Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy parsimonious circuit design through probabilistic pruning

Inexact Circuits or circuits in which the accuracy of the output can be traded for energy or delay savings, have been receiving increasing attention of late due to invariable inaccuracies in designs as Moore's law approaches the low nanometer range, and a concomitant growing desire for ultra low energy systems. In this paper, we present a novel design-level technique called probabilistic pruning to realize inexact circuits. Unlike the previous techniques in literature which relied mostly on some form of scaling of operational parameters such as the supply voltage (Vdd) to achieve energy and accuracy tradeoffs, our technique uses pruning of portions of circuits having a lower probability of being active, as the basis for performing architectural modifications resulting in significant savings in energy, delay and area. Our approach yields more savings when compared to any of the conventional voltage scaling schemes, for similar error values. Extensive simulations using this pruning technique in a novel logic synthesis based CAD framework on various architectures of 64-bit adders demonstrate that normalized gains as great as 2×–7.5× in the Energy-Delay-Area product can be obtained, with a relative error percentage as low as 10−6% up to 10%, when compared to corresponding conventionally correct designs.
The emergence of human prosociality: aligning with others through feelings, concerns, and norms

The fact that humans cooperate with nonkin is something we take for granted, but this is an anomaly in the animal kingdom. Our species’ ability to behave prosocially may be based on human-unique psychological mechanisms. We argue here that these mechanisms include the ability to care about the welfare of others (other-regarding concerns), to “feel into” others (empathy), and to understand, adhere to, and enforce social norms (normativity). We consider how these motivational, emotional, and normative substrates of prosociality develop in childhood and emerged in our evolutionary history. Moreover, we suggest that these three mechanisms all serve the critical function of aligning individuals with others: Empathy and other-regarding concerns align individuals with one another, and norms align individuals with their group. Such alignment allows us to engage in the kind of large-scale cooperation seen uniquely in humans.
Local Learning of Mid-level Representations for Fine-grained Recognition

When facing a new object, the human ability for implicitly comparing it to a small set of known objects and analyzing similarities and differences is as-tonishing due to speed and performance. In this paper, we propose to follow this observation by locally learning mid-level representations and models for every unseen example. Thus, our approach is complementary to the standard procedure of training a single model in advance based on a universal representation, such as a single set of attributes. As an illustrating example, we evaluate our approach for ﬁne-grained recognition of bird species. Experimental results show that already with a simple query function based on color and edge histograms, the resulting image-speciﬁc representations are at the same time compact (with respect to dimensionality) and informative (with respect to classiﬁcation accuracy).
TOF imaging in Smart room environments towards improved people tracking

In this paper we present the use of time-of-flight (TOF) cameras in smart-rooms and how this leads to improved results in segmenting the people in the room from the background and consequently better 3D reconstruction of the people. A calibrated rig of one Swissranger SR3100 time-of-flight range camera and a high resolution standard camera is set in a smart-room consisting of 5 other standard cameras. A probabilistic background model is used to segment each view and a shape from silhouette 3D volume is constructed. It is shown that the presence of the range camera gives ways of eliminating regional artifacts and therefore a more robust input for higher level applications such people tracking or human motion analysis.
A Neural Network Model of Visual Tilt Aftereffects

RF-LISSOM, a self-organizing model of laterally connected orientation maps in the primary visual cortex, was used to study the psychological phenomenon known as the tilt aftereffect. The same self-organizing processes that are responsible for the long-term development of the map and its lateral connections are shown to result in tilt aftereffects over short time scales in the adult. The model allows observing large numbers of neurons and connections simultaneously, making it possible to relate higher-level phenomena to low-level events, which is difficult to do experimentally. The results give computational support for the idea that direct tilt aftereffects arise from adaptive lateral interactions between feature detectors, as has long been surmised. They also suggest that indirect effects could result from the conservation of synaptic resources during this process. The model thus provides a unified computational explanation of self-organization and both direct and indirect tilt aftereffects in the primary visual cortex.
The Endocannabinoid/Endovanilloid N-Arachidonoyl Dopamine (NADA) and Synthetic Cannabinoid WIN55,212-2 Abate the Inflammatory Activation of Human Endothelial Cells*

Background: The endothelium is centrally involved in acute inflammatory disorders. Results: WIN55,212-2 and the endocannabinoid N-arachidonoyl dopamine (NADA), but not anandamide nor 2-arachidonoylglycerol, reduce endothelial activation by bacterial Toll-like receptor agonists and TNFα. Conclusion: NADA is a newly identified endogenous regulator of endothelial inflammation. Significance: The endothelial endocannabinoid system represents a novel immune regulatory system that could be exploited therapeutically. Although cannabinoids, such as Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, have been studied extensively for their psychoactive effects, it has become apparent that certain cannabinoids possess immunomodulatory activity. Endothelial cells (ECs) are centrally involved in the pathogenesis of organ injury in acute inflammatory disorders, such as sepsis, because they express cytokines and chemokines, which facilitate the trafficking of leukocytes to organs, and they modulate vascular barrier function. In this study, we find that primary human ECs from multiple organs express the cannabinoid receptors CB1R, GPR18, and GPR55, as well as the ion channel transient receptor potential cation channel vanilloid type 1. In contrast to leukocytes, CB2R is only minimally expressed in some EC populations. Furthermore, we show that ECs express all of the known endocannabinoid (eCB) metabolic enzymes. Examining a panel of cannabinoids, we demonstrate that the synthetic cannabinoid WIN55,212-2 and the eCB N-arachidonoyl dopamine (NADA), but neither anandamide nor 2-arachidonoylglycerol, reduce EC inflammatory responses induced by bacterial lipopeptide, LPS, and TNFα. We find that endothelial CB1R/CB2R are necessary for the effects of NADA, but not those of WIN55,212-2. Furthermore, transient receptor potential cation channel vanilloid type 1 appears to counter the anti-inflammatory properties of WIN55,212-2 and NADA, but conversely, in the absence of these cannabinoids, its inhibition exacerbates the inflammatory response in ECs activated with LPS. These data indicate that the eCB system can modulate inflammatory activation of the endothelium and may have important implications for a variety of acute inflammatory disorders that are characterized by EC activation.
Impact of four direct oral anticoagulants on rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM)

Rotational Thromboelastometry (ROTEM) is a point of care method used to monitor coagulation during surgery and to guide transfusion strategies in patients presenting with severe bleeding. The aim of our study was to determine the impact of four direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) on 3 commonly used ROTEM tests.
Plasticity of human menstrual blood stem cells derived from the endometrium

Stem cells can be obtained from women’s menstrual blood derived from the endometrium. The cells display stem cell markers such as Oct-4, SSEA-4, Nanog, and c-kit (CD117), and have the potent ability to differentiate into various cell types, including the heart, nerve, bone, cartilage, and fat. There has been no evidence of teratoma, ectopic formation, or any immune response after transplantation into an animal model. These cells quickly regenerate after menstruation and secrete many growth factors to display recurrent angiogenesis. The plasticity and safety of the acquired cells have been demonstrated in many studies. Menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) provide an alternative source of adult stem cells for research and application in regenerative medicine. Here we summarize the multipotent properties and the plasticities of MenSCs and other endometrial stem cells from recent studies conducted both in vitro and in vivo.
Gut injury and gut-induced lung injury after trauma hemorrhagic shock is gender and estrus cycle specific in the rat.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that trauma-hemorrhagic shock (T/HS)-induced gut and lung injury is modulated by gender and the stage of the estrus cycle at the time of injury. METHODS We compared the incidence and magnitude of gut and lung injury in male and female rats subjected to a laparotomy (trauma) followed by 90 minutes of shock (mean arterial pressure, 30 mm Hg) (T/HS) or sham shock. RESULTS Lung injury and pulmonary neutrophil sequestration as well as gut injury were increased after T/HS in the diestrus female and the male rats, but not in the estrus or proestrus female rats. Although T/HS caused gut and lung injury in the male and the female diestrus rats, the magnitude of injury was less in the female diestrus than in the male rats (p < 0.05). A strong correlation was found between intestinal villous injury and lung injury as well as between gut injury and pulmonary leukosequestration in the female rats subjected to T/HS (p < 0.0001). Plasma nitric oxide levels were approximately two- to threefold higher in the male and the diestrus female rats subjected to T/HS than in other groups (p < 0.05), and a high degree of correlation (r2 = 0.68, p < 0.0001) was found between villous injury and plasma nitric oxide levels. Ileal constitutive nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and inducible NOS (iNOS) activity was measured. Ileal constitutive NOS activity was similar between the groups, but iNOS activity was three- to fourfold higher in the T/HS male rats than in the sham shock or the T/HS proestrus groups (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION Gender and estrus cycle stage influence susceptibility to T/HS-induced gut and lung injury. This difference in susceptibility to organ injury was associated with increased plasma nitric oxide levels and increased ileal iNOS activity.
Temporal changes in phytoplankton biomass and cellular properties; implications for the IMO ballast water convention

ABSTRACT In the Wadden Sea, the Netherlands, and at L4 in the English Channel, UK, the size class distribution of phytoplankton was investigated with respect to the size range >10–≤50 µm identified by the IMO Ballast Water Convention. Size fractionation using 10 µm mesh filtration showed considerable size bias; 23.1% of >10 µm cells were still present in the <10 µm, but 21.8% of the smaller size cells were also retained on the mesh, resulting in an overestimated number of cells/mL by as much as a factor of 5.4. Flowcytometry measurements indicated that the phytoplankton in the size range 2–50 µm was dominated by the smaller size (<10 µm) at both sites. For the >10–≤50 µm size, these were on average 3.6% and 2% in the Wadden Sea and at L4, respectively. In terms of chlorophyll biomass, they represented 28.7% and 12%, respectively. The filtration method resulted in much higher chlorophyll values for 10–50 µm size range: 53.7% in the Wadden Sea and 38% at L4. This overestimation appears to be caused by cells in 6–10 µm size range being retained on the mesh. These findings are relevant in the context of the size class distribution based on flowcytometry and semi-quantification using chlorophyll as proxy for cell density.
Doxorubicin Blocks Cardiomyocyte Autophagic Flux by Inhibiting Lysosome Acidification

Background— The clinical use of doxorubicin is limited by cardiotoxicity. Histopathological changes include interstitial myocardial fibrosis and the appearance of vacuolated cardiomyocytes. Whereas dysregulation of autophagy in the myocardium has been implicated in a variety of cardiovascular diseases, the role of autophagy in doxorubicin cardiomyopathy remains poorly defined. Methods and Results— Most models of doxorubicin cardiotoxicity involve intraperitoneal injection of high-dose drug, which elicits lethargy, anorexia, weight loss, and peritoneal fibrosis, all of which confound the interpretation of autophagy. Given this, we first established a model that provokes modest and progressive cardiotoxicity without constitutional symptoms, reminiscent of the effects seen in patients. We report that doxorubicin blocks cardiomyocyte autophagic flux in vivo and in cardiomyocytes in culture. This block was accompanied by robust accumulation of undegraded autolysosomes. We go on to localize the site of block as a defect in lysosome acidification. To test the functional relevance of doxorubicin-triggered autolysosome accumulation, we studied animals with diminished autophagic activity resulting from haploinsufficiency for Beclin 1. Beclin 1 +/− mice exposed to doxorubicin were protected in terms of structural and functional changes within the myocardium. Conversely, animals overexpressing Beclin 1 manifested an amplified cardiotoxic response. Conclusions— Doxorubicin blocks autophagic flux in cardiomyocytes by impairing lysosome acidification and lysosomal function. Reducing autophagy initiation protects against doxorubicin cardiotoxicity.
Spaces of theories with ideal refinement operators

Refinement operators for theories avoid the problems related to the myopia of many relational learning algorithms based on the operators that refine single clauses. However, the non-existence of ideal refinement operators has been proven for the standard clausal search spaces based on 0-subsumption or logical implication, which scales up to the spaces of theories. By adopting different generalization models constrained by the assumption of object identity, we extend the theoretical results on the existence of ideal refinement operators for spaces of clauses to the case of spaces of theories.
Assessment of orthostatic hypotension in the emergency room

The study sought to determine the duration of standing needed to detect most cases of orthostatic hypotension (OH) in the emergency room (ER) and to correlate OH with symptoms, hospitalization and survival. Patients attending a tertiary‐center ER within a 2‐month period underwent orthostatic tests after 1, 3 and 5 min of standing. OH was defined as a drop of ⩾20 mmHg in systolic pressure or ⩾10 mmHg in diastolic pressure on assuming an upright posture. Of the 814 patients tested (402 men, mean age 56.6±19.9 years), 206 (25.3%) had OH, detected in most cases (83.5%) after 3 min of standing. OH was associated with significantly higher supine systolic (p = 0.013) and diastolic (p = 0.004) blood pressure, symptoms of syncope (r = 0.11, p<0.001) or dizziness (r = 0.14, p<0.0001) and risk of hospitalization (50.9% vs 22.9%, p<0.0001). Crude mortality was similar between patients with and without OH (13.8% vs 8.7%, p = 0.06). However, on age‐adjusted analysis, patients older than 75 years with OH had significantly increased mortality (p = 0.04). In conclusion, 3 min of standing is apparently sufficient for the diagnosis of most cases of OH. Considering the high rate of OH and its predictive value for hospitalization, it should be routinely assessed in all ER patients.
Optimising financial computation for reconfigurable hardware

This thesis proposes novel methodologies for design, optimisation and generalisation of reconfigurable hardware based finance computation. The applications of the proposed methodologies to numerical methods which are commonly used in the finance industry, such as Monte Carlo and Finite difference are studied in detail. These studies show reconfigurable hardware can effectively improve performance and energy efficiency in finance computation. There are three contributions. First, an application independent Monte Carlo framework for interest rate derivatives payoff evaluations based on the HeathJarrowMorton (HJM) mathematical Framework. By identifying three levels of functional specialisations in the model, the framework is able to retain good performance while supporting multiple applications. In addition, a process is proposed for the Monte Carlo framework to identify the optimal reduced precision data representation, in order to utilise hardware resource better and retain output numerical accuracy. The automatically generated Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementations show significant speedup and energy saving over comparable Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphical Processing Unit (GPU). Second, a novel framework for accelerating option payoff evaluation based on finite difference method. The parallelism of the proposed architectures is exploited based on two levels of computational granularities. The implementations are generated based on a high level description. Significant speedup and energy savings are archived comparing our FPGA designs over both CPU and GPU designs. Third, a novel performance optimisation process based on dynamic reconfiguration for stencil computation. By optimally adjusting the underlying numerical procedure and making use of carefully chosen coefficients for constant multipliers, both the hardware resource consumption per kernel and the amount of computation needed per problem are reduced, and the numerical accuracy requirements are also met. Significant speedup is shown by comparing the optimised dynamic design with the unoptimised dynamic design and the original static design.
Apatite-polymer composites for the controlled delivery of bone morphogenetic proteins

Current treatment of bone defects due to trauma, cancer, or degenerative spine diseases involves the implantation of a bone graft. Autografts, which are harvested from the patient's own body, are associated with problems of limited availability and surgical morbidity. The use of allografts obtained from donors is also not desirable due to the risks of disease transmission and the costs of maintaining bone banks. The ideal solution would be to regenerate native bone to fill the defects. A group of potent growth factors known as bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) have been hailed as alternatives to bone grafts due to their ability to elicit new bone formation. Clinical use of BMPs involves loading the protein solution onto collagen sponges and subsequent implantation. However, these conventional collagen carriers show rapid clearance of BMPs within 2 weeks, whereas bone healing is a longer process, especially in higher mammals. The poor BMP retention in collagen sponges may explain the greater response variability in higher mammals, ranging from full bone bridging within weeks to no bone union. These sponges are also not capable of tunable or multifactor release that could benefit healing in certain anatomic sites, e.g. avascular sites and prolonged non-unions. Hence, the motivation of this thesis is to develop new carriers that allow more efficacious and flexible delivery of BMPs to achieve bone healing. The carrier should ideally exhibit (i) sustained release to maintain the response and activity of bone-forming cells, (ii) low initial burst to avoid adverse effects of a bolus administration anmd to conserve the expensive growth factor, and (iii) tunable release to meter out BMPs at the desired rate. In particular, tunable release and low burst release have long been challenges in controlled delivery systems. A carrier that can offer such temporal control will be highly valuable to the delivery of other therapeutic proteins, drugs and genes as well. To this end, we have devised a novel composite of two biomaterials with proven track records: poly(lactic-acid-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and apatite. The controlled release strategy was based on the use of a biodegradable polymer with acidic degradation products to manipulate the dissolution of the basic apatitic component. Proteins were pre-adsorbed onto the apatitic component such that as the apatite dissolved, proteins were released. Apatite-
Cleavage of Antigen-Bound Immunoglobulin G by SpeB Contributes to Streptococcal Persistence in Opsonizing Blood

ABSTRACT Group A streptococci (GAS) express a superantigen, SpeB, having cysteine protease activity. SpeB exhibits several properties that might contribute to virulence, the most recently discovered being the ability to cleave immunoglobulin G (IgG) in a manner similar to that of papain. In the present study, we confirmed this latter finding and found that the irreversible inhibition of SpeB protease activity completely abolishes IgG cleavage. SpeB cleavage of IgG was not species restricted since SpeB cleaved both human, rabbit, and mouse IgG. In order to investigate the nature of the SpeB cleavage of IgG, antibodies were immobilized prior to exposure to SpeB, either by unspecific binding of the Fc to GAS surface proteins or by antigen-specific binding. Analysis of the IgG molecules by SDS-PAGE showed that SpeB could cleave antigen-bound antibodies, while the IgG bound to IgG-binding proteins was protected from cleavage. In a phagocytosis assay using whole blood, the M49 GAS strain NZ131 showed a significantly higher survival than its isogenic speB mutant. Furthermore, the addition of extracellular supernatant derived from an overnight culture of native NZ131 increased the survival of its isogenic speB derivative. This indicates that SpeB's ability to cleave off the Fc part of antigen-bound IgG contributes to GAS escape from opsonophagocytosis while not interfering with the formation of a host-like coat by unspecific IgG binding.
Polymorphism of the migration of double-stranded RNA genome segments of avian reoviruses

A number of field isolates of avian reovirus were characterized by analysis of the migration pattern of their genomic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) segments upon polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Comparison of the various isolates has demonstrated (i) no relationship between serotype and migration of any individual dsRNA segment, (ii) marked polymorphism of migration patterns of all dsRNA segments among isolates of the same serotype as well as among different serotypes, (iii) no correlation between genotype and disease state, (iv) less marked variability in migration pattern from isolates within a restricted geographic locale compared to isolates from distant locales, (v) the presence of a single genotype in local outbreaks of disease, and (vi) the relative invariant migration of several dsRNA segments among the avian reoviruses, one of which (S1) may serve to distinguish the avian from the mammalian reoviruses.