Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Batch mode micro-EDM for high-density and high-throughput micromachining

This paper examines scaling issues for electrode arrays used in micro-electro-discharge machining (micro-EDM). In particular, it explores constraints in the fabrication and usage of high aspect ratio LIGA-fabricated electrode arrays, as well as the limits imposed by the pulse discharge circuits on machining rates. A LIGA-fabricated array of 400 Cu electrodes with 20 /spl square/m diameter was used to machine through-holes in 50 /spl square/m thick stainless steel. An array of multi-layer structures that included tapered shapes was fabricated by the sequential use of three electrode arrays of varying shape. The electrode fabrication and usage for these efforts are described. With respect to the pulse discharge circuits, it is shown that the machining time can be reduced by >50% by dividing the electrode array into sections have independent control of pulse discharge timing. This is implemented by using individual RC timing circuits for each section. A correlation between electrode area per RC circuit and machining rate is described.
Receipt of Assistance and Extended Family Residence among Elderly Men in Mexico

This article focuses on help received by a nationally-representative sample of 2,376 Mexican men age 60+ in 1994. In the month before the interview, about one-half of the men received in-kind or domestic assistance, two-fifths received financial assistance, and about one-fourth received physical assistance. This was so even as almost half the men still worked, and over half (57%) had no discernable functional limitation. Using logistic regression, the study found support for the common assumption that living arrangements are an important predictor of assistance. Other factors are important too however. In fact, many elders received help from non-coresiding relatives. Beside financial remittances, help from non-coresiding relatives included in-kind, domestic, and physical assistance. Research on Mexico suggests that we need to revisit notions of a modified extended family in which non-coresidential ties can be important. Surveys need questions about frequency of contact and geographic distance between elderly people and their kin.
YodaNN: An Architecture for Ultralow Power Binary-Weight CNN Acceleration

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have revolutionized the world of computer vision over the last few years, pushing image classification beyond human accuracy. The computational effort of today’s CNNs requires power-hungry parallel processors or GP-GPUs. Recent developments in CNN accelerators for system-on-chip integration have reduced energy consumption significantly. Unfortunately, even these highly optimized devices are above the power envelope imposed by mobile and deeply embedded applications and face hard limitations caused by CNN weight I/O and storage. This prevents the adoption of CNNs in future ultralow power Internet of Things end-nodes for near-sensor analytics. Recent algorithmic and theoretical advancements enable competitive classification accuracy even when limiting CNNs to binary (+1/−1) weights during training. These new findings bring major optimization opportunities in the arithmetic core by removing the need for expensive multiplications, as well as reducing I/O bandwidth and storage. In this paper, we present an accelerator optimized for binary-weight CNNs that achieves 1.5 TOp/s at 1.2 V on a core area of only 1.33 million gate equivalent (MGE) or 1.9 mm 2 and with a power dissipation of 895 $\mu$ W in UMC 65-nm technology at 0.6 V. Our accelerator significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of energy and area efficiency achieving 61.2 TOp/s/W@0.6 V and 1.1 TOp/s/MGE@1.2 V, respectively.
The major myosin-binding domain of skeletal muscle MyBP-C (C protein) resides in the COOH-terminal, immunoglobulin C2 motif

A common feature shared by myosin-binding proteins from a wide variety of species is the presence of a variable number of related internal motifs homologous to either the Ig C2 or the fibronectin (Fn) type III repeats. Despite interest in the potential function of these motifs, no group has clearly demonstrated a function for these sequences in muscle, either intra- or extracellularly. We have completed the nucleotide sequence of the fast type isoform of MyBP-C (C protein) from chicken skeletal muscle. The deduced amino acid sequence reveals seven Ig C2 sets and three Fn type III motifs in MyBP-C. alpha-chymotryptic digestion of purified MyBP-C gives rise to four peptides. NH2-terminal sequencing of these peptides allowed us to map the position of each along the primary structure of the protein. The 28-kD peptide contains the NH2-terminal sequence of MyBP-C, including the first C2 repeat. It is followed by two internal peptides, one of 5 kD containing exclusively spacer sequences between the first and second C2 motifs, and a 95-kD fragment containing five C2 domains and three fibronectin type III motifs. The C-terminal sequence of MyBP-C is present in a 14- kD peptide which contains only the last C2 repeat. We examined the binding properties of these fragments to reconstituted (synthetic) myosin filaments. Only the COOH-terminal 14-kD peptide is capable of binding myosin with high affinity. The NH2-terminal 28-kD fragment has no myosin-binding, while the long internal 100-kD peptide shows very weak binding to myosin. We have expressed and purified the 14-kD peptide in Escherichia coli. The recombinant protein exhibits saturable binding to myosin with an affinity comparable to that of the 14-kD fragment obtained by proteolytic digestion (1/2 max binding at approximately 0.5 microM). These results indicate that the binding to myosin filaments is mainly restricted to the last 102 amino acids of MyBP-C. The remainder of the molecule (1,032 amino acids) could interact with titin, MyBP-H (H protein) or thin filament components. A comparison of the highly conserved Ig C2 domains present at the COOH- terminus of five MyBPs thus far sequenced (human slow and fast MyBP-C, human and chicken MyBP-H, and chicken MyBP-C) was used to identify residues unique to these myosin-binding Ig C2 repeats.
Autophagy contributes to sulfonylurea herbicide tolerance via GCN2-independent regulation of amino acid homeostasis

ABSTRACT Sulfonylurea (SU) herbicides inhibit branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) biosynthesis by targeting acetolactate synthase. Plants have evolved target-site resistance and metabolic tolerance to SU herbicides; the GCN2 (general control non-repressible 2) pathway is also involved in SU tolerance. Here, we report a novel SU tolerance mechanism, autophagy, which we call ‘homeostatic tolerance,’ is involved in amino acid signaling in Arabidopsis. The activation and reversion of autophagy and GCN2 by the SU herbicide tribenuron-methyl (TM) and exogenous BCAA, respectively, confirmed that TM-induced BCAA starvation is responsible for the activation of autophagy and GCN2. Genetic and biochemical analyses revealed a lower proportion of free BCAA and more sensitive phenotypes in atg5, atg7, and gcn2 single mutants than in wild-type seedlings after TM treatment; the lowest proportion of free BCAA and the most sensitive phenotypes were found in atg5 gcn2 and atg7 gcn2 double mutants. Immunoblotting and microscopy revealed that TM-induced activation of autophagy and GCN2 signaling do not depend on the presence of each other, and these 2 pathways may serve as mutually compensatory mechanisms against TM. TM inhibited the TOR (target of rapamycin), and activated autophagy in an estradiol-induced TOR RNAi line, suggesting that TM-induced BCAA starvation activates autophagy, probably via TOR inactivation. Autophagy and GCN2 were also activated, and independently contributed to TM tolerance in plants conferring metabolic tolerance. Together, these data suggest that autophagy is a proteolytic process for amino acid recycling and contributes to GCN2-independent SU tolerance, probably by its ability to replenish fresh BCAA.
Contributions to artificial intelligence: the IIIA perspective

La intel·ligencia artificial (IA) es un camp cientific i tecnologic relativament nou dedicat a l'estudi de la intel·ligencia mitjancant l'us d'ordinadors com a eines per produir comportament intel·ligent. Inicialment, l'objectiu era essencialment cientific: assolir una millor comprensio de la intel·ligencia humana. Aquest objectiu ha estat, i encara es, el dels investigadors en ciencia cognitiva. Dissortadament, aquest fascinant pero ambicios objectiu es encara molt lluny de ser assolit i ni tan sols podem dir que ens hi haguem acostat significativament. Afortunadament, pero, la IA tambe persegueix un objectiu mes aplicat: construir sistemes que ens resultin utils encara que la intel·ligencia artificial de que estiguin dotats no tingui res a veure amb la intel·ligencia humana i, per tant, aquests sistemes no ens proporcionarien necessariament informacio util sobre la naturalesa de la intel·ligencia humana. Aquest objectiu, que s'emmarca mes aviat dins de l'ambit de l'enginyeria, es actualment el que predomina entre els investigadors en IA i ja ha donat resultats impresionants, tan teorics com aplicats, en moltissims dominis d'aplicacio. A mes, avui dia, els productes i les aplicacions al voltant de la IA representen un mercat anual de desenes de milers de milions de dolars. Aquest article resumeix les principals contribucions a la IA fetes pels investigadors de l'Institut d'Investigacio en Intel·ligencia Artificial del Consell Superior d'Investigacions Cientifiques durant els darrers cinc anys.
Screening different host cell lines for the dynamic production of measles virus

Measles virus (MV) has a natural affinity for cancer cells and oncolytic MV preparations have therefore been investigated in several clinical trials as a potential treatment for cancer. The main bottleneck in the administration of oncolytic MV to cancer patients is the production process, because very large doses of virus particles are required for each treatment. Here, we investigated the productivity of different host cells and found that a high infection efficiency did not necessarily result in high virus yields because virus release is also dependent on the host cell. As well as producing large numbers of active MV particles, host cells must perform well in dynamic cultivation systems. In screening experiments, the highest productivity was achieved by Vero and BJAB cells, but only the Vero cells maintained their high virus productivity when transferred to a stirred tank reactor. We used dielectric spectroscopy as an online monitoring system to control the infection and harvest times, which are known to be critical process parameters. The precise control of these parameters allowed us to achieve higher virus titers with Vero cells in a stirred tank reactor than in a static cultivation system based on T‐flasks, with maximum titers of up to 1011 TCID50 ml−1. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 33:989–997, 2017
Global Semantic Expectancy and Language Comprehension

Previous research on the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) has dealt primarily with measuring the degree of expectancy on the part of the reader as a result of the context within a sentence. Research has shown that when the final word in a sentence is unexpected or incoherent, a greater N400 amplitude is elicited than if the final word is expected or coherent within the context of the sentence. The present study investigated whether the N400 component is sensitive to global, as well as local, semantic expectancy. Global coherence refers to the ease with which subjects can relate the current proposition they are reading with theme-related ideas. In the present study, the effect of global coherence on event-related brain potentials was tested using four titled and untitled paragraphs (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Dooling & Lachman, 1971), presented one word at a time. These paragraphs are noncoherent, and are made coherent only with the presentation of a title. The EEG was recorded in response to every word in all four paragraphs. We found an increase in N400 amplitude in response to the words in the Untitled paragraphs relative to the Titled paragraphs, indicating that global coherence does affect the N400. In addition, subjects in the Titled group showed an enhanced P1-N1 component relative to the Untitled group suggesting that the presence of global coherence allows greater attention to be allocated to early visual processing of words.
Phase Transition of Variational Bayes Learning in Bernoulli Mixture

The variational Bayes learning is widely used, because it provides both computational tractability and good generalization performance. However its theoretical properties, for example, the effect of hyperparameters to the learning result, has not yet been clarified. In this paper, we prove the asymptotic behavior of the variational free energy in a Bernoulli mixture model and show that the variational posterior distribution has phase transition according to the hyperparameters. We also discuss the design method of hyperparameters based on theoretical foundation.
Jitter Testing for Gigabit Serial Communication Transceivers

Proper testing of transceivers requires the ability not only to measure generated jitter but also to inject in-band as well as out-of-band jitter for an appropriate receiver tolerance test. The article introduces a low-cost method to extend jitter testing to conventional external loop-back testing (looping the transmitted signal back to its own receiver) or golden device testing (using a known good device to test its link partner). The technique introduced is independent of test platforms.
Lysophosphatidic acid stimulates epidermal growth factor‐family ectodomain shedding and paracrine signaling from human lung fibroblasts

Lysophospatidic acid (LPA) is a bioactive lipid mediator implicated in tissue repair and wound healing. It mediates diverse functional effects in fibroblasts, including proliferation, migration and contraction, but less is known about its ability to evoke paracrine signaling to other cell types involved in wound healing. We hypothesized that human pulmonary fibroblasts stimulated by LPA would exhibit ectodomain shedding of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ligands that signal to lung epithelial cells. To test this hypothesis, we used alkaline phosphatase‐tagged EGFR ligand plasmids transfected into lung fibroblasts, and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays to detect shedding of native ligands. LPA induced shedding of alkaline phosphatase‐tagged heparin‐binding epidermal growth factor (HB‐EGF), amphiregulin, and transforming growth factor‐a; non‐transfected fibroblasts shed amphiregulin and HBEGF under baseline conditions, and increased shedding of HB‐EGF in response to LPA. Treatment of fibroblasts with LPA resulted in elevated phosphorylation of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2, enhanced expression of mRNA for c‐fos, HB‐EGF and amphiregulin, and enhanced proliferation at 96 hours. However, none of these fibroblast responses to LPA required ectodomain shedding or EGFR activity. To test the ability of LPA to stimulate paracrine signaling from fibroblasts, we transferred conditioned medium from LPA‐stimulated cells, and found enhanced EGFR and extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation in reporter A549 cells in excess of what could be accounted for by transferred LPA alone. These data show that LPA mediates EGF‐family ectodomain shedding, resulting in enhanced paracrine signaling from lung fibroblasts to epithelial cells.
Therapeutic aptamers: developmental potential as anticancer drugs

Aptamers, composed of single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that interact with target molecules through a specific three-dimensional structure, are selected from pools of combinatorial oligonucleotide libraries. With their high specificity and affinity for target proteins, ease of synthesis and modification, and low immunogenicity and toxicity, aptamers are considered to be attractive molecules for development as anticancer therapeutics. Two aptamers - one targeting nucleolin and a second targeting CXCL12 - are currently undergoing clinical trials for treating cancer patients, and many more are under study. In this mini-review, we present the current clinical status of aptamers and aptamer-based cancer therapeutics. We also discuss advantages, limitations, and prospects for aptamers as cancer therapeutics. [BMB Reports 2015; 48(4): 234-237]
Region number determination in automatic image segmentation based on BKYY model selection criterion

In the feature space clustering approach to image segmentation, each cluster corresponds to a region in the image. Determination of the appropriate number of clusters (regions) has long been an open problem. In this paper, we apply the Baysian-Kullback Ying Yang (BKYY) Model Selection Criterian on this feature space clustering problem to give an appropriate number of regions in image segmentation. Experimental demonstrations show the results of image segmentation with this automatically determined number of regions.
Biological Significance of Nuclear Localization of Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Pmk1 in Fission Yeast*

Background: Nuclear translocation is crucial for proper functioning of MAPKs. Results: Although most of MAPK Pmk1-driven functions are carried out independently of its presence into the nucleus, localization at this compartment allows down-regulation by phosphatases. Conclusion: Constitutive nuclear localization of Pmk1 is important to modulate its overall biological activity. Significance: These results highlight the relevance of the spatial control of MAPK activity. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways play a fundamental role in the response of eukaryotic cells to environmental changes. Also, much evidence shows that the stimulus-dependent nuclear targeting of this class of regulatory kinases is crucial for adequate regulation of distinct cellular events. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the cell integrity MAPK pathway, whose central element is the MAPK Pmk1, regulates multiple processes such as cell wall integrity, vacuole fusion, cytokinesis, and ionic homeostasis. In non-stressed cells Pmk1 is constitutively localized in both cytoplasm and nucleus, and its localization pattern appears unaffected by its activation status or in response to stress, thus questioning the biological significance of the presence of this MAPK into the nucleus. We have addressed this issue by characterizing mutants expressing Pmk1 versions excluded from the cell nucleus and anchored to the plasma membrane in different genetic backgrounds. Although nuclear Pmk1 partially regulates cell wall integrity at a transcriptional level, membrane-tethered Pmk1 performs many of the biological functions assigned to wild type MAPK like regulation of chloride homeostasis, vacuole fusion, and cellular separation. However, we found that down-regulation of nuclear Pmk1 by MAPK phosphatases induced by the stress activated protein kinase pathway is important for the fine modulation of extranuclear Pmk1 activity. These results highlight the importance of the control of MAPK activity at subcellular level.
Early Infection HIV-1 Envelope V1-V2 Genotypes Do Not Enhance Binding or Replication in Cells Expressing High Levels of &agr;4&bgr;7 Integrin

Abstract:It has been postulated that HIV-1 envelope properties, such as shorter and less-glycosylated V1-V2 loops commonly observed among non–subtype B early-transmitted viruses, promote utilization of the gut homing integrin &agr;4&bgr;7. This property potentially confers an advantage to some HIV-1 variants early after acquisition. We found that replication-competent recombinant viruses incorporating HIV-1 subtype A compact and less-glycosylated early versus chronic phase V1-V2 loops demonstrated no significant difference in binding to &agr;4&bgr;7 high CD8+ T cells or replication in &agr;4&bgr;7 high CD4+ T cells. Integrin &agr;4&bgr;7 usage does not select for shorter less-glycosylated envelopes during transmission.
More Haste, Less Waste: Lowering the Redundancy in Fully Indexable Dictionaries

We consider the problem of representing, in a compressed format, a bit-vector~$S$ of $m$ bits with $n$ $\mathbf{1}$s, supporting the following operations, where $b \in \{ \mathbf{0}, \mathbf{1} \}$: \begin{itemize} \item $\mathtt{rank}_b(S,i)$ returns the number of occurrences of bit $b$ in the prefix $S\left[1.i\right]$; \item $\mathtt{select}_b(S,i)$ returns the position of the $i$th occurrence of bit $b$ in $S$. \end{itemize} Such a data structure is called \emph{fully indexable dictionary (\textsc{fid})} [Raman, Raman, and Rao, 2007], and is at least as powerful as predecessor data structures. Viewing $S$ as a set $X = \{ x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n \}$ of $n$ distinct integers drawn from a universe $[m] = \{1, \ldots, m\}$, the predecessor of integer $y \in [m]$ in $X$ is given by $\ensuremath{\mathtt{select}^{}_1}(S, \ensuremath{\mathtt{rank}_1}(S,y-1))$. {\textsc{fid}}s have many applications in succinct and compressed data structures, as they are often involved in the construction of succinct representation for a variety of abstract data types. Our focus is on space-efficient {\textsc{fid}}s on the \textsc{ram} model with word size $\Theta(\lg m)$ and constant time for all operations, so that the time cost is independent of the input size. Given the bitstring $S$ to be encoded, having length $m$ and containing $n$ ones, the minimal amount of information that needs to be stored is $B(n,m) = \lceil \log {{m}\choose{n}} \rceil$. The state of the art in building a \textsc{fid}\ for~$S$ is given in~\mbox{}[P\v{a}tra\c{s}cu, 2008] using $B(m,n)+O( m / ( (\log m/ t) ^t) ) + O(m^{3/4}) $ bits, to support the operations in $O(t)$ time. Here, we propose a parametric data structure exhibiting a time/space trade-off such that, for any real constants $0 0$, it uses \[ B(n,m) + O\left(n^{1+\delta} + n \left(\frac{m}{n^s}\right)^\varepsilon\right) \] bits and performs all the operations in time $O(s\delta^{-1} + \varepsilon^{-1})$. The improvement is twofold: our redundancy can be lowered parametrically and, fixing $s = O(1)$, we get a constant-time \textsc{fid}\ whose space is $B(n,m) + O(m^\varepsilon/\mathrm{poly}(n))$ bits, for sufficiently large $m$. This is a significant improvement compared to the previous bounds for the general case.
Intelligent Image Watermarking based on Handwritten Signature

With the growth of digital technology over the past decades, the issue of copyright protection has become especially important. Digital watermarking is a suitable way of addressing this issue. The main problem in the area of watermarking, is the balance between image transparency and resistance to attacks after watermarking, where an increase in either one of them will always cause a decrease in the other. Providing statistical and intelligent methods, is the most common way of optimizing resistance and transparency. In this paper, the intelligent method of genetic algorithm (GA) in watermarking will be examined and also the results of using this method will be compared with the results of a statistical SVD-based method. Also, by combining the issues of watermarking and authentication, a relatively higher security in these two issues can be achieved. In this scheme, the security of watermarking increases through the provision of a new method which is based on the combination of image watermarking with a person's handwritten signature. It must be mentioned that the section of signature recognition is implemented using neural networks. The results from implementing these two methods show that in this area, intelligent methods have a better performance compared to statistical methods. This method can also be used for tasks like passport or national identity card authentication.