Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling of Tissue Invasion in Epithelial Monolayers

Mathematical and computational models are used to describe biomechanical processes in multicellular systems. Here, we develop a model to analyse how two types of epithelial cell layers interact during tissue invasion depending on their cellular properties, i.e., simulating cancer cells expanding into a region of normal cells. We model the tissue invasion process using the cellular Potts model and implement our two-dimensional computational simulations in the software package CompuCell3D. The model predicts that differences in mechanical properties of cells can lead to tissue invasion, even if the division rates and death rates of the two cell types are the same. We also show how the invasion speed varies depending on the cell division and death rates and the mechanical properties of the cells.
Accelerating Stochastic Lightning Attachment Simulations for the Estimation of Lightning Incidence to Overhead Lines

Lightning attachment can be modeled through a stochastic approach adopting a detailed representation of the lightning phenomenon. A fractal-based modeling technique can be used for this purpose, considering lightning discharge branched and tortuous behavior, as well as physical properties associated with downward and upward leaders’ inception and propagation. However, fractal-based simulations require substantial computational resources, especially for the accurate calculation of the electric field at all points of the discretized simulation domain at each simulation step. Thus, the considerable computational cost inhibits the extensive application of stochastic simulations for estimating lightning incidence to common structures and power systems. This work investigates optimization techniques for fractal-based simulations regarding total simulation time; these are applicable to both high-performance computing and personal computers. The proposed techniques consist of a C-MATLAB integration methodology, as well as a multi-color ordering algorithm enabling parallel execution using CPU and GPU programming. Applications associated with lightning incidence to overhead transmission lines are presented. The total simulation time is substantially reduced with respect to the original code. A reduction of up to 98% is achieved, enhancing the applicability of stochastic modeling to lightning incidence estimation problems.
Mycological research and citizen science: morphological features and DNA sequencing reveal seven new species records for the Greek mycobiota

Abstract During the last 20 years citizen science has largely contributed at promoting knowledge about mushroom diversity in Greece. In the frame of an ongoing collaboration among amateur and professional mycologists, hundreds of specimens have been subjected to DNA sequencing, followed by phylogenetic analyses and detailed morphoanatomical examination of selected collections. The study of recent findings revealed the existence of seven species which are new records for the Greek mycobiota, i.e. Amanita codinae, Cleistocybe carneogrisea, Hebeloma limbatum, Infundibulicybe alkaliviolascens, Lepiota farinolens, Leucoagaricus pilatianus and Pholiotina mediterranea. In particular, C. carneogrisea is a rare Mediterranean species, which has been proposed by the IUCN for inclusion in the Global Red List of Fungi. Moreover, these predominantly or exclusively southern European species are described and evaluated. All findings are discussed in respect to their most prominent features and closely related taxa, while ITS phylogenetic trees are presented for A. codinae and L. farinolens by including mainly species of the sections Lepidella and Ovisporae, respectively.
Advantage of talker differences and spatial separation for speech-on-speech listening in younger and older adults with good audiograms

Older adults have more difficulty than younger adults understanding speech when there is competing speech, even if they have good audiograms. Age-related differences in listening may be due to declines in auditory temporal processing and/or cognition. We administered the LiSN-S (Cameron et al., 2011) to measure speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in younger and older adults with good audiograms. There were four test conditions, in which the target and competing speech were presented with the same or different voices at the same or different locations. Compared to younger listeners, older listeners obtained worse SRTs in all test conditions and they realized less advantage from talker differences and spatial separation between the target and competing speech. For both groups, the results obtained in the four test conditions were strongly associated with each other. We also assessed cognitive abilities and auditory temporal processing in the older adults. LiSN-S results in this group were strongly associated.
Ultrasound-Guided Bilateral Sequential Thoracic Paravertebral Block for Simultaneous Bilateral Uniportal Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery: Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose Simultaneous bilateral pulmonary resection via uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (UVATS) was safe and feasible for the treatment of bilateral multiple pulmonary nodules. But, it should be noted that considerable postoperative pain at the bilateral surgical site was a crucial issue. The safety and efficacy of bilateral thoracic paravertebral block (TPVB) have been reported for postoperative analgesia. But, whether bilateral sequential TPVB can be safely and effectively used in simultaneous bilateral UVATS remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the analgesic efficacy and safety of bilateral sequential TPVB after simultaneous bilateral UVATS. Study Design and Methods In this study, 80 participants scheduled for UVATS will be randomly allocated to the bilateral sequential TPVB group (G2) and the control group (G1). The patient of G2 will be performed bilateral TPVB at 2 time-points: before the start of the first side of pulmonary resection and before the start of the contralateral pulmonary resection. G1 will only receive standard analgesia protocol. The primary outcome is the numeric rating scale score during coughing at 24 h postoperatively. The secondary outcomes include the Prince Henry Pain Score scores, sufentanil consumption, postoperative nausea and vomiting, levels of inflammatory factors, and the Quality of Recovery-40 scores at different time points, as well as chronic pain at postoperative day (POD) 90. Discussion This is the first prospective trial to determine the safety and effectiveness of ultrasound-guided bilateral sequential TPVB for postoperative analgesia following simultaneous bilateral UVATS. This study also intended to evaluate the effect of this intervention on postoperative quality of recovery and inflammation levels. The final results will provide clinical evidence related to bilateral sequential TPVB, and promote the application of that acting as a more appropriate analgesic method for simultaneous bilateral UVATS.
ASYMPTOTIC EFFICIENCY OF THE TWO STAGE ESTIMATOR IN I (2) SYSTEMS

This paper derives the distribution of the two stage estimator of cointegrating parameters in I(2) systems, abbreviated 2SI2, under several assumptions regarding the drift of the process. The asymptotic distribution is compared with that of the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator derived in Johansen (1997, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 24, 433–462). It is found that the two asymptotic distributions are the same, thus showing that the 2SI2 estimator is asymptotically as efficient as ML.
Opportunistic UAV Deployment for Intelligent On-Demand IoV Service Management

Due to the current improvement in self-driving cars and the extensive focus and research on the topic of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), the near future may behold a great revolution in the automotive industry as cars become fully autonomous. This change entails a considerable amount of data to be transferred from Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as radars, sensors, and actuators. Consequently, overwhelming the existing infrastructure, namely cloud, and Road Side Units (RSU), reduces the quality of service (QoS) experienced by vehicular users. Accordingly, this paper contributes in proposing a new architecture for using Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) and On-Boarding Units (OBUs) working in collaboration to achieve a significantly improved QoS. The proposed framework offers an end-to-end solution for master election, cluster management and recovery, vehicle selection, service placement, and accurate localization of vehicles. A QoS improvement is possible through an efficient cluster formation and placement solution that assigns lightweight services, as containers, to OBUs and UAVs while meeting various objectives. The efficiency of the proposed scheme originates from the use of the evolutionary Memetic Algorithm that 1) respects the mobility and energy constraints of UAVs and OBUs, 2) meets the user demands, and 3) uses machine learning for the accurate localization of vehicles. Our experiments using the Mininet-WiFi and SUMO simulators show at least 30% improvement in terms of QoS compared to a state-of-the-art solution.
miR-101a-3p Impairs Synaptic Plasticity and Contributes to Synucleinopathy

Background: Synucleinopathies are disorders characterized by the abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein (aSyn). Synaptic compromise is observed in synucleinopathies parallel to aSyn aggregation and is accompanied by transcript deregulation. Objective: We sought to identify microRNAs associated with synaptic processes that may contribute to synaptic dysfunction and degeneration in synucleinopathies. Methods: We performed small RNA-sequencing of midbrain from 6-month-old transgenic mice expressing A30P mutant aSyn, followed by comparative expression analysis. We then used real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for validation. Functional analysis was performed in primary neurons by biochemical assays and imaging. Results: We found several deregulated biological processes linked to the synapse. miR-101a-3p was validated as a synaptic miRNA upregulated in aSyn Tg mice and in the cortex of dementia with Lewy bodies patients. Mice and primary cultured neurons overexpressing miR-101a-3p showed downregulation of postsynaptic proteins GABA Ab2 and SAPAP3 and altered dendritic morphology resembling synaptic plasticity impairments and/or synaptic damage. Interestingly, primary cultured neuron exposure to recombinant wild-type aSyn species efficiently increased miR-101a-3p levels. Finally, a dynamic role of miR-101a-3p in synapse plasticity was shown by identifying downregulation of miR-101a-3p in a condition of enhanced synaptic plasticity modelled in Wt animals housed in enriched environment. Conclusion: To conclude, we correlated pathologic aSyn with high levels of miR-101a-3p and a novel dynamic role of the miRNA in synaptic plasticity.
Boosting Open-Set Domain Adaptation with Threshold Self-Tuning and Cross-Domain Mixup

—Open-set domain adaptation (OSDA) aims to not only recognize target samples belonging to common classes shared by source and target domains but also perceive unknown class samples. Existing OSDA methods suffer from two obstacles. Firstly, a tedious process of manually tuning a hyperparameter threshold is required for most OSDA approaches to separate common and unknown classes. It is difﬁcult to determine a proper threshold when the target domain data is unlabeled. Secondly, most OSDA methods rely only on conﬁdence values to distinguish between common and unknown classes, using limited source and target samples to train models, leading to unsatisfactory performance when the target domain has mostly unknown classes. Our studies demonstrate that exploiting multiple criteria within a more continuous latent space is beneﬁcial for the model’s performance. In this paper, we design a novel threshold self- tuning and cross-domain mixup (TSCM) method to overcome the two drawbacks. TSCM can automatically tune a proper threshold utilizing unlabeled target samples rather than manually setting an empirical hyperparameter. Our method considers multiple criteria instead of only the conﬁdence and uses the threshold generated by itself to separate common and unknown classes in the target domain. Moreover, we introduce a cross-domain mixup method designed for OSDA scenarios to learn domain-invariant features in a more continuous latent space. Comprehensive experiments illustrate that our method consistently achieves superior performance on different benchmarks compared with various state-of-the-art methods.
Hot dust on the outskirts of the broad-line region in Fairall 9

The Seyfert galaxy Fairall 9 (F9) has been observed in the far-UV and optical range with the IUE, and at 27 different epochs at J, H, K, and L. The UV continuum underwent dramatic variations, its intensity decreasing by a factor 33 from a maximum in 1978 to a deep minimum in mid-1984. The near-IR and optical fluxes changed by a factor of about three and in the same sense as the UV. The K and L emission are interpreted as thermal radiation from dust lying at about 1 lt-yr from the UV source. The Ly-alpha 1216, C IV 1550, and Mg II 2800 emission-line intensities also vary in the same sense as the UV continuum but with a lag of 155 + or - 45 days. This strongly suggests that the broad-line region (BLR) gas is photoionized and lies inside the dust shell. Strong evidence is presented that the Mg II 2800 line emissivity depends primarily on the density of soft X-ray photons, as postulated in optically thick photoionization models of the BLR. 59 references.
Vertical Vibration of Mouse Osteoblasts Promotes Cellular Differentiation and Cell Cycle Progression and Induces Aging In Vitro

Background: This study aimed to investigate the effect of the vibration of osteoblasts on the cell cycle, cell differentiation, and aging. Materials and Methods: Primary maxilla osteoblasts harvested from eight-week-old mice were subjected to vibration at 3, 30, and 300 Hz once daily for 30 min; control group, 0 Hz. A cell proliferation assay and Cell-Clock Cell Cycle Assay were performed 24 h after vibration. Osteoblast differentiation assay, aging marker genes, SA-β-Gal activity, and telomere length (qPCR) were assayed two weeks post- vibration once every two days. Results: Cell proliferation increased significantly at 30 and 300 Hz rather than 0 Hz. Several cells were in the late G2/M stage of the cell cycle at 30 Hz. The osteoblast differentiation assay was significantly higher at 30 Hz than at 0 Hz. Runx2 mRNA was downregulated at 30 Hz compared to that at 0 Hz, while osteopontin, osteocalcin, and sclerostin mRNA were upregulated. p53/p21, p16, and c-fos were activated at 30 Hz. SA-β-Gal activity increased significantly at 30 or 300 Hz. Telomere length was significantly lower at 30 or 300 Hz. Conclusions: The results suggest that providing optimal vibration to osteoblasts promotes cell cycle progression and differentiation and induces cell aging.
Back-illuminated separate absorption and multiplication AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes

This letter reports the fabrication and performance of back-illuminated separate absorption and multiplication AlGaN solar-blind avalanche photodiodes. Devices with a 60-μm-diameter active area and a double-mesa structure exhibit a low dark current density of 1.06 × 10−8 A/cm2 at the reverse bias of 20 V and a maximum multiplication gain up to 3000 at the reverse bias of 91 V. The temperature dependence of avalanche voltage shows a large positive temperature coefficient of 0.05 V/K, confirming that avalanche multiplication is the dominant gain mechanism in the photodiodes.
Understanding Bias in Scientific Practice

Methodological objectivism is a conception of bias which obscures the contingent and limited nature of methodological principles behind the guise of fixed a priori standards. I suggest as an alternative a more flexible view of the operation of bias which I call the attribution model. The attribution model makes explicit the working principles of both parties to an actual charge of bias. It enables those involved to identify the issues in dispute between them, and is the basis for an approach to handling charges of bias within the process of discussion and negotiation which characterizes normal scientific decision-making.
Nanoindentation characteristics of nanocrystalline tungsten via atomistic simulation

ABSTRACT Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to explore nanoindentation characteristics of tungsten, and the influences of grain size, indenter velocity, indenter size, and temperature are discussed. The results illustrate that the hardness reduces as the grain size (5.00 ∼ 24.62 nm) decreases. There is no phase change observed during the whole deformation process. For monocrystalline W, the dislocation nucleation and propagation dominate the deformation mechanisms. Differently, the primary deformation mode of nanocrystalline W is the grain split and motion of GBs. Dislocations primarily nucleate below the contact surface of the indenter and substrate and then glide in the grain core. The monocrystalline W has better pattern-forming ability than nanocrystalline. Besides, the pattern-forming ability of nanocrystalline W is negatively correlated with the average grain size (5.00 ∼ 24.62 nm). The von Mises stress is mainly concentrated in the interface between the indenter and substrate, the dislocation area for monocrystalline, and grain boundaries for nanocrystalline. The indentation force and hardness are positively correlated with indenter radius size (30 ∼ 80 Å), negatively correlated with temperature (10 ∼ 1500 K), and insensitive to the indenter velocity when velocity is lower than 3.0 Å /ps (300 m/s).
Product Quasi-Interpolation in Logarithmically Singular Integral Equations

Abstract A discrete high order method is constructed and justified for a class of Fredholm integral equations of the second kind with kernels that may have boundary and logarithmic diagonal singularities. The method is based on the improving the boundary behaviour of the kernel with the help of a change of variables, and on the product integration using quasi-interpolation by smooth splines of order m. Properties of different proposed calculation schemes are compared through numerical experiments using, in particular, variable precision interval arithmetics.
Uniform attractors for nonclassical diffusion equations with perturbed parameter and memory

In this paper, we consider the long-time behavior of the nonclassical diffusion equation with perturbed parameter and memory on a bounded domain [Formula: see text]. The main feature of this model is that the equation contains a dissipative term with perturbation parameters − νΔ u and the nonlinearity f satisfies the polynomial growth of arbitrary order. By using the nonclassical operator method and a new analytical method (or technique) ( Lemma 2.7), the existence and regularity of uniform attractors generated for this equation are proved. Furthermore, we also get the upper semicontinuity of the uniform attractors when the perturbed parameter ν → 0. It is remarkable that if ν = 0, we can get the same conclusion as in the works of Toan et al. [Acta Appl. Math. 170, 789–822 (2020)] and Conti et al. [Commun. Pure Appl. Anal. 19, 2035–2050 (2020)], but the nonlinearity is critical.
A Monte Carlo method for computing the marginal likelihood in nondecomposable Gaussian graphical models

A centred Gaussian model that is Markov with respect to an undirected graph G is characterised by the parameter set of its precision matrices which is the cone M-super-p(G) of positive definite matrices with entries corresponding to the missing edges of G constrained to be equal to zero. In a Bayesian framework, the conjugate family for the precision parameter is the distribution with Wishart density with respect to the Lebesgue measure restricted to M-super-p(G). We call this distribution the G-Wishart. When G is nondecomposable, the normalising constant of the G-Wishart cannot be computed in closed form. In this paper, we give a simple Monte Carlo method for computing this normalising constant. The main feature of our method is that the sampling distribution is exact and consists of a product of independent univariate standard normal and chi-squared distributions that can be read off the graph G. Computing this normalising constant is necessary for obtaining the posterior distribution of G or the marginal likelihood of the corresponding graphical Gaussian model. Our method also gives a way of sampling from the posterior distribution of the precision matrix. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
COVID-19 Detection by Means of ECG, Voice, and X-ray Computerized Systems: A Review

Since the beginning of 2020, Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) has attracted the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). This paper looks into the infection mechanism, patient symptoms, and laboratory diagnosis, followed by an extensive assessment of different technologies and computerized models (based on Electrocardiographic signals (ECG), Voice, and X-ray techniques) proposed as a diagnostic tool for the accurate detection of COVID-19. The found papers showed high accuracy rate results, ranging between 85.70% and 100%, and F1-Scores from 89.52% to 100%. With this state-of-the-art, we concluded that the models proposed for the detection of COVID-19 already have significant results, but the area still has room for improvement, given the vast symptomatology and the better comprehension of individuals’ evolution of the disease.
The complete sequence of the mitochondrial DNA and phylogenetic analysis of the marine red alga Grateloupia elliptica (Rhodophyta: Halymeniales)

Abstract Grateloupia elliptica (Holmes, 1896) is a red alga belonging to the order Halymeniales and phylum Rhodophyta. In this study, the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of G. elliptica has been described. The complete circular mtDNA of G. elliptica was 28,503 bp in length, with an A + T content of 68.78%; it encoded a total of 49 genes, including 20 tRNA, three rRNA, and 26 protein-coding (CDS) genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on complete mitochondrial genomes revealed that G. elliptica was most closely related to G. angusta. The complete mitochondrial sequence of G. elliptica will enrich the mitochondrial genome database and provide useful resources for population genetics and evolution analyses.
Decoupling Design of Quad-Polarization Overlay Antenna Element With a Stacked Structure

This letter presents a design to decouple a quad-polarization antenna element without diodes. It consists of a bottom patch for orthogonally polarized elements and an upper patch twisted at 45° for slant polarized elements. The mutual coupling between the two antennas is reduced by the side wall of the upper element and conductor posts to maintain the distance between the two antennas. The posts also function as an electrical shield of the feeding cable to the upper antenna. The simulation results show that at an antenna height of 0. 38λ, the proposed antenna can reduce mutual coupling to less than −15 dB. The measurement results match the simulation results.
A Moving Object Detection Algorithm Based on Color Information

This paper designed a new algorithm of moving object detection for the aim of quick moving object detection and orientation, which used a pixel and its neighbors as an image vector to represent that pixel and modeled different chrominance component pixel as a mixture of Gaussians, and set up different mixture model of Gauss for different YUV chrominance components. In order to make full use of the spatial information, color segmentation and background model were combined. Simulation results show that the algorithm can detect intact moving objects even when the foreground has low contrast with background.