Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developmental program‐independent secretory granule degradation in larval salivary gland cells of Drosophila

Both constitutive and regulated secretion require cell organelles that are able to store and release the secretory cargo. During development, the larval salivary gland of Drosophila initially produces high amount of glue‐containing small immature secretory granules, which then fuse with each other and reach their normal 3–3.5 μm in size. Following the burst of secretion, obsolete glue granules directly fuse with late endosomes or lysosomes by a process called crinophagy, which leads to fast degradation and recycling of the secretory cargo. However, hindering of endosome‐to‐TGN retrograde transport in these cells causes abnormally small glue granules which are not able to fuse with each other. Here, we show that loss of function of the SNARE genes Syntaxin 16 (Syx16) and Synaptobrevin (Syb), the small GTPase Rab6 and the GARP tethering complex members Vps53 and Scattered (Vps54) all involved in retrograde transport cause intense early degradation of immature glue granules via crinophagy independently of the developmental program. Moreover, silencing of these genes also provokes secretory failure and accelerated crinophagy during larval development. Our results provide a better understanding of the relations among secretion, secretory granule maturation and degradation and paves the way for further investigation of these connections in other metazoans.
Afterglows from precursors in gamma-ray bursts. Application to the optical afterglow of GRB 091024

About 15% of Gamma Ray Bursts have precursors, i.e. emission episodes preceding the main event, whose spectral and temporal properties are similar to the main emission. We propose that precursors have their own fireball, producing afterglow emission due to the dissipation of the kinetic energy via external shock. In the time lapse between the precursor and the main event, we assume that the central engine is not completely turned off, but it continues to eject relativistic material at a smaller rate, whose emission is below the background level. The precursor fireball generates a first afterglow by the interaction with the external circumburst medium. Matter injected by the central engine during the "quasi-quiescent" phase replenishes the external medium with material in relativistic motion. The fireball corresponding to the main prompt emission episode crashes with this moving material, producing a second afterglow, and finally catches up and merges with the first precursor fireball. We apply this new model to GRB 091024, an event with a precursor in the prompt light curve and two well defined bumps in the optical afterglow, obtaining an excellent agreement with the existing data.
Area Operators in Holographic Quantum Gravity

We argue that the holographic formula relating entanglement entropy and the area of a minimal surface is the key to define the area of surfaces in the (emergent) spacetime from the dual theory on the boundary. So we promote the entropy/area relation to operators to define the "area" observable in a holographic formulation of quantum gravity, then we find a suitable geometric representation for the states, and show that the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal is recovered in the approximation of semi-classical gravity. Finally, we discuss this picture in the example of a AdS-Black hole.
Predicting Length of Stay using machine learning for total joint replacements performed at a rural community hospital

Background Predicting patient’s Length of Stay (LOS) before total joint replacement (TJR) surgery is vital for hospitals to optimally manage costs and resources. Many hospitals including in rural areas use publicly available models such as National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) calculator which, unfortunately, performs suboptimally when predicting LOS for TJR procedures. Objective The objective of this research was to develop a Machine Learning (ML) model to predict LOS for TJR procedures performed at a Perioperative Surgical Home implemented rural community hospital for better accuracy and interpretation than the NSQIP calculator. Methods A total of 158 TJR patients were collected and analyzed from a rural community hospital located in Montana. A random forest (RF) model was used to predict patient’s LOS. For interpretation, permuted feature importance and partial dependence plot methods were used to identify the important variables and their relationship with the LOS. Results The root mean square error for the RF model (0.7) was lower than the NSQIP calculator (1.21). The five most important variables for predicting LOS were BMI, Duke Activity Status-Index, diabetes, patient’s household income, and patient’s age. Conclusion This pilot study is the first of its kind to develop an ML model to predict LOS for TJR procedures that were performed at a small-scale rural community hospital. This pilot study contributes an approach for rural hospitals, making them more independent by developing their own predictions instead of relying on public models.
Completely flat bands and fully localized states on surfaces of anisotropic diamond-lattice models

We discuss flat-band surface states on the (111) surface in the tight-binding model with nearest-neighbor hopping on the diamond lattice, in analogy to the flat-band edge states in graphene with a zigzag edge. The bulk band is gapless, and the gap closes along a loop in the Brillouin zone. The verge of the flat-band surface states is identical with this gap-closing loop projected onto the surface plane. When anisotropies in the hopping integrals increase, the bulk gap-closing points move and the distribution of the flat-band states expands in the Brillouin zone. Then when the anisotropy is sufficiently large, the surface flat bands cover the whole Brillouin zone. Because of the completely flat bands, we can construct surface-state wavefunctions which are localized in all the three directions.
Beyond the thermal model in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Deviations from thermal distribution functions of produced particles in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are discussed as indicators for nonequilibrium processes. The focus is on rapidity distributions of produced charged hadrons as functions of collision energy and centrality which are used to infer the fraction of produced particles from a central fireball as compared to the one from the fragmentation sources that are out of equilibrium with the rest of the system. Overall thermal equilibrium would only be reached for large times t -> infinity.
IRAS 16253–2429: THE FIRST PROTO-BROWN DWARF BINARY CANDIDATE IDENTIFIED THROUGH THE DYNAMICS OF JETS

The formation mechanism of brown dwarfs (BDs) is one of the long-standing problems in star formation because the typical Jeans mass in molecular clouds is too large to form these substellar objects. To answer this question, it is crucial to study a BD in the embedded phase. IRAS 16253–2429 is classified as a very low-luminosity object (VeLLO) with an internal luminosity of <0.1 L⊙. VeLLOs are believed to be very low-mass protostars or even proto-BDs. We observed the jet/outflow driven by IRAS 16253–2429 in CO (2–1), (6–5), and (7–6) using the IRAM 30 m and Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescopes and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) in order to study its dynamical features and physical properties. Our SMA map reveals two protostellar jets, indicating the existence of a proto-binary system as implied by the precessing jet detected in H2 emission. We detect a wiggling pattern in the position–velocity diagrams along the jet axes, which is likely due to the binary orbital motion. Based on this information, we derive the current mass of the binary as ∼0.032 M⊙. Given the low envelope mass, IRAS 16253–2429 will form a binary that probably consist of one or two BDs. Furthermore, we found that the outflow force as well as the mass accretion rate are very low based on the multi-transition CO observations, which suggests that the final masses of the binary components are at the stellar/substellar boundary. Since IRAS 16253 is located in an isolated environment, we suggest that BDs can form through fragmentation and collapse, similar to low-mass stars.
Quality and Integrated Service Delivery: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Effects of Malaria and Antenatal Service Quality on Malaria Intervention Use in Sub-Saharan Africa

Using regionally linked facility and household surveys, we measured the quality of integrated antenatal care and malaria in pregnancy services in Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, and Tanzania. We examined country heterogeneities for the association of integrated antenatal and malaria service quality scores with insecticide-treated bed net (ITN) use in pregnant women and children under-five and intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp-2) uptake. Malaria in pregnancy service quality was low overall. Our findings suggest modest, positive associations between malaria in pregnancy quality and ITN use and IPTp-2 uptake across pooled models and for most studied countries, with evidence of heterogeneity in the strength of associations and relevant confounding factors. Antenatal care quality generally was not associated with the study outcomes, although a positive interaction with malaria in pregnancy quality was present for pooled ITN use models. The improved quality of malaria services delivered during formal antenatal care can help address low coverage and usage rates of preventive malaria interventions in pregnancy and childhood. Study findings may be used to target quality improvement efforts at the sub-national level. Study methods may be adapted to identify low-performing facilities for intervention and adaption to other areas of care, such as HIV/AIDS, child immunizations, and postnatal care.
AN EVOLUTIONARY MODEL FOR COLLAPSING MOLECULAR CLOUDS AND THEIR STAR FORMATION ACTIVITY. II. MASS DEPENDENCE OF THE STAR FORMATION RATE

We discuss the evolution and dependence on cloud mass of the star formation rate (SFR) and efficiency (SFE) of star-forming molecular clouds (MCs) within the scenario that clouds are undergoing global collapse and that the SFR is controlled by ionization feedback. We find that low-mass clouds (Mmax ≲ 104 M☉) spend most of their evolution at low SFRs, but end their lives with a mini-burst, reaching a peak SFR ∼104 M☉ Myr−1, although their time-averaged SFR is only 〈SFR〉 ∼ 102 M☉ Myr−1. The corresponding efficiencies are SFEfinal ≲ 60% and 〈SFE〉 ≲ 1%. For more massive clouds (Mmax ≳ 105 M☉), the SFR first increases and then reaches a plateau because the clouds are influenced by stellar feedback since earlier in their evolution. As a function of cloud mass, 〈SFR〉 and 〈SFE〉 are well represented by the fits 〈SFR〉 ≈ 100(1 + Mmax/1.4 × 105 M☉)1.68 M☉ Myr−1 and 〈SFE〉 ≈ 0.03(Mmax/2.5 × 105 M☉)0.33, respectively. Moreover, the SFR of our model clouds follows closely the SFR-dense gas mass relation recently found by Lada et al. during the epoch when their instantaneous SFEs are comparable to those of the clouds considered by those authors. Collectively, a Monte Carlo integration of the model-predicted SFR(M) over a Galactic giant molecular cloud mass spectrum yields values for the total Galactic SFR that are within half an order of magnitude of the relation obtained by Gao & Solomon. Our results support the scenario that star-forming MCs may be in global gravitational collapse and that the low observed values of the SFR and SFE are a result of the interruption of each SF episode, caused primarily by the ionizing feedback from massive stars.
PROBING INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLES WITH OPTICAL EMISSION LINES FROM TIDALLY DISRUPTED WHITE DWARFS

We calculate the emission-line spectrum produced by the debris released when a white dwarf (WD) is tidally disrupted by an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; M ∼ 102–105 M☉) and we explore the possibility of using the emission lines to identify such events and constrain the properties of the IMBH. To this end, we adopt and adapt the techniques developed by Strubbe & Quataert to study the optical emission lines produced when a main-sequence star is tidally disrupted by a supermassive black hole (BH). WDs are tidally disrupted outside of the event horizon of a <105 M☉ BH, which makes these tidal disruption events good signposts of IMBHs. We focus on the optical and UV emission lines produced when the accretion flare photoionizes the stream of debris that remains unbound during the disruption. We find that the spectrum is dominated by lines due to ions of C and O, the strongest of which are C iv λ1549 at early times and [O iii] λ5007 at later times. Furthermore, we model the profile of the emission lines in the [O iii] λλ4959, 5007 doublet and find that it is highly asymmetric with velocity widths of up to ∼2500 km s−1, depending on the properties of the WD–IMBH system and the orientation of the observer. Finally, we compare the models with observations of X-ray flares and optical emission lines in the cores of globular clusters and propose how future observations can test if these features are due to a WD that has been tidally disrupted by an IMBH.
Cryo-EM structures of peripherin-2 and ROM1 suggest multiple roles in photoreceptor membrane morphogenesis

Mammalian peripherin-2 (PRPH2) and rod outer segment membrane protein 1 (ROM1) are retina-specific tetraspanins that partake in the constant renewal of stacked membrane discs of photoreceptor cells that enable vision. Here, we present single-particle cryo–electron microscopy structures of solubilized PRPH2-ROM1 heterodimers and higher-order oligomers. High-risk PRPH2 and ROM1 mutations causing blindness map to the protein-dimer interface. Cysteine bridges connect dimers forming positive-curved oligomers, whereas negative-curved oligomers were observed occasionally. Hexamers and octamers exhibit a secondary micelle that envelopes four carboxyl-terminal helices, supporting a potential role in membrane remodeling. Together, the data indicate multiple structures for PRPH2-ROM1 in creating and maintaining compartmentalization of photoreceptor cells.
Do Intramuscular Temperature and Fascicle Angle Affect Ultrasound Echo Intensity Values?

ABSTRACT Purpose Ultrasound-derived echo intensity (EI) has been used as a physiological marker for changes in skeletal muscle “quality” with physical training, disuse, aging, and neuromuscular disorders. However, the methodological and physiological factors influencing EI and its longitudinal change are still unclear. Here, we performed two separate experiments to investigate the effects of muscle temperature and fascicle angle, which are known to influence muscle tissue and sound wave properties and therefore affect EI. Methods In experiment 1 (n = 16, 28.0 ± 6.6 yr), vastus lateralis (VL) ultrasonographic images were acquired and intramuscular temperature continuously recorded for 15 min after 20 min of heating to 40.4°C ± 0.7°C using a microwave device. In experiment 2 (n = 17, 30.2 ± 9.8 yr), VL sonographic images were obtained with the knee both fully extended (0°) and flexed to 90° and EI and fascicle angle measured post hoc. Fascicle movement was tracked during the passive knee flexion to ensure that sonographic images were obtained at the same muscle region. Knee flexion reduced muscle thickness, and we therefore reran analyses calculating EI using identical dimensions to minimize this effect. Results EI decreased only immediately after the passive heating, and although a moderate, negative correlation was observed between EI and temperature (rrm = −0.36), the effect of muscle temperature was small (β = 0.97 (−1.89 to −0.06) per degree Celsius, P = 0.051). Nonetheless, EI increased as fascicle angle decreased, and a large, negative correlation (rrm = −0.85) was observed; the effect of fascicle angle on EI was large (β = 3.0 (−3.8 to −2.2) per degree, P < 0.01), and this was maintained when analyses were performed at a constant depth of the region of interest (β = 3.5 (−4.4 to −2.7) per degree, P < 0.01). Conclusions These findings support the hypothesis that fascicle angle meaningfully affects VL EI but provides weak evidence of a temperature effect in vivo. Thus, acute fascicle angle alterations should be accounted for in studies using EI measurements, and longer-term studies should consider whether changes in EI might be partly explained by a change in fascicle angle.
Head Orientation Influences Saccade Directions during Free Viewing

Abstract When looking around a visual scene, humans make saccadic eye movements to fixate objects of interest. While the extraocular muscles can execute saccades in any direction, not all saccade directions are equally likely: saccades in horizontal and vertical directions are most prevalent. Here, we asked whether head orientation plays a role in determining saccade direction biases. Study participants (n = 14) viewed natural scenes and abstract fractals (radially symmetric patterns) through a virtual reality headset equipped with eye tracking. Participants’ heads were stabilized and tilted at −30°, 0°, or 30° while viewing the images, which could also be tilted by −30°, 0°, and 30° relative to the head. To determine whether the biases in saccade direction changed with head tilt, we calculated polar histograms of saccade directions and cross-correlated pairs of histograms to find the angular displacement resulting in the maximum correlation. During free viewing of fractals, saccade biases largely followed the orientation of the head with an average displacement value of 24° when comparing head upright to head tilt in world-referenced coordinates (t(13) = 17.63, p < 0.001). There was a systematic offset of 2.6° in saccade directions, likely reflecting ocular counter roll (OCR; t(13) = 3.13, p = 0.008). When participants viewed an Earth upright natural scene during head tilt, we found that the orientation of the head still influenced saccade directions (t(13) = 3.7, p = 0.001). These results suggest that nonvisual information about head orientation, such as that acquired by vestibular sensors, likely plays a role in saccade generation.
Chiral Skyrmionic matter in non-centrosymmetric magnets

Axisymmetric magnetic strings with a fixed sense of rotation and nanometer sizes (chiral magnetic vortices or Skyrmions) have been predicted to exist in a large group of non-centrosymmetric crystals more than two decades ago. Recently these extraordinary magnetic states have been directly observed in thin layers of cubic helimagnet (Fe,Co)Si. In this report we apply our earlier theoretical findings to review main properties of chiral Skyrmions, to elucidate their physical nature, and to analyse these recent experimental results on magnetic-field-driven evolution of Skyrmions and helicoids in chiral helimagnets.
A Spatiotemporal Graph Attention Network Based on Synchronization for Epileptic Seizure Prediction

Accurate early prediction of epileptic seizures can provide timely treatment for patients. Previous studies have mainly focused on a single temporal or spatial dimension, making it difficult to take both relationships into account. Therefore, the effective properties of electroencephalograms (EEGs) may not be fully evaluated. To solve this problem, we propose a spatiotemporal graph attention network (STGAT) based on synchronization. The spatial and functional connectivity information between EEG channels was extracted by using the phase locking values (PLVs) first, which allowed multichannel EEG signals to be modeled as graph signals. Afterward, the STGAT model was used to dynamically learn the temporal correlation properties of EEG sequences and explore the spatial topological structure information of multiple channels. Experimental results demonstrated that the STGAT model was able to obtain spatiotemporal correlations and achieve good results on two benchmark datasets. The accuracy, specificity and sensitivity were 98.74%, 99.21% and 98.87%, respectively, on the CHB-MIT dataset. Moreover, all evaluation indices of the private dataset had reached more than 98.8%, with the area under the curve (AUC) reaching 99.96%. The proposed method is superior or comparable to the state-of-the-art models. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our end-to-end automatic seizure prediction model can be extended to design clinical assistant decision systems.
Extracting the three- and four-graviton vertices from binary pulsars and coalescing binaries

Using a formulation of the post-Newtonian expansion in terms of Feynman graphs, we discuss how various tests of general relativity (GR) can be translated into measurement of the three- and four-graviton vertices. In problems involving only the conservative dynamics of a system, a deviation of the three-graviton vertex from the GR prediction is equivalent, to lowest order, to the introduction of the parameter {beta}{sub PPN} in the parametrized post-Newtonian formalism, and its strongest bound comes from lunar laser ranging, which measures it at the 0.02% level. Deviation of the three-graviton vertex from the GR prediction, however, also affects the radiative sector of the theory. We show that the timing of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar provides a bound on the deviation of the three-graviton vertex from the GR prediction at the 0.1% level. For coalescing binaries at interferometers we find that, because of degeneracies with other parameters in the template such as mass and spin, the effects of modified three- and four-graviton vertices is just to induce an error in the determination of these parameters and, at least in the restricted PN approximation, it is not possible to use coalescing binaries for constraining deviations of the vertices from the GR prediction.
Three-point correlation functions in Yang-Mills theory

We investigate the three-point correlation functions of Yang-Mills theory in the Landau gauge, with a particular emphasis on the infrared regime. The effect of the Gribov copies is accounted for by adding a mass term for the gluons in the Faddeev-Popov action in the Landau gauge. We perform a one-loop calculation for the ghost-antighost-gluon and three-gluon correlation functions. These analytic results are compared with the available lattice data and give a very satisfying agreement.
COMPACT H i CLOUDS FROM THE GALFA-H i SURVEY

The Galactic Arecibo L-band Feed Array H i (GALFA-H i) survey is mapping the entire Arecibo sky at 21 cm, over a velocity range of −700 to +700 km s−1 (LSR), at a velocity resolution of 0.18 km s−1, and a spatial resolution of 3.5 arcmin. The unprecedented resolution and sensitivity of the GALFA-H i survey have resulted in the detection of numerous isolated, very compact H i clouds at low Galactic velocities, which are distinctly separated from the H i disk emission. In the limited area of ∼4600 deg2 surveyed so far, we have detected 96 such compact clouds. The detected clouds are cold with a median Tk,max (the kinetic temperature in the case in which there is no non-thermal broadening) of 300 K. Moreover, these clouds are quite compact and faint, with median values of 5 arcmin in angular size, 0.75 K in peak brightness temperature, and 5 × 1018 cm−2 in H i column density. Most of the clouds deviate from Galactic rotation at the 20–30 km s−1 level, and a significant fraction show evidence for a multiphase medium and velocity gradients. No counterparts for these clouds were found in other wave bands. From the modeling of spatial and velocity distributions of the whole compact cloud population, we find that the bulk of the compact clouds are related to the Galactic disk, and their distances are likely to be in the range of 0.1 to a few kpc. We discuss various possible scenarios for the formation and maintenance of this cloud population and its significance for Galactic interstellar medium studies.