Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of super-dosing phytase and inositol on growth performance and blood metabolites of weaned pigs housed under commercial conditions.

A total of 2,156 weaned pigs (6.75±0.11 kg BW) were used in a 42-d study to evaluate if improvements in growth performance associated with super-dosing phytase can be explained by the complete dephosphorylation of phytase and liberation of inositol. Two phytase doses (0 and 2,500 FTU/kg) and 3 inositol concentrations (0, 0.15 and 0.30%) were combined to create 6 dietary treatments in a 2 x 3 factorial arrangement. Pigs were fed a 3-phase feeding program, with periods being 10, 10 and 22 d, respectively. Blood samples were collected on d 0, 21 and 42 from a subset of 48 pigs to analyze mineral and myo-inositol concentrations. During Phase 1, super-dosing phytase tended to improve ADG compared to pigs fed diets without phytase (P=0.09). Increasing concentrations of inositol improved the efficiency of gain in pigs fed diets without phytase (1022.1, 1040.9, and 1089.2 g/kg), but not diets with phytase (1102.2, 1087.2, and 1076.2 g/kg) and this improvement was equivalent to that observed with super-dosing phytase in the absence of inositol (interaction, P=0.015). During Phase 2, super-dosing phytase improved ADG (P=0.001), resulting in heavier BW (P=0.007). During Phase 3 and overall, inositol supplementation increased ADG and ADFI in a quadratic manner (P<0.10), with the highest ADG and ADFI observed for pigs fed 0.15% of inositol. Super-dosing phytase increased serum Zn on d 21 but not on d 42 (interaction, P=0.008), increased serum Cu (P=0.01), but decreased serum Fe (P=0.02). Plasma myo-inositol increased linearly from 66.9, 97.1 to 113.2 nmol/ml with increasing inositol (P<0.001). When plasma myo-inositol was analyzed within the sub-group of pigs fed diets without added inositol, super-dosing phytase increased plasma myo-inositol from 57.81 to 76.05 nmol/ml (0 and 2,500 FTU/kg, respectively; P=0.05). Results demonstrate that exogenous inositol improved efficiency of gain in weaned pigs to the same level as that observed with super-dosing phytase, but this occurred only during the first 10 d of the nursery period. This suggest that the improvement in growth performance when applying super-dosing phytase could be linked, in part, to complete dephosphorylation of phytase and liberation of myo-inositol, and that myo-inositol had a greater metabolic impact in piglets immediately after weaning. Consequently, myo-inositol may be a conditionally essential nutrient for young pigs during weaning stress but further research is needed to prove this hypothesis.
Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst Due to the interpolation error inherent in the Field

Classic shortest path algorithms operate on graphs, which are suitable for problems that can be represented by weighted nodes or edges. Finding a shortest path through a set of weighted regions is more difficult and only approximate solutions tend to scale well. The Field D* algorithm efficiently calculates an approximate, interpolated shortest path through a set of weighted regions and was designed for navigating robots through terrains with varying characteristics. Field D* operates on unit grid or quad-tree data structures, which require high resolutions to accurately model the boundaries of irregular world structures. In this paper, we extend the Field D* cost functions to 2D triangulations and 3D tetrahedral meshes: structures which model polygonal world structures more accurately. Since robots typically have limited resources available for computation and storage, we pay particular attention to computation and storage overheads when detailing our extensions. We begin by providing analytic solutions to the minimum of each cost function for 2D triangles and 3D tetrahedra. Our triangle implementation provides a 50 % improvement in performance over an existing triangle implementation. While our 3D extension to tetrahedra is the first full analytic extension of Field D* to 3D, previous work only provided an approximate minimization for a single cost function on a 3D cube with unit lengths. Each cost function is expressed in terms of a general function whose characteristics can be exploited to reduce the calculations required to find a minimum. These characteristics can also be exploited to cache the majority of cost functions, producing a speedup of up to 28 % in the 3D tetrahedral case. We demonstrate that, in environments composed of non-grid aligned data, Multi-resolution quad-tree Field D* requires an order of magnitude more faces and between 15 and 20 times more node expansions, to produce a path of similar cost to one produced by a triangle implementation of Field D* on a lower resolution triangulation. We provide examples of 3D pathing through models of complex topology, including pathing through anatomical structures extracted from a medical data set. S. Perkins (B) · P. Marais · J. Gain Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: simon.perkins@gmail.com M. Berman Mathematics Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Onset timing of cross‐sensory activations and multisensory interactions in auditory and visual sensory cortices

Here we report early cross‐sensory activations and audiovisual interactions at the visual and auditory cortices using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to obtain accurate timing information. Data from an identical fMRI experiment were employed to support MEG source localization results. Simple auditory and visual stimuli (300‐ms noise bursts and checkerboards) were presented to seven healthy humans. MEG source analysis suggested generators in the auditory and visual sensory cortices for both within‐modality and cross‐sensory activations. fMRI cross‐sensory activations were strong in the visual but almost absent in the auditory cortex; this discrepancy with MEG possibly reflects the influence of acoustical scanner noise in fMRI. In the primary auditory cortices (Heschl’s gyrus) the onset of activity to auditory stimuli was observed at 23 ms in both hemispheres, and to visual stimuli at 82 ms in the left and at 75 ms in the right hemisphere. In the primary visual cortex (Calcarine fissure) the activations to visual stimuli started at 43 ms and to auditory stimuli at 53 ms. Cross‐sensory activations thus started later than sensory‐specific activations, by 55 ms in the auditory cortex and by 10 ms in the visual cortex, suggesting that the origins of the cross‐sensory activations may be in the primary sensory cortices of the opposite modality, with conduction delays (from one sensory cortex to another) of 30–35 ms. Audiovisual interactions started at 85 ms in the left auditory, 80 ms in the right auditory and 74 ms in the visual cortex, i.e., 3–21 ms after inputs from the two modalities converged.
Dynamic-Anchor Distributed Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years there has been a growing interest in wireless sensor networks(WSN)applications. Such sensor networks can be used to control temperature, humidity,contamination,pollution etc.Positon information of individual nodes is useful in implementing functions such as routing and querying in ad-hoc networks. The DV- Hop is a main stream localization algorithm.Since the DV-Hop algorithm is not accurate as the nodes scattered uneven, quantities huge, and topology dynamicly change, we proposed a distributed localization algorithm called DA, which can overcome these disadvantages of the DV-Hop. In the DA algorithm, the most appropriate node is selected to substitute the centroid of the area through the measurement of the RSSI, and the selected node is dynamicly promoted to be an anchor in order to enhance the anchor density. The simulation results demonstrate that the DA is more efficient in precision than the DV-Hop.
A Data-Aided Equalization Scheme for the FMT System

A new wideband wireless communication technique is introduced in the article. The basic theory of the technique and performance was analyzed. The intersymbol interference (ISI) in FMT system and data-aided equalization method was studied. The simulation result show that it has better performance than decision feedback equalization (DFE) algorithm and the computational complexity is proximately equal.
Effects of a clinical medication review focused on personal goals, quality of life, and health problems in older persons with polypharmacy: A randomised controlled trial (DREAMeR-study)

Background Clinical medication reviews (CMRs) are increasingly performed in older persons with multimorbidity and polypharmacy to reduce drug-related problems (DRPs). However, there is limited evidence that a CMR can improve clinical outcomes. Little attention has been paid to patients’ preferences and needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a patient-centred CMR, focused on personal goals, on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL), and on number of health problems. Methods and findings This study was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) performed in 35 community pharmacies and cooperating general practices in the Netherlands. Community-dwelling older persons (≥70 years) with polypharmacy (≥7 long-term medications) were randomly assigned to usual care or to receive a CMR. Randomisation was performed at the patient level per pharmacy using block randomisation. The primary outcomes were HR-QoL (assessed with EuroQol [EQ]-5D-5L and EQ-Visual Analogue Scale [VAS]) and number of health problems (such as pain or dizziness), after 3 and 6 months. Health problems were measured with a self-developed written questionnaire as the total number of health problems and number of health problems with a moderate to severe impact on daily life. Between April 2016 and February 2017, we recruited 629 participants (54% females, median age 79 years) and randomly assigned them to receive the intervention (n = 315) or usual care (n = 314). Over 6 months, in the intervention group, HR-QoL measured with EQ-VAS increased by 3.4 points (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.94 to 5.8; p = 0.006), and the number of health problems with impact on daily life decreased by 12% (difference at 6 months −0.34; 95% CI −0.62 to −0.044; p = 0.024) as compared with the control group. There was no significant difference between the intervention group and control group for HR-QoL measured with EQ-5D-5L (difference at 6 months = −0.0022; 95% CI −0.024 to 0.020; p = 0.85) or total number of health problems (difference at 6 months = −0.30; 95% CI −0.64 to 0.054; p = 0.099). The main study limitations include the risk of bias due to the lack of blinding and difficulties in demonstrating which part of this complex intervention (for example, goal setting, extra attention to patients, reducing health problems, drug changes) contributed to the effects that we observed. Conclusions In this study, we observed that a CMR focused on personal goals improved older patients’ lives and wellbeing by increasing quality of life measured with EQ-VAS and decreasing the number of health problems with impact on daily life, although it did not significantly affect quality of life measured with the EQ-5D. Including the patient’s personal goals and preferences in a medication review may help to establish these effects on outcomes that are relevant to older patients’ lives. Trial registration Netherlands Trial Register; NTR5713
The contribution of smoking-related deaths to the gender gap in life expectancy in Sweden between 1997 and 2016

Aims: In recent decades, smoking-related mortality has declined among men and increased among women in Sweden. We estimate the contribution of smoking-related deaths to the narrowing of the gender gap in life expectancy in Sweden between 1997 and 2016. Methods: We extracted population data on deaths and population under risk on the entire Swedish population aged 25 years and over for the period 1997–2016. Smoking-related mortality was assessed using an indirect method based on lung cancer mortality. We then estimated the contribution of smoking to the gender gap in life expectancy by comparing the observed life expectancies to life expectancies excluding smoking-related deaths. Results: The gender gap in life expectancy was 5.0 years in 1997 and 3.4 years in 2016. The gender gap narrowed by 1.6 years, of which 0.6 years were attributable to smoking-related deaths. Conclusions: The combination of decreasing smoking-related mortality among men and increasing smoking-related mortality among women in Sweden accounted for almost 40% of the narrowing of the gender gap in life expectancy during the period 1997–2016.
Patterns of home mechanical ventilation use in Europe: results from the Eurovent survey

The study was designed to assess the patterns of use of home mechanical ventilation (HMV) for patients with chronic respiratory failure across Europe. A detailed questionnaire of centre details, HMV user characteristics and equipment choices was sent to carefully identified HMV centres in 16 European countries. A total of 483 centres treating 27,118 HMV users were identified. Of these, 329 centres completed surveys between July 2001 and June 2002, representing up to 21,526 HMV users and a response rate of between 62% and 79%. The estimated prevalence of HMV in Europe was 6.6 per 100,000 people. The variation in prevalence between countries was only partially related to the median year of starting HMV services. In addition, there were marked differences between countries in the relative proportions of lung and neuromuscular patients using HMV, and the use of tracheostomies in lung and neuromuscular HMV users. Lung users were linked to a HMV duration of <1 yr, thoracic cage users with 6–10 yrs of ventilation and neuromuscular users with a duration of ≥6 yrs. In conclusion, wide variations exist in the patterns of home mechanical ventilation provision throughout Europe. Further work is needed to monitor its use and ensure equality of provision and access.
Descending the Twin Peaks: Requirements and Architecture in the EGSO Project

The requirements and architecture of any software system are highly interdependent. The architecture can address the requirements of the system, and also feedback to them, constraining the system under development. For any complex software system, understanding requirements and using them to make informed architectural decisions is crucial to success. The e-Science domain presents many challenges to the systems developer. Requirements are subject to change, and the development environment is populated with new technologies and paradigms. Projects need practical solutions and methods to address these concerns that are appropriate to their resources and organisation. We discuss some lightweight techniques that have been used to manage requirements in the EGSO project, and outline our approach to the definition of a system architecture. We also highlight the ways in which these have been successful in addressing development issues. The Twin Peaks model of software development focuses explicitly on requirements and architecture, allowing these two key concerns to evolve concurrently and independently. Finally, we discuss how the Twin Peaks model addresses some of the challenges characteristic of e-Science projects, and present a style of prototyping that is suited to bridging the gap between requirements and architecture in the context of the model.
A Survey of POMDP Applications

An increasing number of researchers in many areas are becoming interested in the application of the partially observable Markov decision process (pomdp) model to problems with hidden state. This model can account for both state transition and observation uncertainty. The majority of recent research interest in the pomdp model has been in the artificial intelligence community and as such, has been applied in a limited range of domains. The main purpose of this paper is show the wider applicability of the model by way of surveying the potential application areas for pomdps.
The impact of RNA-seq aligners on gene expression estimation

While numerous RNA-seq data analysis pipelines are available, research has shown that the choice of pipeline influences the results of differentially expressed gene detection and gene expression estimation. Gene expression estimation is a key step in RNA-seq data analysis, since the accuracy of gene expression estimates profoundly affects the subsequent analysis. Generally, gene expression estimation involves sequence alignment and quantification, and accurate gene expression estimation requires accurate alignment. However, the impact of aligners on gene expression estimation remains unclear. We address this need by constructing nine pipelines consisting of nine spliced aligners and one quantifier. We then use simulated data to investigate the impact of aligners on gene expression estimation. To evaluate alignment, we introduce three alignment performance metrics, (1) the percentage of reads aligned, (2) the percentage of reads aligned with zero mismatch (ZeroMismatchPercentage), and (3) the percentage of reads aligned with at most one mismatch (ZeroOneMismatchPercentage). We then evaluate the impact of alignment performance on gene expression estimation using three metrics, (1) gene detection accuracy, (2) the number of genes falsely quantified (FalseExpNum), and (3) the number of genes with falsely estimated fold changes (FalseFcNum). We found that among various pipelines, FalseExpNum and FalseFcNum are correlated. Moreover, FalseExpNum is linearly correlated with the percentage of reads aligned and ZeroMismatchPercentage, and FalseFcNum is linearly correlated with ZeroMismatchPercentage. Because of this correlation, the percentage of reads aligned and ZeroMismatchPercentage may be used to assess the performance of gene expression estimation for all RNA-seq datasets.
Increased Complement 3 With Suppression of miR‐145 Induces the Synthetic Phenotype in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells From Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Background We previously reported that vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) show the increased expression of complement 3 (C3) and the synthetic phenotype. We targeted the SHR C3 gene (C3 knockout [C3KO] SHRs) by the zinc finger gene editing method. In the current study, we investigated the mechanisms underlying the increased expression of C3 and the role of endogenous C3 in the synthetic phenotype of SHR VSMCs in comparison to cells from Wistar‐Kyoto (WKY) rats and C3KO SHRs. Methods and Results Nonmuscle myosin heavy chain staining of aortas from SHRs at 1 day after birth was stronger in comparison to WKY rats and C3KO SHRs. DNA synthesis in VSMCs from SHRs was significantly higher in comparison to WKY rats and C3KO SHRs. Immunohistochemical staining of renin and liver X receptor α in VSMCs from SHRs was stronger in comparison to WKY rats and C3KO SHRs. The expression of renin, Krüppel‐like factor 5, and liver X receptor α proteins in VSMCs from SHRs was significantly higher in comparison to WKY rats and C3KO SHRs. The expression of synthetic phenotype markers osteopontin, matrix gla, and l‐caldesmon, growth factors transforming growth factor‐β1 and platelet‐derived growth factor‐A, transcription factors Krüppel‐like factor 5 and liver X receptor α, and angiotensinogen mRNAs in VSMCs from SHRs was significantly higher in comparison to WKY rats and C3KO SHRs. The expression of miR‐145 mRNA in VSMCs from SHRs was suppressed in comparison to cells from WKY rats. miR‐145 inhibitor significantly increased the expression of C3 in VSMCs from WKY rats, but not in cells from SHRs. Conclusions These findings indicate that the increased C3 with the suppression of miR‐145 induces the synthetic phenotype through Krüppel‐like factor 5 and the activation of the renin‐angiotensin system through liver X receptor α in VSMCs from SHRs.
Performance and area scaling of 6T SRAM using SOI MOSFET at 32nm node

SRAM area is expected to exceed 90% of overall chip area because of the demand for higher performance, lower power, and higher integration. To improve memory density, memory bitcells are scaled to reduce their area by 50% each technology node. High density SRAM bitcells use the smallest devices technology, making SRAM more vulnerable for variations. This variations influence the stability of SRAM. This paper compare six transistors (6T) SOI Static random access memory (SRAM) stability in hold/standby, read and write mode with 6T bulk SRAM at 32nm node. The effect of supply voltage, transistor scaling, word line voltage, and temperature on SRAM stability is analysed. It can be seen from the reading that the performance and area of SRAM can be improve by using SOI, as SOI gives better stability than bulk SRAM at same process parameter. The Data Retention Voltage of SOI SRAM is 50 % small than Bulk SRAM, which mean SOI can operate on smaller voltage than bulk. At same cell ratio SOI gives better performance than bulk SRAM, hence area can be reduced by using SOI MOSFET.
Finding a new normal: the role of technology in life disruptions

In recent years, the HCI and CSCW communities have begun to examine the role technology plays in personal, rather than professional settings. Part of this work has begun to address a specific class of life events that are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and destabilizing - what we refer to as life disruptions. While each disruption is unique, we find that patterns of social and technical reconfigurations occur in a variety of different contexts. Drawing on three case studies of severe life disruptions - intimate partner violence, homelessness, and death - we remark on the ways that life disruptions prompt a journey towards a "new normal. " We enumerate the common lessons learned among our case studies and seek to inform future technology research and design work which may involve life disruptions.
FineSplice, enhanced splice junction detection and quantification: a novel pipeline based on the assessment of diverse RNA-Seq alignment solutions

Alternative splicing is the main mechanism governing protein diversity. The recent developments in RNA-Seq technology have enabled the study of the global impact and regulation of this biological process. However, the lack of standardized protocols constitutes a major bottleneck in the analysis of alternative splicing. This is particularly important for the identification of exon–exon junctions, which is a critical step in any analysis workflow. Here we performed a systematic benchmarking of alignment tools to dissect the impact of design and method on the mapping, detection and quantification of splice junctions from multi-exon reads. Accordingly, we devised a novel pipeline based on TopHat2 combined with a splice junction detection algorithm, which we have named FineSplice. FineSplice allows effective elimination of spurious junction hits arising from artefactual alignments, achieving up to 99% precision in both real and simulated data sets and yielding superior F1 scores under most tested conditions. The proposed strategy conjugates an efficient mapping solution with a semi-supervised anomaly detection scheme to filter out false positives and allows reliable estimation of expressed junctions from the alignment output. Ultimately this provides more accurate information to identify meaningful splicing patterns. FineSplice is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/p/finesplice/.
Comparison of codebooks for beamforming in limited feedback MIMO systems

The quantization codebook design is an essential part of the limited feedback scheme in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In this paper, we provide a review of four different types of codebooks, namely, Grassmannian codebook, random vector quantization (RVQ) codebook, discrete Fourier transform (DFT) codebook and Lloyd codebook for beamforming in limited feedback MIMO systems. The design ideas of the four codebooks are discussed respectively. The codebook qualities are measured by the minimum and rootmean-square (rms) codeword distances. Performance comparison in terms of the capacity of the quantized beamforming MIMO systems based on the four different codebooks are given by simulation results.