Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synaptic Convergence of Motor and Somatosensory Cortical Afferents onto GABAergic Interneurons in the Rat Striatum

Cortical afferents to the basal ganglia, and in particular the corticostriatal projections, are critical in the expression of basal ganglia function in health and disease. The corticostriatal projections are topographically organized but also partially overlap and interdigitate. To determine whether projections from distinct cortical areas converge at the level of single interneurons in the striatum, double anterograde labeling from the primary motor (M1) and primary somatosensory (S1) cortices in the rat, was combined with immunolabeling for parvalbumin (PV), to identify one population of striatal GABAergic interneurons. Cortical afferents from M1 and S1 gave rise to distinct, but partially overlapping, arbors of varicose axons in the striatum. PV-positive neurons were often apposed by cortical terminals and, in many instances, apposed by terminals from both cortical areas. Frequently, individual cortical axons formed multiple varicosities apposed to the same PV-positive neuron. Electron microscopy confirmed that the cortical terminals formed asymmetric synapses with the dendrites and perikarya of PV-positive neurons as well as unlabelled dendritic spines. Correlated light and electron microscopy revealed that individual PV-positive neurons received synaptic input from axon terminals derived from both motor and somatosensory cortices. These results demonstrate that, within areas of overlap of functionally distinct projections, there is synaptic convergence at the single cell level. Sensorimotor integration in the basal ganglia is thus likely to be mediated, at least in part, by striatal GABAergic interneurons. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the pattern of innervation of GABAergic interneurons by cortical afferents is different from the cortical innervation of spiny projection neurons.
Supplier Selection via Tournaments

In this paper, we study the performance of a sourcing mechanism gaining popularity in industrial procurement environments; a tournament. Under a tournament, a buyer initially procures her parts from two suppliers with possibly different quality levels, for T time periods, i.e., she parallel sources. During this time, the buyer is able to observe noisy signals about the suppliers' quality. At time T, she selects the supplier with the highest observed performance and awards it the remainder of her business. We characterize the optimal duration of the tournament as a function of various market parameters, including information and investment costs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a tournament can be more profitable for the buyer than selecting the highest quality supplier at time T = 0 and sole sourcing entirely.
Modeling the effect of boost timing in murine irradiated sporozoite prime-boost vaccines

Vaccination with radiation-attenuated sporozoites has been shown to induce CD8+ T cell-mediated protection against pre-erythrocytic stages of malaria. Empirical evidence suggests that successive inoculations often improve the efficacy of this type of vaccines. An initial dose (prime) triggers a specific cellular response, and subsequent inoculations (boost) amplify this response to create a robust CD8+ T cell memory. In this work we propose a model to analyze the effect of T cell dynamics on the performance of prime-boost vaccines. This model suggests that boost doses and timings should be selected according to the T cell response elicited by priming. Specifically, boosting during late stages of clonal contraction would maximize T cell memory production for vaccines using lower doses of irradiated sporozoites. In contrast, single-dose inoculations would be indicated for higher vaccine doses. Experimental data have been obtained that support theoretical predictions of the model.
Wet avalanches: long-term evolution in the Western Alps under climate and human forcing

Abstract. Understanding wet avalanche intensity and the role of past environmental changes on wet avalanche occurrence is a main concern especially in the context of a warming climate and accelerated environmental mutations. Avalanches are closely related to fast cryosphere changes and may cause major threats to human society. Here, we used the sedimentary archive of the Alpine Lake Lauvitel (Lac du Lauvitel; western French Alps) to establish the first long-term avalanche record in this Alpine region. For this purpose, we used a novel CT-scan methodology that allows the precise identification of coarse material – from sand to pebble – transported to the lake and embedded within the finer continuous sedimentation. We identified a total of 166 deposits over the last 3300 yr cal. BP. In parallel, a detailed pollen analysis gave an independent record of environmental changes. Based on modern observation, lake monitoring, seismic investigations and sedimentological evidences, coarse material deposits were attributed to wet avalanche events. Our results highlight the effect of vegetation cover on the avalanche hazard while a period of strong frequency increase occurred after 780 yr cal. BP. In Lake Lauvitel, this period corresponds to a major forest clearance induced by the rise of human land use. Climate forcing on the avalanche hazard was investigated before and after the vegetation shift. On a multicentennial scale, wet avalanches preferably occur during periods of larger glacier extent, in which higher winter precipitation probably generates a sufficiently thick snow cover. On a sub-centennial scale, avalanches are more frequent during periods of relative warming, resulting in a destabilization of the same snow cover in spring season. Our results highlight as well the role of forest cover in mitigating wet snow avalanches' occurrence. In the context of predicted warmer temperatures, this study raises the question of whether a wet avalanche hazard increase may be expected in the near future especially at higher altitudes.
InspirationWall: Supporting Idea Generation Through Automatic Information Exploration

Collaborative idea generation leverages social interactions and knowledge sharing to spark diverse associations and produce creative ideas. Information exploration systems expand the current context by suggesting novel but related concepts. In this paper we introduce InspirationWall, an unobtrusive display that leverages speech recognition and information exploration to enhance an ongoing idea generation session with automatically retrieved concepts that relate to the conversation. We evaluated the system in six idea generation sessions of 20 minutes with small groups of two people. Preliminary results suggest that InspirationWall contrasts the decay of idea productivity over time and can thus represent an effective way to enhance idea generation activities.
Coral-associated viral communities show high levels of diversity and host auxiliary functions

Stony corals (Scleractinia) are marine invertebrates that form the foundation and framework upon which tropical reefs are built. The coral animal associates with a diverse microbiome comprised of dinoflagellate algae and other protists, bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses. Using a metagenomics approach, we analysed the DNA and RNA viral assemblages of seven coral species from the central Great Barrier Reef (GBR), demonstrating that tailed bacteriophages of the Caudovirales dominate across all species examined, and ssDNA viruses, notably the Microviridae, are also prevalent. Most sequences with matches to eukaryotic viruses were assigned to six viral families, including four Nucleocytoplasmic Large DNA Viruses (NCLDVs) families: Iridoviridae, Phycodnaviridae, Mimiviridae, and Poxviridae, as well as Retroviridae and Polydnaviridae. Contrary to previous findings, Herpesvirales were rare in these GBR corals. Sequences of a ssRNA virus with similarities to the dinornavirus, Heterocapsa circularisquama ssRNA virus of the Alvernaviridae that infects free-living dinoflagellates, were observed in three coral species. We also detected viruses previously undescribed from the coral holobiont, including a virus that targets fungi associated with the coral species Acropora tenuis. Functional analysis of the assembled contigs indicated a high prevalence of latency-associated genes in the coral-associated viral assemblages, several host-derived auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) for photosynthesis (psbA, psbD genes encoding the photosystem II D1 and D2 proteins respectively), as well as potential nematocyst toxins and antioxidants (genes encoding green fluorescent-like chromoprotein). This study expands the currently limited knowledge on coral-associated viruses by characterising viral composition and function across seven GBR coral species.
Secure compute-and-forward transmission with artificial noise and full-duplex devices

We consider a wiretap channel with an eavesdropper (Eve) and an honest but curious relay (Ray). Ray and the destination (Bob) are full-duplex (FD) devices. In order to prevent Ray from getting information on the secret message, we consider the scaled compute-and-forward (SCF) where scaled lattice coding is used in the transmission by both the source (Alice) and Bob in order to allow Ray to decode only a linear combination of the two messages. At the same time Ray transmits artificial noise (AN) to confuse Eve. When Ray relays the decoded linear combination, Alice and Bob are transmitting AN against Eve. With respect to existing literature the innovations of this paper are: a) Bob and Ray are FD devices; b) Alice, Ray and Bob transmit also AN; and c) the channel to Eve is not known to Alice, Bob and Ray. For this scenario we derive bounds on both the secrecy outage probability and the achievable secrecy-outage rates.
Eastward propagating decadal temperature variability in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans

The origin and structure of eastward-propagating decadal temperature variability in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans are investigated by using long-term output of coupled general circulation model. Composite analysis during the warm Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) years shows that decadal temperature anomalies in the SWIO region originate in the South Atlantic and are associated with density anomalies. Since the density anomalies propagate at the speed of a few cm s−1, slower than the speed of the background eastward Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and exhibit a surface-intensified equivalent barotropic structure, the eastward propagation of the density anomalies may be attributed to quasi-stationary oceanic Rossby waves. The density anomalies are also accompanied with anomalous Ekman pumping, indicating an important contribution from the overlying atmospheric variability. The role of atmospheric variability is further examined by evaluating the mixed-layer heat balance. It is found that the warm temperature anomalies in the South Atlantic are due to anomalous entrainment and meridional advection. These results suggest that the atmospheric variability plays an important role through the ocean mixed-layer in generating the eastward propagation of decadal temperature variability from the South Atlantic besides the internal ocean variability as suggested in previous studies.
Recombinant Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Does Not Inhibit the Growth of African Trypanosomes in Axenic Cultures

ABSTRACT Mice whose tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) genes were disrupted developed higher levels of parasitemia than wild-type mice following infection with Trypanosoma congolense IL1180 or T. brucei brucei GUTat3.1, confirming the results of earlier studies. To determine whether TNF-α directly affects the growth of these and other bloodstream forms of African trypanosomes, we studied the effects of recombinant mouse, human, and bovine TNF-α on the growth of two isolates of T. congolense, IL1180 and IL3338, and two isolates of T. brucei brucei, GUTat3.1 and ILTat1.1, under axenic culture conditions. The preparations of recombinant TNF-α used were biologically active as determined by their capacity to kill L929 cells. Of five recombinant TNF-α lots tested, one lot of mouse TNF-α inhibited the growth of both isolates of T. brucei brucei and one lot of bovine TNF-α inhibited the growth of T. brucei brucei ILTat1.1 but only at very high concentrations and without causing detectable killing of the parasites. The other lots of mouse recombinant TNF-α, as well as human TNF-α, did not affect the growth of any of the test trypanosomes even at maximal concentrations that could be attained in the culture systems (3,000 to 15,000 U of TNF-α/ml of medium). These results suggest that exogenously added recombinant TNF-α generally does not inhibit the growth of African trypanosomes under the culture conditions we used. The impact of TNF-α on trypanosome parasitemia may be indirect, at least with respect to the four strains of trypanosomes reported here.
TCP Implementation Enhancements for Improving Webserver Performance

This paper studies the performance of BSD-based TCP implementations in Web servers. We find that lack of scalability with respect to high TCP connection rates reduces the throughput of Web servers by up to 25% and imposes a memory overhead of up to 32 MB on the kernel. We also find that insufficient accuracy in TCP’s timers results in overly conservative delays for retransmission timeouts, causing poor response time, low network utilization and throughput loss. The paper proposes enhancements to the TCP implementation that eliminate these problems, without requiring changes to the protocol or the API. We also find that conventional benchmark environments do not fully expose certain significant performance aspects of TCP implementations and propose techniques that allow these benchmarks to more accurately predict the performance of real servers. Keywords—Internet, TCP, Webserver, Timers
Symbolic model checking of hierarchical UML state machines

A compact symbolic encoding is described for the transition relation of systems modeled with asynchronously executing, hierarchical UML state machines that communicate through message passing and attribute access. This enables the analysis of such systems by symbolic model checking techniques, such as BDD-based model checking and SAT-based bounded model checking. Message reception, completion events, and run-to-completion steps are handled in accordance with the UML specification. The size of the encoding for state machine control logic is linear in the size of the state machine even in the presence of composite states, orthogonal regions, and message deferring. The encoding is implemented for the NuSMV model checker, and preliminary experimental results are presented.
Investigating automatic dominance estimation in groups from visual attention and speaking activity

We study the automation of the visual dominance ratio (VDR); a classic measure of displayed dominance in social psychology literature, which combines both gaze and speaking activity cues. The VDR is modified to estimate dominance in multi-party group discussions where natural verbal exchanges are possible and other visual targets such as a table and slide screen are present. Our findings suggest that fully automated versions of these measures can estimate effectively the most dominant person in a meeting and can match the dominance estimation performance when manual labels of visual attention are used.
Randomized trial of adjuvant chemotherapy with mitomycin plus ftorafur versus mitomycin alone in resected locally advanced gastric cancer.

PURPOSE We performed a clinical trial to determine whether postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy with two drugs versus one drug could prolong survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS From 1985 to 1996, 85 patients with completely resected locally advanced gastric cancer were enrolled. The subjects were randomized into two treatment groups, as follows: mitomycin (MMC) 10 to 20 mg/m2 intravenously (i.v.) on day 1 every 6 weeks plus ftorafur (FT) 500 mg/m2/d for 36 consecutive days; or MMC alone, 10 to 20 mg/m2 i.v. every 6 weeks. All courses were repeated four times. RESULTS After a median follow-up duration of 62 months, the overall 5-year survival rates were 67% for the MMC-FT group versus 44% for the MMC group (P = .04). Subgroup analysis to compare survival curves using the method of Mantel-Cox showed survival rates significantly in favor of the MMC-FT group in the subsets of patients with node-negative disease (P = .01) and those whose disease was stage IB or II (P = .008). CONCLUSION Significantly better survival results were observed for MMC-FT versus MMC alone. Subset analysis suggest a strong benefit in patients with node-negative and early-stage resected gastric cancer.
Increase of mean annual surface air temperature in the Western Balkans during last 30 years

Changes in the mean annual air temperature measured at 67 meteorological stations in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia during the last 48 (from 1961 to 2008) and 158 (from 1851 to 2008) years were investigated. Methods of Rescaled Adjusted Partial Sums (RAPS), regression and correlation analyses as well as F- and t-tests are used in order to describe changes in air temperature regimes. The analyses indicated that the most frequently statistically significant changes started in 1988 (at 34 gauging station or 50.7 %) and in 1992 (at 16 gauging station or 23.9 %). It was calculated that the increases of average mean annual air temperatures in period before and after warming is 0.807 oC ranging from the minimum value of -0.11 oC (decreasing) to the maximum value of 1.56 oC (increasing).
A cluster formation protocol for cognitive radio ad hoc networks

In this paper we present a solution for the realization of large Cognitive Radio Networks. The solution features a spectrum-aware neighbor discovery and clustering scheme that works in conjunction with a network coded cognitive control channel in order to allow Cognitive Radio devices to opportunistically access the unused spectrum. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution with respect to the characteristics of the formed clusters as well as the reliability of the dissemination of the control information within the cluster.
Interference management via rate splitting and HARQ over time-varying fading channels

The coexistence of two unlicensed links is considered, where one link interferes with the transmission of the other, over a time-varying, block-fading channel. In the absence of fading, standard information-theoretic results for the scenario at hand prove the sum-rate optimality of single-user detection or joint decoding at the interfered receiver, depending on the instantaneous value of the interference power. These results hinge critically on the presence of full channel state information at some of the nodes. In this paper, the problem is revisited with quasi-static fading and in the absence of channel state information at the nodes by assuming that: (i) HARQ type-I is used at both links; (ii) the channels exhibit Markovian memory over the time-slots; (iii) ACK/ NACK messages of the two HARQ processes are received at the interfering transmitter and used to adapt the current access strategy and transmission parameters. The problem is formulated as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) and a greedy solution is proposed. Numerical results highlight, on the one hand, the differences between the optimal design with or without channel state information and, on the other, the advantages of exploiting channel memory for interference management.
Applying how adults rehearse to understand how rehearsal may develop

We address short-term memory development and the role of covert verbal rehearsal (CVR), the imagined pronunciation of items from a list to be recalled. We suggest insights based on studies of serial and free recall. The research in adults has taken two tacks. (1) Overt rehearsal responses have been elicited to study what CVR strategies may occur, and (2) conditions have been imposed impeding the use CVR, presumably allowing an examination of its effects on recall. There are related lines of developmental research. We evaluate first overt rehearsal and then suppression-of-CVR evidence.
Integrating planning and learning: the PRODIGY architecture

Abstract Planning is a complex reasoning task that is well suited for the study of improving performance and knowledge by learning, i.e. by accumulation and interpretation of planning experience. PRODIGY is an architecture that integrates planning with multiple learning mechanisms. Learning occurs at the planner's decision points and integration in PRODIGY is achieved via mutually interpretable knowledge structures. This article describes the PRODIGY planner, briefly reports on several learning modules developed earlier along the project, and presents in more detail two recently explored methods to learn to generate plans of better quality. We introduce the techniques, illustrate them with comprehensive examples, and show preliminary empirical results. The article also includes a retrospective discussion of the characteristics of the overall PRODIGY architecture and discusses their evolution within the goal of the project of building a large and robust integrated planning and learning system.
Coverage measurement for software application level verification using symbolic trajectory evaluation techniques

Design verification of a systems-on-a-chip is a bottleneck for hardware design projects. A new solution is a design verification methodology that applies coverage driven verification at the embedded software application level. This methodology currently lacks an appropriate coverage measurement technique. This paper proposes a new coverage model for the software application level. Using this coverage model, a novel technique to represent and measure coverage is described. This technique uses ideas such as control graph structures and checking algorithms to estimate the completeness of software application verification.
A Self Configuring System for Object Recognition in Color Images

System MEMORI automatically detects and recognizes rotated and/or rescaled versions of the objects of a database within digital color images with cluttered background. This task is accomplished by means of a region grouping algorithm guided by heuristic rules, whose parameters concern some geometrical properties and the recognition score of the database objects. This paper focuses on the strategies implemented in MEMORI for the estimation of the heuristic rule parameters. This estimation, being automatic, makes the system a highly user-friendly tool. Keywords—Automatic Object Recognition, Clustering, Contentbased Image Retrieval System, Image Segmentation, Region Adjacency Graph, Region Grouping.
Logical Foundations of Negotiation: Strategies and Preferences

This paper is a contribution towards the body of literature which views negotiation in a qualitative light. It builds on an existing logical framework for negotiation between rational, cooperative, truthful agents proposed in (Meyer, Kwok, & Zhang 2003). We show that agents equipped with negotiation strategies corresponding to basic AGM belief revision operations are capable of reaching exactly the permissible deals defined and discussed in (Meyer, Kwok, & Zhang 2003). Each agent has to present a set of weakened demands to the other party who, in return, is obliged to accept all weakened demands. The acceptance of demands is modelled by basic AGM belief revision. We extend the logical framework of (Meyer, Kwok, & Zhang 2003) by considering scenarios in which the initial demand sets of agents may vary. We show that it forces agents to limit their negotiation strategies to AGM belief revision satisfying the supplementary AGM postulates. This leads to the redefinition of a negotiation strategy as a preference relation on demands. This extended framework provides a description of the deals that an agent ought to consider as reasonable, but provides no information on how it should go about choosing a particular deal. We conclude with suggestions on how negotiation strategies can be used to do so.