Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An insight of early PrP‐E200K aggregation by combined molecular dynamics/fragment molecular orbital approaches

Unveiling the events leading to the formation of prion particles is a nowadays challenge in the field of neurochemistry. Pathogenic mutants of prion protein (PrP) are characterized by both an intrinsic tendency to aggregation and scrapie conversion propensity. However, the question about a possible correlation between these two events lasts still unanswered. Here, a multilayered computational workflow was employed to investigate structure, stability, and molecular interaction properties of a dimer of PrPC‐E200K, a well‐known mutant of the PrP that represents a reduced model of early aggregates of this protein. Based on the combination of molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical approaches, this study provided for an in depth insight of PrPC‐E200K dimer in terms of residue‐residue interactions. Assembly hypotheses for the early aggregation of PrPC‐E200K are paved and compared with PrPSc models reported in the literature to find a structural link between early and late (scrapie) aggregates of this protein.
Gamifying and Mobilising Social Enquiry-based Learning in Authentic Outdoor Environments

There has been increasing discussion among educators and researchers about harnessing the idea of gamification to enhance the current learning and teaching practices in school education. Leveraging the context-aware mobile technology and student-centred learning theories, we have developed a mobile application, Gamified Authentic Mobile Enquiry in Society (GAMES), to support students in conducting authentic outdoor enquiry-based learning in social humanities education. This paper reports the quasi-experimental study in which we evaluated the learning effectiveness of GAMES in terms of supporting students’ knowledge construction, in comparison with the conventional outdoor enquiry-based learning approach. It involved a total of 559 Grade-10 students from top, middle, and bottom academic-banding schools. Results indicated that, compared to the conventional approach, GAMES had different degrees of positive effects on the high, moderate, and low academic-achieving participants. This study not only provides grounds for a wider adoption of GAMES in social humanities education, but also makes a contribution to empirical evidence in the field by designing, implementing and evaluating gamified mobile learning in authentic outdoor contexts.
Statistics-Based Digital Background Calibration of Residue Amplifier Nonlinearity in Pipelined ADCs

In this paper, a statistics-based digital background calibration technique for pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) is presented. This technique employs the residue voltage probability distribution to continuously estimate and digitally eliminate the conversion errors resulted from the residue amplifier gain error and third-order nonlinearity. In order to remove the conversion errors, the proposed method evaluates and corrects the digitized residue probability distribution exploiting a two-level pseudorandom-noise sequence. Behavioral simulation results are provided for a 12-bit pipelined ADC architecture to validate the effectiveness of this scheme. The required number of conversions for convergence is approximately $5\times 10^{6}$ . With calibration, the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio is improved from 49.9 to 70.9 dB.
Th17 lymphocyte spearheads the immune attack in Parkinson's disease: New evidence for neuronal death

The exact etiology for Parkinson’s disease (PD) continues to remain complex and elusive. Several lines of etiologies have been investigated including gene mutations, exposure to environmental toxins, mitochondrial dysfunction, and increased oxidative stress to the neurons. There continues to be mounting evidence to support an immune dysregulation and an aberrant inflammatory process contributing to pathogenesis. Recent studies have shown that, despite the dogma that peripheral immune cells do not cross the blood– brain barrier, in fact, there is infiltration of peripheral immune cells into the central nervous system, and autoreactive T cells are directed against α-synuclein as plausible associations of significant neurodegeneration. However, most data have emerged from animal models with no clear understanding on the exact pathogenic role of lymphocytes and how they contribute to progression of human PD. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the immune attack in PD is led by the innate immune cells or the reactive immune cells. In this study by Sommer and colleagues, peripheral blood T cells are co-cultured with autologous fibroblasts. The fibroblasts are reprogrammed into human induced pluripotent stem cells, which then further differentiate into midbrain neurons. The investigators find the midbrain neurons to succumb to death if co-cultured with T cells that are drawn from PD patients, whereas they survive when the source for T cells is age-matched controls. Neuronal death is noted to accelerate when co-cultured with IL17-producing CD4 + T (Th17) lymphocytes, whereas these neurons are rescued from dying when IL17 receptor is blocked or when human anti-IL17 antibody (Secukinumab) is applied to the culture. The effects of IL17 are PD specific, demonstrating a substantially increased gene dysregulation upon exposure to IL17 in the midbrain neurons of PD patients when compared with the healthy controls. The IL17 expression for the lymphocytes is also not affected by the addition of primary astrocytes. The validation of the findings of Sommer and colleagues will require further testing in a PD model that in vivo captures the complexity of pathogenesis. Future studies will need to focus on antigen specificity for Th17 cells because the current study does not implicate α-synuclein as the primary antigen and the role of microglia are also important to investigate. Although the study findings suggest that Secukinumab (a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of psoriasis) may have a potential neuroprotective role in PD, many further tests will be necessary prior to a successful clinical application. Nevertheless, a direct evidence for immune attack led by Th17 lymphocytes in PD is no doubt exciting and indisputably pushes the envelope.
Multipartite genomes and the sRNome in response to temperature stress of an Arctic Pseudoalteromonas fuliginea BSW20308

Little is known about the survival and effect of rapid climate warming on Pseudoalteromonas in the Arctic, although it is abundant and important in this ecosystem. Here, we investigated a cold-adapted Pseudoalteromonas fuliginea BSW20308 from the Arctic Ocean, from the genome to its transcriptomic responses towards temperature changes. It contained two circular chromosomes, with the second chromosome probably evolved from an ancestral plasmid. The evolution of multipartite genomes may be advantageous for its survival under changing environments. RNA-seq analysis revealed the extensive involvement of sRNome in response to temperature stress for the first time, especially tmRNA and a novel Pf1 sRNA strongly induced under heat stress. The present study makes significant contributions towards the understanding of Pseudoalteromonas in two aspects: the genome structure and evolution of its two chromosomes, and the important discovery of the sRNome in response to temperature stress.
Treatment of Hypertrophic Scars Using Laser-Assisted Corticosteroid Versus Laser-Assisted 5-Fluorouracil Delivery

BACKGROUND As the mortality of individuals suffering severe cutaneous injuries decreases, there is an increased need to improve the methods by which physicians treat the resultant scars. Fractional lasers, which create zones of ablation at variable depths, provide a powerful tool in the management of scar complications and deformities. After disruption of the normal skin barrier, these zones may be used to deliver drugs that may enhance scar resolution. OBJECTIVE To determine the differences in clinical outcome for hypertrophic scars treated with laser-assisted corticosteroid delivery, as compared to laser-assisted 5-fluorouracil delivery. METHODS In this prospective, double-blinded, single-subject study of 20 individuals with hypertrophic scars, subjects underwent 3 treatment sessions at 1-month intervals consisting of fractional ablative laser treatment, followed by postoperative application of either topical triamcinolone acetonide (20 mg/mL) or topical 5-fluorouracil (50 mg/mL). RESULTS Three sessions of laser-assisted triamcinolone acetonide and 5-fluorouracil delivery both produced reductions in overall scar area. When compared with one another, there were no statistically significant differences in area reduction between the 2 modalities (p = .603). However, scars treated with 5-fluorouracil were not associated with side effects seen with corticosteroid therapy, such as dermal atrophy or telangiectasia formation. CONCLUSION As 5-fluorouracil was associated with fewer adverse events, these findings support the use of a nonsteroidal agent in the management of traumatic scars by laser-assisted therapy.
Stein Variational Gradient Descent as Moment Matching

Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) is a non-parametric inference algorithm that evolves a set of particles to fit a given distribution of interest. We analyze the non-asymptotic properties of SVGD, showing that there exists a set of functions, which we call the Stein matching set, whose expectations are exactly estimated by any set of particles that satisfies the fixed point equation of SVGD. This set is the image of Stein operator applied on the feature maps of the positive definite kernel used in SVGD. Our results provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the properties of SVGD with different kernels, shedding insight into optimal kernel choice. In particular, we show that SVGD with linear kernels yields exact estimation of means and variances on Gaussian distributions, while random Fourier features enable probabilistic bounds for distributional approximation. Our results offer a refreshing view of the classical inference problem as fitting Stein's identity or solving the Stein equation, which may motivate more efficient algorithms.
Effects of dance on the postural balance, cognition and functional autonomy of older adults.

OBJECTIVE to evaluate the postural balance, cognition and functional autonomy of older adults with dementia, who are long-stay inpatients, subjected to ballroom dancing. METHOD simple randomized clinical study. Older adult sample: control group (30) and experimental group (30). The groups were subjected to the protocol of functional autonomy for activities of daily living; to the assessment of cognition (mini-mental state examination); and to the analysis of postural balance (stabilometric and postural platforms). The analysis of variance with repeated measures for group and time factors, and Scheffé's post hoc test were used, with significance of p < 0.05. RESULTS For the mini-mental state examination, the control group presented a 24.27 mean, and the experimental 22.75. Functional autonomy for activities of daily living - experimental: 54.47 ± 7.24 (p < 0.0001) x control: 61.77 ± 8.47 (p = 0.011). Postural balance - experimental: X = 3.16 ± 3.44 (p = 0.02) x control = X = 6.30 ± 7.62 (p = 0.04). CONCLUSION Ballroom dancing can be recommended for older adults to provide improvement in their balance and motor performance of the activities of daily living.
A Transcriptomic Method to Determine Airway Immune Dysfunction in T2‐High and T2‐Low Asthma

Background: Type 2 (T2) inflammation drives airway dysfunction in many patients with asthma; yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the airway immune cell types and networks that sustain this inflammation. Moreover, defects in the airway immune system in patients with asthma without T2 inflammation are not established. Objectives: To determine the gene networks that sustain T2 airway inflammation in T2‐high asthma and to explore the gene networks that characterize T2‐low asthma. Methods: Network analysis of sputum cell transcriptome expression data from 84 subjects with asthma and 27 healthy control subjects was used to identify immune cell type‐enriched networks that underlie asthma subgroups. Results: Sputum T2 gene expression was characterized by an immune cell network derived from multiple innate immune cells, including eosinophils, mast cells/basophils, and inflammatory dendritic cells. Clustering of subjects within this network stratified subjects into T2‐high and T2‐low groups, but it also revealed a subgroup of T2‐high subjects with uniformly higher expression of the T2 network. These “T2‐ultrahigh subjects” were characterized clinically by older age and more severe airflow obstruction and pathologically by a second T2 network derived from T2‐skewed, CD11b+/CD103−/IRF4+ classical dendritic cells. Subjects with T2‐low asthma were differentiated from healthy control subjects by lower expression of a cytotoxic CD8+ T‐cell network, which was negatively correlated with body mass index and plasma IL‐6 concentrations. Conclusions: Persistent airway T2 inflammation is a complex construct of innate and adaptive immunity gene expression networks that are variable across individuals with asthma and persist despite steroid treatment. Individuals with T2‐low asthma exhibit an airway deficiency in cytotoxic T cells associated with obesity‐driven inflammation.
Bearing-based Formation Control via Distributed Position Estimation

We propose two distributed position estimation laws and a position-based formation control scheme for autonomous systems, whose interaction graphs are infinitesimally bearing rigid (IBR), based on inter-agent bearings. Under both position estimation laws, the actual positions of agents can be uniquely determined up to a certain translation. Further, the actual formation globally exponentially converges to the desired formation, up to a certain translation. Finally, all agents achieve the desired formation with less control effort, and the proposed formation control strategies are applicable to arbitrary dimensional spaces.
Daily Stress Monitoring Using Heart Rate Variability of Bathtub ECG Signals

Physical, environmental and psychological stressors can lead to chronic diseases. Changes in physiological parameters during stress can be evaluated using heart rate variability (HRV). A study is conducted with one participant on a daily basis over six months. Bathtub ECG is measured during his daily bathing and used for HRV analysis. The HRV stress index (SI) is proposed to quantity the stress in the study. SI is computed and found to be significantly higher in either mental stress or physiological stress. The variations of SI show in high accordance with the work schedules of the participant.
Deep Neural Network-based Telco Outdoor Localization

When Telecommunication (Telco) networks provide phone call and data services for mobile users, measurement record (MR) data is generated by mobile devices during each call/session. MR data reports the connection states, e.g., signal strength, between mobile devices and nearby base stations. Given the MR data, the literature has proposed various Telco localization approaches, to localize mobile devices. Unfortunately, such approaches typically estimate the individual position independently, and could compromise the temporal and spatial locality in underlying mobility patterns. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a deep neural network-based localization approach, namely RecuLSTM, to automatically extract contextual features and predict the positions of mobile devices from an input sequence of MR data. Our preliminary experiment validates that RecuLSTM greatly outperforms three recent works [1, 2, 4] which suffer from 3.2×, 1.91× and 3.56× median errors on the dataset in a 2G GSM suburban area, respectively.
Feed the Food Monsters!: Helping Co-diners Chew their Food Better with Augmented Reality

Chewing is crucial for digestion and as mindful eating suggests, it is important that we do it properly. Despite this, not many people chew their food properly. To help facilitate proper chewing, we developed "Feed the Food Monsters! ", a two-player Augmented Reality game that aims to engage co-diners in proper chewing using their bodies as play. This game draws inspiration from Tetris and allows diners to view each other's chewing behavior through a playful interface that is overlaid on their torso. In this game, players wear HMDs and guide each other to chew properly in order to keep the food monsters quiet. Besides supporting chewing in a social dining setting, this game also makes a contribution to AR-based games where chewing actions are mapped to game actions. Ultimately, with this work, we hope to engage people in the practice of proper chewing in a fun and a pleasurable way.
Predicting progression in the late onset frontal lobe syndrome

ABSTRACT A late onset frontal lobe syndrome (LOF) refers to a clinical syndrome with apathy, disinhibition, or stereotypical behavior arising in middle or late adulthood. Diagnostics are challenging, and both clinicians and patients need reliable predictors of progression to improve clinical guidance. In this longitudinal multicenter and genetically screened prospective study, 137 LOF patients with frontal behavior (FBI score≥11) and/or stereotypical behavior (SRI≥10) were included. Progression was defined as institutionalization, death, or progression of frontal or temporal atrophy at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after two years of follow up. Absence of progression at MRI in addition to stable or improved Mini Mental State Examination and Frontal Assessment Battery scores after two years was indicative for non-progression. The presence of stereotypy and a neuropsychological profile with executive deficits at baseline were found to be predictive for progression, while a history and family history with psychiatric disorders were predictors for non-progression. The combination of these clinical markers had a predictive value of 80.4% (p < 0.05). In patients presenting with late onset behavioral symptoms, an appraisal of the rate of deterioration can be made by detailed mapping of clinical symptoms. Distinction of progressive discourses from non-progressive or treatable conditions is to be gained.
Influenza A(H3N2) Variant Virus Outbreak at Three Fairs — Maryland, 2017

On September 17, 2017, the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) was notified by fair and 4-H officials of ill swine at agricultural fair A, held September 14-17. That day, investigation of the 107 swine at fair A revealed five swine with fever and signs of upper respiratory tract illness. All five respiratory specimens collected from these swine tested positive for influenza A virus at the MDA Animal Health Laboratory, and influenza A(H3N2) virus was confirmed in all specimens by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL). On September 18, MDA was notified by fair and 4-H officials that swine exhibitors were also ill. MDA alerted the Maryland Department of Health (MDH). A joint investigation with MDH and the local health department was started and later broadened to Maryland agricultural fairs B (September 13-17) and C (September 15-23). In total, 76 persons underwent testing for variant influenza, and influenza A(H3N2) variant (A(H3N2)v) virus infection was identified in 40 patients with exposure to swine at these fairs (Figure), including 30 (75%) who had more than one characteristic putting them at high risk for serious influenza complications; 24 (60%) of these were children aged <5 years. Twenty-six (65%) patients reported direct contact with swine (i.e., touching swine or swine enclosure), but 14 (35%) reported only indirect contact (e.g., walking through a swine barn). Two children required hospitalization; all patients recovered. This outbreak highlights the risk, particularly among children, for contracting variant influenza virus at agricultural fairs after direct or indirect swine contact. Publicizing CDC's recommendation that persons at high risk for serious influenza complications avoid pigs and swine barns might help prevent future variant influenza outbreaks among vulnerable groups (1).
InSilc: 3D Reconstruction and plaque characterization tool

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of mortality in Europe and worldwide. Atherosclerosis is the most common pathologic process that is highly related with CAD, while the implantation of drug-eluting Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffolds (BVS) is the most promising procedure for treating patients with CAD. InSilc is an textbfin silico clinical trial (ISCT) platform for the development and assessment of drugeluting BVS. The InSilc platform provides insight in the performance of drug-eluting BVS in their short term and medium/long term through the Mechanical Modelling Module, the Deployment Module, the Fluid Dynamics Module, the Myocardial Perfusion Module, the Drug-delivery Module and the Degradation Module. In order for the aforementioned modules to be developed, the utilization of the reconstructed patient specific arterial segment and the BVS design are required, which is achieved through the 3D reconstruction and plaque characterization tool.In this study, the overall architecture of the InSilc platform is presented with special emphasis on the 3D reconstruction and plaque characterization tool. The tool will be able to implement different medical image processing workflows. The workflows will require minimum user intervention in order to be used in large scale clinical trials.
[Retrospect and prospect of the genetic research on birth defects in China].

An important part of China's "Healthy China 2030" planning is to lower the rate of birth defects. Because genetic factors contribute solely or collaboratively to about 80% of the occurrence of birth defects, genetic studies on birth defects can provide precise molecular targets for clinical screening, diagnosis and treatment. Genetic research on birth defects in China has developed by leaps and bounds since 1960s. At the same time, as related research achievements keep accumulating, translation of these scientific discoveries to clinical applications, with genetic counseling and testing as the core practices, has been developed and optimized. A close collaboration between genetic researches and clinical applications would provide reliable technical support for giving birth to more "healthy children" in China. This article firstly reviews China's history of genetic research on birth defects, then introduces current situation and hot topics of the research area at home and abroad and finally discusses about future trend and related clinical applications. In summary, an overall view is provided here for the readers to understand the development route of genetic research on birth defects in China.