariability of patients; modeling; quantitative pharmacodynamic
Development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite markers in Rhododendron simsii (Ericaceae)

A set of 14 polymorphic microsatellite markers has been developed and characterized using FIASCO (fast isolation by AFLP of sequences containing repeats) methods for the garden plant, Rhododendron simsii Planch. Forty-one R. simsii individuals showing large morphological differences were used to identify these markers. The total number of alleles for each locus ranged from 2 to 6, with an average value of 3.643. The expected heterozygosities and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.137 to 0.778 and 0.000 to 0.769, respectively. Eight loci exhibited significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Among these microsatellites, seven could successfully be transferred to four related species (R. pulchrum, R. hybrida, R. alutaceum and R. molle (Blume) G. Don). These novel microsatellite markers could be further used for assessment of genetic diversity and population structure, phylogeographic analysis and marker-assisted selection for R. simsii and other Rhododendron species.
Weighted LSTM for intrusion detection and data mining to prevent attacks

The usage of cloud opportunities brings not only resources and storage availability, but puts also customer's privacy at stake. These services are carried out through web that generate log files. These files contain valuable information in tracking malicious behaviours. However, they are variant, voluminous and have high velocity. This paper structures input log files using data preparation treatment (DPT), anticipates missing features, and performs a weighted conversion to ease the discrimination of malicious activities. Regarding the robustness of deep learning in analysing high dimension databases, selecting dynamically features and detecting intrusions, our architecture avails its strength and proposes a weighted long short-term memory (WLSTM) deep learning algorithm. WLSTM mine network traffic predictors considering past events, and minimizes the vanishing gradient. Results prove its effectiveness; it achieves 98% of accuracy and reduces false alarm rates to 1.47%. For contextual malicious behaviours, the accuracy attained 97% and the loss was 22%.
Os efeitos da disponibilidade de alimentos e dos fatores climaticos na reprodução, condição, crescimento e uso do espaço por quatro especies de roedores no sudeste do Brasil

As areas de vida das especies podem ser influenciadas por diversos fatores, como o peso, a disponibilidade de alimentos e a estrutura social. Ha poucos estudos fornecendo informacoes sobre os fatores que influenciam as variacoes no tamanho da area de vida e tambem, na territorialidade de mamiferos brasileiros. Este estudo teve como objetivo determinar se as distâncias maximas percorridas e as areas de vidas de Nectomys squamipes e Oryzomys intermedius diferem segundo o sexo e a estacao reprodutiva ou nao. Alem disso, procurou determinar se a pluviosidade e a disponibilidade de alimentos influenciam nas distâncias maximas percorridas e qual fator tem o principal efeito. Os animais capturados em uma grade de 8,78 ha foram marcados e recapturados mensalmente de fevereiro de 1993 a janeiro de 1995, na llha do Cardoso, Sao Paulo. A distância maxima percorrida e a area de vida foram calculadas para os individuos capturados pelo menos durante tres meses (residentes). As distâncias maximas percorridas por N. squamipes nao estao relacionadas com o peso e sao maiores, para os machos, durante a estacao reprodutiva. Ao contrario, para O. intermedius, nao ha diferencas nas distâncias percorridas entre estacoes, mas machos maiores percorrem maiores distâncias. Para ambas as especies, os efeitos da disponibilidade de alimentos e da pluviosidade nao foram significativos sobre a distância maxima percorrida. As areas de vida de machos de N squamipes sao maiores do que as das areas durante a estacao reprodutiva e as de O. intermedius nao diferem entre os sexos. As areas de vida de femeas de N squamipes e de machos de O. intermedius sao exclusivas, nao sobrepondo intrasexualmente. As diferencas observadas nos fatores que influenciam as distâncias influenciam as distâncias percorridas e as areas de vida de N. squamipes e O. intermedius parecem estar associadas ao sistema de acasalamento que, para a primeira especie deve ser promiscuo e para a segunda monogâmico Abstract
Computer-Generated Music for Tabletop Role-Playing Games

In this paper we present Bardo Composer, a system to generate background music for tabletop role-playing games. Bardo Composer uses a speech recognition system to translate player speech into text, which is classified according to a model of emotion. Bardo Composer then uses Stochastic Bi-Objective Beam Search, a variant of Stochastic Beam Search that we introduce in this paper, with a neural model to generate musical pieces conveying the desired emotion. We performed a user study with 116 participants to evaluate whether people are able to correctly identify the emotion conveyed in the pieces generated by the system. In our study we used pieces generated for Call of the Wild, a Dungeons and Dragons campaign available on YouTube. Our results show that human subjects could correctly identify the emotion of the generated music pieces as accurately as they were able to identify the emotion of pieces written by humans.
Object Detection in the Context of Mobile Augmented Reality

In the past few years, numerous Deep Neural Network (DNN) models and frameworks have been developed to tackle the problem of real-time object detection from RGB images. Ordinary object detection approaches process information from the images only, and they are oblivious to the camera pose with regard to the environment and the scale of the environment. On the other hand, mobile Augmented Reality (AR) frameworks can continuously track a camera’s pose within the scene and can estimate the correct scale of the environment by using Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO). In this paper, we propose a novel approach that combines the geometric information from VIO with semantic information from object detectors to improve the performance of object detection on mobile devices. Our approach includes three components: (1) an image orientation correction method, (2) a scale-based filtering approach, and (3) an online semantic map. Each component takes advantage of the different characteristics of the VIO-based AR framework. We implemented the AR-enhanced features using ARCore and the SSD Mobilenet model on Android phones. To validate our approach, we manually labeled objects in image sequences taken from 12 room-scale AR sessions. The results show that our approach can improve on the accuracy of generic object detectors by 12% on our dataset.
Biologia Celular e Molecular

Ementa: Aspectos estruturais e funcionais de moléculas, células e tecidos fundamentais. Métodos de estudo, organização de Pró e Eucarióticos. Organelas celulares; biologia do desenvolvimento; interações celulares e transporte; principais tecidos humanos. Serão enfatizados os principais aspectos do funcionamento normal e anormal dos diversos sistemas, nos níveis celular e molecular; conhecimentos básicos e modernos da estrutura e função celular; técnicas diagnósticas e terapêuticas. Integração entre conhecimentos de bioquímica, biologia celular e molecular, genética, fisiologia e biofísica, histologia e as diferentes áreas da saúde.
Molecular phylogeny of entomopathogenic nematodes(Mermi-thidae) inferred from DNA sequences of 18S rDNA,28S rDNA and COI genes

Mermithidae is a group of nematodes which parasitise insects and which have diversified morphological characters and host specificity.Because of the biological control value of these entomopathogenic nematodes,it is necessary to study their genetic variation and evolution.However,research on their classificationand evolutionary relationships has always been hindered by the overwhelming number of species,global distribution,and the lack of morphological specializations traditionally used in nematode classification.These problems have brought much confusion not only to the study of the phyologenetic relationships among groups,but also to the biological control of the nematodes.In this study,to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships of Mermithidae,the 18S ribosomal DNA fragment sequences,28S ribosomal DNA fragment sequences and COI gene of ten species within six genera of Mermithidae were amplified using PCR techniques.The resulting data were combined with homologous sequences of ten species within six genera of Mermithidae downloaded from GenBank to form the analysis matrix.Molecular phylogenetic trees were constructed by using Neighbor-Joining(NJ) and Maximum Parsimony(MP). Results indicate that the twelve genera of Mermithidae may be grouped into three distinct clusters.In the phylogenetic trees,the congeners Romanomermis wuchangensis,R.culicivorax and R.sichuanensis (mosquito parasites) grouped with Amphimermis sp. (Homoptera parasites) and Aranimermis(spider parasites)into one cluster.In the second cluster,Ovomermis sinensis and Hexamermis agrotis(Lepidoptera parasites) were grouped together first,then grouped with Agamermis changshaensis and Agamermis xianyangensis(Homoptera parasites),finally with Octomyomermis huazhongensis (mosquito parasites) and Thaumamermis cosgrovei(isopod parasites). In the third cluster,Mermis nigrescens(Orthoptera parasites) and Allomermis solenopsii(ant parasites) were grouped together first,then with Heleidomermis sp. (ceratopogonid parasites) and Strelkovimermis spiculatus (mosquito parasites). Genetic distances showed that the intra-generic relationships were closer than inter-genus.
Epidemiologic trend of mobile spine and sacrum chordoma: A National population-based study

Introduction: Chordoma is a rare sarcoma of the axial skeleton. The incidence of this tumor is different between races. To understand the epidemiologic characteristic and due to rarity of this pathology, large number of cases should be evaluated through national data registries. Materials and Methods: All pathologically confirmed cases of chordoma were derived from the Iran National Cancer Registry. Descriptive analysis was performed to extract age-standardized and age-specific incidence rates. Data regarding tumor location and chordoma subtypes were derived and analyzed. Results: One hundred twenty-two cases of chordoma including 80 male and 42 female were identified. One hundred seven cases of nonotherwise specified chordoma, 14 chondroid chordoma, and one dedifferentiated chordoma were detected. The age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) of chordoma was 0.28. Chordoma of the sacrum composed 67.2% of cases. The mean survival time was 4.5 yearsConclusion: Epidemiology characteristic of chordoma in Iran is similar to other studies; however, the total ASIR was lower and the incidence in sacrum is nearly twice respect to the mobile spine. While men affected by sacral chordoma in relatively older age, the female patients had higher mean age in case of mobile spine involvement. The survival rate of chordoma is significantly lower in comparison with other studies.
Gene Therapy and its Application in Dermatology

Gene therapy is an experimental technique to treat genetic diseases. It is based on the introduction of nucleic acid with the help of a vector, into a diseased cell or tissue, to correct the gene expression and thus prevent, halt, or reverse a pathological process. It is a promising treatment approach for genetic diseases, inherited diseases, vaccination, cancer, immunomodulation, as well as healing of some refractory ulcers. Both viral and nonviral vectors can be used to deliver the correct gene. An ideal vector should have the ability for sustained gene expression, acceptable coding capacity, high transduction efficiency, and devoid of mutagenicity. There are different techniques of vector delivery, but these techniques are still under research for assessment of their safety and effectiveness. The major challenges of gene therapy are immunogenicity, mutagenicity, and lack of sustainable therapeutic benefit. Despite these constraints, therapeutic success was obtained in a few genetic and inherited skin diseases. Skin being the largest, superficial, easily accessible and assessable organ of the body, may be a promising target for gene therapy research in the recent future.
Utilization of Shrimp By-Products by Bioconversion with Medical Fungi for Angiotensin I-Converting Enzyme Inhibitor and Antioxidant

ABSTRACT A liquid fermentation process to bioconvert shrimp by-products was developed with two species of fungi, Boletus edulis and Suillus bovinus. Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory, antioxidant activities of bioconverted products and the deodorization effect of fungal bioconversion were determined. Two species of fungi could grow quickly in shrimp by-products medium and deodorize shrimp by-products. Bioconverted products had higher ACE inhibitory and antioxidant activities than control medium. Water extracts without crude polysaccharides from mycelia of B. edulis had the highest ACE inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.084 ± 0.011 mg/mL). Crude exopolysaccharides of B. edulis had higher antioxidant activity. Bioconversion with the fungus was proven to be a novel, practicable way to recycle shrimp by-products.
CARGO : Context Augmented Critical Region Offload for Network-bound datacenter Workloads

Network bound applications, like a database server executing OLTP queries or a caching server storing objects for a dynamic web applications, are essential services that consumers and businesses use daily. These services run on a large datacenters and are required to meet predefined Service Level Objectives (SLO), or latency targets, with high probability. Thus, efficient datacenter applications should optimize their execution in terms of power and performance. However, to support large scale data storage, these workloads make heavy use of pointer connected data structures (e.g., hash table, large fan-out tree, trie) and exhibit poor instruction and memory level parallelism. Our experiments show that due to long memory access latency, these workloads occupy processor resources (e.g., ROB entries, RS buffers, LS queue entries etc.) for a prolonged period of time that delay the processing of subsequent requests. Delayed execution not only increases request processing latency, but also severely effects an application throughput and power-efficiency. To overcome this limitation, we present CARGO, a novel mechanism to overlap queuing latency and request processing by executing select instructions on an application critical path at the network interface card (NIC) while requests wait for processor resources to become available. Our mechanism dynamically identifies the critical instructions and includes the register state needed to compute the long latency memory accesses. This context-augmented critical region is often executed at the NIC well before execution begins at the core, effectively prefetching the data ahead of time. Across a variety of interactive datacenter applications, our proposal improves latency, throughput, and power efficiency by 2.7X, 2.7X, and 1.5X, respectively, while incurring a modest amount storage overhead.
Nuclear mechanosensing controls MSC osteogenic potential through HDAC epigenetic remodeling

Significance The extracellular matrix is highly dynamic and presents mechanical signals to the residing cells to maintain tissue homeostasis. Recently, the nucleus has been implicated to be a direct mechanosensor, and dysregulation of nuclear mechanosensing might be involved in several diseases, including bone degeneration. To better understand mechanisms behind remodeling of the epigenetic landscape through nuclear mechanosensing, we utilize an innovative photostiffening hydrogel platform to manipulate nuclear mechanosensing in human mesenchymal stem cells. Our results reveal that disruption of nuclear mechanosensing up-regulates histone deacetylases and prevents epigenetic response as well as osteogenic fate determination. Interestingly, we see similar defective nuclear mechanosensing in bone from patients with osteoarthritis, indicating that this cellular mechanism is likely relevant to bone-related diseases. Cells sense mechanical cues from the extracellular matrix to regulate cellular behavior and maintain tissue homeostasis. The nucleus has been implicated as a key mechanosensor and can directly influence chromatin organization, epigenetic modifications, and gene expression. Dysregulation of nuclear mechanosensing has been implicated in several diseases, including bone degeneration. Here, we exploit photostiffening hydrogels to manipulate nuclear mechanosensing in human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) in vitro. Results show that hMSCs respond to matrix stiffening by increasing nuclear tension and causing an increase in histone acetylation via deactivation of histone deacetylases (HDACs). This ultimately induces osteogenic fate commitment. Disrupting nuclear mechanosensing by disconnecting the nucleus from the cytoskeleton up-regulates HDACs and prevents osteogenesis. Resetting HDAC activity back to healthy levels rescues the epigenetic and osteogenic response in hMSCs with pathological nuclear mechanosensing. Notably, bone from patients with osteoarthritis displays similar defective nuclear mechanosensing. Collectively, our results reveal that nuclear mechanosensing controls hMSC osteogenic potential mediated by HDAC epigenetic remodeling and that this cellular mechanism is likely relevant to bone-related diseases.
Global epigenomic analysis of KSHV-infected primary effusion lymphoma identifies functional MYC superenhancers and enhancer RNAs

Significance Enhancers are crucial regulatory elements that dictate cellular processes by spatiotemporally controlling promoter activity. Recent studies have shown that active enhancers themselves generate noncoding enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) that play a critical role in fine tuning gene expression. Using genomic approaches, we demonstrate that oncogenic KSHV modulates host enhancer activity in PELs to control its lifecycle. During KSHV latency, expression levels of several key transcription factors and oncogenes are elevated by clusters of enhancers. Upon virus reactivation, global host enhancer activities are suppressed in order to facilitate viral replication. Our results indicate that better understanding and targeting host enhancer and eRNA functions may lead to novel therapeutics for PELs. Enhancers play indispensable roles in cell proliferation and survival through spatiotemporally regulating gene transcription. Active enhancers and superenhancers often produce noncoding enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) that precisely control RNA polymerase II activity. Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a human oncogenic gamma-2 herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma and primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). It is well characterized that KSHV utilizes host epigenetic machineries to control the switch between two lifecycles, latency and lytic replication. However, how KSHV impacts host epigenome at different stages of viral lifecycle is not well understood. Using global run-on sequencing (GRO-seq) and chromatin-immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq), we profiled the dynamics of host transcriptional regulatory elements during latency and lytic replication of KSHV-infected PEL cells. This revealed that a number of critical host genes for KSHV latency, including MYC proto-oncogene, were under the control of superenhancers whose activities were globally repressed upon viral reactivation. The eRNA-expressing MYC superenhancers were located downstream of the MYC gene in KSHV-infected PELs and played a key role in MYC expression. RNAi-mediated depletion or dCas9-KRAB CRISPR inhibition of eRNA expression significantly reduced MYC mRNA level in PELs, as did the treatment of an epigenomic drug that globally blocks superenhancer function. Finally, while cellular IRF4 acted upon eRNA expression and superenhancer function for MYC expression during latency, KSHV viral IRF4 repressed cellular IRF4 expression, decreasing MYC expression and thereby, facilitating lytic replication. These results indicate that KSHV acts as an epigenomic driver that modifies host epigenomic status upon reactivation by effectively regulating host enhancer function.
Evaluation of Pre-and Post-emergence Herbicides for their Effects on Weeds and Upland Direct Seeded Rice

A field experiment was conducted at Cuttack to find out an effective pre-and postemergence herbicide for controlling weeds in rainfed upland direct-seeded rice during kharif seasons of 1998 and 1999. Butanil and quinclorac at different doses and stages of application were compared with butachlor and pretilachlor. Quinclorac at 375 g ha-1 as pre-emergence spray and butanil (butachlor+propanil) 560+560 to 840+840 g ha−1 as post-emergence spray (10 DAS) controlled weeds effectively with grain yield comparable to that of twice hand weeding done 20 and 40 days after sowing (DAS).