Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Iron Deposition following Chronic Myocardial Infarction as a Substrate for Cardiac Electrical Anomalies: Initial Findings in a Canine Model

Purpose Iron deposition has been shown to occur following myocardial infarction (MI). We investigated whether such focal iron deposition within chronic MI lead to electrical anomalies. Methods Two groups of dogs (ex-vivo (n = 12) and in-vivo (n = 10)) were studied at 16 weeks post MI. Hearts of animals from ex-vivo group were explanted and sectioned into infarcted and non-infarcted segments. Impedance spectroscopy was used to derive electrical permittivity () and conductivity (). Mass spectrometry was used to classify and characterize tissue sections with (IRON+) and without (IRON-) iron. Animals from in-vivo group underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) for estimation of scar volume (late-gadolinium enhancement, LGE) and iron deposition (T2*) relative to left-ventricular volume. 24-hour electrocardiogram recordings were obtained and used to examine Heart Rate (HR), QT interval (QT), QT corrected for HR (QTc) and QTc dispersion (QTcd). In a fraction of these animals (n = 5), ultra-high resolution electroanatomical mapping (EAM) was performed, co-registered with LGE and T2* CMR and were used to characterize the spatial locations of isolated late potentials (ILPs). Results Compared to IRON- sections, IRON+ sections had higher, but no difference in. A linear relationship was found between iron content and (p<0.001), but not (p = 0.34). Among two groups of animals (Iron (<1.5%) and Iron (>1.5%)) with similar scar volumes (7.28%±1.02% (Iron (<1.5%)) vs 8.35%±2.98% (Iron (>1.5%)), p = 0.51) but markedly different iron volumes (1.12%±0.64% (Iron (<1.5%)) vs 2.47%±0.64% (Iron (>1.5%)), p = 0.02), QT and QTc were elevated and QTcd was decreased in the group with the higher iron volume during the day, night and 24-hour period (p<0.05). EAMs co-registered with CMR images showed a greater tendency for ILPs to emerge from scar regions with iron versus without iron. Conclusion The electrical behavior of infarcted hearts with iron appears to be different from those without iron. Iron within infarcted zones may evolve as an arrhythmogenic substrate in the post MI period.
Adaptive Power Management for Environmentally Powered Systems

Recently, there has been a substantial interest in the design of systems that receive their energy from regenerative sources such as solar cells. In contrast to approaches that minimize the power consumption subject to performance constraints, we are concerned with optimizing the performance of an application while respecting the limited and time-varying amount of available power. In this paper, we address power management of, e.g., wireless sensor nodes which receive their energy from solar cells. Based on a prediction of the future available energy, we adapt parameters of the application in order to maximize the utility in a long-term perspective. The paper presents a formal model of the corresponding optimization problem including constraints concerning buffer sizes, timing, and rates. Instead of solving the optimization problem online which may be prohibitively complex in terms of running time and energy consumption, we apply multiparametric programming to precompute the application parameters offline for different environmental conditions and system states. In order to guarantee sustainable operation, we propose a hierarchical software design which comprises a worst-case prediction of the incoming energy. As a further contribution, we suggest a new method for approximate multiparametric linear programming which substantially lowers the computational demand and memory requirement of the embedded software. Our approaches are evaluated using long-term measurements of solar energy in an outdoor environment.
Musical learning in children and adults with Williams syndrome.

BACKGROUND There is recent interest in using music making as an empirically supported intervention for various neurodevelopmental disorders due to music's engagement of perceptual-motor mapping processes. However, little is known about music learning in populations with developmental disabilities. Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder whose characteristic auditory strengths and visual-spatial weaknesses map onto the processes used to learn to play a musical instrument. METHODS We identified correlates of novel musical instrument learning in WS by teaching 46 children and adults (7-49 years) with WS to play the Appalachian dulcimer. RESULTS Obtained dulcimer skill was associated with prior musical abilities (r = 0.634, P < 0.001) and visual-motor integration abilities (r = 0.487, P = 0.001), but not age, gender, IQ, handedness, auditory sensitivities or musical interest/emotionality. Use of auditory learning strategies, but not visual or instructional strategies, predicted greater dulcimer skill beyond individual musical and visual-motor integration abilities (β = 0.285, sr(2) = 0.06, P = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS These findings map onto behavioural and emerging neural evidence for greater auditory-motor mapping processes in WS. Results suggest that explicit awareness of task-specific learning approaches is important when learning a new skill. Implications for using music with populations with syndrome-specific strengths and weakness will be discussed.
Efficient Data Redistribution to Speedup Big Data Analytics in Large Systems

The performance of parallel data analytics systems becomes increasingly important with the rise of Big Data. An essential operation in such environment is parallel join, which always incurs significant cost on network communication. State-of-the-art approaches have achieved performance improvements over conventional implementations through minimizing network traffic or communication time. However, these approaches still face performance issues in the presence of big data and/or large-scale systems, due to their heavy overhead of data redistribution scheduling. In this paper, we propose near-join, a network-aware redistribution approach targeting to efficiently reduce both network traffic and communication time of join executions. Particularly, near-join is lightweight and adaptable to processing large datasets over large systems. We present the details of our algorithm and its implementation. The experiments performed on a cluster of up to 400 nodes and datasets of about 100GB have demonstrated that our scheduling algorithm is much faster than the state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, our join implementation can also achieve speedups over the conventional approaches.
Analytical and Experimental Comparison of Carrier-Based PWM Methods for the Five-Phase Coupled-Inductor Inverter

The five-phase coupled-inductor inverter is a newly proposed option for three-level five-phase inverter drives. This paper comprehensively analyzes the inverter including the coupled-inductor current, current stress on the dc-link capacitors, and a comparison of these performance aspects using three pulse width modulation (PWM) strategies. Mathematical derivations of the inverter currents and the associated current stress reveal that the current stress is not only influenced by the choice of modulation strategy, as in the neutral-point-clamped topology, but also by the value of coupled inductance; furthermore, the choice of the modulation strategy impacts the core loss of the coupled inductors. Three carrier-based PWM methods are considered: sinusoidal PWM (SPWM), and two methods with the common-mode voltage reduction (referred to as CMVR1 and CMVR2) for the five-phase coupled-inductor inverter. CMVR2 is shown to be the best solution if common-mode voltage reduction is required. The analysis demonstrates that SPWM performs better with respect to current stress and inverter losses, therefore is the preferable modulating strategy for the five-phase coupled-inductor inverter if common-mode voltage reduction is not required. The analysis is verified by simulations and experiments.
The Cytokine IL-6 Reactivates Breast Stromal Fibroblasts through Transcription Factor STAT3-dependent Up-regulation of the RNA-binding Protein AUF1*

Background: Cancer cells activate their microenvironment through secreting several cytokines. Results: The cytokine IL-6 activates breast stromal fibroblasts through STAT3-dependent up-regulation of the RNA binding protein AUF1, which stabilizes the SDF-1, α-SMA, TGF-β1, and IL-6 mRNAs. Conclusion: Up-regulation of AUF1 enhances the procarcinogenic effects of breast stromal fibroblasts. Significance: The IL-6/STAT3/AUF1 pathway could constitute an important prognostic and/or therapeutic target. The development and spread of mammary carcinomas require synergetic interplay between tumor cells and their microenvironment through paracrine secretions, which are still not well defined. We have shown here that interleukin-6 (IL-6), either recombinant or secreted from highly invasive breast cancer cells, down-regulates the tumor suppressor proteins p16INK4A, p21WAF1, and p53 and activates breast stromal fibroblasts in a paracrine manner. The formation of myofibroblasts requires p16INK4A down-regulation and the activation of the JAK2/STAT3 pathway. Indeed, the transcription factor STAT3 positively controls the expression of the three major myofibroblast markers, SDF-1, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and TGF-β1, and mediates IL-6-related down-regulation of p16INK4A, p21WAF1, and p53 as well as the activation of stromal fibroblasts. Importantly, these effects were mediated through STAT3-dependent up-regulation of the mRNA-binding protein AUF1, whose promoter contains three canonical STAT3 binding sites. AUF1 binds the SDF-1, α-SMA, TGF-β1, and IL-6 mRNAs and reduces their turnover. Consequently, specific AUF1 down-regulation inhibits IL-6-dependent activation of breast stromal fibroblasts, whereas AUF1 ectopic expression of p37AUF1 activated these cells and enhanced their paracrine induction of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer cells, which shows a non-cell-autonomous oncogenic function of AUF1. Together, these results demonstrate a major role of IL-6 in activating breast stromal fibroblasts through STAT3-dependent AUF1 induction.
Climate change impacts on the potential distribution of Taxus baccata L. in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Bolkar Mountains (Turkey) from Last Glacial Maximum to the future

The Pleistocene is an important period for assessing the effects of climate change on biological diversity. In the beginning of this period, many tree species disappeared in the flora of Europe, with ongoing, but smaller losses later, and many tree species exhibiting repeated strong range shifts mostly at the end of the period. It is thought that some areas will be more affected from possible climate change. The Mediterranean Basin is the most important among the mentioned sensitive areas. Species with scattered, relict populations in the region would be more affected by future climate change. One such species is Taxus baccata . Taxus baccata , which is distributed throughout the temperate zones of Northern hemisphere, is the only species of Taxus to be naturally distributed in Turkey. Apart from its general dispersal area in the north of Turkey, Taxus baccata is seen in small groups in protected local areas in southern Anatolia. The aim of this study is to determine the potential effects of past and future climate change on the distribution of Taxus baccata in Bolkar Mountains, using species distribution modelling. We studied how the potential distribution has been affected by the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) climate and the subsequent climate shift to the present, and it can be expected to be affected by future climate change, as represented by a range of future climate change scenarios. For this purpose, Maxent is used for determining the distribution of Taxus baccata . Our Maxent model results show that the AUC values are calculated as 0,85 and 0,80 in sequence. Our results show that the Taxus baccata would have found suitable conditions in the Bolkar Mountains area even during the LGM, pointing to this as an important refuge area. With also find that the potential distribution in Kadincik Valley (on the southern slope of Bolkar Mountains) of Taxus baccata has been reduced with the shift to a Holocene climate, and the distribution in Taurus Mountains is likely diminish even further under future climate change. Our results show that Taxus baccata is a cool-climate relict in southern Turkey and that its distribution is likely to come under further pressure from future climate change. This situation is likely shared with many other temperate plant species persisting with small populations in mountain areas in the region.
A discriminative approach to phrase break modelling

We address the problem of predicting pauses between the words in a sentence, which is of considerable interest for text to speech systems. In doing so, we show that the performance of both a generative classifier (naive Bayes, NB) and a discriminative classifier (maximum entropy, ME) can be significantly enhanced by application of the generalised probabilistic descent (GPD) algorithm. The features used for prediction of pauses in sentences are both local (derived from the neighbourhood of a word juncture) and global (derived from a parse tree of the sentence). We first compare the results of using the NB and ME classifiers on these features, and then develop the theory required for applying GPD to these classifiers. We show that GPD is particularly suitable for application within the maximum entropy framework and increases very significantly the discriminative power of both the NB and ME classifiers. The F-score of 81.2% obtained after application of GPD to an ME classifier is believed to be the best performance obtained on the Boston Radio Corpus.
Finding bugs in exceptional situations of JNI programs

Software flaws in native methods may defeat Java's guarantees of safety and security. One common kind of flaws in native methods results from the discrepancy on how exceptions are handled in Java and in native methods. Unlike exceptions in Java, exceptions raised in the native code through the Java Native Interface (JNI) are not controlled by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Only after the native code finishes execution will the JVM's mechanism for exceptions take over. This discrepancy makes handling of JNI exceptions an error prone process and can cause serious security flaws in software written using the JNI. We propose a novel static analysis framework to examine exceptions and report errors in JNI programs. We have built a complete tool consisting of exception analysis, static taint analysis, and warning recovery. Experimental results demonstrated this tool allows finding of mishandling of exceptions with high accuracy (15.4% false-positive rate on over 260k lines of code). Our framework can be easily applied to analyzing software written in other foreign function interfaces, including the Python/C interface and the OCaml/C interface.
Methods in Neuroendocrine Histopathology, A Methodological Overview

Light microscopy is still the main tool in diagnostic histopathology, though it does not always lead to a definitive diagnosis. It has therefore been a constant ambition to develop methods which can add further information to the diagnosis. In endocrine pathology, a major problem has been to distinguish between neuroendocrine and non-neuroendocrine tumours. The silver stains, such as the Bodian, Grimelius and Sevier-Munger methods, were the first useful “general neuroendocrine” markers. Electron microscopy can also be useful for identifying neuroendocrine tumours. A further step forward was the introduction of histochemical fluorescence methods, as these could identify biogenic amines. With the introduction of immunohistochemical techniques, tumours could be characterized in a more specific way regarding peptide hormones and biogenic amines content, proliferation factors, hormone receptors, etc. Another method, DNA cytometry, has been used mainly in predicting the prognosis. In situ hybridization can be a useful complement to the histopathological diagnosis when other methods have failed to demonstrate the neuroendocrine nature of the tumour. Some endocrine tumours, especially the well-differentiated ones, still cause diagnostic problems in predicting tumour behaviour, why further complementary methods would be of great value.
Graph-driven Exploration of Relational Databases for Efficient Keyword Search

Keyword-based search is becoming the standard way to access any kind of information and it is considered today an important add-on of relational database management systems. The approaches to keyword search over relational data usually rely on a two-step strategy in which, first, tree-shaped answers are built by connecting tuples matching the given keywords and, then, potential answers are ranked according to some relevance criteria. In this paper, we illustrate a novel technique to this problem that aims, rather, at generating directly the best answers. This is done by representing relational data as graph and by combining progressively the shortest join paths that involve the tuples relevant to the query. We show that, in this way, answers are retrieved in order of relevance and can be then returned as soon as they are built. The approach does not require the materialization of ad-hoc data structures and avoids the execution of unnecessary queries. A comprehensive evaluation demonstrates that our solution strongly reduces the complexity of the process and guarantees, at the same time, an high level of accuracy.
A Model-Based Approach for Reconciliation of Polychronous Execution Traces

Embedded systems are very difficult to design and debug because of the limited access to the device itself. Therefore, debugging usually requires to instrument the code so as to produce execution traces that are then monitored from a base station. Such an intrusive method has a direct impact on performances. In case of multiple interacting embedded targets the problem is even more severe and is not limited to computations but also spreads to communications. To reduce the communication overhead, we propose an approach in which unsynchronized traces from several targets are reconciled a posteriori. Since each target has its own time base without a built-in clock synchronization protocol, our approach requires a multi-clock reconciliation specification. This paper describes our model-based proposal developed during the ANR project RT-Simex. The different steps of the reconciliation are illustrated on a simple case-study used in the project, a terrestrial robot controlled in position.
Biomechanical analysis of subjective pinching effort based on tendon-skeletal model

In this paper, the influence of the finger posture on the subjective effort during pinching motion is investigated by using a tendon-skeletal finger model. The experimental results show that the subjective effort human feels is affected by the size of the object he/she pinches, and the subjective effort correlates with the finger length. The simulation results show that the pattern of the tendon forces is similar to that of the EMG activity measured in the experiment, and the positive correlation was observed between the finger length and the object size where the summation of the tendon forces becomes the minimum. These results suggest that the reason why subjective pinching effort is influenced by the finger posture is the difference in the efficiency of the force transmission from the muscles.
The Emergence of Devastating Impulse Control Disorders During Dopamine Agonist Therapy of the Restless Legs Syndrome

Introduction:The Restless Legs Syndrome is a common sensorimotor disorder, typically amenable to treatment with dopamine agonist therapy. Dopamine agonists have been associated with emergent impulse control disorders (ICDs) when used in patients with Parkinson disease, and ICDs have now been reported in individuals with RLS on dopamine agonist therapy. Our aim was to characterize cases of emergent ICDs in Australian patients with focus on the dopamine agonists implicated and the social significance of ICDs. Method:A series of RLS patients on dopamine agonist therapy were identified with ICDs over a 2-year period. Additional cases of ICDs were found using a mailout questionnaire designed to capture those with high impulsivity. These patients were assessed using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Version 11, and a modified Minnesota Impulse Disorders Interview. Case records and medication schedules were evaluated. Results:Twelve cases of patients with de novo ICDs were found with a range of impulsive behaviors including pathological gambling, kleptomania, compulsive shopping, and hypersexuality. Criminality, suicidality, and marital discord also were featured. These occurred over a wide range of latencies and l-dopa exposures. Discussion:This group of Australian RLS patients with ICDs display high levels of impulsivity and is the first to use the BIS-11 questionnaire in this setting. Impulse control disorders can occur over a wide range of dopamine agonist therapy types and dose exposures. Impulse control disorder tendencies may persist, despite withdrawal of dopamine agonists. The emergence of ICDs needs careful consideration in light of their potentially devastating financial, social, and marital consequences.
Interpolation-based incremental ECO synthesis for multi-error logic rectification

To cope with last-minute design bugs and specification changes, engineering change order (ECO) is usually performed toward the end of the design process. This paper proposes an automatic ECO synthesis algorithm by interpolation. In particular, we tackle the problem by a series of partial rectifications. At each step, partial rectification can reduce the functional difference between an old implementation and a new specification. Our algorithm is especially effective for multiple error circuits. Experimental results show the proposed method is far superior to the most recent work and scales well on a set of large circuits.
Three-dimensional histology: tools and application to quantitative assessment of cell-type distribution in rabbit heart

Aims Cardiac histo-anatomical organization is a major determinant of function. Changes in tissue structure are a relevant factor in normal and disease development, and form targets of therapeutic interventions. The purpose of this study was to test tools aimed to allow quantitative assessment of cell-type distribution from large histology and magnetic resonance imaging- (MRI) based datasets. Methods and results Rabbit heart fixation during cardioplegic arrest and MRI were followed by serial sectioning of the whole heart and light-microscopic imaging of trichrome-stained tissue. Segmentation techniques developed specifically for this project were applied to segment myocardial tissue in the MRI and histology datasets. In addition, histology slices were segmented into myocytes, connective tissue, and undefined. A bounding surface, containing the whole heart, was established for both MRI and histology. Volumes contained in the bounding surface (called ‘anatomical volume’), as well as that identified as containing any of the above tissue categories (called ‘morphological volume’), were calculated. The anatomical volume was 7.8 cm3 in MRI, and this reduced to 4.9 cm3 after histological processing, representing an ‘anatomical’ shrinkage by 37.2%. The morphological volume decreased by 48% between MRI and histology, highlighting the presence of additional tissue-level shrinkage (e.g. an increase in interstitial cleft space). The ratio of pixels classified as containing myocytes to pixels identified as non-myocytes was roughly 6:1 (61.6 vs. 9.8%; the remaining fraction of 28.6% was ‘undefined’). Conclusion Qualitative and quantitative differentiation between myocytes and connective tissue, using state-of-the-art high-resolution serial histology techniques, allows identification of cell-type distribution in whole-heart datasets. Comparison with MRI illustrates a pronounced reduction in anatomical and morphological volumes during histology processing.