Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of unit cell dimensions in terms of frameworks and elemental atomic diameters

Structural description in terms of frameworks — three-dimensional periodic arrangements of points which are occupied by atoms — is used as the basis of analysing the cell dimensions of phases with the MgCu2 structure (cubic) in terms of the elemental diameters of the component atoms. The MgCu2 structure is described in terms of interpenetrating homogeneous D and T' frameworks or the heterogeneous [D + T'] framework. The relative influences of the atoms occupying these three frameworks on the cell dimensions of different groups of phases that show distinct dimensional behaviour are determined. The self-coordination of atoms on the T' framework is six. Some interesting observations are made on whether the basic diameters of atoms on this framework might correspond to a coordination number of six rather than twelve which is the overall coordination number of the atoms on the framework (T').
Taxonomy Embeddings on PubMed Article Subject Headings

Machine learning approaches for hierarchical partial-orders, such as taxonomies, are of increasing interest in the research community, though practical applications have not yet emerged. The basic intuition of hierarchical embeddings is that some signal from taxonomic knowledge can be harnessed in broader machine learning problems; when we learn similarity of words using word embeddings, the similarity of lion and tiger are indistinguishable from the similarity of lion and animal. The ability to tease apart these two kinds of similarities in a machine learning setting yields improvements in quality as well as enabling the exploitation of the numerous human-curated taxonomies available across domains, while at the same time improving upon known taxonomic organization problems, such as partial or conditional membership. We explore some of the practical problems in learning taxonomies using Bayesian Networks, partial order embeddings, and box lattice embeddings, where box containment represents category containment. Using open data from PubMed articles with human assigned MeSH labels, we investigate the impact of taxonomic information, negative sampling, instance sampling, and objective functions to improve performance on the taxonomy learning problem. We discovered a particular problem for learning box embeddings for taxonomies we called the box crossing problem, and developed strategies to overcome it. Finally we make some initial contributions to using taxonomy embeddings to improve another learning problem: inferring disease (anatomical) locations from their use as subject labels in journal articles. In most experiments, after our improvements to box models, the box models outperformed the simpler Bayes Net approach as well as order embeddings.
Social Networks: Privacy Issues and Precautions

Social networks, such as Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter have experienced exponential growth and a remarkable adoption rate in recent years. These social networks are touching our lives at home and at work by providing attractive means of online social interactions and communications with family, friends and colleagues from around the corner or across the globe; however, this comes with a growing concern regarding the privacy and security risks that accompany the use of such networks. In this paper, we will investigate and discuss the different privacy issues pertaining to social networks, in addition, we will propose some precaution measures that should be applied to tackle these issues.
Ultragentle manipulation of delicate structures using a soft robotic gripper

A nanofiber-reinforced soft silicone gripper facilitates gentle handling of fragile marine organisms. Here, we present ultragentle soft robotic actuators capable of grasping delicate specimens of gelatinous marine life. Although state-of-the-art soft robotic manipulators have demonstrated gentle gripping of brittle animals (e.g., corals) and echinoderms (e.g., sea cucumbers) in the deep sea, they are unable to nondestructively grasp more fragile soft-bodied organisms, such as jellyfish. Through an exploration of design parameters and laboratory testing of individual actuators, we confirmed that our nanofiber-reinforced soft actuators apply sufficiently low contact pressure to ensure minimal harm to typical jellyfish species. We then built a gripping device using several actuators and evaluated its underwater grasping performance in the laboratory. By assessing the gripper’s region of acquisition and robustness to external forces, we gained insight into the necessary precision and speed with which grasping maneuvers must be performed to achieve successful collection of samples. Last, we demonstrated successful manipulation of three live jellyfish species in an aquarium setting using a hand-held prototype gripper. Overall, our ultragentle gripper demonstrates an improvement in gentle sample collection compared with existing deep-sea sampling devices. Extensions of this technology may improve a variety of in situ characterization techniques used to study the ecological and genetic features of deep-sea organisms.
Vehicle Classification with Convolutional Neural Network on Motion Blurred Images

Vehicle classification is an important research area of Intelligent Traffic System. We first collect large set of static and clear vehicle images from internet and split the images into train and validation sets. Then we train the dataset with convolutional neural network (CNN). Experimental results show that CNN achieve high accuracy on the validation dataset. However, the trained model achieves poor performance on motion blurred images captured from videos. This paper proposes a new method for dealing with motion blurred images. Random blurred images are generated during training in order to optimize the network parameters. The final experimental results show that our proposed method achieves better performance than training directly with CNN.
Analysis of the features of untrained human movements based on the multichannel EEG for controlling anthropomorphic robotic arm

We have considered time-frequency and spatio-temporal structure of electrical brain activity, associated with real and imaginary movements based on the multichannel EEG recordings. We have found that along with wellknown effects of event-related desynchronization (ERD) in α/μ – rhythms and β – rhythm, these types of activity are accompanied by the either ERS (for real movement) or ERD (for imaginary movement) in low-frequency δ – band, located mostly in frontal lobe. This may be caused by the associated processes of decision making, which take place when subject is deciding either perform the movement or imagine it. Obtained features have been found in untrained subject which it its turn gives the possibility to use our results in the development of brain-computer interfaces for controlling anthropomorphic robotic arm.
Tracing IgE-Producing Cells in Allergic Patients

Immunoglobulin E (IgE) is the key immunoglobulin in the pathogenesis of IgE associated allergic diseases affecting 30% of the world population. Recent data suggest that allergen-specific IgE levels in serum of allergic patients are sustained by two different mechanisms: inducible IgE production through allergen exposure, and continuous IgE production occurring even in the absence of allergen stimulus that maintains IgE levels. This assumption is supported by two observations. First, allergen exposure induces transient increases of systemic IgE production. Second, reduction in IgE levels upon depletion of IgE from the blood of allergic patients using immunoapheresis is only temporary and IgE levels quickly return to pre-treatment levels even in the absence of allergen exposure. Though IgE production has been observed in the peripheral blood and locally in various human tissues (e.g., nose, lung, spleen, bone marrow), the origin and main sites of IgE production in humans remain unknown. Furthermore, IgE-producing cells in humans have yet to be fully characterized. Capturing IgE-producing cells is challenging not only because current staining technologies are inadequate, but also because the cells are rare, they are difficult to discriminate from cells bearing IgE bound to IgE-receptors, and plasma cells express little IgE on their surface. However, due to the central role in mediating both the early and late phases of allergy, free IgE, IgE-bearing effector cells and IgE-producing cells are important therapeutic targets. Here, we discuss current knowledge and unanswered questions regarding IgE production in allergic patients as well as possible therapeutic approaches targeting IgE.
Neurokinin-1 Receptor Antagonists against Hepatoblastoma

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common malignant liver tumor that occurs during childhood. The prognosis of children with HB is favorable when a complete surgical resection of the tumor is possible, but for high-risk patients, the prognosis is much worse. New anti-HB strategies must be urgently developed. The undecapeptide substance P (SP) after binding to the neurokinin-1 receptor (NK-1R), regulates cancer cell proliferation, exerts an antiapoptotic effect, induces cell migration for invasion/metastasis, and triggers endothelial cell proliferation for neoangiogenesis. HB samples and cell lines overexpress NK-1R (the truncated form) and SP elicits HB cell proliferation. One of these strategies could be the use of non-peptide NK-1R antagonists. These antagonists exert, in a concentration-dependent manner, an antiproliferative action against HB cells (inhibit cell proliferation and induce the death of HB cells by apoptosis). NK-1R antagonists exerted a dual effect in HB: Decreased both tumor volume and angiogenic activity. Thus, the SP/NK-1R system is an important target in the HB treatment and NK-1R antagonists could act as specific drugs against HB cells. In this review, we update and discuss the use of NK-1R antagonists in the treatment of HB.
The (p)ppGpp-binding GTPase Era promotes rRNA processing and cold adaptation in Staphylococcus aureus

Ribosome assembly cofactors are widely conserved across all domains of life. One such group, the ribosome-associated GTPases (RA-GTPase), act as molecular switches to coordinate ribosome assembly. We previously identified the Staphylococcus aureus RA-GTPase Era as a target for the stringent response alarmone (p)ppGpp, with binding leading to inhibition of GTPase activity. Era is highly conserved throughout the bacterial kingdom and is essential in many species, although the function of Era in ribosome assembly is unclear. Here we show that Era is not essential in S. aureus but is important for 30S ribosomal subunit assembly. Protein interaction studies reveal that Era interacts with the 16S rRNA endonuclease YbeY and the DEAD-box RNA helicase CshA. We determine that both Era and CshA are required for growth at suboptimal temperatures and rRNA processing. Era and CshA also form direct interactions with the (p)ppGpp synthetase RelSau, with RelSau positively impacting the GTPase activity of Era but negatively affecting the helicase activity of CshA. We propose that in its GTP-bound form, Era acts as a hub protein on the ribosome to direct enzymes involved in rRNA processing/degradation and ribosome subunit assembly to their site of action. This activity is impeded by multiple components of the stringent response, contributing to the slowed growth phenotype synonymous with this stress response pathway.
Limited Pre-Speech Auditory Modulation in Individuals Who Stutter: Data and Hypotheses

Purpose We review and interpret our recent series of studies investigating motor-to-auditory influences during speech movement planning in fluent speakers and speakers who stutter. In those studies, we recorded auditory evoked potentials in response to probe tones presented immediately prior to speaking or at the equivalent time in no-speaking control conditions. As a measure of pre-speech auditory modulation (PSAM), we calculated changes in auditory evoked potential amplitude in the speaking conditions relative to the no-speaking conditions. Whereas adults who do not stutter consistently showed PSAM, this phenomenon was greatly reduced or absent in adults who stutter. The same between-group difference was observed in conditions where participants expected to hear their prerecorded speech played back without actively producing it, suggesting that the speakers who stutter use inefficient forward modeling processes rather than inefficient motor command generation processes. Compared with fluent participants, adults who stutter showed both less PSAM and less auditory–motor adaptation when producing speech while exposed to formant-shifted auditory feedback. Across individual participants, however, PSAM and auditory–motor adaptation did not correlate in the typically fluent group, and they were negatively correlated in the stuttering group. Interestingly, speaking with a consistent 100-ms delay added to the auditory feedback signal–normalized PSAM in speakers who stutter, and there no longer was a between-group difference in this condition. Conclusions Combining our own data with human and animal neurophysiological evidence from other laboratories, we interpret the overall findings as suggesting that (a) speech movement planning modulates auditory processing in a manner that may optimize its tuning characteristics for monitoring feedback during speech production and, (b) in conditions with typical auditory feedback, adults who stutter do not appropriately modulate the auditory system prior to speech onset. Lack of modulation of speakers who stutter may lead to maladaptive feedback-driven movement corrections that manifest themselves as repetitive movements or postural fixations.
Complex intervention in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) care in Germany: a study protocol of an evaluation study with a controlled mixed-methods design

Introduction The current practice of service delivery in Germany for people with complex communication needs (CCN) who are in need of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is characterised by diverse problems, including a lack of clarity in the responsibilities of the service providers involved. To address these issues a new service delivery model has been put in place, implemented in three AAC counselling centres for patients with a particular health insurance across Germany. The implementation of a new service delivery model aims to improve individualised service delivery. The model goes beyond standard care by adding case management, counselling, AAC training and, if needed, AAC therapy. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this complex intervention. Methods and analysis In consideration of the complexity of the new service delivery model, formative and summative evaluation will be conducted. The formative evaluation will provide data based on qualitative and quantitative assessments of the competences and perspectives of all involved stakeholders, including a proxy measurement of persons with CCN. The summative evaluation will include a controlled study design as the new service delivery model will be compared against the service delivery in an existing contract and against data gathered from caregivers of AAC users provided with standard care. With the exception of the individual interviews the data will be collected from proxies—that is, informal and formal caregivers. Ethics and dissemination Data collection, storage and evaluation meet the currently valid data protection regulations. Consultation by the responsible data protection officer of the Oldenburg Medical School and a positive vote from its Ethics Committee were obtained prior to the start of the study. Dissemination strategies include the presentation of the obtained data and results in the form of publications and at conferences. Trial registration number DRKS00013628.
Overcoming the stability, toxicity, and biodegradation challenges of tumor stimuli-responsive inorganic nanoparticles for delivery of cancer therapeutics

ABSTRACT Introduction: Stimuli-responsive nanomaterials for cancer therapy have attracted much interest recently due to their potential for improving the current standard of care. Different types of inorganic nanoparticles are widely employed for the development of these strategies, but in some cases safety concerns hinder their clinical translation. This review aims to provide an overview of the challenges that inorganic nanoparticles face regarding their stability, toxicity, and biodegradability, as well as the strategies that have been proposed to overcome them. Areas covered: The available information about the in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility, as well as the biodegradability of the following nanoparticles, is presented and discussed: superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, graphene and mesoporous nanoparticles made of silicon or silicon oxide. The toxicology of inorganic nanoparticles is greatly affected by many physicochemical parameters, and their surface modification emerges as the main intervention to improve their biocompatibility and tailor their performance for specific biomedical applications. Expert opinion: Even though many different studies have been performed regarding the biological behavior of inorganic nanoparticles, long-term in vivo data is still scarce, limiting our capacity to evaluate the proposed nanomaterials for clinical use. The role of biodegradability in different therapeutic contexts is also discussed.
Implementation of a Behavioral Intervention in a Juvenile Detention Center: Do Individual Characteristics Matter?

A sample of 129 (73% male) youth admitted consecutively into a juvenile detention center were used to examine individual characteristics that contribute the implementation of a behavioral intervention within a juvenile detention center. Given that a system of rewards and punishments is considered the mechanism of change within many behavioral interventions, individuals risk characteristics (i.e., proactive and reactive aggression, behavioral inhibition, subsystems of behavioral activation, callous–unemotional traits, perceived containment) were examined in relation to the rewards (i.e., positive feedback) and punishments (i.e., fines) used by the facility. Data were collected via structured interviews with youth and archival data. The number of days youth spent in detention was the only predictor of positive feedback received. Number of days in detention, sex, and race were related to fines. Behavioral activation drive was the only individual characteristic related to fines. Implications of findings are discussed.
Independent and concomitant associations of gestational diabetes and maternal obesity to perinatal outcome: A register-based study

Aims Gestational diabetes (GDM) is often accompanied by maternal overweight. Our aim was to evaluate the separate and concomitant effects of GDM and maternal overweight/obesity on perinatal outcomes. Methods We used the Finnish Medical Birth Register to identify all 24,577 women with a singleton pregnancy who delivered in 2009 in Finland and underwent an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Women were divided into groups according to the result of OGTT (GDM/no GDM) and pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI): normal weight (≤24.9 kg/m2), overweight (25.0–29.9 kg/m2), and obese (≥30.0 kg/m2). Primary outcomes included macrosomia, caesarean delivery, and treatment at neonatal ward. Normal weight women without GDM constituted the reference group. Results Compared to reference group, overweight or obese women without GDM had an increased risk of macrosomia [odds ratio adjusted for age, parity, smoking and socio-economic status (aOR)1.18 (95% CI 1.09–1.28) and 1.50 (95% CI 1.19–1.88)], and caesarean delivery [aORs 1.17 (95% CI 1.07–1.28) and 1.52 (95% CI 1.37–1.69)], respectively. In normal weight GDM women the risk of macrosomia [aOR 1.17 (95% CI 0.85–1.62)] and caesarean delivery [aOR 1.10 (95% CI 0.96–1.27)] was not significantly increased as compared to normal weight women without GDM. GDM increased the risk of treatment at neonatal ward in all BMI categories and maternal obesity without GDM was also a risk factor for treatment at neonatal ward. Interaction p values between BMI and GDM on these outcomes were <0.001. Conclusions Maternal overweight and obesity without GDM increased the risk of macrosomia and caesarean delivery when compared to the reference group. These risks were amplified when overweight/obesity was accompanied by GDM. Obesity without GDM was a risk factor for treatment at neonatal ward; GDM increased this risk in all BMI categories. Our results suggest that especially maternal obesity should be considered as a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes and GDM further amplifies this risk.
Female HPA axis displays heightened sensitivity to pre-pubertal stress

Abstract Early life stress (ELS) is a risk factor in the development of psychiatric disorders. The underlying biological mechanisms governing this phenomenon are not fully understood, but dysregulation of stress responses is likely to play a key role. Males and females differ in their propensity to develop psychiatric disorders, with far higher rates of anxiety, major depressive disorder, affective disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder found in women. We hypothesized that sex differences in response to ELS may play a crucial role in differential vulnerability between the sexes. To test this, we evaluated the consequences of pre-pubertal stress (PPS) on the HPA axis in adult female and male Lister Hooded rats. PPS animals were exposed to swim, restraint and elevated platform stress on postnatal days 25–27, controls remained in their home cage. Once adult, animals were either a) sacrificed directly and brains collected or b) sacrificed 20 minutes or 1 week after a social test and trunk blood collected. In the female hippocampal formation, PPS increased expression of FKBP5 and AVPR1a. In the female prefrontal cortex, PPS resulted in increased glucocorticoid receptor expression, increased glucocorticoid:mineralocorticoid (GR:MR) receptor expression ratio and decreased AVPR1a expression. Females exposed to PPS did not show the normal rise in blood corticosterone levels following a social interaction test. In contrast, PPS did not alter the expression of oxytocin or oxytocin receptors, and no effects of PPS were seen in males. However, striking sex differences were found. Females had higher oxytocin receptor expression in the prefrontal cortex and AVPR1a and oxytocin expression in the hypothalamus, whereas males demonstrated higher expression of GR, MR, GR:MR, FKBP5 and oxytocin receptor in the hypothalamus. These results demonstrate heightened reactivity of the female HPA axis to PPS and may help explain why in humans females display an increased susceptibility to certain stress-related psychopathologies. LAY SUMMARY Women are at greater risk of developing several psychiatric illnesses. Using a rodent model, we show that the female stress system is more reactive to the lasting effects of early life stress. This heightened reactivity of the female stress response may help explain why women are at a greater risk of developing psychiatric disorders.