Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local and Systemic Metabolic Responses during Light-Induced Rapid Systemic Signaling1[OPEN]

Rapid systemic signaling is accompanied by coordinated metabolic changes in local, transport, and systemic tissues. Plants evolved multiple signaling pathways that transduce light-related signals between leaves. These are thought to improve light stress acclimation in a process termed systemic acquired acclimation. Although responses to light stress have been studied extensively in local leaves, and to a lesser degree in systemic leaves, little is known about the responses that occur in the different tissues that connect the local to the systemic leaves. These could be important in defining the specificity of the systemic response as well as in supporting the generation of different systemic signals. Here, we report that local application of light stress to one rosette leaf of bolting Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants resulted in a metabolic response that encompassed local, systemic and transport tissues (stem tissues that connect the local to the systemic tissues), demonstrating a high degree of physical and metabolic continuity between different tissues throughout the plant. Our results further indicate that the response of many of the systemically altered metabolites is associated with the function of the reactive oxygen species wave and that the levels of eight different metabolites are altered in a similar manner in all tissues tested (local, systemic, and transport). These compounds could define a core metabolic signature for light stress that propagates from the local to the systemic leaves. Our findings suggest that metabolic changes occurring in cells that connect the local and systemic tissues play an important role in systemic acquired acclimation and could convey specificity to the rapid systemic response of plants to light stress.
Short-term post-implantation dynamics of in vitro engineered human microvascularized adipose tissues

Engineered adipose tissues are developed for their use as substitutes for tissue replacement in reconstructive surgery. To ensure a timely perfusion of the grafted substitutes, different strategies can be used such as the incorporation of an endothelial component. In this study, we engineered human adipose tissue substitutes comprising of functional adipocytes as well as a natural extracellular matrix using the self-assembly approach, without the use of exogenous scaffolding elements. Human microvascular endothelial cells (hMVECs) were incorporated during tissue production in vitro and we hypothesized that their presence would favor the early connection with the host vascular network translating into functional enhancement after implantation into nude mice in comparison to the substitutes that were not enriched in hMVECs. In vitro, no significant differences were observed between the substitutes in terms of histological aspects. After implantation, both groups presented numerous adipocytes and an abundant matrix in addition to the presence of host capillaries within the grafts. The substitutes thickness and volume were not significantly different between groups over the short-term time course of 14 days (d). For the microvascularized adipose tissues, human CD31 staining revealed a human capillary network connecting with the host microvasculature as early as 3 d after grafting. The detection of murine red blood cells within human CD31+ structures confirmed the functionality of the human capillary network. By analyzing the extent of the global vascularization achieved, a tendency towards increased total capillary network surface and volume was revealed for prevascularized tissues over 14 d. Therefore, applying this strategy on thicker reconstructed adipose tissues with rate-limiting oxygen diffusion might procure added benefits and prove useful to provide voluminous substitutes for patients suffering from adipose tissue loss or defects.
Lifestyle Patterns as a Modifiable Risk Factor for Late-life Cognitive Decline: A Narrative Review Regarding Dementia Prevention.

BACKGROUND Dementias due to neurodegenerative disorders and more specifically, Alzheimer's disease (AD) are the most frequent of all diseases within the industrialized world. Besides this alarming fact, it is noted too that almost three-quarter of people with AD reside in low or middle- income nations. In recent years, cognitive and behavioral neuroscientists have focused on a possible correlation between environmental agents and genetic risk factors for these dementias. METHODS In this narrative review, a close review of Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System was conducted. The authors aimed at analyzing possible interactions between lifestyle patterns and major risk factors responsible for cognitive decline and dementia, considering that the prevention or treatment of midlife modifiable risks may possibly reduce population-wide late-life pathological neurodegeneration. RESULTS This review focuses on modifiable risk factors for late-life cognitive decline. A growing number of studies have indicated that the impact of genetics and epigenetic factors on dementia risk is dependent on different lifestyle factors, ranging from leisure activities and nutritional habits, through to social interaction and toxic exposure. CONCLUSION Despite all evidence regarding modifiable risk factors possibly reducing the risk of developing dementia in later life, many unanswered questions remain regarding the direct influence of these variables in later life. People who regularly and actively participate in different lifelong activities (social, cultural and intellectual) do tend to perform better on formal cognitive tests, experience fewer cognitive complaints, and are less likely to develop neurodegenerative disorders.
gprHOG and the popularity of Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) for Buried Threat Detection in Ground-Penetrating Radar

Substantial research has been devoted to the development of algorithms that automate buried threat detection (BTD) with ground penetrating radar (GPR) data, resulting in a large number of proposed algorithms. One popular algorithm GPR-based BTD, originally applied by Torrione et al., 2012, is the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) feature. In a recent large-scale comparison among five veteran institutions, a modified version of HOG referred to here as "gprHOG", performed poorly compared to other modern algorithms. In this paper, we provide experimental evidence demonstrating that the modifications to HOG that comprise gprHOG result in a substantially better-performing algorithm. The results here, in conjunction with the large-scale algorithm comparison, suggest that HOG is not competitive with modern GPR-based BTD algorithms. Given HOG's popularity, these results raise some questions about many existing studies, and suggest gprHOG (and especially HOG) should be employed with caution in future studies.
Risk "Attention" or "Adventure": A Qualitative Study of Novelty and Familiarity in Music Listening

While recommendations systems have shown great improvements in generally predicting relevant items, they still face challenges in achieving the delicate balance between novel and familiar options. Existing works in pursuit to address the challenge have focused on the activity logs and algorithms while largely ignoring the userspeci c needs and challenges in the balance users seek between novelty and familiarity. As a result, the assumptions imposed on user actions based on activity logs are limited and could lead to misinterpretation of users’ needs. To better understand user needs, in this paper, we study users engaged in online music listening activity to understand users’ interpretations and rationales in their novel and familiar music selections. We show that a combination of factors, both explicit and implicit, such as boredom, need of attention, risk of a bad selection; that play in uential role in users’ novel and familiar music selections. We discuss the ndings and the implications for user interactions and user modeling that could help better understand what, when, and how users seek the balance between novelty or familiarity in their recommendations.
A Probabilistic Analysis of the Nxt Forging Algorithm

We discuss the forging algorithm of Nxt from a probabilistic point of view, and obtain explicit formulas and estimates for several important quantities, such as the probability that an account generates a block, the length of the longest sequence of consecutive blocks generated by one account, and the probability that one concurrent blockchain wins over an- other one. Also, we discuss some attack vectors related to splitting an account into many smaller ones.
Leukocyte Telomere Length and Clinical Outcomes of Advanced Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients with Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Treatment.

Gefitinib is currently one of the mostly used epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) recommended for treating nonsmall cell lung cancer. However, drug resistance is observed among the majority of patients after initial treatment. Factors that predict treatment prognosis and drug resistance to EGFR-TKIs remain elusive. The objective of this study is to investigate whether leukocyte relative telomere length (RTL) can be used as a prognostic biomarker of EGFR-TKIs therapy. In this study, 369 patients with stage IIIB or IV lung adenocarcinoma were recruited and treated with gefitinib as first-line monotherapy. Leukocyte RTL of each patient was measured using quantitative polymerase chain reaction protocol and calculated according to Cawthon's formula. Finally, we examined the association between leukocyte RTL and prognosis or drug resistance of advanced lung adenocarcinoma to gefitinib treatment. Our results indicated that compared with long RTL, short leukocyte RTL was significantly associated with poor prognosis in all patients after gefitinib treatment (overall survival [OS]: 12.9 months vs. 17.8 months, p = 1.2 × 10-4; progression-free survival: 7.8 months vs. 13.0 months, p = 0.043). In addition, statistically significant association between short leukocyte RTL and short OS still existed among the EGFR mutant patients (hazards ratio [HR] = 1.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.28-2.12; p = 0.006). Besides EGFR mutation status, short RTL also contributed to remarkably elevated risk of gefitinib primary resistance (HR = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.05-2.15, p = 0.027). Our results highlight the clinical potential of leukocyte RTL as a novel biomarker in advanced lung adenocarcinoma treated with EGFR-TKIs.
PhotoSafer: Content-Based and Context-Aware Private Photo Protection for Smartphones

Nowadays many people store photos in smartphones. Many of the photos contain sensitive, private information, such as a photocopy of driver's license and credit card. An arising privacy concern is with the unauthorized accesses to such private photos by installed apps. The Android permission system offers all-or-nothing access to photos stored on smartphones, which is still coarse-grained control and makes users unaware of the exact behavior of installed apps. Our analysis found that 82% of the top 200 free apps have complete access to stored photos and network on a user's smartphone. In addition, our user survey revealed that 87.5% of 112 respondents are not aware that certain apps can access their photos without informing users, and all the respondents believe that the stored photos on their smartphones contain different types of private information. Hence, we propose PhotoSafer, a content-based, context-aware private photo protection system for Android phones. PhotoSafer can detect private photos based on photo content with a well-trained deep convolutional neural network, and control access to photos based on system status (e.g., screen is locked) and app running status (e.g., background). Evaluations demonstrate that PhotoSafer can accurately identify private photos in real time. The effectiveness and efficiency of the implemented prototype system show the potential for practical use.
Designing Interactive Visualizations of Personalized Review Data for a Hotel Recommender System

Online reviews extracted from social media are being used increasingly in recommender systems, typically to enhance prediction accuracy. A somewhat less studied avenue of research aims to investigate the underlying relationships that arise between users, items, and the topics mentioned in reviews. Identifying these—often implicit—relationships could be beneficial for at least a couple of reasons. First, they would allow recommender systems to personalize reviews based on a combination of both topic and user similarity. Second, they can facilitate the development of novel interactive visualizations that complement and help explain recommendations even further. In this paper, we report on our ongoing work to personalize user reviews and visualize them in an interactive manner, using hotel recommending as an example domain. We also discuss several possible interactive mechanisms and consider their potential benefits towards increasing users’ satisfaction.
Directed-Info GAIL: Learning Hierarchical Policies from Unsegmented Demonstrations using Directed Information

The use of imitation learning to learn a single policy for a complex task that has multiple modes or hierarchical structure can be challenging. In fact, previous work has shown that when the modes are known, learning separate policies for each mode or sub-task can greatly improve the performance of imitation learning. In this work, we discover the interaction between sub-tasks from their resulting state-action trajectory sequences using a directed graphical model. We propose a new algorithm based on the generative adversarial imitation learning framework which automatically learns sub-task policies from unsegmented demonstrations. Our approach maximizes the directed information flow in the graphical model between sub-task latent variables and their generated trajectories. We also show how our approach connects with the existing Options framework, which is commonly used to learn hierarchical policies.
Preparation and Enrichment Properties of Magnetic Dodecyl Chitosan/Silica Composite for Emerging Bisphenol Contaminants

Magnetic dodecyl chitosan/silica composite was synthesized and characterized for the enrichment of emerging bisphenol contaminants. The result demonstrated that bispehnol A, bisphenol AF, bisphenol F, and bisphenol S can be efficiently extracted via the resulting composite from aqueous solution. The adsorption rate of four investigated bisphenols on the resulting composite was achieved in the range of 87–99% within 15 min. Bispehnol A was taken as a representative adsorbate to investigate the adsorption studies in detail. The hydrophobic interaction was proposed as the principal mechanism for the adsorption of BPs. The satisfactory reusability of the resulting composite can be quickly achieved by magnetic separation technologies. Magnetic dodecyl chitosan/silica composite has a potential to be applied as a type of efficient and easily recyclable sorbent for the removal of trace organic pollutants from aqueous sample.
90th Anniversary Commentary: Obesity among Offspring of US Immigrants: After 20 Years, a Need to Safeguard Children from the Obesogenic Environment.

Sequencing the human genome and advances in the understand-ing of molecular mechanisms of disease have stimulated much excitement in “personalized medicine. ” But despite some no-table accomplishments, genetic knowledge has not importantly informed chronic disease prevention on a population level. Indeed,the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes show no signs of abating, contributing to a reversal in the decades-long decline in cardiovascular disease and a historic increase in US mortality rates (1). Often lost in the focus on genetic discovery is the overwhelming impact of environment on population health, despite individual variations in risk, as shown by the landmark study we celebrate here. Analogous to changes in the patterns of cancer prevalence among Japanese immigrants first documented in the mid-20th century (2), Popkin and Udry (3) provided early evidence that rates of obesity among immigrants increased across successive generations, eventually coming to reflect those of the general US population.
Maternal Melatonin Therapy Attenuates Methyl-Donor Diet-Induced Programmed Hypertension in Male Adult Rat Offspring

Although pregnant women are advised to consume methyl-donor food, some reports suggest an adverse outcome. We investigated whether maternal melatonin therapy can prevent hypertension induced by a high methyl-donor diet. Female Sprague-Dawley rats received either a normal diet, a methyl-deficient diet (L-MD), or a high methyl-donor diet (H-MD) during gestation and lactation. Male offspring were assigned to four groups (n = 7–8/group): control, L-MD, H-MD, and H-MD rats were given melatonin (100 mg/L) with their drinking water throughout the period of pregnancy and lactation (H-MD+M). At 12 weeks of age, male offspring exposed to a L-MD or a H-MD diet developed programmed hypertension. Maternal melatonin therapy attenuated high methyl-donor diet-induced programmed hypertension. A maternal L-MD diet and H-MD diet caused respectively 938 and 806 renal transcripts to be modified in adult offspring. The protective effects of melatonin against programmed hypertension relate to reduced oxidative stress, increased urinary NO2− level, and reduced renal expression of sodium transporters. A H-MD or L-MD diet may upset the balance of methylation status, leading to alterations of renal transcriptome and programmed hypertension. A better understanding of reprogramming effects of melatonin might aid in developing a therapeutic strategy for the prevention of hypertension in adult offspring exposed to an excessive maternal methyl-supplemented diet.
Carcass yields, muscle amino acid and fatty acid profiles, and antioxidant indices of broilers supplemented with synbiotic and/or organic acids

The objective of the current research was to explore the possible impacts of dietary supplementation with synbiotic and/or organic acids (OA) on the performance traits, carcass yields and muscle amino acid and fatty acid (FA) profiles of broilers. Randomly, a total of 160 day-old chicks (Ross 308) were assigned into four equal groups (40 birds each), with each group subdivided into eight replicates (five birds/pen). The control group (CON) fed the basal diet with no supplements, while diets of the treated groups were supplemented with OA (Sodium butyrate 40%; 1 g/kg), synbiotic (comprised Bacillus subtilis, Saccharomyces cerivisiae, Streptococcus faecium, Mannan-Oligosaccharides and β-Glucan; 1 g/kg) and equal mix of OA and synbiotic (2 g/kg). Broilers fed the diets supplemented with synbiotic or synbiotic plus OA produced a significantly higher feed utilization efficiency (p = 0.021) and carcass yields (p = 0.038) than the CON and OA-supplemented groups. The group fed the diet supplemented with the synbiotic showed lowered serum cholesterol (p = 0.049), triglycerides (p = 0.001) and very low density lipoprotein (p = 0.032) when compared with the CON group. Regarding the polyunsaturated FA (PUFA) of breast muscles, synbiotic-supplemented birds had significantly lower n-6:n-3 ratio (p = 0.047), however, a greater hypocholesterolaemic to hypercholesterolaemic FA (H/H) ratio was reported when compared with the CON group (p = 0.002). Among the essential amino acids, the contents of leucine and methionine in the breast (p = 0.032 and 0.007 respectively) and thigh (p = 0.023 and 0.003 respectively) muscles were greater in the synbiotic-supplemented birds compared with the CON group. In conclusion, the synbiotic-supplemented diet improved the PUFA:SFA, n-6:n-3 and H/H ratios by altering the FA composition of broiler muscles, which are important with regards to human health.
GLAD: GLocalized Anomaly Detection via Active Feature Space Suppression

We propose an algorithm called GLAD (GLocalized Anomaly Detection) that allows end-users to retain the use of simple and understandable global anomaly detectors by automatically learning their local relevance to specific data instances using label feedback. The key idea is to place a uniform prior on the relevance of each member of the anomaly detection ensemble over the input feature space via a neural network trained on unlabeled instances, and tune the weights of the neural network to adjust the local relevance of each ensemble member using all labeled instances. Our experiments on synthetic and real-world data show the effectiveness of GLAD in learning the local relevance of ensemble members and discovering anomalies via label feedback.
CNN-SVO: Improving the Mapping in Semi-Direct Visual Odometry Using Single-Image Depth Prediction

Reliable feature correspondence between frames is a critical step in visual odometry (VO) and visual simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) algorithms. In comparison with existing VO and V-SLAM algorithms, semi-direct visual odometry (SVO) has two main advantages that lead to state-of-the-art frame rate camera motion estimation: direct pixel correspondence and efficient implementation of probabilistic mapping method. This paper improves the SVO mapping by initializing the mean and the variance of the depth at a feature location according to the depth prediction from a single-image depth prediction network. By significantly reducing the depth uncertainty of the initialized map point (i.e., small variance centred about the depth prediction), the benefits are twofold: reliable feature correspondence between views and fast convergence to the true depth in order to create new map points. We evaluate our method with two outdoor datasets: KITTI dataset and Oxford Robotcar dataset. The experimental results indicate that improved SVO mapping results in increased robustness and camera tracking accuracy. The implementation of this work is available at https: //github.com/yan99033/CNN-SVO
Integration of anatomical and radiological analysis suggests more segments in the human kidney

An increasing number of observations have called the general scheme of five renal segments into question: anatomists, radiologists, and surgeons have reported discrepancies between Graves's scheme and morphological observations. The aims of the present study are: (1) to assess the correspondence between a virtual and a real vascular cast of the kidney; (2) to analyze the arterial anatomy with reference to the renal segments. Fifteen kidneys were injected with acrylic resins to obtain vascular casts, which were also analyzed by computed tomography. A mean of 6.3 (range 4–8) avascular fissures was found, indicating a mean of 7.3 segments (range 5–9). In the superior and middle territories there was a single segment in 4 (26.7%) and 8 (53.3%) cases, respectively, and there were two segments in 11 (73.3%) and in 7 (46.7%) cases, respectively. In the inferior territory there was a single segment in two cases (13.3%), two segments in nine (60%), and three segments in four (26.7%). A mean segmental volume of 550.5 mm3 was calculated; the posterior (1,030.1 mm3, 28.9%) and inferior (450.3 mm3, 24.2%) segments were the largest. More third order branches were identified in the inferior segments than in the other segments (three branches of the inferior segmental artery in 26.6%). According to these data the inferior segment occupies the inferior pole, extending both anteriorly and posteriorly. In conclusion, the high correspondence between a virtual and a real vascular cast permits more segments to be identified than those described by Graves, and the volume of each segment can be calculated. Clin. Anat. , 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.