Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Virulent Trueperella pyogenes Isolate, Which Causes Severe Bronchoconstriction in Porcine Precision-Cut Lung Slices

Trueperella pyogenes causes disease in cattle, sheep, goats and swine, and is involved occasionally in human disease worldwide. Most reports implicating T. pyogenes have been associated with clinical cases, whereas no report has focused on pathogenicity of T. pyogenes in mouse models or precision-cut lung slice (PCLS) cultures from swine. Here, we isolated and identified a virulent, β-hemolytic, multidrug-resistant T. pyogenes strain named 20121, which harbors the virulence marker genes fimA, fimE, nanH, nanP and plo. It was found to be highly resistant to erythromycin, azithromycin and medemycin. Strain 20121 was pathogenic in mouse infection models, displaying pulmonary congestion and inflammatory cell infiltration, partial degeneration in epithelial cells of the tracheal and bronchiolar mucosa, a small amount of inflammatory cell infiltration in the submucosa, and bacteria (>104 CFU/g) in the lung. Importantly, we used T. pyogenes 20121 to infect porcine precision-cut lung slices (PCLS) cultures for the first time, where it caused severe bronchoconstriction. Furthermore, dexamethasone showed its ability to relieve bronchoconstriction in PCLS caused by T. pyogenes 20121, highlighting dexamethasone may assist antibiotic treatment for clinical T. pyogenes infection. This is the first report of T. pyogenes used to infect and cause bronchoconstriction in porcine PCLS. Our results suggest that porcine PCLS cultures as a valuable 3D organ model for the study of T. pyogenes infection and treatment in vitro.
Divergent Selection for Seed Ability to Germinate at Extreme Temperatures in Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)

Various adaptive mechanisms can ensure that seedlings are established at the most favourable time and place. These mechanisms include seed dormancy i.e., incapacity to germinate in any environment without a specific environmental trigger and inhibition i.e., incapacity to germinate in an unfavourable environment (water availability, temperature: thermoinhibition and light). The objective of this research was to study in the temperate range for germination of forage and turf grass species perennial ryegrass, if the thermal requirements for germination are under genetic controlled and could be selectively bred. Two divergent selections of three cycles were realized on a natural population: one to select for the capacity to germinate at 10°C vs. the impossibility to germinate at 10°C, and one to select for the capacity to germinate at 32°C vs. the impossibility to germinate at 32°C. Seeds of all the lots obtained from the two divergent selections were then germinated at constant temperatures from 5 to 35°C to evaluate their germination ability. Concerning the positive selection, the first cycle of positive selection at 10°C was highly efficient with a very strong increase in the germination percentage. However, afterward no selection effect was observed during the next two cycles of positive selection. By contrast, the positive selection at 32°C was efficient during all cycles with a linear increase of the percentage of germination at 32°C. Concerning the negative selection, we observed only a large positive effect of the first cycle of selection at 10°C. These findings demonstrate that seed thermoinhibition at 10 and 32°C observed in a natural population of perennial ryegrass has a genetic basis and a single recessive gene seems to be involved at 10°C.
Performance of a 46-Gbps Dual-Polarization QPSK Transceiver in a High-PMD Fiber Transmission Experiment

A coherent dual-polarization-QPSK transceiver with real-time decoding is demonstrated over 50-ps mean DGD fiber with near-Maxwellian statistics. Eighty-channel transmission across 800-km TrueWave-RS fiber plus high-PMD fiber is achieved, with instantaneous DGD as high as 127ps.
E-Selectin-Overexpressing Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy Confers Improved Reperfusion, Repair, and Regeneration in a Murine Critical Limb Ischemia Model

Aims Novel cell-based therapeutic angiogenic treatments for patients with critical limb ischemia may afford limb salvage. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) do not overexpress E-selectin; however, we have previously demonstrated the cell-adhesion molecule's vital role in angiogenesis and wound healing. Thus, we created a viral vector to overexpress E-selectin on MSCs to increase their therapeutic profile. Methods and Results Femoral artery ligation induced hind limb ischemia in mice and intramuscular injections were administered of vehicle or syngeneic donor MSCs, transduced ex vivo with an adeno-associated viral vector to express either GFP+ (MSCGFP) or E-selectin-GFP+ (MSCE−selectin−GFP). Laser Doppler Imaging demonstrated significantly restored reperfusion in MSCE−selectin−GFP-treated mice vs. controls. After 3 weeks, the ischemic limbs in mice treated with MSCE−selectin−GFP had increased footpad blood vessel density, hematoxylin and eosin stain (H&E) ischemic calf muscle sections revealed mitigated muscular atrophy with restored muscle fiber size, and mice were able to run further before exhaustion. PCR array-based gene profiling analysis identified nine upregulated pro-angiogenic/pro-repair genes and downregulated Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) gene in MSCE−selectin−GFP-treated limb tissues, indicating that the therapeutic effect is likely achieved via upregulation of pro-angiogenic cytokines and downregulation of inflammation. Conclusion This innovative cell therapy confers increased limb reperfusion, neovascularization, improved functional recovery, decreased muscle atrophy, and thus offers a potential therapeutic method for future clinical studies.
Early Warning Signals for Critical Transitions in Sandpile Cellular Automata

The sandpile cellular automata, despite the simplicity of their basic rules, are adequate mathematical models of real-world systems, primarily open nonlinear systems capable to self-organize into the critical state. Such systems surround us everywhere. Starting from processes at microscopic distances in the human brain and ending with large-scale water flows in the oceans. The detection of critical transitions precursors in sandpile cellular automata will allow progress significantly in the search for effective early warning signals for critical transitions in complex real systems. The presented paper is devoted to the detection and investigation of such signals based on multifractal analysis of the time series of falls of the cellular automaton cells. We examined cellular automata in square lattice and random graphs using standard and facilitated rules. It has been established that log wavelet leaders cumulant are effective early warning measures of the critical transitions. Common features and differences in the behavior of the log cumulants when cellular automata transit into the self-organized critical state and the self-organized bistability state are also established.
Lirilumab and Avelumab Enhance Anti-HPV+ Cervical Cancer Activity of Natural Killer Cells via Vav1-Dependent NF-κB Disinhibition

Background We investigated the efficacy and mechanism of the anti-KIR immunotherapy lirilumab and anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy avelumab on natural killer (NK) cell activity against HPV+ cervical cancer. Methods NK cell-mediated lysis of autologous biopsy-derived malignant cervical squamous cells and normal cervical squamous cells were measured by europium-release cytotoxicity assays. Cytokine and granzyme B release were measured by ELISPOT effector-cell-based assays and ELISA. Murine cervical cancer tumor models were constructed to assess implanted tumor volumes over time and intratumoral immune cell infiltration. Receptor-crosslinking and plate-immobilized antibody stimulation studies, with or without p65 and Vav1 silencing, were used to investigate NF-κB pathway disinhibition in NK cells. Results Lirilumab and avelumab each enhanced NK cell disinhibition and NK cell-mediated lysis of autologous cervical cancer cells in vitro while reducing HPV+ tumor volumes and increasing intratumoral NK cell infiltration and cytolysis in vivo. Moreover, lirilumab and avelumab each promoted NK cell NF-κB disinhibition as well as stimulated cytokine and granzyme B expression in a NF-κB-dependent manner. Lirilumab+avelumab enhanced all aforementioned effects compared to either monotherapy. Vav1 silencing eliminated disinhibition of NF-κB signaling by lirilumab and avelumab, indicating their disinhibiting effects are Vav1-dependent. Conclusions This study supports a novel approach to enhancing NK cell lysis against HPV+ cervical cancer cells through combining lirilumab and avelumab.
Establishing a benchmark for comparing relative cost-effectiveness of an alternative policy instrument for controlling non-point source pollution

Knowledge about economic environmental tradeoffs is a prerequisite to evaluate the relative cost-effectiveness of alternative policy instruments to control non-point source pollution (NPS). Failure to explicitly account for the impact of the spatial combination of alternative management practices on pollution contribution rates while quantifying these tradeoffs may cause relative comparisons between alternative policy instruments to control NPS pollution inappropriate. The main objective of this research is to develop a spatial decision support system able to quantify cost-effective economic environmental tradeoffs of maintaining alternative pollution standards taking the interrelated linkages between various agricultural management practices into account. The system is used to establish a benchmark tradeoff curve by means of which alternative policy instruments to control NPS pollution can be compared to determine their relative cost-effectiveness. Tradeoff analyses indicated that the pollution contribution factor plays a cardinal role in determining pollution abatement cost and therefore the benchmark. The importance of the contribution factor highlights the necessity of taking the interdependencies between management units into account when modelling economic environmental tradeoffs. Catchment level tradeoffs showed that the nitrate water quality indicator can be improved with little cost due to both positive and negative tradeoffs at the sub-catchment level. Significant variability exists at the sub-catchment level when nitrate pollution abatement and abatement cost are concerned. The conclusion is that care should be taken not to compare the relative cost-effectiveness of alternative policy instruments to control NPS pollution based on catchment level tradeoffs alone.
Phasor measurement units in smart substation

Phasor measurement units(PMU) have greatly used in China for a long time.The information exchange between the bay devices and the process devices proposes some new requests for PMU.This paper introduces the PMU basic functions,PMU modeling with IEC 61850,sample values message resolution,time synchronization,MMS service and information sharing.It is also presented that PMU implementation methods and application scheme.Some advices for IEC 61850 improving are proposed.They provide a reference for PMU devices application in smart grids.
Compositional analysis of food waste entering the source segregation stream in four European regions and Implications for valorisation via anaerobic digestion.

Separate collection of food waste from households is an efficient instrument for diversion of organic material from landfill to biological treatment. There is widespread consensus that source-segregated food waste is a suitable substrate for valorisation through anaerobic digestion with biogas production. Source-segregation concepts are adopted by more and more municipalities in European countries and elsewhere. Food waste can be collected in separate food waste collection units or together with other organic materials. Based on a campaign of sorting seperatly collected materials in four European countries, along with physico-chemical analyses, the present manuscript is aimed at providing an overview of differences and similarities in food wastes enterenting the respective source segregation stream. Factors related to suitability of materials for anaerobic digestion are discussed.
Inhibition of bacillus spores germination by cinnamon bark, fingerroot, and moringa leaves extract

This study was intended to discover the natural food preservatives by comparing the antibacterial effect of the ethanolic extract of cinnamon bark, finger root, and moringa leaves toward Bacillus cereus both the vegetative cells and spores. The antibacterial activities of the investigated extracts were assessed against cells using the agar diffusion method. Whereas the sporicidal test was performed by observing the colony growth, after various times of incubation (1, 3, and 5 h). The investigated extracts produced inhibition in a diameter ranging from 10.6 to 35.3 mm, and it can be classified that the extract of cinnamon bark was the most potent extract to inhibit the vegetative cells form, followed by fingerroot and the moringa leaves extract. Consistently, the ethanolic extract of cinnamon bark and fingerroot significantly yielded sporicidal activities higher than the moringa leaves extract. Both extracts exerted sporicidal activity within 1 h of contact time at the lowest test concentration of 5% w/v, whereas moringa leaves extract required a longer contact time (5 h) at higher concentration of 20% w/v. It can be concluded that cinnamon bark and fingerroot extract have great potential as effective food preservative candidates to inhibit the B. cereus growth than moringa leaves extract.
MNEMOSENE: Tile Architecture and Simulator for Memristor-based Computation-in-memory

In recent years, we are witnessing a trend toward in-memory computing for future generations of computers that differs from traditional von-Neumann architecture in which there is a clear distinction between computing and memory units. Considering that data movements between the central processing unit (CPU) and memory consume several orders of magnitude more energy compared to simple arithmetic operations in the CPU, in-memory computing will lead to huge energy savings as data no longer needs to be moved around between these units. In an initial step toward this goal, new non-volatile memory technologies, e.g., resistive RAM (ReRAM) and phase-change memory (PCM), are being explored. This has led to a large body of research that mainly focuses on the design of the memory array and its peripheral circuitry. In this article, we mainly focus on the tile architecture (comprising a memory array and peripheral circuitry) in which storage and compute operations are performed in the (analog) memory array and the results are produced in the (digital) periphery. Such an architecture is termed compute-in-memory-periphery (CIM-P). More precisely, we derive an abstract CIM-tile architecture and define its main building blocks. To bridge the gap between higher-level programming languages and the underlying (analog) circuit designs, an instruction-set architecture is defined that is intended to control and, in turn, sequence the operations within this CIM tile to perform higher-level more complex operations. Moreover, we define a procedure to pipeline the CIM-tile operations to further improve the performance. To simulate the tile and perform design space exploration considering different technologies and parameters, we introduce the fully parameterized first-of-its-kind CIM tile simulator and compiler. Furthermore, the compiler is technology-aware when scheduling the CIM-tile instructions. Finally, using the simulator, we perform several preliminary design space explorations regarding the three competing technologies, ReRAM, PCM, and STT-MRAM concerning CIM-tile parameters, e.g., the number of ADCs. Additionally, we investigate the effect of pipelining in relation to the clock speeds of the digital periphery assuming the three technologies. In the end, we demonstrate that our simulator is also capable of reporting energy consumption for each building block within the CIM tile after the execution of in-memory kernels considering the data-dependency on the energy consumption of the memory array. All the source codes are publicly available.
The Potential Impact of Neuroimaging and Translational Research on the Clinical Management of Lacunar Stroke

Lacunar infarcts represent one of the most frequent subtypes of ischemic strokes and may represent the first recognizable manifestation of a progressive disease of the small perforating arteries, capillaries, and venules of the brain, defined as cerebral small vessel disease. The pathophysiological mechanisms leading to a perforating artery occlusion are multiple and still not completely defined, due to spatial resolution issues in neuroimaging, sparsity of pathological studies, and lack of valid experimental models. Recent advances in the endovascular treatment of large vessel occlusion may have diverted attention from the management of patients with small vessel occlusions, often excluded from clinical trials of acute therapy and secondary prevention. However, patients with a lacunar stroke benefit from early diagnosis, reperfusion therapy, and secondary prevention measures. In addition, there are new developments in the knowledge of this entity that suggest potential benefits of thrombolysis in an extended time window in selected patients, as well as novel therapeutic approaches targeting different pathophysiological mechanisms involved in small vessel disease. This review offers a comprehensive update in lacunar stroke pathophysiology and clinical perspective for managing lacunar strokes, in light of the latest insights from imaging and translational studies.
Adaptively Secure Laconic Function Evaluation for NC 1

Laconic Function Evaluation (LFE) is a novel primitive introduced by Quach, Wee and Wichs (FOCS ’18) that allows two parties to perform function evaluation laconically in the following manner: ﬁrst, Alice sends a compressed “digest” of some function – say C – to Bob. Second, Bob constructs a ciphertext for his input M given the digest. Third, Alice, after receiving the ciphertext from Bob and having access to her circuit, can recover C ( M ) and (ideally) nothing more about Bob’s message. The protocol is said to be laconic if the sizes of the digest and ciphertext are much smaller than the circuit size | C | . Quach, Wee and Wichs provided a construction of laconic function evaluation for general circuits under the learning with errors (LWE) assumption (with subexponential approximation factors), where all parameters grow polynomially with the depth but not the size of the circuit. Under LWE, their construction achieves the restricted notion of selective security where Bob’s input M must be chosen non-adaptively before even the CRS is known. In this work, we provide the ﬁrst construction of LFE for NC 1 , which satisﬁes adaptive security from the ring learning with errors assumption (with polynomial approximation factors). The construction is based on the functional encryption scheme by Agrawal and Rosen (TCC 2017). Using the compiler from Quach, Wee and Wichs which bootstraps LFE to succinct, single key FE generically, we obtain a signiﬁcant simpliﬁcation of the succinct single key FE of Agrawal and Rosen.
On Recent Nationalisms in Translation Studies

ABSTRACT: If the intercultural were ever neatly opposed to the national as a frame for translational action and thought, then it would seem to be losing. Nationalist frames have gained new-found energy in various forms: translation is seen a weapon because nation-states support and manipulate it (Sapiro), the ethical aim of translation is to advance one’s national interests and priorities (Ren and Gao), and each country’s “translation capacity” can be quantified and ranked on a league table of competing nations (BFSU). Translators thus become foot-soldiers in battles to gain prestige on the world stage. Such manifestations of nationalism appear to run counter to the causes of intercultural positions and the ethics of cooperative communication between unequal parties. The need for translation nevertheless now lies more urgently in the culturally and linguistically diverse communities within and across national borders, where successful social inclusion is inseparable from the use of translation not as a weapon, but as a means of cooperation. 논문초록: 번역행위 및 사고의 프레임으로서의 상호문화주의가 민족주의와 대척점에 있는 개념이라면, 지금 상호문화주의는 민족주의에 기세가 밀리고 있는 것으로 보일 것이다. 민족주의 프레임은 다양한 형태로 새로운 동력을 얻고 있으며, 번역은 그 무기로 인식된다. 민족국가에서 번역을 지원하고 조작(Sapiro)하고 있고, 국가의 이익과 우선순위를 증진하는 것이 번역의 윤리적 목적(Ren and Gao)이며, 서로 경쟁하는 국가들의 리그 순위표 상에서 각국의 ‘번역능력(translation capacity)’을 계량화·순위화(BFSU)할 수 있기 때문이다. 이에 따라 번역사는 세계 무대에서 명성을 얻기 위한 전투에서 보병 역할을 하게 되었다. 이러한 민족주의의 발현은 상호문화주의적 입장의 대의, 그리고 불평등한 세력 사이의 협력적 소통의 윤리에 배치되는 것으로 보인다. 그럼에도 불구하고, 오늘날 각국의 국경 안팎에 자리한 문화적·언어적으로 다양한 공동체에서 번역의 필요성은 더욱 시급해지고 있다. 이들 공동체에서 사회적 포용의 성공 여부는 번역의 활용과 불가분의 관계를 가지며, 이때 번역은 무기가 아닌 협력의 수단으로 기능한다.
Probabilistic forward replay of anticipated stimulus sequences in human primary visual cortex and hippocampus

The ability to recognize and predict future spatiotemporal sequences is vital for perception. It has been proposed that the brain makes ‘intelligent guesses’ about future inputs by forward replaying these events. However, it is unknown whether and how this mechanism incorporates the probabilistic structure that is inherent to naturalistic environments. Here we tested forward replay in human V1 and hippocampus using a probabilistic cueing paradigm. Participants were exposed to two visual moving dot sequences (A and B) that shared the same starting point. Each stimulus sequence was paired with either a high or a low tone that predicted which sequence would follow with 80% cue validity (probabilistic context) or 50% cue validity (random context). We found that after exposure, the auditory cue together with the starting point triggered simultaneous forward replay of both the likely (A) and the less likely (B) stimulus sequence. Crucially, forward replay preserved the probabilistic relationship of the environment, such that the likely sequence was associated with greater anticipatory V1 activity compared to the less likely stimulus sequence. Analogous to V1, forward replay in hippocampus was also found to preserve the probabilistic cue-sequence relationship. Further, the anterior hippocampus was found to represent the predicted stimulus sequence, irrespective of the input, while the posterior hippocampus revealed a prediction error-like signal that was only observed when predictions were violated. These findings show how mnemonic and sensory areas coordinate predictive representations in probabilistic contexts to improve perceptual processing.
The Role of Androgen Receptor and microRNA Interactions in Androgen-Dependent Diseases

The androgen receptor (AR) is a member of the steroid hormone receptor family of nuclear transcription factors. It is present in the primary/secondary sexual organs, kidneys, skeletal muscles, adrenal glands, skin, nervous system, and breast. Abnormal AR functioning has been identified in numerous diseases, specifically in prostate cancer (PCa). Interestingly, recent studies have indicated a relationship between the AR and microRNA (miRNA) crosstalk and cancer progression. MiRNAs are small, endogenous, non-coding molecules that are involved in crucial cellular processes, such as proliferation, apoptosis, or differentiation. On the one hand, AR may be responsible for the downregulation or upregulation of specific miRNA, while on the other hand, AR is often a target of miRNAs due to their regulatory function on AR gene expression. A deeper understanding of the AR–miRNA interactions may contribute to the development of better diagnostic tools as well as to providing new therapeutic approaches. While most studies usually focus on the role of miRNAs and AR in PCa, in this review, we go beyond PCa and provide insight into the most recent discoveries about the interplay between AR and miRNAs, as well as about other AR-associated and AR-independent diseases.