Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Noise-Free Visualization of Microscopic Calcium Signaling by Pixel-Wise Fitting

Rationale: Our insights into physiological and pathophysiological cardiac excitation-contraction coupling has greatly benefited from significant advancement in optical technologies such as high-speed confocal microscopy. This has pushed pixel dwell times into the time domain of nanoseconds, resulting in low signal-to-noise ratios, which have limited data analysis and interpretation. Objective: Line scan imaging has been and still is dominant in high speed confocal recording. It allows analysis only of a small fraction of a cell's cross section (1.5%), but the appreciation of spatiotemporal fine details of excitation-contraction coupling is instrumental for the further understanding of pathological mechanisms. We aim to provide a novel analysis tool to extract otherwise hidden fine details in cardiac excitation-contraction coupling from high-speed 2-dimensional confocal image series. Methods and Results: We demonstrate that high-speed 2-dimensional confocal data (150 frames/s) can be analyzed quantitatively by a pixel-wise fitting approach, using a mathematical formalism to phenomenologically describe local calcium transients. Such an approach produces virtually noise-free fluorescence data originating from minute volumes (0.025 femtoliter) and allows extraction of detailed and most importantly quantitative and mechanistically novel information on microscopic calcium signaling and excitation-contraction coupling in a robust manner. Conclusions: Pixel-wise fitting provides novel insights into cardiac excitation-contraction coupling. Specifically, it revealed microscopic calcium alternans on the level of individual coupling sites. Microscopic calcium alternans is an early precursor of cellular alternans and as such will shed more light onto this mechanism leading to cardiac arrhythmia.
The GENNID Study: A resource for mapping the genes that cause NIDDM

OBJECTIVE To develop a resource, consisting of comprehensive data and lymphoblastoid cell lines, of well-characterized NIDDM families that will be available to the scientific community for genetic studies of NIDDM. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, African-American, and Japanese-American multiplex NIDDM families, with a minimum of one affected sib-pair, are being collected by the eight Harold Rifkin Family Acquisition Centers. Detailed family and medical histories are obtained from all participants. Family members with diabetes have fasting blood samples drawn, while nondiabetic family members have an oral glucose tolerance test and, when possible, insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion measurements by frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance testing or euglycemic insulin clamp. Lymphoblastoid cell lines are established for all participants. RESULTS Over 1,400 individuals from ∼220 families have been studied since the start of the GENNID (Genetics of NIDDM) program in July 1993. The goal is that by July 1997, data from 300 non-Hispanic white families, > 100 Hispanic families, > 100 African-American families, and 15 Japanese-American families will have been collected. CONCLUSIONS The identification of the genes responsible for NIDDM may now be achievable, but only if sound phenotypic data are linked to genetic material from a large number of well-described multiplex families. The GENNID project of the American Diabetes Association is creating a comprehensive resource that will expedite the identification of the genetic basis of NIDDM.
Distributed control: A sequentially semi-separable approach

We consider the problem of designing controllers for spatially-varying interconnected systems distributed in one spatial dimension. The matrix structure of such systems can be exploited to allow fast analysis and design of centralized controllers with simple distributed implementations. Iterative algorithms are provided for stability analysis, H2 analysis, and sub-optimal controller synthesis. For practical implementation of the algorithms, approximations can be used, and the computational efficiency and accuracy of the algorithms incorporating these approximations are demonstrated on an example.
Automatic Feature Construction and Optimization for General Game Player

In this paper, we describe our method that automatically constructs evaluation functions without any human analysis of a target game. Such automated constriction of evaluation functions is crucial to develop a general game player that can learn and play an arbitrary instance of a certain class of games. Our approach is to construct features written in logic programs from the game definition and translate them into specialized evaluator in order to get such efficiency that learning methods can try and test so many features that it produces accurate evaluation functions. We also introduced the decomposition of logical features called thin features in order to improve both accuracy and efficiency. Experiments on Othello endgames show that the accuracy and efficiency of evaluation functions generated by our method are approaching to those of the patten based evaluation function which is the state-of-the-art technique. keywords: automatic feature construction, logical feature
On the determination of cystine as cysteic acid.

In the procedure of Schram, Moore, and Bigwood (1) for the determination of the cystine plus cysteine content of a protein, the directions for the concentration of the reaction mixture need to be followed explicitly in order to avoid overoxidation. The addition of a reducing agent to destroy the excess performic acid before the concentration step would seem appropriate if the reductant would have no deleterious effect on the subsequent acid hydrolysis or the chromatographic determination of cysteic acid. We have tested a number of reducing agents for this purpose. The most generally useful results have been obtained with HBr. The bromine formed is volatile and can be rapidly removed from the reaction mixture under reduced pressure. Bromine itself is an effective reagent for oxidizing cystine to cysteic acid, yet Thompson (2) found that with proteins he could not obtain high yields of cysteic acid by bromine oxidation. The data indicated, however, that if performic acid were used for the initial reaction, the subsequent brief exposure of cysteic acid residues to bromine would not be likely to be detrimental. The present experiments started from this premise. Methionine sulfone is more sensitive to overoxidation by performic acid than is cysteic acid.1 The yield of methionine sulfone can be improved by removing the performic acid by lyophilization rather than by rotary evaporation. The use of HBr, however, has invariably permitted quantitative yields of methionine sulfone. The present procedure thus provides a method for determining both cystine plus cysteine and methionine as their oxidation products. The determination, as was the earlier one (l), is also fully applicable to carbohydratecontaining samples.
Microstructure from simulated Brownian suspension flows at large shear rate

Pair microstructure of concentrated Brownian suspensions in simple-shear flow is studied by sampling of configurations from dynamic simulations by the Stokesian Dynamics technique. Simulated motions are three dimensional with periodic boundary conditions to mimic an infinitely extended suspension. Hydrodynamic interactions through Newtonian fluid and Brownian motion are the only physical influences upon the motion of the monodisperse hard-sphere particles. The dimensionless parameters characterizing the suspension are the particle volume fraction and Peclet number, defined, respectively, as φ=(4π/3)na3 with n the number density and a the sphere radius, and Pe=6πηγa3/kT with η the fluid viscosity, γ the shear rate, and kT the thermal energy. The majority of the results reported are from simulations at Pe=1000; results of simulations at Pe=1, 25, and 100 are also reported for φ=0.3 and φ=0.45. The pair structure is characterized by the pair distribution function, g(r)=P1|1(r)/n, where P1|1(r) is the condi.
Impact of Critical Limb Ischemia on Long-Term Cardiac Mortality in Diabetic Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Revascularization

OBJECTIVE Development of critical limb ischemia (CLI) has been reported as an independent predictor of cardiac mortality in diabetic patients. We aimed to determine whether CLI, managed in a structured setting of close collaboration between different vascular specialists and treated with early endovascular intervention, has any impact on long-term cardiac mortality of diabetic patients initially presenting with symptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We designed a prospective observational study of 764 consecutive diabetic patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in whom development of CLI was assessed by a dedicated diabetic foot clinic. Cardiac mortality at 4-year follow-up was the primary end point of the study. RESULTS Among the 764 patients, 111 (14%) developed CLI (PCI-CLI group) and underwent revascularization of 145 limbs, with procedural success in 140 (96%). PCI-CLI patients at baseline had lower left ventricular ejection fraction (51 ± 11% vs. 53 ± 10%, P = 0.008), higher prevalence of dialysis (7% vs. 0.3%, P < 0.0001), and longer diabetes duration (13 ± 8 vs. 11 ± 7 years, P = 0.02) compared with PCI-only patients. At 4-year follow-up, cardiac mortality occurred in 10 (9%) PCI-CLI patients vs. 42 (6%) PCI-only patients (P = 0.2). Time-dependent Cox regression model for cardiac death revealed that CLI was not associated with an increased risk of cardiac mortality (hazard ratio 1.08 [95% CI 0.89–3.85]; P = 0.1). CONCLUSIONS The development of promptly assessed and aggressively treated CLI was not significantly associated with increased risk of long-term cardiac mortality in diabetic patients initially presenting with symptomatic CAD.
Radiative Effects of Secondary Ice Enhancement in Coastal Antarctic Clouds

Secondary ice production (SIP) commonly occurs in coastal Antarctic stratocumulus, affecting their ice number concentrations (Nice) and radiative properties. However, SIP is poorly understood and crudely parametrized in models. By evaluating how well SIP is captured in a cloud‐resolving model, with a high‐resolution nest within a parent domain, we test how an improved comparison with aircraft observations affects the modeled cloud radiative properties. Under the assumption that primary ice is suitably represented by the model, we must enhance SIP by up to an order of magnitude to simulate observed Nice. Over the nest, a surface warming trend accompanied the SIP increase; however, this trend was not captured by the parent domain over the same region. Our results suggest that the radiative properties of microphysical features resolved in high‐resolution nested domains may not be captured by coarser domains, with implications for large‐scale radiative balance studies over the Antarctic continent.
Performance enhancement of IEEE 802.11p system using a novel channel estimation scheme

Vehicular channels are among the most challenging wireless channels due to its high time varying characteristics. However, in the IEEE 802.11p standard which designed for vehicle to vehicle (VTV) communication, the preamble based channel estimation scheme cannot guarantee a desirable equalization under urban and highway scenarios. In this paper, we first propose a novel channel estimation scheme which focus on both BER and PER improvement of IEEE 802.11p. Our scheme exploits the time domain correlation of the data pilots reconstructed by the Viterbi decoded bits and builds a reliable data pilots set (RDPS), then the frequency domain interpolation is applied to RDPS to complete the channel estimation which exploiting the frequency domain correlation of VTV channel. Furthermore, to improve the performance of IEEE 802.11p in highway scenarios, we propose a novel receiver design which combine our channel estimation scheme and spatial diversity in frequency domain to combat fast fading. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance improvement of the proposed channel estimation scheme and excellent adaptability of our spatial diversity receiver design under highway scenarios.
Canine-assisted Detection Humanitarian Landmine Detection Needs

Buried landmines are difficult to find because they are designed for concealment. These small, low-tech devices appear with a wide variety of designs and materials of construction, and can barely be differentiated from stones, roots, and scrap material in the ground. Yet, they always contain an explosive—most typically, TNT. The simplicity of landmines is thus the greatest challenge for those researchers attempting to develop new or improved methods for detection.
An L-band 5-bit differential active phase shifter utilizing a phase shifting performance of RC filter circuits

An L-band 5-bit differential active phase shifter using a phase shifting performance of RC filter circuits is presented. It employs R or RC filter circuits in the series feedback loop of the differential amplifiers and achieves 90°, 45°, 22.5°, and 11.25° of phase shift by switching on and off the R or RC filter circuits alternatively. On the other hand, a 180° of phase shift is achieved with the use of a phase difference between the differential outputs. By cascading all five bits, an insertion gain of 13 to 19 dB and an RMS phase error of 7.2° have been achieved at 1 GHz.
Nitric oxide from inflammatory origin impairs neural stem cell proliferation by inhibiting epidermal growth factor receptor signaling

Neuroinflammation is characterized by activation of microglial cells, followed by production of nitric oxide (NO), which may have different outcomes on neurogenesis, favoring or inhibiting this process. In the present study, we investigated how the inflammatory mediator NO can affect proliferation of neural stem cells (NSCs), and explored possible mechanisms underlying this effect. We investigated which mechanisms are involved in the regulation of NSC proliferation following treatment with an inflammatory stimulus (lipopolysaccharide plus IFN-γ), using a culture system of subventricular zone (SVZ)-derived NSCs mixed with microglia cells obtained from wild-type mice (iNOS+/+) or from iNOS knockout mice (iNOS-/-). We found an impairment of NSC cell proliferation in iNOS+/+ mixed cultures, which was not observed in iNOS-/- mixed cultures. Furthermore, the increased release of NO by activated iNOS+/+ microglial cells decreased the activation of the ERK/MAPK signaling pathway, which was concomitant with an enhanced nitration of the EGF receptor. Preventing nitrogen reactive species formation with MnTBAP, a scavenger of peroxynitrite (ONOO-), or using the ONOO- degradation catalyst FeTMPyP, cell proliferation and ERK signaling were restored to basal levels in iNOS+/+ mixed cultures. Moreover, exposure to the NO donor NOC-18 (100 μM), for 48 h, inhibited SVZ-derived NSC proliferation. Regarding the antiproliferative effect of NO, we found that NOC-18 caused the impairment of signaling through the ERK/MAPK pathway, which may be related to increased nitration of the EGF receptor in NSC. Using MnTBAP nitration was prevented, maintaining ERK signaling, rescuing NSC proliferation. We show that NO from inflammatory origin leads to a decreased function of the EGF receptor, which compromised proliferation of NSC. We also demonstrated that NO-mediated nitration of the EGF receptor caused a decrease in its phosphorylation, thus preventing regular proliferation signaling through the ERK/MAPK pathway.
Relatively complete counterexamples for higher-order programs

In this paper, we study the problem of generating inputs to a higher-order program causing it to error. We first approach the problem in the setting of PCF, a typed, core functional language and contribute the first relatively complete method for constructing counterexamples for PCF programs. The method is relatively complete with respect to a first-order solver over the base types of PCF. In practice, this means an SMT solver can be used for the effective, automated generation of higher-order counterexamples for a large class of programs. We achieve this result by employing a novel form of symbolic execution for higher-order programs. The remarkable aspect of this symbolic execution is that even though symbolic higher-order inputs and values are considered, the path condition remains a first-order formula. Our handling of symbolic function application enables the reconstruction of higher-order counterexamples from this first-order formula. After establishing our main theoretical results, we sketch how to apply the approach to untyped, higher-order, stateful languages with first-class contracts and show how counterexample generation can be used to detect contract violations in this setting. To validate our approach, we implement a tool generating counterexamples for erroneous modules written in Racket.
Access to Higher Education and Inequality: The Chinese Experiment

We apply a semi-parametric latent variable model to estimate selection and sorting effects on the evolution of private returns to schooling for college graduates during China's reform between 1988 and 2002. We find that there were substantial sorting gains under the traditional system, but they have decreased drastically and are negligible in the most recent data. We take this as evidence of growing influence of private financial constraints on decisions to attend college as tuition costs have risen and the relative importance of government subsidies has declined. The main policy implication of our results is that labor and education reform without concomitant capital market reform and government support for the financially disadvantaged exacerbates increases in inequality inherent in elimination of the traditional "wage-grid. "
Super-twisting sliding mode control of synchronous motors

Based on a nonlinear complete order model of a synchronous motor, a robust second order sliding mode observer based control scheme is proposed. To design this scheme a super-twisting sliding mode control and adaptive backstepping techniques, are implemented. A nonlinear reduced order observer is designed for estimation of the rotor fluxes. The simulation result shows the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Copyright © 2012 CCE.
3 0 N ov 2 00 1 Is Tsallis thermodynamics nonextensive ?

Within the Tsallis thermodynamics’ framework, and using scaling properties of the entropy, we derive a generalization of the Gibbs-Duhem equation. The analysis suggests a transformation of variables that allows standard thermodynamics to be recovered. Moreover, we also generalize Einstein’s formula for the probability of a fluctuation to occur by means of the maximum statistical entropy method. The use of the proposed transformation of variables also shows that fluctuations within Tsallis statistics can be mapped to those of standard statistical mechanics.
Stepwise Development of Peer-to-Peer Systems

Peer-to-peer systems like Napster, Gnutella and Kazaa have recently become popular for sharing information. In this paper, we show how to design peer-to-peer systems within the action systems framework by combining UML diagrams. We present our approach via a case study of stepwise development of a Gnutella-like peer-to-peer system.
Earnings Precision and the Relations Between Earnings and Returns *

Formal and heuristic valuation models suggest that changes in firm value associated with a revision in expected earnings should be a multiple on the order of typical earnings capitalization factors between 10 and 30. However, empirical estimates of the earnings response coefficient (ERC) have usually been in a range an order of magnitude lower, between 1 and 3 (Kothari 2001). This paper uses a simple Bayesian model to integrate previous theoretical and empirical results and bridge this large gap. In the Bayesian model, the relative weight on new versus prior information depends on the relative precision of new information versus prior information. Thus, the Bayesian concept of relative precision captures the extent to which new earnings information causes revisions in existing beliefs about expected future earnings. When the precision of new earnings information is high, the revision in expected earnings approaches the earnings surprise, so the coefficient on earnings surprise approaches the earnings capitalization factor that applies to expected earnings. However, when the precision of new information is low, the revision in expected earnings is much smaller than the earnings surprise, so the coefficient on earnings surprise is much smaller than the earnings capitalization factor. We show that two proxies for precision, magnitude of earnings surprise (an ex post proxy) and forecast dispersion (an ex ante proxy), jointly explain a broad empirical range of relations between earnings surprise and returns. We also show how a minority of relations with low precision and small surprise coefficients combined with a majority of relations with much higher precision and larger surprise coefficients yield the typically low empirical estimates of the ERC. Finally, we demonstrate how the precision proxies can be used to design tests that focus on the majority of observations with larger surprise coefficients and thereby allow researchers to detect the effect of determinants of surprise coefficients that would otherwise be empirically undetectable. JEL classification: G14, M40
Unequal hopes and lives in the U.S.: Optimism (or Lack Thereof), Race, and Premature Mortality

The 2016 election highlighted deep social and political divisions in the United States, and related unhappiness and frustration among poor and uneducated whites. We find large heterogeneities in optimism across race groups. After controlling for individual characteristics, African Americans are by far the most optimistic, while whites and Asian Americans are the least optimistic, and these differences are largest among low-income groups. When adding a rural/urban dimension, we found that poor rural whites are the least hopeful among the poor. African Americans and Hispanics also display higher life satisfaction and lower stress incidence than do poor whites. The gaps between African Americans and whites tend to be at their peak in middle age (45-54 and 55-64 year olds). We also explored the association between our detailed data on subjective well-being with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality rate data at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level. Our results suggest that the absence of hope, which relates to fears about downward mobility among poor and middle-class whites, matches the trends in premature mortality among 45-54 year olds of the same cohorts and in the same places. MSAs with a higher percentage of African-American respondents, which are typically urban and ethnically diverse, tend to be healthier, happier, and more optimistic about the future. We also discuss the mediating effects of reported pain, reliance on disability insurance, and differential levels of resilience across blacks, Hispanics, and whites. These trends constitute a social crisis of proportions that we do not fully understand. We highlight the importance of documenting the extent of the crisis and exploring its causes as a step toward finding solutions in the safety net, health, education, and well-being arenas.