Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transcriptional Profiling of Rice Treated with MoHrip1 Reveal the Function of Protein Elicitor in Enhancement of Disease Resistance and Plant Growth

MoHrip1 is a protein elicitor isolated from Magnaporthe oryzae and was found to induce blast-resistance in rice. To investigate the comprehensive functions of MoHrip1, next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based digital gene expression (DGE) profiling was performed to collect the transcriptional data of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) induced by MoHrip1. A total of 308 genes were identified with differential expression, and 80 genes were predicted to be induced specifically by MoHrip1. Among these 308 genes, a series of genes associated with the salicylic acid (SA) pathway, phytoalexin, transcription factors, and pathogen-related proteins were identified. Both the SA signaling pathway and the gibberellin (GA) pathway were activated, while the jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathway was repressed. The contents of endogenous SA and GA and the morphological characteristics of the rice after treatment were measured to provide evidence supporting the predictions made based on the DGE data. The 80 genes mentioned above might be candidate genes for studying interactions with MoHrip1. The transcriptional data provided global effect information in rice induced by MoHrip1, and all the results demonstrated that MoHrip1 could induce pathogen resistance and promote plant growth by regulating the contents of SA and GA directly or indirectly.
Origins of extreme sexual dimorphism in genomic imprinting

Roughly equal numbers of imprinted genes are subject to repression from alleles of maternal and of paternal origin. This masks the strong sexual dimorphism that underlies major aspects of imprinted gene regulation. First, imprints are established very early in the male germ line and persist for the reproductive life of the organism, while maternal genomic imprints are established shortly prior to ovulation and are erased soon thereafter in the primordial germ cells of the next generation. Second, many CpG island-associated promoters are subject to maternal methylation but no known promoters are subject to paternal-specific germline methylation. The few known paternal methylation marks are kilobases distant from the affected genes and have a low CpG density. Third, Dnmt3L is required for imprint establishment but not transposon methylation in female germ cells, while Dnmt3L is required for transposon methylation and has only a minor role in de novo methylation at imprinted loci in male germ cells. Fourth, maternally expressed genes are commonly repressed on the paternal allele by paternally expressed imprinted genes produced in cis and encoding nontranslated RNAs. It is here suggested that rapid loss of highly mutable methylated CpG sites has led to the depletion of methylation target sites in paternally repressed imprinted genes, and that an imprinting mechanism based on RNAs or local inhibitory influences of ongoing transcription of regulatory loci has evolved to counter the erosion of paternally methylated regulatory regions. This mutability model is based on the fact that paternally methylated sequences are maintained in the methylated state for a much longer time than are maternally methylated sequences, and are therefore lost at a correspondingly faster rate. The difference in timing of imprint establishment is likely to underlie the increasing sexual dimorphism of other aspects of imprinted gene expression.
Distinct Subsystems for the Parafoveal Processing of Spatial and Linguistic Information during Eye Fixations in Reading

Two experiments examined readers’ use of parafoveally obtained word length information for word recognition. Both experiments manipulated the length (number of constituent characters) of a parafoveally previewed target word so that it was either accurately or inaccurately specified. In Experiment 1, previews also either revealed or denied useful orthographic information. In Experiment 2, parafoveal targets were either high- or low-frequency words. Eye movement contingent display changes were used to show the intact target upon its fixation. Examination of target viewing duration showed completely additive effects of word length previews and of ortho-graphic previews in Experiment 1, viewing duration being shorter in the accurate-length and the orthographic preview conditions. Experiment 2 showed completely additive effects of word length and word frequency, target viewing being shorter in the accurate-length and the high-frequency conditions. Together these results indicate that functionally distinct subsystems control the use of parafoveally visible spatial and linguistic information in reading. Parafoveally visible spatial information appears to be used for two distinct extralinguistic computations: visual object selection and saccade specification.
sGNG : Online Surface Reconstruction Based on Growing Neural Gas Technical Report

In this report we present an online algorithm to reconstruct a triangulated surface from an unorganized point cloud. Our algorithm called sgng, which is based on an artificial neural network, does not make any assumptions about the technique used to acquire the input points. Furthermore, sgng can update a previously reconstructed surface incrementally when previous input points are moved or deleted or new input points are added. Even arbitrary topology can be learnt without relying on predefined heuristics. In contrast to existing similar algorithms, sgng is able to create all triangles while learning without post-processing. All learning decisions are solely based on a local neighbourhood to keep overall complexity low. We demonstrate that the new algorithm efficiently and robustly reconstructs d surfaces from even huge, arbitrary unorganized point clouds.
Multitarget Tracking Using Virtual Measurement of Binary Sensor Networks

Networks of small low-cost sensors for target tracking are becoming increasingly important for many applications. A major problem is that these small sensors usually have limited observability due to power constraints and the transition between sensor observation and target states is nonlinear. As a consequence, nonlinear filtering techniques, such as particle filtering, are often chosen by researchers in this context. We focus on a network of sensors where each sensor provides binary data at each epoch: target present or target absent. At this point it is not clear that existing approaches can effectively handle the tracking of multiple targets using such networks. In addition, algorithmic computational complexity is an issue if particle filters are used. In this paper, we present a new method, the virtual measurement (VM) approach, for multi-target tracking using distributed binary sensor networks. The central idea of this approach is to define a mapping between the space of binary sensor observations and the so-called VM space, such that, any point within a VM space is a transform of the target state, as if it were generated by an equivalent "large sensor". With VMs, conventional multi-target tracking (MTT) algorithms can be used in a straightforward way for tracking multiple targets over the sensing field of binary sensor networks. Computer simulated examples of MTT demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the VM approach
Confidence and Accuracy of Near-Threshold Discrimination Responses

This article reports four subliminal perception experiments using the relationship between confidence and accuracy to assess awareness. Subjects discriminated among stimuli and indicated their confidence in each discrimination response. Subjects were classified as being aware of the stimuli if their confidence judgments predicted accuracy and as being unaware if they did not. In the first experiment, confidence predicted accuracy even at stimulus durations so brief that subjects claimed to be performing at chance. This finding indicates that subjects's claims that they are "just guessing" should not be accepted as sufficient evidence that they are completely unaware of the stimuli. Experiments 2-4 tested directly for subliminal perception by comparing the minimum exposure duration needed for better than chance discrimination performance against the minimum needed for confidence to predict accuracy. The latter durations were slightly but significantly longer, suggesting that under certain circumstances people can make perceptual discriminations even though the information that was used to make those discriminations is not consciously available.
Non-Binary LDPC Codes Defined Over the General Linear Group: Finite Length Design and Practical Implementation Issues

Non-binary LDPC codes are now recognized as a potential competitor to binary coded solutions, especially when the codeword length is small or moderate. More and more works are reported with good performance/complexity tradeoffs, which make non-binary solutions interesting for practical applications, such as 4G-wireless systems or DVB-like systems. In this paper, we show that proposing non-binary LDPC codes built on finite fields is actually a limitation, both from performance and implementation points of view. By considering non-binary codes on the general linear group, we show in particular that a slight performance improvement can be obtained, compared to Galois Field codes, with reasonable additional cost in the hardware implementation. The performance gain is quite small, but comes at a slight extra decoding cost, and is obtained by proper generalization of the code optimization techniques that are standard for non-binary LDPC codes on fields.
Superelasticity and Serration Behavior in Small‐Sized NiMnGa Alloys

The Ni2MnGa type of alloys have attracted increasing are too brittle to be fabricated to the shapes that are expected attentions in recent years owing to its novel magnetic shapememory effect (MSE), which induces not only larger magneticfield-induced strains but also super-elastic strains as that of the traditional shape-memory alloys (SMAs). The MSE for SMAs are usually due to the thermo-elastic martensite transformation, and the sample shapes between the austenite and martensite could be continuously changed by heating and cooling or by loading and unloading stress. They can be used for actuators, sensors, and energy transducers in which high-response frequences and reversible strains are necessary. In recent years, small size samples, such as particles, wires, ribbons, films, bilayers, multilayers, and pillars are demanding to miniaturize SMA-based devices. The NiMnGa alloys usually form intermetallic-compounds types of phases, which
Increased survival with enzalutamide in prostate cancer after chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND Enzalutamide (formerly called MDV3100) targets multiple steps in the androgen-receptor-signaling pathway, the major driver of prostate-cancer growth. We aimed to evaluate whether enzalutamide prolongs survival in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer after chemotherapy. METHODS In our phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we stratified 1199 men with castration-resistant prostate cancer after chemotherapy according to the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance-status score and pain intensity. We randomly assigned them, in a 2:1 ratio, to receive oral enzalutamide at a dose of 160 mg per day (800 patients) or placebo (399 patients). The primary end point was overall survival. RESULTS The study was stopped after a planned interim analysis at the time of 520 deaths. The median overall survival was 18.4 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.3 to not yet reached) in the enzalutamide group versus 13.6 months (95% CI, 11.3 to 15.8) in the placebo group (hazard ratio for death in the enzalutamide group, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.75; P<0.001). The superiority of enzalutamide over placebo was shown with respect to all secondary end points: the proportion of patients with a reduction in the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level by 50% or more (54% vs. 2%, P<0.001), the soft-tissue response rate (29% vs. 4%, P<0.001), the quality-of-life response rate (43% vs. 18%, P<0.001), the time to PSA progression (8.3 vs. 3.0 months; hazard ratio, 0.25; P<0.001), radiographic progression-free survival (8.3 vs. 2.9 months; hazard ratio, 0.40; P<0.001), and the time to the first skeletal-related event (16.7 vs. 13.3 months; hazard ratio, 0.69; P<0.001). Rates of fatigue, diarrhea, and hot flashes were higher in the enzalutamide group. Seizures were reported in five patients (0.6%) receiving enzalutamide. CONCLUSIONS Enzalutamide significantly prolonged the survival of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after chemotherapy. (Funded by Medivation and Astellas Pharma Global Development; AFFIRM ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00974311.).
Cardiac Abnormalities as a New Manifestation of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Echocardiographic and Tissue Doppler Imaging Assessment

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is linked to the metabolic syndrome. The aim of the present study is to determine the effect of the metabolic syndrome on left ventricular (LV) geometry and function using as a model patients with NAFLD. Thirty-eight patients with NAFLD, less than 55 years of age and with a normal exercise test, were compared with an age and sex-matched control group. Patients with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and body mass index>40 were excluded. A complete echocardiographic study including tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) was performed. The following parameters were assessed by echo Doppler: peak velocities of early (E) and late (A) diastolic filling, E/A ratio, flow propagation velocity (Vp). Using TDI early diastolic velocity (E′), and systolic velocity (S′) of mitral annulus were obtained. The patients with NAFLD had a significantly higher body mass index (31.4±5 vs. 26.4±4 kg/m2, P=0.01), higher glucose (100.6±13 vs. 83.0±10 mg/dL, P=0.01), and triglyceride levels (126.5±44 vs. 206.5±67 mg/dL, P<0.001). Increased thickness of the intraventricular septum, posterior wall (11.03±2.2 vs. 8.9±2.9 mm, P=0.001; 8.5±1.7 vs. 9.7±2.3 mm, P=0.04), and larger LV mass and LV mass/height (160.7±58.7 vs.115.3±35.4 g, P=0.001 and 92.6±29.5 vs. 69.2±19.8 g/m, P=0.001, respectively) were found in NAFLD group. LV systolic function was similar in both groups. Patients with NAFLD had a lower E (73.6±11.0 vs. 86.4±20.0 cm/s, P<0.006) and E/A ratio (1.0±0.3 vs. 1.76±0.8 P<0.0001). Moreover, the Vp and the E′ on TDI were significantly lower compared with the control group (49.0±9.7 vs. 74.7±18.4 cm/s, P<0.0001 and 10.3±2.0 vs. 13.8±1.7 cm/s, P<0.0001, respectively). On multivariate analysis the E′ on TDI was the only independent parameter associated with NAFLD. In conclusion, patients with NAFLD in the absence of morbid obesity, hypertension, and diabetes have mildly altered LV geometry and early features of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Early diastolic velocity on TDI was found to be the only index that could identify the patients with NAFLD and metabolic syndrome.
Heart involvement detected by magnetic resonance in a patient with Churg–Strauss syndrome, mimicking severe asthma exacerbation

1. Sicherer SH, Eigenmann PA, Sampson HA. Clinical features of food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome. J Pediatr 1998;133: 214–219. 2. Sicherer SH. Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome: case presentations and management lessons. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2005;115:149–156. 3. Mehr S, Kakakios A, Frith K, Kemp AS. Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome: 16-year experience. Pediatrics 2009;123:e459– e464.
AWG-based optoelectronic router with QoS support

We present a router architecture with electronic queuing and a passive optical multi-channel network, which is based upon a single-hop star topology with an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) at its center. The AWG's property of spatial wavelength reuse and both fixed-tuned and tunable transceivers enable simultaneous control and data transmission. Our proposed medium access control protocol supports traffic differentiation and utilizes EOF (earliest deadline first) to schedule the traffic from input ports to output ports on the router. Our simulations show that the router treats QoS (quality of service) traffic well.
Systematic Performance Evaluation of Nanoparticulate ZnO Thin Film Based Chemoresistive Sensor for Food Safety

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as organic acids released by bacterial pathogens is being used as an indicator for detecting microbial contamination in food by our research group. One of our current research thrust is to develop novel sensor that will be sensitive to a specific compounds (at room or low operating temperature) associated with food safety. Nanoparticulate zinc oxide (ZnO) based sensors are potential sensors known to exhibit good sensitivity to several VOCs at elevated temperature. Not much work has been done to evaluate the performance of ZnO based sensing material at low operating temperature.
Animal Models for Small for Gestational Age and Fetal Programing of Adult Disease

Fetal growth retardation is a fetal adaptation in response to inadequate supply of oxygen and/or nutrients. Animal models of intrauterine growth retardation are an invaluable tool to question the genetic, molecularand cellular events that determine fetal growth and development.Rodent and non-litter bearing animals are mammalian system with similar embryology,anatomy and physiology to humans. Utilization of these systems has led to a greater understanding of the pathophysiology and consequences of intrauterine growth retardation. These observations are comparable to that observed in humans born small for gestational age, and are of interest because of the known association between poor fetal growth and development of adult disease. Allthe experimental manipulations described here have altered a number of metabolic and physiological variables, but the pattern of alterations seems to vary with the procedure and species employed. This review describes animal models for intrauterine growth retardation and assesses their potentials and limitations at aiming to improve strategies for the prevention of adult disease.
Antimicrobial Postexposure Prophylaxis for Anthrax: Adverse Events and Adherence

We collected data during postexposure antimicrobial prophylaxis campaigns and from a prophylaxis program evaluation 60 days after start of antimicrobial prophylaxis involving persons from six U.S. sites where Bacillus anthracis exposures occurred. Adverse events associated with antimicrobial prophylaxis to prevent anthrax were commonly reported, but hospitalizations and serious adverse events as defined by Food and Drug Administration criteria were rare. Overall adherence during 60 days of antimicrobial prophylaxis was poor (44%), ranging from 21% of persons exposed in the Morgan postal facility in New York City to 64% of persons exposed at the Brentwood postal facility in Washington, D.C. Adherence was highest among participants in an investigational new drug protocol to receive additional antibiotics with or without anthrax vaccine—a likely surrogate for anthrax risk perception. Adherence of <60 days was not consistently associated with adverse events.
Cosmeceutical Effects of Galactomannan Fraction from Arenga pinnata Fruits In vitro

Background: Cosmeceuticals refer to natural cosmetics with medical-like benefits due to their bioactive contents. Sugar palm fruit (Arenga pinnata) extract has been claimed for its anti-aging effect in vitro. However, its active compounds for cosmeceuticals is still unclear. Objective: This study was aimed to extract galactomannan from A. pinnata fruits and test its efficacy for tyrosinase inhibition, antioxidant, and anti-photoaging activities in vitro. Materials and Methods: Galactomannan from A. pinnata fruits was extracted by freeze drying and identified for its chemical compounds by using pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (py-GC/MS). Galactomannan was tested for its tyrosinase inhibition in both cell-based (melanocytes) and enzymatic assays, antioxidant activity using ferrous ion chelating assay (FCA) assay, and anti-photoaging activity for inhibiting the gene expression of matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and MMP-13 in macrophages using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. Results: Identification of galactomannan fraction from A. pinnata fruits by py-GC/MS mainly consisted of oxonium ion and glucosides. For cellular assay, galactomannan at 5 μg/mL inhibited >50% of tyrosinase activity in melanocytes induced by phorbol myristate acetate. At the enzymatic level, galactomannan at similar concentration showed less tyrosinase activity inhibition (~20%). FCA results showed that galactomannan at 10 μg/mL exerted >50% of antioxidant activity. The qRT-PCR data indicated that galactomannan at 5 μg/mL inhibited >50% of MMP-1 and MMP-13 gene expressions in ultraviolet B-treated macrophages. Conclusion: Galactomannan fraction from A. pinnata fruits has efficacy for enlightening effect, antioxidant, and anti-photoaging activity in the dose-independent pattern, indicating its cosmeceutical effects for skin healthcare.
Fabrication and characterization of mono-layered polystyrene beads using nanosphere lithography (NSL) for metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF)

Fluorescence spectroscopy is a powerful and widely used technique, which finds extensive applications in biochemistry and molecular biology. In many cases, detection of fluorescence from biological samples at low concentration demands for a sensitive technique that can enhance the weak fluorescence signal. In order to realize this, metal enhanced fluorescence technique is employed where an increase in fluorescence is observed when the fluorophore is in close proximity to a metallic surface. In order to achieve this, nano-roughened silver surfaces such as fractal structures or silver colloid-coated surfaces can be employed. However, preparation of such surfaces not only involves lengthy chemical procedures but also result in poor reproducibility. To overcome these limitations, nanosphere lithography (NSL) is proposed, which is an inexpensive, simple to implement and high throughput nanofabrication technique. In this technique, polystyrene (PS) nano-beads are used to form a 2D monolayer of nanoparticle array followed by deposition of silver to form a roughened metallic surface. The surface roughness of the silver coating is determined by the close packing and arrangement of the nanobeads. In this work, substrates are fabricated using different sizes of PS beads to result in different nanometric surface roughening for silver layer and its optimization to achieve better fluorescence enhancement is carried out.
The Bazex-Dupré-Christol syndrome.

BACKGROUND The Bazex-Dupré-Christol syndrome is characterized by follicular atrophoderma, congenital hypotrichosis, and basal cell neoformations that include basal cell carcinomas and basal cell nevi. OBSERVATIONS We describe a large family in which 20 persons across four generations present with typical features of the Bazex-Dupré-Christol syndrome. However, the clinical picture in this family differs with regard to gender and age. Male subjects have a uniformly severe disease, whereas female subjects exhibit a range of severity of the syndrome. The most striking difference between male and female subjects is provided by hypotrichosis. In male subjects, hypotrichosis is diffuse and affects all scalp hairs. On the other hand, female subjects do not have hypotrichosis, but normal hairs are intermingled with abnormal hairs. In infancy and childhood, multiple milia are present, whereas in adults only a few milia are observed. CONCLUSIONS The family pedigree seems to be consistent with an X-linked inheritance, since male-to-male transmission does not occur. Moreover, further evidence of an X-linked dominant mode of inheritance could be derived from the observation of gender differences that can be attributed to the lyonization phenomenon in female subjects. From a clinical and morphologic point of view, the Bazex-Dupré-Christol syndrome seems to be a disorder of the hair follicle.