Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The COMT Val158Met Polymorphism and Reaction to a Transgression: Findings of Genetic Associations in Both Chinese and German Samples

After a transgression, people often either tend to avoid the transgressor or seek revenge. These tendencies can be investigated via a trait approach and surprisingly little is known about their biological underpinnings. One promising candidate gene polymorphism, which may influence individual differences in avoidance of a transgressor and vengefulness, is the COMT Val158Met (rs4680) polymorphism known to affect dopaminergic signaling and among others brain activity in situations in which people punish others for their behavior. We therefore investigated the molecular genetics of individual differences in Avoidance Motivation and vengefulness with a focus on this polymorphism. Possible genetic associations were first investigated in a sample of N = 730 Chinese participants (n = 196 females) using buccal cells to extract the DNA for genotyping. To replicate the findings we carried out a parallelized investigation in a sample of N = 585 German participants (n = 399 females). Chinese and German versions of the TRIM-12 and the Vengeance Scale were implemented to assess individual differences in tendencies to react to a transgression. Results show that Met allele carriers of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism (Val/Met and Met/Met) score significantly higher on the tendency to avoid a transgressor in the Chinese male and female samples, with an especially pronounced effect in the female subgroup. The same effect could be found in the German sample, again especially in females. Additionally, carrying a Met allele was associated with higher vengefulness in the Chinese sample only, especially in males. The present findings indicate that the COMT Val158Met polymorphism might influence individual differences in the motivation to avoid transgressors across cultures, especially in females. However, its association with vengefulness seems to be more complex and may exhibit some cultural and gender specific effects.
A Reference Architecture for Integrating Safety and Security Applications on Railway Command and Control Systems

In critical infrastructures such as railway systems, the continuous and resilient availability of safety critical functions residing on actuator and sensor components must be ensured. Since these components are also more and more connected using the Internet Protocol (IP), they additionally require security functions to provide protection against attackers. Moreover, the railway infrastructure is highly distributed, with its critical components residing at the track side easily accessible to attackers. Thus, a continuous proofing that the safety-critical systems are not manipulated is required, too. The (safety) certification of such safety-critical systems covers both the hardware components and corresponding software components that compose a specific safety-critical application. Since security functions are currently not in use, they are not part of the certification. However, the integration of security functions is imperative to provide the basis for preventing or detecting manipulations of the system. In essence, co-residing security functions are required to retain and assure the trusted interoperability of safety critical systems integrated in the rapidly growing number of newly deployed control networks based on the IP. Thus, it is required that a given safety certification (and the given guarantees) must not be violated by the integration of security functions. In this paper, we present the first results of the ongoing HASELNUSS project1 by introducing the Haselnuss Reference Architecture (HRA) for Railway Command and Control Systems (CCS), that allows uncertified security functions to reside on the same hardware device as certified safety functions; without voiding the certification of these safety functions.
Emergent simplicity in microbial community assembly

Interchanging species of similar function Under natural conditions, bacteria form mixed, interacting communities. Understanding how such communities assemble and stabilize is important in a range of contexts, from biotechnological applications to what happens in our guts. Goldford et al. sampled the microbial communities from soil and plants containing hundreds to thousands of sequence variants. The organisms were passaged after culture in low concentrations of single carbon sources and were cross-fed with each other's metabolites; then, the resulting communities were sequenced using 16S ribosomal RNA, and the outcomes were modeled mathematically. The mix of species that survived under steady conditions converged reproducibly to reflect the experimentally imposed conditions rather than the mix of species initially inoculated—although at coarse phylogenetic levels, taxonomic patterns persisted. Science, this issue p. 469 Microbial communities assemble into similar family-level compositions containing divergent genera and species. A major unresolved question in microbiome research is whether the complex taxonomic architectures observed in surveys of natural communities can be explained and predicted by fundamental, quantitative principles. Bridging theory and experiment is hampered by the multiplicity of ecological processes that simultaneously affect community assembly in natural ecosystems. We addressed this challenge by monitoring the assembly of hundreds of soil- and plant-derived microbiomes in well-controlled minimal synthetic media. Both the community-level function and the coarse-grained taxonomy of the resulting communities are highly predictable and governed by nutrient availability, despite substantial species variability. By generalizing classical ecological models to include widespread nonspecific cross-feeding, we show that these features are all emergent properties of the assembly of large microbial communities, explaining their ubiquity in natural microbiomes.
Association of Regional Facial Dysfunction With Facial Palsy–Related Quality of Life

Importance Study of the association of regional facial dysfunction with quality of life will lead to a better understanding of quality of life in facial palsy. Objective To determine the association of regional facial dysfunction with facial palsy–related quality of life. Design, Setting, and Participants This retrospective cohort analysis included patients with flaccid and nonflaccid (synkinetic) facial palsy treated at a tertiary care facial nerve center; the flaccid facial palsy group included 529 patients, and the nonflaccid facial palsy group included 391 patients. Data were included from all patients with facial palsy who had an eFACE score and Facial Clinimetric Evaluation (FaCE) scale total score acquired at the same time from February 1, 2014, through October 31, 2017. Linear regression analysis was performed to calculate the amount of variance in quality of life explained by the severity of facial palsy (eFACE). A relative weight analysis was performed for the contribution of each individual eFACE item in estimating quality of life. Main Outcomes and Measures Facial palsy severity was measured using all 15 individual eFACE items (rated on a scale of 0 to 200, where 0 represents complete flaccidity, 100 represents a balanced aesthetic appearance, and 200 represents the worst imaginable hypertonia of a patient with synkinesis, with a transformation used for values from 101 to 200), and facial palsy–related quality of life was measured using the FaCE scale total score (range, 0 [worst] to 100 [best]). Results Data of 920 individual patients (59.5% female; mean [SD] age, 48.6 [16.6] years) were available. The eFACE composite score accounted for 21.2% of the quality-of-life variance in the flaccid group and 13.9% in the nonflaccid group. With the use of all 15 individual eFACE items, these proportions increased to 29.7% and 16.8%, respectively. In both groups, oral commissure movement with smile was found to be the most important contributing item (relative weight, 0.108 [95% CI, 0.075-0.148] for the flaccid group and 0.025 [95% CI, 0.005-0.052] for the nonflaccid group). Items related to the function of periocular muscles were found to be of low importance. Conclusions and Relevance The present study suggests that the function of individual facial regions is not equally important for estimating facial palsy–related quality of life. The ability to smile is of greatest importance among patients with flaccid and nonflaccid facial palsy. The true importance of periocular function in the estimation of quality of life should be studied further in future research. Level of Evidence NA.
Tsavoenones A-C: unprecedented polyketides with a 1,7-dioxadispiro[4.0.4.4]tetradecane core from the lichen Parmotrema tsavoense.

New racemic dispiranic polyketides, tsavoenones A (1), B (2) and C (3), having a novel 1,7-dioxadispiro[4.0. 4.4]tetradecane scaffold were isolated from the foliose lichen Parmotrema tsavoense. These compounds were structurally elucidated by extensive NMR analyses, comparison between experimental and theoretical 13C NMR data and X-ray crystallography. A putative biosynthetic scenario for the formation of 1-3 from parmosidone D, a meta-depsidone previously isolated from the same lichen material, was proposed. Tested for its cytotoxicity, 1 displayed a moderate activity against human myelogenous leukemia K562 cell line with an IC50 value of 66 μg mL-1.
Is Sunlight Exposure Enough to Avoid Wintertime Vitamin D Deficiency in United Kingdom Population Groups?

Solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is required for cutaneous vitamin D synthesis, and experimental studies have indicated the levels of sun exposure required to avoid a vitamin D deficient status. Our objectives are to examine the sun exposure behaviours of different United Kingdom sectors and to identify if their exposure is enough to maintain winter circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D above deficiency (>25 nmol/L). Data are from a series of human studies involving >500 volunteers and performed using the same protocols in Greater Manchester, UK (53.5° N) in healthy white Caucasian adolescents and working-age adults (skin type I–IV), healthy South Asian working-age adults (skin type V), and adults with photodermatoses (skin conditions caused or aggravated by cutaneous sun exposure). Long-term monitoring of the spectral ambient UVR of the Manchester metropolitan area facilitates data interpretation. The healthy white populations are exposed to 3% ambient UVR, contrasting with ~1% in South Asians. South Asians and those with photodermatoses wear clothing exposing smaller skin surface area, and South Asians have the lowest oral vitamin D intake of all groups. Sun exposure levels prevent winter vitamin D deficiency in 95% of healthy white adults and 83% of adolescents, while 32% of the photodermatoses group and >90% of the healthy South Asians were deficient. The latter require increased oral vitamin D, whilst their sun exposure provides a tangible contribution and might convey other health benefits.
Late neurological deficit after attempted PICC insertion in the arm

Introduction: Insertion of central catheters in peripheral vessels is a common procedure performed for a variety of indications, including parenteral nutrition. Hyperemesis gravidarum may require parenteral nutrition in exceptional situations. Although globally safe, insertion of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) can lead to complications. Case Report: We describe a case of a pregnant woman who required parenteral nutrition and underwent an unsuccessful PICC insertion attempt resulting in arterial puncture, and who 34 days later presented with right upper limb paresthesia. A pseudoaneurysm with nerve compression was diagnosed and treated by open surgery, without maternal or fetal complications. Conclusion: We recommend active surveillance ultrasound (e.g. in the first 24–48 h) of unsuccessful PICC insertion attempts, because late complications may occur and require invasive procedures for treatment.
Identifying risk factors for 30-day readmission events among American Indian patients with diabetes in the Four Corners region of the southwest from 2009 to 2016

Objective The objective of this study was to identify risk factors for 30-day readmission events for American Indian patients with diabetes in the southwest. Research design and methods Data from patients with diabetes admitted to Gallup Indian Medical Center between 2009 and 2016 were analyzed using logistic regression analyses. Results Of 2,660 patients, 394 (14.8%) patients had at least one readmission within 30 days of discharge. Older age (OR (95% CI) = 1.26, (1.17, 1.36)), longer length of stay (OR (95% CI) = 1.01, (1.0001, 1.0342)), and a history of substance use disorder (OR (95% CI) = 1.80, (1.25, 2.60)) were risk factors for 30-day readmission. An American Indian language preference was protective against readmission. Conclusions Readmission events are complex and may reflect broad and interwoven disparities in community systems. Future research should work to support community-defined interventions to address both in hospital and external factors that impact risk factors for readmission.
Parameter redundancy in Type III functional response models with consumer interference.

The consumption rate is a process critically important for the stability of consumer-resource systems and the persistence, sustainability and biodiversity of complex food webs. Its mathematical description in the form of functional response equations is a key problem for describing all trophic interactions. Because some of the functional response models used in this study presented redundancy between its parameters two methods were used to check for parameter redundancy: the Hessian matrix calculation using automatic differentiation (AD) which calculates derivatives numerically, but does not use finite differences, and the symbolic method that calculates a derivative matrix and its rank. In this work, we found that the models that better describe the functional response of a rotifer is consumer dependant even at low consumer densities, but their parameters can not be estimated simultaneously because parameter redundancy. This means that fewer parameters or parameter combination can be estimated than the original number of parameters in the models. Here, the model parameters that incorporate intraspecific competition by interference in the consumer-resource interaction are not identifiable, suggesting that this problem may be more widespread than is generally appreciated in the literature of food webs. Including knowledge on competitive interactions in current model predictions will be a necessity in the next years for ecology as ecological models are getting more complex and more real. Identifiability of biological parameters in nonlinear ecological models will be an issue to consider.
A Collaborative Data Collection Scheme Based on Optimal Clustering for Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, energy-efficient data collection has evolved into the core problem in the resource-constrained Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Different from existing data collection models in WSNs, we propose a collaborative data collection scheme based on optimal clustering to collect the sensed data in an energy-efficient and load-balanced manner. After dividing the data collection process into the intra-cluster data collection step and the inter-cluster data collection step, we model the optimal clustering problem as a separable convex optimization problem and solve it to obtain the analytical solutions of the optimal clustering size and the optimal data transmission radius. Then, we design a Cluster Heads (CHs)-linking algorithm based on the pseudo Hilbert curve to build a CH chain with the goal of collecting the compressed sensed data among CHs in an accumulative way. Furthermore, we also design a distributed cluster-constructing algorithm to construct the clusters around the virtual CHs in a distributed manner. The experimental results show that the proposed method not only reduces the total energy consumption and prolongs the network lifetime, but also effectively balances the distribution of energy consumption among CHs. By comparing it o the existing compression-based and non-compression-based data collection schemes, the average reductions of energy consumption are 17.9% and 67.9%, respectively. Furthermore, the average network lifetime extends no less than 20-times under the same comparison.
Blinded and unblinded sample size reestimation procedures for stepped‐wedge cluster randomized trials

The ability to accurately estimate the sample size required by a stepped‐wedge (SW) cluster randomized trial (CRT) routinely depends upon the specification of several nuisance parameters. If these parameters are misspecified, the trial could be overpowered, leading to increased cost, or underpowered, enhancing the likelihood of a false negative. We address this issue here for cross‐sectional SW‐CRTs, analyzed with a particular linear‐mixed model, by proposing methods for blinded and unblinded sample size reestimation (SSRE). First, blinded estimators for the variance parameters of a SW‐CRT analyzed using the Hussey and Hughes model are derived. Following this, procedures for blinded and unblinded SSRE after any time period in a SW‐CRT are detailed. The performance of these procedures is then examined and contrasted using two example trial design scenarios. We find that if the two key variance parameters were underspecified by 50%, the SSRE procedures were able to increase power over the conventional SW‐CRT design by up to 41%, resulting in an empirical power above the desired level. Thus, though there are practical issues to consider, the performance of the procedures means researchers should consider incorporating SSRE in to future SW‐CRTs.
A Low-Profile Substrate-Integrated-Gap-Waveguide- Fed Magnetoelectric Dipole

In this letter, a magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna with characteristics of low profile, easy integration, wide band, and high gain is proposed. The ME dipole is composed of rectangular patches and metallic via holes, and is embedded in a square aperture etched on substrate-integrated gap waveguide (SIGW). In particular, the ME dipole is fed by a coplanar strip line, which is designed in SIGW to realize a low profile of 0. 19λg (λg is the guide wavelength at center frequency). The measurements show that the 10 dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 29%, ranging from 22.4 to 30 GHz, with a mean gain of 8.04 dBi. Furthermore, the antenna emits a stable radiation pattern, validated by the far-field measurements.
An Artificial Neural Network Framework for Gait-Based Biometrics

As the popularity of wearable and the implantable body sensor network (BSN) devices increases, there is a growing concern regarding the data security of such power-constrained miniaturized medical devices. With limited computational power, BSN devices are often not able to provide strong security mechanisms to protect sensitive personal and health information, such as one's physiological data. Consequently, many new methods of securing wireless body area networks have been proposed recently. One effective solution is the biometric cryptosystem (BCS) approach. BCS exploits physiological and behavioral biometric traits, including face, iris, fingerprints, electrocardiogram, and photoplethysmography. In this paper, we propose a new BCS approach for securing wireless communications for wearable and implantable healthcare devices using gait signal energy variations and an artificial neural network framework. By simultaneously extracting similar features from BSN sensors using our approach, binary keys can be generated on demand without user intervention. Through an extensive analysis on our BCS approach using a gait dataset, the results have shown that the binary keys generated using our approach have high entropy for all subjects. The keys can pass both National Institute of Standards and Technology and Dieharder statistical tests with high efficiency. The experimental results also show the robustness of the proposed approach in terms of the similarity of intraclass keys and the discriminability of the interclass keys.
Sectional Combinations of the Modular Tubular Permanent Magnet Linear Motor and the Optimization Design

To overcome the disadvantage that the detent force of the permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (PMLSM) with short primary is large, a scheme of the modular PMLSM with flux barriers is proposed in this paper. First, the detent force model is established and verified. The phase-angle characteristics of the harmonics in the detent force waveforms are analyzed. Then, the design principles of the scheme with different sectional combinations are analyzed, and two series of the combinations are demonstrated. The detent force and thrust characteristics of these combinations are subsequently compared. In addition, to improve the thrust density, the auxiliary teeth set at the ends of the sectional primary cores are proposed. Finally, the corresponding conclusions obtained by comparing the modular motors with the traditional motor are presented.
Work-in-Progress: Towards Efficient and Scalable Big Data Analytics: Mapreduce vs. RDD’s

Large-scale data analytics in the recent years has gained prominence due to explosion in data generated from the introduction of varied digital sources such as the internet, social media etc. With the ever increasing size of data and introduction of machine learning methodologies to learn consecutively from this data, distributed programming models such as MapReduce and its open source implementation Hadoop are facing performance issues. The present work discusses the concept of RDDs (Resilient distributed datasets) and it's open source implementation: Apache Spark. Hadoop and MapReduce pay a significant cost for reloading same data from the disk thus wasting significant input/output cycle as well as network bandwidth. Comparisons have been shown in terms of memory occupancy, execution time and lines of codes required in both the paradigms.
Contributions of SpoT Hydrolase, SpoT Synthetase, and RelA Synthetase to Carbon Source Diauxic Growth Transitions in Escherichia coli

During the diauxic shift, Escherichia coli exhausts glucose and adjusts its expression pattern to grow on a secondary carbon source. Transcriptional profiling studies of glucose–lactose diauxic transitions reveal a key role for ppGpp. The amount of ppGpp depends on RelA synthetase and the balance between a strong SpoT hydrolase and its weak synthetase. In this study, mutants are used to search for synthetase or hydrolase specific regulation. Diauxic shifts experiments were performed with strains containing SpoT hydrolase and either RelA or SpoT synthetase as the sole source of ppGpp. Here, the length of the diauxic lag times is determined by the presence of ppGpp, showing contributions of both ppGpp synthetases (RelA and SpoT) as well as its hydrolase (SpoT). A balanced ppGpp response is key for a proper adaptation during diauxic shift. The effects of one or the other ppGpp synthetase on diauxic shifts are abolished by addition of amino acids or succinate, although by different mechanisms. While amino acids control the RelA response, succinate blocks the uptake of the excreted acetate via SatP. Acetate is converted to Acetyl-CoA through the ackA-pta pathway, producing Ac-P as intermediate. Evidence of control of the ackA-pta operon as well as a correlation between ppGpp and Ac-P is shown. Finally, acetylation of proteins is shown to occur during a diauxic glucose–lactose shift.