Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum on Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans Clinical Isolates from Children with Early Childhood Caries

Probiotics interfere with pathogenic microorganisms or reinstate the natural microbiome. Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans are well-known emerging pathogenic bacteria/fungi for dental caries. In this study, three probiotic Lactobacilli strains (Lactobacillus plantarum 8014, L. plantarum 14917, and Lactobacillus salivarius 11741) were tested on S. mutans and C. albicans clinical isolates using a multispecies biofilm model simulating clinical cariogenic conditions. The ten pairs of clinical isolates of S. mutans and C. albicans were obtained from children with severe early childhood caries. Our study findings show a remarkable inhibitory effect of L. plantarum 14917 on S. mutans and C. albicans clinical isolates, resulting in significantly reduced growth of S. mutans and C. albicans, a compromised biofilm structure with a significantly smaller microbial and extracellular matrix and a less virulent microcolony structure. FurTre, plantaricin, an antimicrobial peptide produced by L. plantarum, inhibited the growth of S. mutans and C. albicans. The mechanistic assessment indicated that L. plantarum 14917 had a positive inhibitory impact on the expression of S. mutans and C. albicans virulence genes and virulent structure, such as C. albicans hypha formation. Future utilization of L. plantarum 14917 and/or its antimicrobial peptide plantaricin could lead to a new paradigm shift in dental caries prevention.
Solar cycle variation of the solar corona shape: A new outlook

Solar coronal streamers constitute a closed belt around the Sun which serves as a base of the heliospheric current sheet. Such a new view of the solar corona structure leads one to regard in a new light the evolution of coronal form during the sunspot cycle. So far the general coronal shape is quantitatively described with Ludendorff’s parameter characterizing the flattening of the corona in the heliographic frame of reference. Such a description is formal and has no physical meaning. Modification of Ludendorff’s technique is proposed which consists of substitution of the heliographic frame of reference by a heliomagnetic one. The principal plane of the heliomagnetic coordinate system is that of the magnetic dipole equator which coincides with the geometric mean plane of the solar corona. The new quantity of observed coronal flattening depends on two parameters: (1) the angle between the line of sight and the coronal mean plane, and (2) an angular spread of coronal streamer belt in 3-D space. The above considerations justity a need to revise d available eclipse data concerned with the solar corona shape. Some results of such a revision are presented in this paper.
Review of the vapour pressures of ice and supercooled water for atmospheric applications

The vapour pressures of ice and supercooled water are reviewed with an emphasis on atmospheric applications. Parametrizations are given for the vapour pressure, molar heat capacity, and latent heat of vaporization of both ice and liquid water. For ice, the experimental vapour pressure data are in agreement with a derivation from the Clapeyron equation. Below 200 K cubic ice may affect the vapour pressure of ice both in the atmosphere and in the laboratory. All of the commonly used parametrizations for the vapour pressure of supercooled water are extrapolations that were not originally intended for use below the freezing point. In addition, the World Meteorological Organization definition of the vapour pressure of supercooled water contains an easily overlooked typographical error. Recent data on the molar heat capacity of supercooled water are used to derive its vapour pressure. Nevertheless, the uncertainty is such that measurements of the deliquescence and freezing behaviour of aerosol particles are beginning to be limited by uncertainties in the thermodynamics of supercooled water. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society
A Novel Structured Single Device Neuron for Low Standby Power and Compact System Application

We propose a single device neuron that utilizes a ferroelectric layer, a split gate, and a truncated floating gate structure. The proposed neuron device, named Single-Device Leaky-FeFET (SD L-FeFET), successfully emulates the neuronal dynamics for both excitatory and inhibitory connections while reducing the standby power by eliminating tail current. A spiking neural network (SNN) using the newly developed SD L-FeFET neuron shows MNIST handwriting digit pattern recognition of 92.5% and face recognition of 91.7%, which is comparable performance to the state-of-art SNN simulation results using conventional complex cell designs.
Temporal-spatial heterogeneity of hematocrit in microvascular networks

Hematocrit, defined as the volume percentage of red blood cells (RBCs) in blood, is an important indicator of human health status, which demonstrates the capability of blood to deliver oxygen. It has been studied over many decades using in vivo, in vitro, and in silicon experiments, and recent studies have shown that its major feature in microvascular networks is the temporal-spatial heterogeneity. The present work is a numerical study of such temporal-spatial heterogeneity, based on direct simulations of cellular-scale blood flow in complex microvascular networks. The simulations take into account the cell deformation and aggregation, and thus are able to capture both the three-dimensional (3D) dynamics of each individual cell and the temporal-spatial distribution of cell population. The results showed that the temporal-spatial heterogeneity is more pronounced in the network that has the vessels with smaller diameters or with more complex geometry. Such heterogeneity is largely attributed to the existence of bifurcations, where the positively-correlated hypotactic (feeding-branch) and paratactic (branch-branch) relations are generally observed in both the time-averaged hematocrit and temporal hematocrit range. This suggests that the successive bifurcations have a substantial impact on the temporal-spatial heterogeneity of hematocrit. However, these positive correlations may be broken up if the diameter of the feeding vessel is small enough or the bifurcation is asymmetric extremely, due to the vessel blockage. The present study is of great clinical significance to help doctors make more accurate diagnosis and treatment, by providing more information about the temporal-spatial distribution of the hematocrit in microvascular networks.
The Effect of a Glaring Light Source on Extrafoveal Vision

When an exposed light source is present in the field of view, the visibility of neighbouring objects is impaired owing to what may be called the glare effect of the light source. This glare effect has been studied by several investigators, who have measured the increase in the smallest perceptible brightness difference (brightness difference threshold) when the glare source is introduced in such manner that the brightness distribution in the field remains otherwise unchanged. In all the earlier work attention was confined to the case when the subject viewed the brightness difference to be perceived, by direct or foveal vision. For this case the investigations of Luckiesh and Holladay (1925) and of Stiles (1929) have shown that if the field has a uniform brightness of B c. /sq. ft. and if a point source, located θ ° from the test object, produces an illumination of E ft. c. on the pupillary plane at the subject’s eye, then the brightness difference threshold T is raised from the value T appropriate to the field brightness B , to the value T G appropriate to a field brightness β , where β = B + kE / θ n . (1) Thus the effect of the glare source on the brightness difference threshold is reproduced by superposing a uniform brightness γ = kE / θ n on the field brightness B . β is termed the equivalent uniform field brightness, and γ = kE / θ n , the equivalent veiling brightness, of the given glare condition. Various values of the constants k and n have been obtained by different investigators, but the best representative values may be taken as n = approximately 2, k = approximately 10. (See Appendix.) It has (Stiles and Crawford 1932) that the value of β for a given glare condition is independent of the size, colour and exposure time of the brightness difference used in the determination of the difference threshold.
Profiling the Arion rufus snails with computer vision

Smart agriculture takes advantage of modern computational approaches that vary from IoT, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The primary aim is to assist the farming process. Pest detection is one of the objectives within the area of smart agriculture. It is mainly solved by computer vision approaches, usually combined with machine learning (ML) algorithms. In this paper, we propose a solution for detecting Arion rufus snails that have emerged in Central Europe and are one of the most prolific threats to agriculture in that place. Practical experiments reveal that our method is helpful in this real-world application and opens several future challenges and lines of research.
Acoustic Moving Source Localization using Sparse Time Difference of Arrival Measurements

Time difference of arrival (TDoA) measurements are common in distributed localization systems, where events are emitted by the tracked source and the detected arrival times at the sensors, deployed at known locations, are used to compute the source location. Since erroneous measurements are common, e.g. due to non-line-of-sight conditions, the sensor fusion must be robust against such outlier measurements. In this paper the consensus-based TDoA fusion, which was proven very successful in various acoustic localization systems, is extended for the case when the source is moving and the event detections at the sensors are not reliable, thus sparse. The derivation of the extended consensus function will be introduced, and the performance is illustrated through simulation examples, showing accuracy around 10cm in realistic scenarios.
Understanding the Active Mechanisms of Plant (Sesuvium portulacastrum L.) against Heavy Metal Toxicity

Through metabolic analysis, the present research seeks to reveal the defense mechanisms activated by a heavy metals-resistant plant, Sesuvium portulacastrum L. In this regard, shifting metabolisms in this plant were investigated in different heavy metals-contaminated experimental sites, which were 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 5000 m away from a man-fabricated sewage dumping lake, with a wide range of pollutant concentrations. Heavy metals contaminations in contaminated soil and their impact on mineral composition and microbial population were also investigated. The significant findings to emerge from this research were the modifications of nitrogen and carbon metabolisms in plant tissues to cope with heavy metal toxicity. Increased plant amylase enzymes activity in contaminated soils increased starch degradation to soluble sugars as a mechanism to mitigate stress impact. Furthermore, increased activity of sucrose phosphate synthase in contaminated plants led to more accumulation of sucrose. Moreover, no change in the content of sucrose hydrolyzing enzymes (vacuolar invertase and cytosolic invertase) in the contaminated sites can suggest the translocation of sucrose from shoot to root under stress. Similarly, although this study demonstrated a high level of malate in plants exposed to stress, caution must be applied in suggesting a strong link between organic acids and the activation of defense mechanisms in plants, since other key organic acids were not affected by stress. Therefore, activation of other defense mechanisms, especially antioxidant defense molecules including alpha and beta tocopherols, showed a greater role in protecting plants from heavy metals stress. Moreover, the increment in the content of some amino acids (e.g., glycine, alanine, glutamate, arginine, and ornithine) in plants under metal toxicity can be attributed to a high level of stress tolerance. Moreover, strategies in the excitation of the synthesis of the unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and palmitoleic) were involved in enhancing stress tolerance, which was unexpectedly associated with an increase in the accumulation of palmitic and stearic (saturated fatty acids). Taken together, it can be concluded that these multiple mechanisms were involved in the response to stress which may be cooperative and complementary with each other in inducing resistance to the plants.
Longing for a Forever Home: Ontological insecurity is collectively produced in fixed-term supportive housing for families

ABSTRACT Increasingly unaffordable housing means that family homelessness represents an urgent issue for social policy and practice. Targeting families at risk of homelessness, Supportive Housing for Families (SHF) subsidizes leases and offers support aimed at sustaining tenancies and family unity. We explore how short-term funding cycles in an advanced welfare system impacts experiences with service delivery. Building on housing scholarship employing an ontological security lens, we interrogate the temporal dimensions of SHF, and how these are intertwined with understandings of home in spatial terms. The analyses are based on research conducted to examine a 12-month SHF pilot in Southeast Queensland, Australia. We analyse qualitative interviews conducted with families (n=17), statutory child protection officers (n=7), and SHF support workers (n=10) involved in this pilot. Findings indicate that fixed-term funding impacts every aspect of service delivery, resulting in the collective production of ontological insecurity, as families continue to long for a forever home.
Proteomic and Transcriptomic Responses of the Desiccation-Tolerant Moss Racomitrium canescens in the Rapid Rehydration Processes

The moss Racomitrium canescens (R. canescens) has strong desiccation tolerance. It can remain desiccated for years and yet recover within minutes of rehydration. Understanding the responses and mechanisms underlying this rapid rehydration capacity in bryophytes could identify candidate genes that improve crop drought tolerance. We explored these responses using physiology, proteomics, and transcriptomics. Label-free quantitative proteomics comparing desiccated plants and samples rehydrated for 1 min or 6 h suggesting that damage to chromatin and the cytoskeleton had occurred during desiccation, and pointing to the large-scale degradation of proteins, the production of mannose and xylose, and the degradation of trehalose immediately after rehydration. The assembly and quantification of transcriptomes from R. canescens across different stages of rehydration established that desiccation was physiologically stressful for the plants; however, the plants recovered rapidly once rehydrated. According to the transcriptomics data, vacuoles appear to play a crucial role in the early stages of R. canescens recovery. Mitochondria and cell reproduction might recover before photosynthesis; most biological functions potentially restarted after ~6 h. Furthermore, we identified novel genes and proteins related to desiccation tolerance in bryophytes. Overall, this study provides new strategies for analyzing desiccation-tolerant bryophytes and identifying candidate genes for improving plant drought tolerance.
A Halo abstraction for distributed n-dimensional structured grids within the C++ PGAS library DASH

The Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) library DASH provides C++ container classes for distributed N-dimensional structured grids. This article presents enhancements on top of the DASH library to support stencil operations and halo areas to conveniently and efficiently parallelize structured grids. The improvements include definitions of multiple stencil operators, automatic derivation of halo sizes, efficient halo data exchanges, as well as communication hiding optimizations. The main contributions of this article are two-fold. First, the halo abstraction concept and the halo wrapper software components are explained. Second, the code complexity and the runtime of an example code implemented in DASH and pure Message Passing Interface (MPI) are compared.
Enabling Enterprise Blockchain AppDev Teams

Blockchain is the latest buzzword in the FinTech scene and all companies big and small are vying to launch blockchain enabled products. At the basic technology level Blockchain is a distributed technology application. The challenges of operating such an application are known [1]. But the techniques of developing distributed applications by large enterprise teams, in a typical SDLC lifecycle (Develop, Test, Deploy and Upgrade) is not well known. Without proper methodologies / Formal Tools as is the case with most blockchain systems, bugs slip in easily. Studies on failures point to developers missing low handing bugs as most of the errors are simulated with 3 nodes or less [2]. The developer ecosystem is fast changing with technologies like containers and the emerging Micro Services architectures and Cloud Native Computing. The decisions on setup, build, CI/CD, Automated Testing are not taken at the beginning and as pointed out by [3] affect the entire project. The good news is that there are lot of tools available in the Open source domain that addresses the needs. The bad news is that picking the right combination to work in team sizes of 5 or more is not straight forward. This paper details our journey and lessons learnt on setting up Application Development Teams for Rapid Development in Blockchain using multiple blockchain tools like Ethereum and the HyperLedger Fabric. It details both our application architecture and the modifications needed to enable a Cloud Native architecture and the build/ deploy/ testing frameworks that we used.
Boundary of the geodesic acoustic eigenmode in the vicinity of the magnetic separatrix

We present a detailed investigation of the geodesic acoustic eigenmode (GAEM) profile in the vicinity of the last closed flux surface (LCFS) in the JFT-2M tokamak. Envelope and spectral peak frequency of the GAEM vanish near the LCFS obtained by an equilibrium reconstitution code. Spatial changes in mean plasma gradients (the electron temperature, electron density and floating potential) are correlated with the boundary. This does not contradict that the GAEM can have a node at the LCFS. Discussions of an inverse problem and the application of this GAEM measurement to an experimental test of the LCFS location calculated by the equilibrium reconstitution code are presented.
Electrical stimulation for the treatment of spinal cord injuries: A review of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive functional improvements

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that causes severe loss of motor, sensory and autonomic functions. Additionally, many individuals experience chronic neuropathic pain that is often refractory to interventions. While treatment options to improve outcomes for individuals with SCI remain limited, significant research efforts in the field of electrical stimulation have made promising advancements. Epidural electrical stimulation, peripheral nerve stimulation, and functional electrical stimulation have shown promising improvements for individuals with SCI, ranging from complete weight-bearing locomotion to the recovery of sexual function. Despite this, there is a paucity of mechanistic understanding, limiting our ability to optimize stimulation devices and parameters, or utilize combinatorial treatments to maximize efficacy. This review provides a background into SCI pathophysiology and electrical stimulation methods, before exploring cellular and molecular mechanisms suggested in the literature. We highlight several key mechanisms that contribute to functional improvements from electrical stimulation, identify gaps in current knowledge and highlight potential research avenues for future studies.
FD-NOMA Enabled Multiuser Transmission With Backscatter Communication

This letter investigates a full-duplex (FD) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enabled multiuser transmission with backscatter communication (FD-MTBC), where a multiuser downlink NOMA network is served by an FD source while backscatter devices transmit their information to the source simultaneously. Considering the constraints for successive interference cancellation (SIC) and the desired target uplink sum rate, we formulate an optimization problem to maximize the downlink sum rate. Further, we propose an iterative algorithm that jointly optimizes the power allocation coefficient and reflection coefficient to maximize the downlink sum rate. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated using simulation results.
Lithography in a quantum world

The conceptualization of the lithography process as captured in models was long based primarily on classical physics. It is now essential to model the lithography process at the quantum level. Photon shot noise and molecular inhomogeneity in resists lead to line-edge roughness and stochastic defects. To contain photon shot noise while maintaining good scanner throughput for EUV lithography requires very powerful light sources. Resists in the future will need to be single-component, and molecular building blocks will need to be much smaller than 0.5 nm. This precludes the long-term use of chemically amplified resists for EUV lithography, at least for minimum line/space patterns. Because the radiation chemistry of EUV resists is driven by photoelectrons and secondary electrons, the range and stochastics of these electrons needs to be considered in the design of future resists. Invention and innovation in patterning materials will be needed to a greater degree than before.
Stochastic volatility models as hidden Markov models and statistical applications

This paper deals with the fixed sampling interval case for stochastic volatility models. We consider a two-dimensional diffusion process (Y-t, V-t), where only (Y-t) is observed at n discrete times with regular sampling interval Delta. The unobserved coordinate (V-t) is ergodic and rules the diffusion coefficient (volatility) of (Y-t). We study the ergodicity and mixing properties of the observations (Y-i Delta). For this purpose, we first present a thorough review of these properties for stationary diffusions. We then prove that our observations can be viewed as a hidden Markov model and inherit the mixing properties of (V-t). When the stochastic differential equation of (V-t) depends on unknown parameters, we derive moment-type estimators of all the parameters, and show almost sure convergence and a central limit theorem at rate n(1/2). Examples of models coming from finance are fully treated. We focus on the asymptotic variances of the estimators and establish some links with the small sampling interval case studied in previous papers.
Real-time object-oriented semantic map on VSLAM

In view of the lack of real-time performance in most of the current object-level semantic map construction systems. Combined with high real-time instance segmentation network and visual synchronous location and map construction (VSLAM) algorithm, a object-oriented semantic map real-time construction system is proposed. firstly, the system uses the instance segmentation network to segment each color image, obtains the object and combines the feature and spatial information provided by VSLAM to form the instance description information, and then matches the instance through feature consistency and spatial consistency. At the same time, Bayes filter is used to calculate the existence state of instances and spatial constraints are used to filter the error detection of instances. finally, a real-time instance-level semantic map construction system based on VSLAM is realized, and the system is tested with TUM data sets. The results show that the system can build object-level semantic maps in real time and reduce the error detection rate of instance segmentation.