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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in online pet care services led to an increased demand for conversational AI systems specifically designed for the veterinary domain. However, traditional natural language understanding (NLU) tasks and datasets often fall short due to domain-specific terminology, the descriptive nature of user utterances, and the high cost of expert annotations. To fill this gap, we introduce PETIS, a novel dataset comprising 10,636 annotated utterances specifically designed for intent classification and slot filling in pet care domain, featuring 10 unique intent classes and 11 slot classes. PETIS addresses the scarcity of annotated data in this domain and serves as a challenging benchmark for evaluating NLU models. We demonstrate its effectiveness through experiments using state-of-the-art models, achieving 93.32 accuracy in intent classification and a Micro F1C score of 91.21 in slot filling using multitask AdapterFusion. Furthermore, domain adaptation significantly enhanced performance, showcasing the potential of PETIS to drive research and development in conversational AI for online pet care services, offering a valuable resource for advancing the field.

The rate of profit is a key element for understanding the movement of capitalism such as technological progress and economic crisis. Even though capitalists seek larger profit rates, there exists a tendency of stagnating or falling profit rates. According to Marx, the rate of profit would tend to decline in the long run as a result of technological progress, termed the law of tendential fall in the profit rate. This article introduces a novel approach based on the discrete-time feedback control mechanism to elucidate Marx’s theory. Specifically, this study presents a mechanism and conditions to show how the effort to maximize the profit rate, implemented by designing an “appropriate” control law under the sampling of fiscal years, eventually leads to the gradual decrease in the rate of profit in the long run.

Abstract Previous studies suggested that genetic, environmental factors and their interactions could affect body fat mass (BFM). However, studies describing these effects were performed at a single time point in a population. In this study, we investigated the interaction between genetic and environmental factors in affecting BFM and implicate the healthcare utilization of lifestyle modifications from a personalized and genomic perspective. We examined how nutritional intake or physical activity changes in the individuals affect BFM concerning the genetic composition. We conducted an observational study including 259 adult participants with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping and longitudinal lifestyle monitoring, including food consumption and physical activities, by following lifestyle modification guidance. The participants’ lifelog data on exercise and diet were collected through a wearable device for 3 months. Moreover, we measured anthropometric and serologic markers to monitor their potential changes through lifestyle modification. We examined the influence of genetic composition on body fat reduction induced by lifestyle changes using genetic risk scores (GRSs) of three phenotypes: GRS-carbohydrate (GRS-C), GRS-fat (GRS-F), and GRS-exercise (GRS-E). Our results showed that lifestyle modifications affected BFM more significantly in the high GRS class compared to the low GRS class, indicating the role of genetic factors affecting the efficiency of the lifestyle modification-induced BFM changes. Interestingly, the influence of exercise modification in the low GRS class with active lifestyle change was lower than that in the high GRS class with inactive lifestyle change (P = 0.022), suggesting the implication of genetic factors for efficient body fat control.

We propose a single-shot digital holographic microscopy based on computational telecentricity with a single-arm off-axis interferometer (SA-OAI), which is composed of optical recording, computational compensation and retrieving processes. In the optical recording, the object beam is recorded as a hologram pattern with the SA-OAI, where a tube lens is located at the slightly shorter distance than its focal length from the objective lens. Another additional quadratic phase factor (AQPF) is then generated and embedded into the recorded hologram. In the computational compensation process, however, this AQPF can be canceled out from the recorded hologram with its digitally-generated version, which enables the proposed system operating in a so-called computational telecentricity. Thus, in the numerical retrieving process, phase information of the test object can be reconstructed just from this AQPF-compensated hologram. Wave-optical analysis and experiments with a test half-ball lens confirm the feasibility of the proposed system in the practical application. Keywords: One-arm holographic interferometer, Three-dimensional microscopy, Digital holographic microscopy

Functional analyses of genes are crucial for unveiling biological responses, genetic engineering, and developing new medicines. However, functional analyses have largely been restricted to model organisms, representing a major hurdle for functional studies and industrial applications. To resolve this, comparative genome analyses can be used to provide clues to gene functions as well as their evolutionary history. To this end, we present Prometheus, a web-based omics portal that contains more than 17,215 sequences from prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. This portal supports interkingdom comparative analyses via a domain architecture-based gene identification system and Gene Search, and users can easily and rapidly identify single or entire gene sets in specific pathways. Bioinformatics tools for further analyses are provided in Prometheus or through Bio-Express, a cloud-based bioinformatics analysis platform. Prometheus is a new paradigm for comparative analyses of large amounts of genomic information.

BackgroundTranslationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP) is a conserved, multifunctional protein involved in numerous cellular processes in eukaryotes. Although the functions of TCTP have been investigated sporadically in animals, invertebrates, and plants, few lineage-specific activities of this molecule, have been reported. An exception is in Arabidopsis thaliana, in which TCTP (AtTCTP1) functions in stomatal closuer by regulating microtubule stability. Further, although the development of next-generation sequencing technologies has facilitated the analysis of many eukaryotic genomes in public databases, inter-kingdom comparative analyses using available genome information are comparatively scarce.MethodologyTo carry out inter-kingdom comparative analysis of TCTP, TCTP genes were identified from 377 species. Then phylogenetic analysis, prediction of protein structure, molecular docking simulation and molecular dynamics analysis were performed to investigate the evolution of TCTP genes and their binding proteins.ResultsA total of 533 TCTP genes were identified from 377 eukaryotic species, including protozoa, fungi, invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. Phylogenetic and secondary structure analyses reveal lineage-specific evolution of TCTP, and inter-kingdom comparisons highlight the lineage-specific emergence of, or changes in, secondary structure elements in TCTP proteins from different kingdoms. Furthermore, secondary structure comparisons between TCTP proteins within each kingdom, combined with measurements of the degree of sequence conservation, suggest that TCTP genes have evolved to conserve protein secondary structures in a lineage-specific manner. Additional tertiary structure analysis of TCTP-binding proteins and their interacting partners and docking simulations between these proteins further imply that TCTP gene variation may influence the tertiary structures of TCTP-binding proteins in a lineage-specific manner.ConclusionsOur analysis suggests that TCTP has undergone lineage-specific evolution and that structural changes in TCTP proteins may correlate with the tertiary structure of TCTP-binding proteins and their binding partners in a lineage-specific manner.

This paper presents a pulse radar system to detect drones based on a target fluctuation model, specifically the Swerling target model. Because drones are small atypical objects and are mainly composed of non‐conducting materials, their radar cross‐section value is low and fluctuating. Therefore, determining the target fluctuation model and applying a proper integration method are important. The proposed system is herein experimentally verified and the results are discussed. A prototype design of the pulse radar system is based on radar equations. It adopts three different pulse modes and a coherent pulse integration to ensure a high signal‐to‐noise ratio. Outdoor measurements are performed with a prototype radar system to detect Doppler frequencies from both the drone frame and blades. The results indicate that the drone frame and blades are detected within an instrumental maximum range. Additionally, the results show that the drone's frame and blades are close to the Swerling 3 and 4 target models, respectively. By the analysis of the Swerling target models, proper integration methods for detecting drones are verified and can thus contribute to increasing in detectability.

Abstract Background While next-generation sequencing (NGS) costs have fallen in recent years, the cost and complexity of computation remain substantial obstacles to the use of NGS in bio-medical care and genomic research. The rapidly increasing amounts of data available from the new high-throughput methods have made data processing infeasible without automated pipelines. The integration of data and analytic resources into workflow systems provides a solution to the problem by simplifying the task of data analysis. Results To address this challenge, we developed a cloud-based workflow management system, Closha, to provide fast and cost-effective analysis of massive genomic data. We implemented complex workflows making optimal use of high-performance computing clusters. Closha allows users to create multi-step analyses using drag and drop functionality and to modify the parameters of pipeline tools. Users can also import the Galaxy pipelines into Closha. Closha is a hybrid system that enables users to use both analysis programs providing traditional tools and MapReduce-based big data analysis programs simultaneously in a single pipeline. Thus, the execution of analytics algorithms can be parallelized, speeding up the whole process. We also developed a high-speed data transmission solution, KoDS, to transmit a large amount of data at a fast rate. KoDS has a file transfer speed of up to 10 times that of normal FTP and HTTP. The computer hardware for Closha is 660 CPU cores and 800 TB of disk storage, enabling 500 jobs to run at the same time. Conclusions Closha is a scalable, cost-effective, and publicly available web service for large-scale genomic data analysis. Closha supports the reliable and highly scalable execution of sequencing analysis workflows in a fully automated manner. Closha provides a user-friendly interface to all genomic scientists to try to derive accurate results from NGS platform data. The Closha cloud server is freely available for use from http://closha.kobic.re.kr/.

Static corrective controllers are more efficient than dynamic ones since they consist of only logic elements, whereas their existence conditions are more restrictive. In this paper, we present a static corrective control scheme for fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control of input/state asynchronous sequential machines (ASMs) vulnerable to transient faults. The design flexibility of static controllers is enlarged by virtue of using a diagnoser and state bursts. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a diagnoser and static fault tolerant controller are presented, and the process of controller synthesis is addressed based on the derived condition. Illustrative examples on practical ASMs are provided to show the applicability of the proposed scheme.

There is a paucity of data regarding the effect of nutrient-enriched biochar amendments on nutrient dynamics in both soil and crops. This is important because unlike pristine biochar, nutrient-enriched biochar is applied to the soil in minute quantities as large amounts may led to over application of the nutrients loaded in it. The current study examined the effects of both phosphorus- and nitrogen-enriched biochars on the dynamics of both macro and micronutrients in the sandy soil and leaf lettuce grown thereon. The phosphorus enrichment followed co-pyrolysis of animal manure (cow dung) with 25% and 50% bone meal (w/w), while the nitrogen enrichment was achieved by soaking the co-pyrolyzed biochar into urea and urea-hydrogen peroxide. The performances of the nutrient-enriched biochar were compared with the conventional amendment of urea and triple superphosphate (TSP) in the production of leaf lettuce over a period of two seasons in a pot experiment. The nutrient-enriched biochar amendments resulted into higher microbial biomass carbon and carbon to nitrogen ratios than the conventional amendment. The conventional amendment caused more phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium accumulations in the leaf lettuce than the nutrient-enriched biochar amendments. The nutrient-enriched biochar amendments led to more accumulations of nitrogen, calcium, and micronutrient elements in the leaf lettuce and availabilities of all the nutrient elements in the soil and thus, nutrient-enriched biochar acted as a reservoir that could provide nutrients to the growing lettuce beyond a single growing season.

Asian populations contain a variety of ethnic groups that have ethnically specific genetic differences. Ethnic variants may be highly relevant in disease and human differentiation studies. Here, we identified ethnically specific variants and then investigated their distribution across Asian ethnic groups. We obtained 58,960 Pan-Asian single nucleotide polymorphisms of 1,953 individuals from 72 ethnic groups of 11 Asian countries. We selected 9,306 ethnic variant single nucleotide polymorphisms (ESNPs) and 5,167 ethnic variant copy number polymorphisms (ECNPs) using the nearest shrunken centroid method. We analyzed ESNPs and ECNPs in 3 hierarchical levels: superpopulation, subpopulation, and ethnic population. We also identified ESNP- and ECNP-related genes and their features. This study represents the first attempt to identify Asian ESNP and ECNP markers, which can be used to identify genetic differences and predict disease susceptibility and drug effectiveness in Asian ethnic populations.

The determination of relatedness between individuals in afamily is crucial in analysis of common complex diseases. Wepresent a method to infer close inter-familial relationshipsbased on SNP genotyping data and provide the relationshipcoefficient of kinship in Korean families. We obtained bloodsamples from 43 Korean individuals in two families. SNP datawas obtained using the Affymetrix Genome-wide Human SNParray 6.0 and the Illumina Human 1M-Duo chip. To measurethe kinship coefficient with the SNP genotyping data, weconsidered all possible pairs of individuals in each family. Thegenetic distance between two individuals in a pair wasdetermined using the allele sharing distance method. Theresults show that genetic distance is proportional to the kinshipcoefficient and that a close degree of kinship can be confirmedwith SNP genotyping data. This study represents the firstattempt to identify the genetic distance between very closelyrelated individuals. [BMB Reports 2013; 46(6): 305-309]

Silicon carbide (SiC) exhibits many functional properties that are relevant to applications in electronics, aerospace, defense and automotive industries. However, the successful translation of these properties into final applications lies in the net-shaping of ceramics into fully dense microstructures. Increasing the packing density of the starting powders is one effective route to achieve high sintered density and dimensional precision. The present paper presents an in-depth study on the effects of nanoparticle addition on the powder injection molding process (PIM) of SiC powder-polymer mixtures. In particular, bimodal mixtures of nanoscale and sub-micrometer particles are found to have significantly increased powder packing characteristics (solids loading) in the powder-polymer mixtures. The influence of nanoparticle addition on the multi-step PIM process is examined. The above results provide new perspectives which could impact a wide range of materials, powder processing techniques and applications.

The authors developed a two-factor preseason hope scale and examined the moderation effects of preseason hope and state hope on the chain of effects from team identification and attendance intention to subjective well-being. A moderated moderated-mediation model was tested (n = 224). Consequently, attendance intention mediated the relationship between team identification and well-being. The effect of team identification on attendance intention was stronger for those with lower preseason hope and state hope. The effect of attendance intention on well-being was stronger for those with higher preseason hope. Interaction effects by levels of hope were found among the conditional indirect effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to evaluate and compare the diagnostic performances of ultrasonography (US) and magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) in assessing active bowel lesions in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD). Materials and Methods: We searched PubMed and EMBASE for studies in which US and MRE were used to assess active bowel lesions in CD patients. Bivariate random effect meta-analytic methods were used to estimate pooled sensitivity, specificity, and hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) curves. We performed a meta-regression analysis to explore the source of study heterogeneity. Results: Eleven studies involving 752 patients were included. US exhibited a pooled sensitivity of 86% (95% confidence interval (CI) 72–94), pooled specificity of 88% (95% CI 78–94), and HSROC of 0.93 in 10 studies. MRE exhibited a pooled sensitivity of 88% (95% CI 76–95), pooled specificity of 87% (95% CI 73–95), and an HSROC of 0.94 in eight studies. In seven studies comparing the diagnostic performances of US and MRE, the summary sensitivity of US and MRE were 86% (95% CI 65–96, I2 = 92.1) and 86% (95% CI 72–93, I2 = 88.1) (p = 0.841), respectively. The summary specificity of US and MRE were 87% (95% CI 78–93, I2 = 79.8%) and 84% (72–90, I2 = 72.5%) (p = 0.431), respectively, which showed no statistical differences. On meta-regression analysis, studies from Europe (p = 0.002), those that used linear US probes (p = 0.012), those on small bowel lesions (p = 0.01), and those with outcomes as combined features (active inflammation) reported higher US sensitivity than those from other regions, those that used both linear and convex US probes, those on small and large bowels, and those with outcome as one feature (bowel wall thickening or ulcer). Studies with pediatric patients (p = 0.001), those with reference standards including US (p = 0.001), and outcomes as combined features (p = 0.01) reported higher MRE specificity than those with adult populations, reference standards other than the US, and outcomes as one feature. Conclusions: In spite of considerable heterogeneity in the included studies, both US and MRE can diagnose active bowel lesions with comparable diagnostic accuracy in patients with CD. The study region, type of US probe, lesion location, investigated outcome for US sensitivity and study population, reference standards, and investigated outcomes for MRE specificity were potential sources of heterogeneity.

Granular cell tumors (GCTs) are extremely rare mesenchymal neoplasms of Schwann cell origin. Malignant GCTs (MGCTs) comprise 0.5–2% of all GCTs. In the present report, we describe a case of a 66-year-old man with MGCT of the abdominal wall. The patient visited our hospital due to a recently growing palpable soft tissue mass in the abdominal wall. Computed tomography scan revealed a 4.3 × 4.1 × 2.9 cm sized mass arising from the left abdominal wall, which was contemplated as a desmoid tumor before surgical excision. Histopathological examination confirmed MGCT.

In a computed tomography (CT) scan, fat deposition in the urinary bladder wall is seen as a linear hypoattenuating band surrounded by soft tissue density. It is uncommon, but is often seen in normal cases. However, there is no report of fat deposition in the urinary bladder wall in Korea. The authors encountered a 62-year-old male patient who showed an incidental hypoattenuating band in the urinary bladder wall on abdominal CT. The patient showed no clinical signs related to fat deposition in the urinary bladder wall. When the patient's previous abdominal CT was retrospectively reviewed, the same CT finding was seen. This linear hypoattenuating band within the urinary bladder wall should be considered as a normal CT finding, although it is uncommon.