Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A generalized modeling approach for the frequency shift in near-field scanning microwave microscopes

In most Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscope (NSMM) setups, changes of the dielectric environment in the vicinity of the tip are detected by measuring the detuning of a resonator connected to the tip. In this work, we propose a novel, semi-analytic approach to model the frequency shift of this resonator. In contrast to the traditional procedures, our method allows to model arbitrary tip shapes while still offering fast computations. Specifically, we combine a static boundary element calculation with a numerical integration procedure to evaluate overlap integral occurring expressions obtained by traditional perturbation theory.
Long distance person identification using height measurement and face recognition

This paper presents a long distance person identification system based on height measurement and face recognition using web-camera without zoom-in/zoom-out. In this system, face detection determines if a target person entering the monitoring area or not. We use calibrated camera technique to compensate distortion images. Human height is then measured by the ratio with a reference point. The measured height is utilized to make a screen process so that only a subset of the people database is chosen as candidates for next-stage face recognition. In our experimental results, the proposed architecture has a great improvement in recognition rate compared with the conventional face recognition results in the same environment of long distance.
3 D interactive microanatomy of Omalogyra atomus ( Philippi , 1841 ) ( Gastropoda , Heterobranchia , Omalogyridae )

Omalogyridae are minute gastropods with a shell diameter usually less than one millimeter and have a worldwide distribution. A reinvestigation of the type species, Omalogyra atomus (Philippi, 1841), should help to unravel the systematic affi nities of this family. Furthermore, direct comparisons of previous and the present results enable the evaluation of the advantages of the innovative methods applied—”semithin” serial sectioning and computer-aided 3D reconstruction. Our data provide substantial new information and show that the resolution of methods used for previous studies was insuffi cient. The methods applied herein provide more detailed and accurate results and in combination with interactive 3D illustrations in the electronic publication version offer many novel options for exploration of the results by the reader. The highly glandular nature of the foot and the mantle cavity, the complete lack of a gill being functionally replaced by prominent, dorsal and ventral ciliary tracts on the right side of the mantle cavity, the relative simplicity of the gut and the high complexity of the hermaphroditic reproductive system adapted for internal fertilization but lacking a copulatory verge are the most outstanding features of the snail’s anatomy. Most characteristics refl ect affi nities with basal heterobranchs, such as Rissoellidae and Pyramidellidae, of O. atomus and thus of Omalogyridae, while a closer relationship with Architectonicoidea appears less likely. Only a few features, e.g., the lack of any respiratory structure, can be ascribed functionally to the extreme smallness of the animals. Some characters, such as the modifi cation of the cephalic tentacles into small lobes, remain to be understood.
Involvement of mast cells in basal and neurotensin-induced intestinal absorption of taurocholate in rats.

Neurotensin (NT), a hormone released from intestine by ingested fat, facilitates lipid digestion by stimulating pancreatic secretion and slowing the movement of chyme. In addition, NT can contract the gall bladder and enhance the enterohepatic circulation (EHC) of bile acids to promote micelle formation. Our recent finding that NT enhanced and an NT antagonist inhibited [(3)H]taurocholate ([(3)H]TC) absorption from proximal rat small intestine indicated a role for endogenous NT in the regulation of EHC. Here, we postulate the involvement of intestinal mast cells in the TC uptake process and in the stimulatory effect of NT. In anesthetized rats with the bile duct cannulated for bile collection, infusion of NT (10 pmol.kg(-1). min(-1)) enhanced the [(3)H]TC recovery rate from duodenojejunum by 2.2-fold. This response was abolished by pretreatment with mast cell stabilizers (cromoglycate, doxantrazole) and inhibitors of mast cell mediators (diphenhydramine, metergoline, zileuton). In contrast, mast cell degranulators (compound 48/80, substance P) and mast cell mediators (histamine, leukotriene C(4)) reproduced the effect of NT. N(G)-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester enhanced and l-arginine inhibited basal and NT-induced TC uptake, consistent with the known inhibitory effect of nitric oxide (NO) on mast cell reactivity. These results argue that basal and NT-stimulated TC uptake in rat jejunum are similarly dependent on mast cells, are largely mediated by release of mast cell mediators, and are subject to regulation by NO.
Hippocampal network hyperactivity following selective reduction of tonic inhibition in GABAA receptor α 5 subunit deficient mice

Functionally, GABAA receptor (GABAR)-mediated inhibition can be classified as phasic (synaptic) and tonic (extrasynaptic). The GABARs underlying tonic inhibition assemble from different subunits than those responsible for phasic inhibition. We wanted to assess the excitability of hippocampal pyramidal cell (PC) networks following a selective impairment of tonic inhibition. This is difficult to accomplish by pharmacological means. Since the GABAR α5 subunits mostly mediate the tonic inhibition in CA1 and CA3 PCs, we quantified changes in tonic inhibition and examined network excitability in slices of adult gabra5 mice. In gabra5 CA1 and CA3 PCs tonic inhibitory currents were 60% and 53% respectively of those recorded in WT, with no alterations in phasic inhibition. The amount of tonic inhibition recorded in slices was significantly affected by the method of slice storage (interface or submerged chamber). Field recordings in gabra5 CA3 pyramidal layer showed an increased network excitability that was decreased by the GABAR agonist muscimol at a concentration that restored the tonic inhibition of gabra5 PCs to WT level without altering phasic inhibition. Through a battery of pharmacological experiments, we have identified δ subunit-containing GABARs as the mediators of the residual tonic inhibition in gabra5 PCs. Our study is consistent with an important role of tonic inhibition in the control of hippocampal network excitability, and highlights selective enhancers of tonic inhibition as promising therapeutic approaches for diseases involving network hyperexcitability.
On the automaticity of reduction in dialogue: Cognitive load and repeated multimodal references

In conversation, speakers are likely to refer to the same objects more than once. These repeated references are reduced with respect to their initial counterparts, both in speech and gestures. In this paper we investigate the effect of cognitive load on the reduction of multimodal referring expressions. We report an experiment in which native speakers of Dutch engaged in a director-matcher task where repeated references were elicited, and a time constraint was imposed in order to increase the load. Our results show that articulatory, lexical, semantic, and gestural reduction took place irrespective of the cognitive demands. Nevertheless, we found that cognitive load moderated the extent to which these utterances were reduced, with reduction being less pronounced for speakers experiencing higher load. A subsequent perception experiment revealed that speakers with an increased load produced referring expressions that proved more informative to naive listeners.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy during rest and exercise: comparison of two optimization methods

Aims Optimal exercise programming of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices is unknown. We aimed to: (i) investigate variations in optimal atrioventricular (AV) and interventricular (VV) delays from rest to exercise, assessed by both echocardiography and an automated intracardiac electrogram (IEGM) method; (ii) evaluate the acute haemodynamic impact of CRT optimization performed during exercise. Methods and results Twenty-four heart failure patients, previously implanted with a CRT defibrillator, underwent AV and VV delay optimization, by echocardiography and IEGM methods, both at rest and during supine bicycle exercise. Rest-to-exercise variations in optimal VV delay were observed in 58% of patients. Conversely, optimal AV delay did not change during exercise compared with rest. Substantial agreement of AV and VV delays was observed between both the optimization methods. Exercise optimization of VV delay by either method improved intraventricular dyssynchrony and increased aortic velocity time integral compared with the resting setting (P < 0.001). Conclusion In patients implanted with a CRT device, optimal VV delay varied considerably from rest to exercise, while AV delay did not change. Re-assessment of the optimal pacing configuration during supine exercise, by echocardiography as well as IEGM methods, yielded an additional haemodynamic benefit to that provided by resting optimization.
The orbit problem is decidable

The “accessibility problem” for linear sequential machines (Harrison [7]) is the problem of deciding whether there is an input x that sends such a machine from a given state q1 to a given state q2. Harrison [7] showed that this problem is reducible to the “orbit problem:” Given AεQn×n does there exist iεN such that Aix &equil;y. * We will call this the “orbit problem” because the question can be rephrased as: Does y belong to the orbit of x under A where the “orbit of x under A” is the set {Aix: i &equil; 0,1,2,. }. (A0 is the identity matrix I.) In Harrison's original problem the elements of A,x, and y were members of an arbitrary “computable” field. In view of the lack of structure of such fields, we study only the rationals. Shank [13] proves that the orbit problem is decidable for the rational case when n&equil;2. The current paper establishes that for the general rational case, the problem is decidable - and in fact polynomial-time decidable. We wish to give a brief idea of our approach to the problem.
Discovery of a luminous water megamaser in the FR II radiogalaxy 3C 403

We report the first detection of a water megamaser in a radio-loud galaxy, 3C 403. This object has been observed as part of a small sample of FR Ils with evidence of nuclear obscuration. The isotropic luminosity of the maser is ∼1200 L O . With a recessional velocity of cz∼ 17 680 km s - 1 it is the most distant H 2 O maser so far reported. The line arises from the densest interstellar gas component ever observed in a radio-loud galaxy. Two spectral features are observed, likely bracketing the systemic velocity of the galaxy. These may either arise from the tangentially seen parts of a nuclear accretion disk or from dense warm gas interacting with the radio jets.
The Fornix in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease

The fornix is an integral white matter bundle located in the medial diencephalon and is part of the limbic structures. It serves a vital role in memory functions and as such has become the subject of recent research emphasis in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). As the characteristic pathological processes of AD progress, structural and functional changes to the medial temporal lobes and other regions become evident years before clinical symptoms are present. Though gray matter atrophy has been the most studied, degradation of white matter structures especially the fornix may precede these and has become detectable with use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and other complimentary imaging techniques. Recent research utilizing DTI measurement of the fornix has shown good discriminability of diagnostic groups, particularly early and preclinical, as well as predictive power for incident MCI and AD. Stimulating and modulating fornix function by the way of DBS has been an exciting new area as pharmacological therapeutics has been slow to develop.
Automated just-in-time compiler tuning

Managed runtime systems, such as a Java virtual machine (JVM), are complex pieces of software with many interacting components. The Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler is at the core of the virtual machine, however, tuning the compiler for optimum performance is a challenging task. There are (i) many compiler optimizations and options, (ii) there may be multiple optimization levels (e.g., -O0, -O1, -O2), each with a specific optimization plan consisting of a collection of optimizations, (iii) the Adaptive Optimization System (AOS) that decides which method to optimize to which optimization level requires fine-tuning, and (iv) the effectiveness of the optimizations depends on the application as well as on the hardware platform. Current practice is to manually tune the JIT compiler which is both tedious and very time-consuming, and in addition may lead to suboptimal performance. This paper proposes automated tuning of the JIT compiler through multi-objective evolutionary search. The proposed framework (i) identifies optimization plans that are Pareto-optimal in terms of compilation time and code quality, (ii) assigns these plans to optimization levels, and (iii) fine-tunes the AOS accordingly. The key benefit of our framework is that it automates the entire exploration process, which enables tuning the JIT compiler for a given hardware platform and/or application at very low cost. By automatically tuning Jikes RVM using our framework for average performance across the DaCapo and SPECjvm98 benchmark suites, we achieve similar performance to the hand-tuned default Jikes RVM. When optimizing the JIT compiler for individual benchmarks, we achieve statistically significant speedups for most benchmarks, up to 40% for startup and up to 19% for steady-state performance. We also show that tuning the JIT compiler for a new hardware platform can yield significantly better performance compared to using a JIT compiler that was tuned for another platform.
Do we need invasive confirmation of cardiac magnetic resonance results?

INTRODUCTION Coronary artery revascularization is indicated in patients with documented significant obstruction of coronary blood flow associated with a large area of myocardial ischemia and/or untreatable symptoms. There are a few invasive or noninvasive methods that can provide information about the functional results of coronary artery narrowing. The application of more than one method of ischemia detection in one patient to reevaluate the indications for revascularization is used in case of atypical or no symptoms and/or borderline stenosis. AIM To evaluate whether the results of cardiac magnetic resonance need to be reconfirmed by the invasive functional method. MATERIAL AND METHODS The hospital database revealed 25 consecutive patients with 29 stenoses who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and fractional flow reserve (FFR) between the end of 2010 and the end of 2014. The maximal time interval between CMR and FFR was 6 months. None of the patients experienced any clinical events or underwent procedures on coronary arteries between the studies. RESULTS According to the analysis, the agreement of CMR perfusion with the FFR method was at the level of 89.7%. Assuming that FFR is the gold standard in assessing the severity of stenoses, the sensitivity of CMR perfusion was 90.9%. The percentage of non-severe lesions which were correctly identified in CMR was 88.9%. CONCLUSIONS The study shows that CMR perfusion is a highly sensitive method to detect hemodynamically significant CAD and exclude nonsevere lesions. With FFR as the reference standard, the diagnostic accuracy of MR perfusion to detect ischemic CAD is high.
Thyroid-Specific Genes Expression Uncovered Age-Related Differences in Pediatric Thyroid Carcinomas

Despite a more advanced stage of disease at presentation, a better response to radioiodine (RAI) therapy and a reduced overall mortality have been reported in pediatric differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) in comparison to adult DTC. Few studies suggested that the better response to RAI therapy in pediatric patients might be associated with an increased expression of NIS. However, a marked heterogeneity within the pediatric group has been recognized. Children (<10 years old) usually present a more aggressive disease than adolescents (≥10–18 years old). By analyzing the expression of thyroid-specific genes in 38 sporadic pediatric tumors, we show that the expression of NIS, PDS, and TSHR was lower in children than adolescents (P < 0.05). A linear regression confirmed the association between NIS expression and age. Most significantly, NIS was expressed at similar levels in DTC from children and adults, whereas PDS and TSHR expression was even lower in DTC from children, compared to adolescents and adults. Our data suggest that biological behaviors of DTC in adolescents might differ from those in children and adults. Therefore, the premise that the expression of thyroid-specific genes is higher in tumors from pediatric patients than in adults is not entirely true and might be too oversimplified.
Trajectory Correction and Locomotion Analysis of a Hexapod Walking Robot with Semi-Round Rigid Feet

Aimed at solving the misplaced body trajectory problem caused by the rolling of semi-round rigid feet when a robot is walking, a legged kinematic trajectory correction methodology based on the Least Squares Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) is proposed. The concept of ideal foothold is put forward for the three-dimensional kinematic model modification of a robot leg, and the deviation value between the ideal foothold and real foothold is analyzed. The forward/inverse kinematic solutions between the ideal foothold and joint angular vectors are formulated and the problem of direct/inverse kinematic nonlinear mapping is solved by using the LS-SVM. Compared with the previous approximation method, this correction methodology has better accuracy and faster calculation speed with regards to inverse kinematics solutions. Experiments on a leg platform and a hexapod walking robot are conducted with multi-sensors for the analysis of foot tip trajectory, base joint vibration, contact force impact, direction deviation, and power consumption, respectively. The comparative analysis shows that the trajectory correction methodology can effectively correct the joint trajectory, thus eliminating the contact force influence of semi-round rigid feet, significantly improving the locomotion of the walking robot and reducing the total power consumption of the system.
Accurately Computing log(1 − exp( − | a | )) Assessed by the Rmpfr package

In this note, we explain how f ( a ) = log(1 − e − a ) = log(1 − exp( − a )) can be computed accurately, in a simple and optimal manner, building on the two related auxiliary functions log1p(x) ( = log(1 + x ) ) and expm1(x) ( = exp( x ) − 1 = e x − 1 ). The cutoﬀ, a 0 , in use in R since 2004, is shown to be optimal both theoretically and empirically, using Rmpfr high precision arithmetic. As an aside, we also show how to compute log (cid:0) 1 + e x (cid:1) accurately and eﬃciently.
Outsourcing Service Processes to a Common Service Provider Under Price and Time Competition

In many industries, firms consider the option of outsourcing an important service process associated with the goods or services they bring to the market. Often, competing firms outsource this service process to one or more common service suppliers. When they outsource to a common service provider, this gives rise to a service supply chain. We develop analytical models to characterize the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing in service industries in which the retailers compete with each other in terms of the price they charge and/or the waiting time expectations and standards which they adopt and sometime advertise. To assess the benefits of outsourcing strategies, we give concrete answers to the following questions: (i) if a service supply chain wants to operate at maximum efficiency, what type of payment schemes does the service provider need to offer the retailers to coordinate the chain? (ii) Given optimally coordinating payment schemes for the outsourced service, when are firms better off if all of them choose to outsource rather than perform the service in-house? In addition, when will a service supply chain in which firms choose to outsource to a common provider be stable in the sense that no firm has an incentive to unilaterally abandon the chain and provide in-house service instead? How do the answers to these questions depend on the type of competition, the intensity of the competition, the number of firms in the industry and the sales volume of the firms? (iii) How do the answers to the questions raised in (i) and (ii) depend on whether the outside supplier pools the service processes or not and whether it is able to operate at lower cost rates than the service retailers themselves?
Embryonic Stem Cell Specific “Master” Replication Origins at the Heart of the Loss of Pluripotency

Epigenetic regulation of the replication program during mammalian cell differentiation remains poorly understood. We performed an integrative analysis of eleven genome-wide epigenetic profiles at 100 kb resolution of Mean Replication Timing (MRT) data in six human cell lines. Compared to the organization in four chromatin states shared by the five somatic cell lines, embryonic stem cell (ESC) line H1 displays (i) a gene-poor but highly dynamic chromatin state (EC4) associated to histone variant H2AZ rather than a HP1-associated heterochromatin state (C4) and (ii) a mid-S accessible chromatin state with bivalent gene marks instead of a polycomb-repressed heterochromatin state. Plastic MRT regions (≲ 20% of the genome) are predominantly localized at the borders of U-shaped timing domains. Whereas somatic-specific U-domain borders are gene-dense GC-rich regions, 31.6% of H1-specific U-domain borders are early EC4 regions enriched in pluripotency transcription factors NANOG and OCT4 despite being GC poor and gene deserts. Silencing of these ESC-specific “master” replication initiation zones during differentiation corresponds to a loss of H2AZ and an enrichment in H3K9me3 mark characteristic of late replicating C4 heterochromatin. These results shed a new light on the epigenetically regulated global chromatin reorganization that underlies the loss of pluripotency and lineage commitment.
CPW and discontinuities modeling for circuit design up to 110 GHz in SOI CMOS technology

This paper presents a new modeling method for integrated coplanar wave guides (CPW) and CPW discontinuities implemented in silicon on insulator (SOI) CMOS technology. Empirical equations, which are fitted to 3D EM simulations, are used to describe the electrical behavior of CPW as a function of the line's geometrical parameters. The models are validated through measurements up to 110 GHz. Thanks to accurate full wave simulations, discontinuities such as underpasses, 90deg bends, and tee and cross junctions are improved, and electrical models are developed. All models are easily implemented in commercial CAD tools. Finally, a 60 GHz band-pass filter is designed applying the described models and the simulations are compared to measurements.