Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic control of specific immune suppression. II. H-2-linked dominant genetic control of immune suppression by the random copolymer L- glutamic acid50-L-tyrosine50 (GT)

Several inbred as well as congenic resistant strains of mice, which fail to respond to the random copolymer of L-glutamic acid50-L- tyrosine50 (GT), were shown to develop specific PFC responses when stimulated by GT complexed to an immunogenic carrier such as methylated bovine serum albumin (MBSA). In these studies we have found that GT preimmunization has a tolerogenic effect on the response to GT-MBSA in some mouse strains; whereas in other strains of mice, GT fails to inhibit the GT-MBSA response. We may, therefore, conclude that immune suppression cannot account for nonresponsiveness in all cases. The development of specific immune suppression in response to GT was shown to be inherited as a dominant trait in F1 hybrids resulting from the mating of suppressor with nonsuppressor strains. This trait is, therefore, under the control of a gene or genes that we have designated as specific immune suppression gene(s) Is genes. The strain distribution of GT induced suppression demonstrates that Is genes are coded for in the H-2 complex. Furthermore, immune suppression by the two related copolymers, GT and GAT, are distinct in different strains of mice. The significance of these data for our understanding of the regulation of the immune response is discussed.
Limbic and motor circuits involved in symmetry behavior in Tourette's syndrome

Objective The need for symmetry and ordering objects related to a “just right”-feeling is a common symptom in Tourette's syndrome (TS) and resembles symmetry behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder, but its pathophysiology is unknown. We used a symptom provocation paradigm to investigate the neural correlates of symmetry behavior in TS and hypothesized the involvement of frontal-striatal and limbic brain areas. Methods Pictures of asymmetrically and symmetrically arranged objects were presented in randomized blocks (4 blocks of each condition) to 14 patients with TS and 10 matched healthy controls (HC). A H215O positron emission tomography scan was acquired during each stimulus block, resulting in 8 scans per subject. After each scan, state anxiety and symmetry behavior (the urge to rearrange objects) were measured using a visual analogue scale. Results During the asymmetry condition, TS patients showed increased regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, and inferior frontal cortex, whereas HC showed increased rCBF in the visual cortex, primary motor cortex, and dorsal prefrontal cortex. Symmetry ratings during provocation correlated positively with orbitofrontal activation in the TS group and sensorimotor activation in the HC group, and negatively with dorsal prefrontal activity in HC. Conclusions Results suggest that both motor and limbic circuits are involved in symmetry behavior in TS. Motor activity may relate to an urge to move or perform tics, and limbic activation may indicate that asymmetry stimuli are salient for TS patients. In contrast, symmetry provocation in HC resulted in activation of brain regions implicated in sensorimotor function and cognitive control.
Robust estimation of the Hurst parameter and selection of an onset scaling.

We consider the problem of estimating the Hurst parameter for long-range dependent processes using wavelets. Wavelet techniques have been shown to effectively exploit the asymptotic linear relationship that forms the basis of constructing an estimator. However, it has been noticed that the commonly adopted standard wavelet estimator is vulnerable to various non-stationary phenomena that increasingly occur in practice, and thus leads to unreliable results. In this paper, we propose a new wavelet method for estimating the Hurst parameter that is robust to such non-stationarities as peaks, valleys, and trends. We point out that the new estimator arises as a simple alternative to the standard estimator and does not require an additional correction term that is subject to distributional assumptions. Additionally, we address the issue of selecting scales for the wavelet estimator, which is critical to properly exploiting the asymptotic relationship. We propose a new method based on standard regression diagnostic tools, which is easy to implement, and useful for providing informative goodness-of-fit measures. Several simulated examples are used for illustration and comparison. The proposed method is also applied to the estimation of the Hurst parameter of Internet traffic packet counts data.
Tunable 1.25–2.1-GHz 4-Pole Bandpass Filter With Intrinsic Transmission Zero Tuning

A new concept of tuning transmission zeros (TZs) in 4-pole tunable bandpass filters is demonstrated. In this work, the tuning elements that were conventionally used for bandwidth control are also utilized for adjusting the TZs at the same time. As a result, the selectivity of the tunable filter can be controlled without increasing the filter order and complexity. A 4-pole stripline filter is used to demonstrate this concept. The filter can be continuously tuned from 1.25 to 2.1 GHz and two TZs are employed to improve the stopband suppression to > 60 dB at 200 MHz from the passband. These TZs can also be moved from the upper stopband to the lower stopband without any auxiliary tuning elements to significantly change the stopband suppression. The high rejection filter is useful in wireless systems and cognitive radios with large interferers.
Income Dispersion and Sigma Convergence in South-South-Agreement Areas

Some of the new trade and economic geography theory findings are quite critical concerning the so called South-South-agreements. Main criticisms are that they would lead to increasing income disparity by similar production structures, agglomeration and trade diversion at the expense of the poorest regions, etc. This study is intended to contribute to this discussion by means of an empirical analysis of most of the important South-South regional integration areas. Sperlich and Sperlich (2011) have only proven that they promote both growth and beta-convergence. Here now we examine the income development and calculate the sigma convergence of each area to check for income convergence between member countries of South-South agreements. The results show that there may be sigma convergence in some areas, but the income dispersion is not decreasing in general. However, even when we correct for possible business cycle effects in a rather generous way (i.e. assuming a quite smooth trend), the sigma path is hardly ever monotone. These results are compared to other papers, especially to those on betaconvergence for the same integration areas.
Autonomous Underwater Biorobots: A Wireless System for Power Transfer

This article describes a new design for wireless power transfer in autonomous underwater robots. The aim is to propose a solution for battery charging by taking into account the morphological and dimensional constraints of robots requiring small and low-weight internal modules. An innovative design is presented for inductive power transfer suitable for a wide range of applications. The system is conceptually equivalent to a transformer in which the core can be separated into two parts during operation, one for each coil. Inductive power transfer is selected to have a system to easily and reliably charge different kinds of underwater robots. The secondary coil and its magnetic core are designed to be placed inside a bioinspired robot; the weight, dimensions, and power output for battery charging are optimized. The shape of the secondary magnetic core section is hollow to house the control electronics and sensors. The primary coil is the power inductor, which is placed in a docking unit outside the robot. Experimental results are also reported.
Incentive Effects in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Competitors - an Analysis of the Olympic Rowing Regatta in Sydney 2000**

A large part of the theoretical tournament literature argues that rank-order tournaments only unfold their incentive effects if the contestants all have similar prospects of winning. In heterogeneous fields, the outcome of the tournament is relatively clear and the contestants reduce their effort. However, empirical evidence for this so-called contamination hypothesis is sparse. An analysis of 442 showings at the Olympic Rowing Regatta in Sydney 2000 gives evidence that oarsmen spare effort in heterogeneous heats. This implies that competition among staffs with heterogeneous skill levels does not bring about the intended effort levels. However, a separate subgroup analysis shows that only the tournament favourites hold back effort whereas underdogs bring out their best when competing against dominant rivals. A heterogeneous tournament could then be enriched by absolute performance standards to increase incentives of the favourites.
Do nonword repetition errors in children with specific language impairment reflect a weakness in an unidentified skill specific to nonword repetition or a deficit in simultaneous processing?

This Commentary supports Gathercole's (2006) proposal on a double deficit in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The author suggests that these children have a limited phonological storage combined with a particular problem of processing novel speech stimuli. According to Gathercole, there are three areas of skill contributing to memory for nonwords: general cognitive abilities, phonological storage, and an unidentified skill specific to nonword repetition. The focus of this Commentary is to examine whether these children's nonword repetition performance is influenced by an unidentified skill or some other processes. An alternative hypothesis is that the nonword repetition errors observed in children with SLI are related to one of their main weaknesses, to their difficulties in simultaneous processing of information. Evidence for this argument comes from our recent studies: from error analyses data and from findings on nonword repetition with stimuli that included meaningful parts (monosyllabic real words).
Thresholds for the formation of satellites in two-dimensional vortices

This paper examines the evolution of a two-dimensional vortex which initially consists of an axisymmetric monopole vortex with a perturbation of azimuthal wavenumber m = 2 added to it. If the perturbation is weak, then the vortex returns to an axisymmetric state and the non-zero Fourier harmonics generated by the perturbation decay to zero. However, if a finite perturbation threshold is exceeded, then a persistent nonlinear vortex structure is formed. This structure consists of a coherent vortex core with two satellites rotating around it. The paper considers the formation of these satellites by taking an asymptotic limit in which a compact vortex is surrounded by a weak skirt of vorticity. The resulting equations match the behaviour of a normal mode riding on the vortex with the evolution of fine-scale vorticity in a critical layer inside the skirt. Three estimates of inviscid thresholds for the formation of satellites are computed and compared: two estimates use qualitative diagnostics, the appearance of an inflection point or neutral mode in the mean profile. The other is determined quantitatively by solving the normal mode/critical-layer equations numerically. These calculations are supported by simulations of the full Navier–Stokes equations using a family of profiles based on the tanh function.
Acquisitions and Foreign Competition

I provide evidence on the impact of foreign competition on firms’ propensities to engage in mergers and acquisitions. Using import tariff reductions as an exogenous shock that increases foreign industry competition, I find that affected firms are more likely to make acquisitions following a tariff reduction. Cross-sectional tests show that this association is more pronounced for single segment firms, firms that innovate less, or that are more capital intensive, which suggests this association is stronger for firms which stand to gain more from an acquisition. Moreover, the positive relationship between acquisition likelihood and tariff cuts is less pronounced for financially constrained firms and during times of low capital liquidity, which implies that it is easier for firms with greater access to external capital to respond to increases in foreign competition by making acquisitions. Finally, I find that acquisitions made subsequent to tariff decreases are associated with positive wealth gains for bidder shareholders, indicating that these acquisitions are viewed favorably by market participants.
Natural, Metaphoric, and Linguistic Auditory Direction Signals Have Distinct Influences on Visual Motion Processing

To interact with our dynamic environment, the brain merges motion information from auditory and visual senses. However, not only “natural” auditory MOTION, but also “metaphoric” de/ascending PITCH and SPEECH (e.g., “left/right”), influence the visual motion percept. Here, we systematically investigate whether these three classes of direction signals influence visual motion perception through shared or distinct neural mechanisms. In a visual-selective attention paradigm, subjects discriminated the direction of visual motion at several levels of reliability, with an irrelevant auditory stimulus being congruent, absent, or incongruent. Although the natural, metaphoric, and linguistic auditory signals were equally long and adjusted to induce a comparable directional bias on the motion percept, they influenced visual motion processing at different levels of the cortical hierarchy. A significant audiovisual interaction was revealed for MOTION in left human motion complex (hMT+/V5+) and for SPEECH in right intraparietal sulcus. In fact, the audiovisual interaction gradually decreased in left hMT+/V5+ for MOTION > PITCH > SPEECH and in right intraparietal sulcus for SPEECH > PITCH > MOTION. In conclusion, natural motion signals are integrated in audiovisual motion areas, whereas the influence of culturally learnt signals emerges primarily in higher-level convergence regions.
Toxigenic profile and AFLP variability of Alternaria alternata and Alternaria infectoria occurring on wheat

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the ability to produce alternariol (AOH), alternariol monomethyl ether (AME) and tenuazonic acid (TA) by A. alternata and A. infectoria strains recovered from wheat kernels obtained from one of the main production area in Argentina; to confirm using AFLPs molecular markers the identify of the isolates up to species level, and to evaluate the intra and inter-specific genetic diversity of these two Alternaria species. Among all the Alternaria strains tested (254), 84% of them were able to produce mycotoxins. The most frequent profile of toxin production found was the co-production of AOH and AME in both species tested. TA was only produced by strains of A. alternata. Amplified fragment polymorphism (AFLPs) analysis was applied to a set of 89 isolates of Alternaria spp (40 were A. infectoria and 49 were A. alternata) in order to confirm the morphological identification. The results showed that AFLPs are powerful diagnostic tool for differentiating between A. alternata and A. infectoria. Indeed, in the current study the outgroup strains, A. tenuissima was consistently classified. Characteristic polymorphic bands separated these two species regardless of the primer combination used. Related to intraspecific variability, A. alternata and A. infectoria isolates evaluated seemed to form and homogeneous group with a high degree of similarity among the isolates within each species. However, there was more scoreable polymorphism within A. alternata than within A. infectoria isolates. There was a concordance between morphological identification and separation up to species level using molecular markers. Clear polymorphism both within and between species showed that AFLP can be used to asses genetic variation in A. alternata and A. infectoria. The most important finding of the present study was the report on AOH and AME production by A. infectoria strains isolated from wheat kernels in Argentina on a semisynthetic media for the first time. Also, specific bands for A. alternata and A. infectoria have been identified; these may be useful for the design of specific PCR primers in order to differentiate these species and to detect them in cereals.
Peri-implant Bone Remodeling after Total Hip Replacement Combined with Systemic Alendronate Treatment: A Finite Element Analysis

In order to decrease the peri-implant bone loss during the life-time of the implant, oral use of anti-osteoporosis drugs (like bisphosphonates) has been suggested. In this study, bone remodeling parameters identified from clinical trials of alendronate were used to simulate the effect of those drugs used after total hip arthroplasty on the peri-implant bone density. Results of the simulation show that the oral administrated drugs increase bone density around the implant and decreases, at the same time, the micromovements between the implant and the surrounding bone tissue. Incorporation of drug effect in numerical studies of bone remodeling is a promising tool especially to predetermine safe bisphosphonate doses that could be used with orthopedic implants.
PHD intensity filtering is one step of a MAP estimation algorithm for positron emission tomography

The well-known Shepp-Vardi algorithm (1982) for positron emission tomography (PET) is used to estimate the intensity function of the emissions of short-lived radioisotopes absorbed by the brain or other tissues. In the PET application, radioisotope emissions are modeled as a nonhomogeneous Poisson point process. The Shepp-Vardi algorithm produces the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of the intensity function of this process. The intensity function provides an image of the radioisotope density in the brain or other tissues. The PHD intensity filter is a multiple target tracking filter. Its information update is shown to be the first step of the Shepp-Vardi algorithm. The correspondence with PET reveals that the filter is estimating the intensity function of a nonhomogeneous Poisson point process that approximates the Bayes posterior multi-target point process. The iterated PHD intensity filter uses the Shepp-Vardi algorithm to the compute the MAP optimal approximation. PET estimation has a fundamental noise instability that is overcome in practice by various regularization procedures. Grenander's method of sieves is a regularization procedure that is compatible with the PHD intensity filter.
The Character Theory of a Complex Group

We apply the ideas of derived algebraic geometry and topological field theory to the representation theory of reductive groups. Our focus is the Hecke category of Borel-equivariant D-modules on the flag variety of a complex reductive group G (equivalently, the category of Harish Chandra bimodules of trivial central character) and its monodromic variant. The Hecke category is a categorified analogue of the finite Hecke algebra, which is a finite-dimensional semi-simple symmetric Frobenius algebra. We establish parallel properties of the Hecke category, showing it is a two-dualizable Calabi-Yau monoidal category, so that in particular, its monoidal (Drinfeld) center and trace coincide. We calculate that they are identified through the Springer correspondence with Lusztig's unipotent character sheaves. It follows that Hecke module categories, such as categories of Lie algebra representations and Harish Chandra modules for G and its real forms, have characters which are themselves character sheaves. Furthermore, the Koszul duality for Hecke categories provides a Langlands duality for unipotent character sheaves. This can be viewed as part of a dimensionally reduced version of the geometric Langlands correspondence, or as S-duality for a maximally supersymmetric gauge theory in three dimensions.
Confronting a moral dilemma in virtual reality: a pilot study

People tend to respond realistically to situations and events in immersive Virtual Reality (VR). Our research exploits this finding to test the hypothesis that the psychology underlying moral judgement is distinct from the psychology that drives moral action. We have conducted an online survey study with 80 respondents on people's judgments of moral dilemmas. Additionally, we have carried out a pilot study with 36 participants investigating people's responses when confronted with comparable moral dilemmas in two different types of VR: desktop VR and Immersive VR. We recorded participants' behavioural responses and post experimental questionnaire data. The results show that in general, participants' responses in VR were consistent with the patterns obtained from the online survey. However, results also suggest that participants in the Immersive VR condition differed from those in the desktop VR condition in two ways: they 1) experienced more panic and made more mistakes in their immediate action; 2) were more likely to give a utilitarian answer (saving the greatest number of lives) in the post experimental questionnaire. This pilot study provides encouraging evidence for the use of VR in the study of moral psychology, and in particular, for teasing apart the distinction between judgments and actions. They further reveal that although our VR set up only presented abstract human figures, participants had a strong emotional reaction to the dilemma, on both immersive and desktop platforms.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improve Wound Healing In Vivo via Early Activation of Matrix Metalloproteinase-9 and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

We investigated the effects of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on wound healing using a three-dimensional (3D) collagen gel scaffold. Three circular full-thickness skin defects were created on the back of Sprague-Dawley rats. One site was covered with a 3D collagen gel containing 2 × 106 MSCs (MSCs+/3D collagen+). Another site was replaced with a 3D collagen gel without MSCs and the third site was left empty. The wound size was significantly reduced in the MSCs+/3D collagen+ sites. MSCs+/3D collagen+ sites exhibited the most neovascularization. FISH showed that Y-chromosome possessing cells were found within the dermis of MSCs+/3D collagen+ sites. Gelatin zymography revealed that the most intense expression of MMP-9 was detected early in the MSCs+/3D collagen+ sites. Our results indicate that MSCs upregulate the early expression of MMP-9 which induces the early mobilization of VEGF. Thus, MSCs appear to accelerate significantly wound healing via early activation of MMP-9 and VEGF.
A power-aware variable-precision multiply-accumulate unit

An energy-efficient power-aware design is highly desirable for digital signal processing (DSP) functions that encounter a wide diversity of operating scenarios in battery-powered wireless sensor network systems. Addressing this issue, this paper presents a power-aware variable-precision multiply-accumulate (VP-MAC) unit that makes use of dynamic-range detection unit and a 16-bit scalable Baugh-Wooley Multiplier with fixed-width error compensation circuit for DSP applications. The proposed VP-MAC contains both an 8-bit and a 16-bit multiplier and has input gating to route the data to appropriate hardware. When 16-bit multiplication is needed, the entire multiplier is used. However, if only 8-bit multiplication is needed, the 8-bit logic is enabled. Simulated and measured results show a reduced power-consumption of 43% and reduced gate count of 42.7% respectively, in comparison with conventional power-aware scalable pipelined MAC unit.