Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vocal Tract Length Perception and the Evolution of Language

The length of the vocal tract is correlated with body size and determines the overall dispersion of formant frequencies in speech. In this thesis I explore the interconnections between vocal tract length, formant dispersion and perceived body size. I used computer-synthesized vowel sounds to show that human subjects use vocal tract length (along with other cues) to gauge the relative body size of a speaker. Vocal tract length assessment may play an important role in " vocal tract normalization " , which is crucial for speech perception and language acquisition: listeners must adjust for size differences between speakers' vocal tracts to accurately perceive speech. A second set of experiments used synthesized vowels to show that the lengthening of the vocal tract accompanying the production of [u] (" boot ") vs. [i] (" beet ") is perceived by human listeners as an increase in apparent size. This may explain the long-noted phenomenon of " phonetic symbolism " for size in many languages: diminutives and words for small things contain [i], while words for " large " contain [o] or [u], far more often than predicted by chance. A control experiment showed that the phenomenon is not due to other acoustic factors or to conventional linguistic associations. Non-human primates may also use formant dispersion as a cue to body size. If animals use vocal tract length to gauge the size of a vocalizer, we might expect them to lengthen the vocal tract in situations where it would be advantageous to seem larger (e.g., during aggressive interactions). Video analysis of captive saki monkeys (Pithecia pithecia) showed that they used lip protrusion, which lengthens the vocal tract, during behaviors accompanied by fur erection, which increases their visually-apparent size. These data, along with much of the bioacoustics literature, suggest that non-humans also use vocal tract length as a cue to body size, and may explain the origin of the primate " fear grimace " and human smile. The framework developed in this thesis provides a unifying theoretical structure within which to empirically investigate important relationships between animal communication systems and human language.
Behavioral / Systems / Cognitive Functional Specialization in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Morgan D. Barense,1 Timothy J. Bussey,2 Andy C. H. Lee,1 Timothy T. Rogers,1 R. Rhys Davies,3 Lisa M. Saksida,2 Elisabeth A. Murray,4 and Kim S. Graham1 1Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 2EF, United Kingdom, 2Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom, 3Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, United Kingdom, and 4Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Safety versus Secrecy (Invited Paper)

Safety and secrecy are formulated for a deterministic pro- gramming language. A safety property is dened as a set of program traces and secrecy is dened as a binary relation on traces, character- izing a form of Noninterference. Safety properties may have sound and complete execution monitors whereas secrecy has no such monitor.
The Intersection of Massage Practice and Research: Community Massage Therapists as Research Personnel on an NIH-funded Effectiveness Study

Introduction Few NIH funded studies give community massage therapists the opportunity to become study personnel. A recent NIH/NCCAM-funded study investigating chronic low back pain (CLBP) recruited, trained, and utilized community massage practitioners (CMPs) as study personnel. This study’s aim was to determine whether health-related outcomes for CLBP improve when patients are referred from primary care to select CAM modalities including massage therapy (MT). The purpose of this paper is to report the results of the study’s three massage practice-driven study objectives which were to: 1) identify challenges and solutions to recruiting and retaining ample CMPs, 2) develop a practice-informed protocol reflecting real-world MT, and 3) determine the extent to which CMPs comply with rigorous research methodology in their clinical practices as study personnel. Methods Eligible CMPs in urban and rural Kentucky counties were identified through licensure board records, professional organizations, and personal contact opportunities. Interested CMPs completed 6 CE hours of research and Human Subjects Protection training and agreed to comply with a study protocol reflecting MT as practiced. Once trained, study CMPs were matched with study participants to provide and document up to 10 MT sessions per participant. Results Utilizing prominent MT community members proved invaluable to CMP recruitment and protocol development. CMP recruitment challenges included mixed interest, low number of available rural CMPs, busy clinic schedules, and compensation. Ethics CE credits were offered to encourage CMP interest. A total of 28 Kentucky licensed massage therapists with 5–32 years of experience completed study training. A total of 127 CLBP patients consented to participate (n = 104 for MT). Twenty-five CMPs were assigned CLBP patients and provided 1–10 treatments for 94 study participants. Treatment documentation was provided by CMPs for 97% of treatments provided. Conclusions When recruitment, retention, and protocol compliance challenges are met, CMPs are valuable study personnel for practice-based research reflecting real-world MT practice.
Vinpocetine inhibits NF-κB–dependent inflammation via an IKK-dependent but PDE-independent mechanism

Inflammation is a hallmark of many diseases, such as atherosclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arthritis, infectious diseases, and cancer. Although steroids and cyclooxygenase inhibitors are effective antiinflammatory therapeutical agents, they may cause serious side effects. Therefore, developing unique antiinflammatory agents without significant adverse effects is urgently needed. Vinpocetine, a derivative of the alkaloid vincamine, has long been used for cerebrovascular disorders and cognitive impairment. Its role in inhibiting inflammation, however, remains unexplored. Here, we show that vinpocetine acts as an antiinflammatory agent in vitro and in vivo. In particular, vinpocetine inhibits TNF-α–induced NF-κB activation and the subsequent induction of proinflammatory mediators in multiple cell types, including vascular smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, macrophages, and epithelial cells. We also show that vinpocetine inhibits monocyte adhesion and chemotaxis, which are critical processes during inflammation. Moreover, vinpocetine potently inhibits TNF-α- or LPS-induced up-regulation of proinflammatory mediators, including TNF-α, IL-1β, and macrophage inflammatory protein-2, and decreases interstitial infiltration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes in a mouse model of TNF-α- or LPS-induced lung inflammation. Interestingly, vinpocetine inhibits NF-κB–dependent inflammatory responses by directly targeting IKK, independent of its well-known inhibitory effects on phosphodiesterase and Ca2+ regulation. These studies thus identify vinpocetine as a unique antiinflammatory agent that may be repositioned for the treatment of many inflammatory diseases.
Hybrid particle swarm optimization and semi-supervised extreme learning machine for cellular network localization

The research of localization technology based on received signal strength and machine learning has recently attracted a lot of attentions, since with the help of enough labeled training data this technology is able to achieve high positioning accuracy. However, it is an expensive job to collect enough labeled training data in the broad outdoor space. In order to reduce the cost of building and maintaining training database, semi-supervised extreme learning machine is applied to solve the cellular network localization in this article. However, the performance of this algorithm is sensitive to the values of the hyper parameters. Without any systematic guidance, the optimal hyper parameters can only be selected by experienced workers through trial and error. To address this problem, we propose a novel algorithm by combining particle swarm optimization and semi-supervised extreme learning machine to automatically select the optimal hyper parameters of semi-supervised extreme learning machine in this article. The experiments demonstrate that applying particle swarm optimization in our optimization framework makes the hyper parameters of semi-supervised extreme learning machine algorithm self-adaptive in different conditions. Moreover, the proposed method is more stable than the general semi-supervised extreme learning machine and outperforms other compared methods.
Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte-Mediated Lysis ofToxoplasma gondii-Infected Target Cells Does Not Lead to Death of Intracellular Parasites

ABSTRACT CD8+ T cells play a crucial role in the control of infection with intracellular microbes. The mechanisms underlying the CD8+ T-cell-mediated clearance of the intracellular pathogen Toxoplasma gondii are, however, not completely understood. The effect of CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated lysis of host cells on the viability of intracellular T. gondii was investigated. Quantitative competitive PCR of the gene encoding T. gondii major surface antigen (SAG-1) was combined with treatment of the parasites with DNase, which removed the DNA template of nonviable parasites. The induction by CD8+ CTLs of apoptosis in cells infected withT. gondii did not result in the reduction of live parasites, indicating that intracellular T. gondii remains alive after lysis of host cells by CTLs.
Leveraging Open-Source Communities To Improve the Quality & Performance of Open-Source Software

Open-source development processes have emerged as an effective approach to reduce cycle-time and decrease design, implementation, and quality assurance costs for certain types of software, particularly systems infrastructure software, such as operating systems, compilers and language processing tools, editors, and distribution middleware. This paper presents two contributions to the study of open-source software engineering. First, we describe the key challenges of open-source software, such as controlling long-term maintenance and evolution costs, ensuring acceptable levels of quality, sustaining end-user confidence and good will, and ensuring the coherency of system-wide software and usability properties. We illustrate how well-organized open-source projects make it easier to address many of these challenges compared with traditional closedsource approaches to building software. Second, we present the goals and methodology of the Skoll project, which focuses on developing and empirically validating novel open-source software quality assurance and optimization techniques to resolve key open-source challenges. We summarize the experimental design of a long-term case study of two widely used open-source middleware projects—ACE and TAO—that we are using in the Skoll project to devise, deploy, and evaluate techniques for improving software quality through continuous distributed testing and profiling. These techniques are designed to leverage common open-source project assets, such as the technological sophistication and extensive computing resources of worldwide user communities, open access to source, and ubiquitous web access, that can improve the quality and performance of opensource software significantly.
Acrolein- and 4-Aminobiphenyl-DNA adducts in human bladder mucosa and tumor tissue and their mutagenicity in human urothelial cells

Tobacco smoke (TS) is a major cause of human bladder cancer (BC). Two components in TS, 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP) and acrolein, which also are environmental contaminants, can cause bladder tumor in rat models. Their role in TS related BC has not been forthcoming. To establish the relationship between acrolein and 4-ABP exposure and BC, we analyzed acrolein-deoxyguanosine (dG) and 4-ABP-DNA adducts in normal human urothelial mucosa (NHUM) and bladder tumor tissues (BTT), and measured their mutagenicity in human urothelial cells. We found that the acrolein-dG levels in NHUM and BTT are 10-30 fold higher than 4-ABP-DNA adduct levels and that the acrolein-dG levels in BTT are 2 fold higher than in NHUM. Both acrolein-dG and 4-ABP-DNA adducts are mutagenic; however, the former are 5 fold more mutagenic than the latter. These two types of DNA adducts induce different mutational signatures and spectra. We found that acrolein inhibits nucleotide excision and base excision repair and induces repair protein degradation in urothelial cells. Since acrolein is abundant in TS, inhaled acrolein is excreted into urine and accumulates in the bladder and because acrolein inhibits DNA repair and acrolein-dG DNA adducts are mutagenic, we propose that acrolein is a major bladder carcinogen in TS.
Extraction of facial regions and features using color and shape information

There are many applications for systems coping with the problem of face localization and recognition, e.g. model-based video coding, security systems and mug shot matching. Due to variations in illumination, back-ground, visual angle and facial expressions, the problem of machine face recognition is complex. In this paper we present a robust approach for the extraction of facial regions and features out of color images. First, face candidates are located based on the color and shape information. Then the topographic grey-level relief of facial regions is evaluated to determine the position of facial features as eyes and month. Results are shown for two example scenes.
Prolactin receptor mRNA expression in experimental diabetic nephropathy: Relationship with urinary albumin excretion.

OBJECTIVES Disturbances of prolactin secretion, peptide hormone produced by the pituitary gland, occur in both the chronic renal failure and in diabetes mellitus. So far, the role that prolactin play in the pathology of diabetic nephropathy progression is still unclear. Therefore, the present study was intended to examine whether the renal mRNA expression of prolactin receptor (PRL-R) is altered in experimental diabetes, and how such changes related to the development of albuminuria. METHODS Adult female wistar rats were divided into two groups (n=6/group): control (non-diabetic) and diabetic. Diabetes was induced by a single dose injection of 55 mg/ kg streptozotocin. After ten weeks, renal mRNA expressions of both short and long forms of PRL-R were evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS Diabetes was associated with increases in urine albumin excretion (UAE), kidney weight/body weight ratio, serum prolactin and the mRNA expression of both long and short forms of PRL-R. Furthermore, UAE was significantly and positively correlated with serum prolactin levels and with mRNA expressions of both short and long forms of PRL-R. CONCLUSION These results provide evidence, for the first time, that the development of experimental diabetic kidney disease is associated with increases in the renal expression of PRL-R, suggesting a potential role for prolactin in the development and progression of renal injury secondary to diabetes mellitus.
Notch1 Contributes to Mouse T-Cell Leukemia by Directly Inducing the Expression of c-myc

ABSTRACT Recent work with mouse models and human leukemic samples has shown that gain-of-function mutation(s) in Notch1 is a common genetic event in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). The Notch1 receptor signals through a γ-secretase-dependent process that releases intracellular Notch1 from the membrane to the nucleus, where it forms part of a transcriptional activator complex. To identify Notch1 target genes in leukemia, we developed mouse T-cell leukemic lines that express intracellular Notch1 in a doxycycline-dependent manner. Using gene expression profiling and chromatin immunoprecipitation, we identified c-myc as a novel, direct, and critical Notch1 target gene in T-cell leukemia. c-myc mRNA levels are increased in primary mouse T-cell tumors that harbor Notch1 mutations, and Notch1 inhibition decreases c-myc mRNA levels and inhibits leukemic cell growth. Retroviral expression of c-myc, like intracellular Notch1, rescues the growth arrest and apoptosis associated with γ-secretase inhibitor treatment or Notch1 inhibition. Consistent with these findings, retroviral insertional mutagenesis screening of our T-cell leukemia mouse model revealed common insertions in either notch1 or c-myc genes. These studies define the Notch1 molecular signature in mouse T-ALL and importantly provide mechanistic insight as to how Notch1 contributes to human T-ALL.
Gene Transfer of Noncleavable Cell Surface Mutants of Human CD154 Induces the Immune Response and Diminishes Systemic Inflammatory Reactions

CD154 (CD40-ligand) is a critical transmembrane molecule with potent immune-stimulatory properties that is used in clinical applications of gene therapy for leukemia and lymphoma. However, CD154 is cleaved into a soluble form, and high levels of sCD154 contribute to systemic inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases, suggesting a deleterious side effect of CD154 gene therapy. In this study, we engineered noncleavable mutants of human CD154 with point mutations to develop a potentially less toxic molecule in vivo. In contrast to wild-type CD154 (CD154-WT) subsequently released as sCD154, both mutants CD154-M3 and CD154-M4 were resistant to cleavage in tumor cells. Also, CD40-expressing leukemia B cells transfected with CD154-M3 mutant were highly effective stimulators in a mixed lymphocyte-leukemia reaction, indicating that CD154-M3 mutant did not lose biologic activity. In mice transplanted with tumors expressing CD154-WT, we found increased plasma levels of human sCD154 followed by various systemic inflammatory reactions such as glomerulonephritis and an increased number of infiltrating mononuclear cells in the liver. However, CD154-M3 mutant did not induce any systemic inflammatory effects in vivo. As such, the noncleavable mutant of CD154 is fully capable of inducing the immune response with less toxic properties and is a useful tool for CD154 immune gene therapy.
Vowel landmark detection

Landmark based speech processing is a component of Lexical Access From Features (LAFF), a novel paradigm for feature based speech recognition. Detection and classification of landmarks is a crucial first step in a LAFF system. Vowel landmarks are detected using an existing syllabic segmentation algorithm with several novel extensions that incorporate durational information, absolute energy level, and F1 track information. The detector is scored against the TIMIT database, using a novel algorithm to convert the segmental transcriptions to a landmark representation for scoring. Previous experiments have validated the predictions of acoustic theory, specifically the presence of F1 peak in vowels, and demonstrated that amplitude peak in a fixed frequency band is practically as good as a formant tracker. Substantial improvements in performance are achieved by optimizing the fixed frequency band to the F1 range, and use of a trainable neural network to combine the multiple acoustic cues. The neural network can .
The Development of an Experimental Model of Contaminated Muscle Injury in Rabbits

Extent of tissue trauma and contamination determine outcome in extremity injury. In contrast to fracture, osteomyelitis, and closed muscle injury studies, there are limited small animal models of extremity muscle trauma and contamination. To address this we developed a model of contaminated muscle injury in rabbits. Twenty-eight anesthetized New Zealand White rabbits underwent open controlled injury of the flexor carpi ulnaris (FCU). Twenty-two animals had subsequent contamination of the injured muscle with Staphylococcus aureus. All animals were sacrificed at 48 hours and the level of muscle injury and contamination determined by quantitative histological and microbiological analysis. A 1-kg mass dropped 300 mm onto the mobilized FCU resulted in localized necrosis of the muscle belly. Delivery of a mean challenge of 3.71 × 106 cfu/100 µL S aureus by droplet spread onto the injured muscle produced a muscle contamination of 8.79 × 106 cfu/g at 48 hours. Ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes demonstrated clinically significant activation. All animals had normal body temperature and hematological parameters throughout and blood and urinalysis culture at autopsy were negative for organisms. This model allows reproducible muscle injury and contamination with the organism ubiquitous to extremity wound infection at a level sufficient to allow quantitative assessment of subsequent wound care interventions without incurring systemic involvement.
Hand Detecting and Positioning Based on Depth Image of Kinect Sensor

—This paper presents a new method of detection and identification, called PYTHON programming environment, which can realize the gesture track recognition based on the depth image information get by the Kinect sensor. First, Kinect sensor is used to obtain depth image information. Then it extracts splith and with the official Microsoft SDK. Finally, this paper presents how to calculate the palm center’s coordinates based on the moment of hand contour feature. Experiments show that the advantages of using the hand split and gesture recognition of the Kinect’s depth image can be very effective to achieve interactive features.
Delegating Custom Object Detection Tasks to a Universal Classification System

In this paper, a concept of multipurpose object detection system, recently introduced in our previous work, is clarified. The business aspect of this method is transformation of a classifier into an object detector/locator via an image grid. This is a universal framework for locating objects of interest through classification. The framework standardizes and simplifies implementation of custom systems by doing only a custom analysis of the classification results on the image grid.
A Multiobjective Optimization Based Fuzzy Control for Nonlinear Spatially Distributed Processes With Application to a Catalytic Rod

This paper considers the problem of multiobjective fuzzy control design for a class of nonlinear spatially distributed processes (SDPs) described by parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs), which arise naturally in the modeling of diffusion-convection-reaction processes in finite spatial domains. Initially, the modal decomposition technique is applied to the SDP to formulate it as an infinite-dimensional singular perturbation model of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). An approximate nonlinear ODE system that captures the slow dynamics of the SDP is thus derived by singular perturbations. Subsequently, the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is employed to represent the finite-dimensional slow system, which is used as the basis for the control design. A linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach is then developed for the design of multiobjective fuzzy controllers such that the closed-loop SDP is exponentially stable, and an L2 performance bound is provided under a prescribed H∞ constraint of disturbance attenuation for the slow system. Furthermore, using the existing LMI optimization technique, a suboptimal fuzzy controller can be obtained in the sense of minimizing the L2 performance bound. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the control of the temperature profile of a catalytic rod.