Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Genomics and Transcriptomics To Analyze Fruiting Body Development in Filamentous Ascomycetes

Many filamentous ascomycetes develop three-dimensional fruiting bodies for production and dispersal of sexual spores. Fruiting bodies are among the most complex structures differentiated by ascomycetes; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying this process are insufficiently understood. Previous comparative transcriptomics analyses of fruiting body development in different ascomycetes suggested that there might be a core set of genes that are transcriptionally regulated in a similar manner across species. Conserved patterns of gene expression can be indicative of functional relevance, and therefore such a set of genes might constitute promising candidates for functional analyses. In this study, we have sequenced the genome of the Pezizomycete Ascodesmis nigricans, and performed comparative transcriptomics of developing fruiting bodies of this fungus, the Pezizomycete Pyronema confluens, and the Sordariomycete Sordaria macrospora. With only 27 Mb, the A. nigricans genome is the smallest Pezizomycete genome sequenced to date. Comparative transcriptomics indicated that gene expression patterns in developing fruiting bodies of the three species are more similar to each other than to nonsexual hyphae of the same species. An analysis of 83 genes that are upregulated only during fruiting body development in all three species revealed 23 genes encoding proteins with predicted roles in vesicle transport, the endomembrane system, or transport across membranes, and 13 genes encoding proteins with predicted roles in chromatin organization or the regulation of gene expression. Among four genes chosen for functional analysis by deletion in S. macrospora, three were shown to be involved in fruiting body formation, including two predicted chromatin modifier genes.
Expression of Long Noncoding RNA LIPCAR Promotes Cell Proliferation, Cell Migration, and Change in Phenotype of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

Background The long noncoding RNA LIPCAR is a type of transcription product (>200 nucleotides long). Recent studies demonstrated that LIPCAR is a potential biomarker in cardiovascular disease and can predict survival in patients with cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the present study explored the role of LIPCAR in the regulation of proliferation, migration, and change in phenotype of vascular smooth muscle cells. Material/Methods Human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) were treated with 20 g/mL oxidatively modified low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) or 20 ng/ml platelet-derived growth factor BB (PDGF-BB) for 24 h, then the expression levels of LIPCAR were detected using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay. LIPCAR-overexpressing plasmids were transfected into VSMCs. After transfection, cell proliferation and migration were measured using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and Transwell assays, respectively. The levels of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) a molecular marker of the contractile VSMC phenotype, were measured using Western blot and immunofluorescence assays. Protein levels of cyclin-dependent kinase-2 (CDK2), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) were assessed by Western blot. The level of tissue factor (TF) was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Treatment with PDGF-BB or ox-LDL significantly increased levels of LIPCAR in VSMCs. Overexpression of LIPCAR markedly promoted cell proliferation and migration. Further, upregulation of LIPCAR increased CDK2, p21, PCNA, MMP2, MMP9, VEGF-A, Ang-2, and TF expression and decreased p21 expression. In addition, LIPCAR significantly decreased α-SAM expression. Conclusions Together, our data suggest that overexpression of LIPCAR promotes cell proliferation, migration, and phenotypic switch of vascular smooth muscle cells.
Effects of partial and complete replacement of added phosphates with encapsulated phosphates on lipid oxidation inhibition in cooked ground meat during storage

The objective of this research was to investigate the influence of various levels (0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5%) of added encapsulated polyphosphates (sodium tripolyphosphate; sodium pyrophosphate) combined with unencapsulated polyphosphate to total 0.5% on the inhibition of lipid oxidation in cooked ground meat (beef, chicken) during refrigerated storage (0, 1, 7 d). The use of sodium tripolyphosphate (encapsulated sodium tripolyphosphate, unencapsulated sodium tripolyphosphate) led to lower cooking loss compared to sodium pyrophosphate in both meat species (p < 0.05). Increasing encapsulated sodium tripolyphosphate up to 0.3% decreased cooking loss in ground beef (p < 0.05). Added encapsulated polyphosphate at 0.5% had the same effect on pH as 0.5% unencapsulated polyphosphate in the cooked ground beef and chicken. A higher accumulation of orthophosphate was determined in the samples with sodium tripolyphosphate compared to those with sodium pyrophosphate (p < 0.05). Inclusion of a minimum of 0.1% encapsulated polyphosphate decreased thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and lipid hydroperoxides on 7 d. Increasing encapsulated sodium tripolyphosphate and encapsulated sodium pyrophosphate up to 0.2% in beef decreased thiobarbituric acid reactive substances at 7 d. Addition of 0.4% encapsulated sodium tripolyphosphate and 0.3% encapsulated sodium pyrophosphate in chicken prevented any increase in TBARS during storage. Incorporating encapsulated sodium pyrophosphate at 0.3% inhibited lipid hydroperoxide formation in beef and chicken. The meat industry could achieve enhanced lipid oxidation inhibition by replacing some of the unencapsulated polyphosphate with encapsulated polyphosphate in their product formulations.
Design for an Image Processing Graphical User Interface

An image processing graphical user interface is designed based on MATLAB GUI. This interface has good interactivity and expansibility, which integrates multiple functional modules including basic function module, noise adding module, image denoising module, feature extraction module, and image mosaic module. The graphical user interface can help students learning the basic theory and methods for digital image processing.
Generating an energy efficient discrete chirp signal for UWB chipless RFID reader circuit

The radio frequency identification (RFID) technology utilizes the radio frequency (RF) wave for identification of a tagged object. The chipless RFID system operates in the microwave band and exploits the ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. Though the reader of this type RFID system comprises a sophisticated electronic circuitry, the tag does not contain any electronic circuits or silicon chip. The chipless tag is a special arrangement of numbers of microstrip resonators together with antennas, and each resonator represents a logical bit 1 or 0. The detection methodology for microstrip resonator type tag relies on a constant and continuous linear chirp from the UWB RFID reader. The entire UWB (7.5 GHz) needs to be continuous frequency sweep or chirp to detect all the bits from the tag. However, when the bandwidth goes up to 4 GHz it is difficult to generate a continuous linear chirp and the reader circuit becomes complicated. Alternatively, for detection of a particular microstrip resonator or a bit on the tag, only concerning frequency of the microstrip resonator is needed and consequently, the other frequencies are not being used. An electronic nonlinear frequency mixer circuit utilizes two different frequencies and produces many new frequencies with the summing and differencing of the original frequencies. The desired frequency can be extracted by using a narrow bandpass filter. Therefore, some required frequencies relevant with the microstrip resonators (bits) in the tag can be generated by cascading the frequency mixer and the filter circuits. The generation is only limited on those concerning frequencies allocated for the bits. As a result, the data bit from a tag can be read without using a continuous frequency sweep in the entire UWB. Moreover, the procedure is simple and energy efficient. In this paper, a new approach has been proposed to design an RF front-end for the chipless RFID reader circuit where the continuous chirp is not essential. The design has been verified by using standard microwave simulation software. Four different frequencies each successively 200 MHz apart have been generated in the UWB. The output power has been observed for each discreet frequency aimed at a balanced load
United States Pharmacopeia Safety Review of Willow Bark

Abstract Willow bark (Salix spp.) is an ingredient in some dietary supplements. No serious adverse effects were reported from trials of willow bark extracts delivering 120 – 240 mg salicin (the purported active constituent) daily for up to 8 weeks. All studies involved adults only; none involved special subpopulations such as pregnant or breastfeeding women, or children. The most common adverse effects associated with willow bark are gastrointestinal; a few allergic reactions were also reported. Some publications advise caution when taking willow bark. There is a risk of increased bleeding in vulnerable individuals, salicylates cross the placenta and are eliminated slowly in newborns, some persons are sensitive or allergic to aspirin, and children are at risk of Reye syndrome. Concurrent use with other salicylate-containing medicines increases these risks. Metabolism of 240 mg salicin from willow bark could yield 113 mg of salicylic acid, yet dietary supplement products are not required to be labeled with warnings. In contrast, over-the-counter low-dose aspirin (81 mg strength), which delivers 62 mg salicylic acid, is required by law to include cautions, warnings, and contraindications related to its use in pregnant and nursing women, children, and other vulnerable subpopulations, e.g., those using anticoagulants. In the interest of protecting public health, the United States Pharmacopeia has included a cautionary labeling statement in the United States Pharmacopeia Salix Species monograph as follows: “Dosage forms prepared with this article should bear the following statement: ‘Not for use in children, women who are pregnant or nursing, or by persons with known sensitivity to aspirin. ’”
Lung transcriptional unresponsiveness and loss of early influenza virus control in infected neonates is prevented by intranasal Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG

Respiratory viral infections contribute substantially to global infant losses and disproportionately affect preterm neonates. Using our previously established neonatal murine model of influenza infection, we demonstrate that three-day old mice are exceptionally sensitive to influenza virus infection and exhibit high mortality and viral load. Intranasal pre- and post-treatment of neonatal mice with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), an immune modulator in respiratory viral infection of adult mice and human preterm neonates, considerably improves neonatal mice survival after influenza virus infection. We determine that both live and heat-killed intranasal LGG are equally efficacious in protection of neonates. Early in influenza infection, neonatal transcriptional responses in the lung are delayed compared to adults. These responses increase by 24 hours post-infection, demonstrating a delay in the kinetics of the neonatal anti-viral response. LGG pretreatment improves immune gene transcriptional responses during early infection and specifically upregulates type I IFN pathways. This is critical for protection, as neonatal mice intranasally pre-treated with IFNβ before influenza virus infection are also protected. Using transgenic mice, we demonstrate that the protective effect of LGG is mediated through a MyD88-dependent mechanism, specifically via TLR4. LGG can improve both early control of virus and transcriptional responsiveness and could serve as a simple and safe intervention to protect neonates.
Is there a time quantum in duration experience

Modem psychological theory states that the transmission of sensory information, as well as several aspects of motor behavior, shows periodic characteristics between 20 and 200 msec. In many cases, these time constants are derived from multimodal distributions of, for example, reaction times (Lansing, 1957), visual scanning times (Augenstine, 1955), and eye movements (Latour, 1966). The findings are interpreted as evidence for a sensory and/or motor integration period, which is considered a psychological time constant and described in terms of one of three specific theories: the discrete nonoverlapping moment (Stroud, 1955), the discrete overlapping time unit (Robinson, 1966), and the continuous running-average sampling period (Uttal, 1970). Generally speaking, psychological time is not viewed as an infinitely divisible factor, but it bears the character of a finite integration period or is built up on the basis of some final quantum. The 'quantum' theories also penetrated time perception as a more or less separate field of research. Within the framework of Treisman's model, it is assumed that the apparent duration of an interval arises from the integration of finite, nonoverlapping periods generated by an internal clock ('pulse generator'). The accelerations and decelerations of subjective time with respect to physical time are caused by speed fluctuations of the pulse generator as a function of arousal level (Treisman, 1963; see also Vroon and Van Boxtel, 1972). Creelman (1962) used the concept of a time quantum in a model describing the ability to discriminate between short intervals, and Michon (1965, 1967) directly demonstrated the existence of it in time perception.
Emérillon stress: a phonetic and phonological study

This paper explores phonetic and phonological features of the stress system in Emerillon, a Tupi-Guarani language spoken by approximately 400 people in French Guiana. Stress placement in both elicited wordlist and natural discourse data is examined. Three potential acoustic correlates of stress (fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity) are examined in order to provide quantitative verification of the discovered stress patterns. Results indicate that the domain of stress is the phrase with the metrical parse involving the formation of moraic trochees counting from the right edge of the phrase. The acoustic correlates of stress differ depending on the speaker and whether the data consists of words uttered in isolation or in connected discourse. The results for Emerillon are discussed within a broader context of comparative Tupi-Guarani stress.
SWS promoting MHb-IPN-MRN circuit opposes the theta promoting circuit, active wake and REM sleep

Hippocampus was by multisynaptic axonal tracts linked to medial habenula in my DTI study. These tracts linked hippocampus to septum, and amygdala to BNST. Septal and BNST axons passed by anteromedial thalamic nucleus to MHb, which projected to pineal gland. Question is what is the MHb doing and why it receives information from hippocampus via septum? This study explores the MHb connectivity, predicts its functional role and how it is linked to memory. Combination of known findings about the septum and MHb connectivity and function led to this circuit-based idea that posterior septum activates MHb, MHb activates IPN,and IPN stimulates MRN and its serotonin release. Proposed idea is that this MHb-IPN-MRN circuit promotes slow wave sleep (SWS), high serotonin and low acetylcholine state. My prediction is that this SWS-promoting circuit reciprocally suppresses the theta oscillations promoting circuit, linked to high acetylcholine levels in brain, and formed by supramamillary area projections to the medial septum (MS) that induces theta rhythm in hippocampus and other theta-coupled regions. The MHb-IPN-MRN pathway likely inhibits, possibly reciprocally,some regions that have stimulating input to the theta-generating SUM and MS, such as the wake promoting nucleus incertus, posterior and lateral hypothalamus and LDT, but also the REM sleep inducing neurons in LDT and PnO. Thus, proposed SWS- promoting circuit attenuates the output of theta-promoting regions, both the active wake-on and REM-on regions. The theta rhythm in wake state is linked to recording and binding information with their spatio-temporal and relational context by hippocampus, while the SWS supports rest and replay of hippocampaly stored information and their cortical reactivations, e. g. in retrosplenial cortex linked to autobiographic memory or in prefrontal cortex that can combine information from any source.
Birey-Örgüt Uyumunun İş Doyumu ve Örgüte Bağlılık Üzerine Etkisi

Genel olarak, bireyin degerleri ile orgutun degerleri arasindaki uygunluk ya da benzerlik derecesi olarak tanimlanan birey-orgut uyumu orgutlerin basarisi icin gerekli olan temel faktorlerden biridir. Organizasyonlar, kulturel degerlerde uygunluk esasli isgoren secme ve yerlestirme sureclerini kullanarak ya da sosyalizasyon taktiklerine basvurarak orgutlerinde birey-orgut uyumunu gerceklestirmelidir. Arastirmanin amaci birey-orgut uyumu, orgute baglilik ve is doyumu arasindaki iliskileri incelemektir. Bu cercevede Dalaman Uluslararasi Havalimani calisanlari uzerinde anket calismasi yapilarak birey-orgut uyumu ve sonuclarina iliskin verilere ulasilmistir. Arastirma sonuclari, birey-orgut uyumu ile orgute baglilik ve is doyumu arasinda pozitif yonde iliskilerin bulundugunu gostermistir.
Will we let computers determine what music we listen? Exploring user acceptance of music recommenders

Music recommendation systems are becoming increasingly popular, but little is known as to how users come to accept and use such systems. In this research, a framework to explain user acceptance of music recommender systems is proposed, by means of a theoretical and empirical study. The results show that the accuracy of a recommender system alone cannot explain acceptance. In particular, it was found that we should also acknowledge the importance of Compatibility, Trust, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use in order to innovate music recommendation systems.
Self-supervised Representation Learning for Continuous Control

In this work we explore a new approach for robots to teach themselves about the world simply by observing it. In particular we investigate the effectiveness of learning task-agnostic representations for continuous control tasks. We extend Time-Contrastive Networks (TCN) that learn from visual observations by embedding multiple frames jointly in the embedding space as opposed to a single frame. We show that by doing so, we are now able to encode both position and velocity attributes significantly more accurately. We test the usefulness of this self-supervised approach in a reinforcement learning setting. We show that the representations learned by agents observing themselves take random actions, or other agents perform tasks successfully, can enable the learning of continuous control policies using algorithms like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) using only the learned embeddings as input.
An Echo State Gaussian Process-Based Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Pneumatic Muscle Actuators

Pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs), a kind of soft/compliant actuators, have been attracted a great deal of attention in the studies of rehabilitation robots. However, the nonlinearities, uncertainties, hysteresis, and time-varying features of PMAs bring a lot of difficulties in their high-precision trajectory tracking tasks. In this paper, an echo state Gaussian process-based nonlinear model predictive control (ESGP-NMPC) is designed for the PMAs. The proposed strategy is comprised of an ESGP, which is suitable for modeling unknown nonlinear systems as well as measuring their uncertainties, and a gradient descent optimization algorithm for calculating the control signal sequences. Based on the Lyapunov theorem, characteristics of the closed-loop system are analyzed to guarantee the asymptotical stability. Both simulations and physical experiments are carried out to illustrate the validity of the proposed control strategy. Compared with other conventional methods, the ESGP-NMPC can achieve a better model fitting for the PMA and control performance for the high-precision tracking tasks. Note to Practitioners—High-precision control of pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs) is a vital problem when PMAs are utilized as actuators of rehabilitation robots since the patient’s safety and the performance of rehabilitation tasks are largely dependent on the accuracy of the actuators. Conventional model-based control approaches usually require relatively accurate identification of system parameters, which is difficult for the PMA, owing to its strong nonlinear and time-varying characteristics. This paper proposes a new model predictive control method based on an echo state Gaussian process that can describe the unknown dynamics of a PMA due to its universal approximation property. Through the optimization method, the controller can be efficiently realized and presents better performances than some comparatives. By applying this approach, it is possible to achieve not only high-precision control of PMAs but also a certain degree of robustness to the load.
Observing behaviour in pigeons : an investigation of the reinforcing value of the negative discriminitive stimulus

To determine i f a stimulus associated with nonreinforcement can maintain observing behaviour as predicted by Hendry's information hypothesis. three pigeons were trained i n a three-key operant chamber. On the yellow center key, periods during which food reinforcement for key pecking was available on a random-interval schedule* alternated irregularly with periods of nonreinforcement (extinction). Pecking the yellow right key producedj on a random-interval schedule, stimuli associated with the prevailing reinforcement condition on the center key: green (S+), when the random-interval schedule was in effect; red (S-), when extinction was in effect. Peeking # the yellow left key was reinforced by food on a random-interval schedule. The inclusion of this key was intended to attenuate a possible punishing effect Smight have upon observing by-arranging that reinforcement occasionally occurred on this key when reinforcement for pecking the center key was unavailable. After training, the consequences of pecking the observing key were manipulated. In one condition, S+was eliminated as a consequence and only Scould be produced. In another condition, Swas eliminated and only S+ could be produced. When the consequences of observing were only S+ or both S+ and S-, observing was maintained. When only Swas a consequence, observing extinguished. There was l i t t l e difference between the observing rates when only S+ and when both S+ and Swere consequences. The results do not support Hendry»s information theory of observing, but are consistent with reinforcement accounts of observing.
Confidence in political institutions: faith, culture, or performance?

Is there a widespread loss of faith in the core institutions of representative democracy? Based on a comparison of 17 trilateral democracies this study examines institutional confidence from the early 1980s to the early 1990s then considers explanations based on the social psychology of trusting personalities, cultural accounts based on life experiences, and theories of institutional performance. The study concludes that at national level, social trust and confidence in government and its institutions are strongly associated with each other. Social trust can help build effective social and political institutions, which can help governments perform effectively, and this in t urn encourages confidence in civic institutions.