LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Pathways for emotions and memory II . Afferent input to the anterior thalamic nuclei from prefrontal , temporal , hypothalamic areas and the basal ganglia in the rhesus monkey

The anterior thalamic nuclei are a key link in pathways associated with emotions and memory. In the preceding study we found that one of the anterior nuclei, the anterior medial (AM), had particularly robust connections with specific medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices and moderate connections with frontal polar cortices. The goal of this study was to use a direct approach to determine the sources of projections to the AM nucleus from all prefrontal cortices, as well as from temporal structures and the hypothalamic mammillary body, known for their role in distinct aspects of memory and emotion. We addressed this issue with targeted injections of retrograde fluorescent tracers in the AM nucleus to determine its sources of input. Projection neurons directed to the AM nucleus were found in the deep layers of most prefrontal cortices (layers V and VI), and were most densely distributed in medial areas 24, 32 and 25, orbitofrontal areas 13 and 25, and lateral areas 10 and 46. Most projection neurons were found in layer VI, though in medial prefrontal cortices and dorsal area 9 about a third were found in layer V, a significantly higher proportion than in lateral and orbitofrontal cortices. In the temporal lobe, projection neurons originated mostly from the hippocampal formation (ammonic field CA3 and subicular complex), and the amygdala (basolateral, lateral, and basomedial nuclei). In the hypothalamus, a significant number of neurons in the ipsilateral medial mammillary body projected to the AM nucleus, some of which were positive for calbindin (CB) or parvalbumin (PV), markers expressed, respectively, in “diffuse” and “specific” pathways in the thalamus [Adv. Neurol. 77 (1998a) 49]. As recipient of diverse signals, the AM nucleus is in a key position to link pathways associated with emotions, and may be an important interface for systems associated with retrieval of information from long-term memory in the process of solving problems within working memory. Finally, the internal segment of the globus pallidus (GPi) issued projections to AM, suggesting direct linkage with executive systems through the basal ganglia. The diverse connections of the AM nucleus may help explain the varied deficits in memory and emotions seen in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases affecting the anterior thalamic nuclei. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Application of Single Tuned Passive Filters in Distribution Networks at the Point of Common Coupling

Abstract—The harmonic distortion of voltage is important in relation to power quality due to the interaction between the large diffusion of non-linear and time-varying single-phase and three-phase loads with power supply systems. However, harmonic distortion levels can be reduced by improving the design of polluting loads or by applying arrangements and adding filters. The application of passive filters is an effective solution that can be used to achieve harmonic mitigation mainly because filters offer high efficiency, simplicity, and are economical. Additionally, possible different frequency response characteristics can work to achieve certain required harmonic filtering targets. With these ideas in mind, the objective of this paper is to determine what size single tuned passive filters work in distribution networks best, in order to economically limit violations caused at a given point of common coupling (PCC). This article suggests that a single tuned passive filter could be employed in typical industrial power systems. Furthermore, constrained optimization can be used to find the optimal sizing of the passive filter in order to reduce both harmonic voltage and harmonic currents in the power system to an acceptable level, and, thus, improve the load power factor. The optimization technique works to minimize voltage total harmonic distortions (VTHD) and current total harmonic distortions (ITHD), where maintaining a given power factor at a specified range is desired. According to the IEEE Standard 519, both indices are viewed as constraints for the optimal passive filter design problem. The performance of this technique will be discussed using numerical examples taken from previous publications.
Book review: the big society debate: a new agenda for social welfare?

The contributors to this detailed and concise book collectively raise questions about the novelty of the Big Society agenda, its ideological underpinnings, and challenges it poses for policymakers and practitioners. Peter John praises the book for its valuable historical cases and excellent job it does in bringing to bear evidence and examples that are not often discussed by policy-makers.
The SIMON and SPECK lightweight block ciphers

The Simon and Speck families of block ciphers were designed specifically to offer security on constrained devices, where simplicity of design is crucial. However, the intended use cases are diverse and demand flexibility in implementation. Simplicity, security, and flexibility are ever-present yet conflicting goals in cryptographic design. This paper outlines how these goals were balanced in the design of Simon and Speck.
Sexual behaviour of heterosexual individuals with HIV infection naive for antiretroviral therapy in Italy.

BACKGROUND
Specific information about determinants of sexual behaviour of HIV infected heterosexuals, like injecting drug use (IDU), are essential to design interventions aimed at promoting safer sex practices.


METHODS
We analysed data on sexual behaviour collected, between March 1997 and March 1999, through a self administered questionnaire among 1050 IDUs and 642 non-IDU heterosexuals enrolled in a prospective multicentre cohort study on the natural history of HIV infection.


RESULTS
Among non-IDU heterosexuals, more women (48.5%) than men (25.1%) (p<0.001) reported that they were infected by HIV positive regular partners whose HIV status they were not aware of. Among the 1119 heterosexual males, one fifth reported having had more than 25 sexual partners during their lifetime. Condom use in the last sexual intercourse was more common among heterosexual IDUs (64.9%) than among non-IDU heterosexual males (58.3%) (p=0.05). Heterosexual IDU males were more likely (66.7%) than non-IDU heterosexuals (50.6%) to have an HIV negative partner (p<0.001). Of the 573 heterosexual females studied, 10.2% reported having had more than 25 lifetime sex partners. This proportion was higher among heterosexual IDUs (18.8%) than among non-IDU heterosexuals (4.3%) (p<0.001). Nearly 50% of the women in both groups reported having used a condom in the last intercourse. Almost 57% of heterosexual IDUs had a current HIV negative partner, compared with 34.9% non-IDU heterosexuals (p<0.001). In both sexes, the findings from univariate analysis were confirmed by multiple logistic regression analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
This study identified some important differences, in both males and females, in sexual lifestyles according to injecting drug use (for example, in terms of HIV negative partners). This observation indicates the need to tailor HIV prevention messages according to history of injecting drug use.
Deferred Lightweight Indexing for Log-Structured Key-Value Stores

The recent shift towards write-intensive workload on big data (e.g., financial trading, social user-generated data streams)has pushed the proliferation of log-structured key-value stores, represented by Google's BigTable [1], Apache HBase [2] andCassandra [3]. While providing key-based data access with aPut/Get interface, these key-value stores do not support value-based access methods, which significantly limits their applicability in modern web and database applications. In this paper, we present DELI, a DEferred Lightweight Indexing scheme on the log-structured key-value stores. To index intensively updated bigdata in real time, DELI aims at making the index maintenance as lightweight as possible. The key idea is to apply an append-only design for online index maintenance and to collect index garbage at carefully chosen time. DELI optimizes the performance of index garbage collection through tightly coupling its execution with a native routine process called compaction. The DELI's system design is fault-tolerant and generic (to most key-valuestores), we implemented a prototype of DELI based on HBase without internal code modification. Our experiments show that the DELI offers significant performance advantage for the write-intensive index maintenance.
Synchronization of two coupled fractional-order chaotic oscillators

The dynamics of fractional-order systems have attracted increasing attentions in recent years. In this paper, the synchronization of two coupled nonlinear fractional order chaotic oscillators is numerically demonstrated using the master–slave synchronization scheme. It is shown that fractional-order chaotic oscillators can be synchronized with appropriate coupling strength. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Automatic detection and verification of rumors on Twitter

The spread of malicious or accidental misinformation in social media, especially in timesensitive situations such as real-world emergencies can have harmful effects on individuals and society. This thesis develops models for automated detection and verification of rumors (unverified information) that propagate through Twitter. Detection of rumors about an event is achieved through classifying and clustering assertions made about that event. Assertions are classified through a speech-act classifier for Twitter developed for this thesis. The classifier utilizes a combination of semantic and syntactic features to identify assertions with 91% accuracy. To predict the veracity of rumors, we identify salient features of rumors by examining three aspects of information spread: linguistic style used to express rumors, characteristics of people involved in propagating information, and network propagation dynamics. The predicted veracity of a time series of these features extracted from a rumor (a collection of tweets) is generated using Hidden Markov Models. The verification algorithm was tested on 209 rumors representing 938,806 tweets collected from real-world events including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the 2014 Ferguson unrest and the 2014 Ebola epidemic, and many other rumors reported on popular websites that document public rumors. The algorithm is able to predict the veracity of rumors with an accuracy of 75%. The ability to track rumors and predict their outcomes may have practical applications for news consumers, financial markets, journalists, and emergency services, and more generally to help minimize the impact of false information on Twitter. Thesis Supervisor: Deb K. Roy Title: Associate Professor, Program in Media Arts and Sciences
Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope-based microperimetry.

PURPOSE
To develop and test the application of an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) with eye tracking for high-resolution microperimetric testing.


METHODS
An AOSLO was used to conduct simultaneous high-resolution retinal imaging and visual function testing in six normal subjects. Visual sensitivity was measured at test locations between the fovea and 5.0° eccentricity via an increment threshold approach using a 40-trial, yes-no adaptive Bayesian staircase procedure (QUEST). A high-speed eye tracking algorithm enabled real-time video stabilization and the delivery of diffraction-limited Goldmann I-sized stimuli (diameter = 6.5 arc min = ∼32 μm; λ = 680 nm) to targeted retinal loci for 200 ms. Test locations were selected either manually by the examiner or automatically using Fourier-based image registration. Cone spacing was assessed at each test location and sensitivity was plotted against retinal eccentricity. Finally, a 4.2 arc min stimulus was used to probe the angioscotoma associated with a blood vessel located at 2.5° eccentricity.


RESULTS
Visual sensitivity decreases with eccentricity at a rate of -1.32 dB/deg (R = 0.60). The vertical and horizontal errors of the targeted stimulus delivery algorithm averaged 0.81 and 0.89 arc min (∼4 μm), respectively. Based on a predetermined exclusion criterion, the stimulus was successfully delivered to its targeted location in 90.1% of all trials. Automated recovery of test locations afforded the repeat testing of the same set of cones over a period of 3 months. Thresholds measured over a parafoveal blood vessel were 1.96 times higher (p < 0.05; one-tailed t-test) than those measured in directly adjacent retina.


CONCLUSIONS
AOSLO-based microperimetry has the potential to test visual sensitivity with fine retinotopic precision. Automated recovery of previously tested locations allows these measures to be tracked longitudinally. This approach can be implemented by researchers interested in establishing the functional correlates of photoreceptor mosaic structure in patients with retinal disease.
Towards dependable autonomous driving vehicles: a system-level approach

Autonomous driving technologies have been emerging over the past few years, and semi-autonomous driving functionalities have been deployed to vehicles available in the market. Since autonomous driving is realized by the intelligent processing of data from various types of sensors such as LIDAR, radar, camera, etc., the complexity of designing a dependable real-time autonomous driving system is rather high. Although there has been much research on building a reliable real-time system using hardware replication, the resulting systems tend to add significant extra cost due to hardware replication. Therefore, an alternative solution would be helpful in building an autonomous vehicle in a cost-effective way. An autonomous driving system is different from the conventional reliable real-time system because it requires (1) flexible design, (2) adaptive graceful degradation and (3) effective use of different modalities of sensors and actuators. To address these characteristics, we summarize SAFER (System-level Architecture for Failure Evasion in Real-time applications) our previous work on flexible system design. We then present a conceptual framework for autonomous vehicles to provide adaptive graceful degradation and support for using different types of sensors/actuators when a failure happens. We motivate our proposed framework with various scenarios, and we describe how SAFER can be extended to support the proposed conceptual framework.
A trust model for online peer-to-peer lending: a lender's perspective

Online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is a new but essential financing method for small and micro enterprises that is conducted on the Internet and excludes the involvement of collateral and financial institutions. To tackle the inherent risk of this new financing method, trust must be cultivated. Based on trust theories, the present study develops an integrated trust model specifically for the online P2P lending context, to better understand the critical factors that drive lenders’ trust. The model is empirically tested using surveyed data from 785 online lenders of PPDai, the first and largest online P2P platform in China. The results show that both trust in borrowers and trust in intermediaries are significant factors influencing lenders’ lending intention. However, trust in borrowers is more critical, and not only directly nurtures lenders’ lending intention more efficiently than trust in intermediaries, but also carries the impact of trust in intermediaries on lenders’ lending intention. To develop lenders’ trust, borrowers should provide highquality information for their loan requests and intermediaries should provide high-quality services and sufficient security protection. The findings provide valuable insights for both borrowers and intermediaries.
A mechanism for reducing flow tables in software defined network

The software defined network (SDN) has been developing tremendously in recent years. Numerous studies are proposed on the performance of SDN in academia. The idea of programmable network which is the foundation of SDN ensures dynamic network management by separating the control plane away from the network switches. The focus of this paper is the flow table's size in OpenFlow switches which is a significant bottleneck in SDN's practical application. We propose a mechanism named “Flow Table Reduction Scheme”(FTRS) for reducing the flow table size and maintaining the omnipotent controller's functions at the same time. We test the performance of FTRS both in simulation and experiment and the results show that FTRS is able to reduce 98% at most of the size of flow table with no impact on network's normal functions.
Novel Gut-Based Pharmacology of Metformin in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

UNLABELLED
Metformin, a biguanide derivate, has pleiotropic effects beyond glucose reduction, including improvement of lipid profiles and lowering microvascular and macrovascular complications associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). These effects have been ascribed to adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation in the liver and skeletal muscle. However, metformin effects are not attenuated when AMPK is knocked out and intravenous metformin is less effective than oral medication, raising the possibility of important gut pharmacology. We hypothesized that the pharmacology of metformin includes alteration of bile acid recirculation and gut microbiota resulting in enhanced enteroendocrine hormone secretion. In this study we evaluated T2DM subjects on and off metformin monotherapy to characterize the gut-based mechanisms of metformin. Subjects were studied at 4 time points: (i) at baseline on metformin, (ii) 7 days after stopping metformin, (iii) when fasting blood glucose (FBG) had risen by 25% after stopping metformin, and (iv) when FBG returned to baseline levels after restarting the metformin. At these timepoints we profiled glucose, insulin, gut hormones (glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), peptide tyrosine-tyrosine (PYY) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) and bile acids in blood, as well as duodenal and faecal bile acids and gut microbiota. We found that metformin withdrawal was associated with a reduction of active and total GLP-1 and elevation of serum bile acids, especially cholic acid and its conjugates. These effects reversed when metformin was restarted. Effects on circulating PYY were more modest, while GIP changes were negligible. Microbiota abundance of the phylum Firmicutes was positively correlated with changes in cholic acid and conjugates, while Bacteroidetes abundance was negatively correlated. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes representation were also correlated with levels of serum PYY. Our study suggests that metformin has complex effects due to gut-based pharmacology which might provide insights into novel therapeutic approaches to treat T2DM and associated metabolic diseases.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
www.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01357876.
Do coral-reef fish faunas have a distinctive taxonomic structure?

 Do the highly diverse fish faunas that associate with coral reefs have distinguishing taxonomic and ecological characteristics, as proposed by Choat and Bellwood (1991) and Bellwood (1996)? Does a 50 my old (Eocene) fossil fish fauna from Italy represent a coral-reef fish assemblage that provides unique information about the evolution of such assemblages, as claimed by Bellwood (1996)? I compared the structure of the reef fish faunas of adjacent tropical regions rich and poor in coral reefs, in both America and Polynesia, and found that they exhibit no substantive differences in relative species richness among families of typical “coral-reef” fishes. While coral-rich regions have larger reef fish faunas, a variety of factors probably contribute to such differences. Thus coral-reef fish faunas may lack a distinctive taxonomic structure. A similar comparative approach would be useful for assessing whether assemblages of fishes on coral reefs have distinctive ecological characteristics. Based on patterns of habitat use by modern tropical shorefishes, the Italian Eocene fauna includes few definite reef fishes, and may well consist primarily of non-reef fishes preserved in a non-reef habitat. Until we know more about the environment in which those fossils were preserved, that fauna can contribute little to understanding how coral reef fish assemblages have evolved.
Insuperable difficulties: Einstein's statistical road to molecular physics

Abstract In this essay I analyze Einstein's statistical papers from 1902 to 1904. In these papers, Einstein developed the foundations of a theoretical program that he applied to concrete problems in 1905 and in subsequent years. It combined skepticism about classical mechanics, a firm belief in molecules, and absolute confidence in statistical principles. However, Einstein's dissertation does not follow his statistical program. I conjecture that Einstein avoided his own theoretical ideas to win the approval of his Ph.D. advisor, Alfred Kleiner.
ReviewApplication of formulation technologies in lead candidate selection and optimization

The process of taking a new drug from concept to clinic and eventually to commercialization involves several steps that traditionally occur in series. The average cost of taking a compound from discovery stage to commercialization is estimated to exceed US$800 million, with an average development time span of ~15 years, and a success rate of only one in 5000 discovery compounds reaching the market [1]. Given these alarming statistics, pharmaceutical companies are under constant pressure to streamline the drug development process [2,3]. The recent spate of drug patent expirations and subsequent generic competition for blockbuster drugs has further aggravated the need for efficient strategies to screen, identify and optimize lead compounds for development. High throughput screening (HTS) and combinatorial chemistry methodologies have been developed in the past two decades, to synthesize a vast number of compounds using limited resources. Several complementary in silico and in vitro strategies have also emerged to screen these compounds and assess their potential to become lead candidates. Compounds emerging as ‘hits’ from these screening processes are characterized further and tested in vivo for safety and efficacy. This phase of preclinical drug development requires that the compound be formulated into a dosage form that can be used to administer the drug. Although simple conventional formulation technologies are preferred at this stage, such technologies are often not applicable for challenging compounds, such as those exhibiting poor aqueous solubility. Combinatorial chemistry and HTS strategies have been reviewed in multiple publications [4–6]. However, literature on rapid formulation development methodologies to develop effective dosage forms for animal testing has been sparse. Rapid formulation screening and identification of an appropriate formulation are crucial for an accurate assessment of compounds in a drug discovery setting. The challenges involved with formulation during this stage are, the limited availability of the compound, limited drug characterization data, and a need for rapid turnaround. Given these challenges, screening technologies are required to be versatile, robust and scalable. Two approaches can be taken to formulate compounds in this stage of discovery: (a) rapid formulation development, wherein compounds are formulated rapidly for in vivo testing, not necessarily considering the commercial viability of the formulation (i.e. the powder in a bottle approach); and (b) robust and thorough formulation development, wherein effort is made to make the formulation commercially ▼ Application of formulation technologies in lead candidate selection and optimization Mahesh V. Chaubal