Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ros-mediated mitochondrial oxidative stress is involved in the ameliorating effect of ginsenoside GSLS on chlorpyrifos-induced hepatotoxicity in mice

Chlorpyrifos (CPF), as an extensively used organophosphorus pesticide, often remains on food surfaces or contaminates water sources. CPF can cause many toxic effects on human production and life. As an additional product of non-medicinal parts of ginseng, the pharmacological activity of ginseng stem and leaf total saponin (GSLS) has been verified and applied in recent years. This study aimed to evaluate the protective effect of GSLS on CPF-induced liver damage in mice. Experimental results in vivo demonstrate that GSLS can reduce the accumulation of oxidation product MDA by relieving CPF-induced liver function indicators in mice and enhancing the antioxidant enzyme SOD and CAT activities of mice. With the decrease in mRNA expression of BAX, NF-KB, and TIMP in liver tissues, the mRNA expression of Nrf-2, HO-1, and XIAP increased. Through anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other effects, cpf-induced hepatotoxicity can be alleviated by GSLS. In vitro experiments have proved that GSLS can show the ability to scavenge DPPH free radicals and hydroxyl radicals. In addition, GSLS can alleviate chlorpyrifos-induced ROS accumulation in L02 cells, alleviating cytokinetic potential reduction. In summary, by fighting oxidative stress, GSLS can alleviate liver damage caused by CPF.
Wavelet regression by cross-validation,

This paper is about using wavelets for regression. The main aim of the paper is to introduce and develop a cross-validation method for selecting a wavelet regression threshold that produces good estimates with respect to L2 error. The selected threshold determines which coeecients to keep in an orthogonal wavelet expansion of noisy data and acts in a similar way to a smoothing parameter in non-parametric regression. The paper gives a very brief introduction to wavelets and how the discrete wavelet transform with a thresholding rule can be used to estimate functions from noisy data. The paper examines the integrated square error (ISE) of a soft-thresholded wavelet estimator as a function of the threshold and shows that the ISE is almost always convex and almost always has negative rst derivative for a zero threshold. This implies that it is almost always possible to nd a unique minimum for the ISE. A cross-validation score is introduced to estimate the ISE of a soft-thresholded estimator. The score is based on splitting the data into two sets with one set consisting of odd-indexed observations and the other containing the even-indexed ones. Such a splitting is convenient because the discrete wavelet transform, which is involved in computing a regression , only operates on data sets containing a power of two number of data points. The theoretical behaviour of the cross-validation score as a function of the threshold is investigated and compared to the true ISE which it closely resembles. The penultimate part of this paper compares the cross-validation procedure with other threshold-choice methods for a three functions and three diierent noise structures. The comparisons suggest that for sparse signals the cross-validation method successfully estimates thètrue' ISE and can outperform other methods. Comparisons using non-normal noise show 1 that the cross-validated choice is more resilient to outliers that other methods. However, all of the methods we used were unable to nd exactly the \true" threshold when the data were correlated.
Trace Element Interactions, Inflammatory Signaling, and Male Sex Implicated in Reduced Growth Following Excess Oral Iron Supplementation in Pre-Weanling Rats

Iron supplements are frequently provided to infants in high-income countries despite low incidence of iron deficiency. There is growing concern regarding adverse health and development outcomes of excess iron provision in early life. Excess iron may directly damage developing organs through the formation of reactive oxygen species, alter systemic inflammatory signaling, and/or dysregulate trace mineral metabolism. To better characterize the in vivo effects of excess iron on development, we utilized a pre-weanling rat pup model. Lewis rat litters were culled to eight pups (four males and four females) and randomly assigned to daily supplementation groups receiving either vehicle control (CON; 10% w/v sucrose solution) or ferrous sulfate (FS) iron at one of the following doses: 10, 30, or 90 mg iron/kg body weight—FS-10, FS-30, and FS-90, respectively—from postnatal day (PD) 2 through 9. FS-90 litters, but not FS-30 or FS-10, failed to thrive compared to CON litters and had smaller brains on PD 10. Among the groups, FS-90 liver iron levels were highest, as were white blood cell counts. Compared to CON, circulating MCP-1 and liver zinc were increased in FS-90 pups, whereas liver copper was decreased. Growth defects due to excess FS provision in pre-weanling rats may be related to liver injury, inflammation, and altered trace mineral metabolism.
Autonomous Flight of High-Endurance UAVs to Monitor Powerlines

In this project, the authors will develop a highly efficient UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) architecture for long endurance flights. The authors propose an IoT (internet of things) model that will connect a network of drones using a 4G LTE (long-term evolution) connection. The researchers also propose the use of MEC (mobile edge computing) stations, smart GCSs (ground control stations) for battery replacement, and wireless charging via powerline magnetic field harvesting. The authors will be applying these ideas to a powerline monitoring mission profile, creating a large sensor network with computer vision capabilities to detect powerline faults and report them to the proper authorities.
Reconfigurable Drone System for Transportation of Parcels With Variable Mass and Size

Cargo drones are designed to carry payloads with predefined shape, size, and/or mass. This lack of flexibility requires a fleet of diverse drones tailored to specific cargo dimensions. Here we propose a new reconfigurable drone based on a modular design that adapts to different cargo shapes, sizes, and mass. We also propose a method for the automatic generation of drone configurations and suitable parameters for the flight controller. The parcel becomes the drone's body to which several individual propulsion modules are attached. We demonstrate the use of the reconfigurable hardware and the accompanying software by transporting parcels of different mass and sizes requiring various numbers and propulsion modules’ positioning. The experiments are conducted indoors (with a motion capture system) and outdoors (with an RTK-GNSS sensor). The proposed design represents a cheaper and more versatile alternative to the solutions involving several drones for parcel transportation.
A Perfectionist Theory of Justice

Many liberal political philosophers hold that the state should not impose or even promote any particular conception of the good life or human flourishing. Instead, the state should restrict itself to maintaining a fair framework of rights and opportunities within which all citizens can pursue their own ideas about the good life. Against this backdrop, this book defends a perfectionist political philosophy. Whereas previous perfectionists have argued that the promotion of flourishing ways of life is permissible or legitimate, the author casts perfectionism as a doctrine of justice. On this view, the implementation of laws and policies designed to promote sound ideals of the good life — ideals such as moral, intellectual and artistic excellence — is not merely a legitimate complement to justice but an essential constituent of justice. Over the years, liberals have criticized perfectionism on various fronts: that it relies on value judgements that are controversial within modern pluralistic societies; that it is unduly restrictive of freedom and autonomy; that it treats citizens as if they are unable to run their own lives; that it expresses the meddlesome mentality of a village busybody; that it mistakenly assumes that there are objective truths about human flourishing; and that it risks the abuse of power by incompetent, overzealous or corrupt state officials. These ideas represent some of the deepest, most vibrant and most powerful strains in liberal thought. In defending perfectionism against these charges, the author’s arguments make a novel contribution to longstanding debates about the philosophical foundations of liberalism.
Modélisation mathématique de la dynamique de diffusion de bactéries résistantes aux antibiotiques : application au pneumocoque

L’objectif de cette these est de developper des outils de modelisation mathematique afin d’etudier la dynamique de transmission des souches de pneumocoque dans la communaute. La dynamique d’emergence et de diffusion de bacteries resistantes dans la population est difficile a anticiper : les phenomenes se produisent a differentes echelles (bacterie, hote et population) et les bacteries circulent dans des environnements humains complexes (nombreux antibiotiques et vaccins). Dans ce cadre, la formalisation mathematique et la simulation peuvent contribuer a mieux comprendre et anticiper les phenomenes en jeu. Trois questions principales sont posees dans ce travail. Elles portent sur : l’effet d’une modification de l’exposition antibiotique sur la distribution des resistances du pneumocoque ; les consequences de l’usage de vaccins conjugues sur les distributions de souches ; et l’etude de la dynamique d’incidence des meningites a pneumocoque. Pour y repondre, 4 modeles mathematiques compartimentaux specifiques sont construits. Les resultats des simulations renforcent l’idee que l’exposition antibiotique est un facteur environnemental majeur pour la selection des pneumocoques resistants aux antibiotiques. En particulier, ils mettent en evidence l’importance du choix des molecules antibiotiques utilisees et des doses prescrites sur la distribution des resistances dans la population. Ils suggerent de plus que les virus hivernaux, la consommation antibiotique et l’epidemicite differenciee en fonction de la resistance pourraient expliquer en partie la dynamique des meningites a pneumocoque dans la population
How Physical Activity Affects Knee Cartilage and a Standard Intervention Procedure for an Exercise Program: A Systematic Review

(1) Background: Cartilage degeneration with the natural aging process and the role of physical activity on cartilage wellness is still not clear. The objective of the present review was to understand how different physical activity interventions affect the cartilage and to propose a Standard Operating Procedure for an exercise program to maintain knee joint health; (2) Methods: Articles were collected on three different electronic databases and screened against the eligibility criteria. Results were collected in tables and the main outcomes were discussed narratively; (3) Results: A total of 24 studies have been included after the screening process and aerobic, strength, flexibility, postural balance, and mobility interventions were detected. Different protocols and types of interventions were adopted by the authors; (4) Conclusions: Physical activity interventions have mainly positive outcomes on cartilage structure, but the protocols adopted are different and various. A Standard Operating Procedure has been proposed for a physical intervention focalized on cartilage wellness that could be adopted as an intervention in the clinical setting. Furthermore, the creation of a standardized protocol wants to help scientific research to move in the same direction.
Effects of Overt and Relational Bullying on Adolescents’ Subjective Well-Being: The Mediating Mechanisms of Social Capital and Psychological Capital

Based on the social and psychological capital framework, this study aimed to investigate the direct effect of bullying on adolescents’ subjective well-being and to reveal the potential psychosocial mechanisms in this relationship. Through the multi-stage cluster random sampling procedure, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 728 adolescents from Hebei Province in China. Structural equation modeling was adopted for data analysis. After controlling for sociodemographic variables, the results indicated that only relational bullying had a significant negative effect on adolescents’ subjective well-being. Moreover, social capital and psychological capital mediated the relationship between relational bullying and adolescents’ subjective well-being. This study expands our understanding of the influencing mechanisms from bullying victimization to subjective well-being and also provides practical implications for future social policy development and relevant interventions.
La classe des morphismes de Dwyer n'est pas stable par rétractes

In [1] R. Thomason claims that a retract of a Dwyer map is a Dwyer map to show the closed model category structure he defined on the category of small categories is proper. This paper gives a counterexample to this claim and shows how to give a proof of the propriety axiom.
Effects of Maternal Pre-Pregnancy BMI and Gestational Weight Gain on the Development of Preeclampsia and Its Phenotypes: A Prospective Cohort Study in China

Preeclampsia (PE) is a common and serious pregnancy-specific disorder, which is closely linked with adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate whether maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain (GWG) was associated with preeclampsia and its phenotypes. In this prospective study, 32,531 women with singleton pregnancies were finally included. Compared with women with normal pre-pregnancy BMI, women with overweight and obesity were at increased risk of PE (RR = 1.62, 95%CI: 1.57–1.66; RR = 2.04, 95%CI: 1.97–2.11, respectively), while those who were underweight had a lower risk of PE (RR = 0.84, 95%CI: 0.81–0.88). When compared with women who gained adequate GWG, pregnant women with inadequate GWG and excessive GWG had an increased risk of PE (RR = 1.15, 95%CI: 1.12–1.19; RR = 1.56, 95%CI: 1.52–1.60, respectively). The observed increased risk was generally similar for mild-, severe-, early- and late-onset PE, and the reduced risk was similar for severe- and late-onset PE. No significant interactions between GWG and pre-pregnancy BMI on the risk of PE were identified (p-interaction > 0.05). In conclusion, pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity and excessive GWG have established risk factors for PE, and that the potential risk may vary according to PE phenotypes. Moreover, the synergistic effect that may exist between pre-pregnancy BMI and GWG.
What Does Provide Better Effects on Balance, Strength, and Lower Extremity Muscle Function in Professional Male Soccer Players with Chronic Ankle Instability? Hopping or a Balance Plus Strength Intervention? A Randomized Control Study

Chronic ankle instability (CAI) has a higher frequency in soccer due to the rapid changes in body movement. Thus, this study compared the effects of eight weeks of a hopping protocol and a combined protocol of balance plus strength in a within-between group analysis. Thirty-six male professional soccer players participated in this study and were randomly allocated in three groups: control group (CG, n = 12), hopping group (HG, n = 12), and balance plus strength group (BSG, n = 12). Strength, static and dynamic balance, and function were assessed at baseline and eight weeks post intervention. First, Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM) and FAAM sport scales were applied. Then, a dynamometer was used to measure strength of the muscles around the hip, knee, and ankle joints. The Bass stick measured static balance and the Y balance test measured dynamic balance. Additionally, functional tests were carried out by Triple Hop, the Figure 8 hop, and vertical jump. A repeated measures ANOVA [(3 groups) × 2 moments] was used to compare the within and between group differences. In general, all tests improved after eight weeks of training with both protocols. Specifically, the BSG improved with large ES for all tests, while the HG improved all test with small to large effect sizes (ES). Furthermore, HG showed higher values for vertical jump (p < 0.01, ES = 1.88) and FAAMSPORT (p < 0.05, ES = 0.15) than BSG. BSG showed higher values for hip abduction (p < 0.05, ES = 2.77), hip adduction (p < 0.05, ES = 0.87), and ankle inversion (p < 0.001, ES = 1.50) strength tests, while HG showed higher values for knee flexion [ES = 0.86, (0.02, 1.69)] and ankle plantarflexion [ES = 0.52, (−0.29, 1.33)]. Balance plus strength protocol showed more positive effects than the hopping protocol alone for soccer players with CAI.
Hybrid Beamforming and Data Stream Allocation Algorithms for Power Minimization in Multi-User Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems

A hybrid beamforming structure is suggested as one of the solutions to reduce implementation costs and energy consumption in millimeter-wave massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In this study, an optimization problem of resource allocation was formulated to minimize the total system transmission power on downlink under a certain quality-of-service (QoS), such as bit/block error rates and data rates for each user, and the solution was proposed therein. Our proposed stream incremental algorithm can dynamically adjust the number of data streams for each user according to the channel state information. Precoding and combining schemes need to be developed to solve the formulated problem and also are proposed in this paper to be paired up with the stream incremental algorithm. Our proposed algorithms consider the practical modulation and coding scheme for transmission in various data stream allocation and beamforming designs. The proposed algorithms provide beamforming solutions for millimeter-wave massive MIMO systems, which achieve comparable performance to that of a fully digital block-diagonalization (BD) algorithm with a lower implementation cost and outperform those of modified existing hybrid beamforming algorithms. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed schemes by allocating the different numbers of data streams for each user according to the channel state information. The simulation results verified that the proposed method can achieve a good trade-off between complexity and performance on comparison with the modified existing schemes and the full digital solutions.
Stochastic Simulation of Nonadiabatic Dynamics at Long Time

Using a generalized transition probability, it is shown how nonadiabatic calculations, within the Wigner-Heisenberg representation of quantum mechanics, can be reliably extended to far longer times than those allowed by a primitive sampling scheme. Tackling the spin-boson model as a paradigmatic example, substantial numerical evidence is provided that the statistical error can be reduced for a wide range of parameter values.
Evaluating the Effect of San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance on Birth Outcomes

Since 2017, San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance (PPLO) has allowed parents who work for private-sector employers to take 6 weeks of fully paid postnatal parental leave. Previous studies have linked paid parental leave with health improvements for birthing people and babies, although evidence for birth outcomes is limited. We hypothesized that the PPLO may have improved birth outcomes via reduced stress during pregnancy due to anticipation of increased financial security and postnatal leave. We used linked California birth certificate and hospital discharge records from January 2013 to December 2018 (n = 1,420,781). We used quasi-experimental difference-in-difference (DD) models to compare outcomes among SF births before and after PPLO to outcomes among births in control counties. Births from January 2017 through December 2018 among working San Francisco (SF) people were considered “exposed” to PPLO; births during this time among working people outside of SF, as well as all births before 2017, served as controls. We conducted subgroup analyses by race/ethnicity, education and Medicaid coverage at delivery. Overall analyses adjusting for covariates and indicators for time and seasonality indicated no association between PPLO and birth outcomes. Our results indicate that PPLO may not have affected the birth outcomes we examined among marginalized groups who, due to structural racism, are at heightened risk of poor outcomes. We speculate that this result is due to the PPLO’s design and focus on postnatal leave. Future work should examine the policy’s effects on other outcomes.
A lightweight deep learning model for retinal optical coherence tomography image classification

Automated retinal disease detection and grading is one of the most researched areas in medical image analysis. In recent years, Deep Learning models have attracted much attention in this field. Hence, in this paper, we present a Deep Learning‐based, lightweight, fully automated end‐to‐end diagnostic system for the detection of the two major retinal diseases, namely diabetic macular oedema (DME) and drusen macular degeneration (DMD). Early detection of these diseases is important to prevent vision impairment. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is the main imaging technique for detecting these diseases. The model proposed in this work is based on residual blocks and channel attention modules. The performance of the model is evaluated using the publicly available Mendeley OCT dataset and the Duke dataset. We were able to achieve a classification accuracy of 99.5% in the Mendeley test dataset and 94.9% in the Duke dataset with the proposed model. For the application, we performed an extensive evaluation of pre‐trained models (LeNet, AlexNet, VGG‐16, ResNet50 and SE‐ResNet). The proposed model has a much smaller number of trainable parameters and shows superior performance compared to existing methods.
Catheter Ablation versus Medical Therapy of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Heart Failure: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF) often coexist and synergistically contribute to an increased risk of hospitalization, stroke, and mortality. Objective: To compare the efficacy of catheter ablation (CA) versus medical therapy (MT) in HF patients with AF. Methods: Electronic databases were queried for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of CA versus MT of AF in patients with HF. Risk ratios (RRs), mean differences (MDs), and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were measured using the Mantel–Haenszel method. Results: A total of nine RCTs enrolling 2155 patients met the inclusion criteria. Compared to MT, CA led to a significant reduction in the composite of all-cause mortality and HF hospitalization (24.6% vs. 37.1%; RR: 0.65 (95% CI: 0.53–0.80); p < 0.0001), all-cause mortality (8.8% vs. 13.6%; RR: 0.65 (95% CI: 0.51–0.82); p = 0.0005), HF hospitalization (15.4% vs. 22.4%; (RR: 0.67 (95% CI: 0.54–0.82); p = 0.0001), AF recurrence (31.8% vs. 77.0%; RR: 0.36 (95% CI: 0.24–0.54); p < 0.0001), and cardiovascular (CV) death (4.9% vs. 8.4%; RR: 0.58 (95% CI: 0.39–0.86); p = 0.007). CA improved the left ventricular ejection fraction (MD:4.76% (95% CI: 2.35–7.18); p = 0.0001), 6 min walk test (MD: 20.48 m (95% CI: 10.83–30.14); p < 0.0001), peak oxygen consumption (MD: 3.1 2mL/kg/min (95% CI: 1.01–5.22); p = 0.004), Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire score (MD: −6.98 (95% CI: −12–03, −1.93); p = 0.007), and brain natriuretic peptide levels (MD:−133.94 pg/mL (95% CI: −197.33, −70.55); p < 0.0001). Conclusions: In HF patients, AF catheter ablation was superior to MT in reducing CV and all-cause mortality. Further significant benefits occurred within the ablation group in terms of HF hospitalizations, AF recurrences, the systolic function, exercise capacity, and quality of life.