Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Customer Preferences for Online Games: A Conjoint Analysis Approach with Market Segmentation

Online games display a unique market with a promising economy; hence many developer companies are exploring and have been utilizing this technology because of good possibility in recent years. This study aimed to determine the composition of online game attribute that is most preferred by customers using a Conjoint Analysis Approach. This study utilized different attributes such as graphics, player-to-player interaction, character creation freedom, game accessibility, monetization, storyline, and business model. An orthogonal design of conjoint analysis was utilized to assess customer preference for online games. A survey was proposed to a community of online game players and segmented among their gender, age, and income. The results showed that business model was the most considered attribute while accessibility and monetization were the least preferred. The findings of this study could be beneficial to both technology corporations developing products that fit their target customers and customers making most of their investment.
Growing an Accessible and Inclusive Systems Design Course with PlantUML

Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagrams are commonly used in Systems Analysis and Design (SAaD) courses to communicate complex ideas, designs, and processes. While tools exist to accommodate blind and visually impaired users to work with UML diagrams, many tools fall short in terms of enabling these users to independently create and edit diagrams. This, in turn, limits the extent to which blind users can work in team and peer-feedback activities that use visual diagrams. Adapting visual design activities to be accessible and inclusive benefits not only blind users but sighted users, as well. Being inclusive can lead to more diverse perspectives and ideas, which is invaluable to the creative process of iterative design. In this experience report we describe how a SAaD course was adapted, using off-the-shelf tools, to be not only accessible to a student who uses a screen reader but also inclusive, enabling all students to equally participate in team and peer-feedback activities. We report the successes and challenges of this experience from the perspective of the instructor, the blind student, and their sighted teammates.
Digital Transformation Evaluation of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises Based on DEMATEL

With the rapid development of information technology, digital transformation has become the mainstream trend of enterprises. Under the background of digital environment, the digitization process of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises is relatively slow due to resource constraints and weak risk resistance. In order to correctly evaluate the digital maturity of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, it is necessary to understand the influencing factors of digital transformation and clarify the relationship between these factors. This paper chooses Guangdong Province as the research area because the manufacturing industry in Guangdong Province is relatively developed and the types of enterprises are relatively perfect. Through the investigation of academic experts and manufacturing enterprise managers, we can understand the experts' evaluation of various factors affecting the digital transformation. Then, the influence relationship between the evaluation standards and the importance of each standard is calculated by using the DEMATEL method, and the driving factors and key problems of the digital transformation of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises are found. And then provide suggestions for small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises to implement digital transformation, aiming to accelerate the digital transformation of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises by improving production efficiency and enhancing enterprise innovation ability.
Putting Computing on the Table: Using Physical Games to Teach Computer Science

We describe a new introductory CS curriculum for middle schools that focuses on teaching CS concepts using the instructions and rules for playing simple, physical games. We deliberately avoid the use of technology and, in particular, programming, and we focus on games, such as tossing a coin to see who goes first and playing Tic-Tac-Toe. We report on middle-school students' understanding of basic CS concepts and their experiences with the curriculum. After piloting the curriculum in 6th and 7th grade electives, we found that students liked the curriculum and using games, while some other students reported struggling with the technical content in the algorithm unit and vocabulary across the curriculum. Overall, students gained an understanding of abstraction and representation, and most students could define an algorithm and recognize a condition. However, they could not correctly organize the instructions of an algorithm. Our results suggest that the non-coding, game-based curriculum engaged middle school students in basic CS concepts at the middle school level, but we believe there is room for improvement in delivering technical content and vocabulary related to algorithms.
A Summer Camp Experience to Engage Middle School Learners in AI through Conversational App Development

The ubiquity of AI-based conversational apps such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant means more young users are interacting with these apps. The increasing popularity of these conversational applications brings a potential opportunity to attract learners to AI, CS and STEM fields. CS Education researchers need to explore how to leverage this opportunity, in particular to serve learners who are underrepresented in CS and STEM. This experience report describes the design and iterative refinement of a series of two-week summer camps in which 62 predominantly Black students participated in hands-on AI-based learning experiences to design and develop their own conversational AI apps. We discuss the organization of this summer camp experience, including strategies for recruiting from and building trust within the target community, designing professional development for camp facilitators, structuring the camp activities, and encouraging projects that are personally and socially relevant. We share challenges and lessons learned from this AI summer camp in the hopes that they will inform other researchers and practitioners who are interested in designing and deploying similar experiences.
A's for All (As Time and Interest Allow)

"A's for All (as time and interest allow)" is a position that says it is increasingly possible to aim for a world in which students can achieve any grade (level of mastery) that they are willing to work for, even if some students take longer than others or require more practice to get there. Achieving this goal would have profound effects on fairness, equity, and participation in computing, to say nothing of student learning outcomes. We describe what this goal would entail, why it is worth pursuing, what the mechanism and policy requirements are for making progress, and why now is a good time to do it. We give specific and actionable recommendations, many based on our own experience so far, that our colleagues who are excited about the approach can put into immediate practice, and address a number of concerns and objections that our proposal may raise. Importantly, our proposed approach is not all-or-nothing, but all-or-something: there are many things instructors can do within existing policy frameworks and course constraints to move their course experience in this direction.
Pervasive species-specific repulsion among adult tropical trees

For species to coexist, performance must decline as the density of conspecific individuals increases. Although evidence for such Conspecific Negative Density Dependence (CNDD) exists in forests, the spatial repulsion it should produce has not been demonstrated in adults. Here we show that in comparison to a null model of stochastic birth, death and limited dispersal, the adults of dozens of tropical forest tree species show almost ubiquitous and strong spatial repulsion, some to surprising distances of ~100 meters. We use simulations to show such strong repulsion can only occur if CNDD considerably exceeds Heterospecific Negative Density Dependence, an even stronger condition required for coexistence, and that large-scale repulsion can indeed result from small-scale CNDD. These results highlight the power of limited dispersal spatial null models. One-Sentence Summary Spatial distributions of tropical trees reflect a strong negative effect of conspecifics, exceeding that of heterospecifics
Anisotropic a posteriori error estimate for an optimal control problem governed by the heat equation

The abstract framework of Becker et al. is considered to solve an optimal control problem governed by a parabolic equation. Existence and uniqueness of a solution are proved using the inf‐sup framework and space‐time functional spaces. A Crank‐Nicolson time discretization is proposed, together with continuous, piecewise linear finite elements in space. Existence and uniqueness of a solution to the discretized problem is also proved using the inf‐sup framework. An a posteriori error estimate is proposed, the goal being to control the error between the true and computed cost functional. The error estimate remains valid on strongly anisotropic meshes and an anisotropic error indicator is proposed when the time step is small. Finally, the quality of this error indicator is studied numerically on isotropic and anisotropic meshes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2006
Clinicopathological Significance and Prognostic Role of Her2neu Protein Expression in Patients with Carcinoma Stomach: A Prospective Study from Northern India

Abstract Manas Kumar Behera Background and Aims Gastric cancer is the third most common cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide after lungs and colorectum. Although controversial, Her2neu overexpression by immunohistochemistry is usually associated with poor prognosis in patients with carcinoma stomach. We conducted a prospective study to evaluate the prognostic role of Her2neu and its correlation with clinical, pathologic type, and stage of the disease. Methods A prospective study was performed on paraffin blocks of 111 gastric cancer specimens (88 patients were biopsy specimens and 23 were gastrectomy specimens). The paraffin blocks were processed for Her2neu receptor immunohistochemical staining and fluorescence in situ hybridization, and scoring was done. Results Her2neu overexpression was detected in 30 out of 111 (27%) patients. The mean age was 57.68 ± 12.82 years, with males constituting two-thirds of total patients. Tobacco addiction was found in 44% of the patients and smoking in 33% of the patients. Her2neu expression was similar in Lauren's intestinal and diffuse histologic type; however, proximal gastric tumors overexpressed Her2neu as compared with distal tumors. Her2neu 2+ or 3 + (odds ratio: 2.52, 95% CI: 1.61–3.95, p = 0.001) was the only independent predictor of survival in gastric cancer patients. Kaplan–Meir survival analysis showed that the survival of gastric cancer patients with Her2neu overexpression (Her2neu 2+ or 3 + ) was significantly lower than that of those with Her2neu nonexpression ( p = 0.001). Conclusion Her2neu positivity was a significant predictor of mortality in patients with carcinoma stomach, and Her2neu overexpression was associated with a lower overall survival rate compared with Her2neu nonexpression.
ClockBase: a comprehensive platform for biological age profiling in human and mouse

Aging represents the greatest risk factor for chronic diseases and mortality, but to understand it we need the ability to measure biological age. In recent years, many machine learning algorithms based on omics data, termed aging clocks, have been developed that can accurately predict the age of biological samples. However, there is currently no resource for systematic profiling of biological age. Here, we describe ClockBase, a platform that features biological age estimates based on multiple aging clock models applied to more than 2,000 DNA methylation datasets and nearly 200,000 samples. We further provide an online interface for statistical analyses and visualization of the data. To show how this resource could facilitate the discovery of biological age-modifying factors, we describe a novel anti-aging drug candidate, zebularine, which reduces the biological age estimates based on all aging clock models tested. We also show that pulmonary fibrosis accelerates epigenetic age. Together, ClockBase provides a resource for the scientific community to quantify and explore biological ages of samples, thus facilitating discovery of new longevity interventions and age-accelerating conditions.
A dynamic bactofilin cytoskeleton cooperates with an M23 endopeptidase to control bacterial morphogenesis

Bactofilins have emerged as a widespread family of cytoskeletal proteins with important roles in bacterial morphogenesis, but their precise mode of action is still incompletely understood. In this study, we identify the bactofilin cytoskeleton as a key regulator of cell growth in the stalked budding alphaproteobacterium Hyphomonas neptunium. We show that, in this species, bactofilin polymers localize dynamically to the stalk base and the bud neck, with their absence leading to unconstrained growth of the stalk and bud compartments, indicating a central role in the spatial regulation of cell wall biosynthesis. Database searches reveal that in a range of different species bactofilin genes are clustered with genes for cell wall hydrolases of the M23 peptidase family, suggesting a functional connection between these two types of proteins. In support of this notion, we find that the H. neptunium M23 peptidase homolog LmdC interacts directly with bactofilin in vitro and is required for proper cell shape in vivo. Complementary studies in the spiral-shaped alphaproteobacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum again reveal a close association of its bactofilin and LmdC homologs, which co-localize at the inner curve of the cell, modulating the degree of cell curvature. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that bactofilins and M23 peptidases form a conserved functional module that promotes local changes in the mode of cell wall biosynthesis, thereby driving cell shape determination in morphologically complex bacteria.
CBD lengthens sleep, shortens ripples and leads to intact simple but worse cumulative memory

Cannabidiol (CBD) is on the rise as over-the-counter medication to treat sleep disturbances, anxiety, pain and epilepsy due to its action on the excitatory/inhibitory balance in the brain. However, it remains unclear if CBD also leads to adverse effects via changes of sleep macro- and microarchitecture. To investigate the effect of CBD on sleep and sleep-related memory consolidation, we performed two experiments using the Object Space Task testing both simple and cumulative memory in rats. We show that oral CBD administration extended the sleep period but changed the properties of NonREM sleep oscillations (delta, spindle, ripples). Specifically, CBD also led to less long (>100ms) ripples and consequently worse cumulative memory consolidation. In contrast, simple memories were not affected. In sum, we can confirm the beneficial effect of CBD on sleep, however, this comes with changes in NonREM oscillations that negatively impact memory consolidation.
Microfluidics on Stretchable Strings

This paper introduces string microfluidics (SM), which consists of stretchable strings trapping discrete microdroplets within a porous matrix, and the realization of elementary microfluidic operations such as droplet formation, transport, splitting, merging, and mixing by moving and stretching the strings. While performing these operations, SM was shown to be compatible with colorimetric biological assays. SM represents a new form of microfluidics that integrates the concepts of thread microfluidics and digital microfluidics, along with mobile or reconfigurable microfluidics where liquid transport is realized by manipulating the substrate.
A Refined Single Cell Landscape of Haematopoiesis in the Mouse Foetal Liver

During prenatal life, the foetal liver is colonised by several waves of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) to act as the main haematopoietic organ. Single cell (sc) RNA-seq has been used to identify foetal liver cell types via their transcriptomic signature and to compare gene expression pattern as haematopoietic development proceeds. To obtain a refined single cell landscape of haematopoiesis in the foetal liver, we have generated a novel scRNA-seq dataset from whole mouse E12.5 liver that includes a larger number of cells than prior datasets at this stage and was obtained without cell type preselection to include all liver cell populations. We combined mining of this dataset with that of previously published datasets at other developmental stages to follow transcriptional dynamics as well as cell cycle state of developing haematopoietic lineages. Our findings corroborate several prior reports on the timing of liver colonisation by HSPCs and the emergence of differentiated lineages and provide further molecular characterisation of each cell population. Extending these findings, we demonstrate the existence of a foetal intermediate haemoglobin profile in the mouse, similar to that previously identified in humans, and a previously unidentified population of primitive erythroid cells in the foetal liver.
A boundary-element approach for the complete-electrode model of EIT illustrated using simulated and real data

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) allows non-invasive monitoring and control of dynamic industrial processes. Although reconstruction of tomographic images is useful for process visualization, for industrial process control, estimation of key process parameters is frequently more appropriate than visualization. Often such parameters comprise geometric information. The proposed direct problem solution method naturally encodes geometric information. The complete-electrode model for the direct problem of electrical tomography is solved with a boundary-element approach assuming a piecewise constant conductivity distribution with unknown conductivity and unknown interface location. The boundary-element discretization of the complete-electrode model is presented. In practical applications it is essential to provide an assessment of reliability of the estimates. To achieve this aim, confidence intervals are constructed in a manner which allows sufficient flexibility for the summary of non-Gaussian distributions. Hypothesis testing is proposed to detect changes in electrical impedance on the electrode surface which can be used to identify malfunctioning or poorly contacting electrodes. The proposed data analysis is applied to both computationally simulated and real experimental data.
Chromatin opening ability of pioneer factor Pax7 depends on unique isoform and C-terminal domain

Pioneer factors are transcription factors (TFs) that have the unique ability to recognise their target DNA sequences within closed chromatin. Whereas their interactions with cognate DNA is similar to other TFs, their ability to interact with chromatin remains poorly understood. Having previously defined the modalities of DNA interactions for the pioneer factor Pax7, we have now used natural isoforms of this pioneer as well as deletion and replacement mutants to investigate the Pax7 structural requirements for chromatin interaction and opening. We show that the GL+ natural isoform of Pax7 that has two extra amino acids within the DNA binding paired domain is unable to activate the melanotrope transcriptome and to fully activate a large subset of melanotrope-specific enhancers targeted for Pax7 pioneer action. This enhancer subset remains in the primed state rather than being fully activated, despite the GL+ isoform having similar intrinsic transcriptional activity as the GL-isoform. C-terminal deletions of Pax7 lead to the same loss of pioneer ability, with similar reduced recruitments of the cooperating TF Tpit and of the co-regulators Ash2 and BRG1. This suggests complex interrelations between the DNA binding and C-terminal domains of Pax7 that are crucial for its chromatin opening pioneer ability.
metaGE: Investigating Genotype × Environment interactions through meta-analysis

Dissecting the genetic components of Genotype-by-Environment interactions is of key importance in the context of increasing instability and plant competition due to climate change and phytosanitary treatment limitations. It is widely addressed in plants using Multi-Environment Trials (MET), in which statistical modelling for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is promising but significantly more complex than for single-environment studies. In this context, we introduce metaGE, a flexible and computationally efficient meta-analysis approach for the joint analysis of any MET GWAS experiment. To cope with the specific requirements of the MET context, metaGE accounts for both the heterogeneity of QTL effects across environments and the correlation between GWAS summary statistics acquired on the same or related set(s) of genotypes. Compared to previous GWAS in 3 plant species and a multi-parent population, metaGE identified known and new QTLs. It provided valuable insight into the genetic architecture of several complex traits and the variation of QTL effects conditional to environmental conditions.
Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Paired Human Milk Fat Globules and Membranes and Mouse Milk Fat Globules Identifies Core Cellular Systems Contributing to Mammary Lipid Trafficking and Secretion

Human milk delivers critical nutritional and immunological support to the infant. The milk fat globule and its membrane contain many bioactive components, yet the mechanism of milk fat secretion and how milk fat globule (MFG) components are regulated are poorly defined. In this study, we perform quantitative proteomic profiling of milk fat globules from human and mouse milk, as well as from isolated membranes physically disrupted from human milk fat globules. Using paired analyses of the human samples we report membrane enrichment of the proteins involved in docking/tethering the lipid droplet to the membrane as well as minor components involved in the signaling pathway for secretion. Comparing abundance between human and mouse milk fat globules we find that 8 of 12 major milk fat globule proteins are shared between the two species. Comparative pathway enrichment analyses between human and mouse samples reveal similarities in shared membrane trafficking and signaling pathways involved in milk fat secretion. Our results advance knowledge of the composition and relative quantities of proteins in human and mouse milk fat globules in greater detail, provide a quantitative profile of specifically enriched human milk fat globule membrane proteins, and identify core cellular systems involved in milk lipid secretion.