Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time SLAM Relocalisation

Monocular SLAM has the potential to turn inexpensive cameras into powerful pose sensors for applications such as robotics and augmented reality. However, current implementations lack the robustness required to be useful outside laboratory conditions: blur, sudden motion and occlusion all cause tracking to fail and corrupt the map. Here we present a system which automatically detects and recovers from tracking failure while preserving map integrity. By extending recent advances in keypoint recognition the system can quickly resume tracking - i.e. within a single frame time of 33 ms - using any of the features previously stored in the map. Extensive tests show that the system can reliably generate maps for long sequences even in the presence of frequent tracking failure.
Implemented Data-Aided ML Parameter Estimators of PSK Burst

A high performance Universal Modem ASIC that supports several modulation types and burst mode frame formats is under development. The ASIC is designed to work under stringent conditions such as large carrier frequency offset (up to 13% symbol rate) and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Powerful and generic data-aided (DA) parameter estimators are necessary to accommodate many modes. In this paper we present an approximated maximum likelihood (ML) carrier frequency offset estimator, ML joint carrier phase and timing offsets estimator and their systolic VLSI implementations for PSK burst modems. The performances are close to the Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLB) at low SNRs. Compared with theoretical solutions the estimators proposed here are much simpler and easier to implement by the current VLSI technology.
The Effects of Involuntary Respiratory Contractions on Cerebral Blood Flow during Maximal Apnoea in Trained Divers

The effects of involuntary respiratory contractions on the cerebral blood flow response to maximal apnoea is presently unclear. We hypothesised that while respiratory contractions may augment left ventricular stroke volume, cardiac output and ultimately cerebral blood flow during the struggle phase, these contractions would simultaneously cause marked ‘respiratory’ variability in blood flow to the brain. Respiratory, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular parameters were measured in ten trained, male apnoea divers during maximal ‘dry’ breath holding. Intrathoracic pressure was estimated via oesophageal pressure. Left ventricular stroke volume, cardiac output and mean arterial pressure were monitored using finger photoplethysmography, and cerebral blood flow velocity was obtained using transcranial ultrasound. The increasingly negative inspiratory intrathoracic pressure swings of the struggle phase significantly influenced the rise in left ventricular stroke volume (R 2 = 0.63, P<0.05), thereby contributing to the increase in cerebral blood flow velocity throughout this phase of apnoea. However, these contractions also caused marked respiratory variability in left ventricular stroke volume, cardiac output, mean arterial pressure and cerebral blood flow velocity during the struggle phase (R 2 = 0.99, P<0.05). Interestingly, the magnitude of respiratory variability in cerebral blood flow velocity was inversely correlated with struggle phase duration (R 2 = 0.71, P<0.05). This study confirms the hypothesis that, on the one hand, involuntary respiratory contractions facilitate cerebral haemodynamics during the struggle phase while, on the other, these contractions produce marked respiratory variability in blood flow to the brain. In addition, our findings indicate that such variability in cerebral blood flow negatively impacts on struggle phase duration, and thus impairs breath holding performance.
Porphyromonas gingivalis Infection during Pregnancy Increases Maternal Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha, Suppresses Maternal Interleukin-10, and Enhances Fetal Growth Restriction and Resorption in Mice

ABSTRACT Epidemiological studies have shown a potential association between maternal periodontitis and pregnancy complications. We used a pregnant murine model to study the effect of infection with the periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis on pregnancy outcomes. Female BALB/c mice were inoculated with heat-killed P. gingivalis (109 CFU) in a subcutaneous chamber and mated 2 weeks later. At gestation day (GD) 7.5, mice were challenged with live P. gingivalis (107 CFU) (n = 20) or broth (control; n = 8) and sacrificed at GD 16.5. Fetal growth restriction (FGR, <0.46 g) was defined as fetuses with weights 2 standard deviations (SD) smaller than controls (0.56 ± 0.05 g [mean ± SD]). Among the 20 challenged mice, 8 had both normal-weight (0.51 ± 0.11 g) and FGR (0.34 ± 0.1 g) fetuses within the same litter. All other challenged dams had normal-weight fetuses (0.57 ± 0.04 g). Maternal liver, uterus, and spleen samples were examined for P. gingivalis DNA using a PCR technique. Of the eight challenged mice with FGR fetuses, three had PCR signals for P. gingivalis in liver and uterus, but not in the spleen. Liver, uterus, and spleen were negative for P. gingivalis DNA among all other challenged and control mice. In serum of dams with FGR fetuses, tumor necrosis factor alpha levels were elevated significantly, while interluekin-10 levels were significantly reduced compared to levels in dams with normal fetuses. P. gingivalis-specific serum immunoglobulin G levels were significantly elevated in dams with FGR fetuses compared to dams without any FGR fetuses. These data demonstrate that P. gingivalis-induced murine FGR is associated with systemic dissemination of the organism and activated maternal immune and inflammatory responses.
Serum Application for the Treatment of Ocular Surface Disorders

Tears are the essential component to the maintenance of healthy ocular surface epithelium. When tears are depleted, various pathological reactions occur, such as squamous metaplasia or keratinization of the epithelium, inflammation, epithelial defects, and infection. Squamous metaplasia is the most common change in the ocular surface epithelium in the tear environment depletion called dry eye. What is the main function of tears? The knowledge accumulated in the last decade suggests the importance of components present in tears, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF) and vitamin A, for maintaining healthy proliferation, differentiation, and maturation of the ocular surface epithelium. When these components are depleted, the normal proliferation and maturation processes of the epithelium may be impaired. One example is the persistent epithelial defect in the cornea in severe dry eye. The corneal epithelium is unable to heal because of the lack of tears. Another example is Sjögren’s-type (SS) dry eye. In SS dry eye, tear components are not supplied at all, or at least not sufficiently, because of a lack of basic and reflex tears, resulting in greater alteration of the ocular surface epithelium, such as increased fluorescein permeability or rose-bengal staining. In non-SS dry eye, however, tear components can be supplied to the ocular surface through occasional reflex tears. Thus, the problems associated with complete depletion of essential tear components are not expected to be as severe as in non-SS dry eye, where only slight alteration of the ocular surface occurs as a result of the desiccation itself.
Reconstructing What Was: Software Applied To Serial Section TEM

The well-known recipe for serial reconstruction in microscopy consists of the following six steps: fix and embed specimen, cut and mount sections for microscopy, image sections, align images in the computer, identify and trace profiles in images, generate three-dimensional (3D) visualizations. The free software program Reconstruct facilitates the final steps of this process for many types of microscopy, including scanning electron or ion beam microscopy applied to material and light microscopy applied to biological samples. We describe here how serial sectioning and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) can be combined with the Reconstruct software to generate large volumes of soft tissue ultrastructure for analysis.
Strain and Virulence Diversity in the Mouse Pathogen Chlamydia muridarum

ABSTRACT The mouse chlamydial pathogen Chlamydia muridarum has been used as a model organism for the study of human Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital and respiratory tract infections. To date, two commonly used C. muridarum isolates have been used interchangeably and are essentially taken to be identical. Herein, we present data that indicate that this is not the case. The C. muridarum Weiss isolate and C. muridarum Nigg isolate varied significantly in their virulences in vivo and possessed different growth characteristics in vitro. Distinct differences were observed in intravaginal 50% infectious doses and in challenge infections, with the Weiss isolate displaying greater virulence. Respiratory infection by the intranasal route also indicated a greater virulence of the Weiss isolate. In vitro, morphometric analysis revealed that the Weiss isolate produced consistently smaller inclusions in human cervical adenocarcinoma cells (HeLa 229) and smaller plaques in monolayers of mouse fibroblasts (L929) than did the Nigg isolate. In addition, the Weiss isolate possessed significantly higher replicative yields in vitro than did the Nigg isolate. In plaque-purified isolates derived from our stocks of these two strains, total genomic sequencing identified several unique nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms and insertion/deletion mutations when our Weiss (n = 4) and Nigg (n = 5) isolates were compared with the published Nigg sequence. In addition, the two isolates shared 11 mutations compared to the published Nigg sequence. These results prove that there is genotypic and virulence diversity among C. muridarum isolates. These findings can be exploited to determine factors related to chlamydial virulence and immunity.
Chemerin Elicits Potent Constrictor Actions via Chemokine‐Like Receptor 1 (CMKLR1), not G‐Protein‐Coupled Receptor 1 (GPR1), in Human and Rat Vasculature

Background Circulating levels of chemerin are significantly higher in hypertensive patients and positively correlate with blood pressure. Chemerin activates chemokine‐like receptor 1 (CMKLR1 or ChemR23) and is proposed to activate the “orphan” G‐protein‐coupled receptor 1 (GPR1), which has been linked with hypertension. Our aim was to localize chemerin, CMKLR1, and GPR1 in the human vasculature and determine whether 1 or both of these receptors mediate vasoconstriction. Methods and Results Using immunohistochemistry and molecular biology in conduit arteries and veins and resistance vessels, we localized chemerin to endothelium, smooth muscle, and adventitia and found that CMKLR1 and GPR1 were widely expressed in smooth muscle. C9 (chemerin149–157) contracted human saphenous vein (pD 2=7.30±0.31) and resistance arteries (pD 2=7.05±0.54) and increased blood pressure in rats by 9.1±1.0 mm Hg at 200 nmol. Crucially, these in vitro and in vivo vascular actions were blocked by CCX832, which we confirmed to be highly selective for CMKLR1 over GPR1. C9 inhibited cAMP accumulation in human aortic smooth muscle cells and preconstricted rat aorta, consistent with the observed vasoconstrictor action. Downstream signaling was explored further and, compared to chemerin, C9 showed a bias factor=≈5000 for the Gi protein pathway, suggesting that CMKLR1 exhibits biased agonism. Conclusions Our data suggest that chemerin acts at CMKLR1, but not GPR1, to increase blood pressure. Chemerin has an established detrimental role in metabolic syndrome, and these direct vascular actions may contribute to hypertension, an additional risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This study provides proof of principle for the therapeutic potential of selective CMKLR1 antagonists.
RAD21 Cooperates with Pluripotency Transcription Factors in the Maintenance of Embryonic Stem Cell Identity

For self-renewal, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) require the expression of specific transcription factors accompanied by a particular chromosome organization to maintain a balance between pluripotency and the capacity for rapid differentiation. However, how transcriptional regulation is linked to chromosome organization in ESCs is not well understood. Here we show that the cohesin component RAD21 exhibits a functional role in maintaining ESC identity through association with the pluripotency transcriptional network. ChIP-seq analyses of RAD21 reveal an ESC specific cohesin binding pattern that is characterized by CTCF independent co-localization of cohesin with pluripotency related transcription factors Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, Esrrb and Klf4. Upon ESC differentiation, most of these binding sites disappear and instead new CTCF independent RAD21 binding sites emerge, which are enriched for binding sites of transcription factors implicated in early differentiation. Furthermore, knock-down of RAD21 causes expression changes that are similar to expression changes after Nanog depletion, demonstrating the functional relevance of the RAD21 - pluripotency transcriptional network association. Finally, we show that Nanog physically interacts with the cohesin or cohesin interacting proteins STAG1 and WAPL further substantiating this association. Based on these findings we propose that a dynamic placement of cohesin by pluripotency transcription factors contributes to a chromosome organization supporting the ESC expression program.
Tolerance Rough Set Model and Its Applications in Web Intelligence

Tolerance Rough Set Model (TRSM) has been introduced as a tool for approximation of hidden concepts in text databases. In recent years, numerous successful applications of TRSM in web intelligence including text classification, clustering, thesaurus generation, semantic indexing, and semantic search, etc., have been proposed. This paper will review the fundamental concepts of TRSM, some of its possible extensions and some typical applications of TRSM in text mining. Moreover, the architecture o a semantic information retrieval system, called SONCA, will be presented to demonstrate the main idea as well as stimulate the further research on TRSM.
Strategies for sensor-fault compensation on UAVs: Review, discussions & additions

This paper provides a review of different possible strategies to compute meaningful states of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the presence of sensor faults. The paper reviews some strategies that enable to compute useful outputs and to reconstruct sensor data when some sensor(s) become(s) deficient. In addition to a classical sensor suite for UAVs (IMU, GPS, barometer and airspeed sensor), the paper introduces the benefits of using visual aids for sensor-fault tolerance. Finally, the paper provides the reader with an overview schematic - discussed throughout the paper- in order to summarize some possible sensor fault-tolerant systems in UAVs.
A functional morphological approach to the scaling of the feeding system in the African catfish, Clarias gariepinus

SUMMARY Effects of size are pervasive and affect nearly all aspects of the biology of animals and plants. Theoretical scaling models have been developed to predict the effects of size on the functioning of musculo-skeletal systems. Although numerous experimental studies have investigated the effects of size on the movements of skeletal elements during locomotion and feeding in vertebrates, relatively little is known about the scaling of the muscles and bones responsible for the actual movements. Here, we examine the scaling of external morphology, skeletal elements of the feeding system, and a number of cranial muscles to understand how this may affect the movements observed during suction feeding in the African catfish, Clarias gariepinus. The results show that neither the head nor the cranial elements themselves scale according to geometric similarity models. Relative to head size, distinct changes in the mass and configuration of the feeding structures takes place. Unexpectedly, different cranial muscles show different scaling patterns that ultimately all lead to a positive allometry of muscle cross-sectional area relative to fish head size. This suggests that (1) the scaling of the cranial elements cannot be predicted a priori based on the scaling of external head dimensions and (2) the scaling of the feeding system is optimised towards high force output in the larger animals. An analysis of the consequences of the observed changes in morphology with size on performance traits, including bite force and jaw closing velocity, suggests a tight link between the scaling of the feeding system and the natural diet of these fish. Whereas for smaller size classes the system is tuned towards high bite forces, for animals with cranial lengths greater than 65 mm the scaling of the feeding system appears to be dictated by the hydrodynamic constraints on suction feeding.
Effect of Magnet Types on Performance of High-Speed Spoke Interior-Permanent-Magnet Machines Designed for Traction Applications

Interior permanent magnet (PM) machines are considered the state of the art for traction motors, particularly in light-duty hybrid and electrical vehicles. These motors usually use neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) PMs. These magnets include both light rare-earth materials such as neodymium (Nd) as well as heavy rare-earth materials such as dysprosium (Dy). The main purpose of Dy is to enhance the magnet coercivity to avoid demagnetization under both high temperatures as well as flux weakening. One of the key risks in terms of using these rare-earth magnets is the significant fluctuation/increase in their prices over the past few years. Applications that use large quantities of these magnets, such as traction motors and wind generators, are the most affected by these fluctuations. There has been an ongoing global effort to try to reduce or eliminate the use of rare-earth materials (particularly Dy which is the most expensive) without sacrificing too much performance. This paper will focus on advanced spoke designs targeting traction applications. The goal of this paper is to come up with new spoke designs using various grades of Dy-free magnets as well as ferrites targeting the same set of specifications. This paper will provide a detailed comparison between the various designs highlighting the key tradeoffs in terms of power density, efficiency, flux-weakening capability, and magnet susceptibility to demagnetization. Also, a prototype using ferrites has been built and tested, and the experimental results will be presented.
Evaluating the Run-Time Performance of Kahn Process Network Implementation Techniques on Shared-Memory Multiprocessors

Software development tools have not adapted to the growing popularity of multi-core CPUs, and developers are still "stuck"' with low-level and high-cost thread abstractions. The situation is becoming even more complicated with the advent of heterogenuous computing. In this article, we point out some drawbacks of high-level abstractions currently in use, and propose Kahn process networks (KPN) as a more high-level and efficient abstraction for developing parallel applications. We show that the native POSIX mechanisms (threads and message queues) perform suboptimally as an implementation vehicle for KPNs, and we present an implementation of a run-time environment that can execute KPNs with less overhead. Our evaluation shows the advantages and disadvantages of statically mapping Kahn processes to CPUs.
On-Demand Resource Provisioning for BPEL Workflows Using Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud

BPEL is the de facto standard for business process modeling in today's enterprises and is a promising candidate for the integration of business and Grid applications. Current BPEL implementations do not provide mechanisms to schedule service calls with respect to the load of the target hosts. In this paper, a solution that automatically schedules workflow steps to underutilized hosts and provides new hosts using Cloud computing infrastructures in peak-load situations is presented. The proposed approach does not require any changes to the BPEL standard. An implementation based on the ActiveBPEL engine and Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud is presented.
Learning in Reactive Environments with Arbitrary Dependence

We address the problem of reinforcement learning in which observations may exhibit an arbitrary form of stochastic dependence on past observations and actions. The task for an agent is to attain the best possible asymptotic reward where the true generating environment is unknown but belongs to a known countable family of environments. We find some sucient conditions on the class of environments under which an agent exists which attains the best asymptotic reward for any environment in the class. We analyze how tight these conditions are and how they relate to dierent probabilistic assumptions known in reinforcement learning and related fields, such as Markov Decision Processes and mixing conditions.
The Role of Transmembrane Domain 3 in the Actions of Orthosteric, Allosteric, and Atypical Agonists of the M4 Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor

Despite the discovery of a diverse range of novel agonists and allosteric modulators of the M4 muscarinic acetylcholine (ACh) receptor (mAChR), little is known about how such ligands activate the receptor. We used site-directed mutagenesis of conserved residues in transmembrane 3 (TMIII), a key region involved in G protein-coupled receptor activation, to probe the binding and function of prototypical orthosteric mAChR agonists, allosteric modulators, and “atypical” agonists. We found that most mutations did not affect the binding of the allosteric modulators, with the exception of W1083.28A and L1093.29A (which may contribute directly to the interface between allosteric and orthosteric sites) and mutation D1123.32N (which may cause a global disruption of a hydrogen bond network). Although numerous mutations affected signaling, we did not identify amino acids that were important for the functional activity of any one class of agonist (orthosteric, allosteric, or atypical) to the exclusion of any others, suggesting that TMIII is key for the transmission of stimulus irrespective of the agonist. We also identified two key residues, Trp1083.28 and Asp1123.32, that are essential for the transmission of binding cooperativity between 3-amino-5-chloro-6-methoxy-4-methyl-thieno[2,3-b]pyridine- 2-carboxylic acid cyclopropylamide (LY2033298) and ACh. Finally, we found that LY2033298 was able to rescue functionally impaired signaling of ACh at the majority of mutants tested in a manner that was inversely correlated with the ACh signaling efficacy, indicating that a key part of the mechanism of the positive cooperativity mediated by LY2033298 on the endogenous agonist involves a global drive of the receptor toward an active conformation.
Power Control and Interference Management in Dense Wireless Networks

We address the problem of interference management and power control in terms of maximization of a general utility function. For the utility functions under consideration, we propose a power control algorithm based on a fixed-point iteration; further, we prove local convergence of the algorithm in the neighborhood of the optimal power vector. Our algorithm has several benefits over the previously studied works in the literature: first, the algorithm can be applied to problems other than network utility maximization (NUM), e.g., power control in a relay network; second, for a network with $N$ wireless transmitters, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is $\mathcal{O}(N^2)$ calculations per iteration (significantly smaller than the $\mathcal{O}(N^3) $ calculations for Newton's iterations or gradient descent approaches). Furthermore, the algorithm converges very fast (usually in less than 15 iterations), and in particular, if initialized close to the optimal solution, the convergence speed is much faster. This suggests the potential of tracking variations in slowly fading channels. Finally, when implemented in a distributed fashion, the algorithm attains the optimal power vector with a signaling/computational complexity of only $\mathcal{O}(N)$ at each node.