Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wireless optoelectronic interface enabling brain fiber photometry in live animal models

Fiber biophotometry is a powerful technique in neuroscience to monitor the dynamic fluctuations in calcium levels correlated with neural events, such as action potential generation, exocytosis of neurotransmitters, changes in synaptic plasticity, and gene transcription in deep brain structures in live laboratory animals. This approach allows studying the correlation between neuronal processes and the behavior of live animal models in order to learn more about the brain function and its associated diseases. Conventional bench-top fiber biophotometry apparatus use a tethered optical fiber to deliver light and to retrieve fluorescence signals, which involves risk of breakage, stress, and potential injury. These systems are also bulky and require high operating voltages. Therefore, their usefulness to conduct studies with live animals is limited. The goal of this project is to implement a wireless optical neural interface to perform fluorescence sensing with live animal models without restraining their movement or inducing stress due to cable tethering. We designed a lightweight and compact size wireless fiber biophotometry headstage for chronic utilization based on a custom integrated Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) fluorescence sensor providing high-sensitivity, high-dynamic range, and very low-power consumption. The presented head-mountable fiber biophotometry system incorporates all aspects of a conventional tethered fiber-based biophotometry system encompassed into a wireless headstage. The main contributions of this work were reported in nine conferences and three journal papers published or submitted, and in one invention disclosure. Fluorescence biophotometry measurements require wide dynamic range (DR) and high-sensitivity laboratory apparatus. But, it is often very challenging to accurately resolve the small fluorescence variations in presence of noise and high background tissue autofluorescence. An important contribution of this work concerns the development of custom integrated CMOS optoelectronic biosensors and processing circuits to detect very weak fluorescence signals, and to convert them into high-precision digital codes, for building very compact and lightweight head-mountable brain sensing devices for laboratory mice. We first designed a high-precision CMOS biosensor chip providing low operating voltage, low-power, high-sensitivity, and high-dynamic range based on a low-voltage architecture that embeds a differential sensing front-end circuitry with a continuous-time Σ∆ modulation with a differential capacitive transconductance amplifier (DCTIA). This novel system offers a simplified implementation as well as a low-power architecture leveraging a hardware sharing strategy. Differential sensing and dummy photodiodes with the DCTIA enables to achieve high-sensitivity by suppressing the photodiode dark
DEVELOPMENT OF THE REAL-TIME RIVER STAGE PREDICTION METHOD USING DEEP LEARNING

The real-time river stage prediction model was developed using the artificial neural network model, with deep learning as the training method. The main component of the model was the four-layer feed-forward network. As a network training method, the stochastic gradient descent method based on the back propagation technique was applied. The denoising autoencoder was applied as a pre-training method. The developed model was applied to one catchment of the Ooyodo River, one of the first-grade rivers in Japan. The hourly change in river stage and hourly rainfall were used as input to the model, while output data was the river stage of Hiwatashi. To clarify the suitable configuration of the model, a case study was done. The prediction result was compared with those of other prediction models. Consequently, the developed model showed the best performance.
Tuning Ni/Al Ratio to Enhance Pseudocapacitive Charge Storage Properties of Nickel–Aluminum Layered Double Hydroxide

Compared with batteries, the advantages of capacitive energy storage include high power, fast charging kinetics, and long cycling stability. Owing to their layered structure and tunable transition metal charge, layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have great potential to be applied as pseudocapacitor materials. Here, a systematic experimental study is reported on the impact of the Ni/Al ratio on the structure, morphology, ion transport kinetics, interlayer phenomena, and performance of NiAl‐LDH supercapacitor electrode materials, in which three NiAl‐LDH materials with Ni/Al ratios of 2, 3, and 4, are synthesized using a hydrothermal method. The increase of the Ni/Al ratio results in more open interlayer space resulting in faster ion diffusion kinetics. Although an increase in the Ni/Al ratio introduces more redox active sites, it leads to degradation in crystallinity and morphology, which has a significant negative impact on pseudocapacitance. Electrochemical tests suggest that at Ni/Al = 3, the NiAl‐LDH electrode exhibits optimum specific capacitance of 2128 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 with long cycle stability. This work highlights the complex interplay among compositional and structural factors on the kinetic and performance behaviors of NiAl‐LDH materials. Subtle compositional modification is an effective strategy to enhance the pseudocapacitive charge storage property of NiAl‐LDH pseduocapacitor materials.
3 D イメージと 3 D 印刷されたオブジェクトの利用が熟達者と 初心者の空間的メンタルモデル形成に及ぼす影響 Influence of using 3 D images and 3 D-printed objects on the formation of spatial mental models of experts and novices

The spatial reasoning task of this study required doctors specializing in digestive surgery to infer cross sections of a liver with a a three-dimensional (3D) image and a 3D-printed object in a situation where liver resection surgery was simulated. The task performance was compared with that of university students who conducted the same task in Maehigashi et al. (2016). The results indicated that the doctors showed the same task performance when using the 3D image and the 3D-printed object. However, the university students learned faster and inferred the inside of a liver structure more accurately with the 3D-printed object than with the 3D image, and they performed equally to the professional doctors.
In situ real-time 3D observation of porosity growth during composite part curing by ultra-fast synchrotron X-ray microtomography

The present study reports on an experimental development addressing 3D void growth in epoxy-based carbon fibre-reinforced composites during their curing process. For that purpose and to investigate autoclave condition effects, composites samples were cured according to different curing cycles by using a specially designed device, which was installed on a synchrotron beamline dedicated to ultra-fast X-ray microtomography. Thus, 3D in situ images of the voids evolution could be obtained as a function of time, temperature, pressure, initial water content and resin conversion degree, which are the driving factors of void size evolution during the polymerization cycles. Results confirm the combined roles of humidity and temperature on the porosity growth and highlight the complex shape of the generated bubbles. It is also emphasized that a sharp increase of the applied pressure during the curing cycle instantaneously reduces the pore size. Such results improve the understanding of the cure of composites parts and can finally be used as input data for modelling purpose or for validation of existing models.
Porous plasma sprayed bioceramic (Ca10 (PO4).6(OH)2) coated Ti6Al4V: morphological, adhesion and tribological studies

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) has been used for several decades in the biomedical industry for dental and orthopedic implants owing to it being the basic component of bone (about 70%). The effect of load on the tribological behavior of highly porous plasma sprayed Ca10 (PO4). 6(OH)2 (HAp) deposited onto a Ti6Al4V alloy substrate has been investigated. The tribological and scratch wear tests performed on the samples showed that the coating exhibited excellent cohesive and adhesive appearance, as well as an excellent wear resistance. The influence of porosity on tribological behavior revealed that the presence of pores was responsible for the reduction of the coefficient of friction and resistance to wear. Wear traces analyzed by scanning electron microscopy revealed abrasive wear being the dominant mechanism. The cytotoxicity test carried out indicates the non-toxicity of the hydroxyapatite powder used as a coating on the Ti6Al4V alloy to bone cells. The results obtained also demonstrated that the proposed HAp/Ti6Al4V possesses excellent characteristics and could therefore be a potential and promising implant for orthopedic surgery.
Cache Me If You Can: Effects of DNS Time-to-Live

DNS depends on extensive caching for good performance, and every DNS zone owner must set Time-to-Live (TTL) values to control their DNS caching. Today there is relatively little guidance backed by research about how to set TTLs, and operators must balance conflicting demands of caching against agility of configuration. Exactly how TTL value choices affect operational networks is quite challenging to understand due to interactions across the distributed DNS service, where resolvers receive TTLs in different ways (answers and hints), TTLs are specified in multiple places (zones and their parent's glue), and while DNS resolution must be security-aware. This paper provides the first careful evaluation of how these multiple, interacting factors affect the effective cache lifetimes of DNS records, and provides recommendations for how to configure DNS TTLs based on our findings. We provide recommendations in TTL choice for different situations, and for where they must be configured. We show that longer TTLs have significant promise in reducing latency, reducing it from 183 ms to 28.7 ms for one country-code TLD.
A No Reference Video Quality Metric Based on Jerkiness Estimation Focusing on Multiple Frame Freezing in Video Streaming

ABSTRACT In wireless networks, due to limited bandwidth and packet losses, seamless and ubiquitous delivery of high-quality video streaming services is a big challenge for the operators. In order to improve the process of online video quality monitoring, the presence of no reference (NR) objective video quality assessment (VQA) methods is required. In some networks, the video decoder on the reception side adopts a mechanism in which last correctly received frame is frozen and displayed on video display terminal until the next correct frame is received. This phenomenon, employed as an error concealment technique, can cause a perceptual jerkiness on the video display terminal. In this paper, we have proposed an enhanced model of objective VQA based on the estimation of jerkiness. A study of three contemporary NR methods, used for objective VQA and online monitoring of videos, has been included along with subjective VQA tests. The subjective tests were performed for a set of video sequences with specific spatial and temporal information. The proposed NR method is based on our careful observations from the subjective test results and our main focus is to cater the effect of multiple frame freeze impairments in video steaming. Comparison with other NR methods shows that the proposed method performs better, in terms of estimating the impact of multiple frame freezing impairments, and has more affinity with the subjective test results.
Constraining the vertical structure of the Milky Way rotation by microlensing in a finite-width global disk model

We model the vertical structure of mass distribution of the Milky Way galaxy in the framework of a finite-width global disk model. Assuming only the Galactic rotation curve, we tested the predictions of the model inside the solar orbit for two measurable processes that are unrelated to each other: the gravitational microlensing that allows one to fix the disk width-scale by the best fit to measurements, and the vertical gradient of rotation modeled in the quasi-circular orbits approximation. The former is sensitive to the gravitating mass in compact objects, the latter to all kinds of gravitating matter. The analysis points to a small width-scale of the considered disks and an at-most insignificant contribution of non-baryonic dark matter in the solar circle. The predicted high vertical gradient values in the rotation are consistent with the gradient measurements.
Malware Detection in Cloud Auto-Scaling Systems Using Shallow Convolutional Neural Networks

This paper introduces a novel online malware detection approach in cloud by leveraging one of its unique characteristics—autoscaling. Auto-scaling in cloud allows for maintaining an optimal number of running VMs based on load, by dynamically adding or terminating VMs. Our detection system is online because it detects malicious behavior while the system is running. Malware detection is performed by utilizing process-level performance metrics to model a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). We initially employ a 2d CNN approach which trains on individual samples of each of the VMs in an auto-scaling scenario. That is, there is no correlation between samples from different VMs during the training phase. We enhance the detection accuracy by considering the correlations between multiple VMs through a sample pairing approach. Experiments are performed by injecting malware inside one of the VMs in an auto-scaling scenario. We show that our standard 2d CNN approach reaches an accuracy of 90%. However, our sample pairing approach significantly improves the accuracy to 97%.
Macro and micronutrients of selected marine fishes in Tuticorin , South East coast of India

The levels of macro and micro nutrients in the edible portions of some commercially important fin fishes were determined using the methods recommended by Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC). All the fish species investigated were fairly high in macronutrient protein (18 21%), while the lipid content was less than 3%. All the fish were observed to contain no carbohydrate and the moisture and ash content varied within a narrow range. The levels of minerals varied from one fish species to the other. The most abundant micro nutrient was potassium followed by phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, iron, copper and manganese respectively. The micro and macro nutrient of all the samples did not exceed the recommended safety limits of sea foods specified by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2013). Considering the result of the present study, it can be concluded that all the species are rich in food value.
Determinants of innovation capability : the roles of transformational leadership , knowledge sharing and perceived organizational support

Purpose – The study aims to explore the differences in transformational leadership’s (TL’s) influences on each aspect of innovation capability, namely, product innovation and process innovation. It also deepens understanding of the pathways and conditions to improve specific aspects of innovation capability by assessing the mediating role of knowledge sharing (KS) and moderating mechanism of perceived organizational support (POS). Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilized structural equation modeling and cross-sectional design to test hypotheses in the proposed research model based on using data collected from 394 participants at 88 Chinese firms. Findings – The findings indicate that KSmediates TL’s effects on innovation capabilities. In addition, the influences of TL and KS on specific aspects of innovation capability are different and depend on the extent of employees’ POS. Research limitations/implications – Future studies should test mediating roles of knowledge management’s constituents and/or investigate the moderating roles of firm ownership form to increase the understanding of potential factors or key conditions that may have significant influences on a firm’s innovation capability. Practical implications – The paper significantly contributes to increasing the understanding of the link between TL and specific aspects of innovation capability by highlighting the important role of stimulating KS and enhancing POS. Originality/value – The paper provides useful information and valuable initiatives to increase leadership outcomes and firm’s capability for innovation.
Improving Blue InGaN Laser Diodes Performance with Waveguide Structure Engineering

(Received 12 Dec. 2018; Revised 21 Jan. 2019; Accepted 20 Feb. 2019; Published 15 Mar. 2019) Abstract: To enhance lasers’ power and improve their performance, a model was applied for the waveguide design of 400 nm InGaN/InGaN semiconductor laser, which is much easier to implement. The conventional and new laser structures were theoretically investigated using simulation software PICS3D, which self-consistently combines 3D simulation of carrier transport, self-heating, and optical waveguiding. Excellent agreement between simulation and experimental results was obtained by careful adjustment of the material parameter in the physical model. Numerical simulation results demonstrate that the new waveguide structure can efficiently increase the output power, lower the threshold current, and improve the slope efficiency, which is simply applicable to any kind of InGaN edge emitting lasers. Flatten band gap in the p-side of the InGaN laser diode in new laser structure resulted in an increase in the hole current density in the quantum well while simultaneously the electron confinement in the active region was effectively created, leading to the increased stimulated recombination rate. Furthermore, optical mode-overlap with heavily p-doped was declined, which is the main reason for a better performance of InGaN laser diode.
Ki 67 / MIB-1 predicts better prognoses in colorectal cancer patients received both surgery and adjuvant radio-chemotherapy : a meta-analysis of 30 studies

Ki67/MIB is a common cell proliferation marker and has been used to detect the proliferative activity of colorectal cancer (CRC). Previous studies have reported incongruous prognostic values of Ki67/MIB expression in CRC patients. Consequently, we performed the present meta-analysis to clarify the relationship between Ki67/MIB expression and prognoses in patients with CRC. We performed the literature retrieval through the following databases of PubMed, Wiley Online Library, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Science Direct, Web of Science, CNKI, Chong Qing VIP, Wan Fang, China Biology Medicine disc (up to July 30, 2016) based on the defined search terms. Hazard ratios (HRs) combined with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated to evaluate the relationship of Ki67 expression with prognoses. A total of 30 publications with 8293 patients were identified eventually in our meta-analysis. Pooled results showed that Ki67/MIB-1 positive expression indicated better overall survival (OS, HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.62-0.85; P=0.001), cancer-specific survival (CSS, HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.55-0.94; P<0.001), and relapse-free survival (RFS, HR: 0.701; 95% CI: 0.551-0.892; P=0.001) in patients who received surgery combined with adjuvant radio-chemotherapy, but on the contrary, in patients who underwent surgery alone, Ki67/MIB-1 positive expression suggested worse OS (HR: 1.61; 95% CI: 1.10-2.37; P<0.001) and CSS (HR: 2.11; 95% CI: 1.582.80; P<0.001). In conclusion, high proliferative activity may increase the adjuvant radio-chemotherapy sensitivity of cancer cells, thus Ki67/MIB-1 can be used as a biomarker of favorable prognoses in CRC patients who received both surgical operation and adjuvant radio-chemotherapy.
A cross-national study of young female consumer behaviour, innovativeness and apparel evaluation: China and India

Abstract In order to advance our knowledge about consumers’ shopping behaviour and preferences in two emerging markets (China and India), the current study was undertaken to investigate (1) apparel consumers’ shopping behaviour; (2) the effect of consumer innovativeness, and (3) the salient impact of apparel evaluative cues. An online self-administered survey consisted of shopping behavioural questions, the Domain Specific Innovativeness (DSI) scale, 12 apparel cues, and demographic questions were used for this study. In total, 266 and 236 usable data were collected from Chinese and Indian female participants respectively. The findings indicated that Chinese and Indian fashion innovators tended to spend more money on new clothes than non-innovators. Chinese fashion innovators spent significantly more time shopping online than did Indian innovators. In terms of the importance of evaluative cues, fashion innovators and non-innovators in both countries considered fit to be the most important cue; style, colour, and comfort played a relatively important role in clothing evaluation as well, but ease of care and durability were cited as relatively less important among many other cues. The two least important cues were brand name and country of origin.
Combining Modeling and Measurements To Predict Crystal Morphology in Material Extrusion

Semicrystalline polymer melts are commonly used in material extrusion (MatEx) for 3D printing. Although flows have a profound effect on polymer crystallization, the relationship between typical MatEx deformation rates and printed-part crystal morphology is yet to be understood. Here, MatEx is used to print a wall of polylactic acid filaments. The linear rheology and quiescent crystallization kinetics are characterized, infrared imaging is used to measure temperature variations during the MatEx process, and optical microscopy is employed to determine the resulting crystal morphology before and after a postprinting thermal annealing process. Our flow-enhanced crystallization model demonstrates that MatEx-induced polymer stretch leads to a higher nucleation density and greater space filling in the weld regions between deposited filaments. Consequently, after annealing, the weld regions feature smaller spherulites than the filament center, as shown by optical microscopy. Finally, flow-induced crystallization is proposed as a method to improve weld toughness.
Assessing Changes in Wage Gaps: A New Approach

Little work has been done on directly estimating differences in pay gaps. Studies that estimate pay di erentials generally compare them across different sub-samples or rely on decompositions that are based on the assumption of independent errors across samples. Both methods contain serious drawbacks that we overcome by proposing an extension of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Our proposed method overcomes both the index number and the indeterminacy problem of standard Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions. In addition, like the standard decomposition, our proposed approach can be extended beyond the mean by using linear unconditional quantile regressions and can be decomposed in detail. We present two empirical applications to illustrate the methodology.
Theories of learning

This course provides a tour of foundational topics in learning from a theoretical perspective. It covers a diversity of learning processes, aiming for breadth over depth (although it inevitably neglects several important forms of learning). Each meeting will consist of student-led presentations of two papers. Experience with computational modeling is not required. The course is aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduates.