Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Play We Trust. Rapid Facial Mimicry Predicts the Duration of Playful Interactions in Geladas

The primate play-face is homologous to the human facial display accompanying laughter. Through facial mimicry, the play-face evokes in the perceiver a similar positive emotional state. This sensorimotor and emotional sharing can be adaptive, as it allows individuals to fine-tune their own motor sequences accordingly thus increasing cooperation in play. It has been recently demonstrated that, not only humans and apes, but also geladas are able to mimic others' facial expressions. Here, we describe two forms of facial mimicry in Theropithecus gelada: rapid (RFM, within 1.0 s) and delayed (DFM, within 5.0 s). Play interactions characterized by the presence of RFM were longer than those with DFM thus suggesting that RFM is a good indicator of the quality of communicative exchanges and behavioral coordination. These findings agree with the proposal of a mirror mechanism operating during perception and imitation of facial expressions. In an evolutionary perspective, our findings suggest that RFM not only was already present in the common ancestor of cercopitecoids and hominoids, but also that there is a relationship between RFM and length and quality of playful interactions.
Chondritic ingredients: II. Reconstructing early solar system history via refractory lithophile trace elements in individual objects of the Leoville CV3 chondrite

We performed a LA‐ICP‐MS study of refractory lithophile trace elements in 32 individual objects selected from a single section of the reduced CV3 chondrite Leoville. Ingredients sampled include ferromagnesian type I and II chondrules, Al‐rich chondrules (ARCs), calcium‐aluminum‐rich inclusions (CAIs), a single amoeboid olivine aggregate (AOA), and matrix. The majority of rare earth element (REE) signatures identified are either of the category “group II” or they are relatively flat, i.e., more or less unfractionated. Data derived for bulk Leoville exhibit characteristics of the group II pattern. The bulk REE inventory is essentially governed by those of CAIs (group II), ARCs (flat or group II), type I chondrules (about 90% flat, 10% group II), and matrix (group II). Leoville matrix also shows a superimposed positive Eu anomaly. The excess in Eu is possibly due to terrestrial weathering. The group II pattern, however, testifies to volatility‐controlled fractional condensation from a residual gas of solar composition at still relatively high temperature. In principle, this signature (group II) is omnipresent in all types of constituents, suggesting that the original REE carrier of all components was CAI‐like dust. In addition, single‐element anomalies occasionally superimposing the group II signature reveal specific changes in redox conditions. We also determined the bulk chemical composition of all objects studied. For Mg/Si, Mg/Fe, and Al/Ca, Leoville's main ingredients—type I chondrules and matrix—display a complementary relationship. Both components probably formed successively in the same source region.
STAT3 Regulates Proliferation and Survival of CD8+ T Cells: Enhances Effector Responses to HSV-1 Infection, and Inhibits IL-10+ Regulatory CD8+ T Cells in Autoimmune Uveitis

STAT3 regulates CD4+ T cell survival and differentiation. However, its effects on CD8+ T cells are not well understood. Here, we show that in comparison to WT CD8+ T cells, STAT3-deficient CD8+ T cells exhibit a preactivated memory-like phenotype, produce more IL-2, proliferate faster, and are more sensitive to activation-induced cell death (AICD). The enhanced proliferation and sensitivity to AICD correlated with downregulation of class-O forkhead transcription factors (FoxO1, FoxO3A), p21waf1, p27KIP1, Bcl-2, OX-40, and upregulation of FasL, Bax, and Bad. We examined whether STAT3-deficient CD8+ T cells can mount effective response during herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) infection and experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU). Compared to WT mice, HSV-1-infected STAT3-deficient mice (STAT3KO) produced less IFN-γ and virus-specific KLRG-1+ CD8+ T cells. STAT3KO mice are also resistant to EAU and produced less IL-17-producing Tc17 cells. Resistance of STAT3KO to EAU correlated with marked expansion of IL-10-producing regulatory CD8+ T cells (CD8-Treg) implicated in recovery from autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Thus, increases of IL-6-induced STAT3 activation observed during inflammation may inhibit expansion of CD8-Tregs, thereby impeding recovery from uveitis. These results suggest that STAT3 is a potential therapeutic target for upregulating CD8+ T cell-mediated responses to viruses and suggest the successful therapeutic targeting of STAT3 as treatment for uveitis, derived, in part, from promoting CD8-Treg expansion.
Fault-tolerant network interface for spatial division multiplexing based Network-on-Chip

The progressive maturity of VLSI manufacturing technology is helping in integrating more and more processing elements and memory units on a single die to form a Multiprocessor System-On-Chip (MPSoC). Network-on-Chip (NoC) is adopted as communication backbone for most of these modern day multiprocessor systems. As complexity of these system scales, there has been a growing concern on the dependability of these processing and communication elements. In this paper, we propose a centralized hardware fault-tolerant network interface (NI) for NoCs based on spatial division multiplexing. Experiments show that the proposed design has better throughput than a non fault-tolerant design with only 18% area overhead. We also introduce an area optimized distributed fault-tolerant NI architecture which provides 50% more throughput than the centralized design for high fault rates.
From D-Coi to SoNaR: a reference corpus for Dutch

The computational linguistics community in The Netherlands and Belgium has long recognized the dire need for a major reference corpus of written Dutch. In part to answer this need, the STEVIN programme was established. To pave the way for the effective building of a 500-million-word reference corpus of written Dutch, a pilot project was established. The Dutch Corpus Initiative project or D-Coi was highly successful in that it not only realized about 10% of the projected large reference corpus, but also established the best practices and developed all the protocols and the necessary tools for building the larger corpus within the confines of a necessarily limited budget. We outline the steps involved in an endeavour of this kind, including the major highlights and possible pitfalls. Once converted to a suitable XML format, further linguistic annotation based on the state-of-the-art tools developed either before or during the pilot by the consortium partners proved easily and fruitfully applicable. Linguistic enrichment of the corpus includes PoS tagging, syntactic parsing and semantic annotation, involving both semantic role labeling and spatiotemporal annotation. D-Coi is expected to be followed by SoNaR, during which the 500-million-word reference corpus of Dutch should be built.
MAC Protocol for Energy Efficient Forwarding Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we develop an Energy Efficient distributed power control algorithm. To establish an effective transmission power control mechanism, the dynamics between link qualities and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) values are studied. Based on Link qualities and RSSI, we determine the proper initial transmission power for each neighboring node. In the energy efficient forwarding scheme, the data forwarding probability is adaptively adjusted based on the measured loss conditions at the sink In order to minimize energy consumption, we propose an Enhanced Energy Efficient MAC protocol which enables all nodes on the path to stay active and/or increase their duty cycles and all other nearby nodes to sleep in order to enable continuous data forwarding without incurring energy waste of unrelated nodes.
Examples of Adaptive MCMC

We investigate the use of adaptive MCMC algorithms to automatically tune the Markov chain parameters during a run. Examples include the Adaptive Metropolis (AM) multivariate algorithm of Haario, Saksman, and Tamminen (2001), Metropolis-within-Gibbs algorithms for nonconjugate hierarchical models, regionally adjusted Metropolis algorithms, and logarithmic scalings. Computer simulations indicate that the algorithms perform very well compared to nonadaptive algorithms, even in high dimension.
GPS Bias Correction and Habitat Selection by Mountain Goats

Abstract: In Washington State, USA, mountain goats ( Oreamnos americanus ) have experienced a long-term population decline. To assist management, we created annual and seasonal (summer and winter) habitat models based on 2 years of data collected from 38 GPS-collared (GPS plus collar v6, Vectronic-Aerospace GmbH, Berlin, Germany) mountain goats in the western Cascades. To address GPS bias of position acquisition, we evaluated habitat and physiographic effects on GPS collar performance at 543 sites in the Cascades. In the western Cascades, total vegetation cover and the quadratic mean diameter of trees were shown to effect GPS performance. In the eastern Cascades, aspect and total vegetation cover were found to influence GPS performance. To evaluate the influence of bias correction on the analysis of habitat selection, we created resource selection functions with and without bias correction for mountain goats in the western Cascades. We examined how well the resultant habitat models performed with reserved data (25% of fixes from 38 study animals) and with data from 9 other GPS-collared mountain goats that were both temporally and spatially independent. The statistical properties of our GPS bias correction model were similar to those previously reported explaining between 20 and 30% of the variation, however, application of bias correction improved the accuracy of the mountain goat habitat model by only 1–2% on average and did not alter parameter estimates in a meaningful, or consistent manner. Despite statistical limitations, our habitat models, most
Different populations of GABAergic neurons in the visual cortex and hippocampus of cat contain somatostatin- or cholecystokinin- immunoreactive material

The coexistence of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate decarboxylase (GAD), and cholecystokinin (CCK)- or somatostatin- immunoreactive material in the same neurons was studied in the hippocampus and visual cortex of the cat. One-micrometer-thick serial sections of the same neuron were reacted to reveal different antigens by the unlabeled antibody enzyme method. All CCK- and somatostatin- immunoreactive neurons in the cortex and all CCK-immunoreactive and the majority of somatostatin-immunoreactive neurons in the hippocampus that could be examined in serial sections were also immunoreactive for GABA. In neurons that were immunoreactive for GAD it was often possible to demonstrate immunoreactivity for one of the peptides as well as for GABA. GABA-immunoreactive neurons, as revealed by an antiserum to GABA, were present in all layers of the cortex and hippocampus, and their shape, size, and distribution were similar to GAD-immunoreactive neurons. All GAD-immunoreactive neurons were also positive for GABA, but the latter staining revealed additional neurons. CCK/GABA- and somatostatin/GABA-immunoreactive neurons were present mainly in layers II and upper III and in layers V and VI in the visual cortex. CCK/GABA- immunoreactive neurons were most frequently present in the strata oriens, pyramidale, and moleculare of the hippocampus and in the polymorph cell layer of the dentate gyrus. Somatostatin/GABA- immunoreactive neurons were localized mainly in the stratum oriens and in the hilus of the fascia dentata. The two peptides could not be found in the same neuron. The majority of neurons that were GABA immunoreactive did not stain for either peptide. The presence of CCK- and somatostatin-immunoreactive material in GABAergic cortical neurons raises the possibility that neuroactive peptides affect GABAergic neurotransmission.
Modeling the Choice of Tillage Used for Dryland Corn, Wheat and Soybean Production by Farmers in Kansas

Conservation tillage offers economic and soil quality benefits, yet conventional tillage remains the prevailing system in some regions. The purpose of this study is to identify the effect of profitability factors, risk attitudes, crop rotations, and other farmer and farm characteristics on farmers’ choices to use no-till (NT), strip-till (ST) and reduced/conventional tillage (RCT) in producing dryland corn, wheat, and soybean in Kansas. The results show that factors such as crop yields, risk aversion, crop insurance, baling and grazing of crop residue, crop acreage, and farmers’ approach to adopting new technologies are significant factors in farmers’ choice of tillage practice.
Are consistent juror decisions related to fast and frugal decision making? Investigating the relationship between juror consistency, decision speed and cue utilisation

The aim of this study was to establish whether more consistent/accurate juror decision making is related to faster decision-making processes which use fewer cues – that is, fast and frugal heuristic processes. A correlational design was implemented with the co-variables: consistency of verdict decisions (participant decisions compared to the actual court verdicts), decision speed, and cue utilisation (the number of cues used to make a final verdict decision). Sixty participants read information about six murder trials which were based on real cases and whose outcome verdicts were deemed to be correct by the Scottish legal institution. Three of the cases had been handed down ‘not guilty’ verdicts, and three had been handed down ‘guilty’ verdicts. Participants read opening statements and were then presented with a block of prosecution evidence, followed by a block of defence evidence. They were then asked to make a final verdict. All three co-variables were significantly related. Cue utilisation and speed were positively correlated, as would be expected. Consistency was negatively and significantly related to both speed and cue utilisation. Partial correlations highlighted that cue utilisation was the only variable to have a significant relationship with consistency, and that the relationship between speed and consistency was a by-product of how frugal the juror was. Findings support the concept of frugal decisional processes being optimal within a juror context. The more frugal a decision is, the more likely jurors are to be to be accurate/consistent.
Propositional DAGs: A New Graph-Based Language for Representing Boolean Functions

This paper continues the line of research on knowledge compilation in the context of Negation Normal Forms (NNF) and Binary Decision Diagrams (BDD). The idea is to analyze different target languages according to their succinctness and the classes of queries and transformations supported in polytime. We identify a new property called simple-negation, which is an implicit restriction of all NNFs and BDDs. The removal of this restriction leads to Propositional Directed Acyclic Graphs (PDAG), a more general family of graph-based languages for representing Boolean functions or propositional theories. With respect to certain NNF-based languages, we will show that corresponding PDAG-based languages are at least as succinct and support the same transformations. The most interesting language even supports the same queries and an additional transformation, making it more flexible.
Forest Structure and Downed Woody Debris in Boreal, Temperate, and Tropical Forest Fragments

Abstract Forest fragmentation affects the heterogeneity of accumulated fuels by increasing the diversity of forest types and by increasing forest edges. This heterogeneity has implications in how we manage fuels, fire, and forests. Understanding the relative importance of fragmentation on woody biomass within a single climatic regime, and along climatic gradients, will improve our ability to manage forest fuels and predict fire behavior. In this study we assessed forest fuel characteristics in stands of differing moisture, i.e., dry and moist forests, structure, i.e., open canopy (typically younger) vs. closed canopy (typically older) stands, and size, i.e., small (10–14 ha), medium (33 to 60 ha), and large (100–240 ha) along a climatic gradient of boreal, temperate, and tropical forests. We measured duff, litter, fine and coarse woody debris, standing dead, and live biomass in a series of plots along a transect from outside the forest edge to the fragment interior. The goal was to determine how forest structure and fuel characteristics varied along this transect and whether this variation differed with temperature, moisture, structure, and fragment size. We found nonlinear relationships of coarse woody debris, fine woody debris, standing dead and live tree biomass with mean annual median temperature. Biomass for these variables was greatest in temperate sites. Forest floor fuels (duff and litter) had a linear relationship with temperature and biomass was greatest in boreal sites. In a five-way multivariate analysis of variance we found that temperature, moisture, and age/structure had significant effects on forest floor fuels, downed woody debris, and live tree biomass. Fragment size had an effect on forest floor fuels and live tree biomass. Distance from forest edge had significant effects for only a few subgroups sampled. With some exceptions edges were not distinguishable from interiors in terms of fuels.
Nutrition-related Marketing in Canada: A Case Study of Whole Grains

In response to evidence of inadequate fibre and magnesium intakes across the Canadian population, the most recent edition of Canada’s Food Guide included a recommendation for increased whole grain consumption. However, whole grain labelling on food packaging remains voluntary and unregulated. The aim of this research was to examine the nature of nutrition guidance provided by whole grain labelling in the Canadian marketplace through a survey of front-of-package nutrition-related marketing in three supermarkets and a detailed examination of nutrient content, ingredients, and price of breads. Whole grain promotion occurred on relatively few products, predominantly among processed foods, and it frequently appeared in conjunction with references to other nutritional characteristics. The whole grain labelling observed was not misleading with respect to highlighting products with whole grain ingredients and higher levels of fibre and magnesium content; however, products with whole grain labelling were less likely to be lower in price.
Association Between COX-2 Polymorphisms and Lung Cancer Risk

Background Multiple relevant risk factors for lung cancer have been reported in different populations, but results of previous studies were not consistent. Therefore, a meta-analysis is necessary to summarize these outcomes and reach a relatively comprehensive conclusion. Material/Methods STATA 12.0 software was used for all statistical of the relationship between COX-2 polymorphisms and lung cancer risk. Inter-study heterogeneity was examined with the Q statistic (significance level at P<0.1). The publication bias among studies in the meta-analysis was analyzed with Begg’s funnel plot and Egger’s test. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was tested in all controls of the studies. Results COX-2 rs20417 polymorphism had a significant association with reduced risk of lung cancer under homozygous and recessive models, and similar results were observed in white and population-based subgroups under 2 and 3 contrasts, respectively. Additionally, rs2066826 polymorphism manifested a strong correlation with increased risk of lung cancer under 5 genetic models. Conclusions In COX-2 gene, rs20417 may have a certain relationship with reduced risk of lung cancer, while rs2066826 may increase the risk of lung cancer.
Genome-Wide ORFeome Cloning and Analysis of Arabidopsis Transcription Factor Genes1[w]

Here, we report our effort in generating an ORFeome collection for the Arabidopsis transcription factor (TF) genes. In total, ORFeome clones representing 1,282 Arabidopsis TF genes have been obtained in the Gateway high throughput cloning pENTR vector, including 411 genes whose annotation lack cDNA support. All the ORFeome inserts have also been mobilized into a yeast expression destination vector, with an estimated 85% rate of expressing the respective proteins. Sequence analysis of these clones revealed that 34 of them did not match with either the reported cDNAs or current predicted open-reading-frame sequences. Among those, novel alternative splicing of TF gene transcripts is responsible for the observed differences in at least five genes. However, those alternative splicing events do not appear to be differentially regulated among distinct Arabidopsis tissues examined. Lastly, expression of those TF genes in 17 distinct Arabidopsis organ types and the cultured cells was profiled using a 70-mer oligo microarray.
Iterative Multiuser Detection and Decoding for DS-CDMA System With Space-Time Linear Dispersion

This paper considers a Q-ary orthogonal direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system with high-rate space-time linear dispersion codes (LDCs) in time-varying Rayleigh fading multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channels. We propose a joint multiuser detection, LDC decoding, Q-ary demodulation, and channel-decoding algorithm and apply the turbo processing principle to improve system performance in an iterative fashion. The proposed iterative scheme demonstrates faster convergence and superior performance compared with the V-BLAST-based DS-CDMA system and is shown to approach the single-user performance bound. We also show that the CDMA system is able to exploit the time diversity offered by the LDCs in rapid-fading channels.
Metabotropic Regulation of RhoA/Rho-Associated Kinase by L-type Ca2+ Channels: New Mechanism for Depolarization-Evoked Mammalian Arterial Contraction

Background: Sustained vascular smooth muscle contraction is mediated by extracellular Ca2+ influx through L-type voltage-gated Ca2+ channels (VGCC) and RhoA/Rho-associated kinase (ROCK)-dependent Ca2+ sensitization of the contractile machinery. VGCC activation can also trigger an ion-independent metabotropic pathway that involves G-protein/phospholipase C activation, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate synthesis, and Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (calcium channel-induced Ca2+ release). We have studied the functional role of calcium channel-induced Ca2+ release and the inter-relations between Ca2+ channel and RhoA/ROCK activation. Methods and Results: We have used normal and genetically modified animals to study single myocyte electrophysiology and fluorimetry as well as cytosolic Ca2+ and diameter in intact arteries. These analyses were complemented with measurement of tension and RhoA activity in normal and reversibly permeabilized arterial rings. We have found that, unexpectedly, L-type Ca2+ channel activation and subsequent metabotropic Ca2+ release from sarcoplasmic reticulum participate in depolarization-evoked RhoA/ROCK activity and sustained arterial contraction. We show that these phenomena do not depend on the change in the membrane potential itself, or the mere release of Ca2+ from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, but they require the simultaneous activation of VGCC and the downstream metabotropic pathway with concomitant Ca2+ release. During protracted depolarizations, refilling of the stores by a residual extracellular Ca2+ influx through VGCC helps maintaining RhoA activity and sustained arterial contraction. Conclusions: These findings reveal that calcium channel-induced Ca2+ release has a major role in tonic vascular smooth muscle contractility because it links membrane depolarization and Ca2+ channel activation with metabotropic Ca2+ release and sensitization (RhoA/ROCK stimulation).