Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple-signal Synchronous Change-point Detection by Piecewise Linear Regression with Group Lasso Constraints

This paper studies the synchronous multiple change-point detection problem involving multiple signals. The original signals are fitted by a piecewise linear regression with Group Lasso constraints to ensure the synchronism of the change points. Then, first-order difference is used to determine the candidate set of change points for the resultant fitted curve, and then the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) is utilized to determine change points from the candidate set. Monte Carlo simulation-based experiments are used to compare the new method with three commonly-used multi-signal synchronous change-point detection methods. The results show that the proposed method is superior in detecting both the number and the position of change points. The performance in real multiple vibration signals of cutting tools data further verifies the effectiveness of the method.
The effects of temperature and prey density on the development rates and growth of damselfly larvae (Odonata: Zygoptera)

Abstract. 1. The effects of prey density and temperature on the feeding and development rates of several late instars of the larvae of three common European damselflies (Lestes sponsa (Hansemann), Coenagrion puella (L.) and Ischnura elegans van der Linden) were investigated in a laboratory experiment.
Effect of guided counseling on dietary practices of pregnant women in West Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia

Background In Ethiopia, although nutrition education has been given during pregnancy, most women have inadequate nutrient intakes. As a result, the prevalence of malnutrition is high during pregnancy. In this study, we set out to evaluate the effect of guided counseling based on the health belief model and the theory of planned behavior on the dietary practices of pregnant women. Methods A two-arm parallel cluster randomized controlled community trial was carried out among pregnant women in West, Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia from May 1, 2018, to April 30, 2019. A total of 346 and 348 pregnant women were recruited from the intervention and control clusters, respectively. Of which endline data were collected from 313 and 332 pregnant women in the intervention and control groups, respectively. Each woman in the intervention group attended four counseling sessions. Women in the control group attended the routine nutrition education given by the health care system. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. McNemar test and Generalized Estimating Equations were used to evaluate the intervention effect. Results The average difference of appropriate dietary practice between the two groups was 30.7%. After controlling for the possible confounders, women in the intervention group had 7.2 times [AOR = 7.187, 95% CI: (4.49, 11.49)] higher odds of having appropriate dietary practices compared with the control group. Dietary diversity and meal frequency of counseled women were 7 [AOR = 6.994, 95% CI: (4.59, 10.66)] and 8 [AOR = 8.146, 95% CI: (5.377, 12.341)] times higher than dietary diversity and meal frequency of women in the control group, respectively. Conclusion Counseling based on the health belief model and the theory of planned behavior is an effective approach in increasing the proportion of women who had appropriate dietary practices. Thus, these findings suggest the need for employing trimester based counseling using the HBM and the TPB to improve the dietary practices of pregnant women. Trial registration The trial was registered in Clinical Trials.gov (NCT03627156).
Complexity and collaboration in routine practice of CBT: What doesn't work with whom and how might it work better?

There is compelling evidence from specialist research centres for the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) with a variety of psychiatric disorders but effectiveness in routine clinical practice has yet to be established. The complex tasks confronting those generalist practitioners who see a broad range of referrals are analysed in terms of the breadth of treatable disorders, the variable nature of patient characteristics and the pressures of work. This analysis suggests that effectiveness and efficiency in routine practice of CBT will be compromised unless therapists work in small teams and adopt some of the rigours and objectivity of the research context. In particular, it is suggested that clinical practice should include routine assessment of complexity and severity of problems at a screening interview and quality of collaboration after a trial period of treatment. Therapy for those cases with high complexity and poor collaboration should incorporate peer-aided clinical supervision and periodic review.
FPGA-based Compaction Engine for Accelerating LSM-tree Key-Value Stores

With the rapid growth of big data, LSM-tree based key-value stores are widely applied due to its high efficiency in write performance. Compaction plays a critical role in LSM-tree, which merges old data and could significantly reduce the overall throughput of the whole system especially for write-intensive workloads. Hardware acceleration for database is a popular trend in recent years. In this paper, we design and implement an FPGA-based compaction engine to accelerate compaction in LSM-tree based key-value stores. To take full advantage of the pipeline mechanism on FPGA, the key-value separation and index-data block separation strategies are proposed. In order to improve the compaction performance, the bandwidth of FPGA-chip is fully utilized. In addition, the proposed acceleration engine is integrated with a classic LSM-tree based store without modifications on the original storage format. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed FPGA-based compaction engine can achieve up to 92.0x acceleration ratio compared with CPU baseline, and achieve up to 6.4x improvement on the throughput of random writes.
Schistosoma mansoni schistosomula reduce E‐selectin and VCAM‐1 expression in TNF‐α‐stimulated lung microvascular endothelial cells by interfering with the NF‐κB pathway

The recruitment of immune cells into the lungs is a key step in protection against murine schistosomiasis. In this phenomenon, pulmonary (micro)vascular endothelial cells (EC) probably play a central role, by expressing specific adhesion molecules on their surface. Recently, we have shown that Schistosoma mansoni schistosomula, the parasitic stage which resides in the lungs, could activate microvascular EC to acquire an anti‐inflammatory phenotype. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that schistosomula could also regulate the expression of adhesion molecules in vitro by human lung microvascular EC (HMVEC‐l) in the present of the pro‐inflammatory cytokine TNF‐α. We found that lipophilic substance(s) present in the excretory / secretory products from schistosomula selectively reduce the TNF‐α‐induced synthesis of E‐selectin and VCAM‐1 mRNA and proteins without affecting ICAM‐1. This inhibitory effect appears to be mediated by a cyclic AMP / protein kinase A (cAMP / PKA) pathway that probably interferes with the NF‐κB pathway induced by TNF‐α at the level of the E‐selectin promoter, whereas a cAMP‐independent pathway appears to operate in VCAM‐1 down‐modulation. Finally, schistosomula also significantly reduce the VLA‐4 / VCAM‐1‐dependent adherence of leukocytes to TNF‐α‐stimulated HMVEC‐l. We speculate that this mechanism could represent a new stratagem that parasites may use to escape the immune system by controlling leukocyte recruitment to the lungs.
Drug-eluting bioresorbable scaffolds in cardiovascular disease, peripheral artery and gastrointestinal fields: a clinical update

ABSTRACT Introduction The technology of bioresorbable scaffold (BRS) spread out after the success of the first-in-man trials of the Absorb. However, the randomized trials demonstrated that major adverse cardiac events and scaffold thrombosis rates of the first-generation Absorb were higher than those of the metallic everolimus-eluting stent. To overcome the shortcoming of the firstly commercialized Absorb, novel technologies have been developed. Areas covered In this review, we overviewed the field of BRS in the treatment of coronary, peripheral artery and gastrointestinal fields. To date, 10 BRS devices developed by 6 manufacturers have acquired the CE mark in coronary artery disease. Currently 8 BRS are in clinical trial phase, whereas 7 BRS are in preclinical assessment phase. Most new-generation devices have a strut thickness of less than 100 μm. However, late favorable outcome might be achieved not only by device refinement but also by a proper technique of implantation using intra vascular imaging guidance, as well as with a careful patient and lesion selection. Expert opinion New-generation BRS will be soon tested in the clinical arena to demonstrate improved acute and long-term of safety and efficacy.
The Esophageal Z-Line Appearance Correlates to the Prevalence of Intestinal Metaplasia

Background: Intestinal metaplasia at the gastroesophageal junction is associated with Barrett esophagus, gastric cardiac cancer, and gastritis. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of intestinal metaplasia among patients with symptoms suggestive of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and to study clinical, endoscopic, and histologic associations with intestinal metaplasia at the squamocolumnar junction. Methods: One hundred and eighty-six patients with symptoms indicating gastroesophageal reflux were included in the study. A new classification of the Z-line appearance was used. Results: The Z-line appearance was found to correlate with the prevalence of intestinal metaplasia at the squamocolumnar junction (P = 0.0001). Intestinal metaplasia at the squamocolumnar junction was found in 15.0% of the patients. There was a statistically significant association between intestinal metaplasia at the squamo-columnar junction and tongues of columnar epithelium at the Z-line (P = 0.020), intestinal metaplasia in the cardia (P = 0.020), positive CLO test (P = 0.026), smoking (P = 0.041), and age (P = 0.050). There was no association with endoscopic or histologic signs of esophagitis or with the severity or duration of GERD symptoms. Conclusion: Intestinal metaplasia at the squamocolumnar junction correlates with the Z-line appearance, which would justify a new classification.
From Monolithic Architecture Style to Microservice one Based on a Semi-Automatic Approach

Due to its tremendous advantages, microservice architectural style has become an essential element for the development of applications deployed on the cloud and for those adopting the DevOps practices. Nevertheless, while microservices can be used to develop new applications, there are monolithic ones, that are not well adapted neither to the cloud nor to DevOps. Migrating these applications towards microservices appears as a solution to adapt them to both. In this context, we propose an approach aiming to achieve this objective by focusing on the step of microservices identification. The proposed identification, in this paper, is based on an analysis of the relationships between source code elements, their relationships with the persistent data manipulated in this code and finally the knowledge, often partial, of the architect concerning the system to migrate. A function that measures the quality of a microservice based on its ability to provide consistent service and its interdependence with others microservice in the resulting architecture was defined. Moreover, the architect recommendations are used, when available, to guide the identification process. The conducted experiment shows the relevance of the obtained microservices by our approach.
Effects of selective grazing by cattle on the reproduction of Plantago maritima

The grazing areas of cattle in a Baltic sea-shore meadow changed during the summer. The effects of this on the demography of Plantago maritima was studied. This species is distributed over most parts of the area and suffers differently from grazing in different areas. It was found that the losses of flowers due to grazing, was severe and that the density peak of Plantago maritima coincides with the least grazing intensity. Flower-spikes established in different time-periods are disproportionally represented as seed-dispersers and this may be of importance in regeneration since early and late flowers bear seeds of different size.
Heat conduction across Si/SiO2 and Diamond/Si interfaces using DPL model related to temperature jump boundary condition

In this work, we report the heat conduction across interfaces using dual-lag phase model (DPL). We applied the DPL model related with the temperature boundary condition to treat the interfacial phonon transport. To prove our predictive method, we compare the DPL model with the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE). It is found that our suggested model describe carefully the non-continuous heat conduction especially in the boundary (interface) scattering. Further, we investigate the heat transfer across SiO2/Si and di/Si interfaces. We found that the interfacial heat conduction depend on the mechanism of phonon scattering.
Array-based Data Management for Genomics

With the huge growth of genomic data, exposing multiple heterogeneous features of genomic regions for millions of individuals, we increasingly need to support domain-specific query languages and knowledge extraction operations, capable of aggregating and comparing trillions of regions arbitrarily positioned on the human genome. While row-based models for regions can be effectively used as a basis for cloud-based implementations, in previous work we have shown that the array-based model is effective in supporting the class of region-preserving operations, i.e. operations which do not create any new region but rather compose existing ones.In this paper, we remove the above constraint, and describe an array-based implementation which applies to unrestricted region operations, as required by the Genometric Query Language. Specifically, we define a wide spectrum of operations over datasets which are represented using arrays, and we show that the arraybased implementation scales well upon Spark, also thanks to a data representation which is effectively used for supporting machine learning. Our benchmark, which uses an independent, pre-existing collection of queries, shows that in many cases the novel array-based implementation significantly improves the performance of the row-based implementation.
JODA: A Vertically Scalable, Lightweight JSON Processor for Big Data Transformations

We describe the demonstration of JODA (Json On Demand Analytics), an approach to handling large amounts of JSON documents in a vertically scalable manner. With JODA, the user can import, filter, transform, aggregate, group, and export documents with a simple PIG-style query language, offering fast execution speed. This is achieved by utilizing a multithreaded architecture over disjoint, read-only containers of data that are processed in parallel, similar to what RDDs are to Spark. Containers are augmented with auxiliary information like Bloom filters and adaptive indices and all containers are processed in parallel by individual threads. By avoiding locks, latches, and synchronization beyond simple thread pooling, we do not risk contention and therefore maximize resource utilization. The demonstration scenarios aim at engaging visitors with several data analytics tasks around large, real-world datasets that are to be solved with the help of JODA, and further gives insights on system internals and the installation/configuration process.
Analysis and Modeling for Magnetically Levitated Actuator With End-effects

The end-effect of Halbach array affects the accuracy of the magnetic levitation (maglev) motor force model. This paper presents a general semi-analytical method to solve the magnetic force and torque considering the magnetic field end-effects in the whole 2-D plane. The new Fourier period of the Halbach array is defined according to the distance between the positions where the magnetic field decays to zero, and then an analytical magnetic field model of the array including the end-distorted area is derived by the new Fourier series and Maxwell equations. Benefited from the Gaussian quadrature, the complex Lorentz integral of the force and torque can be simplified into the form of summation while the high computation accuracy is still promised. Finally, taking the typical maglev planar motor introduced in the paper as an example, a prototype of the motor is manufactured, and the experiment is conducted to validate the proposed semianalytical method. Compared with the existing harmonic model, the force and torque predicted by the semi-analytical model are closer to the measurement results, and the decoupling results of the force and torque in all directions are more accurate based on the proposed model.
Multiparametric Assessment of Changes in Renal Tissue after Kidney Transplantation with Quantitative MR Relaxometry and Diffusion-Tensor Imaging at 3 T

Background: Magnetic resonance relaxometry (MRR) offers highly reproducible pixel-wise parametric maps of T1 and T2 relaxation times, reflecting specific tissue properties, while diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) is a promising technique for the characterization of microstructural changes, depending on the directionality of molecular motion. Both MMR and DTI may be used for non-invasive assessment of parenchymal changes caused by kidney injury or graft dysfunction. Methods: We examined 46 patients with kidney transplantation and 16 healthy controls, using T1/T2 relaxometry and DTI at 3 T. Twenty-two early transplants and 24 late transplants were included. Seven of the patients had prior renal biopsy (all of them dysfunctional allografts; 6/7 with tubular atrophy and 7/7 with interstitial fibrosis). Results: Compared to healthy controls, T1 and T2 relaxation times in the renal parenchyma were increased after transplantation, with the highest T1/T2 values in early transplants (T1: 1700 ± 53 ms/T2: 83 ± 6 ms compared to T1: 1514 ± 29 ms/T2: 78 ± 4 ms in controls). Medullary and cortical ADC/FA values were decreased in early transplants and highest in controls, with medullary FA values showing the most pronounced difference. Cortical renal T1, mean medullary FA and corticomedullary differentiation (CMD) values correlated best with renal function as measured by eGFR (cortical T1: r = −0.63, p < 0.001; medullary FA: r = 0.67, p < 0.001; FA CMD: r = 0.62, p < 0.001). Mean medullary FA proved to be a significant predictor for tubular atrophy (p < 0.001), while cortical T1 appeared as a significant predictor of interstitial fibrosis (p = 0.003). Conclusion: Cortical T1, medullary FA, and FA CMD might serve as new imaging biomarkers of renal function and histopathologic microstructure.
Investigation on Threshold Voltage Adjustment of Threshold Switching Devices with HfO2/Al2O3 Superlattice on Transparent ITO/Glass Substrate

Threshold voltage adjustment in threshold switching (TS) devices with HfO2/Al2O3 superlattice (by means of changing the cycle ratio of HfO2 to Al2O3 in atomic layer deposition) is investigated to implement a transparent cross-point array. TS devices with different cycle ratios (i.e., 3:1, 3:2, and 3:3) were fabricated and studied. The threshold voltage of the devices was increased from 0.9 V to 3.2 V, as the relative contents of Al2O3 layer in the superlattice were increased. At the same time, it is demonstrated that the off-resistance values of the devices were enhanced from 2.6 × 109 to 6 × 1010 Ω as the atomic layer deposition (ALD) cycle ratio of HfO2 to Al2O3 layer was adjusted from 3:1 to 3:3. However, the hold voltage and the on-current values were almost identical for the three devices. These results can be understood using the larger barrier height of Al2O3 layer than that of HfO2 layer.
Non-Endoscopic First-line Treatment of Bleeding Peptic Ulcer with Ranitidine and Tranexamic Acid

Despite the pharmacological progress in treating peptic ulcer in recent decades, the mortality from acute peptic ulcer bleeding is relatively stable (1), ranging from around 7% to 14% (2). Tranexamic acid inhibits the fibrinolytic activity of plasmin and might be beneficial as additional treatment for bleeding peptic ulcers (3). We therefore investigated prospectively the efficacy of combined treatment with ranitidine and tranexamic acid in patients admitted for acute bleeding from benign peptic ulcers.
PaCRISPR: a server for predicting and visualizing anti-CRISPR proteins

Abstract Anti-CRISPRs are widespread amongst bacteriophage and promote bacteriophage infection by inactivating the bacterial host's CRISPR–Cas defence system. Identifying and characterizing anti-CRISPR proteins opens an avenue to explore and control CRISPR–Cas machineries for the development of new CRISPR–Cas based biotechnological and therapeutic tools. Past studies have identified anti-CRISPRs in several model phage genomes, but a challenge exists to comprehensively screen for anti-CRISPRs accurately and efficiently from genome and metagenome sequence data. Here, we have developed an ensemble learning based predictor, PaCRISPR, to accurately identify anti-CRISPRs from protein datasets derived from genome and metagenome sequencing projects. PaCRISPR employs different types of feature recognition united within an ensemble framework. Extensive cross-validation and independent tests show that PaCRISPR achieves a significantly more accurate performance compared with homology-based baseline predictors and an existing toolkit. The performance of PaCRISPR was further validated in discovering anti-CRISPRs that were not part of the training for PaCRISPR, but which were recently demonstrated to function as anti-CRISPRs for phage infections. Data visualization on anti-CRISPR relationships, highlighting sequence similarity and phylogenetic considerations, is part of the output from the PaCRISPR toolkit, which is freely available at http://pacrispr.erc. monash.edu/.
Protein Bodies in Cotyledon Cells Exhibit Differential Patterns of Legumin-Like Proteins Mobilization during Seedling Germinating States

Olive (Olea europaea L.) tree is one of the most extensive and important agricultural crop in Mediterranean countries due to its beneficial health and nutritional properties and its high economic value. Currently, olive tree constitutes the sixth most important cultivated plant in the world, spreading from the Mediterranean region of origin to new production areas such as Australia, South and North America and South Africa. However, the mobilization processes of storage materials i.e. reserve proteins during seed germination, which are largely involved in essential physiological process including plant growth and development, remain poorly understood. Morphometric and immunohistochemistry analyses of protein bodies contained in olive seed storage tissues, cotyledon and endosperm, were performed by using different microscopy techniques, including light (bright-field and fluorescence) microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, we used legumin-like proteins (11S-type globulins) as a molecular marker to study the mobilization of reserve proteins from PBs of cotyledons at germinating seedling stages by using immunofluorescence assays. Results demonstrated that cotyledon and endosperm are characterized by distinct PBs populations containing legumin-like proteins, distinctly discriminated by the number of PBs per cell and tissue, size, immunofluorescence and histochemical staining. These features reflect differential PBs biogenesis during development and maturation processes in olive seed tissues endosperm and cotyledon, in relation to proteins (polypeptides) final composition, SSPs processing and/or packaging during seed maturation. Three different mobilization patterns of legumin-like proteins were identified for the first time in cotyledon PBs during seedling germinating process. Mature proteins composition and/or processing, cell types and enzyme composition and/or differential activation have been discussed as key features determining how proteins mobilize from PBs for further degradation in the cotyledon.