Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Model Predictive Control of Nonlinear Systems With Bounded and State-Dependent Uncertainties

In this note, a robust model predictive control scheme for constrained discrete-time nonlinear systems affected by bounded disturbances and state-dependent uncertainties is presented. In order to guarantee the robust satisfaction of the state constraints, restricted constraint sets are introduced in the optimization problem, by exploiting the state-dependent nature of the considered class of uncertainties. Moreover, unlike the nominal model predictive control algorithm, a stabilizing state constraint is imposed at the end of the control horizon in place of the usual terminal constraint posed at the end of the prediction horizon. The regional input-to-state stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed. A simulation example shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Euclidean versus Non-Euclidean Gamma-Ray Bursts

We classify gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) according to their observed durations and physical properties of their spectra. We find that long/hard bursts (of duration T90>2.5 s, and typical photon energy Ep≳0.8 MeV, corresponding to BATSE's energy fluence hardness He32>3) show the strongest deviation from the three-dimensional Euclidean brightness distribution. The majority of GRBs, i.e., short bursts (T90<2.5 s) and long/soft bursts (with T90>2.5 s, and He32<3), show little, if any, deviations from the Euclidean distribution. These results contradict the prediction of extragalactic GRB models that the most distant bursts should be the most affected by cosmological energy redshift and time dilation (long/soft GRBs). The strongly non-Euclidean GRB subclass has very hard spectra of typical photon energy above ~1 MeV, i.e., outside the ideal energy range for optimal detection by BATSE. Selection effects caused by BATSE inefficient triggering and/or intrinsic burst properties may cause the strong deviation from the Euclidean distribution for the hardest class of long GRBs. Our results imply strong luminosity and spectral evolution of GRB sources placed at extragalactic distances. Whether there coexist multiple GRB populations with different (Galactic or extragalactic) origins remains an open question.
Age and decline in role-specific feelings of control.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to see if feelings of control over highly valued social roles decline across late life. I also made an effort to see if two types of social support explained age-related decline in control. METHODS Harris Interactive of New York conducted interviews with a nationwide longitudinal sample of older adults. Survey questions assessed feelings of control over the most highly valued role, anticipated support (i.e., the belief that support will be forthcoming if needed), and enacted support. RESULTS The data suggested that feelings of control over the most highly valued role tend to decline across late life. The results also revealed that anticipated support is associated with a stronger sense of control over time, but I observed this relationship only through age 75. Beyond that point, anticipated support was less helpful. In contrast, enacted support did not appear to help older people maintain a strong sense of role-specific control at any age. DISCUSSION Current research has largely been concerned with age-related change in feelings of control over life as a whole. The findings from this study suggest that it may also be helpful to consider control over the most highly valued role while studying this process.
How Stress and Fluoxetine Modulate Serotonin 2C Receptor Pre-mRNA Editing

In two inbred strains of mice, C57BL/6 and 129Sv, the majority of forebrain neocortical pre-mRNA encoding the serotonin 2C (5-HT2C) receptor is altered by adenosine-to-inosine editing. As a result, >60% of all mRNAs encode receptors with reduced constitutive and agonist-stimulated activity. However, in the BALB/c strain, a genetically distinct inbred strain with lower forebrain serotonin levels, spontaneously elevated anxiety, and increased stress reactivity, the majority of 5-HT2C mRNA is nonedited and encodes receptors with the highest constitutive activity and the highest agonist affinity and potency. Neither acute stress (the forced swim test) nor chronic treatment with the serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine elicit significant changes in 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing in C57BL/6 mice. In contrast, exposure of BALB/c mice to acute stress and chronic treatment of nonstressed BALB/c mice with fluoxetine elicit significant, site-specific increases in 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing that increase the pool of mRNA encoding receptors with reduced function. These changes in 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing resemble those detected previously in the prefrontal cortex of subjects with major depression. However, when chronic fluoxetine treatment is combined with stress exposure of BALB/c mice, these changes in 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing are no longer detected. These findings illustrate that 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing responses to stress and chronic fluoxetine are modulated by the genetic background, as well as the behavioral state of the animal. They suggest further that the changes in 5-HT2C pre-mRNA editing found in major depression reflect a previously unrecognized molecular response to stress that can be prevented by chronic antidepressant treatment.
Motivations and Results for CRM Adoption in Large Companies in Portugal

There are several motivations for CRM systems adoption, some of them aligned with the results of CRM implementation. This paper presents the main findings of a study undertaken among a sample of Portuguese large enterprises, identifying and discussing the main motivations and results of the adoption of CRM systems. It was possible to conclude that the main results of CRM adoption reflect the main motivations as, for instance, improvement of quality of information or process improvement. The findings of this study allow the academic and professional community to better understand the main motivations of large companies for adopting CRM systems, as well as their obtained results, and also allow CRM systems vendors and consultants to better address the needs of their potential clients.
Simian virus 40 (SV40)-transgenic mice that develop tumors are specifically tolerant to SV40 T antigen

The ability to mount an immune response to simian virus 40 (SV40) T antigen was evaluated using mice from two distinct SV40 transgenic lines derived from injection of the same gene construct. Our studies demonstrate functional immune tolerance to SV40 T antigen in a SV40 transgenic line that consistently develops tumors of the choroid plexus by 7 mo of age. Antibodies to SV40 T antigen are undetectable in the serum of these animals; furthermore, mice from this line are unable to generate SV40-specific CTL after primary or secondary immunization with the virus, although they mount a normal CTL response to vaccinia virus when appropriately immunized. In contrast, we find that mice from a second transgenic line of low tumor incidence can mount a humoral response to SV40 T antigen, and upon immunization they generally respond with a vigorous cytotoxic T cell response to SV40 T antigen. These data suggest that specific immune tolerance to the product of an integrated viral oncogene may be induced, and is likely a reflection of the time in development at which the gene product first appears. Immune tolerance or responsiveness to the endogenous oncogene product may in turn play a role in the tumorigenic potential of such genes.
Molecular Clone and Expression of a NAD+-Dependent Glycerol-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Isozyme Gene from the Halotolerant alga Dunaliella salina

Glycerol is an important osmotically compatible solute in Dunaliella. Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PDH) is a key enzyme in the pathway of glycerol synthesis, which converts dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP) to glycerol-3-phosphate. Generally, the glycerol-DHAP cycle pathway, which is driven by G3PDH, is considered as the rate-limiting enzyme to regulate the glycerol level under osmotic shocks. Considering the peculiarity in osmoregulation, the cDNA of a NAD+-dependent G3PDH was isolated from D. salina using RACE and RT-PCR approaches in this study. Results indicated that the length of the cDNA sequence of G3PDH was 2,100 bp encoding a 699 amino acid deduced polypeptide whose computational molecular weight was 76.6 kDa. Conserved domain analysis revealed that the G3PDH protein has two independent functional domains, SerB and G3PDH domains. It was predicted that the G3PDH was a nonsecretory protein and may be located in the chloroplast of D. salina. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the D. salina G3PDH had a closer relationship with the G3PDHs from the Dunaliella genus than with those from other species. In addition, the cDNA was subsequently subcloned in the pET-32a(+) vector and was transformed into E. coli strain BL21 (DE3), a expression protein with 100 kDa was identified, which was consistent with the theoretical value.
An experimental investigation of the outsourcing decision for motor carrier transportation

Transactions cost analysis (TCA), with its consideration of firm boundaries and governance strategies, provides an appropriate conceptual framework to examine the efficiency or organizing a firm's transportation of finished goods internally versus externally. A review of existing TCA empirical research reveals the following : 1) Descriptive methodology (e.g. surveys) dominates the extent TCA empirical research. 2) There is disparity in how often, as well as the manner in which, TCA dimensions have been measured. 3) The majority of the research on TCA is not normative, i.e., the research simply ascertained whether firms followed the predictions of TCA in their make versus buy decisions, with the assumption that the firms chose the more efficient alternative. 4) Existing research on TCA makes no attempt to assess the total of transaction and production costs. 5) Although empirical research using TCA has appeared extensively in the economics, management and marketing literature in research. The research is designed to address these five issues by using an experimental design, rather than a descriptive research design ; operationalizing all three TCA dimensions (frequency, asset specificity, and uncertainty) ; conducting a normative investigation of TCA theory by evaluating the total of transaction and production (transportation) costs ; and using the substantive context of the logistics function of motor carrier transportation.
The temperatures of dust‐enshrouded active galactic nuclei

A high density of massive dark objects (MDOs), probably supermassive black holes, in the centres of nearby galaxies has been inferred from recent observations. There are various indications that much of the accretion responsible for producing these objects took place in dust-enshrouded active galactic nuclei (AGNs). If so, then measurements of the intensity of background radiation and the source counts in the far-infrared and submillimetre wavebands constrain the temperature of dust in these AGNs. An additional constraint comes from the hard X-ray background, if this is produced by accretion. One possibility is that the dust shrouds surrounding the accreting AGNs are cold, about 30 K. In this event, the dusty AGNs could be some subset of the population of luminous distant sources discovered at 850 μm using the SCUBA array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, as proposed by Almaini, Lawrence & Boyle. An alternative is that the dust shrouds surrounding the accreting AGNs are much hotter (>60 K). These values are closer to the dust temperatures of a number of well-studied low-redshift ultraluminous galaxies that are thought to derive their power from accretion. If the local MDO density is close to the maximum permitted, then cold sources cannot produce this density without the submillimetre background being overproduced if they accrete at high radiative efficiency, and thus a hot population is required. If the dust-enshrouded accretion occurred at similar redshifts to that taking place in unobscured optical quasars, then a significant fraction of the far-infrared background radiation measured by COBE at 140 μm, but very little of the submillimetre background at 850 μm, may have been produced by hot dust-enshrouded AGNs which may have already been seen in recent Chandra X-ray surveys.
Rank among Peers during Game Competition Affects the Tendency to Make Risky Choices in Adolescent Males

It has been shown that adolescents take more risks when they are with peers than when they are alone, presumably because the presence of peers can be a social reward/punishment that can bias decision making. Competition is inherent in peer interactions, and recent work has demonstrated that winning/losing is an intrinsic social reward/punishment. Taken together, it can be hypothesized that competition amongst peers affects adolescents’ risky behavior. While there is much evidence that status amongst peers can relate to antisocial/aggressive behavior, it remains unclear whether risky behavior is affected. Moreover, the degree to which ‘temporary status,’ such as ranking in a short-term competitive game, affects behavior is uncertain, an important issue because adolescents might be sensitive to situations or factors which potentially destabilize existing hierarchies. In this experiment, these issues were directly explored in the classroom environment using smartphone technology and Wi-Fi setup. Male junior high school students (aged 14–15) performed a roulette game task on smartphones, playing either independently or against five classmates. In the latter case, the students’ current ranks within the group of six were constantly presented on smartphone screens. To dissociate the effects of the students’ reactions to ranks from their actual performances, unknown to the students, the ranks presented were actually predetermined so that about half of the students were continuously presented with high ranks whereas the other half were continuously presented with low ranks. We found that the students presented with low ranks made more risky plays than those not presented with ranks or those presented with high ranks. This result suggests that even temporary status significantly affects adolescents’ risky behavior, and also demonstrates the usefulness of smartphones in examining and manipulating peer interactions in classroom experiments.
Efficient Spatio-Temporal Data Association Using Multidimensional Assignment in Multi-Camera Multi-Target Tracking

This paper proposes a novel multi-target tracking method which jointly solves a data association problem using images from multiple cameras. In this work, the spatiotemporal data association problem is formulated as a multidimensional assignment problem (MDA). To achieve a fast, efficient, and easily implementable approximation algorithm, we solve the MDA problem approximately by solving a sequence of bipartite matching problems using random splitting and merging operations. In this formulation, we design a new cost function, considering the accuracy in 3D reconstruction, motion smoothness, visibility from cameras, starting/ending at entrance and exit zone, and false positive. Our approach reconstructs 3D trajectories that represent people’s movement as 3D cylinders whose locations are estimated considering all adjacent frames. The experiments illustrate the proposed method shows the state-of-the-art performance in challenging multi-camera datasets and the computational efficiency with 8 times faster computation than the existing BIP approach.
Blood pressure versus direct mineralocorticoid effects on kidney inflammation and fibrosis in DOCA-salt hypertension.

OBJECTIVE We examined the contribution of high blood pressure versus direct mineralocorticoid effects to the progression of kidney inflammation and fibrosis in established experimental deoxycorticosterone-acetate (DOCA)-salt hypertension. METHODS Male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent unilateral nephrectomy and received subcutaneous DOCA pellets as well as 1% NaCl for drinking. After 4 weeks of DOCA-salt hypertension, rats were either killed (n = 6), or treated with a non-hypotensive dose of spironolactone (n = 7) or triple therapy (hydrochlorothiazide, reserpine and hydralazine, n = 8) to normalize blood pressure or with vehicle (n = 19) for two further weeks. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was measured intra-arterially. Glomerulosclerosis, interstitial fibrosis, macrophage infiltration and complement deposition were evaluated on kidney sections. Expression of collagens, chemokines and cytokines was measured by real-time PCR. RESULTS MAP was elevated in DOCA rats, not affected by spironolactone and normalized by triple therapy. Glomerulosclerosis and interstitial fibrosis of DOCA rats were alleviated by spironolactone and triple therapy. Macrophage infiltration, complement C3 deposition and nitrotyrosine staining in the kidney were significantly reduced by spironolactone as well as triple therapy. The expression of collagens, chemokines, adhesion molecules and profibrotic cytokines in the kidney was elevated in hypertension and decreased by triple therapy but not significantly affected by spironolactone. CONCLUSION Direct mineralocorticoid effects as well as high blood pressure per se contribute to inflammation and fibrosis of the kidney. Oxidative stress may mediate the direct mineralocorticoid effects on kidney inflammation.
Robust audio watermarking using multiwavelet transform and genetic algorithm

In this paper, we propose a new approach for optimization in digital audio watermarking using artificial intelligent technique. The watermarks are embedded into the low frequency coefficients in discrete multiwavelet transform domain. The embedding technique is based on quantization process which does not require the original audio signal in the watermark extraction. We have developed an optimization technique using the genetic algorithm to search for optimal quantization step in order to improve both quality of watermarked audio and robustness of the watermark. In addition, we analyze the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, normalized correlation and bit error rate. The experimental results show that our proposed method can improve the quality of the watermarked audio signal and give more robustness of the watermark as compared to previous works.
If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them: Learning with Noisy Data

Vision capabilities have been significantly enhanced in recent years due to the availability of powerful computing hardware and sufficiently large and varied databases. However, the labelling of these image databases prior to training still involves considerable effort and is a roadblock for truly scalable learning. For instance, it has been shown that tag noise levels in Flickr images are as high as 80%. In an effort to exploit large images datasets therefore, extensive efforts have been invested to reduce the tag noise of the data by refining the image tags or by developing robust learning frameworks. In this work, we follow the latter approach, where we propose a multi-layer neural network-based noisy learning framework that incorporates noise probabilities of a training dataset. These are then utilized effectively to perform learning with sustained levels of accuracy, even in the presence of significant noise levels. We present results on several datasets of varying sizes and complexity and demonstrate that the proposed mechanism is able to outperform existing methods, despite often employing weaker constraints and assumptions.
The interaction of agonists and noncompetitive antagonists at the excitatory amino acid receptors in rat retinal ganglion cells in vitro

The pharmacological properties of the interaction between the excitatory amino acid (EAA) analogs kainate and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) have been examined on the isolated rat retinal ganglion cell preparation. In addition, we have studied the effects on this interaction of 2 noncompetitive NMDA antagonists, the dissociative anesthetic phencyclidine (PCP) and the anticonvulsant MK-801. Electrophysiological measurements were performed with the whole-cell patch-clamp technique on cultured ganglion cells that had been back- labeled with a fluorescent dye. Whereas only 69% of the cells showed responses to NMDA (in the absence of extracellular Mg2+), every ganglion cell responded to kainate under the same conditions. When a given cell was voltage-clamped at -60 mV, the large inward currents elicited by 125 microM kainate generally exceeded the responses evoked by 200 microM NMDA, when present, by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude. There was a poor correlation between the magnitudes of the currents produced by both agonists for the population of cells tested. Furthermore, NMDA proved to be an antagonist for the kainate receptor binding site. Without influencing the kainate-activated currents, PCP (75 microM) and MK-801 (20 microM) completely and reversibly blocked the responses evoked by NMDA (200 microM), independent of the membrane holding potential. The degree of block produced by a submaximal concentration of either antagonist was accentuated by increasing the concentration of NMDA. The independence of NMDA and kainate currents was examined. In the presence of NMDA and PCP (or MK-801), kainate-induced responses were comparable in amplitude to those generated by the application of kainate and NMDA together. Thus, kainate continued to produce an increase in membrane conductance at a time when NMDA-activated currents were blocked by either antagonist. The NMDA antagonism of kainate- induced currents was shown to be constant and independent of PCP or MK- 801. Our results suggest that the 2 EAA analogs might not share a common ionophore, but rather activate separate receptor-ion channel complexes in rat retinal ganglion cell membranes.
Constipation is the Most Frequent Cause of Chronic Abdominal Pain in Children

The aims of the study were to identify the frequency and causes of chronic abdominal pain in a large academic primary care population at the University of Iowa Children's Hospital. We evaluated retrospectively the complete charts of children >4 years old, seen for at least one health maintenance visit in the primary paediatric clinic during a 6-month period, for complaints and causes of chronic abdominal pain. Of 493 boys and 469 girls with a mean age of 9.1 years, 12.7% had been evaluated for chronic abdominal pain. Constipation as cause of abdominal pain occurred in 83%, child- hood functional abdominal pain in 8%, colic in 5%, gastroesophageal reflux in 2% and infection in 2%. The life-time prevalence rate for chronic abdominal pain was 13.3%; was due to functional causes in 13.1% and due to organic diseases in 0.2%. Functional constipation was the most frequent cause of chronic abdominal pain in a large primary care paediatric population.