Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-threshold potassium currents stabilize IID-sensitivity in the inferior colliculus

The inferior colliculus (IC) is a midbrain nucleus that exhibits sensitivity to differences in interaural time and intensity (ITDs and IIDs) and integrates information from the auditory brainstem to provide an unambiguous representation of sound location across the azimuth. Further upstream, in the lateral superior olive (LSO), absence of low-threshold potassium currents in Kcna1−/− mice interfered with response onset timing and restricted IID-sensitivity to the hemifield of the excitatory ear. Assuming the IID-sensitivity in the IC to be at least partly inherited from LSO neurons, the IC IID-encoding was compared between wild-type (Kcna1+/+) and Kcna1−/− mice. We asked whether the effect observed in the Kcna1−/− LSO is (1) simply propagated into the IC, (2) is enhanced and amplified or, (3) alternatively, is compensated and so no longer detectable. Our results show that general IC response properties as well as the distribution of IID-functions were comparable in Kcna1−/− and Kcna1+/+ mice. In agreement with the literature IC neurons exhibited a higher level-invariance of IID-sensitivity compared to LSO neurons. However, manipulating the timing between the inputs of the two ears caused significantly larger shifts of IID-sensitivity in Kcna1−/− mice, whereas in the wild-type IC the IID functions were stable and less sensitive to changes of the temporal relationship between the binaural inputs. We conclude that the IC not only inherits IID-sensitivity from the LSO, but that the convergence with other, non-olivary inputs in the wild-type IC acts to quality-control, consolidate, and stabilize IID representation; this necessary integration of inputs is impaired in the absence of the low-threshold potassium currents mediated by Kv1.1.
Interactions Between the Glutamate and Glycine Recognition Sites of the N‐Methyl‐d‐Aspartate Receptor from Rat Brain, as Revealed from Radioligand Binding Studies

Abstract: The N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) receptor possesses two distinct amino acid recognition sites, one for glutamate and one for glycine, which appear to be allosterically linked. Using rat cortex/hippocampus P2 membranes we have investigated the effect of glutamate recognition site ligands on [3H]glycine (agonist) and (±)4‐trans‐2‐car‐boxy‐5,7‐dichloro‐4‐[3H]phenylaminocarbonylamino‐1,2,3,4‐tetrahydroquinoline ([3H]l‐689,560; antagonist) binding to the glycine site and the effect of glycine recognition site ligands on l‐[3H]glutamate (agonist), dl‐3‐(2‐carboxypiperazin‐4‐yl)‐[3H]propyl‐1 ‐phosphonate ([3H]‐CPP; “C‐7” antagonist), and cis‐4‐phosphonomethyl‐2‐[3H]piperidine carboxylate ([3H]CGS‐19755; “C‐5” antagonist) binding to the glutamate site. “C‐7” glutamate site antagonists partially inhibited [3H]l‐689,560 binding but had no effect on [3H]glycine binding, whereas “C‐5” antagonists partially inhibited the binding of both radioligands. Glycine, d‐serine, and d‐cycloserine partially inhibited [3H]CGS‐19755 binding but had little effect on l‐[3H]‐glutamate or [3H]CPP binding, whereas the partial agonists (+)‐3‐amino‐1‐hydroxypyrrolid‐2‐one [(+)‐HA‐966], 3R‐(+)cis‐4‐methyl‐HA‐966 (l‐687,414), and 1‐amino‐1‐carboxycyclobutane all enhanced [3H]CPP binding but had no effect on [3H]CGS‐19755 binding, and (+)‐HA‐966 and l‐687,414 inhibited l‐[3H]glutamate binding. The association and dissociation rates of [3H]l‐689,560 binding were decreased by CPP and d‐2‐amino‐5‐phosphonopentanoic acid (“C‐5”). Saturation analysis of [3H]l‐689,560 binding carried out at equilibrium showed that CPP had little effect on the affinity or number of [3H]l‐689,560 binding sites. These results indicate that complex interactions occur between the glutamate and glycine recognition sites on the NMDA receptor. In addition, mechanisms other than allosterism may underlie some effects, and the possibility of a steric interaction between CPP and [3H]l‐689,560 is discussed.
Evaluation of open-source e-Learning platforms based on the Qualitative Weight and Sum approach and Analytic Hierarchy Process

E-learning is now playing a very important role in learning processes and the major concern in all education institutions and universities. Open source e-learning platforms are one of the latest e-learning management systems used to deliver e-learning courses in most of the universities and higher educational institutions in the entire world, also in Jordan. There is a need to compare and evaluate these platforms to assess their weaknesses and strengths. It is currently not clear what the best method to evaluate these platforms. A number of studies have been carried out in this field already, but there is still a need for further analysis to choose the best platforms [1]. This paper presents an evaluation of open source e-learning platforms. Based on the functionality of these platforms and the main characteristics provided of each platform we combined the Qualitative Weight and Sum (QWS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approaches for the evaluation process of these open source e-learning platforms. For our research we used all open source e-learning platforms that are implemented and used at all Jordan Universities. The result for the evaluation in Jordan shows that all Jordanian universities use open source e-learning platforms and that the Moodle platform is the most widely used. However, Intelligent Web Teacher (IWT) obtained the highest evaluation results according to the QWS and ASP approach. Claroline comes in the second place. Both IWT and Claroline are highly recommended to be used. The results of this research paper will be very useful for higher institutions in Jordan and all over the world to decide which open source platforms will be more reliable and beneficial in their institutions and which features of these e-learning platforms are the most important to be activated when implementing the open source platform. This research also helps the open-source e-learning platform software developer to decide which features are more important for learners based on the scores in the evaluation
Minimax Statistical Learning and Domain Adaptation with Wasserstein Distances

As opposed to standard empirical risk minimization (ERM), distributionally robust optimization aims to minimize the worst-case risk over a larger ambiguity set containing the original empirical distribution of the training data. In this work, we describe a minimax framework for statistical learning with ambiguity sets given by balls in Wasserstein space. In particular, we prove a generalization bound that involves the covering number properties of the original ERM problem. As an illustrative example, we provide generalization guarantees for domain adaptation problems where the Wasserstein distance between the source and target domain distributions can be reliably estimated from unlabeled samples.
Early evolution of limb regeneration in tetrapods: evidence from a 300-million-year-old amphibian

Salamanders are the only tetrapods capable of fully regenerating their limbs throughout their entire lives. Much data on the underlying molecular mechanisms of limb regeneration have been gathered in recent years allowing for new comparative studies between salamanders and other tetrapods that lack this unique regenerative potential. By contrast, the evolution of animal regeneration just recently shifted back into focus, despite being highly relevant for research designs aiming to unravel the factors allowing for limb regeneration. We show that the 300-million-year-old temnospondyl amphibian Micromelerpeton, a distant relative of modern amphibians, was already capable of regenerating its limbs. A number of exceptionally well-preserved specimens from fossil deposits show a unique pattern and combination of abnormalities in their limbs that is distinctive of irregular regenerative activity in modern salamanders and does not occur as variants of normal limb development. This demonstrates that the capacity to regenerate limbs is not a derived feature of modern salamanders, but may be an ancient feature of non-amniote tetrapods and possibly even shared by all bony fish. The finding provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of regenerative capacity of paired appendages in vertebrates in the search for conserved versus derived molecular mechanisms of limb regeneration.
Plasma‐induced surface modification and adhesion enhancement of polypropylene surface

Unoriented (UPP) and biaxially oriented (BOPP) polypropylene films were treated under radio frequency plasma of air, nitrogen, oxygen, and ammonia. Surface modification of polypropylene films was investigated by using surface energy measurement and attenuated total reflection (ATR)-FTIR spectroscopy. Surface energy of air and nitrogen plasma-treated polypropylene film increased for shorter treatment time and then decreased and attained an equilibrium value. Such changes in surface energy were not observed for oxygen and ammonia plasma-treated polypropylene film, which increased to an equilibrium value. ATR-FTIR studies revealed characteristic differences in the absorption spectra for short-duration and long-duration treatments. From the relative intensity change in the C—H stretching vibration, the mechanism of surface chemical reaction could be inferred. Studies regarding the durability of surface modification due to plasma treatment were evaluated by investigating surface energy of samples aged for 2 months. Treated films subjected to peel strength measurement showed improvement in bondability for UPP and BOPP film by hydrophilic surface modification accompanied by surface crosslinking. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 925–936, 2002
Fast Dictionary Learning with a Smoothed Wasserstein Loss

We consider in this paper the dictionary learning problem when the observations are normalized histograms of features. This problem can be tackled using non-negative matrix factorization approaches, using typically Euclidean or Kullback-Leibler fitting errors. Because these fitting errors are separable and treat each feature on equal footing, they are blind to any similarity the features may share. We assume in this work that we have prior knowledge on these features. To leverage this side-information, we propose to use the Wasserstein (a.k.a. earth mover’s or optimal transport) distance as the fitting error between each original point and its reconstruction, and we propose scalable algorithms to to so. Our methods build upon Fenchel duality and entropic regularization of Wasserstein distances, which improves not only speed but also computational stability. We apply these techniques on face images and text documents. We show in particular that we can learn dictionaries (topics) for bagof-word representations of texts using words that may not have appeared in the original texts, or even words that come from a different language than that used in the texts.
Chronic oxidative stress promotes H2AX protein degradation and enhances chemosensitivity in breast cancer patients

Anti‐cancer drugs often increase reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cause DNA damage. Here, we highlight a new cross talk between chronic oxidative stress and the histone variant H2AX, a key player in DNA repair. We observe that persistent accumulation of ROS, due to a deficient JunD‐/Nrf2‐antioxidant response, reduces H2AX protein levels. This effect is mediated by an enhanced interaction of H2AX with the E3 ubiquitin ligase RNF168, which is associated with H2AX poly‐ubiquitination and promotes its degradation by the proteasome. ROS‐mediated H2AX decrease plays a crucial role in chemosensitivity. Indeed, cycles of chemotherapy that sustainably increase ROS reduce H2AX protein levels in Triple‐Negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. H2AX decrease by such treatment is associated with an impaired NRF2‐antioxidant response and is indicative of the therapeutic efficiency and survival of TNBC patients. Thus, our data describe a novel ROS‐mediated regulation of H2AX turnover, which provides new insights into genetic instability and treatment efficacy in TNBC patients.
Myosin X regulates neuronal radial migration through interacting with N-cadherin

Proper brain function depends on correct neuronal migration during development, which is known to be regulated by cytoskeletal dynamics and cell-cell adhesion. Myosin X (Myo10), an uncharacteristic member of the myosin family, is an important regulator of cytoskeleton that modulates cell motilities in many different cellular contexts. We previously reported that Myo10 was required for neuronal migration in the developing cerebral cortex, but the underlying mechanism was still largely unknown. Here, we found that knockdown of Myo10 expression disturbed the adherence of migrating neurons to radial glial fibers through abolishing surface Neuronal cadherin (N-cadherin) expression, thereby impaired neuronal migration in the developmental cortex. Next, we found Myo10 interacted with N-cadherin cellular domain through its FERM domain. Furthermore, we found knockdown of Myo10 disrupted N-cadherin subcellular distribution and led to localization of N-cadherin into Golgi apparatus and endosomal sorting vesicle. Taking together, these results reveal a novel mechanism of Myo10 interacting with N-cadherin and regulating its cell-surface expression, which is required for neuronal adhesion and migration.
Noncontact measurement of complex permittivity based on the principle of mid-range wireless power transfer

The measurement of complex permittivity of materials is of significant importance in scientific research and industrial applications. In this paper, we introduce the strongly coupled magnetic resonance previously used in high-efficiency midrange wireless power transfer to the noncontact measurement of the complex permittivity of materials. Theoretical analysis, full-wave simulation, and experimental measurements will show that the introduced high- Q-factor resonance can be used to effectively improve both the measurement sensitivity and the impedance matching to the instrument, avoiding the major weaknesses of the traditional magnetic induction method. The measurement setup can be easily calibrated for both solid and liquid materials and can provide the flexibility in noncontact measurement at a variable distance. We expect a wide range of applications to emerge from this novel approach.
A First-Principles Model of Early Evolution: Emergence of Gene Families, Species, and Preferred Protein Folds

In this work we develop a microscopic physical model of early evolution where phenotype—organism life expectancy—is directly related to genotype—the stability of its proteins in their native conformations—which can be determined exactly in the model. Simulating the model on a computer, we consistently observe the “Big Bang” scenario whereby exponential population growth ensues as soon as favorable sequence–structure combinations (precursors of stable proteins) are discovered. Upon that, random diversity of the structural space abruptly collapses into a small set of preferred proteins. We observe that protein folds remain stable and abundant in the population at timescales much greater than mutation or organism lifetime, and the distribution of the lifetimes of dominant folds in a population approximately follows a power law. The separation of evolutionary timescales between discovery of new folds and generation of new sequences gives rise to emergence of protein families and superfamilies whose sizes are power-law distributed, closely matching the same distributions for real proteins. On the population level we observe emergence of species—subpopulations that carry similar genomes. Further, we present a simple theory that relates stability of evolving proteins to the sizes of emerging genomes. Together, these results provide a microscopic first-principles picture of how first-gene families developed in the course of early evolution.
[Results of unrelated umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation for 65 patients in China].

OBJECTIVE From December 1998 to April 2004, 3960 umbilical cord blood units were stored in Guangzhou cord blood bank, which provided 100 umbilical cord blood units to 25 transplant center for 83 patients with malignant or non-malignant diseases. To study the related factors affecting unrelated umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation, the authors analyzed retrospectively the results of transplantation of unrelated umbilical cord blood stem cells for 65 patients. METHODS ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia) cord blood units were obtained from full term normal vaginal and cesarean deliveries in Guangzhou Women and Infants Hospital. The fractionation, cryopreservation and thawing of the cord blood were performed according to the regulations of New York umbilical cord blood bank and pertinent literature. The selection of cord blood was based on HLA typing and the number of nucleated cells. The sex and HLA antigens of donors were defined as the evidence of engraftment. Time to engraftment was recorded when the absolute number of neutrophil ANC (absolute neutrophil count) was higher than 5.0 x 10(8) for three days. Event-free survival and graft versus host disease (GVHD) were provided by transplant centers. RESULTS Out of 65 patients who received unrelated cord blood stem cell transplant, 49 patients were diagnosed as having malignant diseases [including 23 with ALL, 16 with AML (acute myeloid leukemia), 7 with CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia), 3 with lymphoma and one with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome)], 16 patients had non-malignant disease. The 65 transplanted patients (42 male, 23 female) had a median age of 10 years (range 1 - 33 years) and a median body weight of 27 kg (range 10 - 67 kg). The patients received cord blood stem cells from unrelated 0-locus (n = 9) or 1-locus (n = 43) or 2-locus (n = 13) HLA mismatched donor. The median dose of infused cells was: total neutrophil count (TNC) 5.7 x 10(7), CD(34)(+) 5.1 x 10(5), CFU-GM 3.8 x 10(4). Fifty of 65 (77%) patients had engraftment. GVHD occurred in 41 patients (63%), including acute grade I - II GVHD in 31 patients (76%), acute grade III - IV GVHD in 8 patients (20%) and chronic GVHD in 2 patients (5%). Fifty patients had engraftment (ANC > 5.0 x 10(8)) after a median time of 17 (range 7 to 44) days after transplant, while an autologous hematopoietic reconstitution was observed in 6 patients; 24 patients died of severe pneumonia (n = 8), acute GVHD (n = 4), or sepsis (n = 12) and the disease-free survival probability was 61%. CONCLUSIONS Unrelated allogeneic umbilical cord blood transplantation may be a good substitution for unrelated allogeneic bone marrow transplantation with a good prospect.
Incremental least squares methods and the extended Kalman filter

Proposes and analyzes nonlinear least squares methods, which process the data incrementally, one data block at a time. Such methods are well suited for large data sets and real time operation, and have received much attention in the context of neural network training problems. The author focuses on the extended Kalman filter, which may be viewed as an incremental version of the Gauss-Newton method. The author provides a nonstochastic analysis of its convergence properties, and discusses variants aimed at accelerating its convergence. <<ETX>>
Channel estimation for MIMO OFDM in correlated fading channels

Multiple transmit and receive antennas (MIMO) have been used in OFDM systems for capacity improvement. In practice, channel state information has to be estimated for diversity combining or space-time decoding. Previous work on channel estimation assumes that MIMO channels are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). In certain propagation environments, there exists spatial correlation among channels corresponding to different pairs of transmit and receive antennas. The spatial correlations can he exploited to improve channel estimation. In this paper, we develop a minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) channel estimator for MIMO-OFDM systems that can make full use of the spatial correlation. We also design optimum training sequences that minimize the channel estimation error. When MIMO channels are i.i. d. , the training sequences for different transmit antennas are orthogonal and with equal power. However, when MIMO channels are spatially correlated, the power allocation for training sequences can be further optimized. Our simulation results show that the proposed MMSE estimator can exploit spatial and frequency correlations of MIMO channels in OFDM systems and therefore has good performance.
Inferring User Preferences by Probabilistic Logical Reasoning over Social Networks

We propose a framework for inferring the latent attitudes or preferences of users by performing probabilistic first-order logical reasoning over the social network graph. Our method answers questions about Twitter users like {\em Does this user like sushi? } or {\em Is this user a New York Knicks fan? } by building a probabilistic model that reasons over user attributes (the user's location or gender) and the social network (the user's friends and spouse), via inferences like homophily (I am more likely to like sushi if spouse or friends like sushi, I am more likely to like the Knicks if I live in New York). The algorithm uses distant supervision, semi-supervised data harvesting and vector space models to extract user attributes (e.g. spouse, education, location) and preferences (likes and dislikes) from text. The extracted propositions are then fed into a probabilistic reasoner (we investigate both Markov Logic and Probabilistic Soft Logic). Our experiments show that probabilistic logical reasoning significantly improves the performance on attribute and relation extraction, and also achieves an F-score of 0.791 at predicting a users likes or dislikes, significantly better than two strong baselines.
Applying Data Mining to Insurance Customer Churn Management

According to competition in insurance industry in Iran in recent years and entrance of private sector, keeping customers has become more important for insurer companies and reasons of churning is challenging. Thus in this research, data mining methods is used for Customer churn management (CCM). In first step, customers with equal characteristics were selected by clustering K-means method and in the second step, using churn index and decision tree CART, reasons of customer churn were analyzed. Data mining process was done by Clementine software on set of data gathered from seven "Iran Insurance" branches in Anzali as population size. Costumer clustering and knowing the reasons of churning by decision tree CART make company choose better policy to reduce that.
Gene Regulatory Evolution During Speciation in a Songbird

Over the last decade, tremendous progress has been made toward a comparative understanding of gene regulatory evolution. However, we know little about how gene regulation evolves in birds, and how divergent genomes interact in their hybrids. Because of the unique features of birds – female heterogamety, a highly conserved karyotype, and the slow evolution of reproductive incompatibilities – an understanding of regulatory evolution in birds is critical to a comprehensive understanding of regulatory evolution and its implications for speciation. Using a novel complement of analyses of replicated RNA-seq libraries, we demonstrate abundant divergence in brain gene expression between zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) subspecies. By comparing parental populations and their F1 hybrids, we also show that gene misexpression is relatively rare among brain-expressed transcripts in male birds. If this pattern is consistent across tissues and sexes, it may partially explain the slow buildup of postzygotic reproductive isolation observed in birds relative to other taxa. Although we expected that the action of genetic drift on the island-dwelling zebra finch subspecies would be manifested in a higher rate of trans regulatory divergence, we found that most divergence was in cis regulation, following a pattern commonly observed in other taxa. Thus, our study highlights both unique and shared features of avian regulatory evolution.