Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of electroacupuncture on learning and memory and the expression of Nogo-A and Ng R in rats with focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion

Objective:To investigate the effects of electroacupuncture on learning and memory and Nogo-A/Ng R expression in hippocampus of rats with focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion.Method:Forty- five male adult SD rats were randomly divided into the sham operation control group(SC group), the ischemia model group(IC group) and the electroacupuncture group(EA group), n=15 for each group. The focal cerebral ischemia- reperfusion model was setup by suture method in IC and EA groups. The rats of EA group received electroacupuncture treatment at Shenting(DU24) and Baihui(DU20) for 7 days.Learning and memory ability was tested by Morris water maze. The cerebral infarct volume was assessed using TTC staining and Western blot was performed to evaluate the expression of Nogo-A and Ng R in hippocampus of the cerebral ischemia side.Result:The latency and route distance for rats to reach the hidden platform were markedly decreased in EA group compared with that in IC group in the Morris water maze test, whereas the times that rats crossed the location of the platform were significantly increased(P0.05 versus IC group). TTC staining showed that electroacupuncture treatment profoundly reduced cerebral infarct volumes compared with that of IC group(P0.05). Furthermore, the expression of Nogo-A and Ng R in the hippocampus of the cerebral ischemia side was significantly downregulated in EA group(P0.05, versus IC group). Conclusion:Learning and memory of rats with focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion could be improved with electroacupuncture treatment. The mechanism might be based on the inhibition of the expression of Nogo- A and Ng R.
Measuring the readability of automatic speech-to-text transcripts

This paper reports initial results from a novel psycholinguistic study that measures the readability of several types of speech transcripts. We define a four-part figure of merit to measure readability: accuracy of answers to comprehension questions, reaction-time for passage reading, reaction-time for question answering and a subjective rating of passage difficulty. We present results from an experiment with 28 test subjects reading transcripts in four experimental conditions.
The Forgiving Organization: A Multilevel Model of Forgiveness at Work

We introduce a multilevel model of workplace forgiveness and present forgiveness climate as an organizational-level phenomenon that explains when and why employees respond to conflict prosocially. We begin with an examination of the core cultural values that allow forgiveness climates to emerge, including restorative justice, compassion, and temperance. We then explore how the organizational environment, organizational practices, and leader attributes produce these core cultural values and facilitate forgiveness climate emergence. Drawing from a sensemaking perspective, we subsequently examine the cross-level impact of forgiveness climate on individual employees, as well as the boundary conditions of these effects. We conclude with a discussion of our model's contributions and implications for future theory building and empirical research.
Introductory Programming with ALICE as a Gateway to the Computing Profession

To help reinvigorate the Computer Information Systems (CIS) major in the face of declining student interest, a new curriculum with more welcoming entering courses was implemented at an undergraduate school of business. One of the courses, the introductory programming course, was redesigned to focus on object-oriented, event driven, programming using ALICE, a 3D programming environment developed at Carnegie Mellon University and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This presentation addresses the rationale for selecting ALICE, the subsequent course design, and expectations for the future course developments.
Invited — Cross-layer approximations for neuromorphic computing: From devices to circuits and systems

Neuromorphic algorithms are being increasingly deployed across the entire computing spectrum from data centers to mobile and wearable devices to solve problems involving recognition, analytics, search and inference. For example, large-scale artificial neural networks (popularly called deep learning) now represent the state-of-the art in a wide and ever-increasing range of video/image/audio/text recognition problems. However, the growth in data sets and network complexities have led to deep learning becoming one of the most challenging workloads across the computing spectrum. We posit that approximate computing can play a key role in the quest for energy-efficient neuromorphic systems. We show how the principles of approximate computing can be applied to the design of neuromorphic systems at various layers of the computing stack. At the algorithm level, we present techniques to significantly scale down the computational requirements of a neural network with minimal impact on its accuracy. At the circuit level, we show how approximate logic and memory can be used to implement neurons and synapses in an energy-efficient manner, while still meeting accuracy requirements. A fundamental limitation to the efficiency of neuromorphic computing in traditional implementations (software and custom hardware alike) is the mismatch between neuromorphic algorithms and the underlying computing models such as von Neumann architecture and Boolean logic. To overcome this limitation, we describe how emerging spintronic devices can offer highly efficient, approximate realization of the building blocks of neuromorphic computing systems.
PDS 144: THE FIRST CONFIRMED Herbig Ae–Herbig Ae WIDE BINARY

PDS 144 is a pair of Herbig Ae stars that are separated by 5. ″35 on the sky. It has previously been shown to have an A2Ve Herbig Ae star viewed at 83° inclination as its northern member and an A5Ve Herbig Ae star as its southern member. Direct imagery revealed a disk occulting PDS 144 N—the first edge-on disk observed around a Herbig Ae star. The lack of an obvious disk in direct imagery suggested PDS 144 S might be viewed face-on or not physically associated with PDS 144 N. Multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope imagery of PDS 144 with a 5 year baseline demonstrates PDS 144 N & S are comoving and have a common proper motion with TYC 6782-878-1. TYC 6782-878-1 has previously been identified as a member of Upper Sco sub-association A at d = 145 ± 2 pc with an age of 5–10 Myr. Ground-based imagery reveals jets and a string of Herbig-Haro knots extending 13′ (possibly further) which are aligned to within 7° ± 6° on the sky. By combining proper motion data and the absence of a dark mid-plane with radial velocity data, we measure the inclination of PDS 144 S to be i = 73° ± 7°. The radial velocity of the jets from PDS 144 N & S indicates they, and therefore their disks, are misaligned by 25° ± 9°. This degree of misalignment is similar to that seen in T Tauri wide binaries.
How the Neuroscience of Decision Making Informs Our Conception of Autonomy

Autonomy, the ability to make decisions for ourselves about ourselves, is among the most prized of human liberties. In this review we reconsider the key conditions necessary for autonomous decision making, long debated by moral philosophers and ethicists, in light of current neuroscientific evidence. The most widely accepted criteria for autonomy are that decisions are made by a rationally deliberative and reflective agent and that these decisions are free of undue external influences. The corpus of neuroscientific data suggest that human brains are capable of the hierarchical control required for reflective thought, but that decisions conventionally perceived as autonomous may not be rational with respect to the deliberative process itself, and are rarely free from covert external influences. These findings cast doubt upon the capacity for autonomy as traditionally defined, and suggest that we reconsider valorizing the right to autonomy in order to align our moral values with neuroscientific naturalism.
Antitumor effect of oleic acid; mechanisms of action: a review.

INTRODUCTION The beneficial effects of oleic acid in cancer processes can no longer be doubted, but little is known about the mechanisms of action behind this phenomenon. AIM The aim of the present review is to clarify whether oleic acid has an effect on important mechanisms related to the carcinogenic processes. METHODS We searched electronic databases and bibliographies of selected articles were inspected for further reference. We focused our research on two cellular transformations characterizing cancer development: proliferation and cell death or apoptosis. RESULTS Numerous studies have reported an inhibition in cell proliferation induced by oleic acid in different tumor cell lines. Herein, oleic acid could suppress the over-expression of HER2 (erbB-2), a well-characterized oncogene which plays a key role in the etiology, invasive progression and metastasis in several human cancers. In addition, oleic acid could play a role in intracellular calcium signaling pathways linked to the proliferation event. Regarding cell death, oleic acid has been shown to induce apoptosis in carcinoma cells. The mechanisms behind the apoptotic event induced by oleic acid could be related to an increase in intracellular ROS production or caspase 3 activity. Several unsaturated fatty acids have been reported to induce apoptosis through a release of calcium from intracellular stores. However, evidence regarding such a role in oleic acid is lacking. CONCLUSIONS Oleic acid plays a role in the activation of different intracellular pathways involved in carcinoma cell development. Such a role could be the root of its antitumoral effects reported in clinical studies.
Dynamic restoration with GMPLS and SDN control plane in elastic optical networks [Invited]

Optical transport networks typically deploy dynamic restoration mechanisms in order to automatically recover optical connections disrupted by network failures. Elastic optical networks (EONs), currently emerging as the next-generation technology to be adopted in optical transport, introduce new challenges for traditional generic multiprotocol label-switching (GMPLS)-based restoration that may seriously impact the achievable recovery time. At the same time, the software-defined networking (SDN) framework is emerging as an alternative control plane. It is therefore important to investigate possible benefits provided by SDN in the implementation of restoration mechanisms for EONs. This paper proposes a dynamic restoration scheme for EONs based on the SDN framework. The proposed scheme contemporarily exploits centralized path computation and node configuration to avoid contentions during the recovery procedure with the final aim of minimizing the recovery time. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by means of simulations in terms of recovery time and restoration blocking probability and compared against three reference schemes based on GMPLS and SDN.
Neutrino pair annihilation near accreting, stellar-mass black holes

Context. We investigate the deposition of energy and momentum due to the annihilation of neutrinos (�) and antineutrinos (¯�) in the vicinity of steady, axisymmetric accretion tori around stellar-mass black holes (BHs). This process is widely considered as an energy source for driving ultrarelativistic outflows with the potential to produce gamma-ray bursts. Aims. We analyze the influence of general relativistic (GR) effects in combination with different neutrinosphere properties on the �¯ �-annihilation efficiency and spatial distribution of the energy deposition rate. Methods. Assuming axial symmetry, we numerically compute the annihilation rate 4-vector. For this purpose we construct the local neutrino distribution by ray-tracing neutrino trajectories in a Kerr space-time using null geodesics. We vary the value of the dimensionless specific angular momentum a of the central BH, which provides the gravitational field in our models. We also study different shapes of the neutrinospheres, spheres, thin disks, and thick accretion tori, whose structure ranges from idealized tori to equilibrium non-selfgravitating matter distributions. Furthermore, we compute Newtonian models where the influence of the gravitational field on the annihilation process is neglected. Results. Compared to Newtonian calculations, GR effects increase the total annihilation rate measured by an observer at infinity by a factor of two when the neutrinosphere is a thin disk, but the increase is only � 25% for toroidal and spherical neutrinospheres. Comparing cases with similar luminosities, thin disk models yield the highest energy deposition rates by �¯ �-annihilation, and spherical neutrinospheres the lowest ones, independent of whether GR effects are included. Increasing a from 0 to 1 enhances the energy deposition rate measured by an observer at infinity by roughly a factor of 2 due to the change of the inner radius of the neutrinosphere. General relativity and rotation cause important differences in the spatial distribution of the energy deposition rate by �¯ �-annihilation.
Thermally Driven Winds from Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows

Radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs) are common feature of low-luminosity accretion flows, including quiescent states of X-ray binaries and low-lunimosity active galactic nuclei. Thermally driven winds are expected from such hot accretion flows. By assuming that the flow has self-similarity structure in the radial direction, we solve the vertical structure of the wind and accretion flows simultaneously and evaluate the mass loss rates by wind. We find that the ratio of the outflow rate to the accretion rate is approximately unity for a viscosity parameter, alpha lesssim 0.1, despite some uncertainties in the angular momentum and temperature distributions. That is, the accretion rate in the RIAFs is roughly proportional to the radius. Moreover, we elucidate the effect of cooling by wind on the underneath accretion flow, finding that this effect could be important for calculating energy spectrum of the RIAF. Observational implications are briefly discussed in the context of Sgr A*.
Indoor Human Navigation Systems: A Survey

Whereas outdoor navigation systems typically rely upon GPS, indoor systems have to rely upon dierent techniques for localizing the user, as GPS signals cannot be received indoors. Over the past decade various indoor navigation systems have been developed. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of existing indoor navigation systems and analyzes the dierent techniques used for: (1) locating the user; (2) planning a path; (3) representing the environment; and (4) interacting with the user. Our survey identies a number of research issues that could facilitate large scale deployment of indoor navigation systems.
CSI-Based Indoor Localization

Indoor positioning systems have received increasing attention for supporting location-based services in indoor environments. WiFi-based indoor localization has been attractive due to its open access and low cost properties. However, the distance estimation based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is easily affected by the temporal and spatial variance due to the multipath effect, which contributes to most of the estimation errors in current systems. In this work, we analyze this effect across the physical layer and account for the undesirable RSSI readings being reported. We explore the frequency diversity of the subcarriers in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems and propose a novel approach called FILA, which leverages the channel state information (CSI) to build a propagation model and a fingerprinting system at the receiver. We implement the FILA system on commercial 802.11 NICs, and then evaluate its performance in different typical indoor scenarios. The experimental results show that the accuracy and latency of distance calculation can be significantly enhanced by using CSI. Moreover, FILA can significantly improve the localization accuracy compared with the corresponding RSSI approach.
Protein kinase regulates tumor necrosis factor mRNA stability in virus- stimulated astrocytes

Infection of astrocytes with Newcastle disease virus stimulated the production of 1,2-diacylglycerol, and resulted in the kinase-dependent expression of mRNAs encoding tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interferon alpha and beta, and interleukin 6. The half-life of TNF mRNA was significantly decreased in the presence of protein kinase inhibitors H- 7 and staurosporine, but not in the presence of HA1004. In contrast to the decay of TNF mRNA, the half-lives of other cytokine mRNAs were only minimally affected by the kinase inhibitors. These data indicated that the stability of TNF mRNA was regulated through a novel, kinase- dependent pathway.
Design and High Performance of a Micromachined $K$ -Band Rectangular Coaxial Cable

This paper presents the design and performance of a low-loss rectangular air-filled coaxial cable. A high-precision micromachining technique is used to fabricate the cable. It is assembled by bonding together five layers of gold-coated SU-8 photoresist fabricated using the ultraviolet photolithographic technique. As the cable is air filled, both the dielectric and radiation losses are negligible. The cross coupling is also very weak between the cable and other parts of the circuit in a system. These advantages make the proposed cable a very good candidate for low-cost high-performance miniaturized transmission lines. The cable is designed to work in the frequency range of 14-36 GHz, which covers the whole JC-band. The size of the cable is only 8.9 mm times 8.6 mm times 1.5 mm and the measured minimum insertion loss of the as-made cable is approximately 0.6 dB. The return loss is better than 15 dB in the passband.
Aquatic ecosystems: effects of solar ultraviolet radiation and interactions with other climatic change factors

Aquatic ecosystems are a key component of the Earth’s biosphere. A large number of studies document substantial impact of solar UV radiation on individual species, yet considerable uncertainty remains with respect to assessing impacts on ecosystems. Several studies indicate that the impact of increased UV radiation appears relatively low when considering overall ecosystem response, while, in contrast, effects on individual species show considerable responses. Ecosystem response to climate variability incorporates both synergistic and antagonistic processes with respect to UV-related effects, significantly complicating understanding and prediction at the ecosystem level. The impact of climate variability on UV-related effects often becomes manifest via indirect effects such as reduction in sea ice, changes in water column bio-optical characteristics, changes in cloud cover and shifts in oceanographic biogeochemical provinces.
Long memory in continuous‐time stochastic volatility models

This paper studies a classical extension of the Black and Scholes model for option pricing, often known as the Hull and White model. Our specification is that the volatility process is assumed not only to be stochastic, but also to have long‐memory features and properties. We study here the implications of this continuous‐time long‐memory model, both for the volatility process itself as well as for the global asset price process. We also compare our model with some discrete time approximations. Then the issue of option pricing is addressed by looking at theoretical formulas and properties of the implicit volatilities as well as statistical inference tractability. Lastly, we provide a few simulation experiments to illustrate our results.
Wages and on-the-job training in Tunisia

Training costs may hamper intra-firm human capital accumulation. As a consequence, firms may be tempted to have workers pay for their on-the-job training (OJT). In this paper, we analyse the links of OJT and worker remuneration in the suburb of Tunis, using case study data for eight firms. We find that the duration of former OJT negatively influences starting wages, while there is no anticipated effect of future training on wages at the firm entry. In contrast, current wages are positively affected by former OJT but negatively affected by ongoing OJT. These results provide very rare empirical support in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) for classical human capital theories and cost sharing theories applied to OJT.
A fast matching algorithm based on K-degree template

To improve the correctness and real-time performance in the process of image matching, this paper proposed a fast matching algorithm based on image K-gray-degree clustering. Given a template with irregular shape, this algorithm divides the image into certain size blocks called R_block, and calculates their mean gray value, then clusters original templates to K-degree templates according to gray distribution of matching targets. At the same time the algorithm cluster the divided template to a K-degree template Tk and create a K-degree template set based on Tk, then matching these Kdegree templates into the searching image from coarse to fine. In the process of coarse matching, it only needs to check whether corresponding blocks between template and sub-image are in the same degree. In the process of fine matching, the algorithm makes it possible for efficient matching of a template into an image based on the improved NCC formula, which is based on differential ordinal array, this reduces multiplication significantly. Experiments show that this algorithm is robust and fast under the condition of non-linear changing of local lighting, noise, target matching of irregular shape, and even matching in complex background.
Jumonji Domain Containing 1A Is a Novel Prognostic Marker for Colorectal Cancer: In vivo Identification from Hypoxic Tumor Cells

Purpose: This study aimed to identify novel hypoxia-inducible and prognostic markers in vivo from hypoxic tumor cells. Experimental Design: Using carbonic anhydrase 9 and CD34 as a guide for hypoxic tumor cells, laser capture microdissection was used to isolate colorectal cancer (CRC) liver metastases. The samples were analyzed by microarray analysis, in parallel with five CRC cell lines cultured under hypoxic conditions. To evaluate the prognostic impact of the expression of certain genes, samples from a total of 356 CRC patients were analyzed by microarray or quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. In vitro mechanistic studies and in vivo therapeutic experiments were also done about a histone H3 Lys9 demethylase, Jumonji domain containing 1A (JMJD1A). Results: Several candidate genes were identified by microarray analysis of liver metastases and culturing of CRC cells under hypoxic conditions. Among them, we found that JMJD1A was a novel independent prognostic factor for CRC (P = 0.013). In vitro assays revealed that loss of JMJD1A by small interfering RNA treatment was associated with a reduction of proliferative activity and decrease in invasion of CRC cell lines. Furthermore, treatment with an adenovirus system for antisense JMJD1A construct displayed prominent therapeutic effects when injected into established tumor xenografts of the CRC cell lines HCT116 and DLD1. Conclusions: JMJD1A is a useful biomarker for hypoxic tumor cells and a prognostic marker that could be a promising therapeutic target against CRC. Clin Cancer Res; 16(18); 4636–46. ©2010 AACR.