Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From local collective behavior to global migratory patterns in white storks

GPS tagging reveals leaders and followers among migrating white storks. Follow the leader What role do social dynamics play in guiding collective migrations? Identifying such dynamics requires following individual animals across long migratory distances. Flack et al. used GPS tags to follow individual juvenile white storks on their southern migration (see the Perspective by Nevitt). Birds generally fell into two categories: leaders and followers. Leaders sought out areas of thermal uplift, flapped less in transit, and flew farther. Followers followed leaders into thermals but had different trajectories, exhibited greater flapping effort, and flew shorter total distances. Science, this issue p. 911; see also p. 852 Soaring migrant birds exploit columns of rising air (thermals) to cover large distances with minimal energy. Using social information while locating thermals may benefit such birds, but examining collective movements in wild migrants has been a major challenge for researchers. We investigated the group movements of a flock of 27 naturally migrating juvenile white storks by using high-resolution GPS and accelerometers. Analyzing individual and group movements on multiple scales revealed that a small number of leaders navigated to and explored thermals, whereas followers benefited from their movements. Despite this benefit, followers often left thermals earlier and at lower height, and consequently they had to flap considerably more. Followers also migrated less far annually than did leaders. We provide insights into the interactions between freely flying social migrants and the costs and benefits of collective movement in natural populations.
Time-continuous segmentation of cardiac MR image sequences using active appearance motion models

Active Appearance Models (AAMs) are useful for segmentation of static cardiac MR images since they exploit prior knowledge about the cardiac shape and image appearance. However, applying 2D AAMs to full cardiac cycle segmentation would require multiple models for different phases of the cardiac cycle because traditional AAMs account only for the variations within image classes and not temporal classes. This paper presents a novel 2D+time Active Appearance Motion Model (AAMM) that represents the dynamics of the cardiac cycle in combination with shape and image appearance of the heart, ensuring a time-continuous segmentation of a complete cardiac MR sequence. In AAMM, single-beat sequences are phase-normalized into sets of 2D images and the shape points and gray intensities between frames are concatenated into a shape vector and intensity vector. Appearance variations over time are captured using Principal Component Analysis on both vectors in the training set. Time-continuous segmentation is achieved by minimizing the model appearance-to-target differences by adjusting the model eigen-coefficients using gradient descent approach. In matching tests, the model shows to be robust in initial position and approximates the true segmentation very well. Large-scale clinical validation in patients is ongoing.
Production of Heterologous Microbial Lipases by Yeasts

Lipases (triacylglycerol lipase, EC 3.1.1.3) catalyse the hydrolysis of triglycerides to di-glycerides, monoglycerides, glycerol and fatty acids. In non-aqueous media, these enzymes also catalyse esterification, interesteriflcation and transesterification. This versatility makes the lipases potential biocatalysts in many industrial applications. This review describes the recent advances in the use of yeasts as expression systems to produce high levels of recombinant microbial lipases. Some expression systems such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris are reviewed and compared. Also, cell-surface display systems as novel methods to construct whole cell biocatalysts are highlighted.
A 'Framingham-like' Algorithm for Predicting 4-Year Risk of Progression to Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer's Disease Using Multidomain Information.

BACKGROUND There are no agreed-upon variables for predicting progression from unimpaired cognition to amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), or from aMCI to Alzheimer's disease (AD). OBJECTIVE Use ADNI data to develop a 'Framingham-like' prediction model for a 4-year period. METHODS We developed models using the strongest baseline predictors from six domains (demographics, neuroimaging, CSF biomarkers, genetics, cognitive tests, and functional ability). We chose the best predictor from each domain, which was dichotomized into more versus less harmful. RESULTS There were 224 unimpaired individuals and 424 aMCI subjects with baseline data on all predictors, of whom 37 (17% ) and 150 (35% ) converted to aMCI and AD, respectively, during 4 years of follow-up. For the unimpaired, CSF tau/Aβ ratio, hippocampal volume, and a memory score predicted progression. For those aMCI at baseline, the same predictors plus APOE4 status and functional ability predicted progression. Demographics and family history were not important predictors for progression for either group. The fit statistic was good for the unimpaired-aMCI model (C-statistic 0.80) and very good for the aMCI-AD model (C-statistic 0.91). Among the unimpaired, those with no harmful risk factors had a 4-year predicted 2% risk of progression, while those with the most harmful risk factors had a predicted 35% risk. The aMCI subjects with no harmful risk factors had a predicted 1% risk of progression those with all six harmful risk factors had a predicted 90% risk. CONCLUSION Our parsimonious model accurately predicted progression from unimpaired to aMCI with three variables, and from aMCI to AD with five variables.
Pericytes/vessel-associated mural cells (VAMCs) are the major source of key epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) factors SLUG and TWIST in human glioma

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is supposed to be responsible for increased invasion and metastases in epithelial cancer cells. The activation of EMT genes has further been proposed to be important in the process of malignant transformation of primary CNS tumors. Since the cellular source and clinical impact of EMT factors in primary CNS tumors still remain unclear, we aimed at deciphering their distribution in vivo and clinico-pathological relevance in human gliomas. We investigated 350 glioma patients for the expression of the key EMT factors SLUG and TWIST by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence related to morpho-genetic alterations such as EGFR-amplification, IDH-1 (R132H) mutation and 1p/19q LOH. Furthermore, transcriptional cluster and survival analyses were performed. Our data illustrate that SLUG and TWIST are overexpressed in gliomas showing vascular proliferation such as pilocytic astrocytomas and glioblastomas. EMT factors are exclusively expressed by non-neoplastic pericytes/vessel-associated mural cells (VAMCs). They are not associated with patient survival but correlate with pericytic/VAMC genes in glioblastoma cluster analysis. In summary, the upregulation of EMT genes in pilocytic astrocytomas and glioblastomas reflects the level of activation of pericytes/VAMCs in newly formed blood vessels. Our results underscore that the negative prognostic potential of the EMT signature in the group of diffuse gliomas of WHO grade II-IV does most likely not derive from glioma cells but rather reflects the degree of proliferating mural cells thereby constituting a potential target for future alternative treatment approaches.
Efficient Arithmetic Error Rate Calculus for Visibility Reduced Approximate Adders

In this letter, we present a novel methodology to calculate the arithmetic error rate (AER) for deterministic approximate adder architectures, where the calculation of each output bit is restricted to a subset of the input bits, denoted as visibilities. Such architectures have been widely proposed in the literature and are, e.g., obtained when splitting the carry chain in a carry-propagate adder into partitions each computed by a separate parallel adder, or when removing carry-lookahead operators in a parallel prefix adder. Our contribution is a unified calculus for determining the ARE for: 1) such deterministic approximate adder architectures making use of visibilities and 2) the general case of arbitrarily (also nonuniformly) distributed input bits.
Laboratory evolution of a glucose-phosphorylation-deficient, arabinose-fermenting S. cerevisiae strain reveals mutations in GAL2 that enable glucose-insensitive l-arabinose uptake

ABSTRACT Cas9‐assisted genome editing was used to construct an engineered glucose‐phosphorylation‐negative S. cerevisiae strain, expressing the Lactobacillus plantaruml‐arabinose pathway and the Penicillium chrysogenum transporter PcAraT. This strain, which showed a growth rate of 0.26 h−1 on l‐arabinose in aerobic batch cultures, was subsequently evolved for anaerobic growth on l‐arabinose in the presence of d‐glucose and d‐xylose. In four strains isolated from two independent evolution experiments the galactose‐transporter gene GAL2 had been duplicated, with all alleles encoding Gal2N376T or Gal2N376I substitutions. In one strain, a single GAL2 allele additionally encoded a Gal2T89I substitution, which was subsequently also detected in the independently evolved strain IMS0010. In 14C‐sugar‐transport assays, Gal2N376S, Gal2N376T and Gal2N376I substitutions showed a much lower glucose sensitivity of l‐arabinose transport and a much higher Km for d‐glucose transport than wild‐type Gal2. Introduction of the Gal2N376I substitution in a non‐evolved strain enabled growth on l‐arabinose in the presence of d‐glucose. Gal2N376T, T89I and Gal2T89I variants showed a lower Km for l‐arabinose and a higher Km for d‐glucose than wild‐type Gal2, while reverting Gal2N376T, T89I to Gal2N376 in an evolved strain negatively affected anaerobic growth on l‐arabinose. This study indicates that optimal conversion of mixed‐sugar feedstocks may require complex ‘transporter landscapes', consisting of sugar transporters with complementary kinetic and regulatory properties.
Contrast-Induced Nephropathy: Update on the Use of Crystalloids and Pharmacological Measures

Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) is a frequent and severe complication in subjects receiving iodinated contrast media for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. Several preventive strategies were evaluated in the past. Recent clinical studies and meta-analyses delivered some new aspects on preventive measures used in the past and present. We will discuss all pharmacological and nonpharmacological procedures. Finally, we will suggest individualized recommendations for CIN prevention.
Dynamics of Uncertain and Conflicting Opinions in Social Networks

In this paper, we study the evolution of opinions where people are not sure of their own opinions and/or their opinions may be conflicting to others’ in social networks. We model two types of agents so-called informed agents (IAs) and uninformed agents (UIAs). The IAs have a strong opinion agreeing or disagreeing toward a proposition without being influenced by other agents’ opinions and have a high confidence (low uncertainty) toward its own opinion. The UIAs have a weak opinion without either agreeing or disagreeing toward a proposition and lack confidence with a high uncertainty. Based on subjective logic, we consider a binomial opinion to deal with an opinion with a degree of uncertainty. We develop two types of trust attitudes for agents to update their opinions upon their interactions with other agents: uncertainty-based trust (UT) and similarity-based trust (ST). In the UT, a UIA updates its opinion based on an interacting agent’s uncertainty toward a proposition. In the ST, a UIA updates its opinion based on the degree of similarity between its own opinion and the interacting agent’s opinion toward the proposition. Our results show that more IAs slow down the convergence of the opinions under the UT while they can quickly lead to opinion convergence under the ST. In addition, the ST leads uncertain opinions to two extremes, either 0 or 1, if consensus exists. On the other hand, the UT can make opinions converge to a certain point between two extreme opinions although the converged point is significantly affected by the dominant agents’ opinions. Furthermore, we observe that under the UT, more IAs with a high centrality increase dissonance of opinions, while more IAs with a low centrality offer better chances for opinion consensus in both the UT and the ST.
Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond

Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) technology will be available in the near future. Quantum computers with 50-100 qubits may be able to perform tasks which surpass the capabilities of today's classical digital computers, but noise in quantum gates will limit the size of quantum circuits that can be executed reliably. NISQ devices will be useful tools for exploring many-body quantum physics, and may have other useful applications, but the 100-qubit quantum computer will not change the world right away - we should regard it as a significant step toward the more powerful quantum technologies of the future. Quantum technologists should continue to strive for more accurate quantum gates and, eventually, fully fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Sketch Engine: a sense discrimination engine for English, Chinese and other languages

1. Background: corpora and concordances Analysis of text and spoken language, for the purposes of second language teaching, dictionary making and other linguistic applications, used to be based on the intuitions of linguists and lexicographers. The compilation of dictionaries and thesauri, for example, required that the compiler read very widely, and record the results of his efforts – the definitions and different senses of words – on thousands, or millions of index cards.
Effort in Low-Stakes Assessments

Performance of students in low-stakes testing situations has been a concern and focus of recent research. However, researchers who have examined the effect of stakes on performance have not been able to compare low-stakes performance to truly high-stakes performance of the same students. Results of such a comparison are reported in this article. GRE test takers volunteered to take an additional low-stakes test, of either verbal or quantitative reasoning as part of a research study immediately following their operational high-stakes test. Analyses of performance under the high- and low-stakes situations revealed that the level of effort in the low-stakes situation (as measured by the amount of time on task) strongly predicted the stakes effect on performance (difference between test scores in low- and high-stakes situations). Moreover, the stakes effect virtually disappeared for participants who spent at least one-third of the allotted time in the low-stakes situation. For this group of test takers (more than 80% of the total sample), the correlations between the low- and high-stakes scores approached the upper bound possible considering the reliability of the test.
Hypoxia Aggravates Inactivity-Related Muscle Wasting

Poor musculoskeletal state is commonly observed in numerous clinical populations such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure patients. It, however, remains unresolved whether systemic hypoxemia, typically associated with such clinical conditions, directly contributes to muscle deterioration. We aimed to experimentally elucidate the effects of systemic environmental hypoxia upon inactivity-related muscle wasting. For this purpose, fourteen healthy, male participants underwent three 21-day long interventions in a randomized, cross-over designed manner: (i) bed rest in normoxia (NBR; PiO2 = 133.1 ± 0.3 mmHg), (ii) bed rest in normobaric hypoxia (HBR; PiO2 = 90.0 ± 0.4 mmHg) and ambulatory confinement in normobaric hypoxia (HAmb; PiO2 = 90.0 ± 0.4 mmHg). Peripheral quantitative computed tomography and vastus lateralis muscle biopsies were performed before and after the interventions to obtain thigh and calf muscle cross-sectional areas and muscle fiber phenotype changes, respectively. A significant reduction of thigh muscle size following NBR (-6.9%, SE 0.8%; P < 0.001) was further aggravated following HBR (-9.7%, SE 1.2%; P = 0.027). Bed rest-induced muscle wasting in the calf was, by contrast, not exacerbated by hypoxic conditions (P = 0.47). Reductions in both thigh (-2.7%, SE 1.1%, P = 0.017) and calf (-3.3%, SE 0.7%, P < 0.001) muscle size were noted following HAmb. A significant and comparable increase in type 2× fiber percentage of the vastus lateralis muscle was noted following both bed rest interventions (NBR = +3.1%, SE 2.6%, HBR = +3.9%, SE 2.7%, P < 0.05). Collectively, these data indicate that hypoxia can exacerbate inactivity-related muscle wasting in healthy active participants and moreover suggest that the combination of both, hypoxemia and lack of activity, as seen in COPD patients, might be particularly harmful for muscle tissue.
Behind the Scenes: Memory Analysis of Graphical Workloads on Tile-Based GPUs

Graphics rendering is a complex multi-step process whose data demands typically dominate memory system design in SoCs. GPUs create images by merging many simpler scenes for each frame. For performance, scenes are tiled into parallel tasks which produce different parts of the final output. This execution model results in complex memory behavior with bandwidth demands and data sharing varying over time, and which depends heavily on the structure of the application. To design systems that can efficiently accommodate and schedule these workloads we need to understand their behavior and diversity. In this work, we develop a quantitative characterization of the data demands of modern graphics rendering. Our approach uses an architecturally-independent analysis, identifying different types of data sharing present in the applications, independent of their scheduling. From this analysis, we present a limit study into the potential to improve memory system performance by tackling each type of data sharing. We see that there is the potential to reduce graphics bandwidth by 43% if we can take full advantage of data reuse between tasks and scenes within each frame. For the particularly complex benchmarks, capturing inter-task reuse alone has the potential to reduce bandwidth by 15% (up to 31%), while targeting interscene reuse could provide a savings of 60% (up to 75%). These insights provide us the opportunity to understand where we should focus design efforts on graphics memory systems.
The impact of microsatellite instability status and sidedness of the primary tumor on the effect of bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

Purpose: We aimed to evaluate the effect of bevacizumab in metastatic CRC (colorectal cancer) regarding to microsatellite instability (MSI) and the sidedness of the primary tumor. Materials and Methods: A total of 140 CRC patients were retrospectively analyzed, who received bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy between April 2008 and January 2013. MSI status and Kirsten RSAS (KRAS) mutational status were available in all 140 patients, but BRAF (the gene for the B-type Raf kinase) mutational status was only available in 74 patients (52.9%). Results: MSI-high (MSI-H) was detected in 4.3% of analyzed patients. Characteristics of patients, with the exception of BRAF mutational status, were generally similar between those with right- (RC) and left-sided colon cancer (LC). Right-sided tumors were significantly associated with a BRAF mutation (p=0.025). In addition, patient characteristics with a microsatellite stable (MSS) tumor were not different from those with an MSI-H tumor. For all 140 patients, the most commonly used regimen with bevacizumab was capecitabine plus oxaliplain (XELOX), irrespective of treatment line, followed by 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, and irinotecan (FOLFIRI), 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX), intravenous 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and capecitabine plus irinotecan (XELIRI). There was no significant difference between the MSI-H and MSS groups in treatment efficacy, including response rate (RR) and disease control rate (DCR). There was also no difference in RR and DCR according to the sidedness of the primary tumor. No significant difference in progression-free survival (PFS) was observed between MSI-H and MSS groups (5.93 months vs. 7.37 months; p=0.801) or between LC and RC groups (7.37 months vs. 5.83 months; p=0.801). Conclusions: The effect of bevacizumab was not different between LC and RC and between MSS and the MSI-H tumors.
Methodology for developing teaching activities and materials for use in fluid mechanics courses in undergraduate engineering programs

“Mechanics” and “Fluids” are familiar concepts for any newly-registered engineering student. However, when combined into the term “Fluid Mechanics”, students are thrust into the great unknown. The present article demonstrates the process of adaptation employed by the Fluid Mechanics course in the undergraduate engineering program, along with the teaching methodology, teaching materials and results obtained, evaluating the final objective in terms of student satsfaction and level of learning.
Data-Powered Participatory Decision Making: Leveraging Systems Thinking and Simulation to Guide Selection and Implementation of Evidence-Based Colorectal Cancer Screening Interventions

Abstract A robust evidence base supports the effectiveness of timely colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, follow-up of abnormal results, and referral to care in reducing CRC morbidity and mortality. However, only two-thirds of the US population is current with recommended screening, and rates are much lower for those who are vulnerable because of their race/ethnicity, insurance status, or rural location. Multiple, multilevel factors contribute to observed disparities, and these factors vary across different populations and contexts. As highlighted by the Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel working groups focused on Prevention and Early Detection and Implementation Science inadequate CRC screening and follow-up represent an enormous missed opportunity in cancer prevention and control. To measurably reduce CRC morbidity and mortality, the evidence base must be strengthened to guide the identification of (1) multilevel factors that influence screening across different populations and contexts, (2) multilevel interventions and implementation strategies that will be most effective at targeting those factors, and (3) combinations of strategies that interact synergistically to improve outcomes. Systems thinking and simulation modeling (systems science) provide a set of approaches and techniques to aid decision makers in using the best available data and research evidence to guide implementation planning in the context of such complexity. This commentary summarizes current challenges in CRC prevention and control, discusses the status of the evidence base to guide the selection and implementation of multilevel CRC screening interventions, and describes a multi-institution project to showcase how systems science can be leveraged to optimize selection and implementation of CRC screening interventions in diverse populations and contexts.