Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Involvement of CXCL10 in Neuronal Damage under the Condition of Spinal Cord Injury and the Potential Therapeutic Effect of Nrg1.

OBJECTIVE Few studies have reported the direct effect of C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) and Neuregulin 1 (Nrg1) on neurons after spinal cord injury (SCI). This study reports the role of CXCL10 in the regulation of neuronal damage after SCI and the potential therapeutic effect of Nrg1. METHODS The expression level of CXCL10 and Nrg1 in SCI mice was analyzed in the Gene Expression Omnibus DataSets, followed by immunohistochemical confirmation using a mouse SCI model. HT22 cells and NSC34 cells were treated with CXCL10 and Nrg1, individually or in combination, and then assayed for cell viability. The percentage of wound closure was determined through the cell scratch injury model using HT22 and NSC34 cells. Potential molecular mechanisms were also tested in response to either the individual administration of CXCL10 and Nrg1 or a mixture of both molecules. RESULTS CXCL10 expression was significantly increased in both young and old mice subjected to SCI, while Nrg1 expression was significantly decreased. CXCL10 induced a decrease in cell viability, which was partially reversed by Nrg1. CXCL10 failed to inhibit scratch healing in HT22 and NSC34 cells, while Nrg1 promoted scratch healing. At the molecular level, CXCL10-activated cleaved caspase 9 and cleaved caspase 3 were both inhibited by Nrg1 through pERK1/2 signaling in HT22 and NSC34 cells. CONCLUSIONS CXCL10 is upregulated in SCI. Despite the negative effect on cell viability, CXCL10 failed to inhibit the scratch healing of HT22 and NSC34 cells. Nrg1 may protect neurons by partially antagonizing the effect of CXCL10.
Deep Characterization and Comparison of Different Retrovirus-like Particles Preloaded with CRISPR/Cas9 RNPs

The CRISPR/Cas system has a broad range of possible medical applications, but its clinical translation has been hampered, particularly by the lack of safe and efficient vector systems mediating the short-term expression of its components. Recently, different virus-like particles (VLPs) have been introduced as promising vectors for the delivery of CRISPR/Cas genome editing components. Here, we characterized and directly compared three different types of retrovirus-based (R) VLPs, two derived from the γ-retrovirus murine leukemia virus (gRVLPs and “enhanced” egRVLPs) and one from the lentivirus human immunodeficiency virus, HIV (LVLPs). First, we unified and optimized the production of the different RVLPs. To ensure maximal comparability of the produced RVLPs, we adapted several assays, including nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), multi-parametric imaging flow cytometry (IFC), and Cas9-ELISA, to analyze their morphology, surface composition, size, and concentration. Next, we comparatively tested the three RVLPs targeting different genes in 293T model cells. Using identical gRNAs, we found egRVLPs to mediate the most efficient editing. Functional analyses indicated better cargo (i.e., Cas9) transfer and/or release as the underlying reason for their superior performance. Finally, we compared on- and off-target activities of the three RVLPs in human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) exploiting the clinically relevant C-C motif chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) as the target. Again, egRVLPs facilitated the highest, almost 100% knockout rates, importantly with minimal off-target activity. In conclusion, in direct comparison, egRVLPs were the most efficient RVLPs. Moreover, we established methods for in-depth characterization of VLPs, facilitating their validation and thus more predictable and safe application.
Near-body vorticity dynamics of a square cylinder subjected to an inline pulsatile free stream flow

In the present work, the effect of an inflow sinusoidal excitation that is superimposed over the mean flow on the vortex-shedding characteristics of a square cylinder is studied. The frequency of pulsation is varied around the natural vortex-shedding frequency, and the amplitude of pulsation is varied moderately in comparison to the cylinder diameter, at a fixed Reynolds number (=100). A flow regime map is prepared and compared with the experimental results, which are available for a circular cylinder that is subjected to inline excitation. We correlate the spectra to the corresponding flow regime. Visualization of the vorticity contours reveals that the significant interaction of the base-region vorticities with the main shear layer vorticities is important in the mechanism of formation of the several vortex-shedding modes. The strength and sign of base region vorticity with respect to the shear layers has a fundamental role to play in the mechanism of formation. It is hypothesized that the similarity in.
Numerical study of relativistic shock breakout in circumstellar medium

Y. Ohtani∗a,c, A. Suzukib, and T. Shigeyamac a Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan b Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-Oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan c Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan E-mail: ohtani@resceu.s. u-tokyo.ac. jp
AirSOD: A Lightweight Network for RGB-D Salient Object Detection

Salient object detection (SOD) aims to identify the most prominent regions in images. However, the large model sizes, high computational costs, and slow inference speeds of existing RGB-D SOD models have hindered their deployment on real-world embedded devices. To address this issue, we propose a novel method named AirSOD, which is committed to lightweight RGB-D SOD. Specifically, we first design a hybrid feature extraction network, which includes the first three stages of MobileNetV2 and our Parallel Attention-Shift convolution (PAS) module. Using the novel PAS module enables capturing both long-range dependencies and local information to enhance the representation learning while significantly reducing the number of parameters and computational complexity. Secondly, we propose a Multi-level and Multi-modal feature Fusion (MMF) module to facilitate feature fusion, and a Multi-path enhancement for Feature Refinement (MFR) decoder for feature integration. The proposed method significantly reduces the model size by 63%, decreases the computational complexity by 43%, and improves the inference speed by 43% compared with the cutting-edge model (MobileSal). We test our AirSOD on six widely-used RGB-D SOD datasets. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our method obtains satisfactory performance. The source codes will be made available.
IMPLEMENTING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING IN RETROFITTING OF BUILDING PROJECTS AND ENERGY EFFICIENT CONSTRUCTION

Nowadays building projects have been encouraged to adopt green and sustainable construction strategies as the construction sector is responsible for using 42 % of the world’s energy, 30 % of its raw materials, and 25 % of its fresh water. The priority purpose is not only to upgrade and enhance projects of existing buildings, the target is also to reevaluate the approach of the whole construction sector [1]. The issue requires complex and modern methods which should include retrofitting as well as reconstruction of existing infrastructure. The housing fund of Ukraine as well as other European countries calls for alterations which will lead to gaining and raising its energy efficiency. To create the optimum alternatives there should be conducted an investigation of the possibilities of changing the real estate’s usage. A framework for value engineering and building information modeling, especially appropriate for existing buildings, is required to aid decision-makers in selecting the best options for current building utilization.
Power sharing adaptive control strategy for a microgrid with multiple storage and renewable energy sources

With the rapid growth of single‐phase renewable energy source units within three‐phase microgrids, the accuracy of the power sharing per phase among distributed generation (DG) units is necessary. This paper proposes an adaptive power control strategy based on new sliding mode control for islanding operation of a microgrid with multiple three‐phase and single‐phase DGs. The studied microgrid consists of two three‐phase photovoltaic (PV) arrays and three single‐phase DG units, which include PV, fuel cell, and battery systems. In order to control the three‐phase DGs properly, an observer is used to estimate the uncertain system parameters. Then, according to the estimated values, a controller is adapted to the new system conditions. In this control strategy, one of the three‐phase PV arrays is responsible for adjusting the voltage and frequency, and the other is responsible for controlling the load current to manage the power of three‐phase inverters. To control the single‐phase DGs, their power and voltage references are assigned based on the corresponding phase of the three‐phase DGs responsible for power and voltage control. Subsequently, the power and voltage control operation is performed in a per‐unit system. The proposed control strategy is strongly stable against variation of conditions, disturbances, and microgrid parameter uncertainties, and it regulates the active and reactive powers injected by DGs. The feasibility of the proposed control strategy is validated using simulation studies on a multibus islanded microgrid with balanced and unbalanced loading conditions via MATLAB/Simulink software. The results indicate that the proposed approach is able to provide faster response and lower steady‐state error compared with the conventional proportional integral controller.
Mathematical Modeling and Analysis

This study presents the force and mass discretization of exceptional points in the compatible formulation of Lagrangian hydrodynamics. It concludes a series of papers that develop various aspects of the theoretical exposition and the operational implementation of this numerical algorithm. Exceptional points are grid points at the termination of lines internal to the computational domain, and where boundary conditions are therefore not applied. These points occur naturally in most applications in order to ameliorate spatial grid anisotropy, and consequent timestep reduction, that will otherwise arise for grids with highly tapered regions or a center of convergence. They have their velocity enslaved to that of neighboring points in order to prevent large excursions of the numerical solution about them. How this problem is treated is given herein for the aforemention numerical algorithm such that its salient conservation properties are retained. In doing so the subtle aspects of this algorithm that are due to the interleaving of spatial contours that occur with the use of a spatially-staggered-grid mesh are illuminated. These contours are utilized to define both forces and the work done by them, and are the central construct of this type of finitevolume differencing. Addtionally, difficulties that occur due to uncertainties in the specification of the artificial viscosity are explored, and point to the need for further research in this area. The first pictures present the so-called Guderley problem in cylindrical geometry for a radial off-axes mesh with and without termination lines. The last pictures presents a straight piston (left boundary condition) sending a planar shock wave into a mesh with termination line with the original method and with the proposed treatment of termination lines. new method is
Sliding mode controller with fuzzy supervisor for MPPT of photovoltaic pumping system

This paper focuses on a photovoltaic system for pumping water. The control strategy for this water pumping system is based on Takagi-Sugeno type fuzzy supervisors and sliding mode controller. The first generates the maximum power point current under varying climatic condition whereas the second allows tracking the reference signal produced by the fuzzy supervisor. The system includes a photovoltaic generator (PVG) followed by a DC-DC Converter, DC bus, an AC/DC inverter which is connected to the induction motor. This latter is coupled with a centrifuge pump. The induction motor is driven based on field-oriented control strategy. The Takagi-Sugeno type fuzzy supervisor predicts, depending on the variations of climatic variables such as irradiation and temperature, the optimum operating point for the photovoltaic source. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in transient and stationary regimes for different values of climatic variables.
Mean Field Graph Based D2D Collaboration and Offloading Pricing in Mobile Edge Computing

Mobile edge computing (MEC) facilitates computation offloading to edge server and task processing via device-to-device (D2D) collaboration. Existing works mainly focus on centralized network-assisted offloading solutions, which are unscalable to collaborations among massive users. In this paper, we propose a joint framework of decentralized D2D collaboration and task offloading for MEC systems with large populations. Specifically, we utilize the power of two choices for D2D collaboration, which enables users to assist each other in a decentralized manner. Due to short-range D2D communication and user movements, we formulate a mean field model on a finite-degree and dynamic graph to analyze the collaboration state evolution. We derive the existence, uniqueness and convergence of the state stationary point to provide a tractable collaboration performance. Complementing this D2D collaboration, we further build a Stackelberg game to model users’ task offloading, where the provider, managing many servers, is the leader to determine service prices, while users are followers to make offloading decisions. By embedding Stackelberg game into Lyapunov optimization, we develop an online offloading and pricing scheme, which can optimize servers’ service utility or fairness, and users’ system cost simultaneously. Extensive evaluations show that D2D collaboration can mitigate users’ workloads by 73.8% and fair pricing can promote servers’ utility fairness by 15.87%.
An Efficient Ring Polynomial Multiplication Accelerator for Homomorphic Encryption

Fully homomorphic encryption has become a key technique for solving the conflict between cloud services and privacy preservation. The most time-consuming step in homomorphic schemes is ring polynomial multiplication (RPM). Number theory transform (NTT) and Karatsuba algorithms are efficient to accelerate RPM, yet they are limited by the modulus operations and degrees of the polynomial. The systolic array is adopted for RPM processing recently. However, a modular reduction operation is required as post-processing which increases the overall delay. This brief has proposed a cyclic systolic array architecture without a dedicated reduction unit by re-routing the output of the systolic array for reusing, resulting in a 50% clock cycles saving of processing time. The corresponding FPGA implementation has a reduction of 72.9% and 33.8% when <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n=256$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n=1024$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for equivalent area time product (eATP), respectively, therefore achieving an improved trade-off between performance and resource consumption.
Pharmacophore-based Virtual Screening: Identification of Selective Sirtuin 2 Inhibitors

: The Class III histone deacetylases protein Sirt2 has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several age-related diseases such as inflammation, cancer, and type II diabetes and is considered an attractive novel therapeutic target. High-quality small-molecule inhibitors of Sirt2 are vital as chemical probes for target validation and potential starting points for new therapeutics. We applied an iterative virtual screening campaign including structure-based pharmacophore generation, ensemble docking, and protein-ligand interaction fingerprint analysis, to identify potential Sirt2 inhibitors from commercially available chemical libraries. Several hit molecules were determined to make exceptional interactions both with the catalytic (C) pocket and selective extended C pocket (EXC) pocket at the same time which indicated that these compounds represent promising lead structures for the development of selective and potent Sirt2
Exposing People to Others Not Following Recommendations Reduces Unrealistic Optimism. An Experiment During a Pandemic

: Forty years of research on Unrealistic Optimism - a delusion that negative events are less likely and positive events are more likely to happen to oneself (in comparison to others) - has proved to be robust. Importantly, as a result, people holding this bias reduce their engagement in health prevention and following medical recommendations, etc., leading to the conclusion that this bias is dangerous. However, there is hardly any research on how to reduce this bias. To address this issue, an experiment in the real-life context of the COVID-19 pandemic was run. It was found that participants’ Unrealistic Optimism was reduced when they were exposed to the behavior of others who did not follow medical recommendations.
Finite difference modelling

This chapter presents numerical approaches based on finite difference (FD) techniques for dynamic simulation of single-link flexible manipulator systems. A finite-dimensional simulation of the flexible manipulator system is developed using an FD discretisation of the dynamic equation of motion of the manipulator. Structural damping, hub inertia and payload are incorporated in the dynamic model, which is then represented in a state-space form. Case study simulation exercises and associated results characterising the dynamic behaviour of the manipulator are presented and assessed with experimental results in time and frequency domains.
In Vitro Evaluation of marginal adaptation of polyether ether ketone and zirconia copings.

Background Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) has emerged as a new thermoplastic material with potential applications as a restorative material. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the marginal adaptation of PEEK copings compared to zirconia copings using field emission scanning electron microscopy. Materials and Methods A freshly extracted maxillary central incisor was prepared for a full-coverage restoration following standard principles of tooth preparation. The tooth was sent to a laboratory for fabrication of samples using computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM). Twenty samples of polyether ether ketone (PEEK) copings (group A) and 20 of zirconia copings were fabricated (group B). The copings were scanned under a field emission scanning electron microscope and measurements were taken at four distinct points. The marginal adaptation over the buccal, lingual, mesial, and distal margins for both groups was evaluated. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent t test were applied. Results Our findings indicate that PEEK showed better marginal adaptation than zirconia at all measurement points. The mean marginal gap value of the PEEK group was 33.99 ± 8.81 μm and of the zirconia group was 56.21 ± 15.07 μm. On comparing marginal adaptation among the mesial, distal, buccal, and lingual aspects, PEEK showed better adaptation on all four margins, with the best adaptation on the buccal margin that had the lowest mean gap value of 29.27 ± 6.07 μm. The zirconia group adapted best at the distal margin, with a lowest mean gap value of 53.58 ± 15.25 μm (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusion PEEK copings had better marginal adaptation and fit compared to zirconia copings. It may have applications as a restorative material in fixed prostheses.
Determinants of Pension Fund’s Required Return: A Scenario-based simulation of Civil Service Pension Fund

This study examines the required return to fund a defined pension benefit of the Civil Service Pension Fund, managed by KWAP. Based on the four variables, contribution rate, retirement age, life expectancy, and length of service, this study simulates 648 scenarios of required return corresponding to the years of service and post-retirement benefits. Our findings show: First, the minimum years of service for the pension eligibility shall be increased to 20 years. Second, the Government shall increase the contribution rate to at least 13% per worker to KWAP. Third, there are no significant changes in the required rate of return even though the Government extended the retirement age from 55 to 60. Hence, extending the retirement age will not reduce the pension cost. Fourth, this study shows that the contribution period is more crucial than the post-retirement period for the Government to sustain the pension fund. Lastly, there is a need for the Government to set a minimum funding ratio for the KWAP pension fund to ensure its long-term sustainability. As a policy suggestion, the current pension fund needs refinement to ensure long-term sustainability.
Applied Statistics for Engineers and Scientists

t:. s the title indicates, Applied Statistics for Engifi. neers and Scientists is designed for engineering and science undergraduate students with one semester of differential and integral calculus. This textbook resulted from the authors' teaching experiences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Over the years, an introductory statistics course was updated to emphasize computer intensive statistical techniques and "active and interactive learning. " The organization of the material in this textbook is a direct result of the changes and enhancements to the course. The chapter titles are:
Response of Broiler Chickens Fed Different Forms of Tanzania-type Diets with Microbial Enzymes

A study was conducted to assess the effect of feed form and microbial enzyme supplementation on performance, endogenous enzyme activities and nutrient digestibility in broiler chickens fed Tanzania-type diets. A total of 480 day-old Ross 308 broiler chickens were allocated to a 2 (mash or pellet) × 4 (no enzyme, Axtra XB, Quantum Blue or Axtra XB + Quantum Blue) factorial arrangement, in a completely randomized design with 10 birds per replicate. Feed intake (FI), body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were determined at 10, 24 and 35 days of age. Visceral organ weight was measured at 10 d and 24 d, and meat parts yield was assessed at 35 d. Feed intake (FI) was highest in birds fed the pelleted diets at 24 d and 35 d, and it was increased further when enzymes were supplemented individually and in combination. Body weight gain was comparatively higher in the birds fed pelleted diets. Enzyme supplementation was found to increase BWG at 24 d and 35 d. The FCR was reduced in birds fed the pelleted diets compared to the mash-fed birds. Birds provided with a combination of Axtra XB and QB responded with lower FCR. The relative weight of gizzard plus proventriculus, pancreas and small intestine were higher in birds fed on mash; however, the effect of enzymes was only observed on the pancreas at 10 d. The relative weights of most body parts (breast, thighs and drumsticks) were significantly higher in birds fed pelleted diets with inclusion of microbial enzymes. The dry matter (DM) digestibility was neither affected by feed form nor by enzyme supplementation while the digestibility of gross energy (GE), starch, protein, and fat were higher in birds fed pelleted diets than those on mash. Addition of microbial enzymes positively influenced the digestibility of all nutrients that were assessed. Endogenous enzyme activities at 10 d were higher in birds supplied with pelleted diets, except for sucrase, which was not affected by feed form. Exogenous enzyme inclusion in diets only affected the activities of sucrase and aminopeptidase at 24 d. The results indicated that both pelleting of diets and microbial enzyme supplementation increased FI and BWG and improved FCR in broiler chickens. The activities of pancreatic and most of the jejunal enzymes were increased by feeding of pelleted feeds, resulting in better nutrient digestibility.