Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison Between the Fecal Bacterial Microbiota of Healthy and Diarrheic Captive Musk Deer

Diarrhea constitutes one of the most common diseases affecting the survival of captive musk deer and is usually caused by an imbalance in intestinal microbiota. Currently, research regarding the structure and function of intestinal microbiota in diarrheic musk deer is lacking. Therefore, in the present study, high-throughput 16S-rRNA gene sequencing was used to analyze the intestinal microbiota in feces of healthy captive musk deer (HMD) (n = 8) and musk deer with mild (MMD) (n = 8), and severe (n = 5) (SMD) diarrhea to compare the difference in intestinal microbiota of musk deer under various physiological conditions. The results showed that the diversity of HMD fecal microbiota was significantly higher than that of the two diarrhea samples. β Diversity results indicated that there were extremely significant differences in bacterial communities between the HMD sample and the MMD and SMD samples. However, no significant difference was found between the two diarrhea samples. LefSe analysis showed that the degree of intestinal physiological dysfunction in musk deer was correlated with the types of major pathogens. The main pathogen in the MMD group is Escherichia–Shigella, whereas Fusobacterium is the main pathogen in the SMD group. PICRUSt functional profile prediction indicated that the intestinal microbiota disorder could also lead to changes in the abundance of genes in metabolic pathways of the immune system. Altogether, this study provides a theoretical basis for the exploration of treatments for diarrhea in captive musk deer, which is of considerable significance to the implementation of the musk deer release into the wild program.
Object classification integrating estimation of each scan line with LiDAR

In order to detect the pedestrian by using a low resolution LiDAR with a low-end processor, we proposed a method to calculate independent results for each scan line before integrating them. For verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method, we tried to classify point cloud data taken at a 3 m, 4 m, 5 m, 6 m and 7 m position apart from pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes and vehicle. We confirmed that it can be classified with accuracy of 0.738 in single line and accuracy of 0.997 in 8 lines, and showed the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Dietary sulfur amino acid level and energy utilization in laying hens.

Effects of marginal total sulfur amino acid (TSAA) deficiency and methionine toxicity on energy utilization of laying hens were studied with 7-month-old Single Comb White Leghorn pullets housed in individual cages at constant temperatures of 15.6 and 32.2 C. Diets containing . 47, . 49, . 51, and 3.47% TSAA were fed throughout the 4-week study. Following a 2-week acclimation period, each diet was fed at three levels of intake for 2 weeks. Voluntary feed and metabolizable energy (ME) consumption of nontoxic TSAA diets was significantly reduced at the higher housing temperature, and a further significant reduction was observed with the toxic diet at both temperatures. Energy balance increased from 79.7 to 98.7 kcal/bird per day at 32.2 C and from 117.3 to 142.0 kcal at 15.6 C as dietary TSAA increased from . 47 to . 51%; energy balance of hens fed 3.47% TSAA was very low at both temperatures. Maintenance ME requirements were unaffected by dietary TSAA up to . 51%, ranging from 123.3 to 131.1 and 155.5 to 163.5 kcal/hen per day at 32.2 C and 15.6 C, respectively; the requirement increased about 20 kcal/day at each temperature when the toxic TSAA diet was fed. As the amino acid balance of the diet was improved with methionine supplementation up to . 51%, heat increment plus activity decreased from 70.2 to 37.0 kcal/bird per day for hens housed at 32.2 C. Consequently, efficiency of conversion of dietary ME to net energy improved from 52.1% with . 47% TSAA to 63.8% with . 51% TSAA. Housing temperature did not influence energetic efficiency. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Olfactomedin 2 Regulates Smooth Muscle Phenotypic Modulation and Vascular Remodeling Through Mediating Runt-Related Transcription Factor 2 Binding to Serum Response Factor

Objective— The objective of this study is to investigate the role and underlying mechanism of Olfactomedin 2 (Olfm2) in smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotypic modulation and vascular remodeling. Approach and Results— Platelet-derived growth factor-BB induces Olfm2 expression in primary SMCs while modulating SMC phenotype as shown by the downregulation of SMC marker proteins. Knockdown of Olfm2 blocks platelet-derived growth factor-BB–induced SMC phenotypic modulation, proliferation, and migration. Conversely, Olfm2 overexpression inhibits SMC marker expression. Mechanistically, Olfm2 promotes the interaction of serum response factor with the runt-related transcription factor 2 that is induced by platelet-derived growth factor-BB, leading to a decreased interaction between serum response factor and myocardin, causing a repression of SMC marker gene transcription and consequently SMC phenotypic modulation. Animal studies show that Olfm2 is upregulated in balloon-injured rat carotid arteries. Knockdown of Olfm2 effectively inhibits balloon injury–induced neointima formation. Importantly, knockout of Olfm2 in mice profoundly suppresses wire injury–induced neointimal hyperplasia while restoring SMC contractile protein expression, suggesting that Olfm2 plays a critical role in SMC phenotypic modulation in vivo. Conclusions— Olfm2 is a novel factor mediating SMC phenotypic modulation. Thus, Olfm2 may be a potential target for treating injury-induced proliferative vascular diseases.
Maternal body weight and feed allowance of breeders affect performance of dwarf broiler breeders and tibial ossification of their progeny.

Four hundred and eight dwarf broiler breeder hens were raised collectively in a floor pen to 21 wk of age. At this age they were classified into four groups with reference to their individual BW as heavy (1.95 +/- .1 kg), medium (1.80 +/- .1 kg), light (1.69 +/- .1 kg), and ultralight (1.57 +/- .1 kg). All groups were individually caged at 23 wk of age. During the reproductive period, each group was divided into three subgroups fed on liberal, intermediate, or severe feed restriction (reaching up to 135, 125, and 115 g of daily feed allowance at 29 wk of age, respectively). Intergroup differences in BW were maintained throughout the experiment (21 to 61 wk) but tended to decrease with age. Hen-day egg production was depressed by the lower feed allowance. Fertility and hatchability were impaired when hens received the largest quantities of food. Hen size influenced female breeder performance only slightly. Shell quality and albumen quality were affected by the level of feed consumption. Egg weights as well as BW of the progeny at hatching were enhanced by increased maternal BW and feed allowance. This positive maternal effect was still present at 40 days of age. Despite better overall BW performances of the male versus female broilers, the abdominal fat pad of female broilers was heavier than that of males and tended to increase with breeder size and breeder feed allowance. Accordingly, tibial breaking strength and percentage ash of the progeny at hatching were markedly improved in proportion to the breeders' BW and to their feed allowance. The effect of breeder size on broiler tibial quality was maintained up to 40 days of age but the effect of breeder feed intake tended to disappear with increasing age of the broilers. Tibial strength and mineralization were higher in male than in female broilers at 40 days of age. Dyschondroplasia was higher in broilers hatched from heavier breeder hens, but was not influenced by breeder feed intake. The incidence of varus and valgus in progeny was similar whatever the breeders' treatment. It is concluded that performance of dwarf breeders in a given flock depends mainly upon breeder feed allowance but that broiler performance and, especially, tibial ossification of broilers is greatly influenced by maternal size and, to a lesser extent, by maternal feed intake.
A community detection method based on K-shell

We propose a community detection method based on K-shell. Our method determines some core nodes of the graph according to the K-shell value of these nodes. These core nodes constitute a subgraph on which we use the community detection algorithm to divide the core nodes into communities. Compared to classical methods, by this way, our proposed method removes the non-core nodes which may impact the quality of the solutions, and the running time would be reduced by 45% at most because the graph scale is reduced. Then we use the idea of LPA to infer community labels for the non-core nodes. Our experiments demonstrate that our method can reach the quality of solutions of CNM algorithms on the network constructed by Planted l-partition model which is also better than it on dataset of the Zachary karate club network. Meanwhile, we run our method on large-scale datasets, which has a better performance than the CNM algorithm.
Impact of osteoblast maturation on their paracrine growth enhancing activity on cord blood progenitors

Osteoblasts possess strong growth modulatory activity on haematopoietic stem cells and progenitors. We sought to characterise the growth and differentiation modulatory activities of human osteoblasts at distinct stages of maturation on cord blood (CB) progenitors in the context of osteoblast conditioned medium (OCM).
Genuine Lower Bounds for QBF Expansion

We propose the first general technique for proving genuine lower bounds in expansion-based QBF proof systems. We present the technique in a framework centred on natural properties of winning strategies in the 'evaluation game' interpretation of QBF semantics. As applications, we prove an exponential proof-size lower bound for a whole class of formula families, and demonstrate the power of our approach over existing methods by providing alternative short proofs of two known hardness results. We also use our technique to deduce a result with manifest practical import: in the absence of propositional hardness, formulas separating the two major QBF expansion systems must have unbounded quantifier alternations.
Effect of dietary protein and selected antioxidants on fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome induced in Japanese quail.

The effects of CP and antioxidants on fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome (FLHS) in Japanese quail hens were studied. In Experiment 1, four treatments were arranged as a 2 x 2 factorial; dietary CP (18 or 24%) and reduced glutathione (GSH, 0 or 120 mg/kg diet) were the major variables, but cysteine and other amino acids were higher in the 24% CP diets. Negative control (NC1) and positive control (PC1) diets were also evaluated. In Experiment 2, the effects of vitamin E (VE) and GSH were evaluated in the presence and absence of adequate dietary sulfur amino acids. Negative control (NC2) and positive control (PC2) diets were used. In both experiments, liver hemorrhage was most severe in quail fed the diets that were formulated to induce hepatic steatosis and limit oxidant defense capability. Liver hemorrhage was least severe in quail fed the diets that were formulated to minimize liver lipid accumulation and support oxidant defenses. Histological evaluation of affected quail livers showed changes consistent with FLHS in chicken hens. In Experiment 1, neither CP concentration nor GSH supplementation influenced liver hemorrhage. In Experiment 2, liver hemorrhagic score was reduced from 3.8 to 2.7 (P < or = .05) by adding VE to the basal diet. The PC2 diet further depressed liver score to only 2.0 (P < or = .05). The data clearly show that Japanese quail are susceptible to FLHS and indicate that a combination of lipotropic and antioxidant nutrients is protective against hemorrhage, even when lipogenic demands are maximized by feeding diets devoid of added fat.
Metabolism of lipid labeled very low density lipoprotein from laying turkey hens in laying turkey hens and immature turkeys.

Labeled very low density lipoprotein of laying turkey hens (VLDL-L) was prepared by injecting 1-14C-palmitate abd subsequently isolating the VLDL-L by ultracentrifugation at d=1.006. The isolated VLDL-L then was injected into recipient laying hens, immature males, or immature females. Size exclusion chromatography of recipient laying hen plasma showed no remnant particles of smaller size or greater density than the injected VLDL-L up to 400 min postinjection. In the immature birds of either sex, remnant particles of greater density and smaller size than the injected VLDL-L were present when blood samples were withdrawn at 5 (males) or 1 (females) min postinjection. In laying females, both VLDL-L-triglyceride (VLDL-L-TG) and phospholipids (VLDL-L-PL) had identical fractional clearance rates of . 00253 min-1 and had parallel rates of disappearance. The irreversible loss of VLDL-L-TG was 12.8 g/day while it was 4.8 g/day for VLDL-L-PL. Thirty-one percent of the injected radioactivity was isolated in ovarian follicles undergoing rapid development. VLDL-L-TG decayed with a single exponential decay component in both immature males and females, but decayed more rapidly in the males; it also decayed more rapidly in the immature birds of both sexes than in laying females. There was also an increase in triglyceride (TG) radioactivity in lipoproteins of d greater than 1.006. The VLDL-L-PL decayed in a more complex pattern in the immature birds, showing more than a single exponential decay component. There was also an increase in phospholipid (PL) radioactivity in lipoproteins of d greater than 1.006. THe VLDL-TG and PL radioactivities did not decay in a parallel pattern in immature birds where remnant particles of d greater than 1.006 were present soon after lipid labeled VLDL-L injection.
Selection of Japanese quail for reduced adrenocortical responsiveness accelerates puberty in males.

Differences in the onset of puberty were assessed in male Japanese quail from a random-bred (RB, control) line and two lines that had been genetically selected for reduced (low stress, LS) or exaggerated (high stress, HS) plasma corticosterone response to brief mechanical restraint. At 42 d of age, cloacal gland area (CAREA) and volume (CVOL), proportion of individuals that produced cloacal gland foam (PICF), and intensity of cloacal gland foam production (CFP) were examined in 60 representatives from each of these quail lines. CFP was quantified by subjective scaling of the amount of foam ejected upon manual expression (squeezing) of the foam gland, using a scale of 1 (no foam expressed) to 5 (maximum amount of foam expression). Mean CAREA and CVOL were similar in quail of the RB and HS lines, but these measures were greater (P < 0.01) in the LS quail. In addition, more (P < 0.05) LS than HS birds expressed foam at 42 d, whereas RB quail exhibited an intermediate PICF response that was not different from either selected line. CFP results mimicked those found for PICF (i.e., LS quail produced a greater (P < 0.05) amount of foam than HS birds, whereas RB quail showed intermediate production that was not different from LS or HS levels). In prepubertal and pubertal Japanese quail, cloacal gland hypertrophy is androgen-dependent and highly positively correlated with testes size as well as sexual activity. Cloacal gland foam production is also considered a reliable indicator of testicular size and activity. Thus, we conclude that selection for reduced adrenocortical responsiveness in Coturnix is associated with acceleration in the onset of puberty in males. The potential interaction between adrenocortical and testicular activity as it relates to male reproductive performance is discussed.
Explicit Inductive Bias for Transfer Learning with Convolutional Networks

In inductive transfer learning, fine-tuning pre-trained convolutional networks substantially outperforms training from scratch. When using fine-tuning, the underlying assumption is that the pre-trained model extracts generic features, which are at least partially relevant for solving the target task, but would be difficult to extract from the limited amount of data available on the target task. However, besides the initialization with the pre-trained model and the early stopping, there is no mechanism in fine-tuning for retaining the features learned on the source task. In this paper, we investigate several regularization schemes that explicitly promote the similarity of the final solution with the initial model. We show the benefit of having an explicit inductive bias towards the initial model, and we eventually recommend a simple $L^2$ penalty with the pre-trained model being a reference as the baseline of penalty for transfer learning tasks.
A Pick-and-Drop Concept for Modality-independent Exchange of Information Across Device

Copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste operations are often used when working with digital media. But such operations are restricted to single devices and are bound to the currently used concept of media encoding and interaction modalities. For example, it is still not possible to copy a picture from one device using a speech command and paste its textual representation on another device via a mouse click. Literature describes several concepts for these so-called pick-and-drop operations, but all of them work on a modality-specific level. We introduce a concept that works on an abstract and modality-independent level, for both, the information and the interaction. We realized a prototypical implementation and conducted an early expert evaluation to identify advantages and possible limitations of the concept. Our presented concept can help to seamlessly interact across device borders and does not restrict the use of specific interaction modalities.
Clinical significance of quantitative HER2 gene amplification as related to its predictive value in breast cancer patients in neoadjuvant setting

Background The aims of this study were to determine whether the quantitative HER2 gene amplification level is related to the key clinicopathological features that represent the aggressiveness of breast cancer (BC) and to determine whether the quantitative HER2 gene amplification level could predict the treatment response in the subset of HER2-positive patients who received neoadjuvant targeted therapy. Materials and methods Patients treated with weekly cisplatin- and paclitaxel-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy, who had undergone both immunohistochemistry and the fluorescence in situ hybridization test for HER2, were included in the study (n=103). For HER2-positive patients, defined as immunohistochemistry score 3+ or fluorescence in situ hybridization ratio ≥2.0, trastuzumab was recommended with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (n=45). Pathological complete response was defined as complete pathological remission of tumor cells both in breast and axillary lymph nodes postoperation. Results In all patients enrolled in the study, a higher HER2 amplification level was significantly correlated with larger tumor size and the absence of ER and PR expression. In HER2-positive patients treated with neoadjuvant trastuzumab concurrent with chemotherapy, both univariate and multivariate logistic regression showed that a higher HER2/CEP17 ratio and HER2 gene copy number were associated with a higher pathological complete response rate. When calculated by receiver operating characteristics analysis, an optimal cutoff of 4.5 for the HER2/CEP17 ratio was expected to distinguish the most sensitive candidate for treatment with a combination of trastuzumab and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Conclusion A higher HER2 amplification level was correlated with larger tumor size and reduced ER and PR expression, which may indicate more aggressive tumor behavior. For HER2-positive patients, the HER2/CEP17 ratio and HER2 gene copy number may be good predictive factors for concurrent neoadjuvant trastuzumab and chemotherapy.
Pseudo-pitch-synchronized phase information extraction and its application for robust speaker recognition

Recent studies have shown that phase information contains speaker-dependent characteristics and is effective for speaker recognition. In this paper, we summarize a robust phase feature extracted from Fourier spectrum (including pitch non-synchronized phase information and pseudo-pitchsynchronized phase information) and its application for speaker recognition for different speaking rate speech and noisy speech, and add the evaluation of speaker identification for short duration speech of training dataset and test set and speaker verification for telephone speech with channel variability. For pseudopitch-synchronized phase information extraction, the maximum amplitude of each frame is adopted as the center of the next window. Experiments were conducted using the Japanese Newspaper Article Sentence (JNAS) database, NTT database and NIST SRE 2003 database. The pseudo-pitch-synchronized phase information significantly outperformed than our proposed conventional pitch non-synchronized phase information for all cases. By combining the proposed phase information with MFCC, the speaker recognition performance was remarkably improved than that of MFCC.
Measuring Third-party Tracker Power across Web and Mobile

Third-party networks collect vast amounts of data about users via websites and mobile applications. Consolidations among tracker companies can significantly increase their individual tracking capabilities, prompting scrutiny by competition regulators. Traditional measures of market share, based on revenue or sales, fail to represent the tracking capability of a tracker, especially if it spans both web and mobile. This article proposes a new approach to measure the concentration of tracking capability, based on the reach of a tracker on popular websites and apps. Our results reveal that tracker prominence and parent–subsidiary relationships have significant impact on accurately measuring concentration.
Three-dimensional assessment of squats and drop jumps using the Microsoft Xbox One Kinect: Reliability and validity

ABSTRACT The Microsoft Xbox One Kinect™ (Kinect V2) contains a depth camera that can be used to manually identify anatomical landmark positions in three-dimensions independent of the standard skeletal tracking, and therefore has potential for low-cost, time-efficient three-dimensional movement analysis (3DMA). This study examined inter-session reliability and concurrent validity of the Kinect V2 for the assessment of coronal and sagittal plane kinematics for the trunk, hip and knee during single leg squats (SLS) and drop vertical jumps (DVJ). Thirty young, healthy participants (age = 23 ± 5yrs, male/female = 15/15) performed a SLS and DVJ protocol that was recorded concurrently by the Kinect V2 and 3DMA during two sessions, one week apart. The Kinect V2 demonstrated good to excellent reliability for all SLS and DVJ variables (ICC ≥ 0.73). Concurrent validity ranged from poor to excellent (ICC = 0.02 to 0.98) during the SLS task, although trunk, hip and knee flexion and two-dimensional measures of knee abduction and frontal plane projection angle all demonstrated good to excellent validity (ICC ≥ 0.80). Concurrent validity for the DVJ task was typically worse, with only two variables exceeding ICC = 0.75 (trunk and hip flexion). These findings indicate that the Kinect V2 may have potential for large-scale screening for ACL injury risk, however future prospective research is required.