Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Behavioral and Brain Functions

Background: Calcyon is a single transmembrane protein predominantly expressed in the brain. Very recently, calcyon has been implicated in clathrin mediated endocytosis, a critical component of synaptic plasticity. At the genetic level, preliminary evidence supports an association between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and polymorphisms in the calcyon gene. As little is known about the potential role of calcyon in ADHD, animal models may provide important insights into this issue. Methods: We examined calcyon mRNA expression in the frontal-striatal circuitry of three-, five, and ten-week-old Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats (SHR), the most commonly used animal model of ADHD, and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY; the strain from which SHR were derived). As a complement, we performed a co-expression network analysis using a database of mRNA gene expression profiles of multiple brain regions in order to explore potential functional links of calcyon to other genes. Results: In all age groups, SHR expressed significantly more calcyon mRNA in the medial prefrontal and orbital frontal cortices than WKY rats. In contrast, in the motor cortex, dorsal striatum and nucleus accumbens, calcyon mRNA expression was only significantly elevated in SHR in younger animals. In both strains, calcyon mRNA levels decreased significantly with age in all regions studied. In the co-expression network analysis, we found a cluster of genes (many of them poorly studied so far) strongly connected to calcyon, which may help elucidate its role in the brain. The pair-wise relations of calcyon with other genes support its involvement in clathrin mediated endocytosis and, potentially, some other membrane/vesicular processes. Interestingly, no link was found between calcyon and the dopamine D1 receptor, which was previously shown to interact with the C-terminal of calcyon. Conclusion: The results indicate an alteration in calcyon expression within the frontal-striatal circuitry of SHR, especially in areas involved in cognitive processes. These findings extend our understanding of the molecular alterations in SHR, a heuristically useful model of ADHD. Published: 10 July 2007 Behavioral and Brain Functions 2007, 3:33 doi:10.1186/1744-9081-3-33 Received: 5 February 2007 Accepted: 10 July 2007 This article is available from: http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions. com/content/3/1/33 © 2007 Heijtz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Phantom Materialization: A Novel Method to Enhance Stereo Audio Reproduction on Headphones

Loudspeaker reproduction systems are subject to a compromise between spatial realism and cost. By simulating loudspeaker reproduction on headphones, the resulting spatial realism is limited accordingly, despite the virtually unlimited spatial imaging capabilities of binaural audio rendering technology. More particularly, phantom imaging as often used for stereo audio material intended for loudspeaker reproduction is subject to various restrictions in terms of loudspeaker positioning in simulated space. As a consequence, phantom imaging should preferably be avoided when simulating virtual loudspeakers over headphones, especially if head tracking is incorporated or if a wide sound stage is desired. A novel method is described to extract phantom sound sources from stereo audio content and convert these to sound sources in a virtual listening environment.
Altered Effective Connectivity within the Language Network in Primary Progressive Aphasia

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative dementia syndrome principally characterized by the gradual dissolution of language functions, especially in the early stages of disorder. In a previous functional neuroimaging study, PPA patients were found to activate core language areas similarly to control subjects when performing semantic and phonological processing tasks (Sonty et al., 2003). In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and dynamic causal modeling (DCM) were used to study multiregional effective connectivity in early-stage PPA (n = 8) and control (n = 8) subjects performing semantic word matching and visual letter matching tasks. fMRI analysis showed semantic task-specific activations in the left inferior frontal (Broca's area) and posterior superior temporal (Wernicke's area) regions, in addition to other language regions, in both groups. Using a model language network consisting of six left hemisphere regions, the DCM analysis demonstrated reduced language-specific effective connectivity between Wernicke's and Broca's areas in the PPA patient group. Furthermore, this decrement in connectivity was predictive of semantic task accuracy. These results demonstrate for the first time that dysfunctional network interactions (effective connectivity), rather than hypoactivity within individual brain regions, may contribute to the emergence of language deficits seen in PPA.
Numerical simulation of welding-induced residual stress in fusion welding process using adaptive volumetric heat source

The mechanical properties of a weldment structure are influenced by the level of residual stress generated during fusion welding process. The experimental determination of residual stress is cumbersome and not free from measurement errors. A sophisticated numerical model is relatively easy approach to predict residual stress due to the advancement of high performance computational technology. However, the integration of all process physics to make a sophisticated numerical model is ever demanding. The present work is motivated in that direction and involves a finite element based numerical model for simulation of welding-induced residual stresses. A thermal model using adaptive volumetric heat source has been used to estimate temperature distribution. Subsequently, the thermal history is used to perform stress analysis for butt welded plates using three different fusion welding processes. The material behaviour is assumed as elasto-plastic in nature. The calculated results and their trend have been validated with experimental results available in open literature.
Potential arbitrage revenue of energy storage systems in PJM during 2014

The price of electricity in the Mid-Atlantic (PJM) region of the United States increased during the “Polar Vortex” at the beginning of 2014. Transmission lines were congested because of high demand during the extreme cold weather. The natural gas price for electricity generation increased more than 35% at the end of 2013. Energy Storage Systems (ESS) would have helped the system to overcome many difficulties during that period. Other opportunities in energy arbitrage define the greatest scale for storage applications. Real-time and Day-ahead markets in PJM provide alternative arbitrage opportunities. Considering the prices in 2014 for 7,395 locations in PJM, results show the potential revenue for ESS for normal arbitrage and for extreme cold weather events.
Reduction of Photoluminescence Quenching by Deuteration of Ytterbium-Doped Amorphous Carbon-Based Photonic Materials

In situ Yb-doped amorphous carbon thin films were grown on Si substrates at low temperatures (<200 °C) by a simple one-step RF-PEMOCVD system as a potential photonic material for direct integration with Si CMOS back end-of-line processing. Room temperature photoluminescence around 1 µm was observed via direct incorporation of optically active Yb3+ ions from the selected Yb(fod)3 metal-organic compound. The partially fluorinated Yb(fod)3 compound assists the suppression of photoluminescence quenching by substitution of C–H with C–F bonds. A four-fold enhancement of Yb photoluminescence was demonstrated via deuteration of the a-C host. The substrate temperature greatly influences the relative deposition rate of the plasma dissociated metal-organic species, and hence the concentration of the various elements. Yb and F incorporation are promoted at lower substrate temperatures, and suppressed at higher substrate temperatures. O concentration is slightly elevated at higher substrate temperatures. Photoluminescence was limited by the concentration of Yb within the film, the concentration of Yb ions in the +3 state, and the relative amount of quenching due to the various de-excitation pathways associated with the vibrational modes of the host a-C network. The observed wide full-width-at-half-maximum photoluminescence signal is a result of the variety of local bonding environments due to the a-C matrix, and the bonding of the Yb3+ ions to O and/or F ions as observed in the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses.
Visual Areas in Macaque Cortex Measured Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

We describe the first systematic functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements of visual field maps in macaque visual cortex. The boundaries of visual areas V1, V2, V3, V3A, V4, MT/V5, and TEO/V4A were identified using stimuli that create traveling waves of activity in retinotopically organized areas of the visual cortex. Furthermore, these stimuli were used to measure the dimensions of the representations of the central 11° in V1–V3, quantitative visual field eccentricity functions for V1–V3 and MT, and the distribution of foveal and peripheral signals within the occipital lobe. Within areas V1, V2, MT, and portions of V4, the fMRI signals were 5–10 times the noise level (3 mm3 volumes of interest). Signals were weaker but still significant in other cortical regions, including V3, V3A, and TEO. There is good agreement between the fMRI maps and the visual area maps discovered using local anatomical and physiological measurements. The fMRI measurements allow one to obtain a broad view of the distribution of cortical signals, spanning multiple visual areas at a single point in time. The combination of scale and sensitivity demonstrated here create a good foundation for measuring how localized signals and lesions influence the responses and reorganization in widely separated cortical regions. The ability to measure human and macaque maps using the same technology will make it possible to define computational homologies between the two species.
Higher-Order Constrained Horn Clauses and Refinement Types

Motivated by applications in automated verification of higher-order functional programs, we develop a notion of constrained Horn clauses in higher-order logic and a decision problem concerning their satisfiability. We show that, although satisfiable systems of higher-order clauses do not generally have least models, there is a notion of canonical model obtained through a reduction to a problem concerning a kind of monotone logic program. Following work in higher-order program verification, we develop a refinement type system in order to reason about and automate the search for models. This provides a sound but incomplete method for solving the decision problem. Finally, we show that an extension of the decision problem in which refinement types are used directly as guards on existential quantifiers can be reduced to the original problem. This result can be used to show that properties of higher-order functions that are definable using refinement types are also expressible using higher-order constrained Horn clauses.
Ontogeny of angiotensin II type 2 receptor mRNA expression in fetal and neonatal rat brain

Recent studies have provided evidence for a specific role of the angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2) in in vitro neuron differentiation, and in AT2 knock‐out mice that display central neurological anomalies. The role of AT2 in brain development is currently unknown. By using radiolabeled cRNA probes for in situ hybridization histochemistry, we determined the ontogenic development of AT2 mRNA in fetal and neonatal rat brain, from 11 days of gestation (E11) to 28 days postnatal (P28). Brain AT2 mRNA is first detected in the lateral hypothalamic neuroepithelium at E13. AT2 mRNA is detected beginning at E15 in the subthalamic and hypoglossus nuclei; at E17 in the pedunculopontine nucleus, cerebellum, motor facial nucleus, and the inferior olivary complex; at E19 in the thalamus, bed nucleus of the supraoptic decussation, interstitial nucleus of Cajal, nuclei of the lateral lemniscus, locus coeruleus, and supragenual nucleus; and at E21 in the lateral septal and medial amygdaloid nuclei, medial geniculate body, and the superior colliculus. The substantia nigra and many telencephalic and medullary nuclei express AT2 mRNA only after birth. Certain structures express AT2 mRNA strongly but transiently during embryonic life, such as the differentiating lateral hypothalamic area at E13, the superior olivary complex at E19 and E21, and the red nucleus at E15 and E17. In conclusion, during brain development, expression of AT2 mRNA appears early at E13, is strongly but transiently expressed in certain structures, and is high and persists until brain maturity in nuclei involved in motor functions and sensory integration. Our results support a dual role of AT2 during brain development in early maturation and differentiation, but also in modulation of established functions during perinatal and adult life. J. Comp. Neurol. 407:193–206, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Using Navigation to Improve Recommendations in Real-Time

Implicit feedback is a key source of information for many recommendation and personalization approaches. However, using it typically requires multiple episodes of interaction and roundtrips to a recommendation engine. This adds latency and neglects the opportunity of immediate personalization for a user while the user is navigating recommendations. We propose a novel strategy to address the above problem in a principled manner. The key insight is that as we observe a user's interactions, it reveals much more information about her desires. We exploit this by inferring the within-session user intent on-the-fly based on navigation interactions, since they offer valuable clues into a user's current state of mind. Using navigation patterns and adapting recommendations in real-time creates an opportunity to provide more accurate recommendations. By prefetching a larger amount of content, this can be carried out entirely in the client (such as a browser) without added latency. We define a new Bayesian model with an efficient inference algorithm. We demonstrate significant improvements with this novel approach on a real-world, large-scale dataset from Netflix on the problem of adapting the recommendations on a user's homepage.
Finite state machine state assignment for area and power minimization

In this paper, we address the problem of FSM state assignment to minimize area and power. The objectives are targeted as single/independent as well as multi-objective optimization (MOP) problems. Methods for estimating area and power of an FSM are presented. A fuzzy-based aggregation function is employed to combine the two objectives. The work employs genetic algorithm for search space exploration. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed measures
Quantification of Lateral Heterogeneity in Carbohydrate Permeability of Isolated Plant Leaf Cuticles

In phyllosphere microbiology, the distribution of resources available to bacterial colonizers of leaf surfaces is generally understood to be very heterogeneous. However, there is little quantitative understanding of the mechanisms that underlie this heterogeneity. Here, we tested the hypothesis that different parts of the cuticle vary in the degree to which they allow diffusion of the leaf sugar fructose to the surface. To this end, individual, isolated cuticles of poplar leaves were each analyzed for two properties: (1) the permeability for fructose, which involved measurement of diffused fructose by gas chromatography and flame ionization detection (GC–FID), and (2) the number and size of fructose-permeable sites on the cuticle, which was achieved using a green-fluorescent protein (GFP)-based bacterial bioreporter for fructose. Bulk flux measurements revealed an average permeance P of 3.39 × 10−9 ms−1, while the bioreporter showed that most of the leaching fructose was clustered to sites around the base of shed trichomes, which accounted for only 0.37% of the surface of the cuticles under study. Combined, the GC–FID and GFP measurements allowed us to calculate an apparent rate of fructose diffusion at these preferential leaching sites of 9.15 × 10−7 ms−1. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first successful attempt to quantify cuticle permeability at a resolution that is most relevant to bacterial colonizers of plant leaves. The estimates for P at different spatial scales will be useful for future models that aim to explain and predict temporal and spatial patterns of bacterial colonization of plant foliage based on lateral heterogeneity in sugar permeability of the leaf cuticle.
A Feasibility Test to Estimate the Duration of Phytoextraction of Heavy Metals from Polluted Soils

The practical applicability of heavy metal (HM) phytoextraction depends heavily on its duration. Phytoextraction duration is the main cost factor for phytoextraction, both referring to recurring economic costs during phytoextraction and to the cost of the soil having no economic value during phytoextraction. An experiment is described here, which is meant as a preliminary feasibility test before starting a phytoextraction scheme in practice, to obtain a more realistic estimate of the phytoextraction duration of a specific HM-polluted soil. In the experiment, HM-polluted soil is mixed at different ratios with unpolluted soil of comparable composition to mimic the gradual decrease of the HM content in the target HM-polluted soil during phytoextraction. After equilibrating the soil mixtures, one cropping cycle is carried out with the plant species of interest. At harvest, the adsorbed HM contents in the soil and the HM contents in the plant shoots are determined. The adsorbed HM contents in the soil are then related to the HM contents in the plant shoots by a log–log linear relationship that can then be used to estimate the phytoextraction duration of a specific HM-polluted soil. This article describes and evaluates the merits of such a feasibility experiment. Potential drawbacks regarding the accuracy of the described approach are discussed and a greenhouse–field extrapolation procedure is proposed.
Stress Concentration in Symmetric Angle-Ply Laminates Studied by the Quadric Surfaces Criterion

Inherent flaws and cracks in materials will develop stress concentration. The point at or near the maximum stress concentration is normally the initial location of material failure. The purpose of this study is to apply the newly developed quadric surfaces failure criterion to the crack induced stress concentrations in fiber-reinforced, symmetric, angle-ply composite laminates under tensile loading. To investigate this criterion, the influence of the material anisotropic properties and the far field loading on the composite materials with a normal crack were studied. Special emphasis was placed on studying the crack tip damage zone and their failure mechanism. The theoretical predictions from this criterion are examined by experimental results.
Essential role of Ret for defining non‐peptidergic nociceptor phenotypes and functions in the adult mouse

Transduction of pain following noxious stimuli is mediated by the activation of specialized ion channels and receptors expressed by nociceptive sensory neurons. A common early nociceptive sublineage expressing the nerve growth factor receptor TrkA diversifies into peptidergic and non‐peptidergic nociceptors around birth. In this process, peptidergic neurons maintain TrkA expression, while non‐peptidergic neurons downregulate TrkA and upregulate the common glial‐derived neurotrophic factor family ligand receptor Ret and bind the isolectin B4 (IB4). Although Ret can have profound impacts on the molecular and physiological properties of nociceptive neurons, its role is not fully understood. Here we have deleted Ret in small‐ and medium‐size sensory neurons, bypassing the early lethality of the full Ret knockout. We identify that Ret is expressed in two distinct populations of small–medium sized non‐peptidergic neurons, an IB4+ and an IB4− population. In these neurons, Ret is a critical regulator of several ion channels and receptors, including Nav1.8, Nav1.9, ASIC2a, P2X3, TrpC3, TrpM8, TrpA1, delta opioid receptor, MrgD, MrgA1 and MrgB4. Ret‐deficient mice fail to respond to mustard oil‐induced neurogenic inflammation, have elevated basal responses and a failure to terminate injury‐induced sensitization to cold stimuli, hypersensitivity to basal but not injury‐induced mechanical stimuli, while heat sensation is largely intact. We propose that elevated pain responses could be contributed by GPR35, which is dysregulated in adult Ret‐deficient mice. Our results show that Ret is critical for expression of several molecular substrates participating in the detection and transduction of sensory stimuli, resulting in altered physiology following Ret deficiency.
Economic considerations in the treatment of invasive aspergillosis: a review of voriconazole pharmacoeconomic studies

Invasive aspergillosis is a life-threatening fungal infection predominately affecting immunocompromised individuals. The incidence of inpatient-treated aspergillosis cases in the US is estimated to be between 3.02 and 3.80 per 10,000 hospitalized patients. The estimated difference in hospital costs of patients with an aspergillosis infection is US$36,867 to US$59,356 higher than those of patients without the infection. Voriconazole is a synthetic, broad spectrum triazole antifungal agent, with FDA-approved indications for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis, esophageal candidiasis, candidemia in nonneutropenic patients, invasive candidiasis, and infections due to Scedosporium apiospermum and Fusarium species in patients refractory to or intolerant of other therapy. Eight cost-effectiveness analyses, one cost-minimization analysis, and one cost analysis were identified from a Medline search. The 10 pharmacoeconomic analyses were conducted in six different countries comparing voriconazole to conventional amphotericin B, liposomal amphotericin B, itraconazole, and caspofungin. All the cost-effectiveness and cost-minimization analyses identified voriconazole as the most cost-effective therapy. The cost analysis demonstrated voriconazole cost-savings. While the acquisition costs of voriconazole are higher than those of conventional amphotericin B, the toxicity profile and rate of treatment success associated with voriconazole result in lower total treatment costs per successfully treated patient.