Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A tiger beetle’s pursuit of prey depends on distance

Tiger beetles pursue prey by adjusting their heading according to a time-delayed proportional control law that minimizes the error angle (Haselsteiner et al 2014 J. R. Soc. Interface 11 20140216). This control law can be further interpreted in terms of mechanical actuation: to catch prey, tiger beetles exert a sideways force by biasing their tripod gait in proportion to the error angle measured half a stride earlier. The proportional gain was found to be nearly optimal in the sense that it minimizes the time to point directly toward the prey. For a time-delayed linear proportional controller, the optimal gain, k, is inversely proportional to the time delay, τ, and satisfies kτ=1/e. Here we present evidence that tiger beetles adjust their control gain during their pursuit of prey. Our analysis shows two critical distances: one corresponding to the beetle’s final approach to the prey, and the second, less expected, occurring at a distance around 10 cm for a prey size of 4.5 mm. The beetle initiates its chase using a sub-critical gain and increases the gain to the optimal value once the prey is within this critical distance. Insects use a variety of methods to detect distance, often involving different visual cues. Here we examine two such methods: one based on motion parallax and the other based on the prey’s elevation angle. We show that, in order for the motion parallax method to explain the observed data, the beetle needs to correct for the ratio of the prey’s sideways velocity relative to its own. On the other hand, the simpler method based on the elevation angle can detect both the distance and the prey’s size. Moreover we find that the transition distance corresponds to the accuracy required to distinguish small prey from large predators.
Polyphenols and bioavailability: an update

Abstract Based on many cell culture, animal and human studies, it is well known that the most challenge issue for developing polyphenolics as chemoprevention or anti-diabtetic agents is the low oral bioavailability, which may be the major reason relating to its ambiguous therapeutic effects and large inter-individual variations in clinical trials. This review intends to highlight the unscientific evaluation on the basis of the published data regarding in vitro bioactivity of polyphenols, which may sometimes mislead the researchers and to conclude that: first, bio-accessibilities values obtained in the studies for polyphenols should be highly reconsidered in accordance with the abundant newly identified circulating and excreted metabolites, with a particular attention to colonic metabolic products which are obviously contributing much more than expected to their absorptions; second, it is phenolic metabolites, which are formed in the small intestine and hepatic cells,low molecular weight catabolic products of the colonic microflora to travel around the human body in the circulatory system or reach body tissues to elicit bioactive effects. It is concluded that better performed in vivo intervention and in vitro mechanistic studies are needed to fully understand how these molecules interact with human physiological and pathological processes.
Dioxin Exposure Alters Molecular and Morphological Responses to Thyroid Hormone in Xenopus laevis Cultured Cells and Prometamorphic Tadpoles

Amphibian metamorphosis is driven by thyroid hormone (TH). We used prometamorphic tadpoles and a cell line of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) to examine immediate effects of dioxin exposure on TH. Gene expression patterns suggest cross-talk between the thyroid hormone receptor (TR) and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) signaling pathways. In XLK-WG cells, expression of Cytochrome P450 1A6 (cyp1A6), an AHR target, was induced 1000-fold by 100 nM TCDD (2, 3, 7, 8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin). Krüppel-Like Factor 9 (klf9), the first gene induced in a cascade of TH responses tied to metamorphosis, was upregulated over 5-fold by 50 nM triiodothyronine (T3) and 2-fold by dioxin. Co-exposure to T3 and TCDD boosted both responses, further inducing cyp1A6 by 75% and klf9 about 60%. Additional canonical targets of each receptor, including trβa and trβb (TR) and udpgt1a (AHR) responded similarly. Induction of TH targets by TCDD in XLK-WG cells predicts that exposure could speed metamorphosis. We tested this hypothesis in two remodeling events: tail resorption and hind limb growth. Resorption of ex vivo cultured tails was accelerated by 10 nM T3, while a modest increase in resorption by 100 nM TCDD lacked statistical significance. Hind limbs doubled in length over four days following 1 nM T3 treatment, but limb length was unaffected by 100 nM TCDD. TCDD co-exposure reduced the T3 effect by nearly 40%, despite TCDD induction of klf9 in whole tadpoles, alone or with T3. These results suggest that tissue-specific TCDD effects limit or reverse the increased metamorphosis rate predicted by klf9 induction.
Evolution in software architecture recovery techniques — A survey

Software architecture is an important part of the software systems showing its components and connection between the components. Small release time and quick delivery has become the main objective of the software industry, these days. This has led to the negligence of the development of the software architecture resulting software architecture erosion. The aim of this research is to provide a review of the solutions proposed regarding the recovery of the software architecture over the years.
Ebola virus proteins NP, VP35, and VP24 are essential and sufficient to mediate nucleocapsid transport

Significance Large complexes composed of the viral genome encapsidated by viral proteins (capsid or nucleocapsid) need to be transported from the sites of viral genome synthesis to the sites of budding within infected cells. For the highly pathogenic Ebola virus, as for many other viruses, it is not completely understood how this transport is accomplished and which viral components are necessary for transport-competent nucleocapsids. Using live-cell imaging in combination with a surrogate system to analyze nucleocapsid transport under biosafety level 2 conditions, we show that the Ebola virus proteins nucleoprotein, VP35, and VP24 are necessary and sufficient to form transport-competent nucleocapsids. The technical approach developed here is applicable to study the transport of other viruses and to characterize antivirals. The intracytoplasmic movement of nucleocapsids is a crucial step in the life cycle of enveloped viruses. Determination of the viral components necessary for viral nucleocapsid transport competency is complicated by the dynamic and complex nature of nucleocapsid assembly and the lack of appropriate model systems. Here, we established a live-cell imaging system based on the ectopic expression of fluorescent Ebola virus (EBOV) fusion proteins, allowing the visualization and analysis of the movement of EBOV nucleocapsid-like structures with different protein compositions. Only three of the five EBOV nucleocapsid proteins—nucleoprotein, VP35, and VP24—were necessary and sufficient to form transport-competent nucleocapsid-like structures. The transport of these structures was found to be dependent on actin polymerization and to have dynamics that were undistinguishable from those of nucleocapsids in EBOV-infected cells. The intracytoplasmic movement of nucleocapsid-like structures was completely independent of the viral matrix protein VP40 and the viral surface glycoprotein GP. However, VP40 greatly enhanced the efficiency of nucleocapsid recruitment into filopodia, the sites of EBOV budding.
Development of a superpixel based local color feature extraction technique for the classification of skin lesions

The paper reports a method for the identification of melanoma and common nevus. Due to the complex structural properties along with the presence of some color proximity, sometimes it has been a problem for the dermatologists and experts to differentiate those two diseases by visual inspection only. Here, a computer-aided skin lesion classification technique has been proposed, that extracts different global and local features and is followed by subsequent recursive feature elimination. For the construction of local color-feature descriptor, different color regions have been isolated by grouping the meaningful and informative pixels to form superpixel regions. After extracting the local color features from each of the significantly meaningful superpixel regions along with morphological and statistical texture features, the skin lesions have been classified using non-linear support vector machine classifier. A classification with 92.31% sensitivity, 89.00% specificity and 90.45% accuracy has been achieved with the proposed feature extraction and classification techniques.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome: where are we, and where do we go from here?

Purpose of review Over the last 15 years the prevalence of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) increased almost five-fold. A considerable diversity seems to prevail in the management of NAS. This review provides an overview of factors affecting the expression and course of NAS, and recent developments in NAS assessment and treatment. Recent findings Apart from different pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment modalities, maturity of the infant and genetic variations likely are (co)responsible for interpatient variability in NAS severity, despite similar maternal exposure. Recent efforts concerning the further development of NAS severity scoring systems focus on the development of brief screening measures; in addition, pupil diameter and skin conductance have been proposed as complements to observer-rated scales. The decrease in incidence of NAS begins in the appropriate management of medication assisted treatment of the mother. Summary Mitigating the negative outcomes for infants affected by NAS, their mothers and the healthcare system implies, first and foremost, developing and implementing an organized protocol for the management of NAS, and the homogenous use of a standardized scoring system utilizing interobserver reliability and a guide for medication initiation, maintenance, and weaning which is consistent with traditional methods of treatment for neonates.
Molecular genetics of childhood, adolescent and young adult non‐Hodgkin lymphoma

Molecular genetic abnormalities are ubiquitous in non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but genetic changes are not yet used to define specific lymphoma subtypes. Certain recurrent molecular genetic abnormalities in NHL underlie molecular pathogenesis and/or are associated with prognosis or represent potential therapeutic targets. Most molecular genetic studies of B‐ and T‐NHL have been performed on adult patient samples, and the relevance of many of these findings for childhood, adolescent and young adult NHL remains to be demonstrated. In this review, we focus on NHL subtypes that are most common in young patients and emphasize features actually studied in younger NHL patients. This approach highlights what is known about NHL genetics in young patients but also points to gaps that remain, which will require cooperative efforts to collect and share biological specimens for genomic and genetic analyses in order to help predict outcomes and guide therapy in the future.
Life after ponatinib failure: outcomes of chronic and accelerated phase CML patients who discontinued ponatinib in the salvage setting

Abstract Ponatinib is a pan-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) with efficacy in multirefractory CML patients who have failed other TKIs. Despite excellent response rates, resistance or intolerance may develop. We conducted a retrospective review of the outcome of patients with chronic (CP) and accelerated (AP) phase CML refractory to prior TKI who discontinued ponatinib for resistance or intolerance. Nineteen CP patients, discontinued due to resistance (n = 13), toxicity (n = 5) and to pursue stem cell transplantation (n = 1). At discontinuation, 14 were still in CP, three had progressed to AP and two to blast phase (BP). Three CP patients improved their cytogenetic response (CyR) to complete CyR (CCyR), two after SCT and one on omacetaxine. None of the 12 patients, without a major cytogenetic response at ponatinib discontinuation, including all patients treated with subsequent TKIs, responded to therapy. Seventeen AP patients, stopped ponatinib due to resistance (n = 15) or intolerance (n = 2). At discontinuation, 14 were still in AP and three had progressed to BP. Four patients were treated with SCT and one achieved major molecular response. None of the 12 patients treated with non-SCT approaches responded to subsequent therapy. Median survival for all patients was 16.6 months after ponatinib discontinuation (31, 9 and 13 months for patients in CP, AP and BP, respectively). Median survival was 60 months for patients who discontinued ponatinib for toxicity and 11 months for those who discontinued for resistance. Long-term outcome of patients with ponatinib failure are poor with estimated one-year OS and EFS rates of 54% and 40%, respectively. New treatment options are required for this subset of patients.
Connectional Evidence for Dorsal and Ventral V3, and Other Extrastriate Areas in the Prosimian Primate, Galago garnetti

Previously we described patterns of connections that support the concept of V3 in small New World marmoset monkeys, three species of larger New World monkeys, and two species of Old World macaque monkeys. Here we describe a pattern of V1 connections with extrastriate visual cortex in Galago garnetti (also known as Otolemur garnetti) that demonstrates the existence of a V3 in a strepsirhine (prosimian) primate. Injections of fluorochromes or cholera toxin subunit-B (CTB) in V1 labeled cells and terminals in retinotopically matched regions in V2, V3, DL (V4), and MT. Labeled axon terminations were more focused primarily in middle layers of cortex, likely representing ‘feedforward’ input from V1, whereas labeled cells were more widespread and found in both superficial and deeper cortical layers, indicative of feedback projections. Averaged across injections, V3 had the third largest percentage of labeled cells (11%), following only V2 (47%) and the middle temporal area (MT; 19%). The dorsolateral area (DL, or V4; 9%) also contained a relatively large number of retrogradely labeled cells. These results indicate that V2, V3, DL (V4), and MT are retinotopically connected with V1, and provide major sources of feedback. Other extrastriate areas were less densely connected to V1, and there was no clear indication of labeled terminals. Inferotemporal cortex (IT) provided nearly 7% of feedback connections, whereas the dorsomedial area (DM) contributed about 3%. The remaining areas that have been proposed for galago extrastriate cortex, MTc, MST, FST, LPP and VPP, each accounted for about 1% or less of the total number of labeled cells. Thus, six extrastriate areas, V2, MT, V3, DL (V4), IT, and DM provide over 96% of visual cortex projections to V1. These areas also provide most of the projections to V1 in New and Old World monkeys.
Reliability analysis of cyber-physical systems considering cyber-attacks

A general framework is proposed for cyber-physical system reliability modeling and evaluation considering some typical cyber attacks. The impacts of attacks from cyber space on physical space are analyzed, including the denial of service attack and deception attack. The cyber intrusion is modeled by a semi-Markov process, which decides the occurrence probability of cyber-attacks. The occurrence probability is related to the attacker level and defender level, therefore the cyber intrusion process is more practical and applicable for most attack situations. A case study on industrial heat exchanger system is provided to quantify the influences of cyber attacks on system performance and reliability. Some important conclusions are also drawn, which will be useful in designing resilient cyber-physical systems.
Telemonitoring in subjects with newly diagnosed heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: From clinical research to everyday practice

Introduction Heart failure is increasingly common, and characterised by frequent admissions to hospital. To try and reduce the risk of hospitalisation, techniques such as telemonitoring (TM) may have a role. We wanted to determine if TM in patients with newly diagnosed heart failure and ejection fraction <40% reduces the risk of readmission or death from any cause in a ‘real-world’ setting. Methods This is a retrospective study of 124 patients (78.2% male; 68.6 ± 12.6 years) who underwent TM and 345 patients (68.5% male; 70.2 ± 10.7 years) who underwent the usual care (UC). The TM group were assessed daily by body weight, blood pressure and heart rate using electronic devices with automatic transfer of data to an online database. Follow-up was 12 months. Results Death from any cause occurred in 8.1% of the TM group and 19% of the UC group (p = 0.002). There was no difference between the two groups in all-cause hospitalisation, either in the number of subjects hospitalised (p = 0.7) or in the number of admissions per patient (p = 0.6). There was no difference in the number of heart-failure-related readmissions per person between the two groups (p = 0.5), but the number of days in hospital per person was higher in the UC group (p = 0.03). Also, there were a significantly greater number of days alive and out of hospital for the patients in the TM group compared with the UC group (p = 0.0001). Discussion TM is associated with lower any-cause mortality and also has the potential to reduce the number of days lost to hospitalisation and death.
Time to institutional review board approval with local versus central review in a multicenter pragmatic trial

Background/aims: Central institutional review board (IRB) review will be required for National Institutes of Health–funded multisite human subjects research as of January 2018, with similar requirements extending to most US multisite human research in 2020. Nonetheless, little is known regarding the relative efficiency of central versus local IRB review for multicenter studies. We compared the amount of time required for central versus local IRB review and approval for sites in one ongoing multicenter randomized trial. Methods: The REGAIN Trial (Regional versus General Anesthesia for Promoting Independence after Hip Fracture; clinicaltrials.gov number: NCT02507505) is an ongoing randomized trial comparing standard-care spinal anesthesia to standard-care general anesthesia for patients undergoing hip fracture surgery. After approval of the protocol by the sponsor IRB, each participating US site opted either to submit the protocol for local IRB review or to designate the sponsor IRB as the IRB of record (i.e. central IRB) via an authorization agreement after a limited local review. For each US REGAIN site approved through 18 April 2017, we assessed (1) the time in calendar days from protocol receipt to IRB submission, (2) the time in calendar days from IRB submission to IRB approval, and (3) the total time in calendar days from protocol receipt to IRB approval (i.e. time from protocol receipt to IRB submission plus time from IRB submission to IRB approval). Results: The main study protocol was submitted to the sponsor IRB on 25 May 2015 and approved on 8 July 2015 (44 days). Out of 34 sites, 9 received initial approval from the central (sponsor) IRB; 25 sought initial approval via local review. The median time from protocol receipt to IRB submission was 39 days for sites approved by the central IRB (interquartile range: 35–134) versus 58 days for sites approved via local review (interquartile range: 41–105; p = 0.711). The median time from IRB submission to IRB approval for sites approved by the central IRB was 27 days (interquartile range: 14–32) versus 66 days (interquartile range: 29–138) for sites approved via local review (p = 0.026). The median total time from protocol receipt to IRB approval was 100 days (interquartile range: 71–148) for centrally approved sites versus 132 days (interquartile range: 87–209) for locally approved sites (p = 0.191). Conclusion: While central IRB review was associated with a shorter time from IRB submission to IRB approval compared to local IRB review, the total time from protocol receipt to IRB approval varied markedly across sites.
Predation on Hapalemur griseus griseus by Boa manditra (Boidae) in the Littoral Forest of Eastern Madagascar

Over the past decade it has become abundantly clear that levels of predation on lemurs are much higher than previously surmised. These predators vary from large carnivores (Cryptoprocta ferox) that prey on large diurnal and medium-sized nocturnal primates [1–3], smaller diurnal carnivores (e.g. Galidia elegans) that take nocturnal primates from day nests [4, 5], and diurnal birds of prey (e.g. Polyboroides radiatus, Buteo brachypterus, Accipiter henstii) that feed on both nocturnal and diurnal lemurs [4, 6, 7] to nocturnal owls (e.g. Tyto alba, T. soumagnei, Asio madagascariensis) that feed on small to medium-sized nocturnal primates [8, 9]. In addition, snakes, particularly boa constrictors, have been reported to feed on Malagasy prosimians [4, 5], although well documented acts of predation are few. Herein we report an incident of snake predation on the gentle bamboo lemur (Hapalemur griseus griseus).
Heterogeneous Memory Management in Datacenter

Heterogeneous memory management combined with server virtualization in data-centers is expected to increase the software and OS management complexity. State-of-the-art solutions for both virtualized and non-virtualized systems rely exclusively on the expensive page migrations techniques, limiting the benefits from heterogeneity. To address this, we design HeteroOS, a novel application-transparent OS-level solution for managing memory heterogeneity in a virtualized system. Evaluation of HeteroOS with memory, storage, and networkintensive datacenter applications show up to 2x performance improvement compared to the state-of-the-art page migration techniques.
Immunoexpression of IgA receptors (CD89, CD71) in dermatitis herpetiformis.

INTRODUCTION The role of IgA receptors in dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) pathogenesis is still unknown. CD89 and CD71 may be associated with immune response during DH development. The purpose of this study was to perform semiquantitative analysis of simultaneous immunoexpression of CD89 and CD71 in DH and IgA/neutrophil-mediated non-DH dermatoses (IgAN) in relation to specific IgA autoantibodies/antibodies (tissue and epidermal transglutaminases, nonapeptides of gliadin - eTG/tTG/npG) as well neutrophil activation via the release of neutrophil elastase (NE). MATERIAL AND METHODS In total, 48 patients were studied. The study was conducted on skin lesions and sera obtained from DH and IgAN patients. DH and IgAN served as mutually positive control groups. We used immunohistochemical technique with semiquantitative digital morphometry and ELISA to measure serum levels of anti-eTG/tTG/npG IgA. RESULTS CD89 showed a significantly higher expression in DH than in IgAN. CD71 was overexpressed in DH and IgAN. CD89 immunoexpression correlated negatively with CD71 in IgAN. A positive correlation was revealed between CD89 immunoexpression and anti-npG IgA in DH. No statistically significant correlations were found in DH between the CD89/CD71 and NE immunoexpression, between CD71 immunoexpression and anti-tTG/eTG/npG IgA, or between CD89 immunoexpression and anti-eTG/tTG IgA serum levels. CONCLUSIONS CD89 is probably a key IgA Fc receptor in DH development, where it is associated with immune response to gluten. CD71 may be linked with inflammation in DH and IgAN. We suggest that interaction between CD89 and CD71 can modulate the inflammation in IgAN.