Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Essential Biomolecules in Food Webs

We here review the ecological role of essential nutritional biomolecules (fatty acids (FA), amino acids (AA), sterols, vitamins) in aquatic and terrestrial food webs, encompassing the forces behind their environmental distribution. Across ecosystems, mutualistic relationships frequently ensure exchanges of vitamins between producer and demander, especially between B12 and other B vitamins as well as the AA methionine. In contrast, FA, sterols and most AA are transferred up the food chain via classical predator-prey interactions, and therefore have good biomarker potential for trophic interactions. As biomass-flow depends on the absolute amounts of potential limiting biomolecules, considering solely their relative proportion in resources may under- or overestimate the availability for consumers. Moreover, if not accounted for, “hidden” trophic channels such as gut symbionts as well as metabolic conversion of precursor molecules can hamper food web analyses. Fundamental differences exist between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: Vitamin B12 produced by ammonium oxidizing Archaea is essential to many aquatic algae, whereas terrestrial plants escaped this dependency by using B12 independent enzymes. Long-chain 3 polyunsaturated FA (LC-3 PUFA) in aquatic systems mainly originate from planktonic algae, while in terrestrial systems belowground invertebrates can well be a source, also supporting aboveground biota. Interlinks from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems are biochemically of total different nature than vice versa. While biomass rich in proteins and LC-3 PUFA is transferred to land, e.g. by trophic relationships, the link from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems provides recalcitrant plant carbon, mainly devoid of essential nutrients, fuelling detrital food chains. Recent global changes influence food webs via altered input and transfer of essential biomolecules, but separating the effects of nutrients, CO2, and warming is not trivial. Current evolutionary concepts (e.g. Black Queen, relaxed selection) considering the costs of metabolic production partly explain food web dynamics, especially for vitamins, whereas adaptations to potential oxidative stress seem to be more important for LC-PUFA. Overall, for both heterotrophs and auxotrophs, the provision with essential biomolecules is precious. As these valuable nutrients often are kept unaltered in consumer metabolism, even in their stable isotope composition, offers a great advantage for their use as trophic markers.
Which Patients With a Unilateral Hearing Aid for Symmetric Sensorineural Hearing Loss Have Auditory Deprivation?

Objectives The aim of study is to find conditions that aggravate auditory deprivation in patients with symmetric hearing loss after unilateral digital, non-linear hearing aid (HA). Methods In the retrospective case-comparison study, we assessed 47 patients with symmetric sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), wearing unilateral conventional HAs. Audiological outcomes were assessed >1 year after HA fitting (mean duration, 31.0 months). Pure-tone audiometry in HA-aided and HA-unaided conditions was performed over time. Word recognition score (WRS) was evaluated at the most comfortable listening level. Results The initial pure tone average of four frequency thresholds at 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 Hz (PTA4) did not show a difference of >5 dB HL between HA-aided and HA-unaided ears. WRS progressively decreased for both HA-aided and HA-unaided ears although the extent of decrease was significantly greater for HA-unaided (7.6%) than for HA-aided ears (5.1%, P<0.05). Notably, auditory deprivation in HA-unaided ears was significantly greater in patients with an initial PTA4 ≥53 dB HL (P<0.001). Conclusion Bilateral HAs are strongly recommended, particularly for patients with moderate to severe SNHL to prevent auditory deprivation in the contralateral ear.
A COMPARISON OF EFFICIENT ALGORITHMS FOR SCHEDULING PARALLEL DATA REDISTRIBUTION

Data redistribution in parallel is an often-addressed issue in modern computer networks. In this context, we study the case of data redistribution over a switching network. Data from the source stations need to be transferred to the destination stations in the minimum time possible. Unfortunately the time required to complete the transfer is burdened by each switching and thus producing an optimal schedule is proven to be computationally intractable. For the purposes of this paper we consider two algorithms, which have been proved to be very efficient in the past. To get improved results in comparison to previous approaches, we propose splitting the data in two clusters depending on the size of the data to be transferred. To prove the efficiency of our approach we ran experiments on all three algorithms, comparing the time span of the schedules produced as well as the running times to produce those schedules. The test cases we ran indicate that not only our newly proposed algorithm yields better results in terms of the schedule produced but runs faster as well.
SHIP2: a "new" insulin pathway target for aging research.

Abstract Strong evidence suggests that systemic inflammation and central adiposity contribute to and perpetuate metabolic syndrome. All of these alterations predispose individuals to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), cardiovascular disease, as well as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), all characterized by chronic inflammatory status. On the other hand, extensive abnormalities in insulin and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and IGF-II signaling mechanisms in brains with AD have been demonstrated, suggesting that AD could be a third form of diabetes. The Src homology domain-containing inositol 5-phosphatase 2 (SHIP2) has an important role in the insulin pathway because its over-expression causes impairment of insulin/IGF-1 signaling. Because some single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of the gene encoding SHIP2 were significantly associated in T2DM patients with metabolic syndrome and some related conditions, we decided to conduct a case–control study on this gene, analyzing AD and T2DM subjects as cases and youn.
Sampling Online Social Media Big Data Based Multi Stage Cluster Method

The big data from online social media represents the relationship between the actors' self-organization. It contains multi-level social entity relationship. As an emerging field in recent years, online social media sampling method has important research value and practical significance in social computing. However, there are some problems in existing methods. For example, large Markov chain is difficult to parallelize, sampling is easy to be trapped in local, and there is concerns with Markov chain burn-in process. To address those issues, the paper presents a multi stage cluster sampling for online social media big data (OSM-MSCS). The proposed method first decomposes integral cluster into small cohesive subgroups, then uses delay rejection (DR) to sample typical online social relationship with parallel processing, and finally uses Gibbs sampling methods to choose interaction relationship in different cohesive subgroups to ∗ 基金项目: 教育部中央高校基金(13SZYB01); 陕西省社科联重大理论与现实问题研究项目(2013C124); 中国电信"社会化媒
Critical roles of ARHGAP36 as a signal transduction mediator of Shh pathway in lateral motor columnar specification

During spinal cord development, Sonic hedgehog (Shh), secreted from the floor plate, plays an important role in the production of motor neurons by patterning the ventral neural tube, which establishes MN progenitor identity. It remains unknown, however, if Shh signaling plays a role in generating columnar diversity of MNs that connect distinct target muscles. Here, we report that Shh, expressed in MNs, is essential for the formation of lateral motor column (LMC) neurons in vertebrate spinal cord. This novel activity of Shh is mediated by its downstream effector ARHGAP36, whose expression is directly induced by the MN-specific transcription factor complex Isl1-Lhx3. Furthermore, we found that AKT stimulates the Shh activity to induce LMC MNs through the stabilization of ARHGAP36 proteins. Taken together, our data reveal that Shh, secreted from MNs, plays a crucial role in generating MN diversity via a regulatory axis of Shh-AKT-ARHGAP36 in the developing mouse spinal cord.
Nonlinear control: the joys of having an extra sensor

Concerns the measurement feedback nonlinear control problem and a practical aspect of extending H/sup /spl infin// control to it. In the linear and nonlinear H/sup /spl infin// situations the commonly analyzed regular case precludes many common situations; for example state feedback control does not fall into this category. More generally, cases where the number of (independent) sensors, Sens, is bigger than the number of command signals plus substantial disturbances, Dis, in the problem is a singular as opposed to regular situation. We call this the cheap sensor case. In this paper we extend the information state approach to nonlinear control from the regular case to the cheap sensor case.
Relation Discovery on the DBpedia Semantic Web

DBpedia is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia. It has both interesting properties of having a deep ontology and a massive dataset, in addition to being very diversified, dynamic and multilingual. We describe here how DBpedia can be specifically used to discover relations between entities within DBpedia itself and beyond, in other linked ontologies. In the course of this research, many insights on the nature of the DBpedia dataset have been noted and will also be presented.
Real-time Software Hand Pose Recognition using Single View Depth Images

The fairly recent introduction of low-cost depth sensors such as Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect has encouraged a large amount of research on the use of depth sensors for many common Computer Vision problems. Depth images are advantageous over normal colour images because of how easily objects in a scene can be segregated in real-time. Microsoft used the depth images from the Kinect to successfully separate multiple users and track various larger body joints, but has difficulty tracking smaller joints such as those of the fingers. This is a result of the low resolution and noisy nature of the depth images produced by the Kinect. The objective of this project is to use the depth images produced by the Kinect to remotely track the user’s hands and to recognise the static hand poses in real-time. Such a system would make it possible to control an electronic device from a distance without the use of a remote control. It can be used to control computer systems during computer aided presentations, translate sign language and to provide more hygienic control devices in clean rooms such as operating theatres and electronic laboratories. The proposed system uses the open-source OpenNI framework to retrieve the depth images from the Kinect and to track the user’s hands. Random Decision Forests are trained using computer generated depth images of various hand poses and used to classify the hand regions from a depth image. The region images are processed using a Mean-Shift based joint estimator to find the 3D joint coordinates. These coordinates are finally used to classify the static hand pose using a Support Vector Machine trained using the libSVM library. The system achieves a final accuracy of 95.61% when tested against synthetic data and 81.35% when tested against real world data. ii Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
Little Pim: A review of the French Teacher's Kit

Price Single user Multiple copies Site license Distribution Rights French 3-pack, volume 1 (set of three videos) $34.99 for digital download Teacher’s Kit is available for $219.99 and includes 6 videos, lesson plans, worksheets, teacher’s guide, pronunciation guide, companion scripts, flashcards, Pim poster, plush panda, and a progress tracking app. Orders can be placed online using www.littlepim. com or by phone. Also, retailers (such as Toys R Us) sell Little Pim products. Information can be accessed on the website using “store locator. ” The program is based upon the Entertainment Immersion Method®, a registered trademark.
Bioactive Oxylipins in Infants and Children With Congenital Heart Disease Undergoing Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Bypass

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: To determine the production of 9-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid and 13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid during cardiopulmonary bypass in infants and children undergoing cardiac surgery, evaluate their relationship with increase in cell-free plasma hemoglobin, provide evidence of bioactivity through markers of inflammation and vasoactivity (WBC count, milrinone use, vasoactive-inotropic score), and examine their association with overall clinical burden (ICU/hospital length of stay and mechanical ventilation duration). Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Twelve-bed cardiac ICU in a university-affiliated children’s hospital. Patients: Children were prospectively enrolled during their preoperative clinic appointments with the following criteria: greater than 1 month to less than 18 years old, procedures requiring cardiopulmonary bypass Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Plasma was collected at the start and end of cardiopulmonary bypass in 34 patients. 9-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid, 13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid, plasma hemoglobin, and WBC increased. 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid at the start of cardiopulmonary bypass was associated with vasoactive-inotropic score at 2–24 hours postcardiopulmonary bypass (R2 = 0.25; p < 0.01), milrinone use (R2 = 0.17; p < 0.05), and WBC (R2 = 0.12; p < 0.05). 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid at the end of cardiopulmonary bypass was associated with vasoactive-inotropic score at 2–24 hours (R2 = 0.17; p < 0.05), 24–48 hours postcardiopulmonary bypass (R2 = 0.12; p < 0.05), and milrinone use (R2 = 0.19; p < 0.05). 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid at the start and end of cardiopulmonary bypass were associated with the changes in plasma hemoglobin (R2 = 0.21 and R2 = 0.23; p < 0.01). The changes in plasma hemoglobin was associated with milrinone use (R2 = 0.36; p < 0.001) and vasoactive-inotropic score less than 2 hours (R2 = 0.22; p < 0.01), 2–24 hours (R2 = 0.24; p < 0.01), and 24–48 hours (R2 = 0.48; p < 0.001) postcardiopulmonary bypass. Cardiopulmonary bypass duration, 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid at start of cardiopulmonary bypass, and plasma hemoglobin may be risk factors for high vasoactive-inotropic score. Cardiopulmonary bypass duration, changes in plasma hemoglobin, 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid, and vasoactive-inotropic score correlate with ICU and hospital length of stay and/mechanical ventilation days. Conclusions: In low-risk pediatric patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass, 9:13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid was associated with changes in plasma hemoglobin, vasoactive-inotropic score, and WBC count, and may be a risk factor for high vasoactive-inotropic score, indicating possible inflammatory and vasoactive effects. Further studies are warranted to delineate the role of hydroxyoctadecadienoic acids and plasma hemoglobin in cardiopulmonary bypass-related dysfunction and to explore hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid production as a potential therapeutic target.
Les kinoïdes - Une nouvelle génération de vaccins thérapeutiques

The abnormal cytokine release in the stromal microenvironment of pathologic tissues, contributes to the pathogenesis of viral infections such as AIDS, cancer and auto-immune diseases. Neovacs developed therapeutic vaccines, named Kinoids, which induce anti-cytokine Antibodies. Kinoids are non toxic but immunogenic cytokine derivatives. Kinoid immunizations induce high titre of neutralizing Abs to the corresponding cytokine, is well tolerated and experimentally effective. In transgenic mice expressing huTNFalpha, the TNFalpha kinoid decreases clinical signs of Rheumatoid Arthritis and in mice challenged with syngenic CT26 tumor cell line huVEGF kinoid inhibits lung metastases. After validation by clinical trials, kinoid vaccines could represent a second generation of specific immune therapy to be used to combat ectopic cytokines.
An evidence assessment tool for ecosystem services and conservation studies

Reliability of scientific findings is important, especially if they directly impact decision making, such as in environmental management. In the 1990s, assessments of reliability in the medical field resulted in the development of evidence-based practice. Ten years later, evidence-based practice was translated into conservation, but so far no guidelines exist on how to assess the evidence of individual studies. Assessing the evidence of individual studies is essential to appropriately identify and summarize the confidence in research findings. We develop a tool to assess the strength of evidence of ecosystem services and conservation studies. This tool consists of (1) a hierarchy of evidence, based on the experimental design of studies and (2) a critical-appraisal checklist that identifies the quality of research implementation. The application is illustrated with 13 examples and we suggest further steps required to move towards more evidence-based environmental management.
Intercluster Connection in Cognitive Wireless Mesh Networks Based on Intelligent Network Coding

Cognitive wireless mesh networks have great flexibility to improve spectrum resource utilization, within which secondary users (SUs) can opportunistically access the authorized frequency bands while being complying with the interference constraint as well as the QoS (Quality-of-Service) requirement of primary users (PUs). In this paper, we consider intercluster connection between the neighboring clusters under the framework of cognitive wireless mesh networks. Corresponding to the collocated clusters, data flow which includes the exchanging of control channel messages usually needs four time slots in traditional relaying schemes since all involved nodes operate in half-duplex mode, resulting in significant bandwidth efficiency loss. The situation is even worse at the gateway node connecting the two colocated clusters. A novel scheme based on network coding is proposed in this paper, which needs only two time slots to exchange the same amount of information mentioned above. Our simulation shows that the network coding-based intercluster connection has the advantage of higher bandwidth efficiency compared with the traditional strategy. Furthermore, how to choose an optimal relaying transmission power level at the gateway node in an environment of coexisting primary and secondary users is discussed. We present intelligent approaches based on reinforcement learning to solve the problem. Theoretical analysis and simulation results both show that the intelligent approaches can achieve optimal throughput for the intercluster relaying in the long run.
Compositional Reasoning in Intuitionistic Linear-Time μ-Calculus

This paper discusses the use of intuitionistic linear-time μ-calculus (IμTL) whose underlying model is based on Heyting algebra of prefixed closed sets as the basis for the specification of assumption and guarantee paradigm, and then propose an assumption-guarantee rule in IμTL. The rule formulated is more general then previously proposed rules that used linear-time temporal logic (LTL) in the specification of assumption and guarantee paradigm and extends the discussion for safety properties of the form "always ϕ", and therefore represents more uniform reasoning of assumption and guarantee specifications for also supporting circular compositional reasoning.
What kind of maternal effects are selected for in fluctuating environments?

Adaptation to temporally fluctuating environments can be achieved through evolution of fixed genetic effects, by phenotypic plasticity (either developmental plasticity or trans-generational plasticity), or by randomizing offspring phenotypes (often called diversifying bet-hedging). Theory has long held that plasticity can evolve when information about the future environment is reliable while bet-hedging can evolve when mixtures of phenotypes have high average fitness (leading to low among generation variance in fitness). To date, no study has studied the evolutionary routes that lead to the evolution of randomized offspring phenotypes on the one hand or deterministic maternal effects on the other. We develop simple, yet general, models of the evolution of maternal effects and are able to directly compare selection for deterministic and randomizing maternal effects and can also incorporate the notion of differential maternal costs of producing offspring with alternative phenotypes. We find that only a small set of parameters allow bet hedging type strategies to outcompete deterministic maternal effects. Not only must there be little or no informative cues available, but also the frequency with which different environments are present must fall within a narrow range. By contrast, when we consider the joint evolution of the maternal strategy and the set of offspring phenotypes we find that deterministic maternal effects can always invade the ancestral state (lacking any form of maternal effect). The long-term ESS may, however, involve some form of offspring randomization, but only if the phenotypes evolve extreme differences in environment-specific fitness. Overall we conclude that deterministic maternal effects are much more likely to evolve than offspring randomization, and offspring randomization will only be maintained if it results in extreme differences in environment-specific fitness.
Cold-induced thermogenesis in younger and older Fischer 344 rats following exercise training

The inability of old rats to maintain body temperature during cold exposure has been well documented. This study evaluated the effect of exercise on the rates of cold-induced O2 consumption and the contribution of nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) to these rates. Younger (12 mo) and older (24 mo) male Fischer 344 (F344) rats were divided into exercised and sedentary groups. Exercised rats were run on a motor-driven treadmill 60 min/day, at 19-24 m/min, 5 days/wk for 6 mo. At the conclusion of the 6-mo training period, O2 consumption of all four groups was measured at thermoneutrality (26 degrees C) and during 6 h of exposure to 6 degrees C. Rectal temperatures were recorded before and after cold exposure. NST was estimated from the ability of isolated brown fat mitochondria to bind guanosine 5'-diphosphate (GDP). Core temperature of older sedentary rats fell 5.1 +/- 0.4 degrees C after cold exposure (36.3 +/- 0.3 vs. 31.2 +/- 0.8 degrees C). Exercise training in older animals prevented this fall from occurring (36.4 +/- 0.2 vs. 35.3 +/- 0.3 degrees C). Core temperatures of cold-exposed younger exercised and sedentary rats did not differ from thermoneutral values. Exercise did not alter the rates of resting body mass-independent (ml.min-1.kg body mass-0.67) O2 consumption in younger or older rats. However, body mass-independent and lean body mass (LBM)-independent (ml.min-1.g LBM-0.67) cold-induced O2 consumptions of older exercised rats were significantly elevated relative to those of older sedentary animals. This effect of exercise was not seen in younger rats. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)