Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IGS region polymorphisms are responsible for failure of commonly used species‐specific primers inFusarium proliferatumisolates from diseased garlic

Fusarium proliferatum is a globally distributed fungal pathogen that affects a range of crop hosts and is one of the main producers of mycotoxins, such as fumonisins, in foods. Specific PCR primers are commonly used for detection and identification of this pathogen. The aim of this study was to validate previously published F. proliferatum‐specific primers targeting the intergenic spacer (IGS) region and characterize intraspecific variation and homologous recombination events for isolates obtained from diseased garlic bulbs in Spain. Sixty‐nine isolates were morphologically identified as F. proliferatum, and their identity was confirmed by sequencing of the translation elongation factor; however, specific IGS primers did not result in an amplification product for nine of these isolates. Further analysis showed that this was due to polymorphism in the IGS region and six isolates were classified as IGS type I, while the remaining isolates were type II. Sequencing of the complete IGS region revealed numerous sequence polymorphisms amongst F. proliferatum isolates, and regions of recombination. Duplication and deletion events may have occurred via unequal crossing over during mitotic or meiotic recombination. These results suggest that the IGS region may be too variable as a reliable target for F. proliferatum‐specific identification.
EFFECTIVENESS OF USING POWER POINT BASED TEACHING VS. BLACK/WHITE BOARD BASED TEACHING AMONG PHYSIOTHERAPY LECTURERS IN LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY - A PILOT STUDY -

Aims: The typical undergraduate and post graduate student of today is accustomed to receiving information on a daily basis in a variety of formats, i.e. multimedia channels. This can lead to teachers to update themselves constantly to enrich the students’ knowledge. Methodology: Physiotherapy lecturers working in Lovely Professional University were participated in this pilot study and convenient sampling method was incorporated. The participants were asked to answer the questionnaires and the responses were collected by the researcher and depicted in a graph. Results and Conclusion: The overriding conclusion would be that pedagogy must drive educational technology usage rather than the reverse. Since it was a pilot study, the lack of generasibility enables the future research to focus on which instructional devices would be helpful to the physiotherapy teaching community.
Characterization of Pore Water Flow in 3‐D Heterogeneous Permeability Fields

Subsurface heterogeneity could influence groundwater flow with implications on structure and productivity of aquifer ecosystems. Here we investigate effects of multifractal heterogeneity on topology of groundwater flow through MODFLOW simulations within a Monte Carlo framework. The results show that heterogeneity leads to focused groundwater advection and the creation of hotspots of bending‐type vortex flow in the fields. We demonstrate for the first time that the vortex structures characterized by Q criterion are 3‐D distributed and greatly deform surrounding pore‐water flow. The structures exhibit scale‐invariant features in multifractal fields and in stationary fields below the correlation scale, indicating that such vortex flow might be widely present with no characteristic scale. Complex spatial patterns of kinetic energy dissipation rate are identified for pore water flowing through heterogeneous porous media and correlate strongly with preferential flows. These findings are important for understanding solute fate and transport in aquifer systems.
Adaptive Finite-Time Saturated Tracking Control for a Class of Partially Known Robots

Only partial system knowledge for the generalized robotic dynamics with input saturation, i.e., the regression matrix for the specific robot, is required to design the proposed adaptive finite-time saturated tracking control (AFTSTC). It contains a nonlinear auxiliary tracking error, which can shape the system frequency response. As the operating point is in the neighborhood of the zero auxiliary tracking error, nonlinear filtering gains can be increased to accelerate its tracking ability. Moreover, the traditional skew-symmetric matrix’s condition for the time derivative of inertia matrix and the Coriolis and centrifugal force matrix is not necessarily required such that the uncertainties and the finite-time convergence are reduced. The computational complexity as compared with the fuzzy neural network adaptive control is also addressed. The stability of the closed-loop system is verified by the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, two practical robotic examples are given to validate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control.
Role of endoscopic ultrasound in pediatric gastrointestinal diseases

Abstract Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is a well-established diagnostic and therapeutic modality for adults. It is extremely helpful for a broad range of diagnostic indications including upper gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies, submucosal lesions, pancreatic lesions (masses, cystic lesions), chronic pancreatitis, etiological workup of recurrent acute pancreatitis, common bile duct evaluation (calculi versus tumor), gallbladder lesions/microliths, and rectal malignancy; well-established therapeutic roles include fine-needle aspiration of lesions/lymph nodes, pancreatic fluid collection drainage, pancreatic duct drainage, biliary drainage, gallbladder drainage, pelvic abscess drainage, celiac plexus block, or neurolysis. Some recent studies have reported the use of EUS in the pediatric population. EUS is safe and easy to perform in the pediatric population also. However, there is paucity of data on use of EUS in pediatric population. In contrast with its regular therapeutic use in adults, EUS is not commonly performed in children for therapeutic reasons and most of the data are available on diagnostic use only. All of studies have shown that EUS is safe and a useful modality with a positive impact on management in majority of study population. EUS is very useful in pediatric population for the evaluation of upper GI tract submucosal lesions or rectal masses, pancreaticobiliary disorders, characterization of esophageal strictures, and for evaluation of enteric duplication cysts. The advent of miniprobe that can be passed through conventional endoscopes has increased the applicability of EUS in infants and children. Although there are limited data regarding use of EUS in pediatric population, it appears to be a very promising diagnostic and therapeutic tool.
Presynaptic inhibition rapidly stabilises recurrent excitation in the face of plasticity

Hebbian plasticity, a mechanism believed to be the substrate of learning and memory, detects and further enhances correlated neural activity. Because this constitutes an unstable positive feedback loop, it requires additional homeostatic control. Computational work suggests that in recurrent networks, the homeostatic mechanisms observed in experiments are too slow to compensate instabilities arising from Hebbian plasticity and need to be complemented by rapid compensatory processes. We suggest presynaptic inhibition as a candidate that rapidly provides stability by compensating recurrent excitation induced by Hebbian changes. Presynaptic inhibition is mediated by presynaptic GABA receptors that effectively and reversibly attenuate transmitter release. Activation of these receptors can be triggered by excess network activity, hence providing a stabilising negative feedback loop that weakens recurrent interactions on sub-second timescales. We study the stabilising effect of presynaptic inhibition in a recurrent networks, in which presynaptic inhibition is implemented as a multiplicative reduction of recurrent synaptic weights in response to increasing inhibitory activity. We show that networks with presynaptic inhibition display a gradual increase of firing rates with growing excitatory weights, in contrast to traditional excitatory-inhibitory networks. This alleviates the positive feedback loop between Hebbian plasticity and network activity and thereby allows homeostasis to act on timescales similar to those observed in experiments. Our results generalise to spiking networks with a biophysically more detailed implementation of the presynaptic inhibition mechanism. In conclusion, presynaptic inhibition provides a powerful compensatory mechanism that rapidly reduces effective recurrent interactions and thereby stabilises Hebbian learning.
Seismic Assessment of Asymmetric Single-Story RC Buildings by Modified Pushover Analysis Using the “Capable Near Collapse Centre of Stiffness”: Validation of the Method

ABSTRACT A modification procedure on the standard pushover analysis for single-story asymmetric RC buildings, based on the “Capable Near Collapse Principal Reference System”, has been proposed recently. According to this procedure, the lateral static floor loading is applied eccentrically to the mass centre, using inelastic dynamic eccentricities plus any accidental ones. In this work, variations of a single-story building, about the static eccentricity and the torsional sensitivity, are examined, to verify this new pushover procedure comparing with the results of N-LRHA. The results of this parametric investigation show that the proposed procedure can safely predict the building’s stiff and flexible-side displacements.
Towards Robustness of Convolutional Neural Network against Adversarial Examples

Deep learning is at the heart of the current rise of artificial intelligence. In the field of Computer Vision, it has become the workhorse for applications ranging from self-driving cars to surveillance and security. A Convolutional Neural Network (ConvNet/CNN) is a Deep Learning algorithm which can take in an input image, assign importance (learnable weights and biases) to various objects in the image and be able to differentiate one from the other. The architecture of a ConvNet is analogous to that of the connectivity pattern of Neurons in the Human Brain and was inspired by the organization of the Visual Cortex. Convolutional Neural Networks have demonstrated phenomenal success (often beyond human capabilities) in solving complex problems, but recent studies show that they are vulnerable to adversarial attacks in the form of subtle perturbations to inputs that lead a model to predict incorrect outputs. For images, such perturbations are often too small to be perceptible, yet they completely fool the CNN models. Adversarial attacks pose a serious threat to the success of CNN in practice. In this paper, we have tried to reconstruct adversarial examples/patches/images which are created by physical attacks (Gaussian blur attack and Salt and Pepper Noise Attack), so that CNN again classified correctly these reconstructed adversarial or perturbed images.
Assessing the potential for indirect interactions between tropical tree species via shared insect seed predators

Natural enemies of plants have the potential to influence the dynamics of plant populations and the structure of plant communities. In diverse tropical forests, research on the effects of plant enemies has largely focused on the diversity‐enhancing effects of highly specialized enemies, while the community‐level effects of enemies with broader diets have rarely been considered. We investigated the community of insect seed predators interacting with seven tree species in the family Lauraceae on Barro Colorado Island (Panama). We present one of the first quantitative food webs for pre‐dispersal insect seed predators and their host plants, and use the information in the web to assess the potential for indirect interactions between the tree species. Our data suggest that there is high potential for indirect interactions between Lauraceae species via their shared seed predators. The strength and direction of these interactions are largely unrelated to the phylogenetic distance and trait similarity between species but are likely governed by the volume of fruit produced by each tree species.
Trans-generational effect of protein restricted diet on adult body and wing size of Drosophila melanogaster

Dietary Restriction (DR) via protein restriction (PR) has become an inquisitive field and has established feasible trade-offs between various fitness and behavioral traits in Drosophila melanogaster to understand lifespan or aging in a nutritionally challenged environment. However, the phenotypes of body size, weight and wing length respond according to factors such as flies’ genotype, environmental exposure, and parental diet. Hence, understanding the long-term effect of PR on these phenotypes is essential. Here, we demonstrate the effect of PR diet on body size, weight and normal & dry wing length of flies subjected to PR50 and PR70 (50% and 70% protein content present in control food respectively) for 20 generations from pre-adult stage. We found that PR fed flies have lower body weight, relative water content (in males), unaltered (PR50%) and higher (PR70%) relative fat content in males, smaller normal and dry body size as compared to control and generations 1 and 2. Interestingly, wing size and pupal size of PR flies are smaller and showed significant effects of diet and generation. Thus, these traits are sex and generation dependent along with an interaction of diet, which is capable of modulating these results variably. Our study suggests that trans-generational effect is more prominent in influencing these traits and wing length might not be a predictor for body size. Taken together, the trans-generational effect of PR on fitness and fitness-related traits might be helpful to understand the underpinning mechanisms of evolution and aging in fruit flies D. melanogaster. Summary statement Twenty generations of protein restricted diet have a diet and generation dependent effect on adult body size, wing length and body weight.
Unrestricted Adversarial Examples via Semantic Manipulation

Machine learning models, especially deep neural networks (DNNs), have been shown to be vulnerable against \emph{adversarial examples} which are carefully crafted samples with a small magnitude of the perturbation. Such adversarial perturbations are usually restricted by bounding their $\mathcal{L}_p$ norm such that they are imperceptible, and thus many current defenses can exploit this property to reduce their adversarial impact. In this paper, we instead introduce "unrestricted" perturbations that manipulate semantically meaningful image-based visual descriptors -- color and texture -- in order to generate effective and photorealistic adversarial examples. We show that these semantically aware perturbations are effective against JPEG compression, feature squeezing and adversarially trained model. We also show that the proposed methods can effectively be applied to both image classification and image captioning tasks on complex datasets such as ImageNet and MSCOCO. In addition, we conduct comprehensive user studies to show that our generated semantic adversarial examples are photorealistic to humans despite large magnitude perturbations when compared to other attacks.
Sobreestimación de especies en el género Dendropsophus (Anura: Hylidae) y la importancia del locus MC1R en delimitar su polimorfismo de color

Dendropsophus molitor es una especie de rana de la familia Hylidae que se distribuye en la Cordillera Oriental de Colombia desde Boyaca hasta Norte de Santander. Esta especie esta cercanamente emparentada a D. luddeckei, D. pelidna y D. meridensis, las cuales constituyen un clado cuyas relaciones internas entre linajes son controversiales. En este estudio se realizaron analisis morfologicos, filogeneticos y de estructura poblacional en poblaciones de D. molitor utilizando los genes mitocondriales 12S, 16S y COI y el gen nuclear POMC para evaluar la validez de la especie D. luddeckei. Adicionalmente, se determino si las variaciones (SNPs) en el fragmento del gen MC1R se correlacionan con los polimorfismos de color encontrados en ambas especies. Del analisis filogenetico se obtuvieron dos clados internos poco diferenciados que corresponden a la agrupacion de las poblaciones por geografia. Asi mismo, estadisticos de diversidad y diferenciacion genetica, caracteres morfologicos y analisis de delimitacion de especies indicaron que D. luddeckei y D. molitor son una misma especie y no linajes independientes. Por ultimo, los SNPs encontrados en el gen MC1R no se correlacionan con los polimorfismos de color de la especie D. molitor y no corresponden a los cambios previamente identificados en dendrobatidos.
A Randomized Phase II Study Comparing Imatinib and the Combination of Imatinib and Pegylated Interferon Alpha-2b in Newly Diagnosed Non-High Risk Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) Patients in Complete Hematological Remission After Imatinib Induction Therapy.

Abstract 3280 Poster Board III-1 Background: Imatinib mesylate (IM) 400 mg once daily (OD) is the current standard first-line therapy for CML. Several biological and clinical observations suggest that combining IM with interferon alpha (IFNa) may improve the outcome of treatment. Aim: To compare the effects of standard-dose IM to combination of IM and IFNa in newly diagnosed chronic phase CML patients with an intermediate or low Sokal risk score. The primary end point was to compare the major molecular response (MMR) rate after 12 months between the treatment arms (intention-to-treat analysis). Patients and therapies: In a Nordic CML Study Group (NMCLSG: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and Israel multicenter study we randomized 114 newly diagnosed CML patients in complete hematological remission following 3 months of IM 400 mg OD induction therapy. The study arms were IM (Glivec, Novartis) and the combination of IM and IFNa 2b (PegIntron, Schering-Plough). IM dose was fixed at 400 mg OD. IFNa was started at 30 μg/week but could be escalated to 50 μg/week or reduced down to 15 μg/week depending on tolerability. Molecular response was evaluated by blood RQ-PCR for BCR-ABL1 and was expressed on the international scale (IS). Results: As of August 17, 2009, 79 patients were evaluable for primary endpoint and 47 of these were in MMR (59%) The rate of complete cytogenetic response (CCgR) was 68/79 (86%). Nineteen patients (17%) were considered as treatment failures (grade 4 nonhematological adverse event, refusal, loss of CCgR, progression to advanced phase, protocol violation or other reason). Conclusions: A final analysis will be performed when we have complete data on all randomized patients. The comparison by treatment arm on molecular and cytogenetic responses as well as other relevant data (treatment failures, patients off-treatment for protocol violations, refusal or toxicity) will be presented on site. Supported by European LeukemiaNet, WP 4. Disclosures: Simonsson: Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. BjOreman: BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria. Mustjoki: BMS: Honoraria. StrOmberg: Novartis: Honoraria; BMS: Honoraria. Weiss Bjerrum: Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria. Gruber: Novartis: Research Funding. Nagler: Novartis: Consultancy. Porkka: Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding.
The effect of digital tools on visual attention during problem solving: Variance of gaze fixations when working with GeoGebra or on paper

Research on reading indicates that visual attention is different when using digital media or print. This study aims to explore whether the choice between paper and GeoGebra influences visual attention during collaborative geometry problem solving. We measured eight students' fixation durations during different lesson phases: teacher instruction, individual work, pair work, group work, students presenting on the board, and whole class discussion. During all phases except teacher instruction we observed a difference in the fixation distributions as indicated by Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. The use of GeoGebra is related to a slight shift from median length fixations to short fixations, suggesting lower cognitive load when students work with computers.
Inhibitor natrijum-glukoznog kotransportera tipa 2 - dapagliflozin u terapiji obolelih od diabetes mellitus tipa 2

Sažetak: Dapagliflozin je visoko selektivni inhibitor natrijum-glukoznog kotransportera tipa 2 – SGLT2i (engl. sodium/glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor), koji je odobren za tretman obolelih od DM tipa 2, kao monoterapija ili u kombinaciji sa drugim preparatima. U poređenju sa placebom grupe kojima je ordiniran dapagliflozin, pokazale su značajniji pad HbA1c: -0,58% (dapagliflozin 2,5mg), -0,77% (dapagliflozin 5mg) i -0,89% (dapagliflozin 10mg) u odnosu na grupu koja je primala placebo (0,23%). Gubitak telesne mase povezan sa upotrebom SGLT2 inhibitora održava se tokom kliničkih studija do 104 nedelje. Upotreba ovih lekova je povezana sa redukcijom i mortaliteta i morbiditeta od kardiovaskularnih oboljenja. Indirektno renoprotektivno dejstvo SGLT2i se ostvaruje smanjenjem bubrežne resorpcije glukoze i smanjenjem koncetracije glukoze u krvi, uz redukciju telesne mase i indeksa telesne mase. Genitalne infekcije su najčešća nuspojava dapagliflozina i ne savetuje se upotreba ovog leka kod pacijenata sa aktivnim karcinomom mokraćne bešike i treba ga propisati oprezno kod osoba sa istorijom karcinoma mokraćne bešike i nerazjašnjenom hematurijom. S obzirom na dobru toleranciju leka, lako doziranje i minimalni rizik od neželjenih efekata, osim genitourinarnih infekcija, dapagliflozin, kao i drugi lekovi iz ove grupe adekvatan su izbor kod pacijenata obolelih od DM2, posebno onih sa visokim kardiovaskularnim rizikom.
Effect of Ondansetron in Prevention of Spinal Anesthesia-Induced Hypotension in Pregnant Women Candidate for Elective Cesarean Section

ABSTRACT: Complications such as hypotension and bradycardia may occur during spinal anesthesia for cesarean section. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of Ondansetron on preventing hypotension following spinal anesthesia in pregnant women candidate for elective cesarean delivery. This double blind clinical trial was done on 151 pregnant women with ASA I-II who were randomly divided into two groups. The group O received 4 mg diluted Ondansetron and the group N received placebo before implication of spinal anesthesia with 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine. Hemodynamic variables, O2 saturation, nausea, the vomiting episodes, and antiemetic dosage were recorded after spinal anesthesia. Data was analyzed using SPSSv16 and a P< 0.05 was assumed significant. Demographic variables were similar in two groups but mean weight was higher in group O. Mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) was similar in two groups except that group N patients had higher SBP in the 2nd minute after spinal anesthesia. Mean diastolic BP (DBP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were lower in group N in 6, 8, 30 and 35 minutes. There was no significant difference in Mean heart rate and O2 saturation, nausea, vomiting and chills between two groups. The 1st minute Apgar score was lower in group O. The attenuating effect of spinal anesthesia on DPB and MAP is significantly decreased by Ondansetron prophylaxy during cesarean section but has no significant effect on SBP, heart rate, chills and nausea, but it can mildly decrease the incidence of vomiting after cesarean section.