Collaboration Versus Cheating

We outline how we detected programming plagiarism in an introductory online course for a master's of science in computer science program, how we achieved a statistically significant reduction in programming plagiarism by combining a clear explanation of university and class policy on academic honesty reinforced with a short but formal assessment, and how we evaluated plagiarism rates before SIGand after implementing our policy and assessment.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 5 tables, SIGCSE 201

Power calculation for comparing diagnostic accuracies in a multi-reader, multi-test design: Analysis of Correlated ROC Areas

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is widely used to evaluate the performance of diagnostic tests with continuous or ordinal responses. A popular study design for assessing the accuracy of diagnostic tests involves multiple readers interpreting multiple diagnostic test results, called the multi-reader, multi-test design. Although several different approaches to analyzing data from this design exist, few methods have discussed the sample size and power issues. In this article, we develop a power formula to compare the correlated areas under the ROC curves (AUC) in a multi-reader, multi-test design. We present a nonparametric approach to estimate and compare the correlated AUCs by extending DeLong et al.’s (1988) approach. A power formula is derived based on the asymptotic distribution of the nonparametric AUCs. Simulation studies are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed power formula and an example is provided to illustrate the proposed procedure

Pancreatic Cancer ROSE Image Classification Based on Multiple Instance Learning with Shuffle Instances

The rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) technique can significantly ac-celerate the diagnostic workflow of pancreatic cancer by immediately analyzing the fast-stained cytopathological images with on-site pathologists. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) using the deep learning method has the potential to solve the problem of insufficient pathology staffing. However, the cancerous patterns of ROSE images vary greatly between different samples, making the CAD task extremely challenging. Besides, due to different staining qualities and various types of acquisition devices, the ROSE images also have compli-cated perturbations in terms of color distribution, brightness, and contrast. To address these challenges, we proposed a novel multiple instance learning (MIL) approach using shuffle patches containing the instances, which adopts the patch-based learning strategy of Vision Transformers. With the re-grouped bags of shuffle instances and their bag-level soft labels, the approach utilizes a MIL head to make the model focus on the features from the pancreatic cancer cells, rather than that from various perturbations in ROSE images. Simultaneously, combined with a classification head, the model can effectively identify the gen-eral distributive patterns across different instances. The results demonstrate the significant improvements in the classification accuracy with more accurate at-tention regions, indicating that the diverse patterns of ROSE images are effec-tively extracted, and the complicated perturbations of ROSE images are signifi-cantly eliminated. It also suggests that the MIL with shuffle instances has great potential in the analysis of cytopathological images

Spaceflight Changes the Production and Bioactivity of Secondary Metabolites in Beauveria bassiana

Studies on microorganism response spaceflight date back to 1960. However, nothing conclusive is known concerning the effects of spaceflight on virulence and environmental tolerance of entomopathogenic fungi; thus, this area of research remains open to further exploration. In this study, the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (strain SB010) was exposed to spaceflight (ChangZheng 5 space shuttle during 5 May 2020 to 8 May 2020) as a part of the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province, China, in collaboration with the China Space Program. The study revealed significant differences between the secondary metabolite profiles of the wild isolate (SB010) and the spaceflight-exposed isolate (BHT021, BH030, BHT098) of B. bassiana. Some of the secondary metabolites/toxins, including enniatin A2, brevianamide F, macrosporin, aphidicolin, and diacetoxyscirpenol, were only produced by the spaceflight-exposed isolate (BHT021, BHT030). The study revealed increased insecticidal activities for of crude protein extracts of B. bassiana spaceflight mutants (BHT021 and BH030, respectively) against Megalurothrips usitatus 5 days post application when compared crude protein extracts of the wild isolate (SB010). The data obtained support the idea of using space mutation as a tool for development/screening of fungal strains producing higher quantities of secondary metabolites, ultimately leading to increased toxicity/virulence against the target insect host

MiR-410 Down-Regulates the Expression of Interleukin-10 by Targeting STAT3 in the Pathogenesis of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Background/Aims: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous chronic inflammatory autoimmune disorder, in the pathogenesis of which miRNAs play a versatile function. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of miRNA-410 on the pathogenesis of SLE in T cells of SLE patients. Methods: Real-time PCR was used to test the mRNA levels of miRNA-410 in SLE patients and healthy controls. ELISA analysis was performed to examine the production levels of IL-10. Luciferase Assay was used to confirm the targeting effect of miRNA-410 on 3'UTR of STAT3 mRNA. Results: We found that the expression level of miR-410 in T cells of SLE patients was decreased comparing to that in healthy controls, whereas overexpression of miR-410 significantly reduced the expression levels of IL-10. Furthermore, miR-410 suppresses the transcription activity of STAT3 by binding directly to the 3 'UTR of STAT3 mRNA. Moreover, silence of STAT3 down regulated IL-10 expression in CD3+ T cells. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that miR-410 is the key regulatory factor in the pathogenesis of SLE by regulating the expression of IL-10 through targeting STAT3. These data suggest a novel function of miR-410 and bring new insight into understanding the complex mechanisms involved in SLE

Fabrication of Polyamide 6 Nanocomposite with Improved Thermal Conductivity and Mechanical Properties via Incorporation of Low Graphene Content

A 3D graphene network was constructed in polyamide 6 (PA6) monomers through the reduction and self-assembly of graphene oxide (GO), and then PA6 nanocomposites with low graphene content were fabricated through in situ polymerization. The effects of the 3D graphene network on the structure and properties of the PA6 were systematically investigated. Results show that the 3D graphene network can significantly improve the thermal conductivity of PA6. In the case of the PA6 with only 0.25 wt % graphene, its thermal conductivity is 0.69 W/(m K), about 2.88 times of that of the pure PA6. This improvement is attributed to the more-compact thermal conductive paths of the 3D graphene network, and its stronger interfacial interaction with PA6 in this work compares with those of pre-synthesized free-standing 3D graphene networks. Moreover, the mechanical properties and water resistance of PA6 also have significantly improved with the incorporation of the 3D graphene network