Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does torpor of elephant shrews differ from that of other heterothermic mammals?

Abstract Torpor bouts of elephant shrews are intermediate in duration to those of daily heterotherms and hibernating mammals, but their body temperatures (Tbs) and metabolic rates are very low and similar to those of hibernating mammals. We quantified the thermal physiology of the Cape rock elephant shrew (Elephantulus edwardii), a species endemic to high-altitude regions of South Africa, where winters are cold and wet, and tested whether it displays multiday torpor characteristic of hibernators at low ambient temperature (Ta). E. edwardii regularly displayed torpor over a wide range of Tas. Occurrence of torpor and duration of torpor bouts increased with decreasing Ta. Whereas normothermic Tb was stable, Tb in torpid individuals fell with Ta. The mean Tb − Ta differential at the minimum Tb was 0.7°C, and the mean minimum Tb at Ta 8.9°C was 9.3°C. Duration of torpor bouts ranged from 6.5 to 44 h and was correlated negatively with Ta and Tb during torpor. Time required for the reduction of Tb to a Tb − Ta differential of <2.0°C was faster for >1-day torpor bouts than those lasting ≤1 day, suggesting that the duration of a bout might be determined at the beginning, not during, a bout. The nature of heterothermy in E. edwardii seems qualitatively similar to that of other elephant shrews, although torpor is somewhat deeper and longer in this species. Temporal patterns of torpor in E. edwardii differ from those of most cold-climate hibernators, likely for ecological rather than physiological reasons.
IMMUNOGENETIC ASPECTS OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are severe neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication deficit, and restricted interests and repetitive behavior (1). Autism was first described in 11 case reports by Leo Kanner 73 years ago (2). In last twenty years, autism has become most common neurodevelopmental disability in childhood and one of the main pediatric problems. The disorder occurs four-five times more frequently in boys than in girls (3). The condition manifests in the first three years of life and it is a lifelong disability.
Cross-Kingdom Commonality of a Novel Insertion Signature of RTE-Related Short Retroposons

Abstract In multicellular organisms, such as vertebrates and flowering plants, horizontal transfer (HT) of genetic information is thought to be a rare event. However, recent findings unveiled unexpectedly frequent HT of RTE-clade LINEs. To elucidate the molecular footprints of the genomic integration machinery of RTE-related retroposons, the sequence patterns surrounding the insertion sites of plant Au-like SINE families were analyzed in the genomes of a wide variety of flowering plants. A novel and remarkable finding regarding target site duplications (TSDs) for SINEs was they start with thymine approximately one helical pitch (ten nucleotides) downstream of a thymine stretch. This TSD pattern was found in RTE-clade LINEs, which share the 3′-end sequence of these SINEs, in the genome of leguminous plants. These results demonstrably show that Au-like SINEs were mobilized by the enzymatic machinery of RTE-clade LINEs. Further, we discovered the same TSD pattern in animal SINEs from lizard and mammals, in which the RTE-clade LINEs sharing the 3′-end sequence with these animal SINEs showed a distinct TSD pattern. Moreover, a significant correlation was observed between the first nucleotide of TSDs and microsatellite-like sequences found at the 3′-ends of SINEs and LINEs. We propose that RTE-encoded protein could preferentially bind to a DNA region that contains a thymine stretch to cleave a phosphodiester bond downstream of the stretch. Further, determination of cleavage sites and/or efficiency of primer sites for reverse transcription may depend on microsatellite-like repeats in the RNA template. Such a unique mechanism may have enabled retroposons to successfully expand in frontier genomes after HT.
Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in a long-term non-weeded field experiment.

Many grassland biodiversity experiments show a positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, however, in most of these experiments plant communities are established by sowing and natural colonization is prevented by selective weeding of non-sown species. During ecosystem restoration, for example on abandoned fields, plant communities start on bare soil, and diversity is often manipulated in a single sowing event. How such initial plant diversity manipulations influence plant biodiversity development and ecosystem functioning is not well understood. We examined how relationships between taxonomic and functional diversity, biomass production and stability develop over 16 yr in non-weeded plots sown with 15 species, four species, or that were not sown. We found that sown plant communities become functionally similar to unsown, naturally colonized plant communities. However, initial sowing treatments had long-lasting effects on species composition and taxonomic diversity. We found only few relationships between biomass production, or stability in biomass production, and functional or taxonomic diversity, and the ones we observed were negative. In addition, the cover of dominant plant species was positively related to biomass production and stability. We conclude that effects of introducing plant species at the start of secondary succession can persist for a long time, and that in secondary succession communities with natural plant species dynamics diversity-functioning relationships can be weak or negative. Moreover, our findings indicate that in systems where natural colonization of species is allowed effects of plant dominance may underlie diversity-functioning relationships.
ISOLATED ARCHOSAURIFORM TEETH FROM THE UPPER TRIASSIC CANDELÁRIA SEQUENCE ( HYPERODAPEDON ASSEMBLAGE ZONE , SOUTHERN BRAZIL ) TIANE

We describe isolated teeth found in the locality “Sítio Piveta” (Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone, Candelaria Sequence, Upper Triassic of the Paraná Basin). The material consists of five specimens, here classified into three different morphotypes. The morphotype I is characterized by pronounced elongation, rounded base and symmetry between lingual and labial surfaces. The morphotype II presents serrated mesial and distal edges, mesial denticles decreasing in size toward the base, distal denticles present until the base and asymmetry, with a flat lingual side and rounded labial side. The morphotype III, although similar to morphotype II, has a greater inclination of the posterior carinae. The conservative dental morphology in Archosauriformes makes difficult an accurate taxonomic assignment based only on isolated teeth. However, the specimens we present are attributable to “Rauisuchia” (morphotype II and III) and, possibly, Phytosauria (morphotype I). The putative presence of a phytosaur in the Carnian Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone would have impact in the South American distribution of the group. The taxonomic assignments proposed herein contribute to the faunal composition of the Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone, a critical unit on the study of the Upper Triassic radiation of archosaurs.
Analysis of Boolean functions

5 Consequences (18 November 2015) 22 5.1 Friedgut–Kalai–Naor . 22 5.2 Kahn–Kalai–Linial . 23 5.3 Friedgut’s junta theorem . 25 5.4 Kindler’s proof of the Friedgut–Kalai–Naor theorem. 26
SRCB Entity Discovery and Linking (EDL) and Event Nugget Systems for TAC 2017

The SRCB team participated in Entity Discovery and Linking task and Event Nugget Detection task in TAC Knowledge Base Population (KBP) 2017. The EDL system includes English and Chinese entity discovery, candidate generation, entity linking and NIL cluster. The Event Nugget Detection system identifies event nugget mentions and puts them into co-reference chains. We develop event nugget system based in English and Chinese.
Symptoms of ADHD Affect Intrasubject Variability in Youths with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Ex-Gaussian Analysis

Increased intrasubject variability in reaction times (RT-ISV) is frequently found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, how dimensional attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms impact RT-ISV in individuals with ASD remains elusive. We assessed 97 high-functioning youths with co-occurring ASD and ADHD (ASD+ADHD), 124 high-functioning youths with ASD only, 98 youths with ADHD only, and 249 typically developing youths, 8–18 years of age, using the Conners Continuous Performance Test (CCPT). We compared the conventional CCPT parameters (omission errors, commission errors, mean RT and RT standard error (RTSE) as well as the ex-Gaussian parameters of RT (mu, sigma, and tau) across the four groups. We also conducted regression analyses to assess the relationships between RT indices and symptoms of ADHD and ASD in the ASD group (i.e., the ASD+ADHD and ASD-only groups). The ASD+ADHD and ADHD-only groups had higher RT-ISV than the other two groups. RT-ISV, specifically RTSE and tau, was significantly associated with ADHD symptoms rather than autistic traits in the ASD group. Regression models also revealed that sex partly accounted for RT-ISV variance in the ASD group. A post hoc analysis showed girls with ASD had higher tau and RTSE values than their male counterparts. Our results suggest that RT-ISV is primarily associated with co-occurring ADHD symptoms/diagnosis in children and adolescents with ASD. These results do not support the hypothesis of response variability as a transdiagnostic phenotype for ASD and ADHD and warrant further validation at a neural level.
A semiparametric imputation approach for regression with censored covariate with application to an AMD progression study

This research is motivated by studying the progression of age‐related macular degeneration where both a covariate and the response variable are subject to censoring. We develop a general framework to handle regression with censored covariate where the response can be different types and the censoring can be random or subject to (constant) detection limits. Multiple imputation is a popular technique to handle missing data that requires compatibility between the imputation model and the substantive model to obtain valid estimates. With censored covariate, we propose a novel multiple imputation‐based approach, namely, the semiparametric two‐step importance sampling imputation (STISI) method, to impute the censored covariate. Specifically, STISI imputes the missing covariate from a semiparametric accelerated failure time model conditional on fully observed covariates (Step 1) with the acceptance probability derived from the substantive model (Step 2). The 2‐step procedure automatically ensures compatibility and takes full advantage of the relaxed semiparametric assumption in the imputation. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the STISI method yields valid estimates in all scenarios and outperforms some existing methods that are commonly used in practice. We apply STISI on data from the Age‐related Eye Disease Study, to investigate the association between the progression time of the less severe eye and that of the more severe eye. We also illustrate the method by analyzing the urine arsenic data for patients from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2003‐2004) where the response is binary and 1 covariate is subject to detection limit.
A Direct Latent Variable Modeling Based Method for Point and Interval Estimation of Coefficient Alpha

A direct approach to point and interval estimation of Cronbach’s coefficient alpha for multiple component measuring instruments is outlined. The procedure is based on a latent variable modeling application with widely circulated software. As a by-product, using sample data the method permits ascertaining whether the population discrepancy between alpha and the composite reliability coefficient may be practically negligible for a given empirical setting. The outlined approach is illustrated with numerical data.
Retinoic Acid Receptor-Related Orphan Receptors: Critical Roles in Tumorigenesis

Retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptors (RORs) include RORα (NR1F1), RORβ (NR1F2), and RORγ (NR1F3). These receptors are reported to activate transcription through ligand-dependent interactions with co-regulators and are involved in the development of secondary lymphoid tissues, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, the circadian rhythm, and metabolism homeostasis. Researches on RORs contributing to cancer-related processes have been growing, and they provide evidence that RORs are likely to be considered as potential therapeutic targets in many cancers. RORα has been identified as a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer and has been investigated in melanoma, colorectal colon cancer, and gastric cancer. RORβ is mainly expressed in the central nervous system, but it has also been studied in pharyngeal cancer, uterine leiomyosarcoma, and colorectal cancer, in addition to neuroblastoma, and recent studies suggest that RORγ is involved in various cancers, including lymphoma, melanoma, and lung cancer. Some studies found RORγ to be upregulated in cancer tissues compared with normal tissues, while others indicated the opposite results. With respect to the mechanisms of RORs in cancer, previous studies on the regulatory mechanisms of RORs in cancer were mostly focused on immune cells and cytokines, but lately there have been investigations concentrating on RORs themselves. Thus, this review summarizes reports on the regulation of RORs in cancer and highlights potential therapeutic targets in cancer.
A Fog-based service enablement architecture for cross-domain IoT applications

Fog computing has emerged as a promising solution for Internet of Things. It enables services along the continuum from the edge to the cloud to reduce latency and mobile traffic, empowering end users in their vicinity. This article proposes a fog-based multi-level service enablement architecture for cross-domain IoT applications. It enables services sharing at network edges by a fog service overlay and introduces a hierarchical fog network for seamless service provisioning. This paper outlines the main features of this solution, and describes its architecture and some initial implementation results.
Block-based interpolation filter in video coding

In high-efficiency video coding (HEVC), fractional pixel motion compensation uses an 8-point filter and a 7-point filter, based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT), for the 1/2-pixel and 1/4-pixel interpolations, respectively. In this paper, discrete sine transform (DST)-based interpolation filters (DST-IFs) and DCT-based interpolation filters (DCT-IFs) are proposed for fractional pixel motion compensation. The DCT-IFs and DST-IFs are applied to the block, coding tree unit (CTU), to decide between DCT-IFs and DST-IFs in terms of rate-distortion optimization (RDO) process. The block-based interpolation filter method showed average Bjentegaard Delta (BD)-rate reductions of 0.8% and 0.7% in the random access (RA) and low delay B (LDB) configurations, respectively, in HEVC, whereas BD-rate is increased 0.6% in the low delay P (LDP) configuration.
qb : Dataset qb : Observation qb : dataset dimensionValue dimensionProperty measureValue attributeValue attributeProperty measureProperty

In this paper we present QA3, a question answering (QA) system over RDF data cubes. The system first tags chunks of text with elements of the knowledge base, and then leverages the well-defined structure of data cubes to create a SPARQL query from the tags. For each class of questions with the same structure a SPARQL template is defined, to be filled in with SPARQL fragments obtained by the interpretation of the question. The correct template is chosen by using an original set of regex-like patterns, based on both syntactical and semantic features of the tokens extracted from the question. Preliminary results obtained using a limited set of templates are encouraging and suggest a number of improvements. QA3 can currently provide a correct answer to 27 of the 50 questions of the test set of the task 3 of QALD-6 challenge, remarkably improving the state of the art in natural language question answering over data cubes.
Continuous Flow Processing of Slurries: Evaluation of an Agitated Cell Reactor

A general method for the continuous processing of suspensions and particulates is reported. A commercially available agitating cell reactor which uses a transverse mixing motion to maintain solids in suspension has been successfully applied to a salt-forming reaction. The flow device delivered 208 g of N-iodomorpholinium hydroiodide salt over a 9-h period (equating to 3.88 kg/week) under optimized conditions. The reactor is suitable for the medium-scale (5 kg) processing of solid-forming reactions and appears to offer the potential for a variety of more complex applications.
Experimental Demonstration of the Stabilization of Colloids by Addition of Salt

We demonstrate a general non--Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek method to stabilize colloids in liquids. By this method, colloidal particles that initially form unstable suspension and sediment from the liquid are stabilized by the addition of salt to the suspending liquid. Yet, the salt is not expected to adsorb or directly interact with the surface of the colloids. For the method to work, the liquid should be a mixture, and the salt needs to be antagonistic such that each ion is preferentially solvated by a different component of the mixture. The stabilization may depend on the salt content, mixture composition, or distance from the mixture's coexistence line.
A collision avoidance solution for UAVs following planned missions

The number of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flying around is increasing year after year due to their popularity. This new scenario considerably increases the risk of collision between UAVs, which makes the development of protocols to avoid this issue an emerging topic. This work focuses on the development of a collision avoidance protocol between UAVs performing planned missions. Our proposal is based on the periodic submission of state information, and future position estimates of the UAV, allowing the detection of collision risks. Collision avoidance is achieved by forcing UAVs to stop when they are flying critically near each other, and establishing the priority of the UAV passing by the critical area first; this decision is based on a per-UAV unique identifier. We prove that our solution is robust enough to avoid collisions in all the situations tested; in addition, the overhead introduced by our protocol in terms of additional UAV flight time is low.
A novel SCR ESD protection structure for RF power amplifier

In this paper, a novel silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) structure is proposed to protect a radio-frequency (RF) power amplifier (PA) from electrostatic-discharge (ESD) damages. With a distinguished feature of an imbedded Deep N-well (DNW) area beneath the P-well/N-well regions, the novel SCR is demonstrated to be superior to the conventional SCR in terms of relatively low trigger voltage (13.3V) and high holding voltage (7 V). The new device can be realized in SMIC 0. 18μm RF technology without requiring extra layout area. The operational mechanism of the new device structure is investigated, and the effect of the additional DNW region on the SCR's I-V characteristics is analyzed by TCAD simulation.
Blockchain-Based Government Information Resource Sharing

Government information resource (GIR) sharing, an important means for efficient government working, requires new technology to enhance its reliability and security. Blockchain, as an emerging technology for building decentralized applications, is gradually penetrating various fields. In this paper, we present a technical combination that consists of Blockchain structure, network sharing model and consensus algorithms. With these techniques, we design and implement a Blockchain-based GIR sharing system (BGIRSS), which is decentralized, to make the sharing procedure more efficient. The results of a series of emulational experiments show that our system is securer and more reliable than conventional sharing schemes, and can effectively promote the sharing efficiency of GIRs with lower implementation cost.
Modelling of a microgrid for high integration of renewable sources

Conventional grid designs have shown to be incompatible with actual requirements from operators and consumers. Integration of renewable sources, larger energy demands and changes in consumers' needs (electric vehicles charging, self-generation, etc.) cannot be satisfied with transmission schemes already deployed. For this purpose, the concept of smart grid was introduced. Smart grids aim for more distributed, flexible and controlled energy transmission from generation to consumers. Within the smart grid paradigm, the concept of microgrid was developed, as a local grid that can work together or separately from a larger grid. In this paper, different models for a microgrid are presented, according to the time-span required for simulation. This microgird is composed of several generation sources, both renewable (solar, wind), conventional (diesel generators), and storage (lithium-ion batteries). Simulation results are provided for each subsystem to evaluate transient and steady-state performance of developed control strategies. The models presented in this paper are the base for further high-level control strategies implementations.
yanidin 3-glucoside improves diet-induced metabolic syndrome in ats

Increased consumption of dark-coloured fruits and vegetables may mitigate metabolic syndrome. This study has determined the changes in metabolic parameters, and in cardiovascular and liver structure and function, following chronic administration of either cyanidin 3-glucoside (CG) or Queen Garnet plum juice (QG) containing cyanidin glycosides to rats fed either a corn starch (C) or a high-carbohydrate, high-fat (H) diet. Eight to nine-week-old male Wistar rats were randomly divided into six groups for 16-week feeding with C, C with CG or QG, H or H with CG or QG. C or H were supplemented with CG or QG at a dose of ∼8 mg/kg/day cyanidin glycosides from week 8 to 16. H rats developed signs of metabolic syndrome including visceral adiposity, impaired glucose tolerance, hypertension, cardiovascular remodelling, increased collagen deposition in left ventricle, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, increased
Institutionalised moral reframing: A research based model on Islamic radicalisation on social media

Institutionalised Moral Reframing is a new research model on Islamic radicalisation based on a longitudinal ethnographic research on social media. Prior to introducing the model, an overview of other radicalisation models will be presented with a brief overview of each. Critical to the Institutionalised Moral Reframing model is the concept of socialisation via an online institution of social media where an individual is isolated from competing discourses. The model uses two axis, a moral authority axis and a moral discourses axis. These two axis are mutually reinforcing and enable an individual to progress along stages in a context that includes multifactorial bubbles which encapsulate the many factors responsible for an individual’s radicalisation.