Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visualising Migration Flow Data with Circular Plots

Effective visualisations of migration flows can substantially enhance our understanding of underlying patterns and trends. However, commonly used migration maps that show place-to-place flows as stroked lines drawn atop a geographic map fall short of conveying the complexities of human movement in a clear and compelling manner. We introduce circular migration plots, a new method for visualising and exploring migration flow tables in an intuitively graspable way. Our approach aims to provide detailed quantitative information on the intensities and patterns of migration flows around the globe by using a visualization design that is effective and visually appealing. The key elements of the design are (a) the arrangement of origins and destinations of migration flows in a circular layout, (b) the scaling of individual flows to allow the entire system to be shown simultaneously, (c) the expression of the volume of movement through the width of the flow and its direction through the colour of the origin. Drawing on new estimates of 5-year bilateral migration flows between 196 countries, we demonstrate how to create circular migration plots at regional and country levels using three alternative software packages: Circos, R, and the JavaScript library d3.js. Circular migration plots considerably improve our ability to graphically evaluate complex patterns and trends in migration flow data, and for communicating migration research to scientists in other disciplines and to the general public. Our visualisation method is applicable to other kinds of flow data, including trade and remittances flows.
Replay-enhanced Continual Reinforcement Learning

Replaying past experiences has proven to be a highly effective approach for averting catastrophic forgetting in supervised continual learning. However, some crucial factors are still largely ignored, making it vulnerable to serious failure, when used as a solution to forgetting in continual reinforcement learning, even in the context of perfect memory where all data of previous tasks are accessible in the current task. On the one hand, since most reinforcement learning algorithms are not invariant to the reward scale, the previously well-learned tasks (with high rewards) may appear to be more salient to the current learning process than the current task (with small initial rewards). This causes the agent to concentrate on those salient tasks at the expense of generality on the current task. On the other hand, offline learning on replayed tasks while learning a new task may induce a distributional shift between the dataset and the learned policy on old tasks, resulting in forgetting. In this paper, we introduce RECALL, a replay-enhanced method that greatly improves the plasticity of existing replay-based methods on new tasks while effectively avoiding the recurrence of catastrophic forgetting in continual reinforcement learning. RECALL leverages adaptive normalization on approximate targets and policy distillation on old tasks to enhance generality and stability, respectively. Extensive experiments on the Continual World benchmark show that RECALL performs significantly better than purely perfect memory replay, and achieves comparable or better overall performance against state-of-the-art continual learning methods.
Type 1 Diabetes Impairs Endothelium-Dependent Relaxation Via Increasing Endothelial Cell Glycolysis Through Advanced Glycation End Products, PFKFB3, and Nox1-Mediated Mechanisms

BACKGROUND: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a major cause of endothelial dysfunction. Although cellular bioenergetics has been identified as a new regulator of vascular function, whether glycolysis, the primary bioenergetic pathway in endothelial cells (EC), regulates vascular tone and contributes to impaired endothelium-dependent relaxation (EDR) in T1D remains unknown. METHODS: Experiments were conducted in Akita mice with intact or selective deficiency in EC PFKFB3 (6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase 3), the main regulator of glycolysis. Seahorse analyzer and myography were employed to measure glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration, and EDR, respectively, in aortic explants. EC PFKFB3 (Ad-PFKFB3) and glycolysis (Ad-GlycoHi) were increased in situ via adenoviral transduction. RESULTS: T1D increased EC glycolysis and elevated EC expression of PFKFB3 and NADPH oxidase Nox1 (NADPH oxidase homolog 1). Functionally, pharmacological and genetic inhibition of PFKFB3 restored EDR in T1D, while in situ aorta EC transduction with Ad-PFKFB3 or Ad-GlycoHi reproduced the impaired EDR associated with T1D. Nox1 inhibition restored EDR in aortic rings from Akita mice, as well as in Ad-PFKFB3-transduced aorta EC and lactate-treated wild-type aortas. T1D increased the expression of the advanced glycation end product precursor methylglyoxal in the aortas. Exposure of the aortas to methylglyoxal impaired EDR, which was prevented by PFKFB3 inhibition. T1D and exposure to methylglyoxal increased EC expression of HIF1α (hypoxia-inducible factor 1α), whose inhibition blunted methylglyoxal-mediated EC PFKFB3 upregulation. CONCLUSIONS: EC bioenergetics, namely glycolysis, is a new regulator of vasomotion and excess glycolysis, a novel mechanism of endothelial dysfunction in T1D. We introduce excess methylglyoxal, HIF1α, and PFKFB3 as major effectors in T1D-mediated increased EC glycolysis.
Initial immune response after exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis or to SARS-COV-2: similarities and differences

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), whose etiologic agent is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), are currently the two deadliest infectious diseases in humans, which together have caused about more than 11 million deaths worldwide in the past 3 years. TB and COVID-19 share several aspects including the droplet- and aerosol-borne transmissibility, the lungs as primary target, some symptoms, and diagnostic tools. However, these two infectious diseases differ in other aspects as their incubation period, immune cells involved, persistence and the immunopathological response. In this review, we highlight the similarities and differences between TB and COVID-19 focusing on the innate and adaptive immune response induced after the exposure to Mtb and SARS-CoV-2 and the pathological pathways linking the two infections. Moreover, we provide a brief overview of the immune response in case of TB-COVID-19 co-infection highlighting the similarities and differences of each individual infection. A comprehensive understanding of the immune response involved in TB and COVID-19 is of utmost importance for the design of effective therapeutic strategies and vaccines for both diseases.
Variations in the terminus position, ice velocity and surface elevation of the Langhovde Glacier, East Antarctica [an abstract of dissertation and a summary of dissertation review]

Title Variations in the terminus position, ice velocity and surface elevation of the Langhovde Glacier, East Antarctica [an abstract of dissertation and a summary of dissertation review] Author(s) 福田, 武博 Citation 北海道大学. 博士(環境科学) 甲第11345号 Issue Date 2014-03-25 Doc URL http://hdl.handle. net/2115/55436 Rights(URL) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/jp/ Type theses (doctoral abstract and summary of review) Additional Information There are other files related to this item in HUSCAP. Check the above URL. File Information Takehiro_Fukuda_abstract. pdf (論文内容の要旨)
Integrated transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics-based analysis uncover TAM2-associated glycolysis and pyruvate metabolic remodeling in pancreatic cancer

Introduction Tumor-associated macrophage 2 (TAM2) abundantly infiltrates pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PAAD), and its interaction with malignant cells is involved in the regulation of tumor metabolism. In this study, we explored the metabolic heterogeneity involved in TAM2 by constructing TAM2-associated metabolic subtypes in PAAD. Materials and methods PAAD samples were classified into molecular subtypes with different metabolic characteristics based on a multi-omics analysis strategy. 20 PAAD tissues and 10 normal pancreatic tissues were collected for proteomic and metabolomic analyses. RNA sequencing data from the TCGA-PAAD cohort were used for transcriptomic analyses. Immunohistochemistry was used to assess TAM2 infiltration in PAAD tissues. Results The results of transcriptomics and immunohistochemistry showed that TAM2 infiltration levels were upregulated in PAAD and were associated with poor patient prognosis. The results of proteomics and metabolomics indicated that multiple metabolic processes were aberrantly regulated in PAAD and that this dysregulation was linked to the level of TAM2 infiltration. WGCNA confirmed pyruvate and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis as co-expressed metabolic pathways of TAM2 in PAAD. Based on transcriptomic data, we classified the PAAD samples into four TAM2-associated metabolic subtypes (quiescent, pyruvate, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and mixed). Metabolic subtypes were each characterized in terms of clinical prognosis, tumor microenvironment, immune cell infiltration, chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity, and functional mechanisms. Conclusion Our study confirmed that the metabolic remodeling of pyruvate and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis in PAAD was closely related to TAM2. Molecular subtypes based on TAM2-associated metabolic pathways provided new insights into prognosis prediction and therapy for PAAD patients.
Phytochemical Constituents and Biological Activity of Wild and Cultivated Rosmarinus officinalis Hydroalcoholic Extracts

Rosmarinus officinalis L. is an aromatic evergreen plant from the Lamiaceae family. The purpose of this study was to compare the chemical profile and bioactivities of hydroalcoholic extracts derived from wild and cultivated R. officinalis. The chemical composition of the extracts was evaluated via LC–MS analysis, which revealed the presence of a wide range of phenolic compounds, including flavonoids, phenolic and terpenes. Both extracts showed a similar interesting antioxidant activity, probably related to their content of phenol and flavonoids. The analysis of anti-acetylcholinesterase (AChE), anti-butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), and anti-α-amylase activities showed analogous inhibition, except for AChE, in which the wild type was more active than the cultivated one. Finally, in vitro studies were performed using the J774A.1 murine macrophage cell line, to characterize the anti-inflammatory and the antioxidant effects of the extracts. As expected, pretreatment with the extracts significantly reduced the production proinflammatory cytokines and ROS through modulation of the nitric oxide pathway and the mitochondrial activity. Importantly, it is observed that the anti-inflammatory effect of the extracts was explicated through the inhibition of NF-kB and its downstream mediator COX-2. Collectively, these results demonstrated that these extracts could represent a starting point for developing novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of inflammation-based diseases. Moreover, since no significant changes were observed in terms of composition and activity, both wild and cultivated R. officinalis extracts can be recommended for food and pharmaceutical purposes.
ADS-Bchain: A Blockchain-Based Trusted Service Scheme for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast

The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system uses air-to-air and air-to-ground data link broadcast modes to transmit aviation aircraft position information at specific time intervals. Because the ADS-B channel is open, the access to the broadcast channel lacks a security authentication mechanism, and no information integrity protection measures are provided in the transmission protocol. Therefore, the aircraft position information broadcast by ADS-B can be easily and illegally tampered with to form a counterfeit signal, which can cause an aircraft to suffer cyberattacks. To ensure the authenticity and the integrity of the information, this article adopts the concept of a trusted service and proposes a trusted service plan for anticounterfeiting information in the ADS-B system based on blockchain technology. According to the structural characteristics and business service process of the ADS-B system, a suitable blockchain model is designed, an ADS-B message is recorded through the blockchain, and the immutable and traceable features of the blockchain are used to ensure the authenticity and reliability of data. After a user receives an ADS-B message, the data recorded in the blockchain are used as a reference in the form of a trusted service for the user to determine the counterfeit of the received data. A simulation verification shows that the proposed scheme can protect ADS-B information from being tampered with, can trace malicious nodes, can prevent data leakage, can provide systematic security protection, and has lower computational costs.
Automatic Extraction From and Reasoning About Genealogical Records: A Prototype

AUTOMATIC EXTRACTION FROM AND REASONING ABOUT GENEALOGICAL RECORDS: A PROTOTYPE Charla Woodbury Department of Computer Science Master of Science Family history research on the web is increasing in popularity, and many competing genealogical websites host large amounts of data-rich, unstructured, primary genealogical records. It is labor-intensive, however, even after making these records machine-readable, for humans to make these records easily searchable. What we need are computer tools that can automatically produce indices and databases from these genealogical records and can automatically identify individuals and events, determine relationships, and put families together. We propose here a possible solution—specialized ontologies, built specifically for extracting information from primary genealogical records, with expert logic and rules to infer genealogical facts and assemble relationship links between persons with respect to the genealogical events in their lives. The deliverables of this solution are extraction ontologies that can extract from parish or town records, annotated versions of original documents, data files of individuals and events, and rules to infer family relationships from stored data. The solution also provides for the ability to query over the rules and data files and to obtain query-result justification linking back to primary genealogical records. An evaluation of the prototype solution shows that the extraction has excellent recall and precision results and that inferred facts are correct. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Dr. David W. Embley for his unending help and guidance; Dr. Steven W. Liddle for his technical help and advice; and my family and friends for their encouragement and support.
Can artificial intelligence be used to improve the quality of vision in patients with amblyopia? The first digital pill in medicine administered under AI

We live in an ever-increasing digital world, digital applications and diagnostics are part and parcel of everyday clinical practice, particularly in Ophthalmology. All previous digital applications have been directed to improving our diagnostic capabilities but now, for the first time there is a digital pill. This is not a digitally activated/tracked pharmaceutical [1], this is a digital treatment per se, one designed to recover visual function in later life that had been lost in childhood. The neural substrate for this is residual neural plasticity present after the early critical period for visual development. There appear to be two pathways, a bottom-up one that is reliant on the appropriate dichoptic stimulation [2] while the other is a top-down one from higher brain areas that involves attention [3–5]. Treatment efficacy depends on activation of both pathways and there is an important role for AI in ensuring that attention is fully engaged for the duration of the bottom-up stimulation which is administered on a videogaming platform suitable for engaging young children.
Timbre-Reserved Adversarial Attack in Speaker Identification

As a type of biometric identification, speaker identification (SID) systems face various attacks. Spoofing attacks imitate target speakers' timbre, while adversarial attacks confuse SID systems with well-designed perturbations. Spoofing mimics victim timbre but fails to exploit SID model vulnerabilities, potentially not achieving the attacker.s goal. On the other hand, adversarial attacks can lead SID to a decision but may not meet specific text or speaker timbre requirements for certain attack scenarios. In this study, we propose a timbre-reserved adversarial attack in speaker identification to leverage SID model vulnerabilities while preserving the target speaker.s timbre. We generate timbre-reserved adversarial audio by adding an adversarial constraint during different training stages of the voice conversion (VC) model. This constraint utilizes the target speaker label to optimize adversarial perturbations in VC model representations and is implemented through a speaker classifier integrated into VC model training. This adversarial constraint helps control the VC model to generate speaker-wised audio. Ultimately, the VC model.s inference produces ideal timbre-reserved adversarial audio capable of deceiving SID system. Experimental results on the Audio deepfake detection (ADD) challenge dataset demonstrate that our method significantly improves attack success rate compared to the vanilla VC model, without introducing additional adversarial noise to the attack speech. Objective and subjective evaluations confirm the superior quality of fake audio generated by our approach compared to directly adding adversarial perturbation to VC-generated audio. Additionally, our analysis indicates that our generated adversarial fake audio meets the specified text and target speaker timbre requirements of the attacker.
Forced expiratory volume in the 6 s and forced expiratory volume in the 1 s/forced expiratory volume in the 6 s for early detection of airflow obstruction

Introduction : Use of affordable and simple tools for screening chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is limited. In recent years, measurement of forced expiratory volume in the 6 s (FEV6) has been researched as a substitute to replace forced vital capacity measurements. This work was performed to analyze the effectiveness of a simpli ﬁ ed handheld forced expiratory ﬂ owmeter device and to search an optimal cutoff value of FEV1/FEV6 to detect air ﬂ ow narrowing and limitation. Patients and methods : This was a cross-section study for screening and ﬁ nding of active case among undiagnosed patients with COPD using a simple handheld spirometry device, and the results were compared with the results from conventional spirometry. Result : A total of 164 participants were included in this study, and only 28.6% were discovered with limitation of air ﬂ ow using traditional spirometry. FEV1, FEV6, and FEV1/FEV6 were determined using a handheld expiratory ﬂ ow-meter. FEV1/FEV6 showed a strong correlation with FEV1/forced vital capacity, which was detected by traditional spirometry ( r ¼ 0.741, P < 0.001). Area under the curve analysis for FEV1/FEV6 to detect bronchial airway obstruction was 0.910. The cutoff point for FEV1/FEV6 to detected bronchial obstruction was 0.73, with sensitivity and speci ﬁ city of 88 and 91.3%, respectively. Conclusion : Measurement of FEV6 and FEV1/FEV6 by simple handheld spirometry might be useful for early detection of air ﬂ ow obstruction. Patients with abnormal results, detected using a cutoff value of FEV1/FEV6 of less than 0.73, should be transferred and subjected to additional traditional spirometry evaluations for con ﬁ rmation of COPD
Pathogenic Factors of Bacterial Vaginitis and Construction of Nomogram Prediction Model

Background : This study aims to explore the risk factors inducing bacterial vaginosis (BV) and establish a nomogram prediction model. Methods : Single-factor analysis and multivariate logistic regression were used to analyze the risk factors affecting the onset of BV. The selected risk factors were incorporated into the R software to establish a nomogram prediction model. The effectiveness of the proposed model was evaluated. Results : The cleanliness of vaginal secretions above grade III accounted for 90.86% (169/186) of the cases. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the use of nursing pads during non-menstrual periods, history of miscarriage ≥ 1 time, self-vaginal douche, and frequency of sexual activity ≥ 5 time per week were identified as risk factors for the incidence of BV ( p < 0.05). Using condoms as a method of contraception was identified as a protective factor for the incidence of BV ( p < 0.05); A nomogram prediction model was established based on the aforementioned risk factors, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.789 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.751–0.827), indicating that the nomogram had a good degree of discrimination. The slope of the calibration curve was close to 1. Decision curve analysis (DCA) shows that it has good clinical value. Conclusions : The nomogram prediction model established based on BV risk factors has good discrimination and high degree of consistency.
Cerebellar Peduncle Injuries in Patients with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

BACKGROUND The cerebellum is connected to the brain stem by three pairs of cerebellar peduncles (CPs)-superior (SCP), middle (MCP), and inferior (ICP)-which carry proprioceptive information to regulate movement and maintain balance and posture. Injury or damage to the CPs caused by tumors, infarcts, or traumatic brain injuries (TBI) results in poor coordination and balance problems. Current data on CP-related injuries and their effect on balance control are sparse and restricted to a few case studies. There have been no studies to date that have investigated CP injuries in a large sample of patients with balance problems following a mild TBI. Hence, we investigated CP-related injuries in patients with balance problems following mild TBI using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). METHODS Twenty-one patients with TBI and 21 normal subjects were recruited for this study. Balance was evaluated using the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS). Three DTT-related parameters-fractional anisotropy (FA), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and fiber number (FN) of the CPs-were measured. RESULTS The FN values of the SCP and ICP in the patient group were significantly lower than those in the control group (p < 0.05). No significant differences in the FA, ADC, and FN values of the MCP were observed between the patient and control groups (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Using DTT, we demonstrated injuries to the SCP and ICP in mild TBI patients with balance problems. Our results suggest that DTT could be a useful tool for detecting injuries to the CPs that may not be identified on conventional brain magnetic resonance imaging in mild TBI patients.