Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human visual motion areas determined individually by magnetoencephalography and 3D magnetic resonance imaging

We used magnetoencephalography to study inter‐individual locational difference in the extrastriate region which responds to visual motion. Magnetic responses to visual motion onset from the right temporo‐occipital area were recorded from 12 subjects. All the subjects had clear responses to apparent or random dot coherent motion. The origins of these responses was investigated by use of the single equivalent current dipole model. The nearest scalp to the origin also was identified for each subject, which may be useful in transcranial stimulation studies. Although the magnetic responses of all the subjects should have the same functional properties; be related to neural activities synchronized exclusively to the onset of motion, the estimated origins varied greatly among the subjects. The location of origin could be classified as one of three types: temporo‐occipital, occipital, or parietal, according to the sulcal anatomy investigated in the individual's three‐dimensional magnetic resonance image. Temporo‐occipital types were found for seven subjects, and anatomically the regions were around human MT/V5. Two subjects had the occipital type, with regions posterior to the anatomical MT/V5 and corresponding to V3A anatomically. The other three subjects had origins classified as the parietal type dorso‐rostral to the anatomical MT/V5, with regions around the posterior end of the superior temporal sulcus. Although all these cortical regions appear to be related to the neural process of visual motion, whether they correspond functionally to the same names or migrated MT/V5 must now be determined. Hum. Brain Mapping 11:33–45, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Noninducibility in Postinfarction Ventricular Tachycardia as an End Point for Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation and Its Effects on Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

Background—Although ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation is a widely used therapy for patients with VT, the ideal end points for this procedure are not well defined. We performed a meta-analysis of the published literature to assess the predictive value of noninducibility of postinfarction VT for long-term outcomes after VT ablation. Methods and Results—We performed a systematic review of MEDLINE (1950–2013), EMBASE (1988–2013), the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (Fourth Quarter, 2012), and reports presented at scientific meetings (1994–2013). Randomized controlled trials, case–control, and cohort studies of VT ablation were included. Outcomes reported in eligible studies were freedom from VT/ventricular fibrillation and all-cause mortality. Of the 3895 studies evaluated, we identified 8 cohort studies enrolling 928 patients for the meta-analysis. Noninducibility after VT ablation was associated with a significant increase in arrhythmia-free survival compared with partial success (odds ratio, 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.29–0.84; P=0.009) or failed ablation procedure (odds ratio, 0.10; 95% confidence interval, 0.06–0.18; P<0.001). There was also a significant reduction in all-cause mortality if patients were noninducible after VT ablation compared with patients with partial success (odds ratio, 0.59; 95% confidence interval, 0.36–0.98; P=0.04) or failed ablation (odds ratio, 0.32; 95% confidence interval, 0.10–0.99; P=0.049). Conclusions—Noninducibility of VT after VT ablation is associated with improved arrhythmia-free survival and all-cause mortality.
CD3 Ligation on Immature Thymocytes Generates Antagonist-like Signals Appropriate for CD8 Lineage Commitment, Independently of  T Cell Receptor Specificity

The signals that direct differentiation of T cells to the CD4 or CD8 lineages in the thymus remain poorly understood. Although it has been relatively easy to direct differentiation of CD4 single positive (CD4+) cells using combinations of antibodies and pharmacological agents that mimic receptor engagements, equivalent stimuli do not induce efficient maturation of CD8+ cells. Here we report that, irrespective of the MHC-restriction specificity of the TCR, differentiation of mature CD8+ thymocytes can be induced by ligation of CD3 polypeptides on immature thymocytes with a F(ab′)2 reagent (CD3fos-F(ab′)2). The tyrosine phosphorylation patterns stimulated by CD3fos-F(ab′)2 have been shown to resemble those delivered to mature T cells by antagonist peptides, which are known to direct positive selection of CD8+ cells, and we can show that this reagent exhibits potent antagonistic-like activity for primary T cell responses. Our results suggest a distinction in the signals that specify lineage commitment in the thymus. We present a model of thymocyte differentiation that proposes that the relative balance of signals delivered by TCR engagement and by p56lck activation is responsible for directing commitment to the CD8 or CD4 lineages.
Fast violence detection in video

Whereas the action recognition problem has become a hot topic within computer vision, the detection of fights or in general aggressive behavior has been comparatively less studied. Such capability may be extremely useful in some video surveillance scenarios like in prisons, psychiatric centers or even embedded in camera phones. Recent work has considered the well-known Bag-of-Words framework often used in generic action recognition for the specific problem of fight detection. Under this framework, spatio-temporal features are extracted from the video sequences and used for classification. Despite encouraging results in which near 90% accuracy rates were achieved for this specific task, the computational cost of extracting such features is prohibitive for practical applications, particularly in surveillance and media rating systems. The task of violence detection may have, however, specific features that can be leveraged. Inspired by psychology results that suggest that kinematic features alone are discriminant for specific actions, this work proposes a novel method which uses extreme acceleration patterns as the main feature. These extreme accelerations are efficiently estimated by applying the Radon transform to the power spectrum of consecutive frames. Experiments show that accuracy improvements of up to 12% are achieved with respect to state-of-the-art generic action recognition methods. Most importantly, the proposed method is at least 15 times faster.
Nested Levels of Adaptive Divergence: The Genetic Basis of Craniofacial Divergence and Ecological Sexual Dimorphism

Exemplary systems for adaptive divergence are often characterized by their large degrees of phenotypic variation. This variation represents the outcome of generations of diversifying selection. However, adaptive radiations can also contain a hierarchy of differentiation nested within them where species display only subtle phenotypic differences that still have substantial effects on ecology, function, and ultimately fitness. Sexual dimorphisms are also common in species displaying adaptive divergence and can be the result of differential selection between sexes that produce ecological differences between sexes. Understanding the genetic basis of subtle variation (between certain species or sexes) is therefore important for understanding the process of adaptive divergence. Using cichlids from the dramatic adaptive radiation of Lake Malawi, we focus on understanding the genetic basis of two aspects of relatively subtle phenotypic variation. This included a morphometric comparison of the patterns of craniofacial divergence between two ecologically similar species in relation to the larger adaptive radiation of Malawi, and male–female morphological divergence between their F2 hybrids. We then genetically map craniofacial traits within the context of sex and locate several regions of the genome that contribute to variation in craniofacial shape that is relevant to sexual dimorphism within species and subtle divergence between closely related species, and possibly to craniofacial divergence in the Malawi radiation as a whole. To enhance our search for candidate genes we take advantage of population genomic data and a genetic map that is anchored to the cichlid genome to determine which genes within our QTL regions are associated with SNPs that are alternatively fixed between species. This study provides a holistic understanding of the genetic underpinnings of adaptive divergence in craniofacial shape.
Using optical spectroscopy to longitudinally monitor physiological changes within solid tumors.

The feasibility of using quantitative diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to longitudinally monitor physiological response to cancer therapy was evaluated in a preclinical model. This study included two groups of nude mice bearing 4T1 flank tumors (N = 50), half of which were treated with a maximum tolerated dose of doxorubicin (DOX). Diffuse reflectance spectra were collected from tumors during a period of 2 weeks using a fiber-optic probe coupled to a spectrometer. These spectra were quantified using an inverse scalable Monte Carlo model of light transport in tissue to extract the concentrations of oxygenated, deoxygenated hemoglobin (dHb), and a wavelength mean reduced scattering coefficient (). The tumor growth rates of the treated and control groups were nearly identical, as were changes in the scattering parameter during this time frame. However, tumors treated with DOX showed a transient but significant increase in blood oxygen saturation. A comparison between the optically derived and immunohistochemical end points in a subset of the 50 animals showed that the temporal kinetics of dHb concentration and were highly concordant with those of hypoxic and necrotic fractions, respectively. In conclusion, optical methods could function as a "screening" technology in longitudinal studies of small animal tumor models to accelerate development and testing of new anticancer drugs. This technique could isolate specific landmark time points at which more expensive and sophisticated imaging methods or immunohistochemistry could be performed.
Precise Condition Synthesis for Program Repair

Due to the difficulty of repairing defect, many research efforts have been devoted into automatic defect repair. Given a buggy program that fails some test cases, a typical automatic repair technique tries to modify the program to make all tests pass. However, since the test suites in real world projects are usually insufficient, aiming at passing the test suites often leads to incorrect patches. This problem is known as weak test suites or overfitting. In this paper we aim to produce precise patches, that is, any patch we produce has a relatively high probability to be correct. More concretely, we focus on condition synthesis, which was shown to be able to repair more than half of the defects in existing approaches. Our key insight is threefold. First, it is important to know what variables in a local context should be used in an "if" condition, and we propose a sorting method based on the dependency relations between variables. Second, we observe that the API document can be used to guide the repair process, and propose document analysis technique to further filter the variables. Third, it is important to know what predicates should be performed on the set of variables, and we propose to mine a set of frequently used predicates in similar contexts from existing projects. Based on the insight, we develop a novel program repair system, ACS, that could generate precise conditions at faulty locations. Furthermore, given the generated conditions are very precise, we can perform a repair operation that is previously deemed to be too overfitting: directly returning the test oracle to repair the defect. Using our approach, we successfully repaired 18 defects on four projects of Defects4J, which is the largest number of fully automatically repaired defects reported on the dataset so far. More importantly, the precision of our approach in the evaluation is 78.3%, which is significantly higher than previous approaches, which are usually less than 40%.
Favoritism and Markets in Capital Allocation

Casual observation suggests that capital allocation is often driven by favouritism and connections rather than by market mechanisms and information on future expected returns. We investigate when favouritism or markets emerge as an equilibrium outcome in the allocation of capital. We show that when information is unreliable and costly, financiers do not have incentives to investigate distant investment opportunities and allocate capital to entrepreneurs they are familiar with (favouritism). If the pool of saving is relatively small, favouritism can lead to an efficient allocation of investment. As the economy develops and its pool of saving increases, information production and the identification of distant investment opportunities (markets) become crucial for efficient investment decisions. Nevertheless, favouritism may emerge in equilibrium and investors may find it optimal to fund low quality entrepreneurs if they are familiar with them. Since competition for capital is low in an equilibrium with favouritism, entrepreneurs enjoy high rents. Thus, even high quality entrepreneurs may have no incentive to join markets with standards that foster information acquisition, but rather run inefficiently small firms.
Believing Is Seeing: The Effects of Racial Labels and Implicit Beliefs on Face Perception

Two studies tested whether racial category labels and lay beliefs about human traits have a combined effect on people’s perception of, and memory for, racially ambiguous faces. Participants saw a morphed target face accompanied by a racial label (Black or White). Later, they were asked to identify the face from a set of two new morphed faces, one more Black and the other more White than the target. As predicted, entity theorists, who believe traits are immutable, perceived and remembered the target face as consistent with the racial label, whereas incremental theorists, who believe traits are malleable, perceived and remembered the face as inconsistent with the racial label. In Study 2, participants also drew the target face more consistently (entity theorists) or less consistently (incremental theorists) with the racial label. Results of both studies confirm that social variables can affect how physical features are seen and remembered.
Miniature Transmitter Release: Accident of Nature or Careful Design?

Miniature transmitter release results from the constitutive low-level release of individual vesicles of neurotransmitter. Since the 1950s, this form of synaptic transmission has largely been thought to reflect a leaky evoked-release mechanism, and it was not clear whether it had a function of its own. Recent data challenge this view and suggest that miniature release can affect both the local chemistry of synapses and the network properties of neurons.
A wireless system with stimulation and recording capabilities for interfacing peripheral nerves in rodents

Considerable progress has been made in the last decade in implantable bioelectronic neurosystems. Yet most neural implants are used in acute and tethered experimental conditions. Here, we present a preliminary prototype of a multichannel system for simultaneous peripheral nerve stimulation and neural recording. The system comprises miniaturized electronics with a total volume of less then 1.4cm3 including a 3.7V battery which is expected to last for 94 days of standby operation or 18 hours of continuous recording and stimulation. Data read-out and device configuration are wireless. Visceral nerves in rodents are interfaced with compliant extraneural electrodes. The 100×350μm2 electrodes display a low impedance (1.8kn at 1kHz) with a PEDOT:PSS coating. We validated the prototype in acute experiments by applying electrical stimulation to the aortic depressor nerve (ADN), resulting in effective and reproducible decrease in blood pressure and heart rate. The combination of miniaturized electronics and flexible electrodes makes the presented system a versatile platform for future implantable devices interfacing small peripheral nerves and potentially enables new applications in the field of neuroscience.
Disorientation Relations during the Early Stages of Recrystallization in Medium and Low SFE fcc Metals

The objective of this paper is to identify the predominant crystallographic relations between deformed state and recrystallized grains during the early stages of recrystallization of fcc metals with medium and low stacking fault energy. The experimental investigations, based on SEM/EBSD measurements, have focused on the transformations which occur in plane strain compressed single crystals with stable orientations. After annealing the disorientation across the recrystallization front 'defines' the final rotation by angles in the ranges of 25-35o and 45-55o around axes mostly grouped near the <122>, <012>, <112> and <111> directions located around the normals of all four {111} slip planes.
Vascularized bone flaps in oromandibular reconstruction. A comparative anatomic study of bone stock from various donor sites to assess suitability for enosseous dental implants.

OBJECTIVE To identify donor sites from which vascularized bone may be harvested capable of accepting osseointegrated implants of the minimum dimensions required to ensure long-term implant stability. DESIGN An anatomic study of the most commonly employed donor sites for vascularized bone in oromandibular reconstruction was conducted on 28 cadavers. SETTING Academic tertiary referral center. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-eight freshly embalmed, adult white cadavers (16 male, 12 female) were dissected. INTERVENTION The ipsilateral fibula, iliac crest, radius, and lateral border of the scapula were harvested and multiply sectioned at predetermined sites. OUTCOME MEASURE Implantability was determined for each section based on measurements of height, width, and cross-sectional area utilizing computer planimetry. RESULTS The iliac crest was the most consistently implantable donor site, followed by the scapula, fibula, and radius (83%, 78%, 67%, and 21% of sections from each donor site satisfying the criteria for implantability). Consistent regional differences in implantability were encountered at each donor site except the scapula. CONCLUSIONS Following ablation of oromandibular malignant neoplasms, restoration of stable retentive dentition is a prerequisite to a successful functional oral rehabilitation. This is best achieved with enosseous implants, capable of supporting a stable dental prosthesis, placed directly into vascularized bone flaps at the time of mandibular reconstruction. The implications of the results obtained in this study for gender, donor site selection, and orientation of the vascularized bone flap are discussed.
Nonlinear time series modelling with the radial basis function-based state-dependent autoregressive model

This paper investigates nonlinear time series modelling using the general state-dependent autoregressive model. To achieve the estimate of the model, an attempt is made to approximate the state-dependent parameter by employing the Gaussian radial basis function for its universal approximation capability. As a result, a radial basis function-based autoregressive (RBF-AR) model is derived which has a form similar to a generalized exponential autoregressive model. To reach the applicability of the RBF-AR model, the evolutionary programming algorithm is employed to select a suitable set of radial basis function centres. By applying the resulting model to some complex data, it is shown that the RBF-AR model can not only reconstruct the dynamics of given nonlinear time series effectively, but also give much better fitting to complextime series than the approach of directly RBF neural network modelling. Therefore, as a paradigm combining a statistical model and neural network, the RBF-AR model has better perform.
A novel aptamer targeting TGF-β receptor II inhibits transdifferentiation of human tenon's fibroblasts into myofibroblast.

PURPOSE To isolate aptamers that were bound to the extracellular segment of TGF-β receptor II (TβRII) and evaluate their effect on the TGF-β-induced transdifferentiation of fibroblasts. METHODS TβRII-binding aptamers were screened by Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) from a single stranded DNA (ssDNA) library. Human Tenon's fibroblasts (HTFs) were cultured and treated with TGF-β2, TGF-β2 and aptamer S58/68, or aptamer S58/68 alone. Western blot analysis was performed to determine levels of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and the signaling protein phosphorylated Smad2 (p-Smad2). α-SMA and p-Smad2 subcellular distribution and fibrous actin (F-actin) with rhodamine-phalloidin staining were evaluated by confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Cell contractility was assessed in collagen gel contraction assays. RESULTS Twenty-one sequences were obtained after eight rounds of selection. Two preferential sequences, aptamer S58 and S68, were isolated and used in the following experiments. Aptamer S58 significantly inhibited α-SMA expression and incorporation into actin stress fibers, as induced by TGF-β2. Aptamer S58 also suppressed TGF-β2-induced cell contraction. Furthermore, aptamer S58 inhibited the TGF-β2-induced phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of Smad2. However, we did not find any effect of aptamer S68 on TGF-β2 activity in vitro. CONCLUSIONS Our study revealed that a novel aptamer binding TβRII inhibited TGF-β2-induced myofibroblast transdifferentiation in HTFs.
A modified simple questionnaire to estimate dietary energy intake for the Japanese.

To produce a simple food questionnaire for estimating total energy intake and intake of three major nutrients which medical or health care staff such as nurses can rapidly use for the determination of health guidance for individuals. The study group comprised 116 normal healthy subjects (mean age ± S.D. = 40.0 ± 17.8 years), 76 women and 40 men. Using findings based on our previous research and experiences and the simple food questionnaire (MHW-FQ) that the "Kenkoh Shihyoh Sakutei Iinkai" established by the then Ministry of Health and Welfare developed in 1975, we produced a modified version of the MHW-FQ and named it M-MHW-FQ. The study presented here was conducted for the statistical determination of the usefulness of M-MHW-FQ. M-MHW-FQ yielded much better results than MHW-FQ as evidenced by improved correlation coefficients, which ranged between 0.56 and 0.75. The findings showed that, despite its simplicity, M-MHW-FQ yielded relatively accurate results and was satisfactory for the rapid estimation of total energy intake including that of three major nutrients. This study provides evidence that our simple questionnaire, M-MHW-FQ, is useful for the rapid estimation of individual total dietary energy intake and nutrient balance. We expect that our questionnaire can make a significant contribution to an improvement in lifestyle-related diseases.
Recognition of cursive Roman handwriting: past, present and future

This paper reviews the state of the art in off-line Roman cursive handwriting recognition. The input provided to an off-line handwriting recognition system is an image of a digit, a word, or - more generally -some text, and the system produces, as output, an ASCII transcription of the input. This task involves a number of processing steps, some of which are quite difficult. Typically, preprocessing, normalization, feature extraction, classification, and postprocessing operations are required. We'll survey the state of the art, analyze recent trends, and try to identify challenges for future research in this field.