Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic Sensor Scheduling for Networked Control Systems

Optimal sensor scheduling with applications to networked estimation and control systems is considered. We model sensor measurement and transmission instances using jumps between states of a continuous-time Markov chain. We introduce a cost function for this Markov chain as the summation of terms depending on the average sampling frequencies of the subsystems and the effort needed for changing the parameters of the underlying Markov chain. By minimizing this cost function through extending Brockett's recent approach to optimal control of Markov chains, we extract an optimal scheduling policy to fairly allocate the network resources among the control loops. We study the statistical properties of this scheduling policy in order to compute upper bounds for the closed-loop performance of the networked system, where several decoupled scalar subsystems are connected to their corresponding estimator or controller through a shared communication medium. We generalize the estimation results to observable subsystems of arbitrary order. Finally, we illustrate the developed results numerically on a networked system composed of several decoupled water tanks.
Noise‐enhanced balance control in patients with diabetes and patients with stroke

Somatosensory function declines with diabetic neuropathy and often with stroke, resulting in diminished motor performance. Recently, it has been shown that input noise can enhance human sensorimotor function. The goal of this study was to investigate whether subsensory mechanical noise applied to the soles of the feet via vibrating insoles can be used to improve quiet‐standing balance control in 15 patients with diabetic neuropathy and 15 patients with stroke. Sway data of 12 healthy elderly subjects from a previous study on vibrating insoles were added for comparison.
Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin as a potential novel biomarker for ventilator-associated lung injury

Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is a 25-kDa protein of the lipocalin superfamily and its presence was initially observed in activated neutrophils. It has previously been demonstrated that the expression of NGAL is markedly increased in stimulated epithelia, and is important in the innate immunological response to various pathophysiological conditions, including infection, cancer, inflammation and kidney injury. The present study constructed a ventilator-associated lung injury model in mice. NGAL mRNA and protein expression levels in lung tissue were detected using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blotting, respectively. In addition, NGAL protein levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and serum were measured via western blotting. The results of the present study suggested that NGAL expression increased under all mechanical ventilation treatments. The increase was most prominent in the high peak inflation pressure and high-volume mechanical ventilation groups, where there was the greatest extent of lung injury. In addition, NGAL expression increased in a time-dependent manner under high-volume mechanical ventilation, consistent with the degree of lung injury. These findings suggested that NGAL may serve as a potential novel biomarker in ventilator-associated lung injury.
Effects of induction of low plasma progesterone concentrations with a progesterone-releasing intravaginal device on follicular turnover and fertility in cattle.

The effects of concentration of progesterone in plasma on development and fertility of the first wave dominant follicle were studied in cattle. To identify a source of exogenous progesterone that would permit extension of the first wave dominant follicle, nonlactating Holstein cows (n = 6) received on day 8 of two successive oestrous cycles an injection of PGF2 alpha (25 mg) and a new (1.9 g of progesterone (Period 1)) or used (approximately 1.2 g of progesterone (Period 2)) CIDR-B device that was removed on day 17. Control cows (n = 6) received a new CIDR-B device on day 8 that was removed on day 17 and a PGF2 alpha injection (25 mg) on day 17. Ultrasonography and collection of blood samples were performed on alternate days throughout the experiment. Plasma concentrations of progesterone and oestradiol were different between treatments (P < 0.0001 and P < 0.05, respectively). The dominant follicle was maintained until day 17 and ovulated upon removal of the intravaginal device in 1 of 6, 6 of 6 and 0 of 6 in new CIDR-B, used CIDR-B and control groups, respectively (P < 0.01). The preovulatory dominant follicles were 14.2 +/- 1.6 mm, 20 +/- 1.3 mm and 10 +/- 1.3 mm, respectively (P < 0.001) on day 17. There were fewer 5-9 mm follicles in cows having a persistent dominant follicle (P < 0.01). The interval to onset of oestrus was negatively correlated with size of the dominant follicle on day 17 (P < 0.001). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Accuracy Bounds for Belief Propagation

The belief propagation (BP) algorithm is widely applied to perform approximate inference on arbitrary graphical models, in part due to its excellent empirical properties and performance. However, little is known theoretically about when this algorithm will perform well. Using recent analysis of convergence and stability properties in BP and new results on approximations in binary systems, we derive a bound on the error in BP's estimates for pairwise Markov random fields over discrete valued random variables. Our bound is relatively simple to compute, and compares favorably with a previous method of bounding the accuracy of BP.
G protein regulation of potassium ion channels.

Upon stimulation of vagal nerves, acetylcholine (ACh)c is released from axonal terminals and decelerates the heart beat. This historic discovery by Otto Loewi in the 1920s established the concept of chemical synaptic transmission ([Loewi, 1921][1]; [Loewi and Navaratil, 1926][2]). Since then, many
Benefit of cyclophosphamide therapy in IgA nephritis may have been obscured by warfarin-related nephropathy in the randomized trials in which warfarin and dipyridamole were used in combination with cyclophosphamide.

treatment was confirmed by immunohistochemical staining, and the down-regulation of KS-WNK1 was confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. However, the authors did not study the phosphorylated versions of NCC. Furthermore, they conducted a toxicity investigation rather than a blood pressure study. Most interesting is the report of acquired chimaerism in which a kidney from a patient with Gitelman syndrome (NCC deficiency) was transplanted into a non-Gitelman hypertensive recipient [5]. After transplantation, postural hypotension resulted, necessitating discontinuation of all anti-hypertensive medications used for treatment of CNIinduced hypertension. The authors basically describe an acquired Gitelman syndrome after transplantation. These prescient scholars suggested that their findings supported the potential use of thiazide diuretics in the treatment of CNI-induced hypertension, thereby supporting the work of Hoorn et al. [3]. Conflict of interest statement. None declared.
The Illness Perceptions of Women Following Acute Myocardial Infarction: Implications for Behaviour Change and Attendance at Cardiac Rehabilitation

ABSTRACT Coronary heart disease (CHD) has been socially constructed as a gender-specific disease, with women seen not to be at risk (Lockyer, 2002). This is despite CHD being the leading cause of mortality in both men and women in the Western world (DH, 2004). The aim of this research was to explore the illness perceptions of a sample of women following acute myocardial infarction (MI). Relationships between illness perceptions and adoption of health-promoting behaviours, and attendance at a programme of cardiac rehabilitation were explored. The influence of age was also considered. Leventhal and Nerenz' Self-Regulatory Model of Illness Behaviour (1985) was used as the theoretical framework. This model consists of three stages: interpretation of symptoms, coping and appraisal. A qualitative research design was used. A purposeful sample of 10 women was selected on the basis of age and decision to attend cardiac rehabilitation. Data were collected by semi-structured interview, 3 months following the acute infarct, and analysed thematically. Stress was considered to be the cause of the MI, and although lifestyle factors were recognized, their significance was uncertain; perhaps as a result, lifestyle changes were limited. Overall, women had a perceived lack of control over the illness. The decision to attend a cardiac rehabilitation programme was influenced by beliefs relating to the identification of a known cause and level of perceived control of the illness. A belief that the illness was inevitable seemed to be more prevalent in older aged women. These findings have implications for health service providers in that they suggest that illness perceptions need to be explored and addressed before the decision to attend a programme of cardiac rehabilitation is made and health-promoting behaviours adopted.
Object Individuation in Infancy: The Use of Featural Information in Reasoning about Occlusion Events

Recent findings by Xu and Carey (1996) indicate that, after seeing two distinct objects (e.g., a duck and a ball) emerge on the opposite sides of a screen, 10-month-olds show no surprise when the screen is removed to reveal one (e.g., a duck) as opposed to two objects (e.g., a duck and a ball). The authors took their results to mean that 10-month-olds are unable to use featural information to individuate objects. The present research examined a different interpretation of the results. This interpretation was based on a distinction between event mapping, in which infants see a sequence of two distinct events and judge whether the two are consistent, and event monitoring, in which infants see a single event and judge whether successive portions of the event are consistent. The present research contrasted infants' performances in event-mapping tasks in which they saw first an occlusion and then a no-occlusion situation (as in Xu & Carey) and in event-monitoring tasks in which they saw only an occlusion situation. It was hypothesized that infants would be more likely to give evidence of correct individuation when tested with the event-monitoring as opposed to the event-mapping tasks. Eight experiments were conducted with infants ages 7.5 to 11.5 months. These experiments yielded two main findings. First, when tested with an event-monitoring task, even 7.5-month-olds give evidence that they can use featural information to individuate the objects involved in an occlusion event. Second, when tested with an event-mapping task, even 9.5-month-olds give evidence that they can use featural information to interpret an occlusion event as long as the event is made extremely simple. These findings give weight to the distinction between event mapping and monitoring and more generally begin to shed light on the fundamental processes involved in infants' formation and use of event representations.
LENTICULAR GALAXIES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS

It is widely believed that lenticular (S0) galaxies were initially spirals from which the gas has been removed by interactions with hot cluster gas, or by ram pressure stripping of cool gas from spirals that are orbiting within rich clusters of galaxies. However, problems with this interpretation are that (1) some lenticulars, such as NGC 3115, are isolated field galaxies rather than cluster members. (2) The distribution of flattening values of S0 galaxies in clusters, in groups, and in the field are statistically indistinguishable. This is surprising because one might have expected most of the progenitors of field S0 galaxies to have been flattened late-type galaxies, whereas lenticulars in clusters are thought to have mostly been derived from bulge-dominated early-type galaxies. (3) It should be hardest for ram pressure to strip massive luminous galaxies with deep potential wells. However, no statistically significant differences are seen between the luminosity distributions of early-type Shapley–Ames galaxies in clusters, groups, and in the field. (4) Finally both ram pressure stripping and evaporation by hot intracluster gas would be most efficient in rich clusters. However, the small number of available data in the Shapley–Ames sample appears to show no statistically significant differences between the relative frequencies of dust-poor S01 and dust-rich S03 galaxies in clusters, groups, and in the field. It is tentatively concluded that ram pressure stripping and heating by intracluster gas, may not be the only evolutionary channels that lead to the formation of lenticular galaxies. It is speculated that gas starvation, or gas ejection by active nuclei, may have played a major role in the formation of a significant fraction of all S0 galaxies.
On the Study of Network Coded AF Transmission Protocol for Wireless Multiple Access Channels

In this paper, the performance of the network coded amplify-forward cooperative protocol is studied. The use of network coding can suppress the bandwidth resource consumed by relay transmission, and hence increase the spectral efficiency of cooperative diversity. A distributed strategy of relay selection is applied to the cooperative scheme, which can reduce system overhead and also facilitate the development of the explicit expressions of information metrics, such as outage probability and ergodic capacity. Both analytical and numerical results demonstrate that the proposed protocol can achieve large ergodic capacity and full diversity gain simultaneously.
Cardiovascular and neuronal responses to head stimulation reflect central sensitization and cutaneous allodynia in a rat model of migraine.

Reduction of the threshold of cardiovascular and neuronal responses to facial and intracranial stimulation reflects central sensitization and cutaneous allodynia in a rat model of migraine. Current theories propose that migraine pain is caused by chemical activation of meningeal perivascular fibers. We previously found that chemical irritation of the dura causes trigeminovascular fibers innervating the dura and central trigeminal neurons receiving convergent input from the dura and skin to respond to low-intensity mechanical and thermal stimuli that previously induced minimal or no responses. One conclusion of these studies was that when low- and high-intensity stimuli induce responses of similar magnitude in nociceptive neurons, low-intensity stimuli must be as painful as the high-intensity stimuli. The present study investigates in anesthetized rats the significance of the changes in the responses of central trigeminal neurons (i.e., in nucleus caudalis) by correlating them with the occurrence and type of the simultaneously recorded cardiovascular responses. Before chemical stimulation of the dura, simultaneous increases in neuronal firing rates and blood pressure were induced by dural indentation with forces >/= 2.35 g and by noxious cutaneous stimuli such as pinching the skin and warming > 46 degrees C. After chemical stimulation, similar neuronal responses and blood pressure increases were evoked by much smaller forces for dural indentation and by innocuous cutaneous stimuli such as brushing the skin and warming it to >/= 43 degrees C. The onsets of neuronal responses preceded the onsets of depressor responses by 1.7 s and pressor responses by 4.0 s. The duration of neuronal responses was 15 s, whereas the duration of depressor responses was shorter (5.8 s) and pressor responses longer (22.7 s) than the neuronal responses. We conclude that the facilitated cardiovascular and central trigeminal neuronal responses to innocuous stimulation of the skin indicate that when dural stimulation induces central sensitization, innocuous stimuli are as nociceptive as noxious stimuli had been before dural stimulation and that a similar process might occur during the development of cutaneous allodynia during migraine.
Large Time Asymptotics of Solutions Around Solitary Waves to the Generalized Korteweg-de Vries Equations

We consider the long time asymptotics of solutions that are close to a solitary wave solution to the generalized Korteweg--de Vries equation u_t+u^pu_x+u_{xxx}=0\quad\text{for $x\in\mathbb R$, $t > 0$. } $$ If $1\le p < 4$ and the spectrum of the linearized equation around the initial solitary wave has the simplest possible structure, the solitary wave turns out to be asymptotically stable with respect to finite energy perturbations with polynomial decay as $x\to\infty$. Furthermore, we show that the asymptotics of the solution for large time is given by a sum of a solitary wave with slightly displaced parameters and a small dispersion if 2 < p < 4.
Beyond Desktop Management: Scaling Task Management in Space and Time

Abstract : Computers support more and more daily activities for common users, and users increasingly take their activities to different locations. Rather than being bound to a specific device, users would like to take full advantage of the computer systems accessible to them, much like they take advantage of the furniture in each physical space. However, user attention takes a heavy toll when scaling the use of computers to tasks that are constantly interrupted and resumed, and that span many locations and long periods. In this report we describe an infrastructure that provides users with easy access to their tasks as a logical unit, across multiple devices, and over time spans of years. The infrastructure handles platform and application heterogeneity, as well as dynamic adaptation to resource variations. We validate that the infrastructure's overhead is small compared to normal application startup, and that the approach scales.
Perceived social inadequacy and depressed mood in adolescents.

The goal of the study was to examine stability in, and the relationship between, perceived social inadequacy and depressed mood in a sample of community adolescents. The Checklist of Adolescent Problem Situations (CAPS) and Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) were administered to 224 high-school students on two occasions 4 months apart. CDI and CAPS scores were positively correlated and test-retest reliability was high in both instruments. Cross-lagged panel correlations, controlled for within-time associations, did not significantly differ. Results indicated that perceived social inadequacy in adolescents is stable over time-independent of its association with depressed mood.
Mechanical properties of sandwich panels with perforated foam cores

Mechanical properties of sandwich panels employing E-glass/polyester face sheets bonded to a perforated foam core are evaluated and compared to sandwich panels fabricated with conventional plain sheet cores. Through-thickness compression testing, plate shear, face—core fracture toughness and weight measurements after infusion are used to evaluate the performance of both core configurations in sandwich panels. The influence of full and partial filling of the perforations with resin is also discussed based on experimental results and finite element analysis. It is found that complete filling of the core perforations with resin provide increased compression properties to the sandwich, at the expense of about 30% weight gain in the panel. Crack may be temporarily arrested when it meets a resin filled perforation, but this localized arrest is minor and does not significantly increase the global fracture toughness of the face—core interface. Partial resin filling of the perforations causes stress concentrations which significantly decrease the mechanical properties of the sandwich structure.
Renal arginine metabolism in fasted rats with subacute short bowel syndrome.

1. Arginine can be produced in the kidney from citrulline. An important source of circulating citrulline is the intestinal breakdown of glutamine. Consequently, partial enterectomy leads to decreased plasma citrulline levels. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of diminished arterial citrulline levels on renal arginine production and total-body free arginine pools.2. Renal amino acid metabolism was studied 24 h after 75% small bowel resection in rats fasted overnight (16 h) (n=12; total fast 40 h). Sham-operated (n=9) and non-operated 16-h and 40-h fasted controls were studied in parallel (n=8/n=7). During anaesthesia, L-(2, 3-3H)-arginine and para-aminohippuric acid were infused until steady state. Subsequently, arterial and renal venous blood samples were taken. Concentrations of para-aminohippurate and amino acids and specific activity of arginine and citrulline were measured to calculate renal plasma flow, net renal uptake or release, and unidirectional influx or efflux of arginine and citrulline, as well as whole-body arginine turnover.3. Arterial citrulline was decreased in enterectomized rats compared with sham-operated rats (23+/-3 versus 44+/-6 microM). Net renal citrulline uptake and arginine release were almost stoichiometric (-36+/-7 and 38+/-6 nmol.min-1. 100 g-1 body weight respectively in sham-operated rats) and were both diminished by 50% in enterectomized versus sham-operated rats. In all groups, net renal arginine production accounted for less than 10% of whole-body rate of arginine appearance (488 nmol.min-1.100 g-1 body weight in the sham group). Despite decreased net renal citrulline consumption and renal arginine production in enterectomized rats, whole-body rate of arginine appearance and arterial arginine did not change significantly.4. In conclusion, net renal arginine production is reduced 24 h after 75% enterectomy in fasted rats. However, this does not have important effects on whole-body arginine production.
Gestational Age-Dependent Repair Kinetics of Microsurgical Defects in Monolayers of Human Amniocytes

Objectives: There is paucity of data on the capacity of fetal membranes to repair surgical defects following trauma. We aimed at developing an in vitro model using monolayers of human amnion epithelial cells to study fetal membrane healing. Methods: Term (n = 6) and preterm (n = 3) fetal membranes were collected at caesarean section. The amnion was digested twice in a trypsin solution. Amniocytes were seeded (250,000–750,000/ml) and incubated at 37°C and 5% CO2 and 21 or 5% O2. A microsurgical injury was made centrally in the monolayers and the cultures were incubated for 48 h. Every 6 h, slides were fixed and immunohistochemical staining was performed to quantify proliferation at the site of the defect and centrally in the monolayer. The closure rate was evaluated by measuring the defect size every 6 h. Results: The closure rate of the defects was higher in preterm versus term cultures. Proliferation was significantly higher in the defect zone versus the peripheral zone, and also higher in the preterm group. Conclusion: We describe a new model for the study of fetal membrane healing and observed gestational age-dependent repair capacity of the amnion.