Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phylogeny, evolutionary trends and classification of the Spathelia-Ptaeroxylon clade: morphological and molecular insights.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The Spathelia-Ptaeroxylon clade is a group of morphologically diverse plants that have been classified together as a result of molecular phylogenetic studies. The clade is currently included in Rutaceae and recognized at a subfamilial level (Spathelioideae) despite the fact that most of its genera have traditionally been associated with other families and that there are no obvious morphological synapomorphies for the clade. The aim of the present study is to construct phylogenetic trees for the Spathelia-Ptaeroxylon clade and to investigate anatomical characters in order to decide whether it should be kept in Rutaceae or recognized at the familial level. Anatomical characters were plotted on a cladogram to help explain character evolution within the group. Moreover, phylogenetic relationships and generic limits within the clade are also addressed. METHODS A species-level phylogenetic analysis of the Spathelia-Ptaeroxylon clade based on five plastid DNA regions (rbcL, atpB, trnL-trnF, rps16 and psbA-trnH) was conducted using Bayesian, maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood methods. Leaf and seed anatomical characters of all genera were (re)investigated by light and scanning electron microscopy. KEY RESULTS With the exception of Spathelia, all genera of the Spathelila-Ptaeroxylon clade are monophyletic. The typical leaf and seed anatomical characters of Rutaceae were found. Further, the presence of oil cells in the leaves provides a possible synapomorphy for the clade. CONCLUSIONS The Spathelia-Ptaeroxylon clade is well placed in Rutaceae and it is reasonable to unite the genera into one subfamily (Spathelioideae). We propose a new tribal classification of Spathelioideae. A narrow circumscription of Spathelia is established to make the genus monophyletic, and Sohnreyia is resurrected to accommodate the South American species of Spathelia. The most recent common ancestor of Spathelioideae probably had leaves with secretory cavities and oil cells, haplostemonous flowers with appendaged staminal filaments, and a tracheidal tegmen.
RASTER: a light-weight routing protocol to discover shortest overlay routes in randomized DHT systems

In this paper, we propose a novel routing protocol, RASTER, that approximates shortest overlay routes between nodes in randomized DHTs. Unlike previously proposed routing protocols, RASTER encodes and aggregates routing information. Its simple bitmap-encoding scheme together with the proposed RASTER routing algorithm enable a performance edge over current overlay routing protocols. RASTER provides a forwarding overhead of merely a small constant number of bitwise operations, a routing performance close to optimal, and a better resilience to churn. RASTER also provides nodes with the flexibility to adjust the size of the maintained routing information based on their storage/processing capabilities. The cost of storing and exchanging encoded routing information is manageable and grows logarithmically with the number of nodes in the system
A Survey of Machine Learning Techniques Applied to Self-Organizing Cellular Networks

In this paper, a survey of the literature of the past 15 years involving machine learning (ML) algorithms applied to self-organizing cellular networks is performed. In order for future networks to overcome the current limitations and address the issues of current cellular systems, it is clear that more intelligence needs to be deployed so that a fully autonomous and flexible network can be enabled. This paper focuses on the learning perspective of self-organizing networks (SON) solutions and provides, not only an overview of the most common ML techniques encountered in cellular networks but also manages to classify each paper in terms of its learning solution, while also giving some examples. The authors also classify each paper in terms of its self-organizing use-case and discuss how each proposed solution performed. In addition, a comparison between the most commonly found ML algorithms in terms of certain SON metrics is performed and general guidelines on when to choose each ML algorithm for each SON function are proposed. Lastly, this paper also provides future research directions and new paradigms that the use of more robust and intelligent algorithms, together with data gathered by operators, can bring to the cellular networks domain and fully enable the concept of SON in the near future.
Virtual-to-Real: Learning to Control in Visual Semantic Segmentation

Collecting training data from the physical world is usually time-consuming and even dangerous for fragile robots, and thus, recent advances in robot learning advocate the use of simulators as the training platform. Unfortunately, the reality gap between synthetic and real visual data prohibits direct migration of the models trained in virtual worlds to the real world. This paper proposes a modular architecture for tackling the virtual-to-real problem. The proposed architecture separates the learning model into a perception module and a control policy module, and uses semantic image segmentation as the meta representation for relating these two modules. The perception module translates the perceived RGB image to semantic image segmentation. The control policy module is implemented as a deep reinforcement learning agent, which performs actions based on the translated image segmentation. Our architecture is evaluated in an obstacle avoidance task and a target following task. Experimental results show that our architecture significantly outperforms all of the baseline methods in both virtual and real environments, and demonstrates a faster learning curve than them. We also present a detailed analysis for a variety of variant configurations, and validate the transferability of our modular architecture.
Recognition of Acoustic Events Using Masked Conditional Neural Networks

Automatic feature extraction using neural networks has accomplished remarkable success for images, but for sound recognition, these models are usually modified to fit the nature of the multi-dimensional temporal representation of the audio signal in spectrograms. This may not efficiently harness the time-frequency representation of the signal. The ConditionaL Neural Network (CLNN) takes into consideration the interrelation between the temporal frames, and the Masked ConditionaL Neural Network (MCLNN) extends upon the CLNN by forcing a systematic sparseness over the network’s weights using a binary mask. The masking allows the network to learn about frequency bands rather than bins, mimicking a filterbank used in signal transformations such as MFCC. Additionally, the Mask is designed to consider various combinations of features, which automates the feature hand-crafting process. We applied the MCLNN for the Environmental Sound Recognition problem using the Urbansound8k, YorNoise, ESC-10 and ESC-50 datasets. The MCLNN have achieved competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Networks and hand-crafted attempts.
Addressing challenges of clinical trials in acute pain: The Pain Management of Vaso-occlusive Crisis in Children and Young Adults with Sickle Cell Disease Study

Background/aims: Neuropathic pain is a known component of vaso-occlusive pain in sickle cell disease; however, drugs targeting neuropathic pain have not been studied in this population. Trials of acute pain are complicated by the need to obtain consent, to randomize participants expeditiously while optimally treating pain. We describe the challenges in designing and implementing the Pain Management of Vaso-occlusive Crisis in Children and Young Adults with Sickle Cell Disease Study (NCT01954927), a phase II, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to determine the effect of gabapentin for vaso-occlusive crisis. Methods: In the Pain Management of Vaso-occlusive Crisis in Children and Young Adults with Sickle Cell Disease Study, we aim to assess the analgesic effect of gabapentin during vaso-occlusive crisis. Difficulties we identified included avoiding delay of notification of study staff of potential participants which we resolved by automated notification. Concern for rapid randomization and drug dispensation was addressed through careful planning with an investigational pharmacy and a single liquid formulation. We considered obtaining consent during well-visits to avoid the time constraints with acute presentations, but the large number of patients and limited duration that consent is valid made this impractical. Results: In all, 79% of caregivers/children approached have agreed to participate. The trial is currently active, and enrollment is at 45.8% of that targeted (76 of 166) and expected to continue for two more years. Maintaining staff availability after-hours remains problematic, with 8% of screened patients missed for lack of available staff. Lessons learned: Lessons learned in designing a trial to expedite procedures in the acute pain setting include (1) building study evaluations upon a standard-of-care backbone; (2) implementing a simple study design to facilitate consent and data capture; (3) assuring ample, well-trained study staff; and (4) utilizing technology to automate procedures whenever possible. Conclusion: This study design has circumvented many of the logistical barriers usually associated with acute pain trials and may serve as a prototype for future studies.
A Systemic Review of Developing Team Competencies in Information Systems Education

The ability to work effectively in teams has been a key competence for information systems engineers for a long time. Gradually, more attention is being paid to developing this generic competence as part of academic curricula, resulting in two questions: how to best promote team competencies and how to implement team projects successfully. These questions are closely interwoven and need to be looked at together. To address these questions, this paper identifies relevant studies and approaches, best practices, and key findings in the field of information systems education and related fields such as computer science and business, and examines them together to develop a systematic framework. The framework is intended to categorize existing research on teams and team competencies in information systems education and to guide information systems educators in supporting teamwork and promoting team competencies in students at the course and curricular level in the context of teaching in tertiary education.
Urban fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure destroys blood–testis barrier (BTB) integrity through excessive ROS-mediated autophagy

Abstract Context: Blood–testis barrier (BTB), constituted by tight junctions (TJs), adherens junctions and gap junctions, is important for spermatogenesis. PM2.5 is known to impair testicular functions and reproduction. However, its effects on BTB and the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. Objective: To investigate the roles of autophagy in BTB toxicity induced by PM2.5. Materials and methods: Sprague–Dawley rats were developmentally exposed to normal saline (NS) or PM2.5 with the doses of 9 mg/kg b.w. and 24 mg/kg b.w. via intratracheal instillation for seven weeks. Success rate of mating, sperm quality, testicular morphology, expressions of BTB junction proteins and autophagy-related proteins were detected. In addition, expressions of oxidative stress markers were also analyzed. Results: Our results demonstrated that developmental PM2.5 exposure induced noticeable decreased fertility, significantly reduced sperm count, increased sperm abnormality rate and severe testicular damage in histomorphology. The expressions of TJ (such as ZO-1 and occludin), gap junction (such as connexin43) were down-regulated significantly after PM2.5 treatment. Intriguingly, PM2.5 simultaneously increased the number of autophagosomes and the levels of autophagy marker LC3-II and p62, suggesting that the accumulated autophagosomes resulted from impaired autophagy degradation. Moreover, the expressions of HO-1 levels remarkably increased and expression levels of Gpx and SOD were significantly decreased after PM2.5 exposure. Vitamins E and C could alleviate the PM2.5-induced oxidative stress, reverse the autophagy defect and restore the BTB impairment. Conclusions: Taken together, the results suggest that PM2.5 exposure destroys BTB integrity through excessive ROS-mediated autophagy. Our finding could contribute to a better understanding of PM2.5-induced male reproductive toxicity.
Multi‐task diagnosis for autism spectrum disorders using multi‐modality features: A multi‐center study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disease characterized by impairment of social interaction, language, behavior, and cognitive functions. Up to now, many imaging‐based methods for ASD diagnosis have been developed. For example, one may extract abundant features from multi‐modality images and then derive a discriminant function to map the selected features toward the disease label. A lot of recent works, however, are limited to single imaging centers. To this end, we propose a novel multi‐modality multi‐center classification (M3CC) method for ASD diagnosis. We treat the classification of each imaging center as one task. By introducing the task‐task and modality‐modality regularizations, we solve the classification for all imaging centers simultaneously. Meanwhile, the optimal feature selection and the modeling of the discriminant functions can be jointly conducted for highly accurate diagnosis. Besides, we also present an efficient iterative optimization solution to our formulated problem and further investigate its convergence. Our comprehensive experiments on the ABIDE database show that our proposed method can significantly improve the performance of ASD diagnosis, compared to the existing methods. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3081–3097, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Identification and Molecular Mechanisms of the Rapid Tonicity-induced Relocalization of the Aquaporin 4 Channel*

Background: The water channel protein aquaporin 4 (AQP4) controls water permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Results: Hypotonicity induces rapid relocalization of AQP4 in a calcium-, calmodulin-, and kinase-dependent manner. Conclusion: AQP4 can be relocalized between the cell membrane and intracellular compartments. Significance: Pharmacological modulation of AQP4 membrane localization could provide a new approach to treating brain edema. The aquaporin family of integral membrane proteins is composed of channels that mediate cellular water flow. Aquaporin 4 (AQP4) is highly expressed in the glial cells of the central nervous system and facilitates the osmotically driven pathological brain swelling associated with stroke and traumatic brain injury. Here we show that AQP4 cell surface expression can be rapidly and reversibly regulated in response to changes of tonicity in primary cortical rat astrocytes and in transfected HEK293 cells. The translocation mechanism involves PKA activation, influx of extracellular calcium, and activation of calmodulin. We identify five putative PKA phosphorylation sites and use site-directed mutagenesis to show that only phosphorylation at one of these sites, serine 276, is necessary for the translocation response. We discuss our findings in the context of the identification of new therapeutic approaches to treating brain edema.
Determination of metabolizable energy of various diets using Leghorn, dwarf, and regular broiler breeder hens.

Single Comb White Leghorns (SCWL), regular broiler breeders (BB), and dwarf BB between 45 and 52 weeks of age were used to investigate the effect of strain on nitrogen-corrected metabolizable energy (MEn) of various diets. Data are reported on a 90% dry matter basis. In Trial 1, a 20.0% crude protein diet had MEn of 2,736 kcal/kg determined with regular BB, significantly less than 2,805 determined with SCWL (P less than or equal to .05). The MEn determined with dwarf BB was 2,778 kcal/kg. Similar strain differences occurred with 14.3% crude protein diet calculated to be isocaloric using NAS (NRC) 1977 feed composition tables. In Trial 2, MEn of a high energy diet was 2,906 kcal/kg determined with regular BB, less than dwarf BB or SCWL which were 2,947 and 2,976 respectively (P less than or equal to .01). In Trial 3, ad libitum vs. 75% feed restriction had no effect on MEn determined with regular BB (P greater than .05). These results indicate that regular BB hens derive less metabolizable energy from the diet than do SCWL birds.
GraphBLAS C API: Ideas for future versions of the specification

The GraphBLAS C specification provisional release 1.0 is complete. To manage the scope of the project, we had to defer important functionality to a future version of the specification. For example, we are well aware that many algorithms benefit from an inspector-executor execution strategy. We also know that users would benefit from a number of standard predefined semirings as well as more general user-defined types. These and other features are described in this paper in the context of a future release of the GraphBLAS C API.
Sensational Headline Identification By Normalized Cross Entropy-Based Metric

Nowadays multimedia social networks are fueled by sensational coverage of sex, violence and crime. In this paper, we provide a normalized cross entropy metric to determine whether a headline is a sensational headline or not by the literal consistency between the headline and its corresponding document. Experiments on a Chinese data set show that the traditional relevancy measurements— vector cosine, relative entropy, likelihood and cross entropy—suffer from strong dependence on text length and are unable to effectively identify sensational headline. The experimental results on both Chinese data sets and English data sets show that our metric can cover the positive effects of highfrequency words and overcome the negative effects of the lengths of the title and the document.
Response of broiler breeders to low-protein diets. 1. Adult breeder performance.

Four hundred female and 50 male commercial strain breeders were reared separately from 1 d to 18 wk of age, with all birds receiving the same diet. At 18 wk, all pullets were weighed and the extreme weights removed from the group. The remaining hens were then randomly sorted into four treatment groups each represented by four replicate groups. Treatment involved feeding different levels of CP (16, 14, 12, and 10%), supplemented with synthetic lysine and methionine in order to maintain constant lysine and TSAA levels, respectively. Diets were isoenergetic and all birds received the same quantity of feed daily. Dietary protein had no effect on egg production (P > .05). However, breeders fed 10% CP were lighter (P < .01) in weight than birds fed 16% CP. Eggs from birds fed 10 and 12% CP were consistently smaller (P < .01), and this resulted in reduced chick weight at hatching. Low-protein diets also resulted in less nitrogen excretion. These data suggest that it is possible to reduce the CP intake of broiler breeders while maintaining intake of critical amino acids without affecting performance.
Effects of different methods and severity of growing period feed restriction on growth and laying performance of white Leghorns.

Two experiments were conducted to study the effects of different methods of feed restriction and severity of feed restriction during the growing period on pullet growth and laying performance of White Leghorns. In Experiment 1, ad libitum feeding of the low protein diet (supplemented with amino acids) was the only treatment among four feed restriction treatments that did not significantly (P greater than .05) influence growing period feed consumption and body weight gain. The smallest body weight gain was obtained among birds subjected to the daily restrictive feeding (DRF) treatment. Ad libitum feeding of the low energy diet resulted in a significantly (P less than .05) poorer growing period feed efficiency than any other treatment. Both energy and protein utilization efficiencies for body weight gain were significantly (P less than .05) hindered by the skip feeding treatment. Although DRF birds consistently had higher egg production from 36 to 76 weeks of age than birds in any other group, overall average percent hen-day egg production from 20 to 76 weeks of age was not significantly (P greater than .05) improved by the DRF treatment. Also, in Experiment 2, various levels of DRF during the growing period did not significantly (P greater than .05) improve average percent hen-day egg production. Laying house mortality, feed efficiency, and egg weight were not significantly (P greater than .05) different among treatments (Experiments 1 and 2). Results of these experiments indicate that DRF was the most effective method of controlling growth rate and that neither method of feed restriction nor severity of feed restriction during the growing period significantly (P greater than .05) improved laying performance.
Internet Protocol Adoption : Learning from Bitcoin Position Paper

This position paper discusses two related questions: 1. Using the framework of network economics, what are success factors behind the adoption of Bitcoin (a cryptographic curreny), and can we copy them for other protocols? 2. Can we design more successful protocols if we have inband payment mechanisms to internalize the externalities that emerge during adoption and in steady state?
Effects of feeding high carbohydrate or fat diets. 2. Apparent digestibility and apparent metabolizable energy of the posthatch poult.

An experiment was conducted with turkey poults to determine the apparent digestibility and derivation of ME from diets containing a high proportion of carbohydrate from corn (CHO; 60% of diet) or 10%) supplemental fat from an animal-vegetable blended fat (FAT) or a synthetic medium-chain triglyceride (MCT). Poults fed the FAT diet consumed more feed from 6 to 8 and 9 to 11 d of age than poults fed the CHO diet, intake of the MCT diet was intermediate. From 3 to 11 d of age, the percentage apparent digestibility of nonlipid DM by poults fed the CHO diet was greater than that observed for either the FAT or MCT diets (P < or = 0.05). The percentage apparent digestibility of lipid was consistently greater for poults fed the MCT diet (> or = 90%) and could be attributed to the high apparent digestibility of C8:0 (>95%), which accounted for 76% of total MCT dietary fatty acids. Over the course of the experiment, the mean percentage apparent digestibility of lipid in the CHO and FAT diets was 76.4 and 70.8%, respectively, and did not change with increasing age. The lower percentage apparent digestibility of lipid in the CHO and FAT diets was attributed to the low apparent digestibility of C16:0 (70.4, 52.7%) and C18:0 (58.4, 26.8%), respectively. The apparent digestibility of the polyunsaturated fatty acids, C18:2 (n-6) and C18:3 (n-3), was consistently high and ranged from 72 to 85% and 81 to 88%, respectively. The CHO diet resulted in an approximate 6% increase in determined AMEn compared with either the FAT or MCT diets. The results of this study showed that commercial feed-grade fats are poorly digested by very young poults. The digestibility of polyunsaturated fatty acids, however, was shown to be quite high, and the data suggest that vegetable oils containing high proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids or alternative fat sources containing high proportions of medium-chain fatty acids could be well utilized by the very young poult.