Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metabolic Engineering of the Phenylpropanoid Pathway Enhances the Antioxidant Capacity of Saussurea involucrata

The rare wild species of snow lotus Saussurea involucrata is a commonly used medicinal herb with great pharmacological value for human health, resulting from its uniquely high level of phenylpropanoid compound production. To gain information on the phenylpropanid biosynthetic pathway genes in this critically important medicinal plant, global transcriptome sequencing was performed. It revealed that the phenylpropanoid pathway genes were well represented in S. involucrata. In addition, we introduced two key phenylpropanoid pathway inducing transcription factors (PAP1 and Lc) into this medicinal plant. Transgenic S. involucrata co-expressing PAP1 and Lc exhibited purple pigments due to a massive accumulation of anthocyanins. The over-expression of PAP1 and Lc largely activated most of the phenylpropanoid pathway genes, and increased accumulation of several phenylpropanoid compounds significantly, including chlorogenic acid, syringin, cyanrine and rutin. Both ABTS (2,2′-azinobis-3-ethylbenzotiazo-line-6-sulfonic acid) and FRAP (ferric reducing anti-oxidant power) assays revealed that the antioxidant capacity of transgenic S. involucrata lines was greatly enhanced over controls. In addition to providing a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of phenylpropanoid metabolism, our results potentially enable an alternation of bioactive compound production in S. involucrata through metabolic engineering.
Area under pH 4: a more sensitive parameter for the quantitative analysis of esophageal acid exposure in adults

Objective:Traditional quantitative analysis of 24-h esophageal pH monitoring data does not include the pH of reflux episodes. Area under pH 4 (AU4) is a recently introduced parameter that describes the acid exposure rate through both duration and depth of pH falls.Methods:In Study A, we enrolled 20 healthy controls and 42 patients (18 without esophagitis, 24 with Savary I–III esophagitis) in a study evaluating reference values for 24-h reflux time at pH <4 (RT) and 24-h AU4 by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) discriminant analysis. For Study B, we next prospectively applied the resulting cutoffs to 16 healthy controls and to 110 gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) patients (55 with esophagitis) to adjust sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of both RT and AU4.Results:In Study A, the best cutoff values were 5.1% for RT (Area Index ± SE, 0.899 ± 0.038; 95% confidence interval [C.I.], 0.796 ± 0.961) and 36.1 pH × min for AU4 (Area Index ± SE, 0.935 ± 0.03; 95% C.I., 0.842 ± 0.981); AU4 gave the best performance (p= 0.038vs RT) in discriminating controls and GERD patients. In Study B, RT was abnormal in three controls and 79 patients; AU4 identified all the controls and patients with abnormal RT and also 10/31 patients (32.3%) with so-called “normal” acid exposure (according to RT). In the whole GERD group of patients, AU4 and RT specificity was 81.2%, whereas sensitivity was 71.8% for RT and 80.9% for AU4 (χ2, 61.831; DF, 1; p < 0.005); PPV/NPV were 96.3%/29.5% for RT, and 96.7%/38.2% for AU4.Conclusions:AU4 appears to be a simple and sensitive quantitative parameter to measure the esophageal acid exposure in adults submitted to 24-h pH monitoring, and it could be an useful clinical aid in evaluating normal RT tests where, from a clinical point of view, a reflux disease is highly likely.
Adenovirus Type F Subtype 41 Causing Disseminated Disease following Bone Marrow Transplantation for Immunodeficiency

ABSTRACT Adenovirus causes disseminated disease following bone marrow transplantation (BMT). We report a child who underwent T-cell-depleted BMT. Adenovirus subgenus F serotype 41 was detected antemortem by PCR in cerebrospinal fluid and postmortem in other tissues. Serotypes 40 and 41, associated with gastrointestinal disease, have not previously been implicated in disseminated disease.
ENFFiS: An enhanced NAND flash memory file system for mobile embedded multimedia system

Since the typical erase cycle limit of a NAND flash memory's block is about 1,000,000, flash memory should be erased as evenly as possible; otherwise, file system hot spots will soon be worn out. This forces a NAND flash memory file system to scan the whole flash memory during its mount rather than saving frequently updated file system information in a fixed area. Since the mount time linearly increases with the size of NAND flash memory, boot times of embedded systems are also linearly increased. In addition, since data loss may occur if a file system terminates abnormally due to unexpected errors, a stability scheme for NAND flash memory file system is in great demand. To resolve these problems, this article suggests an extended logical block called Exblock (Extended Block) and a table called SNode (Snapshot Node) to reduce the mount time and proposes a new journaling scheme to improve stability for an enhanced file system for NAND flash memory storage called ENFFiS (Enhanced NAND Flash memory File System). It also proposes a new cache policy to improve read/write performances. ENFFiS shows better performance than existing file systems in terms of reading, writing, mount time and stability.
Dark chocolate for children's blood pressure: randomised trial

Background Higher adult blood pressure, even without hypertension, predicts cardiovascular outcomes, and is predicted by childhood blood pressure. Regular dark chocolate intake lowers blood pressure in adults, but effects in children are unknown. Aim To examine the feasibility of school-based provision of dark chocolate and its short-term efficacy in reducing mean group blood pressure. Methods 194 children (aged 10–12 years) were randomised by class to intervention (7 g dark chocolate daily for 7 weeks, n=124) or control (n=70) groups; 98% and 93% provided baseline and follow-up measurements, respectively. Results Intervention and control students had similar systolic (mean difference 1.7 mm Hg, 95% CI −0.6 to 4.1) and diastolic (−1.2 mm Hg, 95% CI −3.6 to 1.3) blood pressure, anthropometry and well-being at outcome. Conclusion Results show that providing dark chocolate is feasible and acceptable in the school setting. For a definitive trial, the authors recommend a larger sample, endovascular function measures, and consideration of higher antioxidant ‘dose’ by virtue of duration and/or content.
Ontology-based Data Access with MASTRO

In several areas, such as Enterprise Application Integration, Data Integration [5], and the Semantic Web [4], clients need to access the services exported by the system, and hence require a representation of the intensional level of the application domain in terms of which they can specify the access to the exported services. One of the most interesting usages of such a shared conceptualization is ontology-based data access, where a conceptual layer is exported to the client, abstracting away from how actual data is maintained. Therefore, an ontology-based data access system has to adress the “impedance mismatch” issue, existing between data actually present at the sources, and objects represented at the intensional level. In this demo, we present MASTRO, an ontology-based data access system that extends the QuOnto system [1] with new capabilities and uses the QuOnto engine at its core. Specifically, MASTRO provides tractable reasoning over an ontology, laying over an autonomous relational DBMS managing the data layer. In what follows, we introduce the main services provided by MASTRO, namely (i) ontology specification, (ii) query answering, (iii) ontology satisfiability, and (iv) meta-query answering. The present work is one of the outcomes of the European project TONES1. Ontology specification MASTRO allows to define an ontology in terms of both an intensional and an extensional level. The former is specified by means of a new Description Logic in the DL-Lite family [3], called DL-LiteA 2. Thus, the domain of interest is represented in terms of (i) concepts, denoting set of objects, (ii) roles, denoting binary relations between objects, and, notably, (iii) domain values, denoting set of values. Interestingly, values allow both concepts and roles to be qualified by attributes. Concerning the ontology extensional level, MASTRO allows for mappings specification, that establish how data retrieved from an existing database DB is related to extensions of terms used in the ontology intensional level. This is achieved by (i) allowing object terms to denote constants, that are built by applying Skolem functors to data values, (ii) defining mappings of the form: Ψ φ, where Ψ is an arbitrary SQL query over DB, and φ is a DL-LiteA conjunctive query without existential variables, whose atoms may contain variable object terms, i.e. terms obtained by applying Skolem functors to variables denoting values. Query answering The MASTRO query answering service is similar to query answering provided by QuOnto [1]. In particular, MASTRO is able to answer unions of conjunctive queries (UCQs) expressed over the ontology alphabet: the class of UCQs is one of the most important classes of query arising in practical cases. The query answering process is performed by query rewriting and strongly separates the intensional level from
Microsecond-Accuracy Time Synchronization Using the IEEE 802.15.4 TSCH Protocol

Time-Slotted Channel Hopping from the IEEE 802.15. 4-2015 standard requires that network nodes are tightly time-synchronized. Existing implementations of TSCH on embedded hardware are characterized by tens-of-microseconds large synchronization errors, higher synchronization accuracy would enable reduction of idle listening time on receivers, in this way decreasing the energy required to run TSCH. For some applications, it would also allow to replace dedicated time synchronization mechanisms with TSCH. We show that time synchronization errors in the existing TSCH implementations on embedded hardware are caused primarily by imprecise clock drift estimations, rather than by real unpredictable drift variance. By estimating clock drift more precisely and by applying adaptive time compensation on each node in the network, we achieve microsecond accuracy time synchronization on point-to-point links and a.
Object Identification and Recognition Using Multiple Contours Based Moment Invariants

A particular kind of invariants known as moment invariants have been used for object recognition and identification due to its invariabilities under translation, rotation and similitude transformation and approximate invariability even under small-scale perspective transformation, while contours representing shapes and structures play key role in people's tasks of reorganization and identification. A combining approach incorporating contours into moment invariant is proposed in this paper such that advantages of both are employed. Redefined on contours of both the whole objects and their inners, not just are moment invariants related to geometric information but they are less sensitive to non-essential changes and less complex for computations. Vectors formed by invariants act as features of objects and are classified by Nearest Neighborhood. If common features of kinds of objects are defined in advance, this algorithm can be used for objects belonging to those kinds. Time and space complex are rather low and experimental results show desirable accuracy.
Identification of Novel Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Chinook Salmon and Variation among Life History Types

Abstract Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are simple base substitutions or small indels in otherwise conserved regions of nuclear or mitochondrial DNA. Assays detecting these genetic markers have been a powerful tool for conserving and managing fish populations. In nonmodel species, however, available DNA sequence data are limited and inventive techniques must be employed in screening for SNPs. In this study, we used expressed sequence tags from rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss to design primers for amplification of genomic DNA fragments from Chinook salmon O. tshawytscha. The regions flanking the repeat sequence of published microsatellite loci in Chinook salmon were also chosen to examine nucleotide variation. Thirty-two individuals representing the majority of the species' range from Russia to California were sequenced at 19 loci to identify SNPs. We discovered 58 polymorphisms during the screen and chose 13 for development into 5′ exonuclease assays (TaqMan assays). The genotypes from the TaqMa.
Religiosity and Fertility in the United States: The Role of Fertility Intentions

Using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, we show that women who report that religion is "very important" in their everyday life have both higher fertility and higher intended fertility than those saying religion is "somewhat important" or "not important. " Factors such as unwanted fertility, age at childbearing or degree of fertility postponement seem not to contribute to religiosity differentials in fertility. This answer prompts more fundamental questions: what is the nature of this greater religiosity? And why do the more religious want more children? We show that those saying religion is more important have more traditional gender and family attitudes and that these attitudinal differences account for a substantial part of the fertility differential. We speculate regarding other contributing causes.
Interpretation of linear sampling method in terms of induced multipoles

Linear sampling method is a qualitative inversion technique employed for imaging scatterers. Although it is well understood from the perspective of mathematics, despite few good efforts, its physical interpretation still eludes the research community. This article presents a physical interpretation of the linear sampling method. We demonstrate that linear sampling method can effectively be understood as finding the locations in the domain, where the monopole current is the most significant part of the induced current. To this end, we have provided a new mathematical formulation in terms of the induced multipoles which is equivalent to LSM. We further show that this mathematical model can be used to enhance the imaging results.
RNAi for contactin 2 inhibits proliferation of U87-glioma stem cells by downregulating AICD, EGFR, and HES1

Glioblastoma is the most common form of malignant brain tumors and has a poor prognosis. Glioma stem cells (GSCs) are thought to be responsible for the aberrant proliferation and invasion. Targeting the signaling pathways that promote proliferation in GSCs is one of the strategies for glioma treatment. In this study, we found increased expression of contactin 2 (CNTN2) and amyloid β precursor protein (APP) in U87-derived GSCs (U87-GSCs). RNA interference (RNAi) for CNTN2 downregulated the expression of APP intracellular domain (AICD), which is the proteolytic product of APP. Treatment with CNTN2 RNAi inhibited the proliferation of U87-GSCs. CNTN2 RNAi decreased the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor and HES1, which are potential targets of AICD. In summary, inhibition of the CNTN2/APP signaling pathway may repress the proliferation in U87-GSCs via downregulating the expression of HES1 and epidermal growth factor receptor. CNTN2/APP/AICD signaling pathway plays an important role in U87 glial tumorigenesis. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the role of these signaling pathways in other sources of GSCs. Depending on their role in proliferation in other sources of GSCs, members of the CNTN2/APP/AICD signaling pathway may provide novel targets for the development of therapy for glioblastomas.
The Structure of Factor Oracles

The factor oracle is a relatively new data structure for the set of factors of a string. It has been introduced by Allauzen, Crochemore, and Raffinot in 1999. It may recognize non-factors (hence the name "oracle") but its implementational simplicity and experimental behaviour are stunning; factor oracle based string matching has been conjectured optimal on average. However, its structure is not well understood. We take important steps in clarifying its structure by explaining how it can be obtained as a quotient of the trie of the set of factors. When seen this way, all known properties of the factor oracle become simple observations. Also, we introduce a framework where various oracles can be compared. The factor oracle is better than several natural ones obtained from the trie of the set of factors, the suffix and the factor automata, respectively.
Climate and topography control the size and flux of sediment produced on steep mountain slopes

Significance Rivers carve through landscapes using sediment produced on hillslopes by biological, chemical, and physical weathering of underlying bedrock. Both the size and supply rate of sediment influence the pace of river incision and landscape evolution, but the connections remain poorly understood, because the size distributions of sediment supplied from slopes have been difficult to quantify. This study combined existing sediment-tracing techniques in a previously unidentified approach to quantify sediment production across an alpine catchment in the High Sierra, California. Results show that colder, steeper, and less vegetated slopes produce coarser sediment that erodes faster into the channel network. These results demonstrate that the sediment-tracing approach can be used to quantify feedbacks between climate, topography, and erosion. Weathering on mountain slopes converts rock to sediment that erodes into channels and thus provides streams with tools for incision into bedrock. Both the size and flux of sediment from slopes can influence channel incision, making sediment production and erosion central to the interplay of climate and tectonics in landscape evolution. Although erosion rates are commonly measured using cosmogenic nuclides, there has been no complementary way to quantify how sediment size varies across slopes where the sediment is produced. Here we show how this limitation can be overcome using a combination of apatite helium ages and cosmogenic nuclides measured in multiple sizes of stream sediment. We applied the approach to a catchment underlain by granodiorite bedrock on the eastern flanks of the High Sierra, in California. Our results show that higher-elevation slopes, which are steeper, colder, and less vegetated, are producing coarser sediment that erodes faster into the channel network. This suggests that both the size and flux of sediment from slopes to channels are governed by altitudinal variations in climate, vegetation, and topography across the catchment. By quantifying spatial variations in the sizes of sediment produced by weathering, this analysis enables new understanding of sediment supply in feedbacks between climate, tectonics, and mountain landscape evolution.
Investigations on fitness of pointing time prediction model

The authors previously found that the index of difficulty (ID) definition in Fitts' model might not consistently capture actual pointing difficulty among target design variations. In this paper, the authors first evaluate the applicability of possible models other than Fitts' one. Multiple regression models are found to be able to appropriately represent the effects of target design variations. The authors next make an attempt to improve the definition of ID in Fitts' model. Our idea is to raise the size or the distance values depending on the screen size. The modified model is found to fit well to the users' pointing data.
Enhancing Application-Layer Multicast for P2P Conferencing

While application-layer multicast (ALM) can re- duce latency and permit deployment in networks without network-layer multicast, often, it does not leverage application- specific behavior. For example, the existing ALM-based peer-to- peer (P2P) conferencing systems route media packets based only on bandwidth and on transmission delay without considering P2P conferencing specific behavior and varying mixing capabilities of participating peers. We propose an enhanced hybrid ALM-based P2P conferencing architecture that can leverage participating peers with different capabilities. We also present a three-step algorithm to construct such a hybrid ALM-based P2P conference. We have built a prototype for our architecture. Results from our prototype show that our approach is more scalable than the existing ALM-based P2P conferencing systems.
Unmasking of Olive Oil Adulteration Via a Multi-Sensor Platform

Methods for the chemical and sensorial evaluation of olive oil are frequently changed and tuned to oppose the increasingly sophisticated frauds. Although a plethora of promising alternatives has been developed, chromatographic techniques remain the more reliable yet, even at the expense of their related execution time and costs. In perspective of a continuous increment in the number of the analyses as a result of the global market, more rapid and effective methods to guarantee the safety of the olive oil trade are required. In this study, a novel artificial sensorial system, based on gas and liquid analysis, has been employed to deal with olive oil genuineness and authenticity issues. Despite these sensors having been widely used in the field of food science, the innovative electronic interface of the device is able to provide a higher reproducibility and sensitivity of the analysis. The multi-parametric platform demonstrated the capability to evaluate the organoleptic properties of extra-virgin olive oils as well as to highlight the presence of adulterants at blending concentrations usually not detectable through other methods.
Space-time equalization for DVB-T in single frequency networks

The use of single frequency networks (SFN) for digital video broadcasting terrestrial services (DVB-T) yields severe intersymbol interference (ISI) caused by the mutual interference between the adjacent transmitters as well as the local scattering of each transmitted signal. The optimal mitigation of such ISI requires either equalization with an extraordinary number of taps or the use of multicarrier modulation with a very large block size. In this paper, we propose to exploit multiple receiving antennas in order to separate, than to optimally combine the signals coming from different transmitters. This approach allows to reduce the block size and/or the computation burden. However, it yields performance losses compared to the optimal processing. These losses depend on the space-time diversity and are tested in this paper for rural type propagation environments.
Phishing Email Feature Selection Approach

Phishing emails are more dynamic and cause high risk of significant data, brand and financial loss to average computer user and organizations. To address this problem, we propose a hybrid feature selection approach based on combination of content-based and behavior-based. Our proposed hybrid features selections are able to achieve 93% accuracy rate as compared to other approaches. In addition, we successfully tested the quality of our proposed behavior-based feature using the Information Gain, Gain Ratio and Symmetrical Uncertainty
An application of machine learning to network intrusion detection

Differentiating anomalous network activity from normal network traffic is difficult and tedious. A human analyst must search through vast amounts of data to find anomalous sequences of network connections. To support the analyst's job, we built an application which enhances domain knowledge with machine learning techniques to create rules for an intrusion detection expert system. We employ genetic algorithms and decision trees to automatically generate rules for classifying network connections. This paper describes the machine learning methodology and the applications employing this methodology.