Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Auditory and motor imagery modulate learning in music performance

Skilled performers such as athletes or musicians can improve their performance by imagining the actions or sensory outcomes associated with their skill. Performers vary widely in their auditory and motor imagery abilities, and these individual differences influence sensorimotor learning. It is unknown whether imagery abilities influence both memory encoding and retrieval. We examined how auditory and motor imagery abilities influence musicians' encoding (during Learning, as they practiced novel melodies), and retrieval (during Recall of those melodies). Pianists learned melodies by listening without performing (auditory learning) or performing without sound (motor learning); following Learning, pianists performed the melodies from memory with auditory feedback (Recall). During either Learning (Experiment 1) or Recall (Experiment 2), pianists experienced either auditory interference, motor interference, or no interference. Pitch accuracy (percentage of correct pitches produced) and temporal regularity (variability of quarter-note interonset intervals) were measured at Recall. Independent tests measured auditory and motor imagery skills. Pianists' pitch accuracy was higher following auditory learning than following motor learning and lower in motor interference conditions (Experiments 1 and 2). Both auditory and motor imagery skills improved pitch accuracy overall. Auditory imagery skills modulated pitch accuracy encoding (Experiment 1): Higher auditory imagery skill corresponded to higher pitch accuracy following auditory learning with auditory or motor interference, and following motor learning with motor or no interference. These findings suggest that auditory imagery abilities decrease vulnerability to interference and compensate for missing auditory feedback at encoding. Auditory imagery skills also influenced temporal regularity at retrieval (Experiment 2): Higher auditory imagery skill predicted greater temporal regularity during Recall in the presence of auditory interference. Motor imagery aided pitch accuracy overall when interference conditions were manipulated at encoding (Experiment 1) but not at retrieval (Experiment 2). Thus, skilled performers' imagery abilities had distinct influences on encoding and retrieval of musical sequences.
Rac1 and Rac3 in cell morphology and adhesion : brothers and foes

Ondanks een hoge mate van homologie verschillen de kleine Rho GTPases Rac1 en Rac3 wezenlijk in de functie die ze uitoefenen. De beschreven verschillen in effecten op cell-matrix adhesie berust op het feit dat Rac1 en Rac3 onafhankelijk van elkaar en op een andere manier aan het multifunctionele eiwit Git1 binden. De hierdoor veranderde Git1 downstream signalering beinvloedt de cel matrix adhesie waardoor cellen of spreiden of afronden. De mate van cel-matrix interacties heeft een grote invloed heeft op de groei, polarisatie en differentiatie van cellen en deregulatie van cel-matrix adhesies speelt een belangrijke rol bij de progressie van kankercellen. Uit dit onderzoek blijkt dat Rac1 en Rac3 op een antagonistische manier de cel-matrix adhesies beinvloeden.
How type I interferons shape myeloid cell function in CNS autoimmunity

The precise mechanisms underlying the effects of IFN‐I in CNS autoimmunity remain poorly understood despite the long‐standing use of these cytokines as first‐line disease‐modifying drugs in the treatment of RRMS, a chronic demyelinating CNS autoimmune disease. Systemic use of IFN‐I results in pleiotropic immunomodulation linking the innate and adaptive immune responses. Recent research has demonstrated that in the setting of CNS autoimmunity, IFNs‐I have multiple effects on myeloid cell subsets, such as circulating monocytes, granulocytes, DCs, and tissue macrophages, such as microglia. These diverse effects include changes in cell activation, maturation, antigen presentation, and cytokine production, thus influencing T cell differentiation and expansion, as well as the regulation of executive functions, such as apoptosis and phagocytosis. Moreover, current data suggest that the engagement of the IFNAR on myeloid cells changes the activation status of the inflammasome in a cell type‐specific manner. Whereas most reports support primarily immune‐suppressive effects of IFN‐I on myeloid cells, endogenously produced, exogenously induced, and peripherally administered IFNs‐I exert complex differential spatial effects during CNS autoimmune inflammation. Clearly characterizing the molecular and cellular basis of these effects promises to yield viable targets for a more directed, localized, cell type‐specific IFN‐I‐based therapeutic approach. This kind of approach would allow for replacing the current treatment strategy in MS of broadly and unselectively altering all immune responses, regardless of their beneficial or detrimental nature.
The Effect of History on Modeling Systems' Performance: The Problem of the Demanding Lord

In several concept attainment systems, ranging from recommendation systems to information filtering, a sliding window of learning instances has been used in the learning process to allow the learner to follow concepts that change over time. However, no analytic study has been performed on the relation between the size of the sliding window and the performance of a learning system. In this work, we present such an analytic model that describes the effect of the sliding window size on the prediction performance of a learning system based on iterative feedback. Using a signal-to-noise approach to model the learning ability of the underlying machine learning algorithms, we can provide good estimates of the average performance of a modeling system independently of the supervised machine learning algorithm employed. We experimentally validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology with detailed experiments using synthetic and real datasets, and a variety of learning algorithms, including Support Vector Machines, Naive Bayes, Nearest Neighbor and Decision Trees. The results validate the analysis and indicate very good estimation performance in different settings.
Positron emission tomography imaging in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

In pediatric patients with brain tumors, both the monitoring of brain tumor therapy and evaluation of treatment response is of paramount importance (1). In particular, the early identification of non-response allows the termination of an ineffective therapy to avoid possible side effects (e.g., bone marrow depression, nausea, fatigue, allergies, and polyneuropathy) and therefore to maintain or even improve life-quality. Furthermore, the early identification of non-response allows an earlier treatment change. For example, in the event of chemotherapy failure, negative side effects can be avoided and an earlier switch to another chemotherapeutic agent is possible before bone marrow reserves are exhausted. Moreover, identification of treatment failure may help reduce costs. To date, this is highly relevant because the expense of newer systemic treatment options (e.g., immunotherapy and targeted therapy options such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors, BRAF inhibitors, and MEK inhibitors) is considerably higher than conventional alkylating chemotherapy.
eIF4G stimulates the activity of the DEAD box protein eIF4A by a conformational guidance mechanism

The activity of eIF4A, a key player in translation initiation, is regulated by other translation factors through currently unknown mechanisms. Here, we provide the necessary framework to understand the mechanism of eIF4A’s regulation by eIF4G. In solution, eIF4A adopts a defined conformation that is different from the crystal structure. Binding of eIF4G induces a ‘half-open’ conformation by interactions with both domains, such that the helicase motifs are pre-aligned for activation. A primary interface acts as an anchor for complex formation. We show here that formation of the secondary interface is essential for imposing the ‘half-open’ conformation on eIF4A, and it is critical for the functional interaction of eIF4G with eIF4A. Via this bipartite interaction, eIF4G guides the transition of eIF4A between the ‘half-open’ and closed conformations, and stimulates its activity by accelerating the rate-limiting step of phosphate release. Subtle changes induced by eIF4G may be amplified by input signals from other translation factors, leading to an efficient regulation of translation initiation.
Two distinct parsing stages in nonword reading aloud: Evidence from Russian

Word reading partly depends on the activation of sublexical letter clusters. Previous research has studied which types of letter clusters have psychological saliency, but less is known about cognitive mechanisms of letter string parsing. Here, we take advantage of the high degree of context-dependency of the Russian orthography to examine whether consonant–vowel (CV) clusters are treated as units in two stages of sublexical processing. In two experiments using a nonword reading task, we use two orthogonal manipulations: (a) insertion of a visual disruptor (#) to assess whether CV clusters are kept intact during the early visual parsing stage, and (b) presence of context-dependent grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs; e.g., л[а] → /l/; л[я] → /lj/), to assess whether CV clusters remain intact or are split during the print-to-speech conversion stage. The results suggest that although CV clusters are initially processed as perceptual units in the early visual parsing stage, letters and not CV clusters drive print-to-speech conversion.
Depletion of nucleophosmin leads to distortion of nucleolar and nuclear structures in HeLa cells

NPM (nucleophosmin; also known as B23) is an abundantly and ubiquitously expressed multifunctional nucleolar phosphoprotein, which is involved in numerous cellular processes, including ribosome biogenesis, protein chaperoning and centrosome duplication; however, the role of NPM in the cell cycle still remains unknown. In the present study, we show dynamic localization of NPM throughout the cell cycle of HeLa cells. Using a combination of RNAi (RNA interference) and three-dimensional microscopy we show that NPM is localized at the chromosome periphery during mitosis. We also demonstrate that depletion of NPM causes distortion of nucleolar structure as expected and leads to unexpected dramatic changes in nuclear morphology with multiple micronuclei formation. The defect in nuclear shape of NPM-depleted cells, which is clearly observed by live-cell imaging, is due to the distortion of cytoskeletal (α-tubulin and β-actin) structure, resulting from the defects in centrosomal microtubule nucleation. These results indicate that NPM is an essential protein not only for the formation of normal nucleolar structure, but also for the maintenance of regular nuclear shape in HeLa cells.
Simulation of multi-train operation and energy consumption calculation considering regenerative braking

The traction calculation and minimum energy consumption calculation model is established in order to obtain the automatic train operation (ATO) strategy. Then an energy consumption calculation model for multi-train is built considering regenerative braking. On this basis, a simulation platform for multi-train operation and energy consumption calculation is developed, with automatic train protection (ATP) implemented to assure traffic safety. In addition, a manual driving mode is also added to this platform to adjust inappropriate operation caused by ATO. With the example of a high-speed railway Haidong Line, the multi-train energy consumption calculated by the simulation platform is evaluated compared with the real electricity consumption data. Results of the evaluation verify the correctness of the simulation platform. Then research on the relationship between railway's operation plans and the regenerated braking efficiency (RBE) is conducted. Quantitative analyses are made and results show that the RBE gradually increases with railway's operation density with the same train's departure time. When the number of trains on the railway is saturated, the RBE remains close to 30%.
Assessing trends in fishery resources and lake water aluminum from paleolimnological analyses of siliceous algae

Lake water aluminum concentrations have a significant influence on the composition of microfossil assemblages of diatoms and chrysophytes deposited in lake sediments. With the paleolimnological approach of multilake datasets in the Adirondack region of New York, USA, the authors use canonical correspondence analysis to describe past trends in lake water Al. Four lakes, previously investigated regarding acidification and fishery trends, are used to demonstrate that paleolimnological assessment can also provide direction, timing, and magnitude of trends for both toxic metals and fish resources. Additionally, the authors use weighted average regression and calibration to obtain quantitative reconstructions of past lake water Al concentrations. Such reconstructions provide further insight into fishery resource damage and can be compared with modelling results. According to paleolimnological reconstructions, some of the naturally most acidic lakes in the Adirondack region had preindustrial lake water concentrations of inorganic monomeric Al near 4/micromol times L. Although these high concentrations are surprising from a geochemical point of view, they may partially explain the preindustrial absence of fish, as has been independently determined by paleolimnological analysis of phantom midges (Chaoborus). Fishery resource deterioration in acidified Adirondack lakes was coincident with major increases in lake water Al concentrations.
Energy-efficient power allocation for amplify-and-forward MIMO relay channel

We consider a two-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) MIMO relay channel consisting one source, one AF relay and one destination, where each node is equipped with multi-antenna. For this scenario, most effort was made to maximize the rate or to minimize the sum power, while these schemes may not be energy-efficient when the ratio of rate to the sum power is used as the cost function. This motivates us to study a more meaningful and challenging problem: energy efficiency (EE) maximization under a rate requirement and individual node transmit power constraints. This work focuses on linear transceiver design: joint optimization of the source and the relay strategies when the minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) receiver is employed. In order to tackle this non-convex optimization problem, the alternating optimization algorithm combined with fractional programming is applied to optimize each variable separately. In addition, we derive that under some conditions, the conventional schemes of rate maximization and sum-power minimization are also energy-efficient.
Hydrochemical investigation of groundwater contamination in an urban area of Beijing aquifer: Impact of irrigation with industrial waste water

3 reflected the importance of the acid-rain recharge of the aquifers in the area, anthropogenic impact and salinity, respectively. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to group the wells into homogeneous zones for future monitoring of groundwater quality. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to identify key parameters that described the groundwater quality, characterize spatial variability of groundwater quality data and allow future groundwater quality control studies to be performed using a reduced number of measurements on a small number of sampling points, respectively. Key words:
Toward the Development of Novel Long-Term Pest Control Strategies Based on Insect Ecological and Evolutionary Dynamics

Most of the organisms that have negative impacts on agroecosystems and human health, namely bacteria, arthropods, fungi and weeds, share distinctive traits: short generation times, numerous offspring, and therefore large population sizes. These characteristics allow these organisms to change so fast that control of their population growth is difficult to achieve. However, species with these traits, viewed in an ecological context, are subjected to different selective pressures that impede unlimited growth. For instance, as insects are currently the most devastating group within agroecosystems, producing grave economic losses, farmers have resorted to the use of insecticides—whether natural, synthetic, or expressed in genetically modified organisms—as the main control method used to deal with this problem. While the use of insecticides can aid in the short-term control of insect pests these control methods present six fundamental problems that are environmentally irreversible: 1) the pest evolution of insecticide resistance; 2) eradication of non-target species; 3) elimination of ecological interactions; 4) modifications of the biogeochemical cycles; 5) environmental pollution; and 6) impact on human health. Currently, a great deal of knowledge about ecological and evolutionary processes and dynamics is becoming available; this can help to explain the issues mentioned above. In this chapter, we will analyze these processes to subsequently propose alternatives for a long-term integral pest management system.
Resource management in device-to-device underlaying cellular network

This paper addresses resource management problem in a heterogeneous network consisting of cellular users and multiple D2D pairs. The D2D users share spectrum with cellular uplink under the QoS constraint of cellular system and pay for the interference they cause. We propose a two-step resource management scheme to optimize D2D user's transmitting power and the spectrum efficiency of the network. Firstly, the interference pricing and power allocation problem between a D2D pair and their allocated cellular uplink is formulated as a Stackelberg game. Then the Stackelberg equilibrium, i.e., the optimal interference price and transmitting power that maximize utilities of two players (the base station and the D2D transmitter), is obtained in close form. In the second step, with the close form expressions as important parameters, the situation is extended to multiple D2D pairs and a Hungarian algorithm based method is utilized to assign spectrum band to each D2D pair with the purpose of maximizing system spectrum efficiency. Simulation results demonstrate the advantageous performance of our scheme in network capacity and spectrum efficiency.
Transcriptome and Physiological Responses to Hydrogen Peroxide of the Facultatively Phototrophic Bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides

ABSTRACT The transcriptome responses to hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, of the facultatively phototrophic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides grown under semiaerobic conditions were investigated. At 7 min after the addition of 1 mM H2O2, the expression of approximately 9% of all genes (total, 394) was changed reliably by at least twofold. At 30 min, the number of genes (total, 88) and the magnitude of expression changes were much lower, indicating rapid recovery from stress. Two types of responses were observed: (i) an H2O2 stress response per se and (ii) a shift to high-oxygen metabolism. The former response involved the upregulation of genes for H2O2 detoxification, protein folding and proteolysis, DNA damage repair, iron transport and storage, iron-sulfur cluster repair, and the downregulation of genes for protein translation, motility, and cell wall and lipopolysaccharide synthesis. The shift to high-oxygen metabolism was evident from the differential regulation of genes for aerobic electron transport chain components and the downregulation of tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and photosystem genes. The abundance of photosynthetic complexes was decreased upon prolonged exposure of R. sphaeroides to H2O2, thus confirming the physiological significance of the transcriptome data. The regulatory pathways mediating the shift to high-oxygen metabolism were investigated. They involved the anaerobic activator FnrL and the antirepressor-repressor AppA-PpsR system. The transcription of FnrL-dependent genes was down at 7 min, apparently due to the transient inactivation by H2O2 of the iron-sulfur cluster of FnrL. The transcription of the AppA-PpsR-dependent genes was down at 30 min, apparently due to the significant decrease in appA mRNA.
On the Strong Chromatic Number

Let $G$ be a finite graph with maximum degree at most $d$. Then, for every partition of $V(G)$ into classes of size $3d-1$, there exists a proper colouring of $G$ with $3d-1$ colours in which each class receives all $3d-1$ colours.
Under-estimation of self-reported occupational exposure by questionnaire in hospital workers

Objectives The aim of the study was to determine whether self-reported occupational exposure to cleaning/disinfecting agents in hospital workers is accurate, in comparison to expert assessment, taken to be the gold standard. Methods In the Epidemiological Study of the Genetics and Environment of Asthma (EGEA), participants were interviewed on occupation with a specific questionnaire for hospital workers regarding tasks and cleaning/disinfecting agents. Two estimates of exposure were available: self-report and expert assessment. The expert assessment involved a standardised procedure to estimate intensity, frequency and probability of exposure for each job. The present analysis focused on eight exposures: formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, bleach/chlorine, alcohol, quaternary ammonium components, ammonia, sprays and latex gloves. Agreement and differences between self-reported and expert estimates were studied by kappa and phi coefficients and McNemar tests, respectively. Results In the survey of 1571 adults, 176 ever hospital workers (327 occupations) with both self-reported and expert exposure assessments were studied. An underestimation of self-reported exposure was observed especially for formaldehyde (26.5% vs 32.7%, p=0.01), ammonia (7.4% vs 18.8%, p<0.0001), alcohol (64.9% vs 93.0%, p<0.0001) and quaternary ammonium components (16.6% vs 70.9%, p<0.0001), compared to expert assessment. Conclusion Occupational exposure to disinfecting/cleaning agents is common and high in hospitals. A large underestimation of self-reported exposure and a lack of knowledge of product components was observed. Our results show the relevance of expert assessment in epidemiological studies to limit measurement bias. This work underlines the need for health education programmes on the occupational risks induced by these types of products.
Ultrahigh Dimensional Variable Selection for Interpolation of Point Referenced Spatial Data: A Digital Soil Mapping Case Study

Modern soil mapping is characterised by the need to interpolate point referenced (geostatistical) observations and the availability of large numbers of environmental characteristics for consideration as covariates to aid this interpolation. Modelling tasks of this nature also occur in other fields such as biogeography and environmental science. This analysis employs the Least Angle Regression (LAR) algorithm for fitting Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) penalized Multiple Linear Regressions models. This analysis demonstrates the efficiency of the LAR algorithm at selecting covariates to aid the interpolation of geostatistical soil carbon observations. Where an exhaustive search of the models that could be constructed from 800 potential covariate terms and 60 observations would be prohibitively demanding, LASSO variable selection is accomplished with trivial computational investment.